Блуд

Those who are wise about the devil say that wherever he goes, he carries the fire of Gehenna within himself, and both he himself is from the fire, and the fire is not separated from him: everywhere he is burned and tormented by punishment. Likewise, an intemperate fornicator carries the fire of the flesh with him everywhere and is kindled by fire everywhere. God's eternal punishment for demons is darkness, stench and fire. The same punishment will befall bad people: they are destined for total darkness in the underworld, stench, never-ending worms and unquenchable hellfire (1). An unclean desecrator of his body [fornicator] is similar in his deeds to the devil and is dear to him, like a pig to a wolf. Demons love to live in pig-like fornicators, for they are their true homes. Just as a wanderer wants to reach his home and live in it, so demons, moving from place to place, want to live in fornicators as in their true homes. The narratives say that such an incident occurred in Carthage. In one place there stood an idol of the pagan goddess Venus. Venus is a prodigal wife, whom the wicked Greeks depicted extremely shamelessly, in a naked form, as a temptation to everyone passing by. One day, one of the virgins, walking by, saw the shameless nakedness of this female idol, and then a nasty thought appeared in his heart: he began to enjoy unclean thoughts and become inflamed with lust. And so, when he held that sinful thought within himself for a long time, enjoyed it and desired the deed itself, he immediately became the dwelling place of a demon: the unclean spirit entered him and began to torment him. You see how just deliberate uncleanness makes a person a den for the robber-devil. What can be said about prodigal uncleanness, which is fulfilled by the act itself? Will the devil settle in it, as in his true home? Do you hear this, you disgusting fornicator? Don't you know that there is a demon living in you? Don't you feel it within yourself? Or perhaps you don’t believe what was said? The Monk Hilarion once cast out a demon from a girl, which a prodigal youth had sent into her through sorcery. Casting him out, he asked: “Why didn’t you enter into the young man who settled you here?” The demon answered: “That young man has in himself another friend of mine, a lustful fornicator demon.” Let us heed this: a prodigal demon lives in a fornicator, who torments him with fornication (1). The devil dominates and even reigns over fornicators, as over his people and his slaves, for, according to the apostle: “Whoever commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8), such a one serves not Christ, but the devil. We know that the devil once reigned over idolaters; they were his true slaves. People who live in bodily uncleanness are the second idolaters; therefore, they are his true slaves. And that fornicators are precisely idolaters, this is clear from the words of the holy Apostle, who says this: “For certain people have crept in... turning the grace of our God into an occasion for debauchery and denying the only Master God and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). Who are these who turn the grace of our God into an excuse for debauchery? Truly, none other than Christians who accepted the grace of Christianity in Baptism. They, having fallen into prodigal defilement, turn the received grace of God into defilement and renounce Christ, if not in word before the tormentor, then in deed before their master - the devil. And the one who renounces Christ through fornication, is he not an idolater? His idol is passion, and in it, as in an idol, he has a demon, his master, to whom he presents his heart, which gives rise to bad thoughts, as an altar. On this altar he places the fire of sinful lust, sacrifices the most immoral deed, with which he defiles himself, and becomes like and pleasing to the demon. The devil rules over such baptized idolaters as over his slaves, and he rules torturously, for wherever he succeeds, he breaks them, throws them into fire and water, and destroys them. It breaks, taking away the spiritual strength to repent and depriving the sinner of God’s grace; plunges into the fire of carnal infatuation or intemperance and into the water of unclean voluptuousness; destroys him, drowning him in the hellish abyss, like a pig in the sea, torments and depresses him forever. This is the kind of reward the devil pays to his servant, who faithfully and diligently serves him with carnal filthiness! This is the tormenting dominance of a demon over a sinner (1). Christ God, born of the Most Pure and Immaculate Virgin and who is the source of all purity, is disgusted by every fornicator, and therefore He arms himself against him as against His enemy. “The carnal mind,” according to the apostle, “is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). This means that a person who has immersed his mind in carnal defilements and no longer thinks about anything else, that is, dreams and desires only carnal, sinful pleasure, is a great enemy of God. Therefore, the Lord arms himself against him as against His enemy: He needs to avenge his enmity. Here we hear in the Scriptures of the wise Solomon how Wisdom wants to prepare for battle: “He will take full armor - His jealousy, and arm the creation for vengeance on the enemies; He will put on armor - righteousness, and put on a helmet - impartial judgment; will take an invincible shield - holiness; He will sharpen His severe anger like a sword, that is, He will sharpen His anger like a sword” (Wis. 5:17–20) (1). Someone, perhaps, will say: what offense does Christ God have if someone defiles his body with prodigal sin? Truly, a great offense, for the body of a Christian is not his body, but Christ’s, according to what is written: “You are the body of Christ, and separately you are members.” And again: “And you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Cor. 12:27, 6:9–20; 1 Pet. 1:18–19). O Christian! The head with which you think about carnal things is not yours, but Christ’s, and it is not fitting for you to think about vile things with Christ’s head. The feet with which you rush towards iniquity are not yours, but Christ’s, and it is not fitting for you to go towards iniquity. The hands with which you do evil are not yours, but Christ’s, and it is not fitting for you to do evil with the hands of Christ. Your whole body, which you make foul and stinking through prodigal sin, is not yours, but Christ’s: “You are the body of Christ,” and it is not fitting for you to defile and disgrace the body of Christ with carnal voluptuous deeds, apart from legal marriage, for you are the house of Christ, according to the word of the Apostle: “The church of God is holy; and this church is you” (1 Cor. 3:17). If someone wanted to drive his master out of his own house, would he not cause him great offense? Of course, he would, and the master being expelled from his home would certainly take a sword or something else and begin to fight against the expeller. Likewise, Christ the Lord, whom we ourselves drive out of His own house, purchased by His Blood, by our nasty carnal deeds, will take the sword into His hands to take revenge on us for His offense (1). Good is also the seed of the word of God, which teaches us to live in marriage according to God’s law purely, chastely, not in adultery, without desecrating the marital bed. And now the demonic birds in Bryn have pecked at this seed, for it reaches our ears that in their Bryn hermitages, in demonic nests, they teach to have common wives and to consider fornication not a sin, but the love of Christ. O damned, godless birds! Where did Christ command such love as to commit fornication? Doesn't He teach a pure life more, being Himself Pure and Immaculate? Fornication is not the love of Christ, but carnal, devilish, lawless. Where is the law for having common wives? O terrible lawlessness! After all, even neither the pagans, nor the Turks, nor the Tatars have such lawlessness, for they all have a marital law and punish adultery. The Bryn teachers, called holy fathers, teach those tempted by such lawlessness. Is this not the Nicolaitan heresy? Is this pleasing to the Lord God? Listen to what is written in the Apocalypse. Saint John the Theologian once saw Christ the Lord walking between seven lamps, and from His mouth came a sharpened, two-edged sword (see Rev. 1:16). We will look at whom our Lord sharpened that two-edged sword. Here we hear Him saying to His beloved disciple John: “Write to the angel of the Church of Pergamon: Thus says He who has a sword sharp on both sides... I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to lead the children of Israel into temptation, so that they would eat things sacrificed to idols and commit fornication. So you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I hate. Repent; but if not so, I will quickly come to you and fight with them with the sword of My mouth” (Rev. 2:12, 14–16). We listen to whom our Lord wants to fight with the sword of His mouth, sharpened on both sides. With those who adhere to the teachings of the Nicolaitans. What was the Nicolaitan teaching? The same as Valaamovo. What was the teaching of both? In committing fornication, having common wives. This is the teaching that Christ the Lord hates. “You have,” he says, “those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.” At the same time, He hates this teaching, this lawlessness, so much that He arms itself against those who commit it, as against His obvious enemies, prepares a two-edged, sharpened sword against them, and wants to wage war against them with the sword of His mouth: “I will fight,” He says, “with the sword of My mouth” (1). There is no need to talk about a well-known thing, except to briefly recall how displeasing to Christ the Lord God is the one who does not stubbornly fight passions and lusts, but is constantly overcome by them, loves them more than his own salvation and wallows in the mire of his bad deeds, how disgusting every fornicator is to Christ the Lord, born of the Most Pure and Immaculate Virgin, the Source of all purity, and therefore He arms himself against him as against Your enemy. For according to the Apostle: “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), that is, a person who has immersed his entire mind in carnal defilements and meditates only on them with his mind, dreaming only about carnal sinful lusts and desiring them, is the great enemy of God. Therefore, it is necessary for God to arm himself against him as against an enemy in order to take revenge on him for his enmity (2). All sins are unpleasant to God, irritate Him and prompt Him to take angry revenge, but to an unequal extent, for “every sin that a person commits is outside the body,” as the Apostle says, “and the fornicator sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18), - against the body that Christ redeemed with His venerable Blood and prepared to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore He is especially angry with the fornicator and inflicts the wrath of vengeance against him (2). What do you, listeners, think about such people who wallow in the filthiness of the flesh without self-restraint and repentance? Who do you consider them to be? We consider them to be far removed from the image and likeness of the Son of God, we consider them similar and conformable to the vile devil, for “whoever commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). What do I say: like the devil! Do we consider him worse than the devil? For even devils abhor the bodily uncleanness of prodigal people (2). About anyone who spends his days in uncleanness, we can say that he suffers from an unclean spirit, for where does an unclean spirit like to live if not in the throes of fornication? Angel Raphael once advised Tobias to take Sarah as his wife. Tobias answered him, saying: “I heard that this girl was given to seven husbands, but they all died, but I also heard that a demon killed them” (Tob. 6:14). The Angel answered him: “Listen to me, I will tell you over whom the demon has power: over those who marry in such a way that they drive God away from themselves and from their minds, who are zealous in their fornication, like a horse and a mule - over such the demon has power” (see Comrade 6). But why do you say, O Angel, that only those the devil has power over? Does he not have power over other sinners: over the proud, over the envious, over the angry, over gluttons, over drunkards and others? It truly does, for it is written by the Apostle: “Whoever commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). However, he extends his power more than others to fornicators, for they are his proper dwellings. The Lord once cast out demons from a possessed person; there were a legion of them in him. And so, they pray to Him to command them to go not into the abyss, but into the swine grazing by the water. And the Lord commanded them. They, having come out of the demoniac, entered into the pigs as into their own house (see Matt. 8:30–32) (3). You might be interested in: