If we do not acquire such a mood and do not adorn ourselves with such spiritual gifts, then we will find ourselves laboring uselessly and in vain decorating the dolls of the great schema with multicolored silk fabrics. Do you want to be pleasing to the Lord of all? Do not adorn the external doll, which will decay in the grave, with multicolored fabrics, for it is not with such false adornments that the terrible and impartial Judge pleases; but diligently adorn the mental puppet of the inner man, that is, the most important part of the soul, the mind, adorn it with frequent teachings in the divinely inspired Scriptures, sober prayer and God-pleasing vigils. Keep him always undistracted, concentrated within himself, always reminding him of the all-wise admonition, which says: "I have seen the Lord before me, that I am at my right hand, that I may not be moved" (Psalm 15:8). For a mind that is not guarded in this way is no different from an unbridled horse, or a reed shaken by all winds. Likewise, strengthen your heart in the Lord by the exact fulfillment of God's saving commandments, which contain and through which the pure fear of the Lord is instilled. When this fear dwells in you, then your soul will be filled with faith, spiritual courage and God's love.

Then you will rejoice in God your Saviour, that is, by means of such good spiritual feats and labors, you will receive eternal joy from your all-good Podvig, according to what is said: "Those who sow with tears will reap joy. Those who walk and weep, sowing their seeds" (Psalm 145:5, 6), that is, living in this short-lived life in all kinds of feats and labors, with spiritual tears, for the sake of their salvation and love for God, and therefore, at the time of the glorious coming of God and their Saviour, they will find themselves in joy and gladness to receive from the righteous Judge the due recompense of their labors, that is, the enjoyment of eternal ineffable blessings in an endless life.

Let us also love the same labors and feats, for the sake of our salvation and for the sake of love for God, so that we too may adorn ourselves and our mental doll of the inner man with these laudable virtues, and not so that we can decorate the doll with silk fabrics of many colors, covering the outer man and decaying in the grave. Such adornment is a sign of a soul untaught by divine objects, and an indication of the mind of an infant. Let us cease to be infancy and begin to obey the divine Apostle, who commands us, saying: "Brethren, be not children of mind, but be infants in malice, but be perfect in mind" (1 Corinthians 14:20). And again: "When a child was a child, as a child spoke, as a child of wisdom; but when a man rejects a child" (13:11). Wherefore we, brethren, since we have voluntarily renounced all vanity and all ugliness of worldly life, and have come to love the monastic life perfect, which perfects our inner man and guides us to eternal life, let us also contrive with love, so that we may become like him not who built his temple on sand, but him who founded it on stone. By stone we mean the fulfillment in word and deed of the Gospel commandments and commandments, by which the temple of our inner man is built and strengthened, and by building on the "sand" we mean such a mood when one is satisfied with faith and baptism alone, and does not care in the least about the commandments of the Gospel. Therefore, the tabernacle of such a person is easily destroyed, since "faith without good works is dead," as it is written (James 3:20). In addition, it is known that it is said: "Whoever is a faithful builder and wise, the Lord will appoint him over his servants in the time of life," and so on. (Luke 12:42). Let it be known to us, brethren, that this venerable teaching of the Lord, which blesses faithful and wise servants, means by them those who, being in ecclesiastical ranks and in ecclesiastical authorities, govern well and God-pleasing the verbal flock entrusted to them; and those who misgraze it and unmercifully torture it with all kinds of monetary exactions and incessant labor, — these he recognizes as accursed, cuts in two, and some of them are placed with the infidels, that is, he gives them over to endless torments.

If the mental schema of our inner man is not adorned with such virtues, then I will keep silent about the consequence; but let the truth of the Gospel say without hesitation: "Friend, how hast thou entered into this, not having a wedding garment," and other things known to all. From which sentence may our Lord Jesus Christ deliver us. Amen.

Homily 13. An epistle to a certain one who wishes to renounce the world and go into monasticism, but who hesitates, who has already felt compelled to do so more than once, but still asks from St. Maxim the explanation of some parables and mysterious dark sayings

One of the most wise and prudent was John, a man of praise in all things, who surpassed many of his contemporaries in the comprehension of parables and divination, and the obscure sayings of both our own and external teachings; but when a spark of divine fire touched his heart, he immediately spat on everything that is considered to adorn the outer and inner man, and, following the God-speaking preacher, he imputed everything to him as "umet", so that he, like that (Paul), might gain Christ. Immediately freeing himself from all vain rumors and from all worldly disturbances, he strove with an unceasing desire for the transcendental zeal, always forgetting the hindsight, and prostrating himself in the past, desiring to attain the honor of the highest calling. For this purpose he chose complete silence, and having gathered all his minds and enclosed them within himself, he constantly imagined the invisible beauty of the Most Beautiful One more than all the sons of men, obeying the teaching of the Apostle, who says: "If you are risen with Christ, seek the highest, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God: be wise on high, and not on earth" (Col. 3:1, 2). What can be said about Dionysius the Areopagite? Did he not at once spit on all the teachings of all the wise external philosophers and rhetoricians, as a result of the meek popular teaching of the divine preacher, and immediately followed him, as a gentle lamb follows his mother, leaving at once the wisdom of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and clinging firmly to the wisdom of fishermen and publicans, as the only one capable of assimilating his partaker to the most extreme desire? which is the most hypostatic Wisdom of God and the all-encompassing power and everlasting light—Jesus Christ, God above all. About this desire someone said: "It is good for me to cleave to God, to put in the Lord the hope of my salvation" (Psalm 72:28); Also: "If Thy dwelling place is beloved, O Lord of hosts, my soul desires and dies in the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh rejoice more vividly in God." Why is that? "Tell me, O most divine king! For this reason, he says, that the "bird" (sparrow), that is, the soul that is poor, feeble, and carnal, "shall find for thyself a tabernacle," and also "a turtledove nest for herself, where she shall lay her chicks, Thy altars, O Lord of hosts" (Psalm 83:2-4). A turtledove is a soul that loves purity and chastity, for it is said of a turtledove that after the death of her friend, she does not copulate with another, just as the male sex does not seek another after the death of the first, but remains the rest of the time in chastity. The "altars" of the Lord are here called the saints of His churches, which serve as refuges for both categories of people, that is, for both the sin-loving and the chaste, the one for the healing and healing of their long-term scabs, through their confession, and the other for the affirmation and preservation of themselves for the future in righteous corrections in the Lord. For by priestly prayers and the offering of the most pure Body and Blood of the immaculate Lamb of God, both receive the forgiveness of sins and the preservation of themselves in pleasing God.

Such are the parables and divination and obscure speeches that I have, which are very clear and useful to those who listen to them, but to those who despise them, not only are they useless, but very obscure. You are very rich and abound in all human and divine intelligence. Seek the perfection of this, "if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell thy possessions" (Matt. 19:21)... The rest is known. Do not seek or accept any other counsellor (except for the above saying), and not only will you find yourself above all philosophers, but you will also be recognized as such before the Creator and Master of all. Bless you!

Homily 14. To those who intend to leave their wives without a lawful reason and enter monasticism

Since you are in friendship with me in the Lord and partly reveal your thoughts to me, then I also considered it just, dear brother and friend, to heal your thoughts with a little writing, as far as Christ our God and Saviour, who sees our fellowship in the Lord, deigns to enlighten and enlighten my weak mind, to His glory, to His benefit and salvation. For there is nothing else that He, the All-Good, rejoices and glorifies so much as the salvation of those who believe in Him, for whose sake He voluntarily and with great zeal deigned to accept such a bitter death. No child-loving father cares and cares so much for his children as He who created us always cares for us, arranging in every way our appeal to Him, so that, turning us away from all evil, flattery and falsehood, from all carnal impurity and depravity, he may make us sons of God and heirs of the endless kingdom and unspeakable blessings, "whom the eye has not seen," as it is said, — and ear not heard, and it never entered into the heart of man" (1 Corinthians 2:9), which no one can receive except by the diligent fulfillment of the saving commandments of Christ. His many different commandments; but special care should be taken to observe three of them, which are: judgment, mercy and faith, for the non-observance of which the scribes and Pharisees are condemned by Christ the Saviour, who says: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you have made the copper and the cimen," and that which is most important in the law has been abandoned, that is, "judgment and mercy and faith" (Matt. 26:23). But if anyone diligently fulfills these three virtues, he will be found to have fulfilled all the divine Gospel in general. For whoever believes with all his heart in the words of the Saviour, which He daily speaks to us through His prophets and apostles and universal teachers, proclaiming the good things to come, that is, eternal life and an endless kingdom, which will be vouchsafed to those who have led this life piously and holy, will also believe with all his heart what He has told us about His dreadful (second) coming, and of the trial and incorruptible judgment that is to come, of the eternal torments in which the transgressors of His holy commandments are endlessly tormented, — whoever sincerely and without doubt believes in all these things, and constantly has them planted in the hidden cage of his heart: he constantly guards himself from all evil, from unrighteousness, covetousness, uncleanness, lies, flattery, envy, covetousness, appropriation of other people's possessions, but on the contrary, He has mercy on everyone, loves everyone, considers everyone better than Himself, helps the offended, and grieves for those who are offended, and to the best of His ability corrects them in word, deed, and prayer to God for them, and, in short, says: "Everything that is pleasing to God is honest, if it is righteous, if it is virtue, and if it is praise," according to the words of the holy Apostle (Philippians 4:10). 8), about this he thinks, and discusses, and does this, he always seeks this, by this he lives and rejoices, always hating with all his heart all untruth and all deceit. Such a one, boasting in the Lord, says to the righteous one: "Thou hast hated unrighteousness and abhorred it, but thou hast loved thy law" (Psalm 118:163); wherefore in another place he says the same: "The law of Thy mouth is good unto me, more than a thousand gold and silver" (Psalm 118:72). Whoever obeys this righteous man without hypocrisy, lives in this world as a stranger and a stranger, always remembering the future eternal life and desiring it, according to the words of the Prophet: "If Thy dwelling place is loved, O Lord of hosts, my soul desires and dieth in the courts of the Lord" (Psalm 83:2, 3). And in another place: "If I ask one thing of the Lord, I will seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may behold the beauty of the Lord, and that I may attend His holy temple" (Psalm 26:4). The speaker was a famous king, possessed of innumerable quantities of gold and silver, and surrounded by glory and honor; However, none of these perishable goods delighted him so much as the desire for the blessings prepared in heaven constantly inflamed his heart. That is why he says with the greatest zeal: "In the same way the deer desires the springs of water, and my soul also longs for Thee, O God. My soul is thirsty for the strong, living God." Then, as if bored that, having lived a long time in this life, he is deprived of the sight of the glory of God, he continues, saying: "When shall I come, and appear before the face of God" (Psalm 41:2, 3)? These God-loving men were such warmest zealots of divine glory and future blessings, although they lived with their wives and were surrounded by innumerable worldly cares, and what is most surprising is that they lived even before the coming of Christ the Savior and were instructed only by the law of Moses, which "did nothing," according to the words of the divine Paul (Heb. 7:19).

Having such true examples of God-loving life, we, too, being in a worldly calling, can please the heavenly Lord, if only we sincerely desire to receive the eternal kingdom and endless life and to avoid eternal torment. And we, like those blessed men, can by means of every virtue remove ourselves from the above-mentioned vices and hate them with all our souls, as well as all impiety, and hold fast with zeal to salvific and God-pleasing deeds and virtues, always having in mind the divinely inspired word, which says: "I hate unrighteousness and abhor it, but I love Thy law" (Psalm 118:163); also: "I have seen the Lord before me, as I am at my right hand, that I may not be moved" (Psalm 15:8). And so, if anyone constantly keeps all this in mind and believes it with all his soul, loves and at the same time fears the Saviour Christ, as a good and humane Lord and as a terrible Judge, Who without mercy gives transgressors His holy commandments to torment, such a one, because of his actions in accordance with the will of God, is truly blessed both in the present age and in the age to come; Having lived well and pleasing to God in this temporal life, he will hear in the future the divine voice, proclaiming: "Good, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord" (Matt. 25:21). Do not despair of your salvation, you who lawfully live with wives and bring up children, and do not seek divorce from them, contrary to the commandment of the divine Paul, who says: "If you are attached to your wife, seek not absolution" (1 Corinthians 7:27), for "marriage is honorable, and the bed is undefiled" (Heb. 13:4).