Письмо III. Тому же

Having received the precious message of your mercy in the Lord, together with the blessing to the God-fearing monks of the honest monastery of the holy glorious martyr George, I thanked God for your zeal for good; after all, having released those bound by it from the shackles of poverty, you freed yourself from the shackles of sin, and by going to feed your bodies, you nourished your own soul with God’s grace, and they gave me a reason to accept the fruit of true contemplation. For in concentration I comprehended why God established a general law, so that all people would have compassion for each other and need compassion: He humanely [229] wrote out this saving commandment for us, wanting the will of all people to become one, as one nature, and truly pushing the entire human race to this; however, selfishness and judgment (σύνεσις), sometimes rejecting, sometimes bypassing each other and the law by cunning, cut the single nature into many parts, and instilling the now reigning insensibility - armed, through free will, nature against itself. That is why everyone who, through prudent reflection and sublimity of understanding, was able to destroy in himself this unevenness of nature, pitied himself before others, making his will consistent with nature, and by will, with the help of nature, approaching God, and showing by his example how the logos is realized in the image of God (τὶς τοῦ κατ ῾ εἰκόνα λόγου ὁ τρόπος ) and in what appropriate manner God initially created for him our identical nature - an exact reflection of His goodness, namely, always self-identical, non-belligerent, peaceful, undisturbed, love attached to God and to itself - by such nature we love God with desire and each other with pity. Such a person also pitied those who should be pitied, not only giving them help, but also showing how the invisible God manifests himself in the worthy, so that they themselves, in reverence for the love of mankind they experienced from their neighbors, could easily assimilate this Divine grace for themselves. If someone, having the opportunity to provide help, neglected people in need, then he will rightly be considered to have alienated them from himself, and himself from God, since he did not recognize nature by his own will, or rather, by his own will he corrupted the good inherent in nature. The latter is done by those who voluntarily chose cruelty over humanity, and value their own brothers more than coins, and with their thirst for gold, they blocked God’s path to themselves like a wall; they endure a miserable lot, falling away from the best through their own fault; and the first is done by those who wisely try to unite the torn parts of nature through mutual love and, for the sake of cooperating with God through love, restore in other people, as far as they can, the sameness of volitional aspiration and neglect everything earthly as true like-minded people of God in their affairs. [230] That this is exactly what you are doing, beloved, you have clearly shown both this time and before, diligently dividing yourself in every possible way among everyone, both mentally and physically, and benevolently distributing property, and revealing in yourself a will that completely coincides with nature (γνώμην), in one thing inferior to nature: from it it draws the seeds of emerging virtues, or rather, God, from Which the ability for good was sown in advance into nature. Therefore, you, generously fed with many grace-filled gifts pouring out from above, along with everyone else and on the aforementioned most God-fearing men, extended the compassion of love for mankind, supporting the already trembling nature, weakened by need, and healing, as much as you could and were able, the suffering caused to them by poverty. Do not cease to do good to those in need, so that through devastation you may achieve inexhaustible fullness. With the joy of your soul and established in faith in God in hope and love, “put away the yoke, and the stretching of the hand, and the word of murmuring” (Is. 58:9), as it says somewhere in the Divine Scripture, that is, give to those who ask without hesitation. For it is always followed by regret, and this is worse than not giving at all. After all, we all know that when there is something unworthy in doing charity or in accepting alms, then no one knows exactly who needs to be blamed - whether those who have the opportunity to do charity, or those who need the benefit; and only in the next century will it be known what kind of property we possessed, how large it was and in what form it was. Such is the wise will of God that the depths of His judgments should be hidden in the present. Knowing this, the wise Solomon advises to cast his bread on water in ignorance (Eccl. 11:1), so that it would not be plundered and perish, and subsequently return to those who distributed it with a good purpose with a great profit from God and our Savior Christ, [231] Who Himself accepts every gift that we give to each other, no matter what it may be. For since He lovingly endured suffering for our sake, what reward will not appear to those who imitate His love for mankind? You might be interested in: