via Pithless Thoughts

The person that is struggling to the best of his abilities, who has no desire to live a disorderly life, but who, in the course of the struggle for faith and life, falls and rises again and again, God will never abandon. And if he has the slightest will not to grieve God, he will go to Paradise with his shoes on. The benevolent God will, surprisingly, push him into Paradise. God will insure that he take him at his best, in repentance. He may have to struggle all his life, but God will not abandon him; He will take him at his best possible time.

- Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

Contents

• Introduction
• A Brief Life of Pelagius
• The Letter to Demetrias
  • History and Text
  • Content and Analysis
• Conclusion
• Endnotes
• Bibliography

by Deacon Geoffrey Ready

Originally published at the now-defunct orthodoxireland.com website. Far from a defense of what has become known as “Pelagianism,” this article seeks to define what Pelagius actually said for himself and to read him in his own context.

Few churchmen have been so maligned as Pelagius in the Christian West. For nearly 1,500 years, all that anyone has known of the British monk’s theology has come from what his opponents said about him — and when one’s opponents are as eminent as Augustine and Jerome, the chance of getting a fair hearing is not great. Consequently, it has been easy to lay all manner of pernicious heresies at Pelagius’s doorstep. Only in the last couple of decades have scholars been able to recover and examine Pelagius’s works directly. What they have found is that very little of what has historically passed for “Pelagian” heresy was actually taught by him.

This “rehabilitation” of Pelagius by Western scholars calls for an Orthodox Christian response. Indeed, through ecumenical contact and dialogue with Western Christians, Orthodox theologians have come to appreciate the immense impact that Augustine has had in shaping the landscape of Western Christianity; and the divergence of the Augustinian trajectory of theology from the Apostolic and Patristic Tradition has been carefully charted. It is surely time, then, for an evaluation of Augustine’s chief opponent, Pelagius. We may even find in the British monk’s criticism of Augustinian ideology a voice sympathetic to Orthodox concerns.

There is no denying that Orthodox Christians have traditionally called Pelagius a heretic. Yet no Eastern Fathers were acquainted with him, and condemnations of Pelagianism were included in the Oecumenical Synod of Ephesos only under Western influence. As we shall see, on the couple of occasions during his lifetime that Pelagius was actually tried at local councils in the East, the evaluation was positive. This paper picks up where those councils left off, though a thorough evaluation of Pelagius lies well beyond its scope. We shall begin the process by analysing herein the Letter to Demetrias, in which many of Pelagius’s principal views are set out.

A Brief Life of Pelagius

Tracing the life of Pelagius is not easy. No one wrote his biography, nor are there many autobiographical details in his works. There are no accounts of the controversies from an objective historian, and little commentary exists from friendly or neutral sources. Nonetheless, scholars are confident they have pieced together an accurate portrait of Pelagius’s life.

The first we know of Pelagius is in Rome where he came in early 380s. He was almost certainly from Britain, where he was born around 350.[1] There he received a very good education, with extensive training in the Scriptures, as well as in both Latin and Greek Patristic writings. He inherited in his theological formation the Romanised Celtic tradition, “with its emphasis on faith and good works, on the holiness of all life and the oneness of all.”[2] Consequently, once in Rome, he became impatient with the moral laxity that surrounded him. The Christianisation of the Empire was not making true Christians of people, he believed, only “conforming pagans.” He began preaching with the fervent desire to lead everyone to live an authentic Christian life according to the Gospel. Pelagius believed that the grace and renewing power of baptism had brought the opportunity to struggle on the path to perfection; but instead, he saw Christians squandering their baptism and “lapsing back into their old, comfortable habits of self-indulgence and careless pursuit of Mammon.”[3] The main focus of his preaching was never theological, but practical moral advice.

In Rome, Pelagius gradually gathered around himself a large and influential circle of loyal adherents, including educated aristocrats, many of them women, as well as many clergy. Though he did not belong to any religious community and never sought ordination, Pelagius was often called a monk, a testimony to his holy life. Even Augustine described him as “a holy man, who, I am told, has made no small progress in the Christian life.”[4] Gleaning what they could from his writings, commentators have described Pelagius as “a cultivated and sensitive layman,” “an elusive and gracious figure, beloved and respected wherever he goes,” always “silent, smiling, reserved,” certainly a “modest and retiring man.”[5]

The first hint of theological controversy came around 405, when Pelagius heard someone reading from Augustine’s Confessions, “Give me what you command and command what you will.” This verse annoyed Pelagius very much; he believed this and other Augustinian teachings contradicted the traditional Christian understanding of grace and free will, turning man into a “mere marionette, a robot.”[6] Soon after, he wrote his famous Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, in which he set out his opposition to such Augustinian doctrines as the inherited guilt of original sin, rigid predestination, and the necessity of baptism to spare infants from hell.

With Alaric the Visigoth threatening Rome with attack in the year 409, Pelagius departed for Palestine, where he was greeted with hostility by Augustine’s theological ally, Jerome. Jerome had been busy fighting Origenism, and when he heard that Pelagius was teaching that a baptised Christian was able to live a sinless life, if he so willed, he reacted strongly. For him, this doctrine of impeccantia (sinlessness) sounded like the Stoic notion of apatheia which Origen had adopted. So Jerome managed to have Pelagius formally charged with heresy, and the British monk was brought before Bishop John of Jerusalem at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis in the year 415. At these two synods, Pelagius admitted to having taught this doctrine, but disassociated himself from the more extreme views of Celestius, a lawyer whom he had met in Rome. He quoted Scripture on the necessity of grace and anathematised those who denied that it was essential. The Synod of Diospolis therefore concluded:

since we have received satisfaction in respect of the charges brought against the monk Pelagius in his presence and since he gives his assent to sound doctrines but condemns and anathematises those contrary to the faith of the Church, we adjudge him to belong to the communion of the Catholic Church.[7]

After his acquittal, Pelagius wrote two major treatises which are no longer extant, On Nature and On Free Will. In these, he defends his position on sin and sinlessness, and accuses Augustine and Jerome of being under the influence of Manicheanism. Their doctrine of original sin restored evil to a Manichean status, and their predestinarianism was tantamount to Manichean fatalism.

Unsurprisingly, Jerome and Augustine were not convinced by the conclusions at Jerusalem and Diospolis. They decided to direct all their energies to attacking Pelagius and the British monk soon found himself “out-manoeuvred and out-gunned.”[8] Under the influence of Augustine, the bishops of Africa appealed to Pope Innocent I, and after some time, he declared that Pelagius and Celestius were to be excommunicated unless they renounced their “heretical” beliefs. Innocent died a month later, and his successor Zosimus reversed the judgement. The African bishops stood fast, though, and between 416 and 418, several councils of Carthage passed numerous canons against the tenets of what had become known as “Pelagianism.”[9]

Today, historians of the Church realise that Pelagius was not condemned simply on theological grounds. Rather, Pelagius’s teaching was seen as a threat, a “potentially dangerous source of schism in the body social and politic.”[10] His central message that there is only one authentic Christian life, the path to perfection, left no room for nominal Christians. If he had gone off into the Syrian or Egyptian desert, he would probably have been a revered “abba.” Instead, he clashed with the comfortable Christianity which had become the basis of unity in the Imperial Church, and, as a result, he has gone down as the West’s chief heresiarch.

Around the time of his condemnation by the councils of Carthage, Pelagius disappeared. He is thought to have died not long after 418 somewhere near the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly in Egypt, though some have speculated that he may have returned to Britain.[11]

At the Oecumenical Synod of Ephesos in 431, those who failed to disassociate themselves from “the opinions of Celestius” were excommunicated. This canon clearly resulted from the direct influence of Cyril of Alexandria and other African bishops, rather than from the theological reflection of the whole Church. Thus, as one commentator has said, it was as “a matter of courtesy rather than a result of reasoned debate” that the Eastern Church overruled the earlier decisions in favour of Pelagius at local Eastern Synods at Jerusalem and Diospolis.[12]

The Letter to Demetrias: History and Text

Pelagius was in Palestine when, in 413, he received a letter from the renowned Anician family in Rome. One of the aristocratic ladies who had been among his followers was writing to a number of eminent Western theologians, including Jerome and possibly Augustine, for moral advice for her daughter, Demetrias. The latter was a young woman of 14, who, though recently engaged to be married, had chosen to take a vow of virginity. Demetrias’s mother wanted her to receive the very best instruction as she began her new life. Evidently, the request was fervently made, for in his response, the Letter to Demetrias, Pelagius admits to having been persuaded by the “remarkable force of her heartfelt desire” (1:2).[13]

Pelagius rose to the dual challenge of not only writing for an aristocratic audience but doing so in direct competition with his illustrious theological adversaries. The Letter to Demetrias has been called “one of the jewels of Christian literature.”[14] One modern commentator describes the impression given by the letter, the impression which Demetrias herself must have received, as that

of an older, wiser friend, writing with deep feeling and sincerity from his own lifetime of experience and commending the values and obligations which he himself prizes above all else in other words, of that same simple, devout Christian teacher whom she had once known as a child in Rome and heard expounding the mysteries of the scriptures to her elders, one whose judgement she could respect and trust, one who believed what he said and practised what he preached, one whose sole concern was to be about his Father’s business. And as she read his advice, no doubt she would have in her mind’s eye a picture of a rather eccentric, distinctly overweight, elderly gentleman, dressed in the simple habit of a monk, strict in his teaching and his behaviour, but capable of impressing the elite of Rome by his enthusiasm and example.[15]

In addition to giving us insight into the practical moral advice which was the centre of Pelagius’s teaching, this letter provides us with the “most complete and coherent account” of his views of natural sanctity and man’s moral capacity to choose to live a holy life.[16]

As with all of Pelagius’s writings, the textual history of the Letter to Demetrias is complicated by his condemnation as a heretic. After the Synod of Ephesos in 431, it became a crime to be in possession of any Pelagian works, so they were transmitted under others’ names. The great irony of this letter is that for centuries it was considered to be one of the works of Jerome and was included in his corpus of writings.[17] Later, the letter would be ascribed to various followers of Pelagius like Celestius and Julian of Eclanum. Today, however, the authenticity of the Letter to Demetrias as a work of Pelagius is not seriously questioned. Textual analysis indicates that its style and vocabulary are typically Pelagian. Moreover, modern scholars point out that Augustine himself knew the letter to have been written by Pelagius, something he mentions in his refutation of it in his work of 417, On the Grace of Christ.[18]

The Letter to Demetrias: Content and Analysis

The first half of the Letter to Demetrias is an exposition of Pelagius’s views of human nature. The monk explains why he begins this way:

Whenever I have to speak on the subject of moral instruction and the conduct of a holy life, it is my practice first to demonstrate the power and quality of human nature and to show what it is capable of achieving (2:1).

The moral life of purity, for Pelagius, can only be achieved by drawing upon both “the good of nature and the good of grace” (9:1); this will be the dominant theme of his exhortation.

Pelagius’s reflections on the human person are not unlike those of the Eastern Fathers. They share the same starting point of moral reflection, that is, the innate goodness of man because God has created him in His image and likeness. Pelagius writes, “you ought to measure the good of human nature by reference to its Creator” (2:2). For Pelagius as well as the Fathers, creation in the image of God means creation with free will, as free, self-determining persons:

Moreover, the Lord of Justice wished man to be free to act and not under compulsion; it was for this reason that ’he left him free to make his own decisions’ (Sir 15:14) and set before him life and death, good and evil, and he shall be given whatever pleases him (2:2).

As with the Fathers, Pelagius has contempt for that “ignorant majority” which believes that because man is able to do evil, he has not been created truly good. In fact, Pelagius says, if man were created to do good “on compulsion and without possibility of variation” — as these people would have preferred — there would be no real humanity, and no real virtue or goodness (3:1). Here we can see that the heart of Pelagius’s objections to Augustine and Jerome is not a question of abstract theology, but practical spirituality: those who deny the free will of man make futile the moral life.

This innate goodness of the human person, Pelagius argues, was not destroyed in the Fall. Man continues to carry in his nature the goodness of creation, a kind of natural grace or “natural sanctity” (4:2). Pelagius goes to great lengths to demonstrate this, offering first as evidence the fact that many pagans have been “chaste, tolerant, temperate, generous, abstinent and kindly, rejecters of the world’s honours as well as its delights, lovers of justice no less than knowledge” (3:3). His central argument, though, is from the Old Testament; he produces a lengthy roll-call of the patriarchs and Old Testament saints (5:1ff) whose examples of holiness prove that it is possible to follow the commandments. Again, Pelagius emphasises the practical moral implications of this doctrine of human goodness:

We can never enter upon the path of virtue, unless we have hope as our guide and companion and if every effort expended in seeking something is nullified in effect by despair of ever finding it (2:1).

There is nothing that Pelagius abhors more than people forsaking the path to life because it is too hard or difficult, because “we are but men, we are encompassed by frail flesh” (16:2). To deny, as Augustine and Jerome did, man’s innate goodness and capacity to live a holy life is not only moral pessimism, it is real blasphemy: for it means that God does not know what he has done or commanded, or that he does not remember the human frailty which he created, or that God has “commanded something impossible” and therefore seeks not our salvation but our punishment and damnation (16:2).

Pelagius also argues against the Augustinian view of the Fall and man because it undermines the reality of sin as a moral choice. The view of his opponents that there is something in nature which compels human beings to sin strikes Pelagius as “blaming nature” for what is really the choice of free human persons. He writes:

If it should be thought to be nature’s fault that some have been unrighteous, I shall use the evidence of the scriptures, which everywhere lay upon sinners the heavy weight of the charge of having used their own will and do not excuse them for having acted only under the constraint of nature (7).

For Pelagius, in the “books of both Testaments [...] all good, as well as all evil, is described as voluntary” (7). This is most easily demonstrated in the case of brothers like Cain and Abel, or Jacob and Esau, who share the same nature. The monk explains, “when merits differ in the same nature, it is will that is the sole cause of an action” (8:1). Therefore, the Fall of man could not have corrupted nature to the point of making of the entire human race the Augustinian massa peccati (mass of sin) unable to do anything but sin. The effect of the Fall must rather be conceived in more “environmental” terms. Pelagius writes:

Nor is there any reason why it is made difficult for us to do good other than that long habit of doing wrong which has infected us from childhood and corrupted us little by little over many years and ever after holds us in bondage and slavery to itself, so that it seems somehow to have acquired the force of nature (8:3).

For the British monk, it was not true to say as Augustine did that all men sinned in Adam and thus inherit his guilt; human beings of their own free will simply imitate Adam and re-enact the Fall in themselves.

Most of what Pelagius argues against Augustine and Jerome can be found in the teaching of the Eastern Fathers. Certainly, the assertion that it is possible to live a holy life after the Fall, as evidenced by the saints of the Old Testament, is a familiar Patristic theme. Moreover, the Eastern Fathers nowhere teach the necessity of sin, emphasising, as Pelagius does, the rôle of human free will. Nor do any of the Fathers propose a doctrine of original sin like that of Augustine which disturbed Pelagius so much. Nevertheless, in his polemics against those who denied human moral freedom, Pelagius develops perhaps too high a view of human free will. As the Orthodox moral theologian, Fr Stanley Harakas, has noted, the Fathers generally distinguished between the innate self-determination (autexousion) of rational beings and the freedom (eleutheria) which is a property only of the “condition reached in Theosis where there is no conflict or struggle in acting in a fully human, divine-like fashion.”[19] Pelagius does seem to confuse these two, anticipating a little too much of real freedom in human self-determination. Furthermore, in his argument against human moral depravity, Pelagius neglects somewhat the effects of mortality and corruption after the Fall which, as the Fathers insist, evoke a tendency (though not a compulsion) towards sin. Finally, to bring it totally in line with Patristic teaching, Pelagius’s understanding of sin would need to be broadened to encompass the concept of “involuntary sin” — the evil acts and events in which we participate, yet do not will.

Still, contrary to caricatures drawn of him, Pelagius does not have a naive and overly optimistic vision of human perfection.[20] The great effort he expends in defending the goodness of human nature is only to show what a wonderful creation has been wasted by sin, to demonstrate “how great is that treasure in the soul which we possess but fail to use” (6:3). It is instructive to recall Pelagius’s response, at the Synod of Diospolis, to one of the principal charges brought against him by Jerome — the belief that “a man can be without sin, if he wishes.” Pelagius answered:

I did indeed say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes, for this ability has been given to him by God. However, I did not say that any man can be found who has never sinned from his infancy up to his old age, but that, having been converted from his sins, he can be without sin by his own efforts and God’s grace, yet not even by this means is he incapable of change for the future.[21]

While he was totally committed to the possibility of a completely sinless life, Pelagius was thus reluctant to admit anyone had ever achieved it.

Despite the oft-cited charge of his critics that he denied the need for redeeming grace,[22] Pelagius clearly emphasises its necessity for the moral life. The first step in the path to moral perfection is baptism, which is a genuine rebirth.[23] After his long roll-call of Old Testament saints, Pelagius writes:

Even before the law was given to us, as we have said, and long before the arrival of our Lord and Saviour some are reported to have lived holy and righteous lives; how much more possible must we believe that to be after the light of his coming, now that we have been instructed by the grace of Christ and reborn as better men (8:4).

This theme of baptismal rebirth is taken up again as a direct exhortation to the young Demetrias:

Consider, I beseech you, that high rank with which you have been made glorious before God and through which you were reborn in baptism to become a daughter of God (19:1).

Like the Fathers, Pelagius teaches that redemption in Christ enables man to co-operate with God in the ascetical struggle toward deification.[24] Yet he departs somewhat from the Patristic Tradition in failing properly to indicate how the grace of redemption works. While Augustine clearly teaches that grace works within the heart of man, Pelagius is never definite about an infused grace. He speaks of being “instructed by the grace of Christ,” of being “purified and cleansed by his blood, encouraged by his example to pursue perfect righteousness” (8:4). These kinds of statements, along with his tendency sometimes to write about “meriting” grace (cf. 25:3), have left Pelagius open to the charge that his understanding of grace is too rationalistic and external.[25]

Notwithstanding possible deficiencies in his theology of grace, Pelagius’s vision of the moral life is far from restricted to external holiness; he directs a lot of his attention to the development of the interior life. Virtues, he writes, “do not come from outside but are produced in the heart itself” (10:4). Nor is it acceptable simply to perform virtuous acts; they must transform the inner person so that we “desire righteousness as strongly as we desire food and drink when hungry or thirsty” (12). Furthermore, Pelagius says that

the habit of doing good must be exercised and strengthened by the practice of constant meditation; only the best things must occupy the mind, and the practice of holy conduct must be implanted at a deeper level (13).

This focus on the interior life must begin at the outset of the path to holiness, with a thorough self-examination: “Let us approach the secret places of our soul” (4:1), Pelagius exhorts his reader.

In the second half of the Letter to Demetrias, Pelagius proceeds to give the young virgin practical advice on the spiritual path she has chosen. It is in this practical realm that Pelagius shines most brightly: his spiritual direction is traditional, yet sharply relevant; the medicine is tough, but administered gently. The spiritual fervour and depth of the teaching are clear evidence of his advanced degree in the ascetical life. This is inspirational teaching at its very best, the kind one only finds in the great Fathers of the Church.

As with all of the Fathers, Pelagius’s writing is permeated with quotations from and allusions to the Bible. It is no surprise that one of his main pieces of advice for Demetrias is to attend to the Scriptures. He tells her: “Read the holy scriptures in such a way that you never forget that they are the words of God” (23:2). Many of Pelagius’s themes are familiar ones from Scripture and the early Fathers. He presents the moral life as a choice between two ways, the path to life and the path to destruction. He writes:

You must avoid that broad path which is worn away by the thronging multitude on their way to their death and continue to follow the rough track of that narrow path to eternal life which few find (10:3).

Another dominant theme from Scripture is Pelagius’s stress that progress in the spiritual life is all-important. There is no standing still, he says; so “if we do not want to go back, we must run on” (27:4). Commenting on the parable of the talents, he writes:

He who hides in a napkin a talent which he has received is condemned by the Lord as a useless and good-for-nothing servant: it is culpable not only to have diminished that talent but also not to have increased it (15).

No hour should go by for a Christian, he insists, without some measure of spiritual growth (23:1).

Pelagius also warns Demetrias about numerous traps and pitfalls in the spiritual life. He tells her carefully to distinguish between vices and virtues: for while they are always contrary to each other, they are “linked in some cases by such resemblance that they can scarcely be distinguished at all” (20:1). This problem often afflicts neophytes who are anxious to live the virtuous life. Pelagius writes:

For how many reckon pride as liberty, adopt flattery as humility, embrace malice instead of prudence and confer the name of innocence on foolishness, and, deceived by a misleading and most dangerous likeness, take pride in vices instead of virtues? (20:1)

He tells her most especially to be wary of false humility. It is easy, he says, to look humble through “verbal fictions” and “feigned gestures,” but “endurance of insult reveals the truly humble” (20:1). “Let there be no sign of pride, arrogance or haughtiness in you” (20:2), he exhorts. “Beware of flatterers like your enemies” (21:1), he goes on to say, for they lead people to think of their reputation rather than their conscience. These are wise words indeed, reminiscent of the advice of the desert Fathers, for they are the product of the same authentic spiritual experience.

Pelagius also shares the maximalistic approach of the Fathers to the spiritual life. “Do everything,” he says bluntly. “We are not to select some of God’s commandments as if to suit our own fancy but to fulfil all of them without exception” (16:1). But as any good elder, he gears himself to the special needs of his novice, tempering his message with pastoral dispensation and concern. At one point, for instance, he urges her to combine her fasting with works of mercy; but he then excuses her for a time from the works of mercy, directing her grandmother and mother to do them for her, so that she can devote all her “zeal and care” to the ordering of her spiritual life (22:1). Elsewhere he urges her not to go to extremes with any of her spiritual disciplines: “immoderate fasting, overenthusiastic abstinence and vigils of extravagant and disproportionate length are [...] evidence of lack of restraint,” he says; the result may be that “it becomes impossible thereafter to perform such works even in a moderate way” (23:3). Thus, “with good practices as well as bad whatever exceeds the bounds of moderation becomes a vice instead of a virtue” (24:1). The reason for moderation is clear: “the body has to be controlled, not broken” (21:2). Furthermore, simplicity in the spiritual life guards the heart against feelings of pride and success. He writes: “Poor clothing, cheap food, wearisome fasts ought to quench pride, not nourish it” (21:2). Throughout the letter, this tempering of severe demands with loving moderation displays Pelagius’s genuine empathy with his spiritual child.

Pelagius’s discussion of virginity in the Christian life is further demonstration of his spiritual maturity. To be sure, he betrays at times the Western tendency to divide the spiritual life into ordinary commandments and “counsels of perfection.” He says that in the Scriptures, “evil things are forbidden, good things are enjoined; intermediate things are allowed, perfect things are advised” (9:2). For instance, “marriage is allowed, so is the use of meat and wine, but abstinence from all three is advised by more perfect counsel” (9:2). But unlike many Western theologians, he vigorously stresses the fundamental unity of the spiritual life. He writes:

In the matter of righteousness we all have one obligation: virgin, widow, wife, the highest, middle and lower stations in life, we are all without exception ordered to fulfil the commandments, nor is a man released from the law if he proposes to do more than it demands (10:1).

Pelagius tells Demetrias that her vow of virginity does not exempt her from the fullness of demands of the Christian life; he warns her not to be deceived by those who adopt chastity “not along with righteousness but in its place” (10:2). Righteousness, he insists, “is enjoined on everyone without exception” (9:2).

The ascetical struggle towards holiness and perfection in which Pelagius instructs Demetrias to engage is a difficult path involving both overcoming the passions and battling against demonic powers. Here again his teaching is perfectly consonant with all the Fathers. In describing how to resist the enemies of our soul, he once more emphasises human free will to accept or reject their temptations:

They indeed can give counsel but it is ours to choose or reject their suggestions, for they harm us not by compelling but by counselling, and they do not extort our consent from us but court it (25:4).

Pelagius quotes from Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts,” to show that the origin of sin is the evil image or thought in the human heart. These evil thoughts paint “every single deed on the tablet of the heart, as it were, before doing it” (26:2). Therefore, the Christian must learn to discern thoughts in his heart. The mind[26] must become careful and watchful, trained to differentiate between bad and good thoughts, “so that it either nourishes good thoughts or immediately destroys bad ones” (26:2). When the soul is “illuminated by divine speech” and “occupied with heavenly thoughts,” the devil quickly flees (26:2). The key, therefore, is to watch carefully to protect the heart against the first stirrings of evil:

All your care and attention must be concentrated on keeping watch, and it is particularly necessary for you to guard against sin in the place where it usually begins, to resist temptation at once the very first time it appears and thus to eliminate the evil before it can grow and spread (26:3).

Pelagius follows here the Patristic teaching about watchfulness (nepsis) and guarding of the heart, though he does not develop the mystical dimension, the healing rôle of the prayer of the heart. Indeed, the one apparent weakness of his spiritual “system” is his lack of full attention to prayer; but that is a difficult matter to judge, since we have no reason to suppose he was trying to be systematic and all-encompassing in this short letter. At any rate, prayer is certainly both the implied means and end of a spiritual life whose goal he describes as “a soul continuously clinging to God” (23:2).

The great English monk and scholar St Bede once quoted several passages from the Letter to Demetrias saying that it contains “much excellent moral instruction but is marred by the author’s failure to emphasise the need to rely on divine grace rather than free will and strength of mind.”[27] Yet if we remember that Pelagius was not a systematic theologian but a moral reformer, and that his theological argumentation was made in reaction to writings that he believed undermined the authentic Christian spiritual life, we may perhaps more easily forgive his few exaggerations and omissions than did Bede. In fact, since on most of his points of disagreement with Augustine, Pelagius upholds the Patristic Tradition of the Church, and since in his practical spiritual advice he is entirely harmonious with Church teaching, this much-maligned British monk would appear to be no more heretical than many venerable Fathers. When that is considered along with his indisputable holiness of life — attested to not only by the depth of his spiritual writings but by Augustine himself! — can we help but to wonder if we have long-neglected a great saint of the Church?

Pelagius’s lonely and thankless struggle against the novel doctrines of Augustine and Jerome was eventually taken up by monks in southern Gaul. They were alarmed to hear of the “Pelagian controversy,” especially Augustine’s teaching on election and predestination, which they believed to be “contrary to the opinion of the Fathers and the common view of the Church.”[28] They saw the Augustinian theological system as a threat to grace as synergy, as a partnership between God and man. Their champion was St John Cassian, a disciple of St John Chrysostom. Together with his supporters, St Vincent of Lérins and St Faustus of Riez, he upheld the Patristic Tradition against Augustinianism and its proponents, especially Prosper of Aquitaine, as well as against the extreme “Pelagians” who indeed denied the necessity of God’s grace for salvation. These noble Gallic monks were later branded “Semi-Pelagians,” and their doctrine of synergy was condemned at the Synod of Orange in 529. This council rejected Augustinian predestination but accepted much of Augustine’s theology of sin and grace, definitively setting the Western Church on a path diverging from the Apostolic and Patristic Orthodox Tradition.

Endnotes

Pelagius is frequently referred to as either British or a “Scot” (a term, usually derisive, which meant “Irish”). John Ferguson, “In Defence of Pelagius,” in Theology (Vol. 83, March 1980), p. 115. The name “Pelagius” is probably the Greek form (pelagios, “of the sea”) of the Welsh name Morgan or Morien. H. Forthomme Nicholson, “Celtic Theology: Pelagius,” in An Introduction to Celtic Christianity, James P. Mackay, ed. (T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1989), p. 386. [Return]

Nicholson, p. 388. [Return]

B.R. Rees, Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988), p. 20. [Return]

B.R. Rees, The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), p. 2. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. xii. [Return]

Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 115. He comments: “This, in the end, was the issue. Pelagius did not say that we could be saved by our own efforts. He did insist that we have still freely to turn to the saving grace of God.” [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 138. [Return]

Ibid., p. 17. [Return]

Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 117. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 20. [Return]

Ferguson presents the compelling idea that Pelagius found refuge first in Lérins and then in Wales (p. 392). Wherever the venerable monk ended up, it is almost certain that he remained in communion with the Church. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. xv. [Return]

All references to the text of the Letter to Demetrias are to the translation by B.R. Rees, contained in The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers, pp. 35-70. [Return]

Georges de Plinval, as cited by Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 34. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 35. [Return]

Ibid., p. 32. [Return]

Ibid., p. 33. Equally ironic is the fact that another of Pelagius’s writings, his statement of faith and defence of the Nicene Trinitarian and Christological doctrines, the Libellus Fidei, has only been preserved because the Vatican, until recently, believed it to be one of Augustine’s sermons. William E. Phipps, “The Heresiarch: Pelagius or Augustine?,” in The Anglican Theological Review (Vol. 62, April 1980), p. 125. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 33. [Return]

Fr Stanley Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life (Light and Life Publications: Minneapolis, 1986), p. 34. [Return]

As one commentator has noted, “Pelagius is not more optimistic about human nature than his opponents; he is more pessimistic. To say that there is a right way to choose and we do not choose it is ’a really harsh and bitter word for sinners’.” Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 118. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 136. [Return]

We are disappointed to read that an otherwise brilliant theologian, Fr Michael Azkoul, dismisses Pelagius as having “denied the necessity of Grace and true Faith for salvation.” The Teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church, Vol. I (Dormition Skete Publications: Buena Vista, Colorado, 1986), p. 227. Here and elsewhere Fr Azkoul fails to distinguish between Pelagius himself and later “Pelagianism.” In effect, Pelagius himself was more “semi-Pelagian” than “Pelagian”! [Return]

It must be remembered that Pelagius never disputed the necessity of baptism, nor did he reject infant baptism. What he argued against was Augustine’s teaching that infants needed to be baptised in order to remit inherited guilt and that unbaptised babies were damned to hell. [Return]

Pelagius often refers in his writings to the doctrine of “synergy” established by St Paul; cf. Romans 8:28, “We know that in everything God works for good with (synergeo) those who love him.” This paradox of grace and free will — so misunderstood by Augustine — Pelagius championed at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis (to the satisfaction of the Eastern bishops), quoting I Corinthians 15:10, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.” Phipps, pp. 130-131. [Return]

Cf. Vigen Guroian’s statement that “Orthodoxy speaks of an imitatio Christi but does not accept or express in this a Pelagian rationalism. The old Adam is not capable on his own power to imitate Christ perfectly and fashion himself into a new Adam.” Incarnate Love: Essays in Orthodox Ethics, p. 15. [Return]

Pelagius surely refers to the nous, not the brain. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 33. [Return]

Ibid., p. 6. [Return]

Azkoul, Fr Michael, “Peccatum Originale: the Pelagian Controversy,” in Patristic and Byzantine Review. Vol. 3, no. 1, 1984.

Azkoul, Fr Michael, The Teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church. Vol. I. Dormition Skete Publications: Buena Vista, Colorado, 1986.

Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church. Penguin Books: London, 1967.

Evans, Robert Franklin, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisal. The Seabury Press: New York, 1968.

Ferguson, John, Pelagius: A Historical and Theological Study. W. Heffer and Sons: Cambridge, 1956.

Ferguson, John, “In Defence of Pelagius,” in Theology. Vol. 83, March 1980.

Harakas, Fr Stanley, Toward Transfigured Life: The Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics. Light and Life Publishing: Minneapolis, 1983.

Meyendorff, Fr John, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. Fordham University Press: New York, 1979.

Nicholson, M. Forthomme, “Celtic Theology: Pelagius,” in An Introduction to Celtic Christianity, James P. Mackay, ed. T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1989.

Phipps, William E., “The Heresiarch: Pelagius or Augustine?”, in The Anglican Theological Review. Vol. 62, April 1980.

Rees, B.R., The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers. The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991.

Rees, B.R., Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988.

Search for me,
A needle in a haystack,
Find where I lie,
Pain hidden by a rag,
Here I hide — from you? —
Blood wounds, undried and shining,
I hide, fearing
Your loving hands hold salt.
— (from a Belarusian poem)

The Moral Schism

The faith and love of every man is put to the test by something — misfortunes, psychological difficulties, moral perplexities, even by our happiness. Each of these tests is in one way or another, linked with suffering — the degree of suffering connected with the amount of evil within and around his life. All of this entails the growth of self-knowledge, a probe of his depths, and painful as it might be, it is indelibly linked with any spiritual progress.

Tests come in life, and man looks into his soul. He becomes conscious of his sin. He sees what lies on the surface of his consciousness — spiritual warps, moral inconsistencies, and defects of reason. He will, in doing this, undoubtedly experience grappling thoughts and negative emotions. And the growing knowledge of his nothingness and powerlessness, of his need for help from the outside — from God — is usually the beginning of the Christian Way.

The Way, through tests, introspection, and suffering, is hard and has many pitfalls. There is a strong temptation to look for happiness and consolation right from the beginning. If we experience disillusionment or disappointment, then we might start fearing that our journey to God might turn into torment and punishment.

We must face this fact: there can be no true comfort or consolation without first passing through radical repentance, without deep heart-knowledge of the horror and destructive force of our sin. The Christian Way is ineffably consoling, but comfort is not reached by chasing after it. If we look for Truth, Jesus Christ, and rejoice in our sufferings, according to His precepts (Matt. 5:11,12), we might reach happiness and consolation in the long run. But if we search for comfort, we will get neither comfort nor Truth, only self-deception in the beginning and despair at the end.

Only after we understand that a moral law exists, supported by God’s power, that we have broken this law and how we should properly relate to this Power, only then we begin to understand what True Christianity has to say. It says that we have fallen into such a state that we simultaneously love and hate good, and that is why we are afraid to look the facts in the face. And that is because the facts are fearsome. Thus, there is nothing to say to people who are not conscious of what they have to repent of and who feel no need for forgiveness whatsoever.

People, who live by the flesh, protesting their moral obligation to God, attempt to be guided solely by “love” in their search for Truth. To them Christianity appears to consist only of rules and regulations. It is true that morality is not in itself sufficient; virtue exists for the sake of Truth, not vice versa. Love liberates us from the power of any law, and, as Saint Macarius the Great says, “He who attains love cannot fall”.

But many deceive themselves, rejecting moral laws before time, having no love, but only a vague concept of it and even a more nebulous concept of any moral obligation. And strangely enough, it is spiritual books and study of everything spiritual that ‘help’ many to reach this miserable state of being. About the over-intellectualization of the spiritual, the Holy Fathers say: “If anyone is diligent in reading and writing, but has no corresponding increase of virtue, his end will be terrible”. The most terrible thing is the inability to love or to respond to God’s love. This is the beginning of infernal tortures. The cause of all this is not only idle curiosity about things, which our consciousness cannot hold, but also seeking after them in word and deed.

It is very dangerous to translate the experience of faith into the language of concepts. This is the beginning of numerous illusions and errors. A skilful sophist can successfully defend both thesis and antithesis, but such resourcefulness and sharpness of mind do not make a man any nobler, even in their most perfect condition. We can understand only what we are aware of, but the one who has attained ‘Christ’s mind’ does not pay any attention to his thoughts or his earthly wisdom. He is simple in the Lord. Often however, God’s wisdom is taken as foolishness and insanity in this world.

The Holy Fathers say that “God’s grace comes not only to those who search for it,” He sends His grace where He will. God foresees the response of a man to His grace, and this is the reason why we do not have Divine Gifts, such as faith, love, the Divine mind, etc. Thus, before God starts serving the man, the man should first serve God by faithfully performing his moral duty. We cannot say that all of this is easy and pleasant. No, this is so hard that the Holy Fathers compare this moral labour to death and re-birth. Saint Gregory the Theologian says: “The first birth is parental, the second comes from God, and in the third, man gives birth to himself through tears of repentance and grief”. This grief is somewhat comparable to the magnitude of the Divine Gift. For, according to Saint Isaac the Syrian, “God leads the soul into grief and temptations according to the magnitude of grace given”.

Universal Schism

Mankind was conceived as a single whole, a reflection of the image and likeness of God. Man’s attempt to break away from this whole and to live independently (individually) constitutes the tragedy of Adam’s original sin, to which we once gave and continue to give our consent. Thus, a man developed two wills — one directed outward, the other inward. The schism of human nature brought the schism of our universe. Evil was not made eternal, but was ousted into the temporal, sensual, and material domain to be corrected and eventually annihilated. It does not mean that God hid from man, leaving him to his own devices, to the illusion of human self-sufficiency, which supposes the existence of the source of being within oneself (“and you will be like God”, Gen. 3:5). God does not turn away from wicked men, for “It is silly to say,” according to Saint Anthony the Great, “that the sun hides itself from the blind”. It means that God, allowing Adam to die a material death, saved him and us from a greater evil — spiritual death in eternity (so that he would not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever).

At present, during this mortal life on earth, we are to get our food in the sweat of our face in order to keep our ‘independent’ existence. And by doing this, we are to rectify the habits of our free will, which are inaccessible to God, so that the gap between the mind and the heart, between the spirit and the soul would be closed, and we could conform our own will with God’s will towards us, as befits the purpose of our creation. Overcoming the schism of the human nature is a matter of the whole life. Its last step is death. Only by dying consciously and daily can we exhaust death “so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 COR. 5:4). Only by having started to live as an integral person and not as a biological individual fixed upon ourselves and within ourselves, can we establish contacts with other personae — with God and with men. Until we stop our ‘independent’ existence, we can never start life as it befits a man — after God’s image and likeness, in other words, become a true man.

Restoring the Unity

The first step on this path is to become oneself by a gradual elevation towards transformation into God’s image and likeness — through prayer and following the Lord’s commandments, — for it is also possible to live someone else’s life, as a poor copy of someone. Saint Isaac the Syrian says: “Sink into yourself away from sin, and there you will find steps of your personal ascent”. He is referring to a going down into the depths of one’s heart through prayer. “To put on Christ” and “to put off an old man” is to move away from the sinful self to my actual self, to my “image and likeness”. It has been called a flight from our sinful twin.

“Twin” is that with which we identify ourselves, our body and the whole psyche connected with it, i.e. thoughts and all our five senses. Our thoughts and images get materialized in our soul and form a different world with an illusory existence. When we enter it, we go away from our true selves into an imaginative reality. However, the genuine “I” is not something that belongs to me (my thoughts, features of character, etc.), — all this is transient and vanishes as smoke. “I” is eternal and is not subject to any change.

We fill up our consciousness with symbols, circuits, and terms as in a computer, but contrary to the machine, this play of imagination disappears into non-existence. It turns immediately into flesh and life. Image-building symbols are the reality we live, or better, we exist in. The ability to create existence out of “non-existence” is characteristic of a man, but we are only “small-c” creators. For example, our thoughts cause a change in the chemical composition of our blood, a thought of food brings appetite, but thoughts of spiritual matters cannot spiritualize our nature. We can only deal with our own energies, which are already created by God. But non-created energy, i.e. God’s grace, is given only by God, provided that we observe His commandment — love. To make the first step to ourselves, we need to bring our feelings into their natural condition, i.e. to reject sensual pleasures, exceeding natural needs. This, of course, does not concern those for whom sin, a departure from grace — filled to sensual enjoyments, has become a natural necessity.

To succeed in this, we should cultivate sufficient contempt for our own personal narrow interests and goals, no matter how important they might seem to us. This is the only way we can make room in our soul for another person. We must stop dialoguing with our own “twin”. It means overcoming the schism of human nature, my individualism, forgetting about and working on sinful problem areas (sinful because they are my own), seeing myself in another human being. This is the greatest happiness of overcoming our loneliness. Only by starting to work on ourselves in this manner, can we come to know spiritual labour for the sake of another human being. It means mourning over my own “dead” and starting to mourn for others and together with others. During this labour, spiritual loneliness is overcome, an all-idealising love for all creation awakens. Despite the fact that negative qualities can undermine our faith in a person, we must still have faith in his Divine essence and potential until the end, no matter how low he has fallen. This focus on the positive brings us closer to the genuine reality, to God’s original image in man and mankind.

If another person does not become higher and worthier in my own eyes than myself, then my “ego” will never step over the limits of its self-importance and individualism. That is why it is so important to place the centre of gravity outside myself, in another person. This means to be ready at any moment to renounce my own interests for the sake of someone else’s interests, to cultivate in myself a precious feeling of undivided concern for another person. It is hard to do all this, but it is extremely necessary to do so, otherwise our “twin” will cause our degradation and the decay of our consciousness.

The main goal of our life is a permanent prayer for God’s grace and help in order to enable ever-increasing labour over myself in the name of another person, to advance the departure from myself into the life of my neighbour. This is Christ’s paradise. In this way, it should not be hard for us to make a step towards a person, rather than passing him by. We will not block ourselves from someone’s joy or grief with our “twin”, nor will we prefer our personal goals and interests to sacrificing love for God and our neighbour.

It is very important to understand that we are responsible not only for ourselves, our passions and desires, but also for the others, for humankind is a single whole. However, in order to join this whole, we have to ask for forgiveness not only for ourselves, but also for our brother — if he, for example, is offended at me — to ask that he also be forgiven. This is the only way God’s image can be restored in man, through unity and mutual exchange.

The more I pray for the others or grant them practical help, the more I receive myself, for it is impossible to receive without giving. This is the law and axiom of spiritual self-perfection, perfection in love. We forget about this great spiritual law and commit a grave error by blocking ourselves from God and people with our “twin”, who suffers from different psychological complexes and pursues personal goals (his own idea of salvation, perfection, etc.)

Sometimes, it is necessary to distance ourselves from people in order to acquire love for them; but if we give them Christ’s love, we acquire it for ourselves. Thus, we will rise over our “personal” love, personal grief or joy, and will derive enormous power even from our own suffering, which would inspire the others. This is how we can fulfill the whole law, for the Gospel says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). And we know that Christ’s law is love.

The Beginning of Love

True love starts when we let others be the way they are, rather than adjusting our impression of them to our own liking. Otherwise, we will love only our own fixed perception of them. It is necessary to understand ourselves and everyone else as God’s creatures, to see God’s image and dignity in ourselves and in others. He granted it to everyone of us, and if we hurt this dignity in others, we actually hurt ourselves.

We have no power to change another person, and we should not waste our time analyzing why he behaves this way or that. Let him follow his own path. We should accept people as they are, otherwise our intrusion can prove to be destructive. A person might know what we expect of him and behave the opposite way. Just as a sign of protest. Every person has his own stimuli and interior motives, which are not subject to our understanding. Therefore we must not violate the right of others to live the way they want. We have to liberate ourselves from concerns about anything that lies beyond human capabilities, and learn to depend upon the Divine Power, God. Otherwise, we reach a dead-end, where one unconquerable will tries to conquer the other unconquerable will. If God Himself has no power to lift the stone of man’s will that He has created, how much less is it within the power of man! Humility in this case signifies quiet and simple acceptance of everything that is beyond our power. We have to preserve energy for things that are within our power. Understanding that only God can make the other person change, we have to diminish all of our internal drives that oppose His power, so that it could start working in us and through us.

The only thing God cannot (or does not want to) overcome in us is our own free will, which we turn into tyranny and self-will. If we, however, are convinced that not everything depends on us and that many things, especially fateful, can be fixed only by God, then denying our self-will is paramount to saving a man, say, from despair. And we have to pay this price, if we want to obey God and offer Him the chance to work in us and through us.

If Christ occupies the most important place in our life, we do not need any technical or psychological tricks in order to restore our spiritual health and that of our neighbors. Let us assume we are suffering and can not find the way out, but this is only because we imagine that everything depends solely on us. We have to make a determined step towards God and stop tormenting ourselves, instead of trying to solve minor and numberless problems, for they only consume our energy and exhaust our spiritual potential. Let us admit our own powerlessness and thus get rid of our self-will, which blocks the way to God.

We must do only what we can, what we are supposed to do and do the best we can in that. The possibility of doing this is granted only for today. It is wrong to think that “time will come when I…”, for it means that we deceive ourselves. Right now we cannot conquer certain conditions, but if we entrust our life to God’s will right now, today, by rejecting our own will, we liberate ourselves from tension. There is no more need for struggle. However, it does not mean that we can relax and expect God’s will to work. God’s will means that I should not betray love under any circumstances in my life, no matter who I am or where I am. Relying on God’s will means to become aware that it is impossible to keep this loyalty without His help.

It is certainly possible, after the reliance upon God’s will, to turn our back not only on our problems, but even on God and our neighbor, expecting that all the work will be done for us and without us. Here and everywhere else we need a sense of measure, for such self-deception will only increase our problems.

To exclude self-deception from the very beginning, it is necessary to explore the genuine motives behind every decision, followed by concrete action. Otherwise, if we let ourselves be deceived in the very beginning, then all our hopes will be ruined by the expectation that life will be adjusted according to our own idea about it.

Therefore it is impossible to solve all the problems at once. We have to choose one aim and follow it steadily, gradually, and carefully, for slow movement, as known, brings one sooner to the destination, if we mean here the strict self-testing of genuine motives of our behaviour. And love of God is certainly the best stimulus for any action.

Our task is to learn to love by imitating Christ’s love. And the main condition here is overcoming our own egotism and self-will. This of course is not a simple task. Those, who were allowed to follow their will in childhood, have it the hardest. Obedience, i.e. renouncing your will, is an expression of love. For an adult, it means preferring someone else’s will through love. For a child, it is doing what you are told without questioning. If a man does not have this experience of obedience and love, then his psyche inevitably becomes unstable, vulnerable, and is overcome with psychological complexes and even with various diseases.

Even though God made us all potentially whole, to remain in this condition is very hard, at times just impossible. Bringing order into spiritual chaos, left by those who have been with us since the moment of our birth and “nurtured”, is not an easy task. Some resort to reading books and try to bring order into their spiritual world by changing their minds. But this way — from the outside inward — does not always bear good fruit. Very often, a person simply drowns in the whirlpools of his own thoughts, since it is difficult to bring life into this dead load of thoughts that are kept in our mind.

No work of mind can make up for the virtual experience of love, the only thing, which possesses the highest value, for it is only love that has access to the source of existence, God. As Antoine de Saint — Exupery puts it, “The human mind is not worth anything unless it is a servant of love”.

Spiritual love, according to the Holy Fathers’ teachings, destroys all kinds of passions and psychological complexes, and thus is a panacea for all diseases. It places everything where it belongs. At first, it helps us to discern the good self from the evil self. This first step of genuine self-knowledge is made through love, and we know that no spiritual progress is possible without it. This is the only way we can learn to separate ourselves from the burden of endless troubles, engendered by our “twin”. This does not mean that we will have no conflict with ourselves, for without it we would not be able to move forward. It does mean we have to have the right attitude to any provocation coming from outside or from our inside. Other people or our own motives will influence us only if we allow them to. Then we will be able to voluntarily accept pain that anyone is going to afflict on us, and this will be not as much pain, but rather joy and happiness of life according to the laws of love. Before we have achieved this state, our soul should not delve into anything that we cannot overcome, which forms a powerful protection against all evil around us.

What can words do to me, if I do not take them to my heart? Or my own complexes, if I do not attach any significant importance to them? Certainly, it is impossible to isolate myself completely from my own problems and those of my neighbour. It is however necessary to strictly observe how much to take on, conforming it with my own power and with the power of my love. The Holy Fathers say: “May each person dedicate himself to the ascetic battle only to the degree of his soulful love for God”.

Today is The Day of Salvation

However, waiting for the moment when we finally acquire love, when we finally become better and kinder, is sometimes very dangerous, especially when most urgent help is necessary. For example, hatred, rancor, and offence should be driven away from our thoughts immediately, before this poison spreads any deeper. And this has to be done as fast and as mercilessly as possible. We must not savor our emotions too long — feelings of depression, guilt, pity, and compassion towards ourselves. Otherwise, we will blow them up to the size of a tragedy, after which we can imagine ourselves martyrs. If we failed or were not able to choose the best — for example, to take offence or not, — and have already indulged into this feeling, then we need to know that we have sunk to the inferno of our sub-consciousness, and it is not us who has life any more. It is our “twin” that has life. In this case, we have to sink even deeper, and then we will find that a thick layer of guilt, offence, and psychological complexes conceal our genuine Divine essence. This is how the respect for the present self will be restored, and how the contempt for our “twin”, i.e. sin, will evolve.

Man, like God, can freely determine the manner of existence of his own nature. God’s image does consist only of external freedom and reason, for in case of deficiency in these areas, man would turn into an animal. This would be an unfair punishment. The difference between a man and an ape is first of all the ability to respond to God’s love or to reject it. This ability does not depend on human physical or psychological functions. If it was not so, how can we have the ability of self-sacrifice, which even overcomes the instinct of self-preservation? No defect of reason can deprive a man of his inner self, of his ability to communicate with himself, similar to the counsel with Himself of the Holy Trinity. Our “I” is clearly aware of its difference from the nature it occupies. It simply expresses itself in psychological and physical functions. In doing this, it creates its own world where it lives and finds its own enjoyment (instead of enjoying Divine grace). Like Dostoyevsky’s Stavrogin, we identify ourselves with this world. God says: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart — they defile the man” (Matt. 15:18). And as grace in the heart increases, the man stops identifying himself with what proceeds from his heart, but identifies himself with Divine grace. Self-consciousness is not destroyed, but gets broader and deeper into “itself”, into its Divine likeness. Naturally then, it forgets all its personal interests. Therefore, the Holy Fathers say: “He who has deigned to see himself is higher than the one who has seen Angels”.

This all, however, requires strict measurement. It is easy to go to extremes if we do not observe a measure in good or evil. Concentrating upon one’s own merits only means reinforcing one’s egotism, and vice versa, taking up a back — breaking load of reproach to oneself means an utmost overstrain. In this case, we will indeed destroy the last bits of self-dignity in ourselves. It will be the ultimate catastrophe for a proud man, even for a believer, who is tempted with pride. He would like to be a person of worth, but turns into nothing in his own eyes, and therefore thinks he has nothing to give to God. Thus, it is very important in this situation to restore respect to one’s true spiritual self. So that a proud man would not lose his faith in holiness, this kind of lesser evil (respect or self-esteem) is allowed.

It is necessary to arm ourselves with tenacity and patience in order to be able to control ourselves without losing power over ourselves. Not everything can come at once, and we must not expect much for the present moment. We must thankfully accept all that God has given us for the present day according to our labour and zeal, instead of being vexed that life does not become any better. This may still not be humility, but it is the real perception of life. If I see my good qualities not as mine, but given to me by God, then I will be able to accept them with genuine humility. How many unrealized plans and disappointments do we have only because we expect too much from life! “Look at the child putting his hand into a jug with a short neck, an ancient sage said, if he grabs too many sweets, he will not be able to take his hand out”.

Let us think about all the good things God gives us in our life, and then they will increase and will oust all the bad ones. But here we have to bear in mind that good does not necessarily mean pleasant. If we savour details of our misfortune, we will be sucked into the swamps of sad thoughts with the danger of suffocating in our own mud. Saint Ephraim the Syrian said: “You will smell the stench of a dung-heap, as long as you stand beside it”.

Let us learn to rejoice at all the good things the present day brings with it, then we will not burden ourselves with solving our future problems. Jesus Christ says: “Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day” (Matt. 6:34). In medical terms, the preoccupation with something that has not yet taken place is called a ‘dark perspective disorder’. The Gospel warns us against this disorder by proclaiming to live in the present day. It is necessary to turn from the past and cast off thoughts about the future in order to discover unlimited potential of the present day. This day is unique, for it will never be repeated again. It comprises the whole experience of my previous life and all the potential for the future. It belongs to me and I can do whatever I want with it. I can fill it with vain trouble and anxiety, or I can dedicate to God.

Today is the day God has given me. If I could realize what kind of gift it is to me, I would use every moment of it to make my life brighter and more meaningful spiritually. I would not look back to the past in disappointment, would not reflect anxiously about the future. I would try to live it the best I could. I would notice everything interesting and divine in my life and nature around me. Thirst for beauty, thirst for life is characteristic of every living thing, but it is conscious only in man. Today, by dying consciously for all that has nothing in common with the Divine life, we can be born into a new life in God, the name of which is love.

Monk Alexander
(Translated from Russian, July 29–31, 2000, Saskatoon)