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7:84The prayer of the sinner, whose heart is broken and humbled by remorse at the memory of his faults and failings, is better than the prayer of a boasting righteous man who is puffed up by conceit, who rides the horse of pride, and who conducts himself haughtily because he [seems to] stand firmly on the spiritual level. When a sinner becomes aware of his failings and begins to repent, he is righteous. When a righteous man becomes aware of his righteousness and his conscience is persuaded of it, he is a sinner.
7:87The boastful righteous man who is wise in his own eyes is like the bitter and briny sea, whose waves are lifted high, but whose mariners perish from thirst.
7:88The righteous man who with senseless deeds makes a feeble beginning, who then becomes filled with repulsion, who becomes acrid and austere, and who voluntarily swallows the hardships and severities of poverty, who suffers and is oppressed, who is tried by scorching heat and bitter cold, who is tormented by temptations of every sort, will in the end be filled with sweetness through his forbearance and the peace he receives from on high. He will become initiated into the sweetness of the knowledge of the truth. But scarcely will a man be found who is released from the struggle until his last day.
Thus, as it is said in Scripture, the fruit of a man's spiritual knowledge will be sweet for eating, but the leaves of his asceticism required for healing will be repugnant (Cf.
Genesis 3:6).
7:92Shallow knowledge, which consists of acute thoughts and intellections, which is yoked to the passions and far removed from the steady practices and labors of repentance and asceticism (which things break, torment, and humble the heart and, by their vehemence, cause a man to search into the words of Scripture and to meditate upon the mercies of God and the glorious mysteries of the new world) has slain many and begotten many sons for Gehenna.
7:93A truly righteous man, who perceives the tender care shown by God's mercies toward all, and the renewal which our nature will receive at the end, pours forth his mercy especially upon sinful and feeble men so as to bring them to repentance. He understands from his own experience that although all the members of his body are in need of care, still he must give special attention to a member that is ill or in pain or broken. He must bandage it, apply remedies, and care for its healing even if it is one of the body's less honorable members (Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:23). Now the Head of the entire body of the holy Church is Jesus Christ (Cf. Colossians 1:18), and each one of us is a member of Christ (Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27) in the body of the Church, whether he is good or bad.
7:94 At the beginning of his prayer a righteous man magnifies and gives glory to God, but he denounces himself. He begins his words by praying for the peace of the world and the kings and rulers. At the beginning of his entreaty he supplicates for the tranquility of
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the Church, Her children, and Her leaders. At the beginning of his supplication he begs for sinners, the fallen, and the feeble. And when he begins to weep and to groan, he makes entreaty for those who repent, who suffer oppression, the afflicted, the buffeted, and the distressed. Thereafter, taking refuge in their prayers, he proceeds to ask compassion, mercy, and forgiveness for himself.
7:95A man who truly repents, who has been baptized in water and the Spirit (Cf. John 3:5), who has been absolved of his sins through grace, cannot be persuaded to be negligent. Rather, he strives and labors at repentance by keeping the commandments, so that he can also be cleansed of the passions, actively receive renewal in his mind, secretly perceive the earnest of the Spirit (Cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22) which he received from holy baptism, and mystically delight within himself with joy and spiritual consolation.
7:96When truthful men fervently and undoubtingly embrace simple faith in Christ and they hear the promises of the Spirit that 'in My name shall those who believe in Me cast out demons, they shall take up serpents, and they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover' (Cf. Mark 16:17-18), and so on, they easily accomplish with their own hands signs and miracles through the simplicity of their faith. But faith that comes through the divine vision of knowledge searches out and explores the mysteries of the Faith. Now either faith is impeded, when conceit intervenes, and it hesitates at the fork in the road, or, because of painstaking labors, a steady discipline, and mournful tears, it is helped by grace: then [in a second case] it discovers the light of the true knowledge of the new, noetic world. Faith is the eye of the soul, hope is her vision, and love is living, noetic light. The soul cannot be filled with joy and secret consolation except by the operation of grace.
7:97So long as honor and dishonor, loss and profit, good things and evil come upon us
through the senses and trouble us, our soul suffers loss and she has need of labor, training, ascetical discipline, stillness, and the absence of all intercourse. In short, until there is uprooted from our heart the school which cultivates the knowledge of the good and evil of our neighbor, that such a one is good and such a one is bad, that this man is righteous and that man is a sinner, and so forth, and until there is rooted within us the school of grace, which cultivates love, mercifulness, forgiveness of senseless deeds, of sinners, and of the feeble, and we indiscriminately pour forth grace upon good and evil men equally (in the likeness of Jesus, the Saviour of all): until such a time we should not expect the fruits of the Spirit, enumerated by the blessed Paul (Vide Galatians 5:22) to flourish within us.
7:98Every man who toils within himself and receives in himself material from the Scriptures and from nature, and so on, adorns himself and satisfies his hunger. A youth, however, receives material from the Scriptures and from created natures, and then runs to
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satisfy the hunger of many others, so perishing from hunger himself. I earnestly beseech you to forgive me this very folly. Let all who read or hear [this book] say with groans, 'O God, have pity on this sinner!'
7:100 For us and for spiritual beings our Lord has reserved perfection free of aberration as the manner of life of the new world. Here, however, according to the word of the divine Paul, 'God hath enclosed all in aberration that yonder all might be in need of mercy', both the righteous and sinners (Cf. Romans 11:32). The Lord teaches us in the Gospel of life to cleave each day to repentance, and that if we are negligent in works and do not possess daily repentance, we should not resort to the greatness of knowledge, faith, and mercy. Unto Him be glory, and may He make us wise in His truth unto the ages. Amen.
Let every man who comes upon this book pray. And let every man who reads it pray.
And let every man who owns it pray.
And for him who prays let us all together pray, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Amen.
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