Ὁμιλία Εʹ

The Sieve of the World

Christians are distinguished from the world by their heavenly mindset and the indwelling Spirit, while the world remains caught in the sifting of earthly agitation.

The world of Christians is different, and their way of life, mind, speech, and practice are different—and the way of life, mind, speech, and practice of the people of this world are different too. Those people are one thing, and these are another; there is a great gulf between the two. The inhabitants of the earth and the children of this age are like wheat thrown into a sieve, sifted by the restless thoughts of this world and the ceaseless tossing of earthly affairs and tangled material notions that shake their souls. Meanwhile, Satan—the one who sifts—uses this sieve of earthly affairs to toss the whole sinful race of human beings. Ever since Adam fell, broke the commandment, and came under the ruler of wickedness, that ruler has seized authority and has been sifting and battering all the sons of this age against the sieve of the earth with unending thoughts of deception and agitation.¹ Just as wheat in a sieve is jarred and tossed about unsteadily by the one sifting it, the ruler of wickedness holds all human beings through earthly affairs. Through them, he shakes, jars, and rocks people, making them stumble with empty reasonings, shameful desires, and earthly, worldly bonds. He unsteadily captures, agitates, and entices the whole sinful race of Adam, just as the Lord foretold to the apostles regarding the uprising of the evil one: "Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed to my Father that your faith may not fail."² The word spoken by the Creator to Cain—"You shall be groaning and trembling and shaken on the earth"—is, in a hidden sense, a type and image of all sinners. In this same way, the race of Adam, after falling from the commandment and becoming sinful, carries that image in its hidden life. They are shaken by restless thoughts of cowardice, fear, and every kind of turmoil, while the ruler of this world tosses every soul not born of God with desires and pleasures of every sort. Just as wheat is turned unsteadily in a sieve, he tosses human thoughts in many ways, shaking and enticing everyone with worldly deceptions, pleasures of the flesh, fears, and disturbances. The Lord, showing that those who follow the deceptions and the will of the evil one bear the image of Cain's wickedness, rebuked them: "You," he said, "want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not stood in the truth." So the whole sinful race of Adam carries that sentence in its hidden life: "You shall be groaning and trembling, and shaken in the sieve of the earth by Satan who sifts you."^✦³ For just as the whole human race was spread out over the earth from the one man Adam, so a single wickedness of the passions sank deep into the sinful race of human beings, and the ruler of wickedness is able to sift them all with unstable, material, vain, and troubled thoughts.^✦ For just as one wind is able to shake and rock every plant and seed, or just as one darkness of night spreads over the whole inhabited world, so the ruler of evil—being a kind of rational darkness of wickedness and death, and a kind of hidden, savage wind—tosses and whirls the whole race of human beings on earth with unstable thoughts and worldly desires, luring people's hearts, and he fills with the darkness of ignorance, blindness, and forgetfulness every soul that has not been born from above and has not passed over, in its mindset and mind, into another age, as it has been said: "But our citizenship is in heaven."^✦^✦⁴ For in this true Christians differ from the whole race of human beings, and there is a great distance between the two, as we said before: their mind and understanding are always set in a heavenly mindset, and they behold the eternal goods as in a mirror through participation and sharing in the Holy Spirit—because they have been born from above of God and have been counted worthy to become children of God in truth and power, and through many struggles, labors, and long stretches of time they have come to stability, firmness, freedom from agitation, and rest, no longer sifted and tossed by waves of unstable and vain thoughts.^✦ In this they are greater and better than the world, because their mind and the mindset of the soul rest in the peace of Christ and in the love of the Spirit—just as the Lord also said when speaking about such people that they "have passed from death into life."^✦

The Cost of Heavenly Longing

True transformation requires a total, undivided love for God and the willingness to deny one's own will and worldly attachments.

Therefore the transformation of Christians does not consist in outer forms and patterns, as most people suppose—thinking that the difference and distinction between the world and them lies in forms and patterns.⁵ Look at them: in mind and understanding they are just like the world, having the same shaking and instability of thoughts, unbelief, confusion, agitation, and cowardice as everyone else. In outward appearance they do differ from the world, and in certain external achievements too; but in heart and mind they are still bound in earthly chains, not possessing rest from God or the heavenly peace of the Spirit in the heart—because they didn't seek these things from God and didn't believe they would be counted worthy of them. It is in "the renewal of the mind," in the peace of thoughts, in the love of the Lord, and in heavenly longing that the new creation of Christians differs from all the people of the world. That is why the Lord's coming took place: to count those who truly believe in him worthy of these spiritual goods.^✦^✦⁶ The glory, beauty, and heavenly wealth of Christians are beyond words, and they are gained through toil, sweat, trials, and many struggles—yet wholly by the grace of God. For if the sight of an earthly king is desirable to everyone, and anyone who visits a royal city longs at least to see his beauty, or the loveliness of his clothes, or the glory of the purple, the beauty of the many-colored pearls, the splendor of the crown, the dignity of the ranks that stand with him—except, that is, for the spiritual, who count these things as nothing because they have tasted another glory, heavenly and bodiless, have been wounded by another beauty beyond words, have shared in another wealth, have come to sense with the inner person, and partake of another Spirit—since the people of this world, those who have the spirit of the world, are full of longing just to see the earthly king with all his splendor and glory. For as far as appearances go, his portion is far greater than that of everyone else (so glorious, so desirable to all, even if only to be seen), and each person says within himself, "If only someone had given me that glory and splendor and beauty," counting blessed that man who is like himself—earthly, subject to the same passions, and mortal—yet desirable because of temporary splendor and glory: if, then, fleshly people long for the glory of an earthly king like this, how much more are those into whom that drop of the Spirit of the life of the Godhead has dripped and wounded their hearts with divine love toward the heavenly King, Christ, bound to that beauty and to the unspeakable glory and incorruptible splendor and unthinkable wealth of the true and eternal King, Christ—by desire and longing for whom they are held captive, being wholly and entirely his—and they long to obtain those unspeakable goods they behold as in a mirror through the Spirit, for which reason they count as nothing every beauty, splendor, glory, and honor on earth, and the wealth of kings and rulers. For they have been wounded by divine beauty, and the life of heavenly immortality has dripped into their souls.^✦^✦^✦⁷ That is why they also long deeply for the love of the heavenly King. With Him alone before their eyes, they free themselves from every worldly love and withdraw from every earthly bond, so that they can keep that one longing alone in their hearts and mix nothing else with it. But very few are those who, having made a good start, secure a good end and finish the journey without falling, holding onto that one love for God alone and having freed themselves from everything else. Many are pierced with compunction, and many share in heavenly grace and are wounded by heavenly love, but because they do not endure the contests, struggles, and labors along the way, or the varied temptations of the evil one—turning aside into all kinds of worldly desires, since each still has a will to love something of this world and has not fully detached their love—they fall behind and are sunk into the depths of the world through their own cowardice, slackness, fear, or some earthly love.⁸ Those who truly want to finish their journey well must not willingly take in or mix any other longing or love with that heavenly one, so that they aren't hindered from spiritual things, turn back, and eventually fall away from life.^✦ For just as the things promised by God are great and unspeakable and beyond telling, so there is need of faith and hope and of great labors and contests and much testing. What a person hopes to receive as good things is no small matter. You want to desire the kingdom of heaven and reign with Christ for endless ages—and yet you won't gladly accept the contests, labors, and trials of this short stretch of life, even to the point of death? The Lord is crying out: "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross every day with joy and follow me," and again: "If anyone does not hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."^✦^✦⁹ But most people want to obtain the kingdom and wish to inherit eternal life, yet they do not refuse to live by their own wills and follow them—or rather, to follow the one who sows what is empty—and without denying themselves they want to inherit eternal life, which is impossible. For the Lord's word is true.^✦¹⁰

The Weight of Attachment

Sinful attachments act as chains that weigh the soul down, while the examples of Job and Abraham show the path of total surrender to God.

For these are the ones who pass through without falling: those who, according to the Lord's commandment, have denied themselves wholly and completely, who have loathed every desire of the world—its bonds, its distractions, its pleasures, and its busyness—keeping him alone before their eyes and longing to do his commandments. So each person turns away from the kingdom by his own will: by not truly wanting to labor and deny himself, by loving something alongside that love, by taking pleasure in certain pleasures or desires of this age, and by not keeping his whole love toward the Lord—as far as choice and will make possible.¹¹ From one example, grasp all of this with me. Sometimes a person discerns and knows that what he wants to do is wrong; but because he loves it and won't refuse it, he is defeated by it.¹² For first, inside the heart, the war takes place—the contest, the weighing, the tipping of the scale, the balance between the love of God and the love of the world—and then each person goes forward and decides. If it happens to come to a fight and a quarrel with a brother, he says within himself: Shall I speak? Or shall I not speak? Shall I say something? Or shall I keep quiet?—remembering God, yes, but seeking his own glory and not denying himself. But if the love of the world and that tipping of the scale weigh even a little more heavily in the heart's balance, the evil word immediately reaches the lips.¹³ Then, as if drawing arrows, the mind from within shoots the neighbor through the tongue, sending arrows of unseemly words by a willing choice, seeking its own glory. Then, shooting at the neighbor for a long while through unseemly words, until the sin also spreads into the limbs and turns into actual blows.¹⁴ Sometimes the members even wound one another through the body as they fight; sometimes the evil one's desire is carried all the way to murder and death. See where love of worldly glory began, and what end it had, when it was weighed down by the tilt of the heart's scale from one's own will: for by not denying yourself and by loving something of the world, all those outrages come about.^✦ Understand the same principle in every sin and base practice of evil, as it flatters and urges the will of the mind with worldly desires, deceit, and the pleasures of the flesh. This is how every work of evil is brought to completion: so adultery and theft, so greed and drunkenness, so love of money and vainglory, so envy and love of power—and whatever else is a practice of evil. Sometimes even actions that appear good are done for human glory and praise, and before God, these are no different from injustice, theft, or any other sin. For God says, "He scattered the bones of people-pleasers," so that through things that seem good the evil one wants to get himself served; he is many-sided and deceptive in the desires of the world.^✦¹⁵ For through some earthly, fleshly love to which a person is bound by his own will, he is lured by evil—and that becomes for him a chain and a bond and a heavy burden, sinking and choking him in the age of wickedness, not letting him lift his head and go to God; because whatever of the world someone has loved weighs his mind down, holds him under, and will not let him rise. For on this weight and tilt and scale of evil the whole race of human beings is hung and tested—that is, Christians living in cities or on mountains or in monasteries or in the countryside or in desert places—because a person, lured by his own will, loves something, and wherever his love is bound, it is not wholly toward God. For one person, say, has loved possessions; another gold and silver; another serving his belly; another the desires of the flesh; another the wisdom of the world's talk for human glory; another has loved power; another glory and human honors; another anger and rage (for by quickly giving himself over to the passion, he loves it); another untimely company; another jealousy; another is distracted and takes pleasure all day long; another is deceived by idle thoughts; another loves to pass for a teacher of the law for the sake of human glory; another delights in slackness and carelessness; another is bound to clothes and rags; another gives himself over to earthly worries; another loves sleep, or frivolous joking, or foul talk.^✦ For whether a person is bound by something small of the world or something great, he is held by that and isn't allowed to lift his head. For whatever passion a person does not fight bravely, that is the one he loves; and that masters him, weighs him down, and becomes for him an obstacle and a chain, keeping his mind from going off to God, from pleasing him, and from serving him alone so as to be of use to the kingdom and gain eternal life.^✦ A soul that truly has its impulse toward the Lord draws its whole love entirely toward Him and, by free choice, binds itself to Him alone with all its strength. From there it gains the help of grace, denies itself, and doesn't follow the wishes of its own mind (because that walks deceptively with us through the evil that lives within us and lures us). Instead, it surrenders itself completely to the Lord's word, frees itself from every apparent bond as far as the will can, and gives itself wholly to the Lord. In this way, it will be able to pass easily through the contests, the labors, and the afflictions.^✦¹⁶ For wherever a person loves, from there he is helped and from there he is weighed down. If he loves anything of the world, that very thing becomes a burden for him and bonds that drag him down and won't let him go up to God. But if he loves the Lord and his commandments, from there he is helped and from there he is lightened, and all the Lord's commands become easy for the one who keeps his love toward him wholly intact. He weighs toward the good—or rather, love lightens and eases every battle and every affliction. Through the divine power he cuts through the world and through the powers of evil that trap the soul in it and bind it down in the world's depths with snares of every kind of desire. And so, having escaped from them by his own faith and great diligence and by help from above—where he has set his love—he is counted worthy of the eternal kingdom. Having loved it truly by his own will and been helped by the Lord, he does not fall away from eternal life.^✦¹⁷ But so that we can prove from plain facts how many people are destroyed by their own will, sunk in the sea, and seized into captivity: suppose with me that a house is set on fire. One man, wanting to save himself, senses the blaze, flees naked, leaving everything behind, and wanting only to preserve his own life, is saved.^✦¹⁸ But another man, wanting to grab some of the household vessels, clothes, or other items, went back inside to carry them off; as he was taking them, the fire took hold of the house, trapped him inside, and burned him up. You see that by his own will, through a temporary love—loving something other than himself—he perished in the fire.¹⁹ Likewise again at sea: some people fell into a surge of storm-waves and were shipwrecked; and one man stripped naked, went into the water wanting only to save himself, and so, beaten by the waves and swimming over them, because he was free and unencumbered he was able to get through the bitter sea and in this way preserved his life.²⁰ But another, wanting to save some of his clothes, thought he could swim out while carrying his belongings. Those very things weighed him down and sank him in the depths of the sea, and he perished for a little gain, failing to save his own life. You see that he was put to death by his own will. Again, suppose for me that word comes of foreigners advancing.²¹ And one man, the moment he heard, fled at once without putting it off, going out naked himself. But another, not really believing the enemy was coming, or wanting to take his own belongings with him, was slow to flee. When the enemy arrived, they overtook him, carried him captive into their country, and forced him into slavery. You see that by his own will—through softness, cowardice, and some attachment to his belongings—he was carried off into captivity.²² In the same way, those who don't follow the Lord's commandments, deny themselves, and love only the Lord, but instead willingly bind themselves with earthly chains—when the eternal fire comes, found as they are in the love of the world—will be burned up; they are sunk by the bitter sea of wickedness; and taken captive by the foreigners' captivity—that is, by the spirits of wickedness—they perish.²³

The Glory of the Resurrection

The inner glory of the Holy Spirit, acquired through struggle and faith, will clothe the bodies of the saints at the resurrection.

But if you want to learn from the holy and God-breathed Scriptures the upright course of perfected love toward the Lord, look at Job—how he stripped off everything, so to speak, that he had owned: children, property, livestock, servants, and all the rest of his belongings; how, having stripped himself bare, he fled and saved himself, even leaving the very tunic and throwing it to Satan, and neither blaspheming in word, nor in heart, nor speaking with his lips against the Lord—but on the contrary blessed the Lord, saying: "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has come to pass." Blessed be the name of the Lord. For even though he was thought to possess many things, when the Lord tested him he was shown to possess nothing but God alone. In the same way Abraham, when the Lord commanded him to go out "from his land and from his kindred and from his father's house," immediately, so to speak, stripped off everything—homeland, land, kindred, parents—and followed the word of the Lord. Then, amid the many trials and temptations that came upon him—his wife being taken on one side, living as a stranger and being wronged on the other—and having been proven through it all that he loves God alone above everything, later, when through the promise and after many years he had obtained with great longing an only son, when that son was asked of him as a sacrifice he eagerly offered him up himself, having stripped himself and truly denied himself. For by the offering of his only son he showed that he loved nothing else besides God.²⁴ For if he willingly stripped that one away, how much more readily and gladly would he have done it if he had been commanded to leave the rest of his possessions, or to give them all away at once to the poor. Do you see the straight path of a love made complete by the will toward the Lord? In the same way, those who want to become fellow heirs with these people ought to love nothing besides God, so that when they are tested they may be found useful and proven, keeping their love for the Lord perfect.^✦^✦ People like that will be able to run the race to the end: those who have always loved God alone by their own will and have detached themselves from every worldly love.^✦ But very few are found who have taken up such love, who turn away from all the world's pleasures and desires, and who patiently endure the evil one's uprisings and trials. Just because many who try to cross rivers are swept away by the current, does that mean no one makes it across the muddy rivers of the world's many desires and the varied trials from the spirits of wickedness? And just because many ships at sea are overwhelmed by the waves and sink, does that mean none get through, ride over the waves, and reach the harbor of peace? That is why there is always a need for great faith and long-suffering, struggle and endurance, labor, hunger and thirst for what is good, keenness, bold persistence, discernment, and understanding.^✦²⁵ Most people want to gain the kingdom without toil, struggle, and sweat—but that is impossible.^✦ So in the world some men go off to work for a rich man at harvest or at some other job so they can earn what they need for their living; but among them there are lazy, soft, idle ones who do not toil as they should or work as they ought. Without having labored or worn themselves out at all in the rich man's house, these want equal pay with those who work bravely, swiftly, and with all their strength, as if they had already done their work. In the same way, when we read the Scriptures—how so-and-so the righteous man pleased God, how he became God's friend and companion, and how all the fathers became friends and heirs of God, how many afflictions they endured, how much they suffered for God, how bravely they acted and how hard they fought—we count them blessed, we want the same gifts and honors they received, and we eagerly desire those glorious graces, while skipping over their labors, contests, afflictions, and sufferings—and as for their honors and dignities,^✦^✦²⁶²⁷ such as they have received from God—those we gladly want to take; but their toils, labors, and struggles we will not accept.²⁸ But I tell you: this is what every human being desires and wants. Even prostitutes, tax collectors, and unjust people are glad enough to gain the kingdom without toil and struggle.^✦ But this is why so many trials and tests and afflictions and struggles and sweat are set before us in the middle of it all: so that the genuine may be made plain.²⁹ Some, truly going as far as death, loved the Lord alone with their whole free choice and strength, and held nothing else as precious alongside their love for him. That is why they also justly enter the kingdom of heaven: they have denied themselves according to the Lord's word, and have loved the Lord alone more than their own breath.^✦³⁰ That is why they will also be repaid for their highest love with the highest heavenly gifts. For the promises and the glory and the restoration of the heavenly goods are hidden inside afflictions and sufferings and endurance and faith—just as the fruit is hidden in the grain thrown into the earth, or as a tree being grafted goes through a kind of decay and dishonor and only then reveals the beauty of its covering, its glory, and its multiplying fruit.^✦³¹³² If they hadn't passed through those things that look like dishonor and ruin, they would never have been shown to possess the beauty of their adornment, the loveliness of their appearance, and their abundant fruit. So too the apostle says, "Through many afflictions we can enter the kingdom of heaven," and the Lord says: "By your endurance gain possession of your souls," and again: "In the world you will have affliction."^✦^✦^✦³³ For what is needed is toil and earnest effort and sober watchfulness and close attention, and keenness and shameless persistence in asking the Lord, so that we can pass through the snares of earthly desires, the nooses of pleasures, and the storms of the world, escape the uprisings of the evil spirits, and know clearly with what watchfulness and swiftness of faith and love the saints already in this life acquired in their souls the heavenly treasure—that is, the power of the Spirit—which is the pledge of the kingdom.^✦^✦^✦³⁴³⁵ For the blessed apostle Paul, speaking of this heavenly treasure—that is, the grace of the Spirit—and openly declaring the extreme weight of his afflictions, while at the same time showing what each person ought to seek even now and what he ought to acquire, says: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tent is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens." So each person ought to struggle and press hard through every virtue, and to believe, so as to acquire that house even now. For if our house—the body—is torn down, we do not have another house where our soul can take lodging.^✦³⁶ "If indeed," he says, "when we have put it off we will not be found naked"—that is, naked of the Communion and mingling of the Holy Spirit, in which alone the faithful soul can rest.³⁷ For this is why those who are Christians in truth and power take courage and rejoice as they leave the flesh: they have that house not made by hands, which is itself a house—the power of the Spirit dwelling in them. So even if the house of the body is torn down, they aren't afraid; they have the heavenly dwelling of the Spirit and that imperishable glory. On the day of the resurrection, this glory will rebuild and glorify the house of the body, as the apostle says: "He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you"; and again: "so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh"; and so that, he says, "what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Let us struggle through faith and a virtuous life to acquire that garment now, so that when we put off the body we won't be found naked, with nothing left to glorify our flesh on that day.³⁸ For each person will have his body glorified on that day in the same measure that he has been counted worthy, through faith and diligence, to become a partaker of the Holy Spirit. Whatever the soul has stored up within itself now will be uncovered and appear outwardly on the body then. Just as trees that have come through the winter, when an invisible power warms them from the sun and the winds, put forth and send out from within—like clothing—leaves and flowers and fruit; and just as, in that same season, the flowers of the grass come up from within from the bosom of the earth, and the earth and the grass are covered and clothed like the lilies, about which the Lord said that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these (for all these things are examples and types and images of Christians at the resurrection)—so it is for all God-loving souls, that is, for true Christians: there is a first Xanthikos, which is called April, and that is the day of the resurrection; and through the power of the sun of righteousness the glory of the Holy Spirit comes forth from within, covering and sheltering the bodies of the saints—the very glory they already had hidden within in their souls.^✦³⁹ For what a person has now is exactly what will come forth outwardly on the body then. "This," he says, "shall be the first among the months of the year." This brings joy to all creation; it clothes the bare trees and opens the earth; it brings joy to every living creature and shows gladness to all. This is the Christians' first month, Xanthikos—the time of the resurrection—when their bodies will be glorified through the ineffable light already present in them, that is, the power of the Spirit, which will then be for them clothing, food, drink, exultation, joy, peace, a garment, and eternal life.^✦ For then the Spirit of the Godhead becomes for them every beauty of heavenly brilliance and loveliness—the very thing they have been counted worthy to receive from now on.⁴⁰ How, then, should each of us not believe, struggle, and strive in every virtuous way of life, looking forward in hope and endurance to being counted worthy now to receive the power from heaven and the glory of the Holy Spirit within the soul, so that when our bodies are dissolved we may have what will clothe us and give us life? "If indeed," he says, "when we have put it off we shall not be found naked," and, "He will give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in us."^✦^✦ Blessed Moses showed the type through the glory of the Spirit that rested on his face—glory no human being could gaze into—of how, at the resurrection of the righteous, the bodies of those who are worthy will be glorified: the very glory that the souls of the holy and the faithful are counted worthy even now to have within, upon the inner person. For he says, "We all, with unveiled face"—that is, with the inner person—"behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory." Likewise, for forty days and forty nights he ate no bread, as it is written, and drank no water.^✦^✦^✦ But it is impossible for the nature of the body to live so long without bread unless he was partaking of some other spiritual food—the food of which the souls of the saints even now partake invisibly from the Spirit.^✦ So in two ways blessed Moses showed the glory of light and the spiritual food of the Spirit that true Christians will have at the resurrection—of which they are also counted worthy in secret even now; and for that reason it will then also be made manifest on their body.⁴¹ The glory that the saints already possess in their souls—as mentioned before—will also cover and clothe their naked bodies, snatching them up into the heavens; from that point on, body and soul, we will rest forever in the kingdom with the Lord.^✦ For when God created Adam, he did not equip him with bodily wings the way he did the birds; instead he prepared for him beforehand the wings of the Holy Spirit—that is, the ones he is going to give him at the resurrection—so that they might lift him and snatch him away wherever the Spirit wills. These are the wings that even now the souls of the saints are counted worthy to have, so that with the mind they may soar up into a heavenly way of thinking.⁴² Christians have a different world, a different table, different clothing, a different enjoyment, a different Communion, and a different way of thinking; that is why they prove superior to all other people.⁴³ Even now, they are counted worthy to receive the power of these things inwardly in their souls through the Holy Spirit. That is why, at the resurrection, their bodies will also be counted worthy of those eternal goods of the Spirit and will be blended into the glory that their souls have already experienced.⁴⁴ Therefore, each of us should struggle, labor, and press on in every virtue, believing and asking the Lord that our inner person may become a partaker of that glory even now, and that the soul may share in that holiness of the Spirit. Then, cleansed of the stains of evil, we may possess at the resurrection what will clothe our naked bodies as they rise, cover their shame, give them life, and provide them rest forever in the kingdom of heaven.^✦^✦ Christ is going to come down from the heavens and raise all the tribes of Adam—those who have fallen asleep from of old—according to the holy Scriptures. He will set them all in two groups, and those who bear His mark—the seal of the Spirit—He will address as His own and place on His right. "My sheep," He says, "hear my voice," and "I know my own, and I am known by my own."^✦^✦^✦^✦ Then their bodies will be clothed with divine glory from their good works, and they will be full of the Spirit's glory, which they already possessed in their souls.⁴⁵ And so, glorified in the divine light and snatched up into the heavens to meet the Lord in the air, as it is written, we will always be with the Lord, reigning with Him through endless ages.^✦^✦ Amen.

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Ὁ τῶν χριστιανῶν κόσμος ἕτερός ἐστι, καὶ διαγωγὴ καὶ νοῦς καὶ λόγος καὶ πρᾶξις ἑτέρα τυγχάνει, καὶ ἡ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου διαγωγὴ καὶ νοῦς καὶ λόγος καὶ πρᾶξις ἑτέρα. ἄλλο τί εἰσιν ἐκεῖνοι καὶ ἄλλο τί εἰσιν οὗτοι, καὶ πολλὴ διάστασις μεταξὺ τούτων κἀκείνων. οἱ γὰρ τῆς γῆς οἰκήτορες καὶ τὰ τέκνα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἐοίκασι σίτῳ βεβλημένῳ ἐν σινίῳ τῆς γῆς ταύτης, σινιαζόμενοι ἐν ἀστάτοις λογισμοῖς τοῦ κόσμου τούτου καὶ σάλῳ ἀπαύστῳ τῶν γηΐνων πραγμάτων καὶ πολυπλόκων ἐννοιῶν ὑλικῶν τὰς ψυχάς, κλυδωνίζοντος τοῦ σινιάζοντος σατανᾶ διὰ τοῦ σινίου (τουτέστι τῶν γηΐνων πραγμάτων) πᾶν τὸ ἁμαρτωλὸν γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ Ἀδὰμ ἐκπτώσεως, παραβάντος τὴν ἐντολὴν καὶ ὑπὸ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς πονηρίας γεγονότος, λαβόντος αὐτοῦ τὴν ἐξουσίαν καὶ λοιπὸν ἀπαύστοις λογισμοῖς ἀπάτης καὶ κλόνου σινιάζοντος καὶ προσκρούοντος τῷ σινίῳ τῆς γῆς πάντας τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ σινίῳ ὁ σῖτος ὑπὸ τοῦ σινιάζοντος προσκόπτει καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀστάτως σαλευόμενος στρέφεται, οὕτως διὰ τῶν γηΐνων πραγμάτων πάντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους κατέχει ὁ τῆς πονηρίας ἄρχων καὶ δι' αὐτῶν σαλεύει καὶ κλονεῖ καὶ σείει καὶ προσκόπτειν ποιεῖ διαλογισμοῖς ματαίοις καὶ αἰσχραῖς ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ δεσμοῖς γηΐνοις καὶ κοσμικοῖς, ἀστάτως αἰχμαλωτίζων καὶ κλονῶν καὶ δελεάζων πᾶν τὸ ἁμαρτωλὸν γένος τοῦ Ἀδάμ, ὡς ὁ κύριος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις τὴν τοῦ πονηροῦ κατ' αὐτῶν ἐπανάστασιν μέλλουσαν ἔσεσθαι προέλεγεν· «ἐξῃτήσατο ὑμᾶς ὁ σατανᾶς σινιάσαι ὡς τὸν σῖτον· ἀλλ' ἐγὼ ἐδεήθην τοῦ πατρός μου, ἵνα μὴ ἐκλίπῃ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν». ὁ γὰρ τῷ Κάϊν ὑπὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ ῥηθεὶς λόγος καὶ ἡ ἀπόφασις εἰς τὸ προφανές, τὸ «στένων καὶ τρέμων καὶ σειόμενος ἔσῃ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς», τύπος καὶ εἰκὼν πάντων τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν τυγχάνει κατὰ τὸ κρυπτόν. οὕτως γὰρ ἐκπεσὸν τῆς ἐντολῆς τὸ γένος Ἀδὰμ καὶ ἁμαρτωλὸν καταστὰν ἐκείνην τὴν εἰκόνα κατὰ τὸ κρυπτὸν κέκτηται, σαλευόμενον ἀστάτοις λογισμοῖς δειλίας τε καὶ φόβου καὶ πάσης ταραχῆς, ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς παντοδαπαῖς καὶ ποικίλαις τοῦ ἄρχοντος τοῦ κόσμου τούτου πᾶσαν ψυχὴν κλυδωνίζοντος τὴν μὴ γεγεννημένην ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὡς σῖτον ἐν σινίῳ στρεφόμενον ἀστάτως τοὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων λογισμοὺς ποικίλως κλυδωνίζοντος, ἐν ἀπάταις κοσμικαῖς καὶ ἡδοναῖς σαρκὸς καὶ φόβοις καὶ ταραχαῖς πάντας σαλεύοντος καὶ δελεάζοντος. Καὶ γὰρ ὁ κύριος τοὺς ταῖς ἀπάταις καὶ τοῖς θελήμασι τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐξακολουθοῦντας δεικνύων, ὅτι τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ Κάϊν τῆς πονηρίας φοροῦσιν, ἐλέγχων αὐτοὺς ἔλεγεν· «ὑμεῖς» φησι «τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν· ἐκεῖνος ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν ἀπ' ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ οὐχ ἕστηκεν». ὥστε πᾶν τὸ ἁμαρτωλὸν γένος τοῦ Ἀδὰμ τὴν καταδίκην ἐκείνην κατὰ τὸ κρυπτὸν κέκτηνται, τὸ «στένοντες καὶ τρέμοντες ἔσεσθε καὶ σειόμενοι ἐν τῷ σινίῳ τῆς γῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ σινιάζοντος σατανᾶ».

ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐξ ἑνὸς τοῦ Ἀδὰμ πᾶν τὸ γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐφηπλώθη, οὕτω μία τις κακία τῶν παθῶν εἰς τὸ ἁμαρτωλὸν γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐγκατέδυσε, καὶ πάντας ὁ τῆς κακίας ἄρχων ἐν ἀστάτοις καὶ ὑλικοῖς καὶ ματαίοις καὶ ταραχώδεσι λογισμοῖς σινιάζειν ἐπαρκεῖ. ὥσπερ γὰρ εἷς ἄνεμος πάντα τὰ φυτὰ καὶ τὰ σπέρματα ἐπαρκεῖ κλονεῖν καὶ σείειν ἢ ὥσπερ ἓν σκότος τῆς νυκτὸς ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐφαπλοῦται, οὕτως ὁ τῆς πονηρίας ἄρχων, σκότος τι λογικὸν κακίας καὶ θανάτου ὑπάρχων καὶ ἄνεμός τις κρυπτὸς καὶ ἄγριος τυγχάνων, πᾶν τὸ ἐπὶ γῆς γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων κλυδωνίζει καὶ περιφέρει ἀστάτοις λογισμοῖς καὶ ἐπιθυμίαις κόσμου δελεάζων τὰς καρδίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ σκότους ἀγνωσίας, πηρώσεως καὶ λήθης ἐμπίπλησι πᾶσαν ψυχὴν τὴν μὴ ἄνωθεν γεγεννημένην καὶ τῷ φρονήματι καὶ τῷ νῷ ἐν ἄλλῳ αἰῶνι μεταβεβηκυῖαν, καθὼς εἴρηται· «ἡμῶν δὲ τὸ πολίτευμα ἐν οὐρανοῖς ὑπάρχει». Ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ διαφέρουσιν οἱ ἀληθεῖς Χριστιανοὶ παντὸς τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ πολλὴ διάστασις μεταξὺ ἀμφοτέρων τυγχάνει, ὡς προελέγομεν, ἐν τῷ τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὴν διάνοιαν πάντοτε ἐν τῷ οὐρανίῳ φρονήματι τυγχάνειν καὶ τὰ αἰώνια ἀγαθὰ ἐνοπτρίζεσθαι διὰ τὴν μετουσίαν καὶ μετοχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου, τῷ ἄνωθεν αὐτοὺς ἐκ θεοῦ γεγεννῆσθαι καὶ τέκνα θεοῦ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει γενέσθαι κατηξιῶσθαι καὶ εἰς στάσιν καὶ ἑδραιότητα καὶ ἀταραξίαν καὶ κατάπαυσιν αὐτοὺς διὰ πολλῶν ἀγώνων καὶ κόπων καὶ χρόνων κατηντηκέναι, μηκέτι σινιαζομένους καὶ κυμαινομένους ἐν ἀστάτοις καὶ ματαίοις λογισμοῖς. ἐν τούτῳ εἰσὶ μείζους καὶ κρείττονες τοῦ κόσμου διὰ τὸ τὸν νοῦν αὐτῶν καὶ τὸ φρόνημα τῆς ψυχῆς ἐν τῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰρήνῃ καὶ ἐν τῇ τοῦ πνεύματος ἀγάπῃ τυγχάνειν, ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ κύριος περὶ τῶν τοιούτων διεξερχόμενος ἔλεγε «μεταβεβηκέναι ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν». Τοιγαροῦν οὐκ ἐν σχήμασι καὶ τύποις ἐξωτέροις ἡ ἀλλοίωσις τῶν Χριστιανῶν ὑπάρχει, ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ ἐν τούτῳ οἴονται εἶναι τὴν διαφορὰν καὶ διάκρισιν μεταξὺ τοῦ κόσμου καὶ αὐτῶν ἐν σχήμασι καὶ τύποις. καὶ ἰδοὺ τῷ νῷ καὶ τῇ διανοίᾳ ὅμοιοι τῷ κόσμῳ τυγχάνουσι, τὸν σεισμὸν καὶ ἀκαταστασίαν τῶν λογισμῶν καὶ ἀπιστίαν καὶ σύγχυσιν καὶ ταραχὴν καὶ δειλίαν ὡς πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἔχοντες· καὶ τῷ μὲν σχήματι καὶ τῷ δοκεῖν τοῦ κόσμου διαφέρουσι καί τισιν ἐξωτέροις κατορθώμασι, τῇ δὲ καρδίᾳ καὶ τῷ νῷ ἐν τοῖς γηΐνοις δεσμοῖς δέδενται, ἀνάπαυσιν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ εἰρήνην τὴν τοῦ πνεύματος οὐράνιον ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ μὴ κεκτημένοι, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἐζήτησαν παρὰ θεοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν τούτων καταξιωθῆναι. ἐν γὰρ «τῇ τοῦ νοὸς ἀνακαινώσει» καὶ τῇ τῶν λογισμῶν εἰρήνῃ καὶ τῇ τοῦ κυρίου ἀγάπῃ καὶ οὐρανίῳ ἔρωτι ἡ καινὴ κτίσις τῶν Χριστιανῶν πάντων ἀνθρώπων τοῦ κόσμου διαφέρει· διὸ καὶ ἡ ἔλευσις τοῦ κυρίου γέγονε, τούτων τῶν πνευματικῶν ἀγαθῶν καταξιῶσαι τοὺς ἀληθῶς πιστεύοντας εἰς αὐτόν. Χριστιανῶν γὰρ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κάλλος καὶ ὁ πλοῦτος ὁ οὐράνιος ἀλάλητός ἐστι καὶ μετὰ πόνου καὶ ἱδρώτων καὶ δοκιμασιῶν καὶ ἀγώνων πολλῶν ποριζόμενος, τὸ δὲ ὅλον χάριτι θεοῦ.

εἰ γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ἐπιγείου βασιλέως θέα ἐπιθυμητὴ παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις τυγχάνει, καὶ πᾶς τις ἐπιδημῶν ἐν πόλει βασιλέως ἐπιθυμεῖ κἂν μόνον θεάσασθαι τὸ κάλλος αὐτοῦ ἢ τὴν ὡραιότητα τῶν ἐνδυμάτων ἢ τῆς πορφύρας τὴν δόξαν, τῶν ποικίλων μαργαριτῶν τὸ κάλλος, τοῦ διαδήματος τὴν εὐπρέπειαν, τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ ἀξιωμάτων τὴν τιμιότητα, ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ οἱ πνευματικοὶ ἐξουδενοῦσιν αὐτὰ διὰ τὸ ἄλλης δόξης ἐπουρανίου καὶ ἀσωμάτου πεπειρᾶσθαι καὶ ἄλλῳ κάλλει ἀρρήτῳ τετρῶσθαι καὶ ἄλλου πλούτου κεκοινωνηκέναι καὶ τῷ ἔσω ἀνθρώπῳ αἰσθέσθαι καὶ ἄλλου πνεύματος μετέχειν· ἐπεὶ οἱ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἄνθρωποι οἱ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου ἔχοντες ἐν πολλῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ εἰσὶ τοῦ τὸν ἐπίγειον βασιλέα θεάσασθαι μόνον σὺν πάσῃ τῇ εὐπρεπείᾳ καὶ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ· ὅσον γὰρ ἐν τοῖς φαινομένοις πολλῷ μείζων ἡ μερὶς αὐτοῦ ἐστι παρὰ πάντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους (οὕτως ἔνδοξον, οὕτως ἐπιθυμητὸν ὑπὸ πάντων κἂν τὸ θεαθῆναι μόνον) καὶ ἕκαστος ἐν ἑαυτῷ λέγει· εἴθε τις ἔδωκέ μοι ἐκείνην τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὴν εὐπρέπειαν καὶ τὴν ὡραιότητα, μακαρίζων ἐκεῖνον τὸν ὅμοιον αὐτοῦ γήϊνον καὶ ὁμοιοπαθῆ καὶ θνητὸν ὄντα, διὰ δὲ τὴν πρόσκαιρον εὐπρέπειαν καὶ δόξαν ἐπιθυμητόν, εἰ οὖν οὕτως οἱ σαρκικοὶ ἄνθρωποι ἐπιθυμοῦσι τῆς δόξης τοῦ γηΐνου βασιλέως, πόσῳ μᾶλλον οἷς ἐνέσταξεν ἐκείνη ἡ ῥανὶς τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς τῆς θεότητος καὶ ἔτρωσε τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν ἔρωτι θείῳ πρὸς τὸν ἐπουράνιον βασιλέα Χριστόν, εἰς ἐκεῖνο τὸ κάλλος δέδενται καὶ τὴν ἀνεκλάλητον δόξαν καὶ ἄφθαρτον εὐπρέπειαν καὶ τὸν ἀνεννόητον πλοῦτον τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ καὶ αἰωνίου βασιλέως Χριστοῦ, οὗ τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ καὶ τῷ πόθῳ αἰχμαλωτίζονται, ὅλοι ἐξ ὅλου πρὸς αὐτὸν τυγχάνοντες, καὶ ἐπιθυμοῦσι τυχεῖν ἐκείνων, ὧν ἐνοπτρίζονται διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος ἀλαλήτων ἀγαθῶν, οὗ ἕνεκε πάντα τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς κάλλη καὶ εὐπρεπείας καὶ δόξας καὶ τιμὰς καὶ πλοῦτον βασιλέων καὶ ἀρχόντων ἐξουδενοῦσι· θείῳ γὰρ κάλλει ἐτρώθησαν καὶ ζωὴ ἀθανασίας οὐρανίου ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς αὐτῶν ἐνέσταξε. διὸ καὶ εἰς ἐκείνην τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ ἐπουρανίου βασιλέως ἐπιποθοῦσι καὶ αὐτὸν μόνον πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἐν πολλῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ ἔχοντες, δι' αὐτοῦ πάσης ἀγάπης κόσμου λύουσιν ἑαυτοὺς καὶ ἀναχωροῦσι παντὸς γηΐνου δεσμοῦ, ἵνα δυνηθῶσιν ἐκεῖνον μόνον τὸν πόθον ἐν ταῖς ἑαυτῶν καρδίαις ἔχειν πάντοτε καὶ μηδὲν ἕτερον σὺν ἐκείνῳ μιγνύειν. Ὀλίγοι δέ εἰσι πάνυ οἱ τῇ ἀγαθῇ ἀρχῇ τέλος ἀγαθὸν πορισάμενοι καὶ διεξερχόμενοι ἕως τέλους ἄπτωτοι, τὴν μίαν ἀγάπην πρὸς μόνον τὸν θεὸν ἔχοντες καὶ πάντων ἑαυτοὺς λελυκότες. πολλοὶ γὰρ κατανύσσονται καὶ πολλοὶ χάριτος οὐρανίου μέτοχοι γίνονται καὶ ἔρωτι οὐρανίῳ τιτρώσκονται, ἀλλὰ διὰ τοὺς ἐν μέσῳ ἀγῶνας καὶ ἀθλήσεις καὶ πόνους καὶ πειρασμοὺς διαφόρους τοῦ πονηροῦ μὴ ὑπομένοντες, ἐν ποικίλαις καὶ διαφόροις ἐπιθυμίαις κοσμικαῖς τρεπόμενοι διὰ τὸ θέλημα ἔχειν ἕκαστον τοῦ ἀγαπῆσαί τι τοῦ κόσμου τούτου καὶ μὴ λελυκέναι πάντοθεν τὴν ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ, ἀπέμειναν καὶ ἐβυθίσθησαν ἐν τῷ τοῦ κόσμου βυθῷ διὰ ἰδίου θελήματος ἀνανδρίαν καὶ χαύνωσιν ἢ δειλίαν ἢ δι' ἀγάπην τινὰ γηΐνην. Οἱ γὰρ ἐξ ἀληθείας διεξελθεῖν ἕως τέλους ἐν ἀγαθῇ διαγωγῇ βουλόμενοι ἄλλον ἔρωτα καὶ ἄλλην ἀγάπην σὺν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἐπουρανίῳ παραδέξασθαι ἑκουσίως καὶ μῖξαι οὐκ ὀφείλουσιν, ἵνα μὴ ἐμποδισθῶσι τῶν πνευματικῶν καὶ στραφῶσιν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω καὶ τέλος ἐκπέσωσι τῆς ζωῆς. ὥσπερ γὰρ μεγάλα καὶ ἀλάλητα καὶ ἀνεκδιήγητα τὰ ἐπηγγελμένα παρὰ θεῷ τυγχάνει, οὕτω πίστεως καὶ ἐλπίδος καὶ πόνων καὶ ἀγώνων μεγάλων χρεία καὶ πολλῆς δοκιμασίας· οὐ γάρ τι μικρὸν τυγχάνει, ἃ ἐλπίζει ἀγαθὰ λαβεῖν ὁ ἄνθρωπος. βασιλείας οὐρανῶν ἐπιθυμῶν συμβασιλεῦσαι Χριστῷ εἰς τοὺς ἀπεράντους αἰῶνας βούλει, καὶ τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ πόνους καὶ πειρασμοὺς τοῦ ὀλίγου χρόνου τῆς ζωῆς ταύτης ἀναδέξασθαι προθύμως ἕως θανάτου οὐ καταδέχῃ; τοῦ κυρίου βοῶντος· «εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καθ' ἡμέραν χαίρων καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι», καὶ πάλιν· «ἐὰν μή τις μισήσῃ πατέρα, μητέρα, γυναῖκα, τέκνα, ἀδελφούς, ἀδελφάς, ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχήν, οὐ δύναταί μου εἶναι μαθητής». οἱ πλεῖστοι δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βασιλείας μὲν ἐπιτυχεῖν βούλονται καὶ τὴν αἰώνιον ζωὴν κληρονομῆσαι θέλουσι, ζῆν δὲ ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις αὐτῶν θελήμασι καὶ αὐτοῖς ἐξακολουθεῖν οὐκ ἀναίνονται, μᾶλλον δὲ τῷ σπείροντι τὰ μάταια, καὶ μὴ ἀπαρνούμενοι ἑαυτοὺς βούλονται τὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομῆσαι ζωήν, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀδύνατον· ὁ γὰρ λόγος τοῦ κυρίου ἀληθὴς τυγχάνει.

οὗτοι γὰρ ἄπτωτοι διεξέρχονται οἱ κατὰ τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἀρνησάμενοι ὅλοι ἐξ ὅλου ἑαυτούς, καὶ πάσας τὰς τοῦ κόσμου ἐπιθυμίας καὶ δεσμοὺς καὶ μετεωρισμοὺς καὶ ἡδονὰς καὶ ἀσχολίας βδελυξάμενοι, καὶ αὐτὸν μόνον πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἔχοντες καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ ποιεῖν ἐπιθυμοῦντες. ὥστε ἰδίῳ θελήματι ἀποστρέφεται ἕκαστος τῆς βασιλείας τῷ ἐξ ἀληθείας μὴ θελῆσαι καμεῖν καὶ ἀρνήσασθαι ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀγαπᾶν τι σὺν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἀγάπῃ, τῷ ἥδεσθαί τισι τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἡδοναῖς ἢ ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ τῷ μὴ ὅλην τὴν ἀγάπην, ὅσον ἐν προαιρέσει καὶ θελήματι δυνατόν, πρὸς κύριον ἔχειν. Ἐξ ἑνὸς δὲ ὑποδείγματος συννόησόν μοι πάντα. διακρίνων μὲν ἐνίοτε διακρίνει ἕκαστος καὶ οἶδεν, ὅτι ἄτοπόν ἐστιν ὃ θέλει ποιῆσαι, ἀλλ' ἐπειδὴ ἀγαπᾷ καὶ οὐκ ἀρνεῖται, ἥττηται αὐτῷ. πρότερον γὰρ ἔσω ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὁ πόλεμος γίνεται καὶ ὁ ἀγὼν καὶ τὸ στάθμιον καὶ ἡ ῥοπὴ καὶ τὸ ζύγιον τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ τότε προέρχεται καὶ διακρίνει ἕκαστος, εἰ τύχῃ εἰς μάχην καὶ διαπληκτισμὸν πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφόν, λέγων ἐν ἑαυτῷ· εἴπω; ἀλλὰ μὴ εἴπω; λαλήσω; ἀλλὰ μὴ λαλήσω; μνημονεύων μὲν καὶ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἰδίαν δόξαν περιποιούμενος καὶ μὴ ἑαυτὸν ἀρνούμενος. ἀλλ' ἐὰν ὀλίγον καταβαρήσῃ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ κόσμου καὶ ἡ ῥοπὴ ἐν τῷ τῆς καρδίας ζυγίῳ, εὐθὺς προέρχεται ὁ πονηρὸς λόγος μεχρὶ τῶν χειλέων. εἶτα ὥσπερ βέλη ἐντείνων ὁ νοῦς ἔνδοθεν τοξεύει τὸν πλησίον διὰ τῆς γλώττης, πέμπων βέλη λόγων ἀπρεπῶν ἐν θελήματι ἑκουσίῳ, τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δόξαν περιποιούμενος. εἶτα τοξεύων ἐπὶ πολὺ τὸν πλησίον διὰ λόγων ἀπρεπῶν, ἕως οὗ καὶ ἐν τοῖς μέλεσι διαχυθῇ τὸ ἁμάρτημα εἰς συμπληγάδας.

ἐνίοτε καὶ τραύματα διὰ τοῦ σώματος ἄλληλα τὰ μέλη πολεμοῦντα ἀπεργάζεται, ἐνίοτε καὶ ἕως φόνου καὶ θανάτου ἀπαρτίζεται τὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐπιθύμημα. ἴδε, πόθεν ἤρξατο καὶ ποῖον ἔσχε τὸ τέλος ἀγάπη δόξης κοσμικῆς βαρηθεῖσα τῇ ῥοπῇ τοῦ τῆς καρδίας ζυγίου ἐξ ἰδίου θελήματος· διὰ γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἀρνήσασθαι ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀγαπᾶν τι τοῦ κόσμου ἐκεῖνα ὅλα τὰ ἀτοπήματα γίγνεται. Οὕτως νόει μοι καὶ εἰς ἕκαστον ἁμάρτημα καὶ ἐπιτήδευμα φαῦλον τῆς κακίας κολακευούσης καὶ προτρεπομένης τὸ θέλημα τοῦ νοὸς ἐπιθυμίαις κοσμικαῖς καὶ ἀπάτῃ καὶ ἡδονῇ σαρκός. οὕτω πᾶν πρᾶγμα κακίας ἀπαρτίζεται, οὕτω μοιχεία καὶ κλοπή, οὕτω πλεονεξία καὶ μέθη, οὕτως φιλαργυρία καὶ κενοδοξία, οὕτως ζῆλος καὶ φιλαρχία καὶ πᾶν ὁτιοῦν ἐστι τῆς κακίας ἐπιτήδευμα. ἐνίοτε καὶ καλὰ δοκοῦντα ἐπιτηδεύματα διὰ δόξαν καὶ ἔπαινον ἀνθρώπων ἐπιτελεῖται, ἅπερ ἐστὶ παρὰ θεῷ ἴσα ἀδικίας καὶ κλοπῆς καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἁμαρτημάτων. ὁ θεὸς γάρ φησι διεσκόρπισεν ὀστᾶ ἀνθρωπαρέσκων, ὥστε διὰ τῶν δοκούντων καλῶν ὁ πονηρὸς ὑπηρετεῖσθαι βούλεται· πολυποίκιλος γάρ ἐστι καὶ ἀπατηλὸς ἐν ἐπιθυμίαις κόσμου. διὰ γὰρ ἀγάπην τινὰ γηΐνην καὶ σαρκικήν, εἰς ἣν δεσμεῖται ἄνθρωπος θελήματι ἰδίῳ, δελεάζεται ὑπὸ τῆς κακίας, ὅπερ γίνεται αὐτῷ ἅλυσις καὶ δεσμὸς καὶ φορτίον βαρὺ καταβυθίζον καὶ πνῖγον ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῆς πονηρίας, μὴ συγχωροῦν ἀνακύψαι καὶ πρὸς θεὸν ἀπελθεῖν· ἐπειδὴ ὅπερ τις ἠγάπησε τοῦ κόσμου, καταβαρεῖ τὸν νοῦν αὐτοῦ καὶ κατωκρατεῖ καὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ ἀνακύψαι. Εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ στάθμιον καὶ τὴν ῥοπὴν καὶ τὸ τῆς κακίας ζύγιον κρέμαται καὶ δοκιμάζεται πᾶν τὸ γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἤτοι Χριστιανῶν τῶν ἐν πόλεσιν οἰκούντων ἢ ἐν ὄρεσιν ἢ ἐν μοναῖς ἢ ἐν ἀγροῖς ἢ ἐν ἐρήμοις τόποις, ὅτι θελήματι ἰδίῳ δελεαζόμενος ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἀγαπᾷ τι καὶ ὁπουδήποτε δέδεται αὐτοῦ ἡ ἀγάπη καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ὅλη πρὸς τὸν θεόν.

ἠγάπησε γάρ τις εἰ τύχοι κτήματα, ἄλλος χρυσὸν καὶ ἄργυρον, ἄλλος γαστρὶ δουλεύειν, ἄλλος τις ἐπιθυμίαις σαρκός, ἄλλος σοφίαν λόγων κόσμου διὰ δόξαν ἀνθρώπων, ἄλλος ἠγάπησεν ἀρχήν, ἄλλος δόξαν καὶ τιμὰς ἀνθρώπων, ἄλλος ὀργὴν καὶ μῆνιν (διὰ γὰρ τὸ ταχέως ἑαυτὸν ἐπιδιδόναι τῷ πάθει ἀγαπᾷ αὐτό), ἄλλος ἀκαίρους συντυχίας, ἄλλος ζῆλον, ἄλλος πᾶσαν ἡμέραν μετεωρίζεται καὶ ἥδεται, ἄλλος ἀργοῖς λογισμοῖς ἀπατᾶται, ἄλλος ὡς νομοδιδάσκαλος εἶναι ἀγαπᾷ διὰ δόξαν ἀνθρώπων, ἄλλος χαυνώσει καὶ ἀμελείᾳ ἥδεται, ἄλλος ἱματίοις καὶ ῥάκεσι δέδεται, ἄλλος μερίμναις γηΐναις ἑαυτὸν δίδωσιν, ἄλλος ὕπνον ἢ εὐτραπελίαν ἢ αἰσχρολογίαν ἀγαπᾷ. καὶ μικρῷ γάρ τις καὶ μεγάλῳ τοῦ κόσμου δεσμούμενος, ἐκείνῳ κατέχεται καὶ οὐκ ἐᾶται ἀνακύψαι. πρὸς ὃ γάρ τις πάθος οὐ πολεμεῖ γενναίως, ἐκεῖνο ἀγαπᾷ, κἀκεῖνο κρατεῖ αὐτὸν καὶ βαρύνει καὶ γίγνεται αὐτῷ ἐμπόδιον καὶ ἅλυσις τοῦ μὴ τὸν νοῦν αὐτοῦ ἀπιέναι πρὸς τὸν θεὸν καὶ εὐαρεστῆσαι αὐτῷ καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσαντα χρησιμεῦσαι τῇ βασιλείᾳ καὶ ζωῆς αἰωνίου τυχεῖν. Ψυχὴ γὰρ ἡ ἀληθῶς πρὸς κύριον τὴν ὁρμὴν ἔχουσα ὅλη ἐξ ὅλου τὴν ἀγάπην αὐτῆς πρὸς αὐτὸν ἕλκει καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν μόνον ἐκ προαιρέσεως ὅση δύναμις δεσμεῖται, κἀκεῖθεν τὴν βοήθειαν τῆς χάριτος προσκτᾶται καὶ ἑαυτὴν ἀρνεῖται καὶ τοῖς θελήμασι τοῦ νοὸς αὐτῆς οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ (ὅτι δολίως πορεύεται μεθ' ἡμῶν διὰ τὸ συνὸν καὶ δελεάζον κακόν), ἀλλὰ τῷ τοῦ κυρίου λόγῳ ὁλοτελῶς ἑαυτὴν ἐκδίδωσι καὶ παντὸς φαινομένου δεσμοῦ λύει ἑαυτήν, ὅσον ἐκ θελήματος δυνατόν, καὶ τῷ κυρίῳ ἐξ ὅλου ἑαυτὴν δίδωσι, καὶ οὕτω διεξελθεῖν εὐχερῶς δυνήσεται τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ πόνους καὶ θλίψεις. ὅπου γὰρ ἀγαπᾷ τις, ἐκεῖθεν βοηθεῖται κἀκεῖθεν βαρεῖται. ἐάν τι τοῦ κόσμου ἀγαπᾷ, αὐτὸ ἐκεῖνο γίγνεται αὐτῷ φορτίον καὶ δεσμοὶ καθέλκοντες κάτω καὶ μὴ συγχωροῦντες ἄνω πρὸς θεὸν ἀπελθεῖν. ἐὰν δὲ τὸν κύριον καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ ἀγαπᾷ, ἐκεῖθεν βοηθεῖται κἀκεῖθεν κουφίζεται καὶ εὔκολα αὐτῷ πάντα γίγνεται τὰ τοῦ κυρίου παραγγέλματα τῷ τὴν ἀγάπην αὐτοῦ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀποσῴζειν ὁλοκλήρως, καὶ βαρεῖ εἰς τὸ ἀγαθόν, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ κουφίζει καὶ ἐλαφρύνει πάντα πόλεμον καὶ πᾶσαν θλῖψιν, καὶ διὰ τῆς θείας δυνάμεως τὸν κόσμον διακόπτει καὶ τὰς δυνάμεις τῆς κακίας τὰς ἐν αὐτῷ παγιδευούσας τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ βρόχοις ἐπιθυμιῶν παντοδαπῶν ἐν τῷ τοῦ κόσμου βυθῷ καταδεσμούσας· καὶ οὕτως ἐξειλῆσαι ἐξ αὐτῶν διὰ τῆς ἰδίας πίστεως καὶ σπουδῆς πολλῆς καὶ διὰ τῆς ἄνωθεν βοηθείας, ἔνθα ἠγάπησε, τῆς αἰωνίου βασιλείας ἀξιοῦται, ἣν ἰδίῳ θελήματι ἀγαπήσας ἐξ ἀληθείας καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου βοηθηθεὶς τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς οὐκ ἐκπίπτει. Ἵνα δὲ ἀπὸ πραγμάτων φανερῶν ἀποδείξωμεν, πῶς θελήματι ἰδίῳ πολλοὶ ἀπόλλυνται καὶ ἐν θαλάσσῃ βυθίζονται καὶ ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ ἁρπάζονται, ὑπόθου μοί τινα οἶκον ἐμπίπρασθαι πυρί, καὶ ὃς μὲν σῶσαι ἑαυτὸν βουλόμενος αἰσθηθεὶς τοῦ ἐμπρησμοῦ γυμνὸς ἔφυγε καταλιπὼν πάντα, καὶ ἑαυτοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν μόνον περιποιήσασθαι βουληθεὶς διεσώθη.

ἄλλος δὲ βουλόμενος λαβεῖν τινα τοῦ οἴκου σκεύη ἢ ἱμάτια ἢ ἄλλα τινὰ εἰσῆλθεν ἆραι, καὶ ὡς ἐλάμβανε, κατεκυρίευσε τὸ πῦρ τοῦ οἴκου καὶ συνέλαβεν αὐτὸν ἔνδον καὶ κατέκαυσεν. ὁρᾷς ὅτι ἰδίῳ θελήματι δι' ἀγάπην τινὰ πρόσκαιρον παρ' ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπήσας ἐν τῷ πυρὶ ἀπώλετο. ὁμοίως πάλιν ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ εἰς στάσιν τινὲς κλύδωνος περιπεσόντες ἐναυάγησαν· καὶ ὃς μὲν γυμνὸς ἀποδυσάμενος εἰσῆλθεν ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν ἑαυτὸν μόνον βουλόμενος σῶσαι καὶ οὕτως ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων τυπτόμενος καὶ ἄνωθεν αὐτῶν ἐπικολυμβῶν διὰ τὸ εὔλυτον αὐτὸν εἶναι ἠδυνήθη διεξελθεῖν τὴν πικρὰν θάλασσαν καὶ οὕτως τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ περιεποιήσατο. ἄλλος δὲ βουλόμενος σῶσαί τι τῶν ἐνδυμάτων αὐτοῦ ἐνόμισε δύνασθαι ἐκκολυμβῆσαι καὶ διεξελθεῖν σὺν ἐκείνοις, οἷς ἦρε σὺν ἑαυτῷ, καὶ αὐτὰ ἐκεῖνα ἅπερ ἔλαβε κατεβάρησαν αὐτὸν καὶ κατεβάπτισαν ἐν τῷ βυθῷ τῆς θαλάσσης, καὶ ἀπώλετο δι' ὀλίγον κέρδος μὴ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχὴν περιποιησάμενος. ὁρᾷς ὅτι ἰδίῳ θελήματι αὐτοῦ ἐθανατώθη. πάλιν ὑπόθου μοι ἀκοὴν ἀλλοφύλων ἔρχεσθαι. καὶ ὃς μὲν ἅμα τῷ ἀκοῦσαι ἔφυγεν εὐθέως μὴ ἀναβαλόμενος, αὐτὸς γυμνὸς ἐξελθών. ἄλλος δὲ δυσπιστῶν ὅτι ἔρχονται οἱ ἐχθροὶ ἢ θέλων τινὰ τῶν ἰδίων πραγμάτων καὶ βουλόμενος ἆραι μεθ' ἑαυτοῦ ἐβράδυνε φυγεῖν, καὶ ἐπελθόντες οἱ πολέμιοι κατέλαβον καὶ ᾐχμαλώτευσαν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν τῶν ἀλλοφύλων πατρίδα κἀκεῖ δουλεύειν κατηνάγκασαν.

ὁρᾷς ὅτι τῷ θελήματι αὐτοῦ διὰ χαύνωσιν καὶ ἀνανδρίαν καὶ ἀγάπην τινὰ πραγμάτων εἰς τὴν αἰχμαλωσίαν ἀπηνέχθη. ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ μὴ ταῖς ἐντολαῖς τοῦ κυρίου ἐξακολουθοῦντες καὶ ἑαυτοὺς ἀρνούμενοι καὶ μόνον τὸν κύριον ἀγαπῶντες, ἀλλὰ δεσμοῖς γηΐνοις ἑκουσίως δεσμούμενοι, ἐπελθόντος τοῦ πυρὸς τοῦ αἰωνίου ὡς εὑρισκόμενοι ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ τοῦ κόσμου κατακαυθήσονται καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς πικρᾶς θαλάσσης τῆς πονηρίας καταβυθίζονται καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς αἰχμαλωσίας τῶν ἀλλοφύλων, τουτέστι τῶν πνευμάτων τῆς πονηρίας, αἰχμαλωτιζόμενοι ἀπόλλυνται. Εἰ δὲ βούλει ἀγάπης ἀπηρτισμένης εὐθύτητα πρὸς κύριον ἐκ τῶν ἁγίων καὶ θεοπνεύστων γραφῶν καταμαθεῖν, ἴδε τὸν Ἰὼβ πῶς ἀπεδύσατο πάντα ὥσπερ εἰπεῖν, ἅπερ ἦν κεκτημένος, τέκνα, κτήματα, ζῷα, παῖδας καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ὑπάρχοντα· πῶς ἀπεκδυσάμενος ἔφυγε καὶ διέσωσεν ἑαυτὸν καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν χιτῶνα ἀφεὶς καὶ προσρίψας τῷ σατανᾷ καὶ μήτε ἐν λόγῳ βλασφημήσας μήτε τῇ καρδίᾳ μήτε τοῖς χείλεσι φθεγξάμενος ἐνώπιον τοῦ κυρίου, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον εὐλόγησε τὸν κύριον εἰπών· ὁ κύριος ἔδωκεν, ὁ κύριος ἀφείλετο· ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ ἔδοξεν, οὕτως καὶ ἐγένετο. εἴη τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου εὐλογημένον. κἂν ἐνομίζετο γὰρ κεκτῆσθαι πολλά, δοκιμασθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ἐφανερώθη μηδὲν κεκτημένος ἢ μόνον τὸν θεόν. ὁμοίως ὁ Ἀβραὰμ κελευσθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ἐξελθεῖν «ἐκ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐκ τῆς συγγενείας καὶ ἐκ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ», εὐθέως ὥσπερ εἰπεῖν ἀπεδύσατο πάντα, πατρίδα, γῆν, συγγένειαν, γονεῖς, καὶ ἐξηκολούθησε τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου. εἶτα μεταξὺ πολλῶν δοκιμασιῶν καὶ πειρασμῶν αὐτῷ γινομένων, τοῦτο μὲν τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ λαμβανομένης, τοῦτο δὲ ἐπὶ ξένης διάγων καὶ ἀδικούμενος, καὶ διὰ πάντων ἀποδειχθείς, ὅτι θεὸν μόνον ἀγαπᾷ ὑπὲρ πάντα, ὕστερον ἐπεὶ δι' ἐπαγγελίας καὶ δι' ἐτῶν πολλῶν μονογενῆ υἱὸν κατὰ πολλὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ἐκτήσατο, αἰτηθεὶς τοῦτον εἰς θυσίαν προθύμως δι' ἑαυτοῦ ἀνέφερεν, ἀποδυσάμενος ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀληθῶς ἀρνησάμενος· ἀπέδειξε γὰρ ὅτι παρὲξ θεοῦ ἄλλο τι οὐκ ἠγάπησε διὰ τῆς τοῦ μονογενοῦς προσκομιδῆς. εἰ γὰρ ἐκεῖνον προθύμως ἀπεδύσατο, πόσῳ μᾶλλον εἰ τὰ λοιπὰ αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχοντα ἐκελεύσθη ἐᾶσαι ἢ πένησιν ὑφ' ἓν διανεῖμαι, ἑτοίμως καὶ προθύμως ἂν ἐποίησεν.

ὁρᾷς ἀγάπης ἀπηρτισμένης ἐκ θελήματος πρὸς κύριον εὐθύτητα; Οὕτως καὶ οἱ τούτων συγκληρονόμοι γενέσθαι βουλόμενοι παρὲξ θεοῦ οὐδὲν ὀφείλουσιν ἀγαπῆσαι, ἵνα ὅταν δοκιμασθῶσι χρήσιμοι καὶ δόκιμοι εὑρεθῶσι, τελείαν τὴν ἀγάπην αὐτῶν πρὸς κύριον ἀποσῴζοντες. Οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἕως τέλους διεξελθεῖν τὸν ἀγῶνα δυνήσονται οἱ ἐκ θελήματος θεὸν μόνον ἀγαπήσαντες πάντοτε καὶ πάσης ἀγάπης κόσμου ἑαυτοὺς λελυκότες. ὀλίγοι δὲ σφόδρα εὑρίσκονται οἱ τοιαύτην ἀγάπην ἀναλαβόντες καὶ πάσας τὰς τοῦ κόσμου ἡδονὰς καὶ ἐπιθυμίας ἀποστρεφόμενοι καὶ μακροθύμως τὰς ἐπαναστάσεις καὶ πειρασμοὺς τοῦ πονηροῦ ὑπομενόντες. μὴ γὰρ ἐπειδὴ πολλοὶ ποταμοὺς παρερχόμενοι παρασύρονται ὑπὸ τῶν ὑδάτων, οὔκ εἰσιν οἱ διαπερῶντες τοὺς θολεροὺς ποταμοὺς τῶν τοῦ κόσμου ἐπιθυμιῶν παντοδαπῶν καὶ ποικίλων πειρασμῶν τῶν πνευμάτων τῆς πονηρίας; καὶ ἐπειδὴ πολλὰ πλοῖα ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ καλυπτόμενα ὑπὸ τῶν κυμάτων βυθίζεται, οὔκ εἰσι τὰ διαπερῶντα καὶ ἐπάνω τῶν κυμάτων διοδεύοντα καὶ εἰς λιμένα εἰρήνης καταντήσαντα; διὰ τοῦτο πίστεως πολλῆς καὶ μακροθυμίας καὶ ἀγῶνος καὶ ὑπομονῆς καὶ πόνων καὶ πείνης καὶ δίψης εἰς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὀξύτητος καὶ ἀναιδείας καὶ διακρίσεως καὶ συνέσεως πάντοτε χρεία. οἱ γὰρ πλεῖστοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἄνευ καμάτων καὶ ἀγώνων καὶ ἱδρώτων ἐπιτυχεῖν τῆς βασιλείας βούλονται, ὅπερ ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν. Ὥσπερ οὖν ἐν κόσμῳ ἀπέρχονταί τινες ἄνδρες πρός τινα πλούσιον ἐργάσασθαι εἰς θέρος ἢ εἰς ἕτερον ἔργον, ὅπως πορίσωνται ἃ χρῄζουσιν ἔχειν εἰς τὴν διατροφὴν αὐτῶν, εἰσὶ δέ τινες ἐν αὐτοῖς ὀκνηροὶ καὶ χαῦνοι καὶ ἀργοὶ μὴ κάμνοντες δεόντως μήτε ἁρμοζόντως ἐργαζόμενοι, οὗτοι μηδὲν κοπιάσαντες μήτε καμόντες εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ πλουσίου βούλονται τὸν μισθὸν ἐξ ἴσου λαβεῖν τοῖς ἀνδρείως καὶ ὀξέως καὶ ὅλῃ αὐτῶν καμοῦσιν ἰσχύϊ, ὡς ἤδη τὸ αὐτῶν ἔργον πεποιηκότες, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ἐπὰν ἀναγινώσκωμεν τὰς γραφάς, πῶς ὁ δεῖνα δίκαιος εὐηρέστησε τῷ θεῷ, πῶς φίλος καὶ συνόμιλος θεοῦ γέγονε, καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ πατέρες πῶς φίλοι καὶ κληρονόμοι θεοῦ γεγόνασι, πόσας θλίψεις ὑπέμειναν, πόσα διὰ τὸν θεὸν ἔπαθον, πόσα ἠνδραγάθησαν καὶ ἠγωνίσαντο, μακαρίζομεν αὐτοὺς καὶ τῶν ἴσων αὐτοῖς δωρεῶν καὶ ἀξιωμάτων τυχεῖν βουλόμεθα καὶ ἐπιθυμοῦμεν προθύμως λαβεῖν τὰ ἔνδοξα ἐκεῖνα χαρίσματα, ὑπερβαίνοντες αὐτῶν τοὺς πόνους καὶ ἀγῶνας καὶ τὰς θλίψεις καὶ τὰ παθήματα καὶ τὰς μὲν τιμὰς αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ ἀξιώματα. οἷα ἀπὸ θεοῦ κέκτηνται, προθύμως λαβεῖν θέλομεν, τοὺς δὲ καμάτους καὶ πόνους καὶ ἀγῶνας αὐτῶν οὐ καταδεχόμεθα. λέγω δέ σοι, ὅτι τοῦτο καὶ πᾶς τις ἀνθρώπων ἐπιθυμεῖ καὶ θέλει, καὶ πόρναι καὶ τελῶναι καὶ ἄδικοι ἄνθρωποι εὐκόλως βούλονται ἄνευ κόπων καὶ ἀγώνων τυχεῖν τῆς βασιλείας.

ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦτο ἐν μέσῳ πειρασμοὶ καὶ δοκιμασίαι πολλαὶ καὶ θλίψεις καὶ ἀγῶνες καὶ ἱδρῶτες πρόκεινται, ἵνα φανεροὶ γένωνται. τινὲς ἐξ ἀληθείας ἕως θανάτου ἐλθόντες ἐξ ὅλης προαιρέσεως καὶ δυνάμεως τὸν κύριον μόνον ἠγάπησαν καὶ οὐδὲν ἕτερον σὺν τῇ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀγάπῃ περιπόθητον ἔσχον. διὸ καὶ δικαίως εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν εἰσέρχονται, ἀρνησάμενοι ἑαυτοὺς κατὰ τὸν τοῦ κυρίου λόγον καὶ παρὰ τὴν ἰδίαν πνοὴν τὸν κύριον μόνον ἠγαπηκότες. διὸ καὶ ἄκροις δώροις οὐρανίοις τὴν ἄκραν ἀγάπην αὐτῶν ἀμειφθήσονται. Εἰς γὰρ τὰς θλίψεις καὶ παθήματα καὶ ὑπομονὴν καὶ πίστιν ἐγκεκρυμμέναι εἰσὶν αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων ἀγαθῶν ἀποκατάστασις, ὥσπερ ἐν τῷ ῥιπτομένῳ σίτῳ εἰς τὴν γῆν ὁ καρπός, ἢ δένδρῳ ἐπικεντριζομένῳ διὰ σήψεώς τινος καὶ ἀτιμίας διερχομένῳ καὶ τότε τοῦ ἐνδύματος τὴν εὐπρέπειαν καὶ τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὸν πολυπλασιάζοντα καρπὸν ἀναφαίνοντι. εἰ μὴ γὰρ δι' ἐκείνων τῶν ἀτιμίας ἀξίων καὶ ἀφανισμοῦ διῆλθον, οὐκ ἂν τὴν εὐπρέπειαν τῆς κοσμήσεως καὶ τὸ κάλλος τῆς θέας καὶ τὸν πλεονάζοντα καρπὸν ἀπεδείχθησαν ἔχειν. ὡς καὶ ὁ ἀπόστολος «διὰ πολλῶν θλίψεων» φησὶν «δυνάμεθα εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν», καὶ ὁ κύριος· ἐν τῇ ὑπομονῇ ὑμῶν κτήσασθε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν καὶ πάλιν· ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θλῖψιν ἕξετε. πόνου γὰρ καὶ σπουδῆς καὶ νήψεως καὶ πολλῆς προσοχῆς χρεία καὶ ὀξύτητος καὶ ἀναιδείας ἐν τῇ πρὸς κύριον αἰτήσει, εἰς τὸ δυνηθῆναι διεξελθεῖν τὰς τῶν γηΐνων ἐπιθυμιῶν παγίδας καὶ βρόχους τῶν ἡδονῶν καὶ καταιγίδας τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ τὰς τῶν πονηρῶν πνευμάτων ἐπαναστάσεις διαφυγεῖν καὶ γνῶναι καλῶς, ἐν ποίᾳ νήψει καὶ γοργότητι πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης οἱ ἅγιοι τὸν ἐπουράνιον θησαυρόν, τουτέστι τὴν τοῦ πνεύματος δύναμιν, ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἑαυτῶν ἐντεῦθεν ἐκτήσαντο, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀρραβὼν τῆς βασιλείας.

ὁ γὰρ μακάριος ἀπόστολος Παῦλος περὶ τούτου τοῦ ἐπουρανίου θησαυροῦ, τουτέστι τῆς χάριτος τοῦ πνεύματος, διηγούμενος καὶ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν τῶν θλίψεων ἐξαγορεύων, ἅμα δὲ ὑποδεικνύων, τί ὀφείλει ἕκαστος ζητεῖν ἐντεῦθεν καὶ τί ὀφείλει κτήσασθαι, λέγει· οἴδαμεν γὰρ ὅτι ἐὰν ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους καταλυθῇ, οἰκοδομὴν ἐκ θεοῦ ἔχομεν, οἰκίαν ἀχειροποίητον, αἰώνιον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. Ὀφείλει οὖν ἕκαστος ἀγωνίσασθαι καὶ σπουδάσαι διὰ πασῶν ἀρετῶν καὶ πιστεῦσαι, ἐντεῦθεν κτήσασθαι τὸν οἶκον ἐκεῖνον. ἐὰν γὰρ καταλυθῇ ἡμῶν ὁ οἶκος τοῦ σώματος, [οὐκ] ἔχομεν ἄλλον οἶκον, εἰς ὃν καταλύσει ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχή. εἴγε φησὶ καὶ ἐκδυσάμενοι οὐ γυμνοὶ εὑρεθησόμεθα, τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τῆς κοινωνίας καὶ ἀνακράσεως τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, εἰς ἣν μόνον ἡ πιστὴ ψυχὴ ἀναπαύεσθαι δύναται. διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οἱ ὄντες ἐν ἀληθείᾳ καὶ δυνάμει Χριστιανοὶ θαρροῦσι καὶ χαίρουσιν ἐξερχόμενοι τῆς σαρκός, ὅτι ἔχουσιν ἐκεῖνον τὸν οἶκον τὸν ἀχειροποίητον, ὅς ἐστιν οἶκος ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῦ πνεύματος δύναμις. κἂν καταλυθῇ οὖν ἡ τοῦ σώματος οἰκία, οὐ φοβοῦνται· ἔχουσι γὰρ τὴν ἐπουράνιον τοῦ πνεύματος οἰκίαν καὶ τὴν δόξαν ἐκείνην τὴν ἄφθαρτον, ἥτις δόξα ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς ἀναστάσεως οἰκοδομήσει καὶ δοξάσει καὶ τὸν οἶκον τοῦ σώματος, ὥς φησιν ὁ ἀπόστολος· ὁ ἐγείρας Χριστὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ζωοποιήσει καὶ τὰ θνητὰ σώματα ὑμῶν διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν, καὶ πάλιν· «ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ φανερωθῇ ἐν τῇ θνητῇ σαρκὶ ἡμῶν» καὶ ἵνα φησὶ καταποθῇ τὸ θνητὸν ὑπὸ τῆς ζωῆς. Ἀγωνισώμεθα οὖν διὰ τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐναρέτου πολιτείας ἐντεῦθεν κτήσασθαι τὸ ἔνδυμα ἐκεῖνο, ἵνα μὴ ἐκδυσάμενοι τὸ σῶμα γυμνοὶ εὑρεθῶμεν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ὃ δοξάσει ἡμῶν ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τὴν σάρκα. ἕκαστος γὰρ ὅσον κατηξιώθη διὰ τῆς πίστεως καὶ σπουδῆς μέτοχος πνεύματος ἁγίου γενέσθαι, τοσοῦτον ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ δοξασθήσεται αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ σῶμα.

ὃ γὰρ νῦν ἐναπεθησαύρισεν ἔνδον ἡ ψυχή, τότε ἀποκαλυφθήσεται καὶ φανήσεται ἔξωθεν τοῦ σώματος. ὥσπερ τὰ δένδρα παρεληλυθότα τὸν χειμῶνα ἐπιθαλψάσης δυνάμεως ἀοράτου ἔκ τε τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἀνέμων ἔσωθεν ἐκφύει καὶ ἐκβάλλει ὥσπερ ἐνδύματα φύλλα καὶ ἄνθη καὶ καρπούς, ὁμοίως τὰ τοῦ χόρτου ἄνθη ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἔνδοθεν ἐκ τῶν κόλπων τῆς γῆς προέρχονται, καὶ σκέπεται καὶ ἀμφιέννυται ἡ γῆ καὶ ὁ χόρτος ὡς τὰ κρίνα, περὶ ὧν ὁ κύριος εἶπεν ὅτι οὐδὲ Σολομὼν ἐν πάσῃ τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ περιεβάλετο ὡς ἓν τούτων (ταῦτα γὰρ πάντα ὑποδείγματα καὶ τύποι καὶ εἰκόνες εἰσὶ τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει), οὕτως γὰρ πάσαις ταῖς φιλοθέοις ψυχαῖς, τουτέστι τοῖς ἀληθινοῖς Χριστιανοῖς, ἔστι μὴν πρῶτος Ξανθικὸς ὁ καλούμενος Ἀπρίλλιος, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἡ ἡμέρα τῆς ἀναστάσεως, καὶ διὰ τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ ἡλίου τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἔνδοθεν ἐξέρχεται δόξα τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, καλύπτουσα καὶ σκεπάζουσα τὰ σώματα τῶν ἁγίων, ἥνπερ δόξαν εἶχον ἔνδον ἐγκεκρυμμένην ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς. ὅπερ γὰρ ἔχει τις νῦν, αὐτὸ προέρχεται ἔξωθεν τοῦ σώματος τότε, «οὗτος» φησὶν «ὁ μὴν πρῶτος ἔστω τοῖς μησὶ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ»· οὗτος χαρὰν προφέρει πάσῃ τῇ κτίσει· οὗτος ἀμφιέννυσι τὰ γυμνὰ δένδρα, τὴν γῆν διανοίγων· οὗτος πᾶσι τοῖς ζῴοις χαρὰν προφέρει· οὗτος τὴν ἱλαρότητα πᾶσι δεικνύει· οὗτός ἐστι τῶν Χριστιανῶν μὴν πρῶτος Ξανθικός, ὅς ἐστιν ὁ τῆς ἀναστάσεως καιρός, ἐν ᾧ δοξασθήσονται τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν διὰ τοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ὄντος ἐν αὐτοῖς φωτὸς ἀρρήτου, τουτέστι τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ πνεύματος, ὅπερ ἔσται αὐτοῖς τότε ἔνδυμα, βρῶσις, πόσις, ἀγαλλίασις, χαρά, εἰρήνη, ἄμφιον, ζωὴ αἰώνιος. πᾶσα γὰρ καλλονὴ λαμπρότητος καὶ ὡραιότητος οὐρανίου εἰς αὐτοὺς τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς θεότητος γίνεται τότε, ὅπερ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν δέξασθαι κατηξιώθησαν. πῶς τοίνυν οὐκ ἕκαστος ἡμῶν ὀφείλει πιστεῦσαι καὶ ἀγωνίσασθαι καὶ σπουδάσαι ἐν πάσῃ ἐναρέτῳ πολιτείᾳ καὶ προσδοκῆσαι ἐν ἐλπίδι καὶ ὑπομονῇ πολλῇ νῦν καταξιωθῆναι τὴν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δύναμιν λαβεῖν καὶ δόξαν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἔνδον ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἵνα τότε λυομένων τῶν σωμάτων ἔχωμεν ὃ ἀμφιάσει καὶ ζωοποιήσει ἡμᾶς; «εἴγε» φησὶν «ἐκδυσάμενοι οὐ γυμνοὶ εὑρεθησόμεθα», καὶ «ζωοποιήσει τὰ θνητὰ σώματα ἡμῶν διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος ἐν ἡμῖν». Μωϋσῆς γὰρ ὁ μακάριος ὑπέδειξε τὸν τύπον διὰ τῆς ἐπὶ τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ἐπικειμένης τοῦ πνεύματος δόξης, εἰς ἣν οὐδεὶς ἀνθρώπων ἀτενίσαι ἠδύνατο, πῶς ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει τῶν δικαίων δοξασθήσεται τὰ σώματα τῶν ἀξίων, ἥνπερ δόξαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἔνδοθεν ἐπὶ τῷ ἔσω ἀνθρώπῳ ψυχαὶ ἁγίων καὶ πιστῶν καταξιοῦνται ἔχειν· «ἡμεῖς» γάρ φησι «πάντες ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ», τουτέστι τῷ ἔσω ἀνθρώπῳ, «τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμεθα, τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμενοι ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν», ὁμοίως πάλιν· τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας καὶ τεσσαράκοντα νύκτας ἄρτον οὐκ ἔφαγεν, ὡς γέγραπται, καὶ ὕδωρ οὐκ ἔπιεν. ἀδύνατον δὲ τὴν τοῦ σώματος φύσιν ἄνευ ἄρτου τοσοῦτον ζῆσαι, εἰ μὴ τροφῆς ἑτέρας πνευματικῆς μετελάμβανεν, ἧσπερ τροφῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἁγίων ψυχαὶ ἀοράτως ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος μεταλαμβάνουσι. κατὰ δύο οὖν τρόπους ὁ μακάριος Μωϋσῆς ὑπέδειξεν, ἥνπερ ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει ἕξουσι δόξαν φωτὸς καὶ τροφὴν νοερὰν τοῦ πνεύματος οἱ ἀληθινοὶ Χριστιανοί, ἧς καὶ κρυπτῶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν καταξιοῦνται· διὸ καὶ τότε ἐπὶ τοῦ σώματος αὐτῶν φανερωθήσεται.

ἣν γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἔχουσιν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς οἱ ἅγιοι δόξαν, ὡς προείρηται, ἐκείνη καλύψει καὶ ἀμφιάσει καὶ τὰ γυμνὰ σώματα καὶ εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἁρπάσει, καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν σώματι καὶ ψυχῇ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ εἰς αἰῶνας σὺν τῷ κυρίῳ ἀναπαυσόμεθα. τὸν γὰρ Ἀδὰμ κτίσας ὁ θεὸς οὐ κατεσκεύασεν αὐτῷ σωματικὰς πτέρυγας ὡς τοῖς πετεινοῖς, τὰς τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου πτέρυγας προευτρεπίσας αὐτῷ, τουτέστιν ἃς μέλλει διδόναι αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει, ἵνα αὐτὸν κουφίσωσι καὶ ἁρπάσωσιν ἔνθα τὸ πνεῦμα βούλεται· ἃς πτέρυγας ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ψυχαὶ ἁγίων καταξιοῦνται ἔχειν εἰς τὸ οὐράνιον φρόνημα τῷ νῷ ἀνιπτάμεναι. Χριστιανῶν γὰρ κόσμος ἕτερός ἐστι καὶ ἄλλη τράπεζα καὶ ἄλλα ἐνδύματα καὶ ἄλλη ἀπόλαυσις καὶ ἄλλη κοινωνία καὶ ἄλλο φρόνημα· διὸ καὶ κρείττους πάντων ἀνθρώπων τυγχάνουσι. τούτων δὲ τὴν δύναμιν νῦν ἔνδον ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς καταξιοῦνται λαβεῖν διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος· διὸ καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει τὰ σώματα καταξιωθήσονται τῶν αἰωνίων ἐκείνων τοῦ πνεύματος ἀγαθῶν καὶ τῇ δόξῃ ἐκείνῃ ἀνακραθήσονται, ἧς ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν αἱ ψυχαὶ αὐτῶν τὴν πεῖραν ἐδέξαντο. Ὀφείλει τοίνυν ἕκαστος ἡμῶν ἀγωνίσασθαι καὶ πονῆσαι καὶ σπουδάσαι ἐν πάσαις ἀρεταῖς καὶ πιστεῦσαι καὶ ζητῆσαι παρὰ κυρίου ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς δόξης ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μέτοχον γενέσθαι τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἁγιότητι τοῦ πνεύματος τὴν ψυχὴν κοινωνῆσαι, ἵνα καθαρισθέντες τῶν ῥύπων τῆς κακίας ἔχωμεν κἂν τῇ ἀναστάσει ὃ ἀμφιάσει γυμνὰ τὰ σώματα ἡμῶν ἀνιστάμενα καὶ τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην ἐνδύσει καὶ ζωοποιήσει καὶ εἰς αἰῶνας ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ ἀναπαύσει τῶν οὐρανῶν. μέλλει γὰρ ὁ Χριστὸς ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν κατέρχεσθαι καὶ πάντα τὰ φῦλα τοῦ Ἀδὰμ ἀναστήσει τοὺς ἀπ' αἰῶνος κοιμηθέντας, κατὰ τὰς ἁγίας γραφάς· καὶ εἰς δύο μέρη στήσει πάντας, καὶ τοὺς ἔχοντας τὸ ἴδιον σημεῖον, τουτέστι τὴν σφραγῖδα τοῦ πνεύματος, τούτους ὡς ἰδίους προσφωνήσας ἐκ δεξιῶν στήσει· «τὰ ἐμὰ» γάρ φησι «πρόβατα τῆς ἐμῆς φωνῆς ἀκούουσι» καὶ «γινώσκω τὰ ἐμὰ καὶ γινώσκομαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν». καὶ τότε δόξῃ θείᾳ τὰ σώματα τούτων περιβληθήσονται ἐκ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔργων, καὶ δόξης πνεύματος ἔσονται πλήρεις, ἧς ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν εἶχον ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς. καὶ οὕτω δοξασθέντες ἐν τῷ θείῳ φωτὶ καὶ εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἁρπαχθέντες εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον, πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα, σὺν αὐτῷ βασιλεύοντες εἰς τοὺς ἀπεράντους αἰῶνας.

ἀμήν.

Scripture echoes

↩Gen.4.12 — When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
↩Luke.22.31 — Simon, Simon—look—Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat.
↩Phil.3.20 — For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
↩John.3.3 — Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
↩John.1.12-John.1.13;1John.3.1-1John.3.2;John.3.3 — But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God—to those who believed in his name. John.1.13 — who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 1John.3.1 — See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. For this reason the world does not know us: it did not know him. 1John.3.2 — Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. We know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. John.3.3 — Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
↩John.5.24;1John.3.14 — Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come into judgment but has passed from death to life. 1John.3.14 — We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. The one who does not love remains in death.
↩Rom.12.2 — And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
↩2Cor.5.17;Gal.6.15 — So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. Gal.6.15 — For neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
↩1Cor.2.12 — Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God, so that we may understand the things freely given to us by God.
↩Rom.7.22;Eph.3.16;2Cor.4.16 — For I delight in the law of God, according to the inner person. Eph.3.16 — that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person 2Cor.4.16 — Therefore we do not lose heart; even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
↩2Cor.12.4;1Pet.1.8 — that he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a person to speak. 1Pet.1.8 — Though you have not seen him, you love him; and though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy.
↩Luke.9.62;Gen.19.26 — Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Gen.19.26 — But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
↩Luke.9.23;Matt.16.24;Mark.8.34 — Then he said to all, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." Matt.16.24 — Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mark.8.34 — And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
↩Luke.14.26 — If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be my disciple.
↩Matt.13.25 — but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away
↩Matt.16.24;Mark.8.34;Luke.9.23 — Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mark.8.34 — And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Luke.9.23 — Then he said to all, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."
↩Ps.53.6;Ps.54.5 — There they were in great dread—dread that had no cause—because God scattered the bones of the one who encamped against you. You put them to shame, because God rejected them. Ps.54.5 — For strangers have risen against me, and ruthless men have sought my life; they have not set God before them. Selah.
↩Eph.5.4;Col.3.8 — and there must be no obscenity, or foolish talk, or coarse jesting—these are not fitting—but rather thanksgiving. Col.3.8 — But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
↩Matt.4.10;Deut.6.13 — Then Jesus said to him, 'Go away, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve."' Deut.6.13 — You shall fear the LORD your God, and serve him, and swear by his name.
↩Mark.8.34;Matt.16.24 — And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Matt.16.24 — Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
↩1John.5.3;Matt.11.30 — For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. Matt.11.30 — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
↩Mark.8.35;Matt.16.25 — For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. Matt.16.25 — For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
↩Rom.8.17 — And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
↩2Tim.2.15;Jas.1.12 — Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Jas.1.12 — Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
↩1Cor.9.24-1Cor.9.27;2Tim.4.7 — Do you not know that those who run in a stadium all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 1Cor.9.25 — Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 1Cor.9.26 — So then I run not as one who is uncertain; I box not as one beating the air. 1Cor.9.27 — But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, so that after preaching to others, I myself might not be disqualified. 2Tim.4.7 — I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
↩Eph.6.12 — For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
↩Acts.14.22 — strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to remain in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
↩Jas.2.23;2Chr.20.7;Isa.41.8 — and the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness," and he was called friend of God. 2Chr.20.7 — Did you not, O God, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it to the offspring of Abraham your friend forever? Isa.41.8 — But you, Israel my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham my friend—
↩Rom.8.17;Gal.4.7 — And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Gal.4.7 — So you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
↩Matt.21.31-Matt.21.32 — Which of the two did the will of the father? They say, 'The last.' Jesus says to them, 'Truly I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go before you into the kingdom of God.' Matt.21.32 — For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And you, when you saw it, did not even afterward change your minds so as to believe him.
↩Matt.16.24;Mark.8.34;Luke.9.23 — Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mark.8.34 — And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Luke.9.23 — Then he said to all, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."
↩John.12.24;1Cor.15.36-1Cor.15.38 — Truly, truly, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 1Cor.15.36 — Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 1Cor.15.37 — And what you sow is not the body that will be, but a bare kernel—perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 1Cor.15.38 — But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each of the seeds its own body.
↩Acts.14.22 — strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to remain in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
↩Luke.21.19 — By your endurance you will gain your lives.
↩John.16.33 — I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart — I have overcome the world.
↩Luke.11.8 — I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his shameless persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
↩2Cor.1.22;Eph.1.14 — who also sealed us and gave the guarantee of the Spirit in our hearts Eph.1.14 — who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
↩Matt.6.20;Col.2.3 — But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. Col.2.3 — in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
↩2Cor.5.1 — For we know that if our earthly tent-house is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
↩Matt.6.29;Luke.12.27 — Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. Luke.12.27 — Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these.
↩Exod.12.2 — This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it is the first for you among the months of the year.
↩2Cor.5.3 — since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.
↩Rom.8.11 — And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
↩Exod.34.29-Exod.34.35;2Cor.3.7 — And it came to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai—with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand as he came down from the mountain—that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he spoke with Him. Exod.34.30 — When Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. Exod.34.31 — Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. Exod.34.32 — Afterward all the sons of Israel drew near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. Exod.34.33 — When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Exod.34.34 — Whenever Moses went before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. Then he would go out and speak to the Israelites what he was commanded. Exod.34.35 — The Israelites would see Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face was shining; and Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with him. 2Cor.3.7 — Now if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory of his face—a glory that was being set aside—
↩2Cor.3.18 — And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
↩Exod.34.28;Deut.9.9 — And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. Deut.9.9 — When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.
↩Deut.8.3;Matt.4.4;1Cor.10.3 — He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, in order to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD does man live. Matt.4.4 — But he answered, "It is written: 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" 1Cor.10.3 — and all ate the same spiritual food
↩1Thess.4.17 — Then we who are alive, who are left behind, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
↩Rom.7.22;2Cor.4.16;Eph.3.16 — For I delight in the law of God, according to the inner person. 2Cor.4.16 — Therefore we do not lose heart; even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Eph.3.16 — that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person
↩2Cor.5.2-2Cor.5.4;Rom.8.11 — Indeed, in this body we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. 2Cor.5.3 — since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 2Cor.5.4 — For indeed, while we are in this tent, we groan under the weight of it — because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Rom.8.11 — And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
↩Matt.25.31-Matt.25.33 — When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Matt.25.32 — And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Matt.25.33 — And he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at his left.
↩John.10.27 — My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
↩John.10.14 — I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me.
↩Eph.1.13;2Cor.1.22 — In him you also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation—in him, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. 2Cor.1.22 — who also sealed us and gave the guarantee of the Spirit in our hearts
↩1Thess.4.17 — Then we who are alive, who are left behind, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
↩2Tim.2.12;Rev.22.5 — If we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us. Rev.22.5 — And there will be no more night, and they will have no need of the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

Notes

1 ↩σινίον / σινιάζειν is the Lucan image of sifting wheat; kept as 'sieve' / 'sift' for continuity with the explicit Luke citation in s4.
2 ↩προσκόπτει / προσκόπτειν ποιεῖ can mean 'bump/jolt' in the sieve image and also 'make stumble'; both senses are active in the sentence.
3 ↩The quoted clause adapts Cain's sentence (s5) into a collective spiritual verdict under Satan's sifting; not a pure Genesis lemma.
4 ↩λογικὸν κακίας: 'rational/intelligent darkness of wickedness'—darkness that thinks and reasons, not mere physical night.
5 ↩σχήμασι καὶ τύποις: outer forms/appearances and patterns/figures—external religious show as opposed to interior change (ἀλλοίωσις).
6 ↩οὐρανίῳ ἔρωτι rendered as 'heavenly longing' to keep the passionate force of eros without eroticizing the register.
7 ↩Greek τιτρώσκω / τραῦμα language ("wounded") is the mystical wound of divine ἔρως, not mere injury; retained as "wounded" for fidelity to the image.
8 ↩κατανύσσονται rendered as "pierced with compunction" to keep the durable term and the Greek sense of heart-pricking.
9 ↩The cross saying includes καθ' ἡμέραν (daily, Lukan) and χαίρων (with joy), a Macarian expansion not in the bare Gospel wording.
10 ↩τῷ σπείροντι τὰ μάταια rendered "the one who sows what is empty/vain"; likely the devil as sower of vanities (cf. enemy who sows weeds), kept non-glossed as personified agent.
11 ↩ἀποστρέφεται ... τῆς βασιλείας: middle/passive of turning away from the kingdom; rendered as active moral turning by one's own will, which fits the causal datives that follow.
12 ↩οὐκ ἀρνεῖται could mean 'does not deny himself' or 'does not refuse the thing loved'; in context of s1's self-denial and the object of ἀγαπᾷ, both senses are near; rendered as refusal of the loved wrong.
13 ↩Source reads μεχρὶ; treated as μέχρι ('as far as').
14 ↩εἰς συμπληγάδας: not the mythic Clashing Rocks, but physical clashing/blows; confirmed by the next section on wounds and fighting members.
15 ↩Quoted span matches LXX Psalm language about scattering the bones of those who please men (ἀνθρωπαρέσκων).
16 ↩τοῖς θελήμασι τοῦ νοὸς: rendered as 'the wishes of its own mind'—the soul's self-willed impulses, not a formal faculty psychology.
17 ↩βαρεῖ εἰς τὸ ἀγαθόν: rendered 'weighs toward the good,' then corrected by μᾶλλον δέ to the opposite image of lightening; the Greek pivots from the weight-metaphor of worldly love to love's easing of the struggle.
18 ↩ψυχήν in the fire parable is rendered 'life' (the natural rescue idiom); the next section continues the parable with spiritual force already prepared by earlier uses of soul.
19 ↩παρ' ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπήσας: 'loving something beside/other than himself' (attachments preferred over saving his own life), not self-love.
20 ↩ψυχή here is the life saved in the physical parable; Macarius also intends the soul, as the next sentence and the homily's wider argument make clear.
21 ↩ἀλλόφυλοι: 'foreigners' / 'aliens,' often with the biblical sense of hostile outsiders; the next section equates them with the spirits of wickedness.
22 ↩χαύνωσις: soft laxity / slackness of will; ἀνανδρία: unmanliness, failure of courage.
23 ↩μὴ scopes over the coordinated ideal: following the commandments, self-denial, and loving the Lord alone; ἀλλά marks the contrary: voluntary bondage to earthly things.
24 ↩μονογενῆ υἱόν / τοῦ μονογενοῦς: rendered 'only son' for natural English; the Greek term is the same as for 'only-begotten' elsewhere.
25 ↩ἀναιδείας here is not moral shamelessness but bold, importunate persistence (a Macarian/ascetical sense also used of prayer in the neighboring section).
26 ↩The Greek μέν at the end of this sentence continues into s7 (μέν ... δέ). The translation keeps the section's sentence boundary and completes the thought in s7.
27 ↩ὑπερβαίνοντες is rendered 'skipping over' (omitting/passing by their hardships), which fits the lazy-worker analogy better than 'surpassing'.
28 ↩Continues the μέν clause begun at the end of s6; δὲ contrasts acceptance of honors with refusal of the saints' hardships.
29 ↩φανεροὶ γένωνται has no explicit subject in the Greek; context points to those who truly love God (see s2), not merely the trials themselves.
30 ↩παρὰ τὴν ἰδίαν πνοήν: παρὰ with the accusative here means 'beyond / more than' their own life-breath, not 'beside' in a weak sense.
31 ↩ἀποκατάστασις τῶν ἐπουρανίων ἀγαθῶν rendered as 'restoration of the heavenly goods'; could also be heard as restitution/fulfillment of promised heavenly goods.
32 ↩τοῦ ἐνδύματος τὴν εὐπρέπειαν: 'beauty of its covering' (foliage/new growth clothing the tree after grafting and apparent decay).
33 ↩The apostolic saying tracks Acts 14:22, but Macarius has δυνάμεθα ('we can/are able') and 'kingdom of heaven' rather than the more common δεῖ ('we must') and 'kingdom of God'.
34 ↩ἀναιδείας in petition is the holy 'shamelessness' of importunate prayer (cf. Luke 11:8), not moral shamelessness.
35 ↩ἀρραβὼν rendered as 'pledge' (earnest/down payment) of the kingdom, the standard Pauline sense for the Spirit.
36 ↩Source prints [οὐκ] in brackets as an editorial insertion. The negative is required for the argument (otherwise the soul would already have another house); translated with the corrected reading.
37 ↩κοινωνία rendered as communion (participation/fellowship with the Spirit), not Eucharistic Communion; ἀνάκρασις as mingling/interpenetration of Spirit and soul.
38 ↩καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ὃ δοξάσει... taken as part of the dreaded outcome (found naked and with no glorying garment for the flesh), not as a separate independent claim.
39 ↩Ξανθικός (Xanthikos) is the Macedonian month name corresponding to April; Macarius uses the spring month as a type of the resurrection day.
40 ↩πᾶσα καλλονὴ... εἰς αὐτοὺς τὸ πνεῦμα... γίνεται: the Spirit becomes (or is made to be) for them the whole beauty of heavenly radiance; rendered as the Spirit becoming that beauty for them, not as beauty becoming the Spirit.
41 ↩τροφὴν νοεράν rendered as 'spiritual food' (intelligible/noetic nourishment of the Spirit), not 'mental food,' to preserve Macarius's sense of Spirit-given sustenance.
42 ↩πτέρυγας τοῦ πνεύματος is metaphorical: spiritual capacity for ascent, not literal wings; φρόνημα is rendered 'way of thinking' rather than bare 'mindset'.
43 ↩κοινωνία rendered 'communion' (shared spiritual participation); not necessarily Eucharistic here, though parallel with τράπεζα ('table') can support a wider sacramental reading.
44 ↩ἀνακραθήσονται: 'will be blended/mixed into' that glory (union by mingling), not merely 'clothed with' it.
45 ↩ἐκ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔργων: 'from/out of their good works'—glory is associated with works as fruit/evidence, while the glory itself is of the Spirit already possessed in the soul.

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