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Sins against the Neighbor.

The sins against God and the Church relate to the field of apologetics and pastoral asceticism, according to their content. The asceticism supposes to see the already settled image of a Christian, who is ready to fight with his drawbacks and passions, while unbelief, weak faith, incorrect faith more relate to those who has not come yet onto the road of struggle with the sin.

The sins against the neighbor and society should be placed in the category of the ascetic doctrine about passions. The Church writers, who focused their attention on the science of the self-perfection and struggle against sins, look at these sins not like only at the evil deeds, but at the manifestation of the hidden soul states, which are called passions or sly thoughts in the asceticism. That is why a confessor should teach his spiritual children to root out the causes of the evil deeds in them, the passions themselves, since the evil deed may be irretrievable.

The passion of gluttony is more often manifested as the habit to eat much, without measure, or as the passion for different tasteful sensations, on the language of asceticism — “gustatory pleasure.” Here is appropriate to speak of the use of fasting, i.e. suppressing of one’s body necessities to the church regulations about abstention. It is as well necessary to combine fasting of the body with the spiritual one, i.e. curbing one’s thoughts, feelings, and movements and so on. The Church with Its Lenten chants wonderfully teaches us in this: “We are fasting with the fine, good for God fast: the true fast is the forbidding of the evil, abstinence of the tongue, unwelcoming of rage, and lust, judgment, lies and breach of the oath: to deplete those is true and favorable fasting” (The verses on the evening of Monday of the first week of Great lent). All of our ascetic literature is full of the useful advice concerning this sphere. A confessor must understand himself and suggest to the others, that fasting is the virtue not only of the monks and those in schema, but it is the necessary means for everyone, who wants to devote himself seriously to his spiritual life, get freed from his habits and become more sober. “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting” — these are the words of the Lord, which a confessor and any Christian should remember. The Protestantism, that excluded this virtue from its regulation of the moral commandments, or the Catholicism, which brought fasting to a very light-weight abstention — do not know the entire force of this important weapon. No matter how difficult fasting in the modern life conditions is, it should be preserved and regenerated in the Christian way of life. It helps and supports the praying mood; it subdues the man and frees him from the number of the other evil habits.

To the passion of lechery, as to the one, taking the special place and connected to the other incoming questions of the asceticism and psychology, a separate chapter will be devoted.

Avarice is more often manifested in the form of stinginess and the opposite to it wastefulness. Most clearly it reveals in the form of envy, from which anyone is hardly free. Beginning with the innocent and hard to notice sizes, but then developing, it captivates the man, introducing all kinds of unkind feelings to the heart. Envy gives birth to the class dissatisfaction with one’s position and income. Envy, moreover, easily transforms into ambition. It easily hides in the clothing of searching for justice, — the moral category, by the way, not known to the Gospel and paternal doctrine. Our society so much believes in the positive qualities of this category that esteems it as the basis of the social relations. The ancient piety and truly Christian life, in the way as it existed in Byzantium and ancient Russia, were free from this notion. Then they were searching not for the right or justice, but for the truth. This was kept in the consciousness of our ancestors and simple Russian people before the revolution.

Teaching the flock to beware avarice, a confessor must remember, that the strife to plant on this planet any social paradise is alien to the Christianity. The Christianity does not search for the recipes for the universal happiness. The belief in some wonderful future on earth, where justice will rule, does not at all coincide with the Christian understanding of the real life. The belief in the present, on this Earth, the Christ’s Reign, were considered as the pseudo-teaching of chiliasm by the Church. The Christianity never had pretensions to the construction of the terrestrial city. It called and is calling to “the sought City” and the reign “not of this world.” The Gospel teaches to build the Heavenly Reign inside of us, to create the internal peace in the soul, but not be deluded with the possible fantasies of the terrestrial common happiness. That is why out asceticism is built on completely different, than the social building, categories. The Christian asceticism does not curse the wealth, but neither calls to the compulsory socialism. It is aware, that it is hard for the rich to enter the Heavenly Reign, but does not draw communist conclusions out of it. To imagine St.John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great as socialists only because they did not justify enrichment as the goal of life, was possible only in the pre-revolutionary years in Russia, when everything, up to the Gospel and the church history was about to be used for destroying of the age-long way of life.

That is why a pastor should not at all call his flock to the social ideals. He must teach that enrichment as the goal of life is a sin; that avarice is a harmful passion; that envy leads to malice and hatred against the neighbor; that money is not the evil by itself, but avarice, i.e. slavery to the materialism, capital, profit, and together with that stinginess, and wastefulness are sins in the face of the Evangelic sermon.

Anger, in the number of other passions should be the subject of the special attention of a priest, he should explain to his flock about the separate branches of this vice, which usually hide under the different proper forms, impossible to mention, but the main types of this passion, clear to a priest, should be singled out for his flock.

Frequently the penitent confesses this sin as nervousness, on the physiologic or psychic reason. Naturally, this passion reveals itself more easily through the nervous system, but the reason is not only in the nerves, but in the rooted habit to vent one’s irritation on everybody and everything one can lay hands upon. Irritability, easy ability to flare up, absence of peace in the family life, quarrels because of trifles, hatred towards the close ones, vengeance, unforgivness, hard-heartedness, cruel attitude to the surrounding and many other things are only the visible displays of this passion. Met in children and young people, it is sometimes combined with offensiveness, non-tolerance of innocent jokes. Anyway, here the anger verge on another passion — pride.

Fathers-ascetics give a lot of precious pieces of advice for the struggling against the passion of anger. The one of the most effective is “the righteous anger,” i.e. turning of the irritation onto the passion itself. Really, to be angry with one’s own sins and drawbacks is leading to salvation.

The venerable John Cassian the Roman, in his “Review on the Spiritual Struggle” teaches: “We are allowed to get angry, but for salvation, i.e. on ourselves and on the coming bad thoughts, to get angry with them and not yield into sin, that is not to accomplish them as a deed, what would be ruinous for ourselves” (the Philocalia, 2, p. 62). And venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem teaches, that “the anger is usually destructive; if it is turned against the demonic thoughts, then it breaks and destroys them; if it seethes against people, then it destroys our good thoughts concerning them”… “Anger is given by God, as the shield and bow, and is alike, if it does not turn away from its purpose” (the Philocalia, 2, p. 173). The same advices venerable Nilus the Sinait to be “meek with people, and loving to fight with the enemy, for in that is the natural use of anger, to struggle with the ancient dragon with hostility.” (The Philocalia, 2, p.252). “The one, who is not forgiving demons, is not unforgiving with people” (p. 253).

If anger is permissible and even useful against our internal enemy, i.e. sinful thoughts, coming from the demons, then in the respect to the close ones our teachers, the fathers of the Church; advise us meekness and only calm and patient attitude. One should even argue without bitterness and anger, for irritation will move on to another, will infect him, but will by no means convince in our rightness. “If we meet with the pagans, — says John Chrysostom, —we shall block their mouths, but without anger, bitterness. If we do this with anger, this will not be the zeal, but passion. Zealousness is a virtue, but anger — a vice” (Discussion 17 over the Acts of Apostles).

The note of Metr. Anthony in his “Confession” is very precious: “A confessor must ask all the penitent, if they nourish malice towards someone and if they have reconciled with the people, with whom they quarreled and if it happened that they cannot see them in person, if they reconciled with them in the heart. One should explain as well, that on the Athos Mount confessors not only forbid the monks, who have anger for someone, to serve in the church and partake the Holy Gifts, but while reading the rules, they should omit the words: and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, in the prayer “Our Father” in order not to be liars before God. With this prohibition a monk is reminded that now he seems not to be a Christian, if he cannot read the Lord’s Prayer” (“The Confession,” p. 43-44).

This is the extremely precious advice for those who suffer from the unforgiving, who will “no way forgive the offending him neighbor, so great the injustice was” and so on.

It is efficient as well to pray for those, who easily lead us into the temptation of anger. The feeling of meekness and love for those whom we hate and with whom we get angry, gradually takes root in the heart.

The third means, which should be put on the first place, is the prayer about giving us meekness and driving away of the spirit of anger, vengeance, offence, unforgiving, etc.

At last, the advice of a confessor, who insists on the reconciliation with the offended, helps a lot; it is necessary, even if we feel ourselves being right, to decide to ask for forgiveness the one, with whom we are in hostile relations.

As far as grief and despondency are concerned, a confessor should remember that they are not the primer disease of the soul, but, more usually, the derivation from the other spiritual states. These vices are born from the self-conceit and self-confidence, or from pride and lack of resignation. The Christianity possesses the known pessimism, for it has to do with the history and progress, faith in the terrestrial well-being, in the social justice, etc. But the pessimism, with which is sick the out-of-church mankind, placing their trust in their forces, the power of mind and personal abilities, is radically alien to the Gospel. The pessimism of Buddhism, of Schopenhauer and other thinkers cannot be reconciled with the Christian hope. Such pessimism is the hidden form of what the asceticism calls despondency. This is “the loss of the spiritual cheerfulness about God, which is nourished with the hope for His merciful plan about us” (Metr. Anthony “The Confession,” p. 68). Sometimes this feeling is manifested in the form of boredom, tiredness with life both spiritual, and simply physical; sometimes it is enveloped in the feeling of nagging anguish, anxiety, unaccountable depressed state, about which so psychologically profound wrote Danish philosopher Kirkegor, who obviously experienced very sharp attacks of such anxiety. Because this feeling borders with not so much moral, but the psychical worries, it will be discussed in the section about the pastoral psychiatry, psychoanalysis and the usage of these disciplines in the pastoral practice.

Despondency, grief, anguish, anxiety are sharply experienced in the youth, the period of storms and impulses. Then a young soul frequently cannot understand, in what the matter is, why such wonderfully interesting and fascinating literature characters like Child-Harold, Pechorin and Byron himself suddenly become the source of dangerous spiritual states. A confessor should be most attentive to these questions, especially with youngsters, patient, flexible, compassionate. These two passions, that seem not so dangerous, can, however, lead to the irreparable consequences with lack of attention: hopelessness, despair, suicide.

One of the most common sins is, no doubt, the sin of judging the neighbor. Many do not even realize, that this sin, so everyday-like and seeming insignificant, in reality is the beginning and source of the other, more dangerous sinful habits. A confessor must keep in mind and suggest to the penitent the following:
1. First of all, this sin is closely connected with pride. Judging the drawbacks of the others, the man supposes himself to be better, smarter, more honest, and pious than the others. Therefore, one should doctor his passion of pride and self-conceit.

2. The man is not given the right to judge the others for their deeds and deficiencies. The Savior Himself commands us: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Math. 7:1-3). Apostle Paul reproaches the Romans: “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4). The final judgment belongs to God. Our judgment is the anticipation of the Dread Judgment of the Lord.

3. Our judgment is never impartial. We judge under the influence of the momentary impressions or offence, irritation, anger, different “moods.” There exists the precious psychological observation that usually we judge our personal deficiencies in the others, without noticing it: a limited person, who thinks himself smart, judges the others for limitedness, even stupidity; a proud and self-conceited usually gets indignant because of the self-conceit of the close ones; the one with avarice sees in the others the manifestations of this passion, like wastefulness, not noticing that he is stingy himself, and therefore is subjected to this passion too, etc.

4. Moreover, doctoring this sin, one should not let out of sight one more psychological idea. It is typical of the human mind to pronounce judgments. In this manifests our ability to reasoning, thinking. Therefore, composing the conclusions about someone, the man not always sin with the passion of judging. He may absolutely impassively and non-indignantly make this or that conclusion about the person, his qualities, deeds, behavior, but not judge him for all this. It will be the statement, yet not judgment. Denying his ability to make statements, the man would reject his ability to think and reason. It is common of everyone, in this or that way, and even necessary to say the statements: the teacher — asking the pupils questions; the critic — while reading the literary work; the boss — estimating the work of the employees. But such statements as: the student is little gifted, the work is done with negligence, the poems are bad, etc. — are not at all the sin of judgment and there is no need to confess them.

But usually, when making statements about the qualities and deficiencies of the neighbor, there enters the element of envy, self-conceit, bitterness and of passion on the whole, and our statement obtains the character of arrogance, there comes partiality, one-sidedness, and it converts into the sinful judgment.

It would be of use to show the people who are used to judge the others’ deficiencies, the example of that monk, who is recollected in the Prologue on the eve of March, 30 and to whom, in spite of his multiple deficiencies, but the absence of the vice of judging the others’ sins, everything was pardoned by God. Not judging the others but admitting all infirmities and sins, he did not extol himself over the others, but resignedly admitted his sins.

To the so called “minor sins” — lies, as well as close to them rumors and idle-talks can be added. Untruth came so profoundly into the conscience of the modern society and took root in it so firmly, that it became the inseparable atmosphere of life. This sin takes on the various shades, starting with exaggeration, boasting, and alike, and ending with undisguised lies. People often do not realize that the seeming to them innocent forms of a lie are sinful in reality. Exaggerations in the stories and “piling it on” are almost not noticed by the people. They speak of their merits in order to show themselves in a favorable light, and the others’ drawbacks are represented more somber, than they are in real life. They try to portray the offensive expressions of the others by the intonation of the voice, and reproduce their phrases as rather mild ones, as if there was nothing reprehensible. Not noticing that, people often distort the truth, try to make the others believe it and even assure themselves so, that the distorted reality seems true to them. Like that people get used to the created by them images of untruth, take it for truth and are unnoticeably ensnared by the thin web of lies.

Together with this comes another type of the excused lie — the everyday deceptions: “ say, that I am not at home” — not wishing to see the unpleasant person; “diplomatic” diseases instead of the sincere rejection of the participating in the undesirable matter or meeting; joke frauds, frauds of April, 1 and so on — all this, at the first glance are totally innocent and harmless, but in the essence they slowly harm the truthfulness and honesty and teach the person to lie with an easy conscience.

Here can be added the deceits of the sick, in order not to scare them, assuring of the suffering person, whose life could even be in danger, that he has nothing serious, etc. Making this, they are justifying themselves by the utterance from the psalm: “A horse is a vain thing for safety” (Ps. 32:17), totally misunderstanding the words of Prophet David. In reality the inexact translation distorts the meaning of the true phrase, i.e.: “A horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength” — not vain is “the safety horse,” but the horse can turn out to be the false salvation, to deceive the hope of the horse-rider, that it can carry him out of the danger.

At last a lie can appear shamelessly and undisguised, in all its satanic danger. A lie in this case becomes the second nature of a person, he gets accustomed to lies, and he needs lies to make his thoughts be understood.

A lie in a small, seemingly innocent exaggeration “for the sake of a witty remark” or like a joke little by little takes hold of the man, so that he easily compromises his conscience even in the questions of the importance of principles. In the sake of saving someone or something they think it possible to make bargains with lies of principle, to compromise with the anti-Christian ideas, etc., for with this it seems to be possible to facilitate one’s lot. Compromising with conscience is the typical disease of the century. On the apt remark of one Russian thinker, the mankind now “has not lost its mind, but lost its conscience.”

Nothing can come from the devil, but the devilish; nothing comes from lies but lies. A lie, — small or big, “justified” or obvious, flippant or real, — is always a lie and only a lie, and nothing can come out of it, but false, pernicious and in the final run devilish, i.e. anti-Christian, consequences.

The Lord is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6), they come to Christ only through the truth, but not through lies. And only Christ leads to the Father. Only the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).

With lies, i.e. with distortion of the truth, comes the sin of idle-talk, i.e. unnecessary, excessive, unfounded usage of the gift of the word. Sometimes people from necessary words come over to the useless and pointless conversation. The words are spent with no need, in chatter; the time is spent only to say something. For such people words start to loose their sense and purpose. The word, as the expression of a thought, becomes idle, meaning nothing. The time passes in such idle-talks, and it could be used in the other way, for edification, rational communication. The words stop being seasoned with salt (Col. 4:6). They become meaningless, and a long conversation does not bring any use to anyone in the final run.

One should note that generally the words in the idle-talk become as if empty, not expressing the thought. “Logos” in the Greek means both “a word” and “a thought.” The word must express some thought, the work of mind, some truth. Exaggerations, repetitions, senselessness of expressions turn the entire conversation in something with no meaning. The gift, handed to the mankind in the sake of annexing to the Verity, is spent in vain and little differs from the pronouncing of the words by a parrot, starling, or by any irrational creature.

Piling on of the adjectives, when it is possible to do with the single one, but expressing the very sense of the thing or phenomenon; abuse of the superlative degrees of comparison or the ones, like “staggering, colossal, exceptional, ideal, terribly important,” saying nothing about the absurd: “it was funny like hell” and so on — all this testifies about the lowering of the significance, which the word should serve. Working out good, clear and moderate style in oneself is not at all the literary caprice, but it speaks of the clarity of thoughts, steadiness of the mind and faithfulness to the true meaning of the word.

Idle-talk, condemned by the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, and untruth, condemned by the Lord Himself, exist due to the same thing. Therefore a confessor should make the penitents accustomed since their childhood to be careful using the words, loving the truth and to never justify any form of a lie. A child should be suggested rather to tolerate the punishment for some misdeed, than to distort the truth and hide behind the invented justification. Sooner or later the truth will come out onto the surface and will bring to the one, who said lies, more troubles, than he could have in the firm predilection to the truth.

“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Math. 12:36-37). A priest, teaching the others, should himself remember of the importance and value of the word: he should not allow himself idle-talks and verbosity. It is necessary that the word coincides with the sense, kept in it. But one must remember more, that our “verbalism” is the manifestation of the given to us human mind, which unites us with the very hypostatic Word, Which is the Way, the Truth and the Life.