Глава II. Обращение от греха к добродетели

Since the work mainly depicts the Christian moral ideal, as St. Tikhon saw it, we will touch upon the process of turning from sin to virtue as briefly as possible, following the main points that the saint himself points out. Thus, conversion occurs through the grace of God, acting through the conscience and the word of God, leading to repentance and a change in both the state of the heart and the outer life of a person. 1. The action of God's grace Salvation is a divine-human affair, and “God does not save man without man.” But the beginning of conversion, the call to repentance belongs entirely to the grace of God, which, in the words of the saint, “comes down like quiet rain, watering the heart to bear fruit.” On the contrary, “all our efforts without the grace and help of God are not strong” (27, 36). Knowing the depth of the fall of man and the degree of “corruption of our nature,” the saint writes this way about the words of the Savior without Me, you cannot do anything (John 15:5; understanding them as an indication, in particular, of the need for strengthening by the grace of God in the matter of salvation): fallen man “can live comfortably in the flesh, like a boat sailing down a river, but cannot stand against the flesh and live spiritually by itself, like a ship against the rapids of a river.” cannot float by itself: either the rowers or the wind must move the sail; Likewise, a person in spiritual life and the work of salvation needs to be helped by a supernatural and omnipotent power. You have to conquer yourself too. But how can this be without the present power of God, which can do everything? Moreover, what hinders the accomplishment of the work of salvation is not only human nature damaged by sin, but also the world with its temptations, bad habits, and the devil, who constantly seeks the destruction of the human soul. Why “a sinful person cannot begin a good Christian life, and live like a Christian, and end like that without the all-powerful help of God.” “He who is tempted knows all this,” adds the saint (27, 36). But what is the grace of God, where is its source, what are the means of acquiring it and its effect on man? The saint prefers examples to definitions of such a lofty concept. “The grace of God,” he writes, “is the life of our souls: just as our body is our soul, so our soul lives by God’s grace and requires it at every moment. The soul lives as long as God abides in it by His grace” (27, 34). Grace is the light of the soul. “When the light shines, a person sees everything that is good: he sees the path, the ditch, the harmful, and he takes care of it. So, when God’s grace enlightens the soul, the soul knows and sees everything good: it sees God’s wonderful deeds, His providence and destinies, recognizes good from evil, virtue from vice, and sees spiritual benefit and seeks it, sees harm and avoids it.” Finally, grace is “a heavenly, spiritual treasure that abides in the hearts of Christians” (27, 35). The source of salvation, “from which Divine grace flows to us,” says the saint, “is God’s love for us, unworthy (John 3:16), and the free condescension and tenderness of Christ, the Son of God, towards our race” (27:34). The merciful God is ready to give His grace to everyone and looks only at a person’s faith. The saint calls humility the main condition for acquiring grace. “The grace of God will correct everything in you,” he addresses the reader, “when you are humble. Anyone who exalts himself will humble himself, but he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). A humble heart, freed from the love of the world and the desires of the flesh, is convenient to receive God’s grace, just as an idle vessel is convenient to receive water or another substance.” The saint also uses another similarity: “Water flows from the mountains to lower places; thus the grace of God from the Heavenly Father is poured out on humble hearts” 42. In addition to humility, the saint also points out other means for acquiring grace. It dwells in the heart by faith, according to the Gospel promise; multiplies with the knowledge of God; strengthened by the action of church sacraments; returns to those who have lost it through repentance (27, 40–41). The actions of God's grace in man are manifold. She leads the sinner to repentance, enlightening his heart; “ignites the fire of God’s love in him,” and then the person “will be with God and in hell will be heaven”; “teaches us to rejoice in God our Savior, creating in the heart true, spiritual, heavenly joy, and peace and peace of conscience, which is all a foretaste of eternal life, and like grains from the heavenly meal falling on the human heart” (27, 783). In relation to neighbors, the grace of God makes a person “loving, merciful, compassionate, meek, so that he is at peace with his enemies and sympathizes with them, and so is patient with them. Sometimes God’s grace so inflames the human heart with love,” the saint writes, “that I would like to embrace everyone without withdrawal of love with my embrace and see everyone saved. Such a person does not want to offend anyone, neither in deed nor in word, and desires all good for himself and for everyone, and wants everyone, as well as himself, to be saved, which is what he prays for” 43 (27, 38). The grace of God keeps the fire of faith alive. “As a lamp requires oil, so faith, the lamp of our souls, always requires hearing the word of God and grace, so that it does not go out” (27, 158). Grace also supplies true prayer. “A person does not have true and heartfelt prayer from himself: God’s grace teaches him what to pray for and arouses in him true and heartfelt prayer” (27, 542). The grace of God teaches man the fear of God, “presenting to him before the eyes of his heart God’s majesty, omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, and thus exhorts him to live dangerously and with fear, to beware of all sin in words, deeds and thoughts, as by doing so God becomes angry and the person who sins is deprived of God’s mercy. Where does such a God-fearing soul come from everywhere and always, secretly and openly, in front of people and without people, acting dangerously and guarding against all evil” (27, 1001). Calling a sinner to repentance, the grace of God acts “both through the outward word of God, and also inwardly, crying out in the conscience: arise from sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph. 5:14). We will briefly touch on these two subjects of the saint’s theology, which mediate grace in the matter of human salvation. A separate and very interesting subject of study can be the exegesis of St. Tikhon. In this work we will dwell on the saint’s attitude to the word of God only as a means of turning a person to Christ and confirming him in virtue 44. Saint Tikhon calls the Holy Scriptures a gift of God, a message from the Heavenly King to people, which God “through His faithful servants and wise by His Holy Spirit, deigned to send both His holy will and His merciful favor to reveal to such an end, so that we would hold on to it and receive eternal salvation” (3, 1-2; 27, 893). Grace gives the action of the word of God on a person’s heart “a certain wondrous and divine power,” with which it turns him to the path of salvation and directs him to God. This is the same power “that in a short time, as we see in the apostolic sermon, not through many, but through twelve people, not wise, but simple and unlearned, swept through the whole universe” (3: 2). And the saint often compares the Holy Scriptures with a lamp, food, and medicine for the human soul (27, 899–900). The Word of God reveals sin and calls the sinner to repentance. Sin is lawlessness, and it occurs both with a conscious preference of one’s fallen will over the holy will of God, and often out of ignorance of what the latter consists of. To avoid this, a Christian must learn from the Holy Scriptures “what the will of God is, and having learned this, do it by deed itself.” From ignorance of the word of God, “there are all sorts of errors and vices”: “it happens that people consider as sin that in which there is no sin; on the contrary, they do not impute for sin that which is a great sin” (3, 10; 27, 896). Studying the Holy Scriptures allows a fallen person not only to realize his position, but also to fight passions, helps not only to know the will of God, but also to follow it. For this, the word of God must become the rule of a Christian’s life, and the earthly life of the Savior must become a model for His followers. The Holy Scripture, in the words of the saint, “commands Christians to be imitators of God, presents us to imitate His goodness, mercy, generosity, truth, truth, holiness, long-suffering and so on, and looking at these His Divine properties, we ourselves learn to do that and everything that is contrary to that, as a vice, to cleanse our hearts with repentance and contrition” (4, 80; 27, 897, 911). The Word of God affects the human soul in two ways. Like a spiritual sword (Eph. 6:17), it is a weapon against the enemies of salvation, driving away “the rebellion of worldly lusts” from the soul. On the other hand, by renewing the soul, the word of God revives and grows faith, excites the Christian who is diligent in listening to it to spiritual work, strengthens him in piety, hope in God and love for Him, fills the soul with reverence and fear of God, consoles in sorrows, encourages them to endure them courageously, pray for help and admonition from above, patience, repentance - in a word, teaches everything that is useful to the Christian soul, and leads to eternal life. The Word of God, entering the heart, makes it the abode of wisdom (27, 910–912). Holy Scripture not only helps to establish a Christian on the path of virtue. It itself, as a spiritual seed, requires achievement, labor in its assimilation; being offered equally to everyone, the word of God bears fruit according to the degree of zeal for its acceptance and the degree of spiritual talent. In order for hearing or reading the word of God to be beneficial, it is necessary in prayer to ask God for the enlightenment of spiritual eyes, to leave the vanity of the world and to cleanse the heart of everything that interferes with the saving perception of the word of God. It is necessary to read or listen to the Holy Scriptures with the fear of God, reverence, zeal and faith, to root what is heard in the heart, reading not only for the sake of learning, but also for knowledge of the will of God and the salvation of the soul, turning what is read to the glory of God and the benefit of one’s neighbor. The saint advises you to reflect diligently on what you have read. “Stop testing,” he admonishes, “what is happening there or there, test from God’s word what is happening in your soul, and to what end you are going, whether to destruction or to salvation, whether you are on the path of the righteous or the wicked.” The saint especially demands that, while living according to the commandments of God, not look at those who live differently. “For faith day by day, and with faith love diminishes in people, and temptations multiply, which shake our hearts and want to extinguish the kindled faith” (3, 8; 27, 917, 922). When reading or listening to the word of God is not followed by fulfillment or it is read “not to a good end,” then, according to the words of the saint, “just as the light visible to sick eyes harms, so the light of the word of God harms the evil eye”: such a person not only remains without fruit, receiving no benefit, but is also condemned. Neglect of the Holy Scriptures is a sign of unbelief; from the one who listens and does not create, the grace of God is taken away, and the person comes to an even worse state 45, and at the Last Judgment he will be convicted by the same word of God that he despised in earthly life (27, 922–927). The saint also makes some private comments. Thus, he writes that the word of God teaches everyone in his position: “he instills justice in superiors, loyalty in subordinates; encourages the rich to give alms, the poor to patience and generosity; strengthens the little ones in faith, cheers the old ones in hope, and in all, love for God and neighbor plants, grows, multiplies” (2, 98). And secondly: “the seed of the word of God vegetates more comfortably in a young heart, not yet filled with worldly vanities.” A special responsibility for reading and preaching the word of God lies with the shepherds, as those who have taken the key of understanding (Luke 11:52) 46 (27, 890, 928–929). According to the recollections of his cell attendants, the saint “was a great lover of Holy Scripture. At the appointed hours he always read something from the Old Testament himself, and especially from the prophetic books, and at night he read the New Testament either himself or through the cell attendant. Even while he was eating lunch food, the cell attendant always read to him something from the Old Testament, and especially the prophet Isaiah. Also, at midnight, he went out into the front cell and sang the holy psalms quietly and touchingly. It is remarkable that when he was in dark thoughts, he sang a psalm: it is good for me, for you have humbled me, and so on. When in deep thoughts, he sang the psalm: Praise the Lord from heaven, and other comforting psalms, and always with tender tears and heartfelt sighing” 47 (6 “Notes”, 8, 21). “God has placed two witnesses and accusers for the human soul,” says Saint Tikhon, “outside is His law, inside the soul is conscience” (5, 361). But if the words of the first come as if from outside, then conscience, in the words of the saint, is an “internal witness.” It was given to man “so that he could be guided, like a rule, and be taught what to do and what to avoid” (6, 197). Conscience, along with the word of God, is a means of turning a sinner to repentance. The effectiveness of its commands, as well as the words of Holy Scripture, is given by the grace of God. “Conscience is nothing other than natural or natural law,” writes the saint, “which is why conscience is similar to the written law of God. What the law of God teaches, conscience also teaches. And what God forbids externally in His word, a person’s conscience disgusts him internally. For this reason, everyone who sins against his conscience also sins against the law of God and the Lawgiver Himself - God" (4, 205; 6, 197-198). By exposing sins, conscience, like the word of God, turns away from evil. “It happens in this world,” the saint writes, “that a man turns a man walking back and shouts after him: “Do you hear? Come back! I went the wrong way.” So God speaks in man’s conscience and cries out to him when he wants to do evil: “Come back, man! That's not where you're going. Turn away from evil” (Ps. 33:15). And if a person heeds this voice and follows it, then in purity of conscience he finds “faith and joy,” true peace and tranquility, an immaculate Christian life, and, having remained in the struggle to the end, the Kingdom of Heaven (4, 102; 6, 357; 27, 956, 959). Otherwise, conscience becomes a fierce tormentor, convicting the sinner for violating God’s law. “Just as there is no better peace than from a clear conscience,” says the saint, “so there is no greater anxiety and torment than from an evil conscience” (6, 198). Not only obvious sins, but also secret ones, hurt the conscience: sinful feelings and thoughts, unclean wishes. “For this reason,” the saint teaches, “Christians must not only protect themselves from external sins, but also from internal ones” (4, 207). If a clear conscience notices minor sins, then for those who do not guard their conscience, it gradually becomes less sensitive and capable of distinguishing between good and evil, the consequence of which is the fading of faith. “You see that a dusty or sooty mirror does not show anything, although you look into it,” the saint writes. “But when you want to see your face in it, you must wipe it off.” Such a human conscience exists; when it is stained with many sinful vices and lawless life, a person does not see in it the vices that have stuck to his soul... Such a disastrous and deplorable state exists! (3, 36). Until sometimes his death, an unrepentant sinner, distracted by everyday affairs and amusements of the world, may not see his dangerous situation, postponing repentance or not thinking about it at all 48, but “he will certainly see it when the books are opened to the shame of the whole world, angels and men, and his sins are presented before his face,” which will expose him, and remorse will become those hellish torments that will have no end 49 (3, 36; 5, 361). “Sinners, why are we sleeping? Let us awaken and repent, and cleanse our sins with repentance and contrition of our hearts, and correct ourselves, and stop sinning and irritating our conscience, so that we may not appear with an evil conscience, stained by sins, at the Judgment of Christ, where everyone will receive according to their deeds” (6, 88, 198). Awakened from a sinful sleep by the action of God's grace, reproached by conscience and guided by the word of God, the sinner rushes to repentance as the beginning of a new grace-filled life in Christ. Everyone is called to repentance: everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and without repentance there is no salvation. Christ himself calls for repentance, and “for a sinner who has turned away from the true path after baptism, there remains only one hope - true repentance” (5, 130; 27, 703). The saint also points out some reasons for the importance of repentance. The first of them is “God’s great desire and, as it were, a certain hunger and thirst for our salvation,” the beginning of which is supposed to be repentance. The second is “the wonderful look of the Son of God on us, the incarnation, the humble life on earth, suffering and death, which he accomplished all for the sake of our salvation.” The third is those “restrictions of God,” “The Last Judgment of Christ,” “eternal death and hellish torment” for sinners and “eternal bliss prepared for God’s elect,” which are depicted in the Holy Scriptures. Finally, “the unknown end of our life encourages us to repentance,” for “now God calls us to repentance, and then He will call us to an answer.” We cannot help but cite here the inspired words of the great saint about repentance. “Here one must look for it, and look for it more than food, drink and clothing, and temporary life: but after death you will not find it, although you will look for it with sighs and tears. The body hungers and thirsts, and you feed and give it something to drink; the soul hungers and thirsts, and you are careless! You clothe the naked body, wash the dirty body, heal the weak: the soul is naked, stained with vices, weak and already dead - and you are neglecting it! The house is burning, and you are trying to extinguish it: the house of your soul is burning, and has already burned down, and you are neglecting it! You are trying to look for stolen wealth: Satan has stolen all the wealth of your soul, and you are being careless! O poor and damned sinners, why are we sleeping? Why won’t we awaken until time has passed, while God calls and accepts the repentant?!” (3, 198–205). What does repentance consist of? Not only, in the words of the saint, “to lag behind great external sins, but in changing the mind and renewing the inner state. God demands a new heart and a new spirit from us.” And “he who not only sins, but also wants to sin” does not have them: not wanting to part with the passion lurking in his heart, he will sooner or later discover it (3, 206–207; 5, 131). Well aware of the cunning of the enemy of our salvation, who “before sin, the merciful God presents us, so that he can more conveniently lead us into sin, and after sin, God’s justice offers to cast the sinner into despair” (27, 638), the saint gives “certain reasons that give hope and consolation to those who want to repent to receive God’s mercy.” God Himself not only calls us to repentance in many ways, but is also mercifully long-suffering, awaiting our conversion (Ezek. 33:11). The Lord came to earth to call sinners to repentance, promising not to remember the sins of those who repent, and with His Sacrifice on the Cross not only showed God’s love for the world and fallen man, but also made repentance possible and effective, taking upon himself the sins of the world. “Note, O poor and damned sinner,” the saint cries, “how merciful God is to sinners who repent: in all of Holy Scripture you will not find almost a single chapter, not a single page that does not represent God’s mercy to us.” However, this “does not provide an opportunity or a reason for fearlessness and laziness, but the path to despair is stopped. God is merciful, but to those who repent; but God’s judgment befalls the fearless and unrepentant” (3, 207–211). “God threatens those who do not repent with execution” to stop the spread of evil and to admonish those who sin. “Look with what weeping Christ looks at the destruction that is about to happen to Jerusalem,” the saint writes. “It is a foreign matter for Him to execute, Whose very nature is to do good, Whose nature is to save” 50. And the punishment itself, by the mercy of God, is incommensurate with the severity of the sins that brought it. “This is how famines, fires, illnesses, etc. are sent from God, so that we ourselves are forced to seek eternal and heavenly blessings.” For God “does not punish for the sake of destruction, but for the sake of salvation” (3, 207–209). To achieve repentance as a state of the soul, the saint advises “to consider various spiritual weaknesses in ourselves, that is, pride, anger, envy, impurity, love of money, etc., and to regret and lament that such evil entered our soul through the poison of serpents, which was created pure and blameless, and with such desire and contrition to pray to Christ so that by His power we corrected and healed. And when the heart or inner state changes and improves, then both outer life and outer deeds will be good. Then from now on we will wish better to die than to sin” (5, 131, 355). The saint believes that an indispensable condition for true repentance and forgiveness of our sins, referring to the Lord’s Prayer and the Savior’s explanation of it (Matthew 6:12, 14–15), is our sincere forgiveness of the sins of our neighbors. Moreover, in the Gospel parable of the two debtors, the saint sees how “he who is angry with his neighbor and does not forsake his sins will not only not have his sins forgiven by God, but also his former sins, abandoned, will return and be remembered” (4, 204). In one of his letters, the saint cites “signs (signs - I.N.) of true repentance,” noting that “without true repentance, the Gospel and Christ, preached in the Gospel, benefit us nothing.” These signs are as follows. “Changing the heart for the better and correcting a sinful life.” “The flesh is crucifixed with passions and lusts” by confronting them. Fervent prayer to God for forgiveness of past sins 51. A discussion about the greatness of God and God’s love for people before Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and about one’s sinful unworthiness. Humility of oneself both before God and before people by remembering one’s spiritual poverty, unworthiness and wretchedness. Crying about one’s former life, “lived in sins and iniquities” 52, from which is born a complacent enduring of all adversity that befalls and a turning of the mind and heart “from temporary and worldly things to eternity,” with prayer, “so that one may receive this blessed one, and get rid of the unfavorable one” (6, 20–21). Finally, the saint also speaks about the fruits of repentance, which are: “remission of sins, when instead of an oath the blessing of God, instead of anger, the grace and mercy of God is given”; “a new heart and a new spirit, which God requires of us” (Ezek. 36, 26–27); for the truly repentant, “the word of God already really happens,” and the converted sinner himself “feels a special desire to listen to it” 53; he “respects the passion of Christ very dearly and highly; approaches the communion of the most holy Eucharist with fear and great reverence; He highly respects being a true Christian, so much so that he counts all the glory of this world as pus and ridicule against it; in all plans and deeds strives for one eternal and heavenly bliss; just as before he pleased his flesh in its lusts, so later he strives to please the will of God in every way; just as before repentance it was easy for him to sin, so it is hard for him who has repented, so that he deigns better to suffer and die than to sin; when he stumbles or falls due to weakness, he repents himself, he is sick, he laments, he laments as if he has lost something great, and with deep humility asks for forgiveness, so consoled by the hope of God’s mercy; when previous sins come to his mind, he is very ashamed of them and regrets that he committed them, and thanks God that he suffered with His grace, waiting for repentance; shows deeds of love for one’s neighbor without any hypocrisy; he runs away from incidents that led him to sin; when he sees his neighbor in trouble, he does not condemn him, but sympathizes with him, wishes and prays to God to bring him to his senses; he goes to church not for the sake of ceremonies, but to offer prayers in common with the faithful to God; He consumes food, drink and other things not for the sake of sensuality, but for the sake of need, so that he can work for God and pass through the ranks of his work” 54 (3, 213–215). “In a word,” the saint concludes, “for such a person everything is different, both internal and external action and diligence,” which is now performed “voluntarily, without any coercion,” and which is that virtuous life, the description of which, on the basis of the saint’s works, we begin. Descending into a humble heart, grace, in turn, itself produces humility, since “man does not have true humility from himself: God’s grace shows him his poverty, wretchedness, damnation; and so, recognizing himself, a person humbles himself, and, not relying on himself in anything, surrenders to the sole omnipotence, wisdom, goodness and mercy of God” (27, 947). The “iterative process” that was described above also takes place in this case: humility attracts the grace of God, which, in turn, helps to achieve greater humility. There are numerous examples of the generosity and patience of the humble saint towards his ill-wishers. I. Efimov writes that the saint “tried to overcome evil with good,” and says the following. It happened that “the head of the monastery, going to visit noble houses and getting drunk there, said about his saintly person: “He lives in the monastery worse than the monk I have.” Sometimes such words reached the bishop, but he would just say to me: “Take a head of sugar, take it to the boss, or a barrel of grape wine, or something else, he may not have it.” The monks who annoyed him became sick over time; He visited them two or three times every day, consoled them, encouraged them with his prudent and soul-helping conversations, and also provided them with food and drink. Even from the monastery servants he had to endure a lot. But he didn’t seem to hear anything, but later he will say: “God wants it so much that the ministers laugh at me, and I deserve this for my sins, but that’s not enough.” He did a lot of charity to these servants: he helped them with bread, money and other things; This is how he took revenge on his insults and insults, according to the apostolic word: if your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; he exactly did this” (6 “Notes”, 16–17). But even more than in these cases, it is the action of God’s grace in the heart of the saint, and not just the effort of the will to forgive, that is visible in the following description (by the same cell attendant) of the saint’s meeting with a group of schismatics from the Don Cossacks, whom he, having first instructed himself in the true faith, then sent to Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) “for their better confirmation.” Those sent, returning “from there with complete commitment to the Holy Church, expressed their gratitude to him. And as soon as he saw them in his place, he took the leader of that schismatic sect into his holy embrace, with tears and a joyful spirit he exclaimed: “You are ours, Isaac! Let the soul rejoice in the Lord: for I have found a lost sheep, and for this one that was dead and is alive again; it was bent and found. Glory to God about everything, glory to God for His goodness to us and love for mankind!” Here he again gave them instructions and sent them away with God’s blessing, giving them several handwritten notebooks from his works as a guide. Divine love acted so strongly in his soul that he used to say this: “Not just those who adhere to schismatic sects, like simple sheep who have lost their way from the fence of Christ, but also the Turks themselves and other unbelievers in Christ, the Son of God, our Savior, and the very blasphemers of God’s name, I would like them to be saved and all to be in eternal bliss” (6 "Notes", 22). The latter should be done in the chapter where the means proposed for this by the saint will be considered (the most important of which, along with prayer, fasting, and the action of church sacraments, is reading and listening to the Holy Scriptures). But considering such a division to be artificial, we will combine both highlighted aspects in this section. This remark also applies to other subjects in this chapter. “It happens,” the saint writes, “that many who are most skilled in writing the Holy Scriptures are far more evil than those who are not literate. God takes away grace from such people for His contempt, and so without God’s grace they fall from sin to sin.” This happens, in particular, to those who study the Holy Scriptures out of vanity or only for the sake of knowledge, and not for the benefit of the soul. Wanting to make the Holy Scriptures more accessible, the saint, as I. Efimov recalls, repeatedly said that “if it were not for the temptation that relates to the rabble, and even more so to the numerous schismatic sects, then I could take upon myself the trouble of translating the New Testament into the current style, so that it would be intelligible to the common people, and so that for the useful reading of many it would be printed on one side, as it is now, in Slavic, and on the other in an intelligible translation. He intended to communicate this thought to the Eminence of Novgorod and others, but due to the weakening of his health, he abandoned this most useful intention” (6 “Notes”, 21). V. Chebotarev reports that the saint “by nature had a keen memory, so that all the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, were in his memory, and when he began to talk about any matter, he always cited texts from the Holy Scriptures as proof, in which book and in which chapter he said... He never went anywhere or traveled without the Psalter, but always had it with him in his bosom, for It was small, but finally he read it all by heart” (6 “Notes”, 8–9). The idea of ​​the rashness, danger and sinfulness of carelessly delaying repentance is remarkably expressed in article 118 of “Spiritual Treasures” - “I’ll come tomorrow” (5, 184–186). About the same thing in the “Christian Instruction”: “Death follows us invisibly, and death then overtakes us when we are not in tea, and it overtakes us in a way we are not in tea. Be in constant repentance, and be ready for the outcome at all times and everywhere. A wise servant always watches and waits when his master calls: watch and wait when Christ your Lord calls you. He calls everyone through death: always be in your life what you want to be at death” (6, 147-148). Regarding what they will consist of, in patristic literature there are various judgments that complement each other. The saint writes about the main thing: for the sinner, “instead of torment, it is one thing that he has offended and angered God, Who is the only goodness, love, truth, holiness, mercy and infinite goodness” (27, 705). We present these words of the saint in order to show what stands behind his often truly “legal” terminology. Remembering which, “one must read and remember the comforting Scriptures, passages and examples of sinners who repented and received mercy, so as not to fall into the destruction of ultimate despair.” In another letter, the saint writes that the Holy Scripture itself “promises forgiveness and mercy of God to every sinner and to every sinner who truly repents: for everyone and for every sinner, no matter what he may be, Christ died, so that all who repent will be saved.” Therefore, “it is not majesty, not the multitude of sins that destroys the sinner, but unrepentant life: God judges not those who have sinned, but those who have sinned and have not repented. For this reason, no one, no small or great sinner, should despair or become bitter, but everyone should turn to God with sincerity” (6:22-24). “Tears, crying and sighing,” the saint writes, “are signs of heartfelt sadness, which stings the heart like an arrow, and thus sheds tears. Just as a lip, filled with water, when clenched and compressed, emits water from itself: so a heart filled with sadness, when it is, as it were, clenched with greater sadness, spews out tears, and with tears it is relieved from sadness. Crying and tears ease sadness, and just as the air is rained, so a mourning and grieving soul is cooled with tears” (27, 704). “It’s as if someone who has risen from an illness seeks reinforcement from everywhere, so that his weakened strength can be gathered and strengthened: so a soul freed from a sinful illness strives to strengthen his strength so that he can do the works of God and follow the path of God’s commandments to his mother-in-law” (3, 214). On the contrary, “where there is no fruit of repentance, there is no true repentance, but false, (which) is nothing other than a deception of conscience.”