Letters 1 part 16/17

This, then, will be a true sign to men, that they have become sons and heirs of God: that having received, they have my Divine Spirit; and hence they are truly called Christians in truth and in fact, not in name only.

These things are faithful and desirable, my Christ — those whom you clearly foreknew, and granted to become conformed to your image in the Divine Spirit; and all things are possible for them, as ones called by you into the ineffable joy, unto the ages.

But to all the rest, these things seem impossible — men who, by slandering them, disbelieve entirely, deceiving themselves; or else the foolish suppose they console themselves with empty hopes, speaking loftily as though clever, with inflated words, and, twisting these things allegorically to suit their own liking, utterly despise your fearsome commandments.

For they do not wish to seek you, since they suppose they already have you; but if they should confess that they do not have you, my God, () then they proclaim to all that you are wholly ungraspable, and that no man is able to behold you, nor does anyone surpass them in knowledge.

For they teach that you are either graspable and accessible to all men, or altogether ungraspable and inaccessible; yet in both they err, not understanding things divine and human, being darkened.

Grant them, O Lord, the light of knowledge as a prize; give them the hand of divine fear; grant them to rise up from the pit of their evil supposition, and to come to a conscious awareness that they lie in a pit, and sit in darkness, not seeing the divine light.

This is what those who now behold you bear witness to.

If your light does not shine upon them, and they do not see with knowledge, how could they clearly believe that you appear to the worthy, and speak together with them, and dwell together with them, now and forever, as with friends, as with your faithful servants, just as you said?

But you are the God of the faithful, not also of the unfaithful; for which reason you do not look upon them at all.

For to those who deny you and say that your eternal light does not shine into the souls of the worthy, how could you show them the face of your light, my Savior?

...giving themselves up, for your sake, even unto death, to the true performance of your wise commandments...

This, then, is the salvation of all who are being saved; there is no other way, as you said, O my God.

Grant mercy, grant mercy to those who entreat you, O Savior, now and always and unto the ages of ages.

A prayer to God concerning what had come to pass for him — at once a supplication and a thanksgiving.

Though I sinned as a man beyond all men, you know it; but you, my God, in your own tender compassion, had mercy on me, the poor one, the orphan in the world, and did, O Master, what you alone know — separating me, O merciful one, from father and brothers, from kinsmen and friends, from the land of my birth, from my father's house, as from a dark Egypt, as from the depths of Hades (for thus you granted to me, your worthless servant, to think and speak of these things with understanding) — and having taken me to yourself, and holding me with your awesome hand, you led me to him whom you were pleased should become my father on earth, and cast me at his feet and into his arms.

And he brought me to your Father, my Christ, and to you through the Spirit, O Trinity, my God, weeping like the prodigal and falling down, O Word, just as you yourself know, because you taught me; and you did not disdain to call me your son.

O unworthy mouth and defiled lips! () O poor tongue of speech, at a loss to hymn you, to give thanks and speak of your benefactions, which you have done to me, the orphan and stranger — a stranger on earth!

For those who are yours are strangers to the world; and your things, and the things of your own, eyes do not see, the tongue cannot utter, nor can the world contain.

[The world] drives us out, reviles, envies, rages, kills, and does everything against us, plunging itself into these things; but we, your humble servants, as you were pleased to ordain, are strong in weakness, we are rich in poverty, we rejoice in every affliction, being outside the world.

We, O Master, are with you; but the world has only the body.

So then, the blind man is deceived, possessing only clay, which he will not even keep for himself; for you will give, as you promised, at the last trumpet, this too made spiritual — and then he alone will gain his own evils, together with his like-minded companions, the blind lovers of the world.

For he who has desired God with his whole soul hates the world.

() I am held fast by a shadow, and yet I see the truth, which is nothing other than sure hope.

A common teaching, with reproof, to all — to kings, high priests, priests, monastics, laity — spoken and being spoken by the mouth of God.

For you know the weakness of my speech, and my having no share in outer learning; you know that I have you alone as life and word and knowledge and wisdom, savior God and protector in life, and the breath of my humble soul — I, the stranger, and humble in words.

You are my hope, you my help, you my shelter, you my refuge, you my boast, my wealth, my glory.

You, O Word, were pleased to take me up from the world, in your tender compassion — the stranger, the unworthy, the worthless one, worse than any man, than any irrational animal; and therefore, trusting in your mercy, I ask you, and speak, and fall down before you: give me an upright word, give me strength, give me power to speak to all who are devoted to you, () and who serve you, King of all — to speak to the initiates, the rulers, and the ministers, to those who suppose they see you and serve and are truly enslaved to you as Master.

All men — kings and rulers, priests, bishops, monastics and laity — do not disdain to hear the voice and words of me, a worthless man, but open to me the ears of your hearts, and hear and understand what the God of all, and before all ages, the unapproachable, the only Almighty, in whose hand is the breath of all that exists, says: 'Kings!'

You do well in warring against the nations, provided that you yourselves, by doing the works and customs and counsels and opinions of the nations, and through your many deeds and words, do not deny me, your King.

It would have been better for you to keep my words and rightly do all my commandments, and in blessed poverty to pursue a life free from worldly affairs.

For what profit is it to defend the world from death and temporal slavery, while you yourselves become, by your deeds, slaves of the passions and of demons every day, and heirs of the unquenchable fire?

...then let him no longer return to these things, but abide in the words of me, the Master, in the ordinances and laws of truth, and thus do all things without transgression, even unto death, overlooking not a single bare word, nor one stroke of what is written; for this is sacrifice to me, this is incense and offering and gift to me. But without these, you are worse than pagans.

Many of the bishops, out of few, are the haughty ones, humbled with an evil and contrary humility; those who hunt after the glory of men, and overlook me, the Creator of all, as one poor and needy, cast aside; unworthily they touch my body, and, seeking to be preeminent over the many, uninvited they enter within my inner sanctuaries, and they tread upon the bridal chamber of the ineffable mysteries without the garment — without my grace, which they have not yet received — and gaze on what it is not lawful for them even to see from outside; and I, exceedingly loving mankind, am longsuffering, bearing their shameless audacity.

They enter, and speak to me as to a friend — to whom they did not even remain faithful in fear as servants should — and they show themselves as intimates, () they who do not even recognize my grace, yet promise to mediate for others, though they themselves are accountable for many offenses.

Adorning the body well on the outside, they appear splendid and clean, seemingly, yet they possess souls worse than clay and mire — or rather, worse than any deadly poison — the wretched ones, in wickedness.

And shamelessly they stand in the inner sanctuaries, presuming boldness before me, seeing not at all my divine glory — which, if they saw, they would not do this, nor would they so presumptuously dare to enter the forecourts of my divine temple.

All these things, then, everyone who wishes will know — () that what has been written is true and certain, from the deeds of those of us who are priests — and he will find no falsehood whatsoever, and he will be convinced, and will confess that God himself has said these things through me.

Unless someone is himself among those who do these things, and hastens to conceal them with deceitful words, and to cover up his own shames — which the Lord God of all, who reveals the hidden things of darkness, will reveal before angels and men.

Which of us who are now priests, having first purified his own lawless deeds, thus dared to undertake the priesthood?

Who could say this openly, that he has despised the glory below and performs the sacred rites for the sake of that above alone?

Who has been content with only what is necessary, and has not misappropriated anything from his neighbor?

Who does not have his own conscience condemned on account of the profits by which he was driven to become or to act — having bought or sold grace?

Who has not preferred a friend over a worthy man, rather appointing the unworthy one?

And who does not eagerly strive to make his own genuine friends bishops, so that he may take under his authority all that belongs to others?

For this is counted among the moderate faults, which they even suppose to be sinless — () taking away the possessions of another church.

...did he not ordain someone unworthily?

Truly, no one today among these has a heart pure of all this, without being pricked by conscience, since he has certainly done one of the things I have named; but we all sin without fear, neither striving to cut off evil, nor practicing the doing of good; and for this reason we do not repent, though baptized into the depth of evils, and we lie unfeeling toward these things.

For being untasted of divine glory, we are unable to disregard the glory below; and the desire for glory — I mean the glory of men — does not allow the soul to be humbled at all, nor to blame itself willingly.

How then, tell me, these things being so, will he who hunts after the glory of men and desires perishable wealth, who longs to possess a multitude of gold, who is insatiable for plunder and bears grudges against those who do not give frequently, dare to say that he has God dwelling within him, or that he loves Christ, or that he has the Spirit of Christ?

But he who has not received Christ and his Father and the Holy Spirit — the one God knowingly dwelling and walking within his heart — how will he show genuine servitude, () and from whom else will he learn humility, or how will he be taught the divine will?

Who will mediate for this man, or reconcile him to God, and present him as an unashamed worshiper to God, who alone is pure and undefiled, on whom the Cherubim do not dare to gaze, who is unapproachable to all the angels?

Who will guarantee that this man holds it without sin, and performs without condemnation the awesome ministry of the spotless sacrifice?

What angel, what man can say this, or will have the power to do it?

Whoever will not first forsake the world and hate, with his whole soul, the things of the world, and love Christ alone with sincerity, and lose his very soul for his sake, caring for nothing that pertains to the life of this world, but is, as it were, dying hour by hour, and will not weep much for him, and mourn, and have desire for him alone, and through many afflictions and labors be deemed worthy to receive the Divine Spirit — which he gave to the holy apostles — so that it may drive out from him every passion, and he may easily accomplish every virtue, and acquire unfailing fountains of tears, whence comes purification and the contemplation of the soul, whence the knowledge of the divine will, () whence the illumination of the divine radiance and the contemplation of the unapproachable light, from which comes freedom from passion and holiness, given to all who have been deemed worthy to see and to have God in their heart, and to be guarded by him, and to guard inviolate his divine commandments — let him not dare to undertake the priesthood and the care of souls, or to rule.

For just as Christ both is offered to God his own Father and offers himself, so too he himself both offers us and himself thus receives us again.

Since the undertaking of such things will be for judgment and condemnation — worse than a murderer, worse than an adulterer and a fornicator and all other sins.

All these things, then, are now done against mortals, for we sin against one another in every case; but he who brazenly hucksters divine things and sells off the grace of the Spirit sins altogether against God himself.

For he who has been established in the person of the Word ought to live just as he did, and thus: follow!

Foxes have dens, and all the birds have nests, but I, who have been deemed worthy to be a servant of Christ, have nowhere to lay my head.

For he ought to have nothing at all of his own, nor to possess anything of the world, except only the need of the body; and all other things belong to the poor, to strangers, and to their own church.

But if, on the other hand, he should dare to use these things unseasonably for his own expenses with authority, and to bestow on his relatives what belongs to strangers, to build houses and buy fields, and to drag along a multitude of slaves — woe, what a condemnation is his!

He is altogether like a man who, out of folly, has wickedly devoured his own wife's whole dowry; who, being then apprehended and, when the money is demanded of him, not having it to give, is sent, besides being deprived of his own spouse, to be shut up in prison.

Such, then, shall we priests and ministers be — we who misuse the revenues of the churches upon ourselves, our relatives, and our friends, and take no thought whatsoever for the poor, but instead build houses, bathhouses, monasteries, and towers, provide dowries, arrange marriages, and despise our own churches as though they were strangers, neglecting them and remaining separated from them for long periods of time — we who spend our days in a foreign land, leaving our own wives as widows and taking no forethought for them at all; and others of us who remain steadfastly with them and dwell there, not because we are held by love for them, but only so that we may live off their revenues without restraint and squander them in extravagance.

But as for the beauty of the soul, the bride of Christ, which of us priests takes thought for it?

Show me one, and I will be content with him.

...to priests, to monks, to bishops and ministers — that we trample underfoot the laws of God and Savior as if they were worth nothing.

And if somewhere there appears one who is small among men, but great before God as known by him, one who does not condescend to our passions, he is at once driven out as though he were one of the wrongdoers, and is persecuted by us and put out from our midst, and becomes an outcast from the assembly — just as of old our Christ was by the high priests and the formidable Jews of that time, as he himself said, and ever says, in the resplendent voice of his mighty works: 'But there is a God, who will exalt him and take him to himself; as in this life, so also in the age to come, and will glorify him together with all the saints whom he has loved.'

But what does the Word say also to us, we monastics who seem to be zealous?

Form the inward man with piety, and the outward will surely be pure for me as well; for the one will be for your benefit and for that of those who see your good works, while the other is desirable to me, the Creator of all, and to my ever-young and divine ranks.

But if you adorn only the outward statue by the composure of its manners, and seem to those who behold you to be beloved friends through the outward exercise of labors, yet take no account at all of my own beloved image, for its purification and adornment in zeal and tears and labors — by which you would be clearly seen, both by me and by all, to be truly rational and divine men — then you are in truth like moldering tombs, just as the Pharisees once were, as I said in rebuking their folly.

Splendid outwardly, but inwardly full of decay, filled with dead bones of vile hearts, of rotten thought, words, passions, notions, and deceitful meditation.

These things are indeed good, if the works of your noetic and hidden labor are carried out well, in knowledge and wisdom and reason; but if, apart from this, you perhaps think highly of yourselves on account of those outward things and seem to yourselves to be something, while being nothing without that inner labor, then you are likely similar to lepers, arrayed in splendid garments to the deception of those who see you.

But bid farewell to all outward things and hasten fervently to give yourselves wholly to the inward work, in the sweat and labors of divine virtues and sacred contests, so that you may be seen by me as virgins in your thoughts, illumined in your whole understanding, and be united with me the Word, in the word of my wisdom and superior knowledge.

O whole multitude of my holy people, come quickly to me, your Master.

Come, be loosed from the bonds of the world, hate every delusion of the senses, flee swiftly the causes of evils — the desire of sight and of the flesh, the arrogance of the mind and of life, and every other vain imagination.

Know that these things belong to the world of unrighteousness, leading to destruction the one who makes use of them passionately and with attachment in this life, and unhappily rendering him my enemy as well.

Take hold, in your heart, of the longing for my divine things, for the eternal goods which I, having become incarnate, prepared for you as for a friend, so that you may be forever, ineffably, my fellow-diner at the table of my kingdom, which is in the heavens, with all the saints.

...of splendors or delights and pleasures from here, as one departs to the dwellings yonder — or of only the record of the deeds, whether base or good, done by you in this life.

And having known that it is altogether corruptible and transient, leave the things below, come up hither; I call you to me, the God of all and Savior, that you may truly live unto ages of ages and delight in my good things, which I have prepared for those who love me, both always and now, amen unto the ages.

You have enjoined upon our unworthiness, father and brother, to tell you, by way of question, whether it is indeed permissible for certain monks who do not have the priesthood to receive the confession of sins, adding this as well: since we hear that the authority to bind and loose is given to priests alone.

These, then, are the words and soul-profiting questions of your God-loving soul and of your ardent longing and fear.

We, for our part, have welcomed your intention toward what is good, in that you seek to learn about divine and sacred matters; but we are not capable of discerning and writing such things, and for this reason we wished to remain silent; for the comparing of spiritual things with spiritual belongs to men who are free from passion and holy, from whom we stand at a great distance in life, in reason, and in virtues.

But since, as it is written, the Lord is near to all who call upon him in truth, I too, unworthy as I am, having called upon him in truth, will say these things to you not by my own words, but out of the divine and God-inspired Scripture itself, not teaching, but bringing to you from it the testimonies concerning the matters about which I was asked, so that, by the grace of God, I may preserve both myself and those who hear me from both precipices: that of the one who hid his talent, and that of the one who sets forth divine doctrines unworthily and vaingloriously — or rather, in a benighted manner.

From where, then, shall we make the beginning of our discourse, if not from the beginningless beginning of all things?

For this is better, so that what is said may also be firm.

For we were not created by angels, nor did we learn from men, but we were mystically taught by the wisdom from above, that is, by the grace given through the Spirit, and we are ever being taught hour by hour; and having called upon this wisdom even now, let us speak here, having first set forth the manner of confession and its meaning.

Confession, then, is nothing other than the acknowledgment of debts, that is, the recognition of one's own faults and folly, or rather the condemnation of one's own poverty; just as the Lord said in the Gospels in parable form: 'A certain creditor,' he says, 'had two debtors, and the one owed him fifty denarii, and the other five hundred; and since they had nothing with which to repay, he forgave them both.'

...at his fearful and dread tribunal, when, naked and laid bare, we all stand before him alike, kings and poor together.

But hear what the things are that have been given to us by him.

There are, then, many other things which no man could number, but for now let us mention the better and more perfect ones: freedom from condemnation, sanctification from defilement, passage from darkness to his ineffable light, becoming children and sons and heirs of his through divine baptism, the putting on of God himself, becoming members of him, and receiving the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which is the royal seal by which the Lord seals his own sheep — and why should I say much more?

...to make us like himself and to render us his brothers and fellow-heirs. All these things, and yet more besides, are given to those who are baptized, immediately from divine baptism — things which the divine Apostle also names divine wealth and inheritance.

But the commandments of the Master were given as guardians, as it were, of these ineffable gifts and graces, surrounding the faithful on every side like a wall, keeping the treasure laid up in the soul inviolate, and rendering it unassailable to all enemies and thieves.

But indeed we think that the commandments of the philanthropic God are kept by us, and we are burdened on this account, not knowing that we are rather kept by them; for he who keeps the commandments of God preserves and guards not them, but himself, from visible and invisible enemies — concerning which, as being innumerable and formidable, Paul declared, saying: 'Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places' — that is, in the air — these being ever invisibly arrayed against us.

He, then, who keeps the commandments is kept by them, and does not lose the wealth entrusted to him by God; but he who despises them is found naked and easily overcome by the enemies, and having lost all his wealth, becomes a debtor to the King and Master for all those things which we have mentioned, for which it is not possible for a man to make any repayment or to find them again; for they are heavenly, and came from the heavens, and come daily, bringing and distributing them to the faithful — and where will those who received them and lost them be able to find them again?

Just as neither Adam nor any of his sons was able to bring about the recall of himself or of his kindred, until God, who is above nature and became his son according to the flesh — our Lord Jesus Christ — came and raised up both him and us from our fall by divine power; so he who thinks to keep, not all the commandments, but only some, while betraying others, let him know that even if he should neglect but one, he thereby loses the whole wealth.

If, then, one of the twelve should fall by his own will and neglect his watch, and leave his post open like a door to the adversary, what benefit will there be from the remaining eleven men, once the one enemy has entered into their midst and is mercilessly cutting you to pieces, since those eleven would not be able to turn to your aid?

For even if they should wish to turn back, they too will be consumed by the adversaries.

And thus it will certainly be also with you, if you do not keep the commandments.

...he loses it; so also, by neglecting one commandment, you gradually fall away from all the others as well, just as Christ says: 'To him who has, more shall be given, and it shall be in abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he seems to have shall be taken from him' — and again: 'Whoever looses one of these commandments, and teaches men — namely, by transgression — to do so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.'

And Paul: 'For by whatever a man is overcome, to that he is also enslaved'; and again: 'The sting of death is sin' — and he did not say 'this or that particular sin', but whatever sort the sin may be, this is the sting of death.

He calls sin the sting of death, because those who are wounded by it die.

Every sin, then, is unto death; for once a man has sinned, as Paul says, he has already died, having become liable for debt and sin, left lying wounded by robbers.

He who has died, then, what else does he long for, if not to rise again? And he who is in debt and has nothing to repay, what else does he long for, if not to receive release from his debt, and not to be cast into prison until he repays the obligation — from which, because he never has the means to repay, he will never be able to come forth from the eternal prison, that is, the darkness?

So too, he who has been crushed by the intelligible robbers certainly seeks a physician, one who is compassionate and merciful, to come to him.

For he does not have a fervent fear of God within himself, so as rather to go to the physician; but, having had the power of his soul dissolved by contempt, he lies there — a dreadful and pitiable spectacle to those who see clearly, or rather spiritually, the soul's transgressions.

He, then, who through sin has become a slave to the devil — 'for do you not know,' he says, 'that you are slaves to him whom you obey, whether of righteousness unto righteousness, or of lawlessness unto lawlessness' — and has become a mockery to the Father and God, and a thing trampled underfoot by the enemies who have apostatized from God, having become such a one, and stripped of the royal purple, and left behind blackened, and, instead of being a child of God, having become a child of the devil — what shall he do, so that he might again come into possession of that from which he has fallen?

Surely, that he will seek a mediator, a friend of God, one able to restore him as before, and to reconcile him to God and Father.

For he who has been joined to Christ by grace, and has become a member of him, and has been adopted by him — if he then abandons him and, like a dog, returns to his own vomit, and either entangles himself with a harlot woman or is joined to another body — as having dishonored and insulted Christ, he is condemned along with the unbelievers, since, according to the divine Apostle, we are the body of Christ and members individually.

He who joins himself to the harlot, then, makes the members of Christ members of a harlot.

He who has done such things, and has thus provoked his Master and God to anger, cannot otherwise be reconciled to God, except through a mediator — a holy man, a friend and servant of Christ — and through fleeing from evil.

For this reason, let us flee sin first; for even if we are wounded by its arrow, let us not linger, being sweetened by its venom as though by honey; nor, like a wounded bear, let us make the wound greater through the same act; but let us run at once to the spiritual physician, and vomit out the poison of sin through confession, spitting out its venom, and eagerly receive from him, as an antidote, the penances given for repentance, and let us strive always to carry these out with fervent faith and in the fear of God.