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thieves write down our sins in their charters in order to show us when after death we will go through the toll-houses..

2) Whoever cares with all his might to acquire a real, pure prayer "hears from the demons noise, and knocking, and voices, and curses, but he will not fall down and will not betray to them [his] thought (directed at the Invisible God and crying out), saying to God: I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me (Ps. 22:4), and the like.57 During such temptations, one should use a short and intensified prayer." (See paragraph 11 above.)

3) "If the demons threaten you, so that they suddenly appear in the air, they will smite and plunder your mind, or, like beasts, they will tear your body," says St. John.

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Nilus of Sinai, "do not be afraid of them and do not care in the least about their threat, because they frighten you, tempting you, whether you pay full attention to them or completely neglect them."

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Chapter 13. About the coming of the Holy Spirit and His actions.

§ 1. General concepts. What kind of person is called a saint by the saints themselves?

Such a formulation of the title is necessary because the world not only does not know, but also cannot know and determine who and what the saints are, and even simply distinguish them from the "saints" and all sorts of crooks posing as ascetics, or, on the contrary, sees in the saints only "saints" and hypocrites. "He who speaks in the Holy Spirit," wrote St. Symeon the New Theologian, following whom I intend to expound this paragraph, "the high-minded and those who are afflicted with devilish pride are turned away, as from the highly intelligent and proud, being more struck by his words than brought to tenderness and contrition; but he who grinds like a millstone, and speaks from his womb or according to science, is praised and received, although he all speaks falsely about the work of salvation. Thus, among such there is no one who could discern and see (people or the work of salvation) in a good way and how it really is."1

This great and angelic man, being in divine ecstasy, sings (in the first person) about the saints in one of his hymns:

... as He [God] visible in the flesh,

The people did not know that He was God;

In the same way we are as we were to all;