О свободной воле человека

Which of the people has the strength to tell with one spirit all Your long-suffering, with which you bear our guilt? If we sin, we are filled with iniquities, and if we act well, we are puffed up with pride. Without mercy we get irritated with each other. If someone rises, we envy him. If someone falls, we rejoice at it. And as much as our life is shortened, the series of our sins is lengthened. You have shortened the continuation of our life, its greatest measure is seventy years, but we sin before You seventy times seven. By mercy You have shortened our days so that the series of our sins does not lengthen. I resort to Your mercy, which covers Your righteousness. An unclean person hates an unclean person like him, but You are holy, You are not outraged by our sins. I marvel at Your righteousness, that it does not come into competition with Your mercy, because Your bounty increases to the same extent as our filth grows. I also wonder why one does not complain about the other, that she is not angry at the one who angers You? You created us completely perfect; we have damaged ourselves beyond measure. You taught us what was right, but we began to do wrong, and erased the advantages of our nature. You formed us from dust (dust); we have stripped off Your image and Your likeness. So, I marvel at both, I am amazed (amazed) before Your mercy and before Your righteousness. If we happen to become guilty before her, we beg her not to take revenge on us, and if a person happens to become guilty before us, we demand that she not turn her eyes away from him. But Thy truth, if a person resorts to it with a complaint against his debtor, first weighs the pledge given to him and his debts together, so that he himself pays first, and then demands revenge. If a person resorts to her (truth), asking for forgiveness of debts, she herself hurries to him and brings him to his debtor. And whoever has forgiven his debtor will himself receive remission of his debts from her. And he sees mercy from her, and our wickedness is condemned by her: he sees mercy if he begs for the forgiveness of his debts; condemned if he demands revenge; then he himself suffers vengeance. Our free will with cunning approaches Your truth. If she happens to sin against the truth, she points out her weakness, and if someone sins against her, she points out his injustice. She does not notice that one thing is destroyed by the other, that if a person is weak and wants mercy for himself, then his debtor is also weak and asks for mercy. We make mistakes, and we transfer the mistakes to the one who does not sin. If our nature is weak, then the one who sinned against us is not guilty. And if our nature is not weak, then we demand too much for ourselves. Truth knows how to expose us by ourselves, by what is in us; if it is weakness, then it protects us all, and if it is strength, then it is against us all. If you know that your enemy is able not to hate you, then you prescribe to your own free will that she too can not sin. If he has the opportunity, then you also have the strength to choose. If we are confident in the corruption of our weakness, which has sinned against God, then this also proves to us the corruption in the weakness of the one who sinned against us. If a person is convinced that he deserves pardon because he is weak, then the one who sinned against him is also innocent. And vice versa, if we blame someone who has sinned against us, then our accusation makes us responsible. The nature of free will is the same in all people. If its strength is weak in one, then it is weak in every person, and if it is strong in one, then it is strong in all the sons of men. Sweet things by nature are sweet to the healthy, but bitter to the sick. Likewise, free will is bitter for sinners and sweet for the righteous. If anyone wants to explore the nature of sweetness, then he tries to taste and recognize it not in the mouth of a patient when he is sick; because only healthy lips are a vessel in which taste can be experienced. Likewise, if a person wants to explore the power of free will, then he should not explore it in an unclean person who is sick and defiled. Only the pure, who is healthy, will be such a vessel in which the power of free will can be explored. If a patient is forced to tell you that sweets are bitter to his taste, then look how much his illness tormented him and was able to suppress in him the feeling of sweetness, the source of a pleasant taste. In the same way, if an unclean person is forced to say that his willpower is weak, then look at the extent to which he has lost hope, so that he deprives himself of freedom, this treasure in human nature. The sons of men are all in constant struggle. He who is far from sensual lusts is driven by pride, and he who is free from arrogance serves mammon. If a person can gain victory over himself, making himself pure and blameless, then he can convict of sin someone who is overthrown by sin. And the deposed one, if he had only wanted, would have put a bridle on his members. The sinner's heart is deceitful; when he firmly stands in the fact that impurity is in his own will, then he flatteringly speaks about it before the Creator. Repentance hidden in a person serves as a sufficient accusation against him. If his nature were vile, then how could repentance, which is beautiful, be hidden in him? Through repentance, a person becomes beautiful and noble and avoids defilements, and therefore this beauty, hidden in his insides, convicts him of the fact that he himself is guilty of his uncleanness. If a person approaches fire, even for a short time, he will recognize the property of fire, namely: its power lies in it; the same must be said about free will: its strength lies in itself. But the nature of fire is always bound, and willpower is always free: sometimes it envyes and burns, sometimes it fears and freezes, sometimes it rests, sometimes it boils. If a person tastes sea water from the tip of his finger, he will learn that the sea, no matter how great it is, is still bitter. So one person can judge everyone. Don’t bother examining all people to see if they can overcome evil in the fight against evil; If one can overcome it, then all can. If you take Noah alone, he can convict all his contemporaries of guilt; if only they wanted, they would be happy. The power of free will was the same for both them and Noah. If you expose your neighbor, who has sinned against you, to responsibility for the fact that he has sinned against you, then you are incriminating yourself; and you were able to sin neither against your neighbor nor against God. The sinner, according to his will, perverts his words. If he himself fell and sinned, then he represents his weakness, and if his neighbor fell, he speaks of willpower. If you overhear the prayer of a sinner, you will find ambiguity here too. It testifies that his own strength is weak, but his neighbor’s willpower is strong and much stronger than his. He forgets his own faults and brings a complaint against the offender. What does a person want to admit from both? Does he allow weakness? Then he prays for his neighbor. Does it allow for force? Then he angers the Judge. What a person allows (one of two things) will be the reason for the commonality between him and the person guilty before him. And they have a common weakness, and they have a common power to choose. Let him walk the straight path and leave the crooked paths, so that he may come to the right. If someone asks God for forgiveness of his sins, then let him ask the same for his neighbor. If he calls on God as an avenger, then God is also his Judge. A person gives himself as a pledge for what he wants for himself. If he wants God to be merciful to himself, then he should not be cruel to his neighbor. For Wednesday there are various shares to choose from. If someone appeals to the Giver of forgiveness, then he frees the one who is guilty before him from guilt. And if he calls on the Avenger, then he has already lost the Giver of abandonment. His neighbor is similar to him in all respects. Where there is mercy, there are a person’s debtors, and where there is truth, there are his sins. If he wants to plead for his sins, then let him bring together a prayer for his debtors. If he approaches mercy, he resolves his debtors, and if he approaches righteousness, he brings his sins to memory. Grant me, O God, to glorify You, if my sins allow me to do so, but You know, my Lord, that persistence gives us victory. With three blows the door opens, our persistence and the conquered conquer; What he asks boldly, he receives for the sake of his poverty and becomes strong through his weakness. Your door is not shut, and it is not shut to me either. And even if it is closed for us, then in Your wisdom you do it, my Lord, and cunningly arrange it for our own sake. In both cases, I marvel at Your wisdom and the fact that Your door, my Lord, can only be opened by force when it is closed, and our free will is the key to Your treasure. Since this is the only door for all of us, allow us to open it and enter into it before it is hidden from us. To the gates of truth, which is unyielding, there is a special path of mercy traversed by many; both mercy and truth often come to the aid of one another. The mercy of God can forcefully make a person righteous, but it does not destroy the power of reason in him, although it knows that it can make a person righteous. And we do not at all like the one who closes his eyes in the light. Anyone who would like to lead someone who has closed his eyes must assume one of two things about him: either he has an infantile, childish mind, or this is a cruel and bitter mockery. And he wants to express his disdain for the eyes before those who see. Anyone who took the trouble to lead him would be ashamed, why didn’t he notice that the one who allowed himself to behave had eyes. Likewise, God, who leads a person with healthy eyes, will not allow him to mock Him and show disdain for the eyes that He Himself gave us. Look, and this will also be unreasonable, if a person has healthy hands and does not want to control them, then the brother who stretches out his hand to him so that he can eat or drink with it will also be unreasonable. How can God use violence against us when He Himself gave man freedom? Whoever wants to be led by force is not worthy of mercy, and if God’s truth punishes him, then he himself forces it to do so with his depravity. Behold, free will is like a hand that can reach out to any fruit. And just as by her own choice she could previously pluck and take for herself the fruit of death, so she can also pluck the fruit of life. If by nature we are bad, then the Creator is guilty, and if our free will is evil, then all the blame is in us. If we do not have free will, then why should our will be held accountable? If our will is not free, then God judges it unjustly, but if it is free, then He rightfully exacts it from it. The demand for an account is closely connected with freedom. The law is connected with both, for free will is held accountable if it has exceeded the limits specified by the Judge. What good does it do to the Creator, Who is true, to deceive us? If He did not give us freedom, then He did not give us any law. If it is true that we hear about freedom, then we can also ask: “Did our Creator really give us freedom or not? If he didn’t give us freedom, then it’s decent for us to enter into research, why didn’t he give it? And if we don’t have free will, then how did He allow us to talk about this?” Questions and inquiries are born from free will. Question and inquiry are sisters and together daughters of free will. It is already possible to assume for sure that the question of will is posed by free will. There is not even the right to ask: “Is there really free will or not?” As soon as the question of freedom is born in you, you ask, who proposes this question in you? Is it your will or another force? Whether the question comes from someone else or arises according to your will - you must know this, because it happens inside you. If you don’t know either one or the other, then you don’t know that you exist! Deprived of all knowledge, you speak strange things, as if the instrument of someone else enters us and this other person, through this instrument, proposes a question. One or many people ask – it doesn’t matter. The conclusion we draw is only one; the conclusion pronounced about you extends to everyone. If someone doubts free will and asks whether it really exists, then he is doubting himself. From the question itself we see that, by nature, he is his own master. Both of which are being discussed are contained within it. The solution is hidden there. If it is possible for you to ask, it means that you are not asking out of necessity. If you were deprived of the ability to ask a question, you would be deprived of freedom. Nature, constrained by necessity, cannot ask. The question is the business of a free being. Only nature, not bound by necessity, can ask, for its will is free. Both will clearly show you two similarities, and through the easy you will understand the difficult. A mute cannot ask because his tongue is bound. He who has the gift of speech can ask, because his tongue is not bound. In the mute, whose tongue is bound, learn what nature is, bound by necessity. In him who has the gift of speech, whose lips are not bound, know what freedom is. Just as speech in the mouth is not bound by anything, so free will has no bonds; As is the bound tongue of the mute, so is nature, bound by necessity. The former has no speech in his mouth, the latter has no free will. So, from what I have told you, know your dignity, feel the freedom in your being. Explore the power of your soul within yourself, see whether you have it or not. By yourself and in yourself you can know freedom. In response to the words of Isaiah: “Let the wicked be lifted up, and not see the glory of the Lord” (Is. 26:10) If you read the Holy Scriptures with a pure spiritual eye and listen carefully to its words, then everyone will understand what is said in it. The words we read in this book are in awe and horror; everyone who listens to them with reason shudders with fear. The terrible definition spoken against the wicked is in them. It is said: “Let the wicked be lifted up, and not see the glory of the Lord.” The wicked will be carried away to a place where no voice of praise is heard. Meanwhile, everything cries out for God, daily proclaims His glory, and dumb creatures do not cease to praise Him. “The heavens declare the glory of God, but the firmament declares His handiwork” (Ps. 18:1). The earth utters His praise, the sea preaches His wondrous power. You will not find anything that does not glorify the Lord your God. And the insignificant mosquito proclaims the glory of his Lord. Where will the wicked go so that he does not see the glory of the Lord? Where will they cast him away to remove him from the sight of God’s glory? Will he ascend to heaven? It will reject him and will not accept him. Will he want to stay on earth? She won't let him do this. Will it fall into the sea? It will spew it out. Therefore, I think, beloved, that from this world he will descend into pitch darkness, full of fear and horror, where there is no praise, where no voice of praise is heard, because it is far from God and God does not allow His glory to be there. Torment and groaning, sorrow and distress, the consuming and ever-eating worm, the scorching and unquenchable fire stop the mouths of the wicked from all praise, from all glorification. Suffering prevents them from seeing or speaking; Because of the gnashing of teeth, the lips are unable to make a sound of praise. A tongue that continually cries out “Alas!” cannot utter praise; Eyes covered with darkness do not see the light of glory. The one whose limbs are worn away by a worm thinks of nothing but his own misfortune; Whoever is scorched by Gehenna sees only its flame. Come, sinners, let us weep here, so as not to weep there. Come, let us bear grief and suffering, so that our grief does not worsen there. All the righteous and saints, through sorrow and suffering, pleased God and propitiated Him with tears. For nine hundred and thirty years Adam mourned his fall, which removed him from God’s glory in paradise. The beauty on his cheeks was damaged by the tears shed by his eyes; hot streams of tears caused painful purulent scabs. Also, Enoch, who pleased God and did not taste death, for three hundred and twenty years, looking at Abel’s tomb, carried grief and sadness within himself. Decayed, rotten, disfigured, he saw the first dead man and wept bitterly, shed copious tears and was laid to rest without tasting death. Righteous Noah grieved over his sinful race, for he knew that punitive justice would destroy him with a flood of water. For five hundred years he kept his virginity pure, and for this God preserved him from the destruction that befell the human race. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spent a miserable and difficult life in this world, in troubles and temptations, they lived and ended their lives. Who can describe the temptation that befell Job? For seven years he sat on rot. How much did he cry when he saw how the worms were grinding and eating his flesh, and nothing was left for him except his bones? Who endured as much as he did? Whoever hears the story about him, his spirit is filled with sorrow. David wet his bed with his night tears (Ps. 6:7), ate ashes like bread, and dissolved his drink with weeping (Ps. 101:10). How many tears were shed from the eyes of Jeremiah, this man of suffering, who spent all the days of his life in weeping and tears? His lamentation exceeded all measure, but he also prayed to God to give water to his head and a source of tears to his eyes (Jer. 9:1). Ezekiel, who ate the scroll where “it is written... weeping and pity and grief” (Ezekiel 2:10), since he had to take upon himself the iniquities of his people, for three hundred and ninety days (according to the Hebrew text) he lay on both sides, bent by the sins of his people, his house became a tomb for him, the great iniquities of the people entangled him as if with fetters, and for one hundred and ninety-five days he must he was lying on each side (Ezek.4:4-9). And about the Lord Himself of high and low, of all limits and ends, it is written that, after His descent from heaven, when He was on earth, He wept for Jerusalem. It is not written about our Lord that He laughed, but it is written that He cried and shed tears. When He shed tears over Lazarus, then he wept for all the dead, because he saw how death destroys and consigns His image to decay. As the Good One, He grieved over His beloved image, because He saw how it was deprived of its beauty and decayed in the tomb, becoming terrible and terrible. The soul is killed by sin; she needs grief, crying, tears, sadness, loud lamentations about her misfortune, which overthrew and destroyed her. Weep, weep and groan for your soul, because it has become far away from God, and return it to Him again. Weep for her more than a mother whose son was stolen and thrown into the grave by death and who laments the separation from her beloved. For sin separates man from God, and His goodness regrets that its image, filled with Divine beauty, perishes. It would be unfortunate for you if one of your ox were lost, even though you owned it for a short time, but you still grieve over its loss. God is even more sorry when His image perishes. The soul is much more kind to God than all the creatures He created. But sin makes it dead, and you do not understand this, sinner. Grieve for yourself for God's sake, because He grieves for you. Your soul was killed by sin, bring it back to life with tears. Delight God, may He rejoice that your soul has been brought back to life by you. There is a bird that resurrects its chicks, and when its children die, it returns life to them. When this bird has chicks, it rejoices over them immensely and, out of great love for them, embraces (covers) them with its wings, strangles them, and they die. But as soon as he sees that they are really dead, there is no movement or fluttering in them, he grieves and grieves for three whole days, does not eat or drink from intense grief and sadness, does not separate from them and, as if saving them, does not move from his place. And then she inflicts a wound on herself with her beak, sheds her blood on them and, according to God’s dispensation, her chicks become alive from the dead. If a bird knows how to bring its chicks back to life, then you, sinner, resurrect your soul, killed by sin. If God takes pity on the pelican and brings its chicks back to life, how much more does He take pity on your soul, which you do not want to bring back to life. If the Creator, seeing a pelican, in grief for its chicks wanting to kill itself, takes pity on it and resurrects its children, then, of course, when a soul is killed by sin and separated from God, all the more does He regret His image separated from Him. Therefore, weep and grieve for your soul, which is separated from God. He regrets you like a mother regrets her only begotten son. He who laughs at a dead man hates the parents of the deceased, and he who mourns and laments proves his love with his tears. So, if someone rejoices in himself when he is killed by sin, then he hates God, who grieves and regrets it. God grieves and sympathizes with a soul that has become dead, and therefore whoever laughs and mocks at this causes God even greater sorrow. Just as the one who laughs and jokes in front of those burying the deceased increases their grief and sadness, so the one who rejoices over his sins causes even greater sorrow to God. A father burying his beloved son does not grieve as much as God regrets a soul killed by sin. Mourn your soul and prove your love for God, who Himself grieves and regrets the soul killed by sin. God regrets the death of the soul, which is His image. Therefore, whoever rejoices at this, and does not sympathize, is completely like Satan. Whoever approaches the dead man, seeing the weeping performed over him, becomes contrite in spirit and weeps with those who weep. And when a soul dies from sin, the cry for it reaches the sky, and the Heavenly Powers lament, and God Himself grieves. Therefore, whoever rejoices at this and does not cry for his soul is truly a lost man; he does not know that he has a soul. Weep, sinner, for your soul, shed tears for it and bring it back to life. Her resurrection is in your eyes, her uprising is in your heart. Are you dead and do not weep for your departed soul? Weep first for your soul, and then weep for others. You cry for a dead body from which the soul has been separated, and you do not cry for a soul that has died and been separated from God. Tears shed on dead flesh do not bring it back to life, but if they are shed about the soul, they resurrect it and bring it back to life. It was not for the sake of the flesh that you were given tears, sorrow and sadness, but for the sake of the soul God gave them to you, so that you could bring it back to life. Bring tears as a gift to God, shed tears from your eyes; with your tears and God's goodness, your dead soul will be brought back to life. Behold, the Merciful One is waiting for you to shed tears from your eyes before Him, and with them He will cleanse and renew the damaged image of the soul. You killed your soul, and return it from sinful death. It was not another who killed and destroyed you; your own will has killed and deposed you. If another had killed you, he would have had to raise you. But since your own will killed you, then this same will should restore you. “In the festival of hands the “church” will drip, fall and be destroyed (Eccl. 10:18), - this is what Ecclesiastes teaches you. Recreate your desolate and fallen soul. When your house falls, no one else will build it up; If you yourself do not restore your home, it will remain in ruins forever. By sin you brought your soul to fall - raise it up by repentance; You brought it down with vile untruths; restore it with good deeds. If you are putting to death sin, then you can say, like God: “I will kill and make life” (Deut. 32:39). I kill sin so that it does not have dominion in my members, and I bring righteousness back to life when I do good; I defeat the hated untruth, expel it from the soul and heal the soul with truth and integrity. Mental thoughts are scattered in the world like dry bones; gather them together and revive them with God’s help. “Prophets”, like Ezekiel, on your dry thoughts, like bones; proclaim to them the word of God, the Giver of the dead; clothe these bones in skin, unite them in God with an unslothful spirit and a strong mind; prophets and call upon the spirit to enter into the dead, and “they will live.” Breathe into her the spirit of life” (Ezek.37:4-10) – Divine teaching. Near the jaws of hell, where the murderer-sin dwells, the bones of the soul are scattered - its thoughts scattered over earthly objects; call to them, raise them up and resurrect them, show an amazing miracle and in your uprising depict the resurrection that Ezekiel saw. If there is joy in heaven over a sinner who converts, flows to repentance and is accepted by God, then there is sorrow over a sinner who does not convert, and God is very sorry if you do not flow to repentance. Return to Him, and you will bring joy to the Angels who rejoice over you. Your sinful soul has been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, because all the worlds could not be a sufficient price for you: the earth, the sea, and everything on them is a small price in comparison with you. All the heavenly ranks, which are flame and spirit, did not accept death for your redemption. The Father gave up His beloved Son to death for you as the price of redemption. He is the only begotten Son, but the Father did not spare Him and gave Him in your place. For the sake of your life, He gave over to death the Origin of all living things; The One before whom death trembles, the Father bound and cast into death; she nailed Him to the Cross and wrote the handwriting of your debts with nails. Look at what price you were redeemed! Do not be lost to the One who bought you! His life accuses your life if you live in sin. His death cries out against your death if you do the works of death. His Precious Blood cries out to the throne of the Divine that it was shed for you, and you are perishing from sin. He who bought himself a slave, if the one he bought dies, loses not only the slave, but also the price given for him. So both the suffering and death of God from our negligence remain fruitless for us, because He gave Himself for the sake of your soul, and you did not get rid of death. He did not spare His beloved Son, but gave Him up to death for you; if you perish from sin, then you offend the One who redeemed you. With the price given for you—the suffering and death of God—death is abolished. Since your soul was purchased for life, let not death destroy your life. The soul that lives in God can give life to others. If you want to hear, then here is the evidence for you. Elisha, who preserved the life of his soul, brought back two dead men to life: one while he himself was still living in the world, and the other after his departure from here. His soul lived in God and imparted life to his body. And when she was separated from her body, he gave life to another. The soul of the prophet borrowed life from God, and after it was separated from his body, he gave life to someone who, like himself, was dead. Do you see life in the remains of martyrs? Who wouldn't believe that they are alive? Do you see that their graves are full of life? Who can doubt this? These are strong strongholds that protect from predators; these are fortified cities protecting from conquerors; these are high and strong pillars for those who resort to them, because they deliver from the destroyers, and death does not approach them. Whoever is infected with envy and deceit, this poison that is deadly for the soul, let him seek a cure for this poison from them, so that he does not harm him. Whoever deceived, pray so as not to deceive again. Whoever stole, pray so as not to steal. If you are far from love and filled with anger at your neighbors, ask for their help in prayer in order to be reconciled with your neighbors. Whoever is possessed by the spirit of fornication, who is inflamed with unclean lust, let him be anointed with oil burning before him, and the unclean spirit will immediately be put to shame and run away. These are doctors who are vigilantly concerned about our health, because they have within themselves the medicine of life, the healing of soul and body, spiritual medicine that heals both soul and body. They only require faith from you, but they give you everything you ask for. If there is no doubt in your soul, then, even if you were dead, you will receive life! God dwells in these bones, through whom they perform all miracles. Praise be to You, and to us Your bounties, O God, who dwells in the righteous! You might be interested in: