Theological and Ethical Discourses 1 part 17/27

And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - which he who possesses knows one by one.

For just as one who possesses pearls and transparent stones - sapphire, amethyst, and certain others - knows, unless he is utterly inexperienced, the form and size of each one of them, so also the one who has planted the virtues within himself with toil and many tears, and has borne the fruits of the Spirit, knows both the form and the quality of each one of them, and tastes the sweetness of them all;

and what is greater and more wonderful still, he recognizes the same fruit even when it exists in others.

For just as nations are recognized by their dress, and most of all by their voice and speech, so too the saints are recognized outwardly by their orderly conduct, their dignified gait, and other external marks; but the precise and true mark that is truly their own is presented by the word begotten from them.

For what the heart does not have, the mouth cannot bring forth;

but if he does say it, being one who speaks insincerely, he is at once convicted by his very own words.

For, he says, the good man brings forth good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings forth evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart.

And observe for me the depths of the Spirit here - how the Lord did not say merely that good things come forth from the good heart, but added 'from the treasure of the heart,' so that you might learn that none of us can have an empty and vacant heart, but each one either possesses, through good works and true faith, the grace of the Spirit, or, through unbelief and neglect of the commandments and the fulfilling of base things, carries the wicked devil about within himself.

And lest you should think that he says the treasure of the Spirit belongs not to those who keep only part of Christ's commandments while despising the rest, but rather to those who keep all of them with precision, he taught this by saying:

He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me;

and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him;

and I and the Father will come and will make our dwelling with him.

Do you see how the one who has acquired a good heart through labors and the practice of the commandments has come to have the whole Godhead dwelling within himself - which is the good treasure?

But that this treasure does not dwell in one who transgresses even one ordinary commandment, or neglects it and fails to do it, hear him again saying:

Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

He called these 'least' not because they are so in themselves, but because they are reckoned so by us;

for we think idle talk, or coveting something belonging to a neighbor, or looking upon someone with passion, or despising and insulting a person, to be nothing, and so we are indifferent to them, forgetting the One who has placed these things under judgment.

Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account of it in the day of judgment; and elsewhere:

Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And whoever again says to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be liable to the hell of fire.

But the sting of death is sin.

If, then, sin is nothing other than the transgression of a commandment, and it is a commandment not to covet, not to lie, and not to steal, but also not to speak idly nor to speak evil against your brother, then everyone who does these things is wounded by the sting of death, that is, of sin; and in that very wound and bite of sin the devil, like a worm, is found at once entering in and dwelling there.

Do you see how those who have not, in turn, obtained hearts purified through tears and repentance have the devil dwelling within them, who is the evil treasure?

Thus the good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart, and likewise the evil man brings forth evil things.

But true repentance, through confession and tears, as by a plaster and some medicine, wipes clean and purges the wound and scar of the heart, which the sting of noetic death opened in it; then it casts out the worm lurking within and kills it, and restores the wound to complete healing and perfect health.

But this is recognized as taking place only among those who have a heart that laboriously seeks health through tears and repentance.

For the rest of the others even take delight in these wounds;

and not only that, but they even take pains to scratch them open further and add other wounds to these, reckoning the fulfillment of passion to be health;

wherefore they even boast whenever they have committed some wicked and monstrous sin, and reckon their shame as glory.

since they do not know the sweetness and grace of complete purification; rather, they disbelieve it and persuade themselves that it is impossible for a man to be purified entirely from the passions and to receive the Paraclete wholly and essentially within himself.

Therefore, then, they both speak and act continually against their own salvation, shutting the gates of the kingdom of heaven upon themselves, and hindering all others who wish to enter.

But if they should ever hear about someone else who has striven lawfully in the commandments of the Lord and become humble in heart and mind, who is pure from every passion and proclaims to all the great things of God - namely, all that God has plainly done for him according to his unfailing promises - and who tells, for the benefit of his hearers, how he was accounted worthy to see the light of God and God in the light of glory, and how he came to know clearly within himself the visitation and operation of the Holy Spirit and became holy in the Holy Spirit - at once, like rabid dogs, they bark furiously at him, and hasten, if possible, to devour the one who says these things, crying out, 'Stop, you deceived and arrogant man!'

Has such a one, then, really now become as the holy fathers once became?

But who has seen God, or is able to see him in any way at all?

Who has received the Holy Spirit to such a degree as to be deemed worthy, through him, to see the Father and the Son?

I do not think that I ought to refrain from answering these men fittingly, according to their folly;

for the most wise Solomon says:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him; but answer a fool according to his folly, lest he seem wise in his own eyes.

From among you, O you men, as you yourselves say, no one at all has seen such things;

but from among those who have chosen to take up the cross, to walk the narrow way, and to lose their souls for the sake of eternal life, many have seen these things even before, and more, I think, see them even now, and each one of those who desire it will see them - even though you, through the perversity of your mind and the baseness of your envy, are unable to see them.

And observe what the Evangelist says:

But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God;

who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Are you, then, evidently one of his? You did not receive him beforehand, nor did you take him into yourself, and therefore he has given you no authority, nor can you become a child of God;

and not having become a child of God, will you then indeed behold God, your Father who is in the heavens?

No one has ever beheld his own father before being born, and no man will see God unless he is first born of him.

For this reason the Lord also said:

Unless one is born from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; and again:

That which is born of the flesh, he says, is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit - that is to say, evidently, holy from the Holy;

and the Spirit searches even the depths of God.

But you, if you have been born only of the flesh and have not yet known the birth that is of the Spirit, and have not yourself, being so born, become spirit, how then can you search the depths of God - or rather, how can you see God?

Certainly not in any way - this you yourself, even unwillingly, will confess, O brother.

'But,' he says, 'are you yourself such a one?'

And how shall we know that you are such a one? As for me, without grace from above I am not able to say this - nor, I think, could even Paul himself, or John.

Nevertheless I groan over the hardness of heart of those who put these questions to me and ask how one may recognize the man who has come to be a perfect man, having arrived at the measure of the stature of Jesus.

Hence, if you wish to learn, consider by what means the blind recognize other people.

That is how Isaac recognized Jacob, when he was clothed in the garment of his brother Esau.

For you all know how, being perplexed, he said:

'The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.'

Hence it is shown that he did not know the deceit of the garment—for he was blind—but he recognized the familiar voice of his son.

If, then, he had also been deaf, he certainly would not have been able to recognize his speech either.

Thus, then, you also, who are the ones so perplexed, being not only blind but also deaf, how can you recognize a spiritual man?

That this is true—that those who do not see spiritually are also unable to hear spiritually—listen to the Lord speaking thus to the unbelieving Jews:

'Because you cannot hear my words.' And shortly after:

'He who is of God hears the words of God;'

'for this reason you do not hear, because you are of God.'

'You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.'

If, then, you also, through unbelief and wickedness and neglect and transgression of the commandments, are flesh—thick, I mean, in heart, with its ears stopped up, and the eye of the soul veiled by the passions—how then will you be able to recognize a spiritual and holy man?

But, I beg you, fathers and brothers of mine, let us each be eager in every way to know ourselves, that from the things pertaining to us we may one day be able to know the things above us.

But as for me—'I am a worm, and not a man,' and again, as Abraham said:

'I am earth and ashes'—how, then, could I know anything of the spiritual and divine sayings spiritually, and in a manner worthy of the supernatural and wise Spirit?

Let no one deceive you with empty and sophistic words into thinking that the divine mysteries of our faith can be comprehended at all without the Spirit who initiates and illumines.

For it is necessary, without dispute, that we all first lay well the foundation of faith in the depths of our soul, and then raise up inner piety, through the various kinds of virtue, like a strong wall;

and the divine knowledge of God, so as to raise up and build the whole house of the Spirit entire.

For when, in proportion to repentance and the fulfilling of the commandments, the soul is cleansed through tears, first the man is made worthy by grace to know the things concerning himself and his whole self; then, after much and persistent purification and deep humility, he begins dimly, little by little, to understand also the things concerning God and the divine; and to the extent that he understands, he is astounded and acquires greater humility, considering himself utterly unworthy of the knowledge and revelation of such mysteries.

Wherefore, being guarded by such humility as by a strong wall, he remains within, unwounded by thoughts of conceit, growing daily in faith, hope, and love toward God, and clearly beholding his progress along with the increase of knowledge and ascent.

But when he attains to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the knowledge of Christ, and truly acquires Christ himself and the mind of Christ, then he is disposed as one knowing or possessing nothing at all, and regards himself as a useless and worthless servant;

and what is truly wonderful and above nature—or rather, in accordance with nature—is that he does not consider that there is anyone in the whole world lesser or more sinful than himself.

But how this is, I am not able to say, except that I have been able to grasp only this one thing regarding this praiseworthy experience:

when the soul has been shaped and, through the Spirit, dipped into the depths of humility, its mind being in Christ God, so that thereafter it becomes unaware of the whole world and those in the world, and beholds only itself always and only what belongs to itself, and having spent time in such meditation and having come into a settled habit of it, it truly sees only itself as despised and most worthless, yet is persuaded that no one else among all the men of the world is such.

Thus, then, to the extent that one holds himself, in the perception of his soul, to be more worthless and humbler than all men, to that same extent he will be first of all the others, as our Lord and God says:

'Whoever wishes to be first of all shall be last of all and servant of all.'

Let us also, then, brothers, be diligent to attain to such an order and condition, and we shall readily recognize the saints who have arrived at it, and we shall obtain both the present and the future good things, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion now and always and unto the ages of ages.

On the fearful day of the Lord and the judgment to come: that even before death it is already at work in us who are here being purified through tears, and that whatever it has already accomplished in a man during the present life, it will not meet him again in the life to come.

And what is the day of the Lord, and to whom is it suddenly revealed?

And that faith in Christ alone cannot save us unless we also become knowing partakers of the Holy Spirit, and that not all who are baptized receive Christ through baptism.

And how can one know whether he carries Christ within himself and has become a partaker of the Holy Spirit?

And an interpretation, given in passing, of the text 'In the beginning was the Word.'

There is need of prayers, of much diligence, of much purity of mind, both for us who speak and for you who listen, so that we may be able to understand rightly and to speak, and you may be able to hear with understanding what is said.

But what is the purpose of this discourse?

The purpose, then, of the present discourse is the great and glorious and fearful day of the Lord, and to explain, that we may know, for what reason it is called and named the day of the Lord.

It is called, then, the day of the Lord, not as being the last of these days, nor because it is the day on which he is going to come—just as, indeed, in the case of these present-time days we speak of 'the day of Pascha' and 'the day of Pentecost,' and 'the day on which the king is going to go forth' and do this and that;

but neither is it called the day of judgment because judgment is going to take place on it (for that day will not be one thing and the Lord who is going to come on it another), but because the God and Master of all will then shine forth with the glory of his own divinity.

And the sensible sun will be covered by the brightness of the Master and become invisible, just as now the stars are covered by it and not seen; and the stars themselves will be extinguished, and all visible things will be rolled up like a scroll, that is, they will withdraw, giving place to the Maker;

and he alone will be at once both day and God, he who is now invisible to all and dwells in unapproachable light; then he will be revealed to all as he is, and he will fill all things with his own light, and there will be an unsetting, unending day of eternal joy among his saints, but for the slothful and sinful like me, it will be altogether unapproachable and unseen.

For since, while still alive, it was not their concern through diligence to see the light of his glory by means of purification and to have him dwell wholly within them, it is fitting that for them it will remain unapproachable in the future as well.

For, having willed from the very beginning to make what is good to be also our own, as the divine Scripture says, he granted free will to our first-formed parents and forefathers, and to us through them, so that, not out of grief or necessity but out of goodwill and love toward him, through self-chosen will, with joy working his commandments and keeping them, they might be reckoned as having acquired the virtues by their own labors, and might offer them to the Master as their own gifts, and through these, by progress, be led up to the perfect image and likeness of God, and draw near, without being consumed, to the Unapproachable, apart from bodily death—each one, generation by generation, drawing near to him.

But since our first-formed parents, having first obeyed the hostile will, became transgressors of God's commandment, and not only fell from the greater hope—that is, from coming to be themselves within the evening-less light—but were also transferred to corruption and death and fell into unlit darkness, having become slaves to the ruler of darkness and being held fast by him, coming to be in the darkness of death through sin; and afterward we also, who were born from them, having yielded our will to this tyrant, were enslaved—and not by force (for those who pleased God before the Law and under the Law showed this clearly, dedicating their own will to the Master God and not to the devil)—the loving Lord, wishing to redeem from eternal darkness those who pleased him before the Law and under the Law, and to grant freedom in grace to those after the Law, and, so to speak, to free together all who had pleased him before the Law, under the Law, and after the Law from the tyranny of the devil, he himself, the almighty and long-suffering one, undertook to accomplish this in person.

...our race, by his becoming like us in all things and being made equal to us in his human nature.

O the unspeakable loving-kindness and goodness, that not only did he not punish us who had transgressed and sinned, but also, whatever we had become through the transgression, such he himself consented to become—a corruptible man from a corruptible man, a mortal from a mortal, having become sin from one who had sinned, he who is incorruptible, immortal and sinless, appearing to the world only in flesh that had been deified, and not in the naked divinity itself.

For he did not come to judge the world, but to save the world, as he himself says in his Gospels.

For the revelation of his divinity becomes judgment in those to whom it is revealed;

for no flesh could have endured the glory of his divinity appearing bare, apart from the divine-human conjunction and the ineffable union; rather, all creation, at once in soul and body, would utterly have perished, because at that time all were held fast by unbelief.

But if it did appear, or again should unexpectedly appear to any man, it shows itself fearful and terrible, not illuminating but burning, not giving life but grievously punishing.

And this is evident from what the blessed Paul, the vessel of election, suffered:

for when struck in his eyes by the flashing radiance of the unapproachable light, he was not illuminated but rather darkened, not made radiant but the more so, and he even lost his natural sight in addition;

and this happened to the one who was then destined to become the great teacher of the Church of Christ.

For he who was such and so great, who said:

'God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, who has shined in our hearts,' and shortly after:

'We have this treasure of illumination,' evidently in our hearts—yet at that time he could not even look back upon the slightest ray of it.

From this, then, we are taught precisely that for those still held fast by unbelief and the passions, grace is altogether unapproachable and invisible, but for those who through faith work out the commandments in fear and trembling and show worthy repentance, it is seen as it reveals itself, and it, of itself, indisputably produces in them the judgment that is to come;

or rather, it becomes a day of divine judgment, from which the one who is pure, being always illumined, sees truly what he himself is, and his works, both those done in the senses and those wrought in the soul, in minute detail, exactly as they are.

And not only that, but he is also judged and examined by divine fire, and then, being watered with the water of tears, his whole body becomes drenched, and he is baptized little by little, wholly, by the divine fire and the Spirit, and becomes wholly pure, wholly undefiled, a son of light and of day, and no longer thereafter of mortal man.

For this reason, such a one is not judged in the judgment and trial to come, for he has already been judged beforehand;

nor is he exposed by that light, for he has already been illumined beforehand;

nor, entering into that fire, is he tested or burned, for he has already been tested beforehand;

nor does he reckon the day of the Lord as appearing then for the first time, for he himself has wholly become, through communion and fellowship with God, a bright and radiant day;

nor is he then found in the world or with the world, but is altogether outside it.

'For I,' he says, 'have chosen you out of the world,' and the Apostle says:

'For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.'

As many, then, as become children of that light and sons of the day to come, and are able to walk becomingly as in the day, upon them the day of the Lord will never come as a surprise;

for they are always and continually in it.

...it will be revealed, and it will be accounted by them as fearful, and as an unbearable fire.

But this fire—God—will appear not wholly in a spiritual manner, but, as one might say, incorporeally within a body, just as Christ, having risen, was once seen by his disciples, as the evangelist says:

For as he was being taken up into the heavens, the angels said these things to them:

In the same manner as you beheld him going into heaven, so will he come again.

For if this were not so, how would sinners, unbelievers, heretics, and those who fight against the Spirit behold him, being blind in soul and having the eyes of their soul stopped up with the mire of unbelief and sin, just as the apostle Paul also wrote to the Thessalonians?

For since he had spoken concerning those who have fallen asleep and the glory to come, and how all the saints will be caught up through the clouds, he said:

But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to you;

for you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord comes just like a thief in the night;

For when they say, "Peace and security," then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail comes upon a woman with child, and they shall by no means escape.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you like a thief;

you are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not sons of night nor of darkness;

so then let us not sleep, as the rest also do, but let us watch and be sober.

because God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, so that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Therefore, beloved, on hearing "sons of light" and "sons of the day," do not say in your heart that all of us who have been baptized into Christ and believe in him and worship him as God have thereby also put him on, and that we are unfailingly, without our even perceiving it, sons of the day and sons of light, and not of night nor of darkness.

Do not say or suppose this, and so pass the remaining days of your life in negligence and unconcern, merely seeming and imagining yourself to be something, while being nothing;

If all men who are in the world and who see with their senses this sun are in darkness, then surely, since I see nothing more than the others, I too am in darkness together with them.

For just as, when it sets each day, night comes and I see nothing more than this, so also, when I die, I shall behold light nowhere, but I shall be forever in lightless darkness without sun, and I shall no longer see with my eyes this visible light;

for when men are separated from the body, they are immediately separated from all sensible things.

If, then, I am in darkness now, I shall also be in darkness after death;

and surely upon me too the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and like travail upon a woman with child, and I shall by no means be able to escape.

For our salvation is not in the baptism of water alone, but also in the Spirit; nor is the forgiveness of sins and the participation in life given by the bread and wine of communion alone, but also by the divinity that mystically and without confusion accompanies and is commingled with these.

It is called "mystical" because it is not revealed to all, but only to those worthy of eternal life, and it makes those who behold it sons of light and of the day;

for those who do not see the light, even though it shines brightly, nevertheless sit in darkness.

Let no one, brothers, deceive you with empty words, nor let anyone place his confidence in faith in Christ alone.

For it says, "If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing"; and again:

Faith without works is dead.

For just as the body without the soul is dead, so also faith without works is dead. For those who confess that Christ is God, yet do not keep his commandments, will be reckoned not merely as those who deny him, but also as those who dishonor him;

For he who dishonors his father, how shall he be reckoned a son?

He who is separated from the light, how could he pass his life in it as in the day?

But if anyone should say that he cannot keep all the commandments, let him know that he thereby slanders and condemns God, as one who has commanded us things impossible;

and he shall not escape the inescapable judgment, but will be condemned like the one who said:

"I knew that you were a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter" -- this man too shall be condemned, together with the serpent who said to Adam:

"God, knowing that in the hour you eat of the tree you will become like him, has for this reason commanded you not to eat of it" -- he shall be made like that serpent.

He is a liar, because when that One said:

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light," this man declares it not only not light, but even unbearable;

and he is a deceiver, in that he came down promising many things and yet wishing to give us nothing, but rather, envying our salvation, enjoined upon us things impossible to do and keep, so that, since we are unable to fulfill them, he might, under the pretext of a seemingly reasonable excuse, deprive us of those good things.

But woe to those who say these things, unless they repent;

for our Master and God has commanded nothing burdensome, nothing oppressive; rather, all his commandments are altogether easy and light, just as -- believe me -- I myself have come to know that God's commandment is easy, as is the attainment of him and of his kingdom.

But I will show you this by way of an example.