Chapter 5. Man’s Own Part in Working Out the Salvation Accomplished by Christ for All, but Not Attained by All

«Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?» (Rom 2:4). The boundless goodness of God toward man has been shown in his creation, His providence, his redemption, and his deification, in the granting of every power for his salvation, in the granting of eternal life, eternal blessedness, in the granting of His own most pure Body and Blood for the food and drink of eternal life. «For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son» (Jn 3:16).

They say: God is good, He will have mercy on every sinner. Yes, but which sinners? Those who sincerely repent, and abandon unrighteousness, and do righteousness. Do you wish to people paradise with drunkards, adulterers, the greedy for money, thieves, betrayers of the faith, apostates from God—heretics, sectarians, and schismatics, who have themselves split into hundreds of self-willed factions—self-willed people, unwilling to submit to the one Church of God and to her one Head, Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit? No; they themselves would not go to paradise, even if, let us suppose, they were permitted to enter it; it is a stranger to them; they would go more willingly to hell, to those like themselves, for there they have their own people, like themselves, and demons, whose will they always did, whom they have made themselves like. No, nothing unclean or impure will enter paradise, for what fellowship has light with darkness? Righteousness with lawlessness? Christ with Belial? (2Cor 6:15). «God is faithful to Himself: for He cannot deny Himself» (2Tim 2:13)—deny His own righteousness, holiness, and truth. «Do you suppose that I will be like you?» says God to the sinner. Where, then, would the justice of God be?!

If God did not spare His own only-begotten Son for our salvation, but gave Him up to suffering and death for us, granting us, in His Person, a Deliverer, an Intercessor, an almighty Defender, a Helper, a Savior, a Physician, an Enlightener, a Comforter, a Nourisher, who offered Himself as food and drink of eternal life, then we too, for our own part, must prove our own faith, our own obedience, our own love and gratitude, and be active disciples and strugglers of His, diligent fighters against the sin that wars against us, and against the invisible and visible enemies who draw us into sin; we too must bring our own struggles to bear.

In requiring holiness of us, the Lord requires of us only what is due, as of creatures made in the image and likeness of God; for the human soul has been endowed with the greatest gifts of God, and with a capacity for every virtue, for a living faith, for a fervent and self-denying love, for works of mercy, for an unshakable patience, for the sake of righteousness and for the sake of love for God and neighbor, for purity and holiness. Why, then, are we, instead of being inclined to every virtue, easily inclined to every sin, to every passion? Is this not from our own negligence, our own inattention to ourselves, our own little faith? Let us amend ourselves, then; let us be zealous for the struggles of the saints, their attention, their amendment, their self-restraint, their patience, their prayer, their meekness, their freedom from malice, their mercy.

The Lord wishes to reign within us as Creator, Master, and righteous Judge and Rewarder—through righteousness, holiness, goodness, peace, freedom, blessedness; and the devil, in the most jealous manner, likewise wishes to reign within us—through every kind of unrighteousness, flattery, violence, slavery, every blasphemy, malice, cunning, envy, ill will toward one’s neighbor, the impurity of fornication, corrupting soul and body. The enemy wars against us without ceasing, swiftly, instilling in us a threefold lust—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We must be on guard, without ceasing, over our own heart and our own thoughts, repelling, without ceasing, the enemy’s attacks, by looking toward God, by prayer, by unceasing repentance, by growth in every virtue—meekness, humility, obedience, self-restraint, and the rest. Our earthly life is an unceasing struggle and contest.

Sinners, men and women! Do not forget that our own sins, in thought, desire, intention, word, and deed, are seen by God, by the Mother of God, our own Lady, are seen by our own holy Guardian Angels, are seen by the holy servants of God, who make up the one Church of Christ, heavenly and earthly—and walk carefully, in the fear of God, examining your own conscience without ceasing, turning away from every evil, and doing good. Be like merchants, reckoning up their own profit, and jealously caring for profit in trade and the increase of their own property. Care, then, for the spiritual profit of the virtues.

Oh, how diligently one must restrain one’s own feelings and desires, and not allow one’s own soul, even for a single instant, to desire anything at all except one single, purest desire—namely, to desire only to be with the Lord, and to love Him alone, without ceasing, with one’s whole heart.

«How little there is in us of the love of God and of sound Christian sense; for when the first, the least occasion for sin presents itself—for instance, an occasion for gluttony or lustful pleasure, or for ill will, pride, and arrogance—we are at once carried away by this first occasion, and sin in deed or in thought, in desire and in passion, and our love for God scatters, as it were, into dust. No, prove, O Christian, by the very deed, that you are indeed a Christian; that the commandments of God are hidden in your own heart, and that you value them more than any treasure, any fleshly pleasure, any earthly gain, more than any fleshly delight. Repel every advance of sin with faith and the fear of God; set against fleshly desire a heavenly, spiritual, divine desire, against a sinful desire a holy desire, against the unclean the clean, against the material the spiritual, against the perishable the imperishable. Otherwise, at the time of temptation, an extreme inconsistency appears in us, a contradiction of ourselves, of our own duty, our own good, an absurdity of thought and desire, to our own harm and to the offense of God, our own Archetype. If we love God, let us love Him always, without ceasing, not falling away from Him even for a minute, and likewise not falling away from love and goodwill toward our neighbor. How often our own inconstant heart proves foolish, and is shaken by earthly winds? We still often walk according to the flesh, and not according to the spirit.

Look, without ceasing, with the eyes of your own heart, toward the Lord, and do not turn them away from Him even for an instant, lest sin steal into your heart and wound you with its own ruinous sting. «Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour» (1Pet 5:8).

Look attentively, look deeply, into your own inward, soul’s or spiritual world, full of the greatest intellectual and moral interest, and do not be carried away by the outward, material, passing, and vanishing world—heaven and earth—for heaven and earth will pass away, by the unalterable word of the Creator, but the words of His own law will not pass away, forever without end (Mk 13:31). In that inward world much, much work and effort awaits you, on account of our own perversion of the spiritual order, or the laws of creation, and the corruption of both soul and body; for it is said, «the kingdom of God is within you» (Lk 17:21). The kingdom of heaven is obtained by force, and the violent take it by force (Mt 11:12). Remember the fruitless fig tree; remember the vineyard and the vinedresser; remember the servant who owed his master ten thousand talents.

The life of the Christian is likened, in the Gospel, to a military watch—the first, the second, and the third—and by this the Christian’s own constant watchfulness over his own thoughts, feelings, and movements of the will is impressed upon us, a watchfulness concerning the bodiless enemies, ceaselessly attacking us and seeking to devour us utterly. The holy servants of God kept spiritual watch day and night—they prayed, fasted, and labored without ceasing, leading a contemplative and an active life. Our own whole life ought truly to be a watch: it is short, the task to be resolved is great and complex, and the enemies attacking, with malice, cunning, and strength, are exceedingly many. Let us be wise as serpents, and pure as doves (Mt 10:16).

Sinful thoughts and desires are swift, like a scorching lightning bolt, or like a sudden strong wind, shaking the soul like a reed; or like a raging torrent, drowning the soul like a house built on sand; or like a dirty, foul-smelling wave, covering the whole soul with stench and putrescence. Let every Christian, then, guard himself against every sin, voluntary or involuntary, and let him establish his own soul’s steps upon the rock of faith, Christ God; let him pray without ceasing, and always bring to God his own repentance, secret and open, and let him abhor sin, in all its countless manifestations, let him despise the sensual delight of the flesh as a deadly poison, let him count as nothing gold and silver, and everything precious and glittering; let him despise human glory, this passing and harmful little glory, gnawing away at the soul like a worm; let him seek incorruptible blessings, and strive always to have Christ in his heart, this vital and all-sufficient Treasure for all eternity. A single unrighteous thought is an abomination to the Lord (Prov 15:26). And a momentary fleshly desire is a betrayal of the Lord, and the abomination of idol-worship. This is because the soul is a simple being, a spirit, and in an instant inclines either toward righteousness, or toward unrighteousness, and becomes like either God, or the devil—for this is why the Apostle says: «do not imitate what is evil, but what is good» (3Jn 1:11).

«Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life» (Prov 4:23). Guard your own heart, especially in this sense: do not let earthly, passionate desires reach it, for even a single momentary desire defiles the soul and separates it from God. Strive without ceasing that it may incline toward heaven, and not toward earth, toward God, and not toward Belial, that it may desire incorruption, love, and virtue, meekness and humility, simplicity and freedom from malice, and not the corruptible things of earth, however glittering or sweet. There is a ceaseless danger for us in earthly desires: sinful man clings to everything forbidden; guard your heart from anger, malice, and envy, from sensual delight, pride, arrogance, and the exalting of yourself above others!

O Christian, by every means guard your own heart: for out of it spring the issues of life. Guard your heart, by every means, from sinful, fleshly desires, which bring with them defilement, confusion, darkening, bondage, corruption. Sin creeps in most easily through our own fleshly desire: for the flesh loves sweetness, and corruption creeps in very easily through sweetness.

«Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life» (Prov 4:23). Guard whether faith is whole within it; see what desires, what intentions, what pursuits, what strivings are within it, toward what it clings, toward what it strives—toward God, or toward the world, toward heaven, or toward earth; is there in it a thirst for salvation, a thirst for the love of God, a love for every righteousness, and a hatred for every unrighteousness, for every sin? Is there in it a strong striving to please God, and to save the soul, perishing in its sins? Read the parables, understand them, lay them up in your own heart… and fulfill them!

To guard the senses from the sin of sight means: not to look with attachment upon another’s beauty, upon another’s fine clothing, rich income, rich furnishings of houses, upon another’s treasures and wealth, for all of this is dust, and will turn to dust, and will destroy the soul’s purity; not to give free rein to the harboring of grudges, to an unclean imagination, which presents and paints sin in tempting, desirable forms; not to look at tempting images, pictures, or statues, not to read tempting books; to avoid tempting company, merry and frivolous gatherings, where sin is counted as nothing; in general, to guard against every occasion of sin, for there is much temptation in the world. Woe to the world because of temptations, for it is necessary that temptations come, for the sake of testing, but woe to the one through whom the temptation comes; it would be better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck (Mt 18:6-7). Why? Because the human soul is precious to God, who did not spare His own Son for its salvation; it is more precious than the whole world…

Prolonged sleep weakens and cools our own soul toward God. Our soul must be, as much as possible, in a watchful state, in a state of contemplation and action. Our enemy does not slumber, and makes use of every occasion of sleep and inactivity of soul for its defilement and enfeeblement. Watch and pray at all times, says the Lord.

In the life of the Christian, self-compulsion toward every good work is necessary—toward secret and open prayer, toward reading and hearing the Word of God, the divine service, self-compulsion toward the amendment of every sin and every passion—self-love, self-indulgence, love of the flesh, gluttony, laziness, stinginess, greed, love of gain, ambition, envy, pride, voraciousness, malice, ill will, malicious joy at another’s misfortune, the harboring of grudges, disobedience, murmuring, faintheartedness, unbelief, unclean memories and imaginings of persons and things, cunning, foul, and blasphemous thoughts, superstitions (for instance, not to greet someone on the threshold, to smile when passing salt, or not to step with the wrong foot, and not to begin work on a Monday). Self-compulsion toward doing good deeds is necessary—the giving of alms, pleasing one’s neighbor for his own good, every kind of goodwill, every good work, gentle dealing: «be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another» (Rom 12:10); to be prompt in greetings, ready to help, to bear one another’s burdens, and not to please oneself (Gal 6:2).

Every kind of danger to my own life in God confronts me in this present life: if I eat something to excess, my spirit grows coarse and cold toward God; if I sleep an extra hour, the same; if I harbor some momentary fleshly and earthly attachment, I fall away from God at once; if I read worldly books and newspapers with enthusiasm, I again grow cold toward God and toward heaven; and everywhere, and from everything, there is danger for my own spiritual life. So sensitive, so responsive to everything, is my own soul, and so easily can it become attached to the world, and so quickly and so easily can it grow cold toward God, and fall away from the one thing needful. Watch, then, and attend to yourself, O man, at every time, and guard your own heart with all diligence. Remember the prophet-king, who says: «What is there for me in heaven? And what have I desired on earth from You? My heart and my flesh have vanished – O God, the stronghold of my heart and my portion, O God, forever» (Ps 72:25-26).

«Keep your heart with every kind of guarding, for from it come the outflows of life» (Prov 4:25). See toward whom, or what, the desires of your own heart are directed: toward God, or toward the world; toward heaven, or toward earth; toward incorruptible and eternal blessings, or toward corruptible and passing ones; toward the spirit, or toward the flesh? See: the bodiless enemy, the cunning one, does not sleep; he does his own work—the work of your own delusion and ruin—within you without ceasing, and strives to turn the soul away from God by every possible delusion—now of fornication, now of love of gain, now of vanity, now of pride or envy, or gluttony and drunkenness, now of laziness and idleness, now of the reading of empty books, or only worldly ones, keeping you away from books that teach faith and piety, and the one thing needful. The enemy strives, without ceasing, to steal the soul away with the most varied vanities and delusions. Watch, and do not give yourself over to a sinful drowsiness. Remember that God alone is the object of the desire of our heart. «What is there for me in heaven? And what have I desired on earth from You? O God, the stronghold of my heart and my portion, O God, forever» (Ps 72:25-26).

The Christian must have a heavenly heart, not an earthly one: for all of us are called to heaven, to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Let us lift up our hearts. «Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things» (Col 3:2). «Our homeland is in the heavens» (Phil 3:20). Away with earthly passions!

Look, without ceasing, without wavering, with the eyes of your own heart, toward the Lord, in a prayer of repentance, of praise, and of thanksgiving, and do not look with attachment upon anything of this life, as perishable and passing, and do not cling with your heart to anything. See how the saints lived and struggled, how, for the love of God, they renounced every earthly love, every possession, even love for their own parents according to the flesh, loving them spiritually, in God and for God. See the great prophet Elijah; a single mantle was his only possession, and nothing more. Be zealous, according to your strength, for the servants of God. If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.

«What profit is it to a man, if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?» (Mt. 16:26). What will a man give in exchange for his soul? How one must value one’s own soul! How one must save it! How one must flee from worldly attachments, and, in general, from every sin!

The lifting up of the heart to God on the feast of the Nativity of Christ. I thank the Lord, who has counted me worthy to meet, once again, the most radiant day of His own Nativity according to the flesh. «Let us, then, withdraw from the world, and fix our mind and heart on heaven» (Akathist to the Theotokos), where the eternal city is prepared for us; «for here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come, whose builder and maker is God» (Hebr 11:10).

To You, O Triune God—the original and fountain-source of eternal life, mind, beauty, love, power, truth, and righteousness—I am drawn with all my soul and my whole being: for from You comes every beauty of creatures, sensible and spiritual, every life, power, and mind, and shortsighted, blind, and wretched is he who does not see You in Your creatures, and does not ascend to You with mind and heart, but stops at them and clings to them, taught by the devil!

2) Self-restraint (the struggle with oneself): the inner struggle in man, the crucifying of the flesh with its many passions

Struggle, brothers and sisters, diligently, for the salvation of your own soul and for the kingdom of heaven. For those who struggle, bright crowns of incorruption and eternal glory and joy are woven. Do not slumber, do not sleep; hasten your own progress toward God. «The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force» (Mt 11:12-13). Be renewed; put off the old man, with his own deeds; cast away corruption; crucify and root out the passions. Fast, pray.

Who does not see the blindness, the folly, the shame, the madness, the senselessness, the ruinousness of sin? And if it is such, then why do we go on sinning? Why do we commit lawlessness? Our own duty, and our own direct benefit, is to struggle against sin with all our strength, diligently calling upon the help of God, without which it is unthinkable to overcome any sin at all, for it is said: «without Me you can do nothing» (Jn 15:5). Our duty is to know sin’s own habitual cunning, its delusion, its falsehood, its plain ruinousness, tested by us upon ourselves and upon countless other people; and, on the other hand, the rightness, the beauty, the vitality, the freedom, the glory, the peace, the joy, the triumph of a virtuous soul, the health and vigor of a body not yielding to sin, the success of a virtuous person in all his worldly affairs, his clarity of understanding of everyone and everything around him; for the virtuous person it is always day, just as for the sinner his whole life is a dark night, for the passions blind a person.

Struggle, then, without ceasing, against sin, with the help of God: the Lord is our Helper and our Defender, always closer to us than sin, than the devil—even though the devil, too, is always close, because of our own slavery to him, because of his own nesting in the depths of our own souls… But he must, without fail, be driven out of these inward nests, and this thief, this swindler, this shameless one, this murderer, must be struck without mercy, in whatever form he appears, doing violence within us. Strike, then, without mercy, your own self-love, vanity, pride, greed, love of gain, stinginess, hardheartedness, irascibility, irritation, disobedience, superstition, despondency, murmuring, and the other sins—deceit, every falsehood, lustful thoughts, lusts… shameful speech, every shameful sight… Drive out everything, everything sinful, unclean; hate it with a total hatred; strike every thief, every mental robber, without mercy, and destroy them utterly, that they may not lurk hidden somewhere, may not secretly nest in your heart, and you will then be a friend to God Himself. «No longer do I call you servants, but friends, if you do whatever I command you» (Jn 15:15).

«My foot has stood on level ground», says the prophet-king David—that is, my soul has been established on the right path, on virtue, on the fear of God, having come to hate every path of unrighteousness. Why should I not, too, long ago have been established on this path of God, have turned entirely away from evil, and done only what is good? Why should I not be established on a firm point of standing, as the saints who lived and struggled before us attained? Do they, and we, not have the same nature? Did they live without temptations, without sorrows and sicknesses? Did sin not attack them; did they not struggle against various passions of flesh and spirit? They struggled, and they overcame. The cause of sin, after all, is in ourselves, in our own passion-ridden flesh, in our own self-love, ambition, pride, love of power, impatience, laziness, love of gain, hardheartedness, obstinacy, self-conceit, freethinking, duplicity, partiality and hypocrisy, deceitfulness, ill will, malice, and malicious joy at others’ misfortune, in doubt and unbelief toward the truth, in delicacies and gluttony, in despondency, faintheartedness, despair, and the other countless passions. Struggle with yourself, with your own sinful habits, inclinations, and passions—overcome them; after a fall, rise up again, and overcome again, remembering the words of the prophet: even if you should prevail, O enemies—my own sins and my own passions—you will be overcome once more, for God is with us.

Remember often what our Lord has done, and does, for our salvation; what strength He has given, and gives, to those struggling against sin, how gloriously He crowns the victors over sin; with such an all-powerful Leader, should we slumber, grow lazy, and fall? And if you should fall, from weakness, from a sinful habit, or from inexperience—rise up at once, and struggle again, grow wise in spiritual warfare, and overcome; one must not be forever a slave of ruinous sin—one must come out into liberty, into the freedom of God.

Whom does the dead and stinking Lazarus depict? All mankind, stinking before God with every sin and with its own dead works; he depicts every sinner individually—the stench of self-love, pride, self-indulgence of the flesh, sensuality, and every fleshly sin, cunning, envy, injuries, love of money, love of glory, hardheartedness, disobedience, unbelief, blasphemy, mockery and derision of the truth, guile, laziness toward prayer, repentance, and every virtue; lying, deceit, treachery. With these and many other sins does mankind stink before God. Oh, that it might all rise from its dead works, as Lazarus did, and enter into the righteousness of God; that it might fulfill the righteousness of God with the help of the greatest of the Righteous, Christ, the Son of God! The saints fulfilled this righteousness by the labors of their whole life, by victories over sin, and now taste the immortal fruits of Christ’s justification, having washed themselves in His blood. Let us, too, follow after them, in labors of abstinence, prayer, repentance, almsgiving, righteousness, and holiness!

Souls, created in the image of God—holy, beautiful, incorruptible, eternal—and fallen into the defilement and deformity of sin, be not seduced by any earthly beauty, by any earthly treasures, by earthly honors, quickly passing away, seducing the unwise, the incautious, and the shortsighted; turn not the desires of your hearts to perishable persons and things, but to the one, all-desirable, beautiful, all-holy, all-righteous, all-good, incorruptible God; prefer nothing and no one to His love, and you shall inherit and behold beauty and glory eternal, and endless blessedness. Labor here at the tilling of your own heart’s field and of the spiritual vineyard entrusted to you; bring forth not only blossoms, but spiritual fruits also, and you shall never hunger.

Value rightly the nobility and beauty of your own soul, as the image of God, and wash away with the tears of repentance its unseemliness and deformity, overcoming every passion and working holiness in the fear of God. Brief is the labor, not hard the struggle, for the Lord’s yoke is good, and His burden is light (Mф. 11:30)—but the recompense is eternal; yet a little while, and the venerable ones shall be praised in glory, and shall rejoice on their couches, on the unfading couches of the Kingdom of God. There is, indeed, something worth laboring for here! The Lord has lightened your labor, having labored greatly for you and in your place, having passed through, here on earth, a path of dreadful and inhuman sufferings. Be not seduced by the goods, the treasures, the sweetnesses, the beauties of this swiftly passing and perishing world. Struggle, pray, labor, contend, be not lazy, that you may rest eternally there, where all the righteous find their rest.

Every sin flatters, wounds, troubles, oppresses, and darkens my soul. Unceasing attention to oneself is required—to one’s own thoughts, feelings, desires; an unceasing struggle of the whole inward man is required: prayer to the Lord with repentance from the whole heart, the recognition of sin’s own delusion and ruinousness, hatred toward it, an awareness of its absurdity and folly; and when this is so, then the soul shall overcome sin; and what a peace of soul follows after that! What a wondrous sweetness! What freedom, what strength of spirit! What a light shall illumine the soul! This, then, is what man needs—to fear God, to keep His commandments, for in this is everything for man—in this is his life, his peace, his contentment, his strength, his light, all good, all happiness.

«Lift up your gates, O you princes, and the King of Glory shall come in.» What gates are these, by which the King of Glory enters, and what princes hold dominion at these gates, not permitting the King of Glory to enter by them? These are the gates of our own heart, held by our various passions: self-love, self-pity, self-indulgence of the flesh, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, laziness, pride, love of glory, envy, love of money, hardheartedness, stinginess, vainglory, resentment, malice, hatred, despondency, despair, unbelief, disobedience. These, and other countless passions, enslave the human soul and hinder the Lord from entering into it and dwelling within it. That He may enter and live in it, one must declare war upon one’s own many-passioned flesh, «crucify it with its passions and desires» (Gal 5:24), cease every sinful friendship with it, and keep it always on the bridle and the rein, in strict subjection to the law of God. «If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me» (Mk 8:34).

It has been learned by experience that every passion, admitted by a person at first and not met with the due rebuff, from the whole soul, begins to send its roots down deep and gradually, and grows in degree and strength, and, repeating itself, again weakly and irresolutely repulsed by the heart and the will of the person, at last takes hold of the whole person: thoughts, feelings, desires, will, memory, and imagination, and he becomes the pitiable slave of the devil—that man-slayer, cunning, malicious, unclean, all-envious, all-scornful, most proud one—and when temptations assail him, the person is in distress, like a ship at sea in a violent storm. And so one must use every effort to tear the passions out of the soul by the root, and not indulge them; to strive to love all sincerely, to forgive all, to value all according to their true worth.

The corruption of sin has entered into mankind very deeply, into the very depth of souls—and man is in need of the greatest help of God, a supernatural help, and of efforts, on his own part, toward estrangement from sin, the most zealous and constant: in prayer, attentiveness to oneself, abstinence, fasting, and good works; the whole being of man is pervaded by sin and by the corruption of sin. The enemy watches and works in men unceasingly, seeking whom he may devour, like a lion (1Pet 5:8); he must be resisted with firm faith and constancy. Christ came to earth for our redemption; we are members of Christ and of the Church; we are a holy and chosen flock, we are the soldiers of Christ, warring against the flesh, the adulterous world, and the devil, and we must resist every passion and overcome it.

Why do people act to their own loss, to their own harm—not only temporal, but eternal? From lack of faith and from unbelief, from ignorance of Holy Scripture, from pride, self-love, self-conceit, self-indulgence of the flesh; from inattention to oneself and from failure to reflect upon the final end of one’s own being; from unwillingness to struggle, to make efforts to fight against one’s own vicious inclinations, habits, and passions—whereas the Christian, the soldier of Christ God, needs an intensified struggle and war against sin, a constant resistance to the violence of sin, self-denial and the crucifying of one’s own self-love in all its countless forms, remembrance of one’s own image of God within the soul and of the necessity of striving toward one’s own Archetype—God, without Whom we are dead, wretched, poor, beggarly, blind, naked.

Let us learn the art of arts—to make war upon sin, our own most cunning and most powerful enemy. But I say beforehand: let no one trust in his own strength or reason, skill or courage, to overcome this enemy: no, he is stronger than all of us. Let us trust in the power of God, in the power of Christ our Savior, who overcame our enemy the devil for us, and has granted us His own name, His own cross, His own grace and power, for victory over the enemy. He teaches our hands to war, and our fingers to fight (Ps 143). Let us learn together. Do sins, various passions, war against you? They war against me too. Does the enemy tempt you? He does the same to me. Do you fall? I fall too. But I fall, and I always rise again. Passions war against me and overcome me at times—anger, for instance, pride, envy, desire. But I immediately repent, pray, weep, strain my faith, my hope in the Lord, pray fervently for mercy—and I overcome my passions and my invisible enemies who war against me, and I rise up. I receive a clean heart and a right spirit within my inward parts, peace, freedom, boldness, by the grace of Christ.

Zealous struggle against sin strengthens the soul in faith, hope, and love toward God and neighbor, and in every virtue, and in the expectation of the eternal recompense. For the person who sincerely struggles against sin clearly sees, with the eyes of the heart, the Lord who fights along with him and who rewards struggle with peace, freedom, and boldness.

The struggle against sin is a struggle for life—life in sins is not life, but unceasing death, unceasing dying. «Why will you die, O house of Israel», says God through the prophet to the sinning Hebrews. Freedom from sin is life: «If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed» (Jn 8:36). «Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin» (Jn 8:34).

The struggle against sin, and victory over it, in a person under assault, is accompanied by inward contentment, peace, and quiet of conscience, freedom in soul and body, strength and vigor of soul, spiritual light, and health of body. Sin, on the contrary, is always followed by discontent with oneself, confusion, sorrow and constriction of soul and body, darkening of the soul, spiritual bondage and captivity, reproaches of conscience, a burning fire, a failing of spiritual strength and vigor, the growth and intensifying, in the spirit, of every evil, and every kind of sickness.

Great is the power of sin, a destroying power, but greater still is the help of God against sin, a saving help; strong is the destroyer-enemy, but stronger than he is the Savior; infectious and fierce is the sickness of sin, but a still stronger remedy has been given against it—faith in Christ, His merits, His mercy, repentance, the most pure Body and the most pure Blood of the Lord itself. Everything has been given us for salvation from sin and for growth in faith and virtue. Only our own lack of faith, our negligence and laziness, stand as a hindrance to salvation, together with attachment to our own many-passioned, passing, and corrupting flesh, and to «the world, which also passes away with its lust» (1Jn 2:17).

Many are seduced by the sweetness of sin, but this sweetness is deceptive, temporary, quickly passing, while the torments for unrepented sin will continue forever, without end; and the wrath of God upon impenitent sinners is unendurable… Let us all, then, come to our senses while there is still time, and let us struggle against sin, that we may obtain the eternal reward, the incorruptible crown, eternal delight, eternal praise from God, and from the angels and the saints—rest and joy.

«Our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and the authorities, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age» (Eph 6:12)… Our life on earth is war, unceasing war: for unseen enemies wage unceasing war upon us, through our own countless passions; our very flesh, too, subject to the passions, wars against us; the adulterous and sinful world wars against us with its temptations and its unrighteousness; our flesh fights against us: with self-love, self-indulgence, laziness toward prayer and toward every good work, hypocrisy, cunning, duplicity of soul, sensuality, unchaste thoughts and desires, malice, resentment, malicious joy at others’ misfortune, envy, ill will, irritation, despondency, murmuring, faintheartedness, lying, deceit, unrighteousness, blasphemous thoughts, the passion of judging others, intemperance, drunkenness, gluttony, avarice, love of gain, unbelief, freethinking, insubordination, disobedience, impetuousness, and eagerness and compulsion toward every sin, coldness and estrangement from every good.

For this reason our Savior says in the Gospel: the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who seek it with force obtain it. But we must always believe and remember that God is with us, our unseen Helper and Fellow-Warrior against every sin, our almighty Defender and the Conqueror of our enemies—with us is the Sovereign Lady the Theotokos, our Champion Leader; with us are the Guardian Angels; with us are all the servants of God, interceding for us before the Lord by their own prayers, and teaching us unceasingly, by their own manner of life, to resist sin in every way, to pray, to attend to ourselves, to watch unceasingly, and to overcome sin by the grace of Christ.

In my flesh there is unceasing enmity against God and neighbor; it is sweet to love God—peaceful, easy, spacious in the soul—and likewise to love one’s neighbor; but the flesh fights against this, raging with the sensuality of the loins, with self-love, with gluttony and delicacy, with envy of one’s neighbor, with love of gain, with a vain malice against one’s neighbor, who is guilty of nothing against us at all. So struggle against it unceasingly, pray, condemn yourself.

Satan hurls the poison of fornication with the utmost force into the heart, into the loins, and into the whole body, with the greatest flattery. Be strong, servant of Christ, and remember that your incorruptible and most pure delight is Christ. For His sake, keep your heart from every impurity.

It is necessary for the true Christian «to crucify his own flesh with its passions and desires» (Gal 5:24), for the enemy easily catches in his own nets anyone who has an attachment to fleshly pleasures, or to gain and the love of money; a single momentary indulgence in fleshly lust, or a single momentary attachment to money, or greed for it and a sparing of it from the poor—and the person is in the enemy’s captivity, and has fallen away from God and become an enemy of God. «Whoever wills to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God» (Jac 4:4). «Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: for everything in the world—the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father, but is from this world. And the world passes away, and its lust, but the one doing the will of God abides forever» (1Jn 2:15-17)—and so it has proved with all the saints of God; they are alive even after death, and are glorified forever.

«Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires» (Gal 5:24). Have you come to a recognition of the necessity of crucifying your own flesh at every moment of your life, since the flesh wars every moment against the spirit and defiles the whole being of a person, through sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing; through thoughts, the imagining of feelings, the stirring up of various passions, it strains to defile and corrupt the person. It is ready to make everyone and everything the object of its own passions—self-love, love of pleasure, vainglory, love of glory, cunning, envy, avarice; to present everyone and everything in a distorted, unclean, corrupted form, to distort and defile the mind, the feeling, the memory, the imagination; to turn everyone and everything into an object of scorn, of mockery. It turns away from service for the benefit of one’s neighbor, shutting itself up within itself, serving its own self-interested, egotistic aims. Oh, what a hundred-headed serpent nests within our own many-passioned flesh! How zealously, how constantly it must be crucified, put to death, lest it finally kill us! Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Excess in food and drink exceedingly weakens the soul and the body. We know this from countless experiences, both our own and those of others, and yet we go on gorging ourselves with dainty foods. Is this not senselessness? Is this not self-injury? Do we not thereby provoke our own Creator and Master, who wishes to dwell within us as in His own temples not made with hands? Let us imitate the saints, who spent their whole life in abstinence, purity, and unceasing prayers. It is enough to trifle with what one ought not, and what is harmful and ruinous.

The danger of sinning, of being defiled, of falling away from God and dying spiritually, lies in our own love for our flesh, for its pleasures, especially for feminine pleasure, in pride and self-love, in self-exaltation and the belittling of one’s neighbor; the danger of sin, too, often depends on our own love of bodily rest, on the desire to sleep a little more; and therefore one must despise the flesh, as a thing that passes away, and be diligent for the soul, an immortal thing—watch, pray, labor. God help everyone to overcome the passions of the flesh!

And how much spiritual, incorruptible sweetness, peace, and blessedness is found in the fulfilling of the will of God—good, holy, all-wise, incorruptible, eternal, blessed! So much, that for the sake of this blessedness, philosophic Christian men and women joyfully endured every labor, torment, exhaustion of the flesh, day-and-night standing at prayer, every mockery, grief, malice, and persecution from men and from demons, and every other kind of affliction—and they were not deceived in their hope: they received the eternal goods and eternal blessedness.

Keeping strict chastity of soul and body, you feel within yourself peace and the fullness of spiritual and bodily life—lightness, joy of life, simplicity; but having broken chastity, even by a single thought and an unlawful fleshly, fornicating desire, you at once sense confusion, constriction, heaviness, shame, and faintheartedness, despondency; having repented from the whole heart, you again feel peace and boldness before God and men. Such is the moral order established by God. So many encouragements toward virtue, and so many punishments and admonitions against evil and cunning, that we might turn away from it. Glory to God!

«I mortify my body and enslave it, lest somehow, while preaching to others, I myself become worthless» (1Cor 9:27). Where there is friendship with the flesh, there can be no success in a spiritual, God-pleasing life.

Accursed intemperance and gluttony! What a multitude of mistakes we make in the course of our life, giving ourselves over to immoderate appetite and pleasure. How many times have we repented, resolving to be abstinent—and failed to carry out what we had wished to do! How honorable and how worthy of imitation, in this respect as in many other virtues, are the holy servants of God, who strictly observed abstinence throughout the whole of their life, and who devoted all their zeal, all their strength, all their mind, all their heart, all their will, their whole being, to God and to His love—to prayer, contemplation, spiritual labor. And therefore how worthily are they glorified, both by God and by men, and by the holy Church! Behold, among the countless saints, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was glorified by abstinence, faith, humility, purity, mercy, zeal for the faith and for right living. And the councils of the venerable ones—Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Georgian, and of every other people! How many of them pleased God and were saved through abstinence! Emulate them, O Christian; emulate them, O my soul, and be saved quickly from the delusion of the belly and the loins!

The holy servants of God so strengthened their souls and bodies in holiness, by unceasing prayer and unrelenting abstinence, that they were immovable toward sin and the passions, remaining meek, humble, chaste, obedient in all things to the Lord and His Church; but we, constantly carried away by delicacy and intemperance, become easily inclined toward every sin: anger, malice, fornication, envy, impatience, disobedience, pride, arrogance, despondency, and the other passions. And so one must fast, and be always abstinent.

The impulses of greed, delicacy, and gluttony, in a person given over to the belly, dominate over every thought, desire, intention, and action; they often produce reluctance and laziness toward one’s own direct duties, disobedience, anger, malice—and at the time of prayer they show themselves in coldness, carelessness, haste. One must, by every means, put to death the passion of gluttony, and keep the belly within its proper bounds, giving it only what is necessary.

Our trouble is that we love our own flesh very much, we keep friendship with it, we serve it zealously, and together with it we love sin also; for sin reigns over us through the flesh, just as it first came to reign over mankind at the beginning, precisely and above all through the flesh, through the eating of the forbidden fruit. Therefore the Christian must without fail crucify the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24).

A single fleshly, unclean thought is enmity against God; a momentary lust, a momentary malice, envy, or attachment to food, drink, clothing, or anything else among material goods, is enmity against God, and this enmity is in our flesh; our own many-passioned flesh is an enemy to God and to us, and it is this that must be crucified—by abstinence, prayer, meditation on God, reading the word of God, labor, vigilance, humility, obedience—which all the holy servants of God did, standing unceasingly on guard over the thoughts of the heart and the movements of flesh and soul, praying unceasingly, and exercising themselves in bodily labors as well.

If the bodiless enemy—the apostate from God, all-malicious, flattering, destroying—sets before you the sweetness of sin, brief and quickly passing though it be, then set before yourself, remember, that in God there is a sweetness eternal, unspeakable. If the enemy seduces you with bodily beauty, and with material, worldly beauty in general, then in God there is the primal beauty, indescribable, eternal, from which every beauty—spiritual and bodily, material—has its own beginning; and be captivated by it as much as you will, delight in it, be filled with it: it is pure, incorruptible, all-blessed; it is precisely this that the saints were captivated by, delighted in, and for its sake they despised every earthly beauty, counted it vain, empty, as passing and corruptible, and for its sake they fasted, prayed unceasingly, suffered, endured countless torments, fearing to defile themselves with sin even for a single instant, lest they be deprived of the enjoyment of this beauty.

II. The Cleansing of the Soul Through a Penitential Disposition, Preparatory to and Accompanying the Mystery (of Repentance). The Uncovering of Sinful Wounds

All-wretched is my old man, constantly straining toward every sin. The bodiless enemy does not sleep, who works within us for our own ruin, but watches unceasingly and incites us to every sin: attentiveness to oneself is needed, an unceasing struggle, repentance, prayer, tears. The Lord knows our weakness and our proneness to stumble, and is long-suffering toward us, awaiting our repentance and correction; He quickly hears our prayer, hidden and open, and quickly intervenes, has mercy, saves, brings peace, and renews the soul that is faithful to Him; however many times a person may fall into sin during the day, whether in thought, or in the depth of the heart, or in words and deeds, yet for sincere repentance the Lord has mercy and forgives.

Seventy times seven the Lord commanded us to forgive those who fall into sin (Mt 18:21-22). Glory to the Lord!

I must hate my own old, sinful man, stinking with every passion, and crucify him, put him to death—that is, self-love, love of gain, love of pleasure, love of glory, vainglory, partiality, self-will, insubordination, self-pity, laziness, softness, ill nature, cunning, envy, hatred, the judging of my neighbor, murmuring, faintheartedness, despondency, impatience, disrespect, scorn, revulsion toward a person because of his sickness, unseemliness, or unlikeness of character, and so on, and so on.

«If any man hate not his own soul, he cannot be My disciple» (Lk 14:26). Yes, the true follower of Christ must without fail hate his own soul—his many-passioned, self-loving, pleasure-loving, proud, cunning, malicious, resentful, envious, greedy, lazy, unchaste, hate-filled soul, which condemns others while exalting itself, despondent, murmuring, impatient, fearful, unfaithful, hardhearted, avaricious, money-loving, thing-loving soul. Behold what our soul is like; how distorted, how maimed, how disfigured, how opposed to God, how repulsive, how vile, how corrupt it is! «If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me» (Mk 8:34).

«A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust» (Mф. 12:20-21). This is spoken of us. We are reeds, shaken by the winds of the enemy’s temptations, inclined to every sin, and sinning much every hour, provoking the Master of our life to anger. But if we sincerely acknowledge our own sins, and have true humility and contrition of heart for our sins and for our own guilt before God, and do not justify ourselves and do not exalt ourselves, but strive to correct ourselves and to do good works, then He will have pity on us, will be merciful to us, will not cut us down like a barren fig tree, but will grant us repentance for many years, and will not break the bruised reed—that is, will not cut us down with the axe of death.

Deep calls unto deep; the deep of my sins calls for the deep of God’s mercy, and I trust that the deep of God’s mercy will overcome the deep of my sins, if I always call upon it in sincere repentance. For only the Lord knows the whole depth of our weaknesses and our sins, and therefore He Himself clothed Himself in it for mercy’s sake, to strengthen it. And I have already tested, a thousand times over, upon myself, the unfathomable depth of His mercy. God would not be all-perfect if He were not long-suffering and greatly merciful. We ourselves are exceedingly, even pettily, impatient, and quick to vengeance and to anger.

There is a God of spirits and of all flesh; there is a spiritual, intelligent, wondrous world of good spirits; and there is an evil world too—of evil spirits. Often I experience within myself the vile workings of evil spirits, inciting me to various passions; often I turn, in mind and heart, to God with a prayer of faith and repentance, especially when I feel within myself the schemes of evil spirits—and I always receive help from the Lord, intercession, protection, deliverance, salvation, peace, freedom, lightness, joy, triumph over evil and sin; I feel over myself the dominion of God, the goodness of God, His readiness to hear me at once. How comforting this is to the soul! How firmly this instills in me the assurance that even after death my soul shall be alive and shall praise Him, our Lord and Savior, and that His judgments will help me, that I shall commit my soul into His hands!

Repentance is a denial, a condemnation of sin, a war against sin with the whole heart and mind, in word and in deed, an abhorrence of sin however pleasant it may seem, and a turning away from it, a trampling down of all its charm and attractiveness, the deepest hatred toward it as a deformity, a stench, a madness, and a senseless enmity against God and against oneself, against one’s own good. Remember, O Christian, the all-seeing Eye, and hold yourself watchfully every moment. Remember the impartial, exact judgment, and beware of every sin!

The coming of spring in nature: an abundance of light, a shortening of the night, a lessening of cold, an increase of the sun’s warmth, an awakening of the power of growth and of life in the plants. There is a spiritual spring too: the warm repentance of Christian souls—the appearing of light in souls, the drawing near of Christ to souls and of souls to Christ that repent; a rain of tears, sighs of penitential weeping.

Do not hide your own sins from yourself, do not conceal them within yourself; this is a misfortune, a woe to you; uncover them carefully, zealously; accuse, expose, reproach yourself for all your weaknesses, habits, sinful inclinations, and passions. Say: I am proud, cunning, malicious, envious, avaricious, stingy, hardhearted, greedy, pleasure-loving, unloving of my brothers, treacherous, flattering, false, inconstant, unfriendly, hate-filled, partial, bribe-taking, fainthearted, impatient, irritable, despondent, fearful, murmuring. When you sincerely call to mind your own sins and repent, then your spirit will be glad, and the Lord will have mercy on you, and it will be joyful in your soul. People do not understand the benefit of careful repentance.

Tell the all-good, all-powerful, and all-healing Physician of souls and bodies, the Lord, with what sinful wounds and infirmities you are sick—and there are so many, so many, that it is hard even to number them; call them to mind, ask the Lord for an illumination of the heart, for enlightenment, for knowledge of them, for sighing and tears: and you will receive a wealth of mercy, of healing, of health, of peace, of quiet, of freedom, and of good boldness; for the heavenly Physician is always ready to have mercy on us and to heal us, to soften and to bind up our soul’s wounds.

III. The Cultivation of Good Spiritual Impulses and Aspirations. The Development of Good Habits: Love, Compassion, Forbearance, Chastity, and Others

Every sinful movement of the heart, and every fleshly lust, must be belittled, despised, hated with the whole soul, as harmful and ruinous to man and hateful to God. One must exalt and love every spiritual impulse and striving toward prayer, the reading of the word of God, spiritual conversation, love, compassion, mercy, purity, abstinence, humility.

The need and necessity, for a person, of love toward God and neighbor, as the foundation and the sum of the whole law of God: «God is love; and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him» (1Jn 4:16). The enemy attacks love most of all, the very feeling of love, and strives, in a hellish manner, to tear love out of the heart and to plant and root within it self-love, malice, envy, love of gain, self-indulgence of the flesh, fornication, and the like, in order to corrupt the soul and body of a person and render him incapable of true love, by planting instead a false love—fleshly, narrow, blind, senseless, shameful, fruitless, deadly.

Love God, and prefer nothing in the world above His love, and you will find heavenly grace; offer up everything as a sacrifice to this love, as our Lord Jesus Christ offered up His whole self as a sacrifice to His own Heavenly Father, submitting Himself to humiliation, mockery, spitting, buffeting, beating, suffering, and the most shameful and tormenting death.

«I have come to send down fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it would blaze up» (Lk 12:49)—the fire of zeal for faith and piety. Such a fire was sent down upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, in the form of fiery tongues. Such a fire was held within themselves by the Christian martyrs and martyresses, the hierarchs, the venerable ones: such were Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory; George the Victorious, Panteleimon; Theodore Tyro and Theodore Stratelates, the martyresses Catherine, Barbara, Paraskeva, Euphemia, and others; such were Anthony, Theodosius, Isidore of Pelusium, Sergius of Radonezh, and others. This divine fire is necessary for us too—the fire of zeal for the faith, for prayer, for repentance, for the love of God, for righteousness and holiness, for mercy, abstinence, purity, and chastity.

Love everyone, but love especially those small ones who have need of you, of your forbearance, of your help, of your protection—love and respect for whom have fallen, in you, to nothing.

O man! Strive with all your strength to plant, develop, and strengthen in your own soul a sincere good will and love toward every person—and drive out, mercilessly and always, from your heart, the envy and ill will, or the scorn, hostility, and hatred, that begin to spring up there, which are the offspring of the devil. Leave the judgment of unrighteous people to the righteous Knower of Hearts and Judge of all—God; but pray yourself, zealously, for the unrighteous, that they may turn from unrighteousness to every righteousness, that they may not perish but be saved. Meanwhile it happens that we grow embittered against the unrighteous and judge them within ourselves severely, wishing them punishment and torment and even death, forgetting that they too have a rational soul, capable of feeling, of loving, of repenting, of correcting itself, of changing for the better. Strive with all your strength to keep in your heart love and goodwill toward all, that others too may wish you good and love you. Be not like the evil one (the devil), but like the good one (God) (3Jn 1:11).

If you find some person of high standing—especially a clergyman (a certain known person was meant)—falling short of your expectations in character, in being closed within himself, in unsociability, or shyness, or self-conceit and pride, by no means hold indignation, or vexation, or hostility toward him—God forbid—but pray for him with love, that the Lord may give him a good, loving, sociable heart; and love him yourself, as your own flesh and blood.

Examine the inward state of your own soul, and root out every evil from its depths: on hearing or reading of misfortunes and injuries, of people’s deaths, of fires, of falls through the ice, and of every other kind of disaster—is there not, in you, a coldness and insensibility, an inattention, a negligence, a lack of heartfelt sympathy? Correct yourself at once, crucify your own self-love, establish in your soul love toward God and neighbor, feel with others, have compassion on people’s sorrows, weep with those who weep.

«None of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper: for many are called, but few are chosen» (Lk 14:24). Why shall they not taste of the supper of God, the supper of the Kingdom of Heaven? Because they did not prepare themselves, did not obtain the wedding garment, the spiritual garment, did not cleanse themselves by repentance, did not adorn their souls with faith and virtue—with meekness, humility, freedom from malice, purity, simplicity, mercy toward their neighbors—did not develop within themselves a taste for the incorruptible delights of the spiritual Kingdom of God, which is «righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit» (Rom 14:17); and they defiled and darkened their own souls with the passions of this life, which they did not strive to cast off. A stern, but righteous sentence of the Master. O my soul! Be ready, every day, to appear at the judgment of the Lord through repentance and virtue; for you do not know when the righteous Judge will call you to give account.

One must compel, compel oneself toward every virtue, and not grow weak, not remain idle: you do not feel like praying—pray zealously; you do not want to give alms to one in need—give with diligence, show mercy with good will; you do not want to forgive an offense—forgive it from the heart, and bear no grudge; envy wearies you—show goodwill from the whole heart; greed draws you on—abstain, and disdain its pleasures; fornicating lusts draw and seduce you—count them as an empty dream and an absurd fantasy of a disordered imagination; scorn and pride toward your brother overcome you, arrogance, self-exaltation—count this as a demonic game and delusion within you, for it was through just such a delusion that satan himself fell from angelic majesty and unspeakable beauty, and became abomination and deformity, falling into the darkness of the abyss with the whole demonic host. «The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force» (Mф. 11:12).

Holy women and virgins, and whole families, in times of persecution, took their own lives so as not to be defiled by forced fornication with the impious, or threw themselves from the tops of buildings and were killed, or went into rivers and drowned—mothers together with their own daughters—and became martyrs for Christ, for the faith and for piety (Chrysostom).

IV. The Christian (Ethical) Worldview: The Highest Good Is in God; Renunciation of the World; the Purpose of Life Is in the Keeping of God’s Commandments; Good and Evil; the Moral Sense; the Righteous and Sinners

The one living and priceless treasure of our heart is God; it is given, as an inalienable possession, only to those who have renounced the world and everything in the world, and their own many-passioned flesh. To cling to the world, and to its passing, momentary goods, is senseless and ruinous: for they do not give life, and attachment to them is the devil’s own work.

Seeing everywhere in the world, in all creatures great and small, an inimitable beauty, drawing and gladdening our hearts—lift up your mental, spiritual gaze to the archetypal, uncreated Beauty, to the first uncreated personal Mind, to the first Goodness and Beauty, to the hypostatic Wisdom, to the infinite Goodness, which created everything out of goodness alone, moved to creation by no necessity, by no need—for He is in Himself all-sufficient and all-blessed; and be not seduced by the beauty of visible creatures, as perishable and passing, but fasten your heart to the supreme, eternal, personal Goodness—to God, who alone can wholly fill and bless your soul, as the boundary and end of all our desires.

What is more desirable than the Lord? Who and what is more beautiful than the Lord? Who is worthy of the whole love of the heart, forever, for eternity? Who but the Lord? To what, then, do we fasten our hearts? Whom and what do we love, and how do we love? Is this true love? Is it not illusory, is it not hypocritical, is it not fleshly and sinful? Is it not momentary? Let us turn our whole love to the Lord, and cast off vain love, as the saints did and accomplished.

What burning love, what strong and constant striving toward the Lord we ought to have, being created in the image of God and as temples of the Holy Spirit; how cold we ought to be toward the adulterous and sinful world, and at the same time how warm toward people, as toward brothers and sisters of one nature and one destiny with ourselves; how we ought to care for their salvation, enlightenment, correction, sanctification, and direction toward God; for every kind of help they need, of soul and of body; how we ought to guard them, love them, be long-suffering toward them!

By the Resurrection of Christ, heaven has been opened, which before was shut by the sins of Adam and of all mankind; now free entrance into it is opened to all who believe, repent, and do good works. Turn your minds and hearts there, to heaven, your desires and your hopes. Such incorruptible, eternal, surpassing goods have now been granted to us by Christ God, which no eye has seen, of which no ear has heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man. What are earthly goods in comparison with them—gold, silver, precious stones and fabrics, brightly adorned palaces, honors and glittering, precious badges of earthly rank? What is earthly beauty? What is the fair bloom of youth? What are colored garments and headdresses? What is the charm of power and riches? What does earthly nobility of blood mean in comparison with the nobility of the sons and daughters of God? What do all earthly goods together mean in comparison with the heavenly, incorruptible, unforfeitable, eternal ones? All the perishable goods of this place will vanish: beauty, riches, rank, honors, every earthly pleasure. But behold—while God grants us incorruptible, eternal life, incorruptible and most excellent goods, the flesh, the world, and the world-ruler, the devil, draw us forcibly toward themselves—toward earthly pleasures, riches, honors. An intensified, unceasing struggle with oneself is required, with one’s own sinful passions and inclinations, with earthly customs, rules, habits—for without struggle one can be entirely carried away by the charms and customs of the world, be deprived of the eternal goods, and perish. «The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force» (Mt 11:12).

When the Lord calls His own body the Church, or our bodies the temple of God, He thereby impresses upon us a high reverence for the body, as a temporary tabernacle in which our immortal spirit dwells, and likewise the truth that we must guard it by every means from defilement and corruption, and keep it in purity and holiness. «Your hands created me and fashioned me; give me understanding, and I shall learn Your commandments» (Ps 118:73). The Most Holy Theotokos was a true temple of the Godhead. When we worthily partake of the Divine Body and Blood, we too become, in a special manner, temples of the Godhead. We thank You, O Lord our God, who have counted us worthy of so great an honor!

The life of a Christian is a struggle and a labor, and this struggle ought to have, as its aim and its result, an establishment in faith and love toward God and neighbor; for the enemy, too, wars against mankind and gains for himself strong warriors, or willing and unwilling servants—for instance, heretics and sectarians, freethinkers and blasphemers in general, betrayers, traitors to God and to the tsar, or fornicators, drunkards, the envious, murderers, the proud, thieves, rebels, and the like—and through them works against God and against people, or against those in lawful authority; and the more they satisfy their own passions, the stronger they become in their grip, the more they serve the devil, and the greater adversaries they become to God and to people (for example, Judas the betrayer, Leo Tolstoy). The righteousness of God requires that a person, having fallen by his own will, should himself, consciously, struggle against sin, fight it, and, in overcoming it, zealously call to his aid the grace of God, without which he can never be a conqueror of sin—that he may earn the eternal reward from God, and have the comfort of the conviction that in this moral victory there is a share of his own merit as well.

«For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light» (Mф. 11:30). What is this good yoke of the Lord, and His light burden? What is the yoke of the enemy, the yoke of sins and passions? How heavy it is! How much misfortune, sorrow, sickness, poverty, unrest, war, and countless deaths come from it! How sweet it is to serve the Lord with a sincere heart! What peace, what sweetness, what lightness, what spaciousness of soul, in heartfelt prayer, in the reading of the word of God, in the doing of good deeds! How deceptive and ruinous is sin! How beautiful, how faithful, how honored and how praiseworthy is virtue!

The most vital question that we must all resolve is this: what must we do, that we may live? The Giver of Life Himself, God, has given the answer: if you would live, keep the commandments (Mф. 19:17). Eternal life, then, consists in the keeping of the commandments. And the commandments consist in love toward God and neighbor.

The will of God must be done with all zeal, and this must be desired with the whole heart, and striven for with all fervor and energy; for in its fulfillment is our life, our peace, our joy, our glory, our blessedness, our strength. «Your will be done»—thus the Lord taught us to pray! And how He Himself fulfilled it, and fulfilled it perfectly. «Behold, I come to do Your will, O God», He says, in the words of Scripture (Ps 39:8). And how He taught us to fulfill the will of God exactly! «If anyone does the will of My Father in heaven, such a one is My brother, and sister, and mother» (Mt 3:35). But how little care and effort we give to doing the will of God! Each person does his own foolish, corrupted, depraved, blind, ruinous will. The proud man his own, the malicious his own, the drunkard his own, the lover of gain his own, the envious his own, the fornicator his own. But the will of God is our life, our eternal blessedness, our holiness. «This is the will of God—your holiness» (1Thes 4:3).

Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done!

The Christian must sincerely desire, for himself and for others, that the name of God be glorified unceasingly in him and in others, and must grieve when it is not glorified but is blasphemed by various sins; he must desire that all become temples of God not made with hands. «Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you?» (1Cor 3:16).

Every Christian man and woman needs to know and firmly remember the true, actual purpose, given by the Creator, of all things in the world, of all the faculties of the soul, and of all the members of the body, and, in keeping with their end and purpose, to use them for their own good and the good of others, and for the glory of God. Meanwhile, we, through our own passionateness, sinfulness, and blindness of soul, forget this good purpose of the Creator, and pervert His good intentions into evil and ruin for ourselves and for others; we use them either immoderately, unseasonably, or altogether perversely. How much moral and physical harm comes from this! How much disorder! How much corruption of souls and of bodies!

Do you see this wondrous harmony, or concord, this order of creatures great and small throughout the whole universe, their orderly course and life; do you see the wondrous order of all creation? In your own being too, in your own soul and body, let there be always this order and harmony of all your powers—through constant obedience to the laws of the Creator and Provider.

God created the bright and good angels, and man, although He foresaw that a third of the angels would turn aside into malice and that the human race would fall terribly and ruinously. Why, then, did He create them? That the excellence of His goodness might be shown, and that the willful malice of His creatures might not overcome His immeasurable goodness and love for mankind. For this reason, too, He came down to earth, suffered, died, and rose again, that the excellence of His goodness might be shown in all things, and that the labors and virtues of the strugglers and fighters of good against evil might be rewarded, and that the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, venerable ones, and all the saints might receive the most brilliant crowns of glory for their faith and piety; that holiness, righteousness, love, mercy, abstinence, purity and chastity, courage, and patience for faith in the Author of the contest, and love for Him, might triumph. Where would there be room for struggle, if there were only good in the world and no evil—which, however, exists not of necessity, but by chance, as a result of the willful turning of a good angel to evil? Struggle, then, all of you, against sin, and be saved, that you may receive the crowns of glory.

From my own daily temptations by evil spirits, whose mischief and schemes I see clearly, I am convinced that there is a whole world of evil demons, working cunningly and ruinously, without ceasing, in the human race—in the whole human race indeed, for over thousands of people of every rank, condition, sex, and age I have noticed the countless schemes of these same demons. Pitiable is the human race, injured in many ways by satan and his evil and all-cunning host; there is no numbering the sorrows, misfortunes, sicknesses, and losses inflicted on people by the world of evil spirits. Thanks be to God in Trinity, that He has not left us without intercession and redemption from these unseen evil reptiles, and unceasingly restrains their assaults upon us, and that He has given us bright Guardian Angels, who defend, guard, enlighten, guide, and save us according to His will. There is, then, a whole kingdom of evil spirits, permitted for a time by God to work mischief in the world, as a punishment for sinful people, or for the testing and confirming in virtue of righteous people, as with Job and others like him in the Old and New Testaments. But if there exists a world of spirits—good and evil—and it exists for all eternity, having received its being in time, then my own soul too, and all human souls, having the nature of spirit, will likewise exist eternally, having begun their being in time; and this temporal life is a preparation for the eternal one, a contest for the testing of the quality of my soul, of the degree of its good or its evil; a struggle and a trial, from which I myself may perceive for what my soul is fit or unfit—for eternal life with God, or for eternal dwelling with evil spirits, whom I sometimes come to resemble through my own sinful, passionate impulses.

The man of this world, of flesh and blood, is always self-loving and self-indulgent to the highest degree, and therefore spiritually shortsighted and blind, and sees nothing beyond this life and beyond his own nose. His whole reason, the dreams of his imagination, his pleasures, hopes, calculations, sorrows, or joys, all revolve within this world; he does not believe in future blessedness or in future torments, and counts the future life a fable. The spiritual, believing man, on the contrary, loves all, as far as he is able, counting all as children of God; he dwells, in thought, in heart, in imagination, in the heavens, contemplating there God, His eternity, beauty, blessedness, holiness, goodness, righteousness, brightness, and strives for union with Him through a righteous life, meditation on God, virtue, meekness, mercy, abstinence, patience, and the like.

The moral sense is a spiritual shield, with which the Creator has protected every person against the assault of evil, and for the keeping of his moral, spiritual, and bodily purity; this sense is given especially to the Christian through the grace of baptism and chrismation; in pagans, Mohammedans, and non-Orthodox Christians it is imperfect and exceedingly weak, and depends on their own views or teaching of faith, and changes according to the quality of their beliefs; sometimes it is entirely perverted. Thus, for instance, educated Finns and Swedes living in Russia hate Russians and the Orthodox faith with a perfect hatred, and breathe fury and murder against Russians, and do not count this a sin. Thus Catholics, by the erroneous views of their own papal faith, not that of Christ, hate with a perfect hatred the Orthodox Russians, Greeks, and other Orthodox peoples for their faith, for an imagined schism: in them the moral sense is perverted. Thus materialists and naturalists, who place all good and the whole of life in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, do not count gluttony, delicacy, fornication, and adultery as sin, and say that nature demands this and it must be satisfied, and whatever woman or maiden falls under their influence, one may do with her what nature demands, and that he is a fool who does not take advantage of this. Thus cannibals do not count it a sin to slaughter another person and eat him. Thus there have been, and are, people who do not count it a sin to offer children or adults in sacrifice to an imagined deity. Thus many do not count it a sin to rob or steal from a rich or middling person. Thus many egoists respect another person only so long as he brings them benefit, advantage, only so long as they need him, but as soon as no benefit can be drawn from him, they despise him and drive him away, and will not give him even a crust of bread.

«The Lord knows them that are His», and «let every one that names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity» (2Tim 2:19). Who are the Lord’s own? Those who live not for flesh and blood, but by the spirit and mind of the Lord, who struggle against the passions and overcome them, who contend for righteousness, who mind the things above and look upward, not downward; those who keep the Lord’s commandments unceasingly in their heart and follow them without wavering, and if they fall through weakness or habit, rise up again at once; those who lay down their souls for the Lord, and do not refuse to die for Him and for righteousness and truth.

In doing good to others, you do good to yourself; in praying for others, you gain for yourself those who will pray for you; in pleasing others for their good, you gain for yourself helpers and friends. In praying for the departed, you gain for yourself their intercession before God, if they have boldness before Him. In glorifying the saints, you are made worthy of their intercession before God. Thus good is fruitful.

Sinners, in Holy Scripture, are likened to smoking firebrands or logs, for they smolder and stink with their own passions, whereas the righteous are like a fragrant cypress, filling with sweetness those who draw near to them by their meekness, humility, abstinence, purity, obedience, courage, patience—the fragrant incorruption of their own bodies.