11 According to the manuscript, instead of πρὸς τούτους it reads πρός εα̉υτοὺς.

12 According to the manuscript it reads: μηδεμίαν ι̉λύν α̉πὸ κακίας ε̉παγομένην, α̉γνείαν δὲ ου̉κ α̉πὸ τηˆς ε̉ννόμου τωˆν γαμετωˆν ο̉μιλίας ε̉παγομένην.

one can see a similar meaning of the word ε̉υχὴ (vow), and therefore know that a vow, as it is said, is a thanksgiving announcement of the bringing of a gift, and prayer means approaching God, after the fulfillment of what has been promised to Him. For this reason the word of the Lord teaches us not to ask anything of God before we offer Him something pleasing to Him as a gift. For first it is necessary to make a vow, and then to pray; as some will say that sowing must precede the gathering of fruits. Therefore it is necessary first to sow the seeds of the vow, and when this pledge of seeds increases, to gather the fruit, receiving grace through prayer. Therefore, since there will be no boldness to ask, if we approach without any previous vow or gift, then let the prayer be necessarily preceded by a vow.

Therefore, since the vow has already been fulfilled, the Lord says to His disciples: "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven" (Luke 11:2). Who would give me wings like a dove's (Psalm 54:7)? – says the great David in one place of psalmody. I also dare to say the same word: who will give me these wings, that I may soar with my mind to the height of the greatness of these sayings, and leave the whole earth, cross all the air spread out in the middle, touch the ethereal babble, reach the stars, see all their adornment, and not stop at them, but pass over even this, stand outside of all that is moved and changeable, to embrace the permanent nature, the immovable force, which is within itself and directs and sustains everything that has existence, everything that depends on the ineffable will of God's wisdom, so that, having become a thought far from all that is changeable and perverse, in an immutable and unswerving state of the soul, I may first become related in thought to the Immutable and Unchangeable, then call by the most akin name and say: Father? For he who utters these things needs a soul? How much daring is needed? What kind of conscience is necessary in order to know God as much as possible, to be guided by the names invented by Him to understand the ineffable glory, and to know that the nature of God, represented in itself, is goodness, holiness, joy, power, glory, purity, eternity, that which is always the same and the same, and everything that is similar to this, appears to be the thought of God's nature, and, having understood with the help of the Divine Scriptures and one's own reason, then dare to pronounce this word, and call such a Being his Father? It is evident that if anyone has any understanding, then, not seeing in himself the same thing as in God, he will not dare to utter this word to Him, and say: Father. For it is not natural for the good in essence to become the Father of an evil deed, and for the saint to become the Father of the defiled in life, nor for the Unchangeable to become the Father of the perverse, for the Father of life to become the Father of him who was mortified by sin; To the pure and unalloyed – the Father of those who disgrace themselves with the passions of dishonor, to the Benefactor – the Father of the covetous, in general to Him Whom we represent in all good – the Father of those who abide in any evil. If anyone, seeing himself still in need of cleansing and his wicked conscience, acknowledging that it is full of filth and bad marks, before he has been cleansed of such and so many evil qualities, includes himself in kinship with God, and the unrighteous to the Righteous, the unclean to the Pure says: Father; then this utterance will directly be an insult and slander, if only he calls God the Father of his own depravity. For the word father signifies the cause of that which came from him. Therefore, if a vicious conscience calls God his Father, then he will say nothing else, but that God is the beginning and author of his own evil qualities. But what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity (2 Corinthians 6:14), says the Apostle; on the contrary, the light is assimilated with the light, the just with the just, the beautiful with the beautiful, the incorruptible with the incorruptible. And the opposite, without a doubt, has an affinity for the homogeneous. For a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit (Matt. 7:18). Therefore, if anyone, as the Scripture says, being hard-hearted, and seek falsehood (Psalm 4:3), dares to utter the words of prayer, let him know that he does not call on the heavenly father, but on the underworld, who is himself a liar and becomes the father of lies, which arises in everyone, who is sin, and the father of sin. For this reason the Apostle calls those who have a passionate soul children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). And he who has departed from life is called the son of perdition (2 Thessalonians 2:3); but the man who loves sensuality and is pampered is called 8

the son of prostitutes" (1 Sam. 20:30), just as, on the contrary, those who have a clear conscience are called sons of light (Luke 16:8) and of the day (1 Thessalonians 5:5), and others, who have strengthened themselves to Divine power, are also sons of power (Judg. 21:10).

Therefore, when the Lord teaches us in prayer to call God Father, it seems to me that He does nothing else but legitimize a lofty and lofty way of life; for the truth teaches us not to lie, not to say about ourselves what is not in us, not to call ourselves what we were not, but, calling the Incorruptible, Righteous and Good Father our Father, to justify this kinship by life. Therefore, do you see how much preparation we need, what kind of life is needed, how much and what kind of care is required in order to attain to such a measure of boldness with the elevation of our conscience and to dare to say to God: Father? For if you have money in mind, if you are preoccupied with the charms of life, if you covet human glory, if you serve the most passionate desires, and then receive this prayer in your mouth: what do you think He will say who sees your life and hears your prayer? Such, it seems to me, are the words I hear, as if spoken by God Himself to such a person: "And thou, who are corrupt in life, call thy father the Father of incorruption? Why do you profane your pure name with your unclean voice? Why do you use this saying falsely? Why do you insult the undefiled nature? If you are My child, then, without a doubt, your life should bear the features of My blessings. I do not recognize in you the image of My nature; Your features are opposite. What fellowship is there between righteousness and iniquity? What is the affinity of life and death? What closeness does the pure by nature have with the unclean? Great is the distance between the benefactor and the covetous, the resistance of the merciful with the implacable is irreconcilable. There is another father of evil qualities in you. My offspring are adorned with good fatherly qualities, the son of the merciful is merciful, the son of the pure is pure, the incorruptible is alien to corruption, and in general the good is good, the truthful is truthful. And I don't know where you come from." Therefore, until we have become pure in life, it is dangerous to dare to pray and call God our Father.

But let us also listen to the words of the prayer: with their frequent repetition, will we not understand some hidden meaning in them? Our Father who art in heaven. That God must assimilate himself by a virtuous life has been sufficiently explored by us in the preceding words. But it seems to me that the word of Scripture also points to a deeper meaning; for it reminds us from what homeland we have fallen and what nobility we have lost. In the narration of the young man who left his father's house and gave himself over to the life of a pig, the Scriptures, historically describing his departure and dissolute life, show the miserable state of mankind and do not return this youth to his original state until he sensed the present calamity, when he came to his senses and thought of the words of repentance. And they agree somewhat with the words of the prayer. For there the young man said: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee" (Luke 15:21), but I would not have mentioned the sin in heaven in the confession, if I had not been sure that heaven was his fatherland, leaving which he had fallen into sin. For this reason the thought of such a confession makes him accessible to his father; why he hastens to his son, greets him with a kiss of the neck, which means the verbal yoke laid by the lips by means of the Gospel tradition on a man who has thrown off the former yoke of the commandment and rejected the protective law; then he puts on him a garment, not another, but the first, from which he was stripped naked by disobedience, seeing himself naked together with the partaking of the forbidden. And a ring on the hand with an image made on the outline means the return of the image; And the father protects his feet with boots, so that, approaching the head of the serpent with his naked heel, they will not be bitten. Therefore, just as the reason for the love shown to the young man by his father was his return to his father's house (and this is heaven, in which he confesses himself to have sinned before his father), so it seems to me that here too the Lord, teaching you to call upon the Father who is in heaven, does

13 The word: φθάσαι is read from the manuscript.

a reminder of the good Fatherland, so that, having aroused the strongest desire for beauty, it will put you on the path that leads again to the Fatherland.

The path that raises human nature to heaven is nothing but a retreat and flight from earthly evils; and the means to avoid evil is nothing else, I think, than likeness to God; and to become like God means to become righteous, holy, good, and all the like. If anyone imprints the features of these perfections as clearly as possible in himself, then, as if in accordance with the natural order, without difficulty, he will move from earthly life to the land of heaven; because there is no local distance between the Divinity and humanity, so that we would have need of some tool or invention in order to introduce this heavy, burdensome and earthly flesh into the way of life not corporeal and spiritual. But, according to the reasonable separation of virtue from vice, it depends only on human volition – to be where a person is inclined by desire. Therefore, since there is no difficulty in choosing what is good, and after election follows the acquisition of that which is chosen by whom, it is possible for you to be immediately in heaven, who have declared God with your mind. If, as Ecclesiastes says, because God is in heaven (5:1), and you, according to the word of the Prophet, have drawn near to God (Psalm 72:28), then it is necessary for him who is in union with God to be where God is.

Therefore, having prescribed in prayer to say that God our Father14 commands nothing else than to become like the Heavenly Father by a godly life; for in another place he commands the same thing more clearly, saying: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). And so, if we have understood the meaning of such a prayer, then it is time to prepare our souls for the time to dare to receive these utterances with our lips and boldly say: Our Father who art in heaven.

How obvious are the signs of likeness to God, by which everyone can become a child of God; for it is said: "And to those who have received Him, to them that believe in His name, He has given the power to become children of God" (John 1:12), but He receives God into himself who receives perfection in good; so also the evil disposition has certain special signs, and whoever has them cannot be the son of God, bearing in himself the image of the opposite nature. Is it desirable to know the distinctive qualities of a cunning disposition? These are envy, hatred, slander, arrogance, covetousness, passionate desire, the disease of glory; This and similar features distinguish the image of the adversary. Therefore, if he who has blackened his soul with such filth calls upon his father, what father will hear him? Obviously, he is related to the one who called, and this father is not heavenly, but hell. The signs of intimacy with whom a person wears himself undoubtedly acknowledges his kinship with him. Thus, the prayer of a vicious person, while he is in vice, is an invocation of the devil; but he who has forsaken iniquity and lives in goodness, to him the voice calls the good Father.

Therefore, when we approach God, let us first pay attention to our lives, whether we have anything in us worthy of Divine kinship, and only then dare to pronounce such a word. Who commanded to say: The Father did not allow a lie to be spoken. Therefore, whoever has lived worthy of God's nobility beautifully raises his gaze to the Heavenly City, calling the Heavenly King the Father, and the Heavenly Bliss the Fatherland. To what does the purpose of this council tend? In order to philosophize to us; where God is, there to lay the foundation of one's dwelling, there to lay up treasures; thither to move with your heart: for where your treasure is, there will your heart also be (Matt. 6:21), and constantly keep in mind the babbling of your fathers and adorn your own soul in accordance with it. For there is no respect of persons with God (Romans 2:11), says the Scriptures. And from your image may such impurity be removed. The Divinity has no part in envy and of any defilement, and let no such passions stain on you: neither envy, nor arrogance, nor anything else that defiles God-like babbling. If you become such, then boldly call upon God with your voice, and call the Lord of the universe your Father. He will look upon you

14 The manuscript reads: λέγειν πάτερα ε̉αυτοὺ εί̉ναι τόν Θεὸν. 10