On the Study of the Commandments of the Gospel and Life According to the Commandments of the Gospel

From his very entry into the monastery, a monk should occupy himself with all possible care and attention with the reading of the holy Gospel. He should make such a study of the Gospel that it may always be present in his memory, and at every moral step he takes, for every act, for every thought, he may always have ready in his memory the teaching of the Gospel. Such is the injunction of the Savior Himself. This injunction is linked with a promise and a threat. In sending His disciples to preach Christianity, the Lord said to them, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

The promise consists in the fact that the person who fulfills the commandments of the Gospel will not only be saved but will also enter into the most intimate union with God and become a divinely built temple of God. The Lord said: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

From these words of the Lord it is evident that the commandments of the Gospel must be so studied that they become the possession, the property of the mind; only then is the exact, constant fulfillment of them possible such as the Lord requires. The Lord reveals Himself spiritually to the doer of the commandments, and He is seen with the spiritual eye, with the mind. The person sees the Lord in himself, in his thoughts and feelings transfigured by the Holy Spirit. On no account must the Lord be expected to appear to the eyes of sense. This is clear from the words of the Gospel that follow those we have just quoted: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." It is evident that the Lord comes to the heart of the person who carries out the commandments and makes his heart a temple and dwelling of God. In this temple is God seen. He is seen not with the bodily eyes but with the mind. He is seen spiritually. This form of vision is incomprehensible to the beginner and cannot be explained to him in words. Accept the promise with faith. In due time you will understand it by blessed experience.

The threat to a person remiss in the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel is contained in the prediction for him of unfruitfulness, estrangement from God, perdition. The Lord said: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ... Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love." "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day [the day of judgment], 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'"

The giver, teacher, and model of humility, our Lord Jesus Christ, called His all-holy, almighty, divine commandments "the least" on account of the very simple form in which they are expressed and which makes them easy to understand and easy to carry out for every type of person, even the most uneducated. But at the same time the Lord added that a deliberate and constant breaker of even one commandment will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, or, according to the explanation of the holy Fathers, will be deprived of the heavenly kingdom and will be cast into the fire of gehenna.

The Lord's commandments are "Spirit and life." They save the doer of them. They restore a dead soul to life. They make a carnal and worldly person spiritual. On the other hand, a person who neglects the commandments ruins himself and remains in a carnal and worldly state, in a fallen condition, and develops the fall in himself. "But the natural man (i.e., the sensual man) does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him." And therefore it is indispensable for salvation to be changed from a sensual man into a spiritual, from the old man into the new. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." And therefore it is essential for salvation to be freed not only from the influence of the flesh or coarse passions, but also from the influence of the blood by means of which the passions act on the soul. "They that go far from Thee [not by position of body but by disposition of soul that dodges from doing the will of God] shall perish; Thou has destroyed all them that are unfaithful against Thee" by following their own will and their own understanding, by refusing the commandments of the Gospel or the will of God. The latter necessarily accompanies the former. "But it is good for me," as a true monk, "to cleave unto God, to put my trust in the Lord."

People Will Be Judged at God's Judgment According to the Commandments of the Gospel

We shall be judged according to the commandments of the Gospel at that judgment that God has appointed for us Orthodox Christians and on which depends our eternal destiny. The judgment is private for every Christian immediately after his death, and it will be general for all men at our Lord Jesus Christ's second coming to earth. At both judgments God Himself is present and judges. At the private judgment He judges by means of angels of light and fallen angels; at the general judgment He judges by means of His incarnate Word. The reason for this different form of judgment is obvious. Man submitted to the fallen angel voluntarily. Consequently he must first settle his account with the fallen angel according to the extent to which fellowship with the rejected spirit has been broken by the Christian with the help of redemption. At the general judgment both the fallen spirits and the people seduced by them must stand for trial as those who have sinned before the Divine Majesty. Therefore God Himself — God the Word Who took upon Himself humanity, by Whom our redemption was accomplished, and by Whom all the fallen must be saved — will judge all of us who have fallen and who have not purified ourselves by repentance. The codex or collection of laws by which we shall be tried and on the basis of which sentence will be pronounced at both judgments is the Gospel.

The Lord said: "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father Who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life." From these words of the Lord, it is evident that we shall be judged by the Gospel, and that negligence in carrying out the commands of the Gospel is an actual rejection of the Lord Himself.

Let us take all care, brothers, to become doers of the commandments of the Gospel. When death will come is unknown. We may be suddenly called to judgment when we are least expecting it. Blessed are those who have prepared themselves for their passage to eternity by a life in accordance with the Gospel! Woe to the easy-going, the careless, the self-willed, the self-opinionated! Woe to those who have not broken fellowship with Satan! Woe to those who have not entered into fellowship with God! Greater woe to those who have entered into fellowship with God, and then abandoned it!

The Monastic Life Is Life According to the Commandments of the Gospel

The holy monks of old called the monastic life a life according to the commandments of the Gospel. St John of the Ladder defines a monk thus: "A monk is one who is guided only by the commandments of God and the word of God in every time and place and matter." The monks subject to St Pachomius the Great had to learn the Gospel by heart so as to have the laws of the God-Man like a continually open book in the memory, in order to have them constantly before the eyes of the mind and have them printed on the soul for their easier and more unfailing fulfillment. The blessed elder Seraphim of Sarov says, "We should so train ourselves that the mind, as it were, swims in the law of the Lord by which we must guide and rule our life."

By studying the Gospel and trying to put its precepts into practice in thought, word, and deed, you will be following the Lord's direction and the moral tradition of the Orthodox Church. In a short time, the Gospel will lead you from childhood to spiritual maturity in Christ, and you will become that blessed man of whom the inspired Prophet sang,

hath not walked in the counsel of the ungoldly,
nor stood in the way of sinners,
and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the Law of the Lord,
and in His Law will he exercise himself day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the water-side,
that will bring forth his fruit in due season;
his leaf also shall not fall,
and all whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.

The Holy Spirit teaches and guides true servants of God, men who have become God's own: "Heed my Law, O my people; incline your ears unto the words of my mouth."

On the Precariousness of the Monastic Life When It Is Not Based on the Commandments of the Gospel

He who has based his life on the study of the Gospel and the practice of the commandments of the Gospel has based it on solid rock. In whatever predicament he is placed by the circumstances of life, his task is always with him. He is constantly active, constantly struggling, constantly progressing, although his activity, his struggle, and his progress are unnoticed and incomprehensible to others. Whatever troubles and trials he may encounter, they can never defeat him.

The Lord said, "Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock." Here life and the set of the soul are compared to a house. This house acquires extraordinary stability from the infinite, divine power with which Christ's words are charged. It is evident that the strength that the practice of Christ's commandments wins for the soul can be won by no other means or method. Christ's power acts in His commandments.

To the words just quoted, the Lord added the following: "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall." Easily ruined is the seemingly good life of those who make their foundation an exclusively bodily struggle, or even a series of ascetic exercises, sometimes very difficult and remarkable, but who do not pay due attention to the commandments of the Gospel. Very often ascetics do not pay the least attention to the commandments of the Gospel, openly disregard them, and do not value them or realize their importance in the least. When such ascetics encounter unexpected trials and temptations or an unforeseen change in their life, not only is their faith soon shaken but they even run the risk of that complete moral collapse that is called in the Gospel the "great ruin" of the house of the soul.

Let us take as an example a hermit living in profound solitude who has put all his hope of success and salvation in that solitude. Suppose that suddenly this hermit is obliged by force of circumstances to leave his solitude and live among crowds. Being unfortified by the commandments of the Gospel, he is bound to be exposed to the violent impact of the temptations that are encountered so abundantly in human society. That is natural. He had no other power to protect him except outward solitude. Deprived of that, he is deprived of all support and must of necessity yield to the power of other outward impressions. This is not said in the least to disparage the solitary life that guards against temptations and distractions and that especially facilitates the study and practice of the commandments of the Gospel. It is said so that even a hermit in his solitude may take particular care to study and practice the Gospel commandments by means of which Christ, "the power of God and the wisdom of God," is installed in the soul.

True Christianity and true monasticism consist in the practice of the commandments of the Gospel. Where this practice is absent, there is neither Christianity nor monasticism, whatever the outward appearance may be. "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever."

Scripture calls the righteous those who try in the most careful manner to carry out truly and solely the righteous will of God, not at all their own erroneous, apparently righteous will. Only those who fulfill God's righteousness can inherit the land, that is to say, can rule or get dominion over their own heart, their flesh, their blood.

The mouth of the righteous is exercised in wisdom,
and his tongue will be talking of judgment;
the Law of his God is in his heart,
and his foot-steps shall not slide.

On Guarding Oneself from Occasions of Sin or Temptation

While basing our life on the commandments of the Gospel, at the same time we should choose for our place of residence a monastery as far removed from occasions of sin as possible. We are weak and corrupted by sin. An occasion of sin that is before our eyes or near us will inevitably find sympathy in our sinful corruption and will produce an impression on us. This impression may at first pass unnoticed, but when it develops and grows strong in a person, then it rules him and may lead him to the verge of perdition. And sometimes an impression of this kind acts with extreme rapidity, and does not give the tempted person time to reflect or think, so to speak. Suddenly the mind is darkened, the disposition of the heart changes, and the monk is cast down and keeps falling time after time.

St Poemen the Great has said, "It is good to avoid causes of sin. A man who is near an occasion of sin is like a person standing on the edge of a precipice, and the enemy can easily cast him down headlong whenever he likes. But if we are physically far from occasions of sin, we are like a person who is standing far away from a precipice. Even if the enemy were to drag us to the edge of the precipice, yet while we are being dragged we can resist and God will help us."

Causes or occasions of sin are the following: wine, women, wealth, health of body when excessive, authority or power, and honor or fame and name. "These," says St Isaac the Syrian, "are not sins in themselves, but on account of our weakness and as our nature is easily drawn by them to various sins, there is need of peculiar caution in regard to them."

The Fathers forbid postulants to choose a monastery that is famous in the eyes of worldly people. The vainglory that the whole monastery shares must inevitably infect each individual member as well. Experience shows that all the brethren of a community can be infected with the spirit of vainglory, not only on account of the material privileges or superiority of their monastery, but also on account of the high opinion of lay people concerning the special piety of its rule. Hence arises scorn for the brethren of other communities, which implies pride, and this saps the possibility of progress or success in the monastic life which is based on love for our neighbors and humility toward them.

As an example of how an occasion of sin, acting little by little on a monk, unnoticed and unfelt, can eventually get the better of him and cause a terrible fall, we quote the following story.

In the Egyptian Scetis there was an elder who had fallen seriously ill and was accepting the services of the brethren. Seeing the brethren working for him, he thought of moving nearer to civilization so as not to trouble the brethren. Abba Moses (probably the one whom St John Cassian calls the most discerning of the Fathers of the Scetis who in general were distinguished for an abundance of spiritual gifts) said to him, "Do not move into the vicinity of civilization, lest you fall into fornication." The elder was surprised and offended by these words, and replied, "I have a body that is dead, and is that what you are talking about?" He did not listen to Abba Moses and moved into the neighborhood of worldly settlements. When the local inhabitants heard about him, they started coming to him in crowds. And a certain young woman came to serve him for God's sake. He healed her. Evidently the girl had some illness, and the elder had the gift of working miracles. Then some time later he fell with her, and she became pregnant. The local inhabitants asked her by whom she was pregnant. She replied, "By the elder." They did not believe her. The elder said, "I did it. But save the child that is due to be born." The child was born, and was fed at the breast. Then, on one of the feasts of the scetis, the elder went back with the child on his shoulders and entered the church when all the brethren were gathered there. When the brethren saw him, they wept. He said to them, "You see this child? It is the son of disobedience." After that, the elder returned to his former cell and began to offer repentance to God.