«...Иисус Наставник, помилуй нас!»

The confusion of these natures occurred when God descended to earth.

For then my Saviour united the divided natures.

But the blind do not see this unity, and the dead say that they do not feel it at all, but think that they live and see, oh, utter madness!

Not believing, they say that no one has experienced or felt this, that is, has not seen it in a sensual way;

We only hear about this and learn in words.

But, O my Christ, teach me what to say to them, that I may pluck them out of great ignorance and unbelief, and let them see Thee, the Light of the world.

Listen, fathers, to the divine words and understand, and you will know that unity which is with consciousness, and feeling, of course, and experience, and sight.

God is invisible, but we, of course, are visible.

If, then, He Himself is united by His will with sensible beings, must not the union of both take place consciously?

If you assert that this happens without consciousness and feeling, then, of course, this is the union of the dead, and not Life with the living.

God is the Creator of creatures, and creatures are us.

But if God the Creator descended to the creature and was united, and the creature became like the Creator, then truly it must feel in true contemplation,

That the created is ineffably united with the Creator.

If we do not allow this, then faith has perished and hope for the future has completely disappeared.

Then there will be neither Resurrection nor Universal Judgment, since we creatures, as you say, insensitively unite with the Creator, understanding nothing.

And then God suffers through you, as if He were not Life, and, uniting with us, does not impart life to us.

The Creator is incorruptible, but the creatures are perishable, for having sinned, they subjected not only the body, but also the very souls to corruption.

For this reason we are corruptible both in body and soul, just as we are all possessed by the corruption of spiritual death and sin.

If, therefore, the Incorruptible One is by nature united to me, the corruptible, then verily there will be one of the two things of which I wish to say:

Either He will change me and make me incorruptible, or the Incorruptible One will be changed into corruption, and thus I may not know that He suffered and became like me.

But if I became all incorruptible from the perishable, having cleaved to the Incorruptible, how could I not have felt this? how may I not know by experience what I have become, having become what I was not?