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Many holy fathers, abounding in humility and spiritual reasoning, when—unexpectedly—some special spiritual gift manifested itself in them, prayed to God to take away from them this gift, which was beyond their power. “If your deeds,” said the Monk Isaac of Syria, “are pleasing to God and He will give you a gift, then beg Him to give you understanding on how to humble yourself, or to place a guard over the gift, or to take the gift from you, so that it will not be the cause of your death, because not everyone can possess this wealth harmlessly.” 6.232 May the merciful Lord grant me repentance and forgiveness of my sins, but I am unworthy of spiritual gifts and am not able to properly preserve them (the way of thinking on which all the activities of a Christian who desires and seeks salvation should be based). 6.767 (See Prelest, Jesus Prayer - Spiritual Gifts). Rejection of double-mindedness, i.e. fluctuations between love for God and love for sin are necessary - this preserves, increases, and strengthens our good will and desire for God, which attracts the special mercy of God to us. “If we constantly hold the sword in our hands,” said Pimen the Great, “then God will be constantly with us; if we are brave, He will show His mercy to us.” 5. 339–340 (See Jesus Prayer, Opposition). The Orthodox Church recognizes virginity as natural to humanity, recognizing the actual nature of man as the nature in which he was created. The state of fall in which all humanity now finds itself is an unnatural, unnatural, unnatural state. But since all of humanity is gripped by the illness of the fall, this state of general illness can be called natural to fallen humanity. So the properties of an illness are natural to a state of illness, they are unnatural to a state of health. In this case, we agree, virginity is no longer natural to humanity. For this reason, there were very, very few virgins among the righteous of the Old Testament: both the Patriarchs and most of the prophets had to submit to the yoke of marriage. Our Lord Jesus Christ, having restored fallen human nature, also restored virginity. He Himself was, according to humanity, an all-holy virgin; His Mother was a gracious, Most Pure Virgin. Virginity, natural to human nature in the primitive state of nature, unnatural to fallen nature, was returned as a gift to nature renewed by the Savior. The gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord is everything that constitutes our eternal salvation, our dignity, our perfection, which is all called by the common name of eternal life. And New Testament virginity is a gift of God, bestowed by the Lord, as the Lord Himself said about virginity: Not all can bear this word, but to them it is given to eat. The gift of reverence (that is, a moral state most similar to that revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ) is given to those who desire it with all their hearts and ask the Lord with the warmest prayers. Virginity is unnatural for fallen humanity, and therefore it cannot in any way be obtained through one’s own efforts; one’s own efforts tame the flesh, and true virginity is a gift from God, as a result of constant, most diligent, often very long-term prayer. True virginity does not consist in bodily purity alone; but mainly it consists in alienating the mind from voluptuous thoughts and dreams. The mind is unable to renounce sin on its own unless Divine power overshadows it. The struggle of the mind with sin constitutes that greatest work, during which the ascetic sheds many bitter tears, emits many deep and heavy sighs, begging for help and intercession from above. When the heart tastes spiritual sweetness, then only it can be torn away from the pleasure of carnal sweetness; without pleasure it cannot exist. “Love is reflected by love, and fire is quenched by immaterial fire,” said St. John Climacus. The number of virgins and virgins in the New Testament Church is countless by the mercy and generosity of our Savior; but they moved on to the state of virginity, proving through a constant, difficult and prolonged struggle with the lusts of the flesh their sincere desire for virginity. This can be seen from the biographies of St. Anthony the Great, Pachomius the Great, Simeon Christ for the Fool's sake and many other greatest saints of God. 10. 23–25 All good deeds are cursed with sorrows, yet Holy Scripture says that he who begins a good deed, let him complete it. Such cases are evidenced by obstacles. On the contrary, deeds done in the spirit of this world, to the detriment and condemnation of one’s own soul and the souls of others, flow like clockwork. 6.604 The Holy Fathers advise: when a good deed proposed and undertaken cannot be accomplished with due accuracy, then the lack of fulfillment is supplemented by humility. In this case, you need to humble yourself before God: ask Him for forgiveness for being carried away and for not doing a good deed sufficiently. 6.682 “Goodness is certainly resisted by sorrow from the envy of the devil, but through prayer this goodness is multiplied” (St. Barsanuphius the Great). 6.766 The Holy Fathers recognize virtue that is not associated with sorrows, rejected by God. 6.741 (See Virtue, Charity). We will carry out our earthly ministries, our earthly responsibilities, as entrusted to us by God, fulfilling them as if in the sight of God, conscientiously, with zeal, preparing to give an account of their fulfillment to God. Let these services not be robbed or desecrated by sinful motives and goals! We will do earthly deeds for the purpose of pleasing God, and earthly deeds will become heavenly deeds. Let our main and essential occupation be serving God, striving to become assimilated to Him. Serving God lies in the constant remembrance of God and His commands, in the fulfillment of these commands with all one’s behavior, visible and invisible. 1.362 The sun rises, people rush to their work. Everyone has their own goal, their own intention. As the soul is in the body, so is the purpose and intention in every human activity. One works and cares to acquire perishable treasures; the other - to give yourself abundant pleasure; another - to acquire earthly, vain glory; finally, another says, thinks that his actions are aimed at state and public benefit. The confidant of the Law of God in all exercises, in all his deeds has the goal of pleasing God. The world turns for him into the book of the Lord’s commandments. He reads this book through deeds, behavior, life. The more his heart reads this book, the more it is enlightened by spiritual intelligence, the more it warms up to flow along the path of piety and virtue. It acquires the fiery wings of faith, begins to trample on every hostile fear, is carried across every abyss, and dares to undertake every good undertaking. Blessed is such a heart! 2.6 Do not allow yourself to be deceitful or hypocritical; instead, have faith that will teach you that the world and the destinies of every person are governed by the Providence of God, and not by the tricks of the human mind, and that for this reason you should observe meek Christian righteousness in deeds, words and thoughts. 2. 141 What you do without sorrow is not sustainable; and what you sow and do not water with tears, comes up poorly. 6.92 The Lord in direct behavior is a Helper, and the crafty politician is his own helper; The Lord does not come to his aid, as if he were the most intelligent. 6. 143 Earthly affairs and successes lead to pride, to ward off which the Apostle Paul himself needed allowances and sorrows. 6.664 And during activity, you can listen to yourself in the fear of God, observing that your movements and the actions that depend on them are governed not by wordless fervor, but by a sound mind, based on the desire for public and then private good, illuminated by the light of the Gospel. 6.695 ...Help is given to people working in business, together they are granted to struggle with obstacles and grieve for their own spiritual benefit, in order to cleanse the work from the admixture of vanity and other hobbies, so that it is completely in God-pleasing humility. This is the usual course of affairs protected by God. The Apostle Paul writes that Satan twice forbade him to come to Thessalonians for the gospel of Christ. The Jerusalem Temple was built the second time with many obstacles, and the first time with the success of all circumstances; but the spiritual glory of the first church was far surpassed by the glory of the second church, which was worthy to receive into its bosom the God incarnate. The Monk Anthony of Pechersk said that many rich princes and boyars, with a sense of arrogance and vanity, built monasteries and churches at their own expense, without difficulty; but the churches and monasteries, built with the tears of monks, their prayers and the zeal of persons who had a humble position in the world, turned out to be much superior to the first. God does not like ardor and does not like for a matter pleasing to Him to be done with ardor, but He loves for it to be done with trust in Him, the Almighty and All-Good, with patience and humility, with prudence, which is impossible to observe when carried away in the heat of the moment. “A house is built with wisdom,” says Scripture, “and with understanding it is corrected” (Proverbs 24:3). We must follow the instruction of Scripture: haste can ruin the matter. 6.759 Any work, although good, but begun without prayer and asking for God’s help, is not perfect. 6.611 (See Activity, Lie, Prayer). Spirits of evil are fallen angels. God created them along with the other Angels, created them immaculate, good, holy, and generously endowed them with many natural and grace-filled gifts. But the spirits, clouded with pride, ascribed to themselves their abundance of abilities, their graceful properties, the very gifts of grace. They excluded themselves from the category of creatures, recognized themselves as original beings, forgetting about their creation, and on this disastrous basis they trampled on their sacred duties to God the Creator. They were led to such conceit and self-delusion by one of the most important angels (the devil), whom the holy prophet Ezekiel calls a cherub (Ezekiel 28) and in general all saints rank among the highest Angels. This cherub was so immersed in conceit and pride that he considered himself equal to God, clearly rebelled against God (Is. 14, 13, 14), and became an opponent of God, a frantic enemy of God. Spirits who refuse to obey God are cast out of heaven. They creep on the earth, fill the space between heaven and earth, which is why they are called aerial or living in the air; they descended into hell, into the interior of the earth. All this is attested to by the Holy Scriptures (Isa. 14, 12, 15; Eph. 4, 12). The number of fallen spirits is very significant. Some believe, based on the testimony of the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:4), that a whole third of the angels suffered a fall. Many of the highest angels fell, as can be seen from the above words of the Apostle Paul: he calls them principalities and powers. The head and prince of the kingdom of darkness, composed of fallen spirits, is the fallen cherub. He is the beginning, the source, the fullness of evil. Exceeding all other fallen angels in abilities, he exceeds them all in malice. Naturally, the spirits who are carried away by him and arbitrarily submit to him must constantly borrow evil from him, and therefore be in his service. But God, having left to the will of the fallen angels their desired stay in evil, in His omnipotence and wisdom, infinitely superior to the intelligence of the most intelligent creatures, does not cease to remain their supreme, sovereign Master; they are in the will of God, as if in indestructible shackles, and can only do what God allows them to do. In place of the fallen angels, God created a new intelligent creature - humans and placed them in paradise, located in the lower heaven and previously under the authority of the fallen cherub (Conversation on the spirits of St. Anthony the Great). Paradise came under the control of a new creature - man. It is quite understandable that the new creation became the object of envy and hatred of the fallen angel and the fallen angels. The rejected spirits, led by their leader, attempted to seduce the newly created people, to make them partakers of their fall, their like-minded people, to infect them with the poison of their enmity towards God, in which they succeeded. Man, although seduced and deceived, but arbitrarily rejected obedience to God, arbitrarily agreed to demonic blasphemy against God, arbitrarily entered into communication with fallen spirits and in obedience to them, fell from God and from the face of the holy spirits, to which he belonged not only in soul, but also in his spiritual body, and was numbered among the fallen spirits - in soul, and in body - among dumb animals. The atrocity committed by the fallen angels against people finally decided the fate of the fallen angels; The mercy of God finally retreated from them, they were sealed in their fall. The spirit is destined to grovel in thoughts and feelings that are exclusively carnal and material! The spirit is unable to rise from the ground! The spirit cannot ascend to anything spiritual! This is the meaning, according to the explanation of the holy fathers, of the sentence pronounced by God over the fallen angel after this angel struck the newly created man with eternal death. “You will walk on your breasts and bellies,” God said to the demon, “and you will tear away the earth all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:14). 5. 319–321 In his interpretation of Psalm 41, Chrysostom says: “How many demons are flying in this air? How many nasty authorities? If only God would allow them to show us their terrible and disgusting image, would we not be subjected to insanity? Wouldn't they have died? In the 34th conversation on the Evangelist Matthew, Chrysostom says that “demons wander through the tombs.” Chrysostom depicts the attitude of demons towards the sacrifices they make in his word about Saint Babylon, against Julian and the pagans. Having told the circumstances that gave them the reason to build a church for Apollo in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, Chrysostom says that the devil, taking advantage of a fabulous legend, placed a demon in the church to seduce and destroy people. The demon, present at the idol, gave prophecies that supported the errors of the pagans. The relics of the holy martyr Vavila were transferred to Daphne, and the demon first fell silent, and then, when sacrifices to him stopped, he completely withdrew from the church. “This is the custom of demons,” adds Chrysostom, “when people give them divine worship with the stench and smoke of blood, then they, like bloodthirsty and insatiable dogs, stay in those places for food and pleasure (with this stench and smoke). When no one makes such sacrifices for them, then they disappear, as if from hunger. As long as sacrifices are made, as long as secret acts of desecration are performed... Until then, demons are present and have fun.” 3.274 Carnal wisdom in the realm of spirits has received the most extensive, complete development that it can only achieve. Their main sin is frantic hatred of God, expressed in terrible, incessant blasphemy. They became proud of God Himself; They turned obedience to God, natural to creatures, into continuous opposition, into irreconcilable enmity. That is why their fall is deep and the ulcer of eternal death with which they are struck is incurable. Their essential passion is pride; they are dominated by monstrous and stupid vanity; They find pleasure in all types of sin, they constantly revolve in them, moving from one sin to another. They grovel in the love of money, in gluttony, and in adultery. Not being able to commit carnal sins physically, they commit them in dreams and sensations; They have developed in themselves these unnatural vices incomparably more than they can be developed among people. “Falled from heaven,” says the prophet about the fallen cherub, “the rising morning star was crushed on the earth. You have said in your mind: I will ascend to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars, I will be like the Most High. Now you will go down to hell and to the foundations of the earth, you will be cast down on the mountains like a dead man” (Isa. 14:12–15, 19). 4.81 Demons do not know the future, known to the One God and to His rational creatures to whom God is pleased to reveal the future; but just as smart and experienced people foresee and predict events that are about to happen from events that have happened or are happening, so cunning, experienced crafty spirits can sometimes reliably guess and predict the future. They are often wrong; very often they lie and with unclear messages lead to bewilderment and doubt. Sometimes they can foretell an event that is already intended in the world of spirits, but has not yet been fulfilled among people: thus, before the temptations befell the righteous Job, the allowance of these temptations had already been decided in the council of God and was known to the fallen spirits (Job 1); Thus it was decided at the judgment of God, known to the holy heavenly powers and the rejected angels, the destruction of the king of Israel Ahab in the battle of the king of Israel, before the king set out on the campaign, was handed over to the evil spirit for execution (1 Kings. 22, 19–23); This is how the devil predicted to Saint John, Archbishop of Novgorod, the temptation that he subsequently brought upon him (Cheti-Minea, September 7). 3.10–11 Demons by nature have the same external appearance as Angels, that is, the appearance of a person in his body. Because of this resemblance to man, the Lord called the devil man (Matthew 13:28). Demons have distorted themselves by destroying good within themselves and by the birth and development of evil. For this reason, Scripture calls them beasts, and the chief of them a serpent (Rev. 12:9). 3.230 Demons sensual vision The holy mentors of Christian asceticism, enlightened and taught by the Holy Spirit, comprehending the beneficent and God-wise reason why human souls during their stay on earth are covered with bodies, like veils and coverings, command pious ascetics not to entrust themselves to any image or vision, if they suddenly present themselves, not to enter into conversation with them, not to pay attention to them. During such phenomena, they command us to protect ourselves with the sign of the cross, closing our eyes and, in the decisive consciousness of our unworthiness and inability to see the holy spirits, to pray to God to cover us from all the intrigues and deceptions that are cunningly placed on people by the spirits of malice, infected with inhealable hatred and envy of people. The fallen spirits hate the human race so much that if they were allowed to invisibly restrain them by the right hand of God, they would destroy us instantly. The doctrine of the above-mentioned caution and saving distrust of the manifestations of spirits is accepted by the entire Church; it is one of her moral traditions, which her children must preserve carefully and without neglect. Saints Xanthopoulos say: “Never accept if you saw anything sensually or mentally, inside or outside you, even if it was the appearance of Christ, or an Angel, or some saint, or a dream of light; but remain, not believing it and being indignant about it.” In the Prologue we read the following instruction about this: “The devil appeared to a certain monk, transformed into a bright Angel, and said to him: “I am Gabriel, sent by God to you.” The monk answered: “Look: you were sent to someone else, because I, living in sins, am not worthy to see the Angel.” Ashamed by this answer, the demon immediately disappeared.” For this reason, the elders say: if an Angel actually appears to someone, do not accept him, but humble yourself, saying: “I, living in sins, am not worthy to see an Angel.” A certain elder said about himself: “While staying and asceticizing in my cell, I saw demons in reality, but did not pay any attention to them.” The devil, seeing that he was defeated, one day came to the elder (transformed and in great light), saying: “I am Christ.” The elder, seeing him, closed his eyes and said: “I am not worthy to see Christ, who Himself said: many will come in My name, saying: I am Christ, and they will deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). The devil, hearing this, disappeared; the elder glorified God. The elders said: “Do not wish to see Christ or an Angel sensually, lest you go completely mad by accepting a wolf instead of a shepherd and worshiping your enemies, the demons.” (Such worship was given to the devil, who appeared in the form of Christ, by St. Isaac of Pechersk and suffered terribly.) The beginning of the deception of the mind is vanity: the ascetic, carried away by it, attempts to imagine the Divine with images and likenesses. 3. 46–47 Let us not satisfy empty curiosity, vain and useless curiosity. It is terrible to allow yourself to be frivolous in a holy feat; the fruit of such frivolity can be serious, irreparable damage, and often even death. Let us try to achieve poverty of spirit, crying, meekness, hunger for heavenly truth. Let us ask God to reveal our sins to us and grant us true repentance! Let us ask God to reveal our passions to us and grant us healing from them! Let us beg God to reveal to us the fall of humanity, its redemption by the God-man, the purpose of our earthly journey and the eternity awaiting us either in endless pleasures or in endless torment, so that He prepares us and makes us capable of heavenly bliss, so that He removes from us those seals and destroys those manuscripts according to which we must be cast into the prisons of hell! Let us pray to God to grant us purity and humility, the fruit of which is spiritual reasoning, accurately distinguishing good from evil! Spiritual reasoning unmasks the action of our passions, which often appears to the inexperienced and passionate as an action of the highest good and even an action of Divine grace; spiritual reasoning tears off the mask from fallen spirits, with which they try to cover themselves and their machinations. Let us ask God to grant us a spiritual vision of spirits, through which we could discern them in the thoughts and dreams they bring to us, break off communication with them in our spirit, throw off their yoke, and get rid of captivity! Our destruction lies in communication with fallen spirits and in enslavement to them. Let us refrain from ignorant, harmful desires and desires for sensual visions, outside the order established by God! With humility and reverence let us follow the teaching of the holy fathers and the tradition of the Orthodox Church! Let us reverently submit to the institution of God, who covered our souls with thick curtains and shrouds of bodies for the duration of our earthly pilgrimage, separating us with them from the created spirits, shielding and protecting us from the fallen spirits. We do not need a sensual vision of spirits to complete our earthly, difficult journey. For this we need another lamp, and it is given to us: “Your law is a lamp for my feet and a light for my paths” (Ps. 119:105). Those who travel under the constant radiance of the lamp - the Law of God - will not be deceived either by their passions or by fallen spirits, as Scripture testifies: “Peace to those who love Thy law abound, and there is no temptation for them” (Ps. 119:165). 3. 65–66 With true spiritual achievement, the grace of God, planted in us through holy Baptism, begins to heal us little by little from the blindness of the spirit through tenderness. In contrast to the state of blindness, we begin to enter into a state of seeing. Just as in the state of vision the viewer is the mind, then vision is called by the holy fathers intelligent vision, i.e. mental. Since the state of vision is brought about by the Holy Spirit, vision is also called spiritual, being the fruit of the Holy Spirit. ...The first spiritual vision is the vision of one’s sins, hitherto hidden behind oblivion and ignorance. Having seen them through emotion, the ascetic immediately receives experimental knowledge of the previous blindness of his spirit, in which what exists and existed seemed to him to be completely non-existent and non-existent. This existing thing, when tenderness recedes, again disappears into oblivion and again appears non-existent. When tenderness appears, it appears again. The ascetic experimentally moves from the consciousness of his sins to the knowledge of passions or various ailments of nature. From the vision of his fall, he gradually moves to the vision of the fall that embraces all human nature. Then the world of fallen spirits gradually opens up to him; he studies them in his passions, in the struggle with them, in the thoughts, dreams and sensations brought by spirits. The seductive and deceptive view of earthly life, which hitherto seemed endless to him, is taken away from him: he begins to see its edge - death; he begins to admire, i.e. to be transported in spirit, by feeling, to the very hour of death, to the hour of God’s impartial judgment. From his fall, he sees the need for a Redeemer, and by applying the commandments of the Lord to his ailments and seeing the healing and life-giving effect of these commandments on ailments and on the suffering soul, he acquires a living faith in the Gospel and begins to profess the Gospel with his life. In the Gospel, as if in a mirror, he sees even more clearly his fallen nature, and the fall of humanity and evil spirits. ...Fallen spirits act on us with different thoughts, different dreams, different touches. In these actions they are seen and studied. All these actions are mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Gospel depicts the devil as first putting into the heart of Judas Iscariot the thought of the tradition of the God-man (John 13:2), then ascending into Judas (John 13:27). ...That the devil tempts man with dreams is evident from the devil’s temptation of the God-man: the devil showed the Lord all the kingdoms of earth and their glory in the hour of time (Luke 4:5), i.e. in a dream. Our mind has the ability to think and the ability to imagine; through the first he assimilates the concept of objects, through the second he acquires images of objects. The devil, based on the first ability, tries to convey sinful thoughts to us, and based on the second ability, he tries to capture us with seductive images. “Just as a small and kind child,” says Saint Hesychius, “seeing some magician, has fun and follows the magician out of kindness, so our soul, simple and kind, being created this way by the All-Good Lord, is amused by the dreamy pretexts of the devil, - seduced, cleaves to evil, as if to good, and mixes (combines) its thoughts with dreams demonic excuse." Demonic daydreaming has a very harmful effect on the soul, arousing in it special sympathy for sin. Appearing often, it can make an indelible, detrimental impression. We read about how the devil acts on a person through touch in the book of Job (Job chapters 1 and 2) and in the Gospel story about a woman who was bound by Satan with a special strange illness (Luke 13:10-16). The touches of demons arouse carnal passions and give rise to diseases that are not affected by ordinary human healing. ...Spiritual vision of spirits is accomplished with the mind and heart. The heart reproves the evil spirits; the mind is not sufficient for this; he cannot distinguish by his own efforts the images of truth from the images of lies covered by images of truth. Spiritual reasoning is based on spiritual sensation, as Saint Isaac of Syria said: “Spiritual intelligence is the sensation of the eternal life” (Homily 38), or as two disciples testified about their sensation and the meaning of this sensation during a conversation with the Lord, whom they did not recognize either by sensory images or by mental consideration: is not our heart sorrowful when we say (Lord) nama on the way and whenever the nama of Scripture is spoken (Luke 24:32). This heart, which testified with fidelity to the Lord, also testifies with fidelity to the spirits and tempts them, whether they are from God (1 John 4:1) or from the kingdom of darkness and hostility. A heart purified by repentance and renewed by the Holy Spirit is capable of such testimony; but a heart captured by passions and demons is capable only of false and erroneous testimony. For this reason, the Monk Barsanuphius the Great said to a monk who asked him how to distinguish between thoughts coming from God, from nature and from demons: “What you are asking about applies to people who have reached a great measure of spiritual age. If the inner eye is not cleansed by many healings, then it cannot get rid of thorns and thistles and gather a bunch of grapes that strengthen and gladden the heart. If a person does not achieve this measure, then he cannot distinguish between these thoughts, but will be mocked by demons and fall into deception by believing them; because they change things as they please, especially for those who do not know their wiles.” Further in this message, the great father says: “Thoughts originating from demons are, first of all, filled with confusion and sadness and drag after themselves in a hidden and subtle way, for the enemies dress themselves in sheep’s clothing, i.e. They inspire thoughts that are apparently right, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15), i.e. They delight and seduce the hearts of the gentle (Rom. 16:18) with what seems good, but is actually evil. – The light that comes from demons subsequently turns into darkness. Whatever you hear, or think, or see, and at the same time your heart is troubled even by a hair, it is not from God.” In another letter, Barsanuphius the Great said: “Know, brother, that every thought that is not preceded by the silence of humility does not come from God, but clearly from the left side. Our Lord comes with quietness; nevertheless, the enemy happens with confusion and rebellion. Although (demons) are shown clothed in sheep's clothing, being inwardly ravenous wolves, they are revealed through the confusion they cause: “for it is said that by their fruit you will know them” (Matthew 7:15,16). May the Lord enlighten us all so as not to be carried away by their (imaginary) righteousness.” Let us conclude our Word with the spiritually wise instruction of St. Macarius the Great: “A lover of virtue should be very concerned about acquiring reasoning, so that he can fully distinguish good from evil, so that he can explore and learn the various demonic machinations with which the devil has the custom of corrupting the mind under the guise of good ideas. It is good to always be careful to avoid dangerous consequences. Out of frivolity, do not quickly succumb to the suggestions of spirits, even if they were heavenly angels, but remain unshakable, subjecting everything to the most careful examination, and then accept what you see as truly good, and reject what turns out to be evil. The actions of God’s grace are not implicit, which sin, even if it has assumed the appearance of good, cannot in any way give. Although, according to the apostle, Satan is transformed into a bright angel (2 Cor. 11:14) in order to deceive a person, even if he presented bright visions, then, as it is said, he cannot give a good action at all, which serves as a clear sign of it. He cannot teach either love for God and neighbor, nor meekness, nor humility, nor joy, nor peace, nor curbing thoughts, nor hatred of the world, nor spiritual peace, nor desire for heavenly gifts; below he can tame passions and lusts, which is a clear action of grace, for it is said: “The fruit of the spiritual is love, joy, peace” and so on (Gal. 5:22). On the contrary, he can conveniently convey pride and arrogance to a person, as he is very capable of this. So, you can recognize the intelligent light that has shone in your soul by its action, whether it is from God or from Satan. However, even to the soul itself, if it has sound reasoning and can distinguish between good and evil, both immediately become clear through rational feeling (spiritual sensation). Just as vinegar and wine are identical in appearance, but by taste the tongue immediately recognizes the difference between them, revealing that it is vinegar and that it is wine, so the soul, with its own strength, with its spiritual feeling, can really distinguish the gifts of the Good Spirit from the dreams of the evil one.” The heart, overshadowed by Divine grace, is resurrected into spiritual life, acquiring a spiritual sensation unknown to it in the state of the fall, in which the verbal sensations of the human heart are killed by mixing with bestial sensations... So, spiritual reasoning is the property of perfect Christians; those who have significantly succeeded in pious deeds participate in this good; it is alien to beginners and inexperienced people, even if they are old in physical age. 3. 54–62 The fallen angel, condemned to crawl on the earth, makes every effort to ensure that man constantly crawls on it. A person, due to the self-delusion nesting in him, is very prone to this. He has a feeling of his eternity, but since this feeling is damaged by a false mind and an evil conscience, then to a person his earthly life seems endless. Based on this seductive, false, disastrous consciousness, a person indulges exclusively in worries and labors about arranging his position on earth, forgetting that he is a short-term wanderer on it, that his permanent abode is either heaven or hell. The Holy Scripture speaks on behalf of fallen man to God: “My soul cleaves to the earth: live me according to Your word” (Ps. 119:25). From these words it is clear that addiction to land mortifies the soul with eternal death; she is revived by the Word of God, which, tearing her away from the earth, lifts her thoughts and feelings to heaven. “The devil,” says St. John Chrysostom about the fallen angel, “is shameless and insolent. He attacks from below. However, in this case he wins for the very reason that we don’t try to get up to where he couldn’t hurt us. For he cannot rise high, but creeps on the ground, and therefore the serpent is his image. And if God made him this way in the beginning, how much more so is he now. If you don’t know what it means to attack from below, I will try to explain to you this method of fighting. So what does it mean to attack from below? To overcome through earthly things, through pleasures, wealth and everything of life. Therefore, if the devil sees someone soaring towards the sky, then, firstly, he is not able to attack him, and, secondly, if he dares to attack, he immediately falls, because - be safe - he has no legs. Do not be afraid of him: he has no wings - he crawls only on the ground, creeps among earthly things. Have nothing to do with the land: then there will be no need for labor. The devil does not know how to fight openly, but just as a serpent hides in thorns, so he most often hides in the delights of wealth. If you cut these thorns, he will soon become timid and run away. If you know how to charm him with Divine spells, you can easily injure him. Both we and we have spiritual spells: the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the cross.” 5. 323–324 The Monk Macarius the Great says: “From the time when, through the transgression of the commandment (in paradise by the first people), evil entered man, the devil received free access to always talk to the soul, as man talks to man, and to put everything harmful into the heart.” The devil talks to a person without using his voice, but with words, because thoughts are the same words, only not spoken with a voice, not clothed in sounds, without which a person cannot communicate thoughts to another. In the same Word, the Great Macarius says: “The devil acts so cunningly that everything evil seems to us to be born of itself in the soul, and not from the action of an alien (external) spirit, evil and trying to hide.” Clear signs of the coming to us and the action of a fallen spirit on us are suddenly appearing sinful and vain thoughts and dreams, sinful sensations, the heaviness of the body and its intensified bestial demands, hardening of the heart, arrogance, vain thoughts, rejection of repentance, oblivion of death, despondency, a special disposition towards earthly pursuits. The coming of a fallen spirit to us is always associated with a feeling of confusion, darkness, and bewilderment. “Thoughts originating from demons,” said the Great Barsanuphius, “first of all, are filled with confusion and sadness and attract oneself secretly and subtly, for enemies dress in sheep’s clothing, i.e. instill thoughts, apparently, of the right, but inside they are ravening wolves (Matthew 7:15), i.e. delight and seduce the hearts of the gentle (Rom. 16:18), with what seems good, but is in fact evil...” Humble devotion to the will of God, consciousness and readiness to endure all the suffering that will be allowed by God, complete inattention and disbelief to all the words, actions and phenomena of fallen spirits destroy the entire meaning of their attempts. Their attempts receive the greatest significance when attention is paid to them and when the demons are trusted. 5. 334–336 I look at the world and see: the networks of the devil have multiplied in comparison with times that have ever existed; books containing false teaching have multiplied; minds have multiplied, containing and communicating to others false teaching; the followers of the holy Truth have diminished to the extreme; respect for natural virtues available to Jews and pagans increased; respect for virtues appeared that were downright pagan, contrary to nature itself, which looked at them as evil; the concept of Christian virtues has been diminished, not to mention how their actual fulfillment has been diminished, almost destroyed; material life has developed, spiritual life disappears; bodily pleasures and worries consume all the time - there is no time to even remember God. And all this turns into a duty, into a law. Because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will dry up, even of those who would have maintained their love for God, if evil were not so universal, if the networks of the devil had not multiplied to such innumerability. The sadness of Blessed Anthony was just. All the more just is the sadness of a Christian of these times when he sees the snares of the devil; the lamentable question is fundamental: “Lord! Which person can bypass these snares and receive salvation?” The monk’s question was answered by the Lord: “Humility escapes these nets, and they cannot even touch it.” Divine answer! How he removes all doubt from the heart, depicts in brief words the sure way to defeat our adversary, the way to dissolve and destroy his many-woven intrigues, arranged with the help of his many years and many evil experiences. Let us protect the mind with humility, not allowing it to strive indiscriminately, recklessly to acquire knowledge, no matter how its news and the importance of its titles may attract our curiosity. Let us protect him from the test of false teachings, covered with the name and guise of Christian teaching. Let us humble him into obedience to the Church, casting down every thought that is placed on the mind of Christ (2 Cor. 10:15) on the mind of the Church. At first, the narrow path of obedience to the Church is regrettable for the mind, but it leads to the breadth and freedom of the spiritual mind, before which all the imaginary inconsistencies found by the carnal and spiritual mind in exact obedience to the Church disappear. We will not allow him to read about other spiritual things, except in books written by writers of the true Church, to which the Church itself has testified that they are the organs of the Holy Spirit. “He who reads the holy writers inconspicuously communes with the Holy Spirit who dwells in them and speaks through them; He who reads heretical writers, even if they are adorned with the title of saints with their heretical hosts, becomes familiar with the evil spirit of delusion” (St. Peter of Damascus); for disobedience to the Church, in which there is pride, he falls into the snare of the world ruler. What to do with the heart? Let's graft a twig from a fruitful olive tree onto this wild olive tree, let's instill in it the properties of Christ, teach it to the humility of the Gospel, let's force it to accept the will of the Gospel. Having seen his disagreement with the Gospel, his constant contradiction, his disobedience to the Gospel, we will see in this opposition, as in a mirror, our downfall. Having seen our fall, we will mourn over it before the Lord, our Creator and Redeemer, and we will be pained by saving sorrow; We will remain in this sadness until we see our healing. “God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19) by handing it over to the enemy. God is our Creator and complete Master: He can recreate our heart, and He will transform the heart that continually cries out to Him in weeping and prayer, from a sin-loving heart into a God-loving, holy heart. Let us guard our bodily feelings, not allowing sin into the spiritual cage through them. Let us curb the curious eye and the curious ear, let us put a cruel bridle on the small member of the body, but which produces strong shocks, on our tongue; let us pacify the body’s wordless aspirations through abstinence, vigil, labor, frequent remembrance of death, and attentive, constant prayer. How short-lived are bodily pleasures! What a stink they end in! On the contrary, the body, protected by abstinence and preservation of feelings, washed with tears of repentance, sanctified by frequent prayers, is mysteriously built into the temple of the Holy Spirit, which makes all the enemy’s attempts on a person unsuccessful. Humility escapes all the snares of the devil, and they cannot even touch it. 1. 393–397 Particular attention should be paid to unlearning freedom in dealing with people, freedom, so much approved and so loved in secular societies... Insolence manifests itself in different ways: it can be expressed in words, and in the actions of the body, and in one glance. From insolence they move on to idle talk, to talk about worldly and humorous subjects, arousing obscene laughter. It is also considered insolence when someone touches his neighbor unnecessarily or puts his hand to his lips to stop his speech or laughter, when he allows himself to snatch something from his neighbor’s hands or push him, when he allows himself to look at his neighbor shamelessly. All this is considered insolence and occurs because a person does not have the fear of God in his soul. From such a state one can move little by little to complete neglect of oneself. For this reason, God, teaching the commandments that make up the law given to Moses, said: “Make the children of Israel reverent” (Lev. 15:31). Without reverence, neither true worship of God nor keeping the commandments is possible. With a daring act, the once most criminal intentions and pledge of the heart were expressed. When Judas Iscariot had already come to an agreement with the Sanhedrin about betraying the Lord, and then shamelessly reclined at the Last Supper with the other apostles, he did not stop to reach out to the vessel with salt and take the salts together with his Teacher and Lord. The Lord pointed to this act, seemingly unimportant, as a sign of a traitor (Matthew 26:23). Free circulation often occurs due to motives of people-pleasing, double-mindedness, and the weakness of moral rules and will. Protecting from these principles of free circulation, the Monk Barsanuphius the Great and his disciple John the Prophet say: “Acquire firmness, and it will remove from you freedom in dealing with your neighbors, the cause of all evil in man. If you want to get rid of shameful passions, do not treat anyone freely, especially those to whom your heart is inclined in the passion of lust. Through this you will also be freed from vanity, for vanity is mixed with people-pleasing, and with people-pleasing is free circulation, and free circulation is the mother of all passions.” “Turn away from insolence as from death” (St. Isaac of Syria). 5. 25–27 Regarding your neighbors, be guided by the following instruction of St. Isaac of Syria: “Let them better recognize you as ignorant, because of the inability of your mind to argue, and not as wise because of your shamelessness and insolence. Be poor for humility, do not be rich for insolence.” “By the power of your virtues, and not by your argumentative words, rebuke those who oppose you. With the meekness and quietness of your lips, stop the lips and silence the shamelessness of the disobedient. Reprove those who are incontinent with the nobility of your life and those who are allowed to feel by the modesty of your eyes,” the Divine word teaches, and Divine silence also teaches. 6.230 It is obvious and understandable to everyone that free circulation, which very easily and often turns into the greatest insolence and insolence, can be the cause of quarrels, anger, and memory-loathing, but not everyone knows and understands that free circulation ignites the strongest lustful passion. 5.27 In my youth and yours there were many temptations for youth, but now temptations have multiplied to infinity, passion for them has become almost universal, and resistance to them is almost invisible; for this reason, modern youth is less subject to condemnation and deserves more pity and indulgence. 6.105 Buy yourself a copy of the book “Teachings of St. Abba Dorotheos,” who trained young monks with excellent success. This book will be excellent instruction for yourself and for raising your daughter. Read the book and study it. Know that more than all your instructions in words, your life will be the strongest instruction for your daughter. 6.519 Nowadays it is necessary for every young man to educate himself satisfactorily in his youth in order to be substantially useful to the fatherland and to achieve a good position for himself. When you look at our youth, you can’t help but feel sorry for them! How flighty she is! How he doesn’t think about anything except pleasures that upset both morality and health, preparing the saddest future. It seems to me that all this is due to incorrect upbringing, which gives young people the wrong view of themselves and life. Of course, even with the most careful upbringing, nothing special can be expected from a child who is stupid or has a bad character: where there is humanity, there is evil - human society cannot do without it - however, correct upbringing, with many exceptions, can give many excellent results. 6.675 I often think: what inexplicable grief will befall those parents at the Last Judgment of Christ who will be angrily and threateningly denounced and condemned by the impartial Judge for sacrificing their children to the world and the ruler of the world! What incomparable joy will come over those parents whom this Judge will bless and praise for sacrificing their children to God, for preparing them to become residents of a bright paradise! 6.193 The Great Reverend Father Isaac of Syria says that God sent His Son into the world at a time when people were especially mired in sins, especially when they became enemies of God. From this the monk draws the conclusion that the virtue of preserving love for people when they are exposed to sins is much more exalted than when they lead a righteous life. The fulfillment of this virtue is now incumbent upon you in relation to your children. We live in a terrible age. Unbelief has gripped and is still grappling the earth; temptations have multiplied to the point of innumerability and are multiplying even more. How can young people not be shaken! Look upon them with mercy and diligently pray to God for them, entrusting them to God and surrendering them to His holy will. 6.671 We must entrust children to God in prayer and then remain at peace with our conscience, without indulging in an anxious state of mind. God is omnipotent: through the earnest and humble prayer of parents, He can give children a Christian direction. You have worked hard to raise your children, but the immutable Word of God says: Unless the Lord builds a house (not made with hands, the verbal house of God is a man, especially a Christian), laboring in vain to build it. Resort to God, and He, having purified your efforts on education through sorrows, can crown them with good success. I have noticed in many people that passion got the better of them for a while, but then the seeds of piety and good morals, sown during upbringing, took their toll. 6.673 The human soul acquires qualities corresponding to its activity. Just as a mirror depicts the objects against which it will be placed, so the soul is imprinted with impressions in accordance with its activities and deeds, in accordance with its surroundings. In an insensitive mirror, images disappear when objects are removed from the mirror; impressions remain in the verbal soul. They can be erased and replaced by others, but this requires both labor and time. The impressions that constitute the property of the soul at the hour of its death remain its property forever, serving as a guarantee of either its eternal bliss or its eternal disaster. 1.87 A useful occupation, especially a service occupation associated with responsibility, does not prevent one from maintaining attention to oneself - it guides one to such attention. Activity is a necessary path to vigilance over oneself, and this path is prescribed by the Holy Fathers for everyone who wants to learn to pay attention to themselves. 1.373 We learn from the instructions of the great Anthony to allow only those actions into the circle of our activities that have evidence from the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. 6.204 And studies about the temporal are beautiful, pleasing to God, they prepare heavenly and eternal rewards for the practitioner, when they are done for the purpose of pleasing God, for the purpose of serving others for the sake of God, for the sake of holy love for the Lord and common benefit. I particularly like the apostle’s likening of Christian society to the human body, of which different members perform such diverse ministries and actions, but all together make up one common action - the ministry of the body, and one member cannot say to another, for example, an ear to an eye: “I don’t need you.” 6.819 St. Barsanuphius the Great wrote to St. John, who, before entering silence, had to bother and work for the organization of the monastery, for which he traveled from Palestine to Egypt: “Do not lose heart in the sorrows and physical labors that you bear, working for us and for the sake of our community, for this also means laying down your soul for your brothers. I hope that the reward for this work will be great.” 6.727 Currently, the seat of the devil, the head of the fallen angels, is the abyss, tartarus, hell, the underworld, and the interior of the earth. The holy prophet Isaiah foretold this dwelling to the fallen archangel: “You will descend into hell,” he told him, “and into the foundations of the earth” (Is. 14:15). The prediction was fulfilled over the prince of the air power by the power and authority of the Savior of men, the God-man. The Savior is that great Angel - God, who has the key of the abyss, who came down from heaven and, becoming human, used his human flesh, this great thing (rope), spreading it on the cross, to bind the serpent, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan. The Lord bound Satan for the entire space of time between His two comings, and shut him into the abyss, and imprisoned him, and sealed him under him. Being imprisoned and sealed in a material prison, the devil must necessarily have a material nature, otherwise no material prison could hold him. Before the second coming of the Lord, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the tongues that are in the four corners of the earth (Rev. 20:1-7, cf. 1:18). 3. 232–233 From the lives of the saints, it is clear, according to the story of the Apocalypse, that the head of the fallen angels - Satan - resides in hell, and demons act on the earth's surface under the control of their princes, that is, fallen angels from the highest ranks. Demons descend into hell to receive orders and instructions from Satan, report to him about their actions and everything that happens on the surface of the earth. One day, a demon apparently appeared to Saint Andrew and made a prediction about the spiritual and moral disorder of Christians, which should corrupt Christianity in the last times. “In those days,” said the demon, “people will be more evil than me, and small children will surpass old people in cunning. Then I will begin to rest! Then I won’t teach people anything! They, of themselves, will do my will!” Saint Andrew said to the demon: “How do you know this? After all, the demon knows nothing by foreknowledge.” The demon answered: “Our cleverest father, Satan, being in hell, fortune-tells about everything through sorcery and passes it on to us; but we ourselves don’t know anything.” 3.244 Holy truth is communicated to the heart by silence, calmness, clarity, peace, a disposition toward repentance, toward deepening into oneself, toward hopelessness [in oneself], toward consoling hope in God. A lie, even if clothed in the guise of good, is recognized by the confusion, darkness, uncertainty, changeability, entertainment, and dreaminess it produces; or she only seduces the heart - flatteringly brings him contentment, self-nourishment, some kind of vague, muddy pleasure. 6.358 The human mind is not able to distinguish good from evil; disguised evil easily, almost always, deceives him. And this is very natural: the human mind is young, and those who fight it with evil thoughts have more than seven thousand years of experience in struggle, in deceit, in catching human souls. Distinguishing good from evil belongs to the heart - this is its business. But again it takes time, it takes sharpening of the Gospel Commandments for the heart to acquire the subtlety of taste for distinguishing whole wine from counterfeit wine. That it is the work of the heart to distinguish good from evil and that the heart does not suddenly acquire the ability to do the work that belongs to it, the apostle testified to both: But those who are perfect have solid food,” he said, “those who have senses are trained by long teaching in the judgment of good and evil (Heb. 5:14). That is why, until the heart acquires the skill of distinguishing good from evil, the experienced advice of a neighbor - a student of the Eastern Church, the only saint, the only true - who seeks and finds blessed freedom in obedience to it, is very useful. “From obedience,” said St. John Climacus, - true humility is born; from humility - true spiritual reasoning, or reason." So, outside the unwavering obedience of the Church there is neither true humility nor true reason; there is a vast area, a dark kingdom of lies and the self-delusion it produces. Good is distinguished from evil by many signs that are learned as one progresses spiritually. 6. 358–359 One must succeed so much in goodness that one must immediately, with a spiritual sense of the heart, recognize the approaching evil, no matter how covered up and disguised it may be, and immediately, with courageous determination, reject it. 6.454 Keep yourself from the snares placed outside and inside a person and covered in every possible way with the semblance of truth, but recognizable by the peace they take away from the soul. 6.833 When studying and studying the Gospel Commandments, it is necessary to observe with all vigilance and sobriety the desires and desires of the heart. With strict vigilance, it will be possible for us to analyze our desires and inclinations. From skill and from the fear of God, this analysis turns into a natural exercise. Not only every desire and attraction that is clearly contrary to the Gospel Commandments must be rejected, but also all desires and attractions that violate the peace of the heart. Everything flowing from the Divine will is accompanied by holy peace, according to the experimental teaching of the holy fathers; on the contrary, everything accompanied by confusion has its origin in sin, even if outwardly it seems to be the highest good. 4.264 The good of the gospel and the fallen nature “Good things can neither be believed nor acted on except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit,” said St. Mark the Ascetic. 1.307 Only those deeds in a Christian are recognized as good deeds, which serve as the fulfillment of the Gospel Commandments, with which his faith is nourished and lives, with which his life in Christ is supported, because the only figure in Christianity must be Christ. A baptized person does not have the right to act on the impulse of heartfelt feelings, depending on the influence of flesh and blood on the heart, no matter how good these feelings may seem; only those good deeds are accepted from him, to the accomplishment of which the Spirit of God and the Word of God excite the heart, which belong to the nature renewed by Christ. 1.499 When a person has not yet tasted the highest good, then his own good, defiled by sin, has value before him. When he partakes of the Divine, spiritual good, then his own good, combined and mixed with evil, is priceless before him. Precious for the beggar is the mesh of coppers collected by him over a long period of time with difficulty and fatigue. The rich man unexpectedly poured a countless number of pure ducats into its bowels, and the beggar threw the bag of copper coins with contempt, as if it were a burden that was only weighing him down. 1.537 “Know for sure,” said Saint Isaac of Syria, “that every good that works in you mentally and in secret was the mediator of Baptism and Faith, by which you were called by our Lord Jesus Christ for His good works.” 2. 397–398 Let us follow, brothers, the teachings of Christ! Let us follow the lifestyle, behavior, and way of thinking of the holy saints of God! For our salvation, let us not stop renouncing our fallen nature! For true self-love, let’s reject deceptive self-love, our self-love! For saving activity according to the Commandments of the Gospel, let us reject from ourselves activity according to the laws of the fallen nature, beloved for the world, hostile to God! Let us hate imaginary good deeds that arise from the false mind, from the movements of the blood, from the feelings of the heart, no matter how sublime, immaculate, and holy our feelings and thoughts may seem to us. These things are only capable of developing in us harmful conceit, pride, and self-delusion. They do not enlighten the eyes of the soul, as the commandment of the Lord enlightens them (Ps. 18:9); on the contrary, they strengthen the blindness of the soul, making this blindness incurable. Those who create them will go into eternal torment, as those who create the good of a fallen nature, good, always mixed with evil, desecrated good, from which the Lord, as from satanic abomination, turns away His all-holy gaze. To perform the good deeds of fallen nature, you do not need to be a Christian: they belong to all fallen humanity. Where the good deeds of the fallen nature are performed, with the thunder of praise from the world, the Savior of the world is excluded and rejected. Works of faith, works of salvation, or, what is the same, the fulfillment of the Gospel Commandments belong to Christians alone. “Good,” said St. Mark the Ascetic about true good, “cannot be believed or acted upon, except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” Fulfillment of the Gospel Commandments introduces a person into true knowledge of God and self-knowledge, into true love for oneself, for one’s neighbor, for God, into communication with God, which develops the more abundantly the more diligently and accurately the Gospel commandments are fulfilled. Communication with God, granted to a Christian even during his earthly wanderings, is a guarantee of heavenly and eternal bliss. This pledge itself testifies to its fidelity - it testifies so clearly and strongly that many, in order to preserve it, decided to submit to the greatest sorrows and preferred it to temporary life. Pathetic, sad is the blindness with which the proud world contemptuously looks at the affairs of the Christian faith, with which it pronounces an insane judgment about them and a sentence that is deadly for the world. How insignificant the works of faith seem to the world in comparison with the loud and picturesque works of the world! What kind of good deed, apparently, is the consciousness of one’s sinfulness, for which the mercy of God was poured out on the tax collector? (Luke 18:10-14) What kind of good deed, apparently, is repentance, through which the greatest sinners were reconciled with God and inherited eternal bliss? What kind of good deed is the confession of Christ, a confession expressed in a few, simplest words? And expressed by whom? Expressed by an executed robber. These few simple words brought the thief into heaven, accomplished what all the brilliant virtues of all mankind could not and cannot accomplish. “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”; Activities according to the Gospel seem just as meaningless to them. “To us who are being saved, both the Word of the Cross and activity according to the Gospel are the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18), healing and saving our souls (Luke 6:19). The Holy Fathers of all times constantly expressed their attitude to God's revealed teaching with the word “I believe.” In modern society, which calls itself predominantly educated and Christian, the expression of a heartfelt attitude, a guarantee of Divine Revelation in the words “I think,” is constantly heard. Where did these pledges and words come from? From ignorance of Christianity. It is a sad sight when a son of the Eastern Church talks about the Christian faith outside the teachings of his Church, is contrary to its Divine teachings, talks willfully, ignorantly, and blasphemously. Isn’t such reasoning a renunciation of the Church, of Christianity? Let us fear our ignorance, which leads us to eternal destruction; Let's study Christianity; let us love obedience to the Holy Church, the beloved work of all who have knowledge of the Christian faith. Let us become diligent fulfillers of the Gospel Commandments; Let us fulfill them like unstoppable servants (Luke 17:10), who must fulfill their duty, constantly sinning in fulfilling it or doing it very insufficiently. Let the Gospel lead us to good deeds, and not the movement of blood and nerves. Let us learn to perform virtues with humility, and not with ardor, which is certainly accompanied and promoted by vanity and arrogance or pride. When the Lord pours into us the holy coolness of humility, and its action stops the waves of heartfelt feelings, then we will understand that the ardor that performs sublime and loud human virtues is flesh and blood, unable to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven (1 Cor. 15:50). 2. 359–361 If any good thought comes to you, stop; Do not rush to fulfill it recklessly or thoughtlessly. If you feel any good attraction in your heart, stop; don’t dare to get carried away by him. Master the Gospel. Consider whether your good thought and your good desire of heart agree with the all-holy teaching of the Lord. You will soon see that there is no agreement between the good of the Gospel and the good of fallen human nature. The good of our fallen nature is mixed with evil, and therefore this good itself has become evil, just as tasty and healthy food becomes poison when it is mixed with poison. Be careful to do the good of fallen nature! By doing this good, you will develop your fall, you will develop conceit and pride, and you will achieve the closest resemblance to demons. On the contrary, by doing the good of the Gospel, as a true and faithful disciple of the God-man, you will become like the God-man. In our age, proud of their success, the majority of people, proclaiming themselves Christians and doers of the most abundant good, rushed to perfect the truth of fallen nature, rejecting the truth of the Gospel with contempt. Let this majority hear the definition of the Lord: “These people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me, but their heart is far from Me. But they honor Me in vain, with teaching, the commandment of men” (Matthew 15:8-9). The worker of human truth is filled with conceit, arrogance, and self-delusion; he preaches, trumpets about himself, about his deeds, not paying any attention to the Lord’s prohibition (Matthew 6:1-18); pays with hatred and vengeance those who would dare to open their mouths for the most thorough and well-intentioned contradiction of his truth; recognizes himself as worthy and worthy of earthly and heavenly rewards. On the contrary, the worker of the Gospel Commandments is always immersed in humility: comparing his fulfillment of them with the sublimity and purity of the all-holy commandments, he constantly recognizes this fulfillment as extremely insufficient, unworthy of God; he sees himself as deserving of temporary and eternal punishment for his sins, for unbroken communication with Satan, for the fall common to all people, for his own stay in the fall, and finally, for the most insufficient and often perverse fulfillment of the commandments. Before every sorrow sent by the Providence of God, he bows his head with humility, knowing that God teaches and forms his servants through sorrows during their earthly journey. He has mercy on his enemies and prays for them, as for brothers carried away by demons, as for members of a single body, stricken with illness in their spirit, as for his benefactors, as for instruments of God’s Providence. 5. 45–47 More than one “Philokalia” has been used for evil! The Scriptures of the Holy Apostle Paul were used for evil, as Supreme Peter himself testified. All Holy Scripture has been used for evil by heretics. The Divine Gospel itself has been used and is still being used for evil, for their destruction, by many millions of Protestants, interpreting it incorrectly and dishonestly, as if it were moving away from unity with the Universal Church, forming a separate soul-destroying heretical host, which they dare to call the Church of the Evangelical. The Apostle Paul testifies that they are the apostles, the fragrance of Christ is of God in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing: we have the stench of death in death; we have the stench of animals in the belly. Even about the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy God-Receiver Simeon said: Behold, this One lies for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, and is a sign that can be contradicted. Saint Isaac of Syria in the 54th word says: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. What follows from this? Because this Word of the Cross seemed like foolishness to those who did not feel the power of this Word; then should Paul have been silent and stopped preaching? But even to this day, the cross serves as a reason for stumbling and temptation for Jews and Greeks. So, should one remain silent so that these will not be offended? Paul not only did not remain silent, but cried out: Let me not boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The praise of the Cross was told here by the holy Apostle not in order to seduce others, but in order to proclaim the great power of the Cross! Divine good should not be rejected if some or many have used it for evil. 6. 251–252 1. Abstinence. Avoidance of excessive consumption of food and drink, especially excessive consumption of wine. Precise keeping of fasts established by the Church. Curbing the flesh with moderate and constantly equal consumption of food, from which all passions in general begin to weaken, and especially self-love, which consists of a wordless love of the flesh, the belly and its peace. 2. Chastity. Avoidance of all kinds of fornication. Avoidance of voluptuous conversations and reading, from the pronunciation of nasty, voluptuous, ambiguous words. Storing the senses, especially sight and hearing, and even more so the sense of touch. Rejection of the thoughts and dreams of prodigals. Silence. Silence. Ministry to the sick and disabled. Memories of death and hell. The beginning of chastity is an unwavering mind from lustful thoughts and dreams; the perfection of chastity is purity that sees God. 3. Non-covetousness. Satisfying yourself with one thing necessary. Hatred of luxury and bliss. Mercy for the poor. Loving the poverty of the gospel. Trust in God's Providence. Following Christ's commandments. Calmness and freedom of spirit. Carelessness. Softness of heart. 4. Meekness. Avoidance of angry thoughts and indignation of the heart with rage. Patience. Following Christ, who calls his disciple to bear the cross. Peace of the heart. Silence of the mind. Christian firmness and courage. Not feeling insulted. Kindness. 5. Blessed crying. A feeling of decline, common to all people, and of one’s own spiritual poverty. Lamentation about them. Cry of the mind. Painful contrition of the heart. Vegetating from them is lightness of conscience, gracious consolation and joy. Hope in God's mercy. Thanks be to God in sorrows, humbly enduring them from the sight of your many sins. Willingness to endure. Cleansing the mind. Relief from passions. Mortification of the world. The desire for prayer, solitude, obedience, humility, confession of one’s sins. 6. Sobriety. Zeal for every good deed. Non-slothful correction of church and cell rules. Attention when praying. Careful observation of all your deeds and thoughts. Extreme self-distrust. Continuous stay in prayer and the Word of God. Awe. Constant vigilance over oneself. Keeping yourself from a lot of sleep, effeminacy, idle talk, jokes and sharp words. Love of night vigils, bows and other feats that bring cheerfulness to the soul. Rare, if possible, departure from the cell. Remembrance of eternal blessings, desire and expectation of them. 7. Humility. Fear of God. Feeling it during prayer. Fear that arises during especially pure prayer, when the presence and greatness of God are especially strongly felt, so as not to disappear and turn into nothing. Deep knowledge of one's insignificance. A change in the view of one’s neighbors, whereby they, without any coercion, seem to the humbled person to be superior to him in all respects. The manifestation of simplicity from living faith. Hatred of human praise. Constant blaming and beating yourself up. Rightness and directness. Impartiality. Deadness to everything. Tenderness. Knowledge of the mystery hidden in the Cross of Christ. The desire to crucify oneself to the world and passions, the desire for this crucifixion. Rejection and oblivion of flattering customs and words, modest due to compulsion, or intent, or the skill of pretending. Perception of the riot of the gospel. Rejection of earthly wisdom as indecent for heaven. Contempt for everything that is high in men and an abomination before God (Luke 16:15). Leaving word justification. Silence before those who offend, studied in the Gospel. Putting aside all your own speculations and accepting the mind of the Gospel. The casting down of every thought placed upon the mind of Christ. Humility or spiritual reasoning. Conscious obedience to the Church in everything. 8. Love. Changing during prayer the fear of God into the love of God. Fidelity to the Lord, proven by the constant rejection of every sinful thought and feeling. The indescribable, sweet attraction of the whole person with love for the Lord Jesus Christ and for the worshiped Holy Trinity. Seeing the image of God and Christ in others; resulting from this spiritual vision, the preference for oneself over all neighbors and their reverent veneration for the Lord. Love for neighbors is brotherly, pure, equal to everyone, impartial, joyful, flaming equally towards friends and enemies. Admiration for prayer and love of the mind, heart and whole body. Indescribable pleasure of the body with spiritual joy. Spiritual intoxication. Relaxation of bodily members with spiritual consolation. Inactivity of the bodily senses during prayer. Resolution from the muteness of the heart's tongue. Stopping prayer from spiritual sweetness. Silence of the mind. Enlightening the mind and heart. Prayer power that overcomes sin. Peace of Christ. Retreat of all passions. The absorption of all understandings into the superior mind of Christ. Theology. Knowledge of incorporeal beings. The weakness of sinful thoughts that cannot be imagined in the mind. Sweetness and abundant consolation in times of sorrow. Vision of human structures. The depth of humility and the most humiliating opinion of oneself. 1. 171–173 The Holy Fathers said that virtue without sorrow is not virtue. The Lord speaks in the Gospel (Luke 8:15), explaining the parable of the seed that fell when sown on various soils: “And those who are on the good earth, these are those who have heard the word with a good heart and are good, and bear fruit with patience.” 6.169 Your virtues must certainly have an admixture of impurity, which comes from our weaknesses. One should not demand more from one’s soul, from one’s heart, than what they can give. If you demand beyond your strength, they will go bankrupt, but they can give a moderate rent until your death; being content with it, you will complete yourself until death and will not die of hunger. 6.174 Listen to the following sacred story: “A certain brother came to the great holy Pimen and complained that he saw an admixture of sin in his good deeds. The elder told him the following parable: two farmers lived in the same place. One of them sowed some grain, although unclean, and the other, giving in to laziness, did not sow anything. When the harvest came, the first one collected enough bread, although unclean, but the second one did not collect anything. Which of the two farmers will have food? The brother answered: “The one who sowed and gathered some bread, although unclean.” The elder answered: “Let us also sow little by little, even if it is unclean, so as not to die of hunger.” God granted you a faithful look at your heart when, looking into it, you saw in it a mixture of the spiritual and the spiritual. The above story can already comfort you enough: you see why it is given. For greater consolation, hear the following: God alone can bestow holy purity of heart on those who believe in Him and resort to Him through repentance. He does not require from us, who are just beginning the procession to Him, this high purity, alien to all stains. Purity is preceded by sight and awareness of one's impurity. And this is already a gift of God, for the receipt of which we pray with kneeling: “Lord, grant me to see my sins!” But he who sees his uncleanness must mourn it and ask the all-powerful and all-good Doctor for healing. 6.408–409 Studying virtues that do not correspond to the way of life makes life fruitless. And life is exhausted in vain, and virtues disappear: the soul cannot keep them with itself for long, it must soon leave them, because they are beyond its power. Such exercise in sublime virtues, which exceeds one’s strength and ability, often damages the soul beyond healing, upsets it for a long time, sometimes for life, and makes it incapable of deeds of piety. The Lord commanded new wine, i.e. sublime virtues and exploits, pour new ones into the wineskin, i.e. to provide to ascetics, already matured in pious deeds, renewed and enlightened by grace. He forbade pouring new wine into old wineskins, or repairing an old robe with a new patch. Do not think that a sublime feat for which your soul is not yet ripe will help you! No! He will upset you more: you will have to leave him, and despondency, hopelessness, gloom, and bitterness will appear in your soul. In such a disposition, you will allow yourself greater violations of the law of God than you fell into before. An old robe is not patched with a new one, because this will only make the hole bigger. 6. 427–428 The all-perfect God looks down on all of us humans. Before His infinite goodness, human goodness disappears, which is so imperfect that, according to a very fair verdict of some holy father, it can rather be called a distortion of the law of God. And the most virtuous Abraham is praised for his virtues before men, but not before God. Before God, faith in God, who makes up for human shortcomings, is considered a virtue. Then only God accepts our virtues when they are witnesses of faith; in themselves they are not worthy of God. “All righteousness is ours,” said the holy prophet Isaiah, “like the port of a harlot’s wife.” For this reason, God, looking at our hearts, favors only the humble hearts, filled with the consciousness of their sinfulness, filled with repentance, confessing the insignificance of their natural good, the damage of its fall, bringing him the desire for spiritual good. A person can do natural good with his own strength; and spiritual virtues in a person are a gift from a merciful God, who bestows this gift on the poor in spirit, hungry and thirsty for the truth of Christ. Blessed are you who have known the difference between spiritual and spiritual virtues; between the virtues characteristic of the New Adam alone and the virtues of which the Old Adam is capable; between the virtues of the Gospel and the virtues of our fallen nature, virtues that are not alien to idolaters, Mohammedans and all other people who have deviated from following the holy Truth. 6.457 (See Good deeds, Sorrow, Feat, Keeping the mind). Whoever rejects even one dogma from the teachings of Christ denies Christ... If you allow your mind to object to the teachings of Christ, it will find thousands of thousands of them: it is inexhaustible - when we allow it to become infected with hostility towards Christ. Little by little he will reject all Christian dogmas! This is not news - this is the fruit of unbridled, arbitrary judgment; How many atheists and blasphemers have appeared from him in the world! Outwardly, to inexperienced eyes, they seemed like brilliant minds that broke chains, went free, discovered the truth and showed it to other people. But the consequences showed that their imaginary truth is the most terrible, most destructive delusion. Streams of blood washed false thoughts - and the thought was not cleansed by this bath! It’s scary to stain a thought with a lie: human blood is not able to wash away these fierce stains. For such a washing, humanity needed the blood of the God-man. It received this blood, washed itself in it, cleansed itself! Holded by the hand of faith, it came into the light of true knowledge of God and self-knowledge - it came out there from the deep, dark abyss of the carnal, false mind. This mind calls man back into the abyss - and man heeds the murderous call! What's so wonderful? Man retained his character: in paradise, filled with the fragrance and pleasure of the Divine, he did not stop entrusting his attention to the flattering words of the devil. My friend! You are a Christian, a member of the Orthodox Eastern Church; remain faithful to the spiritual body of which you are a member, maintain union with the Holy Church to which you belong, preserve your spiritual dignity as a priceless treasure. Because of your weakness, do not go into judgment about dogmas: this is a deep abyss, a dangerous sea; Many inexperienced and arrogant swimmers drowned in it. Safely, with the hope of abundant spiritual gain, only those who have been fed by the mind in the right hand of the Spirit can swim and rush along the wonderful waves of Theology. On the advice of St. Apostle Paul, cast away every thought that is placed on the mind of Christ. Do not enter into an argument or reasoning with doubts and objections generated by false reason; cut off the heads of these snakes with the sword of faith, as soon as they put these heads out of their lair! This is a straightforward matter, the right thing! A deed worthy of one who was once and forever united with Christ. Before the union, reasoning takes place; Once the union is concluded, it is already a crime. Nothing, nothing violates or shakes your loyalty!.. One who has not entered into an alliance is more tolerable than a traitor. With humility, bow your neck to the good yoke, lead a pious life, go to church more often, read the New Testament and the writings of the Holy Fathers, do good to your neighbors; in due time, the Divine teaching of Christ, from which holiness and truth breathes, will be assimilated in your soul. Then no doubts will come to her. Christ's teaching is above natural, as Divine, it is approachable to the human mind through faith alone. It is a crazy undertaking to explain the supernatural by human reasoning, which obviously cannot leave the general, ordinary, natural circle. The consequences of a crazy undertaking: inconsistency, countless objections, rejection of the unnatural, even if this unnatural was Divine. People in their actions mostly contradict themselves! They take care of their eyes so that the eyes do not become clogged, but they do not at all think of protecting their mind - this eye of the soul - they litter it with all sorts of rubbish. The Lord commanded to keep the mind, because it is the leader of man. If the mind goes astray from the true path, a person’s whole life becomes a delusion. To stray from the true path, you need little: one false thought. “When your eye is simple,” says the Savior, “your whole body will be light; but when you are evil, your body will be dark. Observe slaughter, food is light, and there is darkness in you” (Luke 11:34–35). We do not observe this all-holy testament at all; We do not observe that our light, i.e. the mind has not become darkness, we throw all sorts of things into it; it becomes decidedly darkness and spreads darkness over all our behavior, throughout our entire lives. Why should thoughts be born in your soul that are hostile to God—thoughts of destructive unbelief and superstition? You have certainly read various empty foreign books, listened to various unfounded judgments about religion, with which our time is so rich, so poor in true religious knowledge. “Nothing leads a person to blasphemy more than reading heretical books,” said Isaac of Syria. Give up this disorderly reading, which fills the mind with confused and perverse concepts, depriving it of firmness, independence, correct view, leading to a state of skeptical hesitation. Engage in a thorough study of the Holy Fathers. Do you belong to this Church? It's your duty to get to know her properly. Look how firmly the heterodox in the West know their religion! True, it is less difficult for them to gain a detailed knowledge of their faith. The papist only believed in the pope as God - he did everything: he is a papist to perfection! He can be crazy as much as he wants! A Protestant only doubts the entire tradition, protests against the entire teaching of Christ, however, retaining the name of a Christian for himself - he has done everything: he is completely Protestant. Having achieved such perfection, both the Roman and the Protestant write multi-volume works; their creations are loaded onto ships and sent to Russia to find readers. Don’t read what these people wrote without understanding what they write. You know so little, according to the general current fashion, of the Christian religion that you can very easily adopt some false thought and damage your soul with it. 6. 400–403 Those who are not guided by faith in their actions and violate the integrity of conscience by arbitrarily deviating into sins will not be able to maintain their knowledge of dogmas in due purity and correctness; this knowledge, like knowledge about God, necessarily requires purity of mind, which is characteristic only of the well-behaved and chaste. 2.137 Only that friendship is true and strong which is founded and cemented by Christ. 6.656 (See Love for neighbor, Neighbor's weakness, External behavior). (See Image and Likeness, Jesus Prayer - Place of the Heart). Priesthood and obedience Blessed is the beginner who finds a trustworthy adviser in our time! “Know,” exclaims St. Simeon the New Theologian, “that in our times many false teachers and deceivers have appeared!” This was the situation of Christianity and monasticism eight centuries before us. What can we say about the current situation? This is almost what St. Ephraim of Syria said about the position of those who will seek the living Word of God in the last times. They will, prophesies the Reverend, cross the earth from east to west and from north to south, looking for such a word, and they will not find it. Just as tall houses and long streets appear to the weary eyes of those lost within the walls, which causes the lost to be drawn into an even greater, inextricable delusion, so those who seek the living Word of God in the present moral desert are presented with a multitude of magnificent ghosts of the word and teaching of God, erected from the spiritual mind, from an insufficient and false knowledge of the letter, from the mood of the rejected spirits, the rulers of the world. These ghosts, flatteringly appearing as a spiritual Eden, abundant in food, light, life, distract the soul with their deceptive appearance from true food, from true light, from true life, lead the unfortunate soul into impenetrable darkness, exhaust with hunger, poison with lies, kill with eternal death. 1.283 The word of spirit-bearing men, notes one great mentor of ascetics, is similar to the word of the elderly Jacob: with their words they convey to their listeners the spiritual power that lives in them, acquired by them in the struggle with sin, victories over the invisible Amorites - thoughts and feelings of viciousness. 2.44 In the time of St. Nile of Sora, three centuries before us, living vessels of Divine grace were extremely rare, they became extremely scarce, as he put it: now they are so rare that one can, without stopping, unmistakably say: they do not exist. It is recognized as a special mercy of God if someone, exhausted in soul and body in monastic life, at the end of this life unexpectedly finds, somewhere in the wilderness, a vessel chosen by the impartial God, humiliated in the eyes of men, exalted and exalted by God. So Zosima found, beyond all hope, the great Mary in the deserted desert beyond Jordan. Due to this final impoverishment of spiritual mentors, the books of the fathers constitute the only source to which a soul tormented by hunger and thirst can turn to in order to acquire the essential knowledge in spiritual feats. These books are the dearest legacy left by the holy fathers to their monastic offspring, to us, the poor. These books are crumbs that fell to us and constitute our share, crumbs from the spiritual meal of fathers rich in spiritual gifts. 2.255 In my opinion, a great virtue in a confessor is simplicity, unswerving adherence to the teachings of the Church, alien to any of his own speculations. Some are strict, some are smart; but those who are strict and intelligent in their own way are not suitable for spiritual edification. And a strict, and intelligent, and merciful, and forbearing, and a simple-hearted, but faithful son of the Church, can be equally useful. 6. 686–687 True obedience is obedience to God, the One God. He who cannot alone, by himself, submit to this obedience, takes as an assistant a person to whom obedience to God is more familiar. But people with strong impulses cannot, because the impulses carry them away. St. John Climacus said: “The Fathers determined that psalmody is a weapon, prayer is a wall, an immaculate tear is a laver, and blessed obedience, confession, without which none of the passionate will see the Lord.” If a leader begins to seek obedience to himself, and not to God, he is not worthy to be the leader of his neighbor! He is not a servant of God - a servant of the devil, his tool, his network! Do not be a slave (1 Cor. 7:23), the apostle bequeaths. 6.303–304 Do not tire yourself in vain by searching for mentors: our time, rich in false teachers, is extremely poor in spiritual mentors. They are replaced for the ascetic by the scriptures of the fathers. Train yourself by reading them and praying in contrition of spirit. Try to find a good, conscientious confessor. If you find him, be pleased: nowadays conscientious confessors are a great rarity. Many place heavy burdens on their neighbors, but there are few who would teach and help bear the burdens. 6.334 Society and conversation with pious people bring significant benefits. But for advice, for leadership, it is not enough to be pious; one must have spiritual experience, and most of all, spiritual anointing. This is the opinion of Scripture and the Fathers on this subject. A pious but inexperienced advisor is more likely to confuse than to benefit. Not only from among the laity, but from among the monastics it is extremely difficult to find an adviser who, so to speak, would measure and weigh the soul consulting with him, and from it, from its property, would give it advice. Nowadays, advisors and leaders teach advice more from themselves and from a book. And the first piece of advice is especially useful and valid: it is close to the soul seeking shelter under the shadow of advice - its own: it feels it. St. Isaac said: “Nothing is more useful to everyone than his own advice.” And alien advice, although apparently consisting of good and reasonable words, brings only torment and frustration to the soul. She feels his incongruity, feels that he is alien to her. “The essence,” says the Scripture, “those who speak pierce like swords; the nations of the wise heal” (Proverbs 12:18). Resort to reading the holy fathers more: let them guide you, remind you of virtue, and guide you on the path of God. This way of living belongs to our times: it was commanded, handed down to us by the holy fathers of later centuries. Complaining about the extreme lack of God-enlightened mentors and advisers, they command the zealot of piety to be guided in his life by the scriptures of his fathers. “The counsel of the saints is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). 6. 368–369 What does monastic virtue mean - obedience? It is the recognition of human reason as fallen and therefore its rejection by the violence of faith. From faith comes obedience, from obedience comes humility, from humility comes spiritual intelligence, which is communicated faith. Monastic obedience flourished with an abundance of spiritual mentors. With the scarcity of mentors, the great feat of obedience, which soon led ascetics to holiness, also became scarce; faith, which constituted the essence of this feat, requires that its object be true and spiritual - then it leads to God. Faith in a person leads to frenzied fanaticism. The guidance of the writings of the holy fathers is much slower, weaker; There are many more stumbling blocks on this path: a book written on paper cannot replace a living book of a person. A wonderful book - a mind and heart written with the Holy Spirit! That's how life pours out of her! This is how this life is communicated to those who listen with faith. But guidance from the scriptures of the fathers has become the only guide to salvation due to the final impoverishment of mentors. Whoever submits to this guidance can be recognized as already saved; whoever is led by his own understanding or by the teachings of false teachers must be considered lost. 6. 439–440 Let your heart belong to the One Lord, and in the Lord also to your neighbor. Without this condition, belonging to a person is scary. “Do not be a slave,” said the apostle. The words of St. always touched me to the depths of my heart. John the Baptist, spoken by him regarding the Lord and himself, preserved for us in the Gospel of John: “If you have a bride,” says the holy Forerunner, “there is a groom: and the friend of the grooms, standing and listening to him, rejoices with joy for the voice of the grooms: this is my joy being fulfilled. It is fitting for him to grow, but for me to grow small” (John 3:29-30). Every spiritual mentor must be only a servant of the Heavenly Bridegroom, must lead souls to Him, and not to himself, must proclaim to them about the infinite, ineffable beauty of Christ, about His immeasurable goodness and power; let them love Christ as truly worthy of love. And let the mentor, like the great and humble Baptist, stand aside, recognize himself as nothing, rejoice in his humiliation in front of his disciples, humiliation, which serves as a sign of their spiritual success. As long as the carnal feeling prevails in the disciples, their mentor is great before him, but when the spiritual feeling appears in them and Christ is magnified in them, they see in their mentor only the beneficent weapon of God. Protect yourself from becoming attached to your mentor. Many were not careful and fell, together with their mentors, into the snare of the devil. Counsel and obedience are pure and pleasing to God only as long as they are not polluted by partiality. Addiction makes a loved one an idol; God turns away with anger from the sacrifices made to this idol. And life is wasted in vain, good deeds perish, like fragrant incense carried by a strong whirlwind or drowned out by a stinking stench. Do not give any idol a place in your heart. And you, mentor, guard yourself from sinful endeavors! Do not replace God with yourself for the soul that has come running to you. Follow the example of the holy Forerunner: seek only for Christ to be magnified in your disciples. When He is exalted, you will be humbled; Seeing yourself diminished because of the increased Christ, be filled with joy. From such behavior, a wonderful peace will be brought to your heart, you will see in yourself the fulfillment of the words of Christ: he who humbles himself will be exalted. 6.448–449 The lack of spiritual edification must be recognized as the greatest disaster. And this disaster will not be seen soon! It doesn’t take long for it to become clear to a monk! The novice, overwhelmed by jealousy, in which blood is of great importance and spiritual reason is of very little importance, is usually content with the edification that he encounters in the monastery or that he wants to give to himself. Later, with the most careful study of the Holy Scriptures and paternal writings, it gradually becomes clear to ascetics, and even then only a few, that spiritual edification is necessary for monastic success, that spiritual edification, no matter how luxurious and magnificent it may be in appearance, no matter how glorified by the blind world, remains in darkness and keeps those who follow it in darkness, in the region of fallen spirits ( James 3:15). Saint Isaac of Syria says: “There is another dignity of the word from spiritual experience, and another dignity of the eloquent word. Learning knows how to decorate its words without having studied the matter experimentally; she knows how to talk magnificently about the truth, without knowing the truth; She knows how to talk at length about virtue, without ever tasting its knowledge from practicing it. A word from spiritual experience is a treasury of hope, and learning without experienced knowledge is a guarantee of shame. He who utters a word that is not based on experimental knowledge is like an artist depicting springs of water on the walls - and this water cannot quench his thirst - like someone who sees beautiful dreams. He who speaks of virtue from his own experiences teaches the word to his listeners, as if someone were giving alms from property acquired with his own money: he sows the word in the hearts of those who listen to him, as if from his own acquisition; he opens his mouth with boldness before his spiritual children, like the ancient Jacob, who said to the chaste Joseph: “Behold, I give you one portion above your brethren, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow (Gen. 48:22).” “Do not seek to receive advice from someone alien to your (monastic) life, even if he is very learned. Confess your thoughts to someone who does not know the sciences, but who knows monasticism with experience, and not to an eloquent philosopher who speaks from learning in letter and is not experienced in practice.” 5. 138–139 Obedience to the elders in the form in which it was in ancient monasticism is not given to our time. The Monk Cassian the Roman says that the Egyptian fathers, among whom monasticism especially flourished and bore amazing spiritual fruits, “affirm that it is characteristic of the wise to govern well and to be governed, and determine that this is the greatest gift and grace of the Holy Spirit.” A necessary condition for such obedience is a spirit-bearing mentor who, by the will of the Spirit, would mortify the fallen will of the one who submitted to him in the Lord, and in this fallen will would mortify all passions. The fallen and corrupted will of man contains within itself the desire for all passions. It is obvious that the mortification of the fallen will, accomplished so majestically and victoriously by the will of the Spirit of God, cannot be accomplished by the fallen will of the mentor, when the mentor himself is still enslaved to passions. “If you want to renounce the world,” said Saint Simeon the New Theologian to the monks of his day, “and learn the gospel life, then do not betray (entrust) yourself to an unskilled or passionate teacher, lest you learn, instead of the gospel life, the devil’s life, because good teachers and teaching are good, but evil ones are evil: from evil seeds evil fruits will certainly grow. Anyone who does not see and promises to instruct others is a deceiver and plunges those following him into the pit of destruction, according to the word of the Lord: But if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit (Matthew 15:14).” On another occasion, this great saint of God, advising the monk to act according to the instructions of his spiritual father, adds: “However, let him do this only in such a case when he knows that his spiritual father is a partaker of the Spirit, that he will not tell him anything contrary to the will of God, but according to his gift and to the extent of his obedience, he will speak what is pleasing to God and useful for the soul, so as not to find himself obeying man and not God.” In this sense, the apostle also bequeaths: do not become slaves (1 Cor. 7:23). He commands that the very service of servants to masters be done spiritually: not in the character of people-pleasers, but in the character of servants of Christ, doing the will of God in outward service to men (Eph. 6:6). “Now,” says the apostle, “do I argue with men or with God? Or am I looking to please someone? Even if he had pleased man, he would never have been a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10). “Don’t you know that you imagine slaves obeying him - a man of carnal wisdom or God - slaves of course, you will listen to him: either sin and carnal wisdom leads to death, or obedience to the righteousness of God and salvation” (Rom. 6:16). Obedience forms the obedient in the image of the one to whom he obeys: “the sheep began with a rod,” says Scripture (Gen. 30:39). Those elders who take on the role - let us use this unpleasant word belonging to the pagan world in order to more accurately explain the matter, which in essence is nothing more than soul-destroying acting and the saddest comedy - the elders who take on the role of the ancient holy elders, not having their spiritual gifts, let them know that their very intention, their very thoughts and concepts about the great monastic work - obedience - are false, that their very image thoughts, their reason, their knowledge are self-delusion and demonic delusion, which cannot fail to produce fruit corresponding to itself in what they teach. Their incorrect and insufficient mood can only remain unnoticed for some time by the inexperienced beginner led by them, if this beginner is at all intelligent and is engaged in holy reading with the direct intention of salvation. In due time, it must certainly reveal itself and serve as a reason for the most unpleasant separation, for the most unpleasant relationship between the elder and the student, for the mental disorder of both. It is a terrible thing to accept, out of conceit and willfully, duties that can only be performed at the command of the Holy Spirit and by the action of the Spirit; It’s a terrible thing to imagine yourself as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, while communication with Satan has not yet been broken and the vessel continues to be desecrated by the action of Satan! Such hypocrisy and hypocrisy is terrible! It is disastrous for oneself and for one’s neighbor, criminal before God, blasphemous. It will be in vain to point us to the Monk Zacharias, who, being in obedience to the inexperienced elder, his father according to the flesh, Karion, achieved monastic perfection, or to the Monk Akakios, who was saved by living with a cruel old man, who drove his disciple to a premature grave with inhuman beatings (Ladder, Homily 4). Both were in obedience to the insufficient elders, but were guided by the advice of the spirit-bearing fathers, as well as by the most edifying examples that were in abundance before their eyes: for this reason alone they could remain in outward obedience to their elders. These cases are outside the general order and rule. “The mode of action of God’s Providence,” said Saint Isaac of Syria, “is completely different from the general human order. Keep to the general order." They will object: the faith of a novice can replace the lack of an elder. It’s not true: faith in the truth saves, faith in lies and demonic delusion destroys, according to the teaching of the apostle: “Having not accepted the love of the truth,” he says about those who willfully perish, “how can they be saved. And for this reason, God will send (allow) them the act of flattery, so that they may believe lies, so that all who have not believed the truth, but have been pleased with unrighteousness, will receive judgment” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). “Be according to your faith” (Matthew 9:29), said the Lord, the Self-Truth, to two blind men and healed them of blindness; has no right to repeat the words of Self-Truth, lies and hypocrisy to justify their criminal behavior, with which they destroy their neighbors. There have been cases, very, very rare, when faith, according to the special vision of God, acted through sinners, bringing about the salvation of these sinners. In Egypt, the foreman of the robbers Flavian, intending to rob a certain nunnery, put on a monastic robe and came to this monastery. The nuns accepted him as one of the holy fathers, brought him into the church, asking him to bring a prayer to God for them, which Flavian fulfilled, against his will and to his surprise. Then the meal was presented to him. At the end of the meal, the nuns washed his feet. In the monastery, one of the sisters was blind and deaf. The nuns brought her and gave her water to drink, with which the wanderer’s feet were washed. The patient was immediately healed. The nuns glorified God and the holy life of the monk, proclaiming the miracle that had taken place. The grace of God descended on the elder of the robbers: he brought repentance and from the elder of the robbers was transformed into a standard-bearing father. In the life of Saint Theodore, Bishop of Edessa, we read that a harlot, being forced by a desperate woman, brought a prayer to God for her dead son and that the baby was resurrected through the harlot’s prayer. The harlot, horrified by what had happened to her, immediately left her sinful life, entered a monastery and achieved holiness through an ascetic life. Such events are exceptions. Contemplating them, we will do the right thing if we are amazed at the sight and incomprehensible destinies of God, strengthened in faith and hope; We will do very wrong if we take these events as a role model. To guide our behavior, God Himself gave us the Law of God, i.e. Holy Scripture and the writings of the fathers. The Apostle Paul decisively says: “We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you separate yourself from every brother, walking disorderly, and not according to tradition, which you received from us” (2 Thess. 3:6). Tradition here refers to the moral tradition of the Church. It is set out in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the holy fathers. The Venerable Pimen the Great ordered immediate separation from the elder, cohabitation with whom turns out to be harmful to the soul, obviously due to this elder’s violation of the moral tradition of the Church. It’s a different matter when there is no mental harm, but only disturbing thoughts: disturbing thoughts are obviously demonic; There is no need to obey them, as they act precisely where we receive spiritual benefit, which they want to steal from us. Monastic obedience, in the form and character in which it took place among ancient monasticism, is a high spiritual sacrament. Comprehension of him and complete imitation of him have become impossible for us; one reverent, prudent examination of it is possible, the assimilation of its spirit is possible. Then we will enter the path of correct judgment and soul-saving prudence, when, reading the experiences and rules of the work of the ancient fathers - their obedience, equally marvelous both in the leaders and in the led - we see in modern times the general decline of Christianity, we admit that we are not able to inherit the work of the fathers in its fullness and in all its abundance. And this is God’s great mercy towards us, great happiness for us, that we are given the opportunity to feed on the grains falling from the spiritual table of our fathers. These grains do not constitute the most satisfying food, but they can, although not without a feeling of need and hunger, protect against mental death. 5. 71–75 The name given to grains is... the spiritual habitation provided by the Providence of God to our time. It is based on guidance in the matter of salvation by the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers, with advice and edification borrowed from modern fathers and brothers. In the proper sense, this is the obedience of the ancient monks, but in a different form, adapted to our weakness, mainly spiritual. To the ancient novices, their spirit-bearing mentors immediately and directly proclaimed the will of God: now monks themselves must search for the will of God in Scripture and therefore be subjected to frequent and prolonged perplexities and errors. Then prosperity was rapid, due to the nature of doing; now it is inert (slow), again, by the nature of doing. Such is the good will of our God toward us; we are obliged to submit to Him and reverence Him with thanksgiving. Our modern monastic life, according to Scripture and the advice of the fathers and brothers, is sanctified by the example of the head of monasticism, St. Anthony the Great. He was not in obedience to the elder, but in his new beginning he lived separately and borrowed instructions from Scripture and from various fathers and brothers: from one he learned abstinence, from another - meekness, patience, humility, from another - strict vigilance over himself, silence, trying to assimilate the virtue of every virtuous monk, showing, if possible, obedience to everyone, humbling himself before everyone and praying to God incessantly. Do you too, beginner, in this way! Show the abbot and other monastic authorities unfeigned and inhumane obedience, obedience that is alien to flattery and caresses, obedience for the sake of God. Show obedience to all fathers and brothers in their orders, which are not contrary to the Law of God, the charter and order of the monastery and the order of the monastic authorities. But do not be obedient to evil, even if you happen to suffer some sorrow for your inhumanity and firmness. Consult with virtuous and wise fathers and brothers, but take their advice with extreme caution and prudence. Don’t get carried away with advice based on its initial effect on you! Due to your passion and blindness, another passionate and malicious old man may please you solely due to your ignorance and inexperience or because he pleases some hidden passion, unknown to you, living in you. With tears and heartfelt sighs, beg God that He will not allow you to deviate from His all-holy will to follow the fallen human will - yours or your neighbor, your advisor. Both about your thoughts and about the thoughts of your neighbor, about his advice, consult the Gospel. Vanity and conceit love to teach and instruct. They don't care about the merits of their advice! They do not think that they can inflict an incurable ulcer on their neighbor with absurd advice, which is accepted by an inexperienced beginner with an unconscious power of attorney, with carnal and blood heat! They need success, whatever the quality of this success, whatever its beginning! They need to impress the newcomer and morally subjugate him to themselves! They need human praise! They need to be known as saints, wise, perspicacious elders, teachers! They need to feed their insatiable vanity, their pride. The prayer of the prophet has always been fair, and it is especially true now: “Save me, O Lord, for I have become impoverished, for the truth has fallen away from the sons of men. Every one speaks vainly to his sincere: flattering lips are in the heart, and evil words are in the heart” (Ps. 11:2-3). A false and hypocritical word cannot but be an evil and harmful word. Caution must be taken against such sentiments. “Study the Divine Scripture,” says Simeon the New Theologian, “and the writings of the holy fathers, especially active ones, so that, by comparing the teaching and behavior of your teacher and elder with their teaching, you can see them (this teaching and behavior) as in a mirror and understand; to assimilate and contain in thought what is in agreement with Scripture; recognize and reject what is false and bad, so as not to be deceived. Know that many deceivers and false teachers have arisen these days.” The Monk Simeon lived in the tenth century after the Nativity of Christ, nine centuries before our time - this is when the voice of the righteous was heard in the holy Church of Christ about the lack of true spirit-bearing leaders, about the multitude of false teachers. Over time, satisfactory teachers of monasticism became more and more scarce, then the holy fathers began to more and more offer guidance from the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers. The Venerable Nil of Sorsky, referring to the fathers who wrote before him, says: “It is no small feat,” they said, “to find a charming teacher for this wonderful work (true monastic heartfelt and mental prayer). They called the one who has the work and wisdom attested by the Divine Scripture and has acquired spiritual reasoning unpretentious. And then the holy fathers said that even then it was hardly possible to find an unprecious teacher of such subjects; now, when they have become extremely poor, we must search with all care. If it is not found, then the holy fathers commanded to learn from the Divine Scriptures, hearing the Lord Himself saying: “Test the Scriptures, and in them you will find eternal life” (John 5:39). “For it was ordained that it was written in the Holy Scriptures, for our punishment (instruction) it was written” (Rom. 15:4).” The Monk Neil lived in the 15th century; he founded a monastery not far from Bela Ozero, where he prayed in deep solitude. It is useful to listen to the elders of modern times, with what humility and self-sacrifice the Monk Nilus speaks about the instructions that he taught to the brethren: “No one should hide the Word of God through his own negligence, but confess his weakness and at the same time not hide the truth of God, so as not to make us guilty of transgressing the commandment of God. Let us not hide the Word of God, but let us proclaim it. The Divine Scriptures and the words of the holy fathers are as numerous as the sand of the sea; exploring them without laziness, let us teach them to those who come to us and those who need them (demanding, questioning). It is more correct: it is not we who teach, because we are unworthy of it, but the blessed holy fathers who teach from the Divine Scripture.” Here is an excellent example for modern instruction! It is quite spiritually beneficial for the mentor and the mentee; he is the correct expression of moderate prosperity; it is combined with the rejection of conceit, insane arrogance and audacity into which those who imitate in appearance the Great Barsanuphius and other standard-bearing fathers fall, without having the grace of their fathers. What was in those an expression of the abundant presence of the Holy Spirit in them, in the reckless, hypocritical imitators serves as an expression of abundant ignorance, self-delusion, pride, and insolence. Beloved fathers! Let us pronounce the Word of God to our brethren with all possible humility and reverence, recognizing ourselves as insufficient for this service and protecting ourselves from vanity, which greatly chills passionate people when they teach the brethren. Think that we must give an answer for every idle word (Matthew 12:36), the more painful is the answer for the Word of God spoken with vanity and prompted by vanity. The Lord will consume all flattering lips, a lofty tongue, reproshiya: let us magnify our tongue, our lips are with us: who is the Lord to us (Ps. 11: 4-5). The Lord will consume those who seek their own glory, and not God’s. Let us fear the rebuke of the Lord! Let us pronounce the word of edification as required by essential necessity, not as teachers, but as those in need of instruction and striving to become partakers of the instruction taught by God in His all-holy Word. “Everyone who receives a gift,” says the holy Apostle Peter, “serves among himself, as good builders of the various graces of God. If anyone speaks as the words of God, with the fear of God and reverence for the words of God, and not as his own words; If anyone serves as from the strength that God bestows, and not as from his own, let God be glorified in all things, Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:10-11). He who acts out of himself acts for vanity, sacrifices both himself and those who listen to him to Satan; he who acts from the Lord acts for the glory of the Lord, accomplishes his own salvation and the salvation of his neighbors by the Lord, the Only Savior of men. Let us be afraid of teaching a beginner any thoughtless instruction that is not based on the Word of God and on the spiritual understanding of the Word of God. It is better to admit ignorance than to show knowledge that is harmful to your soul. Let us protect ourselves from the great disaster of turning the gullible beginner from a servant of God into a servant of man (1 Cor. 7:23), drawing him into the creation of the fallen will of man instead of the all-holy will of God. (Here we are not talking about outward monastic obedience, not about monastic labors and activities assigned by the monastic authorities, but about moral, hidden obedience, performed in the soul). The modest attitude of a counselor towards what he supplies is completely different from that of an elder towards an unconditional novice, a servant in the Lord. The advice does not contain conditions to necessarily fulfill it; it may or may not be fulfilled. The adviser does not bear any responsibility for his advice if he gave it with the fear of God and humility, not spontaneously, but being asked and forced. Likewise, the one who receives advice is not bound by it; It is up to his will and reasoning to carry out or not to carry out the advice received. It is obvious that the path of advice and following the Holy Scriptures is consistent with our weak times. 5. 76–81 (See Obedience, Spirituality, Confession, Mentor). You and I do not agree on some of the expressions we use: by the same word you mean one thing, I mean another. For example, by the word “spiritual, spirituality” you mean what everyone has now come to understand - with such an understanding you move away from the meaning associated with this word in the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Holy Fathers. Nowadays, a book only about a religious subject already bears the name “spiritual”. Nowadays, anyone in a cassock is undeniably “spiritual”; whoever behaves with restraint and reverence is “spiritual” to the highest degree! This is not how Holy Scripture teaches us, this is not how the Holy Fathers teach us. They say that a person can be in three states: natural, subnatural, or supernatural, and supernatural. These states are otherwise called: mental, carnal, spiritual. Another way: biased, passionate, dispassionate. The unnatural, carnal, passionate is one who serves a completely temporary world, even if he does not indulge in gross vices. Natural, soulful, partial is someone who lives for eternity, practices virtues, struggles with passions, but has not yet received freedom, does not see clearly either himself or his neighbors, but only guesses, like a blind man, by touch. The superior, spiritual, dispassionate is the one who has been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, who, being filled with Him, acts, speaks under His influence, rises above the passions, above his nature. Such people - for sure: the light of the world and the salt of the earth - see themselves, see their neighbors, and they can only be seen by someone who is spiritually similar to them. “The spiritual one contends with everything, but he himself contends with not one” (1 Cor. 2:15), says Scripture. These are extremely rare these days. In my life I had the good fortune to meet one - and to this day wandering on earth - old man, about 70 years old, from a peasant background, illiterate; he lived in many places in Russia, in Mount Athos, - he told me that he, too, met only one. Adhere, both in this case and in others, to the terminology of the holy fathers, which will correspond to your practical life, which often does not agree with the terminology of the latest theorists. Forgive me for calling theorists dead! Let these dead people fiddle with their dead people, that is. with those who want to hear the Word of God in order to enjoy eloquence, bloody outbursts, and play of the mind, but not in order to “create the Word.” The latter need to be told: “With what pleasure we listened and spent our time,” and the former need the world to say about them: “Ah! How cleverly and beautifully they speak!” Do not be seduced by natural intelligence or eloquence! It's all dust. To this eloquence and this mind it is said: Thou art the Earth! However, I understand that you, having tasted life, cannot be satisfied with the dead! Well said St. Simeon the New Theologian: “Those who pretend to be virtuous and appear like sheepskin outwardly to be one thing, but to be another in the inner man, filled with all unrighteousness, full of envy and zeal and the sweets of evil, very many honor them as impassive and saints, having an uncleaned spiritual eye, unable to recognize them from their fruits; in reverence and virtue and simplicity of heart, those who abid and are truly holy, as they despise others from men and, despising them, regard them as nothing. Those who are verbal and vain are charged with being teachers rather than spiritual. Who speaks through the Holy Spirit, those who are arrogant and proud of the devil, as if they are arrogant and proud, turn away from his words with horror rather than with tenderness. From the belly and teachings of those who speak thinly and lie against their salvation, the great ones praise and accept.” Likewise, only those books can be properly called “spiritual” which are written under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Do not get carried away by the general flow, but follow the narrow path after the holy fathers. 6. 288–290 Saint Macarius the Great says that Angels have an image and appearance, just as the soul has its own image and appearance, and that this image, the outer appearance of both the Angel and the soul, is the image and appearance of the external person in his body. The same saint of God teaches that Angels and souls, although very subtle in their essence, however, for all their subtlety, are bodies. They are subtle, ethereal bodies, since, on the contrary, our earthly bodies are very material and gross. The gross human body serves as clothing for the subtle body - the soul. The eyes, ears, hands, and feet, which belong to the soul, are covered with similar members of the body. When the soul is separated from the body through death, it takes off it, as if it were clothing. Saint Macarius says that the most perfect of Christians, purified and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, see the image of the soul, but it is very rare among saints to achieve such perfection and vision. This great father asserts that in those who pray the prayer of the Spirit, the soul sometimes leaves the body during prayer by a special and incomprehensible action of the Holy Spirit. (Describing the supernatural actions of Divine grace during prayer, the Great Macarius says: “At that hour it happens to a person that with the flow of prayer from his lips, his soul flows out of him.” Obviously, this happened to Saint Macarius himself). And in that age in which the Great Macarius flourished in the desert of the Egyptian monastery, in the age of high monastic asceticism, very rare among the holy monks were vouchsafed to see the image of the soul; the rarer they are now. But even now they meet, by the great mercy of God and by the false promise of the Lord Jesus to remain with His faithful disciples until the end of the age. According to the personal testimony of such a chosen one of God, who suddenly saw his soul, with the abundant, gracious action of prayer emanating from the body and standing in the air, it is an ethereal, very subtle, flying body, having the appearance of our gross body, all its members, even hair, its facial character - in a word, complete resemblance to it. Not only the powers of the mind and heart were with the soul, but all the senses were with it: sight, hearing, touch, all life was with it, and the body remained on the chair, as if dead, like cast-off clothes, until, by the wave of God, the soul returned to it as incomprehensibly as it incomprehensibly left it. Angels are similar to the soul: they have members, a head, eyes, mouth, breasts, arms, legs, hair - in a word, a complete likeness of a visible person in his body. The beauty of virtue and God's grace shine on the faces of the holy Angels; this character is imprinted on the faces of the most virtuous Christians. Desperate malice constitutes the character of the fallen angels; their faces are like the ugly faces of villains and criminals among people. This is what those who saw the angels of light and the angels of darkness say. The angel and the soul are called incorporeal, as not having our flesh; are called spirit, as subtle beings, completely different from the objects that make up the material world. This is what they are called in ordinary human language, and in the Holy Scriptures, and in the writings of the holy fathers; their substance is incomparably finer than the substance of earthly objects visible to us. In our ordinary state of fall, we do not see spirits, but we feel their influence on us if we lead an attentive, pious life. The gracious, living, mental sensation of spirits is their spiritual vision. Wind, air, various gases and vapors are usually called, and even in the Holy Scriptures and patristic writings, spirit. Thus, the Lord likened the action of the Holy Spirit to the action of the wind; the wind in this place of the Gospel is called spirit. But in its own, precise sense, there is only one God – Spirit. He, as an all-perfect Being, is completely different in His nature from the nature of creatures, no matter how subtle and perfect they may be, compared to other creatures. There is no being one-natural to God! And therefore, besides God, there is no other spiritual being by nature. “Incorporeal and immaterial,” says Saint John of Damascus, “an Angel is called in comparison with us. For everything, in comparison with God, the One and Incomparable, turns out to be gross and material. The Divinity alone is, in the strict sense, immaterial and incorporeal.” 3.74–77 It is very natural for spirits to have feelings; The human soul, which by its nature belongs to created spirits, also has them. A person’s feelings belong to his soul, and not to his body, although during a person’s earthly life they act through the members of the body. The whole soul acts through the members of the body, even its verbal power. Feelings leave the body along with the soul; more correctly: the soul, leaving the body, takes with it the feelings that belong to it. If feelings belonged to the body, they would remain with it even after the departure of the soul, or they would leave the body at a different time, and not at the exact time at which the soul leaves it. 3.230 (See Prayer, Communion). You might be interested in: