Слово 13

(1) There is one medicine that heals the soul, and not many. – (2) People sin in four ways. – (3) The salvation of all is in the one will of God; man has nothing in himself by which he himself could be saved. 1. Our soul is simple and uncomplicated; therefore, when he falls ill, medicine alone heals him. But the body, being composed of many, and, moreover, unequal parts, which themselves are composed of four elements: earth, water, fire and air, when it becomes ill, it has a need, as a complex one, for different medicines and, moreover, composed of different herbs. This was well interpreted by the external Hellenic sages, also saying that if the human body were single, that is, simple and uncomplicated, then there would be one medicine for it, but, being composed of many parts, it also needs many and complex medicines. But the soul, I say, on the contrary, being immaterial, simple and uncomplicated, when it gets sick, one medicine heals it, and not many. What kind of medicine is this? The Holy Spirit, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle says: where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). Therefore, every Christian, through repentance, almsgiving and every other virtue, as much as he has strength, should strive for nothing else than to receive the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit, by whose power he will begin to live a life truly according to Christ. For there is no other way, art and method for a Christian to live according to Christ, except by perceiving from above the power or grace of Jesus Christ. 2. A person sins in four ways - voluntarily, involuntarily, in knowledge and ignorance. He sins by will, that is, self-willingly, when, knowing for sure that evil is evil and that it is his will to do it or not to do it, he does it self-willingly. Involuntarily, that is, without desire, he sins when he is forced to do so by some necessity, and does evil without wanting it, as, for example, other martyrs denied Christ because of the unbearable torment to which they were subjected. It happens that in another way, without knowing and without wanting to, he does evil, when, for example, shooting an arrow to kill some animal, he kills a person without wanting to do so. In knowledge there is a sin when the soul knows that a certain deed is a sin, but, being weak and weakened in disposition, does it, not having the strength to resist the battle and the rebelling strong attraction to sin, commits a sin, leaning towards it and lusting after it as if against its will. In this case, the power of Christ is especially recognized by believers, namely: when they are able not to do the lusts they hate through inspiration, then they know that they have the grace of Christ. There is a sin in ignorance when someone does something bad, not knowing that it is bad, but believing that it is good. At the same time, it should be noted that there are few sins of the will, and they, since for the most part they are very obvious and irresistibly pressed into the consciousness, butt, like axes (tools for motivating draft animals - Ed.), the one who commits them, and move him to repentance. Other sins, that is, sins involuntarily, in knowledge and ignorance, are very numerous, even without number, but they are all almost unmemorable and soon completely fall out of the consciousness and the one who commits them, despite their numerousness, does not bother and does not move to repentance, since he does not consider them sins and does not think about them. Therefore, this is what we should most especially pray for, that God would grant us both to know their sinfulness and to feel them, for the fact that we do not remember and do not feel them does not make us innocent of them, and meanwhile the devil plunges most people into pride because of their ignorance, because that is, they do not recognize them, do not think that they mean anything, but impute them to nothing; which people, despite the fact that they say that they are wise, turn out to be stupid (stupid. - Ed. ) and foolish, because they did not know that the salvation of all rests on the sole mercy of God. 3. Not a single person has anything blessed in himself by which he could be saved, neither the righteous nor the sinner. For God Himself says: I will have mercy on him if I have mercy, and I will show mercy on him if I have mercy (Rom. 9:15). And David confesses this, crying out to God: Lord, God of my salvation (Ps. 87:2). What is salvation? It is to become a partaker of the holiness of God, and this consists in the will of God - that is, for Him to impart His holiness to those who direct their hearts towards Him and do not have any crookedness in their thoughts, whose souls are confident (Ps. 77:37), that is, they become faithful to God and His words, since, according to the prophet, the face of God sees righteousness (Ps. 10:7). People see the visible, but God also sees the hidden. Prepare the way of the Lord, says Scripture, make His paths right (Matthew 3:3). These paths of God are the essence of human souls when they are right, that is, when they confess their ignorance, lack of teaching and lack of punishment, their lack of goodness and susceptibility to all kinds of sins, when they do not want to live hypocritically, to be different in their inner structure and to appear different before people, and to accept honor from people, and not from God; because God, who tests hearts, hates such souls as being from a part of the devil, for the devil does this in such a way that, being an enemy, he takes the form of a friend and, being darkness, he appears as light. Since the salvation of all is in one God, let everyone prepare himself and make the effort to become right in order to become worthy of God’s mercy; because whoever is right is true; He who is true is humble, and he who is humble is alone and worthy of mercy. God, Who is the real truth, cannot have mercy on someone who is wrong, since he is not true. So, do not bother God in prayer to show you mercy before you become right, for it is impossible for God to unite with an evil and corrupt soul; The mercy of God consists in this, that someone should partake of the holiness of God. And if you are overcome by the crafty devil, the ruler of evil, and do not have the strength to be right, force the goodness of God through your earnest prayer to grant you the strength to become right first, so that for this sake you may be worthy of God’s great mercy, that is, the acceptance of His holiness. This holiness places enmity between the one who is sanctified and between sin, otherwise, it makes the one being sanctified the enemy of all sin. For whoever loves God loves what is pleasing to Him, and turns away from what God does not please. But what is displeasing to God, of course, is pleasing to the devil. Why is every person who is wrong (and therefore does not love what is pleasing to God) a friend of the devil and an enemy of God. What hope of salvation is there for such a person? So, for those who do evil that they could not have done, and do not do good that they could have done, there is no salvation while they are such. But even about those who do good, it cannot yet be said that they therefore already have within themselves everything by which salvation is achieved. They just did everything they had to do, just as every slave does what he has to do so as not to be beaten. If it happens that the householder thanks such a slave, then he thanks him out of his kindness. But if a slave becomes proud, saying that he does his job so well, then he is beaten for the very same reason, so that he remembers that he could not do anything more than what he had to do - so if such a slave (good in everything) wants his master to thank him, then he must humble himself in every possible way and say: I did only what I had to do, and if I had not done that, then I would have been beaten like a slave who cannot be broken. Likewise, every Christian who does everything worthwhile cannot expect anything for himself. But it would be good if everyone who wanted to do the will of God could do it; otherwise it often happens to everyone that he cannot do what he wants, and does what he hates, because wisdom and the lust of the flesh resist him. How can one say after this: just desire salvation and you will be saved? Salvation does not come from nature, which is why we don’t see anyone ever being saved by themselves. And God says: I am God, and am I not the one who saves (Is. 43:11). For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). How can anyone be saved by himself? But if now in one day thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of sinners repent and, turning to Christ the Lord, become friends with Him, unite and are sanctified by His holiness, then they will immediately recognize the sanctification received from Him, by which salvation is arranged, feeling a certain divine power inherent in them. For Christ the Lord, for everyone who believes in Him, is the power of reasoning, the power of reason, the strength of wisdom, the power of truth, the basis of love for God and people, the effect of every holy commandment and the will of God, a kind of rational aversion and hatred of all evil and sin, all lust and wickedness turned into nature. Christ the Lord is our hope and our peace. Without the Lord Jesus, not only can no one do good, but everyone is alienated from God. The Lord demands only one thing from everyone who believes in Him, that he completely entrust himself to Him - the Lord’s Christ, that is, to have full hope in Him and to have unshakable confidence that only by the power of Christ, and not by his own, can anyone be saved. And such is the only true Christian who places his full hope in Christ alone, that He alone will correct everything in him and heal him both in soul and in body. When this faith, which we have with reason, is then followed by deeds, then love for Christ is born, that is, when someone by deed receives what he hoped from Christ and feels it, then he loves Him. For a person receiving a benefit cannot remain insensitive to the benefit and naturally begins to love the Benefactor, even against his will. Then, when he succeeds in love for his Benefactor, he finds the Benefactor Himself within himself, because He also completely trusts and enters into the one who loved Him. But the devil, what he first did to man, now tries to do to everyone who begins to repent, instilling in him: there is no salvation for you in your God (Ps. 3:3), that is, that salvation is not by the power of your God, but by your own. And woe to anyone who believes him! The enemy wants in this way to expose the soul from the grace of God, so that he can then catch it and devour it, like a wolf a lamb. Therefore, one must always look with the mind to God, from Whom alone all help comes, so that this mind is enlightened by the mental rays of God’s light and, having become deified, acquires a kind of immutability, so as not to return to evil. Then he finally becomes the ruler of the earth, so that no earthly lust dares to approach him any more, but everything earthly trembles before him and fears him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of God, fearful of the Cherubim themselves, Whom he always has inherent in himself and from Whom he does not allow himself to be separated in thought and distanced by desire and feeling for a single moment. To God, our Benefactor, glory, honor and worship forever and ever. You might be interested in: