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Let us try to draw an image of a Pharisee, borrowing painting from the Gospel, so that everyone, peering at this terrible, monstrous image, can carefully guard, according to the will of the Lord, from the brew of the Pharisee (Matthew 16:6): from the way of thinking, from the rules, from the mood of the Pharisees. The Pharisee, content with performing the outward rites of religion and performing some visible good deeds, which are not alien to the pagans, slavishly serves passions that he constantly tries to cover up, which he largely does not see in himself and does not understand, which produce in him complete blindness in relation to God and all Divine teaching. Knowledge, and therefore vision in oneself, of the actions of spiritual passions is achieved by repentance; but the Pharisee is inaccessible to the feeling of repentance. How can a heart that is satisfied with itself be contrite, touched, and humble? Incapable of repentance, he is incapable of seeing the light of God’s commandments, which enlighten the eyes of the mind. Although he is engaged in reading Scripture, although he sees these commandments in it, in his darkness he does not dwell on them: they elude his gaze, and he replaces them with his own absurd, ugly speculations. What could be stranger, more incongruous than the Pharisaic speculations mentioned in the Gospel! Whoever swears by the church, the Pharisees asserted, eats nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the church must eat (Matt. 23, 16). The Pharisee, abandoning the fulfillment of the commandments of God, which constitute the essence of the Law, strives for the refined fulfillment of external trifles, even if this was in obvious violation of the commandments. The holy commandments of God, in which, eternal life, were left by the Pharisees without any attention, completely forgotten! “You will do the tenth,” the Lord told them, “to riot, and copra, and kimin, and to leave behind the law, judgment, mercy, and faith... The leaders are blind, watching out for mosquitoes, but devouring webbloods” (Matthew 23:23-24). The most hidden of all spiritual passions is vanity. This passion, more than any other, disguises itself in front of the human heart, giving it pleasure, which is often mistaken for consolation of conscience, for Divine consolation. And the Pharisee is leavened with vanity. He does everything for human praise; he loves that his alms, his fasting, and his prayer have witnesses. He cannot be a disciple of the Lord Jesus, who commands His followers to neglect human glory, to follow the path of humiliation, deprivation, suffering... The thought of heavenly, spiritual glory, the glory of God, eternal, eternity itself is inaccessible to his soul, creeping on the earth, in earthly dust and decay. The Pharisee is a lover of money. His heart is where his treasure is. There is his faith, there is hope, there is love! With his lips, with the edge of his tongue, he confesses God, but with his heart he rejects Him. He never feels the presence of God, does not see the thoughts of God, does not know by experience what the fear of God means. For his heart there is no God, and there are no neighbors. He is all earthly, all carnal, all in the power of spiritual passions, moved by them, controlled by them, drawn to all lawlessness, lives and acts solely for self-love. An idol has been erected in this soul. Constant incense is burned to the idol, constant sacrifices are sacrificed. How can service to the all-holy God be combined in this soul with service to an abominable idol? This soul is in terrible desolation, in terrible darkness, in terrible deadness. This is a dark den, inhabited only by fierce beasts or even more fierce robbers. This is a coffin, decorated on the outside for the sensual eyes of men, so easily deceived, inside filled with dead bones, stench, worms, everything unclean, God-hating. The Pharisee, being a stranger to God, has the need to appear before people as a servant of God; being filled with all iniquities, he has the need to appear virtuous before people; trying to satisfy his passions, he has the need to make his actions seem plausible. A Pharisee requires a disguise. Not at all wanting to be truly pious and virtuous, only wanting to be considered among people as such, the Pharisee clothed himself in hypocrisy. Everything in it is a composition, everything is fiction! His deeds, words, his whole life are a constant lie. His heart, like a dark hell, is filled with all passions, all vices, and continuous torment. And it is this hellish heart that breathes on its neighbor with an inhuman, murderous feeling of temptation and condemnation. The Pharisee, who cares to appear righteous before people, being at heart a child of Satan, catches some features from the Law of God, adorns himself with them, so that the inexperienced eye does not recognize him as the enemy of God and, having trusted him as a friend of God, becomes his victim. The Pharisee does not condemn evil, vice, or violation of the Law in his neighbors. No! How can he condemn evil, of whom he is the friend and confidant? His arrows are aimed at virtue. But to make the blows more accurate, he slanderes virtue, attributes evil to it, is tempted by this evil and, apparently striking it, kills the servant of Christ he hates. 1. 414–416 The feeling of temptation - how picky, how malicious! Pretends to adhere to the forms of the law with petty clarity, but tramples the essence of the law. Dark and blind Pharisee! Hear what the Lord says to you: I want mercy. Seeing your neighbor's shortcomings, have mercy on your neighbor: this is your ud! The weakness that you see in him today may become your weakness tomorrow. You are tempted only because you are proud and blind! You fulfill some external rules of the law and admire yourself for it; you despise and condemn your neighbors in whom you notice the violation of certain little things, and you do not notice the fulfillment of great, hidden virtues, beloved of God, unknown to your arrogant, cruel heart. You didn't look at yourself contentedly; You didn’t see yourself: that’s the only reason you don’t recognize yourself as a sinner. This did not make your heart contrite, it did not fill you with repentance and humility; Because of this, you did not understand that, along with all other people, you need God’s mercy, salvation. It’s scary not to recognize yourself as a sinner! Jesus renounces those who do not recognize themselves as sinners: “I have not come,” He says, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 1. 409–410 The poison that completely poisons the activities of the Pharisees is that they do all their work so that people will be visible (Matthew 23:5). The basis of their activity is the search for human glory; the means to achieving the goal is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the character of the Pharisees. The Lord called hypocrisy their leaven (Luke 12:1). All the activities of the Pharisees are saturated with hypocrisy; their every deed has hypocrisy in its soul. Hypocrisy, born from vanity, i.e. from the search for human praise and glory, he feeds vanity with his successes. When vanity reaches adulthood, then its action turns from impulses into constant striving; then from vanity a mad and blind passion is formed - pride. Pride is the death of the soul in a spiritual sense: a soul overwhelmed by pride is incapable of humility, repentance, mercy, or any spiritual thought or feeling that brings living knowledge of the Redeemer and assimilation to Him. In order to ward off the terrible poison imparted by the leaven of the Pharisees, let us follow the commandment of the Gospel (Matt. 6) try to fulfill God's commandments solely for God, hiding with all care this fulfillment from the corrupting eyes of men. Let us act on earth for God and for heaven, and not for men! We will also act for people, but not in order to extort praise from them, but in order to bring them true service and benefit, for which they often tear to pieces their benefactors, just as stupid and ferocious animals often tear to pieces those who look after them and feed them. This was what happened to the holy apostles and many other saints of God. Let us vigilantly watch ourselves, notice our shortcomings and errors! Let us pray to God to reveal to us our fall and sinfulness! The constant striving to fulfill the will of God will little by little destroy self-satisfaction in us and clothe us in blissful poverty of spirit. Clothed with this holy, grace-filled garment, we will learn to stand before God in a godly manner, for which the humble publican is praised in the Gospel. By praying to God from the depth and sincerity of the heart's consciousness of sinfulness, we will receive forgiveness of sins and an abundance of true blessings, temporary and eternal: as everyone who humbles himself will be exalted by the all-powerful and all-good right hand of the Lord God, our Creator and Savior. 4. 27–28 (See Cunning, External doing, Insensibility). You might be interested in: