Слово о различных состояниях естества человеческого по отношению к добру и злу

An ascetic of Christ, in order to correctly judge himself and act correctly regarding himself, has the necessary need for a correct concept of his nature. True thought is the source of all blessings, false thought is the source of erroneous activity and those fruits that must certainly be born from it. If we see asceticism not crowned with spiritual fruits, or crowned with the fruits of self-deception, then we must know that the reason for this was a false direction, a false starting point of activity. Alas! Often the eye of the mind is struck by a sad sight, awakening the heart to bitter tears. What could be sadder than the spectacle when an ascetic, who has spent his life in the bowels of a holy monastery, in unceasing service to God, in continuous deeds, sees, with an impartial look at himself, his decisive sterility, sees in himself various passions increased and strengthened, which, when he entered monasticism, were very weak, almost ineffective? What could be sadder than the sight when he sees the same thing in his brothers? This spectacle is all the sadder because conversion and self-correction becomes very difficult at a certain age and position. It is a great and blessed thing when we magnify Christ within ourselves. The great misfortune - the misfortune consisting of alienation from God both in time and in eternity - is when we develop our fallen self. 2. There are three states of human nature in relation to good and evil In order to avoid the great misfortune - alienation from God both in time and in eternity, let us enter on the right and holy paths. In order to acquire correct Christian activity, let us clearly study human nature in its three states: in the state after creation, in the state after the fall, in the state after redemption 380. Then only can the activity of a Christian be correct, soul-saving, godly, when he acts or tries to act exclusively according to the laws of human nature, renewed. 3. On the state of nature in relation to good and evil, after the creation of man In the state after creation, human nature was not at all involved in evil. One whole goodness lived and acted in him. Humanity had no experienced concept of evil. It only knew that evil exists, that the experimental knowledge of evil is detrimental to humanity (Gen. 2:9, 17, 3:2). Theoretical, superficial knowledge of evil could not have any harmful influence on human nature, as dead knowledge, balanced by ignorance in relation to the internal and external activities of man. The fall of man took place through the active, experienced knowledge of evil; The fall of man lies in the active, experimental knowledge of evil, in the assimilation of evil. Thus, theoretical knowledge about poison does not cause death, on the contrary, it warns against it; practical knowledge of poison, that is, tasting it, brings death. 4. About the state after the fall of man In fallen human nature, good is mixed with evil. The evil that has come into man is so mixed and merged with the natural good of man that natural good can never act separately, without evil also acting together. A person is poisoned by the taste of sin, that is, the experimental knowledge of evil. The poison has penetrated into all members of the body, into all the powers and properties of the soul: both the body, the heart, and the mind are affected by a sinful illness. By harmfully flattering themselves and deceiving themselves, fallen people call and recognize their minds as sound. The mind was sound before the fall; After the fall, among all people, without exception, he became false, and for salvation he must be rejected (1 Tim. 6:20–21). “The light is in my eyes, and that one is not with me” (Ps. 37:11), Scripture says about the mind of fallen nature. By harmfully flattering themselves and deceiving themselves, fallen people call and recognize their heart as good: it was good before the fall; after the fall, his good was mixed with evil, and in order to be saved it must be rejected as defiled. God, who knows the heart, called all men evil (Luke 11:13). Because of the sinful infection, everything in a person has become disordered, everything acts incorrectly, everything acts under the influence of lies and self-delusion. This is how his will operates, this is how all his heartfelt feelings act, this is how all his thoughts act. It is in vain and in vain that fallen and blind humanity calls them kind, graceful, sublime! Our fall is deep: very few people recognize themselves as fallen beings in need of a Savior; the majority looks at their state of fall as a state of complete triumph, and uses every effort to strengthen and develop their state of fall. Separation of incoming evil from natural good through one’s own efforts has become impossible for man. Evil has penetrated into the very beginning of man: man is conceived in iniquities, born in sins (Ps. 50:7). From his very birth, a person does not have a single deed, not a single word, not a single thought, not a single feeling, even for the shortest minute, in which there would be good without a greater or lesser admixture of evil. This is attested to by the Holy Scriptures, which speaks of fallen men that among them “no one is righteous: all who have turned aside have become indecent together. Do not do any goodness, not even one” (Rom. 3:10–12). Pointing to his fallen nature, the holy Apostle Paul says: “no good thing lives in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18). Here, by the name of flesh, the Apostle does not mean the human body itself, but the carnal state of the whole person: his mind, heart and body. And in the Old Testament the whole person is called flesh: “My Spirit shall not have,” said God, “to remain in these men forever, for they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). In this carnal state, sin and eternal death live as in one’s own body. The Apostle calls the carnal state the body of death (Rom. 7:24), the body of sin (Rom. 6:6). This state is called flesh, body, the body of death and sin for the reason that in it the thought and heart, which must strive for the spiritual and holy, are directed and nailed to the only material and sinful, living in matter and sin. The human body of the Apostle, as everyone knows, was the temple of the Holy Spirit, was imbued with Divine grace and exuded from itself the actions of Divine grace (Acts 19:12). Expressions that so truly refer to the carnal state into which human nature was cast by the fall cannot apply to it: “those in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8), “let the body of sin be abolished” (Rom. 6:6), “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). The Apostle excellently describes the mixture of good and evil in fallen man, left to his own efforts to create good, and, of necessity, evil penetrates from nature, distorts his good, and overthrows the plans of the mind that vainly attempts to introduce true service to God into the spiritual church. “The Law,” says the Apostle, “is spiritual: I am carnal, sold under sin. What I do, I do not understand: I do it not because I want, but what I hate, I do it. Even if I don’t want to, I do this, it is no longer I who do this, but sin that lives within me. I have now acquired the law, because I want to do good, as evil is due to me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man: I see another law in my heart, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive by the law of sin which is in my heart. I am a damned man: who will deliver me from this body of death? With the same mind I work the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:14-25). By the word flesh here again we must understand the carnal state, by which all attempts of the human mind to fulfill the will of God are overthrown, as long as man remains in a state of fall, until he is renewed by the Spirit: The Spirit, having entered into man, frees him from sinful slavery (Rom. 8:14), destroying the body of sin (Rom. 6:6), that is, the carnal state in man. This is how we must understand the words of the Apostle: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). Here, the name flesh and blood refers to thoughts and feelings that are born in fallen nature, containing a person in a carnal state in his mind, heart and body. This state is also called the “old man” (Eph. 4:22), which the Apostle commands the Christian to put aside and put on “into the new man, created according to God in righteousness and perfection of the Truth” (Eph. 4:23–24). This is the same thing that he said in the letter to the Romans: “Put on our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14), and to the Corinthians: “Let us put on the image of him who is in heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49) (man). It is known that the Apostle was renewed by the Spirit and clothed with Christ; Enlightened by the Spirit and moved by love for his neighbors, he pronounced on behalf of fallen man, striving to break the chains of sin, a confession of the state produced by the fall, a state in which a person, raped by the evil living in him, cannot help but commit evil, even though he wishes to do good 381. Such vision of the fall of man is a gift of God's grace 382. In the society of fallen humanity, some people are called good. They are called that incorrectly, relatively. In this society, the person who does the least evil is called good, and the person who does the least good is called evil. However, an evil person can succeed so much in evil that all his activities turn into an uninterrupted series of atrocities. In the precise sense of the word, there is no good person. There is no person who, in his fallen state, would do pure good, not defiled by evil: “no one is good except one God” (Mark 10:18), says the Word of God. It recognizes all people, as stated above, and calls them “evil” (Luke 11:13). The Old Testament righteous were called righteous only in relation to other people (Rom. 4:2–3; Job 1:8), and not in relation to God. In relation to God, all, without exception, fallen humanity became unworthy of God, all the deeds of nature, corrupted by the fall, became not pleasing to God, as defiled by an integral admixture of evil. Faith alone in the promised Redeemer, proven by works of faith, assimilated to God the Old Testament righteous, imputed to them the truth (Rom. 4:2-8; Gal. 2:18-26), brought hope of salvation, hope of escape from the prisons of hell, into which all human souls, without exception, were cast after their separation from their bodies, until God became man destroyed the rivets and gates hellish. Not only did sin through the fall become, as it were, natural to man, so characteristic of him that Scripture called sin the soul of man (Matthew 10:39), that renunciation of sin became renunciation of oneself (Matthew 16:24), fallen man took into himself Satan who had deceived him and became the dwelling place of Satan. “In some way,” says St. Macarius the Great, “the enemy himself, who fights and captivates us, is found to dwell within us” 383. This is by no means an arbitrary judgment or a dream, but an experienced knowledge received by those who, as the same saint of God says, have sincerely devoted themselves to the Lord, remain firmly in prayer and unshakably resist the enemy who fights them 384. Such an experienced knowledge of human fall is inaccessible to a Christian living in the middle of the world, bound by cares, torn away from self-vision by continuous entertainment. Our word is not to him. Let him earn his salvation through good deeds in the depths of the Orthodox Church, especially almsgiving and chastity. We are talking with monks who have completely given themselves up to the service of God, who want to see in themselves the Kingdom of God revealed in power and glory. The immutable spiritual law of asceticism requires that a person first dissolve the bonds of matter with which he is bound externally, and then begin to dissolve those bonds with which he is bound in the depths of his mind and heart by the spirits of malice. “In two ways and with two kinds of bonds,” says St. Macarius the Great, - a man found himself bound by his transgression of the commandment and by his expulsion from paradise: (found himself bound) in the world by these objects of the world and by love for the world, that is, for carnal desires and passions, for wealth and glory, also with love for creatures, for his wife and children, for relatives, for the fatherland, for places, for clothes, in short: with love for all visible things from which the Word of God commands him to renounce of his own free will (because man enslaves himself to everything visible voluntarily), so that, having been resolved and freed from all this, he can fulfill the will of God completely. Inside itself, the (human) soul is bound, imprisoned, surrounded by walls and shackled in the bonds of darkness to such an extent by the spirits of malice that it cannot, as it would like, love God, believe in Him and honor Him” 385. Further in his conversation, the great saint of God and mentor of monks teaches that only those who have cast off the bonds of the world and have given themselves up to true and exclusive service to God can discover within themselves their captivity, their slavery, their eternal death. On the contrary, the one who has not previously taken care of resolving the bonds imposed on him by matter, that is, the visible world and earthly temporary life with its position and relationships, will never know, will not notice his captivity and will not see the spirits of evil operating in him. He remains forever alien to himself: nourishing innermost passions within himself, he not only does not recognize them, but very often recognizes their motives as the motives of truth and their action as the action of the grace of God, or for the consolation of conscience. In monastic life itself, physical feat, no matter how great it may be, cannot by itself reveal inner bonds and inner distress: for this, spiritual feat is necessary. A physical feat, not accompanied by a spiritual one, is more harmful than useful; it causes an extraordinary increase in mental passions: vanity, hypocrisy, deceit, pride, hatred, envy, conceit 386. “If internal work according to God,” said the great Barsanuphius, “does not help a person, then he works in vain in the external” 387. The following spiritual exploits reveal to the ascetic his inner captivity, serving as a cause for the arousal of warfare in thoughts and feelings: 1) true obedience; with him, the novice ascetic, cutting off his will and his understanding for the sake of God to fulfill the will and understanding of the successful ascetic, who has acquired unwavering obedience to God, will certainly arouse the proud fallen angel to resistance and thereby reveal his presence in himself. If the ascetic is not seduced by the evil ideas of the evil one, who seeks to distract from obedience under various pretexts, and remains constant in asceticism, then he will arouse an invisible enemy to envy and fierce struggle, who will not fail to raise in the ascetic various sinful dreams, thoughts, sensations, hobbies, and thereby reveal the evil that is hidden in extraordinary vastness in the depths of the heart and did not appear at all existing; 2) reading, studying and fulfilling the Gospel commandments, which, cutting off active sin, primarily destroy sin in the mind itself, in the heart itself. The fulfillment of these commandments, or, more correctly, the effort to fulfill the commandments, necessarily exposes the sin living within us and arouses a cruel internal struggle, in which the spirits of evil take a strong part; 3) dishonor and other sorrows also reveal lurking sin in the depths of the soul. Sorrow is called temptation for the reason that it reveals the hidden state of the heart. Naturally, in a person who is still under the power of sin, it exposes the sin living in the depths of the soul, which is revealed by heartfelt grief, sadness, thoughts of grumbling, indignation, self-justification, vengeance, and hatred. The intensified action of these passions in the soul, the special invasion and pressure of thoughts and dreams, serves as an undoubted sign of the action of a fallen, proud spirit; 4) attentive prayer, especially prayer in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, with effort connects the heart with the mind, exposes the serpent nesting in the depths of the heart and, wounding it, encourages movement. The Monks Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, in their essay on silence and prayer, cite the following words of St. John Chrysostom: “I beg you, brothers, never to trample or despise the rules of prayer. I once heard the fathers say that he is not a monk who will trample or despise this rule: but he must, whether he is eating food or drinking, whether he is in a cell or is in obedience and on a journey, or whatever else he is doing, constantly cry out like this: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, so that the constantly remembered name of our Lord Jesus Christ may provoke the enemy to battle. For a distressed soul can find everything in such a memory, both evil and good. First, she will see the evil in the inside of her heart, and then the good (hidden in it) (that is, the grace of God planted in every Orthodox Christian through holy Baptism" 388. Such a state of internal struggle must be endured complacently, as the Monk Macarius the Great instructs, with undoubted faith and hope in the Lord, with great patience, expecting from the Lord help and the grant of inner freedom. Battle cannot be crowned with victory, and freedom cannot be acquired through a person’s own efforts; both are gifts of God, bestowed on the ascetic in his own time, known only to God 389. Those who, being under the power of passions, demand dispassion from themselves act very wrongly. With such an incorrect demand from themselves, which stems from an incorrect concept of themselves, they come into extraordinary confusion when the sin living in them manifests itself in some way. They become despondent and hopeless. It seems to them, due to their incorrect view of themselves, that the manifestation of sin is something unusual, something happening out of order. Meanwhile, the manifestation of sin in thoughts, feelings, words and deeds (here we are not talking about mortal sins or voluntary sins, but about hobbies) is a logical, natural, necessary manifestation. “If passion disturbs us,” says the Monk Abba Dorotheos, “then we should not be embarrassed by it: to be embarrassed by the fact that passion disturbs us is a matter of unreason and pride and comes from the fact that we do not know our mental state and avoid work, as the Fathers said. That is why we do not succeed because we do not know our limits and do not have patience in the affairs we begin, but we want to acquire virtue without difficulty. Why is a passionate person surprised when passion disturbs him? Why is he embarrassed? You acquired it, you have it in yourself and you are embarrassed! You have accepted her pledges into yourself, and you say: why is she bothering me? Better endure, strive and pray to God” 390 (Rom. 14:22). Those who contemplate sin within themselves, because of this contemplation, spend the entire day of their earthly life in lamentation about their sinfulness, mentally show themselves, their distressed state to the Lord and cry out in heart disease: “I will lift up my eyes to the Lord, for He will pluck my nose from the snare. Look upon me and have mercy on me, for I am the only begotten and the poor. The sorrows of my heart have increased, deliver me from my needs. Deliver my soul from the weapon, and my only begotten from the hand of the dog. What good is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Or what will a man give for his soul? Save me from the mouth of lions, and from the horns of unicorns my humility, my adversary the devil, like a lion, roaring, comes seeking to devour me. See my humility and my work, and forgive all my sins. Behold, my enemies have multiplied and hated me with unrighteous hatred. Save my soul,” like the soul of Job, your servant, “and deliver me, so that I will not be put to shame, because I trusted in you” (Ps. 24:15–17; Ps. 21:21–22; Matt. 16:26; 1 Pet. 5:8; Job 2:6). He who lives by this rule, without any doubt, will be worthy to say in due time: “Having endured the Lord, and listened to me, and heard my prayer: and raised me from the pit of passions, and from the clay of the mire, and set my feet on the stones, and straightened my steps: and put in my mouth a new song, a song to our God” (Ps. 39:2-4). He who gave the promise to those who trust in Him and does not turn away from their hope in Him is worthless, despite the long and painful languor produced in the heart by the violence of sins. He who gives a promise will certainly fulfill it. “Shouldn’t God take vengeance,” the Son of God testifies, “on his chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night, and be patient for them? I tell you that he will take their vengeance quickly” (Luke 18:7–8). Here, the word long-suffering should mean God’s permission to be tempted by man, for his own good, for a certain time, by the sin living inside a person and by the spirits of evil. “The prince of this age,” says Saint Macarius the Great, “for infants in spirit is a rod that punishes (admonishes) and a scourge that gives wounds; but he, as said above, thereby prepares great glory and great honor, embittering and tempting them... Through him some great work of salvation is accomplished, as it is said nowhere: “evil, having evil as its goal, promotes good.” For good souls who have a good will, even the most apparently sorrowful things are finally turned into good, as the Apostle himself testifies: “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). This rod of punishment is allowed to act for the purpose that, through its mediation, the vessels will be tested, as in a hot furnace, and the good ones will become stronger, and the bad ones will be exposed by their ability to crush, unable to withstand the power of fire. He, that is, the devil, being a creation and servant of God, does not tempt as much as he decides, does not embitter him to the same extent as he would like, but as much as God allows and allows him. God, knowing exactly the condition of everyone and how much strength everyone has, allows everyone to be tempted. “God is faithful,” says the Apostle, “who will not forsake you if you are tempted more than you are able, but will create with temptation an abundance, so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). He who seeks and knocks on the door, asking to the end, will receive what he asks for.”391 The reason for God's permission for an ascetic to be tempted by the spirits of malice and sin lies in the need for a person to know the exact details of his fall, without which the Redeemer cannot be known and accepted by him as he should. It is necessary to know one’s fallen nature, its inclinations, and its characteristic activity, so that later, having accepted the grace of the Holy Spirit delivered by the Redeemer, one does not use it for harm to oneself, one does not attribute its actions to oneself, but be a worthy vessel and instrument of it. Saint Gregory of Sinaite says: “If a person is not abandoned and defeated and possessed, enslaved to every passion and thought, and conquered in spirit, not finding any help either from works, or from God, or from anyone else, from which he comes almost to despair, being tempted from everywhere, then he cannot come into contrition of spirit, consider himself the least of all, the last and the slave of all, the most insignificant the demons themselves, as being tormented and overcome by them. This is a (discreet) Providence-allowed and punitive humility, after which God grants the second, lofty one, which is Divine power, acting by God and accomplishing everything through Him; (man) sees it in himself as an instrument, and with this instrument he performs God’s Miracles” 392. This explains the wondrous spectacle that the Saints of God represent: they, being vessels of the Holy Spirit, together saw, recognized, and confessed themselves to be the greatest sinners, worthy of temporal and eternal executions. They thoroughly knew and studied their fallen nature, in which there is nothing undefiled, and therefore all the good that was accomplished through them by the Divine grace infused into them, they attributed to It with full conviction and constantly trembled so that no thought or feeling would arise from their fallen nature that would be offensive to the Holy Spirit 393 . A rapid transition from a state of struggle to a state of spiritual freedom is not beneficial for a person. Saint Macarius the Great notes that “often souls, being already partakers of Divine grace, being filled with heavenly sweetness and enjoying peace of mind, but not witnessed, not tempted by sorrows inflicted by evil spirits, remain in infancy, and, so to speak, are not capable of the kingdom of heaven. “Even if you are without punishment,” says the Divine Apostle, “all were partakers of him; for you are naturally adulterers, and not sons” (Heb. 12:8). Therefore, temptations and sorrows are sent to a person for his benefit, so that the soul tested by them becomes stronger and more honest before its Lord. If she endures to the end with hope in the Lord, then it is impossible for her not to receive the benefits promised by the Holy Spirit and complete liberation from the malice of the passions” 394. For this reason, with the exception of a few cases, due to a special Divine vision, the ascetics of Christ spend a significant part of their earthly wanderings in a bitter struggle with sin, under the yoke of an merciless Pharaoh. When leaving Egypt - a country of linfo-making and satiety with meat, which depicts the carnal state - the servants of the true God rob the Egyptians, that is, they take with them the wealth of an active mind, which is acquired in the fight against sin and spirits of evil. This is the divine decree of the spiritual law (Ex. 3:21–22). Saint Isaac the Syrian tells the following story: “One of the saints said: there was a hermit, a venerable elder. One day I went to him because I was oppressed by sadness from the temptations that had befallen me. The elder was sick at that time and was lying down. I greeted him, sat down next to him and said: Father! Pray for me, because I am very saddened by the temptations of demons. He opened his eyes, looked at me carefully and said: Son! You are young: God does not allow you temptations. I answered him: Exactly, I am young, but I am tempted by the temptations of strong men. He said again: If so, then God wants to make you wise. I said: How will God make me wise when I taste death daily? Again he: God loves you: be silent. God will give you His grace, and added: Know, son, that I struggled with demons for thirty years. After twenty years of struggle, I felt no relief. In my twenty-fifth year, I began to feel at peace. As time passed, peace increased. After twenty-seven years, in the twenty-eighth year, peace began to especially increase. At the end of the thirtieth year, already towards the end of it, peace was so established (which means that before peace fluctuated, then came, then went away), that I no longer know the extent to which it succeeded...” This is the kind of peace that was born from arduous and long-term work (feat)” 395. Having placed our trust in our all-powerful and all-good God, we strive, through true monastic life, through the cloud, smoke and storm of thoughts that constantly arise in us, to descend to our soul, captive and mortified by sin, stinking, disfigured, lying in the grave of the fall. There, in the abyss of the heart, we will see the serpent who killed our soul 396. A deep and accurate knowledge of the fall of man is very important for the ascetic of Christ: only from this knowledge, as if from hell itself, can he prayerfully, in true contrition of spirit, cry out to the Lord, according to the instructions of Saint Simeon, the New Theologian: “God and Lord of all! He who has the power of every breath and soul, who alone is able to heal me, hear the prayer of the accursed me, and consume the serpent nesting in me through the influx of the All-Holy and Life-Giving Spirit.”397 In a state of fall, sin and the devil rape a person so much that he has no way of resisting them, but is involuntarily carried away by them 398 not into mortal sins, as we said above, but most of all into mental inclinations. In diligent ascetics, inner agitation is very rarely allowed to show itself in words, not only in deeds. 5. About the state after the redemption of man Human nature is renewed through the Redemption. The God-man renewed it with Himself and in Himself. Such human nature renewed by the Lord is grafted, so to speak, onto fallen nature through Baptism. Baptism, without destroying nature, destroys its fallen state, without making nature different, it changes its state, introducing human nature to the nature of God (2 Pet. 1:4). Baptism is both mortification and quickening, together burial and birth. The sinful damage of the fallen nature is immersed in the font of Baptism, the sinful damage of the fallen nature is buried and dies, and a renewed nature rises from the font; The son of the old Adam plunges into the font, and the son of the New Adam emerges from the font. This is attested to by the Lord, who said: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5–6). From these words it is obvious that the Holy Spirit, having accepted into the font of Baptism a carnal man, as man became after the fall, removes from the font the same man, but now spiritual, killing the sinful carnal state in him and giving birth to the spiritual. At baptism, a person is forgiven his original sin, borrowed from his forefathers, and his own sins committed before baptism. At baptism, a person is granted spiritual freedom 400: he is no longer raped by sin, but can choose good or evil at will. At baptism, Satan, who lives in every person of fallen nature, is expelled from the person; it is left to the will of the baptized person to either remain the church of God and be free from Satan, or remove God from himself and again become the dwelling place of Satan (Matthew 12:43–45) 401. At baptism, a person puts on Christ (Gal. 3:27). At baptism, all people receive equality, because the dignity of every Christian is the same. It is Christ. This dignity is infinitely great, in it all earthly differences between people are destroyed (Gal. 3:28). As insignificant, this difference, in its appearance, was not taken away by Christ during earthly life, and, remaining, reveals its insignificance even more clearly. So a corpse, when the soul is plucked from it, is considered dead, even if it has not yet collapsed. At baptism, the grace of the All-Holy Spirit is poured out on a person abundantly, which departed from the one who transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, from the fallen angel who followed the sinful mind and will. Grace again approaches the one redeemed by the blood of the God-man, the one who is reconciled with God, the one who renounces his mind and will, the one who buries in the baptismal font the attractions of fallen nature, his life the cause of death. “Christ, being a perfect God,” said St. Mark the Ascetic, “gave those who were baptized the perfect grace of the Holy Spirit, which does not accept application from us, but is revealed and revealed to us as we do the commandments” 402. A baptized person, doing good that belongs to a renewed nature, develops in himself the grace of the All-Holy Spirit received at baptism, which, being unchangeable in itself, shines brighter in a person as he does Christ's good: just as a ray of sunshine, which does not change in itself, shines brighter the clearer the sky is from clouds. On the contrary, by doing evil after baptism, bringing activity to fallen nature, reviving it, a person loses more or less spiritual freedom: sin again gains violent power over a person; the devil again enters into man and becomes his ruler and leader. Delivered from the sorrowful and difficult captivity by the almighty right hand of God, he again appears in chains, in captivity, in prison, in hell, of his own free will. A person is exposed to such a disaster, to a greater or lesser extent, according to the sins that he allows himself, and according to the skill that he has acquired for a sinful life. Sin that lives inside a person and rapes him is called passion. Passion is not always expressed clearly: it can live secretly in a person and destroy him. Spiritual freedom is also completely lost if a baptized person allows himself to live according to the mind and will of the fallen nature: because the baptized person has renounced his nature and has committed himself in all actions, words, thoughts and sensations to manifest one renewed nature as the God-man, that is, to live solely according to the will and mind of the Lord Jesus Christ, otherwise, according to the Gospel commandments and teachings. Following one’s fallen nature, following one’s mind and will, is an active rejection of Christ and the renewal He gave at Baptism. The revival of fallen nature within oneself is a complete return to eternal death, its complete establishment and development within oneself. Why did Jews and Greeks perish and perish? From love to fallen nature. Some want to retain dignity behind the truth of fallen nature, behind its goodness, others behind its reason: both of them become alien to Christ, this one Truth, this one treasury of reason (Col. 2:3; Rom. 5:19). It is impossible for one who has not renounced his nature, who has not recognized it, because of the fall of indecent, in all respects, filth, to approach and assimilate to Christ, or, having assimilated, to remain in assimilation. The mercy of God has picturesquely depicted in visible nature many of the mysterious teachings of Christianity. The revival of all plants in the spring serves as an image of the resurrection of people; the effect of some medicines, which first detect a disease and seem to intensify it, and then heal it, serves as an image of spiritual achievement, with which it first exposes a person’s secret passions, sets them in motion, and then little by little destroys them 403 (Ps. 91:8). Sinners who vegetate like grass are passionate thoughts, like grass that is weak and has no strength. So, when passionate thoughts vegetate in the soul, then they penetrate, that is, “all workers of iniquity” are revealed, that is, the passions, “so that they may be consumed forever and ever”: for when the passions become obvious to those who strive, then they are destroyed by them. Consider the order of presentation: first passionate thoughts vegetate, thus passions are revealed, and then they are destroyed.” Ave. Abba Dorotheos, Teaching 13, On patience with temptations.. The effect of Baptism on a person also has its own striking similarity. Let's go to the garden and see what the gardener does with the apple trees to give them the ability to bear tasty fruits. Any apple tree grown from a seed, taken even from the best apple, can only bear sour, bitter and harmful fruits, unfit for consumption: for this reason, any apple tree grown from a seed is called wild. Our fallen nature is like a wild apple tree. It can only bear bitter, harmful fruit: good mixed with evil and poisoned by evil, destroying the one who recognizes this good, which has become evil from an admixture of evil, as good, worthy of God and man. The gardener, in order to turn a wild apple tree into a noble one, without mercy cuts off all its branches, leaving one trunk. He grafts a twig from a noble apple tree onto the remaining trunk; this twig grows together with the trunk and root, begins to send out branches in all directions, branches replace the cut off branches; the natural tree is replaced by an artificial, grafted tree; The grafted tree, however, rests on a natural trunk, draws juices from the earth through natural roots - in a word, it inextricably connects its life with the life of the natural tree. Such a tree begins to bear excellent fruits, which belong to a natural tree, and at the same time are quite different from the fruits produced by a natural tree in its wild state. Then, during the entire existence of the tree in the garden, the gardener carefully observes that branches belonging to the natural tree do not come out of the trunk and from the root, because they will again bear their worthless fruit, and, attracting juices into themselves, will take them away from the grafted branches, take away from these branches the power to bear their beautiful fruit, dry them out, and destroy them. To maintain dignity, health and strength in an apple tree, it is necessary that all its branches grow solely from a grafted twig. A similar rite of grafting a noble branch onto a wild apple tree is performed in the sacrament of Baptism with the person being baptized; similar behavior of a gardener regarding a grafted apple tree should be performed regarding a baptized person. In baptism, our existence, which begins with conception in iniquities and birth in sins, is not cut off: the body of sin is cut off, the carnal and spiritual state of nature is cut off, which can produce good only when mixed with evil, human nature renewed by the God-man is grafted into being, into life, into the essence of man. All thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds of the baptized must belong to the renewed nature, as St. Mark the Ascetic said: “No good thing can be believed or acted except in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit” 404. The baptized person must in no way allow the influence of the fallen nature within him; he must immediately reject all of its attractions and impulses, even if they seem good on the surface; he must fulfill only the commandments of the Gospel with his thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. The testaments given by the Lord to His disciples and followers lead to this way of thinking: “Be in Me, and I in you. Just as the rod cannot produce fruit for itself unless it is on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, and you are the birth: and he who is in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit, for without Me you cannot do anything. If anyone does not abide in Me, he will be cast out like a rod and will be dried up: and they gather it up and put it in the fire, and it is burned up. Be in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love” (John 15:4-10). What could be clearer, more definite? Only one who carefully observes the gospel commandments, as it is fitting to fulfill the commandments given by God, can remain in love for God - not in that love that belongs to the fallen nature, but in that love that is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is poured into a renewed person by the action of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), and unites man with God. He who neglects the commandments and follows the impulses of fallen nature violates love and dissolves the union. Having called the people with His disciples, the Gospel tells us, the Lord declared to them: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me. If anyone wants to save his soul, he will destroy it; and if anyone destroys his soul for the sake of Me and the Gospel, he will save it” (Mark 8:34–35). Obviously, what is required here is not the rejection of being, but the rejection of fallen nature, its will, its reason, its truth. Sin and the state of fall have become so internalized to us, so merged with our existence, that renunciation of them has become renunciation of oneself, the destruction of one’s soul. To save the soul, the destruction of the soul has become an absolute necessity; to save oneself, it has become an absolute necessity to renounce oneself, from one’s fallen self, which does not acknowledge the fall. As long as this “I” exists, Christ cannot bring us any benefit. “Whoever does not hate his own life cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). “Whoever does not accept his cross and comes after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his soul will lose it: and whoever loses his life will find it for My sake” (Matthew 10:38–39), the Lord testified. He commanded the destruction of the soul not only for His sake, but also for the sake of the Gospel, explaining the former to the latter. The destruction of the soul for the sake of the Lord is the rejection of reason, truth, and will, which belong to the fallen nature, in order to fulfill the will and truth of God, depicted in the Gospel, in order to follow the mind of God, shining from the Gospel. All who have forced themselves to fulfill the teachings of the Gospel know from experience how contrary and hostile to the Gospel the mind, truth and will of fallen nature are. Reconciliation and agreement are impossible. Rejection of fallen nature is an inevitable, tangible necessity of salvation. This rejection is committed by the one who constantly studies the Gospel and tries to revive it in himself with all his activity. The Gospel is the teaching of Christ. The teaching of Christ, like the teaching of God, is the law. The exact fulfillment of the law spoken by God, the Creator and Redeemer, is the indispensable duty of redeemed creatures. Neglect to study and implement the law is a rejection of the Lawgiver. The Holy Apostle Paul said: “Those who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). This means: those who were baptized into Christ received at Baptism, in Baptism itself, a gift from the Holy Spirit that acted on them: a living sensation of Christ, a sensation of His properties. But the freedom to arbitrarily choose the old or the new was not taken away from the baptized, just as the freedom to keep the commandment of God or to break it was not taken away from Adam in paradise. The Apostle says to those who believed and were baptized: “The night has passed away, and the day has come. Let us put aside dark deeds and put on the weapons of light. As in the days let us walk decently: not in slander and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sexual immorality, not in zeal and envy: but put on our Lord Jesus Christ, and do not indulge in carnal knowledge through lust” (Rom. 13:12-14). Having the freedom of choice, the baptized is invited by the Holy Spirit to maintain unity with the Redeemer, to maintain a renewed nature within himself, to maintain the spiritual state bestowed by baptism, to abstain from gratifying the desires of the flesh, that is, from deviating from the desires of carnal, spiritual wisdom. The words of the Apostle have the same meaning: “The first man is from the earth with a ring; the second man, the Lord, is from heaven. Like the earthly one, so are the rings: and like the one who is heavenly, so are those who are heavenly: and as we have put on the image of the earthly one” - for we are all born in original sin and with all the infirmities that have been acquired into our nature as a result of the fall, which were revealed in Adam after his fall - “let us also be clothed in the image of the heavenly one” through Baptism, which gives us this image, and careful observance of the Gospel commandments, which preserve the image in us whole, in its perfection and Divine grace (1 Cor. 15:47–49). To put on the image of the Heavenly Man, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, to always bear in the body the deadness of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:10), means nothing more than to constantly mortify the carnal state in oneself by constantly remaining in the gospel commandments. This is how the holy Apostle Paul clothed himself and remained clothed in the God-man, for this reason he could boldly say about himself: “I live as no one, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He demands the same from all believers. “Or do you not know for yourself,” he says, “that Jesus Christ is in you? unless you are unskillful” 405 (2 Cor. 13:5). A fair demand and a fair reproof! By Holy Baptism, the fallen nature in every baptized person is cut off, and a nature renewed by the God-Man is grafted into man. For this reason, Baptism is called in the Holy Scriptures “the washing of regeneration,” and life after baptism is called “regeneration” (Titus 3:5; Matt. 19:28). Every baptized person is obliged to reveal and develop a renewed nature in himself: this is to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ within himself as living, speaking and acting. A Christian who has not done this is not what he should be. The Holy Apostle Paul explains the sacrament of Baptism with particular precision and detail: “Those who were baptized into Jesus Christ,” 406 he says, “were immersed 407 in His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through Baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we are united with him in the likeness of death, then we must be united in the likeness of the resurrection, knowing that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin would disappear and we would no longer be slaves of sin. For whoever dies is free from sin. If we died with Christ, then we believe that we can live with Him, knowing that Christ, having risen from the dead, no longer dies, death no longer has power over Him. For when He died, He died once to sin: but while He lived, He lived to God. So consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you do not obey it in its lusts. Do not submit the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:3–13) 408. From here it is again clear that Baptism is both mortification and revival. When the forefathers sinned, death immediately struck the soul, the Holy Spirit, who constituted the true life of the soul and body, immediately retreated from the soul, evil immediately entered the soul, constituting the true death of the soul and body. The Creator’s threat came true literally: “from the tree that you understand good and evil, you will not cut it down; but if you cut it down one day, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Death in an instant made the spiritual man carnal and spiritual, the saint - sinful, the incorruptible - corruptible; gave the body fatness, sickness, and unclean lusts; finally struck the body after several centuries 409. Holy Baptism, on the contrary, brings resurrection to the soul, transforms a carnal and sinful person into a spiritual and holy one, mortifies the body of sin, that is, the carnal state of a person, sanctifies not only the soul of a person, but also his body, gives him the ability to rise in glory, and the resurrection itself will take place subsequently, at a time determined by God. Just as a significant time passed between the appearance of death in man, which is not obvious to carnal eyes, and the separation of the soul from the body, which is also obvious to carnal eyes, so between the appearance of life in man and the revival of this life of the body, which must again unite with the soul, a time has been appointed, known to the One God. What the soul is to the body, the Holy Spirit is to the whole person, to his soul and body. Just as the body dies the death that all animals die when the soul leaves it, so the whole person dies, both body and soul, in relation to true life, to God, when the Holy Spirit leaves a person. Just as the body comes to life and is resurrected when the soul returns to it, so the whole person, both body and soul, comes to life and is resurrected spiritually when the Holy Spirit returns to it. It is this revival and resurrection of man that takes place in the sacrament of St. Baptism. The son of the primordial Adam comes to life and is resurrected through holy Baptism, but no longer in the state of purity and holiness in which Adam was created; he comes to life and resurrects in an incomparably higher state, in a state delivered to humanity by God, who accepted humanity. People renewed by Baptism are clothed not in the original, immaculate image of the primordial man, but in the image of the heavenly man, the God-man 410. The second image is as much superior to the first as the God-man is superior to the first man in his state of purity. The change produced by holy Baptism in a person is quite clear, fully felt, but this change remains unknown to most Christians: we are baptized in infancy, from childhood we indulge in activities that belong to the transitory world and fallen nature, we darken within ourselves the Spiritual Gift given by holy Baptism, just as the radiance of the sun is darkened by thick clouds. But the gift is not destroyed; it continues to reside in us throughout our earthly life. This way the sun, covered by clouds, is not destroyed and continues to exist. Only a baptized person will leave the activity of the fallen nature, begin to wash away his sins with tears of repentance, crucify the flesh with passions and lusts, enter the field of activity of the New Man - the gift of the Spirit again begins to reveal its presence in the baptized person, to develop, to prevail. Purification by repentance is the consequence and effect of grace implanted by Baptism. Repentance is a renewal, a return to the state produced by Baptism 411. One who has been cleansed by repentance can have an experienced understanding of the change produced in a person by Baptism. “When we are baptized,” says Saint John 3latoust, “then the soul, purified by the Spirit, shines brighter than the sun, and not only do we see the Glory of God, but we also borrow some radiance from it. Just as pure silver, placed against the rays of the sun, itself also emits rays, not only by its nature, but also from the radiance of the sun, in the same way the soul, being purified and made lighter than silver, receives a ray of glory from the Spirit and reciprocally emits it” 412. In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, although there is no direct, factual statement about the change that was made in those baptized by the sacrament of holy Baptism - because in the primal Church everyone knew the change produced by Baptism - this change was obvious to everyone by the fruits of the Holy Spirit, for the most part revealed immediately after baptism - however, cases are described that have preserved evidence of this change for posterity. Thus, when the eunuch of the Ethiopian queen was baptized and came out of the water, the Holy Spirit immediately descended on him; The eunuch, no longer needing a mentor - the Spirit became his satisfactory mentor - set off joyfully on his long journey, although he had just learned about the Lord Jesus Christ from a very brief conversation with the Apostle Philip (Acts 8:39). Even before baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on Cornelius the centurion, a pagan, and other pagans who were with them and believed in the Lord, and they began to speak in foreign languages, hitherto completely unknown to them, proclaiming the greatness of God, which until that moment they did not understand at all (Acts 10:44-48). Despite the fact that the Spirit had already descended on them, the holy Apostle Peter ordered them to be baptized in water, at the urgent demand of the sacrament. Church history has preserved for us the following event of greatest importance. The Roman Emperor Diocletian, under whom the most severe persecution of Christians was launched, spent most of the year 304 after the birth of Christ in Rome. He arrived in the capital to celebrate his victories over the Persians. Among other amusements that the emperor indulged in was visiting the theater. A certain Genesy, a comic actor, greatly amused the audience with improvisations. One day, playing in the theater in the presence of the emperor and a large public assembly, he, introducing himself as sick, lay down on the bed and said: “Ah, my friends! I feel very sad: I would like you to console me.” The other actors responded: “How can we console you? Would you like us to stroke you with a scraper 413 to make you feel better?” “Crazy! - he answered. “I want to die a Christian.” "For what?" - they said. “So that on this great day God will accept me as a prodigal son.” The priest and the exorcist were immediately sent for. They, that is, the actors representing them, came, sat down near the bed on which Genesius was lying, and said to him: “Our son, why have you called us?” He answered: “Because I want to receive mercy from Jesus Christ and be reborn to be freed from my sins.” They performed the entire rite of the holy sacrament over him, then dressed him, according to the custom of the newly baptized, in white clothes. Then the soldiers, continuing the game, took him and presented him to the emperor, as if for interrogation, like martyrs. Genesius said: “The Emperor and his entire court! Wise men of this city! listen to me. Whenever I happened to hear the name of a Christian, I felt a terrible disgust for this name, I showered curses on those who were in the profession of this name, I even hated my relatives and friends because of the name of a Christian, I despised this faith to such an extent that I studied its sacraments with precision in order to amuse you with their representations. But when the water touched me, naked, when I, asked, answered that I believe, I saw a hand descending from heaven, surrounding it, light-transparent angels descended on me. They read in a certain book all the sins I had committed since childhood, washed them away with the very water in which I was baptized in your presence, and then showed me the book, which turned out to be clean (unwritten), like snow. So, great emperor and people, you who have ridiculed the Christian sacraments, believe, as I believed, that Jesus Christ is the true Lord, that He is the Light of Truth, and that through Him you can receive forgiveness.” Diocletian, brought into extreme indignation by these words, ordered Genesius to be brutally beaten with sticks, then he was handed over to the prefect Plaucianus in order to be forced to sacrifice to idols. For a considerable time he was torn with iron nails and burned with burning torches. In the midst of this torment, he exclaimed: “There is no other king except the One whom I have seen! I honor Him and serve Him! And if they took my life a thousand times for serving Him, I will always belong to Him! Torment will not tear Jesus Christ out of my mouth or from my heart. I extremely regret my delusion, the aversion I had towards His holy Name, and the fact that I became a worshiper of Him so late.” Genesia's head was cut off 414. Saint Gregory the Theologian, in his funeral homily for his father according to the flesh, Gregory, Bishop of Nazianza, who received holy Baptism in his advanced years, says the following: “The parent begins to be reborn by water and the Spirit, through which, as we confess, the man of Christ is formed and perfected before God, earthly things are transformed into spirit and recreated. He begins to wash himself with a fiery desire, with bright hope, having purified himself as much as he could, becoming much purer in soul and body than those who were preparing to receive the tablets from Moses. Their purification extended to clothing alone, consisted of short-term chastity and somewhat bridling the belly; and for him the entire life that had passed was a preparation for enlightenment and purification before purification, protecting the gift so that perfection was entrusted to purity, and the bestowed benefit was not endangered by skills that were opposed to grace. When he emerges from the water, light and glory will shine upon him, worthy of the disposition with which he began to bestow faith. This was obvious to others as well. Although they then kept the miracle in silence, not daring to divulge it, because each considered himself to be the only one who had seen it, they soon reported it to each other. But to the one who baptized and performed the sacrament, the vision was very clear and intelligible, and he could not keep it secret, but publicly announced that he had anointed his successor with the Spirit. Here Saint Gregory the Theologian calls holy Baptism rebirth by water and spirit, enlightenment, purification, gift, perfection, bestowed good, gift of faith, sacrament. In his sermon on Baptism, the Theologian says this: “This gift, like its giver, Christ, is called by many and different names, and this comes either from the fact that it is very pleasant for us - usually those who have a strong love for something hear with pleasure the names of the beloved - or from the fact that the variety of benefits contained in it has given us names. We call it gift, grace, baptism, anointing, enlightenment, clothing of incorruption, bath of rebirth, seal - everything that is worthy for us” 416. In the same word, Saint Gregory exclaims: “To know the power of this sacrament is already enlightenment!” This is how Gregory the Theologian understood holy Baptism, who was baptized in adulthood, who learned from his own experience and from the experience of other holy men contemporary to him, that indescribable change, that complete rebirth, that new life that is felt from the sacrament of Baptism by those who have been baptized worthily, who have prepared for Baptism properly, and therefore have felt and known all its power. As we have seen, Gregory the Theologian mentions the illumination of a wondrous Light by his parent, who came from the font. The Theologian's friend, Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, also underwent a very tangible effect of the sacrament. This is narrated in his life 417. Careful preparation is necessary before receiving holy Baptism. Careful preparation is an essential condition for the great sacrament to bear its fruit abundantly, so that it serves for salvation and not for greater condemnation. This is said to explain the sacrament and especially for those who approach it not in infancy, at which, due to the circumstances of the present time, almost all of us receive Baptism. Preparation for holy Baptism is true repentance. True repentance is an essential condition for holy Baptism to be accepted in a worthy manner, for the salvation of the soul. Such repentance consists in recognizing one’s sins as sins, in regretting them, in confessing them, in leaving a sinful life. Otherwise: repentance is the consciousness of fall, the consciousness of the need for a Redeemer, repentance is the condemnation of one’s fallen nature and renunciation of it for a renewed nature. It is necessary that our vessel - I call the vessel the human mind, heart and body in relation to Divine grace - be cleansed in order to receive and preserve the Spiritual Gift taught by holy Baptism. It is necessary that this vessel not only be cleaned, but also inspected diligently; it is necessary that the damage present in it, especially the wells, be carefully corrected; if they remain uncorrected, then the living water (John 7:38), poured into the vessel by holy Baptism, will not be retained in the vessel: it will pour out of it, to its greatest disaster. I call sinful skills wells. It is necessary that our Jerusalem be surrounded from everywhere, as if by walls, with good morals and customs: only then can our fallen nature be sacrificed and burnt offerings in the font of Baptism, and our renewed nature, delivered by Baptism, become an altar suitable for offering sacrifices and burnt offerings pleasing to God (Ps. 50:20-21). Without such preparation, what benefit can there be from Baptism? What benefit can there be from Baptism when we, accepting it at an age, do not understand its meaning at all? What benefit can there be from Baptism when we, having received it in infancy, subsequently remain completely unaware of what we have received? Meanwhile, we accepted an unappreciated Gift, took upon ourselves a terrible obligation; the responsibility for this obligation is as immeasurable and infinite as the Gift is immeasurable and infinite. What benefit can there be from Baptism when we do not understand our fall, do not even recognize that our nature is in a state of the most woeful fall? When do we consider the obscene good of fallen nature to be an elegant and pleasing good? When do we persistently strive to do this good, not noticing the fact that it only feeds and grows our pride in us, only removes us more and more from God, only strengthens and seals our fall and falling away? What benefit can there be from Baptism when we do not consider even mortal sins to be sins, for example: adultery with all its branches, but call them the enjoyment of life? When do we not know that our nature has been renewed by Baptism? When do we completely neglect activities according to the laws of the renewed nature, and shower them with blasphemy and ridicule? John, the Forerunner of the Lord, whose baptism was only a baptism leading to repentance, and not delivering the Heavenly Kingdom, demanded confession of sins from those who came to him to be baptized, not himself having a need for this confession, as John Climacus notes 418, but caring for the spiritual benefit of those baptized by him. In fact: how can a person enter the field of repentance without confessing his sins? How will he know the degree of importance of various sins and the method of repentance for them if an experienced, spiritual mentor does not tell him both? Without a mentor, how will he become familiar with spiritual weapons, with their use against sinful thoughts and feelings, against sinful habits, against passions that have taken root over time? Confession of sins is necessary both in order to properly repent of previously committed sins, and in order to protect yourself from falling into sins in the future. Confession of sins has always been recognized in the Church of Christ as an integral part of repentance. It was demanded of all those intending to be baptized for the purpose that the holy Baptism given would be accepted and preserved as befits a great, unique sacrament to be accepted and preserved. Finally, repentance is an institution of God and a gift from God to fallen humanity. “Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 3:2), proclaimed the holy Forerunner to those who came to him and received the Baptism of repentance from him. The Kingdom of Heaven, as the Forerunner further explained, was signified in his preaching by the holy New Testament sacrament of Baptism (Matthew 3:11). To accept the Kingdom of Heaven, you need to repent. The Savior of the world demanded repentance from people in order to give people the gift of salvation through holy Baptism, in order to make people capable of accepting the heavenly spiritual Gift. “Repent,” he said, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17); “Repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Everything has already been done for you; no labor, no feat, no addition to the gift is sought from you! Only cleansing through repentance is sought from you, because it is impossible to entrust the priceless, all-holy, spiritual treasure to those who are unclean and who do not intend to be clean. Sending his disciples to preach, the God-man commands them to proclaim repentance to humanity because of the approaching Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 10:7). The Apostle Paul says about himself that he, wandering throughout the universe, proclaimed to everyone, both Jews and Greeks, repentance, turning to God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). When in Jerusalem thousands of Jews believed in the Savior as a result of the preaching of the Holy Apostle Peter and asked him and the other Apostles: “What shall we do, brethren?” Then the Apostle Peter said: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins: and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37–38). Everywhere we see repentance as the only entrance, the only ladder, the only threshold before Faith, the Gospel, the Kingdom of Heaven, before God, before all the Christian sacraments, before Holy Baptism - this birth of a person into Christianity. It is necessary to reject a previous sinful life and determine to live according to the Gospel commandments in order to worthily accept and be able to worthily preserve within oneself the Gift of the Holy Spirit received at Baptism. The church pastors of the Christian Church of the first centuries took every possible care to ensure that holy Baptism, which was then accepted almost exclusively in adulthood, was accepted by those receiving it with a full understanding of the Spiritual Gift being received 419. And modern pastors have a sacred, indispensable duty to deliver an accurate and detailed concept of holy baptism to those who received the sacrament in infancy and therefore have no experienced knowledge of the sacrament. They have received the Gift: a report on the use of the Gift is inevitable. Advance preparation for the report is necessary, extremely necessary! Careless and ignorant use of the Gift entails the most disastrous consequences. Whoever does not use the Gift according to the desire and command of the Giver, who does not develop in himself the grace of Baptism by acting according to the Gospel commandments, but hides the talent entrusted to him in the ground - that is, buries, buries the grace of Baptism, destroys all its effects in himself, completely abandoning himself to earthly cares and pleasures - the grace of Baptism will be taken away from him at the judgment of Christ. Its unworthy owner will be thrown “into total darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30). In order to have a proper understanding of the important meaning of holy Baptism, one must lead a life pleasing to God, the Gospel: this alone reveals to the Christian the mysteries of Christianity with due clarity and satisfaction 420. Baptism is a unique sacrament. “I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins,” proclaims the Orthodox Creed. Just as birth into being can take place once, so birth into re-being - Baptism - can take place once. Just as various ailments that befall a person at birth, slandering, shocking, destroying his being, are cured with various medicines that find their support in the vital force communicated with being: so various sins committed after Baptism, slandering and upsetting the spiritual life of a person, are healed by repentance, the reality of which is based on the grace of the Holy Spirit, planted in a person by holy Baptism, and consists in the development of this grace suppressed and muffled by sins. “Christ,” says the Monk Mark the Ascetic, “as a perfect God, gave to those who were baptized the perfect grace of the Holy Spirit, which does not accept application from us, but is revealed to us and appears as we do the commandments, and gives us application, so that we all achieve “the union of faith, a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). By the union of faith we mean here the absorption of all the activities of a Christian by faith, and all activities serve as an expression of spiritual reason or the Gospel. “So, whatever we offer to Him (Christ), after our rebirth (by Baptism), everything is already from Him and was planted in us by Him (during the sacrament of Baptism)” 421. 6. On the renewal of the redeemed nature, in case of its damage, by repentance Those who wish to acquire an experienced knowledge of holy Baptism, those who wish to discover the hidden sacrament and the priceless Spiritual Gift invested by the ineffable goodness of God in the spiritual treasury, those who wish to see their nature in a state of renewal and rebirth, those who wish to feel and see Christ in themselves, can achieve all this through repentance. The image of repentance that is proper and fitting for a Christian corresponds to the Gift that he wants to reveal in himself: true repentance corresponds to the sacrament of Baptism. Through Baptism, solely by the ineffable goodness of God, the Gift of God is communicated to man: and with the repentance of a Christian, who through Baptism allowed himself the activity and life of a fallen nature, who revived death in himself, who killed life in himself, the Gift is returned solely by the goodness of God. At Baptism we are born with water and the Spirit, at repentance we are reborn with tears and the Spirit. Repentance is an infant’s, incessant cry before God about the loss of the Gift, with the hope of receiving the Gift again. “You will not save my grapes!” - the soul cries out in terrible sorrow, having descended from a nature renewed by Baptism into the region of a fallen nature, having lost freedom, raped by sin; “I feed my goats!” - I have no spiritual feelings or thoughts! all my flocks of feelings and thoughts are indecent! they are goats, as components of a mixture of good and evil! they are mine because they are born from my fallen nature! ( Song 1:5, 7 ). The properties of the nature renewed by me have been lost! Saint Isaac the Syrian, being asked: what kind of reflections should an ascetic of Christ constantly engage in in his solitude, answered: “Are you asking about meditation and about that thought that should constantly occupy a person in his cell in order to make him dead? (for the world, that is, for sin)? Does a thrifty and sober person need to ask how he should behave when he is alone, with himself? What else could be the mental activity of a monk in his cell if not crying? Does crying leave him the opportunity to turn to what other thoughts? What other mental activity could be better than this? The very residence of the monk, his solitude, his living, like living in a tomb, alien to human joy, teaches him that crying is his doing. The very meaning of his name calls and prompts him to cry; he is called lamenting, that is, filled with sorrow in his heart. All the saints departed from this life in tears. If the saints cried, and their eyes were constantly filled with tears until their transmigration from this life, then who should not cry? The monk's consolation comes from his crying. If the perfect and victorious wept here, how can one who is filled with sores endure to stop weeping? Having his dead man lying before him and seeing himself killed by sins, does he need teaching - at what kind of thoughts should he shed tears? Your soul has been killed by sins, the one who is dearer to you than the whole world has been laid dead before you: does she really not need to be mourned? If we enter into silence and remain in it with patience, then we can certainly remain in tears. For this reason, let us continually pray with our minds to the Lord that He will give us weeping. If this gift of grace, better and more excellent than other gifts, is given to us, then through it we will enter into purity. When we acquire purity, then this purity will not be taken away from us until our departure from this life” 422. It is obvious that such crying can only be born in someone who has a clear understanding of the states of the fallen nature and the nature renewed by Baptism. Only he can weep bitterly and cry constantly who understands the price of the lost Gift. “Crying for God,” said Saint John of the Climacus, “is a constant feeling of an aching heart, which has become internalized to him, - with frenzy, incessantly seeking what it thirsts for, with tension chasing after what it lacks, and sobbing heavily in its wake” 423. The painful feeling of crying should form the character of a repentant Christian. Stopping crying is a sign of self-delusion and delusion. Christ-like humility alone can calm someone who is crying; love in Christ alone can console him, can wipe away his tears, can illuminate his face and heart with the light of heavenly joy. Sacrifices and burnt offerings from a fallen nature are not acceptable; one sacrifice from this nature, pleasing to God: “the spirit is broken” (Ps. 50: 18-19). Just as the deviation from the state belonging to the renewed nature and the descent into the state belonging to the fallen nature is accomplished through the abandonment of activities belonging to the renewed nature, otherwise, from the abandonment of living according to the Gospel commandments, and through deviation into the activity belonging to the fallen nature - so, on the contrary, the return from the state belonging to the fallen nature to a state belonging to a renewed nature, is accomplished through a decisive and complete rejection of the activity according to the mind and will of the fallen nature, through a decisive and complete perception of the activity according to the teaching and testament of the God-man. At the same time, an internal struggle opens up in a person, because the life that preceded repentance, by its own will and reason, deprived a person of spiritual freedom and delivered him into captivity to sin and the devil. The penitent strives to act according to the Gospel commandments, but sin and the devil, having received the power arbitrarily transferred to them by previous residence, try to keep the captive in captivity, in chains, in prison! Experienced knowledge of captivity through the sensations of captivity and violence, experienced knowledge of spiritual death through the sensation of death, strengthen and strengthen the cry of the penitent. “This struggle,” says St. Mark the Ascetic, “is internecine. It is not from outside, and it is not with our brethren that we must fight. It is within us, and no one can help us with it. We have one helper: Christ, mysteriously hidden in us through Baptism, invincible and cannot be suppressed (destroyed). He will strengthen us if we fulfill His commandments to the best of our ability” 424. Here the Venerable Ascetic does not reject guidance from the advice and instructions of spiritual and experienced people - no! He advises to definitely and carefully resort to the advice of spiritual Fathers and brothers! 425 Here he wants to show that our invisible triumph in internal warfare depends solely on the will and action of grace planted in us by Baptism, acting in accordance with our will, manifested and proven by the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments, and in accordance with the incomprehensible will of God for man. For this reason, some, with abundant and constant human guidance, bear the merest fruit; others, having heard the briefest instruction, in a short time discover rapid success in their spiritual gifts. “Know for sure,” said Saint Isaac the Syrian, “that every good that works in you mentally and in secret was intercessed by Baptism and Faith, by which you were called by our Lord Jesus Christ for His good deeds,” 426 and not for the imaginary good deeds of a fallen nature. The repentant person will thus be helped by the destinies of God, as the Holy Prophet David said: “Your destinies will help me” (Ps. 119:175). By the providence of God, many different sorrows are allowed to the repentant: “the Lord loves him,” says the Apostle, “he punishes: he beats every son who receives him” (Heb. 12:6). Patience of sorrows with thanksgiving to God, with recognition of oneself as worthy of sorrow, with recognition of the allowed sorrow as precisely the saving medicine that we need for healing, is a sign of true repentance. “He who does not know the Destinies of God,” says the Monk Mark, “follows with his mind the path that runs between the rapids, and is conveniently overthrown by every wind. Whoever resists the sorrows that befall him, he, without knowing it, resists the command of God, and whoever accepts them with true reason, according to Scripture, “endures the Lord” (Ps. 39:2). He who knows the truth does not resist sorrowful adventures: he knows that they lead a person to the fear of God. Previous sins, being remembered in appearance, bring harm to those who have good hope: if this memory arises in conjunction with sadness, then hope is taken away; if it arises without sorrow, it renews the former defilement within. When the mind, through renunciation of itself through the simplicity (uncomplexity) of thought, acquires hope, then the enemy, under the pretext of confession, depicts (in memory) previously committed sins in order to renew the passions that the grace of God has blotted out with oblivion, in order to thus imperceptibly harm a person. Then the strong, passion-hating mind will necessarily become darkened, embarrassed by the memory of the sins committed. If he is still dark and voluptuous, then he will certainly hesitate in remembering and will passionately talk with incoming thoughts, so that such a memory becomes not a confession, but a mental renewal of previously committed sins 427 . If you want to bring a non-judgmental confession to God, do not remember sinful inclinations by sight, but courageously endure the sorrows caused for them. Sorrows come (in retribution) for previous sins, bringing to every sin a similar (corresponding) retribution. He who is reasonable and leads the truth confesses to God not by remembering the sins he has committed, but by enduring the sorrows that befall him. Having rejected suffering and dishonor, do not promise to bring repentance through other virtues; vanity and painlessness know how to serve sin through just deeds” 428. “The way of God is a daily cross. A person who is under the special providence of God is recognized by the fact that sorrows are constantly sent to him by God” 429. “The power of God is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9) of the fallen nature, when this nature is ground into dust by the Cross of Christ (Matthew 21:44). On the contrary, fallen nature can develop only with an abundance of benefits provided by fallen human society: with learning, with wealth, with honors. These are the foundations and, at the same time, signs of the development of fallen nature. In this development, fallen nature accepts, like an apocalyptic wife, worship (Apoc. 17) from blinded, unhappy humanity, and enters into a prodigal union with her when he renounces Christ and the Holy Spirit - perhaps without words of renunciation - with a significant renunciation, activity, life. After the renewal of our nature by the God-man, man’s return to his fallen nature is adultery in relation to God. The grace of holy Baptism, through repentance, elevates a Christian to spiritual freedom, to the freedom that he already had upon leaving the baptismal font. So the patient, after intensive treatment, begins to feel in himself the freshness and strength that he had before the illness, in a state of health. The initial reason for the renewal of strength is not medicine, but the life that the Creator invested in human nature: medicine only helped the vital force to successfully fight the disease, defeat and expel the disease, which is nothing more than a disorder in the actions of the vital force. Repentance requires a more or less long time due to various circumstances, especially by the will of Divine Providence, which governs us. This can be seen from the biographies of many saints of God who passed from a state of sinfulness to a state of holiness through repentance. The Venerable Mary of Egypt told Blessed Zosima about herself that she struggled with her thoughts and lusts, like fierce beasts, for seventeen years 430. From our neglect to preserve the precious Gift given to us by Baptism, from activity according to the lawless law of fallen nature, the power of sin creeps into us unnoticed: unnoticed we lose spiritual freedom. The most difficult captivity remains invisible to many and is recognized as the most satisfactory freedom. Our state of captivity and slavery is revealed to us only when we begin to fulfill the Gospel commandments, then our mind rebels with bitterness against the mind of Christ, and our heart looks wildly and hostilely at the fulfillment of the will of Christ, as if at our own death and murder; then we will experience the sad loss of freedom, our terrible fall; then we see the full depth of this fall, descending to the abysses of hell. One should not become despondent and relaxed from such a sight: one should, with courage and determination, surrender to repentance, as an omnipotent doctor, having the command and authority from God to heal and heal all sins, no matter how great and numerous these sins may be, no matter how old and strengthened the habit of sins may be. Christ gave Himself to us and entered into us through holy Baptism, then hid Himself in us when we did not present our will for Him to dwell in us and rule over us. Christ will certainly reveal Himself in us if we, by true repentance, prove our decisive will for Him to dwell in us. “Behold, I stand at the door,” He says, “and to this effect: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also conquered and sat with My Father on His Throne” (Apoc. 3:20–21). The voice of Christ is the Gospel. The order by which a repentant sinner ascends to holiness through repentance is outlined by the Venerable Macarius the Great as follows: “Whoever wants to come to the Lord and be worthy of eternal life, to become the house of God and to be worthy of the Holy Spirit, in order to be able to immaculately and purely bear the fruits of the Spirit according to the commandments of the Lord, must begin in this way: first, he must firmly believe in the Lord, completely surrender himself to the verbs of the commandments Him, to renounce the world in everything, so that the mind is not occupied with any of the visible objects (of the world), to remain unwavering in prayers, not to fall into despair (despondency, hopelessness) while waiting (slowing down) for visitation and help from the Lord, at all times to have the mind constantly directed towards the Lord. Then he must constantly force himself to every good deed and to all the Lord’s commandments, even if his heart does not desire it because of the sin that resides in him, he must force himself to humility before all people, to consider himself the least and worst of all; he must not seek honor, or glory, or praise from anyone, as prescribed in the Gospel, but always have before the eyes of one Lord and His commandments, trying to please Him alone. He must also force himself to meekness, even if his heart resists it, according to what the Lord said: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart: and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). In the same way, he must be merciful, condescending, compassionate, good, forcing himself to do so, as the Lord said: “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). And again: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). And one more thing: Force yourself: because “the needy” (those who force themselves, those who force themselves) “take away the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 11:12). And: “Strive to penetrate through the strait gate” (Luke 13:24). He must always have before his eyes the humility of the Lord, His life, His behavior, keep them constantly in memory, as if a model and example, not allowing them to be stolen into oblivion. He must, as much as he has the strength, force himself to continually remain in prayer, constantly asking with constant faith that the Lord would come and make him His abode (John 14:23), so that he would instruct him in all His commandments, establish him in them, so that his soul might become the home of Jesus Christ. When he does this, forcing himself, with the resistance of his heart, getting used to every good deed, to always remembering the Lord, to always waiting for Him in much goodness and love, then the Lord, seeing such a disposition of him and such good zeal, how he always forces himself to remember the Lord and to every good deed, to humility, meekness and love, as he bows to the yoke (Christ's) heart, resisting it, forcing the heart to everything good - then, I say, the Lord pours out His mercy on him (at a certain time), delivers him from his enemies and from the sin living in him, filling him with the Holy Spirit. In this way he will, without any labor or violence on his part, truly fulfill the commandments of the Lord all and always. It is more correct: the Lord Himself will fulfill His commandments in it and reveal spiritual fruits, and man will bear them in purity. But first of all, everyone who comes to the Lord (as said above) must force himself to do good, despite the resistance of the heart, in constant expectation with undoubted faith of the mercy of God; one must force oneself to be merciful to everyone, to have a humane heart, to have humility towards everyone, long-suffering towards everyone, not to grieve in soul during expulsions and dishonor, not to complain - according to what was said: “not to avenge oneself, but to love” (Rom. 12:19) - force oneself to pray when someone has not received the gift of it from the Holy Spirit. When God sees someone struggling like this and forcibly forcing himself to do good, he gives him the true prayer of Christ, the womb of mercy, true love for mankind, in short: he gives him all spiritual fruits” 431. We see that many of the sinners, having repented, achieved the highest degree of Christian perfection. They have restored in themselves the Gift of Baptism not only to the extent that it is given, but also to the extent to which it subsequently develops from living according to the Gospel commandments. Having acquired and regained spiritual freedom, they did not stop there, they were not satisfied with this, they did not stop from repentance and crying, which returned their freedom. The weakness and ease of man, which they knew from experience, and his ability to quickly change 432, constantly excited them to cry. “Do not consider what the (coming) day will bring forth” (Prov. 27:1), they said to themselves daily through the mouth of Scripture: because of their purity, it was revealed to them that “the commandment of the Lord is very broad” (Ps. 119:96). Comparing their fulfillment of the commandment with the incomprehensibly extensive commandment of the incomprehensible Lord, they recognized this fulfillment as completely insufficient. They called and recognized their fulfillment of the Gospel commandments as desecration of the commandments 433. They washed away their virtues, as if they were sins, with streams of tears. So a blinded sinner never weeps over his most terrible sins, as Christ’s servants weep over their virtues. “Heaven is not pure before Him” (before God) (Job 15:15), that is, the pure holy Angels, as having limited purity, are not pure before the all-perfect purity of God, and holy men are also unclean before Him, whose life, although on earth, is also in heaven (Phil. 3:20). That is why they cry, and, bringing repentance, they become more and more immersed in repentance. “I know nothing about myself,” said the holy Apostle Paul, “but I am not justified by this: the Lord is my judge” (1 Cor. 4:4) 434. Despite his great spiritual gifts, despite the abundant grace of God that dwelt in the Apostle, He said: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first” (1 Tim. 1:15). Living according to the Gospel commandments, contemplating one’s fallen nature, contemplating the infinite greatness and infinite perfections of God, comparing the insignificant in its limitations of human nature with the unlimited nature of God, contemplating the consequences of the fall of our ancestors and the consequences of one’s own sinfulness, crying about the misfortune of one’s own and of all mankind, patience in all sorrowful cases develops in an Orthodox Christian the grace of Baptism in immense proportions, incomprehensible and incredible for the human mind in its fallen state. The development of the sacred, spiritual Gift delivered by Baptism is as immense as the Gift given by God from His Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), this development is as immense and incomprehensible as God Himself, who dwells in our hearts through Baptism, is immense and incomprehensible. This development embraces the entire being of a Christian. When we look closely at this development in the chosen vessels of God, then the depiction in the parables of the Gospel of the action in man produced by holy Baptism becomes quite clear. “The Kingdom of Heaven,” said the Savior, “is like the grain of a pea, which a man eats in his village; the least of all the seeds is eaten; and when it grows, there is more than all the potions, and there is a tree, as if it were to come to the birds of the air, and to soar on its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32). Likeness filled with Divine humility 435. “The Son of God humbled Himself and took on the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of mankind and found in the likeness of a man” (Phil. 2:7). In this image, He deigned to be numbered not with the host of the powerful, glorious and rich of the world, but with the host of the poor and sufferers. “His appearance is dishonorable,” says the Prophet, “more debased than all the sons of men” (Is. 53:3). “His soul was given over to death, and He was counted with the wicked” (Is. 53:12), taking a place between two robbers, as if the most important and most dangerous of criminals. He called His all-holy, life-giving, Divine commandments small (Matt. 5, 19), in the simplest, unartificial form in which they were proposed, adding, however, that violation of one such commandment can be the cause of eternal disaster for the violator 436. So He likened the grace of Baptism to the smallest of the seeds of the earth. And in fact, what could be simpler and more ordinary, in appearance, than Holy Baptism? People usually wash themselves in water by immersing themselves in it - this commonly used action is associated with a sacrament in which both soul and body are washed from sinful impurity 437 . The death and burial of a person is replaced by instant immersion in water. Unnoticed by carnal eyes, the Holy Spirit descends and recreates fallen man. The circumstances of temporary life remain for the baptized person, in appearance, the same as they were before Baptism. In appearance, the Gift imparted by Baptism is so invisible that with all accuracy and justice it should be likened to the smallest mustard seed 438 . This gift is of immeasurable value. It grows, being developed by doing the commandments: then its greatness will surpass all other gifts with which the generous hand of the Creator has abundantly rewarded man, and will make him a church of heavenly thoughts, sensations, revelations, states, characteristic of the celestials alone. “Likewise,” the Savior also said, “the Kingdom of Heaven is like kvass” (in Russian translation: leaven), “when a woman took three flours and hid them until they were all leavened” (Matthew 13:33). How humbly and how truly the spiritual Gift imparted by holy Baptism is called leaven! Anyone who receives holy Baptism is condemned to Christ, united with Christ, and therefore, with all justice, is called a wife. This wife hides, that is, preserves and grows the gift of grace, through living according to the Gospel, in her mind, heart and body (1 Thess. 5:23), until the Gift penetrates, fills, and embraces the whole person. Do you want to see not only the soul, but also the human body, watered and imbued with the grace-filled Gift given at Baptism? Notice Paul, whose garments worked miracles (Acts. 19:12), which was not harmed by the viper’s bite (Acts 28:5); look at Mary of Egypt, rising from the ground during her prayer, walking on the streams of the Jordan as if on dry land, completing a thirty-day journey in one hour 439; look at Mark the Thracian, at whose voice the mountain was lifted from its foundations and moved into the sea 440; look at Joannicius the Great, who, like a spirit, was invisible by those whom he did not want to be seen, although he was in their presence 441; look at the bodies of God’s saints, resting in sacred incorruption for many centuries, not subject to the law of corruption common to all mankind, exuding streams of healing, streams of fragrance, streams of life. The Venerable Sisoes the Great, who was especially abounding in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, said: “To that (man) in whom God has indwelt through the grace of holy Baptism and the doing of the commandments, (spiritual) Gifts are natural” 442 . This was said by the holy desert dweller from his own experience. Is not the same thing attested by Holy Scripture? “As many as were baptized into Christ,” it says, “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Those who are clothed in Christ, who have Christ in them, have natural gifts of the Spirit: where Christ is, there are the Father and the Spirit. 7. On the attitude of the renewed nature to evil Here the question arises by itself: what relation does a renewed person have to evil? He cannot but have accurate knowledge of evil. But we have seen that innocent human nature, in its state after creation, barely received such knowledge before it perished from it. It is all the more necessary to know the attitude of the renewed nature to the knowledge of evil. We answer: purity of heart - the spiritual state of a renewed nature, called in the Gospel bliss, which gives a person the vision of God (Matthew 5:8), appears in the soul after the bliss of mercy, and stems from this bliss. It is known that the gospel beatitudes are spiritual states that are revealed in a Christian from the fulfillment of the gospel commandments, that the beatitudes are revealed one after another, born one from the other 443. After rejecting one’s truth, as defiled by evil, from the midst of lamentation about one’s state of fall, from the midst of meekness—this reconciliation to all sorrows, visible and invisible—the hunger and thirst for God’s Truth begins to be felt in the soul. The truth of God is found in mercy, where the Gospel commands us to look for it. “Love your enemies,” it says, “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who attack you and drive you out: that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: as the sun shines on the evil and on the good, and rains on the righteous and on the unjust. If you love those who love you, what kind of reward do you give? Don’t publicans do the same thing? And if you only kiss your friends, what else are you doing? Don’t pagans do the same thing? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:44–48). The perfection of Christian, and therefore human, virtue in a renewed nature is a gracious, God-imitating mercy produced in a Christian by the development of Divine grace given to him in Baptism and cultivated by the commandments. From such mercy comes spiritual purity: she feeds on it, she lives on it. Rev. Isaac the Syrian to the question: what is purity? answered: “Purity is a heart filled with mercy for every creature.” To the question: what is a merciful heart? this great teacher of monastics said: “This is the burning of the heart for every creature, for people, for birds, for animals, for demons - in a word, for every creature. From the memory of them and the vision of them, the eyes of the merciful one shed tears due to the abundant and strong mercy that has taken possession of the heart. From constant patience, his heart became the heart of a child, and he cannot be indifferent when he hears or sees any harm, or even a small sorrow to which the creature has been subjected. And therefore he brings prayer every hour, accompanied by tears, both for the wordless, and for the enemies of the truth, and for those who slander him, so that they may be preserved and purified; even he does this about the nature of reptiles, out of great mercy moving excessively in his heart in the likeness of God” 444. From the great mercy that the great Isaac felt in himself, he exclaims: “On the day on which you have compassion for someone who is suffering in any way, physically or mentally, good or evil, consider yourself a martyr and look at yourself as someone who suffered for Christ, as someone who has been worthy of confession. Remember that Christ died for sinners, not for the righteous. Look how great it is to grieve for the wicked and do good to sinners! It is more than doing both regarding the righteous. The Apostle remembers this as worthy of wonder.”445 Saint Isaac, comparing the truth of fallen human nature with the Divine truth, which consists in grace-filled, spiritual mercy, calls the second service to God, and the first service to idols 446. The Apostle speaks about the acquisition of this mercy when he bequeaths to those who believe in Christ: “Put on as the election of God, holy and beloved, in the womb of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and long-suffering: accepting one another and forgiving yourself, if anyone blames anyone: just as Christ forgave you, so do you” (Col. 3:12–13). Saint Macarius the Great says: “Grace acts in such a way and pacifies all the strength and heart that the soul, from great joy (mercy), is likened to a gentle baby, and a person no longer condemns either a Greek, or a Jew, or a sinner, or a layman, but the inner man looks at everyone with a pure eye and rejoices about the whole world, and in every possible way wants to honor and love both Greeks and Jews.” 447. “Purity of heart,” said the above-quoted Saint Isaac, “sees God; it shines and blooms in the soul not as a result of human teaching, but from not seeing human malice” 448. Then a person does not see malice in his neighbors when all his relationships with his neighbors will be swallowed up by mercy towards them. Is such a failure to see the shortcomings in one’s neighbors really a blinding of the mind, a recognition of evil as good? On the contrary: blindness of the mind, blindness to sin and evil, recognition of evil as good belong to unrepentant sinners who justify their sin. The Saints of God, enlightened by the Spirit of God, understand evil in all its details, know its intrigues and its poisonousness; they, with the help of this knowledge delivered by the Spirit, with special care protect themselves from the experimental knowledge of sins, delivered by the actual fulfillment of sin. “He who is born of God,” says Saint John the Theologian, “does not sin: but he who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18). Through the grace-filled mercy that true Christians breathe towards their neighbors, they remain alien to the sinfulness of their neighbors, which is communicated through condemnation to the condemner, violating his own, calm, joyful, holy dispensation. “The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding,” dwelling in the saints of God, immediately denounces every approaching thought of the contrary, no matter what mask of righteousness this thought is covered (Phil. 4:7). Saint John Climacus in word 449 about spiritual reasoning and thoughts, passions and virtues says that it comes from an immaculate conscience and purity of heart; that in the beginners, according to their success, it is the knowledge of their fall and sinfulness; that in the average (according to success) it separates true good from natural and from evil, both open and hidden in the guise of good; finally, that in the perfect it is a spiritual mind that has shone forth from the Holy Spirit and sees the mode of action of evil in other people. So the holy Apostle Peter said to Simon the Magus: “In the gall of sorrow and the covenant of unrighteousness I see you existing” (Acts 8:23). In the preface to the Sermon on Sacred Silence, St. John says that the Saints of God have an exact and detailed knowledge of sin by revelation of the Holy Spirit 450 . The beginning of the enlightenment of the soul and the sign of its health is when the mind begins to see its sins, like the multitude of sea sand, said Saint Peter of Damascus 451. This Father calls the sight of his fall and the sight of his sins spiritual vision, opening from the action of grace in the doer of Christ's commandments 452. The Holy Church ordained that her children should ask God through the warmest prayer for the great gift of seeing their sins 453. Fallen nature is stricken with blindness of mind. It does not see its fall, does not see its sins, does not see its pilgrimage on earth and disposes of itself on it as if immortal, as if existing solely for the earth. It not only cruelly judges and condemns the sins of its neighbor, but also, out of its own disastrous dispensation, invents sins for its neighbor that are not in it; it is seduced by the most sublime Christian virtues, distorting their meaning in accordance with its false reason, out of its own heartfelt malice. On the contrary, the renewed nature has a grace-filled knowledge and vision of evil, bestowed by God, a knowledge and vision of evil that not only does not violate the integrity of good in man, but also serves to strictly protect man from the experimental knowledge of evil, which is destructive for man. The renewed nature sees and knows evil in itself, in humans and in demons, but remains undefiled by evil, because this vision and knowledge of the renewed nature does not belong to man himself, acquired not by man’s own effort, but given to him by God. One can compare the knowledge of evil acquired by people through the fall to the knowledge of sick people about the diseases from which they suffer, and the knowledge of evil by renewed people is the knowledge of diseases by doctors. Patients know the disease from experience, but do not know either its causes or the means to cure it; Doctors, without having experienced the disease, know it incomparably more definitely than patients, they know the causes of it and the means of using (treatment - Ed.) from it. Having outlined, to the best of my ability, the state in relation to good and evil of human nature after creation, after the fall and after its redemption, to whom shall I turn with the conclusion of this wretched Word? The Word serves as a denunciation of my own shortcomings, and therefore I turn with the exhortation with which every Word usually ends, to myself. I borrow this admonition from the Father of the Church. If any of my neighbors recognizes it as suitable for themselves, then let them accept it with love. “You remembered,” says the Father I remembered, “the nobility that you accepted in Baptism from grace, but arbitrarily rejected by passions in the world, you wanted to restore (this nobility) with good will; You proved this desire in action by coming to the sacred school, putting on honest clothes of repentance and vowing to remain complacently in the monastery until your death. You made a second covenant with God. The first was done upon entering real life; the second was made when you began to lean toward the end of your real life. Then you were accepted by Christ for the sake of piety, now you are united to Christ by repentance. Then you received grace, now you confessed duty. Then, as a baby, you did not feel the dignity given to you, although later, having come of age, you recognized the greatness of the gift, and your lips were stopped (to self-justification): now, with sufficient development of knowledge, you comprehend the meaning of the vow. Be careful not to neglect this promise (of repentance); take care not to be rejected and cast, like some vessel completely broken, into utter darkness, where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). Apart from the path of repentance, there is no other path that leads back to salvation” 454. “The Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in anger, in the days of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted Me, you tempted Me and saw My works for fourty years. For this reason, the indignant generation of that generation said: They always err in heart, but they do not know My ways: for they swore in My wrath, if they entered into My rest. Watch out, brethren, lest there be a wicked heart of yours, filled with unbelief, so as to depart from God. But console yourself every day, until this day is condemned, so that no one will be hardened from you by sinful flattery: for we have become partakers of Christ, even if the firstfruits of the composition 455 (Luke 11:23), - said the Lord, - even to the end we will hold on" (Heb. 3:7-14). “Since we have the Great Bishop, who passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. Not the imams of the Bishop, who cannot suffer with our weaknesses, but are tempted in every way in the likeness, perhaps of sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). Amen. The Holy Fathers call the state after creation natural, the state after the fall - subnatural, the state after redemption - supernatural. Saint Isaac the Syrian. Word 4; St. Dorothea Teaching. St. Abba Dorotheus's teaching 1. Hieromartyr Peter of Damascus, counting the grace-filled spiritual visions that appear to the mind of the ascetic of Christ during his gradual purification, places between these visions the vision of the fall to which humanity has undergone. St. Peter of Damascus, book 1 about the eight intelligent visions. Philokalia, part 3. Sl. 4, ch. 16. This is clear from the prohibitions performed before the holy sacrament of Baptism. Fallen man became the dwelling place not only of sin, but also of Satan; sacrament of St. Baptism drives Satan out of a person, but with the careless and sinful life of the baptized person, Satan returns to him, as will be explained later. See the following of St. Baptisms in the breviary. St. Macarius the Great, Discourse 21, ch. 1. 16th teaching of St. Syncletikius, Memorable Tales. Ch. 49, Kindness, part 2. This quote is given more fully in the Word on the Jesus Prayer. Lesson 13: How to Endure Temptations. Our Russian ascetic, Elder Seraphim of Sarov, says: “We must condescend to our soul in its weaknesses and imperfections and tolerate our shortcomings, as we tolerate others, but not become lazy, but encourage ourselves to do better. Whether you have consumed a lot of food, or have done something else similar to this, akin to human weakness, do not be indignant at this and do not add harm to harm, but courageously move yourself to correction, and meanwhile try to maintain peace of mind, according to the word of the Apostle: “Blessed is he who condemns not himself, for he will be tempted.” The story of the life and exploits of Elder Seraphim. Moscow, 1884 St. Gregory of Sinaiti, ch. 117. Philokalia, part 1. St. Macarius the Great, discourse 27, chapters 4, 5 and 18. Word 31. The word “doing” is used here, because the Fathers most often call mental and heartfelt feats by this name, more often denoting bodily labors with the word “feat”. St. Varsonof. Rep. 210. Isaac the Syrian. Word 56. St. Macarius the Great, Homily 1, ch. 1. Dobrot., part 1, active and theological chapters 43. St. Abba Dorotheos, lesson 1. He (the Lord) freed us St. By Baptism, he gave us forgiveness of sins, and gave us the freedom to do good if we wish, and not to be carried away, so to speak, forcibly towards evil; for he who is enslaved by sins is burdened and carried away, as it is said (in Scripture) that everyone is bound by the chains of his sins (Prov. V, 22). St. Abba Dorotheus’s first teaching on the rejection of the world: “Baptism does not take away our autocracy and self-will: it gives us freedom, in which the devil no longer rapes us when we do not deign to him. After baptism, we are left to our own devices, either to abide in the commandments of Christ, the Master and God into whom we were baptized, and to walk along the path of His commandments, or to return again through evil deeds to our adversary and enemy, the devil.” Venerable Simeon, New Theologian, ch. 109. Kindness, part 1. “By Baptism, the unclean spirit is cast out and bypasses waterless and faithless souls, but it does not find peace in them: for rest for the demon consists in disturbing the baptized with evil deeds - the unbaptized belong to him from the beginning (conception) - and he returns to the baptized with seven spirits. Just as there are seven gifts of the Spirit, so there are seven crafty evil spirits. When the devil returns to the baptized person and finds him idle, that is, due to laziness, not having the activity that resists the adversaries, then having ascended into him, he acts more cruelly than before. For one who has been cleansed by baptism and then (defiled) there is no hope for a second baptism: is there any hope for laborious repentance? Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria of the Gospel text given here. St. Gregory of Sinaite said: “Keep an uncontrollable mind, that is, overwhelmed and scattered by a resistive force that returned again after baptism, due to negligence, with other wicked spirits, into a lazy soul, as the Lord says.” St. Gregory of Sinai, ch. 3. Kindness, part 1. Rev. Macarius the Great, conversation 27, ch. 11 “The sinners grow like grass, and all the workers of iniquity are cut down, so that they may be consumed for ever and ever.” On the spiritual law, chapter 2. According to the Russian translation: “unless you are what you should be.” Here are the words of the Apostle in the Russian translation, ed. 1822, for greater clarity. In Slavic: “We were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into His death” (were immersed). Baptism and immersion are unambiguous words. Throughout the Universal Church, Baptism was performed by immersion until the 12th century. In the 12th century, Rome began to replace immersion with dousing. Translation of the 1822 edition. See St. John Chrysostom's explanation of these words. St. Macarius the Great, Homily 7. ch. 26. “Through Baptism, the baptized person changes in mind, in word and deed and, according to the power given to him, becomes the same as the One who gave birth to him.” 20 moral rule of St. Basil the Great. Creations of the Holy Fathers. St. Mark the Ascetic, Sermon on Baptism; Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, chapters 1–6. Philokalia, part 2. Ioanni Chrisotomi in Epistola 11 ad Cor. Homila VII, cap. 5. A scraper is a carpenter's tool used to scrape wood. Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, book 8, ch. 49. A story similar to this one was placed in Chetyih-Minea, September on the 15th day. The comedian Porfiry, plunging into water to mock baptism, was transformed into a Christian by the Holy Sacrament. This happened before the eyes of Emperor Julian the Apostate. Porfiry confessed Christ, accused the king of wickedness, for which he was cruelly tortured and then executed. St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 18. Works of the Holy Fathers. St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 40th. Creations of the Holy Fathers. See the works of St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John Chrysostom and others. “The law of freedom,” said St. Mark, “is revered by true understanding; by doing the commandments (of the Gospel), of course,” chapter 32, On the Spiritual Law. 3 conclusion of the word about Baptism. Word 5. Advice from the mind to the soul. In Slavic, the last sentence reads like this: “as if an enterprise should acquire such a memory” (chapter 152). “Enterprise” is what the active Fathers call acceptance (renewal) in the thought and feeling of a sin that was once actually committed. Enterprises torment the repentant ascetic for a more or less long time after he has given up sinful deeds. This can be clearly seen from the lives of St. Moses Murin, St. Mary of Egypt and others. The word “About those who think to be justified by works.” Chapters 193, 197, 150–156. Life of the Venerable Mary of Egypt. Chetyi Menaia, April 1. The Venerable Mary said about herself to Saint Zosima, among other things, the following: “I am a sinful wife, but protected by holy Baptism.” St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 1. St. Peter of Damascus. Dobrot., part 3, book 1, article 1. According to the Russian translation of 1822 St. Isaiah the Hermit, Word 11 about the mustard seed. According to the explanation of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria. Dobrot., part 2. St. Callistus and Ignatius, ch. 92. In the first times of Christianity, the pagans, seeing in the sacrament of Baptism only the outer side of it and not understanding the essence, mocked the insignificance, in their opinion, of the appearance. St. Cyril of Jerusalem. “Careful observance (of the Gospel commandments) teaches a person “his weaknesses.” St. Simeon the New Theologian, chapter 4 Active and Theological, Kindness, part 1. This means: Careful observance of the commandments introduces the first bliss, called spiritual poverty, from which spiritual crying is born, which gives birth to meekness. The sequence of Beatitudes is set out with particular clarity by the Hieromartyr Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus. Dobrot., part 3, book 1. Kindness, part 3, about seven bodily acts. There are also eight visions of the mind. Prayer to St. Ephraim the Syrian, used in St. Pentecost. St. Theoliptus, Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Sermon on Hidden Work. Dobrot., part 2. The beginning of the composition, that is, the guarantee of the covenant with God, here is meant the grace of Baptism, planted in us upon entering into union with Christ like a mustard seed. Preservation of the gift of grace is its development: “those who do not gather with Me scatter” You might be interested in: