Fifty Spiritual Homilies 1 part 19/19

For being a created thing, it was betrothed as bride to the Son of the King; and by His own power God receives it, gradually being transformed together with it, until He causes it to grow with His own growth.

For He stretches it and extends it into a limitless and immeasurable growth, until it becomes a bride without blemish and worthy of Him.

For first He begets it in Himself and causes it to grow through Himself, until it attains the perfect measure of His love.

For He Himself, being the perfect Bridegroom, receives it as the perfect bride into the holy and mystical and undefiled communion of marriage.

And then it reigns together with Him unto the endless ages.

The Lord in the Gospel, wishing to lead His own disciples into perfect faith, said:

"He who is faithful in a little is faithful also in much, and he who is unfaithful in a little is unfaithful also in much."

[Thereby teaching us] to hope that the Lord becomes in all things the Provider of those who flee to Him for refuge.

Now the "much" is the gifts of the eternal and incorruptible age, which He promised to grant to those who believe in Him and who unceasingly care about those things and ask Him for them, for so He commanded, saying:

"But you," He says, "seek only His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you"—so that by these small and temporal things each one might be tested, whether he believes God;

for He promised to provide them while we are free from anxiety about such things and have our care only for the things to come and eternal.

And then it is evident that one believes concerning the incorruptible things and truly seeks the eternal good things, if he keeps his faith sound concerning things visible.

For each of those who obey the word of truth ought to examine himself and judge himself, or rather to be judged and tested by spiritual men, as to how he believed and gave himself to God—whether truly in truth according to His word, or in a presumption of self-justification and faith, supposing that he believes when he relies on himself.

For each one, whether he is faithful in the little (I speak of temporal things), is tested and proven.

You say you believe that you are counted worthy of the kingdom of the heavens, and being born from above as a son of God, that you will become a fellow-heir of Christ and reign together with Him for whole ages, and luxuriate in unspeakable light through endless and innumerable ages as God does? Surely you will say, "Yes."

"For it is for this very reason that I withdrew from the world and gave myself to the Lord."

Test yourself, then, lest earthly cares still hold you fast, and much anxiety about the body's food and clothing and the rest of its care and comfort—as if you got along by your own power and provided for yourself, when you were commanded to take no thought at all about yourself.

For if you believe that you will receive the immortal and eternal and abiding and ungrudging things, how much more will you not believe that the Lord will provide you these passing and earthly things, which God has given even to ungodly men and to beasts and birds? Just as He also commanded, saying that one should take no thought at all about these:

"Do not be anxious about what you shall eat or what you shall drink or what you shall put on.

For all these things the nations seek after."

But if you still have anxiety about these things and have not entrusted your whole self to His word, know that you have not yet believed that you will receive the eternal good things, which are the kingdom of the heavens; and you suppose you believe, while you are still found unfaithful in the small and corruptible things.

Just as the body is more precious than the clothing, so also the soul is more precious than the body.

Do you then believe that your soul receives healing from Christ from the eternal wounds—incurable in men's eyes—the passions of sin, for which the Lord also came here, that He might now heal the souls of the faithful from their incurable passions and cleanse them from the filth of the leprosy of evil, He the only true Physician and Healer? You will surely say:

"For this I have taken my stand, and this is the expectation I hold."

Know, then, by searching yourself, lest the passions of the flesh carry you off to earthly physicians, as though Christ, in whom you believed, were unable to heal you.

See how you deceive yourself, supposing that you believe, while you do not yet believe as you ought, out of truth.

For if you believed that the eternal and incurable wounds and evil passions of the immortal soul are to be healed by Christ, you would believe that He, being able to heal these, is also able to heal the temporal passions and diseases of the body, and you would flee to Him alone, despising the practices and treatments of physicians.

For He who created the soul also made the body; and He who heals that immortal soul is also able to heal the body from its temporal passions and diseases.

But you will surely say this to me:

"He also prepared beforehand the medicines and the practices of physicians for the passions of the body, having appointed that the body, which is from the earth, be healed from the various kinds of things of the earth."

I too agree that these things are so.

But give heed, and you will understand the manner—to whom these things were given, and for whom God appointed them, according to His great and boundless love for mankind and His goodness.

When man fell away from the commandment that he had received, and came under the sentence of wrath, and was banished as it were into captivity and dishonor—or to the labor of some mine—from the delight of paradise into this world, and came under the authority of darkness, and became faithless through the deception of the passions, he fell thereafter under the passions and diseases of the flesh, he who before was without passion and without sickness.

And it is plain that all who were begotten from him have likewise fallen under the same passions.

God therefore appointed these things for the weak and faithless, not willing utterly to destroy the sinful race of men because of His great goodness, but He gave the medicines for the soothing and healing and care of the body to the men of the world and to all those outside, and He permitted those who are not yet able to entrust themselves wholly to God to make use of these.

But you, the solitary, who have come to Christ and wish to be a son of God and to be born from above of the Spirit, and who await higher and greater promises than those given to the first and passionless man—the good pleasure of the Lord's coming—and have become a stranger to the world, you ought to possess a faith and mind and manner of life that are newer and stranger than those of all the men of the world.

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

If anyone, having left his own and renounced this world, and being delivered from the luxury of the world and from possessions and father and mother for the Lord's sake, and having crucified himself, becomes a stranger and a poor and needy man, but in place of the world's comfort does not find a divine comfort within himself, and in place of the passing pleasure does not perceive the pleasure of the Spirit in his soul, and in place of corruptible garments does not clothe his inner man with garments of the light of the Godhead, and in place of this passing and fleshly fellowship does not come to know in full assurance the fellowship of the heavenly One in his soul, and in place of the apparent joy of this world does not have within the joy of the Spirit, and does not receive in his soul the comfort of heavenly grace and divine satisfaction in the appearing to him of the glory of the Lord according to what is written, and in short, in place of this passing enjoyment does not acquire now in his soul an incorruptible, longed-for enjoyment—such a one has become foolish salt, such a one is more pitiable than all men, such a one has been deprived both of the things here and has not enjoyed the divine gifts.

He has not come to know the divine mysteries through the working of the Spirit in his inner man.

For this reason one has become a stranger to the world: that his soul might pass over in its mind into another world and age, according to the Apostle:

"For our citizenship," he says, "is in the heavens"; and again:

"Though walking on earth, we do not war according to the flesh."

"He who believes in Me has passed over from death into life";

since there is another death besides the apparent one, and another life besides the apparent one.

For the Scripture says that "she who lives in luxury is dead while she lives"; and:

"Leave the dead to bury their own dead";

"For the dead shall not praise You, O Lord, but we the living shall bless You."

For just as the sun, when it rises upon the earth, is wholly in the earth, but when it comes to its setting it gathers all its rays, going into its own house, so also the soul that has not been regenerated from above by the Spirit is wholly in the earth in its thoughts and mind, stretched out upon the earth unto its very ends.

But when it is counted worthy to receive the heavenly birth and fellowship of the Spirit, gathering all its thoughts and keeping them with itself, it enters in to the Lord, into the dwelling place from heaven not made with hands, and all its thoughts become heavenly and pure and holy, moving in a divine air.

For the soul, having been delivered from the prison of darkness, of the evil ruler, the spirit of the world, finds pure and divine thoughts, because God was well pleased to make man a partaker of the divine nature.

If, then, you withdraw from all the affairs of life and persevere in your prayer, will you not all the more regard this labor as full of rest, and will you not reckon the little affliction and toil as filled with the greatest joy and relief? For even if your body and your soul were spent at every hour throughout your whole life for such great goods, what would that be? O the unspeakable compassion of God, that He freely gives Himself to those who believe, that in a little time they should inherit God, and that God should dwell in the body of man, and that man should have the Lord as a fair dwelling!

For just as God created heaven and earth for man to dwell in, so also He created the body and soul of man for His own house, that He might indwell and rest as in His own home in the body, having as a fair bride the lovely soul that was made according to His image.

"For I betrothed you," says the Apostle, "to one Husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ"; and again:

For just as a man in his house with diligence stores up all good things, so also the Lord in His house, the soul and the body, lays up and treasures the heavenly riches of the Spirit.

Neither the wise through their wisdom nor the prudent through their prudence have been able to comprehend the subtlety of the soul or to tell of it as it is, except only those to whom, through the Holy Spirit, the apprehension is revealed and an accurate knowledge concerning the soul is made known.

But here behold and discern and understand how:

He is Creator, she a created thing;

He is Maker, she a thing made.

There is nothing common between His nature and hers; but because of His infinite and unspeakable and inconceivable love and compassion, He was well pleased to indwell this work and creature—intelligent and precious and excellent work—as the Scripture says:

"that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures"—unto His wisdom and fellowship, unto a dwelling place of His own, unto His own precious and pure bride.

Since, then, such good things lie before us, and such promises have been promised, and such good pleasure has been shown by the Lord toward us, let us not be negligent, O children, nor be slothful to press on toward eternal life and to give ourselves wholly to the well-pleasing of the Lord.

Let us therefore beseech the Lord, that by the power of His own Godhead He may redeem us from the prison of the darkness of the passions of dishonor, and that, having vindicated His own image and creature, He may cause it to shine again, having made the soul whole and pure; and that thus we may be counted worthy of the fellowship of the Spirit, glorifying the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unto the ages.

I think that the Ruler of heaven Himself took His seat within his mind, and through his tongue the word of God restrained the rain from coming down upon the earth.

And again he spoke, and the gates of the heavens were opened, and the rain came down.

Likewise Moses set down a rod, and it became a serpent;

and again he spoke, and it became a rod.

He took ashes from a furnace and scattered them, and they became boils.

And again he gave command, and there came gnats and frogs.

Could, then, the nature of men do these things? He spoke to the sea, and it was divided;

to the river, and it was changed into blood.

But it is plain that a heavenly power dwelt in his mind, and through Moses wrought these signs.

Joshua the son of Nun, when he went to Jericho, encamped about it seven days, able to do nothing by his own nature; but when God commanded, the walls fell down of themselves.

And when he entered into the land of the promise, the Lord says to him:

"As the Lord lives, I will not depart without you."

And who is it that commanded the sun to stand still for two more hours at the joining of the battle? His own nature only, or the power that was with him? And Moses, when he engaged with Amalek, if he stretched out his hands to heaven toward God, he trod down Amalek;

but if he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed.

But you, hearing that these things came to pass, let not your mind go far from you, since those things were a type and shadow of the true realities.

Take these things, then, into yourself.

For when you stretch out the hands of your mind and your thoughts to heaven, and desire to cleave to the Lord, Satan comes to be beneath your thoughts.

And just as at Jericho the walls fell through the power of God, so also now the walls of evil that hinder your mind, and the cities of Satan, and your enemies are utterly destroyed through the power of God.

Thus in the shadow the power of God was unceasingly with the righteous, working manifest wonders, and within them, too, the divine grace dwelt.

Likewise also in the prophets the Spirit wrought and ministered in their souls to prophesy and to speak, whenever there was need to speak great things to the world.

For they did not speak at all times, but whenever the Spirit within them willed;

yet the power was always with them.

If, then, in the shadow the Holy Spirit was poured out so abundantly, how much more in the New Covenant, in the cross, in the coming of Christ, where there came to pass the outpouring and the inebriation of the Spirit!

"For I will pour out," He says, "of My Spirit upon all flesh."

This is what the Lord Himself said: "I will be with you until the consummation of the age."

"For if you," He says, "being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him"—in power and much full assurance, according to the Apostle.

Such things, then, are found by measure and time and much toil and patience and love toward Him, while the soul's faculties of perception are exercised, according to the saying, by good and by evil—that is, both through the devices and plots and manifold circumstances and ambushes of evil, and likewise through the various gifts and diverse assistances of the working and power of the Spirit.

And again, he who is helped by the Lord and found in spiritual gladness and heavenly gifts, if he supposes that he is no longer wronged by sin, is deceived and robbed, not discerning the subtlety of evil and not perceiving the growth and perfection that come part by part out of infancy in Christ—for it is through the supply of the Holy and divine Spirit.

And at the same time also the faith, as it grows, comes to advancement, and every stronghold of evil thoughts goes part by part to complete demolition.

Each of us, then, ought to search whether he has found the treasure in this earthen vessel, whether he has put on the purple of the Spirit, whether he has seen the King and found rest, having come very near to Him, or whether he still moves about in the outermost rooms.

For the soul has many members and great depth, and so sin, having entered in, took possession of all its members and the pastures of the heart.

Then, when the man seeks, grace comes to him and takes hold of perhaps two members of the soul.

Now the inexperienced man, being comforted by grace, supposes that grace, having come, has taken possession of all the members of the soul and that sin has been rooted out.

But the greater part is held by sin, and one part by grace, and he is robbed unawares and does not know it.