And, finally, the worst sin is that of taking a seat in the meetings of the scoffers and actively participating in their mocking of the things which are sacred. For the root-cause of every sin and of its seductive power lies in what follows: when man begins to mock God (in accordance with Isa. 28:14 ff. we shall have to think here on similar lines), he has not only separated from God, but in his blind arrogance even tries to put himself above God; on the other hand, nothing has such an unsettling