Collection of the works of St. Macarius the Great from the first volume of the Philokalia (compiled by St. Theophan the Recluse)

Information about the life and writings of St. Makaria Instructions of Saint Macarius the Great on Christian life, selected from his conversations. 1. Light primitive state a) The final goal and supreme good of man in Communion with God. God deigns to rest in him and man finds peace nowhere but in God. This is the affinity between man and God according to his original purpose in creation. b) Having such a purpose, man was adapted to it in creation itself. In creation he was placed at the goal. c) As a result of this, the primordial ones were in God and had great advantages and benefits. d) But this abundance of grace had nothing compelling. Man was free to be with God and grace or to be separated from them. He separated and fell, as did the spirits. 2. The gloomy state of the fallen a) Having listened to the evil one, Adam sold himself to him, and he, having taken possession of him, filled him with all kinds of evil. b) Seeing such a disastrous state, God and the Angels regretted the fallen. c) The truth, however, subjected him to righteous punishment, and he was left like a desolate house. d) As a result of the fall, all creation and the entire human race were subjected to the tyranny of the enemy and passions. e) The most tangible consequence of the fall is the reigning confusion everywhere in the world. f) Everyone experienced this, but no one knew what kind of evil it was and where it came from, considering such a state to be natural. g) No matter how great the evil from the fall, it did not completely kill man. Manifestations of spiritual life remained in him. 3. The Lord is the Organizer of salvation a) There is only one salvation for the fallen - the Lord. The Lord had mercy and came incarnate for our salvation. With His blood He washed away our sins, with the grace of the Holy Spirit He renewed our decayed nature and thus made us fit for His heavenly kingdom. b) Having arranged salvation, the Lord wants those who want to be saved to be saved, but does not force anyone. 4. Formation of a firm determination to be saved in the Lord a) Our desire is expected as a necessary condition. b) How desire is formed. aa) Awakening from God. The Lord admonishes the soul invisibly, sometimes converts through misfortunes, sometimes through His direct influence, as on the Apostle Paul, but the universal herald for conversion is the word of God. bb) Struggle with oneself to incline the will to invocation. cc) Ideas and beliefs that influence the inclination of the will. In this struggle with itself, the mind collects various motivating and compelling ideas of truth and beliefs that can excite and inspire. In first place is St. Macarius here presents ideas of what God did for our salvation, and with what promises He surrounded this work. He refers to this very often in different turns of phrase. d) With the ideas offered, the soul is ready to bow to the calling to follow the Lord, but thoughts come that we will still have time to do this and cut off the desire. Saint Macarius turns them away with strong ideas of the danger of delaying the work of salvation. God's long-suffering may be exhausted, and then destruction is inevitable. dd) While the soul thus approaches the determination to begin the work of salvation, the enemy directs at it the last of its kindled arrows of despair and hopelessness. her) When all opposing thoughts are removed, the struggle with oneself to bend the will ends and the determination to work for the Lord to accomplish one’s salvation is formed, a determination as strong as death. Its expression: even if I die, I will no longer indulge in sin. lg) But more often he expresses this determination by slaughtering the soul, just as animals were slaughtered as a sacrifice: for determination is precisely self-destruction to the Lord as a burnt offering. 33) In order to more clearly impress upon our attention this truth, St. Macarius depicts at length that all failures in spiritual life, all falls and falling away and all moral moods stem from a lack of selfless determination to work for the Lord with renunciation from everything. 5. State of cooperation a) Determination is the starting point. It is necessary to assign her a goal so that her labors are not fruitless. What is the goal? It is to achieve renewal of nature by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He who decides to go there must direct all his efforts so that the Holy Spirit overshadows him in strength and effectiveness and, like fire, begins to scorch everything unclean. When this happens, then it is as if the soul enters the soul, the person comes to life spiritually, or only then becomes a man. This is the main idea of ​​St. Macaria, around which all the others are grouped. b) Whoever turns to the Lord in repentance, upon receiving the sacrament, already has grace. But it is not found equally in everyone. Some are immediately overshadowed, while others are subjected to long trials, and then it already reveals its effectiveness. c) That the common law of grace is not to suddenly commit oneself, this is explained by Saint Macarius with many examples from Divine Scripture, with the application of a lesson to what this obliges every believer. d) As a result of this, everyone who decides to work for the Lord is initially faced with labor - a state when he only by the power of his rational will forces himself to do every good deed and restrains himself from everything that is not approved by his conscience, despite the fact that there is no sympathy for this in his heart. So, have you decided? Begin to force yourself to do every good thing and resist yourself in everything bad. e) Forcing oneself to do good is one side of hard work. There is another way - to resist yourself in bad ways. This latter is spiritual warfare. Saint Macarius teaches about her this way. f) Since this is the work that must be done by one who has decided to work for the Lord, then in addition to being merciless towards himself in any kind of labor, he also needs to have prudence, attention and prudence. g) The worker must draw inspiration from his work in the hope and unshakable confidence that the Lord will see how hard the work is, make sure of the faithfulness of the soul, and give it the Holy Spirit and Himself unite with it. Saint Macarius touches on this subject very often, and almost every lesson about labor is aimed at instilling this hope. h) Saint Macarius does not touch upon the particulars of toil, because they were all in practice among those to whom he addressed his conversations. On occasion, he only lists them, such as: fasting, vigil, solitude, bodily labor, obedience, mutual assistance, patience. He speaks in more detail about only one prayer, because it is a round dance of all virtues and exploits, and especially because it is the successor of the influx of the Holy Spirit. i) Of the precautions that a worker should have, St. inspires most of all. Makariy, so as not to stop at just external serviceability. Labor from the outside has the task of teaching all exploits and all virtues, but not in order to stand there, but to turn this very thing towards the development of inner life and the acquisition of the effectiveness of the Spirit. But others stop at this alone, go as far as good behavior and nothing more, but do not pay attention to the heart and do not seek the Spirit of grace. That is why they bear labor, but have no fruit. Saint Macarius urges us to beware of this above all. i) Especially from among such outwardly serviceable ones, Saint Macarius singles out scribes who, from books and conversations, learned what the matter is and interpret it, but do not take up the matter itself, therefore they lag behind in spiritual knowledge even from the ignorant, and their very interpretation is frantic. j) So, we must take every care to acquire the Spirit of grace. For if He is not in you, all your sacrifices and labors are nothing, and at the hour of your exodus the demons will seize you and drag you into their abyss. Whoever has the Spirit will scorch them. 6. The state of those who have received the effectiveness of the spirit a) Whoever conscientiously, without self-pity, carries out the labors of asceticism, finally discovers the power and effectiveness of grace. It is revealed by a special spiritual warmth in the heart, the pacification of thoughts, the withdrawal of taste for all created things and the depreciation of the price of everything that is considered valuable on earth. This is the seed of spiritual life itself. From here begins the spiritualization of the soul, the cleansing of it from passions, the healing of wounds caused by passions. b) This manifests itself from the first moments of the influence of grace, but it is very dangerous to think that there is already some kind of perfection here. This is just the beginning. Grace, having made itself felt, takes possession of the heart little by little, until it fulfills everything and transforms everything inside. c) That is why those who have tasted grace continually thirst more and more to taste it. d) Thirsting more and more for the Lord, such people feel meager, insufficient in everything, which is why humility is a feeling rooted in them. It is also a condition for any further success. e) Despite this, however, they are given a warning most of all to be wary of conceit, exaltation, and condemnation, for for them grace withdraws, and without grace there is immediate fall. f) That is why, as much as they rejoice, realizing what a treasure they have received, they are just as afraid lest they lose it, and they try to perform their spiritual service so as not to offend the Spirit of grace, and He does not depart. g) For this same purpose, they strain in every possible way not to deviate mentally from the Lord, and to keep their inner self in the same order as the helmsman of his shipmen, or the driver of his horses. h) From this it is clear that the struggle here does not stop from sin and from the enemy, hence the incessant struggle with the thoughts and movements of the heart. Here she is more refined. i) In addition to this abuse, another one is suitable - external. At the same time, as the grace of God begins to be revealed in the heart of the worker, hostile attacks on him by other people begin. The enemy, driven out from within, arms itself from without. This has become an inevitable condition for a Christian to achieve perfection in spirit. i) By enduring all this patiently and not yielding in anything to the enemy, the soul is increasingly purified and gives scope to the strongest influences of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which finally manifests itself in insights of the mind, in special gratifying moral states, in visions, and guidance. It becomes clear that the soul is approaching perfection. 7. The highest degree of perfection of Christians