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?

But if thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of sinners now repent in one day, and, turning to Christ the Lord, become friends with Him, are united and sanctified by His holiness, then they will immediately recognize the sanctification received from Him, by which salvation is arranged, feeling a certain divine power inherent in them. For Christ the Lord is for everyone who believes in Him the power of reasoning, the power of reason, the strength of wisdom, the power of truth, the foundation of love for God and people, the action of every holy commandment and will of God, a kind of rational and nature-turned abhorrence and hatred of all evil and sin, all lust and deceit. Christ the Lord is our hope and our peace. Without the Lord Jesus, not only can no one do good, but everyone is separated from God. Only one thing the Lord demands of everyone who believes in Him, that he entrust himself entirely to Him, Christ the Lord, that is, that he should have full hope in Him and nourish the unshakable conviction that only by the power of Christ, and not by his own, can anyone be saved. And such a person is the only true Christian who places full hope in Christ alone, that He alone will correct everything in him and heal him both in soul and body. And when this faith, which is possessed with understanding, is followed by a deed, then love for Christ is born, that is, when one receives by his very deed what he hoped for from Christ, and feels it, then he loves Him. For a person who is beneficent cannot remain insensitive to a beneficence, and naturally begins to love the Benefactor, even apart from his own will. Then, when he succeeds in loving his Benefactor, he finds the Benefactor Himself within himself, because He also fully trusts and enters into the one who loved Him.

But the devil, what he first did to man, he now tries to do with everyone who begins to repent, suggesting to him: "There is no salvation for you in your God" (Psalm 3:3), that is, that salvation is not by the power of your God, but by your own. And woe to him who believes him! In this way, the enemy wants to strip the soul of the grace of God, in order to then catch it and devour it like a wolf to a lamb. For this reason it is always proper for the mind to look to God, from Whom alone comes all help, so that this mind may be enlightened by the mental rays of the light of God and, having become deified, acquire a kind of immutability, so as not to return to evil. Then at last he becomes the ruler of the earth, so that no earthly lust dares to approach him any more, but all earthly things tremble before him and fear him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of God, Who fears the Cherubim themselves, Whom he always has inherent in himself, and from Whom he does not allow himself to be separated in thought and separated by desire and feeling. To God, our Benefactor, be glory, honor, and worship forever and ever. Amen.

The Fourteenth Word. 1. What does God require of a Christian? 2. What harm has man suffered and continues to suffer from the devil, and does not know it? 3. All people are sick in their souls and do not understand this. 4. They must know their infirmities in order to seek a physician. 5. The evil devil puts his temptations as a bait that he lays before people. 6. For what reason do not all Christians excel in virtue?

God demands of every Christian, first and foremost, that he should always confess his former sins, so that, remembering them at all times, he would always have self-abasement and humble wisdom and would not despise others. Secondly, it demands that he repent before Him and pray to Him for everything in which he sins every day, willingly or unwillingly, in knowledge or in ignorance, for it is impossible for a person to pass a single day without falling into some kind of sin, great or small, because sin can be in word, deed, and thought. How these deeds, words and thoughts quickly alternate or act together in the course of the day, you will not see how you sin not in one, then in another. But whoever sins falls; there is no justification for the fallen, but he is saved by the one boundless mercy of God.

Man suffers from a certain hidden illness, great and unknowable, which is so great and so excessive, that there has never been and never will be like it. Why was it necessary for God Himself to come in order to correct and heal her? In spite of all this, however, people do not know about this and live in complete carelessness, not in the least grieving because of this illness because of their insensibility. For whoever knows this sickness also feels it; whoever feels it hurts his soul; Whoever is sick seeks recovery and tries in every way to be healed of that illness.

2. But what kind of disease is it? Listen: the devil, according to his custom, always approaches the soul in a strange and unrecognizable way, so that, being always near it and not moving away from it, he disturbs and overwhelms all its strivings, movements, and thoughts, that is, the mental, desired, and irritable forces of the soul, and directs them to what pleases him. In this way he lures us all into his nets and takes us into slavery to himself and to his will, and we do not know it; and, worst of all, the devil, using this tactic incessantly and making us passionate and useless, convinces us to think and say that this illness of ours (confusion and turmoil within), by which we are led into passions and are kept in them, is a property of our nature, and not the work of demonic snares [1]. Others he persuades to think that the evil deeds which they do by his action are the essence of correctness and virtue, and to boast of them. But this is already the complete deadness of the soul, for he who boasts of evil does not feel (its pernicious action) in the least, and this is peculiar only to the dead. And this is why the danger of being condemned together with the devil and other demons hangs over the human race, and he does not know it.

3. A person who was previously healthy and fell ill knows and understands what is illness and what is health. But if someone happens to be sick from birth, then it is difficult for him to understand what health is.