About the eight main passions

In the essay “On the Eight Main Passions” (9 chapters) St. John of Damascus identifies 8 key passions that “war” with every Christian striving for spiritual perfection: gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, despondency, vanity and pride. For each of these passions, the author offers specific methods of overcoming, based on bodily abstinence (fasting, vigil), diligent prayer, humility, non-covetousness, compassion, reading the Holy Scriptures, remembering death and the Last Judgment. Particular attention is paid to the need for internal work on oneself (awareness of one’s own sinfulness, trust in God). St. John distinguishes between bodily and mental passions. The former are overcome by fasting and vigil, and the latter by love and humility. The general victory over the entire “horde of passions” is achieved “by the grace of God with our zeal.” The ultimate goal of this struggle is to purify the mind and achieve eternal bliss. 1) Know, brother, that there are eight thoughts that fight with a monk, as St. fathers. The first is gluttony; the second - evil and shameful lust; the third - love of money; fourth - sadness; fifth - anger; sixth - despondency; the seventh is vanity, and pride is the eighth. And so, monk, you must know and carefully pay attention to what kind of passion we indignate you and disturb you from our enemies, the spirits of evil, and to what passionate thoughts your mind is inclined. 2) If you see that you are troubled by gluttony and lust, then oppress your belly, determining your food and drink by weight and measure; have an unceasing memory of the departure of the soul, also of the future judgment and terrible Gehenna; warming at the same time the desire for the kingdom of heaven. In this way you will be able to defeat gluttonous lust, and you will develop a disgust for it. 3) If you are seized by the spirit of shameful and evil lust, then embrace the feat of bodily abstinence and spiritual contrition, as well as vigil and diligent prayer; besides, behave insolently (not boldly in front of everyone), do not condemn or slander anyone, and do not have disgust for anyone; remember also death and love thirst; Above all, do not allow yourself to see women or have conversations with them - even better, do not look at their faces at all. Do this and you will get rid of this passion. 4) If you want to overcome the love of money, love non-covetousness and poverty in everything; Remember also the fate of Judas, for the sake of this passion, who betrayed the Lord to lawless judges, and also the fact that every lover of money is called an idolater in the Divine Scripture (Col. 3:5), and that it separates us from trust in God, and that the pleasure provided by silver is temporary, and the punishment for money lovers has no end. By thinking about this, and not looking for anything other than what is necessary to satisfy your needs, you will overcome this passion. 5) If you are indignant and tormented by worldly sadness, you should pray more often, place all your trust in God, diligently study in the Divine Scriptures, associate with reverent and God-fearing monks, despise everything present as if it does not exist, and think about the joys of heaven and the consolations of the righteous. If someone kills you, or dishonors you, or persecutes you, do not be sad, but rather rejoice. Then only be sad when you sin before God. This way you can get rid of the spirit of passions. 6) If you are troubled by anger and acute bile, accept compassion, serve the brethren, and, if possible, wash their feet often with humility, ask forgiveness from every person, often visit the sick, and move your tongue to psalmody. By acting this way, you will finally find peace from this passion. 7) If you want to overcome despondency (or laziness), engage in some small handicraft, diligently read, pray more often with the faithful hope of good things, also think about what happens at the last breath, what anguish sinners then experience, and how mercilessly they are tormented and tormented - and thus you will calm down from this passion. 8) If vanity, or the search for human praise, tyranns you, you should not do anything for show before people, but do everything you do in secret, so that no one sees it except God alone, love neither praise, nor human honors, nor good clothes, nor preference, nor pre-eminence; Love, moreover, that people revile you, condemn you, and dishonor you falsely; and consider yourself to be more sinful than any sinner. 9) If you see yourself struggling from the demonic passion of evil pride, you should not reproach, condemn, or humiliate anyone, but consider yourself the rabble of all, and constantly keep in mind that unless the Lord builds a house, those who build will labor in vain (Ps. 127:1), and always feel and humiliate yourself as a debtor in the face of God and all people. Do not hope for anything, and do not rely on anything until you hear the last decision about yourself, seeing how someone, after he had reclined in the bridal chamber, bound hand and foot, was cast out into utter darkness; But whether you fast, perform a vigil, sleep on the bare ground, sing psalms, stand patiently, or perform prostrations in abundance, do not say that this was accomplished by your strength and your zeal, but by God’s help and intercession, and not by your diligence. Try, brother, to always be simple and immaculate; never have one thing in your heart and another on your tongue, because this is deceitful; and pray unceasingly with tears. By doing this, you will get rid of the harmful and evil fall. Of the passions: some are physical, while others are spiritual. We call gluttony, fornication, drunkenness, and lasciviousness bodily; and spiritual ones - hatred of one’s neighbor, zeal, vanity, pride. All of them act in our soul when there is no love and self-control in it. The former are overcome by fasting and vigil, and the latter by love and humility; nevertheless - by the grace of God with our zeal. When they are defeated, then the mind accepts the light characteristic of it and sees God without hindrance. It is possible to resist the entire horde of passions if a person constantly thinks about God, the spectator of His deeds, about the Guardian Angel, about the superiority of virtue, about the instantaneity of pleasure, about the filthiness of sin, the shortness of life, about the obscurity of the hour of death, about eternal joys and pains, about the world of a clear conscience, about the dignity of man, about God’s benefits to us, and most of all about life and suffering. and the death of Christ the Lord. What is and what is our life like? As soon as a person leaves one coffin (the womb of his mother), he hurries back to another, so that he can then be buried in the eternal flame of Gehenna. Let us love God and keep His commandments, so that when this poor life fades away, we may be honored to happily enter into the joy of eternal bliss. Amen.