Continued. An Account of the Disorder Introduced Into Human Nature by the Sin of the Forebears. Communion With God Was the Source of the Spirit’s Dominion Over Soul and Body. By Transgressing the Commandment, Man Separated Himself From God, Lost Mastery Over Soul and Body, and Fell Under the Dominion of the Passions. A Portrait of Man After the Fall, Torn by the Passions

I continue. What happened to us as a result of our first ancestors’ transgression! Our nature remained the same; the parts and faculties of our nature remained the same, with the same laws and requirements. But our consciousness together with freedom was turned in the wrong direction—and thereby we disturbed the mutual relationship of our parts and faculties and, violating their original order, brought disorder into the general activity and life of man, giving birth out of ourselves to a special class of destructive forces—the passions: unnatural to us, yet having acquired such power that they manage all our faculties as they please. Here is how it all came about.

God created man for blessedness—specifically, in Him, through living communion with Him. For this purpose He breathed into his face the breath of His own life—which is the spirit, as has already been mentioned. The essential property of the spirit is self-awareness and freedom, while its essential movements are the confession of God as Creator, Provider, and Rewarder, with the sense of full dependence upon Him—all of which is expressed in a loving gaze toward God, unceasing attentiveness to Him, and reverential fear before Him, with the desire always to do what is pleasing in His sight according to the direction of conscience—the lawgiver—and with detachment from all things, so as to taste of God alone, and to live and delight in Him alone.

Man was given in the spirit self-awareness and freedom—not so that he might become conceited and self-willed, but so that, recognizing that he has everything from God and that he exists in order to live in God, he might freely and consciously direct everything toward this one goal. When he is disposed in this way, he abides in God and God abides in him. God, abiding in man, gives his spirit the power to rule over soul and body, and beyond them over all that is outside him. Such was the original state of man. God appeared to our first ancestors and confirmed all this through His divine word, commanding them to know Him alone, to serve Him alone, to walk in His will alone. Lest they become confused in working out how to fulfill all this, He gave them a small commandment: not to eat the fruit of a certain tree, which He called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so our first ancestors began to live, and they rejoiced in blessedness in Paradise.

The spirit that had previously fallen through pride envied them and threw them off course, inciting them to transgress the small commandment given to them by seductively suggesting that upon eating of the forbidden fruit they would taste a good that they could not even imagine without it—that they would become as gods. They believed—and they ate. The act of eating was perhaps not so great in itself, but the trouble was that they believed, not knowing whom they were believing. Perhaps even that would not have been so grave had it not been for those dreadfully criminal thoughts and feelings toward God which the evil spirit poured into them like poison. He told them that God had forbidden them to eat of the tree in order that they should not become gods themselves. They believed this.

But having believed this, they could not help but receive blasphemous thoughts about God—that He envied them and bore them ill will. And receiving such thoughts, they could not avoid certain evil feelings toward Him and willful resolutions: “So we ourselves will take what You do not wish to allow us.” “So that is what He is like”—it lodged in their hearts regarding God—“and we thought He was so good. Well, then we will arrange things ourselves, in defiance of Him.” It was precisely these thoughts and feelings that were dreadfully criminal! They signify open apostasy from God and hostile rebellion against Him. Within them there occurred the same thing that is attributed to the evil spirit: ”I will set my throne above the clouds… and I will be like the Most High” (Is. 14:13–14)—and not as a fleeting thought, but as a hostile resolve.

Thus self-awareness became conceited and freedom became willful, taking upon itself the arrangement of its own destiny. The falling away from God was complete, accompanied by a certain aversion and hostile uprising against Him. For this, God too withdrew from such transgressors—and the living union was broken. God is everywhere and sustains all things, but He enters within free creatures when they surrender themselves to Him. But when they close themselves off within themselves, He does not violate their self-authority; maintaining and sustaining them, He does not enter within. And so our first ancestors were left alone. Had they repented quickly, perhaps God would have returned to them—but they persisted in stubbornness, and under open reproach neither Adam nor Eve admitted their guilt. Judgment followed, and punishment by expulsion from Paradise. Then they came to their senses—but it was already too late. They had to bear the sentence that had been pronounced, and after them the whole of our race. Thanks be to the all-merciful God that, even as He withdrew from us, He did not forsake us—having devised a wondrous means for our reunion with Himself.

But here I have gone a little further than I needed to. We must fix our attention on what happened within man. Here is what happened. The spirit had power over soul and body because it was in living communion with God and received divine strength from Him. When the living communion with God was cut off, the influx of divine strength was also cut off. The spirit, left to itself, could no longer be the ruler of soul and body, but was itself swept away and taken captive by them. Soulishness gained dominion over man, and through soulishness came carnality, and he became soulish and carnal. The spirit is the same as before, but without authority. It asserts its existence—now through the fear of God, now through the pangs of conscience, now through dissatisfaction with all that is created—but its declarations are not heeded; they are merely noted, while all concern is turned to the ordering of one’s earthly life, which is indeed the soul’s appointed task, and more specifically to material life—because earthly life is mediated by the body, and everything bodily is more tangible and seems more necessary.

When such an inversion of order took place in the mutual relations of the parts of our nature, man could no longer see things as they truly are, nor keep his needs, desires, and feelings in their proper order. They fell into confusion, and disorder became their characteristic feature. But this evil state would still have been bearable, were it not for the passions—and the passions surpassed all else and began to tyrannize man. See how anger beats the one it has enraged, like a fever. How envy has consumed the envious man until the poor soul has gone blue. How grief has dried up the sorrowful man until he is skin and bones. Such are all the passions. But they entered along with self-will. As soon as the words “So I myself” were pronounced within the first ancestor, self-will took root in him—that venom and that satanic seed. From it there then developed the entire host of passions: pride, envy, hatred, grief, despondency, love of money, and sensuality—with all their numerous and manifold offspring. Having multiplied within, they further disturb the inner state that was already turbulent without them.

And so there is the sickness. The spirit became conceited and self-willed. For this it lost its authority and fell under the dominion of soul and body and all that is external. Hence the confusion of soul-bodily needs and desires, and especially their immeasurability. This immeasurability is imparted to them by the spirit which has been enslaved by them. In themselves, these needs are moderate and not turbulent. The fact that they have no measure and churn—this comes from the spirit raging within them, for by nature the spirit has boundless energy. Hence gluttony, drunkenness, the hoarding of money… and much else besides, for which man does not even think of setting a limit. But the chief sickness is the passions—those alien tyrants.

It is not difficult for you now to draw the inference: what then is needed in order to restore everything in us to its original order? I will write to you about that next time; in the meantime, think it over.