A Homily on the Various States of Human Nature in Relation to Good and Evil (Part 4)

Those wishing to acquire experiential knowledge of holy Baptism, wishing to open the hidden mystery and the priceless Spiritual Gift placed by the unspeakable goodness of God in the treasure-house of the soul, wishing to behold their nature in the state of renewal and rebirth, wishing to feel and behold in themselves Christ, can achieve all this through repentance. The form of repentance befitting and suitable to a Christian corresponds to the Gift he wishes to reveal in himself: genuine repentance corresponds to the sacrament of Baptism. Through Baptism alone, by God’s unspeakable goodness, is the Gift of God communicated to man: and when a Christian, who has allowed himself after Baptism to engage in the activity and life of fallen nature, who has revived in himself death, who has killed in himself life, seeks restoration through repentance, the Gift is restored solely by God’s goodness. In Baptism we are born of water and Spirit; in repentance we are born again of tears and Spirit. Repentance is the ceaseless weeping of an infant before God over the loss of the Gift, in hope of receiving the Gift again. “I have not kept my vineyard!”—cries out in terrible sorrow the soul that has fallen from the nature renewed by Baptism into the realm of fallen nature, that has lost its freedom, that is compelled by sin; “I tend the goats!”—there are no spiritual feelings and thoughts in me! all the flocks of my feelings and thoughts are worthless! they are goats, as constituting a mixture of good with evil! they are mine, because they are born from my fallen nature! (Song 1:5, 7). The qualities of the renewed nature have been lost by me! Saint Isaac the Syrian, being asked what meditations the ascetic of Christ should constantly occupy himself with in his solitude, answered: “You ask about meditation and about that thought which should ceaselessly occupy a man in his cell, to make him dead? (to the world, that is, to sin)? Does the careful and watchful man need to ask how to conduct himself when he is alone, by himself? What else can be the mental occupation of a monk in his cell but weeping? Does weeping leave him the possibility of turning to other thoughts? What other mental occupation can be better than this? The very place of abode of the monk, his solitude, his manner of dwelling, like dwelling in a tomb, alien to human joy, teaches him that weeping is his activity. The very meaning of his name calls upon him and urges him to weeping; he is called mourning, that is, full of sorrow in his heart. All the saints departed from this life in weeping. If saints wept, and their eyes were ceaselessly filled with tears until the very departure from this life, then who should not weep? Comfort for a monk is born from his weeping. If the perfect and victorious wept here, how can one full of wounds endure ceasing to weep? He who has his dead lying before him and sees himself mortified by sins, does he need teaching—with what kind of thoughts should he shed tears? Your soul is mortified by sins, that which is more precious to you than all the world lies dead before you: does it not need to be wept for? If we enter into silence and remain in it with patience, we can surely remain in weeping. For this reason let us ever pray in mind to the Lord that He grant us weeping. If this gift of grace is granted to us, the best and most excellent of all gifts, then through it we shall enter into purity. When we acquire purity, then this purity will not be taken from us until our departure from this life.” It is evident that such weeping can be born only in one who has clear understanding of the states of fallen nature and nature renewed by Baptism. Only the one who understands the value of the lost Gift can weep bitterly and weep constantly. “Weeping before God,” said Saint John of the Ladder, “is a constant feeling of a grieving heart that has become its own—ceaselessly seeking with rapture what it longs for, pursuing with intensity what it is deprived of, and sobbing heavily in its wake.” The suffering feeling of weeping should constitute the character of the repenting Christian. The cessation of weeping is a sign of self-deception and delusion.[1] Only Christ-imitating humility can console the weeper; only love in Christ can comfort him, can wipe away his tears, can illuminate his face and heart with the light of heavenly joy. Sacrifices and whole offerings from fallen nature are not accepted;[2] the one sacrifice from this nature pleasing to God is: “a broken spirit” (Ps. 50:18–19).

Just as deviation from the state belonging to renewed nature and falling away into the state belonging to fallen nature is accomplished through abandoning the activity belonging to renewed nature—in other words, through abandoning life according to Gospel commandments—and through deviating into the activity belonging to fallen nature: so, conversely, return from the state belonging to fallen nature to the state belonging to renewed nature is accomplished through decisive and complete rejection of activity according to the understanding and will of fallen nature, through decisive and complete acceptance of activity according to the teaching and will of the God-man. In this internal struggle is revealed in man, because the life preceding repentance, according to one’s own will and understanding, deprived man of spiritual freedom, delivered him into bondage to sin and the devil. The repenting one strives to act according to Gospel commandments, while sin and the devil, having received power voluntarily transmitted to them through the preceding manner of life, strive to keep the captive in captivity, in chains, in prison! Experiential knowledge of captivity through the sensation of captivity and violence, experiential knowledge of spiritual death through the sensation of death, strengthen and confirm the weeping of the repenting one. “This struggle,” says the Venerable Mark the Ascetic, “is internal. It is not from without, and it is not with our brethren that we must struggle. It is within us, and no man can assist us in it. We have one helper: Christ mysteriously hidden in us by Baptism, invincible and unable to be overcome (annihilated).[3] He will strengthen us if we fulfill His commandments to the extent of our power.” Here the Venerable ascetic does not reject the guidance of advice and instructions from spiritual and experienced men—no! He advises necessarily and carefully to resort to the counsel of spiritual Fathers and brethren![4] Here he wishes to show that our invisible triumph in the inner struggle depends solely on the will and action of grace planted in us by Baptism, acting in accordance with our volition, manifested and proved by fulfillment of Gospel commandments, and in accordance with the inscrutable will of God concerning man. For this reason some, with abundant and constant human guidance, bear the scantiest fruit; others, having heard the briefest instruction, in a short time manifest swift progress by their spiritual gifts.[5] “Know for certain,” said Saint Isaac the Syrian, “that every good working in you mentally and secretly were the mediators Baptism and Faith, by which you were called by our Lord Jesus Christ to His good works”—and not to the supposed good works of fallen nature.

The repenting one is aided by God’s providential dispensations, as said the holy Prophet David: “Your providential works help me” (Ps. 118:175). By God’s providence many and varied afflictions are permitted to the repenting one: “He whom the Lord loves,” says the Apostle, “He disciplines; He scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebr. 12:6). Patience under afflictions with thanksgiving to God, with the acknowledgment of oneself as worthy of affliction, with the recognition of permitted affliction as precisely that saving medicine which we need for healing, is a sign of genuine repentance. “He who does not know God’s providential dispensations,” says the Venerable Mark, “walks in mind along a path lying between cliffs, and is easily cast down by every wind. He who resists the afflictions that befall him, though he does not know it, resists the command of God, while he who receives them with true understanding, according to Scripture, ‘waits for the Lord’ (Ps. 39:2). He who has known the truth does not resist the afflictions that come upon him: he knows that they lead man to the fear of God. Former sins, when remembered as a form, bring harm to one who has good hope: if this remembrance arises in connection with sorrow, it robs him of hope; if it arises without sorrow, it renews within the former defilement. When the mind through self-denial by simplicity of thought acquires hope, then the enemy, under the pretext of confession, depicts (in memory) sins committed before, in order to renew the passions which the grace of God has erased by forgetfulness, so as to thereby imperceptibly cause harm to man. Then even the firm mind, hating passions, will necessarily be darkened, troubled by remembrance of sins committed. If it is still dark and loves pleasure, it will certainly linger in remembrance and will converse passionately with the thoughts that come, so that such remembrance becomes not confession but a mental renewal within himself of the sins committed before.[6] If you wish to offer to God an unjudged confession, do not remember sinful tendencies as a form, but manfully endure the afflictions sent in recompense for them. Afflictions come (in recompense) for former sins, bringing to every sin its corresponding recompense. The wise man who knows the truth confesses himself to God not by remembrance of sins committed, but by endurance of afflictions that befall. Having rejected suffering and dishonour, do not promise to offer repentance through other virtues; vainglory and painlessness know how to serve sin even through righteous deeds.” “The way of God is the daily cross.[7] A man under special providence of God is recognized by this: when God constantly sends him afflictions.” “God’s power is perfected in weakness” (2Cor 12:9) of fallen nature, when this nature is ground to dust by the Cross of Christ (Mt. 21:44[8]). On the contrary, fallen nature can develop only with abundance of aid provided by fallen human society: through learning, through wealth, through honour. Such are the foundations and likewise the signs of the development of fallen nature. In such development, fallen nature receives, like the apocalyptic woman, worship (Apok 17) from the blinded, miserable humanity, and enters with her into adulterous union at the renunciation of Christ and the Holy Spirit—perhaps without words of renunciation—at renunciation essential, through activity, through life. After the renewal of our nature by the God-man, the return of man to his fallen nature is, in relation to God, adultery.

The grace of holy Baptism through repentance elevates the Christian to spiritual freedom, to that freedom which he already had upon coming forth from the font of Baptism. Thus the sick person, after intensive treatment, begins to feel in himself that freshness and those forces which he had before the illness, in a state of health. The primary cause of the renewal of strength is not medicine, but that life which the Creator has placed in human nature: medicines only help the vital force to struggle successfully against illness, to overcome and drive out illness, which is nothing other than a disorder of the vital force’s activity. Repentance requires more or less time according to various circumstances, especially according to the will of Divine Providence governing us. This can be seen from the biographies of many of God’s servants, who passed from a state of sinfulness to a state of holiness through repentance. The Venerable Mary of Egypt told the Blessed Zosimas that she struggled against her thoughts and lusts as with wild beasts for the period of seventeen years.[9] From our negligence in preserving the precious Gift granted us by Baptism, from activity according to the lawless law of fallen nature, the power of sin creeps into us imperceptibly: imperceptibly we lose spiritual freedom. The most grievous captivity remains invisible to many, recognized as the most satisfactory freedom. Our condition of captivity and slavery is revealed to us only when we begin to fulfill Gospel commandments; then our understanding rises up with hardness against the understanding of Christ, and our heart looks upon the fulfillment of Christ’s will wildly and hostilely, as if it were its own death and its own murder; then we experientially know the grievous loss of freedom, our terrible fall; then we see the whole depth of this fall, descending to the abysses of hell. One should not fall into despondency and weakness at such a sight: one should with courage and determination give oneself to repentance, as to an all-powerful physician, having command and authority from God to heal and cure all sins, however great and numerous these sins may be, however old and firmly established the habit of sin may be. Christ gave Himself to us and entered into us through holy Baptism; then He hid Himself in us when we did not present our will so that He might dwell in us and govern us; Christ will surely manifest Himself in us if we prove by genuine repentance a decisive will that He should dwell in us. “Behold, I stand at the door,” He says, “and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will enter to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” (Apok 3:20–21). The voice of Christ is the Gospel.

The order by which the repenting sinner ascends through repentance to holiness is set forth by the Venerable Macarius the Great thus: “He who wishes to approach the Lord and be deemed worthy of eternal life, to become a house of God and be counted worthy of the Holy Spirit, so as to obtain the ability to offer purely and cleanly the fruits of the Spirit according to the commandments of the Lord, must begin in this way: first, he must believe firmly in the Lord, give himself wholly to the words of His commandments, renounce the world entirely, so that the mind is occupied with nothing from the visible things (of the world), remain unshaken in prayers, not fall into despair (despondency, hopelessness) while waiting for (delay of) visitation and help from the Lord, at all times keep the mind ceaselessly directed toward the Lord. Then he must constantly compel himself to every good work and to all the Lord’s commandments, even though the heart, because of the sin dwelling in it, would not desire it; he must force himself to humility before all people, to esteeming himself as lesser and worse than all; he must not seek for himself honour, or glory, or praise from anyone, as prescribed in the Gospel, but always have before his eyes the one Lord and His commandments, seeking to please Him alone. He must compel himself also to gentleness, even though the heart resists it, according to what the Lord said: ‘Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart: and you will find rest for your souls.’ (Mt. 11:29). Likewise he must be merciful, compassionate, sympathetic, good, compelling himself to this forcibly, as the Lord said: ‘Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.’ (Lk. 6:36). And again: ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments.’ (Jn. 14:15). And again: Compel yourselves: because ‘the violent’ (those compelling and forcing themselves) ‘seize the kingdom of heaven.’ (Mt. 11:12). And: ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate.’ (Lk. 13:24). He must always have before his eyes the humility of the Lord, His life, His conduct, keep them constantly in memory as a model and example, not permitting them to be stolen by forgetfulness. He must, to the extent of his strength, compel himself to unceasing remaining in prayers, constantly asking with constant faith that the Lord come and make him His dwelling-place (Jn. 14:23), that He instruct him in all His commandments, strengthen him in them, so that his soul may become the house of Jesus Christ. When in this manner he will conduct himself, forcing himself despite the resistance of his heart, accustoming himself to every good work, to constant remembrance of the Lord, to constant expectation of Him in great goodness and love, then the Lord, seeing such disposition in him and such good zeal, how he always forces himself to remembrance of the Lord and to every good work, to humble-mindedness, gentleness and love, how he bends the yoke (of Christ) his heart that resists it, forcing his heart to all that is good—then, I say, the Lord pours out His mercy upon him (at the proper time), delivers him from his enemies and from the sin living in him, filling him with the Holy Spirit. Thus he will, without any effort and forcing on his part, truly fulfill all the commandments of the Lord always. More precisely: the Lord Himself will perfect His commandments in him and manifest the spiritual fruits, while the man will bear them in purity.[10] But before this, it is necessary that every one coming to the Lord (as said above) compel himself to good despite the resistance of the heart, in constant expectation with unwavering faith of God’s mercy; one must forcibly compel oneself to be merciful to all, to have a loving heart toward all, to have humility before all, patience with all, not to grieve in soul at banishments and dishonours, not to complain—according to what is said: ‘Do not avenge yourselves, beloved’ (Rom. 12:19)—to compel oneself also to prayer, when one has not received the gift of it from the Holy Spirit. When God sees anyone so struggling and forcibly compelling himself to good, He gives him true prayer of Christ, the womb of mercy, true love for mankind; in short: He gives him all the spiritual fruits.”

We see that many sinners who have done repentance have achieved a high degree of Christian perfection. They have restored in themselves the Gift of Baptism not only to the degree in which it is given, but also to the degree in which it develops afterward from life according to Gospel commandments. Having acquired, having restored to themselves spiritual freedom, they did not stop at this, were not satisfied with this; they did not cease from repentance and weeping, which had restored their freedom.[11] The weakness and ready tendency to fall of man, experienced by them in reality, his capacity to change quickly, constantly stirred them to weeping. “You do not know what will come forth (the coming) day” (Prov. 27:1), they said daily to themselves in the words of Scripture: because of their purity there was revealed to them that “the commandment of the Lord is exceedingly broad.” (Ps. 118:96).[12] Comparing with the boundlessly vast commandment of the boundless Lord their own fulfillment of the commandment, they recognized this fulfillment as quite insufficient. Their fulfillment of the Gospel commandments they called and acknowledged as a defiling of the commandments. They washed their virtues, as though sins, with streams of tears. Thus the blinded sinner never weeps over his most terrible sins as the servants of Christ weep over their virtues. “The heavens are not clean before Him” (before God) (Job 15:15), that is, the pure holy Angels, as having limited purity, are not clean before God’s all-perfect purity; unclean before Him are also the holy men of earth, whose life is on earth but also in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Therefore they weep, and bringing repentance, more and more sink into repentance. “I know nothing against myself,” said the holy Apostle Paul, “but by this I am not justified: my Judge is the Lord”[13] (1 Cor. 4:4). Despite great spiritual gifts, despite the abundant grace of God dwelling in the Apostle, He said: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and of these I am the first.” (1 Tim. 1:15). Life according to Gospel commandments, contemplation of one’s fallen nature, contemplation of the infinite greatness and infinite perfections of God, comparison of the insignificant human nature—limited in its nature—with the unlimited nature of God, contemplation of the consequences of the ancestors’ sin and the consequences of one’s own sinfulness, weeping over one’s own misfortune and that of all humanity, patience under all sorrows develops in the Orthodox Christian the grace of Baptism to immeasurable dimensions, incomprehensible and incredible to the mind of man in its fallen state. The development of the sacred spiritual Gift granted by Baptism is as boundless as boundless is the Gift granted by God from His Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4); this development is as boundless and incomprehensible as boundless and incomprehensible is God Himself, who dwells in our hearts through Baptism. This development encompasses the entire being of the Christian. When we gaze upon this development in the chosen vessels of God, the depiction by Gospel parables of the action in man produced by holy Baptism becomes entirely clear. “The kingdom of heaven is like” the Saviour said, “a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it grows it becomes the greatest of all plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”[14] (Mt. 13:31–32). A comparison full of Divine humble-mindedness. “The Son of God ‘humbled Himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming like men and found in appearance as a man’ (Phil. 2:7). In this form He chose to be numbered not among the multitude of the mighty, glorious, and wealthy of the world, but among the multitude of the poor and sufferers. ‘His appearance was without honour,’ says the Prophet, ‘diminished more than all the sons of men.’ (Is. 53:3[15]). ‘His soul was delivered to death, and He’ was ‘reckoned with the wicked’ (Is. 53:12), taking a place between two robbers as if the chief and most dangerous of criminals.[16] His all-holy, life-giving, Divine commandments He called small (Mt. 5:19), by the simplest, artless form in which they were proposed, yet adding that the violation of even one such commandment can be the cause of eternal misfortune for the violator. So also the grace of Baptism He likened to the smallest of all earth’s seeds. And indeed, what can be simpler and more ordinary in appearance than holy Baptism?[17] It is customary for people to wash themselves in water, immersing themselves in it—with this commonly used action is joined a sacrament in which soul and body are washed of sinful uncleanness. The death and burial of man are replaced by his momentary immersion in water. Unseen by fleshly eyes the Holy Spirit descends and recreates the fallen man. The circumstances of temporal life remain for the baptized, outwardly, the same as they were before Baptism. Outwardly so imperceptible is the Gift communicated by Baptism that it must be likened with complete accuracy and justice to the smallest mustard seed. This Gift is of immeasurable price. It grows by being developed through the keeping of commandments: then by its greatness it will exceed all other gifts with which the generous hand of the Creator has abundantly rewarded man, and will make him a temple of heavenly thoughts, feelings, revelations, and states, characteristic of the heavenly dwellers alone. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like,’ the Saviour also said, ‘leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.’ (Mt. 13:33). How humbly and how truly the spiritual Gift communicated by holy Baptism is called leaven! Everyone receiving holy Baptism is united to Christ, is betrothed to Christ, and therefore is called, figuratively, a woman. This woman hides, that is, preserves and nurtures the gracious Gift through life according to the Gospel in her mind, heart, and body (1 Thes. 5:23), until the Gift penetrates, fills, and embraces the whole man.[18] Do you wish to see not only the soul but the human body soaked through and penetrated with the gracious Gift given at Baptism?[19] Look upon Paul, whose garments wrought miracles (Acts 19:12), whom the bite of a viper did not harm (Acts 28:5);[20] behold Mary of Egypt, who was raised above the earth in prayer, who walked upon the waters of the Jordan as on dry land, who completed a thirty-day journey in the course of one hour; behold Mark of Thrace, at whose voice a mountain was removed from its foundations and moved into the sea; behold Ioannikius the Great, who, like a spirit, was invisible to those whom he did not wish to see, even though he was in their presence; behold the bodies of God’s saints, resting in sacred incorruptibility for many centuries, not subject to the law of decay common to all humanity, giving forth streams of healings, streams of fragrance, streams of life.

The Venerable Sisoes the Great, who was especially abundant in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, said: “To him (the man) in whom God has dwelt through the grace of holy Baptism and through the keeping of commandments, (spiritual) Gifts are natural.” This was spoken by the holy desert-dweller from his own experience.[21] Is not this very thing testified to by Holy Scripture? “As many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:27). To those clothed in Christ, possessing Christ within themselves, the gifts of the Spirit are natural: where Christ is, there are also the Father and the Spirit.

7. On the relation of renewed nature to evil”