Word 5th. Advice from the mind to your soul

A short essay by St. Mark of the Ascetic “The 5th Word. Advice from the mind to your soul" is devoted to the topic of the effectiveness of the Sacrament of Baptism and anti-Messalian polemics. The work is structured as an appeal of the mind to the soul. The mind says that after it calmed down from the action of the passions by grace, it learned that after Baptism no one unjustly forces us to do either good or evil: “Whoever we serve according to our own free will, God or the devil, he then justly encourages us to do everything that is his domain.” The beginning of such actions is “two attacks of thoughts, not noticed by the mind: human praise and pleasing the body.” St. Mark recalls the fall of his first parents, speaks of Adam and Eve in paradise as the “image” of a modern Christian who settles in paradise after a “new birth,” i.e., baptism, but may lose paradise due to a new crime. Every deed, good or evil, is followed by retribution. God was not angry with Adam and did not bring punishment upon him, but Adam himself brought death upon himself by violating the “spiritual law” (i.e., the commandments), the observance of which is intended to preserve the Christian in the “paradise of the Church.” The work ends with a call to the soul not to blame anyone for its passions: neither Adam, nor the devil, nor other people, but to enter into a struggle with its will, having Christ as an assistant, “mysteriously hidden in us since the time of Baptism.” *The title of the work in Greek is Συμβουλία νοὸς πρὸς τὴν αυτοῦ ψυχήν. *The title of the works in Latin is Consultatio intellectus cum sua ipsius anima. Hear, reasonable soul, accomplice of my conferences, I want to tell you a secret and general thing, which I did not know, not having been cleansed from passions, and only comprehended when I had somewhat calmed down from them by the grace of God. I clearly learned, O my soul, that you and I, possessed of unnatural actions, are drawn into error by ignorance and therefore blame others for our sins, claiming that evil is outside of us; sometimes we blame Adam, sometimes we blame Satan, and sometimes we blame other people, and, thinking that we are fighting with others, we are fighting with ourselves; and, believing that we are protecting each other, you and I, we fight against each other; and, thinking that we are benefiting ourselves, like a madman, we annoy ourselves; We are rightly subjected to useless labor and reproach, because we think that we love the commandments, but we hate the reasons for fulfilling self-delusion. So, I have reliably learned that no power forces us unjustly to either good or evil; but that from the time of Baptism, at the beginning of actions, to whom we, of our own free will, serve, God or the devil, he then justly encourages us to everything that constitutes his domain. And the beginnings of actions are two attacks of thoughts, not noticed by the mind: human praise and pleasing the body, which, when they involuntarily attack us, before our will agrees with them, do not constitute either a vice or a virtue, but serve only to expose the inclination of our will, in which we bow. The Lord wants us to endure reproach and depress ourselves, but the devil wants the opposite, and therefore when we rejoice over the above-mentioned battles, it is obvious that we, having disobeyed the Lord, are inclined to a voluptuous spirit, but when we grieve over the above-mentioned battles, it is obvious that we bow to God, having loved the narrow path. That is why these two attacks were allowed to attack people, so that those who love the commandment of God and delight in it would bow their will before Christ, and He, having found an entrance in them, would direct their minds to the truth. Also understand the opposite: those who, on the contrary, love human glory and pleasing the body, give entry to the devil, and he, having found his entrance, offers us his evil suggestions and, as we enjoy the thoughts of them, does not cease to add to them, until we hate from the heart the two above-mentioned attacks. But we love them so much that not only do we betray virtue for their sake, but on occasion we also change these very battles from one to another: sometimes we depress the body for the sake of vanity, sometimes we endure dishonor for the sake of voluptuousness. When we carelessly agree with them, we begin to look for the substance that returns them. The substance of vanity and bodily pleasure is the love of money, which, according to Divine Scripture, is “the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). But you will tell me, O beloved soul, that we do not collect gold and have no wealth. And I will tell you in response to this that neither gold nor estates in themselves cause harm; as we said, their partial abuse is harmful. For there were rich people who, having no attachment to wealth, pleased God, like holy Abraham, righteous Job and David; and some of us, even without wealth, through unimportant things, have cultivated in ourselves the passion of covetousness. Thus, we are worse than those who have acquired great wealth, because, having abandoned the suffering assigned to everyone, we indulge in passions with some cunning, as if wanting to hide from God, for, running away from the love of money, we do not run away from the love of sensuality; Without hoarding gold, we collect unimportant things; We do not accept superiors and power, but we grasp in every possible way the glory and praise associated with them; We have abandoned acquisitions, but we do not abandon the enjoyment of them: if we decide to abandon (the enjoyment of them), it is not in order to avoid covetousness, but as if abhorring the creatures of God, thinking to ourselves: “Touch not, taste, touch” (Col. 2:21). When you hear, O beloved soul, about the crime of Adam and Eve, then believe that in the beginning this actually happened to them, but now you will find that the same thing mentally happens to me and to you. “Now all these things,” according to the word of the Apostle, “have been taken into account: they were written for our instruction, in which they reached the ends of the ages” (1 Cor. 10:11). For, having been reborn through Baptism and being installed in the paradise of the Church, we have transgressed the commandment of Him who regenerated us. The Lord commanded us to love all those of the same faith, and from all of them, through patience, to eat the fruit they bring to us, according to what is said in Scripture: “Take food from every tree that goes to heaven” (Gen. 2:16); and we, following the suggestion of the serpent, loved some as good, and hated others as evil, which means the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, having tasted of which, we die mentally, not because God created death, but man brought it upon himself by hating his neighbor; for Scripture testifies that “God does not create death, nor rejoices at the destruction of the living” (Wis. 1:13), He is not subject to the passion of anger, does not invent a way to take revenge, does not change according to the dignity of each, but “he created all things with wisdom” (Ps. 103:24). Having predestined to judge everything according to the spiritual law. Therefore, He did not say to Adam: “When the day is destroyed, I will kill you,” but, warning them, he foreshadowed the law of righteousness, saying: “If you destroy the day... you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). And in general, the Lord ordained that for every deed, good or evil, a suitable reward should follow naturally, and not according to a special purpose, as some who do not know the spiritual law think. We, who know him partly, must remember that if we hate one of our fellow believers as evil, then God will hate us as evil; and if we reject anyone from repentance as a sinner, then we will also be rejected (by God) as sinners; and if we do not forgive our neighbor’s sins, then we ourselves will not receive forgiveness for our sins. Announcing this law, our Lawgiver Christ, told us: “Judge not, and you will not be judged: [and] condemn not, lest you be condemned: forgive, and they will forgive you” (Luke 6:37). Knowing this law, St. The Apostle Paul clearly said: “If you judge a friend with judgment, you condemn yourself” (Rom. 2:1). And the prophet, not knowing this, cried out to God: “For You have rewarded everyone according to his deeds” (Ps. 61:13); and another prophet on behalf of God says: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19; Deut. 32:35). But why am I talking about this separately, when all Divine Scripture, both Old and New, and especially the great psalmist, shows us this law more clearly than others (Ps. 61:13), so that, having cognized its spirituality and mysterious predestination and fearing our variability in everything, we tried not only openly, but also secretly (in the depths of our hearts) to love our neighbors. For this law is not the law of Moses, which judged what is visible, but a spiritual law, convicting also what is hidden. However, the law of Moses was God Himself and was in accordance with the times. This same law (i.e. spiritual) completed it (i.e. Moses) by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it...” (Matthew 5:17). Therefore, we must speak about every deed once, and then forgive the one we think has offended us, even if this offense had the right basis, even if it did not have it at all, knowing that the reward for forgiveness of offenses exceeds the reward of any other virtue. And if we cannot do this because of the sin that has prevailed over us, then we must, with vigil and suffering, pray to God to have mercy on us and give us such strength (to forgive offenses). At the same time, O beloved soul, at every time, in every place and in every deed, we must have one intention, so that in the event of various insults from people we rejoice, and not grieve, but rejoice not simply and not without reasoning: but because we have the opportunity to forgive someone who has sinned (against us) and receive forgiveness of our own sins. For this is true knowledge of God, which is more comprehensive than any knowledge and with the help of which we can pray to God and be heard; this is the fruitfulness of faith: this proves our faith in Christ: through this we can take up our cross and follow Christ; this (forgiveness of offenses) is the mother of the first and great commandments, for through this we can love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves; For this purpose, we must fast, remain in vigil and suppress our body, so that our heart and inner disposition open up, accept it into ourselves and no longer spew it out. Then, because we forgive our neighbor’s sins, we will find that the grace secretly given to us at Holy Baptism will no longer act in us unknown, but perceptibly for our consciousness and feelings. This virtue is hampered by two passions: vanity and voluptuousness, and therefore, first of all, one must renounce them in the mind and then try to acquire this virtue (forgiveness of offenses). Therefore, O soul, having voluntarily given yourself over to these two passions, do not blame anyone: neither Adam, nor the devil, nor other people, but enter into the struggle with your will and do not neglect this: this struggle is internecine, and it is not external (for we will not have to fight with our neighbors), but internal, and none of the people will help us. We will have only one Helper, mysteriously hidden in us since Baptism - Christ, Who is invincible and from Whom nothing is hidden. He will help us in this struggle if we fulfill His commandments according to our strength. Our opponents, as stated above, are: voluptuousness connected to the body, and vanity, which possesses me and you. They deceived Eve and seduced Adam, voluptuousness pointed out the tree, “as good things are to be seen with the eye,” and vanity added to this: “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:6, 5). Just as the first-created Adam and Eve (having recognized their nakedness) were ashamed of each other, so we, having rejected kindness from our mental eyes and seeing ourselves naked, are ashamed of each other in our conscience and so we sew together fig leaves for ourselves: putting on the outer cover of words, feigned actions and self-justifications. The Lord makes us leather clothing and says: “In your patience gain your souls” (Luke 21:19), and in accordance with this he advises: “Whoever gains his soul, that is, in vindictiveness or in some other sin, will destroy it; and whoever loses his soul (not deigning to sin and evil) ... will find it” (Matthew 10:39) in eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom belongs all glory, honor and worship with His Beginning Father and the Life-giving Spirit forever. Amen.