Слово 49

(1) About spiritual knowledge, and that the treasure of the Spirit is hidden in the letter of Divine Scripture, and clearly not for everyone, but only for those who have acquired the grace of the Holy Spirit into their souls. 1. Spiritual knowledge is like a house built in the midst of Hellenic and worldly knowledge, in which house there is, like a tightly locked chest, the knowledge of the Divine Scriptures and the ineffable wealth hidden in this knowledge of the Scriptures, that is, Divine grace. Those who enter the house cannot see this wealth unless the chest is opened for them; It is impossible to open this chest with any human wisdom. Why do all worldly wise people not know the spiritual treasure that lies in the chest of spiritual knowledge? And just as if someone lifts this chest onto his shoulders, he cannot, by this alone, see the treasure that is inside it, so if someone reads and even memorizes all the Divine Scriptures and can recite them all like one psalm, he cannot, by this alone, comprehend the grace of the Holy Spirit that is hidden in them, for neither what is inside the chest can be discovered through the chest itself, nor what is hidden in the Divine The scriptures cannot be revealed through the scriptures themselves. - How is this possible, listen. Suppose that you see a small chest, tightly locked from everywhere, and, judging by its heaviness and its external beauty visible to you, you guess or learn from someone else that there is a rich treasure inside it; Suppose also that you grabbed this chest on your shoulders and ran away with it. I will ask you now, what use will it be to you if it remains locked for you forever, and you will not open it, and you will not see its treasures for the rest of your life - neither the shine of valuable stones and margaritas, nor the gold that is inside it? What good will it do you if you don’t manage to get at least a little of those treasures and buy yourself some food or clothing, but keep that chest all your life locked, as we said, and sealed, full of great and valuable treasures, while you die of hunger, thirst and nakedness? Of course none. The same thing, my brother, happens in spiritual things. The chest, let's say, is the Gospel of Christ and other Divine Scriptures, which have within themselves hidden eternal life and with it ineffable heavenly blessings, as Christ says: try the scriptures, for you believe in them to have eternal life (John 5:39). The man who lifted the chest onto his shoulders, let’s say, represents the one who has memorized all the Divine Scriptures, always has them in his mouth and keeps them in his spiritual memory, as in a chest containing valuable stones - the commandments of God, in which there is eternal life, and together with the commandments of God, virtues, like margaritas. For from the commandments virtues are born, and from the virtues the sacraments hidden in the letter of Scripture are made manifest. Then they excel in virtue when they keep the commandments; and again, then they keep the commandments when they are zealous for virtues; and through virtues and commandments the door of knowledge is opened for us, or, better said, it is opened by Jesus Christ, Who said: If you have My commandments and keep them, this is you who love Me... And I will love him and will appear to him myself (John 14:21). Thus, when God dwells in us and reveals Himself to us knowingly (knowingly, tangibly), then we too will gain insight into knowledge, that is, we will effectively understand those divine mysteries that are hidden in the Divine Scriptures. It is impossible to achieve this in any other way. And let no one deceive himself, thinking that he has opened otherwise than this chest of knowledge and tasted the blessings that are inside it, that is, he has achieved their communion and contemplation. But what are these benefits that I mention here? – Perfect love for God and neighbor, contempt for everything visible, mortification of the flesh, carnal members that are on earth, and shameful sinful lust; so that, just as a dead person does not think about anything and does not feel anything, so we do not think at all about any evil lust, and do not feel any violent and powerful pressure on us from sin tempting us, but would remember only the commandments of our Savior Jesus Christ, immortality and incorruptibility, unfailing glory, eternal life, the kingdom of heaven and sonship received by us through the new birth of the Spirit The Holy One, in whose (birth) we became sons of God and gods by grace, heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, we would also remember that with these blessings we acquired the mind of Christ, or the spirit of Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit, and through it (mind) we came to know God and Christ Himself, who dwells in us and descends into us. So, those who, hearing the commandments of God, do them, are honored to richly receive all these ineffable benefits given for the sake of this (the creation of the commandments), through the opening of the said chest or through the opening of the intelligent eyes of the soul and the vision of what is hidden in the Divine Scriptures. Others, who have not known what we have spoken about and have not experienced it in action, have not yet tasted the sweetness and immortal life that divine words have, and boast only of knowledge and believe the hope of their salvation in the mere study of the Divine Scripture and in the fact that they know it from memory. After death, such people will be condemned more than those who have not heard the Scriptures at all - and especially those of them who, erring through ignorance, distort the meaning of Divine Scripture and interpret it according to their own lusts, wanting to justify themselves, as if they could be saved even without the strictest observance of God’s commandments. The power of the Divine Scriptures is not available to them. - And righteously. - For how can something that is hidden and sealed, which is invisible and unknown to all people and which is revealed only by the Holy Spirit and, only in this way being revealed, is seen and known by us - how can it be comprehended or known through teaching (scientifically), or even thought about it - by those who say about themselves that they have never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, and do not know what enlightenment is or His radiance, by which His dwelling in us is evidenced? How is it possible for those who have never been aware of any manifestations in themselves that would certify that rebirth, reconstruction, renewal and change have taken place in them, which comes from the Holy Spirit? And how is it possible to recognize the change that takes place in those baptized with the Holy Spirit by those who have not yet been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Or how is it possible for those who are not born again to see the glory of those who are born again, that is, of God? And to those who, after, according to the word of John the Theologian, they received the realm of being children of God, did not want to remain such children, but through negligence lost the very grace of holy Baptism - tell me, I ask you, - how is it possible to understand rationally, or at least imagine in the slightest degree, into what divine spiritual glory those who were deemed worthy to become children of God have entered? God is an invisible, immortal, unapproachable, unthinkable Spirit, and He makes those who are born of Him the same, similar, that is, to the Father who gave birth to them. Although they are visible to everyone in the body and known by everyone, in the spirit they are known only from God, just as they only know God properly; - or, better to say, they want to be known and visible only from God, to Whom they are directed with all their desire and all their love and Whom they intelligently see incessantly. Let's use another comparison. Just as those who have learned to read and write poorly and have not practiced reading cannot read in the same way as those who have learned to read and write well and have practiced reading for a long time, so those who did not want to fulfill God’s commandments cannot be worthy of seeing the revelation of the Holy Spirit on an equal basis with those who labored in keeping the commandments and achieved complete perfection in this, even shedding their blood for them. And just as someone who picks up a book, closed and sealed, cannot see or recognize what is written in it, even if he possesses all the wisdom of the world, so the one who, as we said, has all the Divine Scripture in his mouth, cannot understand and comprehend the mysterious and divine glory and power hidden in him, unless he fulfills the commandments of God and is not worthy to receive the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who would reveal to him the words of the Divine Scripture, like a book, and showed him mysteriously the glory that is inside them, - at the same time he would show the power and blessings of God hidden in them, along with eternal life; filled with those blessings that are hidden and unknown to all those who are careless and despise the commandments of God. - And adequately hidden. - For since they have attached all their feelings to the vanity of the world, have become addicted to the deceptive blessings of this life and have thereby darkened their minds, they cannot be lifted up to think about the mental beauty of the ineffable blessings of God. Just as someone whose eyes hurt cannot bear the light of the rays of the sun, and if he were to force himself to look at them, he would lose even this small light of his eyes and would become completely blind, so the one whose spiritual eyes hurt, that is, whose mind is darkened by worldly and carnal things and whose feelings are all passionate, cannot look at bodily beauty and prettiness dispassionately, without harm and damage to his soul, and if he begins to look and slows down his mind in thinking about that beauty, he will also lose that small world of thoughts, that peace and silence of shameful lust that he had before he began to look at that beauty, when evil thoughts and shameful lust did not bother him. Such a person cannot even realize that he is sick. If he were convinced that his soul was sick, being filled with passions, then, of course, he would have thought that there were others who were healthy in soul, and perhaps sometimes he would have condemned himself for this, because he himself was the cause of his weaknesses, and would have begun to worry about how to get rid of these weaknesses. But since he considers everyone else to be as passionate and sick as himself, he does not even think of falling behind them, saying that it is not possible for anyone to become higher than them. So he dies, unfortunate, in passions, because he never reached the point of wanting to get rid of such evil. If I wanted, I could, because I received the power to do so from God. For those who are baptized in His name put off the former corruption of sin, like an old garment, and put on Christ, being renewed to life according to Him and becoming sons of God by grace. But, my brothers, let us not be like those who have such a bad reputation and are in such a pitiful state, because they have become completely grounded and have become like a neglected field full of thorns. May we follow Christ the Lord, who died and rose again for us, and ascended human nature into heaven - to live according to the way of life of Christ, Who is an example for us, and to keep His commandments, having first been cleansed from the filth of sin through repentance, confession of sins, and again putting on the bright robe of the Holy Spirit in Christ our God. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You might be interested in: