Письмо IV. Тому же, о печали по Богу

I rejoice and am glad, seeing that throughout the entire letter my blessed master grieves with commendable sadness, for I know that “sorrow for God produces unchangeable repentance leading to salvation” (2 Cor. 7:10) in those in whom all the powers of the soul are restrained by the fear of God; This sadness does not allow the soul to evade the judgments of God and unnaturally become attached to the corruptible, through which a nasty confusion of passions is instilled in those carelessly passing the path of this life, preparing their unfortunate mind to fall into the traps of the devil and making him, of course, the teacher of all evil, and unnaturally subordinating natural action to disordered impulses of anger and desire. After all, a deceived soul, having once become attached by mental force to material things, is very inventive and dexterous only in finding all kinds of evil. Therefore, night and day I unceasingly pray, although I am burdened with many sins, so that my blessed master does not lose this saving sadness, truly the stern mistress of passions, and the noble and glorious mother of virtues, and, guarded by her, ward off the nasty sting of sin. After all, no one who has imprisoned it in the depths of his heart is completely struck by the arrows of the devil. No one who invisibly reveres her in the soul is afraid of the various attacks of demons. No one, having chosen communication with her, ever becomes attached to the visible. No one whose life is marked by its seal is desecrated by the filth of the corruptible. No one, having inextricably linked reasoning with it, [232] allows his feelings to be randomly carried away by what is not proper. No one, having imbued the soul with it, can consider himself better than another - on the contrary, he would rather believe that both in name and in essence he is worse than any person. No one, having girded his mind with it, avoids thinking about the Divine. No one, fully united with her, will violate the rules of a pious life. It is created by the Holy Spirit, entering the hearts of the worthy. I honor her alone as the parent of joy in the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Divine seed, undoubtedly, is sorrow for God, growing into the mature fruit of the joy of eternal blessings. It is renewed by reflection, as if recalling what we have lived through. It is nourished by diligent reading of the book of our sins, recorded by our conscience. It is observed by the memory of death and the accompanying constant acute suffering of the soul due to the future outcome. It is kept completely insatiable by the continuous imagination of the terrible and strict examination that awaits the soul, which the spirits of evil will arrange in the air. Who, beloved, among those stained like me by sins, does not fear the power of the holy angels, who at the end of this life, by God’s verdict, will forcibly and angrily tear the soul out of the body against its will? Who, having a defiled conscience, is not afraid of the ferocious and wild attack of evil demons, each of which, after leaving the body, mercilessly tears at the unfortunate soul engulfed in suffering, and disgraces it by exposing what it has done, and deprives it of all hope for future benefits? This sadness is salutarily nourished by an accurate depiction of the state of souls in hell, where they end up after the spirits recognize evil in the air: how they remain in deep darkness and oppressive silence, feeding only on the most bitter groans and tears, and even despondency, and all the time expecting nothing else but a just [233] condemnation by God’s court. This sadness is generated by the hope of the Resurrection, the greatness of the terrible and all-glorious coming of Christ, the constant thought of the most terrible day of judgment, in which heaven and earth, and all the beauty of the visible world will perish with a noise, and the elements will burn and be destroyed in boundless fire (2 Pet. 3:10), purifying the creation defiled by us before the coming of the Pure One; then thrones will be set up, and the Ancient of Days will sit (Dan. 7:9), and endless armies of angels and archangels will appear with fear and trembling to serve, and the entire human race will be gathered for review, and books will be opened with the most accurate lists of our deeds, and words, and thoughts. Thanks to them, what we have done will be exposed to all creation, so that the sins of all people will be as known to everyone as their own, unmistakably read in the book of their own conscience; then those placed on the right hand of the Judge will be announced the promise of unspeakable blessings, and those standing on the left will receive eternal fire, and outer darkness, and a vigilant worm, and the gnashing of teeth, and continuous crying, and endless shame, from which everyone condemned to endless torment will be tormented more severely than from other types of punishment together. Those who grieve for God will never forget about these truly terrible things, both in name and in essence, but will have such an attitude of soul as if they always saw the Judge before them and were visible to Him, and will live their present life piously and righteously, without doing anything in deed, word, or thought that is alien to God’s grace and calling 173 . From this commendable sadness, the chosen virtue is born in people - humility, according to which a pious and God-loving person will sincerely consider himself lower than everyone else, even if his rank is a king, considering the limit of self-awareness to be the weakness of human nature, to which all those involved in it equally [234] pay tribute, without at all changing their opinions about nature because of their rank. The defense of this sadness is meekness, that is, a dispensation that drives out unnatural movements of the soul, anger and lust; thanks to it, a person becomes like the angels, who know neither the fury of anger, nor the obscene barking of relatives, nor lust, which relaxes the mind and pulls down to the material, but possessing only one omnipotent logos, which, in accordance with the will, passionately attracts to the supercausal and supernatural Logos-Word. The fruit of this sadness is love, through which, having united with God and with each other, we willingly care for each other as much as possible, just as God, in mercy, cares for everyone. The goal of this sadness is the Kingdom of Heaven and the enjoyment of Divine blessings in it. It is to this limit that sorrow for God leads those who love and observe it. The signs of this sadness are: to accustom the eyes to see creation only in relation to the glory of the Creator, and to look at what belongs to one’s neighbor without ill will and envy, and to open one’s ears with readiness only for the sake of perceiving God’s word and the prayers of those who ask us for something, and to close one’s ears tightly to all abuse and the ugliness of shameful speeches, and to devote one’s tongue to the praise of other people and not at all to defile with mockery and abuse. Yes, simply speaking for the sake of brevity, they adapted all the parts of the body and soul to what was pleasing to the [Holy] Spirit, and the work of piety 174 was completely accomplished. If, blessed one, we discover these signs in ourselves after careful examination, we must carefully preserve them; and if we do not have any of them, then let us work zealously to acquire them, as people humble themselves before all people for the sake of God and common human nature and remain calm and gentle when something happens not according to our will; let us be generous to the poor and hospitable [235] to strangers, let us, as far as possible, readily help those in need of protection; with friends we will be unanimous and agree, with acquaintances we will be amiable in everything; Let us become accessible to the lower ones, compassionate and humane to the sick, patient to the angry, forbearing to the erring, and comforters to the dejected. To put it simply, we will become everything to everyone for the sake of the fear of God and the threat of the expected future judgment. For without all of the above, there is no hope for salvation for anyone at all. My love for you makes me say all this, and even more. I can’t moderate it in any way, but it constantly brings your image to my mind and forces me to talk to you mentally as if you were nearby, and forces me to communicate with you in letters. However, let us not take lightly the meaning of my speeches, since, along with others, such arguments will accuse us - me, the speaker, and those who listen - on the terrible day of judgment, depending on our attitude towards them (Rom. 2:15-16). May we all appear, both those who say something that should be said and those who listen, as doers of all God’s commandments, and not just as listeners and readers (Rom. 2:13), according to the mercy of Christ, our God and Savior, who called us to His glory and Kingdom (1 Thess. 2:12). That is, what God calls a person to. – Approx. lane Some syntactic incoherence of this paragraph is intended to convey the corresponding property of the source text. – Approx. lane You might be interested in: