Letters 1 part 17/17

For all who have emptied out the whole of the wealth entrusted to them, and have squandered their father's substance with harlots and tax collectors, and, because of much shame, have their conscience bowed down and unable even to lift itself up, being without confidence, reasonably seek some man to become a guarantor of their debt to God, so that through him they may approach him — which, as I think, is impossible to come about without sincere and laborious repentance on the part of him who is about to, or indeed wishes to, be reconciled to God.

...it is nowhere written in the Scriptures that anyone may undertake the sins of another and answer for them in his place, when the one who sinned has not first himself shown things worthy of repentance, proportionate to the kind of his sin, undertaken its labors, and produced its fruits; for the voice that went before the Word as forerunner says: 'Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father' — since our Lord himself likewise said concerning those who are foolishly disposed: 'Amen, I say to you, even if Moses and Daniel should stand forth to deliver their sons and daughters, they shall not deliver them.'

What, then, shall we do, or by what manner shall we, who wish to repent, devise the release of our debt and the recall from our fall?

Listen, with God granting it, so that I may address each of you.

If you wish, seek out a mediator, and physician, and good counselor, so that, as a good counselor, he may suitably propose to you, by good counsel, the ways of repentance; and, as a physician, he may administer to you a remedy fitting for each wound; and, as a mediator, standing before God face to face on your behalf, through prayer and intercession to God, he may propitiate the Divine for you.

Take care, then, not to strive to make a flatterer or a slave of the belly your counselor and ally, lest, going along with your own will, he teach you not what God loves, but what you yourself are inclined to accept, and you remain in truth an irreconcilable enemy still; nor make an inexperienced physician your ally, lest, by excessive severity and untimely cuttings and cauterizings, he send you down into the depths of despair, or, conversely, by excessive sympathy, leave you sick while you suppose yourself healthy, and — the most terrible thing — deliver you over to eternal punishment, contrary to your hope; for this is what the sickness of the soul, dying along with us here, brings about.

But I do not think that a mediator of God and men is found so simply.

For not all who are of Israel are Israel, but only those who clearly understand both the name and the very power of the name, and who, being mind, see God; nor are all who are called by the name of Christ truly Christians.

'For not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord,' says Christ, 'shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father'; just as also, he says, 'many will say to me on that day: Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? And I will say to them: Amen, I say to you, I do not know you; depart from me, workers of lawlessness.'

For this reason, then, we must all take heed, brothers — both those who act as mediators, and those who have sinned, and those themselves who wish to be reconciled to God — so that those who mediate may not draw down wrath upon themselves instead of a reward, and so that those who have given offense and are eager to be reconciled may not meet with an enemy, a murderer, and a wicked counselor instead of a mediator.

For such men will hear, with a dreadful threat: 'Who made you rulers and judges of my people?' — and again: 'Hypocrite, first cast out the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to cast out the speck that is in your brother's eye.'

The beam is some one passion or desire that darkens the eye of the soul.

And again: 'Physician, heal yourself'; and again, God said to the sinner: 'Why do you recite your own statutes, and take up my covenant in your mouth?'

But you have hated instruction and cast my words behind you; and Paul says: Who are you, to judge another's servant?

To his own master he stands or falls; but God is able, through his faithful servant, to make him stand.

...out of love of glory, or trade, or lack of perception; for it comes about, through the [pastoral] staff, that men are both called fathers and undertake to receive the thoughts of others.

Let us not, I beseech you, so shamelessly and simply seize the dignity of the apostles, being instructed by the example on earth.

For if someone shall dare, out of self-will, to make himself equal to the one who represents the earthly king, and is caught secretly holding and exercising the things entrusted to him, or is even found openly professing to carry them out, he himself, together with his fellow-conspirators and subordinates, is subjected to the utmost punishments, as a warning to others, and is mocked by all as foolish and senseless — what then shall those who unworthily seize the dignity of the apostles suffer in the age to come?

But do not wish to become mediators for others before you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and before you have come to know and be befriended, in the conscious perception of the soul, to the King of all — since not even all who know the earthly king are able to mediate others to him.

For very few indeed are able to do this — those who, through virtue and toils, that is, through their labors, have acquired boldness of access to him, and who themselves, needing no mediator, converse with the king mouth to mouth.

Shall we not, then, fathers and brothers, keep this same order also with respect to God? Shall we not honor the heavenly King as much as the earthly one — or rather, snatching for ourselves in advance the seat at his right hand and his left, before even asking for it and receiving it, shall we grant it to ourselves?

What shame would seize us!

For even if we are accused of nothing else, yet for this alone, as despisers, we shall with dishonor be stripped even of the presidency, and shall be cast into the unquenchable fire.

But this is enough for the admonition of those who wish to take heed to themselves; for on this account we have made our discourse somewhat more digressive than the matter before us [required]. Let us now, then, say what you, my child, sought to learn.

That it is possible for us to make confession to a monk who does not possess the priesthood — this you will find to have occurred universally, ever since the garment and habit of repentance was granted by God as a gift to his inheritance and they were named monks, just as it is recorded in the God-inspired writings of the fathers, in which, if you look closely, you will find that what is said is true.

Now before these [monks], the bishops alone received, by succession, the authority to bind and loose, as from the divine apostles; but as time went on and the bishops became unprofitable, this awesome office passed on to priests who had a blameless life and had been deemed worthy of divine grace. Then, these too becoming mixed together — the priests, together with the bishops, being assimilated to the rest of the people, and many, as even now, falling into spirits of error and vain, empty talk, and perishing — it was transferred, as has been said, to the chosen people of God, I mean the monks; not that it was taken away from the priests or bishops, but that they themselves alienated themselves from it.

For every priest is established as a mediator between God and men, before God, as Paul says, and ought, just as he offers sacrifice on behalf of the people, so also to offer it on behalf of himself.

But let us begin our discourse from further back, and see from where, and how, and to whom, from the beginning, this authority to perform the sacred ministry and to bind and loose was given; and, following the order in which you asked, the answer will thus become clear, not to you alone, but to all other men as well.

When our Lord and God and Savior said to the man with the withered hand, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' the Hebrews, on hearing this, said: 'This man speaks blasphemy; who can forgive sins but God alone?'

Thus forgiveness of sins had not yet been granted — not by prophets, not by priests, not by any of the patriarchs of that time.

...as though a man granting forgiveness for sins committed. For he says to them, 'But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins' — he says to the man with the withered hand, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and it was restored whole like the other, through the visible miracle giving assurance of the greater and invisible one.

Thus he did with Zacchaeus, thus with the harlot, thus with Matthew from the tax office, thus with Peter who denied him three times, thus with the paralytic, whom, having healed and afterward finding him, he said: 'Behold, you have become well; sin no more, lest something worse befall you.'

By saying this he showed that the man had fallen into his sickness on account of sin, and that, being freed from it, he also received the forgiveness of his own sins — this requiring of him not many long periods of time, not fasting, not sleeping on the ground, but only conversion and undoubting faith and the cutting off of evil and true repentance and many tears, as with the harlot and Peter who wept bitterly.

From this comes the beginning of this great gift, befitting God alone, which he alone possessed; then, being about to ascend into heaven, he leaves this same grace to the disciples in his stead.

But how did he bestow this dignity and authority upon them?

The eleven chosen disciples, the doors being shut and they gathered together within...

For entering and standing in their midst, he breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven them; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained.' And he gave them no instruction as yet concerning penances, since they were to be taught these by the Holy Spirit.

As has been said, then, the holy Apostles transmitted this authority by succession to those who occupied their thrones, so that none of the rest dared even to conceive of such a thing. Thus did the disciples of the Lord guard with precision the just right of this authority.

But, as we have said, as time went on, the worthy became confounded and mixed together with the unworthy, and were hidden by the multitude, each contending to outdo the other and feigning primacy through a show of virtue.

For from the time when those occupying the thrones of the Apostles were shown to be carnal, pleasure-loving, and glory-loving, and turned aside into heresies, divine grace forsook them, and this authority was taken away from such men.

Wherefore also, having abandoned all the other things which those who perform the sacred ministry ought to have, this alone is now required of them: to hold the orthodox faith.

But I think not even this suffices; for the one who does not introduce some newfangled dogma into the Church of God is not, for that reason, orthodox — rather, the orthodox one is he who possesses a life in accord with right doctrine.

But this man — such a man — the patriarchs and metropolitans of various times, either in seeking him have failed to find him, or, having found him, have instead preferred the unworthy one in his place, requiring of him only this: to set forth in writing the creed of the faith, and accepting only this — that he be neither a zealot for the good nor one who contends against anyone on account of evil — thereby procuring for the Church, as it were, a peace which is worse than any enmity and a cause of great disorder.

From this, then, the priests became useless and have become like the people.

For since none of them are the salt, as the Lord said, so as through their reproofs to bind fast and to check, however it may be, the dissolute life — but rather condoning and concealing one another's passions — they themselves became worse than the people, and the people worse than they.

But some of the people were shown to be better than the priests, appearing like glowing coals amid the lightless gloom of the latter.

For if those priests had shone in their life like the sun, according to the word of the Lord, the coals would not have been seen glowing at all, but would have appeared dimmed by the brighter light.

...having passed over to the monks, and made known through signs, as men who through their deeds followed the life of the Apostles — there too, once again, the devil worked his own [mischief].

For seeing that they had again been shown forth in the world as new disciples of Christ, as it were, and had shone in their life and in wonders, [the devil], introducing false brethren and his own instruments, mixed them in among them; and, being gradually multiplied, as you see, they became useless and have become monks who are utterly unmonastic.

Neither, then, to monks by mere habit, nor to those ordained and enrolled in the rank of the priesthood, nor to those honored with the dignity of the high priesthood — I mean patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops — is the power to forgive sins given by God simply and solely on account of ordination and its dignity. God forbid!

For only the performing of the sacred ministry has been granted to them — and I think not even this to the majority of them, lest, being straw, they be consumed by it — but it belongs only to those among the priests, bishops, and monks who, on account of their purity, are to be numbered together with the choirs of the disciples of Christ.

Whence, then, shall those who have been numbered among the aforesaid come to understand this concerning themselves, and those who seek them recognize them with precision?

Wherefore the Lord taught, saying thus: 'And these signs shall accompany those who believe: in my name they shall cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues' — which is the God-inspired and beneficial teaching of the Word — 'they shall take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it shall not harm them'; and again: 'By their fruits you shall know them.'

Enumerating the multitude of these, Paul says: 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, gentleness, self-control' — together with which are compassion, brotherly love, almsgiving, and the things that follow upon these; and besides these: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, gifts of healing, and very many others — all of which one and the same Spirit works, apportioning to each as he wills.

Those, then, who have become partakers of these gifts — whether of all of them, or in part, as is expedient for them — have been enrolled in the choir of the Apostles; and those who now become such are likewise enrolled there.

Wherefore these are the light of the world, as Christ himself says: 'No one, having lit a lamp, puts it under a basket or under a bed, but on a lampstand, so that it gives light to all who are in the house.'

But such men are not recognized from these gifts alone, but also from the conduct of their life; for in this way both those who seek them, and they themselves, will each come to recognize himself more accurately — namely, whether, in likeness to our Lord Jesus Christ, unashamedly — or rather, as the greatest glory — they have esteemed lowliness and humility; and whether, as he did, they have shown unhypocritical obedience toward their own fathers and guides, and moreover toward those who give them spiritual commands as well; whether they have loved, from the soul, dishonors and insults and reproaches and revilings, and have welcomed those who inflict these upon them as procurers of great goods, and have prayed for them from the soul with tears; whether they have spat upon all the glory of this world, and have counted its pleasures as refuse.

If each of the aforesaid finds that he has accomplished every virtue which he hears read aloud in the sacred Scriptures, and has likewise pursued every good deed, and has come to know, in each one of these, the progress made, the transformation, and the degree attained, and finds himself being raised toward the height of divine glory — then let him know himself to have become a partaker of God and of his gifts; and he will be recognized both by those whose sight is keen, and even by those who are dim of sight.

And thus such men might say to all, with boldness: 'We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us: be reconciled to God.'

...they distributed their goods to the poor, followed Christ through endurance of temptations, lost their own souls for the sake of the love of God in this world, and found them unto eternal life.

And having found their own souls, they found them in noetic light, and thus in this light they beheld the unapproachable light, God himself, according to what is written: 'In your light we shall see light.'

How, then, is it possible to find the soul one has? Attend!

The soul of each person is the drachma which was lost — not by God, but by each of us, who plunged ourselves into the darkness of sin.

But Christ, the true light, coming and meeting those who seek him — in a manner known to himself alone — grants them to see himself.

This is to find one's soul: to see God, and in his light to become higher than all visible creation, and to have God as shepherd and teacher — from whom, if you will, one shall also learn the power to bind and loose; and having learned it with precision, he will worship the one who gave it, and will impart it to those who need it.

To such men, I know, my child, is the authority to bind and loose given, by God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit — to those who are, by adoption, his holy servants.

To such a father did I myself also become a disciple — a father who had no ordination from men, but who, by the hand of God, or rather by the Spirit, enrolled me into discipleship, and who bade me also duly receive the ordination that comes from men, for the sake of the pattern that was to follow — I myself having long since been moved by the Holy Spirit with vehement longing toward this.

Let us pray, then, brothers and fathers, first to become such ourselves, and thus to speak to others concerning deliverance from the passions and the reception of their thoughts; and let us seek such a spiritual father.

Rather, then, let us diligently seek out such men — who are truly disciples of Christ — and, with labor of heart and many tears, for a set number of days let us entreat God to unveil the eyes of our hearts, so that we may recognize whether such a one is to be found anywhere in this wicked generation, so that, having found him, we may through him receive forgiveness of our sins, obeying his commands and precepts with our whole soul — just as that man, having heard the commands of Christ, became a partaker of his grace and his gifts, and received from him the authority to bind and loose sins, set on fire by the Holy Spirit — to whom is due all glory, honor, and worship, together with the Father and the only-begotten Son, unto the ages.

To Stephen of Nicomedia. To my most holy and sacred master, the most glorious syncellus: Symeon, yours, exiled and persecuted through you.

...preserved [them] in the furnace, so also he keeps me, hiding me as it were in his tabernacle, free from grief and unharmed.

For these things I thank you, and I shall never cease giving thanks and praying. Furthermore, if you have anything else to add to the joy and glory of those who love you, do not hesitate to do it, so that your reward may be multiplied and your recompense from God, who has ordained these things, may become more abundant. Farewell.

But what shall we repay you for the things which, moved by good will, you have done for us, the lowly, and are doing, and which — I know — you will do again, benefiting us daily now for seven years already?

But we beg you: do not abandon your resolve, do not rest from your works; add to these, if it seems good, whatever by its increase makes my labors sweeter still.

You have increased for me the light, the joy, the sweetness — may you increase them still further in every way, continuing to do what is your own to do, and may you the sooner unite us to God whom we love, for whose sake I bear all things gladly, and on whose account you see this chain of exile, from you, which I wear.

To my most holy and sacred master: Symeon, yours, who through you has been exiled and stripped bare of his possessions.

We received your note, our spiritual child, but we did not approve of it; rather, we found much fault with your simplicity, in that you supposed such a thing at all about us — namely, that I ever imagined or reckoned that you, out of some deceit or officious meddling, withheld the letter in order to grieve me.

For what deceit, or what grief, could ever come to me from this, even though I may appear to make much of it?

But [I explain that] I simply did not know that you had it, and I supposed that, perhaps through the negligence of the one who serves me, it had been lost either along the way or in some other manner, and I grieved over this — since toward you, whom I once professed to hold as my very self, and to whom I entrusted all that is mine, hoping that through you it would become manifest to all others as well, just as Christ said to his own disciples, 'What you hear in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops' — what evil suspicion could I ever have entertained against you?

And how could you have supposed that I would think such things against you?

...clinging [to it], and often even drawing and summoning to itself those who are unwilling — to which, my child, I pray that you too may cleave and be united, so that you may be able not to reckon evil, whether it exists or does not exist at all, but may remain continually, in everything and in all things, free from giving offense toward us and toward all.