Слово 63

(1) About those who think that they have the Holy Spirit, without any complete consciousness and feeling of His action - and about those who say that in present times no person can behold the glory of the Holy Spirit. – (2) That the saints do not have the slightest envy, when we try in every possible way to become like them by excelling in virtues. – (3) How can one see God? – (4) Whoever has achieved such a measure as to behold, to the best of his ability, God, learns in the present life to know what bliss will be granted to the saints in the future life. – (5) That the Prophets and Apostles declared what they saw, being enlightened by the Holy Spirit, who was always with them. – (6) Whoever transgresses or misinterprets his words sins against the Holy Spirit. 1. Here again I want to talk about those who say that they have the Holy Spirit, without any consciousness of it, and think that they received Him into themselves from divine Baptism, why they claim that they have the treasure of grace within themselves, although, recognizing themselves, they cannot help but see that they are empty of it. Namely, I want to talk about those who admit that they did not feel anything at all in holy Baptism, and yet believe that from that time the grace of God abounded within them and remains in them to this day; and not only about these, but also about those who say that they have never had any obvious and tangible sense of the grace of the Holy Spirit, but believe that they have accepted and have this grace in themselves, not by experience, but by faith alone, mentally, as they have heard and learned from Divine Scripture. They usually say: if you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ, says the Apostle. Since we were baptized into Christ, it is clear that we have put on Christ. But I say to them: since you have put on Christ, tell me what Christ is? He is, of course, the true God, who became man at that end in order to make us gods. But he who puts on God feels, of course, what he has put on. Just as one who is naked in body, when he puts on some clothing, feels and sees what kind of clothing it is, so one who is naked in soul, when he puts on God, feels and knows what it is. If he who puts on God does not feel that what he has put on is, then it follows that he is not alive, for only the dead do not feel when they are clothed. Why am I afraid that those who say so are truly dead and naked? Then they offer the following saying of the Apostle Paul: Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19). But when they say this, they do not understand the purpose for which it is said. They get smart; Whoever says to someone else: “Do not extinguish the lamp,” he says this, of course, not about an unburned lamp, but about one that is lit and shining with its characteristic light. To this we say to them: That Spirit, about which you say that It is kindled in you and shines with its light, do you clearly see kindled and shining in your souls, as it naturally should be? But they not only do not respond to this, but immediately change their face and turn it in the other direction, as if they hear some kind of blasphemy that is unbearable for them. Then, assuming a more meek appearance, they answer, saying: and who dares to say that he sees or has ever seen the Holy Spirit? Stop blaspheming and don’t say this, for the Divine Scripture says that God has never been seen anywhere (John 1:18). - Oh blindness and insensibility! Tell me, man, who said this? - The Only Begotten, he says, the Son of God in the bosom of the Father, He said this. You speak the truth, and your testimony is true, but it goes against you. For if I prove that this very Son of God and God the Word says that this is possible, then what do you have to say? Listen to what Christ says: he who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9). And He said this not to the one who looked at the body of Christ, but to the one who contemplated His Divinity. For if we think that Christ the Lord said this to the one who looked at His body, then it will follow that those who crucified Christ saw the Father, since they saw Christ in the body, and after this there will be no difference between the faithful and the unfaithful, and no advantage for the first over the last, but everyone equally received the desired bliss, everyone saw God. But it is not so in reality, not so, as the same Christ said again when he talked with the Jews: if they knew Me, they also knew My Father (John 8:19). And that it is possible for us to see God, as much as it is possible for people to see Him, listen to what Christ Himself says: blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). What do you say to this? But I know in advance what you will say. You will say: yes, the pure in heart will definitely see God, but not here, but in the next century. Since you do not believe in the blessings that God gives us in this life and do not have a zealous desire to receive them for yourself, you resort to thinking about the future century. But tell me, beloved, who hopes to see God in the next century, how is it possible for what you are talking about? If Christ said that with a pure heart we will see God, then it certainly follows that at any time, as soon as someone cleanses his heart, he will see God. You yourself, if you ever cleanse your heart, will, of course, see God and know the truth of my words. But since you never thought in your mind to do this (cleanse your heart) and did not believe that this truly happens (that the pure in heart see God), you neglected to cleanse your heart and are not worthy to see God. Tell me, is it possible for a heart to become pure in real life? If it is possible, then it follows that everyone who is pure in heart sees God in this present life. If you say that one sees God only after death, then I must say that purity of the heart occurs only after death. Thus, it may happen to you that you will not see God either in the present or in the next century. For after death you will no longer have the opportunity to do godly deeds, so that through them you can make your heart pure. But what does the Lord tell us? If you have my commandments and keep them, he is the one who loves Me... and I will love him and show myself to him (John 14:21). When is this appearance of Christ the Lord promised, in the present life or in the future? Obviously in real life. For where the commandments of God are fulfilled with care, there the appearance of our Savior Jesus Christ occurs. After this appearance of the Savior, perfect love comes. For if Christ does not appear in us, then we can neither believe in Him nor love Him as we should. It is written: “Thou shalt not love thy brother, even though he is seen, and God, who is not seen, how can he love? (1 John 4:20). Whoever cannot love God certainly cannot believe in Him. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says: now remain faith, hope, love, these three; But there is greater love than these (1 Cor. 13:13). So, since faith is combined with hope, and hope accompanies love, it is clear that whoever does not have love has no hope, and whoever does not have hope does not have faith, that is, whoever does not have faith does not hope, and whoever does not hope does not love. For how is it possible for love to exist when there are no causes that produce it, that is, faith and hope? Just as it is impossible for a roof to stand without a building on which it is supported, so it is impossible for the love of God to be found in a person’s soul when there is no faith and hope in it. And whoever does not have love will not receive any benefit from other virtues, as the same Paul asserts. About what is possible and how one can behold God in real life, listen again to the divine Paul, who says: we see now as with a mirror in fortune-telling, but then face to face; Now I understand in part, but then I will know as I was also known (1 Cor. 13:12). But as soon as they hear this, they say: it was Paul. To this I say to them: Wasn’t Paul also a man subservient to us in everything? They again answer: oh, proud and arrogant man! Who ever appeared like Paul? And you dare to compare us sinners with Paul! - Answering them to this, not I, but the Apostle Paul himself, cried out loudly and said: Christ has come into the world - listen! To save sinners, from whom I am the first (1 Tim. 1:15). So, he is the first of sinners to be saved; become the second, become the third, become the fourth, become the tenth, become one of the thousands and myriads of those being saved - and you will number yourself among the Apostle Paul, and thereby honor Paul, as he himself says: be imitators of me, as I was of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1), and in another place: I want all men to be as I was ( 1 Cor.7:7). 2. Therefore, if you want to praise or honor Paul, you must imitate him and become like him in faith. This is when you will truly honor him! And he will receive you and will boast about you, counting it to himself as glory that you bowed to his words and followed him, and became like him. If, - saying that it would be dishonorable for Paul - to think that someone else can become like him, - you despise your salvation and are careless about it, then know that to the extent that you deceive yourself in this way, Saint Paul turns away from you and is dissatisfied with you. Do you want me to prove to you that you will honor him much more, and please him, and glorify him if you try to become greater and closer to God than he? Listen to what Paul himself says: I myself prayed that I might be separated from Christ according to my brethren, my relatives in the flesh (Rom. 9:3). Do you see? He prefers to be excommunicated from Christ himself, so that only you can be saved, and you say that he will consider it a dishonor for himself if I want and dare to become like him? No, my brother, it’s not like that. There is no envy among the saints of God. They do not seek priority and greater honor and glory over others. They - all these, from the beginning to the end of centuries, friends and lovers of God - have one priority, one preference, - one glory, pleasure and peace - I will take out to see God. Those who see God are alien to all curiosity; They cannot turn away from the sight of God to look at anything from this world, or at any person, or think about anything incompatible with their structure, but are completely free from all curiosity, and their mind does not go to anything else, which is why, while they are like this, they remain unfallen and do not return again to evil. 3. But I ask you to tell me: those who wrote about what was said before this, how did they know this? Likewise, whoever writes about this now, how does he know that? Tell me, whose is all this? - Of course, you say, this is human, the work of man is the essence of these words. - But by saying this, you show that you know the inner state of the soul of another person. What does Saint Paul say? - Who is the message from man who is in man, even the spirit of man living in him? (1 Cor. 2:11). But if it is difficult for a person to know with accuracy the inner person, as a person, then how is it possible for him to know what is divine in someone, that is, those changes and states that occur in saints under the influence of the contemplation of God? On the other hand, if those words are, as you say, the work of man, as a human being, then it is clear that the thoughts contained in those words are the work of man. But what is contained in those words should not be called thoughts (νοηματα, something speculative), but contemplation of what truly exists, for we speak about it by contemplation. Why should what is said be called a narrative about what is contemplated, and not a thought (νοημα). Thought should be called thinking that is born in the mind about some desire or deed that has not yet been done, that is, thinking about how to do some good or evil that has not yet been done, which from thinking then passes into action, so that thought is the beginning of a deed that we have to do, just as Gregory the Theologian says about God: “first, God imagines the heavenly powers, and thought became deed.” - So, make sure that our words do not speak about something that does not exist and has not been revealed, but about something that has already happened, and that from the vision and contemplation of this the story we make about that is borrowed, just as when someone wants, for example, to talk about a house, or about a field, or about a royal palace, or about a spectacle, one must first see and carefully examine all this, and then talk about it with knowledge of the matter. Who can say for himself about any object that he has not seen before? And how can he say anything about something he hasn’t seen at all? Yes, and the finite is senselessness and ignorance to talk about what you have not seen and do not know. If in this way no one can say anything true about the visible and earthly without seeing it with his own eyes, then how can one say and communicate anything about God, about divine things and about the saints of God, that is, what kind of communication with God are the saints honored with and what kind of knowledge of God is this that happens inside them and which produces inexplicable effects in their hearts - how can one say anything about this to someone who is not enlightened in advance by the light of knowledge? But when you hear about the light of knowledge, do not think that this is only knowledge without light, because this is not called a legend or a word of knowledge, but the light of knowledge, or knowledgeable light, since this light gives birth to knowledge in us, for it is impossible for anyone to know God in any other way, except by contemplating the light sent from this very light (that is, God). Just as someone who tells others about some country or some person tells what he has seen and what he knows, and those who listen to him cannot, by hearing alone, know that person or that country as well as the one who saw and tells them, so about the heavenly Jerusalem, about God who invisibly dwells in it, about the radiant glory of His face, about the action and power of the Holy Spirit, that is, light, no one can say anything true unless he sees in advance with intelligent eyes. his soul of this light and does not accurately recognize its illumination and action within himself. The one who hears from the Divine Scripture about those who have seen God by the grace of the Holy Spirit and speak about God, learns only what he sees written in the Scripture, why he cannot say about himself that he knows God through just hearing what is written. For how can you know someone you cannot see? If we cannot know the person we see through one vision, then how is it possible for us to know God through one hearing? Light is God, and contemplation of Him is like light, which is why through the vision of light there is the first knowledge by which one knows that there is God. As in relation to a person about whom someone first hears and then sees him, it happens that the one who heard only when he already sees him recognizes that this is the same person about whom he heard - or even in this way he cannot verify what was said, because no matter how much someone tells you about another, you cannot, having seen him, by this rumor alone, recognize and be sure that this is the same person you heard about, but you hesitate and you ask either himself or someone else who knows him, and then you make sure that it is the same one; This is exactly what happens in relation to God that when someone sees God who has appeared to Him, he sees the light and, seeing it, wonders, but does not immediately recognize who the one who appeared to him is and does not dare to question Him, for how can he ask Him when he cannot raise his eyes to better see what it is, but looks with great fear at the feet of the one who has appeared, knowing only that there is someone who has appeared to him? But if someone is close to him who previously told him that he saw God, then he goes to him and says: Oh, father! I saw what you told me about. He asks him: what did you see, my child? “I saw, father, some sweet light, but what kind of sweetness it was, I cannot express.” When he says this, his heart trembles with joy and rejoices, and burns with love for the One who appeared to him. Then again he begins to speak with many warm tears: how this light appeared to me, father, my cell immediately disappeared, the world disappeared, running away, as it seems, from the face of the One who appeared to me, and I was left alone with that light - and I don’t know, father, whether I was there in the body then, or outside the body: then I didn’t understand whether I was clothed in this body and whether I wore it; however, I realized that I exist and that there is inexpressible joy in me, and love, and a great flame of heart, and tears flowed like a river from me, just as they flow now, as you can see. He answered him: This is the One I told you about; - and with this word he immediately sees Him again. - From now on, he becomes more and more purified, and, being purified, he takes boldness and asks the One who appeared Himself, saying: Are you my God? He answers: I am God, made man for you, so that I could make you god, and so, as you see, I have done it and will do it. If in this way he remains in weeping and tears, and in humbly falling before God, then little by little he begins to learn more and more about the essence of God, and, having achieved this, to understand the will of God, holy, pleasing and perfect. For if someone does not see God, then he cannot know Him, and if he does not know Him, he cannot know His holy will. 4. When a person comes in this way to a greater measure of perfection and comes closest to God, then from what God does in him, he learns what He did in all the previous saints and what He has to do in the subsequent ones - he also knows, being enlightened by God Himself, what kind of crowns these are and what kind of rewards that the saints have to receive in another life, making sure that they surpass every mind and every word of man - He will also know what both he and all the saints will become after the general resurrection. The saints, however, do not receive everything they want in real life (although some people slander that I say that the saints receive everything here). For if we assume that here they receive all the blessings of God, then, according to their word, they should renounce the very resurrection of the dead, and judgment and retribution, and willingly reject the hope of future blessings. But not only do I not have such wisdom and do not say so, but, on the contrary, I anathematize those who say this. I say and confess that in this life the saints, to a certain extent, only receive guarantees of future blessings; nevertheless, I hope that they will receive everything promised in full after death (and the general resurrection), as the divine Paul says: now I mean in part... But when that which is perfect has come, then what is in part will be abolished (1 Cor. 13:12, 10); and John the Theologian: Now we are children of God, and it is not revealed that we shall be. But when He appears, we will be like Him (1 John 3:2). I will now continue my speech with questions and answers, and somehow (something like this. - Ed.) I will ask the one who said this: about the beloved and friend of Christ! Tell me, how do you know that you have to be like God? From the Spirit, he says, which He gave to us, from this we know that we are children of God and Christ Himself is in us. He Himself told me this in a mysterious voice (1 John 3:24). 5. But let us turn again to our subject. We said that a thought (νοημα) is called when a word or idea of ​​some deed, good or bad, is born in our mind - to acquire, for example, something or to do good to someone, or, on the contrary, to do evil; a legend (διηγησις), and not a thought, is when we talk about what happened or what we saw. We also said that nothing true can be said about things, deeds, sights, people whom we have not seen and do not know - it is impossible to say what they are in properties, appearance and position; if anyone says anything about them, then it is fair to call him a fabulist. - So, the Prophets and Apostles, who told us about the Day of the Lord, about His glorious and terrible coming, that he would come like a thief in the night and like a labor pain, and that he would be revealed by fire, where did they know this and tell us? Of course, they either heard it from someone, or saw it themselves: otherwise how could they talk about what they themselves had not seen and what they had not heard from anyone else? If you heard it, tell me from whom you heard it (I’m not saying now that they themselves saw it and said it, but just heard it) - tell me, if you know, where did they know about it? If you don’t know what to say to this, then listen and know that they heard it from the Holy Spirit and said, as our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to you in My name, He will teach you all things, and He will remember to you all the things that have been spoken to you (John 14:26). And what the Holy Spirit, when he came, taught them and told them even what Christ did not say, about this listen to what Christ says again: The imam has many more words to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth: for you must not speak of your own accord, but if anyone hears, He will speak, and the one who comes will tell you (John 16:12-13). Do you now understand where they learned what they wrote about that terrible Day, about the second coming of the Lord, and about what will follow after that for both the righteous and the sinners? So they wrote about everything else that we do not see, having seen it through enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. But tell me, I ask you, what is the Holy Spirit? It is known that He is the true God, coming from the true God. So, you, following the dogmas of the Church, say that the Holy Spirit is God, as you see written in the Scriptures of the Saints; Why do you assert that those who have the Holy Spirit have God within them, always abiding with them, as Christ said to the Apostles: if you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever (John 14:15–16). You now know that the Holy Spirit both abides and dwells (in the saints) forever and ever, for our Lord, saying: let him be with you forever, shows that the Holy Spirit always, unceasingly and endlessly, is and will be inseparable from them both in the present life and in the future. And that the divine Apostles and all others who were worthy to receive Him saw the Holy Spirit, listen to what Christ says after the above words: The Spirit of truth, the world cannot accept Him, because it does not see Him, it knows Him less; But you know Him, for He abides in you and will be in you (John 14:17). And that Christ is seen by those who love Him and keep His commandments, listen about this again to Christ Himself, Who says: If you have My commandments and keep them, you love Me: and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father; and I will love him, and I will appear to him myself (John 14:21). 6. Let all Christians know that Christ is the most unfalse and true God, and truly, according to His promise, is the one who loves Him and fulfills His commandments, and together with His appearance He gives them the Holy Spirit - and that, again, through the Holy Spirit both the Father and the Son abide with them. Such men are spirit-bearers; when they speak, they do not speak from themselves, and whoever says that they speak from themselves clearly conveys the idea that a person can know what is in another person, and not only know this, but also that which is the essence of God. If they do not say this, then in every possible way they consider those who speak from the Holy Spirit to be liars and fabulists, believing that they themselves teach what they have not seen or heard about. But let them know that although those Spirit-bearers speak in words similar to the words of the ancient God-bearing fathers, they undoubtedly speak from the Spirit that actually abides in them, why those who do not believe them and blaspheme them sin against the Holy Spirit speaking in them. Have you finally understood, O beloved, that the kingdom of heaven is destined to be within you and all eternal blessings are destined to be in your hands? Strive to see, acquire and receive these eternal blessings into yourself, so that you do not be deprived of them and do not become empty, thinking that you have them. Cry, pray, fall down like the blind man once did, and say: have mercy on me, Son of God, and open the eyes of my soul, so that I may see You, my God, the Light of the world, and may I also become a son of the divine day. Do not leave me, O Good One, deprived of Your Divine grace, as unworthy. Show me, O Lord, Yourself, so that I may understand that You love me, as one who keeps Your divine commandments. Send me, O Compassionate One, a Comforter, so that He may teach me what is about You, and may He reveal Your essence. O God of all things! Shine in me the true light, that I may see Your glory, which You had with the Father, before the world existed. Stay with me, as You promised, so that I too may be worthy to remain with You, and then may I enter into You intelligently, and may I acquire You within myself intelligently, that is, with the feeling of my soul. Desire, O Invisible One, to imagine yourself inside me, so that I may see Your beauty and Your kindness - incomparable, and may I always bear the same image of Yours, Heavenly One, and may I forget everything visible and earthly. Grant me, O gracious Lord, the glory that the Father has given You, so that I may be like You, as all Your servants were, and may I always be with You, now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. Yes, my beloved brother, believe me that this is truly the case and that this is our faith. Believe, brother, that this is what it is - to be reborn and renewed, and to live a life that is about Christ. Don’t you hear what Saint Basil the Great says in his homily on the Feast of Lights (Epiphany)? Oh man! Do you not desire to become new from the old, as you are, as the Apostle Paul says: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the ancient mimoidosha, was it all new (2 Cor. 5:17)? What is this - all new? - Tell me. Or did the sky, the earth, the sun, the stars, or anything else visible change and become new? But you cannot say this because the Apostle says this about us: that we are dead and rise, corruptible and transformed into incorruptibles, mortal and transformed into immortals, earthly and becoming heavenly, carnal, born of the flesh, and made spiritual, being reborn and recreated by the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. This is what, my brother, is a new creature in Christ, about which the Apostle speaks! And this is accomplished every day in the true believers and the elect; and, as we have said many times, true Christians consciously participate in all this, although only in part, while they are still in the body, with the sure hope that after death they will fully inherit and taste abundantly, both in soul and body, all these benefits, of which here they partake only in part. If, as Christ Himself teaches us, we taste Christ, drink Him, put on Him, see Him and are seen from Him - if He abides in us and we in Him, so that Christ dwells in us, and we in Him, we become an abode for Christ, and He for us, if we are His sons, and He is our Father, if He is the Light shining in darkness, and we see Him, according to the word of the Gospel: people sitting in darkness have seen a great light (Matthew 4:16), - if, I say, all this, as the Divine Scripture teaches us, happens to us in this life, then if, as you say, this does not happen to us in this life, or happens mysteriously, without us feeling it and realizing it, - how do we differ from the dead? Do not, my brothers, be so unfaithful and do not fall into such a pit of destruction. But if until now you did not expect that you would perceive such benefits with your senses and consciously receive them in this life, and therefore did not try to acquire them, then at least from now on make sure and believe that this is true and in accordance with the Divine Scriptures. Re-read all Scripture with attention and make sure that even in real life the seal of the Holy Spirit is given to us, consciously for us. When you are convinced of this, then be sure that you will comprehend it, and strive, not like those who beat the air (1 Cor. 9:26), that is, try with all your zeal to receive these blessings about which we have spoken, and strive not in vain and not fruitlessly, but with this goal in order to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, ask, and it will be given to you... ask, and it will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7), whether in this life or in the next. Do not be ashamed to learn this from others; again - repent, cry, fast, pray, deny your will through obedience - and, through this and similar things, flow, strive, seek, push, ask and do not turn to this and ovamo (here and there. - Ed.), until you comprehend, until you take it in your hands, until the door is opened for you, until you go inside the bridal chamber, not You will see the Bridegroom Christ, but you will not hear: Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful for a little, I will set you over many (Matthew 25:21), until you become sons of light and day. But before you see, before you receive, before you experience all this, do not deceive yourself, deceiving yourself into believing that you are something that does not exist. Because of this, some of you sit calmly and carefree, since your conscience does not condemn you for the fact that, having not received the Holy Spirit, you think that you are spirit-bearers, and flow senselessly - you accept other people's thoughts, confess others, become priests, spiritual fathers, abbots, as you should not, admire the priesthood with contempt and fearlessness and use countless ways and tricks so that to take possession of metropolises, bishoprics and abbesses in order to shepherd the people of the Lord. But listen, I ask you, be wise, heavenly, seek the divine, strive for the heavenly, and do not worry about acquiring anything else besides. To her, I pray to you, let us despise everything visible, reject everything human, reject everything passionate, so that we may receive present and future blessings by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs all glory, honor and worship with His beginningless Father and His All-Holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: