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Chapter 93FeofanPisma.1.93

Письмо 93

The Discipline of the Inner Cell

The author encourages the recipient to maintain humility and constant vigilance in their inner life as they prepare for the final judgment.

I'm glad you're beginning to enter your cell. Hurry. But make sure you don't coddle self-conceited daydreaming, and don't drive away thoughts of self-abasement.1 That is the most fitting clothing for you. Beat your soul more often, so it doesn't get puffed up over anything—for there's nothing to get puffed up about.2 Stop a moment and reckon what's been done, and whether any real good comes out of what's been done—or is it all tinsel? Lord, have mercy! It's all the same: you'll have to stand at judgment eventually, where everything will be reckoned—word, deed, glance, and thought.✦ If you do this as you should, you'll meet many promptings to tears and compunction, not to self-conceit. It is deeply significant that a person is surrounded by circumstances that can either lift him to paradise or cast him down to hell. And this is true for everyone. So you must stay alert.3 Watch at every hour.✦

True Wisdom vs. Vain Philosophy

The author contrasts the simple, obedient acceptance of divine truth with the empty, dark nature of worldly philosophical systems.

N is speaking with you in confidence. N. Teach him. You don't need to be particularly clever. Tell him the truth simply, as you feel it in your heart. If he starts philosophizing, tell him to go to the philosophers for his clever reasoning.4 In matters of faith and salvation, what's required isn't philosophy, but a simple, obedient acceptance of what has been taught.5 Let him accept everything in silence. That little mind needs to be trampled underfoot — just like Michael the Archangel tramples Satan in the painting.6 Michael the Archangel is the mind obedient to God's truth, and Satan is the rebellious, self-wise mind — the mind from which come all revolutions, both in families and in the Church.7 . . Don't let him think that there's no philosophy in the realm of faith. . . No: the whole body of the truths of faith is the most harmonious, lofty, consoling, and inspiring philosophy — a real system such as no system of philosophy presents. But you can't rise to the contemplation of this system all at once. You need to receive one truth at a time, purely and as they're taught, without idle speculation, and keep them in your heart.8 . . Once all the truths are gathered, the mind, sharpened by prayer, will see their order and take delight in them.9 This wisdom has been hidden from the ages!✦ Any kind of nonsense, for example, even Hegelian nonsense — after all, people do listen patiently to the end, even if they understand nothing of it. Let him treat God's truths the same way. The difference will be that here every truth is intelligible, and in the end a great light will shine in the soul, a light without equal. But there, both along the way and at the end, everything is utterly joyless darkness.10

Read the original Russian

Рад, что вы начинаете входить в свою келлию. Поспешите. Да смотрите, не приголубливайте самомнительной мечтательности и не гоните прочь помышлений самоуничижения. Это самая приличная вам одежда. Почаще бейте душу свою, чтоб не вознеслась чем либо, ибо не чем. Станьте-ка, да рассчитайте, что сделано и из сделаннаго выходит ли какой прок, или все мишура? Господи, помилуй! Все же одно: надо становиться когда либо на суд, где все будет рассчитано, и слово, и дело, и взгляд, и мысль.

Если будете делать сие, как должно, много встречать будете побуждений к плачу и сокрушению, а не к самомнению. Куда как многозначительно окружен человек такою обстановкою, которая возводит до рая и низводит до ада! И это всякий! Стало быть, ухо-то надо держать остро. Бдите на всякое время!

С вами с доверием беседует N. N. Учите его. Хитрости большой не нужно. Говорите ему истину просто, как содержите ее сердцем. Если начнет умствовать, скажите, чтоб шел к философам за умствованиями. В делах веры и спасения не философия требуется, а простое, покорное приятие преподаннаго. Пусть все, молча, принимает.

Умишко надо под ноги стоптать, вот как на картине Михаил Архангел топчет сатану. Михаил Архангел, это – ум, покорный истине Божией, а сатана, это – ум возмутительный, суемудренный, от котораго все революции и в семействах, и в Церкви. . . Пусть не думает, что в области веры нет философии. . . Нет, совокупность истин веры есть самая стройная, возвышенная, утешительная и воодушевительная философия, система настоящая, какой не представляет ни одна система философии.

Только до созерцания сей системы нельзя взойти вдруг. Надо принимать истину за истиною чисто, как преподается, без суемудрия, и слагать их в сердце. . . Когда соберутся все истины, тогда сознание, молитвою изощренное, узрит строй их и будет ими наслаждаться. Эта премудрость – от века сокровенная! Какия-нибудь бредни, напр. , хоть Гегелевския, ведь слушают же с терпением до конца, хотя ничего не понимают в них.

Пусть так поступит в отношении к истинам Божиим. Разница будет та, что здесь всякая истина понятна, а в конце воссияет в душе свет великий, которому нет подобнаго. А там и в продолжении, и в конце – все тьма пребезотрадная.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Matt.12.36 — But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they will give an account for it on the day of judgment.
  2. ↩Mark.13.33 — Be on the alert, keep watch, and pray; for you do not know when the time is.
  3. ↩1Cor.2.7;Col.1.26;Rom.16.25 — But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom that God foreordained before the ages for our glory. Col.1.26 — the mystery that has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now it has been revealed to his saints Rom.16.25 — Now to the One who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages,

Notes

  1. 1 ↩самоуничижение is the ascetic discipline of self-abasement / self-humbling; rendered as 'self-abasement' to keep the technical force. приголубливайте is vivid: 'coddle/nurse/pet' rather than a flat 'indulge.'
  2. 2 ↩ибо не чем is elliptical: 'for [there is] nothing [by which one could rightly be exalted].' Rendered as 'for there's nothing to get puffed up about.'
  3. 3 ↩«Ухо-то надо держать остро» is an idiomatic warning: stay alert / keep your ears open; rendered with the idiomatic image rather than a flat paraphrase.
  4. 4 ↩умствовать / умствования: speculative, self-willed intellectualizing, not philosophy as a discipline in the positive sense.
  5. 5 ↩преподаннаго: what has been taught/handed on (pre-reform spelling of преподанного); rendered as 'what has been taught'.
  6. 6 ↩Умишко is a pejorative diminutive of ум: a petty, self-important intellect, not the mind as such.
  7. 7 ↩Суемудренный is retained as 'self-wise' (vain, presumptuous reasoning), not merely 'clever' or 'philosophical'.
  8. 8 ↩суемудрие rendered as 'idle speculation' (vain, self-willed cleverness), not mere curiosity.
  9. 9 ↩сознание rendered as 'mind' (conscious spiritual awareness); изощренное as 'sharpened' (made keen/refined by prayer).
  10. 10 ↩«там» continues the contrast with empty human systems (e.g. the Hegelian nonsense of the prior section), not with divine truths.

Letters on the Christian Life companion

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