Sermones 1_22 & 24_27

The Lord seeks these things from us—the unceasing seeking after him—and when he sees such a good disposition of the soul and a right seeking toward the Lord, then he gives it grace, coming and dwelling in us, and then he deems the soul worthy to bear the fruits "of the Spirit" when it has become ripe at the season of figs. For the Lord goes about in each soul seeking fruit, to enter in and rest in it; for he died for all and purchased every race of Adam by his own death. Every soul, therefore, owes it to die to itself and to live to him, and to receive him and to furnish and prepare itself and its body as a house for the Lord, so that entering in and finding rest in the good ways of our disposition, and being fed and given drink and clothed and rested in the virtues of our soul, he may then say to us: "Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink," and the rest. Having, then, such an expectation and such a hope that the Lord will enter in and rest in our souls—or rather that our souls will rest in the Lord—everything you see happening in this world you ought to turn, with the eye of the mind and a good disposition, to spiritual benefit. For instance, if you see wealth upon the earth, think on the spiritual wealth and desire it. If you see joy in the world and festivals taking place, say to yourself:

When will my soul be deemed worthy to celebrate the spiritual festival of grace and, together with holy angels and heavenly powers, to be reconciled—my inner man—with them? And attending to all that follows in this manner, from the things that are seen do you receive the desire for the incorruptible and invisible things, so that even from the visible things themselves you may reap not harm but rather benefit, if with the invisible and noetic eye you direct your understanding, taking from visible things the comprehension of heavenly goods. Let us therefore strive to please the Lord in all things and to hold the expectation of grace in unceasing faith, conducting ourselves in good ways, to believe with our whole heart his ineffable promises (for he who promised is true) and to love him and strive in every way in all virtue and petition, persistently and continually to receive the promise of his Spirit, wholly and perfectly, so that our souls may be given life while we are still in the flesh. For if in this world the soul does not receive the sanctification of the Spirit through much faith and supplication and become a partaker of the divine nature, being mingled with the grace through which it will be able to fulfill every commandment, it is unfit for the kingdom of heaven. For whatever good a person has acquired here, that same thing will be life to him on that day. Let us therefore strive, in undivided faith, entreating the Lord to obtain the promise of the Spirit, which is the giving of life to the soul.

For if this beggar, for the sake of bodily bread, shamelessly knocks at the door and asks, and if he does not receive, enters further in and more shamelessly asks for bread or a garment or shoes for the rest of his body, and does not depart until he receives, even if they drive him away—how much more ought we, who seek to receive the true and heavenly bread for the strengthening of the soul, and who long to put on the heavenly garments of light, and who desire to put on the spiritual shoes of the Spirit for the rest of the immortal soul. How ought we, without faintheartedness and continually, with faith and love, always to be patient and to knock at the spiritual door of God and to ask with all endurance to be deemed worthy of eternal life, just as the Lord also spoke a parable about the need to pray always and not to lose heart, and having set out the account he adds, saying: how much more will our heavenly Father "avenge" those who cry out to him "night and day," and again, speaking about the friend: even if "because he is a friend" "he will not give him," yet "because of his shamelessness" he will rise and "give him as much as he needs"; and he adds: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." And having set this out he adds: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

For this reason the Lord always exhorts us to ask without ceasing and persistently, and always to seek and to knock; for he has promised to give to those who ask and seek and knock, not to those who do not ask. For when he is asked and entreated and loved, he wishes to give us eternal life. Let us therefore draw near to him, the spiritual door, and knock, so that he may open to us; let us ask him, the bread of life; let us say to him: Give me, Lord, the bread of life, that I may live, for I am terribly consumed by the famine of wickedness and am perishing. Give me the garment of the light of salvation, that I may cover the shame of my soul, for being naked of the power of your Spirit, I am shamefully disgraced by the passions. And if he says to you, You had a garment, what have you done with it? Answer, saying: I fell among robbers, and they stripped me and left me half-dead, and having stripped it off, they took it from me. Give me spiritual shoes, for with my intellectual feet I am pierced by thorns and thistles in my desert, and when the enemy draws near, I cannot walk. Give me the sight of the heart, that I may look up; open the eyes of my heart, for my invisible enemies have blinded me, covering me with a veil of darkness, and I cannot look upon your heavenly and desirable face. Give me spiritual hearing, for I have become deaf in my mind and cannot hear your sweet and gracious speech. Give me the oil of gladness and the wine of spiritual joy, that I may pour them on my wounds and be able to be refreshed. Heal me and make me whole, for my enemies and cruel robbers, having left me half-dead, have abandoned me to lie there.

Blessed is the soul that always asks without ceasing and persistently and faithfully, as poor and wounded, for it will receive its requests and will obtain eternal healing and cure, and will be avenged of its enemies, the passions of "sin"; for "faithful is God who promised," who will also grant our requests. Glory to his goodness. For just as in a city a ruler comes forth embittered against evildoers and plotters, and if someone who has been robbed by bandits or thieves approaches him and says, "I beg your help; my enemy has seized me and robbed me and wounded me and has done such and such to me," and the ruler sitting on the tribunal immediately seeks out the enemy and evildoer, and having found him, tortures him with torments and punishments—so also can men obtain help from above and vengeance by approaching and petitioning the Lord and entreating persistently. For he is able both to lift up the noetic earth of the soul that lies beneath the sea of the passions of the bitterness of the darkness of the evil powers, and to make it be above the sea—provided the soul believes his promises and loves and calls upon him in truth and always expects the complete redemption of the passions through the Spirit to take place in it, because of his boundless love. Glory to his majesty unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Those who make the building of their own heart "upon the sand," and those who receive the seed of the word "upon the rocky ground" of a hard heart, do not possess within themselves a true "foundation," nor are they able to endure the temptations of afflictions from the evil one, but they bear all the afflictions that come upon them with impatience, being unable to endure the uprisings and temptations of the evil spirits that come upon them for the sake of seeking the kingdom. For the dispositions of such people are like this: "Unless," he says, "I receive the grace of the Spirit immediately, I depart; I am unable to remain; I cannot be patient for many years. But if I receive it, then I will remain." This man does not remain even after receiving it, because he cannot bear afflictions nobly, not having prepared himself beforehand for this very thing. For after the reception of grace, are there no longer war, no longer affliction, no longer waves of the evil one stirred up? Then there are more trials, then great sweats, then great uprisings. For in proportion to the soul's progress in grace, to that same degree the temptations of the evil one rise up against it, and to that same degree the power of wickedness is permitted to tempt the soul, insofar as it is able to endure. For those previously mentioned came to the Lord to serve as if for wages, as strangers and foreigners, and not as faithful and household servants have they chosen to please and to labor in the master's house.

These men, not yet having worked, demand a wage, when they ought, as debtors and well-disposed and faithful servants of their own lord, both willingly and unwillingly to constrain themselves to the good and noble slavery of the commandments of Christ and to every unceasing well-pleasing of God—whether they already receive some gift from him, or not yet receive it—and they ought to judge that to my master all good will of serving and always well-pleasing is owed by me, and whether he gives me the grace of his Spirit or does not yet give it, I do not abandon my course and ministry as far as lies in me, and I do not depart from the hope of my lord (for true is "he who promised"), and always to give thanks to him for what he has already granted—that I am his and am administered by him and am counted worthy of all his providence, and that through him I have come to this manner of life and this life of ascetic practice. He is able also to fill me with his grace (for "faithful" is he and true) and to provide what he has promised, if I endure to the end in faith and conduct myself in all virtues with all the strength I have. And moreover, having considered this too: for who am I and of what worth am I, that even his name should be called upon me, when I am useless in all things? Having therefore remained and willingly well-pleased to the end with all diligence and having served him in all virtues, being good and righteous, at whatever time he fulfills his promises, because he is truthful; but if he wishes to hand me over to Gehenna because of my sins—

to be punished, I do not let him go, and I do not depart from love toward him, as also the blessed Job says: Even if you kill me, I do not let you go, and I will not depart from my guilelessness. Such a man, as a faithful servant and a good steward, and having shown goodwill to his own master alone, having labored much and been afflicted and having fallen short in nothing of good service in all virtues, being righteous and holy, becomes an heir of life, because he did not come to serve and to please as for a wage, but gave himself over completely, eagerly, to be approved and to please his own master, and for this reason he is deemed worthy to obtain the adoption of the Spirit and becomes an heir of the kingdom. For, he says, the good shepherd lays down his own soul for the sheep (that is, the one who struggles for the kingdom and preserves his own soul), he gives himself over even to death; but the hired man, and one who is not the shepherd, when he sees the wolf coming (that is, afflictions and temptations), withdraws and flees from the service of God and from the guarding of his heart regarding the holy commandments.

Let us therefore strive in hope and faith and all endurance to give ourselves perfect to the Lord, clinging to all the commandments and being equipped in every good way, and he himself will fulfill his own promises with us more quickly (for he is truthful), provided only that we, as faithful and household servants, accomplish all the good pleasure of our self-determined choice with unceasing zeal; and thus, having been deemed worthy of grace and having acquired in our own heart the power of the Spirit as a true foundation, we shall be able to endure all temptations and afflictions, and thus, having been equipped blameless through the Spirit, we shall become worthy of the eternal good things unto the ages of ages. Amen. He who has seen the master of the house and found him has seen and found all things that are in his house. In the same way, he who seeks and finds the Lord has found all the heavenly good things; for in him "are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," the "hidden" ones. What then shall we say? Where is God, who is not seen? Is he on earth? Is he in the heavens? Is he beneath the sea? Is he beneath the earth? Who can grasp or see him? Not one of created things. To a faithful soul that loves him he has given himself to be grasped; "so greatly did he love" this creature, the soul. Likewise again, who can see or grasp a soul? Or what sort is it? It does not appear. Man himself does not know himself until the Lord reveals it to him. For where is it not, in our thoughts? As Wisdom says: "Who will search out the abyss and the heart?" And again the psalmist says: "Deep calls to deep.

Therefore God alone is able to gather her thoughts together and to hold her to his own will. So the soul holds God (as has been said before) by her love; for the Lord, willing it, made himself graspable by a faithful soul, and God holds the soul to himself and directs and guides all its thoughts, and separates out the alien worldly spirit that is mixed in with it. For from Adam's transgression all the race of men received in their nature (the soul and the body) a bitter drug of death, of darkness, of sin, urging them on to sin, and no one is able to heal and rescue and cure humanity and to kill our killer except only the Spirit of God; for behold (he says), "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Since, then, he knows the evil that is present with man, and who alone is able to kill it, he relaxes and makes slack the mind toward certain worldly matters, urging it on, or even toward certain other plausible things, only so as to turn it aside from that seeking and from that labor. For he knows that if it seeks that which will kill him, he will quickly perish. Henceforth, then, he struggles in every way to make the will slack and to sow plausible counsels, only so that he may draw it away from there and turn it aside and lift it up so that it does not seek the sin that kills him.

We therefore, beloved, should always keep our goal and struggle and labor there, giving ourselves no relaxation for even an hour, and in neither small nor great matter should we obey his counsels, so that that spiritual and substantial working may come to be in us which puts to death the evil in us. For ten thousand words profit nothing; there is need of substantial spiritual working. For one person is he who hears the word and is gladdened, and another is he who perceives in himself the working of divine power, through which sin is put to death. This one is different, and that one is different. And that is indeed good, but the one who perceives the working of divine power—this one draws near and partakes of the divine nature, according to what is written: "that you may become partakers of the divine nature," and having "the seed" of God, "of the Holy Spirit," in himself, he is a sharer, being already a son "of the truth." God alone, then, is able to hold the soul and to gather its thoughts (as we said earlier above), but for another to do this is impossible. Where, then, is the soul? For behold, it is wholly in the body and wholly outside the body; it understands things to come, it reasons about what is coming. It is on earth with the body, and with the mind it is in the heavens—the worthy and faithful soul, likewise also that of the sinner: it is on earth with the body, and outside, in far-off homelands, it accomplishes evils. But the worthy soul, being on earth with the body, "in the heavens" conducts its citizenship with the mind, and the Lord, being in the heavens, placed his image in its body. Glory to his majesty, who "so" loved the race of men.

For who can gather the watery nature of milk into unity and coagulation, except the rennet that is put in? So too, who can make light a soul that is scattered by its thoughts and is by nature a creature, and lead it up to the heavens, and bring its thoughts into cohesion and solidity and unity, unless the Spirit of God, becoming as it were wings, lifts up the soul and carries it beyond nature and gathers its thoughts into one divine thought? "For their heart," says the prophet, "was curdled like milk." Understand two curdlings here: souls that are curdled into God and solidified into grace and into the world above, and souls that are curdled into wickedness and solidified into this age and become wholly of wickedness. For just as these are solidified and made firm in wickedness, so also those are solidified and made firm in the Lord. For just as the air is the earth of the bird, in which it lives, so also are the thoughts and the mind of sinners: they dwell in a dark and gloomy land with the spirits of wickedness, always finding themselves in evil thoughts, and there they walk and live. In the same way also the mind and the thoughts of the righteous dwell in a land of life, in the bright land of the Spirit, and there they walk and from now on live there in good and heavenly thoughts, always finding themselves there. This is what the Lord said: "And greater works shall he do," the Son, "that you may marvel"—works of immortal life that do not pass away, in the soul and mind of the faithful, where they walk and plant the footprints of their thoughts.

He prepared "a new earth" of light and "a new heaven" of spirit, and simply a new world (and an eternal kingdom), into which he brought the souls that awaited and loved him, from the earth of death and the dark wickedness of spirits, where their thoughts were dwelling, into an earth of life and light of holy spirits, on which the mind fixes its steps and their thoughts walk, being transferred from death into eternal life. This the Lord promised to do—"greater works" than these, which had not yet been, since as far as things visible are concerned, every structure was in the world: the mountains, trees, clouds, heaven, sun, stars, moon, people, animals, waters, sea, rivers, and all the ordering of it. Understand, then, the new and eternal works as the transformation and health of the soul, and eternal healing, and the eternal structures fashioned by the Spirit, which he bestowed on the worthy and faithful soul. Let us therefore entreat the Lord and await him with unwavering faith, so that the substantial working of the Holy Spirit may come to be in us—the working that puts sin to death—so that, cleansed and sanctified from here, we may become worthy of the heavenly kingdom in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen. For great and precious in the sight of God is the soul.

Let us in some such way as this compare the constitution of its subtlety: just as if there were a city having broad streets, council chambers, public buildings, streets, alleys, palaces, and many other structures, and there are places suitable for the leading men of the city and the whole citizen body to gather there, and there a judge sits and judges and condemns all the evildoers in the city—robbers and thieves, or poisoners or adulterers or plotters—and the judge in the city, having received royal authority, that is, the royal images and seals, is thus able to judge and put to death the evildoers through the royal authority; so also the great noetic city of God, the soul and the citizen body of its thoughts within it, when it has received the authority from above through faith and its virtuous conduct—"the sword of the spirit" and the heavenly image of Christ and the heavenly spiritual seals of light—then it is able to put to death and condemn the enemies and evildoers and plotters and robbers within it (that is, the spirits "of wickedness"). But this is also taken in another way in the case of the Lord.

Just as when a city is oppressed by enemies and conspirators, having no judge or ruler, and one is found from the race of that city, and he comes to the king and gives his own possessions and receives authority, and so coming he manages matters and destroys the enemies and evildoers in the city, in the same way also the Lord, the second Adam, was found alone from the race of Adam, and gave his own body for the whole race of men, and received the authority and the kingdom and the dominion, and destroyed every tyrannical power of wickedness, and triumphed over the principalities and the powers, nailing them to the cross. For taking up the body and through it conquering the enemy and condemning him through the flesh, he ascended and sat in the heavens, worshipped by all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And so thereafter, to his spiritual cities—the souls that seek him and are subject to him and desire to be ruled by him—he sends from above his own luminous and divine image of the Spirit, the heavenly man, so that when it has been imprinted and mingled in them, they may be at peace and rejoice and exult with exultation inexpressible, and thus the enemies of the soul are destroyed when the heavenly judge has come, and the noetic city

receives great peace. For just as, unless someone receives the royal authority and the sword and the seals, he cannot judge evildoers and put them to death, but is like everyone else, so too the soul, unless it receives within itself the heavenly image of Christ and the garments of the ineffable light and the heavenly seals of the gifts of the Spirit, cannot put to death and condemn its own enemies and plotters. And already, hearing of the arrival of the heavenly ruler, it rejoices and exults, while its enemies, the spirits "of wickedness," are held in fear and trembling and cowardice. Just as when a ruler comes into a city to judge and put to death the robbers and evildoers found in it, the citizens of the city rejoice, while the enemies are held in cowardice and fear, and when they come into the ruler's presence they are put to shame and tremble, while the citizens have boldness and the greatest joy, because the evildoers and enemies and plotters are put to death from the city, so when the true and heavenly ruler, Christ, comes to dwell and appear in the city of the soul, it receives boldness and the greatest joy together with the whole commonwealth of its own thoughts, while its plotters and enemies, the passions of wickedness, are in shame and trembling and cowardice.

Let us therefore also entreat the Lord, that we may obtain the heavenly gift of the Spirit and put to death the passions of wickedness that are alien to us, so that thus becoming well-pleasing to him and blamelessly fulfilling his commandments, we may become worthy of his kingdom in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the power unto the ages of ages. Amen. As the Father loves the Son, and the Father himself teaches him all things, so also Christians, loving the Lord—the time itself and the work and the Lord teaches them the heavenly teaching and knowledge. For just as in life, if someone has gold, silver, possessions, great wealth, he wishes to beget children from his own nature, so that they may inherit what belongs to the father; but if he has no heir, he is grieved and distressed—so too the Lord, having made Adam, prepared this earth and heaven as a house for him and established him as king over all the creatures, having also prepared for him the heavenly inheritance, so that he might become a friend and brother of Christ, a bride and partaker of the Holy Spirit. For as you love the Lord with your whole heart and become strangers and endure affliction, so too the Lord loved us with his whole heart and suffered and was crucified, in order to bring people into his own inheritance and life; for it was for sinners that he came down. And the Lord, the heavenly Father, is grieved if he does not beget children from his own nature and give them an inheritance, the kingdom of heaven, which he has prepared for them.

For all who became righteous, being men just as the rest and clothed in flesh, did a great work beyond the rest of men upon the earth; for they reigned over creation and death. Moses spoke to the water and it was changed into blood; he spoke to the earth and frogs came up; he spoke to death: "Do not enter the forecourts," and death was subjected and did the will of Moses. And thereafter death knew that from that time he no longer reigns, since he feared the command of Moses and obeyed him. For there was also a sign upon the face of Moses of the glory of the divine light, which sign Adam had been clothed with before the transgression; for Adam himself had been arrayed in the glory of God and a divine garment. Until Moses, then, no one had this sign upon his face except Moses alone. Death, therefore, was struck with amazement when he beheld the sign, because from Adam until now no one had had this sign, and he prophesied concerning himself, that he was about to be reigned over and subjected to the race of men, which indeed so came to pass. For thereafter the heavenly Adam also appeared and by the cross condemned death, and descended into the tombs and was manifested to the prophets and righteous who had fallen asleep before. Since they were grieving as not obtaining the promises, he raised them from the graves and clothed them with divine glory, and "they appeared" in the city of Jerusalem and saw their own friends and relatives and again fell asleep; for there the Lord tore apart the snares and chains of the evil one and put the devil to death.

Elijah authoritatively bound the keys of the heavens and it did not rain. How did he have the strength to do this? He attended to God, he believed, he loved. For I do not tell you that he stretched out his hands to heaven, nor that he himself by his own power brought down the heavenly fire and burned the altar and the false prophets, but a divine power cooperated with his love and his faith, which accomplished these things through him. Another righteous man spoke a word and "the sun stood still"; another shut "the mouths of lions." You see how the righteous are kings over creation, and all creation runs to meet them. The "woman with the flow of blood," "who could not be healed" by physicians—did not the Lord go to her? Did she not herself "touch the fringe of his garment"? The man "blind from birth"—did he not himself cry out first? Did not Zacchaeus himself first climb the tree? And now men, though living, are dead, and the Lord comes to those who believe and dwells in their souls and shakes their hearts out from the stones and from the tombs of unclean spirits and makes their souls immortal and gives them life from their deadness.

Just as therefore the first righteous men believed in the Lord and ran to him, so also we ought to love God "with all our heart" and to believe and to hear, and thus he comes into our reasonings and thoughts and every arrangement of Satan, and dissolves the bonds and compactions and cleanses our hearts from the leprosy and gives life from the deadness and enlightens the mind from blindness. For all the creatures that God made were from the beginning—both rivers and mountains and hills and animals and springs. What, then, is the work that the Lord, coming and putting on the body, does greater than these, †so that† nothing was lacking in creation among things visible? What then is it that he said: "My Father works until now, and I work," and "greater works than these" I do, if there was sown earth and plantings and heavens and sun and moon? But it is clear that he comes to do a greater work than things visible, one not visible to fleshly eyes. For he comes to set right the corrupted thoughts in secret by Satan and to sow heavenly seed in the earth of the soul, just as the farmer sows the visible earth. Does he yoke oxen? Not so. Does he plant a visible planting? Not so. For the soul is a vine to the Lord (and the Lord to the soul), and he plants there roots of love, of sweet joy, and springs of life gushing in the heart, "new heavens and a new earth" and new luminaries.

For if the flowers of the earth he clothes with such glory and dresses the violets in purple, how much more does he glorify the rational soul and adorn it with spiritual order and dress it in the purple of the Spirit. For so he was well pleased, and this work he works in souls, that the soul may be mingled with the heavenly Spirit and there may be a mixture and a communion of earthly things with heavenly, only that we love one another and believe God, and he gives us his own inheritance. For he himself quenches the fire that is in us; we need only love him, and what we are unable to do, he comes and destroys death. For "the walls of Jericho" men were not able to throw down, but they fell by divine power. Just as, in order that there may be a ruler and he may have the seal and the image before him, thereafter, because the image goes before him with authority, he puts to death all and banishes the disorderly. And if the dead image has so much fear and honor, how much more the heavenly image and the living power of God and the heavenly and divine seal, if it be painted in hearts, destroys and kills the powers of darkness that are secretly mingled in the heart and "all the power of the enemy" it destroys utterly. Glory to his majesty and to his boundless compassion unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is himself the foundation, and he is himself the completion, the cornerstone. For the Lord is from the earth and from heaven: for God came from heaven and took the man from the earth and was mingled with the man. See from heaven and see from earth, see the foundation and see the cornerstone. So he was pleased to do, and to those who are from the earth he gave the Holy Spirit from heaven, in order to make those above and those below one church, having mingled the Godhead with humanity. But when you hear "foundation," understand it to mean the Lord; for the foundation itself has been measured, and the stones built upon it ought to be of equal measure with the foundation, so that the building may come under one jointing; for neither can the stunted proceed there nor the tall, but those equal to the measure of the foundation fit together. So also Christ, being the true foundation and cornerstone, has called all men to come to that measure of the perfection of Christ. This the apostle said: "Until we all attain" "to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," and again: "that we may present every man perfect in Christ," and again: "that you may be filled to all the fullness" of Christ. To these measures Christ has called the race of men to come; to this building he has summoned them, to equality with the foundation, which is the Lord himself. Glory to his majesty. The whole world stands for the visible ministry, but the servants of God have an invisible ministry in mystery, and men do not know it.

For just as the angelic nature, being invisible, serves the invisible God in invisible things, so also the soul, being spirit, invisibly serves the invisible God. And Satan, being a spirit, also secretly wages war in the depth of the heart. But those who now have a spiritual work, according to the apostle, do not have their struggle "against blood and flesh," but "against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness." This is the power of the Godhead: being invisible, it created the visible world. And the soul likewise, being invisible, created the world that is not visible. The same also does the evil one through invisible power: he takes captive unto visible services of lawlessness. Question. What is it that the devil, when asked "From where have you come?" answered, "I am here, having walked about under heaven"? Answer. Most of these things are incomprehensible, except that I have heard from report that the sorcerers have the demons in subjection; and so it happens that in one hour twenty or even thirty, through incantations and sorcery, the same demons are invoked to do harm, and each of them, being in the parts of the west or of the east, arrives in the same hour to those

to be manifested to all and to work for evil. If, then, evil thus reaches in a moment of an hour to be obedient to all, how much more can good be manifested and help all who call upon it. The greater part of these things, then, surpasses our weakness. But just as a royal vessel being fashioned is not perfected from one firing, but enters the fire many times, and then is hammered and adorned in many ways, and then is completed as a precious vessel proceeding to the king's table, in the same way the soul also, being adorned and exercised in various ways, becomes a precious vessel of the heavenly King. There is one who has many virtues of life—possessions renounced, fastings, vigils—but since he does them for human glory and not for God, he receives his reward here; for the men who glorify him, these are his gods. And there is another who wishes to escape the notice of men and to please God, and often does something indifferently and very simply, compared with that man who is exact in all things, and yet this one is more acceptable to God, since he does it for God, than that one who does it for the glory of men. Since, therefore, you are a son of that one who transgressed the commandment, it is necessary that, being a son, the thick darkness and the spider and the disobedience and the sword are fixed in you as in all his sons, and it is necessary to be separated from the dread companionship and grievous habit of sin and to take up the conduct and companionship and spiritual character of the second Adam, the heavenly one, and to acquire "the mind of Christ," so that you may become his son and heir.

For the whole lawgiving, and prophets, and apostles, and angels, and the coming [of Christ] came about against the evil that entered in and reigned, in order to cut off evils and triumph over them; indeed, even the laws of the Romans hinder (but Satan neither prophets nor apostles nor scriptures). Nevertheless you see that the evils which hold the world together are ready at hand, and those who take pleasure in them and are held fast unto death, and that good is rare, so that out of many few are those who are saved. It is necessary, then, that we who have come near to the living God through a virtuous conduct be fitted together and glued to him, since "he himself is the head," the pearl, the foundation; and if anyone does not possess this foundation, he does not know where he is building. For if anyone is sitting in deserts and practices continence while yet not building upon the Lord, "upon the sand" he builds, upon things that are dissolved and easily corrupted. For just as, when a man's head is cut off, it is not possible for the other members to hold together, but they are immediately dissolved and corrupted, so without the head (that is, without Christ) it is impossible for a soul to live, just as neither can a fish live without water. For having that foundation, he is building his work as "upon rock." Glory to his mercies unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The discussions of words and the confidence of knowledge bring no profit to the soul so much as distraction and loss, and those who are mastered by these things resemble a man eating grass instead of bread, which has no pleasure and produces no strength for the body, or a man painted on a wall who preserves indeed the whole image of the members but neither walks nor moves. For all the heresies from the beginning were established from this source; for they were not persuaded by the apostle who says, "O the depth of the riches." For wishing to grasp the wisdom of God in words, they went astray. "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord?" Neither, then, are those who seek through learning to find the exact comprehension of God able to find it, nor are those who are confident teachers and call themselves sufficient for the explanation concerning God able to say anything clear or to grasp it, but the truth surpasses together all both those who are taught and those who teach, and both have escaped their own notice, being deceived. For if the teacher says to you that God is fire, you will find him becoming "water of life." If he says to you that he is seen and appears as a king, you will find him appearing as a shadow, and to another as a poor man, and to some as God and to others as a humble man. If you seek him in the heavens, he is found on earth; but if you seek him on earth, he passes over into the heavens. And again to some he is found becoming "affliction" by dispensation, but to others "relief.

Therefore it is fitting to renounce much speaking and idle talk, for no one can accomplish anything by it. We are judged concerning the natural knowledge that belongs to each person if we do not receive the word of God. Setting these things aside, then, let us seek how a person can come and draw near to God and learn from him and receive something strange to this age in the heart, and let us be persuaded by the one who said: "No one of men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him." If, then, a man of like passions cannot know or comprehend your counsel, how do corruptible men force themselves to search out or comprehend the counsel of God? And "no one" of men knows "the things of God except the Spirit of God" that is in him. "But we did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we might know the things that have been given to us by God; which things we also speak." Let us therefore seek the Lord, and he himself will guide us and teach us, and we shall be able to know the mysteries of God, as far as it is possible for a man to know, not as far as God is. It is our part, then, to learn how a man is born of "the Spirit," how one must resist the spirits "of wickedness," and to be taught to seek help from the Lord and to wage war against the adversary. For the Lord rejoices in a guileless soul of a man, and he snatches into his kingdom those who come to him with fear and innocence.

Again I can tell you one thing: that the one who seeks God receives the power of the Holy Spirit, and his nature is dissolved into the destruction of error and cowardice, receiving as food the nature of the holy fire that has fallen. For just as a smooth, dry, and fruitless piece of wood with many branches is useless, and all who pass by sit on it and wipe off the mud from their sandals—but if it is thrown and carried into fire, it is transformed and becomes charcoal, the wood clearly remaining within the fire in its substance, and no one thereafter can touch it or sit on it—understand that our nature is like this: from the transgression it is fruitless and dry and has branches of evil and unclean spirits, but it is changed into the power of God and is kindled into fire and light; and if the demons wish, according to their ancient habit, to approach the soul and harm it, they are burned up by the fire and put to flight by the light that has dipped and encompassed the soul. For it is changed in such a way that the person himself perceives the transformation and knows that he no longer has the former mind of earthly-mindedness. This happens because the soul communes with God and changes its nature into the form of God. For just as a mother who has an infant loves it and embraces it with great longing, taking it into her bosom, so the Spirit comes into the soul and embraces it into its bosom with great rest and joy, and by the working of divine power it is swallowed up by

Such a man is seized by the Spirit and taken captive into the captivity of heavenly mysteries, and his mind becomes God-filled. For then he dissolves the vessels that lie idle in the soul, and drives out and casts down all the delusion of idols that has taken up its dwelling in the soul and the body, and then he becomes wholly carried about and drunk with love and joy and great humility. Therefore all who have abandoned the vanity of words and have come in simplicity to seek God, and have truly cast all their care and their mind upon him, have found something strange to this age and to their own nature, joined to them, and little by little they have grown rich and have become kings. For the presence of the Lord in the flesh, and the apostles, and all the labor that has been from the beginning, accomplished this for the saints and bestowed this great gain upon men: that men should become temples of God, and that God should come and dwell in their souls, and that the portion of death which entered in should be driven out and removed from their midst. Let us therefore give ourselves over to the Lord and seek to find something given by God, and when we have found it, we learn all things through it, things that neither the teachers of the law nor the word-strivers are able to teach. Such souls differ greatly from and are better than the rest that are in the world—as I might say, light than darkness, or the living than the dead.

Not only these, but also those who receive the word of truth through hearing and believe in great simplicity and stand firm in this hope through the expectation of grace—even if they have not yet attained the very height of the gifts—differ greatly from the rest of mankind through faith and hope and all zeal in virtues. For these, so to speak, are already within the courtyard through hope, since the word has been received and dwells in them. For it is no small thing to receive the very summit of the word of truth and to give it a dwelling within and to purify all one's own buildings of opinion formed by suspicion and to set the soul itself upon the hope of God and of his word, and thus to strive with the Lord's help "against the spiritual forces of wickedness." It is no small struggle and progress, then, for a person to be able to stand even in the word of God and to place all hope in the mercy of the Lord and, striving according to grace, to believe that he is saved, and through the power and help of the Lord to hope to conquer the "spirits of wickedness" and to overcome all the passions through the Spirit. For such souls also already differ greatly from the rest, provided only that they remain "to the end" in hope and faith and course and zeal and aim, so that by the very experience of the benefits of grace and of release from the evil of the passions they may receive knowledge and attain "eternal salvation.

For the "children of day" perform the works of the day, and the children of night (that is, adulterers and thieves and sorcerers) likewise carry out the works of night, sleeping by day and having their labor in the night. So too, when Adam fell from the commandment and came into transgression, the children of night (that is, the "spirits of wickedness") crushed the good and lovely members of the soul and made it slack and weak from the good, darkening it and crushing it beyond healing, so that none of the fathers or prophets was able to heal it except only the Lord who fashioned it. Therefore also the coming of his boundless goodness took place in such great lowliness and humility, to raise up the soul that had fallen into wickedness; for he says, "I will raise up and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David, and I will rebuild its ruins," and upon her who was spent in night and darkness and performed the works of night and fell into the wickednesses of the passions, he shone his holy day of light, so that from then on, having come to her senses, she might walk without stumbling, performing the works of the day and of the light of life, so that in this way she might be found worthy of the kingdom of heaven. For the soul is nourished from that place where it also is, where it also cleaves, either from the spirit "of the world" or from the Spirit of God, and from that source it is nourished, and from there it also lives.

For the rest, let each one, if he wishes to test and recognize himself—from where he is fed and in what his heart is engaged—so that, having understood and acquired discernment, he may give himself over to the impulse toward the good, let each one, as he goes to prayer, carefully observe the thoughts of the heart and the workings of the mind, from where they are—from the spirit "of the world" or from the Spirit of God—and who it is that offers food to the heart, those from above or those from this age. And having tested and recognized, O soul, ask the Lord with much labor that the heart be fed only on that heavenly food, so that it may grow there and work there and dwell there wholly, entirely by the heavenly mind of the Spirit, from where the heavenly food is also supplied to it, according to what is said: "But our citizenship is in heaven," so that, having pleased him, it may become fully worthy of the inheritance there, aspiring to eternal goods forever. Amen. All men make their discourse concerning good pursuits, and all the divinely inspired Scriptures—whether of the law or the prophets, or the gospel words of the Lord and of the apostles—have appointed punishments against evildoers and receive those who do good and noble works, and promise to them an eternal kingdom; and the laws of the nations from without and their rulers punish those who sin before all, for the fear of the rest, wishing to restrain and check the practice of evils.

But of evil works, no one becomes an open teacher and herald; rather, all give praise to good works. And behold, as we see, evils prevail for the most part, and they are carried out, and they reign in the world. Hence the wise and discerning can understand by experience what they also receive through the Scriptures, that there is a certain power opposed to evil, shepherding in secret and leading astray the race of men into evils, and invisibly teaching every impiety in the heart. Henceforth it is in the power of all to carry out what is secretly sown by them, according to the will of their own authority—things which most people do not know from where they are secretly sown, but they suppose it is some natural impulse, because of habit, that the evil reasonings contrary to nature are emitted from the heart. But the thoughts of the minds of souls have been variously fashioned by the Creator in humanity. Just as if someone has great substance in money and vessels, in gold and silver and every kind of clothing, and another possesses the least substance in all things, and another possesses a moderate substance—so also are the souls of men; for they possess a great difference in their invisible substance and in the discernment of their reasonings. For some are broad in mind, while others are in narrowness. Since, therefore, there is a good substance of light, rational and intelligible, which is God, and there is a dark substance from choice, which is the spirits "of error" and

the ruler" "of this age." For the soul that has little substance of mind and discernment, or again the soul that is rich in the possession of thoughts and understanding and discernment, let the struggle and the zeal and the race be undertaken, and let it seek this: that it be deemed worthy to be joined to the essence of the divine and heavenly and noetic light, so that it may be able to be guarded by it from the disease of the passions, and so that it may be taught and guided by it into every good practice of the holy commandments; for having been sanctified through the divine power, it will be shown to be holy and pure. And again, let a great struggle and zeal be undertaken by each soul to be ransomed from "the authority of darkness," the rational and evil one, from the spirits "of wickedness" and the wickedness of the passions, since from "the transgression of Adam" the aforementioned evils are present with the soul, warring against it. Let this, then, be the aim of everyone who wishes to be deemed worthy of the kingdom, whether he exists in breadth or in narrowness of mind, that he be ransomed from the wickedness of the passions and be deemed worthy to become a partaker of the essence of the Spirit. For victory and defeat come about through the self-determining will, either to make oneself liable to the adversaries, or through grace to struggle and conquer the passions and to have the soul, sanctified and united to grace, become a partaker of the Spirit and worthy of the Lord, and thus be deemed worthy to inherit the kingdom.

For the soul with which the power of the darkness of the passions and the wickedness of the evil spirits is present, and the soul with which the invisible spirits "of error" associate and walk about, accomplishing their working through the passions in the ways and paths of the thoughts, and becoming a partaker with them—when that soul departs from the body, the spirits "of error" and the ruler who rejoices in evils, the world-ruler "of darkness," receives and takes it to himself and holds it as his own and belonging to him, since it worked his will and consorted with him in the flesh to the end. And again, the soul with which the substance of the desirable and ineffable beauty of the light of the divine Spirit is present, and the soul with which the grace of the truth of Christ associates and walks about, in the ways and paths of the thoughts, and is from this deemed worthy of the sanctification of the heart and the indwelling of Christ—when it departs from the body, the spirits of the saints of light and the "King" of "peace," Christ, who rejoices in good souls, receives and takes it to himself as his own bride and belonging to him, since it worked his will only upon the earth.

For the rest, each person ought to examine his own heart and, stooping down to his own thoughts, to attend most carefully—where the soul, where the mind inclines, and what communion is present with it, either of the Spirit of God or of the spirit of the world, and where it is bound and where it loves: whether in the commandments of life and the will of God, in loving him only "with all the heart" and "soul" according to the word of the Scriptures, and looking to nothing else and resting in nothing else but cleaving to him alone in love, and reckoning the consolation of the "Spirit" to be true rest; or whether it is held fast and led away and loves in the earth and in matter and in the transgression of the commandments and in the earthly thoughts of this age. And each one, having examined himself as to what and of what sort he is, let him reflect and mourn and cry out to the Lord "night and day," as he commanded, until he finds his own soul and mind and thoughts kept in the peace of Christ, so as to be without wickedness. For all the zeal that has come from God through fathers, through prophets, through patriarchs, through the law, and lastly also through

The Lord's own visitation and coming has taken place because of the intellectual and rational substance of the precious soul made "in his image," and for the correction and healing of the mind and its thoughts from the great fall of the passions which the soul has suffered, having fallen into "spirits of wickedness" and "principalities" and "powers" and "world-rulers of darkness" through the transgression of Adam which came to be in the beginning, through which it put on the passions of the evil of sins and by them became estranged from God. For the apostle, showing forth the healing and redemption of the intellectual substance of the soul, says: "The peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts" and your reasonings "in Christ," so that this is the healing of the soul's wounds and the resurrection of the mind's fall: that the thoughts and dispositions and reasonings of the soul be bound to Christ and be kept in the heavenly light of the Spirit of his peace, and that the substance of the soul together with the possession of its own reasonings be guarded from the spirits of darkness, the evil and material and vain reasonings. This is the redemption of the Lord and his coming and visitation upon the race of men, that he might restore the intellectual and rational and precious substance of the soul now in the nobility of its own purity from the beginning, and in addition might make it a partaker of the very substance of his Spirit, as a noble and royal bride of himself.

How then do we, through ignorance and sloth and negligence and forgetfulness, exchange this precious and intellectual substance of the soul—which is lovely and more honorable than all visible and invisible creation—for leprous and wretched and corruptible material things, so as to be bound to what is in earth and matter and the world and glory, and to love the things that appear, and to attend to the passing things of this age, and to be disposed with affection for these things—when we ought, casting off all things from ourselves and shaking off the passing things of the earth and the corruptible thoughts of matter and dust, to be bound to Christ alone in love, and to be wounded by heavenly eros for him alone, and with spiritual affection to love him alone? For great and precious and noble and lovely is the dignity of the intellectual and rational substance of the soul, for whose sake there is a contest for God and angels and holy powers, for whose sake through fathers and patriarchs, through prophets, through the Lord himself who came for her intercession and conversion, through apostles, through teachers, workers of truth who turn her to the will of the Lord and strive to make her their own and to have her with themselves unto eternal life; for whose sake likewise there is a contest and zeal and war and toil for Satan and the principalities and powers of evil forces, through false prophets, false apostles, through deceiving men, through treacherous workers and heresies, and lastly even through the Antichrist himself, who strive to make her their own to the end, that they may not release her but may have her forever with themselves in the darkness of condemnation.

For this soul, this precious image of Christ, which has fallen into the abyss of passions, of wickedness, of darkness, of evil powers, and which by its own choice wishes to be joined to Christ, must now—while it is still in the flesh—be changed and transformed and altered and renewed and rebuilt in some such manner as this, according to the tradition of the Scriptures. Just as if there were a place in which there is much foul stench and filth, and it is filled with a dung-heap and full of "all uncleanness" and rot and vileness, and then some ruler and wealthy man should come and command that place to be cleansed from its great vileness and squalor, and with all diligence should effect the cleansing of that most foul-smelling place, and thereafter should build there a royal palace, and construct golden-roofed bedchambers and marble-paved dining halls and various glorious dwellings for the abode and rest of the king—then thereafter there come from that former stench and uncleanness incense and fragrance and great purity.

Or just as a land might be desert and waterless and full of thorns and thistles, but a good farmer comes and carefully works that desert land, and taking the thorns and thistles out of its midst, burns them with fire, and renews it and works it, and brings forth there most abundant waters, and plants vineyards and gardens, roses and all kinds of flowers and all kinds of fruit-bearing plants, and thereafter that place becomes a gentle place of rest, fruitful and well-watered and productive—see how great a change and transformation has taken place, from what wildness and desolation it has been transformed into what gentleness and fitness. Or just as a woman might be a beggar and poor, at whom all who wish and who pass by mock and abuse, but a certain glorious king becomes her lover and takes her to himself and brings her from that shame and fornication into honorable chastity and a condition befitting free women, and instead of those most foul rags clothes her in royal and golden and jeweled garments, and binding her with a royal diadem honors her, so that she becomes his companion and an honorable bride of a king—behold how great a change and transformation has taken place for her, and from what shame and poverty she has been transferred into what honor of glory and wealth.

In the same way, this mind and soul together with the body, having fallen into the sin of wickedness and having been brought down into the true poverty of the darkness of the passions of evil out of the transgression of Adam, and having been defiled in fornication and uncleanness and the pollution of wicked passions and having been outraged, and having become in the wildness and desert of the evil and shameful spirit of the world—when it has believed and come sincerely with its whole purpose and whole will to the Lord in the love of his Spirit, it must be changed and transformed from that former wildness and desert, and from the stench of sins and passions of wickedness and the shameful and ragged garments of the spirits "of wickedness"—unbelief, love of money, hatred, malice, anger, deceit, folly, evil desire, and all uncleanness—it must be altered and renewed and transformed and remolded now through grace. And instead of the thorns and thistles of evil thoughts and the sins of wickedness, with which the earth of its heart, teeming, used to bear fruit, it must now teem and bear fruit in it with righteousness and holiness of the divine and heavenly Spirit of goodness; and instead of the stench and mire and ruins and shameful places, which the spirits "of wickedness" established in the invisible region of the soul through the passions, there must now be prepared a heavenly palace and a dwelling and a rest of the heavenly King.

Instead of the filthy and dark garments that the soul wore, she is now clothed in the bright garments of the Spirit of divinity—of faith, love, goodness, and every virtue. And instead of that dreadful shamefulness and fornication with the evil spirits, with which the soul fornicated in evil thoughts, she is now led into chastity and sanctification and purity and communion with the heavenly King Christ, and is bound round in honor of grace with the heavenly diadem of the glory of the Spirit. And instead of the spirit of wickedness of the world that wanders about and takes captive the mind of the soul in matter and in earth and in evil and in every evil distraction, now the Spirit of the goodness of Christ from heaven takes captive the mind of the soul into the unutterable mysteries of God and into all the holy fruits of the goodness of the Spirit, in which the mind dwells and all the reasonings of the soul are taken captive into divine and heavenly thoughts of the Spirit—just as the spirit of evil of the passions takes the soul captive against her will into reasonings of the world and of the vanity of matter. For the Spirit through the prophet truly says: "As her darkness, so also her light.

Thus the soul that has believed in Christ and loved him sincerely must also be changed in this way, and renewed and transformed in all things—both in the hidden thoughts of the heart, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and in the good works of righteousness, in truth and full assurance and perception and energy, as the Spirit of goodness works in it, just as the spirits of darkness of the passions work evil in perception and full assurance both in the soul and in the body. For all the heresies are filled with empty words, by the presumption of a right mind and the vain conceit of righteousness, but the true children of the Church of Christ are shown forth in works of truth and faith and in a certain energy of the divine Spirit visiting and overshadowing the soul, and displaying "fruits worthy" of the grace in power and perception and full assurance and in the "renewal" and transformation "of the mind" and in a new and fresh creation "according to the inner man" of the heart. This is true Christianity and the exact apostolic tradition of all the holy Scriptures in truth, and this is the coming of the Lord and the redemption of the man who has fallen under sin, and this is the hope of those who truly believe in Christ.

Let us therefore also be earnest, through all the virtues, to receive in ourselves the full assurance of this hope, so that, having been counted worthy of the good things "hoped for"—that is, of the indwelling of the Lord—and having acquired the sanctification of the "Spirit" in our own heart, and having laid up the heavenly "treasure" in our own "vessels," and having been perfected blameless in all the commandments through grace, we may be counted worthy to enjoy the eternal good things with Christ for ever and ever. Amen. The soul that possesses discernment has acquired it in the hearing of the word from divine grace; for the hope and rest and possession of Christians is not in this age. For it is not the beauty of all the earth and of the good things that have come to be in it, nor of heaven and the lights in it, that Christians seek. For behold, how many good things there are on the earth—manifold and varied beauties and rests—and likewise in heaven, how great a variety of stars, beauty of lights; and none of these is what Christians seek and need. But there is something that is neither on the earth nor in heaven, in which those who love the Lord live and which they need. How many languages are in the world, how many wisdoms, how many understandings, how many arts, how many sciences and pursuits and zeal and wealth on the earth—and none of these is what Christians need and in which they live. There is, then, something they seek that is greater than heaven and all things in it, and earth and the good and beautiful things in it, and once for all greater than all the good and beautiful things that appear, compared with none of these.

Therefore such a mind and such a soul are needed for the seeking and searching out of this incomparable and only good and beautiful thing—a soul that is itself greater and higher than all things in heaven and on earth, and than all human wisdom and prudence and worldly knowledge; greater and higher, I say, in faith and love. For the things from heaven down to earth profit the soul nothing. For just as virtue is greater and higher and better than all the varied delights in heaven and earth and air—or rather, that alone is good and beautiful which Christians need and in which they can live—in the same way the soul must be such, hastening toward the searching and seeking of this good and beautiful thing, surpassing the beauty of all the wisdom in the world and the variety of tongues and earthly prudence and glory and luxury and pleasure, and greater and higher in faith and love toward the only and incomparable beautiful thing, leaping over all things and bound by nothing, but desiring that alone.

What, then, is that good and beautiful thing which is compared to nothing, which Christians seek and in which they live? It is the Lord himself. For he himself is the one compared to nothing, for all things that are beautiful have come to be from him, and he himself is the inheritance and the life of Christians; for it says, "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." For the only good and beautiful thing, which is God, seeks nothing else from men—not gold, not silver, not possessions, not animals, nor anything else of the things on the earth, all of which he himself created—except only true faith and love toward him from the heart. And then a person is deemed worthy of the possession of this beautiful and only good thing; for such a soul is deemed worthy to receive a participation in the Holy Spirit and from that point is made worthy to have fellowship with Christ. For unless a man first becomes the occasion, drawing the love of God to himself by his own love, the life and the possession of the good and only beautiful thing will not come up into his soul. Each person, then, becomes the occasion of his own life and of his own death through the self-determining will of the soul; for wherever the soul gives its natural love, it draws to itself either life or death, just as the Scripture also says: "Before man are life and death, and whichever he is pleased with will be given to him," since all men, having been changed, obtained this life—even the dishonored. For behold (as the apostle says), God "wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Not that they do not give their natural love and good disposition toward God; for the Lord, when he has heard, does not force dispositions, but he observes and sees the disposition and love of the man, where it inclines and where it loves. If he sees the love of the soul cleaving to him, behold, he comes and dwells in it and is inherited by the soul that loves him, and he inherits it, since it is impossible for it to be otherwise; for if God does not receive from the man an occasion of love and faith toward him, he does not himself become the life of the man, nor does the man become his possession, the only honorable and good thing. Each one, therefore, as has been said before, becomes an occasion for the life and the promise to come to him, in believing and loving him above all things seen; for this alone God especially seeks from man. For such a soul is greater and higher than the whole world and all its wisdom and glory and wealth and rest and all its understanding and all the good things in it, because it has believed in the only beautiful one and has loved the only good one, despising all beauty and glory and delight and wisdom of the tongues of the world, having denied them; and thus it attains and enjoys the true beautiful and good and only lovely one.

Let no one therefore say, "I am unable to love or to reason or to believe in the one who alone is good, since I lie under slavery and the bonds of sin." For to be able perfectly to perform the works of life, and to rescue yourself by your own strength and to free yourself from the sin that dwells in you—this is not in your power, since the Lord has reserved this for himself. For he alone "condemned sin," and he alone is "the one who takes away the sin of the world," and he himself promised to free from the slavery of sin and the passions those who love him and believe in him; and those whom he himself frees are "truly free." But to reason and to believe, or to love the Lord, or to seek him—this you have and are able to do; and not to consent to nor cooperate with the sin that dwells in you—only become yourself the advocate of your own life in seeking the Lord, in reasoning and loving and awaiting him, and he himself provides the power and the redemption. For this alone he awaits from you.

For just as a body held by the heat of a fever is hindered and restrained from doing or working the works of the earth, yet the mind of the one lying down is not restrained nor at rest, but much more thinks and cares about his works, and his thought reasons about the harvest, if it should happen, or about a vineyard or about a journey or about trade or about certain other such things—and look, the body has been cast on the bed, held by the fever, but the mind is not at rest nor restrained from its works (reasoning through them) and from seeking the physician and asking his own people and sending to him that he may come and visit him, and it has the expectation of being healed. For if he neither speaks nor reasons, this one has completely died; but as long as the fever presses on, the body is hindered and restrained from its works, but look, the mind reasons and cares intensely about them. In the same way also the soul, having fallen under slavery and the authority of the darkness of the passions of sin and held by the fever of "the law of sin," is hindered and restrained from the works of life—the perfect virtues of the Spirit—being unable to perform these blamelessly; but from reasoning or caring about them and performing the work of the commandments according to its power and loving life, it is not restrained, if it truly wishes to aspire to eternal life. Therefore it is not hindered from crying out and calling the only physician to its own aid and expecting its healing.

For even if the soul has died from God—that is, having been separated from the enjoyment of the glory of his light through transgression, and having been covered with a veil of the wickedness of the passions—yet it has not died from its own knowledge and thoughts, but it has the capacity to be anxious about the works of life, and to love and call and cry out to the true physician. From its own knowledge, then, it has not been put to death. This, therefore, is what God seeks from man: that which he has free to reason about life—to love and call upon the only true physician, and not to consent to wickedness, but according to his power to live in good works. This pretext alone God seeks from men; for to strengthen the soul and heal it from the fever of sin, and to deliver it from the slavery and activity of the passions, is his own work and is reserved for him alone, "for the power" (he says) "is God's, and yours, Lord, is the mercy." For he himself knows in what evils the soul is, and how it is hindered from not doing the works of life, and how it has been cast into the grievous sickness of the passions of "dishonor"; he waits only for the soul to please him in mind and in love. For to be able he himself brings about "speedily," as it is said: how much

rather "he will avenge his elect, who cry to him night and day." But just as again the body, held fast by fever, is restrained from doing the works of the earth, and the soul, held fast in sin by the fever of the passions, is restrained and hindered from the works of life, in the same way the soul that has been deemed worthy of the heavenly fire of the Spirit of life, and is held by the power of the divine fire, is restrained from doing the works of sin, being always drawn by affection and longing toward the heavenly bridegroom. For if the fever of the body restrains the body from doing the works of the earth, and the fever of sin, that is of the passions, restrains the soul from the works of life, how much more will the heavenly fire of the Spirit, kindling and inflaming the worthy and faithful soul unto the love and longing for the kingdom above, restrain and hinder it from doing the works of sin, and will make it forget all the vanity of this age. For this soul, which has sought God by its own will and by its own love, draws him to itself, to be ruled and governed and guided by him according to his will. For the Lord himself thus wills, when he has been sought and loved and believed and drawn by the love of the soul, to come and dwell and reign and govern her whole mind and guide her into all the will of God. For let no one suppose that the soul is something small, as dwelling in a small body and being wholly in a body.

Behold, it is in the body and outside the body, and it is wholly in it and wholly outside it in its disposition and thoughts. For God made the soul a great vessel and workmanship, something precious and beautiful and surpassing all created things, a work so precious as to be prepared "as a dwelling place of God" and made according to his image. For the soul has a spiritual and intellectual image according to its own natural fineness, just as the body has its own image. But the soul is the true image of God, and that living and immortal image bears and carries this image. Yet it is invisible and undiscoverable to itself for this reason: a covering of the darkness of evil lies upon it, covering it so that it cannot comprehend, nor with its intellectual eyes look upon its own substance, nor perceive and contemplate its own Maker, nor enjoy and live and be refreshed by the light of the glory of his goodness, nor delight in his goodness and love. And this covering we acquired from the transgression of Adam, having received the inheritance of death.

The soul, then, has been shut up and covered by the darkness of the passions, cut off from the enjoyment and contemplation of God and from its own comprehension. Yet the work remains sound and the soul's creation perfect under the covering, even while it is held in the prison, keeping the rational image and the constitution which the Creator made sound from the beginning. For just as a man is shut up in a prison-house in which there is no door, nor opening, nor window, nor any way out at all, and the man is inside the prison—the one shut inside can do nothing to get out, except only to call and cry out to those outside, that they may open for him, and stretching out his mind toward those outside the house, to call upon them for his help—in the same way the soul, covered by God with the covering of the passions and shut up in the prison of the darkness of sin, remains the handiwork and the precious creation, sound within the covering, just as it was created, and it can do nothing to get out except

It is enough only to think and reason and care about the life of light, and to cry out to the Lord and Redeemer who is outside the covering of darkness, so that he, by his own power, seeing our cry toward him and our faith and love, may break the covering of darkness and enlighten the soul with his own light and redeem it from the darkness of the sin of the passions and guide it according to his own will. For the soul, being inside the covering, stretches out its mind toward him in seeking and longing, disregarding all visible things and, with faith and longing, pressing itself toward the invisible divine power in its seeking and awaiting the visitation of grace. And he, being above, stretches out his mind toward it, being found by it and revealed to it and giving it rest with spiritual rest and guiding it into all his own will. For unless the mind of the Lord comes to the soul's own mind and guides it, it does not know how to do the will of God. For to the extent that the soul and its disposition and its mind always cleave to him in seeking and faith and longing, he, much more in his own goodness, attending to its inward love, cleaves to its mind and becomes with it into "one spirit," according to the apostolic word. For when the soul cleaves to the Lord and the Lord has mercy on it and loves it and comes to it and cleaves to it, and thereafter the mind remains continually in the grace of the Lord, the soul and the Lord become into "one spirit" and into one blending and into one mind.

And her body is cast down on the earth, but her whole mind, entirely, lives as a citizen in the "heavenly" "Jerusalem," ascending "as far as the third heaven" and cleaving to the Lord and ministering to him. And he himself, seated on the throne of "his great majesty" in the heavens in the "heavenly" city, is wholly toward her in her body. He has set her image above in the "heavenly" city of the saints, "Jerusalem," and he has placed his own image of the ineffable light of his divinity in her body. She ministers to him in the heavenly city, and he ministers to her in the city of the body. She has inherited him in the heavens, and he has inherited her on the earth. For the Lord becomes the inheritance of the soul, and the soul the inheritance of the Lord.

For even if the mind and thought of sinners who are in darkness can be so far from the body and travel far away, and in a moment of time can depart to more distant homelands, and often the body is cast down on the earth while the mind is in another homeland with its beloved, or with the one beloved to it, and there it beholds itself as if dwelling—if, then, the soul of the sinner is so winged and light that its mind is not hindered from more distant places, how much more a soul whose covering of darkness has been taken away by the power of the Spirit, and whose spiritual eyes have been enlightened by the heavenly light, and which has been perfectly redeemed from the passions of "dishonor" and made pure by grace—it serves Christ wholly in the heavens in the spirit, and wholly in the body it serves him, and it is so enlarged in its understanding that it is everywhere, both where it wishes and where it wishes to serve the Lord. This is what the apostle says: "that you may be able with all the saints to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Behold the ineffable mysteries of a soul whose overlying darkness the Lord removes and reveals it, and is revealed to it, how he enlarges and stretches out its thoughts

of its mind to the breadths and lengths and depths and heights of all visible and invisible creation. Great, then, and wonderful and divine is the work that is the soul. And as it appears, even before the formation of the body he created it; for in saying, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," the soul was made by God, and thus taking "dust from the earth" he formed the body "and breathed in" through the Spirit the soul which he had created into the body. And in creating the soul he made it such as this: he did not place evil in its nature, its nature did not know evil, but according to the image of the virtues of the Spirit he made it. He placed in it laws of virtues, discernment, knowledge, prudence, faith, love and the remaining virtues according to the "image" of the Spirit. For even now the Lord is found and made manifest to it by knowledge and prudence and love and faith. He placed in it understanding, reasonings, will, a governing mind, enthroning in it also some other great †having in it† subtlety. He made it easily moved, swift-winged, untiring in coming in an instant and ministering to him with its thoughts wherever the Spirit wishes, and simply he created it such as to become a bride and partaker of himself, so that he might be mingled with it and it become "one spirit" with him, as it says:

He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." For neither the wise by their wisdom nor the prudent by their own understanding were able to grasp the fineness of the soul or to say what it is, except only those to whom the understanding is revealed through the Spirit and the precise knowledge concerning the soul is made known. But here observe and discern and listen with understanding: this one is God, that one is not God; this one is Lord, that one is a servant; this one is Creator, that one is a creature; this one is Maker, that one is a thing made. Nothing of his nature and hers is in common, but through his boundless and ineffable and inconceivable love and compassion he was well pleased to make such a thing made and creature—rational and precious and excellent—as the Scripture says: "that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his own creatures," for his own conjunction and his own communion, for his own "dwelling place," for his own precious and pure bride. Since, then, such good things lie before us, and such promises have been promised, and such good pleasure has come to be from God toward us, let us not be negligent, O children, nor let us shrink from hastening toward eternal life and wholly giving ourselves over to the good pleasure of the Lord. Let us entreat the Lord, therefore, that by the own power of his divinity he may redeem us from the prison of the darkness of the passions of "dishonor," and having avenged his own image and his handiwork, may cause it to shine forth, having wrought the soul whole and pure, so that having obtained and been counted worthy of the communion of his "Spirit," we may be counted worthy to enjoy it together with him into the endless ages of ages.

Amen. Our beloved brothers hunger and thirst for the word of truth, longing to hear it with great love. And so, even if we are unlettered men, yet they themselves, receiving the word of God with longing and affection, are gladdened, and in this the Holy Spirit rejoices, whenever his own word is spoken in this world. For even if the infant is a babe unable to speak as its mother's speech does, yet the mother herself, condescending to the child and lisping along with it, speaks with it, and the mother rejoices when the babe speaks back to her, looking to the affection of the infant. And so we too, even if we are babes in relation to the boundless and incomprehensible glory and might and knowledge of the Lord, unable worthily to set forth or declare the mysteries of the Spirit, nevertheless the grace of the Spirit, the mother of the saints, rejoices whenever the word concerning her is spoken in the world. For the children born of the Spirit have their rest and exultation in nothing except in that word from which they are born. For each of existing things rests and rejoices in the homeland and place in which it is born. There are various created things, and each creature has its own offspring. The earth has all things that grow in it and the living creatures born in it—beasts and reptiles and cattle and certain others besides. The waters likewise have their own offspring, the great variety of fish.

Likewise the air possesses in itself the great multitude and variety of birds, and again the heaven has its own offspring of the stars, and the regions above the heavens, and neither do these resemble one another, nor their creatures. For one form and manner of life belongs to the heavenly things and another to the earthly, and if any creature, from whatever substance it was not begotten, should wish to depart and dwell there from whence it was not begotten, suffocation and death and destruction will befall it. For example, if the fish of the sea wish to live on the land, they will die, since they were not begotten from it; if the four-footed beasts of the earth wish to have their manner of life in the waters, they are suffocated and die, since they were not begotten there; if the birds of heaven, abandoning their journey in the air, make their dwelling on the earth, they are consumed by beasts and reptiles or even by men. For each one lives and rests in the nature and substance and world in which it was begotten. So then also the children of the Spirit—the word of God from there warms and gives rest and nourishes them, but the word of the world suffocates and destroys and puts to death. For the word of God and the word of the world have nothing in common and in no way resemble each other.

For the "word" of God is "God," and the word of the world is the world, and there is a great difference and distance between the word of God and the word of the world, and between the children of God and the children of the world, and each offspring resembles its own parents. If the offspring born of the Spirit wishes to give itself over to the word of the world and the affairs of the earth and the glory of this age, it is put to death and perishes, unable to find rest of true life. For its true rest is there where it was born; for, as he says, "it is choked and becomes unfruitful" from the word of God—the one held fast by worldly cares and bound by earthly chains. Likewise also the one held fast by a fleshly disposition (that is, a man of the world), whenever he hears the word of God, is choked and becomes as it were irrational. For having been accustomed to evil deceits, whenever they hear about God, being illuminated in mind as by a disagreeable conversation, they are disgusted. As also the apostle says: "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him," and the prophet says, "the word of God became to them as" "vomit." You see that in whatever age a person has not been born, it is not possible for him to live there. And the same thing must be understood in another way as well. If the fleshly man gives himself over to come into a change, he first dies from there "and becomes unfruitful" to the former and old life in the wickedness of the world, and then he is able to live unto the word of God.

For one who wishes to give himself over to another life must be reborn from the former, utterly wicked life. And just as if someone is held by disease or fever, and behold his body is cast upon the bed, able to accomplish none of the works of the earth, but nevertheless his tongue speaks about those very works, and his mind is not at rest, being drawn and anxious about the work, and he seeks the physician, sending his friends to him—in the same way the soul, having come into weakness of the passions from the transgression of the commandment and having become without strength, yet when it comes to the Lord and believes that it will obtain his help and has renounced the former, utterly wicked life—even if the soul lies in the weakness of sin, unable to accomplish the works of life in truth, nevertheless it has and is able to be anxious earnestly about life, to entreat the Lord, to seek the true physician. And not as some say, led astray by a deceitful teaching, that once for all man has died and is wholly unable to accomplish any good.

For even if the infant is not yet able to accomplish any work or to come to its mother on its own feet, nevertheless it rolls about, cries out, and weeps, seeking its mother; and in this the mother is moved with compassion, rejoicing and delighting that the infant seeks her with toil and crying; and though the infant is unable to go to her, yet because of the child's great seeking and longing, the mother herself comes to it, taken captive by her love for the infant, and she cherishes it and nourishes it with great affection. Yet even when the mother has taken up the infant, it still does not rest but wails, until she lays it in her arms and brings the breast of her own milk-nourishment to it, and thus at last the flowing fountains of milk gladden the infant. Yet even when the infant has been rested and taken up by the mother and has drawn near to the breast and enjoys its own milk-nourishment, it still weeps, because the mother did not quickly take it up and give it rest, but allowed it to be distressed for a long time. For even if someone sets before the infant countless foods, or gold, or silver, or anything else, it rejoices in none of these, nor is it rested or distracted by them, but is delighted only in its mother's breast and in the sight of her, and rejoices in receiving nourishment from her, and seeing her it is glad and exults.

Likewise also for each of the visible things, even down to the irrational creatures—whether four-footed beasts or birds—nature preserves, in an orderly sequence, the affection toward their young and their care, and the young's own attachment and love toward their own mothers. For instance, so that we may learn the example from the birds: the swallow makes its own nest somewhere on high, in loftier places, guarding against reptiles, and there it rears and warms its own young; and the nestlings pay heed to no voice of humans or of beasts or of any others, nor are they distracted, but only if they hear their mother's voice, they immediately rouse themselves and cry out, seeking her. And the swallow, going about everywhere by her own will, brings food to her young, and after chewing it and bringing it into a certain tenderness, she gives it to them, so that her young may be able to be fed in a fitting and useful way. In the same manner, then, also the souls that are in the infancy of the world and are held fast by the passions, and are unable to do the works of life in truth because of the power of evil that is with them, but cry out and seek the help that comes from God, and have much labor and longing for eternal life—seeking the heavenly mother, the Holy Spirit, with weeping and crying out, and resting upon nothing of this world, but having their rest only in the participation of the Spirit and their desired nurture—that good and heavenly mother, the grace of the Spirit, coming to the souls that seek her, receives them into her own arms of life and warms them with spiritual and

by the heavenly nourishment of the tender and desirable and holy and rational and guileless milk, growing day by day in the advancement of the spiritual age unto perception and knowledge of the heavenly Father, until, having come to the perfect measure and having attained "to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God," according to the word of the apostle, they may receive the participation of eternal life. For he alone, the Lord, by his own goodness and good pleasure, is able to gather the thoughts of the soul that have been scattered in the world into one godly and upward-looking thought. For just as milk is dissolved in softness and poured out in the vessel in looseness, but when rennet is added it is gathered into a certain single firmness and solidity, and flour likewise is poured out in great fineness, but when leaven is added (as the Lord suggested, likening the kingdom of heaven to the "three measures of flour," "until," he says, "the whole is leavened") the abundant flour is gathered into unity through the water, and who is able to bring it to firmness and usefulness for the food of men so that it becomes bread, except the fire alone?

In the same way also the soul, poured out in great slackness and watery weakness of the world through the preconception of its habit toward the passions and the fineness of its thoughts like flour scattered throughout this age—who is able to unite its scattered thoughts and restore a firm and divine and upright reasoning, except through faith the power of grace and the heavenly fire of the Spirit by its own testing restore it to usefulness and soundness of mind for the heavenly Father, and thus it can become worthy of the kingdom of the heavens? Likewise also the shepherd gathers the scattered sheep by his own voice into one flock, and they follow him, gathered to one another and guided by him. Woe to that flock that does not have the one guiding it into the good pastures that he himself knows, for it is destroyed by wolves and wild beasts. Woe to the soul that does not have within itself in full assurance the guide and shepherd of its thoughts, Christ, for by the terrible wolves and the wild beasts, the spirits of wickedness, being scattered in its thoughts, it is consumed. But the word has persons both bodily and spiritually, since we have both body and soul; for all the similitudes, just as they are called bodily from outside in the church, so can they be understood spiritually in each individual in the gathering and uniting of the thoughts of the soul. Likewise again the abundance of grain in the ears of corn can be understood in another person.

For behold, we see that what has been scattered over many lands and fields is gathered from all sides into one threshing floor, and then, being crushed and trampled by animals, the stalk is threshed fine together with the wheat; and who can separate the chaff from the wheat, unless the spirit of the wind blows and separates them from one another? In the same way, who can gather the soul that has been scattered and poured out upon the earth of the world, through the deceit of the passions of this age, into the threshing floor of the heart, and separate from it the sin of evil thoughts that is mixed in, unless only the heavenly Spirit of Christ breathes in it? For the evangelist says: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor, and he will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Let us therefore also exhort ourselves and entreat the Lord day and night, in labor of heart and longing of affection, seeking him alone, resting upon nothing of the world (neither pleasure nor glory nor rule nor anything else), but having our longing toward him alone, so that he may gather our scattered thoughts, so that of the

Having been deemed worthy of his visitation and care, and having been received by him and borne with in various ways, may we become worthy of eternal life, so that, purified as pure wheat, we may be stored away by him in the region of the heavens. For just as a laborer or farmer, leaving behind all timber and plants and grass, goes to the working and gathering of the wheat (for he knows that from there he has his profit and his rest), so also the good and true farmer of our life, the Lord, at his second coming, leaving behind and disregarding all the nations and all material and worldly inclinations, as not being useful to him, comes to those who are his own and faithful and friends and who love him alone and have been fitted as good wheat "into the storehouse" of his life, and gathers these alone into the heavenly kingdom of the Father, while the rest of the unfruitful men, having disregarded them as unfruitful grass, he will hand over "to fire"—those who have not done his will. Let us therefore also be diligent, in every good conduct and in the guarding of his holy commandments and in all the commandments of life, always to occupy ourselves and to receive the participation of the Spirit, so that, having become as pure wheat, we may be deemed worthy to be gathered by him into the kingdom. Amen.