And thus the one man so far surpasses and outstrips the brother who entered together with him, as a man running freely outstrips one who is held fast in bonds and iron fetters;
but the other is defeated and remains in his former evils, or even in worse ones, because he was unwilling of his own accord to choose and to do the good by entering in and taking up the contests of virtue.
For this reason, therefore, as I said before, compunction is the fruit of labor and the bringer of fruits; or rather it is itself the maker and craftsman of all the virtues, as all God-inspired Scripture bears witness.
Therefore he who wishes to cut off the passions or to acquire the virtues ought diligently to seek this above all good things and together with all the virtues.
For without water it is impossible to wash out a soiled garment, and without tears it is even more impossible to wash and cleanse the soul of its stains and defilements.
Let us not make excuses that are harmful to the soul and vain, or rather, to speak truly, wholly false and procurers of destruction; but let us seek with our whole soul this queen of the virtues.
or rather, it comes and finds the one who painstakingly seeks it, and even if he has a heart harder than bronze or iron or adamant, as soon as it comes it renders that heart softer than any wax.
For it is a divine fire, dissolving mountains and rocks, making all things smooth and transforming them into paradises, and altering the souls that receive it;
and not only this, but like a flame running about, it little by little makes them vanish, burning them up hour by hour as though they were thorns, and consuming them utterly;
and first it instills a longing for the perfect liberation and cleansing from these things, and then also for the good things that are stored up and prepared by God for those who love Him.
For no one will demonstrate from the divine Scriptures that anyone among men was ever cleansed apart from tears and continual compunction, or became holy, or received the Holy Spirit, or beheld God, or knew Him dwelling within, or ever had Him at all as an indweller in his heart, without repentance and compunction having gone before, and without continual tears ever gushing forth as from a fountain—tears that plainly flood and wash out the house of the soul, and bedew and refresh the soul that is held fast and consumed by the unapproachable fire.
Those, then, who say that it is impossible to mourn and weep every night and day testify against themselves that they are stripped bare of every virtue.
'He who wishes to cut off the passions cuts them off by weeping, and he who wishes to acquire the virtues acquires them by weeping,' it is evident that he who does not weep every day neither cuts off the passions nor accomplishes the virtues, even though he thinks, as he supposes, that he is practicing them all.
For tell me, what use are the tools of the craft when the craftsman is not present—he who knows how to handle the material and to make of it a fitting vessel?
And what does it profit the gardener if he cultivates the whole garden and sows and plants in it every kind of vegetable, but no rain descends from above upon them, or there is no watering of it with water?
So too neither will he who practices the other virtues and toils in them profit anything apart from this holy and blessed mistress and craftsman of all the virtues.
For just as a king without the army under him becomes weak and easily overcome by all, and does not even appear as a king but is as one of the rest of men; and likewise the multitudes of troops and camps, without a king or their commander-in-chief, are easily scattered and made to vanish by their adversaries; so consider mourning to be in relation to the remaining virtues.
For understand the camp gathered together in one place to be all the virtues of beginners, and their king and general to be blessed mourning and weeping, through which the whole camp is set in battle array and drawn up for the fight—being made eager, anointed, strengthened, and taught to take up arms, and well appointed as to where and how and when and against what sort of adversary, and at what time and times; and which scouts to send out and what kind of guards to post, and what and to whom one must reply to those sent by the adversaries—for it is possible even by conversation alone to rout them all, and sometimes even by not admitting them to any encounter at all—and how too to lay ambushes and set snares, that is, hidden traps, against them, and when and which men of the camp to send out for this and in what places: it is mourning itself, I say, that clearly directs all this;
1:513
ἄνευδέτούτουὁλαόςτῶνἀρετῶνἅπαςεὐχείρωτος
但若沒有它,美德的全體百姓就容易被制伏。
but without this, the whole people of the virtues is easily overcome.
for neither is there weeping apart from repentance, nor tears apart from weeping, but these three are bound to one another, and it is not possible for the one to appear without the other.
1:516
Μήοὖνλέγῃτιςἀδύνατονεἶναιτόκαθἑκάστηνκλαίειν·
因此,誰也不可說「天天哭泣是不可能的」;
Let no one, then, say that it is impossible to weep every day;
for he who says this says that it is also impossible to repent every day, and overturns all the divine Scriptures—not to mention the very commandment of the Lord which says:
For if God both said and says and daily cries out that all these things can come to pass in us as things possible, but you contradict Him to the contrary, saying that they are impossible for us and not possible, then assuredly you differ in nothing from the unbelievers.
'If I go up,' he says, 'upon the couch of my bed, if I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob'; and again:
I am afflicted and brought very low; I roared by reason of the groaning of my heart, and I became like a lonely sparrow upon a housetop; I was likened to a pelican of the wilderness, for I ate ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping.'
If, then, you too pass through these things which you daily chant and read, or hear as others read them, without omission, in your whole heart with humility and faith, amen, I bring you the good news of great joy: that if you persevere in doing these things—thirsting, keeping vigil, being subject unto death, obeying without hesitation and without pretense the one set over you, bearing every affliction and insult and abuse and slander, and moreover even blows and outrages from your more worthless brethren, disposing yourself toward them in all thanksgiving without remembrance of wrongs, and praying on their behalf—then rejoice and exult with joy unspeakable, because not only in the evening and morning and midday, but also while you are eating and drinking and often conversing, chanting and reading and praying, and while you are reclining upon your bed, this divine and unspeakable gift, coming, will pursue you all the days of your life and will journey with you on the way, and will lodge with you when you lodge, and will serve alongside you when you serve, consoling and comforting the pains that come from your labor.
And then you will know how very fittingly and rightly Saint Symeon said that no one should commune without tears, and that this is possible and in truth suitable for all.
For if no one is without sin, not even if his life be a single day, and no one is able to have a pure heart, it is evident that without repentance and tears a man ought not to pass even one single day in his whole life;
But if one is unwilling to sleep on the ground and to keep vigil, reckoning up the multitude of his sins and the weight of his transgressions, and will not endure to set right the wounds—stinking and rotted through negligence and contempt—of his passionate desire and of his preconceptions that lead him into insensibility (for this is truly foolishness), how shall he come to a consciousness of the coming condemnation and judgment of sinners, and weep in the pain of his heart?
If one is unwilling to suffer hardship by being brought low and bowed down to the end, and to walk mournful all the day long, being afflicted and humbled exceedingly, and to roar by reason of the groaning of his heart, and to become like a lonely sparrow upon a housetop and to be likened to a pelican of the wilderness—by a disposition of soul becoming a stranger to all who are in the monastery and to those in the world, and reserved toward great and small alike; laboring in groaning and eating his bread like ashes and mingling his drink with weeping—how, brethren, will he ever be able either to wash his bed every night or to bedew his couch with tears?
Truly, never in any way. Not only will he never behold these things having come to pass in himself, but he will not even find them in his prayer, nor will he be able to prepare a place for the Lord, nor a dwelling worthy of the God of Jacob, who is Christ the Lord, our Savior and God.
But if he does not first prepare these things well, then plainly, not communing with tears nor worthily and as one ought, he will not receive within himself the King and God, even if he should do this once a year.
For 'the holy things for the holy'—this some proclaim daily and preach to others, crying it aloud to them (and would that they cried it to themselves as well!), while others hear those who say it.
No, but he who does not daily declare the hidden things of his heart, who does not display worthy repentance for these and for the things done in ignorance, who does not always mourn and walk about mournful and does not diligently pursue the aforesaid things—this man is not worthy.
But he who does all these things and passes his life in groanings and tears is exceedingly worthy—not on a feast day only, but every single day, from the very beginning, if it be bold to say so, of his repentance and conversion—to become a partaker of these divine mysteries.
For such a man is pardonable, inasmuch as he is going to persevere in these and suchlike works unto the end, journeying in humility and with a contrite heart.
For acting thus and being thus disposed, he is enlightened in his soul day by day, being helped by the partaking of the holy things, and is more speedily raised up to perfect purity and holiness.
For he who eats and drinks the body of the Lord unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself'; and again: 'He who eats unworthily the body and blood of the Lord shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, not discerning the body of the Lord.'
1:550
ὅσοντόἐπαὐτῷ, τῶνμυστηρίωνμεταλαβεῖν;
就他自己而言,該當如何有分於這些奧秘呢?
so far as it rests with him, to partake of the mysteries?
For these are the first fruit of repentance; and just as the abominable flux of the body and the, as it were, pleasure-mingled union of the heart with every passion is offered by us to the devil as a kind of sacrifice, so the tears that pour forth from that same soul are again offered to the Master as an acceptable sacrifice, and cleanse away the shame of that passionate pleasure; and David, showing this, said:
for when our soul has come into such a habitual state and is thus daily humbled, it never passes a single day without tears, according to David who said:
For this reason, therefore, I exhort you also, my fathers and brethren, let each one diligently exercise his own soul in these and suchlike works; and that soul, being pricked with compunction and little by little transformed, becomes a fountain gushing up rivers of tears and compunction.
But if we do not thus strive to become clean, but rather choose to walk in negligence and sloth and slackness, I for my part will say nothing burdensome, out of sparing regard for your love—except only this: that even if it should ever chance that someone communes perhaps with tears, that is, weeps either before the liturgy or during the divine liturgy or even at the very moment of partaking of the divine things, but is not eager to do this the rest of the days and nights, there will be for him no benefit from that once-only weeping.
For it is not this alone that at once makes us worthy by cleansing us, but rather to mourn daily and unceasingly unto death, as the Master Himself commanded us to do, saying: 'Repent,' and 'Ask and seek and knock.'
1:556
Ἕωςοὗλήψεσθε, φησί, καίεὑρήσετεκαίἀνοιγήσεταιὑμῖν
祂說:「直等你們得著、尋見,並且門為你們開了。」
'Until you receive,' He says, 'and find, and it be opened to you.'
For this repentance—thus performed without omission, as we have said, unto death with toil and affliction—makes us little by little pour forth bitter tears, through which it wipes away and cleanses the filth and defilement of the soul;
and after these things it produces in us pure repentance and changes the bitter tears into sweet ones, and begets everlasting joy in our hearts, and procures for us the sight of the unsetting radiance. And if we do not strive with all diligence to attain this, spiritual fathers and brethren, we shall neither be perfectly delivered from all the passions, nor acquire all the virtues, nor ever be able worthily or with godly tears to partake daily of the divine mysteries, nor to behold the divine light that dwells within them.
But we shall never have a pure heart, nor will the Holy Spirit dwell knowably within us, nor shall we be counted worthy to see God, as the saints did, neither while we are here—nor there, I think, having departed blind; but as Gregory the Theologian says, we shall fall short of that vision to the same degree, according to the proportion of the dimness of sight that each of us has from this present life, as we have willingly deprived ourselves of His light in the present life.
Tell me, from what source or in what manner shall it be lit that must give me light, so that then, having made ready and radiant, we may go forth with shining lamps to meet the Bridegroom?
If, then, while we sit and dwell in the tombs, the trumpet's blast rouses us from sleep, and unless we have our souls kindled beforehand from here like lamps already lit, but they be found either not shining at all or giving but a little, feeble light and, according to the Gospel word, about to go out at any moment, where shall we then find means either to rekindle those wholly extinguished, or to add a little to those going out for lack of oil?
Therefore let us be zealous from this moment already to kindle these lamps brightly, through repentance together with tears, so that at the resurrection we, being radiant, may radiantly go forth to meet the Bridegroom, and enter in with him into the kingdom of heaven, and enjoy the eternal good things; which may it be granted to us all to attain in Christ himself our God, to whom belong all glory, honour and worship unto the ages of ages.
And that the mere distribution of our possessions and the stripping away of these very things does not suffice for the cleansing of the soul, unless we also acquire mourning.
'We must all appear 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.'
'I thank God that I have not defiled any member of my body in any wicked deed'—which I, for my part, am not able to say, being the worker of all lawlessness!
But the Master speaks against this and tells the parable of the ten virgins, and shows to us all and declares that we derive no benefit from the purity of the body if the other virtues are not present in us.
Because it is not possible for us to become and to be holy in a single hour; for we must begin from small things and, by progress, be led up into holiness and purity;
1:590
ὡςἀρχήνβάλοντες, ὀφείλομενἐναὐτῇἀγωνίζεσθαι·
既已立下開端,我們就當在其中竭力奮鬥;
so that, having laid a beginning, we ought to strive in it;
1:591
καίτοῦτοαὐτόςπάλινἐδήλωσενοὕτωςεἰπών·
這事他自己又這樣說明了:
and this he himself again made plain, saying thus:
1:592
Διώκωδέεἰκαίκαταλάβω, ἐφᾧκαίκατελήφθην
「我竭力追求,或者可以得著基督耶穌所以得著我的。」
'I press on, if I may also lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of.'
Therefore, my brethren, give heed, I beseech you, and hear the words of your brother, who is least and a sinner, and come, let us worship and fall down before our good and man-loving God.
Let us come before his face with confession, and let us weep before him who made us; for he is the Lord our God, and we are his people and the sheep of his pasture, and he will not turn his face away from us.
1:595
Διαρρήξατε, φησί, τάςκαρδίαςὑμῶνκαίμήτάἱμάτιαὑμῶν
祂說:「你們要撕裂心腸,不要撕裂衣服。」
'Rend,' he says, 'your hearts and not your garments.'
And what, if in practice we do not commit bodily sin, but in the mind consort with shameful and unclean thoughts and secretly fulfil the sin, and are ruled and mastered by the ungovernable passions of the soul?
Let us cast off, I beseech you, together with our riches and the aforesaid evils, our habitual bondage; and let us not stop there, but let us also with tears of repentance diligently wash away their filth.
For just as when the king himself, wearing the diadem and the purple of his kingship, possessing treasures of measureless gold and silver, and seated upon a lofty and elevated throne, should willingly take mire and soot from somewhere and, smearing his whole face together with his very hands, should stop up all his senses, so that he could neither see nor hear nor smell; and then, having repented and seeking release from this evil, should not swiftly enter into his chamber and wash off with much water that mire and soot, and thus, cleansed again as before, sit upon the throne of his kingdom—but instead of this should only scatter all his treasures to the poor and give over to them his whole movable and immovable substance—he would gain nothing thereby, not having washed off the soot and mire with water, but would even become a laughing-stock to those who behold him, wandering here and there like a bogey in the midst of the senate; so likewise no other man will profit himself by distributing all his possessions to the poor, and taking on complete poverty and destitution, if he has not abstained from evil, nor cleansed his soul through repentance and tears.
For every man who has sinned as I, the condemned, have, and who has stopped up the senses of his soul with the mire of pleasures—even if he has distributed all his substance to the poor, and has forsaken all glory of rank and the splendour of houses and horses, of flocks and herds and slaves, and all his own kinsfolk and friends and relatives, and, become poor and possessionless, has entered into the monastic habit—yet he needs, as things necessary to his life, the tears of repentance, so that he may wash off the mire of his sins; and all the more if, like me, he still carries about the soot and mire of his many evils, not only on his face and hands, but altogether over his whole body.
For the mere distribution of our possessions does not suffice us for the cleansing of the soul, unless we also weep and lament from the soul, brethren.
...if I do not cleanse away the defilement of my sins, but depart from this life defiled, I shall justly be mocked both by God and by his angels, and shall be cast out with the demons into the eternal fire.
For we brought nothing into the world, that, having sinned, we might give it to God as a ransom for our sins. 'For what,' says the Apostle, 'shall a man give to God, that it may be repaid to him?' This is right judgment; this is just and true humility.
1:605
Μήνομίσητεὅτιἦλθονκαταλῦσαιτόννόμονἤτούςπροφήτας·
「莫想我來要廢掉律法或先知;
'Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets;
Now this is the fulfilment of the law: that a man should not justify himself in anything, nor avenge himself, but should lie exposed to all men in all things as one dead, so that whatever they may do to him he should not be moved at all, nor, being troubled, contradict them, but should abide solely in the commandments of God and in keeping his ordinances, like a lion or another gigantic Samson, or some other, whether one who lived before or one now living, who is even more valiant than he.
It is therefore possible, brethren, for all—not only for monks but also for laymen—always and unceasingly to repent and to weep and to entreat God, and through such deeds to acquire also all the remaining virtues.
And that this is true is witnessed to me also by John of the golden mouth, that great pillar and teacher of the Church, who, in expounding the fiftieth Psalm concerning David, says that it is possible for a man who has a wife and children and maidservants and a multitude of household servants and much substance, and who is engaged in the affairs of this life, not only to be able to do this—to weep daily and to pray and to repent—but also, if he so wills, to attain to the perfection of virtue and to receive the Holy Spirit and to become a friend of God and to enjoy the vision of him; such as were, even before the coming of Christ, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Lot in Sodom, and—to pass over the many others—Moses and David; and in the new grace and manifestation of God and our Saviour, Peter the fisherman and unlettered man, together with his mother-in-law and the others, preaching the God who had appeared.
And who could count the others, more numerous than the drops of rain and than the stars of heaven—kings, rulers, and potentates—not to speak of the poor and those who lived in self-sufficiency—whose cities and houses and the sanctuaries of the churches, which those men munificently raised up, and whose homes for the aged and hostels for strangers are preserved and remain to this day? These things those men, while living, possessed and used piously, not as their own, but as servants of the master administering the things given to them by the master, and as it seemed good to him—using the world, according to the word of Paul, yet not abusing it.
For this cause, both in the present life they became renowned and illustrious, and now and unto the endless ages, in the kingdom of God, they shall become men yet more renowned and more illustrious.
And if we were not slothful and negligent and despisers of the commandments of God, but zealous and awake and watchful, we would have no need at all of renunciation, or of tonsure, or of flight from the world.
By no means, in no way at all; rather, all the more, had he remained giving thanks to God who made him and gave him all things, he would have prospered.