Fifty Spiritual Homilies 1 part 14/19

For in saying this, you take away the will of man, and you do not allow that there is an adversary power wrestling against the mind.

But we say this: that he who hears the word comes to compunction, and after this, when grace withdraws by a dispensation for the benefit of the man, he enters into the exercise and training of warfare, and wages combat and contest against Satan; and after much running and struggle he carries off the prizes of victory and becomes a Christian.

For if anyone, merely by hearing, became good effortlessly, then even the theater-goers and the fornicators would all be destined to go away into the kingdom and into life.

But no one will grant them this without toil and struggle, since the way is narrow and afflicted, and one must pass through this rough road, and endure and be afflicted, and so enter into life.

For if it were possible to succeed without toil, then Christianity would no longer be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, nor would there be faith and unbelief.

But you also make man bound and unchangeable with respect to good and evil alike.

For to him who is able to turn toward either side a law has been given—to him who has free will to wage war against the opposing power;

for to a nature that is bound no law is laid down.

For neither the sun, nor the heaven and the earth, has had law laid upon it,

since created things are of a bound nature;

wherefore they are subject neither to honor nor to punishment.

For honor and glory have been prepared for the one who turns toward the good;

and again, Gehenna and punishment have been prepared for this changeable nature, which is able to flee from evil and to incline toward the good and the right-hand portion.

But if you say that he is not of a free nature, then you do not make the good man worthy of praise;

for he who is kind and good by nature is not worthy of praise, even though he is desirable;

for that which is good not by deliberate choice, even though desirable, is not praiseworthy.

For that one is worthy of praise who, by his own diligence, amid contest and wrestling, has chosen the good out of free deliberate choice.

Just as when there is an army of the Persians and an army of the Romans, and from each of them two winged youths of equal strength come forth and engage in wrestling, so the adversary power and the mind have an equal balance against one another.

Satan has the equal power of urging and flattering the soul toward his own will;

and the soul, in turn, has the power of contradicting and of obeying him in nothing.

For both powers, that of evil and that of good, are persuasive, not compelling.

To such deliberate choice, then, divine assistance is given, and the soul, as it wrestles, is able to receive weapons from heaven, and by them to uproot and conquer sin;

for the soul is able to contradict sin, but without God it is not able to conquer or uproot the evil.

Those who say that sin is like a mighty giant and the soul like a little child speak wrongly.

For if matters were so unequal, that sin were as a giant and the soul as a child, then the Lawgiver would be unjust in having given man a law to wage war against Satan.

This, then, is the foundation of the way to God: to journey along the way of life in much patience, in hope, in humility, in poverty of spirit, in meekness; and through these one is able to acquire righteousness within himself.

And by righteousness we mean the Lord himself.

For these commandments, thus ordained, are like the milestones standing and the signs of the royal road, which leads up those who travel along it into the heavenly city.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”;

this he said to be Christianity.

But if anyone does not travel along this way, he has gone astray into a pathless place and has used an evil foundation.

Just as God, being once angered against the Jews, delivered up Jerusalem openly to its enemies, and those who hated them gained dominion over them, and there was no longer feast or offering there; so too, being angered against the soul because of the transgression of the commandment, he delivered it up to its enemies, to demons and passions, and they, having thus led it astray, utterly ruined it, and there was no longer feast or incense or offering sent up to God through it, while the marks of its highways were filled with terrible beasts and with creeping things—spirits of wickedness lodging within it.

And just as a house, if it does not have the master dwelling in it, is clothed with darkness and dishonor and reproach, and is filled with filth and dung, so too the soul that does not have its master dancing within it together with the angels is filled with the darkness of sin and the shame of the passions and all dishonor.

Woe to a road, when no one walks upon it nor hears in it the voice of man,

for it becomes a lair of beasts.

Woe to a soul, when the Lord does not journey through it, and at his voice the spiritual beasts of wickedness do not flee from it.

Woe to a house, when the master does not dwell in it.

Woe to a land, when it does not have a farmer to work it.

Woe to a ship, when it does not have a pilot, for, carried about by the waves and the surging of the sea, it perishes.

Woe to a soul, when it does not have the true pilot, Christ, within it, for, being in the sea of the bitterness of darkness and tossed by the surging of the passions and storm-buffeted by the evil spirits, it gains destruction as its end.

Woe to a soul, when it does not have Christ carefully working it, that it may be able to bring forth the good fruits of the Spirit, for, being desolate and full of thorns and thistles, it reaps as its end the burning of fire.

Woe to a soul, when it does not have its master Christ dwelling within it, for, being desolate and filled with the foul stench of the passions, it becomes a lair of wickedness.

For just as the farmer, when he goes out to work the land, takes the necessary tools and garments for the labor, so too Christ, the heavenly King and true farmer, having come to the human race that was made desolate by wickedness, put on the body and bore the cross as a tool, and worked the desolate soul, and took away from it the thorns and thistles of the evil spirits, and plucked out the tares of sin and burned up with fire all the weeds of its sins; and having thus worked it with the wood of the cross, he planted in it the all-beautiful paradise of the Spirit, bearing every sweet and desirable fruit for God the Master.

And just as in Egypt, when the three-day darkness came, son did not see father, nor brother brother, nor friend his true friend, since the darkness covered them; so too, when Adam transgressed the commandment and fell from his former glory and came under the spirit of the world, and the covering of darkness came upon his soul, from him even to the last Adam, the Lord, men did not behold the true Father, the heavenly One, nor the good and kind mother, the grace of the Spirit, nor the sweet and longed-for Brother, the Lord, nor the friendly and true holy angels, with whom he had rejoiced, dancing and keeping festival.

They are still in sin, having the same working of the pleasures, subject to the same punishment, not yet having eyes that behold the Father.

For this each one ought to know, that there are eyes more inward than these eyes, and there is a hearing more inward than this hearing.

And just as these eyes perceptibly behold and discern the face of a friend or of a beloved one, so too the eyes of the worthy and faithful soul, spiritually illumined with divine light, behold and discern the true Friend and most sweet and most longed-for Bridegroom, the Lord, while the soul is irradiated by the adorable Spirit; and thus, beholding intelligibly the desirable and only unutterable Beauty, it is wounded with divine love and is directed by the Spirit toward all virtues, and so possesses a boundless and unfailing love toward the Lord whom it longs after.

What, then, is more blessed than that eternal voice of John, who pointed out the Lord before their eyes, saying:

“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”? Truly, among those born of women none is greater than John the Baptist;

for he is the fulfillment of all the prophets.

And all of them indeed prophesied concerning the Lord, pointing to him from afar as one yet to come;

but he, prophesying concerning the Savior, pointed to him before their very eyes, crying out to all and saying:

How sweet and good is the voice that points directly to the one whom he proclaims!

“Among those born of women none is greater than John;

yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

The apostles, begotten from above of God, who received the firstfruits of the Paraclete Spirit—these were counted worthy to become fellow-judges and to sit enthroned together with him;

these have become redeemers of men.

You find them dividing the sea of the evil powers and leading across souls that believe.

You find them as farmers working the vineyard of the soul.

You find them as groomsmen betrothing souls to Christ;

“for I have betrothed you,” he says, “to one husband.”

You find them giving life to men.

And in a word you find them ministering to the Spirit in many parts and in many ways.

This, then, is the “least one” who is greater than John the Baptist.

For just as the farmer, holding a yoke of oxen, works the land, in the same way the Lord Jesus also, the good and true farmer, having yoked the apostles two by two, sent them forth, working with them the land of those who hear and believe in truth.

Yet this also is worth saying, that the kingdom of God and the preaching of the apostles is not in the mere word of hearing, as one who knows words and expounds them to others, but the kingdom consists in the power and working of the Spirit.

For the children of the Israelites also suffered this: always studying the Scriptures and supposedly having their study concerning the Lord, yet not receiving the truth itself, they handed over their inheritance to others.

So too those who expound the words of the Spirit to others, while they themselves do not possess the word in power, give over their inheritance to others.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit unto the ages.

The wisdom of God, being infinite and incomprehensible, works out the dispensations of grace toward the human race in manifold ways, incomprehensibly and unsearchably, for the testing of the free will, so that those may be made manifest who love him with the whole heart and who endure every danger and toil for God's sake.

(To some he gives) gifts immediately, at the very moment of their approaching with faith and asking;

without toils and sweat and labors—there being times when they are still in the world—God gives the grace, not idly nor unseasonably nor as it might chance, but by a certain unspeakable and incomprehensible wisdom, for the testing of the deliberate choice and free will of those who quickly obtain the divine grace, to see whether they perceive the benefaction and the kindness and sweetness of God shown toward them, in proportion to the grace given without toils of their own.

Having been counted worthy of this, they ought to display diligence and running and contest and the fruit of love that comes from will and deliberate choice, and to render back the recompense for the gifts—that is, giving their whole selves over entirely to the love of the Lord, accomplishing his will alone, and withdrawing completely from every fleshly desire.

But to others, even though they have withdrawn from the world and renounced this present age according to the gospel, and are found in much perseverance in prayer and fasting and diligence and the rest of the virtues, God does not immediately give grace and rest and the gladness of the Spirit, being long-suffering toward them and withholding the gift—and this, too, not idly nor unseasonably nor as it might chance, but by a certain unspeakable wisdom, for the testing of the free will, to see whether they reckon God faithful and true, who has promised to give to those who ask and to open the door of life to those who knock; to see whether, having believed in truth in his word, they remain unto the end in the full assurance of faith and diligence, asking and seeking, and do not, growing weary and drawing back, turn away, nor, becoming unbelieving and despairing, grow faint, failing to endure to the end because of the delaying of time and the testing of their will and deliberate choice.

For he who does not receive quickly, through the delay and long-suffering of God, is the more inflamed and the more reaches out after the heavenly good things, and adds day by day greater longing and diligence and running and contest and every disposition of virtue, and hunger and thirst for the good, not being made slack by the thoughts of wickedness that dwell with the soul, nor turning aside into faintheartedness and impatience and despair, nor again, on the pretext of long-suffering, giving himself over to slackness, using such reasoning as, “Whenever it may be, I shall receive the grace of God,” and thereby being secretly robbed by wickedness into negligence.

But for as long as the Lord himself, through the delay, is long-suffering toward him, testing the faith and the love of his will, he himself ought all the more keenly and laboriously and unfailingly and unwearyingly to seek the gift of God, having once believed and assured himself that God is unlying and true, who has promised to give his grace to those who ask with faith, even unto the end, in all patience.

For to faithful souls God shows himself faithful and true, and they have set their seal that he is true, according to the true word.

Accordingly, then, in keeping with the aforesaid understanding of faith, they examine themselves, in what things they fall short as far as it depends on them—whether in toil or in contest or in diligence or in faith or in love or in the remaining disposition of the virtues.

And examining themselves with all exactness and minuteness, they force themselves as much as they are able, and strain toward pleasing the Lord, having once believed that God, being true, will not deprive them of the gift of the Spirit, if they remain to the end in service and waiting upon him with all diligence, but will count them worthy of the heavenly grace even while they are still in the flesh, and they will obtain eternal life.

(They are not) resting and binding themselves willingly (to material things), but always contradicting the material thoughts; they await only the help and assistance of God, since to the souls that take up such diligence and deliberate choice and patience, the Lord himself is already secretly present, and helps and guards and supports them in every fruit of virtue.

Even though they are in toil and affliction, even though they are in the knowledge of the truth and the manifestation of the soul, they have not yet received the grace of the Spirit and the rest of the heavenly gift, nor have they perceived it in full assurance, on account of the unspeakable wisdom of God and his unutterable judgments, who tests in various ways the believing souls and looks to the love that comes from will and deliberate choice.

For there are limits and measures and weights of the free deliberate choice and of the will of love and of the disposition, as far as one is able, toward all his holy commandments;

and thus, when souls fulfill the measure of their love and obligation, they are counted worthy of the kingdom and of eternal life.

Examining each one, he will seek out the fruits of virtue and will render to each according to his worth, according to his works, in the day of judgment;

for, it is said, he will come and will render to each according to his works;

and “the mighty shall be mightily examined”;

for the least one is pardonable and worthy of mercy.

“The servant who knew his master's will and did not do it shall be beaten with many stripes;

but he who did not know, yet did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few.”

“And to whom much was entrusted, of him they will demand the more.”

Understand knowledge and understanding in various ways: either according to grace and the heavenly gift of the Spirit, or according to the natural sequence of understanding or discernment, and through instruction by the divine Scriptures.

For each one will be required to render the fruits of virtue in proportion to the benefactions that have come to him from God, whether natural or given out of divine grace.

Therefore every man is without excuse before God in the day of judgment;

for each one will be required to render the recompense of the fruits of faith and love and of every virtue toward him, out of deliberate choice and will, according to that which he knew—whether by hearing, or even having never heard the word of God.

For the faithful and truth-loving soul, looking to the eternal good things laid up for the righteous and to the unspeakable benefaction of the divine grace that is about to visit it, reckons itself unworthy, and its diligence and toil and labor as nothing, in comparison with the unspeakable promises of the Spirit.

This is the one poor in spirit, whom the Lord blesses;

this is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness;

this is the one who is contrite in heart.

Those who take up such deliberate choice and diligence and toil and longing for virtue, and remain in it unto the end, will be truly able to attain life and the eternal kingdom.

Let no one of the brethren, then, exalt himself over his brother and advance into conceit, being secretly robbed by wickedness, as though to say, “Behold, I possess a spiritual gift”;

for it is not fitting that Christians should harbor such thoughts.

For what tomorrow will do to that man, you do not know;

and what end will be his, and what will be yours, you are ignorant.

But let each one, attending to himself, always examine his own conscience and test the work of his heart, what diligence and contest the mind has toward God,

and looking toward the perfect goal of freedom and dispassion and the rest of the Spirit, let him run unceasingly and without sloth, finding his full assurance in no gift or merit whatsoever.

Those who hear the word ought to display the work of the word in their own souls;

for the word of God is not an idle word, but has a work taking place in the soul;

for this reason it is also called a work, that the work may be found in those who hear.

May the Lord, then, grant the work of truth in those who hear, that the word may be found fruitful in us.

For just as a shadow goes before the body (and the shadow indicates the body, and the truth is the body), in the same way the word too is, as it were, the shadow of the truth of Christ;

but the word goes before the truth.

Fathers on earth, out of their own nature, beget children from their body and soul, and when these are begotten they rear them carefully with all diligence as their own children, until they become full-grown men and successors and heirs.

For from the beginning the aim and all the diligence of fathers is to beget children and to have heirs; and if they had not begotten, they would have had the greatest grief and sorrow, so that when they begot again they had joy;

and the kinsfolk and the neighbors also rejoice.

In the same way our Lord Jesus Christ also, taking thought for the salvation of man, accomplished every dispensation and diligence from the beginning, through the fathers, the patriarchs, through the law and the prophets;

and at the last, having himself come and despised the shame of the cross, he endured death.

And all this toil and diligence of his was so that he might beget out of himself, out of his own nature, children of the Spirit, having been well-pleased from above to be begotten of his own Godhead.

And just as these fathers grieve if they do not beget, so too the Lord, having loved the human race, willed to beget them, as his own image, out of his own seed of the Godhead.

If, then, any do not will to come to such a birth and to be begotten from the womb of the Spirit of the Godhead, Christ takes upon himself much grief, having suffered and endured for them in order to save them;

for the Lord wills that all men be counted worthy of this birth.

For he died for all and called all to life.

And life is the birth from above, from God.

For without this it is impossible for a soul to live, as the Lord says:

“Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

So then, again, all who believe in the Lord and, drawing near, are counted worthy of this birth, bring about joy and the greatest gladness in heaven for the parents who begot them, and all the angels and the holy powers rejoice over the soul that has been born of the Spirit and has become spirit.

For this body is the likeness of the soul, and the soul is the image of the Spirit.

And just as the body without the soul is dead and able to accomplish nothing, so without the heavenly soul, the divine Spirit, the soul is dead with respect to the kingdom, able to accomplish nothing of the things of God without the Spirit.

For just as the portrait-painter attends to the face of the king and paints, and when the face of the king is set facing him as he paints, that one easily and well portrays the image;

but when he turns away his face, the painter cannot paint, because the face is not gazing at the one painting—in the same way Christ also, the good painter, for those who believe in him and gaze continually toward him, straightway paints, according to his own image, the heavenly man;

out of the same Spirit, out of his own substance, the unutterable light, he paints a heavenly image and gives to the soul its good and noble Bridegroom.

(Let us pray that) the Lord may paint his image out of his own light upon him.

We ought, then, to gaze toward him, believing and loving him, casting away all things and attending to him, that, having painted his own heavenly image, he may send it forth into our souls, and so, having put on Christ, we may receive eternal life and from this present time, being made full of assurance, may find rest.

Just as a coin of gold, if it does not receive and have stamped upon it the royal image, neither goes into commerce nor is laid up in the treasuries of the king, but is rejected; so too the soul, if it does not have the image of the heavenly Spirit, with Christ stamped upon it in unspeakable light, is of no use for the treasures above and is rejected by the merchants of the kingdom, the good apostles.

For he too who was invited and did not wear the wedding garment was cast out as a stranger into the outer darkness, not wearing the heavenly image.

For this is the sign and the seal of the Lord, stamped upon the souls, being a spirit of unspeakable light.

And just as in a city a dead body is useless and altogether of no benefit to those there, wherefore they carry it out beyond the city and lay it down; so too the soul that does not bear the heavenly image of the divine light, the life of the soul, is, as it were, reprobate and altogether rejected;

for a dead soul, not wearing the luminous and divine Spirit, is of no use for that city of the saints.

For just as in the world the life of the body is the soul, so too in the eternal and heavenly world the life of the soul is the Spirit of the Godhead;

for without the soul of the Spirit this soul is dead and useless to the things above.

He who seeks, then, ought to believe and to draw near to the Lord, to entreat, and from this present time to receive the divine Spirit;

for it is itself the life of the soul, and on account of this the Lord made his coming, that he might from this present time give life to the soul by his Spirit.

“For as long,” he says, “as you have the light, believe in the light;

night comes, when you can no longer work.”

If anyone, then, has not sought and received from this present time life for the soul, the divine light of the Spirit, then, at his departure from the body, he is already set apart in the regions on the left, in the darkness, not entering into the kingdom of heaven, having his end in Gehenna with the devil and his angels.

Or just as gold or silver, when it is cast into the fire, becomes purer and more proven, and nothing is able to alter it, such as wood or grass (for the fire consumes all that comes to it, since they become fire); so too the soul, dwelling in the fire of the Spirit and in the divine light, will suffer no harm from any of the evil spirits;

and if anything draws near to it, it is consumed by the heavenly fire of the Spirit.

Or just as a bird, when it flies on high, is free from care, fearing no hunters or evil beasts (for, being somewhere above all, it laughs them all to scorn); so too the soul that has received the wings of the Spirit and flies up to the heights of the heavens, being higher than all, laughs all things to scorn.

And the Israel according to the flesh, when Moses then divided the sea, passed through below;

but these, being children of God, walk above upon the sea of the bitterness of the evil powers;

for their body and soul have become a house of God.

On that day when Adam fell, God came walking in paradise; he wept, so to speak, when he saw Adam, and said:

“Out of what good things have you chosen what evils? Out of what glory do you wear what shame? Why are you now dark? Why ill-favored? Why corrupt? Out of what light has what darkness covered you?” And when Adam had fallen and died away from God, his Maker wept for him, the angels, all the powers, the heavens, the earth, and all created things mourned over his death and his fall;

for he clothed himself with darkness in his own soul, a bitter and evil darkness;

for he was reigned over by the ruler of darkness.

This was he who was wounded by the robbers and became half-dead, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

And indeed Lazarus too, whom the Lord raised, who was full of much foul stench so that no one could draw near to the tomb, was a symbol of Adam, who had taken on much foul stench in his soul and had been filled with blackness and darkness.

But you, when you hear about Adam and about the wounded man and about Lazarus, do not let your mind run off, as it were, to the mountains, but be within, in your own soul, for you too bear the same wounds and the same foul stench and the same darkness.

For we are all sons of that darkened race, and we all share in the same foul stench.

Whatever affliction that one suffered, this we have all suffered, being of the seed of Adam.

For such an affliction has befallen us, as Isaiah says:

“There is no wound nor bruise nor inflamed sore; there is no salve to apply, nor oil, nor bandages to make.”

With so incurable a wound were we wounded that the Lord alone is able to heal it.

For this reason he himself came in person, because none of the ancients, neither the law itself nor the prophets, was able to heal this;