Discourse 26

Against those who say: If God is good, why did He create these things—sin, Gehenna, and death? All of this is not from God. For these things are acts, not substances. Sin, indeed, is the fruit of will, and there was a time when it did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not be. Gehenna, then, is the fruit of sin, whose beginning no one knows when it will cease. Death, however, is the instrument of the Creator’s wisdom, which alone has authority over the living and ceases at every opportunity. Satan is the name of the perversity of will from truth, and not a designation of a nature that indicates a being. Now, my brother, if you find anything at all among these things and you place it after you, do not consider it as something that appears and vanishes, a fault in your eyes, so that you show fault in others as in yourself. But rather, fill your ears with the milk of your first fathers, which, like a theory, they set before you as a sign placed for you to enrich the mind with remedies, through which you may see and be enriched. For it is not that we are ignorant of that which has not been elevated from the order of learners, as long as we are still bound in the flesh. Distinction is the movement of natural thoughts.

me when these things travel along the path of the pure one by means of their movements. By the change of elements and worlds they encounter. But then, in the second nature, they are found to be another nature, these things that are of the same kind. For when they were bound in the natural course of nature, they were completed to the half of nature. That is, the order that has no remainder. When the service of the words meets with the nature of the truth, then it becomes known that in it, when in it it is found perpetually. I knew the question of that which you wish to fill: to the knowledge the cause is to be hastened. If you grasp this sharply, like a separator without limit, it is not difficult for you that in it perpetually without hindrance you will be delighted. And what, then, is the agent, that which is named and the cause? To iron what polishing, and nothing additional does it place in it, to bring its nature to brightness and growth. For this is the essence. But what? The apostle, then, casts from it that which from the beginning of the work ascended upon it. And that, when that theory upon the nature of that being. Bring these to the polishing, and then you can see how it shines in the time of service, when it is filled with the growth of the stars. For to resist the action before it is not possible. It remains, when it is not idle.

because it is by means of the melody that I said, and not by the prayer of the heart and by the reading. To diminish, it would be found to be full there. It is not so, and these are hasty. For a small diligence suffices for them. These suffice, and also in that helper. Apart from them, however, an empty diligence is found in him. And these again likewise: when the healing is complete from the vessel, and it is an addition and not from the place upon it. Hunger knows to extend patience. But the fast from food is not extended. For it gives to the cultivator bread that is kneaded from his dough. For until the dough is leavened first, it does not satisfy the bread of truth. The body, the cultivator, leavens the dough, and the speaking one is nourished. And this likewise: when from the beginning of custom and not of nature it is drawn out, it becomes. Spiritual excellence is a daughter of that of will and of the binding of his own. For in that of freedom, it is a natural power of rationality, and not of imprisonment. For to whichever side is inclined and persists, it generates another power that is not weary. When it is thus generated, that freedom becomes a possessor and subjugator of the binder. And it is truly said: bound, and not ruling over its own. From the holy one: the binder is voluntary. Now, however, the binder subjugates the will.

And this: it is seen between both sides, the sayings. If to the right it enslaves, that man is to himself; and if to the left, place is given. But he who knows and sees precisely is able to see the limit of each of these times, when that power which is not natural is born from voluntary subjugation, which is like that which overcomes freedom. Not the power from habit, the sayings say, that which is very difficult. And thus: that which names the seeker. From every side, habit is under the will; even the laborious will to rebel from it. Two powers, and apart from this you know. But one: it subjugates the will. That other, however, and to it nature is subject. It rules, then, and also changes nature. That ruling operations over nature are known to those who are exercised. For the changes of hearts and for the thoughts, there are not similar examples from which habits are born: after free ones and not after free ones, life and death. Great is the help of the inequality of theory, which is about divine visions, fathers in human thoughts. In this inequality placed in the middle, it has preserved thousands of years for the world. This inequality greatly helps the change of practices of the path of mortification.

And this, above all: with regard to the theory of the mysteries, the conceptions concerning God that are born of the senses. Many hearts, when trust settles within them, are like a man who takes a dose of poison. Even the firm and true spiritual ones, among the ten measures of love that they possess, five measures of fear are mingled with it. The contemplative intellect is not sufficient for the completion of divine truth, to receive it here, or to know the entire divine will, which is fixed for the race of rational beings—not even like Paul and his kind—until the contemplative state is raised from the middle, so that the intellect is not troubled by the sensation of this. What is it? Equality and inequality? Not equality of theory, which from one soul is changed and is not similar, the incomprehensibility of the eternal thought of God. Equality, however: the revelation of truth. And if the contemplative intellect receives firm truth, it dies from the stones of the contemplative state. That which is the depth of wealth, and its mysteries, are not to be grasped.

And who knows the thought of the Lord? And the rest, which is wondrously, and in the depths, at various times, in thought from time to time, from the clouds of the senses, it is amazed. From this there is no equality of theory and change, the conceptions that are born concerning the nature that is not comprehensible of divine things. When, moreover, the completion of the pure one in the world is not able to be prayed, no longer does nature seek to know the truth of God, because it has prayed to the left on account of trust. Trust begets simplicity and the pouring out of the mind. Fear, however, removes and cuts off the ability to pray, so that it may become a commander. You yourself can find this in the theory of the change of things and worlds, and the inequality of behaviors and the change of the rewards that are distributed to them, and also here, and the pain that shows itself from time to time, and because of the drawing of the spirit it is hidden, and in the theory of the righteous and the sinners, and the opposition of encounters that are not alike, which are distributed to these persons in opposition manifestly. When in these the mind is disturbed, a trembling begins over the whole soul, and pain is born in it, in the nature of thoughts and words and actions, and the setting of sharp boundaries of divine pain.

What then? When it reaches these, it is limited; and toward the simplicity of the essence, the mind is exalted uniquely through the contemplation of these pure ones, that good and holy one, the perfect knowledge that precedes the existence of all, and the rest of these that are his. At once, fear is cast upon the outer man, and the intellect is supported by trust. But when again from there it descends and toward the worlds and their divisions the mind is extended, then this one flees and gives place to fear. In the same vanity, in which, when in the contemplation of truth the mind is left at every moment, it is not limited. And in the course of time, the high one from the heart raises up to that power of trust that was moved from the firm contemplation, and leaves it to be tossed again among the passions of the agitated. As if nothing remains from the firmness of his thoughts and his actions, and from the strict carefulness, except that he does not know where he encounters the judgment of God, to whom is glory forever and ever. Amen.