Word
I II III IV V

Word 1

God’s word teaches us a teaching about prayer, in which it outlines to his worthy disciples, who carefully seek knowledge about prayer, what prayerful utterances should be used to incline God’s ear. But I dare to suggest to what is written that the present congregation must first learn not how one should pray, but what one must certainly pray, which perhaps many have not yet heard of. This sacred and divine thing – prayer – is abandoned by many during their lives in negligence and neglect. Therefore, it seems to me, it would be decent first, as much as possible, to confirm in word that we must certainly, as the Apostle says, “continue in prayer” (Rom. 12:12); and then listen to the Divine word, which sets out for us the way in which we should offer prayer to the Lord.

I see that in real life more care is taken about everything else, one is directed towards one thing, the other towards another with the soul, but the benefit of prayer is not sought with zeal by people. A petty trader sits with goods from early morning, trying to show his own to buyers before others do the same, so that, ahead of others, he can satisfy the needs of the needy and sell his own. And also the buyer, meaning not to be left without what he needs if someone else grabs it first, hurries not to the house of prayer, but to the market. And everyone who has an equal desire to gain benefit, and tries to warn his neighbor, with what he cares about; the hour of prayer is stolen, being transferred to the marketplace. Thus, the one engaged in handicraft, the one practicing in the sciences, the one on trial, the one who has received the right to judge – everyone, completely carried away by concern for what is at hand, consigns to oblivion the exercise of prayer, recognizing the thought of God as a loss for the task before him; because whoever is engaged in art considers God’s assistance in the work before him to be something useless and serving nothing: why, having abandoned prayer, he places his hope in his own hands, not remembering the One who gave him these hands. And also, whoever takes care of the formation of the gift of speech in himself does not think about the One from whom he has this gift, but, as if he had elevated himself to nature, pays attention only to himself, and devotes himself to studying lessons; in the thought that nothing good will come from God’s assistance, he gives preference to his thoroughness over prayer. Likewise, other activities of caring for the bodily and earthly do not give the soul leisure to care about the most important and heavenly.

Therefore, this is a great sin in life, constantly increasing from different increments, connected with all human concerns, which is why forgetfulness of God prevails by everyone, and the benefit of prayer is not included by people among those deserving their care. With trade comes covetousness, and covetousness is idolatry. Thus, the farmer does not measure the labors of agriculture with the necessary needs, but, always extending his thoroughness to a greater measure, gives sin free entry into the occupation by bringing it into alien limits. From here arise endless disputes, when those possessed by such a disease of covetousness enter into competitions among themselves about the boundaries of the earth. From this irritation, motivation to evil deeds, and mutual attacks on each other often end in bloodshed and murder. And also intensive visits to the courts, inventing thousands of excuses for untruth, serve many different sins. A judge either arbitrarily tilts the scales of justice for a bribe, or, against his will, deceived by those trying to obscure the truth, confirms a lie. And what if we recount in detail these many types and ways in which sin is mixed into human life?

The reason for sin is nothing else, but the only thing is that people do not want to add God’s help to the means at their disposal to achieve what they want. If intense effort is preceded by prayer, then sin will not find access to the soul. As long as the remembrance of God is firmly in the heart, the thoughts of the opponent remain invalid; because in doubtful matters the truth always intercedes for us. Prayer also keeps the farmer from sin, multiplying the fruits in a small area of ​​the earth, so that sin no longer enters with the desire for more. So a traveler who enters the military ranks, or into marriage, so anyone, no matter what his aspiration is directed towards, if he does every deed with prayer, success in what he is doing, will be turned away from sin, since nothing contrary will draw his soul into passion. If anyone departs from God, he will completely surrender to his own effort; then, having become outside of God, by all necessity he will certainly pass into the power of the enemy. Anyone who is not in unity with God through prayer is separated from God.

Therefore, we must first learn from this word that “we must always pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). For the consequence of prayer is that we are with God: and whoever is with God is far from the enemy. Prayer is the protective guard of chastity, a good direction for irritability, curbing arrogance, a cleansing remedy for memory malice, the destruction of envy, the destruction of untruth, the correction of wickedness. Prayer is strength in the body, abundance in the home, prosperity in the city, the power of the kingdom, a victorious monument in battle, security in times of peace, the gathering of those who are separated, the constant collection of those united. Prayer is the seal of virginity, fidelity of marriage, a weapon for travelers, a guardian for those sleeping, courage for those who are awake, fruitfulness for farmers, salvation for those who swim. Prayer is a protector for the accused, the release of prisoners, the reassurance of the weary, the encouragement of the mourning, the satisfaction of those who rejoice, the consolation of those who cry, the crown of those entering into marriage, the celebration of a birthday, the burial shroud of the dying. Prayer is a conversation with God, contemplation of the invisible, undoubted confidence in what is desired, equality with the Angels, progress in good, overthrow of evil, correction of sinners, enjoyment of the present, fulfillment of the future. Jonah’s prayer made the whale a home, Hezekiah returned to life from the gates of death; and to the three youths she turned the flame into the spirit of dew (Dan. 3:50), the Israelites erected a monument to the victory over the Amalekites, one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians were slain in one night with an invisible sword; and besides this, one can find in what has already happened thousands of examples, from which it becomes clear that of all that is valued in life, nothing is higher than prayer.

But although it is already time to engage in prayer itself; however, let’s add something else to the word, because, by God’s grace, we have many blessings of all kinds, but to repay what we have received, we have this one thing – the opportunity to pay the debt to the Benefactor through prayer and thanksgiving. Therefore, I reason that if we continue our conversation with God throughout our entire lives, being in thanksgiving and prayer, then our reward will be as insignificant as if we had not taken the trouble to begin to fulfill this duty – to repay the Benefactor in some way. Continuation of time is divided into three sections: past, present and future. These three sections encompass the Lord’s goodness to us. Will you think about the present? You live in the Lord; or about the future? He is for you the hope of things hoped for; or about the past? You would not have existed if you had not received existence from Him; In this way, you have been blessed by Him, that you have received existence from Him; you are also blessed by the fact that you use existence, because you live and move about Him, as the Apostle says (Acts 17:28). And hopes for the future depend on this same blessing. You yourself have power only in the present, so that if you did not stop thanking God at all times, you could hardly give thanks for the present, not finding any way to pay tribute to both the future and the past. And we are so meager in due gratitude that even if possible we are not grateful, I don’t say, the whole day, not even devoting most of the day to contemplation of God. Who spread the earth for me? Who, through his industry, made the moist nature passable? Who made me “heaven”
how
kamaru” (Isa. 40:22)? Who carries the lamp of the sun before me? Who sends the springs to the valley? Who prepared the riverbeds? Who gave me dumb animals to serve? Who made me, inanimate dust, a partaker of life and understanding? Who formed this mortal thing in the likeness of the image of God? Who brought the image of God, darkened in me by sin, back to its original glory? Who draws me, expelled from paradise, removed from the tree of life, hidden in the abyss of material life, to primeval bliss? “There is no one who understands” (Rom. 3:11), says Scripture. Looking at this, we should give endless and continuous thanksgiving throughout our entire life.

But now almost all of human nature is vigilant for one material thing; all his care is about this, all his zeal is for this, this is the subject of both remembrance and hope. Human nature is vigilant and uncontrollable in every matter to lust for more, wherever something more can still be found, whether it is in honor and glory, or in an excess of property, or the disease of irritability, everywhere our nature intends to achieve more in this, but there is no thought about the true blessings of God, or those known by promise.

But it is time to examine, if possible, the meaning of the sayings used in prayer; for it is clear that it becomes possible for us to get what we want only when we know how to ask for it. Therefore, what teaching has been taught about this? “And when you pray, do not talk too much, like the pagans, for they think that for their many words they will be heard” (Matthew 6:7). Although the content of this teaching, being simply presented to us, can in itself be clear and does not require any more subtle research; However, it is worthy for us to study: what does the saying mean: “in verbosity”, so that, having learned the meaning of this word, we do not do what is forbidden to us.

It seems to me that the Lord disciplines the vanity of the mind, curbs those who are immersed in vain desires, and therefore invented this hitherto unused and newly composed saying to expose the foolishness of those who amuse themselves with the desires of useless and vain things. For a word that is prudent, meaningful and directed towards something useful in its own sense is called a word, but what is uttered by unfulfilled wishes for the sake of unfulfillable pleasure is not a word, but only a verb, or as another, expressing a thought in more common words. I would say: idle talk, nonsense, nonsense, and anything else of similar meaning. Therefore, what does this word suggest to us? – During prayer, do not be exposed to the same things that, for example, happen in a child’s mind. For those who are imperfect in mind do not think about what could really be fulfilled according to their thoughts, but arbitrarily build for themselves some kind of happy destiny, envisioning treasures, marriage, kingdoms, large cities called by their names, imagine themselves as the owners of what the vanity of thoughts has depicted to them, while others even more boldly indulge in such vanity, and, transgressing the measure of nature, either mentally become birds, or shine like to the stars, or they carry mountains in their hands, or they imagine the sky to be passable, or they imagine living thousands of years, turning old people into young people, or other similar bubble-like and empty ideas that the heart generates in the young mind; therefore, just as in ordinary affairs one who does not think about how to achieve any of the good desires, but is busy with unfulfillable desires, like an unreasonable and pathetic person, wastes time in these dreams, in which he could think about how to do something useful for himself: so the one who during prayer is not directed towards what is useful to the soul, but asks God to show favor to the passionate movements of his mind, like a person absurd, is really only a verbal one, praying that God will become a co-worker and servant of his vanities. I will say as an example: someone approaches God with prayer, and without understanding with his mind the height of the power to which he approaches, without understanding it himself, he insults this greatness with shameful and base petitions. As if someone, due to extreme poverty or rudeness, considers clay vessels to be of great value, and then comes to the king, who is ready to distribute wealth and rank, putting aside the petitions that are proper to offer to the king, begins to ask a venerable person of such rank to model from clay what is desirable for him; So, the one who ignorantly uses prayer does not ascend to the height of the Giver, but on the contrary, he wants to reduce the Divine power to his own low and earthly desire, and therefore he extends passionate aspirations to the One who sees hearts, and extends them not in order to heal inappropriate movements of the heart, but so that it becomes even worse when this evil aspiration, with the assistance of God, is crowned with action. Since such and such is insulting, and his heart is hostile to the insulter, he says to God: “Strike him,” as if crying out: “Let my passion become Yours, let my anger pass into You.” Just as in human battles it is impossible to stand for someone on one side without feeling, along with the angry person, irritation towards the opponent; So, obviously, the one who stirs up God against his enemy asks Him to become angry with him and become a participant in irritation. And this means the Divine to come into passion, to become like a person and transform good nature into brutal cruelty. So the lover of fame, so out of pride wanting to have more and more for himself, so eager to win victory in legal proceedings, so hastening to receive a crown in physical struggles, so seeking approval at spectacles, and often exhausted by the frantic passion of youth – all of them offer prayers to God not that they will be freed from the illness that prevails in them, but that the illness in them will reach its limit; and since each of them recognizes the failure to succeed in this as a misfortune for themselves, they truly only say, begging God to become an accomplice to their mental illness: and what’s worse, they want the Divinity to accept opposite aspirations, dividing God’s effectiveness into cruelty and philanthropy; because, for whom they desire to be merciful and meek towards them, they ask Him to show Himself cruel and unmerciful towards their enemies. What foolishness only those who speak! If God is cruel to them, then, without a doubt, he is not favorable to you either. And if, according to your hope, he bows to you for mercy, then why will he come to the opposite disposition, changing mercy to cruelty?

But lovers of debate have this objection at hand. For in defense of their cruelty they immediately present prophetic words, namely: David, who desires that sinners “perish” (Ps. 9:4), and prays for the shame and disgrace of his enemies (Ps. 83:18); Jeremiah, who expresses a desire to see God’s “vengeance” on those who resist (Jer. 11:20), Hosea, who asks to give the enemies “an unfruitful womb and dry breasts” (Hos. 9:14), and many other things are collected, scattered in different places of the Holy Scriptures, proving that one must pray for vengeance on one’s opponents and make the goodness of God one’s co-operator. cruelty. But in order, as if in passing, to stop only the verbiage on this subject of those who deviate to the contrary, we will propose the following about each of the mentioned places:

Not one of the truly saints, inspired by the Holy Spirit, whose sayings according to Divine vision were written for the edification of subsequent generations, will be found to have spoken about anything bad. But there is one goal in their words, it tends to correct nature from the vice that has taken hold in it. Therefore, just as someone who prays that there are no sick people, no beggars, wants not the death of people, but the extermination of disease and poverty: so each of the saints, praying that everything hostile and hostile to nature should come to destruction, only the most ignorant people give rise to the idea that the saints are bitter and irritated against people. For the Psalmist, having said: “Let sinners disappear from the earth, and let the wicked be no more” (Ps. 103:35), prays for sin and iniquity to disappear; because it is not man who is hostile to man, but the vicious movement of arbitrariness that is united with him by nature becomes his enemy. Therefore David prays that evil may disappear; but man is not evil. For how can evil be like the Good? So, if you pray for the shame and disgrace of your enemies, then this points you to a horde of opponents, from an invisible enemy attacking human life, about which Paul expresses himself more frankly, saying that we “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12), against demonic wiles, according to which People are presented with bad cases of sin, irritating encounters, reasons for lust, pretexts for envy, hatred, pride, and similar vices. Seeing that all this maliciously surrounds the soul of everyone, the great Prophet, praying for revenge on these enemies, prays that they will be ashamed, that is, to save himself; because it is natural for someone defeated in a fight to be ashamed of his fall, just as it is natural for someone who wins to rejoice in victory. And that this is really so is shown by the form of prayer. “Let them be ashamed,” it is said, “and let those who seek my life be put to shame” (Ps. 34:4). The Prophet prays for vengeance not on those who plot to damage property, or argue about the limits of possession, or point out any vice in his body, but who plot against the soul. Malice against the soul consists of what else, if not its alienation from God? But the human soul is alienated from God in no other way than by a passionate disposition. Since the Divine is always dispassionate, one who is constantly in passion is separated from communication with the Divine. Therefore, in order not to tolerate this, David prays for the shame of those who are opposed. And this means nothing more than asking for victory over your opponents. These opponents are passions. So Jeremiah, having a zeal for godliness, since the then king was madly devoted to idols, and his subjects were carried away along with him, does not heal his own misfortune, but in general brings a prayer for people, wanting that the blow that is dealt to the wicked would make the entire human race wise. So the Prophet, who then saw the vice of the Israelites prolific, rightly condemns him to childlessness, and wants the bitter breasts of sin to dry up, and so that evil is no longer born and nurtured among people. That is why the Prophet says: “Give them, Lord, what will You give them? give them a womb that does not give birth and dry breasts” (Hos. 9:14). And if the saints find another similar word, which expresses and signifies a certain irritation, then, of course, the idea is hidden in it that evil should be driven out, and not exterminated.

“God did not create death” (Wis. 1:13). Do you hear this decisive verdict! Therefore, how would the Prophet begin to beg for the death of his own enemies if he asked God, to Whom the activity of death is alien? “Don’t
He rejoices at the destruction of the living” (Wisdom 1:13). Only the one who speaks and wants to turn away God’s love for mankind from his own enemies encourages him to rejoice over human misfortunes. But they say: others have already been awarded leadership, honors, wealth, using prayer for this, and with such success they have conveyed the idea that they are God-loving. Therefore, someone will say: how do you forbid us to offer prayers to God for anything like this? – Everyone, however, knows that everything depends on God’s will, and real life is arranged from above, no one will contradict this teaching: however, we also know other reasons for the success of prayer, and without a doubt, not as good, God gives this to those who ask; but so that faith in God is confirmed in superficial people, and so that, learning from experience how God listens to our prayers, by asking for unimportant things, little by little we rise over time to desire the highest and most divine gifts, as we see in our children. While they are at their mother’s breasts, as much as their nature can accommodate, they demand as much from the mother who gave birth. If the baby matures and gains some ability to speak, then he no longer looks at the nipples, but looks at the mother at something such as, for example, the hair on the head, or clothes, or other similar things that amuse the child’s eye. When he comes of age, his mind will also grow along with his body; then, abandoning all childhood wishes, he will ask the servant’s parents for a perfect life. Likewise, God, by all means teaching a person to turn his gaze to Him, for this very purpose is often attentive to unimportant requests, so that by doing good in a small way, the one who has received this mercy will be called to the desire of the highest. Therefore, if such and such a person, by God’s Providence, has become famous and famous from the unknown, or has acquired something else that people in this life covet, superiority, or wealth, or a brilliant position, imagine the purpose of this, namely, that God’s love for mankind serves for you as proof of God’s great power, so that you, having received children’s toys, send to the Father petitions for the most important and most perfect. And this is everything that benefits the soul. For it would be most unreasonable if he who approaches God begins to ask the Eternal for the temporary, the Heavenly for the earthly, the Most High for the things that creep on the earth, the Giver of the heavenly kingdom for this earthly and low well-being, the Giver of the inalienable for the short-term use of someone else’s property, the taking of which is necessary, and the enjoyment of which is short-lived, and the disposal of which is dangerous.

The Lord perfectly depicts this incongruity by adding, saying, “like the pagans.” For to have concern for the visible is characteristic of those who do not provide for themselves any hope in the next century, nor the fear of judgment, nor the threat of Gehenna, nor the expectation of good things, nor anything hoped for after the resurrection – it is characteristic of people who, like cattle, see only the present life, recognizing as good the only thing that they can give to satisfy the larynx, womb and other voluptuous demands of the body. Or to excel among others and make them think that you are higher than others, or to rest on a multitude of talents, or to possess something else that only serves to deceive themselves in everyday life – this is characteristic of such people to whom, whoever speaks about hope in the future, seems to be an idle talker, as soon as he begins to describe paradise and the kingdom and heavenly life and the like. So, since it is common for those without hope to cling to present life, the excesses and vanity of desires, which sensualists hope to successfully achieve through prayer, are beautifully described by Scripture as characteristic of pagans, who think through the persistence of absurd petitions to bring the Divine to assistance in which it should not. “They think,” it is said, “that in their many words they will be heard.”

But just as from what we have studied, we have learned what we should not ask for, so we will hear about what kind of prayer we should offer to God in the future, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. To him be glory and power forever and ever! Amen.

Word 2

Matthew 6.9. Our Father who art in heaven!

When the great Moses prepared the people of Israel for the secret teaching on the mountain; Then he did not honor them with theophany before he prescribed to the people the law of purification by observing carnal purity and washing. And even after this, the Israelites did not dare to see the manifestation of God’s power, but everything visible horrified them, fire, darkness, smoke, chimneys: and again turning to themselves, they asked the legislator to become their mediator before the divine will, since they did not have sufficient strength to approach God and endure God’s presence. And our Lawmaker, our Lord Jesus Christ, intending to lead us to Divine grace, shows us in a word not Mount Sinai, covered in darkness and smoking with fire, not the voices of trumpets sounding something inaudible and terrible, and not by observing three days of carnal purity, not by water washing away impurities, cleansing the soul, and leaving the entire church at the foot of the mountain, allowing only one to ascend to a peak covered in darkness, hiding the Divine glory; but on the contrary, first, instead of a mountain, he raises it to heaven itself, making it passable for people through virtue; then he makes, not only spectators, but also partakers of the Divine power, and in some way introduces those who approach Him into kinship with a superior nature, and does not cover the all-surpassing glory with darkness so that it would be inconceivable for those who seek, but, illuminating the darkness with the clear light of teaching, he made the pure in heart contemplate the ineffable glory in complete clarity. He also gives water for sprinkling, not drawn from alien streams, but flowing within ourselves, whether anyone understands by it the springs of the eyes, or the clear conscience of the heart, having legitimized not to allow any mud of vice; and it also establishes carnal purity in abstinence, not only from the legal communication of spouses, but also from any material and passionate disposition; and thus through prayer leads one to God. For such is the power of utterances, from which we recognize not just any sounds pronounced in syllables from God’s word, but the destiny of the ascent to God, successfully brought to fulfillment by a high life.

But from the very words of the prayer one can understand the Divine mystery. “When you pray” (Luke 11:2), says the Lord. He did not say: when you pronounce a vow (έυχησθε), but says: “when you pray” (προσέυχησθε) because what is required by the vow must already be fulfilled before you approach God with prayer. What is the difference in the meaning of these names? The fact that a vow (ευχη) is a declaration of something, according to piety, dedicated as a gift to God; and prayer (προσευχη) is a request for benefits, humbly addressed to God. So, since we need boldness when we approach God, making humble requests for what is beneficial for us, it is necessary to precede the fulfillment of what is announced by vow, so that, having accomplished what depends on us, then we can more boldly express our desire to receive reward from God. Therefore, the Prophet says: “I will pay You the vows (τας ευχας – vows) that my mouth uttered and my tongue uttered in my tribulation” (Ps. 65:13-14), and again: “Pray (έυξασφε – make a vow) and pay vows to the Lord your God” (Ps. 75:12). And in many places of Scripture one can see a similar meaning of the word: “ευχη” (vow), and therefore know that a vow, as it is said, is a grateful announcement about the offering of a gift, and prayer means approaching God, upon the fulfillment of what was promised to Him. Therefore, the Lord’s word teaches us not to ask God for anything before bringing something pleasing to Him as a gift. For first one must make a vow, and then pray; as others will say that sowing must precede the gathering of fruits. Therefore, one must first sow the seeds of the vow, and when this deposit of seeds grows, reap the fruits, receiving grace through prayer. Therefore, since we will not have the boldness to ask if we approach without any prior vow or gift; then prayer, if necessary, should be preceded by a vow.

Therefore, since the vow has already been fulfilled, the Lord says to the disciples: “When you pray, say: Our Father who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Luke 11:2). “Who
will give
I have wings like a dove” (Ps. 54:7)? – says the great David in one place of the psalmody. I will dare to say the same word: who will give me these “krills”, so that I can soar with my mind to the height of the greatness of these sayings – and leave the whole earth, cross all the air spilled in the middle, touch the ethereal beauty, reach the stars, see all their decoration, and not stop at them, but pass this too, stand outside of everything movable and changeable, embrace the constant nature, the immovable force, installed in itself and directing and supporting everything that has existence, everything that depends on the ineffable will of God’s wisdom, so that, having become a thought far from everything changeable and perverse, in an immutable and unwavering state of the soul, I could first become akin in thought to the Immutable and Unchangeable, then call upon the most related name and say: “Father?” For whoever says this needs a soul? How much boldness does it take? What kind of conscience should one have, so that, as much as possible, having known God, being guided by the names invented by Him to understand the ineffable glory, and recognizing that the nature of God, represented in itself, is goodness, holiness, joy, power, glory, purity, eternity, that which is always the same and the same, and everything that is similar to this is represented by the thought of God’s nature, and understanding with the help divine Scripture and your own reason – then dare to utter this word, and call such a Being your Father? It is obvious that if anyone has any intelligence, then, not seeing in himself the same as in God, he will not dare to utter these words to Him and say: “Father.” For it is not natural for someone who is good in essence to become the Father of an evil deed, and for a saint to become the Father of someone defiled in life, and also for the Unchangeable to become the Father of what is perverse, and the Father of life to become the Father of someone killed by sin; To the pure and unalloyed – the Father of those who have disgraced themselves through the passions of dishonor, to the Benefactor – the Father of the covetous, in general to the One Whom we represent in all good – the Father of those who are in any evil. If someone, seeing himself still in need of cleansing and recognizing his evil conscience as full of filth and bad marks, before he has been cleansed from such and so many bad qualities, includes himself in kinship with God, and the unrighteous to the Righteous, the unclean to the Pure, says: “Father”: then this saying will directly be an insult and slander, if only he calls God the Father of his own depravity. For the word: father means the cause of what happened from him. Therefore, if someone with a vicious conscience calls God his Father, then he will say nothing more than that God is the beginning and the culprit of his own evil properties. But “what kind of communication
light with darkness” (2 Cor. 6:14), says the Apostle: on the contrary, light is assimilated with light, just with just, beautiful with beautiful, incorruptible with incorruptible. And the opposite, without a doubt, has an affinity with the homogeneous. For “a good tree cannot
produce evil fruit” (Matthew 7:18). Therefore, if anyone, as Scripture says, “as long as you love vanity and seek lies” (Ps. 4:3), dares to utter the words of prayer, then let him know that he is not calling on the father of heaven, but of hell, who himself is a liar and becomes the father of lies that arises in everyone, who is sin, and the father of sin. That is why the Apostle calls those who have a passionate soul “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). And he who departs from life is called “the son of perdition” (2 Thess. 2:3); and a man who is voluptuous and pampered is called a son of “worthless and disobedient” (1 Samuel 20:30), just as, on the contrary, those who have a clear conscience are called sons of light (Luke 16:8) and of day (1 Thess. 5:5), and others who have strengthened themselves to Divine power are called “sons of power” (Judges 21:10).

Therefore, when the Lord teaches us in prayer to call God Father, it seems to me that he does nothing more than legitimize an exalted and lofty way of life; because the truth teaches us not to lie, not to say about ourselves what is not in us, not to call ourselves what we were not, but, calling our Father the Imperishable, the Righteous and the Good, to justify this kinship by life. Therefore, you see how much preparation we need, what kind of life we need, how much and what kind of thoroughness is required in order to, with the elevation of our conscience, achieve such a measure of boldness, and dare to say to God: “Father.” For if you have money in mind, if you are preoccupied with the charms of life, if you strive for human glory, if you serve the most passionate desires, and then you accept such a prayer in your mouth: what do you think the One who sees your life and hears prayer? It seems to me that I hear words that seem to be spoken by God Himself to such a person: “And you, who have been corrupted through life, call the Father of incorruption your Father? Why do you desecrate a pure name with your unclean voice? Why are you using this saying falsely? Why do you insult a non-bad nature? If you are My child, then, without a doubt, your life should bear the features of My blessings. I do not recognize in you the image of My nature; your features are opposite. “What communication
light with darkness! What is the relationship between life and death? What is the relationship between the pure by nature and the unclean? The distance between the benefactor and the covetous is great, the opposition of the merciful to the inexorable is irreconcilable. Another is the father of the evil qualities in you. My offspring are adorned with good fatherly qualities, the son of the merciful is merciful, the son of the pure is pure, the incorruptible is free from corruption, and in general the good is good, the truthful is truthful. But I don’t know where you’re from.” Therefore, until we have become pure in life, it is dangerous to dare to pray this prayer and call God our Father.

But let us listen more closely to the words of the prayer; with their frequent repetition, will we not understand some of the hidden meaning in them? “Our Father who art in heaven.” That through a virtuous life one must assimilate oneself to God, this has been sufficiently explored by us in the previous words. But it seems to me that the word of Scripture also points to some deeper meaning: for it reminds us from what fatherland we have fallen, and what nobility we have lost. With the story of a young man who left his father’s house and indulged in a pig-like life, Scripture, historically describing his departure and dissolute life, shows the disastrous state of humanity, and not before returning this young man to his original state, as after he sensed a real disaster, when he came to his senses and brought to mind the words of repentance. And they somewhat agree with the words of the prayer. For there the young man said: “Father! I have sinned against heaven and before you,” but I would not have mentioned the sin to heaven in my confession if I had not been sure that heaven was his fatherland, leaving which he fell into sin. Therefore, the thought of such a confession makes his father accessible to him; why does he rush to his son, greeting him with a kiss on his neck, which means the verbal yoke, through the Gospel tradition, placed with his lips on a person who has thrown off the previous yoke of the commandment and rejected the protective law; then he puts on him “clothes”, not another, but the “first”, from which he was naked by disobedience, along with eating the forbidden, seeing himself naked. And the “ring on the hand” with the image made on the edge means the return of the image: and the father protects his feet with “boots” so that, with his naked heel approaching the head of the serpent, they would not be stung (Luke 15:21-22). yourself before your father): so, it seems to me, here too the Lord, teaching you to call on the Father “who is in heaven,” reminds you of the good fatherland, so that, having aroused the strongest desire for the beautiful, he will put you on the path that again leads to the fatherland.

The path that elevates human nature to heaven is nothing other than retreat and flight from earthly evils; and the means to avoid evil is nothing else, I think, than becoming like God; and to become like God means to become righteous, holy, good, and all the like. If anyone, as much as possible, clearly imprints in himself the features of these perfections, then, as if by natural order, without difficulty he will move from earthly life to the heavenly land; because it is not local what kind of distance the Divinity has with humanity, so that we would need some kind of tool or device to introduce this heavy, burdensome and earthly flesh into a non-physical and spiritual way of life. But, according to the reasonable separation of virtue from vice, it depends on human will alone – to be a person where he desires. Therefore, since there is no difficulty in choosing what is good, and election is followed by the acquisition of what is chosen by someone, then it is possible for you to immediately be in heaven, having declared God in your mind. If, as Ecclesiastes says, “God is in heaven” (Eccl. 5:1), and you, according to the word of the Prophet, “cleave to God” (Ps. 72:28), then by all necessity it is necessary for the one who is in unity with God to be where God is.

Therefore, having prescribed to say in prayer that God is our Father, he commands nothing more than to become like the Heavenly Father through a God-beautiful life; since in another place he commands this same thing more clearly, saying: “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). So, if we have understood the meaning of such a prayer, then it is time to prepare our souls to eventually dare to accept these sayings with our lips and boldly say: “Our Father who art in heaven.”

How obvious are the signs of likeness to God, by which everyone can become a child of God; for it is said: “And to those who received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12), but whoever receives perfection in goodness receives God: so the evil disposition has certain special characteristics, and whoever has them, it is impossible for him to be the son of God, bearing within himself the image of the opposite nature. Is it good to know the distinctive properties of an evil disposition? This is envy, hatred, slander, arrogance, covetousness, passionate desire, the disease of glory: these and similar features distinguish the image of the opponent. Therefore, if one who has denigrated his soul with such defilements calls on his father, what kind of father will hear him? Obviously related to the one who called, and this father is not heavenly, but from hell. With whom a person wears signs of intimacy, he undoubtedly recognizes his relationship with him. So the prayer of a vicious person, while he is in wickedness, is an invocation of the devil; and whoever has abandoned vice and lives in goodness, the voice calls to the good Father.

Therefore, when we approach God, let us first pay attention to our lives, whether we have anything in ourselves worthy of Divine kinship, and then dare to utter such a word. He who commanded to say: “Father” did not allow telling a lie. Therefore, whoever lived worthy of divine nobility, beautifully raises his gaze to the heavenly city, calling the heavenly King Father and heavenly bliss – fatherland. What is the purpose of this advice? In order for us to philosophize on heaven; where God is, there is to lay the foundation of one’s dwelling, there to gather up treasures; move there with your heart; “for where your treasure is, there… is your heart also” (Matthew 6:21), and constantly keep in mind the fatherly grace and decorate your own soul in accordance with it. “For there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11), says Scripture. And let such impurity be removed from your image. The Divine is not involved in envy and all defilement, and let such passions not stain you: neither envy, nor arrogance, nor anything else that defiles God-like beauty. If you become such, then boldly call on God with your voice, and call the Ruler of the universe your Father. He will look at you with fatherly eyes, clothe you in divine clothing, adorn you with a ring, and equip your feet for the procession with gospel boots, restore you to the heavenly fatherland, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Him be due glory and power forever and ever! Amen.

Word 3

Matt. 6:9–10. Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come.

The law, “having a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb. 10:1), and proclaiming the truth by certain transformative fortune-telling, when it introduces a priest into the sanctuary to offer prayer to God, first cleanses the one entering with certain purifying sacrifices and sprinklings, then, adorning him with priestly clothing, splendidly speckled with gold, crimson and dyes of other colors, placing a breastplate on him and withered, attaching bells with buttons to the edges of his clothes; – and having fastened his outer garment on his shoulders, and adorned his head with a diadem, pouring copious amounts of myrrh on his hair, he finally leads him into the sanctuary to perform the mysterious sacred rites.

The spiritual lawgiver, our Lord Jesus Christ, stripping the law from its bodily veils and bringing to clarity the divinatory meaning of the prototypes, firstly, not only selects one from the whole people and brings it into conversation with God, but equally bestows this dignity on everyone, offering the common grace of the priesthood to those who wish; and then, not with borrowed decoration, found in some kind of dye and weaving trick, he gives artificial beauty to the priest, but puts on the decoration characteristic and akin to him, instead of variously speckled clothes, making it flower-bearing with the pleasantries of virtues; and adorns the chest, not with earthly gold, but with an immaculate and clear conscience, giving beauty to the heart. The shine of precious stones also adapts to this fading, and this, in the opinion of the Apostle, is the brightness of the holy commandments. Yes, and the parts that are decorated with this type of clothing are protected from damage; Of course, you don’t know that the decoration of such a part is a veil of chastity. He hung spiritual bells, buttons, and flowers on the cassocks of life (Exodus 28:34), and by these others can rightly mean what is visible in a virtuous life, so that the passage of this life becomes glorious; and therefore to this cassock, instead of a bell, I added the euphonious word of faith, and instead of a button, a secret readiness for hope for the future, covered by a harsh life, and instead of flowers, the benign beauty of paradise; Thus he leads him into the sanctuary and the interior of the temple. This sanctuary is neither inanimate nor man-made, but the hidden temple of our heart, if indeed it is impenetrable to vice and inaccessible to evil thoughts. The head is decorated with heavenly wisdom, not by inscribing the image of letters on a golden spoon, but by depicting God himself in a sovereign mind. And he pours myrrh on his hair, the soul within itself composed of virtues; and prepares it to be offered to God, in a mysterious sacred rite, as a fragrance and sacrifice not of anything else, but of himself. Thus, he who was elevated by the Lord to this priesthood, having mortified carnal wisdom with the sword of the spirit, “which is the Word of God” (Eph. 6:17), then remaining in the sanctuary, propitiates God, consecrating himself with such a sacrifice and presenting his “body” as a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). But perhaps someone will say that the meaning of the prayer we proposed for interpretation, at first glance, does not have this meaning: but we have invented such concepts that do not correspond to the concepts contained in the prayer’s own words. Therefore, let him again bring to mind the first lessons of prayer. For whoever has prepared himself to boldly dare to call God his father; he is exactly dressed in the clothes described in the word, rings with bells, blooms with buttons, shines on his chest with the rays of commandments, wears patriarchs and prophets on his shoulders, instead of names, turning their virtues into his own decoration; and adorns the head with the crown of righteousness; his hair is anointed with heavenly ointment; and resides inside the heavenly sanctuary, which is truly impenetrable and inaccessible to any unclean thought. But how the one dedicating himself should prepare himself, this is sufficiently shown in the word in what has been studied so far; it remains to consider the very petition that the Lord commanded those who were inside the sanctuary to offer to God. For it seems to me that he who simply states the words of the prayer does not, at first glance, give us a clearly understandable meaning. It is said: “Hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come.” How does this relate to my need? another person will say, either by repentance punishing himself for sins, or in order to flee from the sin that prevails over him, calling on God for help, because he is always in front of his eyes, struggling with temptations. Here irritability takes the mind out of an orderly state; there, desires for the inappropriate weaken the strength of the soul; at other times, covetousness, arrogance, pride, hatred and the rest of the crowd opposing us, like some horde around surrounding enemies, bring blindness to the vigilance of the heart, and at the very extreme plunge the soul into danger. After this, for someone who is trying, with good assistance, to get rid of these evils, what words are most suitable to use? Isn’t it those that the great David used, saying: “Let me get rid of those who hate me” (Ps. 69:15), and also: “Let my enemies return back” (Ps. 34:4), and also: “Give us help in distress” (Ps. 59:13), and other similar ones, with which one can raise up God’s assistance against enemies? Now what does the law of prayer say? “Hallowed be the name “Thine.” Even if this is not said by me, is it really possible for the name of God not to be holy? “Thy kingdom come.” What has been taken away from the power of God, who, as Isaiah says, embraces the whole heaven with his hand, holds the whole earth with his hand, carries in his arms all the things of this world and the worldly creation (Is. 40:12)? Therefore, if the name of God is always holy, nothing has escaped the power of God’s dominion, but possesses everything, and does not require additions in holiness, abundant and perfect in everything: what does the prayer express with the words: “Hallowed be Thy name: Thy kingdom come?”

Scripture, under the guise of prayer, perhaps teaches something like this: human nature is weak to acquire anything good, and therefore, no matter what good we care about, we would not achieve it if God’s cooperation did not accomplish this in us. And the most important thing for me of all the blessings is that the name of God is glorified by my life.

This meaning will become more intelligible for us through the assumption of the contrary. I hear that the Holy Scriptures somewhere condemn those who become the perpetrators of blasphemy against God. For it is said: woe to those “for whose sake my name is blasphemed among the heathen” (Isa. 52:5). And this means: those who have not yet believed the word of truth look at the life of those who have accepted faith in the sacrament; and therefore, when others bear the name of faith, and their life contradicts the name, or by idolatry through covetousness, or by rioting in drunkenness and feasting, or, like pigs, wallowing in the mire of debauchery: then the infidels are immediately ready to respond, condemning not the arbitrariness of those who make bad use of life, but the sacrament, as if it teaches one to act in this way, and as if such and such a person is initiated into divine sacraments, would not have become either a slanderer, or covetous, or a predator, or subject to any other vice, if it were not lawful for them to sin. Therefore, Scripture addresses such with a strict threat, saying: woe to those for whose sake “My name is blasphemed.”

If we understand this, then it would be timely to pay attention to what is being said from the other side. For, first of all, I think, it is necessary to pray and make the main subject of prayer so that through my life the name of God will not be blasphemed, but faith in the sacrament will be glorified and sanctified. Therefore, in me, says the one praying, “hallowed be” the “name” of Your dominion that I call upon, “that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). And who is so bestial and unreasonable that, in those who believe in God, he sees a pure life, successful in virtue, free from all the defilements of sin, alien to any suspicion of evil, shining with chastity, worthy of respect for prudence, courageously repelling the attacks of the passions, in no way weakened by bodily voluptuousness, most of all moving away from amusements, bliss and arrogant vanity, so much enjoying everyday, as much as this is necessary, touching the earth with the ends of only the toes of the feet, during her stay on earth, not drowning in the pleasures of this earthly life, but standing above all sensual seduction and in carnal life competing with the life of the disembodied, recognizing the only wealth is the acquisition of virtue, the only nobility is the assimilation of oneself to God, the only dignity and the only dominion is the possession of oneself, and not the servility of man passions, burdened by the duration of life in the material age, and like those in distress at sea, hastening to the pier to find peace there – who, seeing all this like, does not glorify the name called by such a life.

Therefore, whoever says in prayer: “hallowed be Thy name” in me, he, according to the power of the words he utters, prays for the following: “with the assistance of Your help, may I become blameless, just, godly, I will refrain from every evil deed, speak the truth, do righteousness; walk in righteousness, be distinguished by chastity, be adorned with incorruption, wisdom and prudence, philosophize above, despise earthly things, shine with angelic life.” This and the like contains this short petition, in prayer crying out to God: “hallowed be thy name.” For there is no other way for God to be glorified in a person than when his virtue testifies that the cause of goodness is in God’s power.

The following words contain a prayer for the kingdom of God to come. Is it really only desirable now that the King of the universe become king, always the same as He is, immutable for every change, for Whom it is impossible to find anything better into which he could change? Therefore, what does a prayer calling for the kingdom of God mean? But the true concept of this is known to those to whom the Spirit of truth reveals hidden secrets; and we have such an understanding of this saying: above all, there is one true power and force, which rules and reigns in the universe, not by any violence, not by arbitrary power, not by fear, not by coercion, bringing into submission what is subjugated to it: because virtue must be free from all fear, not by cruel dominion over oneself, but by voluntary reasoning to choose the good; and the main thing in any good thing is to be under life-giving power. Therefore, since human nature is deceived by deception in judging the good, then in our will there has been an inclination towards the opposite, human life is dominated by everything bad, because death has intervened in nature in thousands of ways; every kind of sin is done as if on some kind of path to death. Therefore, since we are under such arbitrariness, as if by some executioners or enemies, enslaved to death by the battles of the passions, we pray well that the kingdom of God will come to us. For it is impossible otherwise to overthrow the evil dominion of corruption until the life-giving power again assumes dominion over us.

Therefore, if we ask that the kingdom of God come to us; then in reality we beg God for the following: “may I be delivered from corruption, may I be freed from death, may I be freed from the bonds of sin, may death no longer reign over me, may the arbitrariness of vice no longer be effective over us, may the enemy not dominate me, may he not lead me captive, enslaving me to sin; but “may Thy kingdom come” upon me, so that the prevailing and reigning passions today may retreat from me, or, better said, turn into nothingness. “As smoke dissipates, You scatter them; As wax melts in the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God” (Ps. 67:3). And the smoke, spreading in the air, does not leave behind any sign of its own nature; and wax that has been in the fire will no longer be found. But the wax, having absorbed the flame, turned into steam and air; and the smoke came to complete destruction. So, when the kingdom of God comes upon us, then everything that now prevails over us will turn into nothing; because darkness does not tolerate the presence of light: illness does not remain after the return of health: passions do not act when dispassion appears; death is inactive, corruption disappears when life reigns in us, and incorruption begins to possess.

“Thy kingdom come.” What a sweet saying! To them we clearly offer the following prayer to God: “may the opposing force crumble, may the squad of foreigners be destroyed, may the struggle of the flesh with the spirit cease, may the body not serve as a refuge for the enemy of the soul, may the royal dominion, the angelic hand, thousands of correctors, darkness helping from the right hand appear on me, so that the darkness of those at war will fall on the opposite side. The opponent is strong; but terrible and insurmountable for those deprived of Your help. while the one he is fighting is alone. And as soon as Your kingdom opens, “and sorrow and groaning will be removed” (Isaiah 35:10), and in their place will come life and peace and joy. Or, as the same thought is more clearly interpreted for us by Luke, whoever asks for the kingdom to come cries out for the assistance of the Holy Spirit. So in the Gospel of Luke, instead of the words: “Thy kingdom come,” it is said: “Let Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.”

What will those who boldly open their mouths against the Holy Spirit say to this? By what understanding do they transform royal dignity into slavish humiliation? Luke calls the Holy Spirit what Matthew called the kingdom; Why is the nature of the Spirit relegated to a subordinate creature, while the royal nature is ranked among the nature subject to royal power? The creature is enslaved, and slavery is not royal power. The Holy Spirit is the kingdom. And if it is a kingdom, then, without a doubt, it reigns, and not under royal authority: but what is not under royal authority is not a creature; because it is only natural for a creature to be in slavery. Therefore, if the Spirit is the kingdom, then why do those who have not yet learned to pray, who do not know who cleanses what is defiled, classify Him among the servile nature, and to whom belongs the power of the kingdom?

It is said: Let Your Holy Spirit come and cleanse us. Therefore, the special and predominant power and efficacy of the Holy Spirit is to cleanse from sin. For what is pure and undefiled, of course, has no need of a cleanser. But the Apostle testifies to this same thing about the Only Begotten when he says: “Having accomplished the cleansing of our sins by Himself, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3) of the Father. Therefore, it is one thing for One and the other, with the Spirit who cleanses sin, and with Christ, who is made cleansing. And those who have one action, of course, have the same power; because every action is a consequence of force. Therefore, if there is one action and one force, then how can one imagine the otherness of nature in those in whom we do not find any difference either in strength or in action? Just as by the properties of fire, when these two actions of shining and burning are equal and similar, one cannot conclude about a modification of the object: so no one who is chaste, taught by the Divine Scripture that there is one action of the Son and the Spirit, will go so far as to assume any difference in nature.

But now, by the opinions of the pious, it has already been previously proven that the nature of the Father and the Son is one and the same; for it is not possible for a foreigner to be called by the name of God; just as a bench is not called the son of a carpenter, and no one of sense will say that the housebuilder built a son; On the contrary, the names father and son signify their unity by nature. When two beings are in mutual property with a third, it is necessary for them to have no difference between one and the other. Therefore, if the Son by nature is in unity with the Father, and the identity of actions has proven that the Holy Spirit is not alien to the filial nature: then as a result of this it turns out that the nature of the Holy Trinity is one, while in each Hypostasis the personal property, primarily seen in it, does not merge, and the distinctive signs do not mix with each other so that the sign of the Father’s Hypostasis is not transferred to the Son or the Spirit, either the attribute of the Son is not applied to the Father and to the Spirit, or the personal attribute of the Spirit is not found in the Father and in the Son. But in the generality of nature, an incommunicable difference of characteristics is discerned. The father is characterized by a guiltless existence. This cannot be seen in the Son and in the Spirit; because the Son came from the Father (John 16:28), as Scripture says, and the Spirit is from God (1 Cor. 2:12) and “proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26). But how can this – to have a guiltless existence, being a property of the Father alone, cannot be applied to the Son and to the Spirit; so on the contrary, this too – to have existence from guilt, which is characteristic of the Son and the Spirit, is unnatural to be seen in the Father. And since the common property of the Son and the Spirit is not to be unborn, so that no unity is seen in Them, one can again find an unmixed difference in their personal properties; so that the general is preserved, and the special properties do not merge. For the Son in Holy Scripture is called the Only Begotten of the Father, and with this Scripture limits the personal property of the Son. About the Holy Spirit it is said that He is from the Father, and it is testified that He is filial. For it is said: “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom. 8:9). Therefore, although the Spirit who is from God is also the Spirit of Christ, yet the Son who is from God is not and is not called the Son of the Spirit: and this relative sequence does not take place in the reverse order, so that it would be possible, having equally decomposed the speech, to transform it, and just as we call the Spirit Christ’s, so we call Christ Spiritual. Therefore, since this property is clear and does not clearly distinguish one Person from another, and the identity of action testifies to the community of nature, then both confirm the pious position about the Divinity, that the Trinity is counted by hypostases, and is not divided into alien divisions.

Therefore, what is the madness of these Doukhobors. who teach that the Lord is a servant, for whom the testimony of Paul is not true when he says that “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). Or perhaps the word “let him come” is considered derogatory? This means they do not listen to the great David, who calls even the Father to himself and cries out: “Come and save us” (Ps. 79:3). If for the Father to come is a saving thing, then why is it a humiliating thing for the Spirit to come? Or is cleansing from sins considered a sign of humiliation? Listen to the unfaithful Jews, who cry out that it is characteristic of the One God to forgive sins; when speaking about the Father, they say: “Who is this who blasphemes? Who can forgive sins except God alone” (Luke 5:21)? Therefore, if the Father forgives sins, the Son will take upon Himself the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29), and the Holy Spirit cleanses those in whom He abides from sinful filth: what will those who oppose their own lives say to this?

But may the Holy Spirit come upon us, and may he cleanse us, and may he make us capable of accepting the sublime and divine concepts indicated to us in prayer by the voice of the Savior. Glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

Word 4

Matthew 6.10–11. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Give us this day our daily bread.

I heard one doctor who, using the science of natural science, discussed the state of health; his reasoning will not, perhaps, be far from our goal – the well-being of the soul. He defined the deviation of any element in us from the proper measure as the beginning and cause of a painful state; and vice versa, he also argued that restoration of someone in a wrong movement to a state that is characteristic and natural is a cure for a pathogenic cause. And therefore I believed that we should pay attention to precisely what is moving in us randomly, the predominance of which makes the influence of the opposite on the restoration of health weaker. Thus, if warmth prevails, it must assist what is dominant and moisten what is being dried out, until the warm, consuming itself, with a lack of substance, is completely depleted and goes out on its own. And also, if something else that exerts in us actions opposite to one another exceeds the limit, it is necessary to give artificial help to the diminished, so that it resists the multiplied. And when this is done, nothing will interfere with the balance of the elements; then health will return to the body, because in nature there is no longer an incorrect dissolution of the elements.

What is the purpose of this long introduction to the word? Not without a purpose, perhaps such a beginning is not far from the intended subject. For the words that are subject to our consideration are: “Thy will be done.” Why did we mention this medical situation, explaining it later. The spiritual in humanity was once healthy, because certain elements, I mean spiritual movements, were uniformly dissolved in us according to the law of virtue. When the capacity for concupiscence increased, the disposition represented by its opposite, and this is abstinence, became overwhelmingly excessive; and there was no longer anything preventing the immoderate movement of lust, which should not happen; Then, in human nature, a fatal disease arose from this – sin. Therefore, the true Physician of mental suffering, for the sake of those possessed by illness, entering into human life, weakening the pathogenic cause with prayerful utterances, raises us to spiritual health. Health for the soul is the fulfillment of the Divine will, just as vice versa, falling away from good will is a disease of the soul that ends in death. Therefore, since we became weak, when in paradise, leaving a good way of life, we tasted the poison of disobedience without measure, and therefore a cruel and fatal illness prevailed in our nature: then the true Doctor came, who, according to the law of the medical art, heals evil contrary to it, and those possessed by illness because they have deviated from God’s will, frees them again from illness by unity with God’s will. For the words of prayer serve as a cure for the illness that has befallen the soul. Whoever’s soul is possessed, as if by some kind of illness, prays, saying: “Thy will be done.” And God’s will is the salvation of people.

Therefore, when we come to the point of saying to God: “Thy will be done” on me too: then it is absolutely necessary to first condemn that life that was inconsistent with God’s will, and express this by confessing: “since during the past life, Your will, contrary to me, acted in me to harm me, I became a servant of the evil tormentor, and, as it were, an executor of execution, carrying out the enemy’s sentence on myself: therefore, aroused by pity for my destruction, grant that over time Thy will may be accomplished in me. For, as in dark caves, when light is brought in, the darkness disappears: so, when Your will is done in me, every crafty and inappropriate movement of arbitrariness will turn into nothing. Chastity will quench the intemperate and passionate desire of the mind, humility will destroy arrogance, modesty will heal the disease of pride, and the kindness of love will drive out from the soul a numerous host of opposing evils; hatred, envy, indignation, angry movements, irritable mood, maliciousness, pretense, remembrance of grief, thirst for revenge, boiling of blood in the atrium, an unkind eye flee from it – all this herd of such evils will be destroyed by a loving disposition.” Thus, the effectiveness of God’s will drives away pure idolatry; I call it severe as a frantic devotion to idols, and as a lust for silver and gold – these, as the prophetic word called them, idols “tongue” (Ps. 113:12). Therefore, “Thy will be done,” so that the will of the devil becomes invalid.

But why do we ask God to make our will good? Because human nature, once weakened by vice, is weak for good. For a person does not, with the same ease with which he reaches bad things, return from them again to good things; how we can notice a similar law to this in bodies, because unequally, not with equal convenience, a healthy body becomes sick, and a sick one recovers. A person who had hitherto enjoyed health often fell into extreme danger from one wound, and one turn or attack of fever destroyed all the strength in the body, a small dose of poison either completely destroyed the body, or did it gradually, and the sting of a reptile, or the sting of one of the poisonous animals, or the crawling of the leg, or congestion, or eating with greed of something beyond strength, or other similar things, was instantly followed by either illness or death; liberation from an illness, if it ever happens, is achieved through how many ideas, difficulties and artificial medical means? Therefore, when the desire for evil operates in us, there is no need for someone to assist, because vice itself completes itself in our will. If there is an inclination for the better; then it is necessary that God fulfill the wish. Therefore we say: since chastity is Your will, “but I am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14): then by Your power may this good will succeed in me. We say the same about justice, about piety, about alienation from passions. The word: will embraces all virtues in general, while the words: the will of God means, individually, everything understood under the name of good.

But what does this addition mean: “as in heaven, so on earth?” This word, it seems to me, points, perhaps, to one of the deeper dogmas, and constitutes the teaching of divine understanding when looking at creation. The meaning of what I am talking about is this: all rational creation is divided into an incorporeal nature and one endowed with a body. The disembodied nature is angelic, and another type of nature is us people. Therefore, the first is spiritual, as detached from the burdensome body (I mean this body is rough and gravitating towards the earth), passes through the heavenly lot, being, by the lightness and mobility of nature, in the countries of the light and ethereal. And the other, due to the affinity of our body with the earthly one, of necessity received as its inheritance, as if a kind of sludge of dirt, earthly life. I don’t know what God’s will arranged by this, or whether it was to bring all creation closer together, so that the earthly lot would not be indifferent in the heavenly heights, and heaven would not be completely indifferent to what is on earth, but as a result of the formation of human nature from both elements, a certain communication took place between what was seen in both elements, since the spiritual part of the soul, which, apparently, is something akin and of the same tribe with heavenly forces, dwells in earthly bodies, and this earthed flesh, with the change of the corruptible and the rapture of the righteous, will move with the soul to the heavenly region? For “we will be caught up,” as the Apostle says, “in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). Therefore, this, or anything else that God’s wisdom has arranged for this, the entire rational nature, according to this twofold life, is divided into parts, and the incorporeal nature has received heavenly bliss into its lot, and the other, because of the flesh, lives on earth, due to its affinity with it. Although the desire for the beautiful and the good is equally fulfilled in both natures, and the Ruler of the universe in both has made self-government, autocracy and freedom from all necessity equal, so that everything gifted with word and understanding disposes of itself according to some kind of self-lawful arbitrariness: however, the heavenly life in everything keeps itself pure from vice, and with it nothing that seems opposite is incompatible, but every passionate movement and disposition that the human race is subjected, it leads life into a whirlwind. Therefore, the divinely inspired word recognizes the living of the holy powers in heaven as having no admixture of vice and pure from all sinful filth. However, everything that through evil intentions and deviation from good turns into evil, like some kind of sludge or dirt, flows into this ordinary life; and the human race is defiled, finding in this darkness an obstacle to seeing the Divine light of truth. Therefore, if the higher life is dispassionate and pure, and the calamitous life here is immersed in all sorts of passions and suffering, then it is clear that the life above, as pure from all evil, succeeds in the good will of God; for where there is no evil, there is necessarily good. And our life, having lost fellowship in goodness, has fallen away from God’s will. Therefore, we learn in prayer to cleanse our lives of evil to such an extent that, as in heavenly life, God’s will rules in us without hindrance, so that we can say to others: “Just as in thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, and in every supernatural power, Your will is done, and no vice hinders the action of good: so let good be done in us, so that, after the destruction of all vice, in our souls, Your will was successfully fulfilled in everything.”

But someone will object: is it possible for those who have been given life in the flesh to succeed in the purity that is found in ethereal forces, when the soul, due to bodily needs, is immersed in the darkness of worries? – Therefore, it seems to me, as if eliminating such an impossibility, the Lord in the following words resolves what seems to be difficult in the upcoming matter. For with these words, in the command to ask for our daily bread, we are offered, I think, the teaching that contentment with little and moderation according to the law of dispassion is equal to not having a need for anything by nature. The angel does not ask God in his prayers to give him bread, because he is gifted with a nature that has no need for anything like that; and man is commanded to ask, because what becomes empty certainly needs something to fill it. The composition of human life is fleeting and transitory; instead of what has been separated, it requires renewal. Therefore, whoever, in serving nature, is not carried away beyond necessity by vain worries, is not much lower than the rank of angels in life, imitating the Angels in contentment with little things, who do not need anything. Therefore, we are commanded to strive only for the remainder of the preservation of the physical essence, saying to God: “Give us our daily bread” – that is, give not amusements, not wealth, not good-colored scarlet garments, not gold jewelry, not the shine of stones, not silver vessels, not vast estates, not military leadership, not possession of cities and nations, not herds of horses and oxen, and a great variety of other livestock, not an abundance of slaves, not a celebrity in the marketplace, not monuments, not images, not silk fabrics, not entertainment with music, and nothing like that, by which the soul is distracted from Divine and more honorable care; but “give me bread.”

Do you see this breadth of wisdom? How many teachings are contained in this short statement? In a word: “bread”, as it were, the Lord calls out to those who listen: “Stop, people, being exhausted by the desires of vain things! stop multiplying the reasons for labor to your own detriment! Your natural duty is not great; You are obligated to get food for your flesh; it is not a big or difficult task if you have a need in mind. Why are you multiplying your duties? Why do you put a yoke on yourself, carrying so many debts, mining silver, digging up gold, searching for a transparent substance? Is it so that with all these things you can please this ever-present tax collector—the belly, which needs only bread that satisfies what the body needs?” And you go to the Indus, suffer troubles on a foreign sea, set sail for whole years in order to sweeten your food with the purchases you bring from there, not paying attention to the fact that the sensation of sweets has the limit of the sky in the mouth, and also the specious, fragrant, and delightful taste gives the feeling some kind of fleeting and instantaneous pleasantness. Apart from the palate in the mouth, the difference between what is put into the larynx is indistinguishable; because by nature everything is equally changed into a stench. Do you see the end of the culinary arts? Do you see the consequences of cookery tricks? Ask for bread for life’s needs; in this nature has made you a debtor to the body. And what is beyond this is invented by the delicacy of the luxurious, then from among the chaff that has been scattered. The owner’s sowing is wheat, and from the wheat bread is made; luxury is tares; they are planted with wheat by the enemy. But people, having ceased to serve nature with what is necessary, indeed, as Scripture says nowhere (Mark 4.7, 19), are suppressed by zeal for vanity, and remain not yet mature, because the soul constantly occupies itself with these vanities.

Perhaps, as it seems to me, Moses mysteriously philosophizes about something similar, presenting to us the serpent as an adviser to Eve for the pleasure of eating. They say that this animal is a serpent, if it inserts its head into the groove of the wall into which it crawls, then it is not easy to pull it out of the groove for someone who pulls by the tail, because the resting scales naturally resist the force of the one pulling back; and for whom the passage forward is unhindered, because the scales slide on a smooth surface, for him the return path back, delayed by the stubbornness of the scales, is difficult. And this word, I think, shows that one must beware of pleasure when it enters and creeps into the wells of the soul, and, as much as possible, carefully block the grooves of life. For in this case, human life is kept pure from mixing with bestial life. If, due to the breakdown of the connections of life in us, the serpent of voluptuousness finds some entrance for itself; then, therefore, it will hide in us, since due to the scales it will become difficult to extract it back from the containers of the understanding. And when you hear about scales, understand by this riddle various reasons for pleasure; for the passion for voluptuousness, according to the generic concept, is one beast, but different and different types of pleasures mixed with feelings in human life are scales on a snake, speckled with a variety of passions. Therefore, if you avoid cohabitation with the serpent; then beware of your head, that is, the first attack of evil against you; for this is what the mysterious meaning of the Lord’s commandment leads to: “it will bruise your head, and you will bruise its heel” (Gen. 3:15). Do not give entry to a reptile that crawls into the interior and, at the very beginning, enters with the entire length of its body. Limit yourself to what is necessary. Let the limit of your care for life be to satisfy your needs with what you have.

If Evin’s advisor enters into a conversation with you about what is beautiful to the eye and pleasing to the taste, and with bread you begin to look for such and such food, prepared with such and such seasonings, and then, as a result of this, you extend your desire beyond the necessary limits: then you will see how the reptile, following this, will quietly creep into covetousness. For, having moved from necessary food to tasty foods, he will also move on to what is pleasing to the eyes, he will covet light vessels, beautiful servants, silver beds, soft beds, transparent bedspreads covered with gold, thrones, tripods, baths, bowls, horns, refrigerators, ladles, tubs, lamps, incense burners. And through this the lust of covetousness enters and covets such things: but so that there is no shortage in the procurement of these, income is required to purchase what is required. Therefore, it is necessary for others to be in sorrow, those who live together to shed tears, for many to become poor, having lost their property, so that as a result of their tears there will be splendor at this person’s table. And when the serpent wraps itself around this and fills the belly with what was desired, then, following this, upon satiety, the person is more and more drawn into the frenzy of lewdness; and this is the extreme of human evils.

Therefore, to prevent any of this from happening, limit your prayer to asking for this benefit – bread, seeking food, seasoned for you by nature itself. And this seasoning is a good conscience, which, when used correctly, makes bread most enjoyable. And if you want to please the sensation of the larynx; then let poverty be your seasoning, let satiety not be added to satiety, let the impulse to eat food not be dulled by drunkenness, but let it be preceded by the shedding of sweat according to the commandment. “Through sweat and toil you will eat bread
yours” (Gen. 3:19). Do you see what the first seasoning of food is, according to Scripture? It is enough for you to sow only the need to occupy your thoughts: it would be better to say, before that, just bind your soul with concerns about bread. But tell Him who brings forth “bread from the earth” (Ps. 103:14), say to the One who feeds ravens (Ps. 146:9), gives “food to all flesh” (Ps. 135:25), opens “the hand” and performs “every living creature with good will” (Ps. 144:16): “From You is my life, from You be the means of life. Give me bread, that is, grant me food from righteous labors.” For if God is truth, then whoever has food from covetousness does not have bread from God.

You yourself are the master of what is asked for in prayer, if your contentment is not from someone else, if your income is not from the tears of another, if with your satiety no one became hungry, if with your excess no one sighed. God’s bread is especially like this – it is the fruit of righteousness, the class of peace, unmixed with the seeds of tares and undefiled by them. If, while cultivating someone else’s field, shamelessly committing a lie and securing an illegal acquisition with records, you then say to God: “Give… bread”: then another will listen to these words of yours. not God; because the fruit of unrighteousness brings forth a nature that is contrary to God. He who strives for righteousness receives bread from God; but he who cultivates unrighteousness is fed by the provider of unrighteousness. Therefore, looking at your conscience, bring your petition to God for bread, knowing that Christ has no fellowship with Belial. If you bring a gift from unrighteousness, then your gift is “the wages of a harlot and the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God” (Deut. 23:18). Although you decorate your alms with generosity, you will hear from the Prophet, who abhors such offerings: “Why do I need the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am satisfied with burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle, and the blood of bulls and lambs and goats is not enough.” I want to bear no more vain gifts: incense is disgusting to Me; the new moon and Sabbaths, I cannot endure lawlessness and celebration” (Is. 1:11, 13); It is permissible for you to offer Him the firstfruits of the fruits of righteousness.

The addition of the word “to this day” is also beautiful. For it is said: “Give us this day our daily bread.” This word contains another wisdom; saying this, you must realize that human life is one day. Everyone’s property is only the present, and the hope for the future remains unknown: we do not know “what that day will bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). Why do we torment ourselves with the unknown, torment ourselves with worries about the future? It is said: “Enough is your care for each day” (Matthew 6:34), where suffering is called malice. Why do we take care “about utrium”? Therefore, the Lord, by commanding you to say: “today,” forbids you to worry about “morning,” as if instilling in you the following with this word: “Whoever gave you the day will also give you what you need for the day. Who “commands the sun” (Matt. 5:45); Who destroys the darkness of the night; Who shows you a ray of light; Who rotates the sky so that there is light above the earth; Who gives you this and much more, does He really need your cooperation in order to satisfy your flesh, providing it with what it needs? What kind of thoroughness about one’s own life does the nature of the dumb bring from itself? What arable lands do the enemies have, what granaries do the eagles have? But does everyone have one guardian of life – God’s will, by which everything is contained? An ox, or a donkey, or some other dumb thing, learning, by nature has wisdom, and has a good handle on the present; they have no concern whatsoever about what will happen afterwards.”

Do we really need advisers to understand this short-term and one-day nature of carnal life? Are we not enlightened by what happens to others? How can we not be wise with our own lives? What was the use of large preparations for the rich man who deluded himself with unrealistic hopes, ruined, built, collected, lavished what would have been enough for many years, then in the vanity of hopes locked him up in granaries? Wasn’t it one night that exposed all this dreaminess of hope as a vain dream about something unworthy of attention? Bodily life is limited to one present; and the life given to hope is the property of the soul. But human foolishness makes the mistake of using both, thinking to prolong physical life with hopes, and spending spiritual life in the pleasures of the present. Therefore, the soul, occupied with the visible, of necessity becomes alien to essential and real hope, relying on the fragile in hope, and does not master this, and does not have what it hoped for.

Therefore, let us learn from this advice what we should ask for today and what hereafter. Bread is today’s need; and the kingdom is hoped-for bliss. Having spoken about bread, Scripture means by this every bodily need. If we begin to ask for this, it will be obvious to the mind of the person praying that his concern is for one day. If we ask for something from the blessings of the soul, then it is clear that the petition means something that is always abiding and never-ending, which is what the Lord commands those praying to look at most, as the most important thing, satisfying the first need. “Seek…,” He says, “the kingdom… and righteousness…, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33) about Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen.

Word 5

Matthew 6:12-13. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The Word, stretching forward, entered the very top of virtue. For with the words of prayer he depicts what, according to his requirement, he should be like when approaching God; shows that he is already beyond the limits of human nature, and is likened in virtue to God Himself; so that by doing what it is proper for God alone to do, apparently he himself becomes a second god. For forgiveness of debts is God’s property, and a predominant property, – it is said: “Who can forgive sins except God alone?” (Luke 5:21). Therefore, if anyone in his life has become like the distinctive features of God’s nature; then in some way he himself becomes the same with whom he showed similarity in himself by exact likening.

So what does this word teach? Firstly, with the boldness to which you have acquired the right through your previous life, recognize in yourself your likeness to God, and then dare to call God your Father and ask for forgiveness for previous sins; because it is not possible for everyone who asks to receive what he wants, but for him who through his deeds has acquired the right to ask with boldness. For this is directly instilled in us by the Lord in this saying, namely: when approaching a benefactor, be a benefactor yourself; when starting to do good, be kind; when approaching the truthful, be truthful; when you begin something patient, be patient; when approaching philanthropic endeavors, be philanthropic; and also be everything else, approaching the kind-hearted, the benevolent, the sociable in good things, the merciful to everyone, and if anything else divine is seen, in all of this being likened to will, thereby acquiring for yourself the boldness to pray. Therefore, just as it is impossible for the evil one to become comfortable with the good, and for one covered with unclean filth to have fellowship with the pure and undefiled; Thus, one who approaches God’s love for mankind is separated from it by hardness of heart. Therefore, whoever holds a person in his power because of debts and treats him cruelly, by his disposition he has removed himself from God’s love for mankind. For what kind of communication does philanthropy have with brutality, a loving disposition with ferocity, and with everything else that, in contrast to evil, seems to belong to the opposite side, and in such irreconcilable resistance to it that the one devoted to one is necessarily removed from the opposite? Just as one who has become the prey of death is no longer alive, and one who enjoys life is removed from death, so it is absolutely necessary for one who approaches God’s love for mankind to be alien to all cruelty. And whoever has become alien to everything that is understood under the name of vice, in some way, according to this disposition, becomes God, bringing to success in himself what the mind recognizes about the Divine nature.

Do you see to what greatness the Lord exalts the listeners with the words of this prayer, in some way transforming human nature into divine nature, and legitimizing that those who approach God themselves become gods? “Why,” He says, “do you, stricken with fear, scourged by your conscience, servilely come to God? Why do you block yourself from the boldness contained in the freedom of the soul and which from the beginning essentially belongs to nature? Why do you flatter the Unflattering One with your words? Why do you turn with obliging and obsequious speeches to the One who looks at deeds? You, gifted with freedom and prudence, can with authority have every good that is given from God. Be your own judge. Give yourself a saving sentence. You wish. so that your debts will be forgiven by God? let go yourself; God pronounced judgment; your judgment over your fellow tribesman, in which you have power, whatever it may be, is also your verdict. What you know about yourself is confirmed about you by God’s judgment.”

But how can anyone adequately reveal all the greatness of God’s word? The thought contained in it surpasses verbal interpretation. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” I should boldly keep the thought that comes to my mind, and even more boldly reveal it in words. For what is said? How God is imitated by those who excel in goodness, in the words of the Apostle: “Imitate me, even as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1): on the contrary, it is required that your disposition to goodness become a model for God; the order changes in some way, and we dare to hope that, just as good things are accomplished in us by imitation of God, so God will imitate our deeds when we succeed in something good, and you will be able to say to God: “What I have done, do you too; imitate your servant, You, Lord, the poor and the poor, You who reign over all; I have forgiven my debts, don’t collect them either! I respected the petitioner, do not reject the one who asks! I sent my debtor away cheerful, so let your debtor be! Don’t make yours sadder than mine! Let both zealously thank those who have shown mercy! Let the mediators of both confirm equal remission to both my and Your debtor! So and so is my debtor, and I am yours; whatever decision I made about my debtor, let the same be valid with You; I allowed it, let you too! I let go, let go too! I showed great mercy to my fellow tribesman: imitate, O Lord, the love of Thy servant for mankind.”

“But my sins against You are greater than those committed against me by my debtor. I admit this too; Consider also how much You excel in all good. It is right for You to grant us who have sinned mercy commensurate with the excess of Your power. I showed a little humanity; because my nature cannot accommodate much; and as much as You wish, power will not hinder Your generosity.”

But with greater care let us understand the present utterance of the prayer; consideration of its meaning may also serve for us as a kind of guide to a high life. Therefore, let us examine what those debts are to which human nature is guilty, and what other debts the remission of which is in our power: knowledge of this will provide us with a sufficient understanding of the abundance of God’s blessings. Therefore, let us make a list here of human sins before God. Man began to be subject to punishment from God, firstly for the fact that he retreated from the Creator and handed himself over to the enemy, becoming a fugitive and apostate from the One who is his Master by nature, and secondly, for the fact that he exchanged autocratic freedom for the evil slavery of sin, and preferred to be under the arbitrariness of a corruptive force to coexistence with God. And even this – not looking at the beauty of the Creator, but turning one’s face to the vileness of sin – can this be recognized as any second of the evils? And what kind of punishment should those who deserve honor despise the Divine blessings, and prefer the baits of the evil one? The defacement of the image, the damage to the Divine traits imprinted on us at the beginning of creation, the loss of the drachma, the removal from the father’s table, the assimilation of the stinking life of pigs, the squandering of precious wealth, and all such sins that can be seen with the help of Scripture and reason, can any word count?

So, since the human race must suffer punishment from God for such guilt, it seems to me that therefore the word of God, through the teaching set forth in prayer, instructs us to have a prayerful conversation with God, even if one of us and all of us is farther from human sins, never to approach with such boldness as if he had a clear conscience. For another, perhaps, like that rich young man, having formed his life according to the commandments, has the right, like that one, to boast about his life and say to God: “I have kept all this from my youth” (Matthew 19:20), and even assume about himself that for him, as he has not sinned in anything against the commandments, it is extremely indecent to ask for the remission of debts, which is suitable only for those who have sinned. He will say that such words are appropriate for someone defiled by fornication, or for covetousness, for someone accused of idolatry, it is necessary to ask for forgiveness, and in general, for anyone who has wounded the conscience of a soul through any sin, it is excellent and in accordance with need to resort to mercy. And if he is Elijah the Great, or acts “with spirit and power
Elijah” (Luke 1:17), or great “in those born of women” (Matthew 11:11), or Peter, or Paul, or John, or any other of those whose excellence is attested by divine Scripture; then why use such words, which ask for forgiveness of debts to someone who has no sinful debt? So that someone else, meaning something like this, does not fall into arrogance, like him The Pharisee, who did not even know what he was by nature. (For if he knew that he was a man, then, of course, he did not imagine his nature to be pure from defilement, he would have learned from the Holy Scripture, which says: you will not find among people that the life of one day could be without defilement (Job 14:4) Therefore, so that the one who approaches God with prayer does not have something similar happen to his soul, the word of God commands not to look at progress, but to bring to mind the common debts of human nature, in of which everyone, without a doubt, himself participates, as a participant in nature, and to beg the Judge to grant forgiveness of sins.

For since Adam lives in us, and each of us is a man, then while we see in our nature these leather tunics, and the soon withering leaves of this material life, which, having been stripped of the eternal and bright vestments, we sewed for ourselves to our harm, instead of Divine clothes, clothing ourselves in fun, glory, one-day honors, murderous pleasures of the flesh – and while we look at this carnal abode, on which we are condemned to dwell; as soon as we turn to the east (not only because there we see God, who, as omnipresent, is not encompassed by any place exclusively, but still contains, but because in the east is our original fatherland, I mean being in paradise, from which we were expelled (“planted… God planted paradise in Eden in the east” (Gen. 2:8) ); therefore, as soon as we turn our gaze “to the east,” and mentally bring to mind the expulsion from the bright and eastern countries of bliss, we rightly then add these sayings, shaded by the unkind fig tree of life, rejected from the eyes of God, willfully surrendered to the serpent who eats the earth and crawls on the earth; walks on his toes and on his belly, and advises us to do the same – to indulge in earthly pleasures, to occupy our hearts with creeping and dragging thoughts on the earth and to walk on our bellies, that is, to take care of the voluptuous life; Therefore, being in this state, like that prodigal son, after the long misery in which he was, herding pigs, as soon as we come to ourselves, like him, and bring to ourselves the thought of the heavenly Father, then we beautifully use these sayings: “forgive us our debts.”

Therefore, even if someone were Moses and Samuel, and others who were famous for virtue, nevertheless, since he is a man, he considers these words decent for himself, as a participant in Adam’s nature, a participant in his fall. Since, as the Apostle says, “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22): then the saying that is appropriate for Adam at repentance should be common to all who died with him, so that we, with the granting of forgiveness of sins, again, as the Apostle says, will be saved by the grace of the Lord (Eph. 2:5). But this is said so that others, when looking at something more general, can understand what is proposed in the word. If anyone seeks the true meaning in this saying; then, I think, we will not be required to raise the concept to a general view of nature; because conscience is enough to make a petition for pardon necessary in the consideration of every action taken in life.

Since in this world our life, as I think, is subject to diverse influences, both in the soul and mind, and in the feelings of the body; it is difficult, or even completely impossible, not to be carried away into sin by even one passion. For example, this pleasure-loving life, in relation to the body, is divided according to our feelings, and in relation to the soul, it shows itself in the striving of reason and in the movement of arbitrariness: who is so exalted and gifted with such prudence that in both lives he can be freed from all filth of vice? Who is without sin with his eye? Who is innocent by rumor? Who is alien to this bestial pleasure of the larynx? Who is clean from touching sin by touch? Who does not know this riddle offered by Scripture: “death enters our windows” (Jer. 9:21)? For the senses, through which, in communicating with external objects, the soul electively engages with them, Scripture called windows, which, according to the word of Scripture, pave the way for the entrance of death. Indeed, the eye is often the entrance to many deaths; it sees someone who is irritated, and is itself aroused to the same passion: or it sees someone who is prosperous beyond their true worth, and is inflamed with envy; or sees someone who is proud and falls into hatred; or sees some good-colored substance, a beautiful arrangement of a face, and crawls completely into the lust of the one he likes. And the ear opens the windows of death, along with what it hears, it accepts many passions into the soul: fear, sadness, irritation, pleasure, lust, immoderate laughter and the like. And the pleasure of taste, as someone else will say, is the mother of all evils. For who does not know that the root of almost all errors in life is concern for the larynx? Luxury, drunkenness, gluttony, disorderly behavior, gluttony, satiety, riotous life, bestial and unreasonable fall into the passion of dishonor depend on it. Likewise, the sense of touch constitutes the extreme limit of all sins; everything that is done for the body by sensualists belongs to the number of ailments of the tactile sensation, a detailed description of which would be lengthy: and it is indecent to mix into important objects everything that serves as a reproach to the sense of touch. And is the whole swarm of errors of the soul and arbitrariness even able to be counted in a word? It is said: “evil thoughts come from within” (Matthew 15:19), and a list of those who defile us with thoughts is added. So, if the depths of sins are spread out everywhere for us with all the senses and heart movements of the soul, then “who can boast,” as Wisdom says, “I have purified my heart” (Prov. 20:9)? “Who has purified his heart?” – as Job testifies to this (Job 14:4). And defilement for spiritual purity is pleasure, in many forms and in many ways, mixed into human life both in soul and body, thoughts and feelings, intentional movements and bodily actions. So, whose soul is clean from this filth? Who hasn’t been struck by arrogance? Who has not been trampled under the foot of pride? Who has not been shaken by the hand of sin? Whose foot has not rushed to vice? Who has not been defiled by an innocent eye, thrown into impurity by an ignorant ear, or occupied by taste? Whose heart remained inactive for vain movements?

Since we have all this in us, and in those who live bestially it is very bad and unbearable, but in those who are more attentive to themselves it is more bearable, but everyone who is of the same nature with us always certainly participates in the errors of nature; then, falling in prayer to God, we therefore ask you to forgive us our debts. But such a voice is not accepted, and does not reach the Divine ear, unless our conscience also cries out that sharing the mercy shown with others is a wonderful thing. For whoever reasons that love for mankind is fitting for God (and if he did not recognize it as decent, he would not ask God for the indecent and inappropriate), justice requires him to confirm his judgment about a wonderful deed with his own deeds, so as not to hear from the righteous Judge: “Be healed yourself” (Luke 4:23). You beg me for philanthropy, which you do not share with your neighbors. You ask to leave debts; Why are you torturing the debtor yourself? Do you beg for your handwriting to be blotted out, while you carefully keep contracts with those who borrow from you? You ask for a reduction in your debt count, but you increase what you owe with interest? Your debtor is in prison, and you are in the house of prayer? He suffers for his debts, and you ask for forgiveness of the debt? Your prayer is not heard because the voice of the sufferer drowns it out. If you resolve your bodily debt, your spiritual ties will be resolved. If you forgive, you will be forgiven; You yourself will be your own judge, you will prescribe the law for yourself, pronouncing judgment on yourself from above by your disposition towards him who lies at your feet.”

It seems to me that the Lord teaches something similar in another word, offering this teaching in the form of a narrative. According to this story, a certain king somewhere menacingly presides over the court, and calls his servants to himself, collects information about their every order. They bring one debtor to him, and the king shows him kindness; because the debtor, falling at his feet, presented a request instead of money in payment; and then he acts cruelly and inhumanely with a slave like himself for a small debt, and angers the king with his inhumanity towards a slave like himself. The king ordered the executioners to completely expel him from the royal house, and to prolong the torment until he endured a punishment worthy of guilt. And really, what do a few worthless and easily counted oxen mean in comparison with tens of talents? then the debts we owe to our brothers in comparison with our sins before God. Of course, it is either an insult inflicted by someone, or the depravity of a minister, or an evil intent on bodily life that serves to your detriment; and you, inflamed in your heart, are irritated to take revenge for this, looking for all possible means to punish those who upset you.

And if irritation is inflamed against the servant, you cannot reason that it is not by nature, but by the love of power that the human race is divided into slaves and masters. For the Steward of the universe has legitimized one dumb nature to be in slavery to man, as the Prophet says: “He has put everything under his feet: sheep and all oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, everything that passes along the paths of the sea” (Ps 8.7–9). The Prophet also calls them servants, as it is said elsewhere in the prophecy: “To the giver
livestock
their food,” “and grain for the service of men” (Ps. 147:8–9). God adorned man with the gift of freedom, so that he who is enslaved to you by custom and law has equality with you in the dignity of nature. He did not come into existence from you, he does not live by you, he does not borrow physical and mental strength from you. Why does your irritation boil up so much at him if he was lazy, or left you, or, perhaps, disdained you to your face? Should you look at yourself, what you were like before the Master, Who created you, brought you into the world through birth, made you a partaker of these miracles in the world, offered you the sun for pleasure, gave you all the means of life from the elements, from earth, from fire, from air, from water, provided you with the gift of understanding, an impressionable feeling, the knowledge of distinguishing between good and bad? So what? Are you obedient to such a Lord, and are you not stubborn against Him? have you not retreated from His dominion? didn’t he run to sin? did you not exchange good dominion for evil? Didn’t you, as much as it depended on you, leave the Master’s house empty, leaving behind what you were commanded to “do and keep” (Gen. 2:15)? And is it not with God, the omnipresent, all-seeing witness, that you either commit countless sins, or say or think what you should not? And then, when you are like this and burdened with so many debts, do you consider it something great to show mercy to a slave like yourself by ignoring some of his sins against you?

Therefore, if we intend to bring a prayer to God for mercy and forgiveness, then let us prepare boldness of conscience, let us present our life as an intercessor for the prayer we are saying, so that we can truly say: “For we too have forsaken our debtors.”

What does this mean when added to what was said? I consider it necessary not to leave this without consideration, so that, knowing whom we are praying to, we offer prayer with our soul, and not with our body. “Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13). What, brethren, is the power of what was said? The Lord, it seems to me, names the evil one in many different ways according to the variety of evil forces, calling him by many names: the devil (Matthew 13:39), Beelzebub (Matthew 10:25), mammon (Matthew 6.24), prince of peace (John 14:30), murderer (John 8.44), the evil one, the father of lies (John 14:30). 8:44) and other similar names. Therefore, perhaps, one of the names understood about it is this: “temptation.” And our guess is confirmed by the wording in what was said; for the Lord, after the words: “do not lead us into temptation,” adds a petition for deliverance from the evil one, as if both meant the same thing. If anyone does not enter “temptation,” he is certainly outside the power of the evil one; and whoever is “in temptation” is necessarily in the power of the evil one: it follows that “temptation” and “the evil one” are one and the same in meaning. What does this teaching of prayer instill in us? – To stand outside of what is seen in this world, as he tells the disciples in another place, that “the whole world lies in evil” (1 John 5:19). Therefore, whoever wants to become outside the power of the evil one is necessarily removed from the world. For “temptation” has no opportunity to touch the soul if this worldly concern, like some kind of bait, is placed on an insidious bait, and is not extended to the greedy. But this idea will become much clearer for us from other examples. The sea is often scary with its waves, but not for those who live far from it. Fire is destructive, but only for the substance added to the fire. War is terrible, but only for those who joined the military. He who avoids the disasters that befall one in war prays so as not to fall into the need to fight. He who fears fire prays not to be in the fire. He who trembles the sea prays that he will not need to set out on a voyage. So let him who fears the attacks of the evil one pray so that he will not be in the power of the evil one. And since, as we said before, according to the word of Scripture, “the world lies in evil,” and in worldly affairs there are reasons for “misfortune”: then he who prays for deliverance from the evil one acts well and appropriately when he asks, so as not to come into “temptation.” For without greedily attracting the bait, it is impossible for anyone to swallow the hook on the oud.

But we, having risen, will say to God: “Lead us not into temptation,” that is, in the misery of this life, “but deliver us from the evil one,” who has acquired power in this world, from whom may we also be delivered by the grace of Christ, because His power and glory are with the Father and the all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit forever and ever. Amen.