Беседа 8

1. I have no doubt, beloved brothers, that the fear of God is rooted in your hearts, with which you can achieve true, real strength. Although the one who fears no one is called brave, it is a mistake, however, to call the one brave who does not fear God, so that, fearing, obey Him, obeying, loving and, loving, no longer being afraid. Then He will be truly fearless, not due to proud arrogance (duritia), but due to fearless justice. “In the fear of the Lord there is sure hope,” says Scripture (Prov. 14:26). When fear is supported by the danger of punishment that is threatened, one learns to love the reward that is promised, and thus, through the fear of punishment, a good life is established, and through a good life a good conscience is cultivated, for which no punishment is scary. Therefore, let him who does not want to be afraid learn to be afraid. Let him who wants to enjoy eternal peace be in anxiety for a while. Because, as the apostle says, “in love there is no fear, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). That's right, truly he said. If you do not want to have fear, think first whether you have perfect love, which casts out fear. If fear is driven out before this perfection, then pride inspires you, not edifying love. And just as in good health, hunger is eliminated not by neglecting food, but by eating it, so in a normal state of mind in a person, fear is driven out not by conceit, but by love. 2. Examine your conscience, everyone who does not want to have fear. Don’t worry only about your appearance, go inside yourself, inside your heart. Carefully examine whether any vein poisoned there is not sucking in or absorbing vicious love, whether you are excited and carried away by any lure of carnal pleasure, whether you are puffed up by any empty arrogance, whether you are absorbed by any empty worries, whether you can say that you see yourself pure and blameless, no matter what excuses you find for yourself in your conscience, from deeds, words and thoughts thin. And if you are clean from any untruth, do you not become indifferent to the truth? If you are free from all this, rightly rejoice, rejoice that you are without fear. Let love for God, Whom you love with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, drive him away. Let his love for your neighbor, whom you love as yourself, and about whom you worry a lot, drive him away, so that he, together with you, loves God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind. Because in no other way do you love yourself correctly than if you love God, you love him so much that you love Him no less when you turn to yourself. When, even if inside you are not excited by any passion (who, however, would dare to assert this about himself), you love yourself in yourself and admire yourself, then fear this most of all, precisely the fact that you are not afraid of anything. Not all love drives out fear, but true love, when we love God completely and therefore love our neighbor, so that he also loves God. Loving yourself in yourself and admiring yourself is not true love, but the empty arrogance of pride. That is why the apostle rightly reproaches people who are self-loving and self-pleasing (2 Tim. 3:1-5). “But perfect love casts out fear.” However, that love can only be called love that is not vain love. But what is more vanity than a man without God? He who loves himself in himself, and not in God, has vain love. Therefore, it is rightly said: “Do not be proud, but be afraid” (Rom. 11:20). He who is proud and therefore not afraid is in any case exposed to danger; he is not in a safe place, inspired by the spirit of pride. He who only loves and praises himself is neither meek nor pious, but arrogant and impudent. He does not want to know the words of Scripture: “My soul will glory in the Lord; The meek will hear and rejoice” (Ps. 33:3). What good is it when someone, loving himself so much, is not afraid of anything? In this case, he cannot find an excuse for himself in this case, but only in bitterness. For example, let’s take one of the desperate robbers. How insanely brave he is, he is so cruel to his own destruction, because as a result of self-love, because of which he is not afraid of anything, he commits serious crimes, so that he not only develops his passion, but, developing it, wants to strengthen it. And the greater his crimes, the greater his insolence will be. One should not, therefore, consider as a great good what can be found in the most depraved person. 3. Therefore, the philosophers of this world deserve ridicule, and not only the Epicureans, who sell the very truth for the price of carnal pleasures. In order to do this, these latter say, one must be wise and fair in order to find and enjoy bodily pleasures. They also consider themselves undaunted and say that they are not afraid of anything, because they do not allow God to have any concern for human affairs, and they do not believe that after this life another will come. And if any vicissitudes happen to them in this life, they think to reward themselves by being able to enjoy in their souls the thought of carnal pleasures, when they cannot actually enjoy them, and with such pleasure they want to achieve the bliss of carnal consolations, being under the burden of bodily sorrows. Doesn’t love drive out fear among them too? But this is the love of unclean pleasures, rather the love of empty, shameful vanity. Because when the appearing sorrow deprives the body of its pleasure, only the idea of ​​it and only the image of emptiness remain in the soul. This emptiness is loved only, so that when an empty person grasps it with all his heart, the severity of grief seems to be softened. And not only they (the Epicureans) are worthy of ridicule, but even the Stoics. Representatives of these two trends, as we read in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, dared to throw their idle talk against our Paul (Acts 17:18). After all, the Stoics also consider themselves undaunted, not because of bodily pleasures, but because of courage (perseverance) of the spirit, i.e. they want to avoid fear due to the expulsion of the ability to fear, being puffed up with malice, being not taught by wisdom, but hardened in their error. And, of course, they are of little understanding because they imagine that a sick spirit can become healthy in their midst. The health of the soul, they believe, consists in the fact that a wise person, according to them, should not have compassion. Because if someone has compassion, they say, he grieves. And whoever grieves cannot be called healthy. Oh, crazy blindness! What if he grieves the less, the less healthy he is?! It is another matter when there is no sorrow due to perfect health, which will be the body and spirit of the saints after the resurrection of the dead, in which they (the Stoics) do not believe, because they have ignorant mentors, presenting themselves as teachers. It makes a difference whether grief is due to health or due to weakness. Judging by the state of true decay, a healthy body, when it suffers, grieves. The same is the spirit, which, being wounded by the misfortune of the sufferer, sympathizes with its mercy. But a body that has become numb due to a serious illness or has become dead due to loss of spirit, although it is sick, does not feel pain. The same is the spirit of those who philosophize or, rather, perish without God. Just as the body is quickened by the spirit, so the spirit itself lives, being quickened by God. Let those who do not grieve and are not afraid think that perhaps they are not healthy, but dead. 4. So let a Christian have fear before perfect love casts out fear. Let him believe and know that he is removed “from the Lord” while he lives in the body (2 Cor. 5:6), which is perishable and burdens the soul. And let there be less fear, the closer the fatherland we are striving for. Those who are far away should have greater fear, those who are approaching should have less fear, but those who reach must have no fear. Thus fear leads to love, and perfect love casts out fear. Let a Christian fear, but not those who kill the body and cannot do anything else, but the one who can cast both body and soul into fiery hell (Luke 12:4-5). There is, however, another fear, the fear of the Lord, pure, abiding forever (Ps. 18:10). But it is not his perfect love that casts him out, otherwise he would not have remained forever, and it is not in vain that when it is said: “the fear of the Lord,” “pure” is added, as well as “abiding forever.” Why does fear, which is driven out by love, torment the soul, if not because we are afraid of losing after death something that we like, for example, the integrity of the body and its tranquility, or something like that? That is why we are afraid of punishments and sorrows and the torments of Gehenna in the kingdom of the dead. When the spirit is awake and God does not abandon it, then there is pure fear that endures forever. I would have spoken about this in more detail if my speech, already quite long, had not prompted me to spare both my senile strength and your attention. You might be interested in: