五十篇屬靈講道 第 1 章 第 9/19 段

In the visible realm, if there is a war and a king comes with his army to do battle, and his force is smaller or weaker, he at once sends an embassy asking for terms of peace;

but if a very great nation is matched against a nation and king against king (I mean the Persian and the Roman), it is wholly necessary that the two kings be set in motion with their entire armies.

Behold, then, what your dignity is, that God was set in motion with His own armies (I mean the angels and the spirits) to engage the adversary, in order to redeem you from death.

God, therefore, came for your sake.

Just as if a king should find some poor man having leprosy over all his members, and should not be ashamed, but should apply remedies to his wounds and heal his sores, and lead him to the royal table, and put purple about him and make him a king—so also did God do for the human race;

He washed away their wounds and healed them and brought them into the heavenly bridal chamber.

Great, therefore, is the dignity of Christians—so great that it has no comparison.

But if one is lifted up and stolen away by evil, he is like this: just as if there were a city without a wall, and the robbers enter through it wherever they will, unhindered, and they lay it waste and set it on fire—so when you are negligent and do not attend to yourself, the spirits of wickedness come in and destroy and lay waste the mind, scattering the thoughts into this age.

For many who are meticulous about externals and who practice learning and are careful about an upright life suppose this to be perfection, not peering into the heart and seeing the evils there that grip the soul;

since, according to the inner mind of evil, the root is in the members, and the robber is in the house—that is, the opposing power.

It is therefore resisting and intelligent;

and unless one wages a struggle against sin, the inner evil, oozing out little by little through its increase, carries the person into manifest sins, to the committing of them.

For evil is like the eye of a spring, ever gushing forth.

Do you, then, be diligent to check the streams of evil, lest, falling into countless evils, you be as one stupefied.

Just as if there were some nobleman, free from cares and rich, and the magistrate's officers and constables should seize him and carry him off, saying to him, 'You have been accused on a charge, and you are liable to death,'

thereupon, from the report and the fear, he loses all his composure of mind and is as one stupefied;

understand it, then, in the same way concerning the spirits of wickedness.

For the visible world, from kings down to the poor, is in turmoil and disorder and strife, and none of them knows the cause—that is, the evil that has entered in unseen through Adam's disobedience, the sting of death.

For sin that has entered in, being a kind of rational power and substance of Satan, has sown all the evils, since it works secretly in the inner man and in the mind, and battles against the thoughts.

But people do not know that they do these things driven by some alien power, but suppose these things to be natural and that they do them from their own discernment.

[But those] who have in their very mind His illumination, these know whence these things are stirred.

For the world suffers a passion of evil and knows it not.

And there is an unclean fire which kindles the heart, and so runs through all the members and incites people to acts of licentiousness and to countless evils.

Those, then, who are titillated and take pleasure together within in the heart commit fornication, and so, as the evil spreads, they fall also into manifest fornication.

Understand the same also concerning avarice, vainglory, conceit, envy, and wrath.

It is just as when someone is invited to a feast and many dishes are set before him;

thereupon sin prompts him to touch them all, and so the soul, taking pleasure with it, becomes weighed down.

For the passions are mountains hard to carry, in the midst of which are rivers of dragons and of venomous beasts and reptiles.

Just as if there were a sea-monster and it should swallow a man down into its belly, so also sin swallows down souls.

They are flames of fire that burn, and fiery darts of the evil one;

[and prayer is given] that we may be able to quench the fiery darts of the evil one.

For the evil has been bred in and firmly established about the soul.

But the prudent, when the passions rise up, do not obey, but are angry at the evil desires and become enemies of themselves.

For Satan greatly wishes to rest upon the soul and to spread himself out, and he is afflicted and straitened when the soul does not obey.

But there are some who are held fast by divine power, so that even if they should see a young man with a woman, although they reason about something, yet their mind is not defiled, nor do they commit sin within;

yet it is not for such a one even now to be over-confident.

But there are others, in whom [the passion] has been completely stilled and quenched and dried up;

but these are the measures of the great.

Just as merchants go down naked into the depth of the sea, into the death of the waters, that they may find there pearls fit to make a royal crown and purple—so also the monks go out naked from the world and go down into the depth of the sea of evil and into the abyss of darkness, and from the depths they take and bring up precious stones that go to make a crown for Christ, for the heavenly Church, for a new age and a city of light and an angelic assembly.

Just as in the dragnet many kinds of fish fall in, and the more useless ones they at once cast back again into the sea—so also the dragnet of grace is spread over all and seeks to give rest, but people do not obey;

and therefore they are cast down again into that same pit of darkness.

For just as gold is found washed out from much sand, and these but as tiny as millet-grains, so also from among many, few are approved.

For those who have the work of the kingdom are manifest, and those who adorn their word are apparent;

and likewise those who are seasoned with the heavenly salt are apparent, and those who speak out of the treasures of the Spirit;

the vessels are apparent in which God takes pleasure and gives His own grace.

And others receive the sanctifying power with much patience, according as the Lord wills, in many ways.

The one who speaks, then, unless he is guided by heavenly light and wisdom, cannot give full assurance to the mind of each, since there are many dispositions—some in warfare, others in rest.

Just as when a city is laid waste, and someone wishes to rebuild it, he at once casts down completely the parts that have fallen in ruins, and so he begins to dig and in the excavation to lay the foundations and to put forward the building, and as yet there is no house;

for God said to man:

'Thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth to you.'

There is need, then, of toil and much labor, that one may seek and lay down the foundation, until fire comes into the hearts of people and begins to clear away the thorns;

and so they begin to be sanctified, glorifying the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unto the ages.

All intelligent beings—I mean of angels and souls and demons—were created by the Creator pure and most simple.

But the turning of some of them toward evil came to them from free will;

for by their own will they turned aside from right reasoning.

But if we say that they were thus created so by the Creator, we make God out to be an unjust judge in sending Satan into the fire.

For there are certain of the heretics who speak of unoriginate matter, and matter as a root, and a root that is a power and equal in power [to God].

Against this, then, you may reasonably set the objection: What, after all, is the conquering power? It must necessarily be that of God;

thereafter the one who is defeated is no longer coeval or equal in power.

Those who say that evil has its own substance know nothing.

For to God there is no evil having substance, according to His impassibility and divinity;

but to us it is something that works in every power and faculty, suggesting all filthy desires.

It is not mixed in, however, in the way that some speak of the mixing of wine and water, but it is as wheat is by itself in one place and the tares by themselves;

as in a house the robber is by himself and the master of the house by himself.

There is a spring flowing with pure water, and beneath it lies mire;

when one stirs up the mire, the whole spring is made turbid.

So also the soul, when it is troubled, becomes turbid and is blended with evil, and Satan becomes one thing with the soul (both being spirits), in respect to fornication or murder;

and for this reason 'he that is joined to a harlot is one body.'

Yet at another hour the soul is by itself, subsisting in itself, repenting of what it did, and it weeps and prays and remembers God.

For if the soul were always sunk in evil, how could it do these things, since Satan never wishes people to come to repentance? For he is without compassion.

And the wife too, in respect to her agreeing with her husband, is one with him;

but at another hour they are separated, since often one of them dies and the other lives.

Something of this kind holds also in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

For 'he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.'

And this happens when a person is swallowed up in that very grace.

But there are some who have a taste of God, yet are still worked upon by the adversary, and they are bewildered, being inexperienced;

for after the visitation of God, thoughts are at work against the mysteries of Christianity;

but those who have grown old in these things are not bewildered.

And just as experienced farmers, out of much familiarity, when there is a good harvest, are not entirely free of care, but expect both famine and hardship; nor again, when famine or hardship overtakes them, do they utterly despair, since they recognize the change—so also in the spiritual realm.

When the soul falls into various trials, it is neither bewildered nor does it despair, since it knows that by [God's] permission it is allowed to be tested and disciplined by evil;

nor again, when it is in much wealth and rest, is it free from care, but it expects the change.

And the sun too, being a body and a created thing, when it shines down upon foul places where there is mire and filth, is in no way harmed or defiled—how much more is the pure and holy Spirit, while present with the soul that is still worked upon by the evil one, in no way involved in any of these things;

And so, when a person is deep [in grace] and rich in grace, there is still a remnant of evil with him, [yet] he has the Helper aiding him.

When, therefore, one is in afflictions and in the surging waves of the passions, he ought not to despair;

for in this way sin all the more grows thick and enters in.

But when one always has the hope of God, then, as it were, the evil is thinned out and watered down.

That some, then, are paralyzed or maimed, feverish and ailing—this came about from sin;

for sin is the root of all evils, and the passions of the soul's desires and the evil thoughts are from it.

Just as if there were a flowing spring that kept the surrounding places moist and damp, but when heat comes, both it and the places nearest to it dry up—so also among the servants of God, in those in whom grace abounds, it dries up the desire of the evil one, and likewise the natural desire, since now the people of God become greater than the first Adam.

God is uncircumscribed and incomprehensible, manifesting Himself everywhere—both in the mountains and in the sea and beneath the abyss—and not by movement, as the angels do who come down from heaven to the earth;

for He is in heaven and He is here.

[You ask:] How can God be in Gehenna, or how can He be in the darkness, or in Satan, or in places where there is stench? I answer you, in turn, that He is impassible and contains all things;

for He is uncircumscribed, and Satan, being His creature, is bound by Him.

And the Good is neither defiled nor darkened.

But if you say that He does not contain all things, including Gehenna and Satan, you make Him circumscribed to that place in which the evil one is, so that we should have to seek another higher than He;

for it is necessary that God be everywhere.

But because of the mystery of the Godhead and its subtlety, the darkness, though contained in Him, does not lay hold of Him, nor can the evil partake of His purity, even though it is in Him.

To God, therefore, there is no evil having substance, since nothing wrongs Him.

But to us there is evil, in that it dwells in the heart and works, suggesting wicked and filthy thoughts and not allowing us to pray purely, but taking the mind captive into this age.

It has clothed itself, then, in the souls, and has touched even the very bones and marrow.

Just as Satan is in the air, and God being present there is in no way wronged, so also sin is in the soul;

and likewise the grace of God is present too, in no way being wronged.

Just as if a servant were near his master—being always closest to him, he is under fear, doing nothing apart from him—so also we ought to lay open and make manifest our thoughts to our Master Christ, the Knower of hearts, and to have our hope and confidence upon Him, that He is my wealth and He is my father, He is my glory.

Always, then, in your conscience you ought to have this concern and this fear.

But if anyone does not have the grace of God planted and fixed in himself—so as to be, night and day, as something natural cleaving to the soul, hour by hour guiding him, awakening him, and setting him upright toward the good—let him at least have this concern, this fear, this labor as something natural and unchanging, the contrition of heart ever fixed.

And just as a bee secretly fashions its honeycomb within the hive, so also grace secretly works its own love in the hearts and changes them from bitterness to sweetness, from roughness to smoothness.

And just as a silversmith and engraver, engraving a dish, covers a part of what he engraves with various little figures;

for those who wish to make vessels and to work in little figures first model them in wax, and so they cast [the metal] in the likeness of that, that the work may be completed according to that pattern—so also sin, being a spirit, has an image and is transformed into many shapes.

Likewise the inner man too is a kind of figure, having an image and a form;

for the inner man is a likeness of the outer.

Great, therefore, and precious is the vessel, since out of all created things the Lord took pleasure there.

And the good thoughts of the soul are like precious stones and pearls, but the unclean thoughts are full of dead men's bones and of all impurity and stench.

Christians, then, are of another age, sons of the heavenly Adam, a new offspring, children of the Holy Spirit, shining brethren of Christ, like their father, the spiritual and luminous Adam—of that city, of that race, of that power.

They are not of this world, but are of another world;

'You are not of this world, [even as] I am not of this world.'

But just as a merchant, setting out from many lodging-places and multiplying his trade, sends ahead to his own people that houses, gardens, and necessary garments may be made ready for him;

and when he returns to his own, then he brings back much wealth, and with great joy his own people and kinsfolk receive him—so too in spiritual things.

If any trade in the heavenly wealth, their fellow-citizens know it—that is, the spirits of the saints and of the angels—and they marvel, saying:

'Into great wealth have our brethren on the earth entered.'

Having, then, the Lord with them at their departure, these come with great joy to those above, and there the Lord's own receive them, having made ready for them houses and gardens and garments all-resplendent and costly.

There is need, then, of vigilance in all things, lest even the things we seem to have as good turn out to our harm.

For even those who are good-natured by disposition, if they are not on their guard, are little by little dragged down through that very goodness; and those who have wisdom are robbed through that very wisdom.

A person must, therefore, be well blended in all his parts—the kind disposition with severity, wisdom with discernment, word with deed—putting his whole trust upon the Lord and not upon himself.

For virtue is seasoned through many ingredients, just as some necessary dish is seasoned by spiced sauce or some other thing—and this not only by honey but also by pepper—and so it is found useful.

Those who say that there is no sin in man are like people submerged under a flood of many waters, yet not confessing this, but saying [that they are not];

so they too, submerged by the depth of the waves of evil, do not say that sin is in their mind and thoughts.

There are others, then, who have a word and speak it, but are not seasoned with the heavenly salt, and they discourse about a royal table though they have eaten or acquired nothing;

but another is the one who has beheld the king himself, and the treasures being opened to him, has entered in and inherited and eaten and drunk of those costly dishes.

Just as if a mother had an only son, most comely, wise, adorned with all good things, on whom she has set all her hopes;

and if it should happen that he is buried by her, thereupon there comes upon her unceasing pain and inconsolable mourning—so also the mind, since the soul has died to God, ought to take up mourning and tears, unceasing pain, to have a contrite heart, to be under fear and concern, and to have, moreover, the hunger and thirst for the good always.

Just as if someone, having fallen into many liabilities and losses, should with much toil escape, and afterward find great abundance and much substance, and no longer fear loss because of the wealth that has grown great—so also the spiritual ones, having first passed through many trials and fearful places, then being filled with grace and replete with good things, no longer fear those who wish to despoil them, since their wealth is not small.

Yet they too have fear—not that of beginners who are afraid of the wicked spirits, but a fear and concern as to how they will administer the spiritual gifts of grace entrusted to them.

And such a one counts himself of less worth than all sinners and disorderly people; and the more he is in the abyss of the grace of light, the more he holds himself poor and destitute in all things beyond all sinners, and has this thought implanted in himself as something natural; and the more he enters into the knowledge of God, the more he counts himself an ignoramus, and the more he learns, the more he is as one knowing nothing.

And these things grace, ministering as something natural, works in the soul.

Just as if a little child were carried by a young man, and the one carrying it bears it about wherever he wishes—so also grace, working in the depths, bears the mind and carries it up to the heavens, to the perfect world, to the eternal rest.

And in grace itself, too, there are measures and dignities.

One is the general who has free access to the king, and another is the governor.

Just as a house full of smoke overflows it even into the air outside, so also in the soul that is replete, the evil overflows outwardly and produces fruits.

As those entrusted with the offices of a prefecture or with royal treasuries are all the time in concern lest they offend the king, so also those entrusted with spiritual work are ever in concern, and though they have rest, it is as though they were not at rest.

For the kingdom of darkness that has entered into the city—that is, the soul—and the barbarians that hold its pastures fast are driven out of it.

For Christ the King sends [forces] for the vindication of the city and binds the tyrants, and there He settles a heavenly soldiery and an array of holy spirits, as in His own fatherland.

And thereupon the sun shines in the heart, and its rays run through all the members, and there is then a deep peace reigning there.

But the struggle of a person, and his contest and testing and goodwill toward God, then appear, when, as grace withdraws itself, he plays the man and cries out to God.

But you, hearing that there are rivers of dragons and mouths of lions and dark powers under heaven and fire blazing and seething in the members, count it as nothing, not knowing that unless you receive the pledge of the Holy Spirit, then, when you go out of the body, they hold your soul fast, not allowing you to ascend into the heavens. Likewise, when you hear about the dignity of the soul, how precious the intelligent substance is, you do not understand that it was not concerning angels but concerning human nature that He said:

'Let us make [man] according to our image and likeness'; and that heaven and earth pass away, but you were called to immortality, to adoption as sons, to brotherhood, to be the bride of the King? For among visible things all that belongs to the bridegroom belongs to the bride, and all that is the Lord's, however much it is, He entrusts to you.

For He came in His own person for your intercession, that He might call you back.

And do you not perceive, nor have you understood your nobility? Justly does the Spirit-bearer mourn over your fall, saying:

'Man, being in honor, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts and is made like to them.'

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

The perfect Christians, who have been counted worthy to come to the measures of perfection and to become nearest to the King, these are always consecrated to the cross of Christ.

For just as among the prophets the anointing was the most honored of all, since they were anointed unto kings and prophets, so now the spiritual ones, anointed with the heavenly anointing, become christs according to grace, so that they are kings and prophets of heavenly mysteries.

These are both sons and lords and gods, bound, taken captive, plunged in the depths, crucified, consecrated.

For if the anointing of oil, which was from a visible plant and a visible tree, had such great power that those anointed received dignity beyond all dispute (for it was confirmed, so as to establish them as kings)—

These, anointed from the tree of life, Jesus Christ, from the heavenly plant, are counted worthy to come to the measures of perfection—I mean of the kingdom and of the adoption as sons—being fellow-initiates of the heavenly King, having free access to the Almighty, entering into His palace (where are the angels and the spirits of the saints), and that while still being in this world.

For though they have not yet received the perfect inheritance prepared for them in that age, they are made secure by the pledge which they have now received, as though already crowned and reigning; and they are not bewildered at being about to reign together with Christ, at the increase and coming of the Spirit.

Why? Because, while still being in the flesh, they had that relish of the sweetness and that working of the power.

For just as when someone is a friend of the king, frequenting the palace, knowing the mysteries and beholding his purple, and it should come to pass that this one becomes king and is crowned, he is not bewildered nor terrified, since over a long time he was trained in the mysteries of the palace (for it is not permitted for any of the common, ignorant, and stranger to the mystery to enter in and reign, but only the experienced and instructed)—so also Christians who are about to reign in that age are not bewildered, having already foreknown the mysteries of grace.

For since man transgressed the commandment, the devil covered the whole soul with a dark covering;

thereupon, then, grace comes and strips off the whole covering, so that thereafter the soul, having become pure and recovered its own nature—the blameless and pure creature—may henceforth always behold purely, with pure eyes, the glory of the true light, and the true Sun of righteousness flashing forth in the heart itself.

For just as at the consummation, when the firmament is taken away, the righteous henceforth dwell in the kingdom and the light and the glory, seeing nothing else than as Christ is in glory, always at the right hand of the Father—so also these, from now on caught up and taken captive into that age, behold all the beauties and the wonders there.

For we, while being on earth, have our citizenship in the heavens, having in that world our conduct and manner of life according to the mind and the inner man.

[The soul is the bride] of Christ and is together with the Lord night and day, just as the body of the Lord, united to the Godhead, is always together with the Holy Spirit.

But people do not attain to these measures all at once, except through toil and affliction and much struggle.

For there are some in whom grace is present, working and giving rest, but evil is also present within, and the two ways of life are at work in one heart—that of light and that of darkness.

[You may object:] 'What fellowship has light with darkness? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?' I answer you, in turn, the same:

For what fellowship has light with darkness? Or where is the divine light overshadowed or made turbid? And where is the undefiled and pure thing defiled? For it is written:

'And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not lay hold of it.'

Matters, then, must not be understood in a single way, nor one-sidedly.

For some find rest in the grace of God to such a degree that they become braver than the evil that is present with them, and having prayer and much rest toward God, at another hour they are worked upon by wicked thoughts and are robbed by sin, while still being in the grace of God;

but the light-minded and ignorant, when grace works in them in part, suppose that sin no longer exists.

But those who have discernment and are prudent do not dare to deny that, even having the grace of God, we are worked upon by shameful and filthy thoughts.

For we have often found among the brethren that some found such joy and grace that for five or six years they said that desire had dried up;