Thus, in life everything depends on the spirit with which the accidents are met. None of them, by their nature, leads to evil: evil comes from arbitrariness. What did Pentephri's wife do harmful to Joseph? "Nothing. She only showed his chastity in greater splendor, and others themselves ask for sin. Be firm; and external events that can lead you into sin will not only not harm you, but, on the contrary, will serve to strengthen you more in good. One stability will pave the way for another, and so on. In the end, steadfastness in good will be obtained – not easy, but loving, heartfelt, attracting.

Verse Seventy-One

"It is good for me, for I have humbled me, that I may learn by Thy righteousness."

Just as a person who has successfully completed a course in an institution expresses heartfelt gratitude to those who taught him, so the prophet, having passed through God's school of moral education through the sorrows of life and the vains of people, thanks God, Who led him into this sorrowful path of study and led him through it with success. When he says: "That I may learn," he does not indicate God's goal in his humility, but testifies to its attainment. His thought was as follows: the Lord led me into this school in order to teach me; I have taken this course, and now, thank God, I am taught; otherwise I would not have learned.

St. Athanasius writes: "It is as if the prophet says thus: I am pleased in infirmities, in insults, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, only that I may appear worthy of Thy justifications, seeking that which is otherwise impossible to learn."

"The prophet," says Theodoret, "prescribes gratitude to the physician for his cruel healings, having ascertained that he has restored his health." The Lord could teach without leading to deprivation and sorrow, but righteousness and goodness demand it. A sinner who repents and reforms, that is, learns the commandments, goes from the realm of sin in the opposite way to how he plunged into it. Loving sin, he acquired sinful habits for himself and became attached to a multitude of things that satisfied these skills. Such things are valuable in his eyes. The Lord removes this illusory value from them by taking them away, showing by deed how insignificant they are and how much they sin, acting to please people. For this he repays by repenting, enduring in vain from people, sometimes even from those whom he had previously pleased. Deprivation and vain are a path of purification.

Let us also recall the tactics of the enemy, who intervenes everywhere with his malicious intentions. As long as the penitent and reforming person has not yet evaporated sympathy for the objects of passions, so long does he hope to bring back to himself the one who has fled from his region, arousing evil thoughts and desires. But when this sympathy is exhausted, and sobriety and purity are established in the heart, then this method of seduction no longer gives him any hope of success. He turns to someone else: I didn't have time to draw him into lust, well, I'll arrange things in such a way as to draw him into hatred. To do this, he raises against his dislike people who are at his side; And so they begin to heap insults, ridicule, insults, oppression, persecution, all kinds of untruths, sometimes even not understanding why they do this. But the worker, who understands whence all this comes and for what purpose, endures everything complacently, and, no matter how sensitive the vain may be, tries in every way not to fall into enmity towards anyone and thus not to allow the enemy to triumph over him and not to deprive him of the fruit and all the previous labors undertaken in the struggle against lust. The Lord Himself, who allows such temptations, helps him to resist. Then the enemy ceases to fight him from this side as well, seeing that his attacks prepare only crowns for the worker, and his evil intentions are not aided. When the enemy lags behind, then human vain ceases: some are reconciled to him, others leave him alone, moving away from him.

This course of affairs is repeated everywhere. That is why we see in the writings of the fathers that when someone is subjected to vain from people, it means that he is elevated to the highest degree of perfection. He who has passed these trials is purified like gold in a furnace, and shines with the brightness of a God-loving disposition, humility, contrition, meekness, righteousness, mercy, purity, love of peace and peacemaking. He is one of those about whom the holy Apostle testifies: "Who is Christ's essence, the flesh is crucified with passions and lusts... against such there is no law" (Gal. 5:23-24); for it is not prescribed to them, but appears in themselves, placed in their hearts.

Verse Seventy-Two

"The law of Thy mouth is good to me, more than a thousand gold and silver."

This is the perfection with which the laborer proceeds from the furnace of temptations, as indicated before. The law is good for him, because he is all permeated with it; Neither thought (movements), nor desire (aspirations), nor heart (sweetness) are outlawed, but everything revolves in it. The mind finds in it the satisfactory solution of all its problems, the heart the satisfaction of all tastes, the will the attainment of all desires. That is why it is good, because it gives the highest good that man can desire, namely, peace of mind. The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Philippians, explains why this is so: "The rest," he says, "my brethren, if it is true, if it is honest, if it is righteous, if it is most pure, if it is lovely, if it is praiseworthy, if it is virtue, and if it is praised, think this... do this; and the God of peace will be with you" (Phil. 4:8-9).

The law is an expression of the will of God. If everything within is full of law, then it is full of God's will; the Divine element is taken within and dissolved with the whole being of man. He both serves as a guide for entering into God, and prepares for Him a worthy dwelling. And the inquisitive God dwells; and where God is, there is all that is desired and desired.

And the Lord's goal of strict training, which was mentioned above, is that, having cleansed the soul, prepare for oneself a dwelling in it. Even in creation in His image and likeness, He appointed it for this purpose, but the fall upset the matter. It has brought into us the impurity of passions that have alienated the Lord. It became impossible for Him to enter into communion with the soul while there were passions in it; they must first be expelled, and they are expelled by accepting and merging with the soul the commandments that are opposite to them. Then, just as a thing made of iron is soft, unreliable for work until it is tempered, so the soul, which has received all the commandments, is tempered by the Lord in the furnace of all-round temptations, from which it comes out not only well worked in all parts, but also firm, solid, that is, it is a reliable vessel for the containment of the Lord. And he moves in. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8) — they will see not outside, before themselves, but within themselves, at home. This good is given by the law; That is why he is good.

"More than a thousand gold and silver." Under the words gold and silver, all the goods of this world are represented here, and "thousands" are innumerable. Gather up, he says, an innumerable multitude of goods of the world; they are all nothing to me compared with the law of the mouth of God. And do not think that there is any stretch in this expression. In those who have tasted through faithfulness to the law, as much as the Lord is good, all other blessings arouse not sympathy, but disgust. There are things with which a person is abhorred; and what he experiences when he encounters such things, he who has tasted the Lord also experiences when he encounters the goods of the world, not as the works of God's hands, but as objects offered in opposition to the law of God. Others may think: well, this is too much. No, not too much; But even this comparison is not enough to explain how the heart, having tasted the good of the law, treats thousands of gold and silver. Why does one give away everything with the same greed with which no one else collects? "Because he has paid everything; Everything is alien to him, all this is rubbish that must be swept away. And in the end of all things, he gives his life, his most precious possession, for the law of the mouth of the Lord; and all because in his heart, mind, and consciousness he is no longer on earth, but in another world, whither he strives, throwing off this perishable garment, which prevents him from being face to face with the Lord. This, however, is the natural course of the development of spiritual life; Those who have it even in the beginnings easily understand this, since the demand of the Spirit strikes at such a disposition from the very beginning. But it appears in perfection at the last stages of the development of the spirit, under the influence of the Spirit of God.