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(1) Man lost the truth after he was expelled from paradise. – (2) What is the sin of the devil, and what is Adam’s? – (3) Man is sinful from his very conception. – (4) And is reborn by the Holy Spirit in holy Baptism. - (5) What did the kings and prophets want before the coming of Christ? – (6) The spiritual father must first announce those confessing and teach the sacrament of faith, and then impose penance. – (7) Every Christian needs to perceive the divine change. 1. Since Adam believed the devil, who told him lies, and ate from the tree of knowledge, then, just as he believed the liar, he fell from the truth. After this, human nature worked hard, seeking truth, but could not find it. This is clearly confirmed by all the Hellenic sages, who could not harmonize, bring to unity and direct the diverse wisdom of people onto the right path, despite the fact that many used methods for this and wrote many lengthy works in which they comprehensively discussed virtue and morality. Truth is from God, is contained in the word of God and is comprehended by the grace of Christ. Grace in Christ Jesus, with its inconceivable power, simplified, corrected and united fragmented and multi-woven views, as if with a physical and unshakable unity, showing that all other methods and techniques are ineffective, impractical and useless. Those guided by these methods embark on research to find the truth, but they do not have time to find it: it has righteously hidden itself from them. For, since a person willingly and without any violence accepted a lie and believed it, he is condemned to seek the truth - and not find it, to follow it - and not achieve it. However, just as the truth was hidden from us because we believed a lie, in the same way we find the truth again when we believe the truth. Adam believed a lie, hidden and implicit, but we believe in a great and obvious mystery - in God incarnate. That lie itself contained improbability, because it went against the direct commandment of God, and this great sacrament of the incarnation of Christ has evidence of its faithfulness in the name of God. That lie, as soon as Adam believed that it was true, immediately turned out to be a lie, because the one who believed it was cast into corruption and death, and this sacrament, being believed, turns out to be the truth, because it frees the believer from corruption and death, since by its power sin is taken away from the believer and goodness, or righteousness, is granted to him. So both truth and falsehood are obvious at the end. 2. If you look into what sin the devil committed and what Adam did, you will not find anything else except pride. But the devil and Adam became proud because of the great glory with which they were so abundantly awarded. Being clothed with glory not after humility and disgrace, they became proud for this very reason. Since they had never seen humility and did not know what kind of thing this humility was, and the ignominy that follows the fall from the heights of glory, then, not having the fear that comes from the fear of such an accident, they became proud. Think now how great was the humility of the Lord Jesus when He, being God, humbled Himself even to the point of free death and died on the cross, a death that served as punishment for the worst people. So, there is one sin - pride, and one virtue - great humility. But of us, since we are now in such humiliation and misery, who will be proud, except perhaps in a violent and senseless way? In real life, no one has within himself the divine power to manifest brilliant glory, and there is no one who would be clothed with glory before humility and ignominy, but every person, being born into this world, is born inglorious and insignificant, and then, little by little succeeding, sometimes becomes glorious. 3. Therefore, if someone, having previously experienced such disgrace and insignificance, then becomes proud, is he not senseless and blind? That saying, which says that no one is sinless except God, even if he lived on earth for at least one day, does not speak about those who themselves personally sin, because how can a one-day-old child sin? But this expresses the mystery of our faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man as a sinner, but as a pure and holy person. But when the primordial Adam lost this robe of holiness, not from any other sin, but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal, then all people descended from Adam’s seed are involved in the ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. Whoever was born in this way, even if he has not yet committed any sin, is already sinful by that ancestral sin. 4. For this reason, another birth, or rebirth, has come, which regenerates a person through the holy Baptism of the Holy Spirit, again reunites him with the Divine nature, as it was then, as the hands of God created him, restores all his spiritual powers, renews them and brings them to the state in which they were before the crime of the primordial Adam, and thus introduces him into the kingdom of God, into which the unbaptized cannot enter, enlightens with its light and gives you a taste of its joys. Thus, everyone who is baptized is again made the same as Adam was before the crime, and, being brought into mental paradise, accepts the commandment to do it and keep it: to do it by fulfilling the commandments of Jesus Christ, who recreated him, and to keep it by keeping the grace of the Holy Spirit given to him through holy Baptism, confessing that the power of this grace living in him, together with him, fulfills the commandments of Christ. This is what storage is all about. And just as it is impossible for a house to stand firmly without a foundation, so it is impossible for a soul who believes in Christ to demonstrate a life pleasing to God if the grace of the Holy Spirit is not invested in it as a foundation. For fasting, vigil, lying down, bowing, praying, and any other suffering are nothing without Divine grace. And if you hear that someone, after obvious Christian deeds, fell away from Christ, know that at that time he was without the grace of God. For the Holy Spirit gives life to the soul, just as the soul gives life to the body, and it is strong, firm and constant. This is a great mystery. Let man revere him, listen to him and keep him. By this grace of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice of praise is accomplished in the heart and a pure, contrite and humble heart is created, which, knowing that it has nothing of its own, cannot be lifted up with pride. This humility of the heart, contrite and self-abasement, true, and not for show out of vanity, is the sacrifice of praise offered to God. It is said that not every sinner is unclean before the Lord, but everyone who is arrogant and proud, because there is no one without sin. The humble-hearted is righteous and acts righteously, for he is filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, teaching him every good thing and strengthening him in him. This grace gives him holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). Why is it said: let the wicked be lifted up, let him not see the glory of the Lord (Is. 26:10). And who is this wicked one? A high-hearted person, in proportion to his pride, also has a measure of wickedness, just as, on the contrary, a humble-hearted person, in proportion to his humility, has a measure of his piety. But who is this humble-hearted one? Neither a wise man, nor a man of much knowledge, nor a scientist, nor an artist, nor a businessman, but one who has the grace of the Holy Spirit, which, having cleansed the soul from all sin and taught it to live righteously and pleasing to God, grants it true wisdom, knowledge, and the ability to act. 5. For this purpose the Son of God became man and died, giving Himself as a ransom for all human nature. However, His death was a necessary sacrifice for the pious who died before His coming in the flesh. For after Adam’s crime, none of the righteous could be saved, since all people were subject to the sin of the progenitor Adam, corruption and death, and the sword of fire did not let anyone into paradise, from which Adam was expelled, since those holy abodes of paradise receive only souls immaculate and pure from all sin, as the Apostle says that corruption does not inherit incorruption (1 Cor. 15:50). Why was it necessary that the incorruptible Son of God be given as a sacrifice through His corruptible flesh in order to redeem those righteous from corruption. For by themselves they could not again come into incorruption, from which Adam fell, but this was the work of the great economy of Christ, accomplished with judgment and righteousness. And for those who were born after the birth of Christ, He is both sacrifice and food through the communion of the Most Pure Mysteries, in which, through the unity into which He enters with the communicant, He renews and recreates him, and with the ineffable power of the creative Divinity sincerely (in the same way. - Ed.) combines with Himself and penetrates Himself, that is, makes him a god by grace, just like just as fire, through its penetration, makes fire those solid bodies that receive it and are penetrated by it, such as, for example, iron, copper and the like - it makes it fire, but does not change their nature, but does only that while they are in such a combination with fire, they themselves become fire. And this is what the prophets, kings and righteous men who were before Christ desired, since they foresaw those who were to be flesh of the flesh of Christ and bone of His bones, and saw themselves as deprived of such a great good. 6. Those who were taught this great sacrament of Christianity and, having learned it, became believers and faithful to it, and then fell as people bearing flesh, for those there is no other way to return what was lost than repentance for everything in which they have sinned. They need to resort to a spiritual doctor and, having confessed their sin to him, opening their wound, with humility and desire to accept the following penance according to the rules, which the spiritual father will impose, because such penances loosen the bonds of sin and serve as a suitable medicine for spiritual wounds to heal them. It is necessary, I say, for those who sin after Baptism to bear penance, because they were already enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift (Heb. 6:4), that is, they experienced the power of Christ, which is why they had to courageously stand against temptation and not sin, as the Apostle says: let sin not possess you: for you are not under the law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14). If they had not neglected the grace of God, already known, then it would not have allowed them to sin. They themselves became guilty of the blood of Christ, which cleansed their conscience from dead works in order to serve the living and true God; why do they need secondary cleansing through repentance, which is combined with labor and sweat, groaning and tears, so that each of them can say to God: see my humility and my labor, and forgive all my sins (Ps. 24:18). This is not because it is necessary that God needs the labors and sweats of the repentant, but so that the repentant, having received the grace of God without labor, does not again neglect it, as before, and is not therefore condemned to burn forever in the unquenchable fire of hell. But those who do not know the sacrament of Christianity, which are the largest part of those baptized, who are called baptized Christians, but are not announced by Christian teaching and remain completely ignorant and, I will say, unenlightened (enlightened by Baptism, but not enlightened by knowledge), because they do not know and do not truly understand what the sacrament of Christianity consists of - so when such, repenting, confess their sins, done by them after Baptism, then they should not be too bound in spirit and heavy penances should be imposed on them, because this will not be useful for them, since they, being not taught and not enlightened and not having knowledge of the mystery of Christ, cannot feel these bindings and penances as they should. They believed in ignorance, and sinned in ignorance, and since they sinned without reason, they cannot, as they should, understand the rationality of their spiritual healing. So, just as for those who are taught and enlightened and know the sacrament of Christianity, according to the extent of their knowledge and sin, that is, judging by what knowledge and knowledge they have about the sacrament of Christianity, and how serious the sin they have committed, duties, and healing, and cauterization, and suffering are required, that is, fasting, vigils, long-standing, kneeling, etc., so for those who did not know and were not taught the sacrament of Christianity, what is needed first is teaching, proclamation of the teachings of the faith and enlightenment, and then canonical penances. For it is unreasonable to bind and cauterize, that is, to impose penance according to the rules on someone who cannot feel how it is unreasonable to treat the dead. However, as the divine Paul says, those who have sinned in the law, that is, with knowledge of the sacraments of faith and Christianity, will receive judgment by the law, that is, they must be judged and penanced according to the full severity of the sacred canons, and those who have sinned without the law, that is, did not know everything that relates to faith and what is necessary for salvation, and have not learned it, will perish without the law (Rom. 2:12), that is, without applying everything to them the strictness of the canons will perish (if they do not repent), despite all that they can offer uselessly to justify themselves, that they did not know how they were obliged to act, for the Lord says: this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony with every tongue (Matthew 24:14). If tongues are condemned in this way (for ignorance), all the more will those Christians be condemned who, being within the fence of the Church of Christ, do not know the true teaching of Christian piety, because they did not take the trouble to learn it where and properly, out of negligence and contempt for such a great work accomplished for us by the Son of God, for whom He, being God, became man and suffered extreme reproach, dying on the cross, as if villain. 7. It is a great good to believe in Christ, because without faith in Christ it is impossible for anyone to be saved, but it is necessary to learn the word of truth and know it. It is good to learn the word of truth, and it is necessary to know it, but it is also necessary to receive Baptism in the name of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity, to revive the soul. It is good to receive Baptism and through it a new spiritual life, but it is necessary that this mysterious life, or intelligent enlightenment in the spirit, be felt with feeling. It is good to perceive enlightenment that is intelligent in the spirit, but it is also necessary to demonstrate the works of light. It is good to do works of light, but you must also put on the humility and meekness of Christ, for complete likeness to Christ. Whoever achieves this and becomes meek and humble in heart, as if these were his natural dispositions, will undoubtedly enter the kingdom of heaven and the joy of his Lord. However, all those who flow along the path of God according to the order I have indicated, if it happens that natural death stops their flow in the middle, will not be driven away from the doors of the kingdom of God, and these doors will not be closed before them, by the infinite mercy of God. But those who do not flow in this order, their faith is vain, if they have any faith in Christ the Lord, to Whom is due all glory, honor and worship, together with His beginningless Father and the Life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: