II часть

Student. Count the types of demonic delusion that come from improper exercise of prayer. Elder. Prelest is the damage to human nature by lies. Delusion is the state of all people, without exception, produced by the fall of our forefathers. We are all in a state of delight 48 . Knowing this is the greatest protection against delusion. The greatest charm is to recognize oneself as free from delusion. We are all deceived, we are all deceived, we are all in a false state, we need liberation by the truth. The truth is our Lord Jesus Christ (John 8:32, 14:6). Let us assimilate this Truth by faith in It, cry out in prayer to this Truth - and She will take us out of the abyss of self-delusion and seduction by demons. Our condition is sad! It is a prison from which we pray to lead our soul, to “confess the name” of the Lord (Ps. 145:10). It is that dark land into which our life was cast by the enemy who envied us and persecuted us (Ps. 143:3). It is carnal wisdom (Rom. 8:6) and a false mind (1 Tim. 6:20), which infects the whole world, which does not recognize its illness, proclaiming it as blooming health. It is “flesh and blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). It is eternal death, healed and destroyed by the Lord Jesus, Who is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). This is our condition. His sight is a new reason for crying. We cry out to the Lord Jesus, so that He would lead us out of prison, take us out of the abysses of the earth, and snatch us from the jaws of death. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the Monk Simeon, the New Theologian, “came down to us because he wanted to take us out of captivity and from the “worst delusion” 49. Student . This explanation is not quite accessible to my concepts: I need a simpler explanation, closer to my understanding. Elder. The fallen angel used “lies” as a means of destroying the human race (Gen. 3:13). For this reason, the Lord called the devil “a lie, the father of lies and a murderer from time immemorial” (John 8:44). The Lord closely connected the concept of lying with the concept of murder, because the latter is an indispensable consequence of the former. The word “from time immemorial” indicates that lies from the very beginning served as an instrument for the devil to commit murder, and constantly serves him as an instrument for murder, for the destruction of people. The beginning of evil is a false thought! The source of self-delusion and demonic delusion is a false thought! The cause of various harm and destruction is a false thought! Through lies, the devil struck humanity with eternal death at its very roots, in its forefathers. Our forefathers were deceived, that is, they recognized a lie as the truth, and, accepting a lie under the guise of truth, they damaged themselves with an incurably deadly sin, which our foremother also witnessed. “The serpent deceived me,” she said, “and I died” (Gen. 3:13). Since that time, our nature, infected with the poison of evil, strives “voluntarily” and “involuntarily” towards evil, which appears to be good and pleasure to a distorted will, a perverted mind, a perverted feeling of the heart. Arbitrarily, because we still have a remnant of freedom in choosing good and evil. Involuntarily, because this remnant of freedom does not act as complete freedom; he operates under the inherent influence of the corruption of sin. We are born this way; we cannot help but be like this, and therefore all of us, without any exception, are in a state of self-delusion and demonic delusion. From this view of the state of people in relation to good and evil, a state that necessarily belongs to every person, the following definition of delusion follows, explaining it with all satisfaction: “delusion is the assimilation by a person of a lie that he has accepted as the truth.” Charm acts initially on the way of thinking; Having been accepted and, having distorted the way of thinking, it is immediately communicated to the heart, distorting the heart’s sensations; Having mastered the essence of a person, it spills over all his activities, poisoning the body itself, as inextricably linked by the Creator with the soul. The state of delusion is a state of destruction or eternal death. Since the fall of man, the devil has had constant free access to him 50. The devil has the right to this access: to his power, by obedience to him, man arbitrarily subjected himself, rejecting obedience to God. God redeemed man. The redeemed man is given the freedom to obey either God or the devil, and in order for this freedom to manifest itself spontaneously, the devil is given access to man. It is very natural that the devil uses every effort to keep a person in the same attitude towards himself, or even to bring him into greater enslavement. To do this, he uses his former and ever-present weapon - lies. He tries to seduce and deceive us, relying on our state of self-delusion; our passions - these painful attractions - he sets in motion; their destructive demands are clothed in plausibility, and are strengthened to incline us to the satisfaction of passions. He who is faithful to the Word of God does not allow himself this satisfaction, curbs passions, repels the attacks of the enemy (James 4:7); acting under the guidance of the Gospel against his own self-delusion, taming passions, thereby gradually destroying the influence of fallen spirits on himself, he little by little emerges from the state of delusion into the realm of truth and freedom (John 8:32), the fullness of which is delivered by the overshadowing of Divine grace. He who is unfaithful to the teachings of Christ, following his own will and reason, submits to the enemy and moves from a state of self-delusion to a state of demonic delusion, loses the remainder of his freedom, and enters into complete submission to the devil. The state of people in demonic delusion can be very diverse, corresponding to the passion by which a person is seduced and enslaved, corresponding to the degree to which a person is enslaved by passion. But all those who have fallen into demonic delusion, that is, through the development of their own self-delusion, who have entered into communication with the devil and enslavement to him, are in delusion, they are churches and tools of demons, victims of eternal death, life in the prisons of hell. Student . Count the types of demonic delusion that come from improper exercise of prayer. Elder. All types of demonic delusion to which the ascetic of prayer is subjected arises from the fact that repentance is not placed at the basis of prayer, that repentance has not become the source, the soul, the goal of prayer. “If anyone,” says St. Gregory of Sinaite in the above article, “with arrogance based on conceit 51 dreams of achieving high states of prayer, and has acquired jealousy that is not true, but satanic, the devil conveniently entangles him with his nets, like his servant.” Anyone who strives to ascend to the marriage of the Son of God, not in clean and bright clothes, arranged by repentance, but directly in his rags, in a state of old age, sinfulness and self-delusion, is cast out into utter darkness, into demonic delusion. “I advise you,” says the Savior to those called to the mystical priesthood, “to buy from Me gold kindled with fire, so that you may become rich, and be clothed with a white robe, so that the shame of your nakedness will not appear; and anoint your sensual eyes and the eyes of your mind with the colluria of tears, so that you may see. I, whom I love, reprove and punish: be jealous and repent” (Rev. 3:18–19). Repentance and everything that it consists of, such as contrition or sickness of the spirit, crying of the heart, tears, self-condemnation, remembrance and anticipation of death, the judgment of God and eternal torment, the feeling of the presence of God, the fear of God - these are the gifts of God, gifts of great price, initial and basic gifts, pledges of higher and eternal gifts. Without first receiving them, giving subsequent gifts is impossible. “No matter how sublime our exploits may be,” said Saint John Climacus, “but if we have not acquired a sick heart, then these exploits are false and in vain” 52 . Repentance, contrition of spirit, crying are signs, they are evidence of the correctness of the prayerful feat; their absence is a sign of deviation in the wrong direction, a sign of self-delusion, delusion or infertility. One or the other, that is, delusion or infertility, constitutes an inevitable consequence of improper exercise in prayer, and improper exercise in prayer is inseparable from self-delusion. The most dangerous wrong image of prayer is when the person praying by the power of imagination creates his own dreams or pictures, borrowing them, apparently, from the Holy Scriptures, but in essence from his own condition, from his fall, from his sinfulness, from his self-delusion - with these pictures he flatters his conceit, his vanity, his arrogance, his pride, he deceives himself. It is obvious that everything created by the dreaminess of our fallen nature, perverted by the fall of nature, does not really exist - there is fiction and a lie, so characteristic and so beloved of the fallen angel. The dreamer, from the first step on the path of prayer, starts from the realm of truth, enters the realm of lies, the realm of Satan, and arbitrarily submits to the influence of Satan. Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, describes the dreamer’s prayer and its fruits as follows: “He raises his hands, eyes and mind to heaven, imagines in his mind - like Klopstock and Milton - Divine conferences, heavenly blessings, orders of holy Angels, villages of saints, in short - collects in his imagination everything that he heard in the Divine Scripture, considers it during prayer, looks at the sky, with all this awakens his soul to Divine desire and love, sometimes sheds tears and cries. Thus, little by little, his heart becomes proud, without understanding it with his mind; he imagines that what he is doing is the fruit of Divine grace for his consolation, and prays to God to grant him to always remain in this work. This is a sign of delusion, even if he remains silent in perfect silence. madness. If this does not happen to him, however, it is impossible for him to ever achieve spiritual reason and virtue or dispassion. Thus those who saw the light and radiance with these bodily eyes, those who smelled the incense with their sense of smell, and those who heard voices with their ears were deceived. Some of them became enraged and moved from place to place, mentally damaged; others accepted the demon, transformed into a bright angel, were deceived and remained uncorrected, even to the end, not accepting advice from any of the brethren; some of them, taught by the devil, killed themselves: some fell into the abyss, others hanged themselves. And who can count the various deceptions of the devil with which he deceives, and which are inscrutable? However, from what we have said, any reasonable person can learn what harm comes from this way of prayer. If any of those who use it are not subjected to any of the above-mentioned disasters due to cohabitation with the brethren, because most hermits living alone are exposed to such disasters, but such a person spends his entire life unsuccessfully” 53 . All the Holy Fathers, who described the feat of mental prayer, forbid not only making up arbitrary dreams, but also bowing with will and sympathy to dreams and ghosts that may present themselves to us unexpectedly, regardless of our will. And this happens during the feat of prayer, especially in silence. “Do not accept,” says St. Gregory of Sinai, “if you see anything, with your sensual eyes or mind, outside or inside you, whether it be the image of Christ, or an Angel, or some Saint, or if light appears to you... Be attentive and careful! Do not allow yourself to trust anything, do not express sympathy and consent, do not hastily trust a phenomenon, even if it is true and good; remain cold and alien to it, constantly keeping your mind formless, not forming any image and not imprinted by any image. He who sees something in thought or sensually, even if it was from God, and accepts it hastily and conveniently falls into delusion, at least revealing his inclination and ability for delusion, as one who accepts phenomena quickly and frivolously. The beginner must pay all attention to one action of the heart, recognize this one action as unattractive, and not accept anything else until the time of entering dispassion. God is not angry with someone who, fearing delusion, watches himself with extreme caution, even if he does not accept something sent from God without examining what was sent with all care; on the contrary, God praises such a one for his prudence." 54. Saint Amphilochius, who entered monasticism from his youth, was honored in his mature years and in his old age to lead a hermit's life in the desert. Confining himself in a cave, he practiced silence, and achieved great success. When "forty" years of his hermit's life were completed, an Angel appeared to him at night and said: Amphilochius! go to the city and feed the spiritual sheep. Amphilochius remained focused on himself and did not pay attention to the command of the Angel. The next night the Angel appeared again and repeated the command, adding that it was from God. And again Amphilochius did not obey the Angel, fearing to be deceived and remembering the words of the Apostle that Satan will also be transformed into a bright Angel (2 Cor. 11:14). On the third night, the Angel appeared again and, having confirmed Amphilochius with the praise of God, intolerant of the rejected spirits, he took the elder by the hand, led him out of the cell, and led him to the church that was nearby. The church doors opened by themselves. The church was illuminated by heavenly light; It was attended by many holy men in white robes with sun-shaped faces. They ordained Amphilochius bishop of the city of Iconium 55. With the opposite behavior, the Monks Isaac and Nikita of Pechersk, new and inexperienced in hermit life, were subjected to a terrible disaster, recklessly trusting the ghost that presented itself to them. To the first a multitude of demons appeared in radiance; one of the demons took the form of Christ, the others - the form of holy angels. The second was seduced by the demon, first with a fragrance and voice, as if from God, then apparently appearing to him in the form of an Angel 56 . Monks experienced in monastic life, truly holy monks, are much more afraid of delusion, much more distrustful of themselves, than novices, especially those novices who are overwhelmed by the fervor for heroic deeds. With heartfelt love, the Monk Gregory of Sinai warns the silent man against delusion, for whom his book was written: “I want you to have a definite understanding of delusion; I want this for the purpose that you can protect yourself from delusion, so that in an endeavor not illuminated by proper knowledge, you will not cause yourself great harm, will not destroy your soul. The free will of man conveniently bows to communication with our opponents, especially the will of the inexperienced, new to the feat, as if still possessed by demons” 57 . How true this is! Our free will is inclined and drawn towards delusion because all delusion flatters our conceit, our vanity, our pride. "Demons are nearby and surround the novices and self-initiated ones, spreading networks of thoughts and harmful dreams, creating abysses of falls. The city of the novices - the entire being of each of them - is still in the possession of the barbarians... Out of frivolity, do not quickly fall into what appears to you, but remain “heavy,” holding back the good with much consideration, and rejecting the evil... Know that the actions of grace are clear; the demon he cannot teach them; he cannot teach meekness, quietness, humility, or hatred of the world; he does not subdue passions and lust, as grace does.” His actions: "arrogance" - arrogance, pomposity - "high-mindedness, insurance, in a word, all types of malice. By action you can know the light that has shone in your soul, whether it is God's or from Satan" 58 . You need to know that such consideration belongs to successful monks, and not to beginners. The Monk Sinaite talks, although with a novice, but with a novice in silent life, who was an elder both in monasticism and in bodily age, as can be seen from the book. Student. Have you ever seen anyone come into demonic delusion from the development of daydreaming while practicing prayer? Elder. It happened. A certain official who lived in St. Petersburg was engaged in an intense feat of prayer, and it brought him into an extraordinary state. He revealed about his feat and its consequences to the then archpriest of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God in Kolomna. The archpriest, having visited a certain monastery of the St. Petersburg diocese, asked one of the monks of that monastery to talk with an official. “The strange situation into which the official came from the feat,” the archpriest rightly said, “can be more conveniently explained by the inhabitants of the monastery, as they are more familiar with the details and accidents of the ascetic feat.” The monk agreed. After some time, the official arrived at the monastery. I was also present during his conversation with the monk. The official immediately began to talk about his visions - that he constantly sees light from icons during prayer, hears a fragrance, feels an extraordinary sweetness in his mouth, and so on. The monk, after listening to this story, asked the official: “Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” - “Why! - the official answered, “I was already thrown into the Fontanka, but they pulled me out." It turned out that the official used the image of prayer described by Saint Simeon, heated up the imagination and blood, and a person becomes very capable of intense fasting and vigil. To the state of self-delusion, chosen arbitrarily, the devil added his own action, akin to this state, - and human self-delusion turned into obvious demonic delusion. The official saw the light with his bodily eyes; the fragrance and sweetness that he felt were also sensual. In contrast, the visions of the Saints and their supernatural states are completely spiritual 60: the ascetic is made capable of them not before the opening of the eyes of the soul by Divine grace, and other feelings of the soul, hitherto inactive, also take part in the grace-filled vision of the Saints; then when the body passes from a passionate state to a dispassionate state. The monk began to persuade the official to abandon the method of prayer he used, explaining both the incorrectness of the method and the incorrectness of the state delivered by the method. The official fiercely opposed the advice. “How can I refuse obvious grace!” - he objected. Listening to the official’s stories about himself, I felt inexplicably sorry for him, and at the same time he seemed somehow funny to me. For example, he asked the monk the following question: “When the saliva in my mouth increases due to the abundance of sweetness, it begins to drip onto the floor: is this not a sin?” Exactly: those who are in demonic delusion arouse regret for themselves, as they do not belong to themselves and are, in mind and heart, captive to an evil, rejected spirit. They are also a funny sight: they are ridiculed by the evil spirit that has taken possession of them, which has brought them into a state of humiliation, seducing them with vanity and arrogance. The seduced do not understand either their captivity or the strangeness of their behavior, no matter how obvious this captivity, this strangeness of behavior may be. I spent the winter of 1828–1829 in the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage 62. At that time there lived an old man who was in delusion. He cut off his hand, hoping to fulfill the Gospel commandment, and told anyone who cared to listen to him that the cut off hand became holy relics, that it was kept and honored splendidly in the Moscow Simonov Monastery, that he, the elder, being in the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage, five hundred versts from Simonov, felt when the Simonovsky archimandrite with the brethren kiss the hand. The old man began to shudder, and he began to hiss very loudly; he recognized this phenomenon as the fruit of prayer, but to the audience it seemed to be a perversion of himself, worthy only of regret and laughter. The children who lived in the monastery as orphans were amused by this phenomenon and copied it before the eyes of the elder. The elder would become angry, rush at one boy or another, and pull them by the hair. None of the venerable monks of the monastery could assure the seduced man that he was in a false state, in mental disorder. When the official left, I asked the monk: “What gave him the idea to ask the official about the attempted suicide?” The monk answered: "Just as in the midst of crying for God there come moments of extraordinary peace of conscience, which is the consolation of those who cry, so in the midst of the false pleasure delivered by demonic delusion, moments come in which delusion is, as it were, exposed and allows itself to be tasted as it is. These moments are terrible! Their bitterness and the despair produced by this bitterness are unbearable. By this state into which delusion leads, it would be easiest to recognize it." seduced, and take measures to heal himself. Alas! the beginning of delusion is pride, and its fruit is abundant pride. The seduced person, recognizing himself as a vessel of Divine grace, despises the saving warnings of his neighbors, as Saint Simeon noted. Meanwhile, the attacks of despair become stronger and stronger; finally, despair turns into insanity, and ends in suicide. At the beginning of this century, schemamonk Theodosius labored in the Sophronius Hermitage 63, attracting the respect of both the brotherhood and the laity with his strict, elevated lifestyle. One day he imagined that he had been caught up into heaven. At the end of the vision, he went to the abbot, told in detail about the miracle, and added an expression of regret that he saw only himself in paradise, and did not see any of the brethren. This feature escaped the abbot's attention; He called the brethren, in contrition of spirit, told them about the vision of the schema-monk, and exhorted them to a life more diligent and pleasing to God. After some time, strange things began to be discovered in the schemamonk’s actions. It ended with him being found hanged in his cell. I had the following incident worthy of note. One day I was visited by the Athonite Hieroschemamonk, who was in Russia collecting. We sat down in my receiving cell, and he began to tell me: “Pray for me, father: I sleep a lot, eat a lot.” When he told me this, I felt the heat emanating from him, which is why I answered him: “You don’t eat much, and you don’t sleep much; but is there anything special about you?” and asked him to enter my inner cell. Walking in front of him and opening the door to the inner cell, I mentally prayed to God that He would grant my smooth soul benefit from the Athos hieroschemamonk, if he is a true servant of God. Exactly: I noticed something special about him. In the inner cell we again sat down to talk, and I began to ask him: “Do me a favor, teach me prayer. You live in the first monastic place on earth, among thousands of monks: in such a place and in such a large gathering of monks there must certainly be great prayer books who know the secret prayer and teach it to their neighbors, following the example of Gregory of Sinaite and Palamas, following the example of many other Athonite lamps." Hieroschemamonk immediately agreed to be my mentor - and, oh horror! with the greatest fervor he began to teach me the above method. enthusiastic, dreamy prayer. I see: he is in terrible heat! His blood and imagination are heated! He is in self-satisfaction, in self-delusion, in delusion! Having allowed him to speak out, I began to gradually, in the rank of a mentor, offer him the teaching of the Holy Fathers on prayer, pointing it out in the Philokalia, and asking Athos to explain this teaching to me. in complete bewilderment. I see: he is completely unfamiliar with the teaching of the Fathers on prayer! As the conversation continues, I say to him: “Look, elder! If you live in St. Petersburg, don’t live on the top floor, but definitely on the bottom.” “Why is that so?” - Afonets objected. “Because,” I answered, “if the angels suddenly decide to take you from St. Petersburg to Athos, and they carry you from the upper floor and drop you, you will be killed to death; if they carry you from the lower floor and drop you, you will only hurt yourself.” “Imagine,” answered Athos, “how many times, when I was standing in prayer, the vivid thought came to me that the angels would capture me and place me on Athos!” It turned out that the hieroschemamonk wears chains, hardly sleeps, eats little food, feels such heat in his body that in winter he does not need warm clothes. Towards the end of the conversation, it occurred to me to do the following: I began to ask Athos, so that he, as a faster and ascetic, would try on himself the method taught by the Holy Fathers, which consists in the fact that during prayer the mind should be completely alien to any daydreaming, immerse itself entirely in the words of the prayer, be contained and contained, in the words of St. John the Climacus, in the words of the prayer 64. At the same time, the heart usually contributes to the mind with a soul-saving feeling of sadness about sins, as the Monk Mark the Ascetic said: “The mind that is not distracted by prayer oppresses the heart: “But God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19)” 65. “When you test yourself,” I said to Athos, “then tell me about the fruit of the experience; for me, such an experience is inconvenient due to the entertaining life I lead.” The Athos resident willingly agreed to my proposal. A few days later he comes to me and says: “What have you done to me?” - "And what?" - “But when I tried to pray with attention, enclosing my mind in the words of prayer, all my visions disappeared, and I can no longer return to them.” Further, in a conversation with Afonets, I did not see that arrogance and that insolence that was very noticeable in him on the first date and which is usually noticed in people who are in self-delusion, imagining that they are saints or are in spiritual success. The Athos resident even expressed a desire to hear my poor advice for himself. When I advised him not to differ in outward way of life from other monks, because such a difference leads to arrogance, 66 he took off his chains and gave them to me. A month later he visited me again and said that the heat in his body had stopped, that he needed warm clothes, and slept much more. At the same time, he said that on Mount Athos many, including those enjoying the glory of holiness, use the method of prayer that was used by him - they teach it to others. No wonder! Saint Simeon, the New Theologian, who lived eight centuries before our time, says that very few people engage in attentive prayer 67 . The Monk Gregory of Sinaite, who lived in the fourteenth century after the birth of Christ, when he arrived on Mount Athos, he found that its numerous monastics had no concept of mental prayer, but were engaged only in physical feats, performing prayers only orally and publicly 68. The Monk Nilus of Sorsky, who lived at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, having also visited Mount Athos, says that in his time the number of attentive prayer books became extremely scarce 69. The elder, Archimandrite Paisiy Velichkovsky moved to Mount Athos from Moldova in 1747. He briefly became acquainted with all the monasteries and monasteries, talked with many elders, who were recognized by the general opinion of the Holy Mountain as the most experienced and holy monks. When he began to ask these monks about the books of the Holy Fathers who wrote about mental prayer, it turned out that they not only did not know about the existence of such Scriptures, but did not even know the names of the holy Writers; at that time the Philokalia had not yet been printed in Greek 70 . Attentive prayer requires self-sacrifice, and few people dare to commit self-sacrifice. Enclosed in attention, in a state of bewilderment at the sight of his sinfulness, incapable of verbosity and, in general, of effect and acting, it seems to those who do not know his mysterious feat as somehow strange, mysterious, insufficient in all respects. Is it easy to part with the world's opinion! And how can the world recognize the ascetic of true prayer, when the feat itself is completely unknown to the world? Whether it’s a matter of self-delusion! He does not eat, does not drink, does not sleep, in winter he walks around in a cassock, wears chains, sees visions, teaches and denounces everyone with daring impudence, without any correctness, without sense or meaning, with a bloody, material, passionate heat, and because of this sad, disastrous heat. Holy, and nothing more! A taste for and attraction to such people in human society has long been noticed: “You will accept,” writes the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, “if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours you, if anyone makes a fool of you, if anyone slaps you in the face, if anyone boasts himself” (2 Cor. 11:20). Further, the holy Apostle says that, having been in Corinth, he could not behave boldly and insolently: his behavior was imprinted with modesty, “the meekness and quietness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1). Most of the ascetics of the Western Church, proclaimed by it to be the greatest saints - after its falling away from the Eastern Church and after the retreat of the Holy Spirit from it - prayed and achieved visions, false, of course, in the way I mentioned. These imaginary saints were in the most terrible demonic delusion. Prelest is already naturally erected on the basis of blasphemy, with which the heretics perverted the dogmatic faith. The behavior of the ascetics of Latinism, overwhelmed by delusion, was always frantic, due to an extraordinary material, passionate fervor. This was the state of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. His imagination was so heated and sophisticated that, as he himself asserted, he only had to want and use some tension for hell or heaven to appear before his eyes, at his will. The appearance of heaven and hell was not accomplished by one act of human imagination; the action of the human imagination alone is not enough for this: the phenomenon was accomplished by the action of demons, who added their abundant action to the insufficient human action, coupled action with action, replenishing action with action, on the basis of the free will of man, who had chosen and adopted a false direction. It is known that the true saints of God are granted visions solely by the good will of God and by the action of God, and not by the will of man and not by his own effort - they are granted unexpectedly, very rarely, in cases of special need, according to the wondrous provision of God, and not as if it happened 71 . The intensified feat of those in delusion usually stands next to deep depravity. Corruption serves as an assessment of the flame that kindles the seduced. This is confirmed by the stories of history and the testimony of the Fathers. "He who sees the spirit of delusion in the phenomena presented to him," said the Monk Maxim Kapsokalivit, "is very often exposed to rage and anger; the incense of humility or prayer, or true tears has no place in him. On the contrary, he constantly boasts of his virtues, is vain, and always indulges in evil passions fearlessly" 72 . Student. The incorrectness of this method of prayer and its connection with self-delusion and prelest are clear; warn me against other types of incorrect prayer and the false state associated with them. Elder. Just as wrong action with the mind leads into self-deception and delusion, so exactly does wrong action with the heart lead into them. Filled with reckless pride, the desire and desire to see spiritual visions with a mind that is not cleansed of passions, not renewed and not recreated by the right hand of the Holy Spirit; filled with the same pride and recklessness, the desire and desire of the heart to enjoy holy, spiritual, Divine sensations, when it is still completely incapable of such pleasures. Just as an unclean mind, wanting to see Divine visions and not being able to see them, composes visions for itself from itself, deceives itself and deceives itself with them, so the heart, intensifying to taste Divine sweetness and other Divine sensations, and not finding them in itself, composes them from itself, flatters itself with them, seduces, deceives, destroys itself, entering the realm of lies, into communication with demons, submitting to their influence, enslaving to their power. One sensation of all the sensations of the heart, in its state of fall, can be used in invisible Divine services: sadness about sins, about sinfulness, about the fall, about one’s destruction, called crying, repentance, contrition of the spirit. This is attested to by the Holy Scriptures. “If you had wanted sacrifices, you would have given them; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings” (Ps. 50:18): and each heartfelt sensation separately, and all of them together, are not pleasing to You, as defiled by sin, as perverted by the fall. “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit: a contrite and humble heart God will not despise” (Ps. 50:19). This sacrifice is a negative sacrifice; with the offering of this sacrifice, the offering of other sacrifices is naturally eliminated; with the feeling of repentance, all other sensations become silent. In order for the sacrifices of other sensations to become pleasing to God, the favor of God must first be poured out on our Zion, the walls of our destroyed Jerusalem must first be restored. The Lord is righteous, all-holy; Only righteous, pure sacrifices, of which human nature is capable after its renewal, are favorable to the righteous, all-holy Lord. He does not take pleasure in desecrated sacrifices and burnt offerings. Let us take care to cleanse ourselves through repentance! “Then you will be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, the wave offering and the burnt offering; then they will lay the bullocks on Your altar” (Ps. 50:21): newborn sensations of a person renewed by the Holy Spirit. The first commandment given by the Savior of the world to all mankind without exception is the commandment of repentance: “Jesus began to preach and say: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17). This commandment embraces, concludes, combines all other commandments. To those people who did not understand the meaning and power of repentance, the Savior said more than once: “Go ahead and learn that I want mercy and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). This means: the Lord, having mercy on fallen and lost people, granted repentance to everyone as the only means of salvation, because everyone was overwhelmed by fall and destruction. He does not demand, does not even desire from them sacrifices for which they are not capable, but wants them to have mercy on themselves, recognize their misfortune, and free themselves from it through repentance. To the mentioned words the Lord added terrible words: “I have not come,” He said, “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Who are called righteous? those unfortunate, blind sinners who, being deceived by self-conceit, do not find repentance essential for themselves, and therefore either reject it or neglect it. O misfortune! For this, the Savior denies them, and they lose the treasure of salvation. "Woe to the soul," says the Monk Macarius the Great, "that does not feel its ulcers and imagines itself, because of the great, immeasurable damage by malice, that it is completely alien to damage by malice. Such a soul is no longer visited and healed by the good Physician, as if it arbitrarily left its ulcers without care for them, and imagines itself that it is healthy and blameless. "They do not demand," He says, "health doctor, but sick” (Matthew 9:12)” 73. Terrible cruelty to oneself - rejection of repentance! Terrible coldness, dislike for oneself - neglect of repentance. He who is cruel to himself cannot but be cruel to his neighbors. He who is merciful to himself by accepting repentance becomes merciful to his neighbors. From this one can see the whole importance of the mistake: to take away from the heart what God Himself commanded to it, the feeling of repentance that is essential and logically necessary for the heart, and to strive to reveal in the heart, contrary to order, contrary to the establishment of God, those feelings that should naturally appear in it after cleansing by repentance, but in a completely different character 74 . A person cannot form any idea about this spiritual, carnal character: because the idea of ​​sensation is always based on sensations already known to the heart, and spiritual sensations are completely alien to the heart, which is familiar only with carnal and spiritual sensations. Such a heart does not even know about the existence of spiritual sensations. Everyone knows what kind of spiritual distress arose for the Jewish scribes and Pharisees from their wrong spiritual mood: they became not only alien to God, but also frantic enemies of Him, deicides. Ascetics of prayer are subjected to a similar calamity, who have expelled repentance from their feat, who are intensifying to arouse love for God in their hearts, who are intensifying to feel pleasure and delight; They develop their fall, make themselves alien to God, enter into communication with Satan, and become infected with hatred of the Holy Spirit. This kind of charm is terrible; it is equally destructive to the soul as the first, but is less obvious, it rarely ends in madness and suicide, but it decisively corrupts both the mind and the heart. Based on the state of mind it produces, the Fathers called it “opinion” 75. The holy Apostle Paul points to this kind of delusion when he says: “Let no one deceive you with the humility of mind that is bestowed upon him and the service of angels, even though he did not teach, being driven madly by the mind of his own flesh” (Col. 2:18). He who is obsessed with this delusion thinks of himself, has created an “opinion” about himself that he has many virtues and virtues, even that he is abounding in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Opinion is made up of false concepts and false sensations: according to this property, it completely belongs to the realm of the father and representative of lies - the devil. The person praying, striving to reveal the sensations of a new person in his heart, and not having any opportunity to do so, replaces them with sensations of his own creation, counterfeit ones, to which the action of fallen spirits is not slow to join. Having recognized the wrong sensations, his own and the demonic, as true and grace-filled, he receives concepts corresponding to the sensations. These sensations, constantly assimilated into the heart and intensified in it, feed and multiply false concepts; Naturally, from such an incorrect feat, self-delusion and demonic delusion are formed - “opinion”. “Opinion does not allow imaginary things to be 76,” said Saint Simeon, the New Theologian. He who imagines himself to be passionless will never be cleansed of passions; He who imagines himself to be full of grace will never receive grace; He who thinks he is holy will never achieve holiness. It’s easy to say: he who ascribes to himself spiritual works, virtues, virtues, gifts of grace, flatters himself and amuses himself with “opinion”, with this “opinion” he blocks the entrance to spiritual works, Christian virtues and Divine grace - opens wide the entrance to sinful infection and demons. There is no longer any ability for spiritual success in those infected with “opinion”: they destroyed this ability, bringing to the altar of lies the very beginnings of human activity and his salvation - the concept of truth. Extraordinary pompousness is this charm in those who are ill: they seem to be intoxicated with themselves, with their state of self-delusion, seeing in it a state of grace. They are imbued with, filled with arrogance and pride, appearing, however, humble to many who judge by appearance, unable to evaluate by fruits, as the Savior commanded (Matthew 7:16, 12:33), much less by spiritual feeling, which is mentioned by the Apostle (Heb. 5:14). The Prophet Isaiah picturesquely depicted the effect of the charm of “opinion” in the fallen archangel, an action that seduced and destroyed this archangel. “You,” says the prophet to Satan, “thou hast said in thy mind: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will sit on the highest mountain, on the high mountains even to the north, I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Now you will go down to hell and to the foundations of the earth” (Is. 14:13–15). The Lord denounces the one infected with “opinion” as follows: “Speak, for you are rich, and have become rich, and demand nothing, and do not weigh, for you are wretched, and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). The Lord exhorts the seduced to repentance, offers to buy from no one else, from the Lord Himself, the necessary needs that constitute repentance (Rev. 3:18). The purchase is urgently needed: without it there is no salvation. There is no salvation without repentance, and repentance is accepted from God only by those who, in order to accept it, will sell all their property, that is, renounce everything that they have falsely acquired through “opinion.” Student. Have you ever met someone infected with this type of charm? Elder. “Opinions” infected with charm are very common. Anyone who does not have a contrite spirit, who recognizes any merits and merits in himself, anyone who does not steadfastly adhere to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, but argues about some dogma or tradition arbitrarily, at his own discretion, or according to heterodox teaching, is in this delusion. The degree of evasion and persistence in evasion determines the degree of prelest. Weak man! “opinion” certainly creeps into us in some form, and, realizing our “I,” removes the grace of God from us. Just as there is, according to the remark of Saint Macarius the Great, not a single person who is completely free from pride, so there is not a single person who would be completely free from the influence of the subtle charm called “opinion” on him. It was slandered by the Apostle Paul, and was healed by the grave allowances of God. “We do not want you, brethren,” writes the Apostle to the Corinthians, “to be ignorant of our sorrow that happened to us in Asia, for we were burdened with great and greater burdens, as if we had no hope of living. But we have within ourselves the condemnation of death, so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8-9). For this reason, one must vigilantly watch oneself so as not to attribute to oneself any good deed, any commendable quality or special natural ability, even a state of grace, if a person has been elevated to it, in short, so as not to recognize any dignity in oneself. “What have you,” says the Apostle, “that you would not receive” from God? (1 Cor. 4:7) From God we have both being and re-being, and all natural properties, all abilities, both spiritual and bodily. We are debtors to God! Our debt is unpayable! From such a view of ourselves, a state is formed by itself for our spirit, the opposite of “opinion,” a state that the Lord called poverty of spirit, which He commanded us to have, which He pleased (Matthew 5:3). It is a great disaster to deviate from the dogmatic and moral teaching of the Church, from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, by any kind of speculation! this is “a charge levied on the mind of God.” Such a mind must be cast down and taken captive “into the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). Student. Is there any connection between the delusion of the first kind and the delusion of the second kind? Elder. There is certainly a connection between these two types of charm. The first kind of delusion is always connected with the second kind of delusion, with “opinion.” He who composes seductive images through the natural ability of imagination, who combines these images into a charming picture through dreaminess, 77 who subordinates his entire being to the seductive, powerful influence of this painting, certainly, out of unfortunate necessity, “thinks” that this painting is produced by the action of Divine grace, that the heartfelt sensations excited by painting are sensations of grace. The second kind of charm—actually “opinion”—acts without creating seductive pictures; she is content with inventing counterfeit, grace-filled sensations and states, from which a false, perverse concept of all spiritual achievement is born. He who is in the delusion of “opinion” acquires a false view of everything around him. He is deceived both within himself and without. Reverie has a strong effect on those who are seduced by “opinion,” but it acts exclusively in the realm of the abstract. She either does not engage at all, or rarely engages in painting in the imagination of paradise, heavenly abodes and palaces, heavenly light and fragrance, Christ, Angels and Saints; she constantly invents pseudo-spiritual states, close friendship with Jesus 78, internal conversation with Him 79, mysterious revelations 80, voices, pleasures; she builds on them a false concept of herself and of the Christian feat, builds a generally false way of thinking and a false mood of the heart, leading either into ecstasy with herself, or into excitement and enthusiasm. These various sensations arise from the action of refined vanity and voluptuousness: from this action the blood receives a sinful, seductive movement, which appears as a blessed pleasure. Vanity and voluptuousness are aroused by arrogance, this inseparable companion of “opinion.” Terrible pride, similar to the pride of demons, is the dominant quality of those who have acquired both charms. Pride leads those seduced by the first type of charm into a state of obvious insanity; in those deceived by the second type, it, also producing mental damage, called in Scripture corruption of the mind (2 Tim. 3:8), is less noticeable, clothed in the guise of humility, piety, wisdom, and is known by its bitter fruits. Those infected with an “opinion” about their own merits, especially about their holiness, are capable and ready for all intrigues, all hypocrisy, deceit and deception, all atrocities. They breathe irreconcilable enmity against the servants of truth, rushing at them with furious hatred when they do not recognize in the deceived the state attributed to them and exposed to shame by the blind world of “opinion.” Student . There are also spiritual states produced by Divine grace, such as the state in which spiritual sweetness and joy are tasted, the state in which the secrets of Christianity are revealed, the state in which the presence of the Holy Spirit is felt in the heart, the state in which the ascetic of Christ is granted spiritual visions? Elder. Undoubtedly they exist, but they exist only in Christians who have achieved Christian perfection, previously purified and prepared by repentance. The gradual effect of repentance in general, expressed by all types of humility, especially prayer brought from poverty of spirit, from crying, gradually weakens the effect of sin in a person. This requires considerable time. And it is given to true, well-intentioned ascetics by the providence of God, who vigilantly watches over us. The fight against passions is extremely useful: it most of all leads to poverty of spirit. For the purpose of our significant benefit, our Judge and God “suffers long” for us, and does not quickly “take revenge” (Luke 18:7) on our rival - sin. When the passions have weakened greatly - this happens most towards the end of life 81 - then little by little spiritual states will begin to appear, distinguished by an infinite difference from the states created by “opinion”. Firstly, gracious crying enters the spiritual church, washes it and makes it white for the acceptance of gifts that follow crying according to the establishment of the spiritual law. A carnal person in no way, in any way, can even imagine spiritual states, cannot have any concept below about gracious crying: the knowledge of these states is acquired only by experience 82. Spiritual gifts are distributed with Divine wisdom, which watches so that the verbal vessel, which must receive the gift, can endure the power of the gift without harm to itself. New wine bursts old wineskins! (Matthew 9:17). It is noted that, at the present time, spiritual gifts are distributed with the greatest moderation, in accordance with the relaxation that has enveloped Christianity in general. These gifts satisfy almost exclusively the needs of salvation. On the contrary, “opinion” squanders its gifts in immeasurable abundance and with the greatest haste. A common sign of spiritual states is deep humility and humbleness of mind, combined with preference for oneself of all neighbors, with disposition, evangelical love for all neighbors, with a desire for the unknown, for removal from the world. “Opinion” has little place here, because humility consists in the renunciation of all one’s own merits, in the essential confession of the Redeemer, in the consolidation of all hope and support in Him, and “opinion” consists in appropriating for oneself the virtues given by God, and in inventing for oneself non-existent virtues. It is combined with self-reliance, with a cold, superficial confession of the Redeemer. God is glorified to glorify himself, just as he was glorified by the Pharisee (Luke 18:11). Those obsessed with “opinion” are for the most part given over to voluptuousness, despite the fact that they attribute to themselves the most sublime spiritual states, unparalleled in correct Orthodox asceticism; few of them refrain from gross enslavement to voluptuousness - they refrain solely because of the predominance of sin among sins - pride. Student. Can the delusion called “opinion” produce any tangible, visible unhappy consequences? Elder. From this kind of delusion arose destructive heresies, schisms, atheism, and blasphemy. Its most unfortunate visible consequence is wrong, harmful activity for oneself and for one’s neighbors—evil, despite its clarity and vastness, is little noticed and little understood. Misfortunes, obvious to everyone, happen to those who are infected with “opinion”, but rarely: because “opinion,” leading the mind into the most terrible delusion, does not lead it into frenzy, as a disordered imagination does. – On Valaam Island, in a remote deserted hut, lived Schemamonk Porfiry, whom I also saw. He was engaged in the feat of prayer. What kind of feat this was, I really don’t know. One can guess that it was incorrect from the schemamonk’s favorite reading: he highly valued the book of the Western writer Thomas à Kempis on the imitation of Jesus Christ, and was guided by it. This book is written from an “opinion”. Porfiry one evening, in the autumn, visited the elders of the monastery, from which its desert was not far away. When he said goodbye to the elders, they warned him, saying: “Don’t even try to walk on the ice: the ice has just risen and is very thin.” The Porfiry desert was separated from the monastery by a deep bay of Lake Ladoga, which had to be bypassed. Schemamonk answered in a quiet voice, with outward modesty: “I have already become light.” He left. A short time later, a desperate scream was heard. The skete elders became alarmed and ran out. It was dark; They did not soon find the place where the misfortune occurred, they did not soon find the means to get the drowned man; They pulled out the body, already abandoned by the soul. Student . You say about the book “Imitation” that it was written out of a state of self-delusion, but it has many readers even among the children of the Orthodox Church! Elder. These admirers are delighted with her dignity, and speak out about this dignity, without realizing it. In the preface of the Russian translator to the book “Imitation” - an 1834 edition published in Moscow - it is said: “One highly enlightened man - Russian, Orthodox - used to say: if my opinion were needed, then I would boldly put Kempis after the Holy Scriptures on the imitation of Jesus Christ” 83 . In this so decisive verdict, the heterodox writer is given complete preference over all the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, and his own view is given preference over the definition of the entire Church, which at the holy Councils recognized the writings of the Holy Fathers as God-inspired, and bequeathed the reading of them not only for the edification of all their children, but also for guidance in resolving Church issues. The writings of the Fathers contain a great spiritual, Christian and ecclesiastical treasure: the dogmatic and moral tradition of the Holy Church. It is obvious that the book “Imitation” brought the mentioned husband into the mood from which he expressed himself so recklessly, so mistakenly, so sadly 84. This is self-delusion! this is lovely! it was made up of false concepts; false concepts were born from the wrong sensations conveyed by the book. The anointing of an evil spirit lives in the book and breathes from the book, flattering readers, intoxicating them with the poison of lies, sweetened with refined seasonings of arrogance, vanity and voluptuousness. The book leads its readers directly to communion with God, without pre-purification by repentance, which is why it arouses special sympathy for itself in passionate people, unfamiliar with the path of repentance, not protected from self-delusion and delusion, not instructed in correct living by the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. The book has a strong effect on the blood and nerves, excites them, and therefore it is especially liked by people enslaved to sensuality; a book can be enjoyed without giving up the raw pleasures of sensuality. High-mindedness, refined voluptuousness and vanity are presented by the book as the action of God's grace. Having smelled their fornication in its subtle action, carnal people are delighted with pleasure, with intoxication, delivered without difficulty, without self-sacrifice, without repentance, without “crucifixion of the flesh with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), with caressing the state of fall. They joyfully move, led by their blindness and pride, from the bed of bestial love to the bed of more criminal love, which dominates the fornication of outcast spirits. A certain person, who by earthly status belonged to the highest and most educated society, and in appearance to the Orthodox Church, expressed herself as follows about the deceased Lutheran woman, recognized by this person as a saint: “She loved God passionately; she thought only about God; she saw only God; she read only the Gospel and the Imitation, which is the second Gospel” 85. These words express exactly the state into which the readers of “Imitation” are brought. – Identical, in essence, with this phrase is the saying of the famous French writer, Madame de Sevigne, about the famous French poet, Racine the Elder. “He loves God,” Madame Sevigne allowed herself to say, “as before he loved his concubines” 86 . The famous critic La Harpe, who was at first an atheist, then switched to Christianity, which was misunderstood and distorted by him, approving of Madame Sevigne’s expression, said: “The heart with which the Creator and the creature are loved are one, although the consequences differ as much from each other as the objects are different” 87 . Racine moved from depravity to charm, called “opinion.” This charm is expressed with all clarity in the poet’s last two tragedies: “Esther” and “Athaliah”. Racine's lofty Christian thoughts and feelings found a spacious place in the church of the Muses and Apollo, 88 and in the theater they aroused delight and applause. “Athaliah,” recognized as Racine’s greatest work, was given forty times in a row. The spirit of this tragedy is one with the spirit of “Imitation”. – We believe that in the human heart there is bestial lust, brought into it by the fall, which is in correlation with the lust of fallen spirits; we believe that there is also a spiritual lust in the heart, with which we are created, with which God and neighbor are naturally and correctly loved, which is in harmony 89 with the lust of the holy Angels. In order to love God and our neighbor in God, it is necessary to cleanse ourselves of bestial lust. Cleansing is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in a person who expresses through his life the will to cleanse. Actually, what is called the heart, in a moral sense, is lust and other spiritual forces, and not a member of the flesh - the heart. The forces are concentrated in this member, and the name is transferred by common usage from the member to the collection of forces. In contrast to the feeling of carnal people, spiritual men, having smelled the stench of evil pretending to be good, immediately feel disgust from the book that emits this stench. Elder Isaiah, a monk who was silent in the Nikiforov Hermitage 90, who had succeeded in mental prayer and was granted grace-filled overshadowing, was read an excerpt from “Imitation.” The elder immediately understood the meaning of the book. He laughed and exclaimed: "Oh! this is written from an opinion. Nothing here is true! Everything here is made up! How spiritual states seemed to Thomas and how he imagined them, not knowing them from experience, is how he described them." Charm, like misfortune, is a sad spectacle; like an absurdity, she is a funny sight. Well-known for his strict life, Archimandrite of the Kirillo-Novoezersk Monastery 91 Theophan, who in the simplicity of his heart was engaged almost exclusively in physical feats, and had the most moderate concept of spiritual feats, first suggested to those who consulted with him and were under his leadership, reading the book “Imitation”; a few years before his death, he began to prohibit reading it, saying with holy simplicity: “before I recognized this book as beneficial to the soul, but God revealed to me that it was harmful to the soul.” The same opinion about “Imitation” was held by Hieroschemamonk Leonid, known for his active monastic experience, who laid the foundation for moral improvement in the Optina Hermitage 92. All the mentioned ascetics were known to me personally. – A certain landowner, brought up in the spirit of Orthodoxy, who knew briefly the so-called big world, that is, the world, in its upper strata, once saw the book “Imitation” in the hands of his daughter. He forbade her to read the book, saying: “I don’t want you to follow fashion and flirt with God.” The most accurate assessment of the book. Student. Are there other types of charm? Elder. All particular types of self-delusion and deception by demons belong to the two main types mentioned above, and occur either from the wrong action of the mind, or from the wrong action of the heart. The effect of “opinion” is especially broad. It is not without reason that the spiritual mood of those monks who, having rejected the exercise of the Jesus Prayer and mental work in general, are satisfied with external prayer alone, that is, non-missing participation in church services and non-missing fulfillment of the cell rule, consisting exclusively of psalmody and oral and vowel prayers, is attributed to a state of self-delusion and delusion. They cannot avoid “opinion,” as the mentioned Elder Basil explains in the preface to the book of St. Gregory of Sinaite, referring mainly to the writings of the monks, this Gregory and Simeon, the New Theologian. A sign of an infiltrated “opinion” is revealed in ascetics when they think about themselves that they lead an attentive life, often despise others out of pride, speak ill of them, consider themselves worthy, in their own opinion, to be shepherds of sheep and their leaders, becoming like a blind man who undertakes to show the way to other blind men 93 . Oral and public prayer is fruitful when it is accompanied by attention, which is very rare, because we learn attention mainly by practicing the Jesus Prayer 94 . On true and false humility “Let no one deceive you with the humbleness of mind that was bestowed upon him” (Colossians 2:18), said the Holy Apostle Paul. True humility consists of obedience and following Christ (Phil. 2:5-8). True humility is spiritual intelligence. It is a gift from God; it is the action of Divine grace in the mind and heart of man. There can also be arbitrary humility: it is created for itself by a vain soul, a soul seduced and deceived by false teaching, a soul that flatters itself, a soul seeking flattery from the world, a soul that is entirely striving for earthly prosperity and earthly pleasures, a soul that has forgotten about eternity, about God. Arbitrary, self-created humility consists of countless varied tricks with which human pride tries to capture the glory of humility from a blind world, from a world that loves its own, from a world that exalts vice, when vice is clothed in the guise of virtue, from a world that hates virtue, when virtue stands before its eyes in its holy simplicity, holy and firm. obedience to the Gospel. Nothing is more hostile to the humility of Christ than self-willed humility, which rejects the yoke of obedience to Christ and, under the cover of hypocritical service to God, sacrilegiously serves Satan. If we constantly look at our sin, if we try to see it in detail, then we will not find any virtue in ourselves, we will not find humility. True, holy virtue is covered with true humility: thus a chaste virgin covers her beauty with a veil; Thus the Holy of Holies is closed with a veil from the eyes of the people. True humility is an evangelical character, an evangelical disposition, an evangelical way of thinking. True humility is a Divine mystery: it is inaccessible to comprehend human actions. Being the highest wisdom, it seems like a riot to the carnal mind. The Divine mystery of humility is revealed by the Lord Jesus to His faithful disciple, who continually sits at His feet and listens to His life-giving words. And open, it remains hidden: it is inexplicable by word and earthly language. It is incomprehensible to the carnal mind: it is incomprehensible to the spiritual mind, and, comprehended, remains incomprehensible. Humility is heavenly life on earth. The gracious, wondrous vision of the greatness of God and the countless benefits of God to man, the gracious knowledge of the Redeemer, following Him with selflessness, the vision of the pernicious abyss into which the human race has fallen - these are the invisible signs of humility, these are the original palaces of this spiritual chamber created by the God-man. Humility does not see oneself as humble. On the contrary, it sees a lot of pride in itself. It takes care to find all its branches; looking for them, he sees that there is a lot more to look for. Venerable Macarius of Egypt, named Great by the Church for the excellence of his virtues, especially for his deep humility. The Father, the standard-bearer and the Spirit-bearer, said in his sublime, holy, mysterious conversations that the purest and most perfect person has something proud in himself 95 . This saint of God reached the highest degree of Christian perfection, lived in times abundant with saints, saw the greatest of the holy monks, Anthony the Great, and said that he had not seen a single person who could be called perfect in the exact sense of the word 96. False humility sees itself as humble: it is funny and pitifully comforted by this deceptive, soul-destroying spectacle. Satan takes the form of a bright Angel; his apostles take on the image of the Apostles of Christ (2 Cor. 11:13–15); his teaching takes on the form of the teaching of Christ; the states produced by his deceptions take the form of spiritual, grace-filled states: his pride and vanity, the self-delusion and delusion they produce, take the form of the humility of Christ. Oh! Where they hide from unfortunate dreamers, from dreamers who are wretchedly satisfied with themselves, their states of self-delusion, from dreamers who think to enjoy and be blissful, where they hide from them the words of the Savior: “Blessed are those who weep now, ... blessed are those who hunger now,” and “woe to you who are now full, ... woe to you who laugh now” (Luke 6:21, 25). Look more closely, look impartially at your soul, beloved brother! Isn’t repentance better for her than pleasure! Isn’t it better for her to cry on earth, in this vale of sorrows, designated specifically for crying, than to invent for herself untimely, seductive, absurd, destructive pleasures! Repentance and mourning for sins bring eternal bliss: this is known; it is authentic; this has been declared by the Lord. Why don’t you immerse yourself in these holy states, not abide in them, but create pleasures for yourself, be satiated with them, be satisfied with them, with them destroy in yourself the blessed hunger and thirst for God’s truth, the blessed and saving sadness about your sins and sinfulness. Hunger and thirst for God's truth are witnesses of poverty of spirit: crying is an expression of humility, its voice. The absence of crying, saturation with oneself and enjoyment of one’s pseudo-spiritual state expose the pride of the heart. Be afraid that, for empty, seductive pleasure, you do not inherit the eternal grief promised by God for those who are now saturated without permission, contrary to the will of God. Vanity and its children - false spiritual pleasures, acting in a soul not imbued with repentance, create the ghost of humility. This ghost replaces true humility for the soul. The ghost of truth, having occupied the church of the soul, blocks all entrances to the spiritual church for Truth itself. Alas, my soul, God-created church of truth! - having accepted the ghost of truth into yourself, bowing to lies instead of Truth, you become a church! An idol is erected in the church: the opinion of humility. The opinion of humility is the most terrible kind of pride. It is difficult to drive out pride when a person recognizes it as pride, but how can he drive it out when it seems to him like his humility? In this church there is a woeful abomination of desolation! In this church the incense of idolatry is poured out, chants are sung, with which hell is amused. There, the thoughts and feelings of the soul eat forbidden food sacrificed to idols, and revel in wine mixed with deadly poison. The church, the dwelling of idols and all uncleanness, is inaccessible not only to Divine grace, to the gift of spirituality, but also inaccessible to any true virtue, or to any gospel commandment. False humility blinds a person so much that it forces him not only to think about himself, to hint to others that he is humble, but to say it openly, to preach loudly 97 . Lies cruelly mock us when, deceived by them, we recognize them as truth. Grace-filled humility is invisible, just as its giver, God, is invisible. It is closed with silence, simplicity, sincerity, ease, freedom. False humility always has an artificial appearance: it publishes itself with it. False humility loves scenes: with them it deceives and is deceived. The humility of Christ is clothed in a tunic and robe (John 19:24), in clothing, the most artless: covered with this clothing, it is not recognized and not noticed by people. Humility is a guarantee in the heart, a sacred, nameless heart quality. A divine skill, born in an inconspicuous way in the soul, from the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments 98. The action of humility can be likened to the action of the passion of love of money. Infected with the disease of faith and love for perishable treasures, the more he accumulates them, the more greedy and insatiable he becomes for them. The richer he gets, the poorer and more insufficient he appears to himself. So, guided by humility, the more rich he becomes in virtues and spiritual gifts, the more meager and insignificant he becomes before his own eyes. This is natural. When a person has not yet tasted the highest good, then his own good, defiled by sin, has value before him. When he partakes of the Divine, spiritual good, then his own good, combined and mixed with evil, is priceless before him. A bag of coppersmiths, collected by him over a long period of time with difficulty and fatigue, is precious to the beggar. The rich man unexpectedly poured a countless number of pure ducats into its bowels, and the beggar threw the bag of copper coins with contempt, as if it were a burden that was only weighing him down. The righteous, long-suffering Job, after enduring fierce temptations, was honored with the vision of God. Then he said to God in inspired prayer: “By the hearing of the ear, I heard Thee first, now my eye has seen Thee.” What fruit has grown in the soul of the righteous from the vision of God? “Meanwhile,” Job continues and concludes his prayer, “I reproached myself, and ceased; and I consider myself earth and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6). Do you want to acquire humility? Fulfill the Gospel commandments: together with them, holy humility, that is, the properties of our Lord Jesus Christ, will dwell in your heart and be assimilated by it. The beginning of humility is poverty of spirit; the middle is success in it, the world of Christ, which surpasses all understanding and comprehension; the end and perfection is the love of Christ. Humility never gets angry, does not please people, does not indulge in sadness, and is not afraid of anything. Can one who has recognized himself in advance as worthy of all sorrow indulge in sorrow? Can one who has doomed himself to sorrow in advance, who looks at them as a means of salvation, be afraid of disasters? The saints of God loved the words of the prudent thief, who was crucified near the Lord. During their sorrows, they used to say: “We will accept what is worthy according to our deeds; ...remember us, O Lord... in Your Kingdom” (Luke 23:41–42). They meet any sorrow with the recognition that they are worthy of it 99. Holy peace enters their hearts with words of humility! He brings the cup of spiritual consolation to the bed of the sick, and to the prisoner, to those imprisoned in it, to those persecuted by men, and to those persecuted by demons. The cup of consolation is offered by the hand of humility to the one crucified on the cross; the world can only bring him “cet mixed with gall” (Matthew 27:34.) A humble person is incapable of having malice and hatred: he has no enemies. If one of the people offends him, he sees in this person an instrument of justice, or the providence of God. The humble surrenders himself entirely to the will of God. The humble person does not live by his own life, but by God. The humble person is free from arrogance, and therefore he constantly seeks God’s help and constantly remains in prayer. A fruitful branch bends toward the ground, weighed down by the multitude and weight of its fruits. A barren branch grows upward, multiplying its barren shoots. A soul rich in gospel virtues sinks deeper and deeper into humility, and in the depths of this sea finds precious pearls: the gifts of the Spirit. Pride is a sure sign of an empty person, a slave of passions, a sign of a soul in which the teaching of Christ has not found any access. Don't judge a person by his appearance; do not conclude about him that he is proud or humble. “Do not judge by their appearance,” but “by their fruit you will know them” (John 7:24; Matt. 7:16). The Lord ordered to know people from their actions, from their behavior, from the consequences that follow from their actions. “I know your pride and the malice of your heart” (1 Chronicles 17:28), his neighbor said to David; but God testified about David: “I found My servant David, and anointed him with My holy oil” (Ps. 88:21). “Man does not see as God sees: as man sees on the outward appearance, but God sees on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Blind judges often recognize a hypocrite and a low people-pleaser as humble: he is an abyss of vanity. On the contrary, for these ignorant judges, he appears to be proud, not seeking praise and rewards from men, and therefore not groveling before men, but he is a true servant of God; he felt the glory of God, revealed only to the humble, felt the stench of human glory, and turned away from it both the eyes and the sense of smell of his soul. “What does it mean to believe?” - they asked one great saint of God. He answered: “To believe means to be in humility and mercy 100. Humility relies on God - not on itself and not on people, and therefore in its behavior it is simple, direct, firm, majestic. The blind sons of the world call it pride. Humility does not place any value on earthly goods; in his eyes, God is great, and the Gospel is great. It strives for them, not deigning decay and vanity with either attention or gaze. The sons of corruption, the servants of vanity, call holy coldness towards corruption and vanity pride. There is a holy bow out of humility, out of respect for one’s neighbor, out of respect for the image of God, out of respect for Christ in one’s neighbor. And there is a vicious bow, a selfish bow, a man-pleasing and at the same time misanthropic bow, a god-hating and god-abominable bow: Satan asked the God-man for it, offering for him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Luke 4:7). How many people still worship today to gain earthly benefits! Those they worship praise their humility. Be careful, observe: does the one who worships you bow out of respect for the person, out of a feeling of love and humility? Or his bow only amuses your pride, lures you out of some temporary benefit. Great of the earth! Take a closer look: vanity, flattery, and meanness are crawling before you! When they achieve their goal, they will mock you and betray you at the first opportunity. Never pour out your generosity on the vain: the vain is as low as he is before his superiors, so arrogant, impudent, and inhuman with his inferiors 101. You recognize a vain person by his special ability for flattery, helpfulness, lies, and everything base and base. Pilate was offended by Christ’s silence, which seemed proud to him. “Do you not answer me,” he said, “or do you not know that I have the power to release You and the power to crucify You” (John 19:10). The Lord explained his silence by the manifestation of the will of God, of which Pilate, who thought to act independently, was only a blind instrument. Pilate, from his own pride, was unable to understand that he was faced with all-perfect humility: God incarnate. A lofty soul, a soul with heavenly hope, with contempt for the corruptible goods of the world, is incapable of petty people-pleasing and sycophancy. You mistakenly call this soul proud, because it does not satisfy the demands of your passions. Haman! Almost blessed, Godly pride of Mordecai! This pride, in your eyes, is holy humility 102. Humility is the teaching of the Gospel, the virtue of the Gospel, the mysterious power of Christ. God, clothed in humility, appeared to men, and whoever clothed in humility becomes God-like 103. “If anyone wants to walk after Me,” proclaims Holy Humility: let him deny himself and take up his cross, and come after Me” (Matthew 16:24). Otherwise, it is impossible to be a disciple and follower of the One who humbled himself to death, to death on the cross. He sat down at the right hand of the Father. He is the New Adam, the Founder of the holy tribe of the chosen ones. Faith in Him includes one among the elect; election is accepted by holy humility, sealed by holy love. Amen. That terrible time will come, that terrible hour will come, in which all my sins will appear naked before God the Judge, before His Angels, before all humanity. Anticipating the state of my soul at this menacing hour, I am filled with horror. Under the influence of a living and strong premonition, with trepidation I hasten to immerse myself in examining myself, I hasten to believe in the book of my conscience the sins marked by my deeds, words, and thoughts. Books that have been unread for a long time, stagnant in closets, become saturated with dust and moth-eaten. Anyone who takes such a book encounters great difficulty in reading it. This is my conscience. Not reviewed for a long time, it could hardly be opened. Opening it, I do not find the expected satisfaction. Only major sins are listed quite clearly; the small writings, of which there are many, have almost been erased, and it is now impossible to make out what was depicted by them. God, God alone, can restore brightness to faded writing and deliver man “from an evil conscience” (Heb. 10:22). God alone can give man the sight of his sins and the sight of his sin - his fall, in which is the root, seed, germ, the totality of all human sins. Having called on the mercy and power of God for help, calling them to help with the warmest prayer, combined with prudent fasting, combined with crying and sobbing of the heart, I again open the book of conscience, again I peer into the quantity and quality of my sins; I look closely at what the sins I have committed have produced for me? I see: “My iniquities have surpassed my head, like a heavy burden has weighed down on me, ... multiplying more than the hair of my head” (Psalm 37:5, 39:13). What is the consequence of such sinfulness? “My iniquities befell me and I was unable to see; leave me my heart” (Psalm 39:13). The consequences of a sinful life are blindness of mind, bitterness, and insensibility of the heart. The mind of an inveterate sinner sees neither good nor evil; his heart loses the capacity for spiritual sensations. If, having left a sinful life, this person turns to pious deeds, then his heart, as if alien, does not sympathize with his desire for God. When, through the action of Divine grace, a multitude of his sins are revealed to the ascetic, then it is impossible for him not to become extremely perplexed and plunge into deep sadness. “My heart is disturbed by such a sight, my strength has left me, and the light of my eyes has left me, and that one is not with me: for my life is filled with reproaches,” that is, my activity was filled with stumbling blocks from habit to sin, which forcefully leads to new sins; “My wounds grew stale and rotten because of my madness,” that is, sinful passions grew old and terribly damaged me due to my inattentive life; “there is no healing in my flesh,” that is, there is no healing through my own efforts alone, for my entire being, struck and infected by sin (Psalm 37:11, 8, 6). By recognizing my sins, repenting of them, confessing them, regretting them, I plunge all their countless multitudes into the abyss of God’s mercy. In order to beware of sin in the future, I will take a closer look, secluded within myself, at how sin acts against me, how it approaches me, what it says to me. He approaches me like a thief; his face is covered; “I have made his words softer than oil” (Psalm 54:22); He tells me lies, he suggests lawlessness. Poison is in his mouth; his tongue is a deadly sting. “Enjoy! He whispers quietly and flatteringly, why is pleasure forbidden to you? Enjoy! What sin is that? - and, the villain, proposes a violation of the commandment of the all-holy Lord. One should not have paid any attention to his words; I know that he is a thief and a murderer. But some incomprehensible weakness, weakness of will, defeats me! I listen to the words of sin, I look at the forbidden fruit. In vain my conscience reminds me that eating this fruit is also tasting death. If there is no forbidden fruit before my eyes, this fruit is suddenly drawn in my imagination, drawn picturesquely, as if by the hand of enchantment. The feelings of the heart are drawn to a seductive picture, like a harlot. Her appearance is captivating; temptation breathes from her; it is decorated with precious, shining utensils; its deadly effect is carefully hidden. Sin seeks a sacrifice from the heart when the body cannot make this sacrifice, due to the absence of the object itself. Sin acts in me through a sinful thought, acts through a sinful sensation, a sensation of the heart and a sensation of the body; acts through the bodily senses, acts through the imagination. To what conclusion does this view of myself lead me? To the conclusion that in me, in my entire being, there lives sinful damage, which sympathizes with and assists the sin attacking me from the outside. I am like a prisoner bound in heavy chains: anyone who is allowed to do so grabs the prisoner and drags him wherever he wants, because the prisoner, being bound in chains, has no opportunity to resist. Sin once penetrated into the high paradise. There he offered my forefathers to eat the forbidden fruit. There he deceived; there he struck down those who were deceived with eternal death. And to me, their descendant, he constantly repeats the same sentence; and they constantly try to seduce and destroy me, their descendant. Adam and Eve immediately after sin were expelled from paradise and cast into the land of sorrows (Genesis 3:23–24): I was born in this land of tears and disasters! But this does not justify me: paradise was brought here to me by the Redeemer, implanted in my heart. I drove paradise from my heart through sin. Now there is a mixture of good and evil, there is a fierce struggle between good and evil, there is a clash of countless passions, there is torment, a foretaste of the eternal torment of hell. I see in myself proof that I am the son of Adam: I retain his inclination towards evil; I agree with the seducer’s proposals, although I know for certain that deception is being offered to me, murder is being prepared. It would be in vain for me to blame my forefathers for the sin they communicated to me: I have been freed from the captivity of sin by the Redeemer and I am already falling into sins not from violence, but arbitrarily. The forefathers in paradise once committed a crime against one commandment of God, and I, being in the bosom of the Church of Christ, constantly violate all the Divine commandments of Christ, my God and Savior. Then my soul is troubled with anger and memory of malice! In my imagination, a dagger sparkles over the head of the enemy and my heart revels in the satisfied vengeance accomplished by a dream. Then I imagine scattered heaps of gold! Following them are drawn magnificent chambers, gardens, all the objects of luxury, voluptuousness, pride, which are delivered by gold, and for which a sin-loving person worships this idol - the means of fulfilling all corruptible desires. I am seduced by honors and power! I am carried away, busy with dreams of ruling people and countries, of bringing them perishable acquisitions, and perishable glory for myself. It’s obvious that tables with steaming and fragrant dishes are ahead of me! Ridiculously and at the same time pitifully I enjoy the seductions that appear before me. Then suddenly I see myself as righteous, or, more correctly, my heart is being a hypocrite, trying to arrogate righteousness to itself, flattering itself, worrying about human praise, how to attract it to myself! Passions challenge me from one another, continuously transmit one to another, outrage, disturb me. And I don’t see my sad state! There is an impenetrable veil of darkness on my mind; There is a heavy stone of insensibility on my heart. Will my mind come to its senses, will it want to move towards good? My heart, accustomed to sinful pleasures, resists him; my body, which has acquired bestial desires, resists him. Even in me, the concept was lost that my body, as created for eternity, is capable of Divine desires and movements, that bestial aspirations are its illness, introduced into it by the fall. The heterogeneous parts that make up my being - mind, heart and body - are dissected, separated, act differently, counteract one another; then they only act in momentary, ungodly agreement when they work against sin. This is my condition! It is the death of the soul during the life of the body. But I'm happy with my condition! I am pleased not because of humility - because of my blindness, because of my hardness. The soul does not feel its mortification, just as the body, separated from the soul by death, does not feel it. If I had felt my mortification, I would have remained in continuous repentance! If I felt my mortification, I would care about the resurrection! I am completely occupied with the cares of the world, little concerned about my spiritual distress! I cruelly condemn the slightest sins of my neighbors; he himself is filled with sin, blinded by it, turned into a pillar like Lot’s wife, incapable of any spiritual movement. I have not inherited repentance because I do not yet see my sin. I do not see my sin, because I still work against sin. He who enjoys sin and allows himself to taste it cannot see his sin - at least with his thoughts and the sympathy of his heart. He can only see his sin who has resolutely renounced all friendship with sin, who has stood on vigilant guard at the gates of his home with a drawn sword - the word of God, who reflects and cuts off sin with this sword, no matter in what form it approaches him. Whoever accomplishes a great deed - establishes enmity with sin, forcibly tearing away the mind, heart and body from it, God will give him a great gift: Vision of his sin. Blessed is the soul that has seen the sin nesting within itself! Blessed is the soul that has seen within itself the fall of its forefathers, the decay of the old Adam! Such a vision of one’s sin is a spiritual vision, a vision of a mind healed from blindness by Divine grace. With fasting and kneeling, the Holy Eastern Church teaches us to ask God to see our sin. Blessed is the soul that continually studies the Law of God! In him she can see the image and beauty of the New Man, and from them she can discern and correct her shortcomings. Blessed is the soul that has purchased the village of repentance by mortifying itself in relation to sinful endeavors! In this village she will find a priceless treasure of salvation. If you have acquired the village of repentance, go into the weeping of a child before God. Don’t ask if you can ask nothing from God; surrender yourself with selflessness to His will. Understand, feel that you are a creature, and God is the Creator. Surrender yourself unconsciously to the will of the Creator, bring Him one infant cry, bring Him a silent heart, ready to follow His will and be imprinted by His will. If, due to your infancy, you cannot immerse yourself in prayerful silence and weeping before God: say a humble prayer before Him, a prayer for forgiveness of sins and healing from sinful passions, these terrible moral ailments resulting from arbitrary sins repeated over a considerable period of time. Blessed is the soul that has recognized itself as completely unworthy of God, that has condemned itself as damned and sinful! She is on the path of salvation; there is no self-delusion in her. On the contrary, the one who considers himself ready to receive grace, who considers himself worthy of God, expects and asks for His mysterious coming, says that he is ready to accept, hear and see the Lord, he deceives himself, he flatters himself; he reached the high cliff of pride, from which the fall into the dark abyss of destruction 104. All those who are proud of God fall there, daring to shamelessly recognize themselves as worthy of God, and out of this conceit and self-deception to say to God: “Speak, O Lord, that your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:9). The young prophet Samuel heard the Lord calling him, and, not recognizing himself as worthy of a conversation with the Lord, he appeared to his elderly mentor, asking him for instructions on his behavior. Samuel heard the same calling voice a second time and again appeared to his mentor. The mentor realized that the voice of the caller was the voice of God: he commanded the young man, when he heard such a calling, to answer the speaker: “Say, O Lord, that your servant hears.” The voluptuous and arrogant dreamer, not called upon by anyone, intoxicated with vain opinions, composing voices and consolations within himself, flattering his arrogant heart with them, deceiving himself and his gullible followers, also dares to speak. “Imitation”, Moscow edition, 1834, book. 3. Ch. 2. In the passage of the Western writer we indicate, passion, conceit and self-delusion are displayed so vividly and picturesquely that it is recognized that it would not be superfluous to present the reader’s attention with the text itself: “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hears. I am Your servant! Give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies. Incline my heart to the words of Your mouth, and let Your word fall like dew. The children of Israel once said to Moses: Speak to us, and we will listen; Let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die. Not like that. Lord, that’s not how I pray! But especially with the prophet Samuel, I humbly and earnestly beg: Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears. Let not Moses, or any other of the prophets, tell me: but rather speak to You, O Lord God, Who gives inspiration and enlightenment to all the prophets. You alone, without them, can teach me completely; without You they cannot have any success. Their words may sound, but they do not communicate the Spirit! They speak gracefully, but when You are silent, the hearts do not ignite; they convey the letters; but You reveal the meaning! they utter mysteries: but You open the mind of allegories! They announce Your commands, but You give them the power to carry them out! They show the way, but You give strength to follow it! They act only from the outside, but You instruct and enlighten hearts! They irrigate externally, but You give fruit! They cry out with words, but You give understanding to the ears! And therefore let not Moses tell me! Speak, O Lord, my God, eternal Truth. May I not die and remain barren if I am instructed only outwardly. I will not be inflamed inwardly, and let no word heard, and not fulfilled, known, and not embraced by love, believed, and not observed, be judged against me. So speak, Lord, for Your servant hears: “You have the words of eternal life.” The impudence of this pompous eloquence and idle talk brings horror and deep sadness to the soul brought up by the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Repentance has been eliminated here! Contrition of spirit eliminated! Here there is a decisive desire for the closest and closest union with God. This is generally the mood of ascetic Western writers. One of them, expressing his incorrect understanding of the dignity of the Mother of God, concludes his frenzied eloquence as follows: “And so! Let us rush into the arms of the Mother of God!” This mood is opposite to the mood that the holy Eastern Church teaches to her children. “Even if Thy saints were not in prayer, they had prayer books,” she says in one of her hymns, “and Thy goodness, merciful to us, as they dared to be, Savior, sing to You, and the Angels praise Him incessantly.” 105 In another hymn she says: “Now we are diligent to the Mother of God, sinners and humility, and let us fall down in repentance calling from the depths of our souls: Lady, help us, having mercy on us, we are perishing from many sins! do not turn away your slaves in vain: for you are the only hope of the imams” 106. The state of self-delusion and demonic delusion is incomprehensible to those who have not been educated by spiritual feats according to the tradition of the Orthodox Church: they recognize this disastrous state as the most correct, grace-filled state. Having taken the trouble to translate “Imitation” from Latin into Russian, he placed his instructions for the reader at the end of the book. Pointing to the 2nd chapter of the 3rd book, to this painting of self-delusion and conceit, he advises, before any pious reading, to put yourself in the mood depicted in this chapter. Obviously, such a mood provides freedom to explain the Holy Scriptures at will, and the obligation to follow the explanation made by the Holy Fathers and accepted by the Church is removed. This is the dogma of Protestantism. Son of the Eastern Church, the only holy and true! In your invisible feat, be guided by the instructions of the holy Fathers of your Church: from every vision, from every voice outside and inside you, before you are renewed by the clear action of the Holy Spirit, they command you to turn away, as from a clear reason for self-deception 107 . Keep your mind formless; drive away all dreams and opinions approaching him, with which the fall has replaced the truth. Clothed in repentance, stand with fear and reverence before the great God, who is able to cleanse your sins and renew you with His Most Holy Spirit. The coming Spirit will guide you into “all truth” (John 16:13). The feeling of crying and repentance is the only thing needed by a soul that has come to the Lord with the intention of receiving forgiveness of its sins from Him. This is the good part! If you have chosen her, then may she not be taken away from you! Do not exchange this treasure for empty, false, violent, supposedly blessed feelings, do not destroy yourself with self-flattery. “If some of the Fathers,” says the Monk Isaac of Syria, “wrote about what there is purity of the soul, what is its health, what is dispassion, what is vision: then they did not write so that we would look for them prematurely and with expectation. The Scripture says: “The kingdom of God will not come with observance” (Luke 17:20). Those in whom expectation lives have acquired pride and fall... The quest with the expectation of God's lofty gifts is rejected by the Church of God. This is not a sign of love for God; this is a disease of the soul" 108. All the saints recognized themselves as unworthy of God: by this they showed their dignity, which consisted in humility 109. All the self-deluded considered themselves worthy of God: this revealed the pride and demonic delusion that had invaded their souls. Some of them accepted the demons who appeared to them in the form of angels and followed them; to others, demons appeared in their own form, and appeared to be defeated by their prayer, which led them into arrogance; others aroused their imagination, heated their blood, produced nervous movements in themselves, mistook this for blessed pleasure, and fell into self-delusion, into complete darkness, and in their spirit were numbered among the rejected spirits. If you need to talk to yourself, bring yourself not flattery, but self-reproach. Bitter medicines are useful to us in our state of decline. Those who flatter themselves have already received their reward here on earth - their self-delusion, praise and love of a world hostile to God: they have nothing to expect in eternity except condemnation. “My sin is taken away before me” (Psalm 50:5) 110, Saint David says about himself: his sin was the subject of his constant consideration. “I will proclaim my iniquity, and I will take care of my sin” (Psalm 37:19). Saint David was engaged in self-condemnation, engaged in denunciation of his sin, when the sin had already been forgiven, and the gift of the Holy Spirit had already been returned to him. This is not enough: he exposed his sin, confessed it in the hearing of the universe (Psalm 50). The Holy Fathers of the Eastern Church, especially the desert dwellers, when they reached the height of spiritual exercises, then all these exercises merged in them into one repentance. Repentance embraced their entire life, all their activity: it was a consequence of seeing their sin. Some great Father was asked what should be the work of a solitary monk? He answered: “Your mortified soul is before your eyes, and are you asking what your action should be?” 111? Crying is an essential activity of a true ascetic of Christ; crying - doing it from entering the feat until the accomplishment of the feat. The sight of one's sin and the repentance born of it are the essence of an activity that has no end on earth: the sight of sin arouses repentance; repentance brings purification; The gradually purified eye of the mind begins to see such shortcomings and damage in the entire human being that it previously, in its darkness, did not notice at all. God! Grant us to see our sins, so that our mind, drawn entirely to the attention of our own sins, will cease to see the faults of our neighbors, and thus see all our neighbors as good. Grant to our hearts to leave the destructive concern for the shortcomings of our neighbor, to unite all our concerns into one concern for the acquisition of the purity and holiness commanded and prepared for us by You. Grant to us, who have desecrated the garments of our souls, to whiten them again: they have already been washed with the waters of baptism; now, after desecration, they need to be washed with tearful waters. Grant us to see, in the light of Your grace, the various ailments living in us, destroying spiritual movements in the heart, introducing blood and carnal movements into it, hostile to the kingdom of God. Grant us the great gift of repentance, preceded and generated by the great gift of seeing our sins. Protect us with these great gifts from the abyss of self-delusion, which opens in the soul from its unnoticed and incomprehensible sinfulness; is born from the action of unnoticed and incomprehensible voluptuousness and vanity. Protect us with these great gifts on our path to You, and grant us to reach You, who calls confessing sinners and rejects those who recognize themselves as righteous, so that we may forever praise You in eternal bliss, the One True God, the Redeemer of the captives, the Savior of the lost. Amen. What could be more beautiful, more enjoyable than love for one's neighbor? Loving is bliss; to hate is torment. The entire law and prophets are focused on love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:40). Love for one's neighbor is the path leading to love for God: because Christ deigned to be mysteriously clothed with each of our neighbors, and in Christ is God (1 Epistle of John). Do not think, beloved brother, that the commandment of love for one’s neighbor was so close to our fallen heart: the commandment is spiritual, but flesh and blood have taken possession of our hearts; the commandment is new, but our heart is old. Our natural love is damaged by the fall; it must be put to death - Christ commands this - and holy love for one’s neighbor, love in Christ, must be drawn from the Gospel. The properties of a new person must be all new; no old quality suits him. Love from the movement of blood and carnal feelings has no price before the Gospel. And what value can it have when, when the blood is heated, he takes an oath to lay down his soul for the Lord, and a few hours later, when the blood cools, he swears that he does not know Him (Matthew 26:33, 35, 74.)? The Gospel rejects love that depends on the movement of blood, on the feelings of the carnal heart. It says: “Do not think that you have come to bring peace to the earth; you have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to separate a man from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law from her mother-in-law: and strike the man against his household” (Matthew 10:34-36). The Fall subjected the heart to the dominion of the blood, and, through the blood, to the dominion of the ruler of the world. The Gospel frees the heart from this captivity, from this violence, and brings it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us to love our neighbor holy. Love, kindled and nourished by the Holy Spirit, is fire. This fire extinguishes the fire of natural, carnal love, damaged by the Fall 112. “He who says that one can have one and the other love deceives himself,” said Saint John Climacus 113. How fallen is our nature! Anyone who by nature is capable of loving his neighbor with ardor must make himself an extraordinary compulsion in order to love him as the Gospel commands him to love. The most ardent natural love easily turns into disgust, into irreconcilable hatred (2 Samuel 13:15). Natural love was also expressed with a dagger. In what ulcers is our natural love! What a serious ulcer on her - addiction! A heart possessed of partiality is capable of all injustice, all lawlessness, just to satisfy its painful love. “A flattering measure is abomination to the Lord, but the weight of righteousness is acceptable to Him” (Prov. 11:1). Natural love provides its beloved with only earthly things; she does not think about heavenly things. She is at enmity against Heaven and the Holy Spirit; because the Spirit demands the crucifixion of the flesh. She is at enmity against Heaven and the Holy Spirit: because she is under the control of the evil spirit, the unclean and lost spirit. Let's get down to the Gospel, beloved brother, let's look in this mirror! Looking into it, let us cast off the old garments in which the fall clothed us, and let us adorn ourselves with the new garment that God has prepared for us. The new robe is Christ. “As many as were baptized into Christ, they put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). The new robe is the Holy Spirit. “Be clothed with the power above” (Luke 24:49), the Lord said about this robe. Christians are clothed in the attributes of Christ through the action of the all-good Spirit. Perhaps for a Christian this is a robe. “Put on our Lord Jesus Christ, and do not please the flesh through lust” (Rom. 13:14), says the Apostle. First, guided by the Gospel, throw away enmity, resentment, anger, condemnation and everything that directly opposes love. The Gospel commands us to pray for our enemies, to bless those who curse, to do good to those who hate, to leave our neighbor everything no matter what he does against us. If you want to follow Christ, try to fulfill all these commandments by your deeds. It is not enough: just read with pleasure the commandments of the Gospel and marvel at the high morality that they contain. Unfortunately, many are satisfied with this. When you begin to fulfill the commands of the Gospel, then the rulers of your heart will stubbornly oppose this fulfillment. These rulers are: your own carnal state, in which you are subject to flesh and blood, and the fallen spirits, to whom the country is subject - the carnal state of man. Carnal wisdom, its truth and the truth of fallen spirits will demand from you that you not lose your honor and other perishable advantages, and protect them. But you must withstand the invisible struggle with courage, led by the Gospel, led by the Lord Himself. Sacrifice everything to fulfill the gospel commandments. Without such a donation you will not be able to fulfill them. The Lord said to His disciples: “If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). When the Lord is with you, hope for victory: the Lord cannot but be the winner. Ask the Lord for victory, ask for it through constant prayer and crying. And an unexpected action of grace will come to your heart: you will suddenly feel the sweetest rapture of spiritual love for your enemies. You still have a fight ahead of you! You also need to be courageous! Look at the objects of your love: do you like them very much? Is your heart very attached to them? Renounce them. The Lord, the lawgiver of love, requires this renunciation from you, not in order to deprive you of love and loved ones, but so that you, having rejected carnal love, defiled by an admixture of sin, become capable of accepting spiritual, pure, holy love, which is the supreme bliss. He who has felt spiritual love will look with disgust at carnal love, as an ugly distortion of love. How to renounce objects of love that seem to have grown to the very heart? - tell God about them: “They, Lord, are Yours, and who am I? A feeble creature of no importance." “Today I am still wandering on earth, I can be useful to my loved ones in some way; Tomorrow, perhaps, I will disappear from her face, and I am nothing to them!” “Whether I want it or not, death comes, other circumstances come, they forcibly tear me away from those whom I considered mine, and they are no longer mine. They were not mine by the very thing; there was some kind of relationship between me and them; deceived by this attitude, I called them and recognized them as mine. If they were truly mine, they would forever belong to me.” “Creatures belong to one Creator: He is their God and Master. Yours, my Lord, I give to You: I appropriated them to myself incorrectly and in vain.” For them it is more correct to be God's. God is eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, immeasurably good. To the one who is His, He is the most faithful, most reliable Helper and Patron. God gives his own to man: and men become man’s own, for a time according to the flesh, forever according to the spirit, when God is pleased to give this gift to man. True love for one's neighbor is based on faith in God: it is in God. “They will all be one,” the Savior of the world said to His Father, “as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us” (John 17:21). Humility and devotion to God kill carnal love. This means: she lives by conceit and unbelief. Do what you can that is useful and that the law allows, to your loved ones; but always entrust them to God, and your blind, carnal, unconscious love will little by little turn into spiritual, rational, holy. If your love is an unlawful passion, then reject it as an abomination. When your heart is not free, it is a sign of addiction. When your heart is in captivity, it is a sign of insane, sinful passion. Holy love is pure, free, all in God. It is the action of the Holy Spirit acting in the heart as it is cleansed. Having rejected enmity, rejected addictions, renounced carnal love, acquire spiritual love; “Turn away from evil and do good” (Ps. 33:15). Give respect to your neighbor as the image of God - respect in your soul, invisible to others, obvious only to your conscience. Let your activity be mysteriously in accordance with your spiritual mood. Give respect to your neighbor, without distinguishing between age, gender, class, and gradually holy love will begin to appear in your heart. The reason for this holy love is not flesh and blood, not the attraction of feelings, but God. Those deprived of the glory of Christianity are not deprived of another glory received at creation: they are the image of God. If the image of God is cast into the terrible flames of hell, and there I must honor it. What do I care about the flames, about hell! The image of God was cast there according to God’s judgment: my job is to maintain respect for the image of God, and thereby save myself from hell. Show respect to the blind, and the leper, and the mentally damaged, and the infant, and the criminal, and the pagan, as the image of God. What do you care about their weaknesses and shortcomings! Watch yourself so that you do not lack love. As a Christian, give respect to Christ, who said for our instruction and will also say in deciding our eternal fate: “Whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40). In your dealings with your neighbors, keep this saying of the Gospel in mind, and you will become a confidant of love for your neighbor. The confidant of love for one's neighbor enters into love for God. But if you think that you love God, but in your heart there is an unpleasant disposition towards at least one person, then you are in woeful self-delusion. “If anyone speaks,” says Saint John the Theologian? - because I love God, but hate my brother, that is a lie... This commandment of the imams is from Him, that you love God and love your brother” (1 John 4:20, 21). The manifestation of spiritual love for one’s neighbor is a sign of the renewal of the soul by the Holy Spirit: “We know,” says the Theologian again, “that we have passed from death to the belly, that we love the brethren: he who does not love his brother remains in death” (1 John 3:14). The perfection of Christianity lies in perfect love for one's neighbor. Perfect love for one's neighbor is in love for God, for which there is no perfection, for which there is no end in success. Success in love for God is endless: because love is an infinite God (1 John 4:16). Love for one's neighbor is the foundation in the building of love. Beloved brother! Seek to discover within yourself spiritual love for your neighbors: by entering it, you will enter the love of God, the gates of resurrection, the gates of the kingdom of heaven. Amen. Love God as He commanded to love Him, and not as self-deluded dreamers think to love Him. Do not invent delights for yourself, do not set your nerves in motion, do not inflame yourself with material flames, with the flame of your blood. A sacrifice acceptable to God is humility of heart, contrition of spirit. With anger, God turns away from a sacrifice made with arrogance, with a proud opinion of himself, even if this sacrifice was a burnt offering. Pride sets the nerves in motion, warms the blood, excites daydreaming, enlivens the life of fall; humility calms the nerves, tames the movement of the blood, destroys daydreaming, mortifies the life of falling, quickens the life of Christ Jesus. “Obedience before the Lord is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than the fat of a ram,” said the Prophet to the king of Israel, who dared to offer God the wrong sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22): if you want to offer God a sacrifice of love, do not bring it willfully, out of a rash impulse; offer it with humility, at the time and place when and where the Lord commanded. The spiritual place in which one is commanded to offer spiritual sacrifices is humility 114. The Lord marked with true and accurate signs the lover and the unloving. He said: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words... He who does not love Me does not keep My words” (John 14:23, 24). Do you want to learn the love of God? Avoid every deed, word, thought, feeling prohibited by the Gospel. By your enmity towards sin, which is so hated by the all-holy God, show and prove your love for God. Sins that you happen to fall into due to weakness, heal immediately with repentance. But it’s better to try not to allow these sins to happen to you by being strictly vigilant over yourself. Do you want to learn the love of God? Carefully study the commandments of the Lord in the Gospel and try to fulfill them with your very deeds, try to turn the Gospel virtues into skills, into your qualities. It is characteristic of a lover to carry out the will of his beloved with precision. “I have loved Your commandments more than gold and topaz; for this reason I have been guided by all Your commandments; I have hated every way of unrighteousness” (Ps. 119:127, 128), says the Prophet. This behavior is necessary to maintain fidelity to God. Loyalty is an indispensable condition of love. Without this condition, love is dissolved. By constant avoidance of evil and the fulfillment of the gospel virtues - which is what the entire gospel moral teaching consists of - we achieve the love of God. By this same means we remain in love for God: “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love” (John 15:10), said the Savior. The perfection of love lies in union with God; success in love is associated with inexplicable spiritual consolation, pleasure and enlightenment. But at the beginning of the feat, the student of love must endure a tough struggle with himself, with his deeply damaged nature: the evil innate in nature through the Fall has become a law for him, fighting and rebelling against the Law of God, against the law of holy love. Love for God is based on love for neighbor. When the memory of malice is erased from you, then you are close to love. When your heart is overshadowed by holy, gracious peace for all humanity: then you are at the very doors of love. But these doors are opened only by the Holy Spirit. Love for God is a gift of God in a person who has prepared himself to accept this gift with purity of heart, mind and body. According to the degree of preparation there is also the degree of gift: because God is just in His mercy. Love for God is completely spiritual: “what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6): carnal love, as born of flesh and blood, has material, perishable properties. It is fickle and changeable: its fire is completely dependent on the substance. Hearing from Scripture that our God is fire (Heb. 12:29), that love is fire, and feeling within yourself the fire of natural love, do not think that this fire is the same. No! These fires are hostile to each other and are extinguished by one another 115. “Let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear; for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28–29). Natural love, fallen love, warms a person’s blood, sets his nerves in motion, arouses daydreaming; Holy love cools the blood, calms both soul and body, draws the inner man to prayerful silence, immerses him in the rapture of humility and spiritual sweetness. Many ascetics, mistaking natural love for Divine love, heated up their blood and inflamed their dreaminess. The state of excitement very easily turns into a state of frenzy. Those who were in the heat and frenzy were considered by many to be filled with grace and holiness, and they were the unfortunate victims of self-delusion. There have been many such ascetics in the Western Church, since the time it fell into papism, in which Divine properties are blasphemously attributed to man, and worship is given to man that is due and befitting the one God; These ascetics wrote many books from their heated state, in which frenzied self-delusion seemed to them like divine love, in which their frustrated imagination drew for them many visions that flattered their vanity and pride. Son of the Eastern Church! Avoid reading such books, avoid following the instructions of the self-deluded. Guided by the Gospel and the Holy Fathers of the true Church, ascend with humility to the spiritual heights of Divine love through keeping the commandments of Christ. Know firmly that love for God is the highest gift of the Holy Spirit, and a person can only prepare himself with purity and humility to accept this great gift, by which the mind, heart, and body are changed. Labor is in vain, it is fruitless and harmful when we seek to prematurely reveal high spiritual gifts in ourselves: they are given by the merciful God in due time to constant, patient, humble performers of the Gospel commandments. Amen. Under the sign of the holy cross, I lead you, brothers, to a spiritual spectacle. Let Anthony, the desert dweller of Egypt, the great saint of God, be our leader. He, through the action of Divine revelation, once saw the nets of the devil spread throughout the world to ensnare people into destruction. Seeing that there were countless numbers of these nets, he asked the Lord with tears: “Lord! Who can bypass these snares and receive salvation?” 116. I immerse myself thoughtfully in examining the devil’s nets. They are located outside and inside a person. One network is closely connected to another; in other places the nets stand in several rows; in others, wide holes are made, but which lead to the most numerous bends of the nets, escape from which seems impossible. Looking at the multi-devious networks, I weep bitterly! The question of the blessed desert dweller involuntarily repeats in me: “Lord! Who can get rid of these networks? Nets have been laid for my mind in various books that call themselves light, but contain teachings of darkness, written under the obvious or hidden influence of a gloomy and all-evil ruler of the world, from a source - a mind damaged by the Fall, in “the lies of men, in the deceit of the wiles of flattery” (Eph. 4:14), in the words of the Apostle, by writers who are “crazy in their minds.” from the mind of his flesh" (Col. 2:18). My neighbor, in the love of whom I must seek salvation, becomes for me a net that traps me in destruction, when his mind is caught in the nets of the teachings and wisdom of the lying and flattering. My own mind bears the seals of fall, is covered with a veil of darkness, infected with the poison of lies: it itself, deceived by the ruler of the world, sets nets for itself. Even in paradise, he indiscriminately and carelessly strived to acquire knowledge, which was disastrous and murderous for him! After his fall, he became more indiscriminate, more reckless: with impudence he drinks in the cup of poisonous knowledge, and thereby decisively destroys in himself the taste and desire for the Divine cup of saving knowledge. There are so many nets for my heart! I see coarse networks and thin networks. Which of them are more dangerous, more terrible? I'm perplexed. The fisher is skillful, and whoever escapes from the rough nets, he catches in the fine nets. The end of the hunt is one: death. The networks are covered in every possible way, with excellent art. The fall is clothed in all kinds of triumph; people-pleasing, hypocrisy, vanity - into all types of virtue. Deception, dark charm, wear the guise of the spiritual, the heavenly. Spiritual love, often vicious, is covered with the appearance of holy love; false, dreamy sweetness, passed off as spiritual sweetness. The ruler of the world tries by all means to keep man in his fallen nature: and this is enough, without gross falls, to make man a stranger to God. Gross falls into sin will be completely replaced, according to the hunter’s correct calculations, by the proud opinion of a Christian about himself, content with the virtues of a fallen nature and falling into self-delusion, thereby alienating himself from Christ. There are so many nets for the body! It itself - what a network! How the world ruler uses them! Through the body, condescending to its humiliating inclinations and desires, we approach the likeness of dumb animals. What an abyss! What a departure, what a fall from the Divine likeness! We fall into this deep abyss, terribly far from God, when we indulge in gross carnal pleasures, called falls due to their sinful severity. But less coarse carnal pleasures are no less harmful. For their sake, care for the soul is abandoned, God, heaven, eternity, and the purpose of man are forgotten. The ruler of the world tries to keep us in constant entertainment, darkness, through bodily pleasures! Through the senses, these doors to the soul, through which it communicates with the visible world, he constantly introduces into it sensual pleasure, sin and captivity inseparable from it. Music thunders in famous earthly concerts, expressing and exciting various passions; these passions are presented in earthly theaters, excited in earthly amusements: man is led by all possible means to enjoy the evil that killed him. In his intoxication, he forgets the Divine good that saves him and the blood of the God-man, by which we have been redeemed. Here is a faint outline of the nets placed by the ruler of the world to ensnare Christians. The mark is weak, but it hardly failed to bring justified horror to you, brethren, and the question was hardly born in your soul: “Who can escape these snares?” The terrible picture is not over yet! Still, my brush, led by the word of God, is still excited to paint. What does the word of God say? It proclaims a prediction that is coming true in our eyes, a prediction that in the last times, due to the “increase of iniquity, the love of many will fail” (Matthew 24:12). The unfaithful word of God, more solid than heaven and earth, proclaims to us the multiplication in the last times of the devil’s snares and the multiplication of the number of those perishing in these snares. Exactly! I look at the world and see: the networks of the devil have multiplied, in comparison with the times of the primacy of the Church of Christ, they have multiplied to infinity. Books containing false teaching have multiplied; minds have multiplied, containing and communicating to others false teaching; the followers of the holy Truth have diminished, diminished to the extreme; respect for natural virtues available to Jews and pagans increased; respect for virtues appeared that were downright pagan, contrary to nature itself, which looked at them as evil; the concept of Christian virtues has been diminished, not to mention how their actual fulfillment has been diminished, almost destroyed; material life developed; spiritual life disappears; bodily pleasures and worries consume all the time; there is no time to even remember God. And all this turns into a duty, into a law. Because of “the increase of iniquity, the love of many will dry up,” and of those who would have maintained their love for God, if evil had not been so universal, if the networks of the devil had not multiplied to such innumerability. The sadness of Blessed Anthony was just. All the more just is the sadness of a Christian of these times, when he sees the snares of the devil; the lamentable question is fundamental: “Lord! Which person can bypass these snares and receive salvation?” To the question of the venerable desert dweller, the answer came from the Lord: “Humility passes through these nets, and they cannot even touch it.” Divine answer! How he removes all doubt from the heart, depicts in brief words the sure way to defeat our adversary, the way to dissolve and destroy his many-woven intrigues, arranged with the help of his many years and many evil experiences. Let us protect the mind with humility, not allowing it to strive indiscriminately, recklessly to acquire knowledge, no matter how its news and the importance of its titles may attract our curiosity. Let us protect him from the test of false teachings, covered with the name and guise of Christian teaching. Let us humble him into obedience to the Church, casting down every thought that is placed on the mind of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) on the mind of the Church. At first, the narrow path of obedience to the Church is deplorable for the mind; but it leads to the breadth and freedom of the spiritual mind, before which all the imaginary inconsistencies found by the carnal and spiritual mind in strict obedience to the Church disappear. We will not allow him to read about other spiritual things, except in books written by writers of the true Church, to which the Church itself has testified that they are organs of the Holy Spirit. He who reads holy writers inconspicuously communes with the Holy Spirit who dwells in them and speaks through them; He who reads heretical writers, even if they are adorned with the title of saints with their heretical host, becomes familiar with the evil spirit of delusion 117: for disobedience to the Church, in which there is pride, he falls into the snare of the ruler of the world. What to do with the heart? “Let’s graft a twig from a fruitful olive tree onto this wild olive tree, let’s instill in it the properties of Christ, teach it to the humility of the Gospel, let’s force it to accept the will of the Gospel. Having seen his disagreement with the Gospel, his constant contradiction, his disobedience to the Gospel, we will see in this opposition, as in a mirror, our downfall. Having seen our fall, we will mourn over it before the Lord, our Creator and Redeemer, and we will be pained with saving sorrow; We will remain in this sadness until we see our healing. “God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19), handing it over to the enemy’s trap. God is our Creator and complete Ruler: He can recreate our heart, and He will transform the heart that continually cries out to Him in weeping and prayer, from a sin-loving heart to a God-loving, holy heart. Let us guard our bodily feelings, not allowing sin through them into the cage of our souls. Let us curb the curious eye and the curious ear; Let us place a tight rein on a small member of the body, but one that produces strong shocks, on our tongue; let us pacify the body’s wordless aspirations through abstinence, vigil, labor, frequent remembrance of death, and attentive, constant prayer. How short-lived are bodily pleasures! What a stink they end in! On the contrary, the body, protected by abstinence and preservation of feelings, washed with tears of repentance, sanctified by frequent prayers, is built mysteriously in the temple of the Holy Spirit, which makes all the enemy’s attempts on a person unsuccessful. “Humility escapes all the snares of the devil, and they cannot even touch it.” 1846. Sergiev Pustyn. Beginning of the 3rd Word of St. Simeon, the New Theologian. Edition of Optina Pustyn in 1852. Quote from St. Simeon, the New Theologian, in the Word of Nicephorus the Monastic. Philokalia, part 2. – St. Macarius the Great. Word 7, ch. 2. The original says: “whoever dreams high with the opinion of achieving it.” An explanatory expression is used here to more clearly show the meaning of the word opinion. About the first form of attention and prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Chetii-Minei. November on the 23rd day. Philokalia, part 1. About delusion and so on. A figure of speech used by residents of St. Petersburg. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 55. Venerable Simeon, New Theologian. A word about Faith. Philokalia, part 1. Ladder. Word 28, ch. 17. The word about those who think that by works they will be justified, ch. 34, Philokalia, part 1. Ladder. Word 4, ch. 82, 83. Venerable Barsanuphius the Great. Answer 275. Life and instructions of St. Apollos. Patericon Alphabetical. About the third image of prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Life of St. Gregory the Sinaite. Philokalia, part 1. Preface to the Tradition or Charter of the Skete. An excerpt from a letter from Elder Paisius to Elder Theodosius. Scriptures of Paisius. Publication of Optina Pustyn. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 36. Interview of St. Maximus with St. Gregory of Sinaite. Venerable Gregory of Sinaite. Sl. 108, 128. Philokalia, part 1. Saint John of Carpathia, ch. 49. Philokalia, part 4. Word IV, at the end; also Word 3. Imitation of Thomas a à Kempis, book 2, ch. 8. Imitation of Thomas a à Kempis book 3, ch. 1. Imitation, book 3. ch. 3. The Life of Theophilus, the Painful Pimen, and John the Long-Suffering. Patericon of Pechersk. “Imitation”, when it first appeared, was condemned even by its Latin Church, and was persecuted by the Inquisition. The persecution was stopped later, and turned into patronage when it was seen that the book served as a good tool for propaganda among people who had lost a true understanding of Christianity and retained a superficial attitude towards it. Under the name of papal propaganda we mean the dissemination of the concept of the Pope that the Pope wants to instill in humanity about himself, that is, the concept of the supreme, autocratic, unlimited power of the Pope over the world. Propaganda, having this goal, pays little attention to the quality of the teaching it teaches; for it, everything that contributes to its goal is in its favor - even faith in Christ without abandoning faith in idols. An enthusiastic saying is uttered in French, so capable for the stage: “Elle aimait Dieu avec passion; elle ne pensait qu’a Dieu; elle ne voyait que Dieu; elle ne lisait que l’Evangile et l’Imitation qui est un second Evangile.” “Il aime Dieu, comme il aimait ses maitresses.” “C'est avec le même coeur, qu'on aime le Créateur, ou la créature quoique les effets soient aussi différents, que les objets.” The Muses and Apollo are the deities of the ancient pagans, Greeks and Romans; The pagans attributed to these demons the patronage of the fine arts. Olonets or Petrozavodsk Diocese. About the second way of attention and prayer. Philokalia, part 1. Preface by Schemamonk Vasily. Imitation, Book III, Ch. 2. Venerable Abba Dorotheos. Lesson 2. Venerable Abba Dorotheos, Teaching 2. Alphabetical Patericon. About Abba Pimen the Great. Ladder, Word 22, ch. 22. Esther IV-VII. Haman, a Macedonian, was the favorite and first noble of Artaxerxes, king of Persia. Mordecai, a Judean, belonged to the courtiers, and, being of deep piety, did not allow himself to please people, did not grovel before a temporary worker. This behavior of Mordecai infuriated Haman: he prepared a high gallows to execute on it the hated exception to general servility. Due to the vicissitudes of earthly situations, circumstances changed, and Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had erected for Mordecai. Saint Isaac of Syria, Homily 33. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word LV. Troparion for Great Compline. Canon of prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos. Venerable Gregory of Sinaite. About charms and so on. Dobrot., part 1. Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, ch. 73. Kindness, part 2. Ladder. Homily XV, ch. 3. Alphabetical Patericon. Saying of St. Pimen the Great. Ladder. Word 3 and Word 15. Patericon of Skitsky. - Reverend Abba Dorotheos. Lesson 2. Saint Peter of Damascus. Philokalia, part. On reasoning. You might be interested in: