Fifty Spiritual Homilies 1 part 16/19

And He took away the bitter yoke of the works of iniquity, and gave rest to it as it toiled in the reasonings of uncleanness.

For the Lord calls man to rest, saying:

Come, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

A true Sabbath, delightful, holy;

and they keep a feast of the Spirit, of joy and unspeakable exultation;

and they offer a pure service, well-pleasing to God, out of a pure heart.

This is the true and holy Sabbath.

Let us therefore also entreat God to enter into this rest, that we may cease from shameful and evil and vain reasonings, so that we may thus be able to serve God out of a pure heart and to keep a feast of the Holy Spirit.

Blessed therefore is he who enters into that rest.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit who has thus been well-pleased.

The resurrection of dead souls takes place from now, but the resurrection of the bodies in that day.

And just as the stars, fixed in heaven, are not all equal, but one differs from another in brightness and majesty, so also among spiritual men, according to the measure of faith, there are degrees of progress in the Spirit itself;

one is richer than another.

And the Scripture says that he who speaks in a tongue speaks to God in the spirit;

this man is spiritual, speaking to God, but he who prophesies builds up the church;

this man has more abundance of grace.

For the former builds up only himself, but the latter both himself and his neighbor.

And this is just like a grain of wheat sown in the earth, and the same grain out of one heart brings forth many and various grains.

And again the ears of corn themselves, some are larger and some smaller, yet all are gathered into one threshing-floor, into one storehouse;

though differing, out of them is made one loaf.

Or just as in a city there are multitudes of people, some are infant children, others men or young men;

but all drink water from one fountain and eat of one bread, having one air;

or just as there are lamps, and one has two spouts and another seven, but where there is the abundance of light, it shines more brightly — so all who are in fire and light cannot be in darkness, but there is a great difference.

Just as if some man, being a father, should have two sons, the one a child and the other a young man, and should send the one to cities and to other lands, but should always keep the infant beside him, since it can do nothing.

The friendship of the world, according to what is written, is enmity toward God.

Therefore the Scripture bids each one to guard his heart with all diligence, that one, guarding the word in it as in a paradise, may enjoy grace, not listening to the serpent coiled within counseling things that lead to pleasure — through which is begotten the fratricidal wrath, and the soul that gives birth dies — but listening to the Lord who tells us to give heed to faith and hope, through which is begotten the God-loving and man-loving love that bestows eternal life.

Into this paradise entered Noah, keeping and working the commandment, and through love he was redeemed from wrath.

Keeping this, Abraham heard the voice of God.

Keeping this, Moses received glory upon his face.

But Saul also, so long as he guarded his heart, prospered;

but when at last he transgressed, he was at last forsaken.

For in measure, according to proportion, the word of God deals with each one;

as much as one prevails, so much is he prevailed over, and as much as one guards, so much is he guarded.

[They] preferred the God-loving and good will of the Spirit above all things, not in word only or in bare knowledge, but in word and deed, through the deeds themselves;

choosing poverty instead of wealth, dishonor instead of glory, hardship instead of enjoyment — whence also love instead of wrath.

For hating the pleasures of life, they rather loved those who took them away, as fellow-workers with them toward the goal, abstaining from the knowledge of good and evil.

For they neither rejected the good nor blamed the bad, accounting all to be messengers of the Master's dispensation.

Toward all, therefore, they had an inward goodwill.

For when they heard the Lord saying:

Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you — then they reckoned those who wronged them as benefactors, having from them the occasions for forgiveness.

As you wish that men should do to you, do you also to them — then according to conscience they loved the good as well.

For having forsaken their own righteousness and sought the righteousness of God, they found also, consequently, the love hidden by nature within it.

For the Lord too, having given many commandments concerning love, commanded that the righteousness of God be sought;

for He knows this to be the mother of love.

For it is not possible to be saved otherwise than through one's neighbor, as He commanded:

Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you.

This is the spiritual law written in believing hearts, the fulfillment of the first law;

for He says: I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

The first law, through the seemingly just occasion of the one who has sinned, condemned the more the one who was wronged;

for it says: In that wherein you judge the other, you condemn yourself;

but in that wherein he forgives, it shall be forgiven him.

Between judgment and judgment there is judgment, and between forgiveness and forgiveness there is forgiveness.

The fulfillment, therefore, of the law is forgiveness.

We have spoken of a first law, not because God set forth two laws to men, but one;

spiritual indeed according to nature, but according to just recompense rendering to each his sentence.

To him who forgives it forgives, and with him who provokes it provokes;

with the elect you shall be elect, and with the crooked you shall deal crookedly.

Therefore those who fulfill it spiritually and partake proportionally of grace, loved not only those who did them good, but also those who reproached and persecuted them, awaiting the spiritual recompense of good things.

And I say good things, not because they condoned the wrongdoings, but because they benefited even the souls of those who wronged them;

for thus they commended them to God, as obtaining through them the blessedness, as He says:

Blessed are you, when men reproach you and persecute you.

And by the spiritual law they were taught so to think.

For as they endured and kept inward meekness, the Lord, beholding the patience of the heart under attack and the love that did not waver, broke through the dividing wall of the partition, and they wholly cast off the enmity, and no longer with force, but with help, they had love;

for the Lord henceforth abolished the turning sword that stirred up the thoughts, and they entered within the veil, where the Lord entered as a forerunner on our behalf.

And they reveled in the fruits of the Spirit, and beholding the things to come with assurance of heart, and, according to the apostle, no longer in a mirror and in an enigma, they spoke of the things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up upon the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.

Question: But I will ask this remarkable thing.

If it has not come up upon the heart of man, how do you know these things, especially since you confessed in the Acts that you are men of like passions with us? Answer: But hear what Paul answers to this:

But to us, he says, God has revealed them through His Spirit.

But lest anyone should say that the Spirit was given to them as to apostles, but to us by nature it is incapable of being contained, he says elsewhere in his prayer:

that God may give you power to be strengthened into the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts; and again:

Now the Lord is the Spirit;

and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom; and again:

But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.

Let us therefore also pray, in full assurance and perception, to partake of the Holy Spirit, and to enter in whence we came forth, and henceforth to turn away from us the wrath-breeding serpent and the vainglorious counselor, the spirit of anxiety and surfeit, that, having firmly believed, we may keep the commandments of the Lord and grow up in Him into a perfect man, to the measure of stature, so as no longer to be lorded over by the deceit of this age, but to be in full assurance of the Spirit and not to disbelieve that the grace of God is well-pleased even toward repentant sinners.

For that which is granted according to grace is no longer measured by comparison with the previous weakness, since grace is then no longer grace; but having believed in the Almighty God, let us approach with a simple and uninquisitive heart Him who through faith bestows the participation of the Spirit, and not through any comparison of the nature of works;

You did not receive the Spirit out of works of law, but by the hearing of faith.

Question: What does it mean, I wish to speak five words in the assembly with my mind? Answer: The church is understood in two persons, in the body of believers and in the composite of the soul.

When therefore it is taken spiritually with reference to man, the church is his whole composite being;

and the five words are the comprehensive virtues that build up the whole man, divided in manifold ways.

For just as he who speaks in the Lord embraced all wisdom through the five words, so he who follows the Lord through the five virtues builds up much godliness.

For being five, they contain all the virtues:

first, prayer; then continence, almsgiving, poverty, long-suffering.

These, accomplished with longing and resolve, are words of the soul spoken by the Lord and heard by the heart;

for the Lord works, and the Spirit then speaks intelligibly, and the heart accomplishes openly as much as it longs for.

And the virtues, as much as they are comprehensive of all, so much are they generative of one another.

For when the first is absent, all are destroyed;

likewise through the second the ones that follow, and so on in order.

For how shall anyone pray who is not energized by the Spirit? And the Scripture witnesses to me, saying:

No one can say, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit.

And how shall he who practices continence without prayer endure unaided? And he who is not continent in everything, how shall he show mercy to the hungry or the wronged? And he who does not show mercy will not consent to be voluntarily poor.

And again, wrath is the companion of the desire for money, whether one has money or not.

But the virtuous soul is thus built into the church, not because it accomplished, but because it longed;

for it is not one's own work that saves man, but He who bestowed the power.

If therefore one endures the marks of the Master, let him not imagine himself to be anything, even if he has done something insignificant, but only [glory] in having loved and pursued the workings.

Let him therefore never suppose that he has anticipated the Lord in virtue, according to him who says that it is He who works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Question: What then does the Scripture command man to do? Answer: We have said before that man has the practice according to nature, and this God requires.

It commands, therefore, that first he understand, and having understood, love, and with the will practice.

But that the mind be energized, or that he endure the toil, or accomplish the work — the grace of the Lord supplies this to him who has willed and believed.

The will of man, therefore, is as it were a substantial presentation;

and when the will is not present, not even God Himself does anything, though He is able, because of free choice.

The accomplishment of God, therefore, lies in the will of man.

Again, if we give the whole will, He ascribes the whole work to us.

Wonderful is God in all things and altogether beyond comprehension.

But we men attempt to speak of some part of His marvels, leaning upon the Scripture, or rather being instructed by it.

For who, it says, has known the mind of the Lord? But He Himself says:

How often would I have gathered your children together, and you would not — so that from this we believe that it is He who gathers us together;

but He only seeks our will.

And what is the manifestation of the will, except voluntary labor? For just as an iron tool, sawing, hewing, tilling, planting — though it is itself worn down — yields, yet another is the one who moves and applies it, and in being crushed forges and renews it — so also man, even if he is afflicted and toils in working the good;

but the Lord secretly works within him, and in his toiling and the breaking of his heart He comforts and renews, as the prophet also says:

Shall the axe boast itself without him who hews with it, or shall the saw exalt itself without him who draws it? And so it is also with regard to evil.

When man obeys and prepares himself, then Satan also drives and incites, as the robber [wields] the sword.

And we have likened the heart to iron because of the insensibility regarding things and its great hardness.

But we ought not to be ignorant of Him who controls us, as insensible iron is, for then we would not so quickly slide from the reason that cultivates into the reasoning of war, but rather, like the ox and the ass, know the one who drives and guides according to understanding;

The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib.

Let us therefore pray to receive the knowledge of God, and to be disciplined by the spiritual law unto the service of His holy commandments, glorifying the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unto the ages.

Many who appear righteous are thought to be Christians;

but it belongs to skilled and experienced men to test whether such truly have the stamp and image of the King, lest perchance they be counterfeit works of craftsmen, and the craftsmen marvel and find fault.

But if they are not craftsmen, they cannot test the deceitful workers, since these too bear the outward form of monks or of Christians.

For the false apostles too suffered for Christ, and they too preached the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore the apostle says:

in dangers more abundantly, in afflictions beyond measure — wishing to show that he suffered more than they.

Gold is easily found, but pearls and precious stones fit for a king's diadem are rarely found;

for often among them none are found fit.

So also Christians are built up into the crown of Christ, that those souls may become partakers of the saints.

Glory to Him who thus loved this soul and suffered for it and raised it from the dead.

And just as a veil was put upon Moses' face, so that the people could not gaze upon his face, so also now there lies upon your heart a veil, that you may not see the glory of God.

But when this is taken away, then He appears and manifests Himself to Christians and to those who love Him and seek Him out in truth, as He says: I will manifest Myself to him, and will make My abode with him.

[He brings] the Comforter within, and lifts [the soul] up into His kingdom.

Let us therefore also reign together with Him in Jerusalem, His city, in the heavenly church, in the choir of the holy angels.

Now the brethren who have been exercised for a long time and tested, these are able to help and to sympathize with the inexperienced.

For some, having secured themselves and having been greatly energized by the grace of God, so found their members sanctified that they reckoned that desire no longer arises in their Christian state, but that they had acquired a chaste and pure mind;

and then the inner man is lifted up to divine and heavenly things, so that such a one supposes that he has already attained to the perfect measures.

And just as he thought he had already drawn near to the calm harbor, billows rose up against him, so that he found himself again in the midst of the deep, and was carried out to where the sea, sky, and death are at hand.

Thus sin, having entered in, worked every evil desire.

Yet again such men, having been counted worthy of a certain grace, and, so to speak, having received from the whole depth of the sea but a single drop, find — these very ones — at every hour and every day such marvelous working taking place, that he who is energized is astounded and amazed at the strange and wondrous and divine operation, how he was made wise.

For grace enlightens him, then guides him, gives peace, makes all things good, being divine and heavenly, so that in comparison with that he reckons kings and rulers, the wise and the dignified, as least and worthless.

But after a season and an hour the circumstances change, so that in truth such a one reckons himself more sinful than all men, and again at another hour sees himself as some greatest, extraordinary king, or a ruler who is a friend of the king, and again at another hour sees himself weak and poor.

Then the mind falls into perplexity, why thus, and then again thus? Because Satan, being a hater of good, casts evil things upon those who attain virtue, and strives to turn them aside;

but do not you be subjected to him, working the righteousness accomplished in the inner man, where stands the judgment-seat of Christ together with the undefiled sanctuary, that the testimony of your conscience may boast in the cross of Christ, who cleansed your conscience from dead works, that you may serve God in your spirit, that you may know what you worship, according to him who said:

We worship what we know.

Be persuaded by God who guides you; let your soul have fellowship with Christ as a bride has fellowship with her bridegroom;

for this mystery is great, he says, but I speak concerning Christ and concerning the blameless soul.

Just as a king, having written letters to whomsoever he wishes to bestow codicils and his own gifts, signifies to all: Make haste quickly to come to me, that you may receive royal gifts from me;

and if they do not go and receive, they have profited nothing by reading the letters, but rather are even liable to death, having refused to go and to be counted worthy of honor from the king's hand — so also God the King sent the divine Scriptures to men as letters, declaring through them that, having entreated God and believed, they should ask and receive the heavenly gift out of the substance of His Godhead;

that we may become partakers of the divine nature;

to attain that which is Christ, to whom be the glory unto the ages.

Concerning visible asceticism and what kind of practice is greater and first — know this, beloved, that all the virtues are bound to one another, as it were a spiritual chain;

prayer from love, love from joy, joy from meekness, meekness from humility, humility from service, service from hope, hope from faith, faith from obedience, obedience from simplicity — just as on the opposite side too the evils are bound one from another;

hatred from wrath, wrath from pride, pride from vainglory, vainglory from unbelief, unbelief from hardness of heart, hardness of heart from negligence, negligence from slackness, slackness from listlessness, listlessness from impatience, impatience from love of pleasure;

and the rest of the members of vice hang one from another.

So likewise on the good side the virtues hang one from another and are dependent.

But the chief of every good endeavor and the crown of right accomplishments is to persevere in prayer, from which, by asking from God, we are able daily to acquire the rest of the virtues as well.

For from this there comes to those counted worthy the fellowship of the holiness of God and of the spiritual operation, and the conjunction of the mind's disposition toward the Lord in unutterable love;

for he who compels himself daily to persevere in prayer is kindled by spiritual love into divine ardor and fiery longing toward God, and receives the grace of the sanctifying perfection of the Spirit.

Question: Since some sell their possessions and free their slaves and do the commandments, but do not seek to receive the Spirit in this world, do they not, living thus, go away into the kingdom of heaven? Answer: This matter is subtle.

For some say there is one kingdom and one Gehenna;

but we say there are many degrees and differences and measures, even within that kingdom and within that Gehenna.

And just as there is one soul in all the members, and it works above in the brain and moves the feet below, so also the Godhead encompasses all created things, the heavenly and those beneath the abyss, and is everywhere filled in creation, even though it is outside the created things by reason of its immeasurableness and incomprehensibility.

This Godhead, therefore, gives heed to men and dispenses all things according to reason.

And since some pray, not knowing what they seek, while others fast, and others stand in service, to each according to the measure of faith God, being a just judge, renders the reward.

For what they do, they do through fear of God;

but these are not all sons, nor kings, nor heirs.

And there are in the world some who are murderers, others fornicators and others robbers, and others again who distribute their own goods to the poor.

The Lord gives heed both to these and to those.

And to those who do good He gives rest and reward;

for there are surpassing measures and small measures;

and in the light and the glory itself there is difference.

And in Gehenna itself and the punishment, the sorcerers and the robbers and the others who have sinned in small ways appear.

But those who say that there is one kingdom and one Gehenna, and that there are no degrees, speak wrongly.

For how many worldly people are now standing in theaters and other disorders, and how many are at this moment praying and fearing God?

To these, then, and to those God gives heed, and as a just judge He prepares rest for the one and punishment for the other.

[Just as in a stadium one contestant struggles that he may] overcome his adversary, so there is in the heart of those who struggle a theater of the evil spirits wrestling with the soul, while God and the angels behold the contest.

Then at each hour there are created by the soul many fresh thoughts;

and likewise by evil within.

For indeed the soul has many hidden thoughts, and at that very hour it brings them forth and gives them birth;

and evil itself has many thoughts and devices, and at every hour gives birth to fresh thoughts against the soul.

For the mind is a charioteer and yokes the chariot of the soul, holding the reins of the thoughts;

and there it runs against the chariot of Satan, where he too has yoked his against the soul.

Question: If prayer is rest, how is it that some say we cannot pray, nor do they persevere in prayer? Answer: This rest, when it abounds, gives compassions and other services, such as to visit the brethren, to serve in the word.

And nature itself wishes to go and see the brethren, to speak a word;

for nothing cast into fire can remain in its own nature, but it too must of necessity become fire.

In the manner that, if you cast pebbles into fire, the stone becomes lime;

and into the sea, he who wishes to dive deep and go down sinks into the midst of the deep and disappears, but he who enters by degrees wishes again to come up and float and go out to the harbor and to see the men on land — so also into the spiritual one enters into a depth of grace, and again remembers his companions, and nature itself wishes to go out to the brethren, to fulfill love, to assure the word.

Question: How can the two persons be in the heart, both grace and sin? Answer: Just as when there is fire outside a cauldron, then if you put wood underneath, behold it becomes fiery, and the inside of the vessel seethes and boils, the fire burning underneath outside;

but if anyone is negligent and does not put on wood, the fire begins to grow lukewarm and as it were to go out — so also grace, the heavenly fire, is both within you and outside you.

Then if you pray and give your thoughts to the love of Christ, behold, you have put on the wood, and your thoughts become fire and are plunged into the longing for God.

But even if the Spirit withdraws, becoming as it were outside you, yet it is both within you and shows itself outside you.

But if anyone is negligent, giving himself a little either to worldly affairs or to distraction, again evil comes and clothes the soul, and begins to afflict the whole man.

The soul therefore remembers the former rest and begins to be afflicted and to be more continually distressed.

Again the mind gives heed to God, the former rest begins to draw near to it, it begins to seek more vehemently;

little by little there is added to it the fire that kindles and gives rest to the soul, just as the fishhook draws the fish from the deep little by little.

For if this were not so, and it had not tasted of the bitter and of death, how could it discern the bitter from the sweet and death from life, and give thanks to the life-giving Father and Son and Holy Spirit unto the ages?

The precious vessel of the soul lies in great depth, as it says somewhere:

He searches out the abyss and the heart.

For when man had turned aside from the commandment and had come under the sentence of wrath, sin, taking him captive, and being itself like a kind of abyss of bitterness, subtle and deep, entering within, took possession of the pastures of the soul down to its deepest chambers.

Let us liken the soul mingled with sin to a great tree that has many branches, but also has its roots in the deepest parts of the earth — so the sin that entered in, taking possession of the pastures of the deepest chambers of the soul, became habit and predisposition, growing up with each one from infancy and being nourished together with him and teaching him evils.

When therefore the operation of divine grace overshadows the soul according to the measure of each one's faith, and it receives help from above — grace has, even so, overshadowed it as yet only in part; let no one therefore suppose that the whole soul has been enlightened.

There is yet much pasture of evil within, and there is need of much labor and toil for the man who is in concord with the grace given to him.

For this reason the divine grace began to visit the soul in part, though it is able in the turn of an hour to cleanse and perfect the man, but in order that it may test the resolve of the man, whether he keeps whole his love toward God, not consorting in anything with the evil one, but giving himself wholly to grace;

and thus the soul, proving itself good over times and seasons and grieving the grace in nothing nor insulting it, is helped little by little.