The Christian’s Relation to His Passions (Part 1)

A certain great ascetic said: “One must bear one’s own failings just as one bears the failings of others, and be indulgent toward one’s soul in its weaknesses and imperfections. At the same time one must not give way to negligence: one must take diligent care for one’s own correction and improvement.”[1]

“Do not be troubled, do not fall into bewilderment,” said a certain holy Father, “when you see within yourself the workings of some passion. When a passion rises up, struggle against it;[2] strive to curb and uproot it through humility and prayer.”

Disturbance and bewilderment at the manifest workings of a passion is proof that a person has not come to know himself.[3]

In the light of God’s Word, let us examine our relationship to our passions and weaknesses, so as to obtain a correct understanding of ourselves, and, on the basis of that correct understanding, to govern ourselves rightly.

A person is conceived in iniquities and born in sins (Ps. 50:7): consequently, the passions—those sinful infirmities of soul and body—are proper to our fallen nature.

The passions are contrary to our blameless nature as it was created; they are contrary to the renewed nature as well; they are natural to fallen nature. Just as every bodily disease has the properties of that disease, just as illness and death are natural to our body which has lost immortality and the qualities of immortality—so it is with the passions. Before the fall, immortality was natural to our body; illness and death were unnatural.

The passions are otherwise called “sin” in the broad sense of that word. When the Apostle speaks of “sin that dwells in a person” (Rom. 7:14, 7:20), he understands by the word “sin” the corruption of the whole of human nature by evil—he means the passions. This state is also called the “carnal” state (Rom. 7:14, 8:8) and “death” (Rom. 7:24, 8:2).

Before the redemption of our race by the Saviour, a person could not resist the passions even if he wished to: they carried him off by force; they held dominion over him against his will. A Christian, through holy Baptism, casts off the yoke of the passions; he receives the strength and the ability to resist and trample them down.[4] Yet even to the redeemed person—renewed and placed in the spiritual paradise, the Church—freedom is granted: of his own free will he may either resist the passions and conquer them in the Lord, or submit and be enslaved to them. So too in the physical paradise, the choice was left to the first-created person whether to obey the commandment of God or to transgress it.

Every act of resistance to the demand of a passion weakens it; constant resistance overthrows it. Every surrender to a passion strengthens it; constant surrender to a passion enslaves to that passion the one who yields to it.

A Christian’s resistance to the passions must extend to the crucifying of “the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24); in chosen spiritual athletes it must extend even to the shedding of blood:[5] give blood and receive the Spirit. Only one who “has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1Pet. 4:1). This means: only one who suffers bodily—whether in voluntary or involuntary ascetic struggles—is capable of withstanding the sinful desires of the flesh, of suppressing and silencing them within himself. A body that is comforted and pampered with varied luxury and indulgence is a dwelling-place of the passions.

The God-man who suffered and was crucified for us requires of his disciples and followers that they imitate his sufferings, that they sacrifice all that is temporal for the eternal, the corruptible for the incorruptible, and that they be disciples and followers of the God-man in their very life.

Ascetic struggle is necessary for a Christian; yet it is not the struggle that frees a Christian from the dominion of the passions—it is the right hand of the Most High that frees him, it is the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Through the mortification and chastening of the flesh, through the labors of piety accompanied by careful observance of the Gospel commandments, true humility is granted to a Christian. True humility consists in complete self-denial, in complete surrender to God, in unceasing service to God. Such humility draws Divine grace into the soul. Divine grace, having overshadowed the soul, imparts to it spiritual sensation—and the passions, those carnal and sinful sensations and inclinations, remain idle.[6]

The working of the passions, which brings delight to the carnal person, is burdensome and tormenting to the spiritual person—it arouses in him the strongest revulsion. At the slightest appearance or stirring of a passion, he flees from it as from a fierce and savage beast, as from a murderer; he flees under the shelter of prayer, under the shelter of Gospel teaching, under the shelter of God.

A soul not cultivated by the Gospel commandments, and a body not cultivated by the labors of piety, are unable to be the temple of Divine grace, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The essence of the ascetic struggle lies in the fulfillment of the commandments. One who does not curb his body through labors, fasting, vigils, and standing in prayer—and therefore allows carnal reasoning to hold sway within him, nourishing and sustaining his passions—will not be able to become a fulfiller of the commandments.

Death—death alone—fully frees even God’s saints from the influence of sin upon them. The passions are shameless: they can rise up even in one lying on his deathbed. Even on the deathbed it is impossible to cease from vigilance over oneself. Trust in the dispassion of your body when it lies in the grave.

The passions, dwelling in a Christian and constantly compelling him to remain on guard, constantly calling him into battle, contribute to his spiritual progress. Evil, by the wise ordering of Divine Providence, serves the good through an intention that is not good: this was said by the Venerable Macarius the Great.[7]

A coarse and heavy millstone grinds grains of wheat into flour, making wheat fit for baking into bread. The heavy struggle with the passions grinds the heart of a person, crushes his proud spirit, forces him to acknowledge the state of the fall—laying it bare through experience—compels him to acknowledge the necessity of redemption, destroys all hope in himself, and transfers all hope to the Redeemer.

One must believe that in original sin lies the seed of all the passions, and that we are born with an inclination toward every kind of sin; therefore one must not be surprised at the manifestation and uprising of any passion, as though it were something extraordinary and strange.

According to the properties of soul and body, and the influence of circumstances, in one person one particular passion acts and develops with special force, and in another person a different one: in one there is a noticeable inclination toward avarice, in another toward gluttony; one is drawn away by carnal desire, another by thirst for vain honors. One who is not carried away by some particular passion should not think that passion is absent from him: it simply has not yet had occasion to manifest itself.

One must be constantly ready to oppose all the passions. In particular one must be vigilant against the predominant passion—the one that manifests itself more frequently than the others and troubles a person most of all.

The passions that are proper to fallen nature differ in the greatest degree from the passions that every person acquires voluntarily. The force of the latter is incomparably greater than the force of the former. But repentance, as the all-powerful remedy administered by the all-powerful physician—God—heals with full satisfaction, from all sinful infirmities, the person who wills to use this remedy rightly.

Certain passions serve as the origin and cause of other passions; such are: gluttony, softness, dissipation, luxury, avarice, love of glory, and unbelief. Their consequences are: licentiousness, despondency, anger, remembrance of wrongs, envy, pride, forgetfulness of God, and the abandonment of a virtuous life.

In the spiritual struggle one must arm oneself chiefly against the primary passions: their consequences will be destroyed of themselves. One who has renounced bodily pleasures, human glory, covetousness, and a scattered life will not give himself to anger and despondency, neither will pride nor envy overcome him; he will journey unimpeded along the path of God’s commandments toward salvation, toward the broad knowledge of God that is accessible to those alone who are pure in heart.

The leader of all the passions is unbelief. It opens the entrance into the soul to avarice, ambition, impure desires, anger, despondency, and the fulfillment of all evils—despair.

The leader and door of all true Christian virtues is faith.

The passions live secretly in those who lead a scattered, inattentive life; for the most part they are satisfied by them, for the most part they go unnoticed, for the most part they are justified—and are often recognized as the purest and most exalted virtues.

Only the true Christian—who constantly attends to himself, who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night, who strives to fulfill the Gospel commandments with all diligence—can see his own passions. The more he is cleansed and advances, the more the passions are revealed before him. At last, before the eyes of the mind healed by the Gospel, there opens a fearful abyss—the fall of humanity. A Christian sees in himself the fall of humanity because he sees his own passions. The passions are the sign of that sinful and deadly sickness by which all humanity is stricken.

Into what condition does the sight of his passions and his fall bring a Christian? — It brings him to weeping over himself, to bitter, inconsolable weeping. No earthly joy can stop or interrupt this weeping. Divine grace alone stops it from time to time, imparting to the weeping and torn heart hope of salvation, spiritual rest, and heavenly delight flowing from the peace of Christ.

Into what condition does the disclosure of the workings of the passions bring a Christian? — It rouses him to intensified battle against the passions. The athlete of Christ redoubles his prayers, his fasting, his vigils, his prostrations; and, displaying his distress before God in thought, he intercedes with inexpressible contrition and pain of heart for mercy. “But as for me”, says the Divine David, “when they troubled me, I clothed myself in sackcloth and humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned to my own bosom. I went about mourning and bowed down” (Ps. 34:13–14).

By what are the passions made manifest? — By sinful thoughts, imaginings, and sensations. Thoughts and imaginings sometimes appear to the mind suddenly, sometimes they steal up to it stealthily; and in like manner do sensations arise in the heart and body. Sinful thoughts, imaginings, and sensations draw one toward the actual commission of sin, or at least toward taking delight and being captivated by sinful thoughts, imaginings, and sensations—toward committing sin in imagination and feeling.

The athlete of Christ must renounce not only the commission of sin in deed, but also its commission in imagination and feeling. Every passion is strengthened by taking delight in it, by fulfilling its lawless demands and representations through hidden movements of the soul. A passion, either committed in deed or planted in the soul through long-standing sympathy and nourishment of it, gains dominion over a person. Much time is needed, a bloody struggle is needed, a special mercy of God and special help of God are needed, in order to cast off the yoke of a passion that has been voluntarily accepted, that has gained power over a person—whether from a person’s fall into mortal sin or from criminal, voluntary indulgence in sin in the hidden inner chamber of the soul dedicated to Christ.

It is impossible for the passions that dwell within a person not to manifest themselves in his thoughts, words, and actions. These manifestations of the passions, when accompanied by any kind of being swept away, are called and counted as falls on the path of true Christian asceticism that strives toward perfection.[8] They are healed by immediate repentance.

Such falls are an inalienable property of the oldness of the old Adam—of human nature that has fallen and been infected by sin. In particular, the novice ascetic cannot avoid being swept away by sinful thoughts, imaginings, and sensations; he cannot avoid sinning through sinful thoughts, imaginings, and sensations; he cannot avoid sinning in word and very deed. These sins are healed by immediate repentance.

Nothing is said here of falls into mortal sins, nor of a voluntarily sinful life which is entirely a fall; here we speak of light falls through weakness—called venial sins—from which even the most righteous were not entirely free.

Scripture testifies: “A righteous man falls seven times and rises again” through repentance (Prov. 24:16). In proportion to cleansing through repentance, such being-swept-away diminishes, yet at the same time it becomes more subtle, more imperceptible, and sometimes deceives and beguiles even men filled with Divine grace (1 Chron. 21:1[9]). These being-swept-away keep one from exaltation, serve as the cause of humility, and hold one on the saving pasture of repentance.

Looking upon ourselves from such a knowledge of ourselves, we must preserve inner peace of soul, by no means being troubled or downcast, nor falling into bewilderment when the working of the passions opens within us. Sometimes this working is light; sometimes it is very strong. Let us courageously resist the passions.

They will not cease to rise up and attack us until the grave! And let us prepare ourselves for lifelong resistance to them, in firm conviction that we cannot be constant conquerors of the passions, that by natural necessity we are bound to suffer involuntary defeats, and that these very defeats further our progress when they sustain and intensify within us repentance and the humility born from it.

Let us not trust in our victories over the passions; let us not take delight in these victories. The passions, like the demons that wield them, are cunning: they pretend to be defeated so that we may be exalted, and that, because of our exaltation, their victory over us may be the easier and more decisive.

Let us prepare ourselves to look upon our victories and defeats alike: courageously, calmly, without partiality.

Have you been swept away by sinful fantasies, have you taken delight in sinful thoughts, have you uttered an idle or senseless word, have you eaten too much food, or done something else of this kind?[10] — Do not be troubled, do not be faint-hearted, do not add harm to harm. Repent immediately before God who knows hearts; strive to correct and improve yourself; be convinced of the necessity of the strictest watch over yourself; and, preserving peace of soul, continue on your spiritual path with firmness and perseverance.

Our salvation is God himself, not our own deeds. Through the works of faith—that is, through the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments—we demonstrate the truth of our faith and our fidelity to God.

Pay no attention to the thoughts of false humility which, after you have been swept away and fallen, suggest to you that you have irreparably angered your God, that God has turned his face away from you, abandoned and forgotten you. Know the source of these thoughts by their fruits. Their fruits are: despondency, slackening in the spiritual struggle—and often the abandonment of it entirely, or for a long time.

If even human beings are capable of knowing that on the long and laborious course of spiritual struggle every ascetic must inevitably encounter both victories and defeats, and that our limitedness, weakness, and sinfulness cannot but express themselves in manifestations—all the more does our Creator and the establisher of the struggle, God, know this. With mercy he looks upon the stumblings of his athlete, and for magnanimous constancy and faithfulness he prepares for him a crown of righteousness, victory, and glory.