11. The believer fears God, the fearful acquires
humility, the humble becomes meek, through this becoming inaccessible to
unnatural movements of anger and passions, the meek observes the commandments,
in observing them is cleansed, the cleansed is enlightened, the enlightened
becomes worthy of being with the Bridegroom-Word in the treasury of mysteries.
11. Repress the feelings of irritation in your
soul with love, deaden the powers of the senses with temperance, and let the
power of thought soar with prayer. Then, the light in your soul will never dim.
11. The images of the earthly person (Adam)
— are major vices, such as: senselessness, indifference, intemperance, and
falsehood. "Images of the Heavenly person" — are major virtues, such
as: sensibility, fortitude, chastity, and fairness. "And as we have borne
the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." (1
Cor. 15:49).
11. I think to call the end of this life as death
is unfair. It should be called more readily as liberation from death, the distancing
from the domain of decay, freedom from slavery, cessation of anxieties,
severing the struggle, exodus from darkness, rest from labors, shielding from
shame, freedom from passions: in a word — the termination of all evil. Having
endured them and reformed themselves through the mortification of the flesh,
the Saints made themselves strangers to this life. Because in struggling
valiantly with the earthly and the flesh — with the turmoil that emanates from
the emotions having empathy with feelings that generate temptations — and in
crushing them both, they preserved the unconquered worthiness of the soul
within themselves.
20. He who conquers the source of passions —
egoism, with God’s help, would easily conquer the other passions: anger,
sadness, rancor and others. He who is conquered by
egoism, becomes ulcerated with other passions, even if he did not want this.
20. Beginning of all passions is egoism and the
end — pride. Egoism is the foolish love for the body. In severing egoism, the
rest of the passions that emanate from it are severed.
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