Омилия VIII 15 .

About faith. It also contains an exposition of the Orthodox Confession 16 We “believe in God” and “believe in God”; these concepts are not identical. Because “believing God” means considering His promises towards us to be unshakable and true; “believing” “in God” includes thinking about Him in an Orthodox manner. We must have both, be true of both, and have this in such a way that we can be more confident (in God’s promises to us). than even if we saw with our own eyes, and we must be faithful to God, in whom we have faith, and being faithful, thus be justified. For it is said: “Abraham believed in God, and it was imputed to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3). “He received a promise from God that in his seed, who was Isaac, all the tribes of Israel would be blessed; then he receives a command from God: Isaac, then still in childhood, should be sacrificed, and meanwhile, through him alone the fulfillment of the promise should come true; and so, without any objection, the father was ready to slay the boy with his own hands, at the same time believing that the promise that would come true through him was unshakable and true. Do you see what justifying faith is like?! But Christ also promised us an inheritance of eternal life, and pleasure, and glory, and the kingdom; then he commanded to live in poverty, to fast, to live completely and crampedly, to be ready for death, to crucify oneself with passions and lusts. So, if we are diligent about this and believe in this promise of God, then we too, in the image of Abraham, have believed God, and this will be counted as righteousness to us. You see what followed from this: the willingness to present Isaac to the slaughter was not only a powerful testimony and revelation of the faith of Abraham, but also became the reason that from his seed Christ was to be born, through whom all the families of the earth were blessed, and the promise found its fulfillment. For God, as it were, became a Debtor to the one who, for the sake of God, gave his only begotten and own son, so that for his sake and because of the promise to him, he would in turn give his only begotten and own Son. So it is with us: chastity and righteousness, humility and endurance of those who in one way or another cause us harm, and the distribution of property, as well as the suffering of the body in fasting and vigils, and, in a word, the crucifixion of oneself with passions and lusts in fulfillment of the commandments of God, not only reveals how truly we believe in the promises of Christ, but also, so to speak, makes God in His turn the Debtor of granting us eternal life. and unshakable life, and pleasure, and glory, and kingdom. Therefore, He Himself, looking at His Disciples, said: “Blessed are you poor... for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the weeping. Blessed with mercy. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake..." (Matthew 5:3-10, Luke 6:20-22), and - "woe to the rich... woe to those who laugh... woe to those who are filled; woe to those who are satisfied; woe when all men speak good things to you" (Luke 6:24-26). And the one who spends his life not according to the proclaimed beatitudes, but according to what the Lord complains about, tell me, can he be considered a believer in God? - “Show me,” they say, “your faith by your works,” and “he who is wise... let him show his works by a good life” (James 2:18, 3:13). So, the fact that we truly believe in God, i.e. in other words, we recognize as true and unshakable, and not yet in existence, His promises towards us or threats, let them be revealed on the basis of our good deeds and observance of God’s commandments. And the fact that we believe in God Orthodoxy, i.e. We think beautifully, firmly and piously regarding Him, how can we show this to us? - Because we are unanimous, like-minded and of the same confession with our God-bearing Fathers. How true it is to believe in God is manifested not only in resistance to carnal passions and evil snares, but also in resistance to people possessed by passions, who seduce and lure into ignoble pleasures; Likewise, Orthodox faith in the one true God is manifested not only in resistance to ignorance and the suggestions of the adversary, but also in resistance to wicked people who secretly kidnap and drag into their destruction. The greatest help is available in relation to both faiths; not only from God and from the power of reason given to us by Him, but also from good Angels and from godly people who live according to God. Therefore, our spiritual and common Mother and Nurse - the Church of Christ - today proclaims even more clearly, even more universally, those who have shone in piety and virtue. Announcing their All-Holy Councils and the divine dogmas presented at them, She at the same time rejects in its main features the adherents of wickedness (heresies) and their malicious constructs and opinions, so that we truly turn away from them. Following those who thought divinely, they believed in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, from Whom and by Whom and in Whom all things were; Who is before all and above all and in all and above all; Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, unconfoundedly united and inseparably distinguished; Unity, She is also the Almighty Trinity. The timeless, and beginningless, and eternal One Father is the Wine and Root of the contemplated Divinity in the Son and in the Holy Spirit: not one Creator, but only one Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Maker: the ever-existing and ever-existing Father and at the same time the Maker, of whom the One Son is co-eternal with Him and in relation to time co-temporal, but not without beginning (i.e. has the Guilt of His being), as having the Father as His Parent and Root and Source and Beginning, from Whom alone He came before all ages, but was not separated: God from God; not different as God, but different as the Son; the ever existing and always existing Son and always existing unmixed with God; The Living Word, the True Light, the Hypostatic Wisdom, the Wine and the Beginning of all things, since by Him all things were (created); Who, at the end of the ages, as the Prophets predicted, emptied Himself, taking on for our sake the appearance characteristic of us. By the favor of the Father and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, he was conceived and born of the Ever-Virgin and, as truly incarnate, became like us in everything, with the exception of sin; remaining, as he was, true God in one Hypostasis even after the incarnation; acting everything divine as God; and everything human, like a Man, and subjected to immaculate human suffering, being impassive, and immortal, and eternal, like God; and was crucified, and died, and was buried, and on the third day he rose again; and by His death and resurrection He abolished him who had the power of death; and after the resurrection he appeared and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, making our nature one-honoured and co-throne, as a participant in the Divinity, and with this nature (i.e. in the human nature assumed by Him in the incarnation) He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, called again into life by the power of His Coming, and to reward each according to his deeds. Knowing that this infusion and nature He received from us is subject to the perception of the senses and is describable, we depict Him on icons and worship Orthodoxy, just as we depict on icons the One who gave birth to Him in virginity, as well as those who perfectly pleased Him. We honor and worship the symbols of His Passion, and especially the Cross, as divine signs of victory over the common enemy. By daily creating remembrance of Him, according to His commandment, we priesthood the Divine (i.e., the Divine Eucharist) and are partakers of them. According to His commandment, we are first of all baptized and baptize in the holy and worshiped name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the eternal and beginningless Father the Holy Spirit proceeds, being co-originating with the Father and the Son, as timeless, but not blameless: for He also has as Root and Origin and Wine the Father, from Whom, before all ages, constantly, dispassionately, in a deducible manner, He came forth, as proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, having unmixed (with Him) unity and inseparable (from Them) difference. God exists and is Himself from God; not Other as God, but Other as the Comforter, as the Holy Spirit, self-hypostatic, having existence from the Father and through the Son sent into the firstfruits of eternal life and as a pledge of future and ever-present blessings; and He Himself is the Author of everything that has come into life, for in Him everything happened. He is the same as the Father and the Son, except unbegotten and begotten. He was sent by the Son to His Disciples, i.e. was revealed; for in this sense the “message” of the Holy Spirit is to be understood; because how else would the One who is omnipresent and inseparable from the Sender be sent? Therefore, the Holy Spirit is sent not only from the Son, but also from the Father and proceeds Himself according to His will: for the sending or manifestation of the Holy Spirit is the common work of the Father and the Son and the Spirit; It happens that He is revealed not according to His nature, for no one has ever seen or proclaimed the Divine nature, but according to grace and power and action, which is common to the Father, Son and Spirit. The personal property of Each of Them is the Hypostasis of Each and that which is observed in relation to Her as a hypostatic property. Common to them is not only the Nature of the Divine, inaccessible to vision and surpassing every name and peculiar only to God (αμεθεκτος), but also grace and power, and action, and radiance, and incorruptibility, and the kingdom and everything according to which God communicates and by grace unites with the holy Angels, as well as people; neither by the division and difference of the Hypostases, nor by the division and diversity of divine powers and actions, unity and completeness do not depart. Thus we believe in One God, in one trinitarian and omnipotent Deity, and solemnly proclaim those who have pleased God in such faith. We reject those who do not believe according to this image, but who have led their own heresies, or who have followed the heresies to the end. Let it be known to you, brethren, that evil passions and ungodly teachings are closely related, being the source of each other, and are the reason that God rightly abandons this kind of people. The fact that a numerous swarm of sins comes from wickedness was revealed to us by the great Paul, writing about the Greeks: “For they were not tempted to have God in their minds” (Rom. 1:28), but “having understood God, they did not glorify or give thanks to God” (Rom. 1:21), “God gave them over to an unskilled mind, to do things unlike them; filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, covetousness, and other things” (Rom. 1:28). And the fact that sinfulness, in turn, introduces wickedness, can be imagined on the basis of many who have unfortunately suffered this. Thus, Solomon, having given himself up to carnal pleasures, slipped into idolatry. Thus, Jeroboam, overcome by extreme arrogance, offered sacrifices to golden calves. Thus, Judas the traitor, sick with love of money, fell into deicide. So, faith without works is dead and illusory, and works without faith are vain and useless. Therefore, the grace of the Spirit has united today, in this holy time of Lent, and exercise in virtue, both the praise of those who teach the Word of Piety (i.e., the Orthodox Confession), and the public rejection of those who taught unorthodoxly, so that we would show thoroughness both in faith and in deeds: we demonstrated faith through deeds, and through faith we acquired the benefit of our labors. Evil passions and wickedness are not only introduced by each other, but they are also similar to each other, which I will briefly explain to your love, speaking about those who, being in our midst, have deviated from Orthodoxy. Just as Adam, having received from God the power to eat from every tree in paradise, however, was not satisfied with all of these, but, convinced by the advice of the evil serpent, he ate from the tree, the only one he received the commandment not to touch, so one can say about these gifts of God, good and truly corresponding to His love, which He provided for those who wished. These gifts, as someone said, are of this nature: “All that God is, man will be worthy of by grace, except only identity with God in relation to nature.” However, there are people who teach that we will have to participate in the very super-essential nature of God, and at the same time declare that it is possible to name it accordingly; and imitating the evil serpent, just like the words of God, they maliciously interpret and distort the words of the Saints. But we, having received from the Lord the power to step on snakes and scorpions and all the power of the enemy, we will easily destroy all his tricks, and in this case, directed against piety and a way of life that corresponds to piety, and having emerged as winners in everything, we will receive the heavenly and pure crowns of righteousness, in Christ Himself, the incorruptible Judge and Giver of rewards, to whom belongs all glory, honor and worship, with His Beginning Father and the Most Holy and Good and Life-Giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. PG.151:93–104. Homilia VIII. De fide piaque fudei confessione. Undoubtedly, it was said on the Sunday of Orthodoxy. You might be interested in: