Christianity is God's teaching, God's revelation. It, as a knowledge given to man by God, is to be accepted and preserved with the greatest respect and submission befitting this highest sacredness. Christianity can only be accepted and preserved by humble faith, since it far surpasses human reason. It is that spiritual, mysterious book (Rev 22:18, 19), the Book of the Knowledge of God, written and published by God Himself, to which nothing can be added or taken away. From this it is clear how grave a sin heresy is.
Heresy is the bitterness and rebellion of matter against the Creator, the rebellion and resentment of the worthless, limited human being against the absolutely perfect God. It is a sin of the mind, a sin of the spirit, blasphemy against God, enmity against God. And the consequences of the fall through heresy are very similar to the consequences of the fall of rejected spirits: the darkness of reason, the hardening of the heart, the spilling of poison on the body and the introduction of eternal death into the soul. Heresy is incapable of humility, says St. Francis. Ivan Klimak (Ladder). It makes man completely alienated from God. It represents mortal sin. As the fruit of pride, heresy holds in iron chains the one who has been enslaved by it, and rarely does anyone free himself from its chains. Persistently persisting in heresy is a characteristic of heretics.
And we can see the confirmation of these words if we look at the heresy of Catholicism or Papism. Indeed, there are very few Catholics who have managed to get out of its pernicious iron chains. A special intervention and the grace of God is needed for a Catholic to be freed from the shackles of the aforementioned heresy.
Mankind has fallen into heresy on masse, as the history of many nations so far shows, while the conversion from heresy to the true and holy faith can be observed in a small number of individual cases, and rarely. Here we can list all those peoples who, after the Great Schism of the Church of Christ in 1054 within the framework of Catholicism, remained under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pope, and which include the Croatian people. On June 7, 879, Pope John VIII asked through the Croatian bishops that the Croatian people remain faithful to him. As a result of this request, and as the will and desire of the Croatian people, the Croatian bishops mostly expressed their loyalty to the Pope, and this has remained so to this day. Thus remaining under the Pope in the heresy of Catholicism, the Croatian people and their clergy completely fell away from the true and holy faith of Christ. Oh, what a terrible poison is heresy or heresy! It is a poison from which man, and thus entire nations, can hardly be cured!
Heresy is a sin of the mind. The essence of this sin is blasphemy against God. Since it is a sin of the mind, heresy not only darkens the mind, but also petrifies and enslaves the heart, killing it with eternal death. It is through this sin that man obeys the fallen spirits the most, whose chief sin is opposition to God and blasphemy against God.
Pride is the essential characteristic of fallen spirits, and the essential characteristic of heretics is also pride, which is most obviously expressed through contemptuous attitude and condemnation of all who do not belong to a particular sect, and hostility and intense hatred towards them. But the most significant manifestation of pride in heretics and schismatics consists in the fact that, having rejected the knowledge of God and the worship revealed and communicated to men by God Himself, they seek to replace them with arbitrary, blasphemous and contrary to God knowledge of God and worship. He who is defeated by the sin of heresy and schism, is not tempted by the devil with other passions and manifest sins. After all, why should the devil tempt and fight with one who has already been killed by the mortal sin of heresy with eternal death and who has already reached the demonic state? On the contrary, the devil fervently supports the heretic and schismatic in abstinence and other external feats and forms of virtue, in order to keep him in self-satisfaction and error, and to attract the orthodox with this mask of holiness with which the heretic is covered, or at least to obtain from them recognition, justification and a certain approval of heresy, doubt of the true faith and indifference (lukewarmness) towards it.
He who possesses treasure is attacked by robbers, and he who has nothing will not be bored by robbers. He who possesses the treasure of true faith is fiercely attacked by the enemy! The enemy attacks the orthodox with all his might, trying to present them before the world as defeated with the same goal with which he seeks to show the heretic as a man of virtuous life and worthy of all respect. With what cunning, which the human mind cannot often see, the evil spirit acts in favor of heresy and to the detriment of true Christianity! Unfortunately, this trick of his gives very devastating results because countless souls are caught and led on the path of danger!
Many heretics and schismatics lived in strict asceticism, and when they accepted the holy Orthodox faith, they began to manifest various weaknesses. What conclusion can this lead us to? In their original state, the enemy did not make war against them, keeping them as his own, while in the second he rose up against them, declaring a terrible war on them, because they publicly confessed and confessed that their enemies were his. Scripture calls the evil spirit not only an enemy but also an avenger. A cunning spirit not only fights against man, but, being full of the fiercest envy against man, cannot indifferently observe how man is filled with virtue and how he pleases God, so he takes revenge for his God-pleasing works, inwardly rekindling in man the flame of the most diverse passions.
Heresy and schism have a terrible effect on the flesh of man! The resentment of the spirit is also transferred to the body. Not everyone is able to notice this phenomenon during the life of the heretic, but after death the body of the one who has departed from God is instantly hardened and immediately begins to feel a terrible bad breath. This is especially the case with the bodies of those heretics who led an austere ascetic life and who were illustrious teachers of their sects, deserving the universal appreciation of the world that walks in darkness. From their bodies after death there is a terrible, eerie smell, and from these withered corpses rivers of foul-smelling pus begin to flow, so that it is difficult to prepare them for burial and attend their burial. Demons appear on their graves, appearing to people in various forms in order to frighten or deceive.
Conversion or repentance and the knowledge of the Truth are inaccessible to the heretic. It is easier for an adulterer and a criminal to turn to God and to know God than it is for a heretic and a schismatic, especially if he is a learned man or an ascetic. This is proved by the sinners and learned sectarians, contemporaries of Christ, who are mentioned in the Gospel: sinners accept the Lord and his Precursor, while the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees reject both Jesus and John.
Conversion or repentance is far from the one who is completely satisfied with himself, while noticing all the shortcomings and scandals around him. To those who think that they are more reasonable than all, the hunger and thirst for the infinite truth of God that nourishes and satisfies, thus causing only an even greater hunger and thirst for the truth of grace, are too distant and inaccessible. It is difficult to reject his blasphemy against God to one who considers this blasphemy to be the "holy truth", and it is difficult for him to know the holy Truth, since only his sense of sight, his soul's eye, that is, his mind is blinded by lies. The conversion of heretics and schismatics, their adherence to the true and holy faith, is a great grace of God which, according to God's special plan, is manifested only in the elect, known to the only God. And the human means for the conversion of schismatics and heretics are powerless. Thus, although at the First Council of Nicaea the great teachers of the holy Church, the light of the whole earth, Athanasius the Great, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Spyridon of Trimifunt, stood against Arius and his like-minded people, and although they acted not only by the power of their word, but also by the power of signs, they did not succeed in softening the hard hearts of the shameless assembly of heretics headed by Arius, who remained persistent and faithful to his error to the end of his life, as the history of the Holy Church testifies.
Confrontation, arguing, is the weakest weapon against heretics, weapons that do more harm than good, which is a consequence of the very character of heresy. A haughty heresy does not tolerate accusations, denunciations, does not tolerate being defeated. Accusations make him even more cruel, the victories of right teaching drive him to rage. Numerous experiences have shown this.
Heresy can only be overcome by meek counseling; even better with silent greeting, humility, love, suffering and long suffering, fervent prayer, filled with compassion for neighbor and mercy. Man is not able to defeat heresy, since it is a demonic invention. He can only be defeated by God, whom man, humble before God and filled with love for his neighbor, calls to fight with him and win over him.
He who wishes to oppose heresy successfully should be completely free from vanity and hostility towards his fellow-men, lest he provoke the heretic with irony, caustic or harsh words, stirring up passions in his haughty soul. Anoint the scabs and purulent wounds of your neighbor, as with healing oil, only with words of love and humility, so that the merciful Lord may look upon your love and humility, that they may touch your neighbor's heart, and that you may be worthy of God's great gift of salvation for your neighbor. The pride, insolence, spite, enthusiasm of the heretic are only apparently energy, but in essence it is an impotence that cries out for mild-reasonable compassion. This impotence only multiplies and becomes cruel if it is treated with reckless zeal, expressed in aggressive exposure.
Heresy is a veiled rejection of Christianity. When men have begun to reject idolatry because of its manifest absurdity, and to come to the knowledge and confession of the Redeemer, when all the efforts of the devil to maintain idolatry among men have been fruitless, then the enemy of the human race finds heresy, that by means of it, preserving in those who profess it both the name and to some extent the Christian appearance, he not only deprives them of the doctrine of Christ, but also substitutes it for blasphemy against God.
A doctrine which, without touching either dogma or the sacred mysteries, rejects the life of Christ's commandments and allows Christians to live pagan is also to be regarded as heresy or heresy. This doctrine, which does not seem outwardly hostile to Christianity, is in fact completely contrary to it: it represents a denial of Christ. The Lord Himself said: Then I will tell them openly (to those who acknowledge the Lord with their words, but oppose His will with their works), I have never known you; depart from me you who do iniquity (Matthew 7:21-23).
Faith can only be alive with works of faith; without them, she is dead (James 2:26). After all, as a result of a non-Christian life, a correct understanding of Christian dogmas is also lost. Even at a time when idolatry was very strong, heretics led the life of pagans. St. Athanasius the Great remarks this about the Arians, who took part in the amusements of the idolaters and were similar to them in their rule.
Novels, comedies and other obviously sinful acts, filled with voluptuousness, are also the fruit of heresy; some of these works were written by spiritual faces, such as "Telemachus," for example, was written by Fenelon. Reading all these books is extremely harmful, although the poison is barely noticeable to the untrained eye in some of them, while in others it is completely hidden. The invisibility of the poison does not diminish its power. On the contrary, sensitive poisons have a particularly devastating effect. Reading a dogmatic and especially ascetic heretical book often encourages delusional thinking, while reading a novel encourages thoughts of disbelief, various doubts and doubts in relation to faith. Sins, like unclean spirits, are interrelated: whoever willingly submits to one sin involuntarily and necessarily succumbs to the influence of another, because of the kinship of cunning spirits and passions. Experience shows that people have gone to heresy and impiety most often out of a life of debauchery, and on the contrary, that heresy always involves a breakdown of morality due to the mutual affinity of sin.
The basic effect of all heretical books consists in stimulating thoughts of doubt in relation to faith. St. Isaac of Syria says: "Beware of reading heretical dogmas. This will raise up the strongest spirit of blasphemy against you." Do they act in whom blasphemous thoughts? Has anyone wavered in confidence in the Orthodox Church, which is the only true Church of Christ? Has anyone become a universal Christian, who, according to the conviction of his heart, or more precisely by complete ignorance of Christianity, treats all religions equally and therefore does not belong to any of them? Know that he is brought to this state by reading heretical books or by talking to those who are infected by reading these books.
Devoted to voluptuousness, they especially like to read heretical books on Christian asceticism and perfection, and they stay away from the spiritual books of the Orthodox Church. Whichpeople is the reason for this? A similar mood of mind. These people find pleasure in reading a book that is the fruit of imagination or ingenuity prepared with refined voluptuousness, vanity and conceit; on minds and hearts that have not previously been cleansed by the true teachings of Christ, acts as a blessing. Orthodox books call for repentance and abandonment of a sinful life, for self-denial, self-condemnation and humility, which the son of this world does not want.
Idolatry and any rejection of God can be compared to obvious poison. Anyone can easily be saved from it. And, heresy can be compared to food that looks wonderful on the outside, but is poisoned. And such food is poison, but a poison from which it is difficult to protect oneself, because it is hidden, and also because the wonderful appearance and smell of food stimulate in man the natural desire to satisfy and enjoy it. Heresy is always accompanied by hypocrisy and deceit; She is talkative, sweet-talking, full of human learning, and that is why she easily attracts people, hunts them down and kills them. Incomparably more people are affected by eternal death through heresy than through outright denial of Christ.
Without obedience to the Church, there is no humility; Without humility, there is no salvation. I humbled myself, and he saved me, said the Prophet (Psalm 114:6). Heresy and schism also contain blasphemy against the Holy Spirit – a mortal sin that God does not forgive man either in this age or in the future, if man remains in that sin. According to the teaching of St. John Chrysostom, this sin cannot be cleansed even with martyr's blood. He is purified only when man renounces his heresy, leaves the schism and joins the holy Church.
The Apostle Paul also counts heresies among the corporal acts (Gal 5:20). They belong to the works of the flesh by their source - the wisdom of the flesh, which is death, which is enmity against God, because he does not obey the law of God, nor can he (Rom 8:6-7). They belong to physical acts and according to their consequences. By alienating the human spirit from God, uniting it to the spirit of Satan through his cardinal sin – blasphemy, they subject it to the slavery of passions, as abandoned by God, as abandoned to his own fallen nature. Their foolish heart is darkened, says the apostle of the wise men who have strayed from the true knowledge of God, saying that the wise are fools. They replaced the truth of God with a lie: that is why God gave them over to shameful passions (Rom 1:21-22:25-26).
Shameful passions are called various fornicating passions. The conduct of the leaders of the heresies was corrupt. Apollinarius had an adulterous affair, Eutychius was particularly susceptible to the passion of greed, and Arius was incredibly debauched. When his poem "Thalia" began to be read at the first Council of Nicaea, the Council Fathers closed their ears, refusing to listen to the shameful words that could not even occur to a pious man. "Talia" was burned. Fortunately for Christianity, all copies of this work have been destroyed. We are left with only historical evidence that the work exuded heinous licentiousness, because in it a terrible blasphemy against God is united and mixed with expressions of disgusting, inhuman licentiousness and sacrilege. Blessed are those who have never heard or read that infernal vomit. By reading them, the union of the spirit of heresy with the spirit of Satan becomes apparent. Heresies, being the work of the flesh and the fruit of bodily wisdom, are the invention of fallen spirits. St. Ignatius the God-bearer says: "Flee from ungodly heresies, which are the diabolical invention of that serpent which is the source of all evils." This should not be surprising, for fallen spirits have descended from the height of spiritual dignity, and therefore have fallen into carnal wisdom more than men.
The fallen spirits, who have in themselves in the beginning of all sins, try to drag people into all sins, with the aim and desire to kill them, i.e. to destroy them eternally. They draw people into various pleasures and pampering of the body, into self-interest, celebrity, painting the objects of these passions in seductive colors in front of us. In particular, they seek to draw people into pride, from which, as from the seeds of plants, enmity against God and blasphemy against God arise. The sin of blasphemy, which is the core of every heresy, is the gravest sin, as a sin that belongs to the rejected spirits and constitutes their main characteristic. The fallen spiritis represented by those who try to cover all sins with a mask of good exterior, which in the ascetic works of the Holy Fathers is called "justifications". They do this to deceive people more easily and make them more willing to accept sin. This is exactly what they do with blasphemy: they try to disguise it with a cherished name, sumptuous beauty, sublime philosophy. A terrible tool in the hands of spirits is heresy! By heresy they have executed entire nations, imperceptibly robbed them of Christianity and replaced it with blasphemous teachings, adorning this deadly teaching with the name of purified, true, restored Christianity.
Heresy (heresy) is a sin that is perfected primarily in the mind. This sin, when accepted by the mind, surrenders to the spirit, spills over the body, defiling the body itself, which has the capacity to receive sanctification through communion with divine grace, as well as the ability to defile and infect itself from communion with fallen spirits. This sin is barely noticeable and obscure to those who do not know exactly (correct) Christianity, so it easily catches in its nets the simplicity, ignorance, indifference and superficial confession of Christianity.
Heresy temporarily affected the God-pleasing Joanikius the Great, and the God-pleasing Gerasim of Jordan and some other God-pleasing people. If these holy men, who spent their lives caring only for salvation, could not immediately recognize the blasphemy against God hidden behind the mask, what can we say about those who spend their lives preoccupied with daily worries, and who do not know enough, utterly enough, the holy Christian faith? How can I recognize a deadly heresy when he stands before them with a beautiful mask of wisdom, justice, and holiness? That is why entire human communities and entire peoples easily fell under the yoke of heresy. That is why conversion from heresy to Orthodoxy is very difficult, much more difficult than from infidelity and idolatry. Heresies that have come close to impiety are more easily recognized and abandoned than heresies that have moved less away from the Orthodox faith and are therefore more hidden.
Since it represents a grave, mortal sin, heresy must be treated quickly and decisively, as a sin of the mind, by sincerely surrendering to the anathema, wholeheartedly. St. John the Ladder says that the Holy Cathedral receives heretics when they sincerely surrender their heresy to the anathema and immediately ennobles them with the Holy Mysteries, while for those who have fallen into fornication, although they have confessed and left their sin, in accordance with the apostolic rules, a separation (removal) from the Holy Mysteries is commanded for a long time. The impression (impression) caused by physical sin remains in a person even after confession, i.e. confession of sin, even after the sin has been abandoned. The impression produced by heresy is destroyed immediately after its rejection. The most sincere and decisive surrender of heresy to anathema is the remedy that finally and completely frees the soul from heresy (heresy). Without this remedy, the poison of blasphemy against God (blasphemy) remains in the spirit of man, never ceasing to sway him with the doubts and doubts produced by the unquenchable affection for heresy; there remain thoughts that rise up against the knowledge of Christ (2 Cor 10:5), making salvation difficult for those who are subject to them, who are disobedient and opposed to Christ, and who live in communion with Satan. The Church has always considered that the anathema treatment of the world is necessary for the terrible disease of heresy or heresy.
From the book: A Word on Heresy - St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar