“Note what benefits we experience from the Lord even in this life. Hence we ought not hurry to death. For even if this world is a hotbed of sin and therefore to be shunned, yet the desire to live in the world comes from your nature and is not sin. Life ought to be desired. So it is right to say "God had mercy on him."”
Gaius Marius Victorinus, 4th c. — EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 2.27
Original
27For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
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In context
25Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.
26For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.
— Philippians 2:27 —
28I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.
29Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation: