Часть третья О любви

Love is a virtue influenced into the soul by God. With it we love God for His own sake, and our neighbor for God’s sake. It is manifested in the fulfillment of the Decalogue, that is, God's commandment, consisting of the Ten Commandments and taught through Moses on Mount Sinai so that every person could know what is pleasing to God and what is contrary to Him. Good, or virtue, is pleasing to God, but evil, or sin, is contrary to Him. So, this is His commandment, or commandments, commanding: others to do good, as pleasing to God, while others forbid doing evil, as contrary to Him. Virtue is a fruit born of faith, or, to put it differently: good deeds consist of fulfilling God’s commandments, performed with God’s help, with the assistance of human reason and according to the person’s own will, which is born from love for God and neighbor. Virtue is divided as follows: everything good in general is virtue, but the very first and necessary ones, without which one cannot be saved, are the following: faith, hope and love. God is pleased with the following virtues, which grow from faith through hope in love: prayer, which is grateful, supplicative and praising God; fasting, both definite and temporary, and, finally, almsgiving. From these virtues are born wisdom, truth, courage and chastity, or purity. Sin is the unbridled desire of man and the devil, or, in other words, sin is lawlessness, that is, a transgression of God’s law. There are two types of sin: mortal and non-mortal. The mortal is distinguished as ancestral or arbitrary, and the arbitrary, in turn, is divided into three groups. The first includes those from which the most diverse sins are born, and there are seven of them: 1. Pride. From it are born: an evil opinion about one's neighbor, condemnation, disobedience to the Church and its servants, dreamy self-praise, hypocrisy, passion for word disputes, insolence, sedition, arrogant opinion, neglect of the commandments and persistence in evil. The opposite virtue to these sins is humility. 2. Extortion. From him come: theft, flattery, lies, rebellion, violence, severity, hard-heartedness, inhumanity, envy, unbelief, insulting the poor and other people, stinginess, theft. Generosity is the opposite of them. 3. Fornication. It gives rise to: blindness of mind, hatred of everything Divine, wickedness, despair, extravagance, laziness and enmity towards one's neighbor. Its opposite is purity, or chastity. 4. Envy. It manifests itself as hatred, verbiage, negligence, seduction and murder. It is opposed to goodwill. 5. Gluttony. From him come: laziness towards piety, despondency, carnal lust, ugly laughter, self-indulgence, neglect of one's neighbor, reproach, love of word disputes and barbaric disposition. It is the opposite of abstinence. 6. Grudge. It produces envy, murder, revenge, emptiness and madness. Its opposite virtue is patience. 7. Dejection. It gives rise to relaxation of the will, discrediting oneself with sin, temptation, sadness and suspiciousness. It is the opposite of being awake. The second group includes sins against the Holy Spirit, such as: sinners’ immeasurable hope in God, despair, resistance to the known truth; and some also have the following sins: envy of the spiritual benefits that their neighbors receive from God, remaining in sins and growing old in anger, neglect of repentance even until the end of this life. The third group includes sins that cry out to heaven and bring vengeance, such as: unauthorized murder, insult to widows and orphans, deprivation of wages from those who worked, annoyance and ingratitude towards parents. Sin is not mortal. This includes all those sins that are forgivable. They are countless, and not a single person can escape them except Christ and the Mother of God. They, however, do not deprive us of God's grace and do not subject us to eternal death; Only in case of neglect of repentance, which can be used to cleanse them, do they open the way to the above-mentioned mortal sins and make a person cold and careless in fulfilling the law. If anyone provokes someone to sin, he becomes an accomplice in the sins of others; for example, when spiritual fathers allow their children to live intemperately, or when a master leaves a slave, a husband, a wife, a teacher of a student, a father of a son without instruction. Hitherto we have spoken about virtues and sins. Now something should be proposed about the commandments of God, of which there are ten and which were depicted on two stone tablets. The first contains commandments regarding the love of God, and the second concerns the love of neighbor. The first tablet concerning the love of God: 1. I am the Lord your God, let there be no god for you other than Me. 2. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol, nor any likeness, such as the tree in heaven, the tree below on earth, or the tree in the waters under the earth, lest thou worship them, nor serve them. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day (that is, the week), and keep it holy: do it six days, and do all your work in them; on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. The second tablet concerning love for one's neighbor: 5. Honor your father and your mother, may you be well and live long on earth. 9. Do not listen to your friend’s false testimony. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy sincere wife, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his village, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any of his livestock, nor anything that is thy neighbor. Carrying out these works in this world with God's grace and Orthodox faith, we undoubtedly hope that in the next century, having received the perfection of love, we will glorify the Trinitarian God in heaven forever. Amen. You might be interested in: