Временные блага удаляют от благ вечных

God is good and showers His blessings on everyone. He is rich and feeds everyone with tune (free gift). He is full of bounties, and His bounty extends to everyone. He is merciful, and His goodness is poured out on everyone. He mercifully heals all ailments without using sections. Instead of strong and difficult healing, which could lead to trembling, He has mercy and compassion for everyone. The world is our ruler; our voluptuousness is our master; our shameful love is our tormentor; our crafty skill is our tormentor; everything is rebelling against us. Our mind thinks only about pleasures, our flesh, together with our will, takes on everything bad. Who can prove that you are constant, our shadow-like abode? The evil one replaces one world with another in our eyes and tries to assure us that the earthly world is our true fatherland. To our childish foolishness it appears (shows) a shadow that beckons us to itself and deprives us of the Kingdom of Heaven. With earthly goods - these temporary flowers - he steals the crowns from the warriors. And on a smooth path he leads to a fall, and on a clear path he leads to stumbling. And the most prudent scatters many stumbling blocks, plots intrigues for the courageous, whom he cannot overcome by force, and destroys him with everything he can. So, he led David’s eye into temptation, he stopped (blocked) the tongue of Moses. Whoever bends his shoulders to him imposes a heavy yoke on him. He imposes a great yoke on the sinner, and a small unrighteousness on the righteous, so that the one who seduces, according to Scripture, “one of the little” (Matthew 10:42), will be cast into the sea, from which it is impossible to escape. He affirms pride in the arrogant, so that they are not freed from arrogance. He seduces the tongue of judges and their ears, so that they will not listen to good things. And an adult speaks deceitfully, and a child praises perversely. For many years the prophecy was silent because Isaiah was silent and did not denounce. And if the righteous man sinned by remaining silent, then how criminal is he who praises unrighteousness? One is outwardly as bright as noon, but has the invisible darkness of many secret defilements hidden in him. Gehazi stood bright before his teacher, but in his heart this thief hid the love of money. The leprosy of the flesh announced the darkness in which his spirit was. Two students covered in darkness with two luminous teachers. Gehazi discovered a little darkness in himself before Elisha, the little light, and the light-bringer dispelled his darkness. Iscariot, whose darkness was great, is exposed by the luminous Sun, which at the end will destroy all defilement. Thief Judah remembered that Gehazi could not hide from Elisha, who only cleansed Naaman from leprosy. And he also remembered that the power that this thief, along with the others, received from our Lord when he was sent to perform signs, exceeds Elisha’s power. And, like Gehazi, he came to deceive. You might be interested in: