43–51

43. Often repeat that you are sinners, and always weep over what you have done in times of sloth and negligence. For this labour God’s blessing will be upon you and His grace will work in you, since God is good and forgives the sins of everyone who turns to Him, whoever he may be. God will forget your sins and will never remind you of them; but He wants you always to remember your sins, so that you may not do something because of which you will be forced to answer to the Creator for those old sins too which have been forgiven you. So it happened with that servant whose master forgave him his whole debt; but when the servant forgot this mercy and dealt unjustly with a fellow servant who owed him, then the master, learning of it, reminded him of the old debt which he had forgiven before and exacted it in full. And he did so because the sinful servant did not pity his fellow servant and did not forgive him a hundred denarii — a wholly trifling sum compared with what he himself owed his master and had been forgiven (Matt. 18:23). So beware lest you too act like that servant and share his lot! Or let us remember holy King David: when he sinned with the wife of Uriah and was reproved by the prophet Nathan both for this and for what he did to that woman’s husband — that is, for having him killed — King David, as soon as he heard the reproof, at once repented and submitted to his lot, for which the prophet Nathan immediately answered him: “The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die” (2 Kings 12:13). But although he was made worthy of the forgiveness of his sins, King David never forgot his sins and, as we know, left the memory of them to us, his descendants too. And this became for all peoples a memorial and an instruction, so that a noteworthy example might be handed down from generation to generation. For he himself said: “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and ungodly men shall turn to thee” (Ps. 50:15), so that every sinner by his example might learn the same repentance for his own sins and might not forget them even after receiving God’s forgiveness. That we must always remember our sins God Himself told us by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah: “…but thou didst stand before me in thy sins, and in thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blots out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and thy sins; and I will not remember them. But do thou remember, and let us plead together: do thou first confess thy transgressions, that thou mayest be justified” (Isa. 43:24–26). God tells us the same through the prophet Jeremiah: “…Return to me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not set my face against you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry with you for ever. Nevertheless, know thine iniquity, that thou hast sinned against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every shady tree, but thou didst not hearken to my voice” (Jer. 3:12–13). So when the Lord forgives us our sins, we must not forgive them to ourselves and must always remember our transgressions; and we shall be able to do this if every day we renew repentance for them in our souls.

44. Spiritual labour is truly glorious, and those who labour in it have many adversaries. Whoever really wants to attain perfection in such labour must not be enslaved to any evil. Whoever is enslaved to something bad is very far from spiritual perfection.

45. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by a humbling of His Godhead beyond the grasp of the human mind, covered His Godhead with human nature. So that everyone perceived Him as a man, whereas in fact He was not only a man but God made man, as is written in the holy Gospel: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). But by this becoming man the Lord was not deprived of His Godhead and never remained without His Godhead, either during His earthly life or at the time of the Passion, which was necessary for the salvation of us sinful and mortal people.

46. Many who have taken up the spiritual labour have said: I too have seen our Lord Jesus Christ just as the holy apostles beheld Him. They said this out of their own senselessness, for in thinking so they deceived themselves, and they had no such eyes as to see the Lord as the apostles saw Him. But the Apostle Paul did see the Lord Jesus Christ just as those apostles saw Him who were beside Him and believed in Him as God at the time when the Lord, surrounded by an evil mob and reviled, was going to suffer on the cross and when all the rest looked upon Him as on a man. When the woman with an issue of blood in the Gospel saw the Lord with spiritual eyes and believed that He is the true God, and with this faith touched the hem of His garment, she was at once healed of her sickness, which had tormented her for years. And when the Lord asked, Who touched me? — He did not do this as though He did not know what had happened, but asked so in order to make known to all the great faith of this simple woman. For the Apostle Peter said to the Lord: so many people press about us and throng us, and Thou askest, Who touched me? But the woman herself made herself known and confessed publicly her healing from the sickness. And then the Lord said to her: “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace” (Luke 8:48). Pilate too saw the Lord with bodily eyes, and the high priests Annas and Caiaphas; but they saw Him as that evil mob saw Him, and not as the holy apostles did. That is why neither Pilate nor the others gained any profit for their soul from seeing the Lord. But the Apostle Paul, who saw the Lord with spiritual eyes, by his great faith believed in Him as the true God, like the woman with an issue of blood mentioned above, who with faith touched the Lord’s garment and was healed at once.

47. When the reign of sin is abolished in a person, then God appears to his soul and cleanses it together with the body. But if sin still reigns in the body, then a person cannot see God, since his soul is clothed in a body in which there is no light, and without this the vision of God is impossible. The prophet David says: “…for with thee, O Lord, is the fountain of life; in thy light we shall see light” (Psalm 35:10). What then is this light by which a person sees light? It is that light which our Lord Jesus Christ mentions in the holy Gospel when He says: “…if thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light” (Luke 11:36). The Lord also told us: “…neither knoweth any man the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matt. 11:27). And to the sons of darkness the Son will not reveal His Father, but will reveal Him only to those who abide in the light and are called sons of light — to those whose spiritual eyes the Lord has enlightened with the knowledge of the commandments and the understanding of His ordinances.

48. In the psalm (41:5) it is written: “…I will go to the place of thy wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God, with a voice of exultation and thanksgiving, and of the sound of those who keep festival.” This passing through the wondrous tabernacle signifies the further journey of the soul and means that a person’s soul has reached perfection, for here it has already drawn near to God, whereas before this its journey was still very far from God. Let us not wonder that our present journey on the road of spiritual perfection is still very far from God, since spiritually we are as yet infants. We know that even to Elijah, that prophet of great power, the angel said: “Arise and eat, for the journey is far from thee” (3 Kings 19:7); and Elijah was going to the mountain to see God. It was this very length of the road that leads to God that King David had in mind when he said: “Who will give me wings as of a dove? then would I flee away and be at rest” (Ps. 54:7). Therefore we should walk this road not slackened by carelessness and sloth, but in labours, with diligence and with divine zeal. The teacher of the peoples of the world, the holy Apostle Paul, says: “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:26–27). So let us also walk this road while we still have time, while we live in this world in these bodies of ours, so that we may attain that perfection which the Apostle Paul attained, who says: “…I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6–8).

49. As a person’s body passes through three ages while the soul dwells in it, so the soul too passes through three ages, namely: the conception and beginning of faith, progress in living by faith, and the attaining of perfection. In the first age, when faith is conceived in the soul and begins to exist, the soul is born in Christ, as it is said in the Gospel. The holy Apostle John gave us the signs both of this new birth and of the middle state of the soul and of its attaining perfection. This is what he writes in his first epistle (2:12–14): “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” So the holy apostle was writing these words of good tidings not to friends of his according to the flesh but to those who believe in God, and at the same time he was depicting those three states through which people striving for spiritual perfection must pass in order to become worthy to receive the fullness of grace from God.

50. Whoever comes to love the spiritual life should imitate the purity and self-restraint of Joseph; first of all let him tame the lust of the eyes and arm himself against all those evil desires which the crafty enemy kindles in him and which have their strength from that very enemy, so that of him too the words of Job may be said: “Behold now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the muscles of his belly” (Job 40:11). Therefore every labourer in spiritual struggles who is armed against these bodily desires should gird his loins with the belt of strict self-restraint and keep himself in purity. In Holy Scripture it is said that the angel who wrestled with Jacob all night at last touched the sinew of his thigh and injured it, whereby Jacob’s body was weakened, and he himself was called Israel, which simply means “one who has seen God” (“when he saw God,” Gen. 32:25–32). In the same way it befits us to weaken our bodies, so as to quiet in them, and even to put to death, our foul desires. The weakening of the flesh, of the body, is the means for attaining perfection in purity and virtue. A person’s soul is firm and strengthened when the body is worn down and weakened. So let us weaken our bodies, that we may have strength to keep ourselves as we should! If we enslave the body and subject its every striving to the will of the soul, then the desires of the flesh, which are enmity against God, will be put to death in us along with the body. And if we can do this, then our soul will be enlightened and will become a temple of God. Whoever strives to be pure with his whole body, with every part and member of it, is a true spiritual labourer, and it is he who is the trainer and master of all his senses. Such a person will never let his desires rule over him, for he always holds them in check and with the greatest humility and purity bows his neck under the yoke of the Lord. He does not allow his bodily eyes to look at anything unseemly or to look at a woman with desire; likewise he gives his hearing no right to listen to words of judgement and reviling against others, or to let the counsel of the devil and the thoughts suggested by that same devil into the soul by its way; and such a person seals his lips too and does not let his tongue utter aimless, vain words; and his hands he stretches out and sets in motion only to give alms and to do other good works; and even his feet he wearies for that work of which it is said in the holy Gospel: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matt. 5:41). And he keeps his belly and his breast in such a way as not to fall because of them and not to be forced to crawl on the ground like the serpent, who for the very crime he committed was punished by God and is forced to crawl on his belly and his breast. This, brethren, is what the likeness of the true labourer should be, and in this way he should live.

51. Every monk who truly wishes to be a labourer in spiritual toils must strive above all to keep far from noisy gatherings and never to mix in crowded assemblies, so as to be in body, in heart and in mind far from the turmoil of people and their endless agitation, since where there are people there is always tumult and disorder. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself showed us the example of withdrawing from people and of solitude, when He went up quite alone into the mountain to pray. In the desert too He was alone for forty days, at the end of which He was tempted by the devil and overcame him. Of course, the Lord could have defeated the evil tempter in a crowded place too, but He chose to do it alone in the desert in order to teach us, human beings. So it is best and most successfully in solitude and silence that we can defeat the crafty enemy and attain spiritual perfection. In the same way the Lord revealed His divine majesty to His apostles not in a crowded place but took three of them up onto Mount Tabor and there was transfigured before them and stood before them clothed in true glory and light, together with Moses and Elijah. And John, the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, went out alone into the desert before he made himself known to Israel by the preaching of repentance. Among people, in the vanity of the world, it is easier for the crafty enemy to press us with a thousand devices, both outward and visible and inward and invisible. It is precisely among people, in worldly life, that the devil draws individual people to his side, subdues them and turns them into his helpers and fellow workers in the war against those who are faithful to God; thus some shameless woman becomes in the devil’s hand a most dangerous weapon against believers, when with that same devil’s help she spreads wide the net of her temptations. Liars, slanderers and other weak people become the same kind of weapon in the hands of the demons. And the prophet Ezekiel, when he saw the four living creatures, which had four faces each and each of which declared the glory of God, was not in a city nor in a village, but far from people, in a desolate plain, for so the Lord commanded him: “Arise, and go forth into the plain, and there shalt thou be spoken to” (Ezek. 3:22). And in general such visions and divine revelations were not granted to the saints otherwise than in mountains, in deserts or in other desolate places. The prophet Jeremiah too, knowing well how pleasing to the Lord is the solitude of one who labours, said thus: “The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good to wait and hope for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man when he bears the yoke in his youth; he sits alone and is silent, because he has taken the heavy yoke upon himself” (Lam. 3:25–28). And again the same Jeremiah, knowing just as well what great harm the slander and gossip of false people do to all who wish to please God, could not restrain himself and said this of his own people: “Who would give me in the wilderness a last lodging place? Then would I leave my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, an assembly of the treacherous. And they have bent their tongue like a bow; lying and faithlessness have grown strong in the land, for they go forth from evils to evils, and they have not known me” (Jer. 9:2–3). So too the prophet Elijah was made worthy to receive food from on high from the angels, and this happened not among people, not in some city or village, but in a desolate wilderness, during the complete solitude of holy Elijah. All these and many other like examples which we know from the lives of the holy fathers and mothers were written to instruct us, the believers to come, and to move us to imitate those who loved solitude, since it is solitude that can bring us near to God. So strive, brethren, to be established in solitude and to be in this labour as you ought, so that solitude may make you worthy of the sight of God and of the grace of spiritual contemplation.