To this the teacher replies to him: "If this is so, then do not show me the stone. My life is stained by many misdeeds; besides, my eyes, as you have said, are not well. Nevertheless, I believe your words and will not hesitate to report it to the prince."

Coming to Joasaph, the tutor told him everything in detail. The prince, having listened to him, felt in his heart a joyful and pleasant feeling, and, as if inspired in his soul by God, ordered this holy man to be brought in as soon as possible.

When Barlaam went in to the king's son and gave him a proper greeting, he invited the holy man to sit down. Upon the departure of the tutor, Joasaph said to the elder: "Show me this precious stone, about which, as my tutor said, you tell something unusual and amazing." Barlaam began his conversation with him thus: "It would be unjust, O king, that I should tell false and superfluous things about a subject that surpasses even your glory in its glory. Everything that has been reported to you about me is true, true, and indubitable. But if I am not first convinced of your prudence, I cannot reveal the mystery to you, for the Lord says: A sower went out to sow. And while he was sowing, some fell by the wayside, and birds flew in and pecked at them. Some fell on stony places, where there was little earth, and soon sprang up, because the earth was not deep, but when the sun rose, it withered, and, as it had no root, withered. Some fell into thorns, and thorns grew up and choked him. And some fell on good ground and bore fruit; one a hundredfold, and another sixty, and another thirty (Matt. 13:4-9).

If your heart also turns out to be fertile ground, then I will try to plant the Divine seed in you and reveal the great mystery. If your heart represents stony or thorny ground or a path trampled under foot by all, then it is better not to plant the saving seed on it at all and not to throw it to be plundered by birds and beasts. But I hope for the best, I hope that you are worthy to accept salvation; therefore you will see this priceless stone, and thanks to its brilliance you can also become bright and bear a hundredfold fruit. For your sake I have undertaken this work and have come a long way to show you what you have not seen and to teach you what you have never heard."

Joasaph replied: "I, venerable elder, burn with an irrepressible, passionate desire to hear some new good words, and a fire burns in my heart that burns me - so I want to resolve my doubts. Until now, I have not met a single person who could give me a word of salvation. And I hope that this word would not have had the same fate as that which fell on stony and thorny ground and was plundered by birds. I would have accepted it wisely and would have been able to preserve it. If you can help me here in any way, then do not hide it from me, but tell me. As soon as I heard that you had come from a distant land, a joyful feeling and hope arose in my soul, a hope that I would have the opportunity to learn from you what I wanted. Therefore I ordered you to be brought to me, and received you kindly as someone close to me or of the same age, hoping that I would not be mistaken in my expectations."

Then Barlaam said: "In this case you acted beautifully and worthy of your royal greatness, you did not succumb to the surrounding insignificance, but frankly hoped. There was once a great and glorious king. One day, when he rode in a golden chariot with a retinue befitting royal honor, he met two men dressed in dirty and torn rags, with pale and emaciated faces. The king knew them to be fat, but they exhausted their bodies by fasting. Seeing them, he got down from the chariot and fell to the ground before them, greeting them. The nobles and nobles who accompanied him were displeased with this, believing that he was not acting according to the royal dignity, but not daring to blame him, they asked his brother to tell the king not to humiliate the royal crown. When he told his brother about this and rebuked his undue humiliation, the king gave him an answer that his brother did not understand.

It was the custom of this king that when he pronounced a sentence of death against someone, he sent heralds to the door of the condemned man with a trumpet specially designed for this purpose, by the sound of which everyone was informed that so-and-so was sentenced to death. When evening came, the king sent to blow the said trumpet at his brother's door. The latter, hearing the sound of the deadly trumpet, despaired of his salvation, and spent the whole night writing a will concerning his property. At dawn, dressed in black mourning clothes, he sets off with his wife and children, weeping and sobbing, to the doors of the palace. Bringing him into the palace and seeing him in such grief, the king said: "Oh, mad! If you are so afraid of a herald sent by your half-brother of equal rank, of whom you are sure that you have done nothing wrong to him, how can you reproach me for humbly greeting the heralds of my God, who proclaim to me death and a terrible stand before the Lord, before Whom I feel myself to have sinned much and grievously? Therefore I will also accuse those who incited you to reproach me, that they were mad rather than I."

Having thus given his brother a useful lesson, the king sent him home. In the meantime, he ordered four wooden boxes to be made. Having gilded two of them on all sides and filled them with the stinking bones of the dead, he locked them with golden hooks. And the rest, smeared with pitch and asphalt, he filled with precious stones, pearls and various fragrant substances. Tying them with hair ropes, he summoned the nobles who had condemned him for meeting the men mentioned, and placed four boxes before them, that they might appreciate the dignity of each. The nobles determined that the two gilded boxes were very valuable, because they probably contained royal crowns and royal belts, and those smeared with asphalt and tar, they said, were of little and miserable value. Then the king said to them, "I knew that you would say this. With your outer eyes you pay attention and value only the outward appearance, but you should not do so: you should look with your inner eyes at the inner value or invalue."

And he ordered the gilded boxes to be opened. A terrible stench wafted from there, and the most unpleasant sight presented itself to their eyes. "This is the likeness of people dressed in expensive and shining clothes, proud of their glory and power, but inside they are stinking, like a corpse, because of their evil deeds," said the king. After that, he ordered to open the boxes, smeared with tar and asphalt! Then a beautiful view presented itself to all present, and incense spread around. The king spoke to them and said, "Do you know what these boxes are like? Poor, dressed in wretched clothes. Seeing their appearance, you considered it humiliating for me to bow down before them, but I, knowing with my heart's eyes the nobility and beauty of their souls, considered it an honor for myself to touch them, and considered them higher than the royal crown and the royal purple garment." Having thus shamed them, he taught them not to judge a person's dignity by outward appearances, but to pay attention to his spiritual side. Like this pious and wise king, you also acted in receiving me in the hope of learning something good from me. I believe that you will not be deceived in it."

Joasaph said to him: "All this you have said well and appropriately, but one thing I would like to know: Who is your Lord, of whom you spoke in the story of the sower?"

"If you want to know about my Lord," Barlaam answered, "then my Lord is Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, the all-blessed and omnipotent, the King of kings and the Lord of lords." He alone is immortal and lives in the unapproachable light, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For I am not one of those who acknowledge many false gods and worship soulless dumb idols, but believe in one God, glorified in three hypostases; in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one Being and one glory, reigning in one undivided kingdom. This triune God is the eternal Spirit, not made with hands, unchangeable, invisible, incomprehensible, all-good, all-righteous, Who created everything out of nothing, both visible and invisible. In the beginning, He created an innumerable multitude of invisible, disembodied heavenly spirits, servants of the majesty of God. Then He created the visible world—the heavens, the earth, and the waters. He adorned this world with light; the sky with the sun, moon and stars; the earth - by various animals and plants; and he filled the waters with fish. - All this He created with the word: That speech and was. By this command was created (Psalm 148:5).

Then He creates man with His own hands, taking the dust of the earth, from which He created a body and blowing into it a soul endowed with reason. According to the Scriptures, it is created in the image and likeness of God: in the image as a result of free will, and in the likeness as a result of virtues. Having given the first man free will and immortality, He appointed him king on earth. From his rib He created a wife to help him. And having planted a paradise in Eden, in the east, full of joy and gladness, He placed there the man whom He had created, allowing him to use all the plantations that were there. From the tree alone He forbade him to eat of the fruit called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, saying, "In the day that thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17).

One of the Angels, the first of them, who did not receive even a shadow of evil from the Creator, but was created good, voluntarily turned from good to evil. He became insanely proud and decided to resist the Lord God, for which he was expelled from the number of the Angels, deprived of his dignity, and instead of blessed glory and the Angelic name, he was called the Devil and Satan. God rejected him as unworthy of eternal glory. Together with him, He alienated and rejected many of the angels subordinate to Him, who followed the example of their ruler and used their free will for evil instead of using it for good. They were called evil spirits, as deceivers and seducers. Having completely renounced all good, the devil became evil and showed envy of man. Seeing himself deprived of such honor, he began to plot to deprive man of a blessed life. For this insidious purpose he entered into the serpent, and through it he turned to his wife and persuaded her to taste the forbidden fruit, assuring her that by eating this fruit, a man becomes equal to God. Through it, the serpent also deceived Adam (as the first man was called). Having tasted the forbidden fruit, the first man was deprived of heavenly bliss. Instead of a blessed eternal life, he received as his lot this life, full of misfortunes and sorrows, and, in the end, he was condemned to death. From that time the devil had power over man, and, with the multiplication of the human race, proud of his victory, he incited people to evil in every possible way. God, wishing to stop the multiplication of sins, sent a flood upon the earth, which destroyed all living creatures, except only one righteous man in this generation, whom God left alive, saving him with his wife and children in the ark, after which He placed him alone over all the earth. When people began to multiply, they again forgot God and fell into wickedness. Corrupted and enslaved by various sins, they accepted various errors: some thought that everything happens and lives by itself, and taught that there is no Supreme Being; others have fallen into fanaticism; some recognized gods who had their own passions and impieties, helping evil deeds. Having made their images in the form of wooden senseless idols, they exhibited them in temples, worshipped and served them - things that they themselves made. Some worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, which God had appointed to serve this earthly world, lifeless and insensible, giving light by God's Providence, but not by their own impulse and desire. Others worshipped fire, water, and other natural elements. And creatures endowed with soul and reason were not ashamed to adore them. Others worshipped animals and reptiles, considering themselves inferior to them; some recognized insignificant people - men and women - as gods. These people themselves told that their gods were adulterers, murderers, evil, envious, robbers, father and fratricides, thieves, poisoners, lame, crippled and mad, that they died, were struck by thunder, were enslaved by people, killed, mourned, and that they did various shameful deeds.

People took examples of impiety from their very gods, as a result of which they defiled themselves without any shame with all kinds of lawless deeds. A terrible darkness reigned among our human race at that time. At that time there were no worshippers of the true God, no one even tried to find Him. Among this generation, there was only one Abraham who had sound spiritual feelings. Contemplating attentively the creations of the world, he came to know their true Creator. Contemplating the sky, the earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, etc., he was amazed at their purposefulness, and this purposefulness of the universe he attributed not to the self-formation of the world, not to the earthly elements, not to soulless and lifeless idols, but to the omnipotence and wisdom of the true God, Who is the Creator of everything. God Himself appeared to him, not in His true form (for no one can see God), but in some life-like visible images, which is possible for His power. Having put into his soul a more perfect knowledge of Himself, He glorified his name and made Him His servant, instilling piety in turn in all the descendants of Abraham, God taught them true knowledge, and produced from them a numerous tribe, which He called His chosen people.