The Foundation of Faith vs. False Asceticism

A lordly commandment tells you: I will place enmity between you and the serpent, so that you would not hear his counsel. But God is a lover of mankind, and He does not know how to hold a grudge; only if you turn back, He is ready, because of His own goodness, to meet you just as He did with that one. He knows that you have died in so much time without tasting bread; having embraced you, He will kiss your neck, which the devil had hardened, and He will feed you again through the well-fed calf, the mysteries of Christ.

And there will be great joy also upon you, and the father will say: It is necessary to rejoice and be glad, because my son was dead and lived again, and was lost and was found (Luke 15:24). And you will find all of us rejoicing with the father and being glad together at your salvation; for among us not even one is envious. If you listen to our counsel, you will find these things happening from the common father concerning you and from the brother; if because of women, those deceived with you will begin to present pretexts in sins: 'Shall I return to the church after so much time? I will listen to the women living with me, the dividers.'

For this has been spoken much by them, and this is the most bitter craft of the devil, that he not only trips up man at the beginning, but also after the fall does not permit this one to turn back to God and be healed. What is a division? And what is a transgression? Tell me. In any case, division is when someone abandons the faith and the mysteries handed down with it in the church of God and moves into unbelief.

These things you ought to have said in the beginning, when you were in the father's house, when the devil and his workers were persuading you to depart from the paternal wealth of true life; then you ought to have said: 'I do not become a divider, I do not become a transgressor, no one shall separate me from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35); He Himself endured so much through me for nothing...'

He was placed so that he might redeem the one he fashioned with his own blood from sin. And how could I escape from the church, having denied the honor cast upon me? And he continued, persuading you through the kind promise and the venerable names—as is the custom of him and his workers—to depart from the faith, rushing toward a semblance of self-control and the renunciation of something or another venerable name.

It was necessary for you then to say: 'It is permitted for me, being a Christian and remaining in the church and guarding the mysteries, to renounce possessions, to renounce wickedness, to renounce the whole world, that is, worldly cares; and if it is necessary, also to exercise self-control over filth and all fleshly pleasure; and lest I say anything incorrect, and even if it is necessary to guard virginity and purity, it is permitted for me, being a Christian and guarding the faith, to build up all these things. For if I remove the foundation of the faith, which is Jesus (1 Cor 3:11), where shall I build the citizenship? For these things I hear every day being proclaimed in the church of Christ by the fathers who also enlightened me; but to you I will say: Depart from me, all you who work lawlessness (Matt 16:23); if anyone evangelizes to you something other than what you received (Gal 1:8), let him be accursed. Whenever you fell, whenever you awoke, you would not have been led astray by the teacher of heresies, you would not have truly become a destroyer; for no one, even upon your returning to the church, would compel you to eat and drink fleshly food, nor even to marry or to be unmarried, but perhaps not to eat bread or something that torments the body. Only do not deprive yourself of the body and blood of Christ, nor loathe the creatures of God. That these heresies come from Simon the Magician: every man has the power to abstain from the evil and to approach the good, and to receive from the good such power and grace as he himself wills; for example...'