XXI. Сердце и его значение в духовной жизни человека, по учению Слова Божия.

(From the article by P. D. Yurkevich 884. (To p. 267). The heart is the center of a person’s mental and spiritual life. This is how a person’s determination to take such or other actions is conceived and born in the heart, various intentions and desires arise in it; it is the seat of the will and its desires. These actions of intention, desire and determination are indicated by the expressions: and “I have given my heart” (Eccl. 1:13); “And put Daniel on your hearts” (Dan. 1:8); and “it was upon the heart of my father David” (1 Kings 8:17). The expressions say the same thing: “the good pleasure of the heart” (Rom. 10:2), “the purpose of the heart” (2 Cor. 9:7; Acts 11:23). Ancient Israel was required to bring gifts for the construction of the tabernacle, “everyone according to the will of his heart” (Exodus 35:5), and “everyone brought whatever he loved in his heart” (Exodus 35:21). Whoever expressed his desires said “everything that is in his heart” (1 Kings 10:2). When we do something willingly, our action comes “from the heart” (Rom. 6:17). Whom we love, we give our heart to, and back, we have him in our heart: “Give me your heart to my son” (Prov. 23:26); “in our hearts” (2 Cor. 7:3); “Have me in your hearts” (Phil. 1:7). The heart is the seat of all cognitive actions of the soul. Meditation is the “suggestion of the heart” (Prov. 16:1), the counsel of the heart: “my heart counseleth within me” (Neh. 5:7). To understand “with the heart” means to understand (Deut. 8:5); to know “with all your heart” - to understand completely (Joshua 23:14). He who does not have a heart to “understand” does not have “the eye to see and the ear to hear” (Deut. 29:4). When the heart becomes white, a person loses the ability to notice and understand the most obvious phenomena of God’s providence: he hears “heavily” with “his ears” and closes “his eyes” (Is. 6:10). In general, “everyone thinks in his heart” (Gen. 6:5). An unkind person has “a heart that dreams evil thoughts” (Prov. 6:18). False prophets “prophesy the desires of their hearts” (Jer. 14:14), “they speak visions from their hearts, and not from the mouth of the Lord” (Jer. 23:16). Thoughts are “councils of the heart” (1 Cor. 4:5). The Word of God “judges the thoughts and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). What we firmly remember, imprint in our souls and assimilate, we put in, compose and write in our hearts, “put these words into your hearts” (Deut. 11:18); “Put me as a seal on your heart” (Song. 8:6); “Mariam kept all these words in her heart” (Luke 2:19); “Write (words of wisdom) on the table of your heart” (Prov. 3:3). Everything that comes to our mind or memory comes “to the heart.” In the kingdom of glory, the ascetics who suffered for truth and faith “will not remember the former, they will rise lower in their hearts” (Is. 65:17); “and the heart of man has not sighed what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Just as a word is a phenomenon or an expression of thought, it too comes “out of the heart” (Job 8:10); “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). And just as thinking is a conversation between the soul and itself, the one who reflects conducts this internal conversation in his “heart”: “I speak the words in my heart” (Eccl. 1:16); “I have spoken in my heart” (Eccl. 2:1); “the wicked servant speaks in his heart” (Matthew 24:48). The heart is the focus of diverse spiritual feelings, emotions and passions. All degrees of joy are assimilated to the heart, from complacency (Isa. 65:14) to delight and rejoicing in the presence of God (Ps. 83:3; Acts 2:46); all degrees of sorrow, from a sad mood - when “fallen passion in the body offends the heart” and when “sadness harms a husband’s heart” (Prov. 25:20-21), - to crushing grief, when a person “cries out in the pain of his heart” (Isa. 65:14) and when he feels that “his heart is troubled and is torn from its place” (Job 37:1); all degrees of enmity, from jealousy and “bitter envy” (Prov. 23:17; James 3:14) to the rage in which a person gnashes his teeth (Acts 7:54) and from which his heart flares up with revenge (Deut. 19:6); all degrees of discontent, from anxiety, when the heart “confounds” a person (Prov. 12:25), to despair, when it renounces all aspirations (Eccl. 2:20); finally, all types of fear, from awe (Jer. 32:40) to overwhelming horror and confusion (Deut. 28:28; Ps. 142:4). The heart melts and is tormented by anguish (Josh. 5:1; Jer. 4:19); due to the difference of suffering, it becomes “like melting wax” (Ps. 21:16), or dries up (Ps. 101:5), becomes warm and kindled (Ps. 38:4, 72:21), or becomes crushed and erased (Jer. 23:9; Ps. 146:3). When depressed, a person becomes “fearful and weak in heart” (Deut. 20:8). The heart is “transformed” by compassion (Hos. 11:8). The gracious word of God acts in the heart “like a burning fire” (Jer. 20:9); the heart ignites and burns when the ray of the divine word touches it (Luke 24:32). Finally, the heart is the center of a person’s moral life. All moral states of a person are united in the heart, from the highest mysterious love for God, which cries out: “The God of my heart and my portion is God forever” (Ps. 73:26), to that arrogance which, adoring itself, considers “your heart as the heart of God” and says: “I am God” (Ezek. 28:2). According to the variety of moral ailments, the heart becomes darkened (Rom. 1:21), becomes white (Is. 6:10), becomes hard (Is. 63:17), stony (Ezek. 11:19), inhuman, bestial (Dan. 4:13). There is a “wicked heart” (Jer. 16:12), a “vain heart” (Ps. 5:10), and a “foolish heart” (Rom. 1:21). The heart is the original place of all good and evil in the words, thoughts and actions of a person, it is the good or evil treasure of a person; “A good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart; and an evil man brings forth evil things from the evil treasure of his heart” (Luke 6:45). The heart is the tablet on which the natural moral law is written; therefore the Gentiles “show the work of the law written in their hearts” (Rom. 2:15). On the same tablet the law of grace is written: “my people,” cries the Lord, “whose law is in your hearts” (Ps. 51:7); “And I will write on their hearts” - (laws of grace) (Jer. 31:33). Therefore, the word of God is sown in the field of the “heart” (Matthew 13:19); conscience has its seat “in the heart” (Heb. 10:22); Christ dwells “in our hearts by faith” (Heb. 3:17), and also grants “the betrothal of the spirit into our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:22). “And let the peace of God be in your hearts” (Col. 3:15); “For the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5). The light of grace “shines in our hearts” (2 Cor. 4:6). – But on the other hand, the devil puts evil intentions in the sinner’s “heart” (John 13:2), fills his heart with evil thoughts (Acts 5:3). “Satan comes to inattentive listeners of the word of God and takes away the word sown in their hearts” (Mark 4:15). As the center of all bodily and diverse spiritual life of a person, the heart is called the origins of life or the sources of life: “guard your heart with all care: from these are the origins of life” ( Proverbs 4:23); it is [?] “the wheel of our birth” (James 3:6), that is, a circle or wheel, in the rotation of which our whole life consists. Therefore, it constitutes the deepest part of our being: “Deep is the heart of man above all others, and whoever knows it” (Jer. 17:9). External manifestations of words, thoughts and deeds never exhaust this source; “The hidden man of the heart” (1 Pet. 3:4) is open only to God: “He is the secret message of the heart” (Ps. 43:23). The state of the heart expresses the entire mental state (Is. 50:12, 83:3). A person must give God one of his hearts in order to become faithful to Him in thoughts, words and deeds: “Give me your son, God’s wisdom calls to man” (Proverbs 23:25).