О молитве Иисусовой

Student . Give an accurate and detailed concept of beauty. What is beauty? Elder. Prelest is the damage to human nature by lies. Delusion is the state of all people, without exception, produced by the fall of our forefathers. We are all in a state of delight 181. Knowing this is the greatest protection against delusion. The greatest charm is to recognize oneself as free from delusion. We are all deceived, we are all deceived, we are all in a false state, we need liberation by the truth. The truth is our Lord Jesus Christ (John 8:32, 14:6). Let us assimilate this Truth by faith in It; Let us cry out in prayer to this Truth, and She will take us out of the abyss of self-delusion and seduction by demons. Our condition is sad! It is a prison from which we pray to lead our soul, to “confess the name” of the Lord (Ps. 142:8). It is that dark land into which our life was cast by the enemy who envied us and persecuted us (Ps. 143:3). It is carnal wisdom (Rom. 8:6) and a false mind (1 Tim. 6:20), which infects the whole world, which does not recognize its illness, proclaiming it as blooming health. It is “flesh and blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). It is eternal death, healed and destroyed by the Lord Jesus, Who is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). This is our condition. His sight is a new reason for crying. We cry out to the Lord Jesus, so that He would lead us out of prison, take us out of the abysses of the earth, and snatch us from the jaws of death. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the Monk Simeon, the New Theologian, “came down to us because he wanted to take us out of captivity and from the “worst delusion” 182. Student . This explanation is not quite accessible to my concepts: I need a simpler explanation, closer to my understanding. Elder. The fallen angel used “lies” as a means of destroying the human race (Gen. 3:13). For this reason, the Lord called the devil “a lie, the father of lies and a murderer from time immemorial” (John 8:44). The Lord closely connected the concept of lying with the concept of murder: because the latter is an indispensable consequence of the former. The word “from time immemorial” indicates that lies from the very beginning served as an instrument for the devil to commit murder, and constantly serves him as an instrument for murder, for the destruction of people. The beginning of evil is a false thought! The source of self-delusion and demonic delusion is a false thought! The cause of various harm and destruction is a false thought! Through lies, the devil struck humanity with eternal death at its very roots, in its forefathers. Our forefathers were deceived, that is, they recognized a lie as the truth, and, accepting a lie under the guise of truth, they damaged themselves with an incurably deadly sin, which our foremother also witnessed. “The serpent deceived me,” she said, “and I died” (Gen. 3:13). Since that time, our nature, infected with the poison of evil, strives “voluntarily” and “involuntarily” towards evil, which appears to be good and pleasure to a distorted will, a perverted mind, a perverted feeling of the heart. Arbitrarily: because we still have a remnant of freedom in choosing good and evil. Involuntarily: because this remnant of freedom does not act as complete freedom; he operates under the inherent influence of the corruption of sin. We are born this way; we cannot help but be like this: and therefore all of us, without any exception, are in a state of self-delusion and demonic delusion. From this view of the state of people in relation to good and evil, a state that necessarily belongs to every person, the following definition of delusion follows, explaining it with all satisfaction: “delusion is the assimilation by a person of a lie that he has accepted as the truth.” Charm acts initially on the way of thinking; Having been accepted and perverting the way of thinking, it is immediately communicated to the heart, perverting the heart’s sensations; Having mastered the essence of a person, it spills over all his activities, poisoning the body itself, as if it is inextricably linked by the Creator with the soul. The state of delusion is a state of destruction or eternal death. Since the fall of man, the devil has had constant free access to him 183. The devil has the right to this access: by obeying him, man arbitrarily subjected himself to his power, rejecting obedience to God. God redeemed man. The redeemed man is given the freedom to obey either God or the devil, and in order for this freedom to manifest itself spontaneously, the devil is given access to man. It is very natural that the devil uses every effort to keep a person in the same attitude towards himself, or even to bring him into greater enslavement. To do this, he uses his former and ever-present weapon - lies. He tries to seduce and deceive us, relying on our state of self-delusion; our passions - these painful attractions - he sets in motion; their destructive demands are clothed in plausibility, and are strengthened to incline us to satisfy our passions. He who is faithful to the Word of God does not allow himself this satisfaction, curbs passions, repels the attacks of the enemy (James 4:7): acting under the guidance of the Gospel against his own self-deception, taming passions, thereby gradually destroying the influence of fallen spirits on himself, he little by little emerges from the state of delusion into the realm of truth and freedom (John 8:32), the fullness of which is delivered by the overshadowing of Divine grace. He who is unfaithful to the teachings of Christ, following his own will and reason, submits to the enemy and moves from a state of self-delusion to a state of demonic delusion, loses the remainder of his freedom, and enters into complete submission to the devil. The state of people in demonic delusion can be very diverse, corresponding to the passion by which a person is seduced and enslaved, corresponding to the degree to which a person is enslaved by passion. But all those who have fallen into demonic delusion, that is, through the development of their own self-delusion, who have entered into communication with the devil and enslavement to him, are in delusion, they are churches and tools of demons, victims of eternal death, life in the prisons of hell. Student . Count the types of demonic delusion that come from improper exercise of prayer. Elder. All types of demonic delusion to which the ascetic of prayer is subjected arises from the fact that repentance is not placed at the basis of prayer, that repentance has not become the source, the soul, the goal of prayer. “If anyone,” says St. Gregory of Sinaite in the above article, “with arrogance based on conceit 184 dreams of achieving high states of prayer, and has acquired jealousy that is not true, but satanic, the devil conveniently entangles him with his nets, as his servant.” Anyone who strives to ascend to the marriage of the Son of God, not in clean and bright clothes, arranged by repentance, but directly in his rags, in a state of old age, sinfulness and self-delusion, is cast out into utter darkness: into demonic delusion. “I advise you,” says the Savior to those called to the mystical priesthood, “to buy from Me gold kindled with fire, so that you may become rich, and a white robe, so that you may be clothed, so that the shame of your nakedness will not appear: and anoint your sensual eyes and the eyes of your mind with the colluria of tears, so that you may see. I love them too, I rebuke them and punish them. Be jealous and repent” (Rev. 3:18–19). Repentance and everything that it consists of, such as contrition or sickness of the spirit, crying of the heart, tears, self-condemnation, remembrance and anticipation of death, the judgment of God and eternal torment, the feeling of the presence of God, the fear of God - these are the gifts of God, gifts of great price, initial and basic gifts, pledges of higher and eternal gifts. Without first receiving them, giving subsequent gifts is impossible. “No matter how sublime our exploits may be,” said Saint John Climacus, “but if we have not acquired a sick heart, then these exploits are false and in vain” 185. Repentance, contrition of spirit, crying are signs, they are evidence of the correctness of the prayerful feat; their absence is a sign of deviation in the wrong direction, a sign of self-delusion, delusion or infertility. One or the other, that is, delusion or infertility, constitutes an inevitable consequence of improper exercise in prayer, and improper exercise in prayer is inseparable from self-delusion. The most dangerous wrong image of prayer is when the person praying by the power of imagination creates his own dreams or pictures, borrowing them apparently from the Holy Scriptures, but in essence from his own condition, from his fall, from his sinfulness, from his self-delusion - with these pictures he flatters his conceit, his vanity, his arrogance, his pride, he deceives himself. It is obvious that everything created by the dreaminess of our fallen nature, perverted by the fall of nature, does not really exist - there is fiction and a lie, so characteristic and so beloved of the fallen angel. The dreamer, from the first step on the path of prayer, starts from the realm of truth, enters the realm of lies, the realm of Satan, and arbitrarily submits to the influence of Satan. Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, describes the dreamer’s prayer and its fruits as follows: “He raises his hands, eyes and mind to heaven, imagines in his mind - like Klopstock and Milton - Divine conferences, heavenly goods, orders of holy Angels, villages of saints, in short, collects in his imagination everything that he heard in the Divine Scripture, considers it during prayer, looks at the sky, with all this awakens his soul to Divine desire and love, sometimes sheds tears and cries. Thus, little by little his heart becomes proud, without understanding it with his mind; he imagines that what he does is the fruit of Divine grace for his consolation, and prays to God to grant him to always remain in this work. This is a sign of charm. Such a person, even if he remains completely silent, cannot help but be subject to insanity and madness. If this does not happen to him, however, it is impossible for him to ever achieve spiritual intelligence and virtue or dispassion. Thus those who saw the light and radiance with these bodily eyes, those who smelled the incense with their sense of smell, and those who heard voices with their ears were deceived. Some of them became enraged and moved from place to place, mentally damaged; others accepted the demon, transformed into a bright angel, were deceived and remained uncorrected even to the end, not accepting advice from any of the brethren; some of them, taught by the devil, killed themselves: some fell into the abyss, others hanged themselves. And who can count the various deceptions of the devil with which he deceives, and which are inscrutable? However, from what we have said, any reasonable person can learn what harm comes from this way of prayer. If one of those who use it is not subjected to any of the above-mentioned disasters due to cohabitation with the brethren, because most hermits living alone are exposed to such disasters, but such a person spends his entire life unsuccessfully” 186. All the Holy Fathers, who described the feat of mental prayer, forbid not only making up arbitrary dreams, but also bowing with will and sympathy to dreams and ghosts that may present themselves to us unexpectedly, regardless of our will. And this happens during the feat of prayer, especially in silence. “Do not accept,” says St. Gregory of Sinai, “if you see anything, with your sensual eyes or mind, outside or inside you, whether it be the image of Christ, or an Angel, or some Saint, or if the light appears to you... Be attentive and careful! Do not allow yourself to trust anything, do not express sympathy and consent, do not hastily trust a phenomenon, even if it is true and good; remain cold and alien to it, constantly keeping your mind formless, not forming any image and not imprinted by any image. He who sees something in thought or sensually, even if it was from God, and accepts it hastily and conveniently falls into delusion, at least revealing his inclination and ability for delusion, as one who accepts phenomena quickly and frivolously. The beginner must pay all attention to one action of the heart, recognize this one action as unattractive, and not accept anything else until the time of entering dispassion. God is not angry with someone who, fearing delusion, watches himself with extreme caution, even if he does not accept something sent from God without examining what was sent with all care; on the contrary, God praises such a person for his prudence” 187. Saint Amphilochius, who entered monasticism from his youth, was honored in his mature years and in his old age to spend a hermit’s life in the desert. Confined to a cave, he practiced silence and achieved great success. When “forty” years of his hermit’s life were completed, an Angel appeared to him at night and said: Amphilochius! go to the city and feed the spiritual sheep. Amphilochius remained focused on himself and did not pay attention to the command of the Angel. The next night the Angel appeared again and repeated the command, adding that it was from God. And again Amphilochius did not obey the Angel, fearing to be deceived and remembering the words of the Apostle that Satan will also be transformed into a bright Angel (2 Cor. 11:14). On the third night, the Angel appeared again and, having confirmed Amphilochius with the praise of God, intolerant of the rejected spirits, he took the elder by the hand, led him out of the cell, and led him to the church that was nearby. The church doors opened by themselves. The church was illuminated by heavenly light; It was attended by many holy men in white robes with sun-shaped faces. They ordained Amphilochius bishop of the city of Iconium 188. – In the opposite behavior, the Monks Isaac and Nikita of Pechersk, new and inexperienced in hermit life, were subjected to a terrible disaster, recklessly trusting the ghost that presented itself to them. To the first, many demons appeared in radiance: one of the demons took the form of Christ, the others - the form of holy Angels. The second was seduced by the demon, first with a fragrance and voice, as if from God, then apparently appearing to him in the form of an Angel 189. Monks experienced in monastic life, truly holy monks, are much more afraid of delusion, much more distrustful of themselves, than novices, especially those novices who are overwhelmed by the fervor for heroic deeds. With heartfelt love, St. Gregory of Sinai warns the silent man against delusion, for whom his book was written: “I want you to have a definite understanding of delusion: I want this for the purpose, so that you can protect yourself from delusion, so that in an effort not illuminated by proper knowledge, you do not cause yourself great harm, do not destroy your soul. The free will of man conveniently bows to communication with our opponents, especially the will of the inexperienced, new in the feat, as if still possessed by demons” 190. How true this is! Our free will is inclined and drawn towards delusion: because all delusion flatters our conceit, our vanity, our pride. “Demons are nearby and surround beginners and self-starters, spreading networks of thoughts and harmful dreams, creating abysses of falls. The city of the beginners - the entire being of each of them - is still in the possession of the barbarians... Do not give in quickly to what appears to you out of frivolity, but remain “heavy,” holding back the good with much consideration, and rejecting the evil... Know that the actions of grace are clear; the demon cannot teach them: he cannot teach meekness, quietness, humility, or hatred of the world; it does not tame passions and voluptuousness, as grace does.” His actions: “arrogance” - arrogance, pomposity - “high-mindedness, insurance, in a word, all types of malice. By action you will be able to know the light that has shone in your soul, whether it is God’s or from Satan” 191. You need to know that such consideration belongs to successful monks, and not to beginners. The Monk Sinaite talks, although with a novice, but with a novice in silent life, who was an elder both in monasticism and in bodily age, as can be seen from the book. Student . Have you ever seen anyone come into demonic delusion from the development of daydreaming while practicing prayer? Elder. It happened. A certain official who lived in St. Petersburg was engaged in an intense feat of prayer, and it brought him into an extraordinary state. He revealed about his feat and its consequences to the then archpriest of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God in Kolomna. The archpriest, having visited a certain monastery of the St. Petersburg diocese, asked one of the monks of that monastery to talk with an official. “The strange situation into which the official came from the feat,” the archpriest rightly said, “can be more conveniently explained by the inhabitants of the monastery, as they are more familiar with the details and accidents of the ascetic feat.” The monk agreed. After some time, the official arrived at the monastery. I was also present during his conversation with the monk. The official immediately began to talk about his visions - that he constantly sees light from icons during prayer, hears a fragrance, feels an extraordinary sweetness in his mouth, and so on. The monk, after listening to this story, asked the official: “Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” - “Why! “- the official answered, “I was already thrown into the Fontanka, but they pulled me out.” It turned out that the official used the image of prayer described by Saint Simeon, which inflamed the imagination and blood, and the person became very capable of intense fasting and vigil. To the state of self-delusion, chosen arbitrarily, the devil added his own action, akin to this state, and human self-delusion turned into obvious demonic delusion. The official saw the light with his bodily eyes; the fragrance and sweetness he felt were just as sensual. In contrast to this, the visions of the Saints and their supernatural states are completely spiritual 193: the ascetic becomes capable of them not before the opening of the eyes of the soul by Divine grace, and other feelings of the soul, hitherto inactive, also come to life 194; The bodily feelings of the Saints also take part in the vision of grace, but only when the body passes from a passionate state to a dispassionate state. The monk began to persuade the official to abandon the method of prayer he used, explaining both the incorrectness of the method and the incorrectness of the state delivered by the method. The official fiercely opposed the advice. “How can I refuse obvious grace!” - he objected. Listening to the official’s stories about himself, I felt inexplicably sorry for him, and at the same time he seemed somehow funny to me. For example, he asked the monk the following question: “When the saliva in my mouth increases due to the abundance of sweetness, it begins to drip onto the floor: is this not a sin?” Exactly: those who are in demonic delusion arouse regret for themselves, as they do not belong to themselves and are, in mind and heart, captive to an evil, rejected spirit. They are also a funny sight: they are ridiculed by the evil spirit that has taken possession of them, which has brought them into a state of humiliation, seducing them with vanity and arrogance. The seduced do not understand either their captivity or the strangeness of their behavior, no matter how obvious this captivity, this strangeness of behavior may be. I spent the winter of 1828-1829 in the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage 195. At that time there lived an old man who was in delusion. He cut off his hand, hoping to fulfill the Gospel commandment, and told anyone who cared to listen to him that the cut off hand became holy relics, that it was kept and honored splendidly in the Moscow Simonov Monastery, that he, the elder, being in the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage, five hundred versts from Simonov, felt when Simonovsky the archimandrite and the brethren kiss his hand. The elder shuddered, and he began to hiss very loudly: he recognized this phenomenon as the fruit of prayer; but to the audience it seemed like a perversion of itself, worthy only of pity and laughter. The children who lived in the monastery as orphans were amused by this phenomenon and copied it before the eyes of the elder. The elder would become angry, rush at one boy or another, and pull them by the hair. None of the venerable monks of the monastery could assure the seduced man that he was in a false state, in mental disorder. When the official left, I asked the monk: “What gave him the idea to ask the official about the attempted suicide?” The monk answered: “Just as in the midst of crying for God there come moments of extraordinary peace of conscience, which is the consolation of those who cry, so in the midst of the false pleasure delivered by demonic delusion, moments come in which delusion is, as it were, exposed and allows itself to be tasted as it is. These minutes are terrible! their bitterness and the despair produced by this bitterness are unbearable. By this state into which delusion leads, it would be easier for the seduced to recognize it and take measures to heal themselves. Alas! The beginning of delusion is pride, and its fruit is abundant pride. The seduced person, who recognizes himself as a vessel of Divine grace, despises the saving warnings of his neighbors, as Saint Simeon noted. Meanwhile, the attacks of despair become stronger and stronger: finally despair turns into insanity and culminates in suicide. At the beginning of this century, schemamonk Theodosius labored in the Sophronium Hermitage 196, attracting the respect of both the brotherhood and the laity with his strict, elevated lifestyle. One day he imagined that he had been caught up into heaven. At the end of the vision, he went to the abbot, told in detail about the miracle, and added an expression of regret that he saw only himself in paradise, and did not see any of the brethren. This trait escaped the attention of the abbot: he called the brethren, in contrition of spirit, told them about the vision of the schema-monk, and exhorted them to a life more zealous and pleasing to God. After some time, strange things began to be discovered in the schemamonk’s actions. It ended with him being found hanged in his cell. I had the following incident worthy of note. One day I was visited by the Athonite Hieroschemamonk, who was in Russia collecting. We sat down in my reception cell, and he began to tell me: “Pray for me, father: I sleep a lot, eat a lot.” When he told me this, I felt the heat emanating from him, which is why I answered him: “You don’t eat much, and you don’t sleep much; but is there anything special about you?” and asked him to enter my inner cell. Walking in front of him and opening the door to the inner cell, I mentally prayed to God that He would grant my smooth soul the benefit of the Athos hieroschemamonk, if he is a true servant of God. Exactly: I noticed something special about him. In the inner cell we again sat down to talk, and I began to ask him: “Do me a favor, teach me prayer. You live in the first monastic place on earth, among thousands of monks: in such a place and in such a large gathering of monks, there must certainly be great prayer books who know the secret prayer and teach it to their neighbors, following the example of Gregory of Sinaite and Palamas, following the example of many other Athonite lamps.” Hieroschemamonk immediately agreed to be my mentor - and, oh horror! With the greatest fervor, he began to convey to me the above method of enthusiastic, dreamy prayer. I see: he is in a terrible heat! his blood and imagination are heated! he is in self-satisfaction, delighted with himself, in self-delusion, in enchantment! Having allowed him to speak out, I began little by little, in the rank of a mentor, to offer him the teaching of the Holy Fathers on prayer, pointing it out in the Philokalia, and asking him to explain this teaching to me. The Athos resident was completely bewildered. I see: he is completely unfamiliar with the teaching of the Fathers on prayer! As the conversation continued, I told him: “Look, old man! If you live in St. Petersburg, don’t live on the top floor; Be sure to stay in the lower apartment.” “Why is this so?” - Afonets objected. “Because,” I answered, “if the angels suddenly decide to take you from St. Petersburg to Athos, and they carry you from the upper floor and drop you, you will be killed to death; if they carry you from the lower floor and drop you, you will only hurt yourself.” “Imagine,” answered Athos, “how many times, when I was standing in prayer, the vivid thought came to me that the angels would capture me and place me on Athos!” It turned out that the hieroschemamonk wears chains, hardly sleeps, eats little food, feels such heat in his body that in winter he does not need warm clothes. Towards the end of the conversation, it occurred to me to do the following: I began to ask Athos, so that he, as a faster and ascetic, would try on himself the method taught by the Holy Fathers, which consists in the fact that during prayer the mind should be completely alien to any daydreaming, immerse itself entirely in the words of the prayer, be contained and contained, in the words of St. John the Climacus, in the words of the prayer 197. At the same time, the heart usually contributes to the mind with a soul-saving feeling of sadness about sins, as St. Mark the Ascetic said: “The mind that prays unentertained oppresses the heart: “But God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19)” 198. “When you test yourself,” I said to Athos, “then tell me about the fruit of the experience; For me, such an experience is inconvenient due to the entertaining life I lead.” The Athos resident willingly agreed to my proposal. A few days later he comes to me and says: “What have you done to me?” - "And what?" - “Yes, when I tried to pray with attention, enclosing my mind in the words of prayer, all my visions disappeared, and I can no longer return to them.” Further, in a conversation with Afonets, I did not see that arrogance and that insolence that was very noticeable in him on the first date and which is usually noticed in people who are in self-delusion, imagining that they are saints or are in spiritual success. The Athos resident even expressed a desire to hear my poor advice for himself. When I advised him not to differ in outward way of life from other monks, because such a difference leads to arrogance, 199 he took off his chains and gave them to me. A month later he visited me again and said that the heat in his body had stopped, that he needed warm clothes, and slept much more. At the same time, he said that on Mount Athos many, including those enjoying the glory of holiness, use the method of prayer that was used by him - they teach it to others. No wonder! Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, who lived eight centuries before our time, says that very few people engage in attentive prayer 200. The Monk Gregory of Sinaite, who lived in the fourteenth century after the birth of Christ, when he arrived on Mount Athos, he found that its numerous monastics had no concept of mental prayer, but were engaged only in physical feats, performing prayers only orally and publicly 201. The Monk Nilus of Sorsky, who lived at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, and who also visited Mount Athos, says that in his time the number of attentive prayer books became extremely scarce 202. The elder, Archimandrite Paisiy Velichkovsky moved to Mount Athos from Moldova in 1747. He briefly became acquainted with all the monasteries and monasteries, talked with many elders, who were recognized by the general opinion of the Holy Mountain as the most experienced and holy monks. When he began to ask these monks about the books of the Holy Fathers who wrote about mental prayer, it turned out that they not only did not know about the existence of such Scriptures, but did not even know the names of the holy Writers; at that time the Philokalia had not yet been printed in Greek 203 . Attentive prayer requires self-sacrifice, and few people dare to commit self-sacrifice. Enclosed in attention, in a state of bewilderment at the sight of his sinfulness, incapable of verbosity and, in general, of effect and acting, it seems to those who do not know his mysterious feat as somehow strange, mysterious, insufficient in all respects. Is it easy to part with the world's opinion! And how can the world recognize the ascetic of true prayer, when the feat itself is completely unknown to the world? Whether it’s a matter of self-delusion! He doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, doesn’t sleep, in winter he walks around in a cassock, wears chains, sees visions, teaches and denounces everyone with daring impudence, without any correctness, without sense or meaning, with a bloody, material, passionate heat, and because of this sad, disastrous heat. Holy, and nothing more! A taste for and attraction to such people in human society has long been noticed: “You will accept,” writes the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, “if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours you, if anyone makes a fool of you, if anyone slaps you in the face, if anyone boasts himself” (2 Cor. 11:20). Further, the holy Apostle says that, having been in Corinth, he could not behave boldly and insolently: his behavior was sealed by modesty, “the meekness and quietness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1). Most of the ascetics of the Western Church, proclaimed by it to be the greatest saints - after its falling away from the Eastern Church and after the retreat of the Holy Spirit from it - prayed and achieved visions, false, of course, in the way I mentioned. These imaginary saints were in the most terrible demonic delusion. Prelest is already naturally erected on the basis of blasphemy, with which the heretics perverted the dogmatic faith. The behavior of the ascetics of Latinism, overwhelmed by delusion, was always frantic, due to an extraordinary material, passionate fervor. This was the state of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. His imagination was so heated and sophisticated that, as he himself asserted, he only had to want and use some tension for hell or heaven to appear before his eyes, at his will. The appearance of heaven and hell was not accomplished by one act of human imagination; the action of the human imagination alone is not enough for this: the phenomenon was accomplished by the action of demons, who added their abundant action to the insufficient human action, coupled action with action, replenishing action with action, on the basis of the free will of man, who had chosen and adopted a false direction. It is known that visions are granted to the true saints of God solely by the good will of God and by the action of God, and not by the will of man and not by his own effort - they are granted unexpectedly, very rarely, in cases of special need, according to the wondrous provision of God, and not as if it happened 204. The intensified feat of those in delusion usually stands next to deep depravity. Corruption serves as an assessment of the flame that kindles the seduced. This is confirmed by the stories of history and the testimony of the Fathers. “He who sees the spirit of delusion in the phenomena presented to him,” said the Monk Maxim Kapsokalivi, “is very often exposed to rage and anger; the fragrance of humility or prayer, or true tears has no place in him. On the contrary, he constantly boasts of his virtues, is vain, and always indulges in evil passions fearlessly” 205. Student . The incorrectness of this method of prayer and its connection with self-delusion and prelest are clear; warn me against other types of incorrect prayer and the false state associated with them. Elder. Just as wrong action with the mind leads into self-deception and delusion, so exactly does wrong action with the heart lead into them. Filled with reckless pride, the desire and desire to see spiritual visions with a mind that is not cleansed of passions, not renewed and not recreated by the right hand of the Holy Spirit; filled with the same pride and recklessness, the desire and desire of the heart to enjoy holy, spiritual, Divine sensations, when it is still completely incapable of such pleasures. Just as an unclean mind, wanting to see Divine visions and not being able to see them, composes visions for itself from itself, deceives itself and deceives itself with them, so the heart, intensifying to taste Divine sweetness and other Divine sensations, and not finding them in itself, composes them from itself, flatters itself with them, seduces, deceives, destroys itself, entering the realm of lies, into communication with demons, submitting to their influence, enslaving to their power. One sensation of all the sensations of the heart, in its state of fall, can be used in invisible Divine services: sadness about sins, about sinfulness, about the fall, about one’s destruction, called crying, repentance, contrition of the spirit. This is attested to by the Holy Scriptures. “Even if You had desired sacrifices, You would have given them; burnt offerings are not your pleasure” (Ps. 50:18): and each heartfelt sensation separately, and all of them together, are not pleasing to You, as defiled by sin, as perverted by the fall. “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit: a contrite and humble heart God will not despise” (Ps. 50:19). This sacrifice is a negative sacrifice; with the offering of this sacrifice, the offering of other sacrifices is naturally eliminated: with the feeling of repentance, all other sensations become silent. In order for the sacrifices of other sensations to become pleasing to God, the favor of God must first be poured out on our Zion, the walls of our destroyed Jerusalem must first be restored. The Lord is righteous, all-holy; Only righteous, pure sacrifices, of which human nature is capable after its renewal, are favorable to the righteous, all-holy Lord. He does not take pleasure in desecrated sacrifices and burnt offerings. Let us take care to cleanse ourselves through repentance! “Then you will be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, the wave offering and the burnt offering: then they will lay the bullock on Your altar” (Ps. 50:21): newborn sensations of a person renewed by the Holy Spirit. The first commandment given by the Savior of the world to all mankind without exception is the commandment of repentance: “Jesus began to preach and say: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17). This commandment embraces, concludes, combines all other commandments. To those people who did not understand the meaning and power of repentance, the Savior said more than once: “As you go, learn what to eat: I want mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). This means: the Lord, having mercy on fallen and lost people, granted repentance to everyone as the only means of salvation, because everyone was overwhelmed by fall and destruction. He does not demand, does not even desire from them sacrifices for which they are not capable, but wants them to have mercy on themselves, recognize their misfortune, and free themselves from it through repentance. To the mentioned words the Lord added terrible words: “I have not come,” He said, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Who are called righteous? those unfortunate, blind sinners who, being deceived by self-conceit, do not find repentance essential for themselves, and therefore either reject it or neglect it. O misfortune! For this, the Savior denies them, and they lose the treasure of salvation. “Woe to the soul,” says St. Macarius the Great, “that does not feel its ulcers and imagines itself, because of the great, immeasurable damage by malice, that it is completely alien to damage by malice. Such a soul is no longer visited and healed by the good Physician, as if she arbitrarily left her ulcers without caring for them, and imagines herself to be healthy and blameless. “They do not require,” He says, “the doctor’s health, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12)” 206. Terrible cruelty to oneself - rejection of repentance! Terrible coldness, dislike for oneself - neglect of repentance. He who is cruel to himself cannot but be cruel to his neighbors. He who is merciful to himself by accepting repentance becomes merciful to his neighbors. From this one can see the whole importance of the mistake: to take away from the heart what God Himself commanded to it, the feeling of repentance that is essential and logically necessary for the heart, and to strive to reveal in the heart, contrary to order, contrary to the establishment of God, those feelings that should naturally appear in it after cleansing by repentance, but in a completely different character 207 . A person cannot form any idea about this spiritual, carnal character: because the idea of ​​sensation is always based on sensations already known to the heart, and spiritual sensations are completely alien to the heart, which is familiar only with carnal and spiritual sensations. Such a heart does not even know about the existence of spiritual sensations. Everyone knows what kind of spiritual distress arose for the Jewish scribes and Pharisees from their wrong spiritual mood: they became not only alien to God, but also frantic enemies of Him, deicides. Ascetics of prayer are subjected to a similar calamity, those who have expelled repentance from their feat, who are intensifying to arouse love for God in their hearts, who are intensifying to feel pleasure and delight: they develop their fall, make themselves alien to God, enter into communication with Satan, and become infected with hatred of the Holy Spirit. This kind of charm is terrible; it is equally destructive to the soul as the first, but less obvious: it rarely ends in madness and suicide, but it decisively corrupts both the mind and the heart. Based on the state of mind it produces, the Fathers called it “opinion” 208. The Holy Apostle Paul points to this kind of delusion when he says: “Let no one deceive you with the humility of mind that was bestowed upon him and the service of angels, even though he did not teach, being driven madly by the mind of his flesh” (Col. 2:18). He who is obsessed with this delusion thinks of himself, has created an “opinion” about himself that he has many virtues and virtues, even that he is abounding in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Opinion is made up of false concepts and false sensations: according to this property, it completely belongs to the realm of the father and representative of lies - the devil. The person praying, striving to reveal the sensations of a new person in his heart, and not having any opportunity to do so, replaces them with sensations of his own creation, counterfeit ones, to which the action of fallen spirits is not slow to join. Having recognized the wrong sensations, his own and the demonic, as true and grace-filled, he receives concepts corresponding to the sensations. These sensations, constantly assimilated into the heart and intensified in it, feed and multiply false concepts; Naturally, from such an incorrect feat, self-delusion and demonic delusion are formed - “opinion”. “Opinion does not allow things to be imaginary 209,” said Saint Simeon, the New Theologian. He who imagines himself to be passionless will never be cleansed of passions; He who imagines himself to be full of grace will never receive grace; He who thinks he is holy will never achieve holiness. It’s easy to say: he who ascribes to himself spiritual works, virtues, virtues, gifts of grace, flatters himself and amuses himself with “opinion”, with this “opinion” blocks the entrance into himself of spiritual works, and Christian virtues and Divine grace - opens wide the entrance to sinful infection and demons. There is no longer any ability for spiritual success in those infected with “opinion”: they destroyed this ability, bringing to the altar of lies the very beginnings of human activity and his salvation - the concept of truth. Extraordinary pompousness is this charm in those who are ill: they seem to be intoxicated with themselves, with their state of self-delusion, seeing in it a state of grace. They are imbued with, filled with arrogance and pride, appearing, however, humble to many who judge by appearance, unable to evaluate by fruits, as the Savior commanded (Matthew 7:16, 12:33), much less by spiritual feeling, which is mentioned by the Apostle (Heb. 5:14). The Prophet Isaiah picturesquely depicted the effect of the charm of “opinion” in the fallen archangel, an action that seduced and destroyed this archangel. “You,” says the prophet to Satan, “thou hast said in thy mind: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on the highest mountain, on the high mountains even to the north: I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Now you will go down to hell and to the foundations of the earth” (Is. 14:13–15). The Lord denounces the one infected with “opinion” as follows: “Speak, for I am rich, and have become rich, and demand nothing: and do not weigh, for you are wretched and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). The Lord exhorts the deceived to repentance; offers to buy from no one else, from the Lord Himself, the necessary needs that constitute repentance (Rev. 3:18). The purchase is urgently needed: without it there is no salvation. There is no salvation without repentance, and repentance is accepted from God only by those who, in order to accept it, will sell all their property, that is, renounce everything that they have falsely acquired by “opinion.” Student . Have you ever met someone infected with this type of charm? Elder. “Opinions” infected with charm are very common. Anyone who does not have a contrite spirit, who recognizes any merits and merits in himself, anyone who does not steadfastly adhere to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, but argues about some dogma or tradition arbitrarily, at his own discretion, or according to heterodox teaching, is in this delusion. The degree of evasion and persistence in evasion determines the degree of prelest. Weak man! “Opinion” certainly creeps into us in some form, and, realizing our “I,” removes the grace of God from us. Just as there is, according to the remark of St. Macarius the Great, not a single person who is completely free from pride, so there is not a single person who would be completely free from the influence of the subtle charm called “opinion” on him. It was slandered by the Apostle Paul, and was healed by the grave allowances of God. “We do not want you, brethren,” writes the Apostle to the Corinthians, “to be ignorant of our sorrow that happened to us in Asia, for we were burdened with great and greater burdens, as if we had no hope of living. But we have within ourselves the condemnation of death, so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8-9). For this reason, one must vigilantly watch oneself so as not to attribute to oneself any good deed, any commendable quality or special natural ability, even a state of grace, if a person has been elevated to it, in short, so as not to recognize any dignity in oneself. “What have you,” says the Apostle, “that you would not receive” from God? (1 Cor. 4:7) From God we have both being and re-being, and all natural properties, all abilities, both spiritual and bodily. We are debtors to God! Our debt is unpayable! From such a view of ourselves, a state is formed by itself for our spirit, the opposite of “opinion”, a state that the Lord called poverty of spirit, which He commanded us to have, which He pleased (Matthew 5:3). It is a great disaster to deviate from the dogmatic and moral teaching of the Church, from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, by any kind of speculation! this is “a charge levied on the mind of God.” Such a mind must be cast down and taken captive “into the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). Student . Is there any connection between the delusion of the first kind and the delusion of the second kind? Elder. There is certainly a connection between these two types of charm. The first kind of delusion is always connected with the second kind of delusion, with “opinion.” He who composes seductive images through the natural ability of imagination, who combines these images into a charming picture through dreaminess 210, who subordinates his entire being to the seductive, powerful influence of this painting, certainly, out of unfortunate necessity, “thinks” that this painting is produced by the action of Divine grace, that the heartfelt sensations excited by painting are sensations of grace. The second kind of delusion—actually “opinion”—acts without creating seductive pictures: it is content with creating counterfeit, grace-filled sensations and states, from which a false, perverse concept of all spiritual achievement is born. He who is in the delusion of “opinion” acquires a false view of everything around him. He is deceived both within himself and without. Daydreaming has a powerful effect on those deceived by “opinion,” but it acts exclusively in the realm of the abstract. She either does not engage at all, or rarely engages in painting in the imagination of paradise, heavenly abodes and palaces, heavenly light and fragrance, Christ, Angels and Saints; she constantly creates pseudo-spiritual states, close friendship with Jesus 211, internal conversation with Him 212, mysterious revelations 213, voices, pleasures; she builds on them a false concept about herself and about the Christian feat, builds a generally false way of thinking and a false mood of the heart, leading either into ecstasy with herself, or into excitement and enthusiasm. These various sensations arise from the action of refined vanity and voluptuousness: from this action the blood receives a sinful, seductive movement, which appears as a blessed pleasure. Vanity and voluptuousness are aroused by arrogance, this inseparable companion of “opinion.” Terrible pride, similar to the pride of demons, is the dominant quality of those who have acquired both charms. Pride leads those seduced by the first type of charm into a state of obvious insanity; in those deceived by the second type, it, also producing mental damage, called in Scripture corruption of the mind (2 Tim. 3:8), is less noticeable, clothed in the guise of humility, piety, wisdom, and is known by its bitter fruits. Those infected with an “opinion” about their own merits, especially about their holiness, are capable and ready for all intrigues, all hypocrisy, deceit and deception, all atrocities. They breathe irreconcilable enmity against the servants of truth, rushing at them with furious hatred when they do not recognize in the seduced the state attributed to them and exposed to shame by the blind world by “opinion.” Student . There are also spiritual states produced by Divine grace, such as the state in which spiritual sweetness and joy are tasted, the state in which the secrets of Christianity are revealed, the state in which the presence of the Holy Spirit is felt in the heart, the state in which the ascetic of Christ is granted spiritual visions? Elder. Undoubtedly they exist, but they exist only in Christians who have achieved Christian perfection, previously purified and prepared by repentance. The gradual effect of repentance in general, expressed by all types of humility, especially prayer brought from poverty of spirit, from crying, gradually weakens the effect of sin in a person. This requires considerable time. And it is given to true, well-intentioned ascetics by the providence of God, who vigilantly watches over us. The fight against passions is extremely useful: it most of all leads to poverty of spirit. For the purpose of our significant benefit, our Judge and God “suffers long” for us, and does not quickly “take revenge” (Luke 18:7) on our rival - sin. When the passions have weakened greatly - this happens most towards the end of life 214 - then little by little spiritual states will begin to appear, distinguished by an infinite difference from the states created by “opinion”. Firstly, gracious crying enters the spiritual church, washes it and makes it white for the acceptance of gifts that follow crying according to the establishment of the spiritual law. A carnal person in no way, in any way, can even imagine spiritual states, cannot have any concept below about gracious crying: the knowledge of these states is acquired only by experience 215. Spiritual gifts are distributed with Divine wisdom, which watches so that the verbal vessel, which must receive the gift, can endure the power of the gift without harm to itself. New wine bursts old wineskins! (Matthew 9:17). It is noted that, at the present time, spiritual gifts are distributed with the greatest moderation, in accordance with the relaxation that has enveloped Christianity in general. These gifts satisfy almost exclusively the needs of salvation. On the contrary, “opinion” squanders its gifts in immeasurable abundance and with the greatest haste. A common sign of spiritual states is deep humility and humbleness of mind, combined with preference for oneself of all neighbors, with disposition, evangelical love for all neighbors, with a desire for the unknown, for removal from the world. “Opinion” has little place here: because humility consists in the renunciation of all one’s own merits, in the essential confession of the Redeemer, in the consolidation of all hope and support in Him, and “opinion” consists in appropriating for oneself the virtues given by God, and in inventing for oneself non-existent virtues. It is combined with self-reliance, with a cold, superficial confession of the Redeemer. God is glorified to glorify himself, just as he was glorified by the Pharisee (Luke 18:11). Those obsessed with “opinion” are for the most part devoted to voluptuousness, despite the fact that they attribute to themselves the most sublime spiritual states, unparalleled in correct Orthodox asceticism; few of them refrain from gross enslavement to voluptuousness - they refrain solely because of the predominance of sin among sins - pride. Student . Can the delusion called “opinion” produce any tangible, visible unhappy consequences? Elder. From this kind of delusion arose destructive heresies, schisms, atheism, and blasphemy. Its most unfortunate visible consequence is wrong, harmful activity for oneself and for one’s neighbors—evil, despite its clarity and vastness, is little noticed and little understood. Misfortunes, obvious to everyone, happen to those who are infected with “opinion”, but rarely: because “opinion,” leading the mind into the most terrible delusion, does not lead it into frenzy, as a disordered imagination does. – On Valaam Island, in a remote deserted hut, lived Schemamonk Porfiry, whom I also saw. He was engaged in the feat of prayer. What kind of feat this was, I really don’t know. One can guess that it was incorrect from the schemamonk’s favorite reading: he highly valued the book of the Western writer Thomas à Kempis on the imitation of Jesus Christ, and was guided by it. This book is written from an “opinion”. Porfiry one evening, in the autumn, visited the elders of the monastery, from which its desert was not far away. When he said goodbye to the elders, they warned him, saying: “Don’t even try to walk on the ice: the ice has just risen and is very thin.” The Porfiry desert was separated from the monastery by a deep bay of Lake Ladoga, which had to be bypassed. Schemamonk answered in a quiet voice, with outward modesty: “I have already become light.” He left. A short time later a desperate cry was heard. The skete elders became alarmed and ran out. It was dark; It was not long before they found the place where the disaster occurred; It was not long before they found the means to retrieve the drowned man: they pulled out the body, already abandoned by the soul. Student . You say about the book “Imitation” that it was written from a state of self-delusion; but it has many admirers even among the children of the Orthodox Church! Elder. These admirers are delighted with her dignity, and speak out about this dignity, without realizing it. In the preface of the Russian translator to the book “Imitation” - an 1834 edition published in Moscow - it is said: “One highly enlightened man - Russian, Orthodox - used to say: if my opinion were needed, then I would boldly put Kempis after the Holy Scriptures on the imitation of Jesus Christ” 216. In this so decisive verdict, the heterodox writer is given complete preference over all the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, and his own view is given preference over the determination of the entire Church, which at the holy Councils recognized the writings of the Holy Fathers as God-inspired, and bequeathed the reading of them not only for the edification of all their children, but also for guidance in resolving Church issues. The writings of the Fathers contain a great spiritual, Christian and ecclesiastical treasure: the dogmatic and moral tradition of the Holy Church. It is obvious that the book “Imitation” brought the mentioned husband into the mood from which he expressed himself so recklessly, so mistakenly, so sadly 217. This is self-delusion! this is lovely! It was made up of false concepts; false concepts were born from the wrong sensations conveyed by the book. The anointing of an evil spirit lives in the book and breathes from the book, flattering readers, intoxicating them with the poison of lies, sweetened with refined seasonings of arrogance, vanity and voluptuousness. The book leads its readers directly to communion with God, without pre-purification by repentance: which is why it arouses special sympathy for itself in passionate people, unfamiliar with the path of repentance, not protected from self-delusion and delusion, not instructed in correct living by the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. The book has a strong effect on the blood and nerves, excites them, and therefore it is especially liked by people enslaved by sensuality; a book can be enjoyed without giving up the raw pleasures of sensuality. High-mindedness, refined voluptuousness and vanity are presented by the book as the action of God's grace. Having smelled their fornication in its subtle action, carnal people are delighted with pleasure, with intoxication, delivered without difficulty, without self-sacrifice, without repentance, without “crucifixion of the flesh with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), with caressing the state of fall. They joyfully move, led by their blindness and pride, from the bed of bestial love to the bed of more criminal love, which dominates the fornication of outcast spirits. A certain person, who in her earthly position belonged to the highest and most educated society, and in appearance to the Orthodox Church, expressed herself as follows about the deceased Lutheran woman, recognized by this person as a saint: “She loved God passionately; she thought only about God; she saw only God; she read only the Gospel and “Imitation,” which is the second Gospel” 218. These words express exactly the state into which the readers of “Imitation” are brought. – Identical, in essence, with this phrase is the saying of the famous French writer, Madame de Sevigne, about the famous French poet, Racine the Elder. “He loves God,” Madame Sevigne allowed herself to say, “as before he loved his concubines” 219. The famous critic La Harpe, who was at first an atheist, then switched to Christianity, which was misunderstood and distorted by him, approving of Madame Sevigne’s expression, said: “The heart with which the Creator and the creature are loved are one, although the consequences differ as much from each other as the objects are different” 220. Racine moved from depravity to charm, called “opinion.” This charm is expressed with all clarity in the poet’s last two tragedies: Esther and Athaliah. Racine's lofty Christian thoughts and feelings found a spacious place in the church of the Muses and Apollo, 221 and aroused delight and applause in the theater. Athaliah, considered Racine's greatest work, was performed forty times in a row. The spirit of this tragedy is one with the spirit of “Imitation”. – We believe that in the human heart there is bestial lust, brought into it by the fall, which is in correlation with the lust of fallen spirits; we believe that there is also a spiritual lust in the heart, with which we are created, with which God and neighbor are naturally and correctly loved, which is in harmony 222 with the lust of the holy Angels. In order to love God and our neighbor in God, it is necessary to cleanse ourselves of bestial lust. Cleansing is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in a person who expresses through his life the will to cleanse. Actually, what is called the heart, in a moral sense, is lust and other spiritual forces, and not a member of the flesh - the heart. The forces are concentrated in this member, and the name is transferred by common usage from the member to the collection of forces. In contrast to the feeling of carnal people, spiritual men, having smelled the stench of evil pretending to be good, immediately feel disgust from the book that emits this stench. An excerpt from “Imitation” was read to Elder Isaiah, a monk who was silent in the Nikiforov Hermitage 223, who had succeeded in mental prayer and was granted grace-filled overshadowing. The elder immediately understood the meaning of the book. He laughed and exclaimed: “Oh! this is written from an opinion. Nothing here is true! everything here is made up! How spiritual states seemed to Thomas and how he imagined them, not knowing them from experience, is how he described them.” Charm, like misfortune, is a sad spectacle; like an absurdity, she is a funny sight. Archimandrite of the Kirillo-Novoezersk Monastery 224, famous for his strict life, Theophanes, who in the simplicity of his heart was engaged almost exclusively in physical feats, and had the most moderate concept of spiritual feats, first suggested to those who consulted with him and were under his leadership, reading the book “Imitation”; a few years before his death, he began to prohibit reading it, saying with holy simplicity: “before I recognized this book as beneficial to the soul, but God revealed to me that it was harmful to the soul.” Hieroschemamonk Leonid, known for his active monastic experience, had the same opinion about “Imitation,” who laid the foundation for moral improvement in Optina Pustyn 225. All the mentioned ascetics were known to me personally. – A certain landowner, brought up in the spirit of Orthodoxy, who knew briefly the so-called big world, that is, the world, in its upper strata, once saw the book “Imitation” in the hands of his daughter. He forbade her to read the book, saying: “I don’t want you to follow fashion and flirt before God.” The most accurate assessment of the book. Student . Are there other types of charm? Elder. All particular types of self-delusion and deception by demons belong to the two main types mentioned above, and occur either from the wrong action of the mind, or from the wrong action of the heart. The effect of “opinion” is especially broad. It is not without reason that the spiritual mood of those monks who, having rejected the exercise of the Jesus Prayer and mental work in general, are satisfied with external prayer alone, that is, non-missing participation in church services and non-missing fulfillment of the cell rule, consisting exclusively of psalmody and oral and vowel prayers, is attributed to a state of self-delusion and delusion. They cannot avoid “opinion,” as the mentioned Elder Basil explains in the preface to the book of St. Gregory of Sinaite, referring primarily to the writings of the saints, this Gregory and Simeon the New Theologian. A sign of an infiltrated “opinion” is revealed in ascetics when they think about themselves that they lead an attentive life, often out of pride they despise others, speak ill of them, consider themselves worthy, in their own opinion, to be shepherds of sheep and their leaders, becoming like a blind man who undertakes to show the way to other blind men 226 . Oral and public prayer is fruitful when it is accompanied by attention, which is very rare, because we learn attention mainly by practicing the Jesus Prayer 227. Beginning of the 3rd Word of St. Simeon the New Theologian. Edition of Optina Pustyn in 1852. Quote from St. Simeon the New Theologian, in the Word of Nicephorus the Monastic. Philokalia, part 2. – St. Macarius the Great. Word 7, ch. 2. The original says: “whoever dreams high with the opinion of achieving it.” An explanatory expression is used here to more clearly show the meaning of the word opinion. About the first form of attention and prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Chetii-Minei. November on the 23rd day. Philokalia, part 1. About delusion and so on. A figure of speech used by residents of St. Petersburg. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 55. Venerable Simeon, New Theologian. A word about Faith. Philokalia, part 1. Ladder. Word 28, ch. 17. The word about those who think that by works they will be justified, ch. 34, Philokalia, part 1. Ladder. Word 4, ch. 82, 83. Venerable Barsanuphius the Great. Answer 275. Life and instructions of St. Apollos. Patericon Alphabetical. About the third image of prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Life of St. Gregory the Sinaite. Philokalia, part 1. Preface to the Tradition or Charter of the Skete. An excerpt from a letter from Elder Paisius to Elder Theodosius. Scriptures of Paisius. Publication of Optina Pustyn. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 36. Interview of St. Maximus with St. Gregory of Sinaite. Venerable Gregory of Sinaite. Sl. 108, 128. Philokalia, part 1. Saint John of Carpathia, ch. 49. Philokalia, part 4. Word IV, at the end; also Word 3. Imitation of Thomas a à Kempis, book 2, ch. 8. Imitation of Thomas a à Kempis book 3, ch. 1. Imitation, book 3, ch. 3. The Life of Theophilus, the Painful Pimen, and John the Long-Suffering. Patericon of Pechersk. “Imitation”, when it first appeared, was condemned even by its Latin Church, and was persecuted by the Inquisition. The persecution was stopped later, and turned into patronage when it was seen that the book served as a good tool for propaganda among people who had lost a true understanding of Christianity and retained a superficial attitude towards it. Under the name of papal propaganda we mean the dissemination of the concept of the Pope that the Pope wants to instill in humanity about himself, that is, the concept of the supreme, autocratic, unlimited power of the Pope over the world. Propaganda, having this goal, pays little attention to the quality of the teaching it teaches; for it, everything that contributes to its goal is in its favor - even faith in Christ without abandoning faith in idols. An enthusiastic statement was uttered in French, so capable for the stage: “Elle aimait Dieu avec passion; elle ne pensait qu'a Dieu; elle ne voyait que Dieu; “elle ne lisait que l’Evangile et l’Imitation qui est un second Evangile.” "Il aime Dieu, comme il aimait ses maitresses." “C’est avec le meme coeur, qu’on aime le Créateur, ou la créature, quoique les effets soient aussi différents, que les objets.” The Muses and Apollo are the deities of the ancient pagans, Greeks and Romans; The pagans attributed to these demons the patronage of the fine arts. Olonets or Petrozavodsk Diocese. About the second way of attention and prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Preface by Schemamonk Vasily. You might be interested in: