Catecheses 1 part 19/23

So then, in the same way, everyone who is without perception towards the one is without perception towards all things, just as he who has perception towards the one is in perception of all things and yet is outside their perception.

He is in the perception of all things, and yet is not comprehended by their perception.

The man who is deaf to the Word is deaf to every voice, just as he who hears the Word hears all things.

Such a one is deaf towards every voice;

he hears all things and none, except only the words of those who make their discourse in the Word—and not even them, but the Word alone, which speaks voicelessly within the voice.

He who is blind towards the one is wholly blind towards all things; but he who sees in the One is in the contemplation of all things, and yet abstains from the contemplation of all things, and comes to be in the contemplation of all things, and is outside the things contemplated.

Being in the One, he sees all things, and being in all things, he sees nothing of all things.

Thus, then, he who sees in the One, through the One beholds both himself and all men and all things, and, being hidden and in Him, sees nothing of all things.

Therefore he who hears and sees and perceives knows the power of the things spoken; but he who does not know is plainly one who does not bear the faculties of the soul made clear and healthy.

And he who is in such a state has not yet come to know that he is a worshipper of mingled nature—earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, reigning over the things upon earth, reigned over from on high, an overseer of the visible creation, an initiate of the creation apprehended by the mind—as one renowned in theology somewhere says.

But being in honour, he was likened to the senseless beasts and became like them; and having become like them, he still remains such, not having turned back, not having been recalled or led up again to his former dignity according to the gift of the dispensation of our Master and Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

he has in no way clothed himself, in the rational and intelligent man, with our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly Man and God.

And having failed to put Him on with perception and knowledge, he is but blood and flesh, unable to receive through word the perception of the spiritual glory, even as those blind from birth cannot, through word alone, see the light of the sun.

But come, you who have the intelligible light within yourselves; let us give glory through Him to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

That one ought not to say it is impossible now for him who wills to come to the summit of virtue and to contend with the saints of old.

And that everyone who teaches things contrary to the divine Scriptures lays down a new heresy as dogma for those who are persuaded by him.

And concerning tears, that tears are present to us by nature.

Brethren and fathers, many say every day—of whom we too hear when they say:

'If we had been in the days of the apostles and had been counted worthy to behold Christ as they did, we too would have become holy as they were'—not knowing that He who was speaking then throughout the whole world is that very same One who speaks now.

For if He who was of old and He who is now are not the same, being in all respects God in the same manner, both in His operations and in His accomplishments, how is the Father ever seen to be speaking in the Son, and the Son in the Father, doing these things through the Spirit?

'My Father works until now, and I work.'

It is not one and the same thing to have beheld Him then bodily and to hear now only His words and to be taught the things concerning Him and His kingdom.

And I affirm that the now and the then are by no means equal; rather, the present and the now are far greater, and they lead us more easily to fuller faith and to full assurance, more than to have seen and heard Him bodily back then.

For then He appeared to the thankless Jews as a lowly man, but now He is proclaimed to us as true God.

Then He kept company bodily with tax collectors and sinners and ate with them; but now He sits at the right hand of God the Father, He who was never and nowhere separated from Him, and He is believed to nourish the whole world, and we say that apart from Him nothing comes into being—and indeed we so believe.

Then too He was despised by the most worthless, who said:

'Is this not the son of Mary and of Joseph the carpenter?'

But now He is worshiped by kings and rulers as the Son of the true God and true God Himself, and He has glorified and glorifies those who worship Him in spirit and in truth—even if He often chastens them when they sin, having made them iron above all the nations under heaven, in place of clay.

Then He was reckoned corruptible and mortal like one of the rest of men, and it was a great thing to recognize and believe that this One—clothed in a human body without change or alteration, the formless and invisible God now made manifest in form and seen wholly as man, having nothing more than other men in what is visible, but eating and drinking and sleeping, sweating and toiling and doing all human things except sin—was God, He who made heaven itself and the earth and all that is in them.

For this reason, when Peter said:

'You are the Son of the living God,' the Master blessed him, saying:

'flesh and blood did not reveal to you'—that is, to see and to say these things—'but my Father who is in heaven.'

So that whoever now hears Him crying out daily through the holy Gospels and proclaiming the will of His blessed Father, and does not obey Him with fear and trembling and keep the things He commands, would not, even then—had he been present and beheld Him in person and heard Him teaching—have endured to believe in Him at all;

there would be reason to fear that, having disbelieved altogether and reckoned Him an adversary of God and not true God, he would have blasphemed.

And such indeed are those who are in every way grosser than the rest.

'If we had been,' he says, 'in the times of the holy fathers, we too would have striven.'

'For seeing their good manner of life and their struggles, we would have emulated them.'

'But now, keeping company with the slothful and negligent, we are carried away together with them and perish along with them against our will, being ignorant, as is natural, we ourselves too, that we are in fact in a safer harbor than they were.'

'In the times of our fathers there were many'—let these men listen!

And you will find this to be true from the Lives of our holy fathers Euthymius and Antony.

For it is written that Antony once put on a garment more splendid than his usual one and went up onto a high place to make himself visible and to display himself, so that, having become conspicuous, he might by all means be seized by the heretics and put to death;

if, then, there had been no persecution, he would not have done this.

And at the birth of our holy father Euthymius, is it not written that good cheer was then bestowed by God upon the churches, the persecutions and the heresies being at that time brought to an end?

And at the death of our holy father Sabas, do you not hear how much he struggled on behalf of the churches and against the heresies of that time, and how many of the monks were then carried off together with the heretics?

And the things that happened in the days of holy Stephen the Younger—were they not a persecution most heavy and grievous?

Or do you not consider the storm that arose then and the exceeding tumult of the monks?

For whenever, before these, I call to mind the things that happened in the days of the great Basil, as the great Gregory recounts, and those in the days of John of the golden tongue, and of the holy fathers who followed thereafter, I both bewail myself and pity those who do not reckon these things.

For they do not exactly understand that all past time was more dreadful and was openly filled with the tares of the evil one.

Nevertheless, even if past things were dreadful, yet the present life too has many heretics, many wolves, asps and serpents keeping company with us—except that they have no authority against us, but such workers of their wickedness are, as it were, under the cover of night;

and those who gather together and come under their darkness they snatch away and devour; but those who walk in the light of the divine Scriptures and journey in the way of God's commandments they dare not even meet face to face, but seeing them pass by, they flee from their presence as from a fire.

Whom, then, did you suppose I meant by heretics?

Perhaps those who deny the Son of God?

Perhaps those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and say that He is not God?

Perhaps those who say the Father is greater than the Son?

those who confound the Unity, or who divide the one God into three gods?

Perhaps those who prate that He assumed flesh, but flesh without a soul?

Perhaps those who say that this flesh was indeed ensouled, as a whole man, but that the Son of God—who was also named the Son of Mary the Mother of God—is not one according to hypostasis and is not God, but who divide the one Christ into two sons?

But perhaps those who circumscribe with a beginning the Father who is without beginning, and say 'There was a time when He was not'?

Or those who both wrongly think and dogmatize that the Father is without beginning, but that the Son, as begotten from Him, received a beginning after some time as a created thing?

'For there was never a time,' he says, 'when the Father was without the Son being present with Him;

and how shall He be named Father who is childless?'

None of these impious and godless ones do I mean to you, nor do I speak of any of the other heresies which appeared as darkness but were made to vanish by the holy fathers who shone in those times.

For so greatly did the grace of the All-Holy Spirit shine through them and drive away the darkness of the aforesaid heresies, that even until now their God-inspired writings shine brighter than the rays of the sun, so that none dares to speak against them.

But I speak of those and call those heretics who say that there is no one in our own times and in our midst who is able to keep the evangelical commandments and to become like the holy fathers;

first of all, faithful and practical—for faith is shown through works, as the likeness of the face is shown through a mirror—then also most contemplative and at once a beholder of God, that is, in being enlightened and receiving the Holy Spirit, and through Him beholding the Son together with the Father.

Those, then, who say that this is impossible possess not merely some partial heresy, but all of them, so to speak, since this one surpasses and eclipses all those in impiety and in excess of blasphemy.

In vain, I think, does the vain man say that the holy Gospel is now being read; in vain does he protest that the writings of the great Basil and of the rest of our priests and holy fathers are being read—or even were written.

If, then, the things that God says and that all the saints first of all did, and afterward, having written them, left behind for our admonition, are impossible for us to do in deed and to keep without omission, why is it that back then those men labored and wrote them, and that now they are read in the churches?

Those who say these things shut the heaven which Christ opened for us, and cut off the ascent to Him which He Himself inaugurated for us.

For from above, that God who is over all standing as it were at the gate of heaven and peering out and being seen by the faithful and crying out and saying through the holy Gospel:

'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'—these adversaries of God, or rather, to speak more truly, antichrists, say:

'This is impossible, impossible!'

'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees!'

'Woe to you, blind guides of the blind, for you neither enter into the kingdom yourselves nor allow those who wish to enter.'

While He openly blesses those who now mourn, these say that it is impossible for anyone to mourn and weep daily.

Oh, the insensibility and the ungated mouth, sending forth defiled utterances against God the Most High and making the sheep of Christ become the prey of beasts—those for whom the Only-begotten Son of God Himself poured out His blood!

'The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows;

and their tongue a sharp sword.'

For why, tell me, is it impossible?

And through what else did the saints shine upon the earth and become luminaries in the world?

If it were impossible, not even those men would ever have been able to accomplish these things.

For those men too were human beings, just as we are, and possessed nothing more than we, except a resolve toward the good, zeal and endurance and humility and love toward God.

But if you do not wish to be afflicted and straitened, at least do not say that the thing is impossible.

For he who says this denies purification;

for it has never been heard from the ages that a soul which sinned after baptism was purified from the defilement of sin without tears.

For through baptism God took away every tear from the face of the earth, having poured out His Holy Spirit richly.

But, as I have heard from the divine Scripture, even in baptism itself certain persons of mature age, being baptized and pierced to the heart by the coming of the Spirit, wept;

not painful and grievous tears, but by the working of the Holy Spirit and by His gift sweeter than honey, having poured them out through their eyes somehow effortlessly and without a sound.

Let someone bring forward, one this thing, another that, and having enumerated many things in the midst, at the last of all he cried out:

Did He, then, in this matter make any distinction or separation among some of the others, and to some declare that this was possible, but to others that it was impossible?

Is it so, then, as you say—uncircumcised as you are in your hearts and your ears (that I may lay hold of you fittingly, and not without understanding as you speak)—that certain men have received by nature a hard disposition and could never be pierced with compunction nor weep? And did the great Gregory say this?

There is no human nature which does not by nature rather possess tears and weeping and mourning; nor did this holy man, nor any other of the saints, ever say or write such a thing.

That weeping belongs to us all by nature, let the newborn infants themselves teach you.

For as soon as they come forth from the womb and fall upon the earth, they weep; and this the midwives and mothers take as a sign of life.

For if the infant does not weep, it is not even said to be alive;

but by weeping it shows at once that nature possesses, from birth, mourning together with tears as its companion.

As our holy father Symeon the Studite also used to say, a man ought to live his present life with such weeping, and to die together with it, if indeed he desires to be saved and to enter into the blessed life; for the tear of birth is a token of the tears of this our present life here.

For as food and drink are necessary to the body, so also are tears to the soul; so that whoever does not weep each day—I hesitate to say each hour, lest I seem burdensome—destroys his soul by famine and perishes.

[Let each pursue this] by continual meditation on the divine Scriptures, ever repenting and at all times remembering his own faults; and let no one neglect such a work.

But if anyone, having despaired of his own salvation, reclines upon the bed of sloth, let him at least not say that this is impossible even for those who are diligent.

For whoever says this shuts against us all the very gate of the kingdom of heaven.

But apart from purification no one is saved, no one is called blessed by the Lord, no one shall see God.

But if these things thus follow upon those who do not mourn according to the commandment of the Lord, how is this heresy not—tell me—worse than that of all the heretics?

For otherwise, according to your view, God's condescension and ascension would have been in vain; the preaching of the apostles would have been idle; idle too would have been the catecheses of all the saints, which ever summon us to mourning.

All Scripture, God-inspired, has become useless to you who are so disposed and so minded, as I see.

For like a deaf asp, you too, having stopped your ears, ascribe the salvation of your souls—so I think—to the threadbare cloak alone, and to the cowl and scapular (and some even to a very deep and grave beard); and taking courage in these, you make them your adornment.

But take courage, naked and laid bare—even if you do not wish to hear the divine Scripture crying out great things to you each day—we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil.

But if this shall soon come to pass for all, where then will be the robe that covers and adorns our bodies?

Where the splendid scapulars?

Where the comely and sturdy sandals?

Where the belts, like women's girdles?

Where the meeting with the rulers?

Where the preference shown in greetings?

Where the struggles for the chief seat?

Where the lavishness of the tables?

Where—that I may say this too—the outstripping of one's brother and the taking of the greater and more prized portions of what is set before us, in which I first, and those like me, suffer, vain men?

Where then our conceit and boastfulness, and our ruling and being ruled?

Where the spacious cells, splendidly adorned like bridal chambers?

Where the preference in the ministries and among the ministrants, in which we think ourselves superior to the rest?

Where the unrestrained and unseemly laughter?

Where the costly and lingering suppers, the sumptuous midday meals, and the untimely conversations in the midst of them?

Where then the great names?

Where the holiness which we are now thought to have, or think we have?

Where the present flatterers and mockers, who call us holy and confound the path of our feet?

Where the exalted thrones, and those who by reason of them think themselves more illustrious than the rest?

Where the running about and eagerness to gain possession of some position, or of a greater office?

Where the gainsaying and insubordination, and the refusal to appear second to another?

Where the fond attachment to kinsmen?

Where the pomp of the worldly men and rulers who came to us, through whom I, the wretched one, think and imagine myself first to become more illustrious than the rest?

Where the seeming prudence of the illustrious in the knowledge and wisdom of the world?

Where the self-opinion and the seeming to be something, when we are nothing?

Where then the nimble tongue and the rhetorical outpourings as from a fountain?

Where then—or rather now—is the wise man, where the scribe, where the disputer of this age, that he might come back and we might sit down together and take counsel concerning that fearful day and hour, and, moving every rope (as the saying goes) within ourselves and in the divine Scriptures and searching diligently, we might be taught from thence and learn what it is that will be able to profit us then, and with much zeal choose that?

Truly, my beloved brethren, as all Scripture plainly cries out, great necessity, great fear and trembling shall seize, in that hour, those who like me are slothful and slack and negligent.

But blessed, brethren, is he who now lies beneath all creation, mourning and weeping night and day before God; for he shall then stand robed at His right hand.

Blessed is he who hears these things and not only groans, nor day after day defers and lets the time of his life run by unprofitably, but who, as soon as he hears the Lord saying, 'Repent!'

at once begins the work.

For such a one, as an obedient and thankful servant, shall obtain mercy and shall not be condemned with the disobedient; and now he shall be delivered from all the passions and shall become a proven worker of all the virtues, while in the age to come he shall delight in the ineffable good things of God together with all who have been well-pleasing to Him from the beginning of the ages—which may we all attain by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

Concerning repentance and the beginning of a praiseworthy life, and how the penitent ought to conduct himself each day.

In which also, concerning tears together with compunction.

My beloved brethren, hear the power of my words, and, since it is a good counsel for you, receive it gladly and be eager to put it into practice, for the common benefit both of me and of you.

And the aim of this discourse is as follows:

when you go out from the church, do not begin to let your minds be carried away to vain and unprofitable things, lest the devil come and, finding you occupied with these, snatch away the memory of these words of instruction from your heart—just as a crow, as soon as it can, flies off carrying the grain of wheat from the field before it is covered under the earth—and you again remain light and empty of the saving teaching.

But if any one of you has been appointed to do some handiwork or service and to labor, let him go off with head bowed and giving heed to himself; and as he works and ministers, let him say within himself:

Oh, how many days and seasons of my life have I, wretched man, passed by in distraction and laughter!

Oh, how have I been made vain, hearing the divine Scriptures until now, and yet not at all knowing the profit that comes from them!

What has the present life profited me?

Behold, so many and so many years of my life have passed by.

Who then knows whether I shall live until tomorrow?

I have eaten for many years, I have filled my belly with meats, with wine, and with much gluttony.

I have adorned myself with garments; I have sported and laughed to my own harm; I have abounded in coin upon coin, and, spending it upon vanities, I have squandered it, and afterward again acquired more.

I have used baths to satiety, and perfumes; I have ridden upon horses and mules; I have enjoyed many and costly tables; I have envied my neighbor, reviled, committed fornication, stolen, and lied.

I have acquired a name illustrious in the world; I have reclined upon soft couches; I have given rest to this earthly body; I have slept my fill of sleep.

What, then, of all these things has profited me until now, or will profit me at the departure of my wretched soul, if tomorrow He who has authority over every breath commands that I be taken from this world?

Henceforth, then, let me not vainly pass even the remaining days of my life here, but let me make a beginning from the present, and, forsaking all those things, let me practice the opposite of them, as the holy fathers did—I too.

I will clothe myself in mean garments and give my precious things to the poor; and with them I will scatter into the hands of the needy all the gold that I possess;

for what need have I any longer to be anxious about these things from now on, if I shall dedicate my whole self to Him who nourishes all things?

I will renounce riding upon horses and mules; I will deny all my kinsmen and friends and acquaintances;

for whoever loves anyone at all more than God is by no means worthy of Him, as He Himself says.

I will not touch the bath, nor go up upon the couch of my bed, but I will readily give myself over to sleeping on the ground and to a dry bed, that I may sleep but a little, and that even against my will, being straitened by the hardness.

For what if I should even die? Am I then worthy to live?

Master, Lord of heaven and earth, I know that I have sinned before You, my fearful and unapproachable God, beyond all the nature of men, and beyond the very irrational beasts and creeping things; and I am in no way ever worthy to obtain mercy from You.

For this reason I did not even dare to draw near or to fall down before You, O King who loves mankind, had I not heard Your holy voice saying:

'I desire not with any will the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn and live'; and again, that 'there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.'

But indeed, calling to mind also the parable of the prodigal son which You have spoken, Master—how, when he was coming, before he had drawn near to You, You the compassionate One came forth and fell upon his neck and kissed him—taking courage in the sea of Your goodness, I came to You in the anguish and grief and gloom of my heart, being hardened and grievously wounded and lying wretchedly upon the perch of Hades because of my transgressions.

Nevertheless, from now on I give You my word, Lord, that as long as You command me to be in this life and in this body, I will not forsake You, nor turn back, nor ever again lay hold of vain and wicked things.

Help me, I fall down before You; and do not forsake me, nor allow me to be long derided and mocked by the enemy—me who from this present hour am Your servant, O good One.

These things, then, brethren, ought he to ponder and to will within himself throughout the whole day—he who has just fled the world and has been zealous to repent, who has desired to learn this art of arts, the art of the life of struggle and asceticism, and who for this reason has entered into the stadium of its contest.

He thirsts to hear from us things yet more laborious, and hastens to make a beginning of the work of true repentance.

In addition, then, to what has been said, beloved, do not partake of food until evening.

And when at evening you enter your cell, sit upon your bed, and having pondered within yourself all that has been said, give thanks first of all that you have been counted worthy to reach the end of the day and the beginning of the night.

Then consider yourself and call to mind how many times you have sinned against God who made you, and how many years He has been long-suffering toward you, allowing you to live and freely granting you all that pertains to the enjoyment of the body—food, I mean, and drink, clothing and coverings, and this very cell in which to dwell—and He was not angry, He did not turn away from you because of your sins, nor did He deliver you to death or to the demons to destroy you.

Having well recalled all these things, then, rise up, and having placed the rush-mat upon the ground and some small stone for a pillow, prepare beforehand the couch on which you are about to recline.

But let not what I am about to counsel you appear to you strange and unaccustomed to the faithful, and be manifest as something judged without examination.

For he who has kept himself unstained before God after baptism, and has preserved undefiled toward his Maker and Fashioner that which is according to the image, needs nothing else for restoration among the things here mentioned, being already in God.

But he who after this has defiled himself with unseemly deeds and iniquities, and has profligately made the temple of his body—the house of God, I say—a house of pleasures and passions and demons, needs not only the manner of repentance which I am about to tell and counsel you, but also many other methods and devices of repentance, in order to propitiate God and to recall to himself that divine dignity which he lost through his sinful life.

But what is the manner of repentance which, counseling you as a father, I set before you—hear it, brother, without offense and with understanding.

After preparing beforehand, as has been said, the rush-mat of the couch on which you are about to recline, stand up for prayer as one condemned.

First make the Trisagion, then say the 'Our Father';

and as you say this, remember who you are, and what kind of Father, and whom you are calling upon.