His other chapters

The treatise “His Other Chapters” (or “Other Chapters”, 1327) serves as a supplement to the work of St. Gregory Sinaite “Very useful chapters arranged in acrostics.” The work consists of 7 chapters, which touch on different topics: - imitation of Christ (chapters 1-3). The author describes the spiritual growth of a Christian. The different periods of Christ's life are presented as stages in the believer's ascent to perfection through the commandments, baptism and contemplation. Distinctions are made between saving suffering for Christ and harmful suffering from sinful pleasures; - about passionate (from despondency to fall) and good (from patience to dispassion and theology) change (chapters 4-5); - temptations that come in a dream (chapter 6); - 7 types of alms (chapter 7). *The title of the work in Greek is ῞Ετερα κεφάλαια. *The title of the essay in Latin is Alia capita. 1. Anyone baptized into Christ must reach all the ages of Christ, because he has already anticipated their power and through the commandments can find and assimilate them. Conception [in the life of a Christian] is the pledge of the Spirit, birth is the action of joy, baptism is the cleansing power of the fire of the Spirit, transfiguration is the contemplation of the Divine light, crucifixion is the mortification of everything [sinful], burial is the guarding of Divine jealousy in the heart, resurrection is the life-giving awakening of the soul, ascension is the frenzy and rapture of the mind to God. Whoever has not acquired and felt [the named states] 1 is still a baby in body and spirit, although everyone would consider him an old man and active. 2. The suffering of Christ imparts life-giving mortification to those who [as it were] endure all of them, so that, by suffering [with Christ, they] may be glorified with Him. Suffering from [immoderate] pleasures acquires murderous mortification for those who receive them, because only the voluntary bearing of Christ’s suffering is the crucifixion of the crucifixion and the mortification of mortification. 3. To suffer for Christ means to endure everything that happens. Envy serves the innocent for good, but for us, the guilty, reproof turns and the Lord’s punishment opens our ears 2 to good. Therefore, to those who endure everything, the Lord promises a crown forever and ever. Glory to Thee, our God! Glory to Thee, Holy Trinity! For everything, glory to You! 4. About passionate change. Dejection - this hard-to-control passion - relaxes the body; in the exhausted body the soul relaxes. When both [body and soul] become exhausted, then the state of the body changes from voluptuousness. Voluptuousness arouses impure carnal desire, lustful carnal desire [causes] inflammation, inflammation - a violent rebellion, 4 rebellion sets in motion memory, memory - reverie, reverie - preposition, preposition - combination, combination - consent, consent accomplishes the work either through the body, or in a variety of ways. This is how a defeated man falls. 5. About a good change. Patience in every matter gives birth to courage, courage - jealousy, jealousy - self-control, self-control - tension, tension in activity or its increase lulls the intemperance of the body and tames the voluptuousness of carnal desire. The taming of the desire [of the flesh] arouses melancholy, melancholy - love, love - indignation, indignation - ardor, ardor - awakening, awakening - zeal, zeal - prayer, prayer - silence. Silence gives birth to contemplation, contemplation - knowledge, knowledge - possession of secrets. The end of the mysteries is theology, and the fruit of theology is perfect love, [the fruit of] love is humility, humility is dispassion, and dispassion is foresight, prophecy and foreknowledge 5 . Here, no one has either perfect virtue or decreases vices at once, but has both virtue, which increases slightly, and evil, which little by little comes to nothingness. 6. About temptations in dreams. Question: how does a sinful 7 and non-sinful emission occur? Answer: sin is committed in three ways: from fornication, self-satisfaction 8 and agreement with thoughts. Non-sinful [emission] occurs seven times: through urine, from food that burdens [the stomach], from excitement, due to a cold drink and looseness of the body, from immoderate labor and, finally, due to various dreamy images excited by demons. For ascetics who have grown old in virtue, [emission] occurs in the first five ways mentioned above. Among the dispassionate, the mucous matter flows unmixed only with urine, because as a result of many godly actions of purification and sanctification, they have, as it were, rare secret reasons [for emission] and they are given the grace of abstinence 9 from it. The last type - dreamy outflow in sleep - occurs 10 in passionate and physically weak people. However, this view, as involuntary, according to the fathers, is not sinful. According to Providence, the dispassionate is characterized by a sinless flow through [known] intervals of time, when the rest of the seminal matter is destroyed by Divine fire. For an ascetic-doer, the need [for flow] is manifold and liberation [from matter] is innocent 11 . A passionate person is characterized by a twofold outflow: free 12 and conditioned 13, in accordance with daydreaming in sleep or while awake. Of [them], the first is blameless, the second is sinful and requires penance. The dispassionate have one outflow and liberation of the body [from matter] - according to Providence, through the substance of urine. As excess [matter], destroyed by Divine fire, is poured out and destroyed according to the above [method]. For active and average people, I say, there are six reasons for the inevitable “fluid movement”, through which the body is cleansed and freed from tempting 14 substances and from natural and necessary needs, namely: heavy food, excitement due to a cold drink, weakness of the body 15, immoderate work. And finally, nature suffers [expiration] through its own 16 fault - from the envy of demons. Likewise, the weak and beginners have six passionate causes [outflow]: gluttony, idle talk, condemnation, vanity, and two more - agreement with dreams and attack of demons out of envy. Providence, which invariably watches over them 17, tends to free their nature from [the source of] depravity, alien excesses and animal 18 desires that have crept into it and teach them to carefully exercise humility and completely curb themselves in everything. 7. He who is in solitude and feeds on alms 19 must accept alms under seven conditions: first, ask for something useful; secondly, use it beneficially; thirdly, accept what you receive as if from God; fourthly, believe that God is a rewarder; fifthly, to be a fulfiller of His commandments; sixthly, do not allow them to be neglected; seventh, not to be greedy, but giving [alms to others] and compassionate. He who limits himself to such rules 20 rejoices in the fact that he is guided by God and not by people. That is, for the beginners and the weak. Ό γάρ έν τούτοις τοιοΰτος. You might be interested in: