Предисловие к 15-му слову

About people living in the flesh like the disembodied. We heard from frantic gluttony that prodigal warfare in the body is its offspring; and this is not surprising. Our ancient forefather Adam teaches us this; for if he had not been overcome by the womb, then, of course, he would not have known what a wife is. Therefore, those who keep the first commandment (of abstinence) do not fall into the second crime (violation of chastity); and although they remain the sons of Adam, they do not know that Adam was (after the fall); but they are diminished in a small way from the Angels; and this is so that evil does not remain immortal, as the teacher, venerable in the name of the Theologian, says 55 Sermon 15. About incorruptible purity and chastity, which perishables acquire through labor and sweat 1. Purity is the assimilation of incorporeal nature. Purity is the longed-for home of Christ, and the earthly heaven of the heart. 2. Purity is a supernatural renunciation of nature, and a truly glorious competition between the dead and corruptible body and incorporeal spirits. 3. He is pure who reflects (carnal) love with (divine) love, and extinguishes bodily fire with immaterial fire. 4. Chastity is the comprehensive name for all virtues. 5. Chastity is purity of soul and body. 6. He is chaste who, even in sleep itself, does not feel any movement or change in the dispensation in which he resides. 7. Chaste, who has forever acquired perfect insensitivity to the difference of bodies. 8. The limit and extreme degree of perfect and all-blessed purity is to remain in the same disposition at the sight of animate and soulless, verbal and dumb beings. 9. Let no one who has learned to maintain cleanliness impute to himself the acquisition of it; for it is impossible for anyone to overcome his nature; and where nature is conquered, there the coming of the One who is above nature is recognized; for, without any contradiction, the lesser is abolished by the greater. 10. The beginning of purity occurs when the thought is not combined with prodigal excuses and without dreams occurs from time to time in a dream of expiration; and the middle of purity, when from the contentment of food there are natural movements, but without dreams; The end of purity is the mortification of the body (i.e., bodily movements), preceded by the mortification of unclean thoughts. 11. Blessed indeed is he who has acquired complete insensitivity to every body and form and beauty. 12. He is not pure who has kept this mortal body uncorrupted, but he who has completely subdued its members to the soul. 13. Great is he who remains dispassionate when touching; the greater one, who is not wounded by the vision and thought of the beauties of heaven, extinguishes the fire that kindles at the sight of earthly beauties. He who drives away a voluptuous dog with prayer is like one who fights a lion; and whoever overthrows it by contradiction is like one who is already driving away his enemy; the same one who completely destroys the pretext, although he remains in the body, has already risen from the grave. If the sign of true purity is to remain motionless even in sleepy dreams; then, of course, the limit of fornication means that even in reality one can suffer discharges from thoughts alone. 14. Whoever wages war with this opponent with bodily labor and sweat is like one who binds his enemy with a weak rope; whoever fights against him with abstinence and vigil is like one who has surrounded his enemy with iron shackles; and whoever arms himself with humility, lack of anger and thirst is like one who killed his adversary and hid him in the sand. Under the name sand, understand humility, because it does not grow pasture for passions, but is earth and ashes. 15. Another bound this tormentor with exploits, another with humility, and another with the revelation of God. The first is like the morning star, the second like the full moon, and the third like the bright sun; but all have citizenship in heaven. And just as the light comes from the dawn, and the sun shines through the light, so what has been said can be understood and seen in reality. 16. The fox pretends to be asleep, and the demon pretends to be chaste; she wants to deceive the bird, and this one wants to destroy his soul. 17. Do not trust this mortal body throughout your entire life, and do not rely on it until you stand before Christ. 18. Do not think that you cannot fall because of abstinence; for one, even though he did not eat anything, was cast out of heaven. 19. Some of those who have the gift of reasoning have well defined self-denial, saying that it is enmity against the body and warfare against the belly. 20. With beginners, physical falls usually occur from enjoying food; with the average they happen from arrogance, and for the same reason as with beginners; but with those approaching perfection, they happen only from the condemnation of their neighbors. 21. Some please eunuchs by nature, as having been delivered from the torment of the flesh; and I please the everyday eunuchs who have learned to emasculate themselves with their minds, like a knife. 22. I saw those who fell involuntarily; and I saw people willingly wanting to fall, but unable to; and I considered these last to be the most wretched of those who fall every day; because, not having the opportunity to sin, they desire the stench of sin. 23. The one who falls is cursed; but he is more wretched who falls himself and drags another to fall, because he will bear the weight of two falls, and the weight of another’s sweetness 56 . 24. Do not think to cast down the demon of fornication with objections and evidence; for he has many convincing justifications, as fighting against us with the help of our nature. 25. He who wants to fight his flesh and overcome it with his own strength struggles in vain; for if the Lord does not destroy the house of carnal lust, and does not build the house of the soul, then he who intends to destroy watches and fasts in vain. 26. Present to the Lord the weakness of your nature, recognizing your powerlessness in everything, and you will insensibly receive the gift of chastity. 27. In voluptuous people there is (as one of them, who experienced this, confessed to me after his sobering), a feeling of some kind of extreme attraction and love for bodies, and such a shameless and inhuman spirit, clearly nesting in the very feeling of the heart, that the one fought by this spirit during battle feels a bodily kindling similar to fire from a blazing furnace; he does not fear God, he regards the memory of torment as nothing, he disdains prayers, almost as if he were actually committing a sin, and looks at dead bodies as if they were soulless stones. The one who suffers this becomes, as it were, mad and frantic, being intoxicated by the ever-present passionate desire of verbal and wordless creatures, so that if the days of this painful battle did not stop, then no soul could be saved, clothed in this clay, dissolved in blood and phlegm. And how could it be otherwise? For everything that exists by nature insatiably desires what is akin to itself: blood for blood, a worm for a worm, and clay for clay; and therefore this flesh also desires flesh, although the enforcers of nature and the desirers of the kingdom of heaven are trying to seduce this charming one with various tricks. Blessed are those who have not experienced the above-described battle. And so let us pray, that He will deliver us forever from such temptation. Those who crawled and fell into this ditch are far away from the Angels ascending and descending along this ladder; and such an ascent, after a fall, requires them to sweat a lot with the strictest fasting. 28. Let us consider whether each of our mental enemies, when they take up arms against us, is assigned to carry out an assignment peculiar to him, as happens in a sensory battle; and this is worthy of surprise. I watched those who were tempted and saw some of the cruelest falls: “having ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15)! 29. Often the devil directs all his efforts, diligence, cunning, cunning and all his intrigues so that those undergoing monastic life and struggling in this field, full of temptations, are fought by unnatural passions. Therefore, often being in the same place with the female sex, and not being overcome by carnal lust or thoughts, some please themselves; But the unfortunate do not understand that where there is greater destruction, there is no need for less. 30. I think that the all-damned murderers usually plunge us poor people into unnatural falls for two reasons: because everywhere we have the convenience of such sins, and because they expose us to greater torment. The one who had previously commanded wild donkeys, and then was himself mocked and enslaved by hellish donkeys, learned what was said; and he who once fed on the bread of heaven was later deprived of this good; What is most surprising is that even after his repentance, our mentor Anthony said with bitter sorrow: “The great pillar has fallen!” But the image of the fall was hidden by the wise man, for he knew that bodily fornication can happen without the participation of another body. There is in us a certain death and destruction of the fall, which we always carry with us and within ourselves, and most of all in our youth. But I did not dare to commit this destruction to writing, because the one who said, “It is shameful for some to speak and write and hear,” held back my hand. 31. Paul called this my, or one might say not my hostile, but also my beloved flesh, death. “Who will deliver me,” he said, “from the body of this death?” (Rom.7:24). And Gregory the Theologian calls it passionate, slavish and nocturnal. I would like to know why these holy men give it such names? If the flesh, as said above, is death, then the one who conquers it, of course, will never die. But who is a man who will live and not see death - the desecration of his flesh? 32. Let us test, I ask you, who is greater before the Lord: the one who died and rose again or the one who never died? He who pleases the latter is deceived: for Christ died and rose again; and the one who pleases the first exhorts those who are dying, that is, those who are falling, not to give in to despair. 33. Our inhuman enemy and teacher of fornication inspires that God loves mankind, and that He gives quick forgiveness to this passion, as natural. But if we begin to observe the cunning of demons, we will find that after committing a sin, they present God to us as a righteous and implacable Judge. The first thing they say is to draw us into sin; and the second, to plunge us into despair. 34. When sadness and despair intensify within us, then we cannot bring proper repentance, neither reproach ourselves, nor reproach ourselves, although in a sad disposition of soul we do not indulge in sin. When they fade away, then again our tormentor inspires us with the mercy of God, so that we fall again. 35. The Lord, as incorruptible and incorporeal, rejoices over the purity and incorruptibility of our body; demons, according to some, do not rejoice over anything else so much as over the stench of fornication, and do not love any passion more than that which defiles the body. 36. Purity assimilates us to God, and as much as possible makes us similar to Him. 37. Earth with dew is the mother of the sweetness of fruits, and the mother of purity is silence with obedience. The dispassion of the body acquired in silence, with frequent closeness to the world, does not remain unshakable: what happens from obedience is everywhere skillful and unshakable. 38. I saw that pride is the cause of humility, and I remembered him who said: “Who has understood the mind of the Lord?” (Rom.11:34). The pit and fruit of arrogance is a fall into sin; For those who want to be saved, the fall into sin is often a reason for humility. 39. Whoever wants to overcome the demon of fornication with gluttony and satiety is like someone who extinguishes a fire with oil. 40. Whoever tries to satisfy this battle with abstinence alone is like a man who thinks to swim out of the abyss, swimming with one hand. Combine humility with abstinence; for the former without the latter brings no benefit. 41. Whoever sees in himself some kind of dominant passion must first of all arm himself against it, especially if it is a domestic enemy; for if we do not conquer this passion, then there will be no benefit to us from victory over others, and having defeated this Egyptian, of course, we will see God in the bush of humility. 42. Being in temptation, I felt that this wolf wanted to seduce me, producing wordless joy, tears and consolation in my soul; and in my infancy I thought that I had received the fruit of grace, and not vanity and delusion. 43. If “every sin, even if a man commits it, exists besides the body, but the fornicator sins in his own body” (1 Cor. 6:18), then this is without a doubt because the very essence of our flesh is desecrated by the flow; but in another sin it is impossible for this to happen. I ask here why about those who commit every other sin we usually say only: “He sinned,” and when we hear that someone has committed fornication, we say with sorrow: “So-and-so has fallen” 57? 44. The fish is in a hurry to run away from the fishing rod: but the voluptuous soul turns away from silence. 45. When the devil wants to bind two faces in a union of shameful love, then he tests both sides: and then he begins to kindle the fire of passion. 46. ​​Those inclined to voluptuousness are often compassionate and merciful, quick to tears and affectionate; but those who care about cleanliness are not like that. 47. One wise man asked me a terrible question: “What sin,” he said, “after murder and renunciation of Christ, is the gravest of all?” And when I answered: “Fall into heresy,” then he objected: “How can the conciliar Church accept heretics and honor them with the communion of the Holy Mysteries, when they sincerely anathematize their heresy: and the one who committed adultery, although he confessed this sin and stopped committing it, accepting it, excommunicates him for whole years from the Most Pure Mysteries, as the Apostolic Canons command?” I was struck with bewilderment; but this bewilderment remained bewilderment and without resolution 58 . 48. Let us test, examine and observe: what sweetness comes to us, during psalmody, from the demon of fornication, and what from the words of the Spirit, and the grace and power contained in them. 49. Don’t forget, young man! I saw that some prayed from the heart for their loved ones, driven by the spirit of fornication, and thought that they were fulfilling the duty of remembrance and the law of love. 50. You can defile the body with just touch; for there is nothing as dangerous as this feeling. Remember the one who wrapped his hand around the edge of his robe, 59 (when he carried his elderly mother), and keep the feeling of your hand and do not touch the secret and other parts of either your own or someone else’s body. 51. I think that a person cannot be called completely holy unless he first sanctifies this earth (i.e., body) and transforms it in some way, if only such transformation is possible in temporary life. 52. Having reclined on the bed, we should most of all be awake and sober; because then our mind alone, without the body, fights with demons; and if he is voluptuous, or filled with voluptuous dreams, then he willingly becomes a traitor. 53. Let the memory of death fall asleep and rise with you, and with it the Jesus Prayer of the same mind; for nothing can give you such strong intercession during sleep as these doings. 54. Some claim that this abuse during sleep and discharges occur solely from food: but I saw that some were in serious illness, and others, keeping the strictest fast, were often defiled by discharges. One day I asked one of the most skillful and sensible monks about this subject; and this blessed one gave me very clear instructions. “There are,” said the ever-memorable one, “outflows in sleep from an abundance of food and from excessive rest; and sometimes out of pride, when we, having remained free from outflows for a long time, are lifted up by this; sometimes it’s because we judge our neighbor. But from the last two reasons, discharge can also happen to patients, and maybe from all three. If anyone feels that he is clean from all these reasons now shown: then blessed is this person for the sake of such dispassion; out of sheer demonic envy he endures what happens at times when God allows it to happen to him so that through a sinless misadventure he can acquire the highest humility.” 55. Throughout the day, no one should imagine in his mind the dreams that happen in sleep; for this is also the intention of the demons, to defile us who are awake with dreams. 56. We will also hear about another treachery of our enemies. Just as food harmful to the body produces illness in us over a period of time, or a day later, so very often causes that defile the soul also act. I saw those enjoying and not suddenly struggling; I saw that some eat and stay with women, and at that time do not have any evil thoughts; but when they were deceived by arrogance and dreamed that they had peace and affirmation, they suddenly suffered destruction in their cell. And what kind of destruction it is, physical and mental, to which a person can be exposed alone, is known to those who were in this temptation, and those who were not tempted do not need to know. 57. At this time, they serve us with great power: thin clothing, ashes, standing all night, hunger, thirst, a scorching tongue, and not cooled by many drops, staying at the tombs, and above all, humility of heart, and, if possible, a spiritual father, or a zealous brother, quick to help and old in mind: for I consider it a miracle that someone could save his ship from this abyss by himself. 58. Often the same sin, when committed by one person, deserves a hundredfold greater punishment than when it was committed by another, judging by the character of the sinner, the place where the sin occurred, the spiritual age at which the sinner was, and for many other reasons. 59. Someone told me about the amazing and highest degree of purity. Someone, seeing an extraordinary female beauty, greatly glorified the Creator about her, and from this one vision he was inflamed with love for God and shed a source of tears. Truly an amazing sight! What could have been a ditch of destruction for another, supernaturally served him to receive a crown of glory. If such a person in such cases always has the same feeling and action, then he is resurrected, incorruptible before the general resurrection. 60. We must do the same when listening to hymns and songs. God-loving souls, when they hear the singing of worldly or spiritual songs, are filled with the purest consolation, divine love and tears; while completely opposite feelings are aroused in the voluptuous. 61. Some, as we said before, being in silent places, are much more likely to be attacked by demons; and this is not surprising, because demons usually stay there, having been driven out by the Lord into the desert and into the abyss for the sake of our salvation. The demons of fornication attack the silent man with particular cruelty in order to drive him out into the world, instilling in him that he receives no benefit from the desert. But when we are in the world, they move away from us, so that we, seeing ourselves free from warfare, remain among the things of the world. So, where we suffer an attack from enemies, there, without a doubt, we ourselves struggle strongly with them; and whoever does not feel this battle finds himself in friendship with his enemies. 62. When we are in the world due to some need, the hand of the Lord covers us; often, perhaps, the prayer of the spiritual father, so that the name of God is not blasphemed through us. Sometimes this happens from insensitivity and from the fact that we have already experienced a lot of what we see and hear, and are satiated with it; or because the demons deliberately retreat from us, leaving the demon of pride, which alone replaces all the others. 63. All of you who want to learn purity, hear about one more cunning and deceit of the seducer of the soul, and be careful. Someone experienced this deception of him with his own experience, and told me that the demon of carnal voluptuousness very often completely hides itself, brings extreme reverence to the monk, and produces in him sources of tears when he sits or talks with women, and incites him to teach them the remembrance of death, the last judgment, and the preservation of chastity, so that these damned ones, seduced by his words and feigned reverence, they resorted to this wolf as to a shepherd; but the most damned one, having received boldness from close acquaintance, finally suffers a fall. 64. We will run away with all our might, so that we neither see nor hear about that fruit that we promised never to eat; for I am surprised if we consider ourselves stronger than the prophet David; which is impossible to be. 65. The praise of purity is so great and high that some of the fathers dared to call it dispassion. 66. Some say that after experiencing carnal sin it is impossible to be called pure; and I, refuting their opinion, say that it is possible and convenient for anyone who wants to graft a wild olive into a good one. And if the keys of the kingdom of heaven were entrusted to a virgin in body, then perhaps this opinion would have validity. But may he who had a mother-in-law, but was pure and carried the keys of the kingdom, put to shame those who think in this way. 67. The serpent of voluptuousness is diverse; He inspires those who have not tasted the sweetness of sin to taste it only once and stop; and those who have tasted the insidious one are prompted by the memory to commit sin again. Many of the former, since they do not know this evil, are free from struggle; and of the latter, many, as having experienced this abomination, endure cold and abuse. However, quite the opposite of this often happens. 68. Sometimes we rise from sleep clean and peaceful, and this happens to be a secret blessing that we receive from St. Angels, especially when we fell asleep with much prayer and sobriety; sometimes we get up unclean and confused; The reason for this is bad dreams. 69. “I have seen the wicked exalting himself and towering like the cedars of Lebanon, and how he is troubled and raging against me; and he died by abstinence, and behold, his wrath was not as before; and I sought him, humbled my thoughts, and his place was not found in me, or his trace (Ps. 37:35-36). 70. He who conquered the body conquered the nature; he who conquered nature, without a doubt, became superior to nature; and such a person is “little,” or, if I may say so, “in no way lower than the angels” (Ps. 8:6). 71. There is nothing wonderful if the immaterial fights with the immaterial; but it is truly a great miracle that the spirit, clothed in a substance hostile to it and fighting against it, defeats immaterial enemies. 72. Good Lord, and in this he shows great providence for us, that the shamelessness of the female sex is restrained by shame, as if by some kind of bridle; for if women themselves resorted to men, no flesh would be saved. 73. According to the definition of the prudent fathers, another is a pretext, another is a combination, another is a coupling, another is captivity, another is a struggle, and another is the so-called passion in the soul. These blessed ones define that a preposition is a simple word, or an image of some object, again appearing to the mind and brought into the heart; and the combination is a conversation with the appeared image, by passion or dispassionately; coitus is the agreement of the soul with the presented thought, combined with pleasure; captivity is a violent and involuntary attraction of the heart, or prolonged mental copulation with an object, ruining our good dispensation; struggle refers to the equality of strength between the fighter and the one being fought in battle, where the latter arbitrarily either wins or is defeated; Passion is the name given to the very vice that has been ingrained in the soul for a long time, and through habit has become, as it were, a natural property of it, so that the soul already voluntarily and by itself strives towards it. Of all these, the first is sinless; the second is not entirely without sin; and the third is judged according to the disposition of the ascetic; struggle is the cause of crowns or torment; captivity is judged differently during prayer, differently at other times, differently in relation to indifferent objects, that is, neither bad nor good, and differently in evil thoughts. Passion, without a doubt, is subject in all, either to proportionate repentance, or to future torment; but whoever thinks first (that is, the preposition in thought) dispassionately, 60 at once cuts off all the last. 74. The most enlightened and sensible of the fathers noticed another thought, which is more subtle than all those shown above. It is called the foray of thought; and it passes through the soul so quickly that, without time, without words or images, it instantly presents passion to the ascetic. In the carnal warfare between the spirits of malice, there is no one faster and more inconspicuous than this. With one subtle memory, without combination, without the continuation of time, in an inexplicable, and in some even unknown way, he suddenly appears as his presence in the soul. Whoever through crying has managed to comprehend such subtlety of thought can teach us: how, with one eye, and a simple glance, and the touch of the hand, and the hearing of a song, without any thought or thought, the soul can commit fornication passionately. 75. Some say that passions enter the body from the thoughts of the heart; while others, on the contrary, argue that evil thoughts are born from bodily feelings. The first say that if the mind had not preceded, then the body would not have followed; The latter, in defense of their opinion, cite the harmful effect of bodily passion, saying that very often evil thoughts receive entry into the heart from a pleasant look, or from hearing a pleasant voice. Whoever could know this about the Lord will teach us: for all this is very necessary and useful for those who intelligently undergo spiritual work. The abiding workers have no need for simplicity and rightness of heart; for not everyone can have subtle knowledge, and not everyone can have blissful simplicity, this armor against all the tricks of crafty demons. 76. Some of the passions, born in the soul, pass into the body; and some are the opposite. This latter usually happens to the worldly, and the former to those going through monastic life, due to the lack of cases. As for me, I will say about this: “You seek the understanding of the wicked, and you will not find it” (Proverbs 14:6). 77. When, after a long struggle against the demon of fornication, the like-minded soul of our mortal flesh, we drive him out of our hearts, wounding him with the stone of fasting and the sword of humility: then this accursed one, like a certain worm, creeping inside our body, will try to defile us, inciting us to untimely and indecent movements. 78. Those most susceptible to this are those who submit to the demon of vanity; for they, seeing that they are no longer often disturbed in their hearts by lustful thoughts, bow to vanity; and that this is true, they themselves can be convinced of this when, having retired for a while into silence, they carefully examine themselves. They will certainly find that in the depths of their hearts there lurks a certain secret thought, like a serpent in a dungeon, which to some extent inspires them to attribute purity to their own diligence and zeal, not allowing these accursed ones to think about the words of the Apostle: “what they have received” (1 Cor. 4:7) tuna, either directly from God, or with the help of others and through their prayer. So, let them pay attention to themselves, and let them try to kill the above-mentioned serpent with much humility and cast him out of their hearts; so that, having gotten rid of it, they too would one day be able to put off their leather garments (voluptuousness) and sing to the Lord the victorious song of purity, like those chaste children of the Gospel once did. And without a doubt they will sing, even if they are distracted, “no Nazis will find themselves” of the kindness and humility characteristic of infants (2 Cor. 5:3). 79. This demon observes more carefully than all others the times that are most convenient for catching us; and when he sees that we cannot pray against him physically, then this unclean one especially tries to attack us. 80. For those who have not yet acquired true heartfelt prayer, bodily prayer is facilitated by the feat of compulsion, for example: stretching out the arms, beating the chest, tenderly looking at the sky, deep sighs, and frequent kneeling. But how often does it happen that they cannot do this in the presence of other people, and that demons then try to attack them; and since they are not yet able to resist them with the courage of their minds and the invisible power of prayer, then, perhaps, out of necessity, they yield to those who fight them. In this case, if you can, quickly move away from people, hide for a short time in a secret place, and there look at the sky, if you can, with your spiritual eye, and if not, then at least with your physical eye; stretch out your hands in a cross shape and hold them motionless, so that in this way you can shame and defeat the mental Amalek. Cry to the One who is able to save, and cry not with eloquent words, but with humble broadcasts, beginning first of all with this appeal: “Have mercy on me, for I am weak” (Ps. 6:3). Then through experience you will know the power of the Almighty, and with invisible help you will invisibly put invisible (enemies) to flight. Whoever has learned to fight them in this way will soon begin to drive away these enemies with just his soul; for the Lord gives this second gift to workers as a reward for their first exploits. And fair enough! 81. Being nowhere in the congregation, I noticed that one careful brother was attacked by unclean thoughts; and since he could not find a decent place where to pray secretly from others, he went out, as if out of natural need, and there he said a fervent prayer for these adversaries. And when I reprimanded him for the inappropriateness of the place for prayer, he answered: “I prayed in an unclean place to drive away unclean thoughts, in order to cleanse myself of filth.” 82. All demons first try to darken our mind, and then they suggest what they want; for if the mind does not close its eyes, then our treasure will not be stolen; but the prodigal demon uses this remedy much more than anyone else. Often darkening the mind of this ruler, he encourages and forces us in front of people to do what only crazy people do. When, after some time, the mind becomes sober, then we are ashamed not only of those who saw our disorderly actions, but also of ourselves, for our obscene actions, conversations and movements, and we are horrified at our previous blindness; why some, reasoning about this, often lagged behind this evil. 83. Turn away from this adversary when, after you have done the actions described above, he forbids you to pray, practice pious deeds, and remain in vigil; and remember the One who said: “Because this soul labors for me, tormented by vicious habits, I will take its vengeance” from its enemies (Luke 18:5). 84. Who will conquer his body? The one who broke his heart. And who broke his heart? One who has denied himself; for how can one who died to his own will not be crushed? 85. Among passionate people, one is more passionate than the other; and some confess their very filth with voluptuousness and delight. Unclean and shameful thoughts are usually born in the heart from the demon of fornication, this deceiving heart; but they are healed by abstinence and imputing them to nothing. 86. How and in what way can I bind my flesh, this friend of mine, and judge it according to the example of other passions? Don't know. Before I have time to tie it up, it is already resolved; Before I judge her, I make peace with her; and before I begin to torment, I bow to her with pity. How can I hate the one I am naturally accustomed to love? How can I free myself from the one with whom I am bound forever? How can I kill the one who should rise with me? How can I make incorruptible one who can confront me with so many natural objections? If I bind her with fasting, then, having condemned my neighbor, I again surrender to her; If, having stopped judging others, I defeat her, then, having lifted up my heart, I am again brought down by her. She is my friend, she is my enemy, she is my helper, she is also my rival; my intercessor and traitor. When I please her, she turns against me. Am I exhausting her, exhausting her? If I put her to rest, she goes wild. Am I a burden? I can’t stand it. If I make her sad, then I myself will be extremely poor. If I defeat her, then there will be no one with whom to acquire virtues. And I turn away from it and embrace it. What kind of mystery is this in me? How did this combination of opposites come about in me? How am I both my own enemy and friend? Tell me, my wife is my nature; for I do not want to ask anyone else but you about what concerns you; tell me how can I remain invulnerable to you? How can I avoid natural disaster when I promised Christ to wage constant warfare with you? How can I overcome your torment when I voluntarily decided to be your enforcer? She, answering her soul, says: “I will not tell you what you do not know; but I will say what we both understand. I have my father in me - self-love. External kindlings come from pleasing me and from excessive peace in everything; and the internal ones from the previously former peace and from voluptuous deeds. Having conceived, I give birth to falls; they, having been born, themselves give birth to death through despair. If you clearly recognize my and your deep weakness, then you will tie my hands. If you torture my larynx with abstinence, then you will tie my legs so that they do not move forward. If you unite with obedience, you will free yourself from me, and if you acquire humility, you will cut off my head.” Fifteenth degree. Whoever, being in the flesh, received the victorious honor here too, died and was resurrected, and even here he knew the beginning of the future incorruption. Elijah of Crete says: “If anyone has sinned, in whatever way he has gone astray, that is how he returns again. For example, if someone has denied God with his lips, he can confess Him again with his lips; if someone stole his neighbor’s property with his hands, then with his hands he can distribute his property to the poor. This also happens in other sins. But he who has sinned against chastity returns not in the way in which he fell, but in another way, that is, by crying, fasting and groaning. Therefore, the sin of prodigal sin is actually called the fall. Especially in monastic life, more than anything else, virginity is characteristic. The very name of the monk expresses this; this is the monastic vow. So, he who corrupted virginity has truly fallen, having violated his vows.” PG 88, Art. 912. Heresy is a deviation of the mind from the truth and a sin of the lips or tongue. And fornication is the sin of the whole body, it damages and corrupts all feelings and powers of body and soul and overshadows the image and likeness of God in man; That's why it's called a fall. Heresy comes from exaltation, and fornication comes from bodily joy. Therefore, heretics are corrected by humility, and fornicators by suffering. PG 88, p. 912. Patericon, word 18–2 about reasoning. That is, it does not allow for a passionate impression, but rejects it. You might be interested in: