Suffering produces perseverance (3, hypomonē, endurance). We could not learn endurance without suffering, because without suffering there would be nothing to endure. Next, perseverance produces character. Dokimē is the quality of a person who has been tested and has passed the test. It is ‘a mature character’ (JBP), ‘the temper of the veteran as opposed to that of the raw recruit’.18 Then the last link in the chain is that character produces hope (4), perhaps because the God who is developing