About true religion

The essay “On True Religion” (55 chapters) was written by Bl. Aurelius Augustine in Tagaste (Africa) in 389-391. and addressed to his friend and patron Romanian. The author refutes the skepticism and polytheism of pagan society and shows why Christianity should be considered the only true religion. The treatise reveals the history of Divine economy about the salvation of people (which constitutes the essence and foundation of the Christian religion). Paganism, Judaism, sects are delusions harmful to the mind and heart. According to the blessed Augustine, Christianity is the true fulfillment of pagan wisdom. The acquisition of true religion is possible precisely in its opposition to false religion, which can be Manichaeism, paganism and Judaism. True religion connects man with God. Blzh. Augustine describes the spiritual ascent of the soul to God: from the external through the internal and to the highest. The soul, in his opinion, being between the changeable body and the unchangeable God, chooses the wealth of self-knowledge, which gives it the opportunity to ascend to God in a spirit of humility. The essay discusses such issues as the Manichaean delusion about two principles and two souls, the difference between angels, what perfect righteousness is, etc. The essay ends with the statement that in true religion one must honor the one true God, glorified in the Trinity: “Therefore, it is fitting for us to honor and honor unchangeable, on a par with the Father and the Son, this Gift of God, i.e. Trinity of one essence: one God, by whom, through whom and in whom we exist, from whom we came, to whom we became unlike, and from whom we have the promise that we will not perish.” *The title of the work in Latin is De vera religione. Contents Chapter I. Philosophers taught religion differently in schools and practiced it differently in churches. Chapter II. How Socrates thought about the gods. – The real world, taken for God. Chapter III. The true religion is Christian, which convinced people of what, according to Plato, they could not be convinced. Chapter IV. Philosophers who are entirely attached to the sensual deserve contempt. Chapter V. Which sects contain the true religion. Divine gift, Holy Spirit. Chapter VI. True religion is found only in the Catholic Church, which uses all the erring for its prosperity. Good ones, sometimes expelled from the Church through rebellious people. Chapter VII. The need to accept the religion of the Catholic Church. What is confessed in her. Chapter VIII. What we first perceive by faith through authority, we then assimilate with reason. Heretics are also useful for the Church. Chapter IX. The Manichaean error about two principles and two souls. Chapter X Приступая к изложению истории Божественного домостроительства нашего спасения, показывает откуда является в религии заблуждение и каким образом при помощи Божией восстановлялась истинная религия. Chapter XI. All life is from God. The death of the soul is obscenity. Chapter XII. The Fall and Restoration of the Whole Man. Chapter XIII. Difference of Angels. Chapter XIV. Sin from free will. Chapter XV. The very punishment for sin teaches us to correct ourselves. Chapter XVI. Промышление о человеке гораздо благодетельнее становится с воплощением Слова. Chapter XVII. Основание учения в истинной религии, ветхий ли завет или новый, должно представлять собой наивозможно лучшим. Chapter XVIII. Why are creatures changeable? Chapter XIX. What can be damaged is good, but not the highest good. Chapter XX. Where does the soul damage come from? Chapter XXI. While the soul strives for transient bodily beauty, it is deceived. Chapter XXII. Only wicked people dislike the management of transitory objects. Chapter XXIII. Every substance is good. Chapter XXIV. Providence for the salvation of man proceeds in two ways: through authority and through reason; The first method, authority, is discussed until Chapter 29. Chapter XXV. The authority of which people or books should be trusted in the matter of worship. Chapter XXVI. Divine providence about our salvation in relation to the six ages of the old and new man. Chapter XXVII. The course of life of one and another person in the entire human race. Chapter XXVIII. What, to whom and how should be conveyed. Chapter XXIX. About the second method of salvation, that is, about reason - how, under its guidance, a person is raised to God; First of all, the superiority of reason over feelings is indicated. Chapter XXX. But the unchangeable law, i.e. the truth, in accordance with which a judgment is pronounced, is higher than reason. Chapter XXXI. God is the highest law, on the basis of which our mind judges, but it is impermissible to judge. Chapter XXXII. Signs of unity are found in bodies, but unity itself is cognized only by the mind. Chapter XXXIII. It is not bodies and bodily organs that deceive, but judgments. Deceptive and deceitful are not the same thing. Chapter XXXIV. How to judge ghosts created by the imagination. Chapter XXXV. To know God, you need to be unattached to anything. Chapter XXXVI. The Word of God is truth itself, because It fully expresses that Beginning from which everything that is not a single thing comes. Falsity does not come from things, but from sins. Chapter XXXVII. The wickedness of the manifold idolatries came from love for the creature. Chapter XXXVIII. A new kind of idolatry by which the sinner serves threefold lust. While we are alive, we can defeat vices. Christ showed us that we must beware of threefold temptation. Chapter XXXIX. By its very vices the soul is admonished to seek the first beauty, which is proven up to chapter 43, first of all, regarding the vice of pleasure. Chapter XL. About the beauty of bodies, carnal pleasure and the punishment of sinners. Chapter XLI. Beauty lies in the punishment of a sinful soul. Chapter XLII. Carnal pleasure prompts us to seek indivisible parts. – Are such parts inherent in any life movement? Chapter XLIII. Man has the inherent power of judging the proportionality of bodies and times. The measure of order contained in eternal Truth. Chapter XLIV. The Son is the image of God, according to whom everything was created. Chapter XLV. The fragility of pleasure motivates us to something more sublime. Then about the vice of pride until chapter 49. How [this vice] leads us to seek virtue. Chapter XLVI. He is invincible who loves only that which cannot be taken away from him, that is, God, with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. Chapter XLII. Only the one who discovers true love for his neighbor is invincible. Chapter XLIII. What is perfect righteousness? Chapter XLIX. About curiosity - how this vice motivates us to contemplate the truth. Chapter L. The meaning of the scriptures and interpretations. An allegory of four kinds. Chapter LI. Studying the Scriptures to Cure Curiosity. Chapter LII. Curiosity and other vices can be a reason for virtue. Chapter III. The goals of stupid people and smart people are different. Chapter LIV. What significance does punishment have for the vices of convicted people? Chapter LV. Epilogue convincing of true religion. What was the religion of the Manichaeans? False opinions about the gods. True religion. Since the path to a virtuous and blessed life is indicated in the true religion, in which one God is revered and the Origin of all natures, from which the universe begins, is completed, and is preserved, is recognized with the purest reverence, the error of those peoples who preferred serving many gods to worshiping the one true Lord God is most clearly revealed in the fact that their sages, the so-called philosophers, had different schools, and worshiped common churches. For it was no secret to either the people or the priests how different the philosophers’ ideas were even about the nature of the gods themselves, since each of them was not afraid to speak about it publicly, trying to convert everyone to their faith, which, however, did not prevent them all from visiting common shrines. There is no point in dwelling now on whose views were more accurate and whose were not: the fact itself is enough - together with the people they seemed to profess the same religion, but in private, each of them defended his own, special one. Socrates, they say, was bolder than others, swearing by a dog, a stone, and generally everything that caught his eye when he wanted to resort to an oath. I believe he understood that each of the creations of nature, which arises by the will of Divine Providence, is much better than the works of any artists, and therefore more worthy of veneration than the stone idols placed in pagan temples. And this is not at all because the stone and the dog really deserve the admiration of the sages, but by this he wanted to make people understand what deep superstition they are immersed in. At the same time, he also exposed the abominable view of those who considered this visible world to be the highest God, drawing from this a completely consistent conclusion that in this case every stone should be honored as a particle of the highest God. If they could be indignant at such a conclusion, they would have to change their minds and begin to look for that one God, who alone is above our minds and who created every soul and this whole world. Plato subsequently wrote about this with great force, wrote beautifully, but not too convincingly, for he and philosophers like him were not born in order to turn the thoughts of their people away from idolatry and the vanity of this world and direct it to the true worship of the true God. Therefore, Socrates himself, along with others, honored idols, and after his death and condemnation no one dared to swear by a dog or call any stone Jupiter, but they only kept the memory of this in a few philosophical works. Whether this was a consequence of fear of punishment or simply a sign of that time - I don’t know about that and therefore I remain silent. However, with the permission of those who still remain admirers of the writings of that time, I will boldly and decisively say that in our Christian times there should be no doubt about which religion represents the path to truth and bliss. In fact, if Plato were alive and honored my question with his answer, or better, if some of his disciples, during Plato’s lifetime, asked him, he himself was convinced that truth is contemplated not with bodily eyes, but with pure thought; that only the soul is capable of becoming blissful and perfect; that the acquisition of this bliss and perfection is hindered only by a life devoted to passions, when false images of sensory objects invade us from the material world through the body, giving rise to various opinions and delusions; that, therefore, our spirit must be purified to contemplate the unchanging forms of things and eternal beauty, which is neither divided in space nor changed in time, but preserves unity and identity in all its parts, the existence of which people do not recognize, although it really exists in the highest way; that everything else is born and dies, is destroyed and disappears, and yet, in so far as it exists, it was created by the eternal God through His Truth; that all this is communicated to the rational and thinking soul just enough so that it enjoys the contemplation of His eternity, so that it is fulfilled and adorned by it and so that it can deserve eternal life, but that while it experiences a feeling of love and sorrow for objects arising and transitory and is devoted to the habits of sensory life, it is lost in empty ghosts, laughs at those who talk about the existence of something that is contemplated by the spiritual gaze and is not thought of illusory, but comprehended by the mind and thinking power; if, I say, convinced of all this by my teacher; that student would have asked him if he would not have recognized such a great man worthy of divine honors (if such a one existed) who would have instilled in people faith in even just the objects listed, then, I think Plato would have answered that this is an impossible task for a person, unless for one whom the divine Wisdom and Power itself, having removed from the ordinary order of things and enlightened from the cradle not with human skill, but with inner light, had awarded such grace, strengthened with such strength and, finally, exalted with such dignity that he, with his highest love and authority, could turn the human race to saving faith, despising everything that corrupt people desire, enduring everything that they fear, doing what they are surprised at. As for the honors due to him, it is unnecessary to ask about this, since it is already clear what honors befit the Wisdom of God, under whose guidance and control he deserved something truly great for the salvation of the human race. And now all this was fulfilled; Writings and monuments speak loudly about this. The chosen and sent apostles, with their exploits and their preaching, lit the flame of divine love throughout the world and, having spread the saving teaching, left us an already enlightened land. Not to mention the past, which not everyone believes, now among all nations it is heard: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that was made” (John I, 1-3). So that the soul is purified, in order to understand, love and turn this sermon to its benefit, and so that the power of thought is stronger, in order to be illuminated by such light, it is said sparingly: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew VI, 19–21); wasteful: “He who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Gal. VI, 8); proud: “Whoever exalts himself will be humiliated, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke XIV, 11); angry: “Whoever hits you on your right cheek, turn the other to him” (Matt. V, 39); grumpy: “Love your enemies” (Matthew V, 44); to the superstitious: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke XVII, 21); to the curious: “Do not seek what is visible, but what is unseen: for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. IV, 18) and, finally, to everyone in general: “Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world... For everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from this world” (1 John II, 15–16). If such sayings are now willingly and reverently read and listened to by peoples all over the world; if, after such blood, so many martyrdoms and crosses, the Church grew with even greater strength and spread even among barbarian peoples; if now no one is surprised at the whole thousands of young men and virgins who abstain from marriage and lead a virgin life, and meanwhile, when Plato did this, he was then so frightened by the perverted opinion of his time that, they say, he made a sacrifice to nature in order to atone for his virginity, as if it were a sin; if this is now accepted in such a way that, as before it was strange to defend such things, so, on the contrary, it is now strange to dispute; if such vows and obligations are sanctified by rites in all Christian countries; if such subjects are read daily in churches and explained by priests; if those who try to accomplish all this beat themselves in the chest; if so many people embark on this path that once uninhabited islands and deserts are filled with people of all kinds, renouncing the wealth and honors of this world and wanting to devote their lives entirely to the one and only Most High God; if, finally, in capital and provincial cities, in castles, villages and even in villages and individual manors, renunciation of all earthly things and turning to the one true God is preached and become so openly desired that the human race throughout the entire face of the earth unanimously exclaims daily: 1, then why else would we open our mouths to a hangover from yesterday’s intoxication and look for divine verbs from the foolish dead? preferring, when it comes to argument, to have a mouth constantly repeating the name of Plato, than a heart full of truth? Therefore, those in whose opinion it is vain or bad to despise the sensory world and betray and subjugate the soul purified by virtue to the Almighty God must be refuted by other kinds of arguments, if they are worth interpreting at all. Those who consider this a good and desirable deed, let them know God, let them humble themselves before God, who has instilled in all peoples faith in such things. They, of course, would not be averse to instilling such faith, if only they could, and if they had not instilled it, they would at least not have been able to restrain themselves from envy. So let them humble themselves before Him who did this; let them, putting aside curiosity and empty vanity, understand what a difference there is between the shaky fortune-telling of a few and the obvious salvation and correction of nations. After all, if those whose names they are so proud of came to life, and saw that the churches were full, and the churches were empty, and the human race was called from temporary and transitory blessings and strives for hope in eternal life and for spiritual and rational blessings, then they (if only they were such as the memory represents them) would in all likelihood say: “This is what we did not dream of convincing the peoples of; we yielded to their habits rather than converting them to our faith and subjugating them to our will.” So, if those philosophers could find themselves among us again, they would understand by whose authority people are so easily convinced, and after a slight change in their words and views they would become Christians, as very many Platonists of recent and modern times have done. If they did not admit this and did not do it, remaining in pride and envy, then I do not know whether they, devoted to such impurity and held by such fetters, could strive for what, as they themselves said, should be the subject of searches and desires. For I don’t know whether such people were also infected with a third vice, namely: asking the demons with curiosity about what keeps those against whom this speech is directed, that is, the pagans, from Christian salvation most of all, because this vice is too childish. But whatever the vanity of the philosophers, it is not difficult to understand that one should not seek religion from them, since they, together with the people, accepted the same sacred rites, and in their schools, in the presence of the same people, they loudly expressed opinions about the nature of their gods and about the highest good. If this defect alone had been eliminated by the Christian religion, then in this case no one would have to argue that this teaching deserves unspeakable praise. And indeed, numerous heresies that have deviated from the norm of Christianity serve as evidence that those who think and try to teach others about God the Father, His wisdom and the Divine Gift differently than as the truth requires, are not allowed to communicate in the sacraments with us. We believe and teach that regarding this essence of human salvation, there is no other philosophy, that is, the study of wisdom, and no other religion, since those teachings that we do not approve are not allowed to communicate with us in the sacraments. In this regard, less worthy of surprise are those who wanted to differ from us in the rite of their sacraments, such as, for example, some Serpentines (Ophites), Manichaeans and some others. But more worthy of our attention and mention are those who, while performing the same sacraments, but retreating in teaching, preferred defending their errors to their prudent correction, and who, being excommunicated from Catholic communion and from participating in the sacraments, received their own special names and composed their own special interpretations not only in words, but also in superstitions; such are the Photinians, Arians and many others. It’s a different matter for those who caused splits. They could have remained on the threshing floor of the Lord, like chaff, until the day of the last winnowing, if, out of extreme frivolity, they had not succumbed to the arrogance of pride and had not voluntarily separated from us. As for the Jews, although they worship the one omnipotent God, expecting only temporary and visible benefits from Him, they did not want to notice in their own writings, due to extreme carelessness, the firstfruits of a new people arising from humiliation, and thus remained the old man. If all this is so, then neither in the confused views of the pagans, nor in the tares of heretics, nor in the lethargy of schismatics, nor in the blindness of the Jews should one look for religion, but only among those who are called Catholic (Catholic) or Orthodox Christians, that is, preserving the pure and professing the right teaching. This Catholic Church, widespread throughout the world, uses all those who are in error both for its own growth and for their correction if they wanted to awaken from their sleep. She uses pagan peoples as material for her action, heretics - to prove her firmness, Jews - to comparatively indicate her beauty. She calls some, excludes others, leaves others, surpasses others, but gives everyone the opportunity to participate in Divine grace, whether they must be formed, or transformed, or again accepted, or again admitted. She tolerates her own carnal ones, that is, those who live and think according to the flesh, like chaff, under which the grains on the threshing floor remain more secure until they are freed from this cover. But since on this threshing floor everyone voluntarily becomes either chaff or grain, then the sin or error of someone is tolerated until the sin meets an accuser, and the error is defended with daring tenacity. Having been expelled from the Church, such people either return to it through repentance, or, under the influence of returned freedom, wallow in obscenity to edify us in prudence, or cause a schism to exercise us in patience, or give rise to some kind of heresy to test and reveal our prudence. Such is the fate of those carnal Christians who cannot be corrected or tolerated in the church. Divine providence often allows even good people to be expelled from Christian society, due to some extremely violent indignations of carnal people. If they endure this shame or their insult for the sake of the peace of the Church quite patiently and do not make any schismatic or heretical innovations, then they will serve as an instructive example for people with what true devotion and sincere love they should serve God. Such people either hope to return to the Church again when the storm subsides, or, if this turns out to be impossible due to the fact that the turmoil is still ongoing, or because something similar may arise again with their return, they remain, if they wish to be useful for those very ones, to the turmoil and disorder of which they succumbed, abstaining from all schismatic gatherings and defending to the death the faith that, as they know, is preached in the Catholic Church, and representing a living testimony for her. For such the Father, who sees in secret, prepares a crown in secret. This kind of people are rare, but there is no shortage of examples; there are even more of them than you might think. Thus, Divine Providence uses all kinds of people and examples to heal souls and create a new people. In view of this goal, dear Romanian, having expressed a promise several years ago to express to you my thoughts about true religion and believing that now is the time to do this, I, by virtue of the love with which I am connected with you, cannot, after such urgent entreaties on your part, remain indecisive and put off my promise for later. So, after those who neither philosophize during their sacred rites nor are sanctified by philosophizing, and those who, puffed up either by a false opinion or by some malice, have departed from the norm and communion of the Catholic Church, and, finally, those who do not want to have the light of the sacred writings and the grace of the spiritual people, that is, what is called the New Testament, have been refuted; in a word - all those that I briefly mentioned, we must firmly adhere to the Christian religion and communion with that Church, which is the Catholic Church, and is called Catholic not only by our own, but even by our enemies. For the heretics themselves, as well as the followers of the schisms, when they speak not only with their own people, but also with outsiders, willy-nilly call the Catholic Church nothing other than Catholic. For they cannot be understood unless they distinguish it by the name by which it is called throughout the universe. The essence of this religion, which we must follow, is the history and prophecy of the Divine dispensation of salvation for the human race to be transformed and prepared for eternal life. As soon as this is the subject of our belief, a way of life consistent with the divine commandments will purify our mind and make it capable of knowing spiritual things, which are things that are neither past nor future, but eternally and equally abiding and not subject to any change, that is, to know the one God himself, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having known this Trinity, as far as it is given to us to know this in this life, we, without the slightest hesitation, admit that every rational, spiritual and physical creature, as far as it exists, has its being and its appearance from this creative Trinity and is governed by it in the most perfect order; Moreover, this should be understood not in such a way that one part of creation was created by the Father, another by the Son, and a third by the Holy Spirit, but so that all together, and each nature separately, was created by the Father through the Son in the gift of the Holy Spirit. For every thing, whether we call it substance, or essence, or nature, or some other term, simultaneously has in itself both one and the other, and the third, so that it is something unified, and differs from the rest in its appearance, and does not stand out from the order of things. In the process of cognition, it will become clear to us how much this can be comprehended by a person, and how, by virtue of necessary, inevitable and just laws, everything is subordinated to God and its Lord. From here, everything that we first believed on the basis of authority alone, we begin to understand, imagining it partly as already completely undoubted, and partly as something that can and should be undoubted, and at the same time sympathizing with those unbelievers who want to ridicule us believers rather than believe with us. For such truths as the most holy incarnation, the birth of the Virgin, the death of the Son of God for us, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, the forgiveness of sins, the day of judgment, the resurrection of bodies, even after the knowledge of the eternity of the Trinity and the changeability of creation, we attribute to the mercy of the Most High God, shown by Him to the human race, only by faith, and not by understanding. But since it is very correctly said: “It is fitting for many heresies ... to be, so that skill may be manifested in you” (1 Cor. XI, 19), then we will use this kind of benefit of Divine Providence. For heretics are from among the people who, even if they were in the Church, would nevertheless be mistaken. When they become external, they are very useful for us; not because they teach truth that they themselves do not know, but because they encourage carnal Catholics to seek, and reveal the truth to spiritual ones. In the Holy Church there are many men skilled before God, but they are not revealed in us while, enjoying the darkness of our ignorance, we prefer to indulge in sleep rather than contemplate the light of truth. Therefore many are awakened from sleep by the heretics, that they may see the day of the Lord and rejoice. So, let us also make use of heretics, not in order to approve of their errors, but so that we ourselves can be more vigilant and careful, defending Catholic teaching from their intrigues, even if we cannot call them to salvation. For my part, I am confident that, with God’s help, my present work for good and pious readers can be significant in view of not just one, but all wrong and false opinions. But it is primarily directed against those who believe that there are two mutually opposite natures or substances. Offended by some objects and enjoying others, they consider God the creator not of those objects with which they are offended, but of those with which they delight, and not being able to change their way of thinking, like people who have already fallen into carnal nets, they think that in one body there are two souls: one comes from God and is the same in nature as He, the other is of dark origin, which God neither gave birth to, nor created, nor produced, nor rejected from Himself, but which had its own a special life, its land, its offspring, its animals, finally, its kingdom and its innate beginning, but once it rebelled against God and God, not being able to do anything else and not finding a way otherwise to resist the enemy, forced by this necessity, sent here a good soul, a certain particle of its essence, from merging and mixing with which the enemy seemed to become more restrained, and the world appeared. Now we will not refute these opinions of theirs, which in part has already been done by us, and in part, with the help of God, will be done later; In this work, we will show, as far as possible for us and with the help of arguments that the Lord is pleased to inspire us, how safe the Catholic faith is in view of these opinions and how powerless it is to confuse the soul by the influence of which people become supporters of such a view. It goes without saying that everything that would be erroneous in our writing should be attributed to me, but everything that is stated correctly and in accordance with the truth should be attributed to the one giver of all gifts, God. I say this not for the sake of a catchphrase or out of ostentatious humility, and I would like you, Romanian, who knows my soul well, to think this way first of all. So, let it be known and known to you that there could be no error in religion if the soul, instead of God, did not honor the soul or the body, or its ghosts, or one or the other of them together, or all of these at once; but, temporarily conforming in present life to the human community, she would think about eternal life, honoring the one God, who eternally remains unchangeable, and only under this condition does all changeable nature exist. And that the soul can change, however, not spatially, but in time, everyone knows this from their mental movements. It is also not difficult to be convinced that the body is changeable, and changeable in time and space. Finally, ghosts are nothing more than images distracted from the appearance of the body by the bodily sense, images that, when thinking, are very easy to imprint in memory as they are perceived, or to divide into parts, multiply or shorten, stretch or bring into a system, shuffle and mix up as you like, but it can be difficult to protect yourself from them and avoid them when you are looking for the truth. So, let us not serve the creature more than the Creator, and let us not perish in our own thoughts: this is what perfect religion consists of. For by clinging to the eternal Creator, we ourselves will, of necessity, be filled with eternity. But since the soul, burdened and entangled in its sins, cannot see and achieve this on its own, because in order to receive the divine in human conditions there is no such stage through which a person would rise from earthly life to godlikeness, then in order to remember its former and perfect nature, by the ineffable mercy of God, both individuals and even the entire human race will be helped through the servant, changed according to the eternal laws, creature. This is the Christian religion in our time, in the knowledge and following of which lies the most reliable and sure salvation. It can be protected from empty talkers and revealed to seekers in many different ways, because Almighty God, on the one hand, Himself directly indicates what is true, on the other hand, the good desire to contemplate and perceive the truth is helped through good angels and some people. But everyone uses the method that they find suitable. For my part, I decided to use the following method. What you see there that is true, keep it and attribute it to the Catholic Church; what is false, discard it and forgive me as a person; whatever is doubtful, believe in it until reason shows that it should either be rejected, or accepted as the truth, or should always be an object of faith. So, as much as you can, pay attention to the following with care and reverence, for God helps such people. There is no life that is not from God, because God is both the highest life and the source of life, and there is no life that, like life, is evil; Life is evil insofar as it strives towards death. The death of life is only obscenity (nequitia), which is so called because there is nothing (ne quidquam sit); hence the most indecent people are called insignificant people. Thus, a life that, by voluntary betrayal, deviates from the One who created it and whose essence it enjoyed, strives towards insignificance, a life that, contrary to the law of God, wants to enjoy the body over which God placed it; This is precisely where lewdness lies, and not in the fact that the body itself is nothing. For even the body in its members possesses a certain kind of harmony, without which it could not exist at all. Consequently, the body was created by Him Who is the beginning of all agreement. The body has a certain harmony of its form, without which it would be absolutely nothing. Consequently, the body was created by He, from Whom all harmony flows and Who is the self-existent and most beautiful form of all. The body has a certain appearance, without which the body is not a body. Therefore, if they ask who created the body, let them look for the one who is most beautiful in appearance, for all appearance is from Him. And who is this if not God, the one truth, the one salvation of all, the first and highest essence from which everything that exists has its existence, insofar as it exists; for everything that exists, insofar as it exists, is good. For this reason, death is not from God: “For God did not create death, nor rejoice at the destruction of the living” (Wis. I, 13 2)); since the supreme essence is the reason that everything that exists exists, that is why it is called essence. Death causes that which dies to cease to exist only to the extent that it dies. For if that which dies were to die completely, it would undoubtedly turn into nothing, but it dies only to the extent that it takes less part in the essence; In short, we can put it this way: the more it dies, the less it exists. But the body is lower than any life, because whatever the body may be in appearance, it becomes so only thanks to life, which governs every individual animal and the entire nature of the world. Hence the body is more subject to death, and therefore closer to insignificance. Therefore, a life that, while enjoying the body, strives for insignificance, is lewdness. And such is carnal and earthly life, which is why it is called flesh and earth; and as long as she is like this, until she is freed from what she loves, she will not receive the kingdom of God. For she loves what is lower than life, she loves the body. She neglects the commandment of the one who spoke: “Eat this, but do not touch that” (Gen. II, 16-17). Hence she is subject to punishment, because having loved the lower, she thereby predetermines herself after death to the dissatisfaction of her pleasures and grieves. For what is so-called bodily grief, if not rapid damage to that object, which the soul brought to damage by using it badly? And what is so-called spiritual sorrow if not the deprivation of those transitory objects which the soul enjoyed or hoped to enjoy? All this is called evil, that is, sin and punishment for sin. If the soul, while it is passing through the present field of human life, overcomes those passions that it has brought up in opposition to itself, enjoying mortal things, and believes that in order to defeat them it will be helped by the grace of God, serving God with thought and good will. then she will undoubtedly be restored and turn from many changeable goods to the one unchangeable, being transformed by Wisdom not created, but who created everything, and will enjoy God through the Holy Spirit, which is the gift of God. Thus, a person becomes spiritual, who judges everything and is not judged by anyone (1 Cor. II, 15), who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his thought, and loves his neighbor not carnally, but as himself; he who loves God with all his being loves spiritually. These two commandments contain the entire law. Отсюда уже будет следовать и то, что после телесной смерти, которую мы несем за первый грех, тело наше В свое время и своим порядком будет восстановлено в своей первобытной крепости, которой оно будет обладать не само по себе, а через душу, укоренившуюся в Боге. В свою очередь душа укрепляется не сама по себе, а через Бога, которым она наслаждается; therefore it will live more fully than the body; ибо тело будет жить через душу, а душа через неизменную истину, т. е. единородного Сына Божия; следовательно, и тело будет жить через Сына Божия, потому что через него живет все. Его даром, который дается душе, т. е. Духом Святым, не только душа, которой он сообщается, бывает здорова, мирна и свята, но животворится и самое тело и будет по природе своей совершенно чистым. Ибо Он сам сказал: «Очисти... внутреннее, и внешнее будет чисто" ( Мф. XXIII, 26 ); и апостол говорит: » Оживотворит и мертвенные телеса ваши Духом, живущим в вас « ( Рим. VIII, 11 ). Итак, с уничтожением греха, уничтожится и наказание за грех: а где же тогда будет зло? «Где, смерть, твои усилия? Где, смерть, твое жало?» 3. – AB. (1 Cor. XV, 55)). Essence will defeat nothingness, and death will also be defeated. Освященным не будет вредить и злой ангел, так называемый дьявол, потому что и он, поскольку он ангел, не зол; and he is angry because he has perverted by his own will. Ибо необходимо допустить, что и ангелы по природе изменяемы, если один только Бог неизменяем; но благодаря воле, по которой они любят больше Бога, чем самих себя, они пребывают твердыми и непоколебимыми в Боге и наслаждаются Его величием, вполне охотно подчиняясь только Ему одному. А тот ангел, любя больше себя, чем Бога, не захотел быть подчиненным Ему, преисполнился гордостью, отложился от высочайшей сущности и пал; тому он и стал ниже, чем каким был, что захотел наслаждаться низшим, а наслаждаться он захотел больше своим могуществом, чем могуществом Божиим. Ибо, хотя и не абсолютно, однако он был выше, когда наслаждался тем, что выше всего, так как выше всего один Бог. Между тем, все то, что становится ниже, чем каким оно было, бывает злом не постольку, поскольку существует, а поскольку оно становится ниже. Ибо чем ниже оно становится в сравнении с тем, каким было, тем больше оно стремится к смерти. Is it surprising if poverty comes from lack, and from poverty comes envy, which is why the devil became the devil? But if that deficiency, which is called sin, seized us against our will, like a fever, then the punishment that befalls the sinner and is called condemnation would seem completely unjust. Meanwhile, at the present time sin is an evil to such an arbitrary degree that it would not be a sin if it were not arbitrary; and this is so obvious that in this case no disagreement arises either among the few scientists or among the mass of ordinary people. Therefore, it is necessary either to deny that sin is committed at all, or to admit that it is committed voluntarily. Meanwhile, he does not deny that the soul sins, who recognizes that it is corrected by repentance, that the repentant soul is granted forgiveness and that, having become stuck in sins, it is condemned by the just law of God. On the other hand, if we do not do evil voluntarily, then absolutely no one should be subjected to either prohibitions or admonitions; and with the removal of this, the Christian law and all religious discipline are necessarily destroyed. So, sin is committed voluntarily. And since sin is an undoubted fact, then, in my opinion, it must be considered undoubted that souls have free will. For God decided to consider those who served Him freely to be His best servants. And this could not have happened if they served Him not voluntarily, but out of necessity. So, angels serve God freely, and this is not useful to God, but to themselves, because God does not need the good of another; He exists by Himself. The same is true of what is begotten by Him, because it is not created, but begotten; everything that is created needs His good, that is, the highest good, or the highest essence. And although it is now lower than it was, because, as a result of the sin of the soul, it strives less for God, it is not completely separated from Him, since in this case it would be complete insignificance. Meanwhile, what comes into contact with the soul through affects comes into contact with the body spatially, because the soul moves by will, and the body moves through space. Even the so-called a suggestion on the part of a fallen angel is perceived by a person voluntarily, for if he did it out of necessity, it would not be considered a sinful crime. And the fact that the human body, which was the best of its kind before the Fall, after sin became weak and left to death, this circumstance, although it serves as a just punishment for sin, testifies rather to the mercy of the Lord than to His severity. For in this way we learn that we must turn our love from bodily pleasures to the eternal essence of truth. This is precisely the beauty of truth, combined with good mercy, so that we, deceived by the sweetness of lower goods, are brought up by the bitterness of punishment. And our punishments themselves are softened by Divine Providence so much that even in our present, so damaged body, we can strive for righteousness and, putting aside all pride, submit to the one true God, not rely on ourselves in anything and entrust our guidance and our protection to Him alone. Thus, under His guidance, a person, with good will, uses the hardships of real life to acquire strength; in an abundance of pleasures and in a happy combination of temporary blessings, he experiences and cultivates his temperance; in temptations he learns prudence, so as not only not to fall into them, but to be more careful and zealous in his love for the truth, which alone does not deceive. But although God, depending on the circumstances determined by His wondrous wisdom, gives the soul all kinds of means of healing, which either should not be discussed at all, or should be discussed with pious and perfect people, nevertheless, in no way did He demonstrate His providence for the human race as beneficently as when the Wisdom of God itself, that is, the only-begotten, consubstantial and co-eternal Son with the Father, deigned to take upon Himself the entire humanity nature: “and the Word was 4. – AB. flesh" (John I, 14). Thus, to carnal people, gifted with bodily senses, but unable to contemplate the truth with their minds, He showed what a high place human nature occupies among creatures, appearing to people not only in a visible way (which He could do in some ethereal body), but also in a true man: for it was necessary to perceive that very nature that needed to be redeemed. And so that any sex would not consider itself neglected by its Creator, He assumed the male sex, and was born of a woman. He did not use violence in anything, but always acted by exhortation and persuasion, since with the abolition of ancient slavery, the time of freedom had now come, and it was timely and salutary for man to be informed that he was created free. Through miracles He aroused faith in God, as He was, and through suffering He aroused faith in the man He carried within Himself. So, turning to the crowd, He, like God, renounced the mother who called him (Matthew XII, 48), however, as the Gospel says, in childhood He was obedient to his parents (Luke II, 51). For according to his teaching He appeared to be God, but according to his age He appeared to be a man. In the same way, intending to transform water into wine, He, as God, said: “Depart from me, woman: what do I and you?... My hour has not yet come” (John II, 4). When the hour came when He had to die, He, seeing his mother from the cross as a man, entrusted her to the disciple whom he loved more than all the others (John XIX, 26-27). The peoples perniciously strived for wealth, this companion of pleasures: He was pleased to be poor. They craved honor and power: He did not want to be king. They considered the children of the flesh a great blessing: He neglected marriage and offspring. They abhorred dishonor with extreme arrogance: He suffered all kinds of humiliation. They considered injustice unbearable, but what is greater than that injustice than to be condemned by the righteous and innocent? They abhorred bodily suffering: He suffered a beating and was crucified. They feared death: He was exposed to death. They considered the cross to be the most shameful kind of death: He was nailed to the cross. He himself did not use, and did not attach any value to, everything in the name of which we often live unrighteously. He endured everything that we strive to avoid in every possible way, often wandering away from the truth because of it. For we can commit any sin only if we either desire what He neglected or avoid what He endured. So, His whole life on earth was a moral teaching. But his resurrection from the dead showed clearly enough that not the slightest part of human nature perishes when everything is healthy through God, and also how everything can serve its Creator, sometimes as a punishment for sins, sometimes as a deliverance for man, and how easily the body can serve the soul when the soul itself is subject to God. In this case, none of the substances not only represents evil, which in no case can be, but is not even excited by any evil, which could be due to sin or punishment. This is the natural teaching, which for less-minded Christians deserves full faith, and for those who think, it is cleared of all error. The very method of teaching, a method partly clear and simple, partly for the edification and exercise of the soul, consisting of similarities in sayings, actions and sacraments, is nothing more than a complete rational teaching. In fact, the explanation of the mysterious is directed towards what is stated quite clearly. And if there were only what is completely understandable, then we would not carefully seek the truth, and we would not find it. On the other hand, if there were sacraments in the explanations, and there were no imprints of truth in the sacraments, then action would be at odds with knowledge. But since piety today begins with fear and ends with love, humanity, bound by fear during slavery, was burdened with many sacraments in the old law. Then it was useful as a means of arousing the desire for the coming grace of God, which was announced by the prophets. When this grace appeared, then by the very Divine wisdom, by which we are called to freedom, a few most saving sacraments were established that would contain the society of the Christian people, that is, free people, under the authority of one God. The same many sacraments that were entrusted to the Jewish people, that is, people bound by the power of the same one God, were put out of use and remained the subject of faith and interpretation. Thus, now they are not slavishly bound, but are perceived by the spirit freely. Meanwhile, anyone who denies the possibility of the origin of both covenants from one God on the ground that our people do not adhere to the same sacraments that the Jews held and adhere to, must understand that it is doubtful that the same most just sovereign would give one order to those for whom he considers longer slavery useful, and another to those whom he has the honor of recognizing as his children. But if, from the point of view of everyday rules, they are indignant that the old law contains less, and the Gospel - more, and therefore come to the idea that both do not belong to the same God, then a person with similar views can also be indignant at the fact that the same doctor instructs his assistants to prescribe some medicines, while he prescribes others himself, or gives some patients some weak medicines, while others - strong and in larger quantities. But just as the art of medicine, although it remains the same and does not change in any way, nevertheless changes the prescriptions for the sick, because health itself is changeable, so Divine Providence, although in itself completely unchangeable, nevertheless comes to the aid of the changeable creature in different ways, and, in accordance with the difference in infirmities, at different times it prescribes one thing, and another prohibits it, so that from vice, which serves as the source of death, and from death itself, we can lead to our nature and essence and in them. to affirm that which is weakening, that is, tending towards insignificance. You may ask: “Why is it weakening?” Yes, because it is changeable. “Why is it changeable?” Because it's imperfect. “Why is it imperfect?” Because it is lower than the One by whom it was created. “Who created it?” To those who are above all. “Who is this?” God, the unchangeable Trinity, since He created all this through the highest Wisdom and preserves it with the highest benevolence. “For what purpose did He create all this?” For it to exist; for no matter how small one may be, to be is already a good thing; because to be the highest is the highest good. “What did He create it from?” Out of nothing. For everything that exists necessarily exists in some form; therefore, even if it were the least good, it will still be good and will be from God, because if the highest kind is the highest good, then the least kind is the least good. But every good thing is either God or from God; therefore, the smallest form is from God. And what is said about the form can, without a doubt, be said about the form, for it is not in vain that both the most beautiful in appearance and the most beautiful in form are praised. So, that from which God created everything has no form and no form and is nothing other than nothing. For that which, in comparison with the perfect, is called formless, if only it has at least some form, even the slightest, even in an embryonic state, is no longer nothing; and therefore, as far as it exists, it exists only from God. Therefore, even if the world is created from some formless matter, then this matter itself is created completely out of nothing; for even that which has not yet received form, but is somehow in the embryo so that it can take shape, is made capable of form by the goodness of God. “For to receive form is good. So, receptivity to form is a certain good; and therefore the Creator of all good things, who gave form, himself gave the possibility of existence in form. Thus, everything that exists, as far as it exists, and everything that does not yet exist, as far as it can exist, has its form from God. In other words, everything that has received form, insofar as it has received it, and everything that has not yet received form, insofar as it can receive it, has form from God. Meanwhile, every thing has the integrity of its nature, provided that it is not damaged in its kind; all integrity comes from Him, from Whom all good comes; but every good thing is from God; therefore, all integrity is from God. From here, anyone whose mental gaze is not closed, not darkened and not upset by the destructive desire for a vain victory will easily understand that everything that is damaged and dies is good; although corruption itself and death itself are evil. For if something were not deprived of its healthy state, then corruption or death would not harm it; but on the other hand, if corruption did not cause harm, it would not be corruption. Hence: if damage is hostile to health, then health without any doubt is good. Everything to which corruption is hostile is good, and to which corruption is hostile is itself subject to corruption, therefore, that which is corrupted is also good; but it is spoiled because it is not the highest good. So, it is from God, because it is good; but it is not God, because it is not the highest good. Hence the good that cannot be corrupted is God. All other goods from God are goods that in themselves can be damaged, because in themselves they are nothing, but through God they are partly not damaged, and partly, having been damaged, they are corrected. Meanwhile, there is an initial corruption of the rational soul, namely: the desire to do what the highest and most secret truth forbids. Thus, man was expelled from paradise into the present age, that is, from the eternal to the temporal, from abundance to scarcity, from strength to weakness, therefore, not from essential good to essential evil, since no essence in itself is evil, but from eternal good to temporal good, from spiritual good to physical good, from rational good to sensual good, from higher good to lower good. Thus, there is some good, in loving which the rational soul sins, because such a good is inferior in dignity to it; Therefore, evil lies in sin, and not in the essence that is loved sinfully. Hence: not the tree, which, according to scripture, grew in the midst of paradise, is evil, but a transgression of the commandment of God. Since the consequence of this crime is legal punishment, then from the tree that a person touched contrary to the prohibition, the knowledge of good and evil appeared; because, having fallen into its sin and suffering punishment for it, the soul learns what the difference is between the commandment that it did not want to keep and the sin that it committed; and thus, on the one hand, through experience she becomes acquainted with evil, which she did not know, being wary of it, and on the other, through comparison with evil, she begins to love good more strongly. So, the corruption of the soul consists in what it has done, and its resulting disastrous state serves as the punishment that the soul endures; This is what evil is. But it is not substance that does and suffers, therefore substance is not evil. Thus, neither water nor a creature living in the air is evil, because they are substances; but a voluntary fall into the water and the suffocation that one who throws himself into the water suffers is already evil. The iron stylus, with one end of which we write and with the other we erase what is written, is made skillfully and constitutes a beautiful thing of its kind and suitable for our use; but if someone wanted to write with the end with which they erase, and erase with the end with which they write, in this case, although his action would cause fair censure, no one would consider the stylus itself to be evil: because, if they took the stylus correctly, where would the evil be? If someone suddenly looks at the sun at noon, his blinded eyes will become upset, but will this make the sun or his eyes evil? In no case: because they are substances; and evil will be a glance at the sun at the wrong time and the resulting disorder of the eyes; and this evil will not happen when the eyes are rested and look at the light properly. Even in the case when the very light that touches our eyes is revered as the light of wisdom, already related to the mind, it is not the light itself that is evil, but superstition, according to which creatures serve more than the Creator; and this evil will not exist at all when the soul, having come to know the Creator, is submissive to Him alone and sees that through Him everything is submissive to it too. Thus, every corporeal creature, if only it constitutes an object of love for a soul that loves God, is a good, albeit an inferior one, a good good in its own way, because it is clothed in form and has an image. If it serves as an object of love for a soul that has forgotten about God, then although it itself does not become evil, but since sin is evil, then, constituting the object of this kind of love, it turns into punishment for the one who loves it, causes him constant grief and delights him with false pleasures; because these pleasures are fickle and do not give satisfaction, but torment them with sorrows. For when the happy time of time passes its definite course, the desired image leaves the one who loves him, hides, causing him torment from his feelings and plunges him into such blindness that he considers this image to be the first, while it is the very last image, that is, the image of bodily nature, which was presented to him by the flesh enjoying evil through deceptive feelings; so that when he thinks about something, he believes that he understands something, when in fact he amuses himself only with fantastic ghosts. If sometimes, not adhering to the pure teaching of Divine Providence, but believing that he adheres to it, he tries to counteract the flesh, then he constantly revolves in the field of images of visible objects and in vain, with the help of his imagination, imagines the vast expanses of light, which he sees limited by certain limits; he transfers this image to a future life, not knowing that in this case he is guided by the lust of the eyes and that he wants to leave the world with the same world, which he considers not the same, because with the help of imagination he expands the brighter part of it to infinity. The same can be said not only regarding light, but also regarding water, wine, honey, gold, silver, even meat, blood and bones of this or that animal, and regarding other similar objects. For there is no body that, with the help of the imagination, could not be imagined into an innumerable multitude, even if we saw it only in the singular, or expanded to infinity, even if we knew it only in a small volume. But, however, it is very easy to abhor the flesh, but it is very difficult to think not according to the flesh. As a result of this perversion of the soul associated with sin and this punishment, the entire bodily nature became what Solomon says: “The vanity of vanities and all vanity.” What abundance is there for a man in all his labor? “(Eccl. I, 2–3). It is not for nothing that the word “vanities” was added here: because without vanities, who strive for the very last objects as for the very first, the body will not be vanity, but a true expression of a kind of beauty, albeit the last. In fact, fallen man, through the fleshly organs, was separated from the unity of God by the multiplicity of temporary images, and with its changing diversity multiplied his passions: this is exactly how this painful abundance and this, so to speak, abundant poverty occurred, when one thing replaces the other and nothing remains constant for a person. Over time, “from the fruit of wheat, wine and oil” (Ps. IV, 8-9) he became so diversified that he no longer finds the self-existent, that is, the unchangeable and unique nature, following which he would not go astray, and having achieved it, he would not grieve. For he will receive “redemption and his body” (Rom. VIII, 23), which will no longer be subject to corruption. Now “the corruptible body burdens the soul, and this earthly church suppresses the over-anxious mind” (Wis. IX, 15), since the last beauty of bodies is resolved into a series of successive phenomena. It is therefore the last beauty that it cannot embrace everything, and while some phenomena pass and are replaced by others, they unite all temporary forms into one beauty. And all this is not evil because it is transitory. So, for example, a verse is beautiful in its own way, although two of its syllables at once cannot in any way be pronounced: because the second syllable can only be pronounced when the first has already been pronounced; and so in order we reach the end, so that although the last syllable is pronounced only on its own, and the previous ones are no longer pronounced, it completes the form and dimensional beauty of the verse precisely in connection with the previous ones. And, despite this, the art of poetry itself is not so subordinate to time that its beauty is degraded by intervals of pauses; on the contrary, it immediately has everything from which the verse is composed, while the verse itself does not have everything at once, but destroys the previous one with the subsequent one. And yet verse is also beautiful, because it represents the last traces of that beauty that art itself constantly and invariably preserves. Thus, just as some perverted people love verse more than the art of poetry itself, because they are more obedient to the sense of hearing than to reason, just as many love the temporal, and do not strive to understand the Divine Providence that created and governs times, and in their very love of temporary objects do not want what they love to be destroyed, and in this case they are as stupid as if someone, while reading a beautiful poem, wanted to listen to the same, constantly repeated syllable But such listeners of poems do not exist; Meanwhile, there are plenty of such admirers of bodily objects: there is no person who would not be able to listen not only to a stanza, but even to an entire poem, while not a single person is able to grasp in thought a whole series of centuries. Moreover, we do not play a role in the poem, while for centuries we have been condemned to be characters. From here we read the poem with critical judgment, but centuries pass for us in labor and illness. But not a single defeated person enjoys athletic games, and yet they are beautiful, although for him they were associated with shame. But this is only some semblance of the truth. Therefore, it is precisely such spectacles that are forbidden to us, so that, deceived by the shadows of objects, we would not move away from the objects themselves, the shadows of which they serve. So, the structure of the universe and its management do not please only the wicked and condemned souls, but they, even if there is misfortune in the world, please many souls either who have achieved victory on earth, or who look to heaven without fear: for everything that is just is pleasing to the righteous. Hence: since every rational soul is either unhappy as a result of its sins, or blessed as a result of its righteous deeds, and every unreasonable soul either yields to the stronger, or obeys the best, or is equated with an equal, or creates a rival, or harms the criminal, and since, finally, the body serves its soul as much as is allowed by its merits and the structure of things, then there is no evil in any nature, and evil for each nature becomes its own guilt. Then, since the soul, reborn by the grace of God and restored to its original integrity and subordinated to the only One who created it, after the restoration of the body in its former strength, will cease to be in the power of the world, and itself will begin to possess the world, then there will be no evil for it, because that same lower beauty of temporary phenomena that went along with it will pass below it and then, as it is written, “the heavens are new 5 and the earth is new.” (Isa. LXV, 17; Apoc. XXI, 1) for souls no longer toiling, but reigning. “Your whole essence,” says the apostle, “you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. III, 23), and “The head of a wife is a husband, the head of a husband is Christ, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. XI, 3). So, since the corruption of the soul does not lie in its nature, but is contrary to its nature and is nothing more than sin and punishment for sin, then it is clear that no nature, or, better said, no substance or essence, is evil. And if the universe is distorted by all kinds of ugliness, then this does not happen at all from the sins of the essence of the soul and the punishments for them, because the rational essence, pure from all sin, being subordinate to God, dominates over the rest, subordinate to it; the one who sinned is destined to where she should be, so that everything is beautifully arranged by God, the Creator and Provider of the universe. And this beauty of all created things remains inviolable thanks to the following three means: the condemnation of sinners, the education of the righteous and the perfection of the blessed. For this reason, the very healing of the soul, performed by Divine providence and ineffable mercy, is extremely beautiful in its gradualness and separation. It breaks down into authority and reason. Authority requires faith and prepares a person for reason. Reason, in turn, leads him to understanding and knowledge. Although reason does not completely abandon authority, as soon as it comes to what one should believe; It goes without saying that the known and understood truth serves as the highest authority. But since we are in the realm of the temporal and love for it holds us back from the eternal, then the first place belongs to some temporary healing, calling for salvation to people who do not know, but believers - the first is not by its nature and superiority, but by time. For wherever someone falls, there he must also look for support to stand up. Therefore, we must even use the fleshly forms in which we are enclosed in order to understand the forms about which the flesh is silent. I call carnal those forms that we perceive with the help of the flesh, that is, eyes, ears and other bodily senses. Therefore, children are necessarily attached to carnal and bodily forms, young men - almost necessarily, but for a person who has left this age, they are no longer necessary. So, since Divine Providence provides not only for individual people, as if in a private way, but also for the entire human race in general, then how its action is manifested in individual people, God and those for whom He provides, know about this, and how the providential action manifests itself in the entire human race, He was pleased to convey this through history and prophecies. Meanwhile, evidence of past or future events is of greater importance for faith than for reason; our business is only to judge which people or books should be believed more regarding the correct worship of God, in which salvation alone lies. First of all, the question to be examined is who should be trusted more: those who invite us to worship many gods, or those who call us to worship one God. But who can doubt that we need to follow those who call us to the one God, especially now, when the worshipers of many gods are beginning to recognize the same Lord and Ruler with us? And numbers start with one. So, first of all, we must follow those who confess that there is one, highest, only true and only worthy of worship God; We must retreat from them only if the truth is not revealed to them. Then, the second study concerns the differences in judgments that have arisen among people regarding the veneration of the one God. We know that our ancestors, at that stage of faith at which they ascend from the temporal to the eternal, needed visible miracles, and they could not act otherwise. Thanks to them, it happened that for us, descendants, miracles are no longer necessary. For when the Catholic Church spread and was founded throughout the world, miracles could have ceased, so that the spirit did not constantly strive for the visible and so that the human race, due to habit, did not cool down to what previously inflamed it with its novelty; on the other hand, there is no longer any room for us to doubt that we must believe those who, although they preached about subjects accessible to a few, could nevertheless persuade nations to follow them. And at the present time we are talking about them, whom we must believe before each of us is capable of achieving an understanding of divine and invisible objects: for the understanding of the purest soul that has achieved obvious truth is no longer preceded by any human authority, no pride leads to it. And if there were no pride, there would be neither heretics, nor schismatics, nor those educated by the flesh, nor worshipers of creatures and idols; but on the other hand, if there had not been such people before the perfection promised to the people, then the truth would have been explored with much greater laziness. Meanwhile, the temporary economy and the healing action of Divine Providence in relation to those who, as a result of sin, were subject to mortality, are depicted in this order. Let us first pay attention to the nature and upbringing of one born person. His first age, childhood, is spent in bodily nutrition and is completely forgotten in an adult. It is followed by adolescence, from which we begin to remember something. It is followed by youth, to which nature gives the ability to procreate and makes a person a father. Next comes courage, already capable of holding public positions and obeying laws: at this age, the strictest prohibition of crimes and the punishment that binds criminals hand and foot gives birth in carnal souls to the most violent manifestations of passions, and doubles the punishment for each crime. For this means committing not just an offense, not only evil, but also something that is forbidden. Finally, after the labors of manhood, there comes a time for some peace in old age. From here until death stretches the age of the most decrepit, the most susceptible to disease and the weakest. Such is the life of a person who lives according to the body and is bound by the desires of temporary objects. Such a person is called old, external and earthly, even if he enjoyed, as the crowd puts it, happiness in a well-ordered state, whether under the authority of kings, or under the protection of laws, or under all these conditions together; for otherwise a people cannot be well-ordered, even those who strive for earthly things, although, of course, in themselves they also have a measure of unique beauty. In the state of this person, which we have described as old, external and earthly, in a state either moderate or even exceeding any measure of slavish righteousness, some people remain their entire lives, from birth to death. Some, of necessity, begin their lives from this state, but then they are internally reborn and the remaining beginning of their primary state is reduced and killed, strengthening in spirit, increasing in wisdom and clinging to heavenly laws, until they achieve complete restoration after visible death. Such a person is called new, spiritual and heavenly, who, in turn, has some of his own spiritual ages, corresponding not to the number of years, but to internal prosperity. He spends his first years in the field of history, which feeds him with useful examples; the second is the time of oblivion of the human and the striving for the divine, when a person does not remain tied to human authority, but in the beginning activity of the mind relies on a higher and unchangeable law; the third is a more confident state, when a person, by the power of reason, surpasses carnal desires and internally rejoices from the feeling of this kind of conjugal sweetness, when his soul is united with the memory of the past and is covered with a shameful veil, so that he does not live virtuously under compulsion, but, even if everyone excuses it, does not want to sin; the fourth is the time when a person does the same thing, but much more firmly and consistently, and is a perfect man, capable and prepared to endure all sorts of misfortunes, storms and worries of this world; fifth - a period of peace and calm in all respects, when a person lives in the wealth and abundance of the unchanging kingdom of the highest and ineffable wisdom; the sixth is the time of comprehensive change for eternal life, when a person, completely forgetting about temporary life, passes into a perfect form, created in the image and likeness of God; the seventh is already eternal peace and eternal bliss, not distinguished by any age. For just as the end of the old man is death, so the end of the new man is eternal life; because the first is a man of sin, and the second is a man of righteousness. But both of these people, without any doubt, exist in such a way that in the state of one of them, that is, the old and earthly man, a person can live throughout his entire life, and in the state of the new and heavenly man, no one can live in real life except together with the old man: for with him he necessarily begins and, in union with him, continues life until the most visible death, and one of them weakens, and the other prospers. In the same way, the entire human race, whose life from Adam to the end of the present age is, as it were, the life of one person, is governed according to the laws of Divine Providence in such a way that it is divided into two races. To one of them belongs a crowd of wicked people, bearing the image of an earthly man from the beginning to the end of the century. To the other - a race of people devoted to the one God, but from Adam to John the Baptist spent the life of earthly man in a certain slavish righteousness; its history is called the Old Testament, so to speak, promising an earthly kingdom, and all of it is nothing more than an image of a new people and a new covenant, promising a kingdom of heaven. Meanwhile, the temporary life of the last people begins from the moment the Lord comes in humiliation and will continue until the very day of judgment, when He appears in His glory. After this day, with the destruction of the old man, that change will occur that promises angelic life: for “we will all rise, but we will not all change” 6 ; Synod: “We will not all die, but we will all change.” Greek: πάντες οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα. – AB. (1 Cor. XV, 51). A pious people will rise up in order to exchange the remnants of their old man for a new one; the wicked people, who lived from beginning to end as the old man, will rise up in order to undergo a second death. As for the division of both peoples into ages, those who delve into history will find them: such people will not be afraid of either the fate of the chaff or the stubble. For the wicked lives for the godly, and the sinner for the righteous, so that by comparison with the ungodly and the sinner, the godly and righteous man may be more zealously exalted until he reaches his end. Meanwhile, whoever during the life of an earthly man achieved the enlightenment of the inner man, the human race, depending on the circumstances, assisted him, delivering what his age required, and what was not yet timely to deliver, revealing through prophecies. Such patriarchs and prophets are found only by those who do not childishly, like the Manichaeans, attack what is good and deeply mysterious in divine and human affairs, but investigate piously and with attention. Even in the times of the new world, as I see, great and spiritual men, disciples of the Catholic Church, are extremely wary of speaking publicly about what, in their opinion, is still untimely to speak with the people; They generously and persistently offer a milk diet to many who are thirsty but still weak, while the stronger ones are fed solid food. They speak about wisdom only among the perfect, but before carnal and spiritual people, although new, but not yet mature, they hide something, but, however, do not deceive in anything. For they do not care about their own empty honors and vain self-praises, but about the benefit of those with whom they are honored to enter into communication in this life. Such is the law of Divine Providence that no one will be helped by the higher ones in the knowledge and acceptance of the grace of God, who himself, with a pure heart, has not assisted the lower ones in the same thing. Thus, after our sin, which nature itself committed under the name of a sinner, the human race has become a great adornment of the earth, and is controlled so beautifully by Divine Providence that the ineffable art of its healing turns the very abomination of our vices into a kind of beauty. We have already said enough about the beneficence of authority; now let us see how far reason can go on the path from the visible to the invisible and from the temporary to the eternal. Indeed, it is not in vain and not in vain that we should look at the beauty of the sky, at the order of the stars, at the radiance of light, at the changes of day and night, at the phases of the moon, at the four-part division of the year corresponding to the four elements, at such a great power of seeds that produce species and individuals, and, finally, at everything that preserves its own image and nature in its kind. In considering all this, one should not indulge idle and momentary curiosity, but should progressively be directed towards the immortal and eternally existing. For the closest task for us is to resolve the question of what this vital nature is, which senses all this and which, animating the body, must, of course, necessarily be above the body. After all, no matter how huge a body may be, even if it shines with this visible light more than usual, but since there is no life in it, it should not be highly valued: according to the law of nature, every living entity is placed above lifeless. But since no one doubts that irrational animals also live and feel, then in the human spirit the greatest value is not what he senses, but what he uses to judge the sensible. In fact, many animals see more sharply and have greater control over other bodily organs than people, but judging bodies is a property not only of the sentient soul, but also of the rational soul, which animals do not have and in which we surpass them. This can be seen very easily from the fact that the one who judges is much higher than the object being judged. Meanwhile, rational life judges not only what is subject to feelings, but even about the feelings themselves; why, for example, an oar in the water seems broken, when in reality it is straight, and why the eyes see it this way - although vision can certify this fact, it cannot discuss it in any way. From this it is obvious that just as the life endowed with feeling is higher than the body, so the rational life is higher than both of them. So, if rational life judges by itself, then there is no longer any nature higher than it. But since it is clear that she is changeable, sometimes being experienced and sometimes inexperienced, and she judges better the more experienced she is, and she is more experienced the more she has some art, science or wisdom, then it is necessary to examine the nature of art itself. In the present case I do not mean that art which is revealed in experience, but that which manifests itself in thinking. For what, in fact, is beautiful in the possession of the one who knows that a composition made of lime and sand holds stones together more firmly than a composition made of clay, or the one who builds buildings with such grace, what is remarkable in his understanding that those parts of the building, which are many, should correspond to one another, as equals to equals, those that are solitary occupy places in the middle, although this sense of symmetry already borders on reason and truth? But of course, we must determine why it is unpleasant for us when two windows located next to each other have different sizes or shapes, and if they are located one above the other, then their inequality does not upset us so much. When we are talking about three windows, then some external feeling requires either that they be equal to each other, or that between the largest and the smallest there is an average that would be as much larger than the smaller one as it, in turn, would be smaller than the larger one. Thus, first of all, nature itself seems to care about what should be approved and what should be condemned. At the same time, however, it should be noted that it also happens that a certain object, which we liked at first glance, ceases to please us when compared with the best. So, art in its everyday meaning is nothing more than the reproduction of objects taken from experience and pleasing to us, in combination with one or another material; and if you did not possess this skill, you could still judge what is most beautiful in this kind of work, even if you yourself did not know how to create works of art. But since in all arts a pleasant impression is made on us by harmony, thanks to which everything becomes whole and beautiful, while harmony itself requires equality and unity, consisting either in the similarity of equal parts, or in the proportionality of unequal parts, then who will find complete equality or similarity in real bodies and decide to say, upon careful examination, that any body is truly and unconditionally one, while everything changes, moving either from type to type, or from place to place, and consists of parts occupying their specific places, according to which it is all divided into different spaces? Then, the true equality and likeness itself, and the true and first unity itself, are not perceived by the bodily eyes or any of the bodily senses, but only by the thinking mind. For where would our demand for any kind of equality in bodies come from, or where would we have formed the conviction that very many things are far from perfect equality, if we had not had in our minds the idea of ​​this perfect equality, unless, however, uncreated equality should be called perfect? And since the sensually beautiful, whether it be a creation of nature or a work of art, is beautiful in space and time, like, for example, the body and its movements, then this, called equality and unity only by the mind, according to which and through the external sense we judge bodily beauty, does not expand either in space or in time. For it would be wrong to say that we judge the round table according to this equality and unity, but not the round vessel, or the round vessel according, but not the round denarius. In the same way, regarding time and the movement of a body, it will be strange to say that we judge equal years in accordance with this equality and unity, but not in accordance with equal months. But if within the limits of a year, or a month, or hours, or shorter moments of time, something moves harmoniously, we judge it on the basis of the same uniform and unchanging equality. If we judge the greater or lesser space of figures or movements on the basis of the same law of equality, or likeness, or resemblance, then the law itself is greater than all this; greater, however, in strength, but in space and time it is neither greater nor less: because if it were greater in this respect, then we would not judge the lesser by its entirety, and if it were less, then we would not judge the greater by it at all. But since, according to the law of quadrature in its entirety, we currently judge a square area, and a square stone, and square planks, and precious stones, in the same way, according to the whole law of equality, we judge the movement of a crawling ant and a wide-stepping elephant; Who can doubt that this law, surpassing everything in its power, in space and time is neither more nor less than everything else? And since this law of all arts is completely unchangeable, and the mind of a person who is given the ability to contemplate this law can be subject to the changeable law of error, then it is quite obvious that above our mind there is a law called truth. And from here it is already certain that the unchangeable nature, standing above the rational soul, is God, and that the first life and the first essence are located where the first wisdom is. This wisdom is that unchanging truth, which is rightly called the law of all arts and the art of the almighty Artist. So, since the soul realizes that it does not judge the physical appearance and movement of bodies by itself, then at the same time it must admit that its nature is higher than that about which it judges, but that, on the other hand, higher than its nature is that in accordance with which it judges, but which it cannot judge in any way. Indeed, I can say why the members of each body on both sides should be similar to one another: because I delight in the highest equality, which I contemplate not with my bodily eyes, but with my mind; hence, everything that I look at with my eyes is, in my opinion, better, the closer in nature it fits what I imagine with my mind. But why these members are exactly like this, no one can say, and no one will seriously say that they should be like this: as if they could not be like this! Even why we like everything like this and why, when we look more closely at it, we begin to love it more - even this no one will dare to say, unless he thinks correctly. For just as we and all rational souls judge lower objects in accordance with the truth, so exactly the one Truth itself judges us when we are united with it. The Father does not judge the Truth itself, because She is no less than He, and moreover, everything that the Father judges about, He judges through Her. For everything that strives for unity finds in Her its norm, or its form, or its model, or let them call it some other word; because She alone represents the complete likeness of the One from Whom she received her being, unless, however, the word “received” is used in accordance with the meaning by which She is called the Son, since she does not exist from herself, but from the highest First Principle, called the Father, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. III, 15). Hence: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son” (John. V, 22); and “the spiritual one judges everything, but no one can judge him” (1 Cor. II, 15), that is, not from man, but only from the very law on the basis of which he judges everything; for it is very truly said that “it is fitting for us all to appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. V, 10). From here, he judges everything because when he abides with God, he abides, thinking with the purest heart and loving with all his love what he thinks about. Thus, as far as possible, he even himself becomes the very law according to which he judges everything, but about which no one can judge. We see the same thing in the reasoning of real temporary laws: although people judge them when they are established, but once the laws are established and put into effect, the judge is no longer allowed to judge about them, but in accordance with them. However, when drawing up temporary laws, the legislator, if he is a good and wise man, takes into account that eternal law, which not a single soul is given to judge, in order to determine, in accordance with its unchangeable rules, what should be permitted or prohibited. Thus, it is permissible for pure souls to know the eternal law, but it is not permissible to judge it. The difference in this case is that in cognition we are content with the view that a known object exists one way or another, but in judgment we also add something by which we express the idea that it can exist in another way, as if saying: “this is how it should be,” or “this is how it should have been,” or “this is how it should be,” as artists do in their works. But for many people the goal is only pleasure; they do not want to rise higher in their thoughts in order to judge why certain visible objects make a pleasant impression on us. If, for example, I ask an architect, when he has built one arch, why he intends to build a similar arch on the other, opposite side, he, I think, will answer that this is required so that equal parts of the building correspond to equal parts. If, further, I ask why he prefers just such a device, he will answer that it is so necessary, so beautiful and that it makes a pleasant impression on the eyes of the audience; he won't say anything more. For a bent man looks with downcast eyes and does not understand what depends on what. But to a person who has inner vision and contemplates with the inner eye, I will never cease to bother him with the question why such objects make a pleasant impression on us, so that he learns to be a judge of pleasure itself. For only in this case will he be above pleasure and will not be a slave to it, when he judges himself, and not in accordance with it. And first of all, I will ask him, are such objects beautiful because they produce a pleasant impression, or do they produce a pleasant impression because they are beautiful? He will answer this question without a doubt that they make a pleasant impression because they are beautiful. Then I ask, why are they beautiful? And if he hesitates, I will add: is it not because their parts are mutually equal and, thanks to a certain relationship, brought into a harmonious unity? When he is convinced that this is so, I will ask him whether they fully express the very unity they strive for, or, on the contrary, they deviate far from it and, to a certain extent, represent it deceptively? If this is so (because who of those asked does not know that there is absolutely not a single form, not a single body that does not have some trace of unity, and that on the other hand, no matter how beautiful the body is, it cannot fully express the unity to which it strives, because in other places in space it may not be so), - so, if this is true, then I will demand that he answer, where or in what does he himself see this unity? If he does not see it, then how does he know, on the one hand, what the external form of bodies should be an expression of, on the other, what it cannot fully express? In fact, if he had said to bodies: “You would be nothing if you had not been embraced by a certain kind of unity, but if you were unity itself, you would not have been bodies,” he would have been quite rightly objected to; “How do you know this unity by which you judge bodies? If you had not seen it, you would not have been able to make the judgment that bodies do not fully express it; but if, on the other hand, you saw it with bodily eyes, you would not have made that correct judgment that although bodies contain traces of unity, they nevertheless deviate far from it, because with bodily eyes you see only the bodily”; therefore, we see it only with the mind. But where do we see it? If it were in the place where our body is located, then it would not be seen by the one who pronounces a similar judgment about bodies in the east. Consequently, it is not contained in one specific place, and, being omnipresent in the one who judges, it never exists spatially. If bodies deceptively present a form of unity, then they, being deceptive, should not be trusted, lest they fall into the vanity of those who exist; but since they are deceptive because they represent unity visibly, to the eyes of the body, while it is contemplated only by the mind, it is necessary to examine whether they are deceptive insofar as they are similar to unity, or because they do not achieve it. For if they achieved it, they would fully express what they serve to imitate. And if they fully expressed it, they would be completely similar to it. If they were completely similar to him, then there would be no difference between one nature and the other. And if this were so, then they would no longer deceptively represent unity: because they would be the same as it. Yes, however, they are not deceptive for those who examine them carefully, because he deceives who wants to appear to be something other than what he is; that which, against one's will, is considered to be different from what it really is, is not deceptive, but only false. For what is deceptive differs from what is false in that everything that is deceptive has the intention of deceiving, even if it is not believed; the deceitful cannot but lie. Hence: since the bodily image has no will, it does not deceive; and if we ourselves did not take it for what it really is not, then it would not even be false. But even our very eyes are not deceitful, because they cannot represent to our soul anything other than their sensation. If not only the eyes, but all the bodily senses testify as they sense, then I don’t know what more we should demand from them. So, eliminate the vanities, and there will be no vanity. If someone thinks that an oar is refracted in the water, and when it is removed from there, it becomes whole, then in this case it is not his organ of vision that is bad, but he himself is a bad judge. For by its very nature he could not and should not have felt differently in water: if, in fact, air is one thing, and water another, then it is completely natural that the sensation in water should be different than in air. Consequently, the gaze acts correctly, for it was created only to see, but the spirit, which was given the mind, and not the eye, for contemplating the highest beauty, acts incorrectly. Meanwhile, he wants to turn his mind to bodies, and his eyes to God, for he strives to understand the bodily with his mind, and see the spiritual with his eyes, which cannot be. This vicissitude must be corrected, because if a person does not replace the first in the place of the second and vice versa, he will not be awarded the kingdom of heaven. Let us not seek the highest in the lowest and become attached to the lowest. Let us judge him in such a way as not to be condemned along with him, that is, we will attribute to him as much as the external image deserves, so that by looking for the first in the very last, we do not become among the first among the last. Nothing harms the latter, but many things harm us. However, this does not make the economy of Divine Providence any less harmonious, for both the unjust are governed fairly and the ugly are governed beautifully. Although the beauty of visible objects deceives us, because it is supported by unity, it does not fully express unity, however, let us understand, if we can, that we are deceived not by what is, but by what is not. Every body is a body, without a doubt, true; only unity is deceptive. For every body is not completely one, or is not so suitable to it as to fully express it; and yet it would not be a body if it were not one or the other. But it goes without saying that it could not be unified at least to some extent if it did not receive unity from the One who is the highest unity. Oh, stubborn souls! Show me one of you whose mental gaze would be free from the imagination of carnal ghosts! Who would understand that there is no other principle for the whole one thing other than the One One, from Whom everything one comes from, as fully expressing it! Who would understand, and not enter into disputes and want to seem to understand what he does not understand! Who would resist the feelings of the flesh and the wounds that, thanks to them, he suffered in his soul! Who would resist human habits and praises, would be tormented by remorse on his bed, would renew his spirit, would not love external vanity and would not seek lies (Ps. IV, 3-4)! Who, finally, could say to himself: “If Rome is one, founded, as they say, near the Tiber by some Romulus, then the one that I imagine in my imagination is false, because this one is not the same, and in that one I am not even present in spirit, for in that case I would know everything that is happening there. If there is only one sun, then the one I imagine is false, because that sun makes its movement in certain places and at certain times, but I place this one where and when I want. I myself, of course, am alone, and I feel that my body is in this very place, and yet in my imagination I go anywhere and talk to anyone. All this is false, but no one considers it false. I do not consider it false when I contemplate something like this, and I believe it on the basis that what is contemplated by the mind must be true: but is it really what is usually called ghosts? Why is my soul so full of dreams? Where is the truth that is contemplated by the mind? To one who reasons in this way one can say: “That light is true, with the help of which you know that this is not true. Through it, you contemplate that one, with the help of which everything you see, you consider to be one, but at the same time, everything you see that is changeable is not this one itself.” If your mental gaze trembles before the contemplation of this, calm down, do not enter into a fight with anything other than bodily habits: gain victory over them, and then everything will be defeated. We are looking for the One One, Who is simpler than anything. Let us seek him in simplicity of heart. “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. XLV. 11); in peace not of inaction, but in peace of thought, so that it is free from conditions, place and time. For all these ghosts of pride and frivolity do not allow us to contemplate permanent unity. Space presents objects for our love, time carries them away and leaves a crowd of ghosts that arouse in us the desire for one thing or another. As a result, our spirit becomes restless and sad, in vain wanting to hold on to what serves as the object of its love. Therefore, he is called to peace, that is, to not love such objects, love for which is impossible without grief. In this case he will dominate them; It is not they who will keep him in their power, but he who will hold them. “My yoke,” he says, “is easy” (Matthew XI: 30). He who is subject to this yoke has everything else under subjection. Он, следовательно, будет уже свободен от трудов, ибо противостоит тому, что подчинено ему. Но несчастные друзья мира сего, владыками которого они были бы, если бы пожелали быть сынами Божьими, потому что Бог "дал им власть быть чадами Божиими» ( Иоан. I, 12 ), – друзья, говорю, мира сего настолько боятся расстаться с объятиями мира, что для них нет ничего труднее, как не трудиться. But for those who at least understand that there is a lie, as a result of which something is recognized that is not, it is also clear that there is a truth that shows what is. If bodies deceive us insofar as they do not fully express that one thing that they strive to imitate, then everything that only comes from this One Principle and strives for similarity with It - we naturally approve of all this; since, on the other hand, we naturally do not approve of everything that only deviates from unity and strives for dissimilarity with Him. From here it is made clear that there is something that is so similar to that one and only Beginning, from which everything that is united in one way or another is derived, that it fully expresses it and is identical to It: this is Truth, the Word in the Beginning, the Word is God with God. For if falsity comes from what imitates the One, but not because it imitates Him, but because it cannot fully express It, then this Truth is something that could fully express the One and be the same as It - it shows It as It is, which is why it is called quite correctly both His Word and His Light (John I, 9). Everything else can be called similar to this one insofar as it exists, for insofar as it is true; meanwhile, it represents His very likeness, which is why it is Truth. For just as everything that is true comes from truth, so everything that is similar comes from likeness. Hence: just as truth is the image of the true, so likeness is the image of the like. Therefore, since the true is true insofar as it exists, and it exists insofar as it is similar to the First One, then the highest similarity to the Beginning serves as the image of everything that exists; it is also the Truth, because it has nothing unlike It. Hence: lies do not come from deceptive things, because they do not represent anything to the senses except their outward appearance, which they received according to the degree of their beauty, and also not from deceptive feelings, which, being excited in accordance with the nature of their body, present only their excitement to the human spirit that controls them, but sins lead us astray when the soul seeks the true, leaving the truth in negligence. For, having loved the creature more than the Creator and creativity, it is punished with such a delusion that it seeks the Creator and creativity in creatures, and, not finding Him, thinks that the creatures themselves are the Creator and creativity (for God is not only not subject to bodily feelings, but rises even above the mind itself). From here comes all kinds of wickedness, not only of people who sin, but even of those condemned for their sins. For, contrary to the commandment of God, they want not only to know nature and enjoy it more than the law and truth itself - and this reveals the sin of the first man who abused free will - but in the very condemnation they also add that they not only love the creation, but also serve it “more than the Creator” (Rom. I, 25) and honor it in parts, starting from the highest and ending with the lowest. Some hold that instead of the highest God they honor the soul, the first rational creature, which the Father created through the Truth, for the constant contemplation of the Truth itself, and through It, Himself, because it is in every respect completely similar to Him. Then they move on to productive life, that is, to creation, through which the eternal and unchangeable God produces visible and temporary generations. From here they descend to the veneration of animals, and then even bodies, stopping first of all at the most beautiful, among which the celestial bodies occupy the first place. Here, first of all, the sun attracts attention, and some people stop at it alone. Some consider the shine of the moon to be worthy of religious reverence, because, as they say, it is closer to us, which is why it has a more earth-like appearance. Others also add other luminaries and the entire sky with the stars. Still others add air to the ethereal sky, subordinating their soul to these two higher bodily elements. But among all of them, those who consider themselves religious are those who consider the entire creation as a whole, that is, the whole world with everything that exists in it, and the life that animates and animates it, which some consider corporeal, while others consider incorporeal - all this taken together recognizes one great God, of which other objects serve as parts. They do not know the Creator and Organizer of the universe. That is why they rush to idols, from the creations of God - to the works of their own hands, which we still see to this day. For there is another kind, a much worse and lower kind of veneration of idols, when they honor their own ghosts and surround with religious reverence everything that is only imagined by the spirit under the influence of pride or arrogance, until they come to the conclusion that absolutely nothing should be honored and that people who drown in superstition and are devoted to this ill-fated slavery are mistaken. But in vain they think so: they cannot bring people to the point where they are not slaves, because they will still have their vices, to which they are so attached that they consider them worthy of veneration. And indeed, they slavishly serve threefold lust: the lust of the flesh, the lust of pride and the lust of the eyes. I do not allow that among the people who, in the opinion of whom nothing should be honored, there should be anyone who is not devoted to carnal joys, or who is not servile before empty power, or who is not driven mad under the influence of some spectacle. Out of ignorance, people love the temporary so much that they expect bliss from it. And everyone, willy-nilly, becomes a slave, out of necessity, of those objects with the help of which he wants to become blessed. For he follows where they lead him, and is afraid of anyone who, as it seems to them, can steal them from him. And they can be kidnapped by a spark of fire or some small animal. Finally, not to mention countless misfortunes, time itself necessarily destroys everything that is transitory. So, since the real world contains only temporary objects, those are slaves of all parts of the world who do not recognize anything worthy of honor, so as not to be slaves of anything. With all this, although these unfortunates are in such insignificance that they allow their vices to dominate them, condemned either by the lust of the flesh, or by pride, or curiosity, or all of these at the same time, however, as long as they remain with this attachment to human life, they can still enter into the struggle with vices and defeat them, if only they first believe in what they are not able to understand, and if they stop loving the world, for, as it is beautifully said, “everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John II, 16). These words indicate the three passions indicated, namely: the lust of the flesh means the worshipers of lower pleasures, the lust of the eyes - the curious, the pride of life - the proud. Hence: a person who has received the Truth itself is instructed to beware of a threefold temptation. “Say,” says the tempter, “that these stones become bread.” But this one and only teacher answers: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew IV: 3-4). Thus he showed that the desire for pleasure must be overcome in order not to even succumb to hunger! But the one who could not succumb to the lust of the flesh could, perhaps, be caught by the vain desire for temporary dominion: therefore, all the kingdoms of the world were shown to him and it was said: “I will give all this to you if you fall and worship me.” The answer to this was: “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone” (Matthew IV: 9–10). So pride was trampled upon! Meanwhile, the last lure of curiosity was also put into action: for the tempter incited to throw himself from the top of the church for nothing more than just to perform some kind of test. But Christ was not defeated and gave such an answer that makes us understand that in order to know God there is no need for attempts aimed at discovering the divine in a visible way; “Do not tempt,” he says, “the Lord your God” (Matthew IV: 7). Therefore, the one who inwardly feeds on the word of God does not seek pleasure in this desert; He who is devoted to God alone does not seek vanity on the mountain, i.e. in earthly exaltation: whoever surrenders to the eternal spectacle of the unchanging Truth does not rush from the top of this body, that is, with his eyes, in order to cognize the lower. So, what is there why the soul could not remember the first beauty that it left, when it can remember it even from its own vices? And indeed, the Wisdom of God indelibly extends from one end to the other (Wisdom VIII, 1). The Supreme Artist combined and arranged his creations into one beautiful whole. His goodness, beginning with the highest and ending with the lowest, does not envy any beauty, which can only come from Him alone; so that no one is rejected by the Truth itself who retains in himself at least some traces of the truth. Analyze what serves as the basis in bodily pleasure, and you will not find anything other than agreement: for if what is opposed to us produces sorrow, then what is agreeable produces pleasure. Therefore, try to know what the highest consent is, do not go outside yourself, but concentrate within yourself, for the truth lives in the inner man; if you find your nature changeable, become higher than yourself. But, becoming higher than yourself, remember that the reflecting soul is higher than you. Therefore, strive to where the very light of reason is kindled. For what else does every good thinker come to if not to truth, since truth does not come to itself through thinking, but is itself what thinkers seek. Also look for that agreement beyond which the thinker cannot be, but, on the contrary, conforms to it. Admit that you are not what it is, if it is not looking for itself, but you, searching, came to it, then you came not by a spatial path, but by the power of the mind, so that the inner man himself would agree with the pleasure living in him - not a lower and carnal pleasure, but a higher and spiritual one. And if you do not understand what I am saying, or doubt whether all this is true, pay attention to whether you doubt this very doubt of yours, and if it is true that you doubt, figure out why it is true: in this case, “the true light is coming to meet you, enlightening every person coming into this world” (John I, 9). This light cannot be seen with bodily eyes; it cannot be seen even with those eyes with which one dreams ghosts invading the soul with the help of bodily eyes, but with those by which we say to the ghosts themselves: “You are not what I am looking for, and also not what I am putting you in order on the basis of; what seems ugly to me, I do not approve, but what is beautiful, I approve; is aware of something true, and is confident in what in this case he is aware of: therefore, he is confident in the truth. Hence, anyone who doubts the existence of truth has something true in himself, on the basis of which he should not doubt, for everything true is true only from the truth. So, he should not doubt the truth, who for any reason could doubt. In whom we see such doubt, there is a light at work, not limited by space and time and free from any ghost of these conditions. For how can the truth be damaged in any way, even if in carnal and lower people all thinking disappears or becomes dilapidated? Thinking does not create truth, but finds it ready-made. Hence: before it is found, it abides in itself, and when it is found, it serves for our renewal. Thus, the inner man is reborn, while the outer man decays day by day (2 Cor. IV: 16). But the inner one constantly looks back at the outer one and, comparing it with itself, finds it ugly, although in its own way beautiful, loving the harmony of bodies and, however, destroying what it uses for its own good, that is, the flesh of animals that it uses for food. However, what is damaged by it, that is, loses its shape, serves to form parts of his body and, thus, acquires a new form, and the vital forces select only what is suitable for the structure of the body, but the rest is discarded. One is returned to the earth, where it can participate in the perception of other forms, the other is removed in the form of gases, and the third, taking into itself, as it were, the innermost parts of the entire animal as a whole, gives rise to new offspring. Once in the womb, it is organized spatially over time and, having reached a certain development, is born in the form of a body that the parents call beautiful and love with the most ardent love; however, what we like about it is not so much the moving form as the life itself. For if such an animate being loves us, we become more attached to it, but if it hates us, we become irritated and cannot bear it, even if for the one who enjoys it it embodies the very form. Such is the realm of pleasure and such is the lower beauty - lower because it is subject to corruption: if it were not so, it would be considered higher. But Divine Providence presents it to us just like this, although, however, not evil, due to such obvious traces of the original perfections in which Divine wisdom is innumerable, but only lower and last, mixing with it suffering, illness, distortion of the members, darkness of color, discord and disagreement of the spirit, so that having realized this, we rushed in search of something unchangeable. This process is accelerated by lower servants, who take pleasure in performing such actions and whom Divine Scripture calls persecutors or angels of wrath, although they themselves are unaware of the good being done through them. Similar to them are those people who rejoice in the misfortunes of others and create entertainment spectacles for themselves out of the errors and sufferings of others. However, despite this, in all such circumstances, virtuous people are admonished, strive, win and reign, while evil people are deceived, tormented, condemned and fall into slavery, and into slavery not to the Lord, but to the lowest servants, i.e. those same angels who are amused by the sorrows and misfortunes of the condemned and, as a result of their malice, are tormented by the freedom of the virtuous. Thus, everyone, voluntarily or unwittingly, serves the beauty of the whole, therefore what horrifies us in its particular manifestations can delight us as a whole. After all, you cannot judge a building by seeing only one corner of it, about a person - only by his hair, about the art of an orator - by one movement of his hands, etc. If we want to make a correct judgment, we must consider all this as a whole. A correct judgment is a beautiful thing: it stands, as it were, above the world and we, if we judge correctly, are no longer attached to any part of it. On the contrary, delusion, tying us to one particular part of the world, is in itself ugly. But just as the dark color in a good picture in connection with the whole is beautiful, so the unchanging Divine providence of our life, full of struggle and exploits, is, as a whole, perfectly managed, rewarding one thing to the vanquished, another to the fighters, a third to the victors, a fourth to the spectators, a fifth to those who have achieved peace and contemplate God, since in all of them there is no other evil except sin and the punishment for sin, i.e. voluntary deviation from the higher essence and involuntary suffering in the lower, which can otherwise be called freedom of truth and slavery of sin. And the outer man decays as a result of either the success of the inner man, or his own weakness. But in the first case, it smoulders in such a way that it is completely transformed into something better and, at the sound of the last trumpet, it will rise incorruptible, so that it will neither deteriorate itself nor spoil others. Because of his own weakness, he plunges into an area of ​​even more perishable beauty, that is, into the order of punishments. Let us not be surprised that I still call it beauty: for there is nothing ordered that is not beautiful. So the Apostle says: “All order is from God” (Rom. XIII, 1). We, of course, will not deny that a crying person is much better than a cheerful worm, and however, without any exaggeration, I can speak with praise of the worm, taking into account the brilliance of the color, the cylindrical shape of the body, as well as the correspondence of its parts, in which, as far as is possible for such an insignificant nature, the desire for unity is expressed. But what can we say about the soul itself, which animates this body, about how smoothly it moves it, how it directs it to what is in agreement with it, how it warns against dangers and, reducing everything to a single feeling of well-being, much more clearly than the body, imparts to it unity, this creative principle of all natures? I'm talking only about an animated worm, but many (and quite rightly) even praised ashes and dung. What then is strange in the fact that about the human soul, which is much better than any body, no matter in whom it may be, I will say that it is beautifully made, and that from the state of its punishment only other types of beauty arise, since, having found itself in such a distressful situation, it is not where it is proper to be blessed, but where it is proper to be unhappy. No one can mislead us for any reason. Everything that is rightly condemned is not approved in comparison with the best. Meanwhile, every nature, even external and inferior, is justly praised, if it is not compared with the highest. And each of us feels bad when it could be better. Therefore, if we are truly comfortable only with the truth itself, then possessing only some part of it is already bad, and it is absolutely bad when we are attached to its most insignificant part - to carnal pleasures. Therefore, we must overcome both the charms and the abominations of lust. So, if we are already married, we need to subjugate our wife so that under our leadership she will become better and would incline us not to lust and passion, but to abstinence. Let us follow our head, Christ, so that those whose head we are will also follow us. The same can be expected from women, for before Christ we are not men and women, but brothers and sisters. If, in the respect in which God commands us to dominate, he admonishes and helps us so that we restore ourselves in our power, if, I say, in this respect, through negligence or wickedness, a person turns out to be no longer a man, but only a husband, that is, enslaved by the mind, then, although he will be pitiful and vile, he is destined in this life, and after it he is delivered to where the highest Manager and Lord determines him to be. Thus, it is possible for every creature not to be defiled by any vileness. Let us walk while there is still day, that is, while we can use our reason, so that, having turned to God, we will be enlightened by His Word, which is the true light, so as not to be enveloped in darkness. For the presence of light, “which enlightens every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9), is the day. Man, says John, because a person can use reason and a point of support to rise, can look in the same place where he fell. Thus, if we love carnal pleasures, then we should focus our attention on them, and if we discover traces of certain numbers in them, then we will ask ourselves where they exist, not having extension (sine tumore). And if such the numbers are given in the vital movement that takes place in the seeds, then they should be surprised there more than in the body. For if the numbers of the seeds had extension, like the seeds themselves, then half a tree would grow from half the grain of a fig tree, and incomplete animals would be born from incomplete seeds, and even one small seed would not contain the infinite power inherent in each type. Because from one seed, in accordance with their nature, over the course of centuries, fields can multiply from fields, or forests from forests, or herds from herds, nations from nations, so that in this endless succession there is not a single leaf, not a single hair, the cause of which would not lie in one first seed. Then you should pay attention to what varied and charming sounds fill the air when the nightingale sings - sounds that the soul of this bird could not have uttered with such freedom if they had not been inspired in it by the incorporeal movement of life. Similar things can be seen in other animate beings, which, although they do not have reason, are not, however, devoid of sensation. For there is not a single one of them that, in the sound of the voice or in other movements and actions of the members, would not produce something varied and proportionate in its own way, and not as a result of any knowledge, but thanks to the internal conditions of nature, proportionate by virtue of the unchangeable law of numbers. Let us turn to ourselves and omit what we have in common with the plant and animal kingdoms. For even a swallow builds its nest in a unique way, and every breed of bird builds its nest in a special way. What is there in us, with the help of which we, on the one hand, judge what forms they all strive for and to what extent they are realized, and on the other hand, we ourselves, as if the masters of all such figures, invent countless of them in the construction of buildings and other material works? What is it about us that allows us to internally recognize that these huge bodies of bodies we see are large or small in proportion and that every body, no matter what it is, has half, and if it has half, then it also has an innumerable number of parts; that, therefore, each grain of millet for the part that our body occupies in this world is as large as the world is large for us, and that this whole world is beautiful in the proportion of its figures, and not in size; it is great not because of its enormity, but because of our insignificance, i.e. the insignificance of the animals with which it is filled, and which, in turn, containing the possibility of endless division, are insignificant not in themselves, but in comparison with other objects and primarily with the universe itself? The same proportionality also applies to the extension of time, because every length of time, like the length of every thing, has its half; for, no matter how short it is, it nevertheless has a beginning, a continuation, and an end. Thus, she cannot help but have half as long as she divides until she reaches the end. Hence, the measure of a short syllable is shorter than the measure of a longer syllable, the hour of a winter day is shorter than the hour of a summer day. In the same way, the duration of one hour is short compared to the day of the day - with a month, a month - with a year, a year - with a five-year period, a five-year period with even longer periods, and, finally, these; the latter - with the whole time, taken in its totality, although all this multivariate sequence and a kind of gradualism of places or times is considered beautiful not due to extension or duration, but due to proportional correspondence. But the very measure of order lies in the eternal Truth - a measure that is not huge in mass and changeable in time, but is great with a force that surpasses all space and is unchangeable with an eternity that exceeds all times, but without which, however, no mass can be gathered together, no extension of time can be kept from wandering; without which neither one nor the other can be anything, neither a body can be a body, nor a movement can be a movement. It is originally one, neither limited, nor infinitely dense, nor infinitely changeable. She does not have one here and another there, or one now and another after: because there is certainly one Father of Truth, the Father of His Wisdom, which, not being in any way dissimilar to Him, is called His image and likeness, for it has its being from Him. Hence, She is correctly called the Son, having its being from Him, and everything else is through the Son. For He preceded as the form of everything, completely containing within Himself that One from which it has its being, so that everything that exists, insofar as it is similar to the One, came into being through this form. Of all these things, one thing was created through Her so that it exists even in Her image, namely: every rational and thinking creature, among which man is quite rightly called created in the image and likeness of God, otherwise he could not contemplate the unchangeable truth with his mind. Others were created through Her in such a way that they do not exist in Her image. As a result, if the rational soul serves its Creator, through Whom and in whose likeness it was created, then everything else also serves it - both the lower life, which is so close to it and serves as an aid for it, with the help of which it dominates the body, and the body itself, this external nature and essence - a body over which, obedient to it in everything, it will dominate at will, without feeling any burden from it, since it will seek bliss no longer from him and not through him, but will receive it directly from God. From here, she will control the body transformed and sanctified, free from corruption and the burden of worries. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew XXII, 30); “Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both” (1 Cor. VI, 13); “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. XIV, 17). For this reason, already in the very pleasure of the body we find something that prompts us to despise it; not because the nature of the body is evil, but because the body is shamefully devoted to the love of external goods, the use and enjoyment of which was originally allowed. When the driver drags along the ground and suffers punishment for his recklessness, he blames absolutely everything that was at his disposal; but let him call for help, let him give orders as the master of circumstances, let him resist the horses that are making and are ready to make another spectacle out of his fall, unless he is saved from death, let him again stand in his place, sit on the cart, take the reins in his hands, more carefully drive the subdued and tamed animals: then he will feel how well constructed the cart with all its accessories, which with its fall caused him bruises and the ride deprived of pleasant uniformity. And in our body, the greed of the soul, which had abused itself in paradise, gave rise to weakness by consuming the forbidden fruit, contrary to the commandment of the Doctor, which contained the promise of eternal health. If, therefore, already in this very weakness of the visible flesh, in which there can be no blissful life, lies for us the incentive to a blissful life, thanks to the beauty that comes from the highest to the lowest, then even more so this impulse lies in the desire for nobility and superiority, in all the pride and vain splendor of this world. For what else does a person want in this case, if not to, if it were possible, to be completely such, to whom everything would be subordinated, in perverse imitation of the omnipotent God? Meanwhile, if he, having submitted, imitated Him with a life in accordance with His commandments, then he would have everything else under his control and would not be in such a shameful state in which, wanting to command people, he is afraid of even a small animal. It is clear that pride also has a certain tendency towards unity and omnipotence, but only in the realm of temporary objects, which all pass by like a shadow. We wish to be invincible, and rightly so; such a desire is characteristic of the nature of our spirit after God, Who created it in His own likeness: but in this case, this nature would have to keep His commandments, if preserved, no one would defeat us. At the present time, when she herself, whose suggestions we shamefully followed, is subordinated to the sad necessity of obedience, we are dejected on earth and with great shame for ourselves we are overcome by everything that can confuse and upset us. Thus, we do not want to be overcome by people, but we ourselves cannot overcome our own anger. What could be more shameful than such dishonor? Of course, a person is ourselves, but although he has vices, he himself is not a vice. Who doubts that envy is a terrible vice, which necessarily torments and enslaves those who do not want to be conquered in the field of temporary objects? Therefore, it is better for man to defeat us than for envy or any other vice. But whoever conquers his vices, no man can defeat him. For only the one who is defeated by his opponent is taken away from him what he loves. Consequently, whoever loves only that which cannot be taken away is undoubtedly invincible and is no longer tormented by any envy. For he loves something that gives people the more joy the more they achieve love for him and possession of him. It is he who loves God with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his mind; loves his neighbor as himself. Therefore, he does not envy his neighbor, but, on the contrary, also helps him as much as he can. He cannot lose his neighbor, whom he loves as himself, since in himself he does not love what is accessible to the eye or any bodily senses. Therefore, he has within himself the one whom he loves as himself. The law of love is that a person should wish for his neighbor the same good that he wishes for himself, and not wish for him the evil that he does not wish for himself: he must express such a wish in relation to all people. For no one should do evil: “Love does no evil to one’s neighbor” (Rom. XIII, 10). Let us, as commanded, love even our enemies if we want to be truly invincible. For each person is invincible not on his own, but thanks to that unchangeable law, which he serves, only he can be free; in this case, what he loves can no longer be taken away from him, and this circumstance makes us invincible and perfect men. For if a person loved a person not as himself, but as beasts of burden, or public baths, or a colorful songbird, i.e. wanting to receive from him some temporary Pleasure or benefit, then he would necessarily become a slave, and a slave not of a person, but, what is much more shameful, of such a vile and disgusting vice, as a result of which he would not love a person as a person should be loved. Under the power of this vice, he would spend his life until the very end, or, better, until death. But a person should not love a person in the same way as they love their carnal brothers or sons, or spouses, or some acquaintances, relatives or fellow citizens. This kind of love is temporary love. We would not have any such relationships, arising with birth and destroyed with death, if our nature, remaining in the commandments and in the likeness of God, had not fallen into a state of real damage. Therefore, calling us to the primitive and perfect nature, Truth itself commands us to resist carnal habits, for no one will achieve the kingdom of God if he does not hate carnal bonds. And this should not seem inhuman to anyone, because it is much more inhuman to love in a person not what he is, but what he is a son, that is, not what concerns God, but what concerns himself. Is it surprising if those who love the particular and not the general do not reach the kingdom of heaven? “But,” someone will say, “it is better to love both,” “No,” says God, “it is better to love one.” For the Truth very truly says: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew VI, 24). Indeed, no one can fully love what we are called to unless he hates what we are distracted from. We are called to the perfect human nature, as God created it before the Fall, but we are distracted from the love for that which we earned through sin. Therefore, we must hate what we want to be free from. Let us hate temporary bonds if we are animated by the love of eternity. Let a person love his neighbor as himself. Of course, no one is his own father, son, in-law, or anything else like that, but only a person. Hence: whoever loves someone as himself must love in him what he is for himself. But our bodies are not what we ourselves are: therefore, it is not the body in man that should be the object sought and desired. In this regard, the commandment not to covet anything from your neighbor is valid. For this reason, if someone loves in his neighbor something other than what he is for himself, he does not love him as himself. Hence, human nature must be loved in itself, in addition to carnal conditions, it must be either perfected or perfect. In the face of the one God the Father, all who love Him and do His will are related to each other. And mutually they are all fathers to each other, when they give advice to each other, and sons, when they obey each other, but primarily they are brothers, because by his covenant one Father calls them to the same inheritance. Why shouldn’t a person be invincible when, loving another person, he loves only the person in him, that is, the creation of God, created in the image of God, and when he sees in him that very perfect nature that he loves, if he himself is perfect? So, for example, if someone loves a person who sings well, not this or that in particular, but in general everyone who sings well: in this case, if he himself is a perfect singer, he wants everyone to be a singer, so that there is no shortage for him of what he loves, like a good singer. For if he envies someone who sings well, then he no longer loves singing, but either praise or something else that he would like to achieve by good singing and that could be reduced or completely taken away from him if someone else began to sing well. Therefore, anyone who envies a good singer does not love him, but, on the other hand, someone who needs a good singer does not sing well. This can be seen much better in a person who lives virtuously, because he can no longer envy anyone: for what virtuous people possess is equally accessible to everyone and does not become any less due to the fact that very many possess it. There may be cases when a good singer cannot sing without losing his dignity, and needs the singing of another, which would give him what he loves, for example, when he is at a feast, where it is indecent for him to sing himself, but it is decent to listen to another singer. Meanwhile, living by virtue is always decent. Therefore, anyone who loves virtue and lives virtuously not only does not envy those who imitate him, but quite willingly and, as far as possible, quite friendly allows them to do this. But he doesn't need them at all. For what he loves in them, he has completely and perfectly in himself. Thus, when he loves his neighbor as himself, he does not envy him, because he does not envy himself; gives him what he can, because he does the same for himself; does not need it, because he does not need himself, but only God, clinging to Whom he becomes blessed. Nobody can steal God from him. Thus, quite truly and quite undoubtedly, the person who cleaves to God is invincible - not so as to deserve some external good from Him, but as a person for whom there is no other good than to be in union with God. While such a person is in real life, he uses a friend to express his goodwill, an enemy to exercise patience, whoever he can to provide benefits, and finally everyone to express his goodness. And although he does not like temporary goods, he uses them correctly and takes care of people, depending on their lot, if he can no longer do this equally in relation to everyone. Therefore, if he more readily enters into conversation with one of his household than with anyone else, this does not mean that he loves him more, but only that he has more confidence in him and leaves the door of his temporary home more open for him. For he looks at people left to time the better, the less tied to time he himself is. Hence, not being able to be useful to everyone whom he loves equally, he would be unjust if he did not prefer to be useful only to people closely united to him by ties of kinship. But spiritual bonds for him are higher than the temporary and local bonds in which we are born with our body, and the highest ones are those that already prevail over everyone. Therefore, he is not amazed by someone’s death, for he who loves God with all his soul knows that what does not perish for God does not perish for him. God is the Lord of both the living and the dead. Nor is he unhappy because of someone else’s misfortune, since he is not righteous because of someone else’s righteousness. And just as no one can take away either righteousness or God from him, so no one can take away bliss from him. And if sometimes it happens that he is disturbed by someone’s danger, or mistake, or grief, he does not refuse to come with help, to contribute to correction or consolation, without, however, upsetting himself. In all his obligatory labors, thanks to his firm hope in future peace, he is unshakable. For what can harm someone who knows how to be on good terms even with an enemy? Under the protection and protection of Him, by whose commandment and gift he loves his enemies, he is not afraid of enmity. Such a person not only does not grieve in sorrow, but even rejoices, “knowing that from sorrow comes patience, from patience experience, from experience hope, and hope does not put one to shame, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. V, 3-5). Who can harm such a person? Who will conquer him? A person who achieves exaltation under happy circumstances learns what serves to exalt in adversity. For when he has transitory goods in abundance, he does not attach value to them, and when he loses them, he finds out whether they tied him to himself or did not tie him. Quite often, having them, we think that we do not love them, but as soon as they begin to be absent, we find out what we are. For what leaves us without causing us grief, even when it is with us, does not bind our heart to itself. Thus, it seems that the one who wins, although in fact, the one who, by rising, achieves something, the loss of which will be associated with sorrow for him, is defeated, and the one who wins, although apparently the one who is defeated is the one who, by yielding, achieves what he willingly loses. So, whoever is attracted by freedom, let him strive to be free from all transitory blessings, and whoever is attracted by the desire to reign, let him remain submissive to the one king of all, God, loving Him more than himself: this is perfect righteousness, by virtue of which we love the greater more, and the lesser. Let him love a wise and perfect soul as he sees it, but let him love a foolish one not because she is such, but because she can be perfect and wise; You shouldn’t love your own stupidity either. For whoever loves his own stupidity will not rise to wisdom; no one will become what he wants to be, unless he hates himself as he is. But until he reaches wisdom and perfection, let him endure the stupidity of his neighbor with the same feeling with which he would endure his own if he were stupid, and let him love wisdom. Hence, although pride is only a shadow of true freedom and the true kingdom, Divine Providence reminds us with it what is vicious in us and what we must correctly return to. Further, all the spectacles and all the curiosity: what are they looking for if not the pleasure of looking at objects? And what could be more amazing and beautiful than the truth, to which, undoubtedly, every spectator strives, watching carefully so as not to be deceived, and boasting if he notices and identifies something in the spectacle more vividly and faster than others? Finally, he carefully watches and watches with extreme caution the magician himself, who is engaged in nothing more than deception; and if they succumb to this deception, it is only because they cannot do it themselves, and therefore they are amused by the art of the one who deceives them. For if he himself did not know, or others considered him ignorant, what actually leads the audience into deception, then no one would applaud the deceiver. If someone from the crowd catches him, he considers himself deserving more praise than he, and precisely because he could not be deceived. And if many people catch him, then they no longer praise him, but laugh at the others who could not figure out his tricks. Thus, victory remains on the side of knowledge, art and comprehension of truth, which in no case will be achieved by those who seek it somewhere outside. So, we are immersed in such trifles and abominations to such an extent that although when asked what is better - truth or deception, we answer unanimously that truth is better, however, we are devoted to amusements and games in which we enjoy something not true, but illusory, much more willingly than to the commandments of truth itself. Thus, we are punished by our own judgment and our own lips, approving one thing with reason, and following another out of vanity. Something remains funny and amusing as long as we know what truth is being mocked in it. But, loving such amusements, we deviate from the truth and no longer understand how they imitate the objects that we look at as beautiful prototypes, and deviating from which we plunge into our own ghosts. These ghosts stand before us when we turn to the search for truth, and prevent us from continuing our path, threatening not with force, but with great fetters those who do not understand how broad the meaning of the saying: “Keep yourselves from idols” (1 John V, 21). Because of this, some rushed around in countless worlds with an empty thought, others believed that God could not be anything other than a fiery body, others, in connection with their ghosts, fabled that God is a radiance of light, spread throughout infinite space, but, so to speak, split at one point by a certain black wedge - they fabled thus, imagining two hostile kingdoms and establishing two for things hostile beginnings. And if I forced them to swear whether they knew that this was true, perhaps they would not have dared to swear, but would have said in turn: “Show us what is true.” If in response I had said nothing other than: “Seek the light, through which it will become clear and understandable to you that it is one thing to believe, and another to understand”; then in this case they themselves would swear that such light cannot be seen with sensual eyes, nor thought in connection with any spatial extension, but that it awaits those who seek it everywhere and that there is nothing more certain and clearer than it. All this that I have just said about this mental light is again obvious to us only with the help of the same light. For through his medium I understand that what is said is true, and that I understand this, I understand again through his medium. I understand that this “again and again” continues into infinity, for everyone understands that he understands something, even this very “again” - I understand that in this infinity there are no distances available for any kind of excitement or speed; I finally understand that I can understand only if I live, and that by understanding I become more alive. For eternal life surpasses temporary life in its vitality, and what eternity is, I contemplate this only thanks to what I understand. With my mental gaze I separate all variability from the eternal and in eternity itself I do not distinguish any intervals of time, since intervals of time consist of past and future changes in objects. Meanwhile, in the eternal there is neither transitory nor future; for what passes away ceases to exist, and what will be has not yet begun to be. Eternity only exists - it neither was, as if it no longer exists, nor will it be, as if it does not exist yet. If we cannot yet enter into it, let us at least abhor our ghosts and remove such insignificant and deceptive amusements from our mental gaze. Let us take advantage of the paths that Divine Providence has been pleased to establish for us. For, delighting to excess in amusing inventions, we became fussy with our inventions and turned our whole lives, as it were, into some empty dreams: therefore, the ineffable divine mercy, taking into account the fact that the rational creature serves its laws, was pleased, so to speak, to occupy our childhood with parables and comparisons with the help of sounds and letters, as well as fire, smoke, clouds and a pillar of fire, these, as it were, visible words, and similarly heal our inner eyes. So, not knowing, but believing that the truth exists, let us understand what kind of trust we should place in history, what kind of trust in reason, and what should we imprint in our memory? Where is the truth that does not come and does not go, but always remains unchanged? Which way to interpret the allegory, which, as we believe, is spoken by wisdom in the Holy Spirit: is it enough to relate it from the visible ancient to the visible, but newer, or to the nature and movements of the soul, or to unchangeable eternity? Do some of them have the meaning of visible actions, others - mental movements, others - the law of eternity, or are there some in which all this should be sought at the same time? What is the firm faith—whether historical and temporal, or spiritual and eternal—to which every interpretation of authority must be directed? What contributes to the understanding and achievement of the eternal, in which lies the goal of all good actions and the reliability of temporal objects? What is the difference between historical allegory, factual allegory, speech allegory and sacramental allegory? How should we understand the very speech of the Divine Scriptures in accordance with the peculiarities inherent in each language? For every language has some expressions of its own, which, when translated into another language, are absurd. What is the purpose of such baseness in word expression that in the sacred books there are found in application to God not only anger, sadness, awakening from sleep, memory, oblivion and some other names that can be applied to virtuous people, but even repentance, jealousy, intoxication and some of the like? Should the eyes of God, arms, legs and other similar members be attributed to the visible form of the human body, or to the designation of rational and spiritual powers, like a helmet, shield, belt and the like? And - what especially deserves investigation - in what respect is it useful for the human race that Divine Providence spoke to us in this way through the medium of a rational, born and bodily creature serving Him? If this alone is known to us, our spirit will be freed from all childish frivolity and the most holy religion will be introduced into it. So, having discarded and distanced ourselves from theatrical and poetic nonsense, let us nourish and water our spirit by examining and interpreting the Divine Scriptures - a spirit consumed by hunger and thirst for empty curiosity and vainly striving to renew and satiate itself with empty ghosts, as if with various phenomena: here is a truly free and noble school in which we will receive a sound education. If we are delighted by the wonders and delights of spectacles, let us be filled with the desire to contemplate that wisdom that quickly spreads from one end to the other and arranges everything for the benefit. For what could be more amazing than the incorporeal force that created the corporeal world and controls it? Or what is more beautiful than the power that orders and decorates this world? And if everyone agrees that this is felt by the body and that the spirit is better than the body, then doesn’t the spirit in itself contemplate anything? Or can what he contemplates be anything other than something much more excellent and sublime? On the contrary, having received from the side of what we judge an impulse to contemplate what serves as the basis for the subject of our judgment, and having turned from works of art to the law of art, we will be able to contemplate that image, in comparison with which that which, by the goodness of God, is beautiful, appears disgusting. “For His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been visible from the creation of the world through creatures” (Rom. I, 20). This is the return from the temporal to the eternal and the transformation from the life of the old man into the new man. But what is there from which a person could not receive an impulse to seek virtue, when he can be prompted to do so even by the vices themselves? For what else does curiosity seek if not the knowledge of that which cannot be reliably known, that is, the eternal and always unchangeably existing? What else does pride strive for if not for power, which consists in ease and unhindered action - power that a perfect soul finds only when it is submissive to God and turned to His kingdom by the power of the highest love? What does the lust of the flesh strive for if not for peace, which takes place only where there is no lack and no damage? Hence, one should be afraid of the underworld of hell, that is, the most severe punishments after this life, when there can no longer be any reminder of the truth, because there is no reflection there. It does not exist because it is not illuminated by that very true light that enlightens every person coming into this world. Therefore, let us not hesitate and let us walk while there is still day, so that darkness does not overtake us. Let us hasten to free ourselves from the second death, in which there is no remembrance of God, and from hell, in which there is no one confessing to Him. But pitiful are those people in whose eyes what they know has no value and who rejoice in novelty and are more willing to learn than to know, although the ultimate goal of learning is knowledge. And those for whom the unimpeded ease of action does not matter, are more willing to fight than to win, although the ultimate goal of the fight is victory. Finally, those for whom bodily health has no value prefer to eat than to be well-fed, to use their reproductive members rather than not experience any such excitement; and there are even those who prefer to sleep than not to sleep, although the ultimate goal of these pleasures is to no longer feel hunger, no longer thirst, no longer desire carnal intercourse and no longer be in a state of bodily fatigue. Therefore, those who pursue these ultimate goals first of all free themselves from curiosity, recognizing as certain the knowledge that lies within themselves, and enjoying it as much as possible in real life. Then, having abandoned perseverance, they acquire ease of action, knowing that the greatest and easiest victory lies in counteracting someone else's enthusiasm. Finally, as far as possible in this life, they also feel bodily peace, abstaining from what it is possible to live this life without. Thus they taste how sweet the Lord is and are nourished by the faith, hope and love of their perfection. After the present life, knowledge will also be perfected (because now we only partially understand, and when the perfect comes, then this “partially” will be abolished) and complete peace will come (for now “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,” but from this body of death the grace of God frees us through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. VII, 23–25); because in many ways we agree with this enemy while we are on the road with him), the body will be in complete health and there will be no need and no fatigue (because this corruptible, in its own time and in its own order, when Sunday comes, will be clothed with incorruptibility). And it is not surprising that all this will be given to those who love only truth in knowledge, only peace in action, and only health in the body: after this life, what they love most in this life will be realized for them and perfected. Hence, those who make bad use of the great good of the mind, seeking besides it what is more visible, which should serve as a reminder for them to contemplate and love what is reasonable - all of them will receive total darkness as their lot. For the beginning of this darkness is carnal wisdom (carnis prudentia) and weakness of the bodily senses. And those who delight in struggle will be alienated from the world and entangled in the greatest difficulties. For war and struggle are the beginning of the greatest difficulties. This, I think, means that such people will have their “hands and feet tied” (Matthew XXII, 13), that is, all ease and ease of action will be taken away. In the end, those who want to hunger and thirst, burn with lust and become weary in order to eat, drink, copulate and sleep with pleasure, love such a lack, which serves as the beginning of the greatest sorrows. In this way, what they love will be realized and perfected for them, so that they can be there where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are many people who love all these vices together and whose life consists in going to shows, arguing, eating, drinking, copulating, sleeping, and their thoughts dwell only on their own ghosts that such a life creates, and, coming out of their falsity, they build superstitious and impious rules with which they deceive themselves and to which they are attached, even if they even tried to abstain from the temptations of the flesh. Since they made bad use of the talent entrusted to them, i.e., the acuity of reason, which all so-called scientists, or wits, or jokers are in one way or another gifted with, but keep it tied in a scarf or buried in the ground, that is, directed and tied to empty objects or to earthly passions: then their hands and feet will be tied and they will be sent into utter darkness, where there will be crying and gnashing of teeth. And this is not because they love weeping and gnashing of teeth (for who loves them?), but because what they loved serves as the beginning of this weeping and gnashing of teeth and necessarily leads their fans to them. For those who love to walk more than to return or achieve anything should be sent to the most distant places, because they are flesh and a spirit that wanders, but does not return. On the contrary, whoever makes good use of the five senses of the body, either to believe in the works of God and proclaim them and to feed on the goodness of God, or through activity and knowledge to introduce peace into his nature and to know God, he enters into the joy of his Lord. In addition, a talent taken from one who used it badly is given to one who used the five talents well (Matthew XXV, 14-30; Luke XIX, 15-26), not because the acuity of the mind can be transferred from one to another, but it is thus given to understand that careless and wicked, meanwhile, naturally witty people can lose this talent, and diligent and pious, although more those who are slow in mind can achieve it. In fact, the talent was not given to the one who received two; because whoever already lives well in the area of ​​action and knowledge has this too, and the one who has received five. For he does not yet have sufficient mental acuity to contemplate the eternal, who believes only in the visible, i.e. temporary, but he has it who glorifies God, the organizer of all this sensual, is devoted to Him by faith, trusts in Him with hope and seeks His love. If all this is so, then I convince you, my beloved and my neighbors, I convince myself along with you, to strive as quickly as possible for us to achieve what God convinces us to strive for with His wisdom. Let us not love the world, because all that is in the world is carnal lust, lust of the eyes and worldly pride. Let us not love others and harm ourselves with carnal pleasures, so as not to fall into the most disastrous damage from sorrows and torments. Let us not love strife, lest we be handed over to the power of the angels who rejoice in it, to humiliation, overpowering and punishment. Let us not love visible spectacles, lest we be cast into utter darkness for deviating from the truth itself and loving darkness. Let our religion not consist of our own ghosts. For at least something real is better than everything that can only be invented by our arbitrariness. Better is an actual straw than a light created by the empty imagination at the desire of a man capable of conjecture; and yet to consider a straw that we feel and touch worthy of veneration is a crazy thing. Let not the veneration of human works be our religion. Much better are the artists themselves who create such works, and yet we should not honor them. Let the veneration of animals not be our religion. Better than them are the least of the people, and yet we should not honor them either. Let the veneration of dead people not be a religion for us; because if they lived piously, then one should not think of them in such a way that they would seek such honors; on the contrary, they want us to honor the One by whom we are enlightened; they rejoice if we also become participants in their merits. Hence, they should be honored for the sake of religion. If they lived badly, then they do not deserve respect, no matter where they were. Let the veneration of demons not be a religion for us, because every superstition serves as honor and victory for them, while for people it is a great punishment and the most dangerous dishonor. Let the veneration of earth and water not be a religion for us, because the air is cleaner and brighter than them, and serves as a source of warmth; however, we should not honor him either. Let it not be a religion for us to honor the ethereal and celestial bodies, which, although they are superior to all other bodies, yet any living creature is better in comparison with them. Therefore, if they are animate bodies, then any kind of soul in itself is better than any animate body; and yet no one would agree to consider a vicious soul worthy of veneration. Let it not be a religion for us to honor the life that trees are said to live, because there is no feeling in it; To the same genus belongs that life by which the partiality of our body is produced, our hair and bones, which have no sensation, live; Better than this life is a life endowed with feeling, but we should in no way honor the life of animals. Let not even the most perfect and wisest rational soul be our religion, which is either placed in the service of the universe, or its individual parts, or awaits a change and modification of its fate in the best people; because every rational life, if it is perfect, submits to the unchangeable truth, which speaks to it internally without words, and does not become vicious. Hence, it rises not on its own, but thanks to the truth that it willingly submits to. Hence, what the highest angel honors, the lower man must also honor, because human nature itself has become lower as a result of disrespect for that. For a wise angel and a man, a truthful angel and a man, do not come from different beginnings, but from one unchanging wisdom and truth. The temporary economy of our salvation was arranged in such a way that the unchangeable, consubstantial and co-eternal God's Power and Wisdom of the Father deigned to perceive human nature in order to teach us that man should honor the same thing that should be honored by all thinking and rational creatures. Let us believe that the highest angels and the most excellent servants of God desire that we honor the one God with them, from whose contemplation they are blessed. For we too are blessed not from the contemplation of angels, but from the contemplation of that truth, thanks to which we love the angels themselves and rejoice with them. We do not at all envy that they are more prepared for the truth than we are, or enjoy it without any painful obstacles; on the contrary, we love them even more, because the common Lord commanded us to expect the same. Therefore, we honor them with love, not servility. We do not build churches for them, because they do not want such veneration from us, knowing that we ourselves are churches of the Most High God when we are virtuous. Thus, it is correctly written that the angel forbade man to give him the worship due only to the one Lord, under whose authority the angel himself is only a fellow servant of man. Meanwhile, those angels who incline us to serve them and honor them as gods are like proud people who wish that, if it were possible, we would honor them in exactly the same way. But it is still relatively safe to tolerate such people, but to honor those angels is much more dangerous. For all dominion of men over men lasts only until the death of either those who dominate or those who are subject; slavery on the part of the pride of evil angels should be feared more because of time itself - because it takes place even after death. Moreover, everyone knows that the dominance of man leaves the subordinate the possibility of freedom in the mental area: meanwhile, we fear those rulers as rulers over our very mind, which is the only eye for contemplating and perceiving the truth. Therefore, if, for the purpose of our curbing, we are subordinate to all the power that is given to people to govern the state, “the things that are Caesar’s to Caesar and the things that are God’s to God” (Matthew XXII, 21), then we should not be afraid that anyone will demand this of us even after death. And then, slavery of the soul is one thing, and slavery of the body is quite another. People who are righteous and who place all their joy in God alone, when God is blessed by their deeds, enjoy with those who praise these deeds; but when they themselves are praised, they correct those who are in error, whomever they can, but whom they cannot correct, they do not rejoice with them and only wish that they correct themselves from this vice. If the good angels and all the holy servants of God are similar to them, and even purer and holier than them, why are we afraid that if we are not superstitious, we will thereby offend one of them? After all, with their help we free ourselves from all superstition, striving for the one God and binding (religantes) our souls to Him alone - where, I think, the very word “religion” (religio) comes from. This one God, this One Beginning of everything and Wisdom, by which every soul is wise, no matter how wise it is, this Gift, by which everything that is blessed is blessed, I honor. And every angel who loves this God, I am sure, loves me also. Every angel who considers Him to be his good helps me in Him and cannot envy my participation in Him. Let the admirers and admirers of parts of the world tell me which of the good angels would not like to win over one who honors only one thing that every good angel loves, from the knowledge of which he rejoices and the desire for which makes him good? On the contrary, every angel who loves only self-will, does not want to be subject to the truth, having wished to enjoy his personal good, has fallen from the common good and true bliss, to which all vicious people are given into slavery and torment, and none of the virtuous, except for testing, for which our misfortunes constitute joy, and our conversion is condemnation - such an angel is undoubtedly not worthy of veneration. So, let religion connect us with only the omnipotent God, because between our mind, with which we comprehend the Father, and Truth, that is, the inner Light, with the help of which We comprehend Him, no creature comes directly. Therefore, together with the Father, let us honor this Truth itself, which differs in no way from Him, which is the form of everything that is created as one and strives towards one. Hence, it is clear to spiritual souls that everything was created through this form, which alone fully contains what everything strives for. However, all this would not have been created by the Father through the Son and would not have been preserved whole within its boundaries, if God had not been supremely good, so that He does not envy any nature that may be good from Him, and has given the power to remain in this good - to one, as far as he will, and to another, as far as he can. Therefore, it is fitting for us to honor and consider unchangeable, along with the Father and the Son, this Gift of God, i.e. Trinity consubstantial: the one God, by whom, through whom and in whom we exist, from whom we came, to whom we became dissimilar and from whom we have the promise that we will not perish, the Beginning to which we strive, or the form which we follow, and the Grace by which we are restored; one God - the Creator, by whom we are created, His image, through which we are brought into unity, and the World, by which we remain in unity; God, Who said: “Let it be” (Gen. I), His Word, through Whom everything that was created in its essence and nature was created, and the Gift of His goodness, by Whom all this was pleasing to His Creator and reconciled with Him, so that nothing created by Him through the Word should perish; the one God, created by Whom we live wisely, loving Whom and enjoying Whom we live blissfully; one God, from whom, by whom, and in whom are all things. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. "Woe is our heart for the Lord" The words have been rearranged. – AB. “Where are you, death, the sting? Where the hell is victory? Correctly “became flesh”: Omnes enim resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur. Church We will not all fall asleep, but we will all change_ You might be interested in: