Девство

Neither virginity nor marriage unites or separates us completely from God or from the world so that one in itself is worthy of disgust, and the other of unconditional praise: on the contrary, the mind must be a good ruler both in marriage and in chastity, and from them, as from some substance, skillfully process and create virtue (1). What belongs to the married woman in part belongs to the virgin entirely. You have chosen the angelic life, you have become a celibate, do not fall into the carnal, do not fall into the material, do not be united with matter, while you lead a celibate life. A prodigal gaze will not protect virginity; a prodigal tongue enters into fellowship with the evil one, feet walking disorderly expose illness or are set in motion by illness. Let the thought also be virgin, let it not spin, let it not wander, let it not carry within itself images of what is evil (such an image is already a part of fornication), let it not create hated idols in the soul! He said to them: not everyone can receive this word, but to those who have been given it (Matthew 19:11). Do you see the height of this virtue? It turns out to be barely usable. And is it not above the flesh that he who is born of the flesh should not be born into the flesh? Isn’t it an angelic property for a soul connected with the flesh to live not according to the flesh and to be above nature itself? The flesh connected her with the world, and her mind raised her to God; the flesh was burdened, but the mind was inspired; the flesh imprisoned him, but love loosed them. Strive with all your soul, virgin, for God! I give the same law to husbands and wives. Do not imagine as good everything that seems good for many - no clan, no wealth, no throne, no dominion, no beauty achieved in the goodness and harmony of the members - this play of time and disease! If you have exhausted all the power of love before God, if you do not have two objects of love, that is, both the fleeting and the permanent, and the visible and the invisible, then have you been wounded so much by the chosen arrow and have you come to know the beauty of the Bridegroom so that you can say in the words of a marriage description and a wedding song: You are sweetness and all desire (see Song 5:16)? You see the imprisoned streams in lead pipes, how they, when strongly constrained and directed towards one place, so often deviate from the natural properties of water that, constantly pressed from behind, they rush upward: so you, if you concentrate love and are completely united with Christ, then you will strive for grief, and not fall down and not overflow. You will remain entirely Christ's until you finally see Christ Himself, your Bridegroom. Keep yourself unapproachable in word, and in deed, and in life, and in thoughts, and in the movements of the heart, for the evil one tortures you from everywhere and is always looking out for where to overthrow you, where to wound you, if he finds something unprotected and open to attack. The more purity he sees in you, the more he becomes more desecrated, because stains are more visible on clean clothes. Let them not attract: gaze - gaze, laughter - laughter, short walks - night gatherings, and night - destruction! For what is gradually taken away and stolen, although in the present it produces insensible damage, nevertheless later completely destroys the thing... There are eunuchs who were born from their mother’s womb, etc. (Matthew 19:12). I really wish I could say something strong about the eunuchs. Don’t think highly of yourself, eunuchs by nature! It may be that you are involuntarily chaste, because your chastity has not been subjected to temptation and has not been proven by experience. What is done good by natural inclination does not deserve approval, but what is done by free will is commendable. What honor is there to the fire that it burns? Burning is its natural property. Or the water that flows down? This property was given to her from the Creator. What honor is it to the snow that it is cold? The sun that shines? It shines involuntarily. Show me you mean well. And you will show this if, being carnal, you become spiritual, if, drawn down by the weight of the flesh, you become inspired by the mind, if you, born low, turn out to be heavenly; if you are bound by the flesh, you will appear above the flesh. So, since it is not commendable to understand this about one bodily thing, I demand something different from the eunuchs. Do not commit adultery in relation to the Divine! Those who have joined Christ, do not dishonor Christ! Perfected by the Spirit, do not make the Spirit equal to yourselves! If I were still pleasing people,” says Paul, “I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal. 1:10), if I served the creature, I would not be called a Christian... Imagine that the Trinity is one pearl, everywhere having the same appearance and equal shine; if one part of this pearl is damaged, then all the pleasantness of the stone will be lost. When you dishonor the Son in order to honor the Father, the Father does not accept your honoring. The Father will not be glorified by dishonoring the Son... If you dishonor the Holy Spirit, then the Son does not accept your honor, for although the Spirit is not like the Son from the Father, yet from the same Father. Either give honor to the whole, or dishonor the whole, in order to at least show a mind that agrees with itself. I don’t accept your half-hearted piety, I want you to be completely pious (and how else I wish this! Forgive the movement of my heart - I’m also sick for those who hate!). You were my member, and although you are now cut off, perhaps you will be a member again, which is why I speak condescendingly. This is for the eunuchs, so that they may maintain chastity in the consideration of the Divine; for fornication and adultery are called not only sin in the judgment of the body, but also every sin, especially lawlessness in the judgment of the Divine. You might ask, how can we prove this? It is said: they committed fornication with their actions (Ps. 105:39). Here you also see the shameless act of fornication. It is also said: and she committed adultery with a tree (Jer. 3:9). You see that there is also an adulterous religion. So, while maintaining bodily chastity, do not commit fornication mentally. Do not force us to conclude that you involuntarily observe carnal chastity, because you are not chaste in that in which you have the opportunity to be a fornicator... However, let the eunuchs also be honored by the following words of Christ, for they serve to their praise. For there are eunuchs, says Christ, who were born like this from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who are castrated from people; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever can contain it, let him contain it (Matthew 19:12) (1). Blessed is the life of happy virgins who, having shaken off the flesh, are close to the pure Divinity (2). A virgin life is better, truly better! - but if she is devoted to the world and earthly things, then it is worse than marriage (2). And you, Virgin Brides, who have accepted the Word of the great God into your arms, try to offer everything as a gift to God (2)! Let us crown virginity with our crowns, singing it from the bottom of our hearts in pure songs! This is a wonderful gift of our life, a gift more brilliant than gold, electrum and ivory - a gift to those in whom the fire of love for virginity has subjected earthly life to the valley, raising from here the wings of their mind to the most exalted God. Let the guardians of purity listen to my song with joy, because it is the common reward of all the chaste; and let the envious block the doors of hearing! If anyone wants to open it, then cleanse your heart with teaching! I greet you, great, God-given virginity - giver of blessings, mother of a comfortable life, Christ's lot, cohabitant of heavenly beauties, to whom marital ties are unknown! But they do not know these bonds: first, God, then - the face of the ever-present God - God, this Source of lights, the unnameable, incomprehensible Light, which runs away from the speed of the mind approaching Him, always warns every thought, so that in our desires we constantly stretch to a new height - and the face of God, these Lights are secondary after the Trinity, which has royal glory. The first virgin is the Pure Trinity. From the beginningless Father, not aroused by anyone (because He Himself is the path, root and beginning for everyone) and who does not give birth to anything like mortal children, like light from light, comes the Son the King. From the Son there is no other beloved son who delights in such glory, so that the Father is entirely the Parent, and the Son only the Son, and the only Son of the only Father, having this in common with the great Spirit, that both are equally from the Father. One God, revealed in three Lights; such is the pure nature of the Trinity! After the Trinity there are luminous, invisible Angels. They walk freely around the great throne, because they are fast-moving minds, flames and divine spirits, quickly transported through the air. They diligently serve high commands. They have no marriages, no sorrows, no worries, no terrible and criminal rebellion of passions... For them in virginity the path of godlikeness is ready, leading to God, in agreement with the intentions of the Immortal, Who wisely rules the helm of the great world, as well as strong-hearted mortals, together in heaven and on earth - this sacred race of distressed people - this glory of the King. But now I will proclaim the venerable mysteries of God, how virginity shone in recent times... As soon as both the bowels and the wide ends of the earth - east and west, and the southern and northern countries - were filled with these one-day creatures (people) and the dirty vale boiled with insolence, the creation was humbled by many lessons: the division of languages, floods, fiery rains, written decrees law, prophets. Since she did not want to throw off the bonds of original sin, on the contrary, she was constantly entangled in the strongest captives 51 of the flesh, indulging in voluptuousness, drunkenness and idolatry, then finally, at the behest of the immortal Father and the action of the Son, the beloved race received the following honor as its inheritance. Christ, seeing how soul-destroying sin consumes in a mortal body everything that He put into it from the heavenly portion, and, like a cunning serpent, dominates over people - to restore His property, he did not leave other helpers to heal the disease, because weak healing is not enough in great suffering, but he exhausted the glory that He Himself had - the heavenly and unchanging Image of the Heavenly... But who will open the mind and its depths in You, King? You know the number of raindrops and sea sand, You know the paths of the wind. Who will also know the traces of Your advice. Blissful! You, reigning in the heavenly places, see everything and control everything, no matter what the boundless age hides within itself. The human mind, reaching out to You, sees only a small radiance and, as it were, fast-flying lightning running through the air. But, however, it is certain that with your suffering you took a person away from here and placed him in a new life - instead of a sinful one, a free one. Previously, life on earth was many-sorrowful and the world was many-sick; the earthly king was surrounded by a large people, treacherously kidnapped from the great King. But now Christ, having freed us from the power of terrible sin, again leads us to the great King and to a better world. And the first was for people the fruit of marriage, and the other was the godlike virginity. Marriage served as an adornment for the earth, and virginity for God’s heaven. Just as a painter, depicting soulless likenesses of things in a picture, first shades the image with light and unclear features, and then paints the full image with different colors: so virginity, the property of the ever-present Christ, appeared before in a small number of people, and while the Law reigned, shaded by faint colors, in a few features it shone with a hidden light. But when Christ came through a pure, virgin, unmarried, God-fearing, undefiled mother without marriage and without a father, and, since He was about to be born, purified the female nature, rejected the bitter Eve and rejected the carnal laws, according to the great statutes the letter yielded to the spirit, and grace appeared; then a bright virginity shone for people, detached from the world and renouncing the weak world, as much preferable to marriage and worldly ties as the soul is preferable to flesh and the wide sky - earth, to what extent the unchangeable life of the blessed is better than a fleeting life, as much as God is more perfect than man. And around the radiant King stands an immaculate, heavenly host - these are those who hasten from earth to become gods, these are Christ-bearers, servants of the cross, despising the world, dead for earthly things, caring for heavenly things, luminaries of the world, clear mirrors of light. They see God, God sees them, and they are God's (2). How much better is a clean life! You will recognize this if you consider the love of God and the love of heavy flesh, also the nature and twofold limit of the world. For if, at least somewhat, you cleanse your eyes from the pus with which they become covered when the light shines, or from darkness, and you are able to look with an open eye at the brightness of our sun, to resolve everything with a pure mind, then you will find that virginity, taken in its entirety, is such an offering to God, which is lighter than gold, electrum and ivory, that it is prudent, clear as day, light-winged, lofty, lightly, brightly, above dust, uncontrollably in the earthly vale, dwells in the vast heavenly city and far from the flesh, with one hand takes hold of ageless life, and with the other accepts wealth and never-ending glory, is not like a turtle, which, under the burden of its bone house, with slow steps, barely drags its wet body, is not divided between Christ and the sovereign flesh, according to the law of the water-earth, which either cling to dry land, or remain day and night in the waters, but directs the whole mind to God, and blossoms with births from above, which are better than earthly children - with hope and pure thoughts sent from the Pure One. On the contrary, marriage either completely moves away from Christ due to the disastrous inflammation of the flesh and all kinds of worldly concerns, or slightly touches the divine. Just as someone who looks at two heads or two faces at the same time, or sees doubly written letters on pages, does not correctly grasp the whole image, although he desires, but embraces one part, and the other runs away from weak, scattered vision: so love is weak if it is divided between the world and Christ, but, on the contrary, is strong if it is directed towards the One. A man either, possessing Christ entirely, neglects his wife, or, having given place to earthly love in himself, forgets about Christ. It happened to see how a stonecutter or someone who carves something out of wood, if he is a smart and sensible person, when he needs to cut in a straight line, closes one eye with his eyelashes, and with the other strains all his vision, collected together, and correctly determines where the tool made a mistake. So, concentrated love brings us much closer to Christ, Who loves the one who loves, sees the one who turns his eyes to Him, sees and goes out to meet the one approaching. The more someone loves, the more constantly he looks at his beloved, and the more constantly he looks, the more deeply he loves. This creates a beautiful circle (2). For me (virginity) - those parents who taught me goodness, and those children who were taught by me. I have as my spouse the One Christ, Who loves virgins primarily, although He became a man for everyone and lifted the cross for everyone. I look at Him with joy, even when He sends me sorrows; I rejoice that through sorrows it makes me lighter, like gold that was mixed with dust and then purified. And if chastity is protected in you by marriage and marriage, then I have made it its guardian, not the flesh, but the Word and love, which, possessing me, drove away all extraneous affection, just as a lion drives away the weakest animals. Flesh and flesh have the same passions, and therefore they know how to please each other in other ways. Your table is laden with dishes, but a small loaf of bread satisfies me, with which the great Christ fed thousands in the deserts. Your drink is prepared with art, and my drink always flows abundantly from springs, rivers and deep wells. Your face is full and your clothes are light, but my attire is unkempt hair and a dark robe. But I have clothes with golden cassocks rattling (see Ps. 44:14) 52 - this is Christ, the best inner adornment of my soul. You have a soft bed, but my bed is sackcloth, tree branches and earth wet with tears. You value gold highly, but for me dust is more desirable. You are more indomitable than a calf, I lower my bashful gaze to the ground. You are bursting with laughter; a smile has never appeared on my cheeks. You desire glory, but my glory is not on earth (2). Virgin, be virgin in hearing, eyes, and tongue, because sin invades everything. Strain your hearing for only good broadcasts, and for shameful and shameless speeches, block it with the door. Keep your eyes chaste in the bridal chamber, that is, in your eyelids, and do not wound your heart with lustful movements. Keep your lips closed, like the unopened cups of a flower, so that your word remains an object of desire (2). Who saved Thekla among the fire? Who bound the indomitable power of bloodthirsty beasts? What a great miracle! Virginity put the animals to sleep, and they did not dare to desecrate the pure virgin body with their teeth (2). You, who boast of chastity, having a love for the coveted virginity, should not open your whole heart to other passions. This is worst of all if, through the cunning of an envious person, evil is born out of good. I don’t think that it is necessary to avoid marriage and marital duties: through marriage, God continually multiplies the human race, but I choose virginity as a medicine and aid against my passions. And if I see a day free from them, then I have something to thank my lonely life for! But when, having fenced off an expensive field with a wall, I open the doors to the beasts, or I surround one part of it with a dense fence, and on the other I leave paths for travelers walking by, then won’t the same thing happen as if the enemy were given the opportunity to burst in from everywhere and destroy my field? But the enemy also plots against you in everything, to openly and secretly attack you from the outside and catch you from the inside. No one will escape his malice unless he has Christ as his constant helper. Sometimes do not charge unimportant things with sin, but do not resist weakly even unimportant things, so as not to encounter, no matter what, the worst (2). You, virginity, take care to protect yourself from everywhere and be well established in God, to become a perfect pearl among the stones, a morning star among the stars, a dove among the birds, an olive among the trees, a lily in the fields, goodness in the sea. You, virgin, having despised the whole world and all the pleasures of life, stand next to the radiant Christ and, holding hand in hand, lead Him into your bridal chamber, filled with joys, wafting with sweets and fragrant: mix your own myrrh with the heavenly world; To the unspoken desires of love poured out here, add your love, to beauty, add beauty, to the hidden - hidden, to the luminous - luminous, so that Christ becomes a good lover of your glorious image, so that Christ becomes your Bridegroom, so that Christ, having opened the veil, joyfully sees a bride worthy of beauty, who is adorned with good pearls, sits on a richly decorated seat, holds her head high, so that so beautiful He made it even more attractive, so that Christ would introduce you, full of joy, into His abodes, offer you a wedding supper among the great undefiled faces, crown your head with ever-blooming delights during heavenly hymns, place before you a cup of sweetly fragrant drink, show you the secrets of wisdom, the likeness of which we see here in the mirror, and open the true light to your unveiled mind, when the coarse bodies will give way to the spirit, and the aerial bodies will receive ageless life (2). Virgin, bride of Christ, glorify your Bridegroom; continually purify yourself with word and wisdom, so that you, pure, can eternally coexist with the Pure. This union is much higher than a perishable combination. Living in the body, imitating the spiritual Forces, live an angelic life on earth. Here alliances are made and dissolved, here bodies are born from bodies: and in the life above, each Power lives alone, and it is indestructible. The First Forces receive within themselves the ray of pure Essence; These are spirits and fire - servants of God's commands. And carnal combination is invented by matter - this incessantly fluid nature. However, God put a stop to this too by legitimizing marriage. But you, who fled from the affairs of matter, become friends with the heavenly, as the mind becomes friends with the mind, merging into divine harmony, and, waging war with the flesh, help the image of God. For you are the breath of God, coupled with the worst, so that after struggle and victory you may receive a crown, raising up the dust that is above, beautifully subdued (2). Virginity is a departure from the body (2). Electrum is an alloy of gold and silver, which is also what the ancients called amber. – Approx. lane A captive is something that is woven: a braid, a chain, shackles, bonds. – Approx. ed. Ryasny - fringe, its tassels, also a common decoration of sacred clothes. – Approx. ed. You might be interested in: