Unit 7 rem close

For just as the devil, having stolen the perfect man, offers him up in sacrifice, so too does the thief come only to steal, to sacrifice, and to destroy. For the thief says, "I do not come except to steal and to sacrifice and to destroy." — He spoke of the law as an oath: just as the oath places God in the soul, so the law brings God into the soul; and as perjury removes God from the soul, so lawlessness casts God out from it. Therefore, if, upon hearing the law established, we do not confess our sins before ourselves, being afraid and ashamed before men, we shall be brought to ruin. Thus David also says: "I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord concerning my iniquity, and You forgave the wickedness of my heart." And again: "Speak, you first, your sins, that you may be justified." And again Solomon says: "He who covers his wickedness shall not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes it shall find mercy." Those who fulfill the commandments serve the angels, for they are our guides, who received us from the beginning, when the Most High divided the nations and set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God. And in ministering to our leaders, the angels, in the will of the Lord, in the judgment, there shall be right standing for us before the Lord on that day when He judges the inhabited earth in righteousness, if indeed the Father has given all judgment to the Son. Courage is the best habit of the rational soul, by which it has conquered and holds fast against its enemies. Having overcome the opposing power, we strip it, learning its words about it.

So that the evils associated with it may be made plain, those who are driven out by it— not only the simple-minded, but also those who have been made light-headed by indulgence— may easily flee from it. The soul trains itself upon wool and flax, exercising the discourses concerning both animate and inanimate things; or examining the discourses about practical and natural matters; or drawing the contemplation concerning bodies and incorporeal beings toward itself through practical habit. Or again, it finds the soul risen from night, watching, discovered by the Sun of righteousness, the Bridegroom; certainly, too, when it prays not to fall into temptation, saying, “I have kept watch and become like a solitary sparrow upon the housetop”; but food for the soul is the study of divine discourses, and its works are the virtues; its attendants are the senses. Thus, the soul more precious than costly stones provides these things to its bodily dwelling. It is said that the soul of the earnest one possesses the wood of knowledge and the wood of life of the Church— knowledge as law, life as word. For this soul is the one that came forth from Christ’s side, and having been found as His bride, she is the prudent and courageous woman who has kept this faith and again awaits this heavenly Bridegroom. A pure intellect is a noose, binding virtue to virtue and doctrine to doctrine; or it is a spoken word drawing spiritual contemplation from the intellect. Without such intellect, one cannot proceed nor come to be in contemplation of incorporeal things unless one has first set right what is within; for the disturbance of one’s own inner state tends to turn one back toward the things from which one came forth. But having acquired dispassion, one continues in contemplation through time,

And he will not worry about those in his house, for all who are with him are clothed: the one, anger, with gentleness and humility of mind; the other, desire, with self-control and continence. Hesitant grains—those things which make hesitation to obtain the kingdom—are eaten by the guileless and simple-minded soul that is well-knowing and God-loving; she does not eat them, nor does she even taste them, should she happen to desire them hastily; for she calls hesitant grains the evils. False pleasures and vain beauty: the most foolish soul not only conceives and imagines what is pleasing to itself, but also undertakes in action to fulfill the contemplation. But if the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, then the soul that happens to possess wisdom praises the fear of the Lord, which has become to her a foreigner in regard to such knowledge. For they know that she possesses the knowledge concerning practical matters—namely, the choice of virtue and the flight from vice—and that she has acquired as her possession those who are taught by her; therefore, they say, having taken hold of her, we handle these things thus. Otherwise, the possession of the righteous, wisdom and prudence, understanding and virtue—these possessions are seized by the impious, who persuade the righteous to do something of the things forbidden by God, so that the mind, blinded by sin, may fall away from these holy possessions. To the understanding righteous person, the burdensome things of affairs become easy; but to the one who is otherwise disposed, and who possesses ease and some manner of refreshment, the easy things become burdensome. For they possess a discourse that is knowledgeable in theorems, yet having nothing lofty.