Memra 10

Memra 10 — On the Benefit That You Have When You Endure Evils While You Perform Good Deeds. And on Fasting and the Mortification of the Body and of the Soul. It Belongs to the Holy One; May His Prayers Help All of Us, Amen and Amen. It helps you, O my brothers, that you endure evils while you perform good deeds, because Satan stands against you. And whenever you do what is good, he contrives to bring afflictions upon you, so that you do not do what is good. For when you perform good deeds for strangers or for your brothers, he brings his disciples in the likeness of wolves and distresses you in the likeness of brothers who receive neither strangers nor brothers, nor do they take trouble for them. But you, do not fear, and do not be troubled, and do not desist from all good deeds, because if you commit a sin, the Lord blots it out from before you, and it is not always possible to heal it. Pray that you do not enter into a contest. But if he frightens you by means of troubles or afflictions, and you flee from good deeds, then he also, because of this, is confounded that you feared to do what is good, and you go forth without fruits from this world, because nothing from this world accompanies you except the good deeds that you perform, and your fasting and your prayer at all times. Therefore, set your departure before your eyes and see what goes with you from this world to that world.

Behold, for a small mountain or a nearby place, a person does not wish to go without provisions in this world. For a person has a hundred parasangs to travel, and a person can work and live. If here, where a person has a hundred parasangs, he does not wish to set out without provisions, how much more so for that world? For if from here nothing goes with him, no one gives him anything, but rather an evil one calls him. And you do not wish that your humility and your asceticism be known in your heart and in your body, so that in your heart your humility and your asceticism may be known to God, and in your body your humility and your asceticism may be revealed to all people, as it is written: "Let your humility be known to all people." For if a person asks in his heart in peace with people, and bows the head of his heart but does not bow his head and his heart before them, it is to God alone that his humility is known. But to people his humility is not known, nor does he teach them. And if he asks in peace with people with his external lips and bows the head of his body, it is to people that his humility is known, and it is to people that he is pleasing, and not to God, because the Lord serves in the heart, and people through what is visible. But if you wish to do, to teach, and to be called great, let your interior be mixed and united like your exterior, and your exterior like your interior. And let your bodies and your souls be equal together in fasting, in prayer, and in humility.

fasts of the body from foods and dainties, and from all the vanity of garments and of the provisions of the monastery, and fasts of the souls from harmful words and from curses and deprivation and error and blasphemies and wrath and enmity, and from everything evil and similar to these. For it is fitting for the bodies to fast when they are healthy, and it is fitting for harmful words and everything evil to fast from the soul. Now if the soul fasts, the body fasts; and if the body fasts, the soul fasts. For a person is not the inner without the outer, nor the outer without the inner. If you wish, then, to be perfected and to be purified, pursue the humility of heart and of body, and pursue tranquility and meekness and peace of heart and of body. For one conquers through the other, and one is bound through the other, soul and body. And together they are praised, and together they are reproached, and together they are set free on the day of the Lord, those who kept his commandments in their bodies and in their souls.

but rather be humble before God and before the brethren, as it is fitting for the Lord and for all his preachers, who humbled themselves and increased because of their humility, and bowed down before their enemies, and Israel bowed down to him who wished to kill him, and humbled himself, his soul and his body, and bowed down to him many times. And as the Lord humbled himself in his body and his spirit, because he taught, and as the prophets and apostles humbled themselves in their bodies and their souls, so too those who fast were fasting in their bodies from clothing, from adornment, and from all vanity, and were fasting in their souls from disturbances and from all passions. Do not be concerned for your bodies, what you will wear, nor for your souls, what will disturb you. The soul is more excellent than the body, and the body than clothing. As for those who are here in toil and in the profit of this world, the Lord commanded that you fast from the bonds of iniquity and from the fetters of sin, and that you release the captives to freedom, and that you fast from oppression and from injustice and from tyranny and from envy and from pride and from arrogance and from vanity and from everything that incites you to do your will to others, and that you not be sealed with foreign names, but that you do all your will in the name of Jesus and seal all your pains.

and command you that you do to everyone that thing which you wish that everyone do to you: that you break your bread for the hungry, and bring strangers into your house, and give clothing to the naked, and do not withhold from your fellow man. When you do these things, then you may trust that the Lord will set you upon the firmament of the earth and fill your soul with righteousness and make your salvation shine for you like a light, and your justice like a lamp shall blaze, and your way shall lead you to the honor of the Lord and His salvation shall dawn upon you. This is the fast that the Lord commands the doers of alms, the solitaries. But as for the merciful, those who do no harm to man, thus the Lord commands you, first and last: that you fast from all pleasures, as Paul says: that it is good for you not to eat meat nor drink wine. And beware that you do not honor your hearts with luxury and with softness and with the desire of the world and with the pursuit of wealth, and beware that you do not strive for these things, because all these are what the peoples of the earth seek. But to the peoples thus the Lord commands you: beware that you do not sin in iniquity and do not sin in transgression, and do not sin as you have always sinned, and do not sin as you have always sinned. And do not equip yourselves with stratagems in the world, because the form of this world has passed away.

God could have made the whole world rich, healthy, and of noble lineage, without any poor. But He made some rich and some poor, some healthy and some sick, some of noble birth and some strangers. He gave to those who have from those who have not, if your mercy is upon your own flesh and blood. And if the rich look upon the poor, the healthy upon the sick, the clothed upon the naked, and those of noble lineage upon strangers, and if you act thus and have mercy on those lesser than yourselves, then the lesser are enriched by the wealthy, and the wealthy are justified by the lesser. But if you do not act as the Lord commanded, that you have mercy on those lesser than yourselves, then the lesser will tremble at you like His mercy, and poverty will live in this world. And those who did not have mercy will be without fruit and without righteousness on the day of the Lord. For Lazarus was cast down and lived in this world, and went to that world and was enriched. But woe to the rich man who went without provisions, without filling his belly from his own abundance in the new world. My brothers: look upon strangers, the needy, the lesser, the beggars, and the sick, and make for yourself provisions for the arduous journey and for that great world, so that when the doers of good deeds are enriched and enriched, your sin may be pressed before them and cast down.

He wants you to think that the foundation of your righteousness is not anything that enters the stomach that sustains a person, but rather something that comes out of the mouth—that is what sustains a person. And if you wish to be healed from prayer, they say that what is in your heart is pleasing to the Lord. And if you wish not to be concerned for the Church, they say that your heart is the Church. And if you wish to be idle, they say that from within you are being consumed; God does not desire these visible things. And if it pleases you not to toil for a person, or for an apostle, or for the poor, they say that you yourself are righteous and your poverty is your wealth. And all these things are an evil teaching for you, because you are healed and not concerned for your body and your self. But as one who makes you believe that they serve with their hearts, they make you serve not with your heart and not with your body. For there is no person who serves righteousness with his heart and does not serve with his body, because from the movements of the heart the lips speak, and after the thought of the heart the body goes; and as the heart is humble, so the body becomes humble. And if you wish again to stand and to weep, they say that you cry out when you do not cry out, and you have something but your mind is not bound to it. What does a person ask from you for that cry of yours? And he sees that you give to him and you are not bound to it.

Or if someone snatches something from you, you are not distressed on his account, or you do not go to court with him, or you are not angry with him and become his enemy? Woe to you who walk in falsehood and in sorcery. And deceivers resemble demons, because everyone who empties his heart of the earth and of his nature, also empties his body of it. What is known when nature is established while not being established, and is sought after in a petition while not bound by it, is chosen and also choice while not being chosen, and secret deeds are performed while not being performed. And he says again that heaven and earth and everything in them sinned, sinned; Paradise and Jerusalem sinned, sinned; as if even the one who is not to be received is received and subjugated to that glorious place of the world, which is not sufficient for him, and to that house of the fathers of the children, which alone preserved the commandments in their body and in their soul, and they were saints in heart and body, entering there. But why does he sow this laxity among the children of the church? But this is the voice of sin, and this is the teaching that relaxes his tastes here, he who has deaths hidden in him. But let this be known to you, that there is nothing from foods that is taken away, and when one eats, it is not taken away, but rather it weighs down his body and is digested and is consumed and remains from the course after perfection.

And what is taken hold of is not given up; rather, it is increased by being taken hold of, and it is raised up by being raised, and it is brought low by the course of perfect falsehood. And in the place of commands for humility and modesty and lowliness, these are not from love; error enters and a man hears and is deceived, as the children of Israel were deceived. And at first a man is deceived who is a son of the covenant, and after a little a man is deceived who worships God, as the children of Israel were deceived concerning the strong one who saved them from Egypt. After he hears of wealth and commands, then he gives up. For it is not immediately, when one becomes proud and is honored, that he gives up; but little by little. Little by little, for good works of fasting and vigil produce much righteousness with humility. And little by little, evil works and commands and pride of foods give up. Our Lord and the apostles, when they fasted, fasted completely and fasted completely in their bodies and in their souls. For they never said that they were fasting when they were being honored and being proud.

And sin is not diminished when sin is confessed, nor is sin sought when sin is not sought. He does not depart from the commands of our Lord and his apostles, nor from the fast that the prophets fasted, when three hundred and sixty days are cast upon each one of them, and they took the iniquity of sinners upon themselves for forty days each and for every day. And the fast of the apostles, who fasted in a confirmed manner, and the prophets: so that they might become white. And our Lord fasted a fast: so that he might become white through his fast and his prayer. But did he not hear and tremble, that he who forgives sins and the mercy of sinners fasts and entreats on account of your iniquity? How much more, then, is it necessary for you: that you fast and entreat on account of the wickedness of your own soul, and on account of the afflictions and adversities that you have in the world, and on account of the inheritance that you have in that world: that you might go and receive it through the grace of our Lord, with your face revealed before his face, because you have kept his commandments. The end of Memra Ten, on the perversity that you have when you endure evils while doing good deeds, and on the fast of the body and the humiliation of the soul.