"When you read," every youth read in the preface to the Study Book of Hours, "when you read, God speaks to you; and when you pray, you converse with God. And there is your prayer to Him, a pleasant sacrifice... If the heart is sent up from pure grief, the heavens penetrate, and from thence the vain does not return, but brings down the gifts of grace, which make the mind wise and save souls"{918} Our ancestors began their education with this thought of St<one> John of the Ladder and other fathers.

10 {919}. «... The soul was not and is not before the mind, nor the mind before the word that is born of it, but at one moment all three have existence from God, says St<Odobno> Symeon the New Theologian, "and the mind gives birth to the word, and through it brings forth and manifests the external desire of the soul... Thy own spirit, or thy soul, is all in thy whole mind, and thy whole mind is in all thy word, and all thy word is in all thy spirit, inseparable and unmerged. This is the image of God, and by this we are enriched from above... Wherefore, and when we bow down to a man, a single reverence bears witness to him as having a mind, a soul, and a word, without dividing them, nor preferring one of these three with pre-eminent reverence; but since He has these three in Himself inseparably and unmerged, we bow down to Him and pay homage to Him not as the Three who exist, but as one man, according to the common image of the Creator God... We confess the Father of equal honor, equal power, and of one essence with the Son and the Spirit, the Holy Trinity, as the One Principle, Power, and Dominion, just as our own mind is equal in honor, equal in power, and of one essence with the word and the soul, inasmuch as there is one nature and essence with them... Now, if a man loses one of the three paraphernalia shown, he can no longer be a man. Take away a man's mind—you will take away the word along with the mind—and a mad and dumb man will come out. Take away his soul—you will take away with it both the mind and the word. In the same way, if you take away one inner word, you will upset the whole human nature. The mind that does not give birth to the word cannot receive the word from the beginning; For how is it possible for him to hear the word from one who has himself become foolish and dumb and has departed from the order of his nature? Just as we naturally have within us a breathant spirit, by which we breathe and live, so that if the breath is cut off, we will immediately die: so our mind naturally has in itself the power of words, by which it gives birth to the word, and if it is deprived of the natural generation of the word, as if it were separated and dissected from the word, which is naturally present in it, then it will be killed and will become good for nothing. Thus, our mind has received from God its natural belonging to it always to give birth to the word, which it has inseparable and always united with itself. If you take away the word, then along with the word you will also take away the mind, the progenitor of the word... Whoever therefore calls any one of the Three Persons [of the Most Holy Trinity] greater or lesser than the others, has not yet drawn his mind out of the depths of the passions, so that he may be able with intelligent eyes to see and know himself, and to understand by himself that, as in himself, the mind is neither greater nor less than the soul, the soul is not less than the soul, the soul is not less than the mind and the soul, so the Father is neither greater nor less than the Father of the Son, The Son is the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Father and the Son, but they are co-originated in essence and are equal in honor" [The Words of St. Simeon the New Theologian.

This passage from St<odoby> St. Simeon is a clear example of the patristic, and consequently in general, the Church's teaching on the verbal activity of man. The word is not an external appendage of human nature, not an accidental attribute of man, with the elimination of which everything remains essentially unchanged, but a constitutive attribute, moreover, the very essence of man, inasmuch as man has revealed himself by his spiritual energy, has become existent for others and for himself. You cannot say: "a man and his word." The word is man himself, but in the aspect of self-discovery, in the aspect of human activity. Human activity, or culture, and in its very essence, at the centre of life, the cult, is essentially verbal, and this is not only in the sense that human actions are accompanied by words and have a verbal explanation, but also in the incomparably deeper meaning of being permeated by the word. Every action, in so far as it is human, i.e., it is an action and not a natural process, in its essence is the word, and the external fact, the external-factual side of it, is the matter of the word, analogous to the matter of sound, but more easily subordinated to the embodiment of meaning. We speak by our actions, and the inner side of this speech is the same as that of any other. In church writing, literature is noted as its own sign of humanity or spirituality, and the basic division of all existence proceeds on the basis of verbality or wordlessness, just as the recognition of human action as corresponding to nature, its evaluation as human, is determined by the word verbal, while the unnaturalness of an action, its falling out of humanity into a lower sphere, the fall of man, is stained as wordless.

"I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your verbal service—την λογικήν λατρείαν υμών" (Romans 12:1). Man's service to God, which the Apostle denotes by the term λατρεία, which means the relationship of the creature to the Creator and cannot be applied to the relationship of the creature, this service to God consists in offering sacrifice with one's whole being, including the body. The Apostle speaks only of the body, because the spirit must be directed to this sacrifice itself, since it does it with the body; but this living, holy, God-pleasing sacrifice is a verbal service: the believer speaks with his body, offering it as a sacrifice, and bears witness with his body to Him to Whom it is offered. And further, the Apostle, having affirmed the reality, including the corporeality of the Christian sacrifice, explains its verbality even more: "And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, άλλα μεταμορφοΰσθαι ττ| άνακαινώσει του νοός υμών». (Romans 12:2). But it was a question of sacrificing the flesh, and consequently this sacrifice of the body is a transformation or transfiguration by the renewal of the mind. The Apostle does not call to serve by word, as it is usually understood, but to serve with the body, but with a spiritualized body: it is verbal. When the mind is conformed to this world, i.e., to the dumb creature, "walks in the elements"{920} then it renounces the Word, and the body, merging with the world, becomes dumb, because it does not pronounce words with itself—it does not bear witness to God. When, however, the mind, worn out by the Fall, is renewed, i.e., it is transfigured, conforming to another being, eternal life, and, consequently, taken out of the world, the mountain is lifted up, offered as a sacrifice to God, then the body bears witness to the things above: this is the verbal service{921}

Application

Sacrifice—Prayer Incarnate

(K. F. Keil, A Guide to Biblical Archaeology, Kiev, 1871, part 1, p. 241, pr. 8).

"Already in the morning (Utram, de Sacrificiis I, p. p. 212 sq.) observes: quod preces vituli labiorum appellentur Os. 14,3. Cujus dicti ea ratio est quod preces sacrificia quaedam essent et sacrificia preces quaedam. Preces utique sacrificia spiritualia; et sacrificia symbolicae preces{922} (sign <?> for this purpose on 1 Sam. 13:12 and Wis. 15.8. Cf. See also 1Enstenberg, Evang. Kirchenzeit, 1852, No 13, p. 113).

And conversely, prayer is a sacrifice ("as incense before Thee") {923}.

"Word and Deed"

Deed, word, thought.

"Forgive me the sins which I have committed this day in deed, word, and thought" (Evening Prayer 1, St. Macarius, to God the Father){924}.

Here are the three stages of incarnation: