The infirmities of which I speak are the following: every man is weak and cannot have pure love, cannot but envy, reproach, condemn, despise, ridicule, speak lies, be angry, lust after the good things of this world which he sees, be not conceited, not covetous. Whether he be the most prudent among the prudent, the wisest among the wise, the most courageous among the courageous, the most honest among the honest, be he better and more perfect than all others, but since the weakness of our nature remains in him (unhealed), it is inevitable that he will not be able to preserve chastity, or will not overcome himself to forgive him who has sinned against him in any way, or does not find good dispositions in himself - to give alms and always thank God, in general, to abstain from all evil and to do all good. It cannot but be obvious to the observer that all such infirmities sometimes depend on autocratic volition, and sometimes on violence on the part of nature. However, not all people are equally weak, but some are more and some less.

Such infirmities must be healed in us. But first of all, it is necessary to seek a physician who would heal them. Why did the Holy Fathers bequeath to us, Christians, that we should always pray to God in this way, calling out to Him with a broken heart: "Look upon us, O Lord, according to Thy mercy, and heal our infirmities for the sake of Thy holy name." That is, look upon our infirmities and heal them by Thy grace, that Thy name may be glorified, that Thou art merciful and gracious, and that Thou art the only Physician, and let no one boast of himself when he is healed, but let him glory in his Physician, and let him thank Him day and night with all his heart, truly humble-minded. And so, in whom his infirmities will be healed in this way, he has become a Christian (a real one), and whoever has any of the other infirmities of which we have spoken, it is evident that he has not yet been healed. And this he suffers either from ignorance or from foolishness, as one who does not know what he is saying to God when he prays, and what infirmities he asks God to heal. And if he dies unhealed, he will forever weep over it in hell, not hoping ever to be freed from its fiery burning. For this reason we must weep bitterly over the miserable state into which we have come. Let Christian people cry out day and night: Look upon the Lord and heal our infirmities. But even the Lord cannot heal them if they do not know what these infirmities they ask for are, despite the fact that there are so many of them and they are so diverse. This is the cause of perdition, for which so many Christians, rich and poor, rulers and simple, young and old, monks and priests perish. The only cure for all these infirmities in general is the communion of the Divine nature or the reception of God's grace. If a Christian does not receive Divine grace and power, according to the measure of his faith, then even though he keeps vigils, even though he sleeps on the bare ground, even though he sings psalms day and night, prays and fasts, he still remains unhealed and is outside the part of Christ, just like the unfaithful.

2.

And these infirmities, which we have previously indicated, these obscene strivings of carnal lusts, these addictions to earthly and worldly things, wealth and vain glory, no soul can heal in itself and become healthy either by itself or with the help of any other person. Only by our Lord Jesus Christ can they be healed, as it is written: "To this our infirmities you have received, and have borne your sorrows" (Matt. 8:17). For if human souls, I do not say pagans and atheists, even the Jews themselves, who believed in the true God, could conveniently hate worldly lusts and carnal inclinations, and thus escape the devil, the ruler of the world (for by means of these passions he acquired for himself the power of death), then there would be no need for the good, gracious, and loving God to become man, to be crucified, and after death to descend into the pit of the earth, That is, to hell. But the point is that no one can hate the world and all worldly and carnal things, unless he becomes a partaker of Divine grace and receives the power to do so from the Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever, strengthened by the Divine power of Christ, does not first hate, with all his heart, everything worldly and carnal, can in no way fulfill the commandments of Christ, or, as it is written, always shun evil and do good.

Therefore, let everyone who believes in Christ, first of all, ask the merciful God for grace and strength to hate the world and all the things of the world, all the passions and lusts of the flesh, and after he has hated them, let him labor with warm faith, in order to attain their deadness, which is the deadness of Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, that he always bore the death of the Lord Jesus in his body (2 Corinthians 4:10). Such petitions are pleasing to God, and He listens to them with good pleasure, as St. John the Theologian certifies: "If we ask according to His will, He will listen to us" (1 John 5:14). For this is the only thing God wants people to seek from Him, that is, that which leads man to eternal salvation. Why should no man care about anything else and depend on nothing else for his labors in the present life, except that his soul at the last hour of death may be healthy and free from all worldly and carnal passions? Thus, it is necessary that the soul should become healthy from all its infirmities, and then, as soon as it becomes healthy, it will be able to serve God worthily, fulfilling His divine commandments, and to appear unashamed when it stands before the dreadful judgment seat of Christ. But if she does not do this, that is, if she does not serve God and does not fulfill His commandments, although not to a great extent, then, of course, on the day of judgment she will be unhealthy from the passions, and for this she will be cast into the fire of Gehenna, which will swallow her up in its unquenchable furnace and will burn eternal ages. For the fire of Gehenna cannot burn any others, but only those who have left their souls unhealed in the present life, and have thus passed unhealed into the next life.

3. Sin is committed both by our will and not by our will. For sin always appears to us only as a kind of deceptive bait.

Thus, the soul must try in every way not to allow demons to approach it, and it cannot achieve this in any other way than by not bowing to the lusts of sin, in Christ Jesus, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.

Homily Thirteenth. 1. The healing of the soul is one, not many. 2. People sin in four ways. 3. The salvation of all in the one will of God; but man has nothing in himself with which he can be saved.

Our soul is simple and uncomplicated; therefore, when he is sick, medicine alone heals him. But the body, being composed of many, and moreover, unequal parts, which themselves are composed of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air, when it becomes ill, has need, as complex, of various medicines, and moreover composed of different herbs. This was well interpreted by the external sages of the Greeks, who also said that if the human body were singular, that is, simple and uncomplicated, then there would be only one medicine for it, but, being composed of many parts, it also needs many and complex medicines. And the soul, I say, on the contrary, being immaterial, simple and uncomplicated, when it falls ill, one medicine heals it, and not many. What kind of medicine is this? The Holy Spirit, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle says: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, that freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17). Therefore, every Christian, through repentance, almsgiving, and every other virtue, as much as he has the strength, must strive for nothing else but to receive the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit, by Whose power he will begin to live a truly Christ-like life. For there is no other way, art and method for a Christian to live according to Christ, except to receive from above the power or grace of Jesus Christ.

2. Man sins in four ways - will, bondage, knowledge and ignorance. Willingly, that is, willingly sinning, when, knowing for sure that evil is evil and that it is in his will to do it or not to do it, he does it willingly. Unwillingly, that is, without desire, he sins when he is compelled to do so by some necessity, and does evil without wishing it, as, for example, some martyrs denied Christ because of the unbearable torments to which they were subjected. It happens that in another way, without knowing and unwillingly, he does evil, when, for example, having shot an arrow to kill some animal, he kills a person without wanting it. There is a sin in knowledge, when the soul knows that a certain deed is sin, but, being weak and weakened in temper, commits it, not having the strength to resist the battle and the rebellious strong inclination to sin, commits sin, inclining to it and coveting it as if against its will. It is in this case that believers especially know the power of Christ, namely, when they are able not to do the lusts they hate by suggestion, then they know that they have the grace of Christ. In ignorance there is a sin when someone does something bad, not knowing that it is bad, but believing that it is good.

At the same time, it should be noted that there are few sins of the will, and they, since for the most part they are very obvious and irresistibly crowd into the consciousness, butt like ostni (tools for inducing draught cattle - Ed.) the one who commits them, and move him to repentance. Other sins, that is, sins in bondage, in knowledge and ignorance, are very numerous, even without number, but they are all almost unmemorable and soon completely fall out of consciousness, and the one who commits them, in spite of their number, is not afraid and is not moved to repentance, since he does not consider them sins and does not think about them. Wherefore it behooves us to pray for this, that God grant us both to know their sinfulness and to feel them, for the fact that we do not remember and do not feel them does not make us innocent of them, and yet the devil plunges the greater part of people into pride because of their ignorance, that is, because they do not recognize them, do not think about them, that they mean something, but impute them to nothing; which people, despite the fact that they say that they are wise in essence, turn out to be violent (stupid - Ed.) and foolish, because they did not know that the salvation of all rests on the sole mercy of God.

3. No man has in himself anything blessed with which he can be saved, neither the righteous nor the sinful. For God Himself says: "I will have mercy, if I have mercy on him, and I will be merciful, if I am merciful" (Romans 9:15). And David confesses this, crying out to God: "Lord, God of my salvation" (Psalm 87:2). What is the salvation? In becoming a partaker of God's holiness, and this is in the will of God, that is, that He should give His holiness to those who direct their hearts to Him and have no crookedness in their thoughts, which their souls are convinced of (Psalm 77:37), that is, to become faithful to God and to His words, since, according to the prophet, they see the face of God in righteousness (Psalm 10:7). People see the visible, and God also sees the hidden. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, saith the Scriptures, make His paths upright (Matt. 3:3). These paths of God are the souls of men when they are right, that is, when they confess their ignorance, lack of learning, and lack of punishment, their lack of goodness and their inclination to all kinds of sins, when they do not want to live hypocritically, to be different according to their inner constitution, and to appear different before men, and to receive honor from men, and not from God; for God, who searches hearts, hates such souls as being of a part of the devil, for the devil does so that, being an enemy, he takes the form of a friend and, being darkness, appears to be light.

Since the salvation of all is in one God, let each one prepare himself and take the trouble to become right, in order to become worthy of God's mercy; for he who is right is true; Whoever is true is humble, and whoever is humble is the only one worthy of mercy. God, who is the truth, cannot have mercy on him who is wrong, because he is not true. Therefore, do not bother God in prayer, show mercy to you before you become right, for it is impossible for God to unite with an evil and corrupt soul; and God's mercy consists in this, that one should partake of the holiness of God. And if you are overcome by the evil devil, the ruler of evil, and do not have the strength to be right, compel by your fervent prayer the goodness of God to grant you the power to become right first, so that for this reason you may be worthy of God's great mercy, that is, the acceptance of His holiness. This holiness places enmity between the one who is sanctified and between sin, in other words, it makes the one being sanctified the enemy of all sin. For whoever loves God loves what pleases Him, and turns away from what God does not favor. But that which is not pleasing to God, of course, is pleasing to the devil. Why is every person who is wrong (and therefore does not love what is pleasing to God) a friend of the devil and an enemy of God. What hope of salvation is there for such a person?

Therefore, those who do evil that they could not do, and do not do good that they could do, there is no salvation as long as they are so. But even of those who do good, it cannot be said that they already have in themselves everything by which salvation is arranged. They only did all that they had to do, just as every slave does what he must do so as not to be beaten. If it happens that the householder thanks such a slave, he thanks him out of his kindness. But if any servant becomes proud, saying that he does his work so well, he is beaten because he remembers that he could not do anything more than he ought to have done, so that if such a servant (good in everything) wants his master to thank him, he must humble himself in every way, and say, I have done only this, what he should have done, and if he had not done it, he would have been beaten like a slave without a key. In the same way, every Christian who does all that is due cannot expect anything for it. But it would be good if everyone who desires to do the will of God could do it; and it often happens to everyone that he cannot do what he wills, and does what he hates, because the wisdom and lust of the flesh resist him. How can one then say: only desire salvation and you will be saved? Salvation is not from nature, which is why we do not see that anyone will ever be saved by himself. And God says: I am God, and there is nothing to save Me (Isaiah 43:11). For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). How can anyone be saved by himself?