Слово 5. О попечительном и действительном покаянии и также о житии святых осужденников, и о темнице 36

1. Repentance is renewal of baptism. Repentance is a covenant with God to correct life. Repentance is the purchase of humility. Repentance is the constant rejection of bodily consolation. Repentance is the thought of self-condemnation and self-care, free from external concerns. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the rejection of despair. Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord through doing good deeds that are contrary to previous sins. Repentance is the cleansing of conscience. Repentance is voluntary patience of all sorrowful things. The penitent is the inventor of punishments for himself. Repentance is a strong oppression of the belly, a wounding of the soul in deep feeling. 2. Flock together, all you who have angered the Lord, and come near; come and hear what I tell you; gather yourself together and see what the Lord has shown me for the edification of my soul. Let us honor and place in this word, first of all, the story of humiliated but worthy of respect workers. All who have fallen into some kind of unexpected sin, let us hear, preserve and do what we learn. Arise and stand, overthrown by the falls. Listen, my brethren, to this word of mine; Incline your ear, all who want to reconcile God with themselves through true conversion. 3. I heard, weakly, about a certain wonderful and extraordinary state and humility of the condemned, imprisoned in a special monastery called the Prison, which was under the authority of the mentioned luminary of luminaries. Therefore, while still in the monastery of this saint, I asked him to allow me to visit this place; and the great man yielded to my request, not wanting to sadden my soul in any way. 4. So, having come to this monastery of the repentant, to this, truly, the country of the weeping, I saw what, truly, if not boldly so to speak, the eye of a careless person has not seen, and the ear of a sad person has not heard, what has not even entered the heart of a lazy person, that is, such deeds and words that are strong to convince God; such exercises and exploits that soon bow His love for mankind. 5. I saw that some of these innocent convicts stood in the open air all night, until the morning, without moving their legs, and hesitated in a pitiful way, overcome by sleep due to the need of nature; but they did not give themselves the slightest rest, but reproached themselves and excited themselves with dishonor and reproach. 6. Others looked tenderly at the sky, and with sobs and cries they called for help from there. 7. Others stood in prayer with their hands tied behind them, like criminals; their sad faces were bowed to the ground; they considered themselves unworthy to look at the sky; from unworthiness of thoughts and from remorse, they did not know what to say, and how to say it, what prayers to offer to God, how and where to start praying; but only the silent soul and the silent mind were presented to God and were filled with darkness and, as it were, subtle despair. 8. Others sat on the ground in sackcloth and ashes, hiding their faces between their knees and striking their foreheads on the ground. 9. Others continually beat themselves on the chest, calling on the former state of their souls and the innocence of their lives. Some of them wet the ground with their tears; and others, having no tears, beat themselves. Others wept for their souls as if they were dead, unable to bear the pain of their hearts; others, weeping in their hearts, kept the voice of sobbing in their mouths; and sometimes, when they could no longer endure it, they suddenly cried out. 10. I saw there that some, out of great sadness, seemed to be in a frenzy; from much lamentation they were speechless, completely immersed in darkness, and as if insensitive to everything relating to earthly life, their minds descended into the abyss of humility, and the fire of sadness dried up the tears in their eyes. 11. Others sat in thought, bowing to the ground and constantly shaking their heads, like lions, roaring and groaning from the depths of their hearts and wombs. Some of them reliably asked for complete forgiveness of sins and prayed for this; and others, out of unspeakable humility, considered themselves unworthy of forgiveness and cried out that they had no justification before God. Others prayed to the Lord that they might suffer torment here and be pardoned there; others, oppressed by the burden of conscience, sincerely asked neither to subject them to torture, nor to be honored with the kingdom; this would be enough for us, they said. 12. I saw there souls so humiliated, contrite, and so oppressed by the burden of sin that they could bring even the stones into tenderness, with their words and cries to God. “We know,” they said, bowing to the ground, we know that we are truly worthy of all torment and torment, for we cannot satisfy our many debts, even if we called on the whole universe to cry for us. But we only ask for this, we beg for this, and we seek that mercy, “let us not rebuke us with Thy wrath, nor punish us with Thy wrath” (Ps. 6:2), nor torment us with Thy righteous judgment, but with mercy. It is enough for us, Lord, to be freed from Thy terrible rebuke and unknown and secret torments; We do not dare ask for complete forgiveness. And how dare we, when we did not keep our vow in integrity, but desecrated it, having already experienced Your love for mankind and received forgiveness of sins? 13. There one could see the actual fulfillment of David’s words, see those suffering, stuck together until the end of their lives; all day long lamenting those who walk; stinking with the rotten wounds of their bodies (Ps. 37:7), and neglecting to heal them; forgetting to “bring down your bread” and “drinking water” with crying dissolved; dust and ashes instead of bread for those who eat”; having “bones clinging to the flesh”, and themselves “like dry hay” (Ps. 102:5–12). Nothing else was heard from them except these words: “Alas, alas! woe is me, woe is me! righteous, righteous! have mercy, have mercy, Lord!” Some said: “Have mercy, have mercy”; and others cried out more pitifully: “Forgive me, Master, forgive me, if possible!” 14. Others had tongues that were inflamed and protruding from their mouths, like those of dogs. Others tormented themselves with the heat; others tormented themselves with cold. Some, having tasted a little water, stopped drinking, just so as not to die of thirst. Others, having tasted a little bread, rejected it far away from themselves with their hands, saying that they were unworthy of human food, because they did what was typical of cattle. 15. Where did they have any kind of laughter? Where is the idle talk? where is the irritability or anger? They did not even know whether anger existed in people, because crying completely extinguished all anger in them. Where was their contradiction, or celebration, or insolence, or any kind of pleasing to the body, or a trace of vanity? Where is the hope of any pleasure? or thinking about wine, or eating autumn fruits? or cooking food, or pleasing the larynx? The hope of all this in the present age has already faded away for them. Where did they care about anything earthly? Where is the condemnation of any of the people? It wasn't at all. 16. Such were their constant broadcasts and appeals to the Lord. Some, striking themselves on the chest, as if standing before the gates of heaven, said to God: “Open to us, O Judge, open to us!” Others said: “Enlighten only Your face, and we will be saved” (Ps. 79:4). Another said: “Enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, those who are humiliated” (Luke 1:79); and another: “Let Your compassions soon precede us, O Lord, for we are lost, we despair, as if we were so poor” (Ps. 78:8). Some said: “Will the Lord make His face shine upon us” (Ps. 66:2). And others: “For has our soul passed over the fickle water of sins” (Ps. 123:5). Another said: “Will the Lord finally have mercy on us? Will we ever hear His voice to us, “who are in bonds that cannot be solved, come out” (Is. 49:9), and to those who are in hell of repentance: you are forgiven? Has our cry entered the ears of the Lord?” 17. They all constantly had death before their eyes and said: “What will happen to us? what judgment will follow about us? what will be our end? Is there an appeal, is there forgiveness for the dark, humiliated convicts? Was our prayer able to ascend to the Lord? or is it, according to His justice, turned away with humiliation and shame? If it sprouted, how much did it appease the Lord? What kind of success did it receive? What benefits did it bring? How many worked? For it was sent out from unclean lips and bodies and does not have much strength. Did it completely reconcile the Judge or only partially? Has it healed half of our mental ulcers? For, truly, are these plagues great and require much labor and sweat? Have our guardians, the Angels, approached us? or are they even further away from us? Until they come closer to us, until then all our work is useless and unsuccessful; for our prayer has neither the power of boldness nor the wings of purity, and cannot ascend to the Lord unless our angels come close to us and take it and bring it to the Lord.” 18. Often repeating these words, they said to each other in bewilderment: “And so, brothers, are we in time? do we get what we ask for? Will the Lord accept us again? Does he open the doors of mercy? Others responded to this: “Who knows,” as our brethren of Nineveh seemed to say, “if the Lord repents” (John 3:9), and even though He will not deliver us from this great torment? However, we will do what depends on our will; and if He opens the doors of the kingdom of heaven, then it is good and good; and if not, then blessed is the Lord God, who righteously closed them for us. However, we will knock until the end of our lives; Perhaps, due to our persistence, He will open it to us.” Therefore they stirred up each other, saying: “Let us sweat, brethren, let us sweat; we need diligence, and strong diligence; because we have fallen behind our good squad. Let us sweat, not sparing this nasty, evil-suffering flesh of ours; but let us kill her, just as she killed us.” 19. And so these blessed condemned men did. Their knees were visible, numb from many bows; eyes darkened and deeply sunken; eyelashes without eyelashes; cheeks, wounded and scorched by the heat of many tears; faces, withered and pale, no different from the dead; Percy, painful from blows, and bloody phlegm, spewed from blows to the chest. Where was the bed preparation? Where are the clothes that are clean or strong? They were all torn, stinking and covered with insects. What compared to them is the suffering of those who rage, or cry over the dead, or are in captivity, or convicted of murder? Truly, their involuntary torment and languor are nothing in comparison with their voluntary suffering. And I pray you, brothers, do not think that what I am telling you is a fable. 20. Often they begged this great judge, that is, their shepherd, this angel among men, and persuaded him to put iron and fetters on their hands and on their necks; and their feet, like the feet of criminals, should be imprisoned in stocks and not freed from them until the coffin receives them. But sometimes they deprived themselves of a coffin. For I cannot in any way hide this truly touching humility of these blessed ones and their contrite love for God and repentance. 21. When these good citizens of the land of repentance went to the Lord to stand before an impartial judgment seat: then, seeing himself at the end of his life, through his primate, he begged and conjured the great Abba, so that he would not grant him a human burial, but, like cattle, would order his body to be given over to river streams, or thrown into the field to be devoured by wild beasts: which he often did this lamp of reasoning, commanding that they be carried out without honor and deprived of all psalmody. 22. But what a terrible and touching sight there was at their last hour! These convicts, seeing that one of them was approaching death, surrounded him while he was still fully conscious, and with thirst, with crying and desire, with a very pitiful look and a sad voice, shaking their heads, they asked the dying man, and burning with mercy towards him, they said: “What, brother and convict? How do you feel? What do you say? Have you achieved what you sought with such difficulty or not? Have you opened the door of mercy for yourself, or are you still guilty of judgment? Did you achieve your goal or not? Have you received any notification about your salvation, or do you still have uncertain hope? Have you received freedom, or is your thought still wavering and doubting? Have you felt some enlightenment in your heart, or is it covered in darkness and shame? Was there a voice inside you saying: “Behold, you are healthy” (John 5:14), or “your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:5)? Or do you hear such a voice: “let sinners return to hell” (Ps. 9:18); also: “bind his hand and nose” (Matthew 22:13); also: “Let the wicked be lifted up, and not see the glory of the Lord” (Is. 26:10)? What do you tell us, our brother? Tell us briefly, we beg you, so that we too may know what state we will be in. For your time has already ended, and you will never find another.” To this, some of the dying answered: “Blessed is the Lord, who has not taken away my prayer and His mercy from Me” (Ps. 65:20). Others said: “Blessed is the Lord, who did not let us into their trap” (Ps. 123:6). And others with illness said: “Has our soul passed through the fickle waters” of the spirits of the air (Ps. 124:3)? They said this because they did not yet have the courage, but from afar they saw what was happening during this torture. Others responded even more painfully and said: “Woe to the soul that did not keep its vow of integrity; Only at this hour will she know what is destined for her.” 23. I, seeing and hearing all this from them, almost fell into despair, knowing my own negligence and comparing it with their suffering. And what else was the structure of that place and their home! Everything is dark, everything is fetid, everything is unclean and stinking. It was rightly called the Prison and the prison of the condemned; The very vision of this place encourages you to cry and instructs you in every feat of repentance. But what is inconvenient and unpleasant for others is pleasant and pleasant for those who have fallen from the state of virtue and have lost spiritual wealth. For when the soul lost its first boldness before God, lost the hope of dispassion and crushed the seal of purity, when it allowed the treasures of gifts to be stolen from itself and became a stranger to Divine consolation, it rejected the Lord’s covenant and extinguished the good fire of spiritual tears: then, pierced and wounded by the memory of this, it will not only take on the above-described labors with all zeal, but and strives to piously kill herself through deeds of repentance, if only a spark of love or fear of the Lord remains in her. Truly such were these blessed ones; for, reflecting on this and remembering the height from which they had fallen, they said: “Let us remember the days of old, the fire of our zeal”; and others cried out to God: “Where are the essence of Your ancient mercies, O Lord, which You showed to our souls in Your truth” (Ps. 89:50). Another said: “Who will order me according to the months of former days, in which God kept me, when the lamp of His light shone above the head of my heart” (Job 29:2-3)? 24. So they remembered their former virtues, wept over them as over dead babies, and said: “Where is the purity of prayer? where is her boldness? where are the sweet tears instead of the bitter ones? where is the hope of all-perfect purity and purification? where is the expectation of blissful dispassion? where is the faith in the shepherd? where is the good effect of his prayer in us? All this perished, as something that had not appeared disappeared, and as something that had never been, passed and passed away.” 25. Saying these words and shedding tears, some of them prayed to fall into a demonic state; others asked the Lord to punish them with leprosy; others wanted to lose their sight and be the subject of universal pity; and others asked for relaxation, so as not to be subjected to future torment. But I, oh my friends, watching them cry, forgot myself, and was completely delighted with the mind, unable to restrain myself. But let's turn to the subject of the word. 26. Having stayed in the Prison for thirty days, I, impatient, returned to the great hostel, to the great father, who, seeing that I had completely changed, and seemed to be beside myself, recognized in his wisdom the reason for my change. And he said: “What, Father John, have you seen the exploits of those who labor?” I answered: “I saw it, Father, and was surprised, and blessed those who fell and wept more than those who did not fall and did not weep for themselves; because through the fall they rose up with a trustworthy uprising.” “Indeed it is,” he said. Then, alien to lies, his lips reported the following. “Ten years ago,” he said, “I had a brother here who was very zealous and such an ascetic that, seeing him burning in spirit, I trembled and was afraid of the devil’s envy for him, lest in the fast flow he might somehow hit his foot on a stone, which often happens to those who walk hastily. And so it happened. In the late evening, he comes to me, shows me a naked ulcer, demands a plaster, asks for cauterization and expresses great confusion of spirit. But seeing that the doctor wants to use a not very cruel cutting (because he was worthy of mercy), he throws himself to the ground, grabs the doctor’s legs, waters them with abundant tears, asks for imprisonment in the Dungeon that you saw: “It is impossible for me,” he cried, “not to go there.” Finally, he convinces the doctor to change mercy to cruelty, which is rare and surprising in those who are ill. He immediately hurries to those who repent, and becomes their accomplice and fellow sufferer. From the love of God, wounded in his heart by sadness, as if by a sword, on the eighth day he went to the Lord and asked that he not be buried; but I brought him here and laid him with his fathers, as worthy, because, after seven days of slavery, on the eighth he was released and received freedom. Someone reliably learned that he did not get up from my thin and nasty feet before he had propitiated God. And it’s not surprising: because, having accepted the faith of the gospel harlot in his heart, with the same hope as she, he wet my humble feet with tears, and the Lord said that “to him who believes, all things are possible” (Mark 9:23). I saw unclean souls who burned with carnal love to the point of frenzy, but then turned to repentance, and having tasted lust, turned their lust to the Lord; and, having passed through all fear, they clung to God with insatiable love. Therefore, the Lord did not say about this chaste harlot that she was afraid, but that she “loved much” (Luke 7:47), and was conveniently able to reflect love with love. 27. I know, venerable ones, that the exploits of these blessed sufferers that I have described will seem incredible to some, to others - beyond hope, and to others - leading to despair. But the courageous man, wounded by this, retreats like a spear with a fiery arrow and jealousy in his heart. The inferior one recognizes his weakness, and, having conveniently acquired humility through self-reproach, rushes after the first; but I don’t know if it will overtake him. Let the careless one not touch what is described here, so that, in despair, he does not waste what he does; and then the gospel word will come true on him: “But from the zeal of the poor, even though he thinks he has, he will take it away” (Matthew 25:29). 28. When we have fallen into the pit of iniquity, we cannot get out of it unless we plunge into the abyss of the humility of the repentant. 29. Another is the humility of the repentant, filled with lamentation; a different twinge of conscience for those still sinning; and the other is blessed and rich humility, which through the special action of God instills in the perfect. Let us not try to explain this third humility in words; for our labor will be in vain. The sign of the second is complete patience with dishonor. Often old habits painfully possess those who mourn their sins; and this is not surprising. The word about destinies and falls is dark for us, and no mind comprehends which ones are the allowance of Providence, and which ones are the abandonment of God. However, someone told me that if we fall into sin by God’s permission, then we soon rise and turn away from sin; for He who has allowed us does not allow us to be possessed by the demon of sorrow for a long time. If we have fallen, then first of all let us take up arms against this demon; for he, having appeared during our prayer and remembering to us our former boldness towards God, wants to tear us away from prayer. 30. Do not be horrified if you fall every day, and do not deviate from the path of God, but stand courageously; and without a doubt the Angel who guards you will honor your patience. When the ulcer is still new and hot, then it is convenient to heal; but old, neglected and neglected wounds are healed inconveniently; for their healing requires a lot of labor, cutting and cauterization. Many wounds from rigidity become incurable; but “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). 31. Before our fall, demons present God to us as loving of mankind, but after our fall as cruel. 32. In your fall, do not submit to him who says about small sins: “Oh, lest you do this, but this is nothing.” Often even small gifts quenched the judge’s great rage 37 . 33. He who truly strives for his salvation considers every day on which he does not mourn his sins as lost, even if he has done some good deeds on it. 34. None of those who cry over their sins should expect that upon leaving this life they will receive notification of forgiveness. The unknown is not certain. “Weaken me with notice, so that I may rest before I even leave” (Ps. 39:14) from here without notice 38. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there bonds are loosed” (2 Cor. 3:17): where humility is deepest, there bonds are loosed; but let him who has neither one nor the other deceive himself, for he is bound. 35. Those who live in the world (and in the spirit of the world) are strangers to these announcements, and especially to the first. Some, however, who give alms, recognize their gain upon leaving this world. 36. He who cries for himself does not see whether another is crying or whether he has fallen; and will not judge others. The dog, bitten by the beast, becomes even more furious with him, and from the pain he feels in the wound, barks relentlessly at him. 37. We must pay attention to whether our conscience has ceased to denounce us, not for the sake of our purity, but as if tired. A sign of remission of sins is that a person always considers himself a debtor to God. 38. There is nothing equal to the mercy of God; there is nothing bigger than her. Therefore, the despairing person destroys himself. A sign of diligent repentance is that a person considers himself worthy of all the visible and invisible sorrows that happen to him, and even greater ones. Moses, after seeing God in the bush, returned again to Egypt, or to the darkness of making bricks, perhaps the mental Pharaoh; but then he again ascended to the bush, and not only to the bush, but also to the Mountain of the Vision of God. He who understands this parable will never despair. The great Job fell into poverty, but then became doubly rich again. 39. Falls for the lazy are hard when they enter monasticism: they take away from them all hope of dispassion, and make them think that just rising from the abyss is enough for bliss. Remember that we do not return the way we got lost, but another shortest one 39 . 40. I saw two, in the same way and at the same time, going to the Lord; one of them was old and superior in work; and “another disciple, but rather than an old man, he came first to the tomb of humility” (John 20:4). 41. Everyone, and especially the fallen, must take care not to allow the illness of the godless Origen into their hearts; for his bad teaching, inspiring about God’s love for mankind, is very pleasing to voluptuous people 40 . 42. “In my teaching, and even more so in my repentance, a fire will burn” (Ps. 39:4) prayer, burning the substance (of sin). Let the previously mentioned holy condemned men be your image, example, rule and example of repentance; and you will have no need of any book throughout your life, until Christ, the Son of God and God, shines upon you in the resurrection of true repentance. Amen. You, the repentant one, have ascended to the fifth degree; by repentance you cleansed the five senses, and by voluntary languor and torment you escaped the involuntary. Whoever, reading in this word the description of the Prison of the Penitents, would fall into doubt about the justice of this narrative or about the agreement of these extreme severity with the spirit of the Gospel, he can use the following considerations to free his soul from doubt. 1. The Monk John, both in general in this book and especially in the narrative of the Prison of Repentance, speaks to John, Abba of Raifa, and all his brothers, whose monastery was closer to Alexandria than Petersburg to Moscow. He says that he himself went to visit one famous monastery, which was not far from this large city, in Thebaid, and that the Abba of this monastery, about whom such edifying stories are told, a man amazing in virtue and wisdom, had in his leadership two other monasteries: one was a monastery built for those whom God raised to the height of silence, and the other was a monastery of penitents, or a monastery of repentance, called the Prison, which was designated for monks who violate the sanctity of their vows by serious falls. For all this, it is incredible that the Monk John, in the story of this Prison, presented the unjust as the truth. 2. Not only John Climacus tells about this monastery of penitents. Blessed Jerome also mentions it in the preface to the rule of Saint Pachomius, saying that he translated this rule into Latin, because the man of God Silvanus, the presbyter, who sent him this rule from Alexandria, informed him that in Thebaid, in the monastery that was once called Tanob and which, by a decent change of word, was later called the monastery of repentance, there are many Raifa monks who do not understand any Greek or Egyptian. So, before the Monk John Climacus visited this monastery, it had already existed for at least two centuries, although it could have happened that after Blessed Jerome it joined the great monastery about which Climacus speaks, and received a special purpose for monks who had fallen into serious crimes and had the need for extreme repentance for their restoration (See: Annotat. in Regul S. Pachom, apud Cassianum). 3. The venerable father himself assures the Raifa brothers that his story is completely sincere, that he writes about what he himself was an obvious witness, that he is not telling fiction and fable, but the true story: “Flock together,” he says, “all who have angered the Lord and come; come and hear what I tell you; gather yourself together and see what the Lord has shown me for the edification of my soul” (Homily 5, chapter 2). He says that he stayed in this monastery for a whole month and that then, returning to the abbot of the great monastery, he could not sufficiently express to him his surprise, aroused by everything he saw and heard in that Prison (Homily 5, chapter 26). So, moral impossibility forbids the idea that the reverend father could deceive the brothers, or, better to say, the entire church, and extend the deception so far. 4. One cannot blame the abbot for the cruelty of “these innocent and blessed convicts,” as the monk calls them, because they were imprisoned in this Prison of repentance at the most zealous desire and intense request of themselves; and all the cruelties of their stay there were completely arbitrary torments, which they perceived in order to get rid of eternal torment. “What compared to them,” says the monk, “is the suffering of those who go berserk, or those who cry over the dead, or those who are imprisoned, or those convicted of murder. Truly, their involuntary torment is nothing in comparison with the voluntary suffering of these. Often they begged this great judge, that is, their shepherd, this angel among men, and convinced him to put iron and shackles on their hands and necks, and their feet, like the feet of criminals, to be imprisoned in stocks and not released from them until they descended into the grave. But sometimes they even deprived themselves of a coffin, begging and conjuring the great Abba, so that he would not grant them a human burial, but, like cattle, would throw their bodies either into the river or into the field to be devoured by beasts” (Sermon 5, ch. 19-21). 5. But all the cruelties of their repentance came from love of God and from hatred of sin, which, apparently, was similar to self-hatred; but in fact this was that dislike for one’s souls, which is gratified in the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:11), and that holy hatred for one’s souls, which our Lord Jesus Christ demands from those who want to become His disciples. The soul, wounded by the fiery arrow of Divine love, feeds on suffering; Tears and feats of slaying are her consolation in sorrows. “Who will arrange for me,” writes Saint Gregory of Nazianzus to Basil the Great, “who will arrange for me according to the months of former days” (Job 29:2), in which I rejoiced with you in suffering; because the sorrowful, but voluntary is preferable to the pleasant, but involuntary (St. Gregory the Theologian. Collection of creations in 2 volumes. Vol. 2. Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, 1994, p. 414 (Letter 5). 6. It must be taken into account that here we are talking about only monks who, having tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 6:4), fell from the height of virtue. Therefore, to those for whom illnesses and their labors seem strange, the monk himself responds with these words: “What is inconvenient and unpleasant for others is kind and pleasant for those who have fallen from the state of virtue and have lost spiritual wealth. For when the soul lost its first boldness before God, lost the hope of dispassion and crushed the seal of purity, when it allowed the treasures of gifts to be stolen from itself, became a stranger to Divine consolation, rejected the covenant of the Lord and extinguished the good fire of spiritual tears, then, pierced and wounded by the memory of this, it will not only take on the above-mentioned labors with all zeal, but and strives to piously kill herself through deeds of repentance, if only a spark of love or fear of the Lord remains in her. Truly such were these blessed ones” (Homily 5, chapter 23). 7. Church history presents us in other ancient monuments with amazing examples of extreme repentance, not only not inferior to the Dungeon described by Climacus, but also surpassing all the cruelty and all the horror of it. Let us remember the exploits of the pillars, Simeonov and Danilov; Let us remember the miracles of God’s grace, glorified in the weakness of the weaker sex, for example, the repentance of Mary of Egypt; and let us repeat after the Lord: what is impossible for man is possible for God. “Let no one,” says St. John Climacus, “out of foolishness fall into unbelief, seeing or hearing in monastic life cases and actions that are supernatural; for where God, who is above nature, reveals His presence, there are many things that are above nature” (Homily 26, chapter 5). 8. God, who was pleased to show St. Paul of Thebes to Anthony the Great, so that with the pen of Blessed Jerome the life of the first anchorite, hidden and angelic, would be made known in the Church, God was pleased that St. John Climacus visited this monastery in Thebaid, and presented to the whole Church a wonderful example of Spiritual repentance, and showed how the Spirit of God is disgusted with sin and that we must hate it “totally.” hatred" (Ps. 139:22). Here also appears the glory of repentance, by which the righteous wrath of God is defeated and which sanctifies sinners so much that, according to John Climacus, “these who have fallen and weep are more blessed than those who have not fallen and who do not weep for themselves.” “I know,” the monk finally says, “I know, most wonderfully, that the exploits I have told you seem incredible to some, to others – beyond hope, and to others – leading to despair; but the courageous man, wounded by this, as if by a sharp edge, departs with a fiery arrow and jealousy in his heart. The inferior one recognizes his weakness, and through self-reproach, having conveniently acquired humility, rushes after the first, but I don’t know whether he will overtake him. Let the careless one not touch what is described here, so that, in despair, he does not waste what he does.” If you fall into the slightest sin and your thought, or a demon, or a person says to you: “Do not grieve about this; Oh, so that you may leave great sins, and this is nothing”; do not obey and do not believe this; because this word extinguishes good will, drives away the grace of God from a person and causes him to easily fall into great and mortal sins. Who can’t put out one candle like he can put out a house, or a whole forest when it’s on fire? We also see that small gifts soften and stop the great anger of the judge, and, on the contrary, small offenses arouse his anger: the same thing happens with the Merciful Judge and our King Christ. We can see for ourselves that we are tempted not only by large reasons, but also by small ones. Therefore, learn to conquer the small if you want to conquer the great. (Modern Greek translation of “The Ladder” by Athanasius of Crete, p. 115.) The most internal and completely spiritual notification that St. John speaks of is accompanied by two signs, which are two virtues: one, according to the explanation of Elijah of Crete, in accordance with the teaching of Basil the Great (Rules, briefly summarized in questions and answers. Question 296), is love and compassion for those who sin (the Spirit of the Lord is, without a doubt, the Spirit of love, for God is love); and the other virtue is deepest humility. Falls are very harmful for lazy, irreverent and disobedient monks, because, having fallen into any sin, small or great, they do not care about tearing out the cause and root of the sin, but instead of mourning it, they become completely insensitive and do other worse things, and due to their negligence they do not immediately turn to repentance with contrition of heart, as pious and repentant ones do. successful in order to carefully preserve themselves and cleanse themselves from that sin and from other passions that tempt them, and in order to cut off their sins through the suffering of the body, as the above-mentioned condemned fathers did. It seems to them that they can be saved with peace and joy, without exposing themselves to suffering, and that it is enough for them just to leave the sin into which they have fallen. But they do not understand that they must quickly rise up and suffer a lot in order to protect themselves from falling in the future and receive forgiveness for their past sins; and that they need to sweat and ask for God's help in order to overcome their passions; because if they do this, then I don’t know what else to tell them. If you think this way, I ask you, think that we cannot return to God through negligence, by which we have deviated and moved away from the face of God, but by another shortest method, that is, by zeal, which brings us closer to God; and if we want to be careful, then it is not impossible for us to become better than before, as can be seen in many great sinners who, through success and repentance, became great saints. Some righteous people, due to their negligence, remained unrepentant in sin and were subjected to torture. Therefore, we must force ourselves and give up false excuses. (Modern Greek translation of “The Ladder” by Athanasius of Crete, p. 117.) The Reverend Father points to the opinion of Origen, condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, according to which all people, even the most wicked, and devils, having endured long torment in fiery hell, will finally be cleansed and will be pardoned. You might be interested in: