Огласительное поучение четвертое

[To those preparing in Jerusalem for enlightenment, spoken without preparation, about the ten dogmas, based on the words from the Epistle to the Colossians: Take heed, brethren, lest anyone lead you away through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, etc. ( Col. 2:8 )]. 1. Vice imitates virtue, and the tares try to appear like wheat. In appearance, however, they resemble wheat, but those who are able to distinguish recognize them when they eat them. And the devil is transformed into an Angel of Light not in order to return to his primitive state, but in order to deceive people (for having a heart as hard as an anvil, he also has a will that can no longer repent), in order to impose the darkness of blindness and the deadly spread of unbelief on those leading an equal angelic life. There are many wolves walking around in sheep's clothing; They have the clothing of sheep, but do not have their hooves and teeth. Being covered with the skin of a meek animal and with an appearance that seduces ordinary people, they emit from their jaws the fatal poison of wickedness. So, we need Divine grace, a cheerful thought and prudent eyes, so that out of ignorance we do not eat tares instead of wheat and suffer harm, so as not to fall into the hands of a wolf, mistaking him for a sheep, and so as not to become food for the evil devil, mistaking him for a beneficent Angel. For he, according to Scripture, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). This is why the Church offers instructions, this is why real teachings are done, this is why the Holy Scriptures are read. 2. The image of reverence for God lies in the following two things: accurate knowledge of the dogmas of piety and good deeds. Dogmas without good deeds are not favorable to God; He does not accept works if they are not based on the dogmas of piety. For what is the use of knowing well the doctrine of God and shamefully committing fornication? On the other hand, what is the use of being abstinent as one should and blaspheming wickedly? Therefore, knowledge of dogmas and wakefulness of the soul is the greatest acquisition. Since there are many who deceive with philosophy and vain lies: the pagans entice those who convert with the sweetness of the tongue, honey drips from the lips of a harlot's wife (see Proverbs 5:3); the circumcised deceive by perverting the Divine Scripture, laboring at it from childhood to old age and growing old in ignorance; followers of heretics with flattering and beautiful words deceive the hearts of ordinary people, under the name of Christ, as if under honey, hiding the poison of evil rules - the Savior says about all of them: beware lest anyone deceive you (Matthew 24:4). This is why there is instruction in faith, this is why its explanations are made. 3. But before you enter the community of believers, it seems to me that it is not useless to briefly present the necessary dogmas, so that the abundance of subjects that will need to be discussed, and the continuation of the days of the entire Holy Pentecost, do not cause you to forget about the most important truths for reflection. However, having now offered it briefly, we will not forget to offer it in more detail. But those who are most perfect among those who are present, who have the skill and sense... to distinguish between good and evil (Heb. 5:14), may they patiently endure that they will listen to teaching more characteristic of infants, and instruction like milk, so that together those who need clarification may benefit, and those who have acquired knowledge will remember what they have already learned before. 4. So, first of all, let the doctrine of God be placed at the foundation of your soul: God is one, the only unborn, beginningless, unchangeable, unchangeable, not born from anyone and not having another successor in His life, neither beginning to live in time, nor having an end to life. He is good and at the same time just; therefore, if when you hear the words of a heretic, that another god is just and another good, immediately remembering this, you will recognize the poison of heresy, which dares to divide the only God by wicked teaching. And others say that there is another who is the creator and Lord of the soul, and another of the body; these are mad and at the same time wicked teachers. For how can a person be a servant of two masters, since the Lord says in the Gospel: No one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24)? Therefore, there is only one God - the Creator of soul and body. He is the Creator of many things, but of only one is the eternal Father, His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom He created everything, visible and invisible. 5. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not limited to any place and no less to heaven, but, on the contrary, heaven is the work of His hands and the whole earth is contained in His handful. He is in everything and beyond everything. Do not think that He is less than the sun or equal to it. For He who originally created the sun must be incomparably greater and brighter than it. He knows the future in advance, He is most powerful; knows and does as he wants. He is not subject to the order of things, nor to the dictates of the stars, nor to chance, nor to fate; perfect in everything, containing in Himself all the fullness of perfection, not increasing, but always having the same thing in equal measure; who has prepared punishment for the sinners and a crown for the righteous. 6. And many in various ways strayed away from the one God: some deified the sun, so that after setting the sun, during the night, they would be without God; some deified the moon so as not to have God during the day; some - other parts of the world, others - arts, others - food, others - pleasures. And some, madly partial to women, placed an image of a naked woman on a hill and called her Venus, in this image they worship their passion, while others, being amazed by the shine of gold, deified both it and other things. If anyone places the doctrine of the sovereignty of God as the foundation of his heart and believes in Him, he will destroy all the destruction of evil idolatry and heretical seduction. So, first of all, place this truth of piety, with the help of faith, at the foundation of your soul. 7. Believe also in the Son of God, the one and only one, our Lord Jesus Christ, in God, born of God, born into life from life, in Light from Light, born, who in everything is like the One who gave birth, who did not come into being in time, but before all ages was born from the Father eternally and in an incomprehensible way, who is the wisdom of God, and power, and original truth; Who sits at the right hand of the Father before all ages; for He did not, after suffering, being crowned, receive from God, as some think, but with His very being, He received the throne at His right hand. He is born and always has royal dignity, sits with the Father, is God, and Wisdom, and Power, as it is said: together with the Father he reigns and does everything according to the will of the Father, without diminishing, however, in the dignity of the Divine; knows the One who gave birth as the One who gave birth to Him knows. Briefly, remember what is written in the Gospel: no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son (cf. Matt. 11:27). 8. Do not separate the Son from the Father and do not confuse the same by allowing the Son-Fatherland, but believe that there is only one God, the Only Begotten Son, God the Word before all ages; the word is not that which, having been pronounced, spreads through the air, a word that is not similar to words that are not original, but the Word of the Son, the Creator of verbal beings, the Word that hears the Father and speaks Himself. However, God willing, this will be told to you in more detail over time: I remember my intention to give brief instructions in the faith now. 9 . Believe that the Only Begotten Son of God, for the sake of our sins, came down from heaven to earth, taking upon Himself humanity similar to ours and being born of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Spirit. Not in the form and ghost, but truly, His incarnation took place; He did not pass through the Virgin as through a canal, but was truly incarnate from Her; really ate like us and really drank like us. For if incarnation is a ghost, then salvation will be a dream. Christ had two natures: He was a man, since He was visible, and at the same time God is invisible. As a man, He really ate as we do (for He had flesh like ours), and as God, He fed five thousand people with five loaves; really died like a man, and resurrected a four-day dead man like God; slept on the ship really like a man, and walked on the waters like God. 10. He was truly crucified for our sins. If you wanted to reject this, then a visible place would convict you, this blessed Golgotha, on which we have now gathered for the sake of Him crucified on it. Yes, and the whole universe already has parts of the tree of the cross, and He was crucified not for His sins, but so that we would be freed from our sins. He was then mocked by people and strangled to death like a man, but known by creation as God. For the sun, seeing the disgraced Lord, eclipsed with trepidation, unable to bear such a sight. 11. He was laid in a stone coffin, truly like a man, but for His sake the stones scattered out of fear; descended into underground places in order to free the righteous from there. For would you, tell me, want the living to enjoy grace, while most of them are unrighteous, and those who were imprisoned by Adam for a long time did not receive freedom? The Prophet Isaiah publicly foretold so many things about Him; would you not wish that the King would come down and release the herald? David was there, and Samuel, and all the prophets, and John himself, who speaks through the messengers: Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another? (Matthew 11:3). Wouldn't you wish that He would come down and set them free? 12. But he who went down into the underground places came out from there, and the buried Jesus truly rose again on the third day. And if the Jews ever reproach you, then you should immediately ask them this way: if Jonah came out of the whale on the third day, then why didn’t Christ rise from the earth on the third day? If the dead, who touched the bones of Elisha, rose, then could not the Creator of all rise by the power of the Father? So, He truly rose again and, having risen, again appeared to the disciples; and the witnesses of His resurrection are the twelve disciples, who did not testify to the resurrection with seductive words, but exposed themselves to torment and death, struggling for the truth of the resurrection. If through the mouth of two or three witnesses, as Scripture says, every word was confirmed (Matthew 18:16), then twelve people testify about the resurrection of Christ; and do you still not believe in the resurrection? 13. Having accomplished the feat of patience and redeemed people from their sins, Jesus ascended again to heaven, being lifted up by a cloud. The angels appeared before the Ascendant, the apostles were spectators. If anyone does not believe this story, then he must believe the actions that he sees now. All kings, dying, are deprived of their power along with their life, and the whole universe worships the Crucified Christ. We proclaim the name of the Crucified One, and evil spirits tremble. Many have been crucified at various times, but when has the name of any other crucified one driven away evil spirits? 14. So, let us not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, but even if another conceals it, openly mark your forehead with them, so that the evil spirits, having recognized the royal sign, will run far away from you with trembling. Mark yourself with it when you eat, drink, sit down, lie down, get up from sleep, talk, walk, in general on any occasion. For the Crucified One is at the height of heaven. If the Crucified and Buried One had remained in the tomb, then they would have had reason to be ashamed, but the Crucified One on Golgotha ​​ascended to heaven from the eastern side of the Mount of Olives. Having descended from here to hell and coming back to us, he ascended from us again into heaven, with the voice of the Father calling to Him: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool (Ps. 109:1). 15. This ascended Jesus Christ will come again from heaven, not from earth. Not from the earth, I say, for from the earth many opponents of Christ will soon appear. Already many, as you know, began to say: I am Christ (Matthew 24:5), and in the end the abomination of desolation will appear (Matthew 24:15), unrighteously appropriating for itself the name of Christ. But wait for the true Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, who is no longer coming from earth, but from heaven; Who will be revealed to everyone faster than lightning and rays of light, accompanied by Angels, to judge the living and the dead and reign in the Kingdom of Heaven, eternal and endless. And note this, since there are many who say that the Kingdom of Christ will have an end. 16. Believe in the Holy Spirit and hold the same thoughts regarding Him that you have about the Father and the Son, and do not listen to the blasphemous teaching about Him. Know that this Holy Spirit is one, indivisible, multi-powerful, multi-active, but in Himself indivisible, Who knows the mysteries, searches everything, and the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10), Who descended in the form of a dove on the Lord Jesus Christ, Who acted in the law and the prophets, Who even now at the time of baptism seals your soul. All rational nature needs His sanctification. If anyone dares to blaspheme Him, he will not receive remission either in this age or in the future (Matthew 12:32). He is honored with equal glory of the Divine with the Father and the Son; Thrones and Dominions, Principalities and Powers have need of Him. For there is one God, the Father of Christ, and one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the one God, and one Holy Spirit, who sanctifies and deifies everything, who spoke in the law and the prophets, in the Old Testament and the New. 17. Imprint this teaching in your thoughts constantly, now it is presented to you in abbreviation; if the Lord allows, then, if possible, it will be presented with evidence from the Holy Scriptures. For no Divine and holy mystery of faith should be communicated without Divine Scripture and should not be based on faith and chosen words alone. Don’t even believe me when I simply tell you about Him, unless you have evidence for my words from the Divine Scripture. For the power of faith that saves us does not depend on the choice of words, but on the proof of the Divine Scriptures. 18. After you have come to know this pure and glorious and all-holy faith, know yourself, what you are, know that you are a person consisting of two parts, soul and body, and that, as was recently said, the same God is the Creator of soul and body. Know that you have a free soul, a beautiful creation of God, created in the image of the Creator, immortal by the grace of God, who makes it immortal, a living, intelligent, incorruptible creation by the grace of Him who gave it, a creation that has the power to do what it wants. For you do not sin because you were born at one time or another, it is not fate that forces you to commit fornication, it is not the position of the stars, as some people say idle talk, that forces you to indulge in lust. Why, not wanting to admit your own evil, do you attribute its cause to innocent stars? Don't listen to the stargazers. For the Divine Scripture speaks of them: let the observers of the heavens and the astrologers come forth, and further: Behold, they are like stubble; the fire has burned them up; they have not delivered their souls from the flames (Is. 47:13-14). 19. Know also that the soul did not sin at all before it came into this world; Having come into it sinless, we now sin at will. Do not listen at all to someone who poorly explains the following passage: I do what I do not want (Rom. 7:16), but remember the words: If you want and obey, you will eat the blessings of the earth; if you deny and persist, the sword will devour you (Is. 1:19–20), etc.; and in another place: Just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness for wicked works, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for holy works (Rom. 6:19); Remember also the following words of Scripture: they did not care to have God in their minds (Rom. 1:28); and again: what can be known about God is obvious to them (Rom. 1:19); and these: they closed their eyes (Matthew 13:15), and in another place the words of God Himself: I planted you like a noble vine... how did you turn... into a wild branch of someone else's vine? (Jer.2:21). 20. The soul is immortal, and the souls of men and women are alike; only the members of the body are different. Souls are not designed in such a way that some by nature sin, while others by nature do good; but both depend on the will, and the essence of souls in all is the same and similar. I could talk to you about many things, but a lot of time has passed; however, what else should we talk about if not salvation? Don't you really want to accept parting words for the feat with the heretics? Don’t you really want to know the twists and turns of this path, so that you don’t fall down the rapids out of ignorance? If mentors see considerable benefit in your learning this, then shouldn’t you, the mentor, accept with pleasure everything that is told to you? 21. The soul is autocratic; Therefore, the devil can incite, but he has no power to force someone against his will. He inspires you with the idea of ​​fornication; if you want it, you will accept it, but if you don’t want it, you will not accept it. For if you committed adultery out of necessity, then why did God prepare Gehenna? If by nature, and not by freedom, you did good, then why did God prepare indescribable crowns? The sheep is meek, but it will never be crowned for its meekness, because its meekness comes not from freedom, but from nature. 22. Beloved, you have now learned as much as possible about the soul; accept whatever instruction you can about your body. Don't listen to anyone who says it is not from God. For those who believe that the body is not from God, freely use it, like a foreign vessel, for fornication. And why do they despise their amazing body? What lack of beauty does it have? What art is missing in its structure? Shouldn't they imagine the most transparent composition of the eyes? Imagine how ears, having been crookedly formed, can hear unhindered? And how is the sense of smell capable of receiving and distinguishing odors? How does the tongue serve in two cases: for distinguishing taste and for verbal action? How does the lung, being hidden inside, constantly breathe air? Who made the heart beat continuously? Who made so many small and large veins? Who wisely connected the bones with the nerves? Who designated one part of food for the maintenance of life, and separated the other for eruption and hid the private parts in ignoble places? Who makes the human race, which could have been cut short, continuous through convenient copulation? 23. Don't tell me that the body is guilty of sin. For if the body is guilty of sin, why does not the dead sin? Place the sword in the hand of the one who has just died; there will be no murder. Let all the beauties appear before the already dead young man; there will be no lust for fornication in him. Why? Because the body does not sin by itself, but the soul sins through the body. The body is a tool and, as it were, clothing and cover for the soul. If she decides to commit fornication, then the body becomes unclean; if it is united with a holy soul, then it becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s not me who says this, but the Apostle Paul said: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you? (1 Cor. 6:19). So, guard your body, since it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not defile your flesh with fornication, do not put stains on this beautiful garment of yours. If you have stained it, then clean it now with repentance, wash yourself while you have time. 24. Listen to the teaching on chastity, firstly, you who belong to the class of monastics and virgins who lead a life on earth equal to the angels, and then other members of the Church. A great crown is prepared for you, brothers; do not exchange important dignity for unimportant pleasures, listen to the words of the apostle: lest there be among you any fornicator or wicked man, who, like Esau, would give up his birthright for one meal (Heb. 12:16). You are already inscribed in the angelic books for your determination to maintain chastity; be careful not to be blotted out again for your prodigal deeds. 25. On the other hand, those who lead a virgin life should not be proud of those who are married. For marriage... is honorable and the bed undefiled (Heb. 13:4), as the apostle says. And you, who preserve your innocence, were not born of marriage? Do not despise silver because you have gold. May those who are married be in good hope, who live in marriage as they should, who marry according to the law, and not out of lust, following an unbridled will; who know the time for abstinence in order to freely engage in prayer; who in church meetings with clean clothes have clean bodies; who entered into marriage for the purpose of procreation, and not for lust. 26. Let those who are monogamous not despise those who have entered into a second marriage: abstinence is truly a good and amazing thing; however, it is also excusable to enter into a second marriage, so that the weak do not commit fornication. It's good for them to stay like me. But if they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to become inflamed (1 Cor. 7:8-9). And let all the rest - fornication, adultery and every form of intemperance - be removed from you; Let the body be kept pure for the Lord, so that the Lord may look upon the body. Let the body be fed with food only for the maintenance of life and for unhindered service, and not in order to indulge in its pleasures. 27. Regarding food, here are the rules for you, since many people sin through food. Some indiscriminately begin to make sacrifices to idols, while others abstain from them, however, they condemn those who eat, and in various ways, in judgments about food, the souls of some are defiled, who do not know the fundamental reasons for eating or not eating something. We fast, abstain from wine and meat, not because we hate them as unclean things, but because we expect a reward for it; so that for the contempt of the sensual we may enjoy a spiritual and mental meal, and so that, having sowed now with tears, we may reap with joy in the next century. So, do not despise those who eat and those who take food because of bodily weakness, and do not blame those who drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments (cf. 1 Tim. 5:23), and do not condemn them as sinners, do not disdain meat, as a thing not peculiar to you. For these are the ones the apostle has in mind when he says: those who forbid marriage and the eating of that which God created that those who are faithful and know the truth should eat with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:3). Therefore, when abstaining from it, do not abstain from it as you would from a bad thing, otherwise there will be no reward for it. But, considering it a good thing, despise it, because the best is offered to you - the spiritual. 28. Be strong in your soul so that you never eat food offered to idols. Not only am I concerned about this now, but the apostles and James, the bishop of this church, have already cared about this. The apostles and elders wrote a conciliar message to all nations asking them to abstain especially from idolatry sacrifices, and then from blood and strangulation (cf. Acts 15:20). For many of the people, being beast-like and living like dogs, drink blood following the example of wild beasts and greedily eat strangled meat. And you, servant of Christ, observe reverence while eating. That's enough about food. 29. Wear simple clothes, not for decoration, but for necessary coverage, not to dress luxuriously, but to keep warm in winter and cover the nakedness of the body. By taking care of your clothing under the pretext of covering up your shame, do not incur another shame. 30. Take care, I ask you, of your body and know that you will rise from the dead and will be judged with this body. If you do not believe this, as an impossible thing, then from what you see in yourself, infer at least something about what you do not see. Imagine and tell me in what position you yourself were until you were ten years old or more, from what an insignificant and weak state you reached such great age and such beauty. Is it really that the One who brought non-existence into being is not able to resurrect what already existed and was destroyed again? Will it really be difficult for the One who revives the wheat that is sown for us, which every year decays, to resurrect us, for whom He also rose? Do you see that the trees now stand for so many months without fruit and without leaves, and when winter passes, everything will come to life again, as if from the dead? Wouldn't it be much better and more convenient for us to come to life? By the will of God, the rod of Moses turned into the nature of the serpent, which was alien to it, and will man, having undergone death, really not return to his primitive state? 31. Do not listen to those who say that this body does not rise, it does rise. Isaiah testifies to this, saying: Your dead will live, your dead bodies will rise! (Isa.26:19), and the Angel spoke to Daniel: And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, some to eternal life, others to everlasting reproach and disgrace (Dan.12:2). All people have to be resurrected, but the resurrection is not the same for everyone. We will all receive eternal bodies, but not all the same. The righteous will receive it in order to rejoice with the Angels forever, and sinners will receive it in order to endure eternal torment for their sins. 32. Therefore, the Lord, out of His love for mankind, first gave us redemption through repentance, so that, having cast off most, or better yet, the entire burden of sins and having received the seal of the Holy Spirit, we would become heirs of eternal life. But before I have spoken enough about repentance, now it remains to teach the final preparatory teaching. 33. This is what the inspired Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments teach us. For in both Testaments there is one God, Who foreshadowed the Christ who appeared in the New Testament in the Old, Who led to Christ through the law and the prophets. And before the coming of faith, we were imprisoned under the guard of the law, until the time when it was necessary to open ourselves to faith. So, the law was our teacher to Christ (Gal. 3:23-24). And if you hear that one of the heretics is blaspheming the law or the prophets, then tell him in spite of these saving words: Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (cf. Matt. 5:17). Carefully test in the Church which books are of the Old Testament and which of the New, and do not read books whose inspiration is hidden. For, without knowing what everyone professes, why bother in vain over what is doubtful? Read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, translated by seventy-two interpreters. 34. After the death of Alexander, king of Macedon, and after the division of his kingdom into four powers, Babylonian, Macedonian, Asian and Egyptian, one of the kings of Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphus, a king very devoted to the sciences, collecting books from everywhere, when he heard from Demetrius of Phalerea, the head of the book depository, about the Divine Scriptures of the law and the prophets, then, considering it much better to acquire these books, he did not by coercion against the will of the rulers, but by winning them over to his side through gifts and friendship (he knew that what is forced, mostly given without free will, can be deceptive, but what is given by will is always true), he sent rich gifts to Eleazar, the then bishop, to the local Jerusalem temple and asked him for the transfer of six people from all twelve tribes of Israel. Then, both to test whether the books were Divine, and as a precaution so that the translators sent would not communicate with each other, he assigned each of them a special house in the so-called Fara, located near Alexandria, and ordered each to translate all the Scriptures. When they finished the job within seventy-two days, he, having compared the translations that everyone had worked on in different houses, without agreeing with each other, found that they agreed not only in thoughts, but also in words. For the matter did not depend on the invention of beauties and human wisdom, but just as the Divine Scriptures were proclaimed by the Holy Spirit, so their translation was accomplished with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. 35. Read the twenty-two books they translated, and do not touch those whose inspiration is hidden. Engage diligently in those alone, which we safely read in the Church. The apostles and ancient bishops, the primates of the Church, were much more intelligent than you; they betrayed these books. And you, being a son of the Church, do not change its laws. From the Old Testament, as it is said, study twenty-two books, and if you want to learn, then try to remember them by name in my words. The first five books are the books of Moses, known under the name of the law - the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - then Joshua, the son of Nun, then the book of Judges with the book of Ruth, which are considered the seventh; Of the rest of the historical books, the first and second books of Kings are one book among the Jews, and the third and fourth are also one; in the same way, they have the first and second books of Chronicles as one book, and the first and second Ezra are considered one book. The Twelfth Book of Esther. These are historical books. Five books written in verse: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, which will be the seventeenth book. In addition, five books of the prophets. One of the twelve prophets, one of Isaiah, one of Jeremiah along with Baruch, with Lamentations and the Epistle, then one of Ezekiel and, finally, Daniel - the twenty-second book of the Old Testament. 36. The books of the New Testament are: four Gospels, and the other Gospels are counterfeit and harmful. And the Manichaeans wrote the Gospel of Thomas, which, being anointed with the incense of the gospel name, corrupts the souls of ordinary people. Also accept the Acts of the Twelve Apostles as inspired by God; in addition, seven conciliar epistles - James, Peter, John and Jude; and the sealing of everything and the last work for the disciples - the fourteen epistles of Paul; and let all other scriptures be outside these and should be considered secondary. Don’t read anything that isn’t read in churches on your own, as you’ve already heard. But enough of that. 37. Flee every action of the devil and do not obey this dragon, the apostate, who spontaneously changed his good being. He can subjugate anyone who wants to, but he cannot force anyone to do so. Do not listen to the teachings of astrologers, or bird fortune-telling, or omens, or the fabulous Hellenic prophecies; don’t even listen about sorcery and magical slander and the most lawless deeds committed when summoning the dead. Despise every kind of intemperance, do not please the belly, do not love pleasures. Be above the passions of love of money and covetousness. Do not enter pagan gatherings for spectacles, and when you are sick, never use magical incantations. Absolutely turn away from the lewdness of innkeepers; Do not deviate either to Samaritanism or to Judaism, for Jesus Christ has already redeemed you. Abandon all observation of the Sabbath, and especially abhor any gathering of law-breaking heretics; Strengthen your soul in every possible way by fasting, giving alms and reading the Divine Scriptures, so that after you have lived the rest of the time in chastity with the pious dogmas of faith in the flesh, you will enjoy the only saving gift of baptism and thus be numbered by the Father and God among the heavenly hosts and be worthy of heavenly crowns in Christ Jesus our Lord. Glory to Him forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: