Размышление, заимствованное из 1-го послания св. Апостола Павла к Тимофею, относящееся преимущественно к монашеской жизни

The Word of God is a testament: to those who accept the Word of God it brings salvation and bliss (I, 5). Love is born from purity of heart, immaculate conscience and unfeigned faith (I, 5). Cultivate these virtues, maintaining attentiveness to yourself and silence, in order to achieve love, which is the height and totality of Christian perfection. The purity of the heart is violated by the acceptance of sinful thoughts, especially prodigal ones; integrity of conscience - arbitrary sins; faith is weakened by reliance on one’s own reason, insincerity and self-love. Whoever wants to talk about the truth without enlightenment from above will only fall into empty conversations and debates, and will deviate from the path leading to love (I, 6-7). From timeless, vainglorious reasoning about the truth, which exceeds knowledge, heresies, delusions and blasphemy were born. Constancy in the Orthodox confession of the dogmas of faith is nourished and preserved by works of faith and integrity of conscience. Those who are not guided by faith in their actions and violate the integrity of conscience by arbitrarily deviating into sins, will not be able to maintain their knowledge of dogmas in due purity and correctness: this knowledge, like knowledge of God, requires the necessary purity of mind, which is characteristic only of the well-behaved and chaste (I, 19). There is One God and One Mediator between God and men - the God-man, Jesus Christ (II, 5). No one can begin and approach God without this Mediator. He who rejects the Mediator also rejects God. “Discard the Son, neither have the Father. Whoever does not believe in the Son will not see the life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (1 John 2:23; John 3:36). Spiritual intelligence consists of knowing the Truth by faith. First, the knowledge of faith is acquired; faith, having been internalized by a Christian, changes his mind by revealing to him the Truth, which is Christ. Those who have reached the age of manhood for Christ receive unceasing prayer, which they perform in the secret of the spiritual cage in every place and at every time. A Christian then receives unceasing prayer when his will and the activity dependent on the will are absorbed in understanding, desire and fulfillment of the will of God. This establishes living faith, evangelical simplicity, and the peace of God, alien to any disturbance, in the heart. Such a rational child constantly sees his weakness, constantly believes, constantly hungers and thirsts for divine truth, and therefore prays unceasingly (1 Tim. 2:8). The virtues that are especially necessary for a silent person are: meek submission to God, disposition towards silence, avoidance of conversations, even useful ones, but they distance one from conversation with God and violate the silence of the heart. Especially at the beginning of his feat, the silent person is capable of being carried away by external impressions. Careful stay in the cell, withdrawal from meetings with acquaintances and from all types of entertainment counteract this weakness (II, 11, 12). A newly tonsured monk should not be entrusted with positions of significance in a monastery, because he can conveniently become proud and be subject to other snares of the devil (1 Tim. 3:6–7). Mysterious knowledge and feeling of faith are observed by purity of conscience. The Church of the living God is the pillar and foundation of the truth. That is why God is called here living, because he acts. He acts in all believers through the sacraments, and in the elect, beyond the sacraments, through many different obvious gifts of grace. This proves the firmness and steadfastness in the truth of the Eastern Church. On the contrary, the heterodox Churches, although they adorn themselves with the name of the Churches of Christ, although they recognize God, but not active, as if dead (for the dead, even the living is dead!), thereby revealing that they have wavered and have not stood firm in the truth. The great sacrament of piety (III, 16)! God appeared in the flesh; proved that He is God by the Spirit, that is, by His teaching, which is Spirit and life; by your deeds done through the finger of God; the gift of the Holy Spirit to men. Having put on flesh, He became visible not only to people, but also to Angels, for whom, according to Divinity, He is invisible 64. The pagans, who were perishing from ignorance of God, heard the preaching of salvation. The teaching about God is accepted not by earthly wisdom, not by exalted reason, not by extensive learning, not by the rich, lofty and glorious things of the world, but by the humble pledge of the heart, by faith. Those who believe in God enter into the assimilation of Him and, having ascended by grace above all that is temporary, receive the mysterious, experiential knowledge that He ascended to heaven and carries there with Him those who truly believe in Him. Those who have not confirmed and increased their faith by hearing by the works of faith are conveniently deceived by the teaching of lies, which hypocritically take on the appearance of truth (1 Tim. IV, 1). Physical feats are “of little use” (IV, 8), that is, they can only tame passions, and not eradicate them. Piety, which consists in the invisible exercise of the mind and heart in the Orthodox faith, “is useful for everything,” with it only a person can feel eternal life, partly tasted by the saints here, as in betrothal, which is fully revealed after the separation of the soul from the body. Eternal life consists in the diverse action of grace in the soul, which is felt as it is cleansed from passions. This word, as spoken from spiritual experience, is true; it is worthy to be accepted (IV, 9) as a beginning from which a Christian can ascend to ineffable blessings, placing the ascent in his heart. Faith and attention lead to the knowledge of the cross of Christ, from which generous patience of sorrows, born and nourished by hope in the living God, that is, who acts with gracious consolation in the heart of those who suffer in Christ (IV, 10). When grace-filled consolation operates through the mysterious knowledge of Christ and His gaze, then the Christian does not condemn either the Jew, or the pagan, or the obvious lawless 65; but flames for everyone with quiet, immaculate love. He contemplates with the purity of his mind that since the coming of Christ, the dignity, value, praise and salvation of man is constituted by Christ, and not by natural human virtues. He continually desires to be crucified, because his ears have been opened, and he hears the voice of Christ his God, saying to him: “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 for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:38–39). He considers the cup of sorrows to be the cup of salvation, evidence of election, a gift of God. He cannot have hatred and enemies, because those who cause him sorrow in his eyes are nothing more than instruments of God's providence 66; he excuses them, citing their ignorance as the reason for the excuse; he blesses them as instruments of God who benefits him. “Can I,” he says to himself, “can I condemn those who now, before me, fall into obvious iniquities, when Christ has already atoned for all their sins, past, present and future, when in Christ they already have justification and salvation, which they cannot lose otherwise than by completely rejecting Christ?” 67. One should not give one’s neighbors any temptation by one’s behavior (IV, 12). Why maintain reverence in your soul and body. Be modest and simple in words and gestures; in your home life be abstinent, chaste, not impudent; Be meek in your soul, loving towards everyone, truthful, wise, do not allow yourself to be deceitful and hypocrisy; instead of them, have faith that will teach you that the world and the destinies of every person are governed by the providence of God, and not by the tricks of the human mind, and that for this reason you should observe meek Christian righteousness in deeds, words and thoughts. “Until I come to you,” says the grace of God to the ascetic of God, “and, having taken possession of you, I replace all instruction from without, engage in attentive reading, prayer, and be instructed by the teachings of those who have succeeded. Do not allow yourself to be careless and remain constantly attentive. Then your gradual success will be obvious; you will gain salvation and will be useful to your neighbors with an edifying and saving word” (IV, 14-16). Whoever truly felt the poverty of Adam’s nature, who knew that it was in a sad fall and destruction, he, of course, at the same time understood and became convinced that for salvation a person needs to join Christ. Such knowledge is a sign of a true widow. She is allowed to enter into silence in order to remain in prayer and supplication day and night, so that Christ can be tangibly imagined in her (VI, 5). Just as the helmsman looks at the stars and guides the course of the ship according to them, so the silent man must constantly look at God, see Him with the eyes of faith and hope, in order to maintain constancy and patience. On the sea of ​​silence, extraordinary storms precede extraordinary silence. A silent person, carried away by gluttony, indulging in excessive sleep and effeminacy, or in general voluptuousness and pride, proves by this that he is dead in soul, although alive in body (IV, 6). Christ, the true Life, dwells only in those who are crucified. The age of a widow capable of silence is determined by sixty years (V, 9), which spiritually signifies the average measure of prosperity, depicted in the Gospel by the numbers: thirty, sixty and one hundred. In this middle level there are those who, although spiritual, have received prayerful power to victory during battles, to whom the sacrament of the cross has been revealed, who, during sorrows inflicted from without, feel a grace-filled effect in their souls, which serves at the same time as light and consolation for the heart. A silent person, before entering into silence, must have evidence of good deeds. Consider yourself, you who wish to enter the haven, or, more correctly, the sea of ​​silence! Have you followed every good deed, not according to the nature of the old Adam, but according to the properties of the New? (V, 10). Otherwise: have you accepted the yoke of humility and meekness, have you tasted that this yoke is good and the burden is light? Otherwise: have you studied the commandments of the Gospel? Have your mind and heart become their tablets, and your behavior their expression and consequence? Are you looking for truth outside the cross? If you are looking, then you are not capable, you are not ready for silence, into which it is disastrous to enter without condemning yourself and being in the condemnation of your neighbors. Young ascetics in spiritual age, even if they were old in the flesh, even if they aspired from the world, and therefore deserved the name of widows, should not be allowed to fall into silence (V, 11). They, due to a lack of spiritual intelligence, cannot be constant in the thought that Christ alone is necessary for salvation; they will not tolerate their deadness, they will want to revive their “I” in good deeds that belong to the spiritual man, thereby casting off the yoke of Christ and entering into the nature of the old Adam. It is better for them to practice active virtues; It is better for them, avoiding everything unnatural, to remain in their nature than to strive prematurely and incorrectly for the supernatural. Nor is their desire to renew themselves in the Lord forbidden; but a correct desire is bequeathed: let them try to correct their morals according to the morals of Christ, depicted in the Gospel. When morals are healed, the mind is gradually healed. Having received healing, that is, having become pure, he clearly sees the Truth, recognizes it and confesses it. After this, if the truth pleases, solely by its good will and election, the disciple is taken to the mountain and made a spectator of the transfiguration. If not, then stay under the mountain and get busy casting out the demon from the boy. The demon is cast out by faith, prayer and fasting. The name fasting should mean not only abstinence from excess in food, but abstinence from all sinful endeavors. Anyone who has delved into his own condition and the condition of the entire human race, infected with sin and submitted to the spirits of darkness, can understand the mysterious answer given to the Savior by the father of the demoniac about the time from which his son’s illness began: “speech: childish” (Mark 9:21). An attempt at premature silence entails inevitable harmful consequences. A daring, arrogant, darkened and bound by ignorance ascetic will not find food for his soul in silence, and from this he will certainly fall into despondency, which acts with special force and harm in the silent ones, giving them over to various evil thoughts and dreams. Food for the silent is the grace-filled enlightening consolation of the revelation of the sacrament of the cross of Christ. It is a gift from above, and not knowledge inherent in human nature itself. It is impossible to replace the spiritual with the soul. If anyone tries to replace it, he will internalize a lie instead of the truth, in a hypocritical image of the truth. The fruit of lies is frustration, as is the fruit of despondency. But the disorder caused by lies is distinguished from the disorder caused by despondency. The first is revealed in self-delusion, in a high opinion of oneself, in boasting about one’s imaginary virtues and talents, in contempt and condemnation of one’s neighbors, and ends in pride, delusion, frenzy of the mind, sometimes falling into carnal passions, and sometimes suicide, most often in madness and mental damage, which are usually called madness. The second is revealed in idleness, laziness, in leaving one’s cell, in a disposition to entertain oneself with conversations, frequent outings, wanderings, and turning to earthly wisdom and learning. With the revival of the spiritual mind according to the properties of the old Adam, faith is rejected, the providence of God is hidden from the eyes of the mind; man, as if eternal on earth, rushes entirely towards earthly things alone and gradually falls into an inferior, passionate, carnal state, which is, in relation to true life - Christ, the death of the soul (V, 12-13). Anyone who has fallen into disorder of one or another kind, especially the first, for the most part becomes completely incapable of living an ascetic life. However, humility also heals ailments that cannot be cured on their own, said John Climacus 68 . Anyone who wants to be a pure fulfiller of Christ’s commandments must be extremely careful from addictions (V, 21). When the heart is infected with partiality, it cannot fulfill the pure and holy will of Christ with due holiness and purity. By doing our own will instead of the will of Christ and insisting on showing that we are doing the will of Christ, we fall into hypocrisy. Often, by expressing, and perhaps even thinking, that we are doing the will of Christ, by the very thing we are fulfilling the will of the devil. Those who try to learn the teachings of Christ not for himself, but for an extraneous, earthly purpose, for the purpose of acquiring self-interest or honor, will never be able to receive true spiritual reason, because it is a gift of God, given to the humble according to the measure of their faith, purification from passions and self-sacrifice (VI, 4-5). If you see that those who call themselves teachers and pretend to know Christ indulge in disputes, envy, slander, suspicion, hatred and other passions, then know that they have only dead knowledge from hearing, and their minds and hearts are in darkness and illness, as if they have not been healed and purified by doing the commandments of the Gospel (VI, 4). The Lord’s saying thunders against them: “We do not know you!” (Matthew 25:12, 7:23). This is what the Truth—Christ—speaks about Himself to those who think to know Him not from works of faith, but from hearing alone. Whoever knows that the human race is in decline, that the earth is the place of our exile, our prison, where, having stayed for a short time, we emerge to receive either eternal bliss or eternal punishment, he, of course, also knew that the only treasure of man on earth is Christ, the Savior of the lost. Consequently, the only and invaluable acquisition of a person on earth is the knowledge of Christ and assimilation to Christ. Will the one who wants to acquire this treasure desire acquisitions and temporary pleasures? On the contrary, he will run away from them, fearing that they will entertain him. He will be pleased not only with what is necessary, but also with what is scarce. And a contented person is richer than the rich! (VI, 6). Brethren, we entered this world naked; leaving it, let us leave our bodies in it. Why look for perishable acquisitions? Why look for something that must definitely leave? Let us not waste precious time to decay, so as not to lose our only treasure - Christ. Let us direct both mind and heart to Him; having food and clothing, we will be satisfied with this; We will not allow ourselves excesses and whims, so that they, little by little attracting our love to themselves, do not deprive us of Christ (VI, 7-8). Those who want to get rich fall into misfortunes and snares that their very desire to get rich prepares for them. The first fruit of this striving is a multitude of cares and worries that divert the mind and heart from God. The soul, little, coldly, carelessly concerned with God, receives rudeness and falls into insensibility; the fear of God is blotted out in her; the memory of death recedes from her, the mind becomes darkened and ceases to see the providence of God, from which faith is lost; hope, instead of being established in God, turns to the idol, bringing love to its foot. Then a person dies to virtues, indulges in lies, deceit, cruelty, in a word, all vices, and falls into complete destruction, becoming a vessel of the devil. “The root of all evil is the love of money,” as containing the cause and reason for all sins (VI, 9–10). And those who were not completely destroyed by the love of money, because they did not completely indulge in it, but only sought moderate enrichment, suffered many disasters. They entangled themselves with heavy worries, fell into various sorrows, were often forced to violate the integrity of their conscience, suffered great damage in spiritual success and saw in themselves a significant deviation from faith and spiritual reason. For a Christian, gospel poverty is more desirable than all the treasures of the world, as a guide to faith and its fruits. The freer the ascetic of Christ is from the world, the safer he is, and the more he has connected with the world, the more he has already been conquered. False reason (VI, 20) is a way of thoughts and judgments acquired by the mind after the fall of man. As a result of the fall, he has the character of self-delusion, as a result of lies and deception, he does not accept the Truth - Christ; as one who highly values ​​everything earthly, while the earth is a place of exile for the fallen, he is opposed to faith and the spiritual mind it gives birth to, which looks at everything earthly through the eye of a wanderer. The subject of the false-named mind is simultaneous and perishable. When his subject is the eternal and spiritual, his judgments are completely unfounded and erroneous. He is deprived of enlightenment from above, explaining spiritual objects; for his own powers, without revelation, these objects are not available; the extraneous light in it is the light of the dark spirits of lies. All information is delivered to him by his bodily senses, which are damaged by the fall. When what is not visible with sensory eyes becomes accessible to him by some means, for example magnetism, then by this he only multiplies his delusions, strengthens his darkness and self-deception, as if he were in the realm of lies, as if he were acquiring only false knowledge. His followers are in constant disagreement with each other, contradicting each other and themselves. It does not require good behavior from a person, on the contrary, it provides freedom to sin. He considers himself the ruler of the world, which is why he rejects God’s providence, if not always in words, then always in deed itself. It contains within itself the beginning of godlessness, which constitutes the entire essence of every error, revealing itself more or less in it. Finally, he is the negative wealth of fallen spirits and those people who are in communication with fallen spirits. Let us leave the wisdom of this world, let us leave our hope in it and approach with faith and humility to God’s wisdom and power, to the holy Truth - Christ, who came into the world, “that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17). He is the Light whom darkness neither comprehends nor accepts (John 1:5). He is only able to accept Him who has loved the truth. “Anyone who does evil hates the Light. Do not believe in He is already condemned. This is judgment, because the Light came into the world, and men loved darkness more than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:18–20, 1 Tim. 6:11, 16). Amen. St. Macarius the Great. Conversation 4, ch. 9. St. Macarius the Great. Conversation 8, ch. 6. St. Macarius the Great. Conversation 37, ch. 2, 4. We see experimental proof of what has been said in the holy martyr Arrian. He, being an idolater, in the rank of hegemon, stained himself with the blood of many holy martyrs, then believed in Christ and sealed his faith with a solemn confession of it and his blood. Chetii-Minei. The suffering of St. Martyr Philemon on the 14th day of December, also St. Martyrs Timothy and Maura on May 3. You might be interested in: