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

with the eyes of his fathers, He will clothe you in Divine garments, He will adorn you with a ring, and He will equip your feet for the march of the mountain with the boots of the Gospel, He will restore you to the Heavenly Fatherland, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Him is due glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen.

Homily 3

Hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom Come (Matt. 6:9-10)

The law, having a shadow of good things to come (Heb. 10:1), and proclaiming the truth by certain prophetic divination, when it leads a priest into the sanctuary to offer prayer to God, first purifies the one who enters with certain purifying sacrifices and sprinklings, then, adorning him with priestly garments, splendidly speckled with gold, scarlet, and paints of other colors, putting on him a breastplate and withering,15 attaching bells with buttons to the edges of his garment, and having fastened his outer garment on his shoulders, and adorned his head with a diadem, having abundantly poured myrrh on his hair, he finally leads him into the sanctuary to perform the mysterious rites.

But the spiritual lawgiver, our Lord Jesus Christ, stripping the law of its bodily veils and bringing to light the divinatory meaning of the types, first of all, not only chooses one from the whole people, leads into communion with God, but equally bestows this dignity on everyone, offering the general grace of the priesthood to those who wish it, and then, by unborrowed adornment, found in some paint and weaving contrivance, gives artificial beauty to the priest, but he puts on his proper and akin adornment instead of variously speckled clothing, making it flower-bearing with the pleasures of virtue; and adorns the chest not with earthly gold, but with a blameless and pure conscience, giving babble to the heart. To this withering is also adapted the brilliance of precious stones, and this, in the opinion of the Apostle, is the brightness of the holy commandments. And it protects the part of which this kind of garment serves as an adornment; Of course, you do not know that the adornment of such a part is a veil of chastity. He hung spiritual bells, and buttons, and flowers to the cassocks of life (Exodus 28:34),16 and by them some can justly understand what is visible in a virtuous life, so that the passage of this life may become glorious; and therefore, instead of ringing the bell, He gave to this cassock a euphonious word of faith, and instead of a button, a secret readiness for hope for the future, covered by a harsh life, and instead of flowers, the good-colored beauty of paradise17; thus he leads him into the sanctuary and the interior of the temple. A sanctuary is not inanimate, nor made with hands, but the hidden tabernacle of our heart, if it is indeed impenetrable to vice and inaccessible to evil thoughts. He adorns his head with heavenly wisdom, not inscribed the image of letters on a golden board, but depicting God Himself in a sovereign mind. And on the hair he pours out the myrrh, composed by the soul within itself of virtues, and prepares it for offering to God in the sacramental rite, as a fragrance and sacrifice not of anything else, but of itself. Thus he who was raised by the Lord to this priesthood, having put to death the wisdom of the flesh with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17), then abiding in the sanctuary, propitiates God, by such a sacrifice consecrating himself and presenting his body as a living, holy, acceptable sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1).

But perhaps someone will say that the meaning of the prayer we offer for interpretation does not have this meaning at first glance; And we have invented such concepts, which do not correspond to the concepts contained in the own words of the prayer. Therefore, let him again recall the first lessons of prayer. For whoever has prepared himself to boldly dare to call God his father, he is exactly clothed with that garment which is described in the word, which sounds,

15 UvYaslo — a kidar, or mitre — a detail of the vestments of the Old Testament high priest.