Fifty Spiritual Homilies 1 part 3/19

And so at last they were abandoned utterly, the Holy Spirit having departed from there, when the veil of the temple was rent; and so their temple, being delivered over to the nations, was razed and made desolate, according to the sentence of the Lord:

"There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down"; and so at last they were delivered over to the nations and scattered throughout all the earth, being commanded by the kings who then took them captive no more to return to their own places.

So then now too, being kind and good toward each of us, he is long-suffering, seeing how much each one stumbles, and he keeps silence, awaiting when he shall become sober and turn away so as to stumble no more, receiving with much love and joy the one who turns from sin;

for so he says, "There is joy over one sinner who repents"; and again:

"It is not the will of my Father that one of these little ones, the least, should perish."

But if someone, while the kindness and long-suffering of God lie heavily upon him — God not proceeding to retribution for the stumblings of his sins one by one, whether hidden or manifest, but seeing and keeping silence as awaiting his repentance — himself, coming into great contempt, adds sins to sins, and joins sloth to sloth, and builds stumbling upon stumbling, he fills up the measures of his sins and comes at last to such a stumbling from which he can no longer recover, but is broken in pieces, and being delivered over utterly to the evil one, perishes.

So it happened in the case of Sodom;

for sinning much and not turning back, they at last so stumbled that, by the evil counsel concerning the angels, wishing to commit sodomy against them, they no longer had repentance, but were at last rejected.

For they filled up the measure of their sins and overstepped it;

wherefore they were also burned with fire by the divine justice.

So it was also in the days of Noah: men kept stumbling and would not repent, and at last fell into sins so great that the whole earth was utterly destroyed.

Often offending and not repenting, they reached such depths of sin that in the end the whole earth was corrupted.

So too with the Egyptians: when they had greatly offended and sinned against the people of God, God dealt kindly with them, not bringing upon them such scourges as would utterly destroy them, but for their discipline, conversion, and repentance He sent those lighter blows of the lash, being long-suffering and awaiting their repentance.

But they offended grievously when they pursued after the people of God.

Therefore at last the divine justice consumed and destroyed them, and drowned them in the waters, judging them unworthy even of this visible life.

Likewise Israel, as has been said before, often offended and sinned, killing the prophets of God and doing many other evils, while God was long-suffering, keeping silence and awaiting their repentance.

At the last they so offended that, being shattered, they rose up no more;

for they laid their own hands upon the majesty of the Lord.

Therefore they were at last forsaken and cast away, and prophecy and priesthood and worship were taken from them and given to the believing Gentiles, as the Lord says:

The kingdom shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth its fruits.

For until then God bore with them and was long-suffering and did not depart, having compassion upon them.

But when they had filled up the measure of their sins and exceeded it, laying their hands upon the majesty of the Lord, they were at last forsaken by God.

These things, beloved, we have set forth at greater length, establishing from the meaning of the Scriptures that we must turn quickly and hasten to the Lord, who deals kindly and awaits us as we wholly withdraw from all wickedness and evil preoccupation, who receives us with much joy when we turn back—lest our contempt increase day by day, and the stumbling-blocks we set up multiply against us, and we thereby bring the wrath of God upon ourselves.

Let us therefore be diligent to turn and draw near to Him with a true heart, not despairing of salvation;

for this very thing is a craftiness of evil: by reminding a man of his former sins it leads him into despair, into slackness, listlessness, and sloth, so that he may not turn and draw near to the Lord and obtain salvation—though great is the kindness of the Lord that rests upon the human race.

But if, as it were, it seems to us hard and impossible to turn from many sins because we are already entangled in them (which, as we said, is a device of evil and a hindrance to our salvation), let us remember and consider how the Lord, sojourning here in His goodness, made the blind to see, healed paralytics, cured every disease, raised the dead who were already given over to decay and dissolution, made the deaf to hear, cast a legion of demons out of one man and restored to soundness of mind one who had fallen into such madness.

How much more, then, will He not turn a soul that turns to Him, that seeks mercy from Him and asks for His help, and bring it into the joy of dispassion and the establishment of every virtue and the renewal of the mind, and change it into health and into the recovered sight of understanding and into thoughts of peace—leading it out of the blindness, deafness, and deadness of unbelief, ignorance, and fearlessness into the sober wisdom of virtue and purity of heart?

For He who created the body has Himself also made the soul.

And just as when He sojourned on earth He freely, in His kindness, gave to those who came and sought His help and healing as much as they needed, being the good and only Physician, so also it is in spiritual matters.

Will He not the more readily grant the deliverance of healing? According to His own word:

How much more shall the heavenly Father execute vindication for those who cry to Him day and night; and He goes on to say:

Yes, I tell you, He will execute their vindication speedily.

And again in another place He exhorts:

Ask, and it shall be given you;

knock, and it shall be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened; and going on He adds: How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Amen, I say to you, even if he will not give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as much as he needs.

Through all these sayings, then, He urged us to ask importunately, unceasingly, and without faintheartedness for the help of His grace.

For He came for the sake of sinners, that He might turn them to Himself and heal those who believe in Him.

Only let us, as far as it lies in us, withdraw ourselves from evil preoccupations, and hate base practices and the deceits of the world, and turn away from wicked and vain thoughts, and at all times, as far as we are able, cleave to Him.

And He is ready to grant us His help;

for to this end He shows mercy and gives life and heals incurable passions and works redemption for those who call upon Him and turn to Him—those who, as far as they are able, withdraw by will and choice from all worldly love, drawing their mind away from the earth and hanging upon Him alone in seeking and longing.

Such a soul is counted worthy of His help—the soul that reckons all things superfluous and rests in nothing of the world, but awaits to find rest and gladness in the rest of His kindness.

And so, through such faith having obtained the heavenly gift and having satisfied its longing in full assurance through grace, thereafter ministering in harmony and accord with the Holy Spirit, advancing daily in goodness, abiding in the way of righteousness, and remaining to the end unbending and unmingled with any portion of evil, grieving the grace in nothing—it is counted worthy of eternal salvation together with all the saints, inasmuch as in this world it lived as a partner and fellow-runner in imitation of them.

The world of Christians is another, and their manner of life and mind and word and deed are different; and different too are the manner of life, mind, word, and deed of the men of this world.

Those are one thing and these are another, and great is the distance between these and those.

For the inhabitants of the earth and the children of this age are like wheat cast into the sieve of this earth, sifted by the unstable thoughts of this world and by the ceaseless tossing of earthly affairs and the manifold material notions that trouble their souls—Satan the sifter tossing, through the sieve (that is, through earthly affairs), the whole sinful race of men, ever since the fall of Adam, who transgressed the commandment and came under the prince of wickedness; for that one took his authority and thereafter, with ceaseless thoughts of deceit and turmoil, sifts and dashes against the sieve of the earth all the sons of this age.

with earthly and worldly things, unsteadily taking captive and tossing and ensnaring the whole sinful race of Adam, as the Lord foretold to the apostles the coming uprising of the evil one against them, saying:

Satan has asked to sift you like wheat;

but I have prayed to My Father, that your faith may not fail.

For the word spoken by the Creator to Cain and the sentence made manifest—'groaning and trembling and shaking shall you be upon the earth'—is, in a hidden sense, a type and image of all sinners.

For thus the race of Adam, having fallen from the commandment and become sinful, possesses in a hidden way that very image, shaken by the unstable thoughts of cowardice and fear and every disturbance, by lusts and pleasures of all sorts and kinds—the prince of this world tossing every soul not born of God, turning it about unsteadily like wheat in a sieve, variously tossing the thoughts of men, shaking and ensnaring all in worldly deceits and pleasures of the flesh and fears and disturbances.

And indeed the Lord, showing that those who follow the deceits and the wishes of the evil one bear the image of Cain's wickedness, rebuked them, saying:

You, He says, wish to do the desires of your father;

he was a murderer from the beginning and stood not in the truth.

So that the whole sinful race of Adam possesses in a hidden way that condemnation—'groaning and trembling shall you be and shaking in the sieve of the earth' under Satan the sifter.

For just as from the one Adam the whole race of men was spread over the earth, so one wickedness of the passions entered into the sinful race of men, and the prince of wickedness is able to sift them all with unstable, material, vain, and turbulent thoughts.

For just as one wind is able to shake and toss all the plants and seeds, or as one darkness of night spreads over the whole inhabited world, so the prince of wickedness, being a kind of rational darkness of evil and death and a hidden, savage wind, tosses and carries about the whole race of men on earth with unstable thoughts and worldly lusts, ensnaring the hearts of men, and fills with darkness of ignorance, blindness, and forgetfulness every soul not born from above and not having passed over in mind and thought into another age, as it is said:

But our citizenship is in heaven.

For in this true Christians differ from the whole race of men, and great is the distance between the two, as we said before: in that their mind and understanding are always in the heavenly disposition, beholding the eternal good things as in a mirror through participation and communion of the Holy Spirit; in that they have been counted worthy to be born from above of God and to become children of God in truth and power, and through many struggles and labors and length of time have come to stability, firmness, freedom from disturbance, and rest, being no longer sifted and tossed by unstable and vain thoughts.

In this they are greater and better than the world, because their mind and the disposition of their soul are in the peace of Christ and in the love of the Spirit, as the Lord too, speaking of such, said that they have passed from death into life.

Therefore the transformation of Christians does not consist in outward forms and figures, as the many suppose, thinking that in such forms and figures lies the difference and distinction between the world and them.

having disturbance and cowardice like all other men;

and in outward form and appearance they differ from the world, and in certain external accomplishments, but in heart and mind they are bound by earthly bonds, not possessing in the heart the rest from God and the heavenly peace of the Spirit, since they neither sought it from God nor believed they would be counted worthy of these things.

For it is in the renewal of the mind and the peace of the thoughts and the love of the Lord and heavenly desire that the new creation of Christians differs from all the men of the world;

and for this the coming of the Lord took place, to count those who truly believe in Him worthy of these spiritual good things.

For the glory and beauty and heavenly riches of Christians are unspeakable, and are obtained with toil and sweat and testings and many struggles, but the whole is by the grace of God.

For if the sight of an earthly king is desirable to all men, and everyone who comes to a king's city longs at least to behold his beauty, or the splendor of his garments, or the glory of the purple, the beauty of the manifold pearls, the comeliness of the diadem, the dignity of those in office with him—except that spiritual men despise these things, because they have tasted of another, heavenly and bodiless glory, and have been wounded by another, ineffable beauty, and have partaken of another wealth, and have perceived it in the inner man, and share in another Spirit—

since the men of this world who have the spirit of the world are full of great longing merely to behold the earthly king with all his comeliness and glory;

for inasmuch as in visible things his portion is far greater than that of all men (so glorious, so desirable to all even merely to be seen), each one says within himself:

Would that someone gave me that glory and comeliness and beauty—calling blessed that man who is his like, earthly, of like passions and mortal, yet desirable for the sake of his transient comeliness and glory. If, then, fleshly men thus desire the glory of the earthly king, how much more those into whom that drop of the Spirit of the life of the Godhead has been instilled, which has wounded their heart with divine love toward the heavenly King, Christ! To that beauty they are bound, and to the unutterable glory and incorruptible comeliness and inconceivable riches of the true and eternal King, Christ, by whose desire and longing they are taken captive, being wholly His, and they long to attain those ineffable good things which they behold in a mirror through the Spirit; for whose sake they despise all the beauties and comelinesses and glories and honors and wealth of kings and rulers on earth.

For they were wounded by divine beauty, and the life of heavenly immortality was instilled into their souls.

Therefore they long after that love of the heavenly King, and having Him alone before their eyes in great desire, through Him they loose themselves from all love of the world and withdraw from every earthly bond, that they may be able always to have that one longing in their hearts and to mingle nothing else with it.

But very few are they who, having gained a good end to a good beginning, run on without falling until the end, having the one love toward God alone and having loosed themselves from all things.

through unmanliness and slackness of will, or cowardice, or for the sake of some earthly love.

For those who truly wish to run through to the end in a good course ought not willingly to admit and mingle another desire and another love alongside that heavenly one, lest they be hindered from spiritual things and turned back and at last fall away from life.

For just as the things promised with God are great and unspeakable and indescribable, so there is need of faith and hope and labors and great struggles and much testing;

for it is no small thing that a man hopes to receive as good things.

Desiring the kingdom of heaven, you wish to reign together with Christ unto the unending ages; yet do you not consent to take up willingly, even unto death, the struggles and labors and temptations of the short time of this life? While the Lord cries:

If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, rejoicing, and follow Me; and again:

Unless one hates father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

But most men wish to attain the kingdom and desire to inherit eternal life, yet they refuse to give up living in their own self-wills and following them—rather following him who sows vain things—and without denying themselves they wish to inherit eternal life, which is impossible;

for the word of the Lord is true.

For these run through without falling—those who, according to the Lord's commandment, have wholly denied themselves and abhorred all the lusts of the world and its bonds and distractions and pleasures and occupations, and have Him alone before their eyes and desire to do His commandments.

So that each one by his own will turns away from the kingdom, by not truly willing to labor and to deny himself, and by loving something alongside that love—by taking pleasure in certain pleasures or lusts of this age, and by not having his whole love, as far as is possible by choice and will, toward the Lord.

From one example consider for me all the rest.

Each one indeed sometimes discerns and knows that what he wishes to do is improper, but because he loves it and does not renounce it, he is overcome by it.

For first within the heart arises the war and the struggle and the balance and the inclination and the scale between the love of God and the love of the world; and then each one proceeds and discerns, if it happen to come to a quarrel and altercation with a brother, saying within himself:

Shall I speak? or shall I not speak? Shall I say it? or shall I not say it?—remembering God indeed, yet seeking his own glory and not denying himself.

But if the love of the world and the inclination weigh down a little in the scale of the heart, immediately the evil word comes forth as far as the lips.

Then, as it were stretching arrows, the mind within shoots at the neighbor through the tongue, sending arrows of unseemly words by willing choice, seeking his own glory.

Then, shooting much at the neighbor through unseemly words, until the sin is poured out even into the members, ending in blows.

Sometimes the members warring against one another even inflict wounds through the body; sometimes the evil one's desire is consummated even unto bloodshed and death.

See from where it began and what end it had—the love of worldly glory, weighed down by the inclination of the heart's scale out of one's own will.

For through not denying oneself and loving something of the world, all those wrong deeds come about.

Thus understand for me also in every sin and base practice, when evil flatters and urges on the will of the mind with worldly lusts and deceit and pleasure of the flesh.

Whatever it may be, it is a practice of wickedness.

Sometimes even practices that seem good are performed for the sake of glory and the praise of men, which before God are equal to injustice and theft and the rest of sins.

For God says: He scattered the bones of men-pleasers; so that through things that seem good the evil one wishes to be served;

for he is exceedingly manifold and deceitful in the lusts of the world.

For through some earthly and fleshly love, to which a man binds himself by his own will, he is enticed by wickedness, and this becomes for him a chain and a bond and a heavy burden, sinking and choking him in the age of wickedness, not allowing him to lift up his head and depart to God;

since whatever a man has loved of the world weighs down his mind and overpowers it and does not let it lift up its head.

For upon this balance and inclination and scale of wickedness hangs and is tested the whole race of men—whether Christians dwelling in cities, or on mountains, or in monasteries, or in fields, or in desert places—because, enticed by his own will, a man loves something, and wherever it be, his love is bound to it and is not wholly toward God.

For one, it may be, has loved possessions; another, gold and silver; another, to serve the belly; another, the lusts of the flesh; another, worldly wisdom of words for the glory of men; another has loved rule; another, glory and honors of men; another, anger and wrath (for because he readily gives himself over to the passion, he loves it); another, untimely meetings; another, jealousy; another spends every day in distraction and pleasure; another is deceived by idle thoughts; another loves to be a teacher of the law for the glory of men; another delights in slackness and negligence; another is bound to garments and rags; another gives himself to earthly cares; another loves sleep or jesting or filthy talk.

For whether a man is bound by something small or great of the world, he is held by it and is not allowed to lift up his head.

For whatever passion a man does not bravely fight against, that he loves, and that masters him and weighs him down and becomes for him a hindrance and a chain, so that his mind cannot depart to God and please Him and, serving Him alone, be of use to the kingdom and attain eternal life.

For the soul that truly has its impulse toward the Lord draws its love wholly and entirely toward Him and is bound to Him alone by choice as far as it is able, and from there gains the help of grace and denies itself and does not follow the wishes of its own mind (because it walks deceitfully with us by reason of the evil that dwells with us and entices), but gives itself up wholly to the word of the Lord and looses itself from every visible bond, as far as is possible by will, and gives itself entirely to the Lord; and thus it will be able easily to run through the struggles and labors and afflictions.

For where a man loves, from there he is helped, and from there he is weighed down.

If he loves something of the world, that very thing becomes for him a burden and bonds dragging him downward and not allowing him to depart upward to God.

But if he loves the Lord and His commandments, from there he is helped and from there he is lightened, and all the precepts of the Lord become easy for him, in that he preserves his love toward Him whole and entire; and it weighs him toward the good, and rather lightens and eases every war and every affliction, and through the divine power he cuts through the world and the powers of wickedness in it that ensnare the soul and bind it with nooses of lusts of every kind in the depth of the world;

and thus, having been delivered from them through his own faith and great diligence and through help from above—where he has loved, there is he counted worthy of the eternal kingdom, which by his own will, loving it truly and being helped by the Lord, he does not fall away from eternal life.

they are snatched away. Suppose for me that a certain house is set on fire by flame, and one man, wishing to save himself, perceiving the fire, fled out naked, leaving everything behind, and willing to preserve his own soul alone, was saved;

but another, wishing to take some vessels or garments or other things of the house, went in to carry them out, and as he was taking them, the fire mastered the house and seized him within and burned him up.

You see that by his own will, having loved some transient thing alongside himself, he perished in the fire.

Likewise again at sea, some, falling into a violent storm of the waves, were shipwrecked;

and one, having stripped himself naked, plunged into the waters wishing to save himself alone, and thus, beaten by the waves and swimming above them, because he was unencumbered, was able to pass through the bitter sea and so preserved his soul.

But another, wishing to save some of his garments, thought he could swim out and pass through together with those things he took with him; and those very things he had taken weighed him down and sank him into the depth of the sea, and he perished for a little gain, not having preserved his own soul.

You see that by his own will he was put to death.

Again suppose for me that a report comes that aliens are advancing;

and one, as soon as he heard, fled immediately without delay, going out himself naked;

but another, doubting that the enemies were coming, or wishing to take some of his own goods with him, delayed to flee; and the foes coming upon him overtook and captured him and led him captive into the land of the aliens and there compelled him to be a slave.

You see that by his own will, through slackness and unmanliness and love of some goods, he was carried off into captivity.

Likewise also those who do not follow the commandments of the Lord, nor deny themselves and love the Lord alone, but bind themselves willingly with earthly bonds—when the eternal fire comes upon them, being found in the love of the world, they will be burned up, and will be sunk by the bitter sea of wickedness, and being taken captive by the captivity of the aliens, that is, the spirits of wickedness, they perish.

But if you wish to learn from the holy and God-inspired Scriptures the uprightness of a perfected love toward the Lord, look at Job, how he stripped off all, so to speak, that he possessed—children, possessions, animals, servants, and the rest of his goods;

how, having stripped himself, he fled and saved himself, leaving even his very tunic and casting it to Satan, neither blaspheming in word, nor in heart, nor uttering anything with his lips before the Lord, but on the contrary blessed the Lord, saying: