РОСА СИЛЫ, МУЧАЮЩЕЙ НЕВИДИМЫХ МУЧИТЕЛЕЙ

Rejoice, torment of invisible enemies! (Akathist, ikos 4). From the Polesie region a certain man named Mikhail came to the Ilyinsky Monastery. He suffered from an unclean spirit, but soon here, by the power of the grace of the Mother of God flowing from Her image, he was delivered from that illness, for which, thanks to his benefactor, the Most Holy Theotokos, he worked in monastic obedience for a considerable time. There were many torturers who invented various torments for people. Some are swords, some are fires, some are burning oxen and frying pans, some are boiling pitch and oil, some are drowning in the waters. As the holy martyrs said: “We have passed through fire and water” (Ps. 65:12). But not a single tormentor is as cruel as the devil, not a single cruel torment is more cruel than the torment of the evil spirit, which repeatedly plunges a person into fire and into water in order to destroy him. Considerable torment is promised in hell: “unquenchable fire, gnashing of teeth, never-ending worm” and others (Matthew 8:12, 13:50, Luke 13:28; Mark 9:45–46). But they are also incomparable to demons, for it is said that only their appearance is worse than any torment. Who can torture these terrible and despicable tormentors and who can deliver them from their torment? Maybe the Blessed Virgin Mary. Abimelech was furious with his brothers and killed them, with Shechem and set him on fire, with Thebes and besieged him. And who wasn’t afraid of his furious rebuke? Everyone ran away and hid, everyone climbed onto the pillars and defended themselves (Judges 9). However, a certain woman was not afraid, she was not afraid - and she tamed his rebuke, and stopped his rage, throwing a piece of a millstone on Abimelech’s head and breaking his skull (see Judges 9:53). This was a prototype of the Blessed One in women, who with a stone, Christ, struck the head of hellish Abimelech, who kills us, for he is “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), and who burns us with the fire of passions: “From my youth the enemy has been tempting me and scorching me with passions” (Antiphon 1st 8th Tone); besieging us with his catch; who places a snare under our feet: “They set snares along the way for me” (Ps. 139:6). Jael also passes here as a shadow, having pierced the head of Sisera with a stake, not to mention Judith, who beheaded the leader of the Assyrian warriors - both of them were a mysterious image of the Virgin Mary, who erased the head of the tormentor. Who is the plague to the demons? Mary plague of demons: “Rejoice, much-lamented defeat of demons!” (Akathist, ikos 2). Who confuses the evil spirits? She, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, torments the evil spirits, so that they cry out to Her Son: “You came here before the time to torment us” (Matthew 8:29). Let us all resort to Her, fearing demonic torment, and cry out: Oh, All-Singing One! Deliver us from the coming torment! About anyone who spends his days in uncleanness, we can say that he suffers from an unclean spirit, for where does an unclean spirit like to live if not in the throes of fornication? Angel Raphael once advised Tobias to take Sarah as his wife. Tobias answered him, saying: “I heard that this girl was given to seven husbands, but they all died,” but I also heard that a demon killed them (Tov. 6:14). The Angel answered him: Listen to me, I will tell you over whom the demon has power: over those who marry in such a way that they drive God away from themselves and from their minds, who are zealous in their fornication, like a horse and a mule - over such the demon has power (Tov. 6:16-18). But why do you say, O Angel, that only those the devil has power over? Does he not have power over other sinners: over the proud, over the envious, over the angry, over gluttons, over drunkards and others? It truly does, for it is written by the Apostle: “Whoever commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). However, he extends his power more than others to fornicators, for they are his proper dwellings. The Lord once cast out demons from a possessed person; there were a legion of them in him. And so, they pray to Him to command them to go not into the abyss, but into the swine grazing by the water. And the Lord commanded them. They, having come out of the demoniac, entered the pigs as into their own house (Matthew 8:30-32). Two circumstances are considered here by two Western teachers, Augustine and Peter Chrysologus. First: why do demons, being proud, not ask to enter into any great and glorious animals - lions, lynxes, elephants, deer and others, but into unclean pigs? Second: why did the Lord not forbid them, but soon commanded them, although at first he did not want to listen to a single petition? They asked “for the stones to become bread,” so that he would throw himself down from the wing of the church (Matthew 4:3,5-6) - He didn’t listen to them, but allows them to enter the pigs... And they answer this: every thing is looking for its own kind. Demons are inherently unclean. This is what the Lord calls the demon when he casts him out: “Come out, O unclean spirit, from this man” (Mark 5:8). Pigs are also unclean, for they wallow in the swamp; and eating their meat as unclean was not commanded in the Old Testament. That is why demons ask to enter into pigs, unclean ones into unclean ones: like love like. So the Chrysologist says: “Look where the demon wants to live - in unclean and vile animals, for he loves uncleanness.” Blessed Augustine answers the second: “Therefore Christ commanded the demons to enter into these pigs, to show that they live in those who wallow in abominations, like pigs in a swamp.” And who are they that live like pigs in a swamp of abominations? Verily, these are those who serve bodily uncleanness. This is how Saint Chrysostom narrates: “And what evil does not carnal pleasure do? He makes a pig out of a man." And in such a person, the teacher adds, as in his house, the devil abides; such a person, he says, is no different from a demoniac: he is just as shameless, just as furious, just as evil as a demoniac. Where there is uncleanness, there is a demon. I read a story from Prosper about a certain maiden from Arabia who lived in Carthage and wore monastic robes. She happened to see the image of the pagan goddess Venus, very shamelessly depicted, and from here she received a bad thought in her heart. And since she enjoyed herself for a long time, inflamed with lust and deigning to think, she became a dwelling place for the demon: an unclean spirit entered her and tormented her. Look: deliberate impurity is already becoming a den for the robber devil! What shall we say about the deed accomplished?.. Let us be afraid, brethren, when we hear this. Let us be guarded from uncleanness, and let us not suffer from it! “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). Let us be jealous of those who suffered to death for the sake of chastity. She chose to die rather than live, but she is pure. There will be a virgin of the heavenly Bridegroom Christ A certain young woman, a Christian, was kidnapped by the Persians. And they took her to their prince, for she was beautiful. In her heart she sent up an unceasing prayer with tears to the Lord Christ, so that he would preserve her undefiled by the wicked prince. And God heard her, for he gave such an intention. When the wicked prince, seeing her, was stung by her beauty and wanted to be with her, she, being admonished, said to him: “I see, my lord, that from this day I will be your wife and mistress over all your estates. But, loving you, I pray: leave me this night, and tomorrow I will tell you a wonderful thing.” The prince asked: “What kind of thing?” She answered: “I know a certain potion, and if I show you, you will not be afraid of the army, or the sword, or the arrow, or any other weapon that damages the body.” But he said: “Tomorrow you will tell me this, today be with me.” She answered: “It is impossible for this potion to be revealed by a corrupted wife, only by an unmarried girl. Because if it’s not, it won’t be effective.” Hearing this, the prince released her that night. The next day he says to her: “Go and tell me the potion.” The blessed young woman, walking alone with him through the garden, picked some grass that she found here and said: “Here it is.” He told her: “And how will I know if what you say is true?” Then she took the grass, anointed her neck with it and said: “Take a sharp sword, swing it firmly with both hands, and strike as hard as you can - you will see that your sword will not touch me at all.” Believing her words, he raised his sword over the head of the holy maiden, swung and struck - and cut off her head. Only after realizing that he had been scolded by her did he begin to gnash his teeth at her, but in what did he succeed?.. The wise maiden went clean to her Groom, leaving a wonderful image for those who wanted to preserve purity. Oh, the damnation of our uncleanness! We do not want to endure even a small passion valiantly, but this one, by death, preserved her virginity incorruptible. You might be interested in: