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On the Sin Generally.

The second topic is about the forms of the sin, about the separate sins, with which a pastor has to meet at confession. But before one should make the certain general introduction of the ascetic-theological nature, which can help a priest in the difficult task of teaching the repentant, how to fight with sins.

It is necessary to point simultaneously at the unsatisfactory elucidation of this question in the majority of our textbooks on the moral theology. The understanding of the sin as the evil matter, only as the evil matter, specific fact, and specific case penetrated in our school, into the seminar textbook, and even into the consciousness of the majority of believers through the Latin scholasticism. Usually the same way they understood the virtue: as a good deed, some positive fact in our spiritual life. The incorrect elucidation of the apostolic words “faith without works is dead,” which gave birth to the famous in the West medieval dispute about the need or needlessness of deeds for the faith, (which are understood to be separate from the faith), came also to us, and are strongly based on the consciousness of the majority. Both the virtue and sin are realized by almost everybody as specific cases. The stress is wholly set to a deed, a fact, but not onto the generating them internal spiritual factor, i.e., one or the other state of the soul, and its content. Hence our textbooks of the moral theology, deprived of its paternal leaning towards the asceticism, were converted, on the well-aimed word of Metr. Anthony, into the dullest “sinology.” These manuals made the longest enumerations of sins, dividing them to the sins “against God,” “against the neighbor,” “against the society,” etc., — all this, incidentally, is completely alien to the paternal tradition, — but they forgot and perhaps never knew of the study of fathers-devotees, who realized through their own experience, what the sin is, where its roots are, in what its origin is, what the means for to fight with it are. These seminar and academic guides on the moral theology were useless because of their killing scholasticism and dry casuistic. These moralizations could not inspire anyone to live like a Christian.

Therefore “The Manual for the Christian Moral Study” of bishop Theophan the Recluse must be acknowledged as a remarkable phenomenon in our spiritual literature. Well-read in the holy fathers’ works and due to his personal experience taking root in the asceticism, he gave the excellent and really ecclesiastic elucidation of this question. He reminded the Russian society that the sin must not be we limited only by the single notion of the evil matter, negative fact. That what occurred as the evil matter is nothing else but the revealed in the outside world consequence of our internal soul content. In the depth of the soul is concealed the complex tissue of different spiritual moods, recollections, habits, vices, etc., which can wait to manifest themselves for a long time, but, hiding, await for the opportunity in order to come outside. The person, spiritually ill-informed or inattentive, does not have an understanding that he is in the power of the whole series of the most complex and dangerous spiritual illnesses, which built their enduring nest in the hiding-places of his soul. He comes to senses only if the sin in the form of the concrete evil deed went out to the surface and showed itself as a certain negative fact. Then the man begins to regret exactly about this committed sin. He confesses this, definite misdeed and awaits its forgiveness. He does not realize that it is necessary to fight with the deeply taken root vice, and not with these or those manifestations of it. But a priest, full of the scholastic separation of sins into the large and small, mortal and simple, against God, neighbor, society, etc., will not know how to give efficient useful advice to the penitent. The one confessing repents the committed evil act, but a priest himself does not know how to teach him to eradicate sinful habits and to cure the sick soul.

The merit of bishop Theophan the Recluse is great, for he reminded the Russian society, distant from the church, not competent in the matters of religion and asceticism, that in the spiritual life are important not only the good and evil deeds, but the internal content of our soul, the spiritual aspiration, from which proceed these or those actions. Theophan the Recluse, who woke in us the great interest to the Holy Scripture, to the holy fathers’ writings and asceticism, reminded lay-people, and what is more important, the pastors, where the center of gravity in the spiritual life lies, — in that “spiritual battle,” about which our ascetics wrote.

One should mention also the considerable master thesis of S.M. Zorin “The Asceticism,” in which he, counterbalancing the ecclesiastic-liberal publicist writings revealed the authentic treasures of the holy fathers’ asceticism. The book of Zorin, scientifically substantiated, opened to the reader the systems of our ascetics, based on the personal ascetic experience. These are not the office abstract reasoning about the morals, but those, checked throughout the centuries with the experience of the church tradition.

The creations of the father-ascetics of Optina Hermitage and the Athos monastery of Panteleimon richly illustrated the mentioned books. A priest thus is given a possibility to be correctly disposed to the question concerning the sins and spiritual life, and give useful edification and aid to those coming for his advice. Here it is only possible to outline briefly two basic themes, especially important for a priest during confession: 1) Passions as the source of our sins and 2) The gradual genesis of the sin in us (p. 170).

The Orthodox doctrine about passions.

The paternal asceticism worked out the theory about passions as the source of sin in us in its centuries-old experience. Fathers-ascetics were always interested in the original source of one or another sin, but not the committed evil matter itself. This latter is only the product of the sinful habit or passion implanted in us, sometimes named as a “sly thought” or “sly spirit.” In their observation of the sinful habits, passions or vices fathers-ascetics came to the number of interesting conclusions, which in their writings are elaborated in detail. These vices, or sinful states, are very many. Venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem asserts: “many passions are concealed in our souls; but they reveal themselves only if appear their causes.” The experience of observations and fight with passions made it possible to bring them together to the known diagrams. The most common diagram belongs to venerable John Cassian of Rome, then follow: Evagrius, Nile of Sinai, Ephraim the Syrian, John “The Ladder” Writer, Maxim the Confessor and Gregory Palama.

According to these writers all the sinful states of the human soul can be reduced to eight main passions: 1) gluttony, 2) lechery, 3) avarice, 4) anger, 5) grief, 6) despondency, 7) vanity, 8) pride. Some writers sometimes simplify this to 4 members of the diagram of passions, but the eight-member one is classical.

It is appropriate to ask, why the fathers of the Church, rejecting any scholasticism and systematizations, so persistently keep to this 8 member diagram for the division of vices in our soul? Therefore, we answer, that by their own observation and personal experience, together with the experience of all the ascetics, they came to the conclusion that those mentioned 8 sly thoughts, or vices, are the main stimulants of the sin in us. It is possible with the known carefulness to introduce new subdivisions, but in the main thing we will nevertheless come to these eight vices. This is the first thing. Furthermore, in these ascetic systems of passions the great internal dialectical connection is observed. “Passions, similar to the chain links, are connected one to another” — teaches venerable Isaac the Nitrian (the Philocalia, volume 1, p. 469). “Evil passions and dishonor are not only introduced one through another, but also possess similarity” - confirms St. Gregory Palama ( Discussion 8).

This dialectical connection is checked by all writers-ascetics. The passions are enumerated by them precisely in this sequence because genetically one passion hereditary originates from another one. These writers wonderfully tell in their ascetic creations about how from one sinful habit unnoticeably appears another, as one of them roots in another, generating those following ones.

Gluttony is the most natural of passions, since it appears from the physiological needs of our organism. Any normal and healthy person experiences hunger and thirst, but with the immoderation in this need the natural becomes unnatural, and consequently vicious. Satiety and immoderation in nourishment excite carnal moves, sexual impulses, which due to the impetuosity lead to the passion of lechery, with all possible prodigal thoughts, wishes, dreams and so forth. For the satisfaction of this shameful passion the man needs means, material prosperity, money surplus, which leads to the appearance of the passion of avarice in us. From there originate all the sins, connected with money: extravagance, luxury, greediness, stinginess, love to material things, envy and so on. Failures in our material and carnal life, in our calculations and carnal plans lead to anger, grief and despondency. From anger are born all sociable sins in the form of irritability (nervousness), impetuosity in words, quarrelsomeness, abusive attitude, embittered state and others. All this is possible to describe in more detail.

There is another subdivision in this diagram. The passions, recently named, can be either carnal, connected with the body and our natural requirements: gluttony, lechery, avarice; or spiritual, origin of which must be searched for not in the body and nature, but in the soul of the man: pride, grief, despondency, vanity. Certain writers therefore (St. Gregory Palama) look at the first, if not leniently, then nevertheless they consider them more natural, although not less dangerous than the passions of the spiritual order. Division of the sins into dangerous and small was radically rejected by the fathers.

Furthermore, writers-ascetics distinguish in this diagram of passions some, proceeding from vices, directly from the evil (three carnal passions and anger), and the others, which come out from virtues, what is especially dangerous. In fact, after being freed from the age-long old habit, the man can become proud and be surrendered to vanity. Or on the contrary, in his tendency towards the spiritual improvement, even greater purity, the man uses all the efforts, but succeeds in nothing, and falls into grief (“which does not accord with God” as the ascetics say), or even more malicious state — despondency, i.e., hopelessness, apathy, desperation.

It is possible to divide passions into those opened and secret ones. It is very difficult to hide the vices of gluttony, avarice, lechery, anger. They burst to the surface with every opportunity. But the passions of grief, despondency, sometimes even of vanity and pride, can be easily disguised, and only the experienced look of a thoughtful confessor with great personal experience can reveal these hidden illnesses.

Fine psychologists, father-ascetics, on the basis of their experience know that the danger of passion is not only in the fact that it penetrated into the soul of the man, but also that it has power over him through the habit, recollection, unconscious inclination to one or another sin. “Passion, — tells St. Mark the Hermit, — voluntarily bred in the soul by the deed, rises then in its appreciator forcedly, even if one does not want that” (the Philocalia, volume 1, p. 567). But Evagrius the Monk teaches us so: “The things we have passionate memory of, were perceived with passion in reality before” (the same, p. 600). The same devotee teaches that not all passions rule the man equally for long. The demons of the bodily passions leave the man, since the body grows old with years and physiological needs decrease. However, the demons of the soul passions “persistently stay till the death itself and disturb the soul” (the same source). The manifestation of passionate inclinations is different: it can depend either on the external exciting reason, or on the habit based in the subconscious. Evagrius writes: “the sign of passions, which act in the soul, can be any pronounced word or bodily motion, from which the enemy learns, if we do have in ourselves their thoughts or have rejected them” (the same, p. 612).

As different are the reasons and stimuli of bodily and spiritual passions, then so different must be the healing of these vices. “The spiritual passions come from the people, and bodily ones — from the body,” — we find in the lectures of this father-ascetic. Therefore, “the motion of the carnal passions suppresses abstention, and of the soul passions — spiritual love” (p. 600). Approximately the same says venerable Cassian the Roman, who especially detailed worked out the study about the eight main passions: “The spiritual passions must be doctored by the simple healing of the heart, whereas carnal passions are cured in two ways: by external means (abstention) and internal ones”(the Philocalia, volume 2, p. 20-21). The same devotee teaches the gradual, systematic treatment of passions, since they stay in the internal dialectical connection. Passions: gluttony, lechery, avarice, anger, grief and despondency are connected together by the special certain affinity, on which the excess in the previous step gives beginning to that following... Therefore one should fight against them in the same order, passing in the fight from the previous to those following: in order to conquer despondency, first it is necessary to suppress grief; in order to extinguish anger, it is necessary to trample avarice; in order to get rid of avarice, it is necessary to tame the prodigal passion; in order to suppress this lust, it is necessary to restrain gluttony” (the same source, p. 22).

Approaching confession this way and listening to the confessions of the penitent in their different sins, a confessor must draw his own attention and the one of his spiritual children to this internal system of our spiritual life. He must teach and help to get freed from bad and inveterate vicious passions. He must teach to fight not with the evil deeds, but with the generating them sly spirits or thoughts. The deed is done; the word is said, as well as the evil matter is already committed. No one cannot make everything that already happened something that had not happened at all. But to prevent similar sinful phenomena the man always can, as soon as he will look into himself, attentively analyze, from where proceeds one or another sinful phenomenon and to fight with the passion that created it.

Therefore with the repentance of the man in the fact that he frequently allows himself to be angry, to scold his wife, to be irritated with children and colleagues, it is necessary to, first of all, draw attention to the passion of anger taken root in him, from which originate these cases of irritability, abusive expressions, “nervousness,” etc. The person, free from the passion of anger, is merciful and good-natured and does not know of such sins, although he can be subjected to any others.

When the man complains, that he has unclean thoughts, dirty dreams, prodigal desires, then one should advise to fight with the implanted in him (probably since his youth) prodigal passion, which leads him to unclean dreams, desires, looks and so on.

In exactly the same manner with admitting oneself guilty in the frequent judging of the neighbor or in the mockery over the others’ drawbacks a priest should point at the passion of pride or vanity, which generates the conceit, leading to these sins.

Disillusion, pessimism, bad mood, and sometimes also misanthropy proceed from the internal factors as well: either from pride or despondency, or from grief, which is “not in accordance with God,” i.e. not the salvation sorrow. The asceticism knows the salvation sorrow, i.e., dissatisfaction with oneself, one’s internal state, or own imperfection. This sorrow leads to self-control, to the greater strictness to oneself. But there is such sorrow, which originates from the human estimations, vital failures, the motives which are not spiritual, but emotional, that all together is not leading to salvation.

Plunging into the patristic literature on this subject, being taught and teaching the others, a priest will bring enormous benefit to him and his flock with efficient advice, by spiritual support and authentic guidance not from his fabrications, but from the experience of the church and from the spiritual men of the antiquity.

In exactly the same manner, teaching people to lead the virtuous life, a priest must indicate that God pleasing life is composed not only from the fact of good deeds, but from the corresponding good moods of our soul, from that, with what our soul it is living and where it strives. From the good habits, correct emotional mood, come good facts, but the value is not in them, but in the very content of the soul.

Thus, not the good deeds in their real concreteness, but the virtuous state of the soul, the general tendency towards holiness, purity, God resemblance, towards salvation, i.e., to the similarity with God, — this is all to what must call a confessor his spiritual children. Not sins as the separately committed concrete facts, but passions, vices, sly spirits, which gave birth to them, — these are the things against which a confessor must set the penitent. In that who came for confession it is necessary to wake the repentance in his sinful, generally unhealthy state of his soul. Confession consists of the decisive desire to be freed from the captivating us sinful states, i.e., passions, mentioned above.

It is extremely important to bring up in oneself and in those spiritually guided not the juridical understanding of the good and evil, but the paternal one. It is necessary to suggest to believers, that “the virtue is that state of the heart, when a deed made is truly favorable,” - teaches St. Mark the Ascetic (the Philocalia 1, p. 558). He as well says: “The virtue is one, but it has various deeds” (p. 558). Evagrius teaches, that the “active life (i.e. the practice of virtues) is the spiritual method how to purify the passionate part the soul” (p. 604). It is important to suggest together with Mark the Ascetic that the “the Heavenly Reign is not retribution for the deeds, but the blessing of the High Priest, prepared for the faithful slaves” (p. 559). One should not think that “deeds by themselves are worthy of the Gehenna or the Reign, but that Christ will give His due to each as our Creator and Atoner, while not as the Regulator of things (p. 561), and we accomplish good deeds not for requital, but for the retention of the purity given to us.” It is necessary to teach not to obtain the juridical reward, but the Grace of the Holy Spirit, to make the soul Its abode. Like this taught all the fathers of the Church, but most of all — venerable Macarius the Egyptian, and in our time venerable Seraphim of Sarov. Otherwise, good deeds for reward are converted according to Evagrius into a trade. (The Philocalia 1, p. 634); one should compare this statement with that of venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem (the Philocalia 2, p. 183).

Speaking descriptively, the orthodox understanding of confession and repentance differs from the Catholic precisely in this point. The Roman legacy and pragmatism influenced it. A Latin confessor is much more a judge during confession, whereas an orthodox one is mainly a healer. Confession in the eyes of a Latin confessor is most of all a tribunal and investigation process; in the eyes of an orthodox priest this is the moment of a medical consultation.

In the Latin practical manuals for confession a priest is suggested exactly this view on confession. It is accomplished in the frames of the logical categories: When? With whom? How often? Under whose influence? And so forth. But always the most important in the eyes of the western confessor will be the sin, as the evil deed, as a fact, an act of the sinful will. A confessor makes his judgment on that who had committed a negative deed, which requires its retribution according to the rules of the canonical code. To an orthodox confessor, on the contrary, are more important not the sinful facts, but the sinful states. He, as a healer, attempts to show the roots of a disease, to reveal the deeply concealed abscess as the source of any external evil act. He does not as much utter the judicial sentence as he gives healing advice.

The juridical point of view pierces the Latin theology and their church life in all directions. Looking at the sin or virtue as at the evil or good deed, they place their logical stress on this perfect reality. A quantity of good or evil deeds interests them. Thus they come to the sufficient minimum of good deeds, and hence derive the doctrine about the over-merits, which in its time gave birth to the known doctrine about indulgences. The very concept of “merits” is purely juridical and not characteristic of orthodox writers. The Latin legacy mastered the formal understanding and quality of the moral behavior. They introduced into their moral theology the study about so called “adiaphoras,” i.e. indifferent deeds, neither evil nor good, which through our scholastic textbooks little by little penetrated into the consciousness of the seminarians and priests. From there it penetrated to our textbooks on the moral theology, the point of view of responsibility and irresponsibility for the sin, the doctrine about collision of responsibilities, etc., in other words, the manifestation of the ethics of the law, but not the ethics of grace.

It is possible to schematize the aforesaid this way. For the western consciousness the main value is in the logic circuits, in the juridical understanding of the sin and virtues, in the rubrics of the moral casuistry. The orthodox consciousness, brought up on the tradition of the paternal antiquity, is based on the experience of the spiritual life of writers-ascetics, who perceived the sin as the spiritual infirmity, and therefore attempted to heal this infirmity. They belonged more to the categories of the moral psychology and deep pastoral psychoanalysis.

Therefore a priest during confession must always try to penetrate into the hidden spheres of human sub-consciousness, unconscious sinful habits, into the “depth of the soul.” It is necessary not to expose the certain deed, not to judge for the committed sin, but to attempt to find and to indicate to the penitent, where the root of his sins lies, what passion in his soul is the most dangerous, how more easily and more efficiently to eradicate these inveterate habits.

It is good, when the repentant mentions all the committed sins or reads them on the note in order not to forget any sin; but he should be focused not so much on these sins, but on their internal causes. It is necessary to wake up the consciousness of the generally sinful nature in the man, when he understands one or another sin. Father Sergius Bulgakov noted that a confessor must not so much focus on the “arithmetic of the sin,” but on the “algebra” of it.

It is appropriate to mention the words of Metr. Anthony from his “Confession” (p. 39-40) to confirm the aforesaid: “This discernment of our soul ailments and their doctoring is incomparably more correct, than the accepted by the Latins enumeration of sins and sinful deeds of people. To fight only with the sins that were revealed in the actions, would be so unsuccessful, as to cut off the waste grass, instead of pulling it out with the roots and throwing it away. Sins grow from their roots, i.e., passions of the soul... Exactly in the same manner it is impossible to calm oneself by the fact that one makes comparatively few sinful deeds: it is necessary to foster the eternal good tendencies and mood in oneself, of what consist the Christian perfection and salvation. Ten Commandments of the Old Testament prohibit sinful deeds, but the Beatitudes of Christ propose no deeds, but states. Perhaps only peacemaking can be called an action, but indeed it is accessible only to those believers, who filled their souls with sincere kindness to people. The endless argument of the theologians of Europe about that, if a Christian is saved by the faith or good deeds, reveals their general incomprehension of our salvation. If these theologians do not want to learn from the Savior the correct understanding, then Apostle Paul even more clearly depicted it: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Not deeds or actions themselves are valuable in the eyes of God, but the constant mood of the soul, which is described in the words given above.

2. The second theme, which should be discussed in a question about different sins, is the theme about the gradual development of the sin in us. Holy fathers left us numerous valuable observations, regarding this, in their writings.

The very wide spread error of the Christians, who come for confession, consists of the fact that one or another sin “somehow, suddenly, from somewhere, neither from that, nor from this captured the will of the sinner and forced him to commit precisely this bad act.” In the teachings of holy fathers it is clearly shown that the sin does not appear is in the soul of the man “neither from that nor from this” or “from somewhere.” It had been long time since a sinful act, or a negative phenomenon of the spiritual life penetrated in one or another way into our heart, unnoticeably settled there and built its nest, transforming into a “sly thought” or passion. This act is only the verdure, the birth of this passion, against which it is necessary to begin the struggle.

But the asceticism knows something more important and calls to the more efficient fight. For the purposes of the spiritual hygiene, or, it is better to say, spiritual preventive maintenance, the ascetic works propose to us the detail developed analysis of the gradual conceiving and development of the sin in us.

In the works of such renowned spiritual writers as St. Ephraim the Syrian, St. John “The Ladder” Writer, prep. Hesychius of Jerusalem, venerable Mark the Ascetic, St. Maxim the Confessor and others, we find this description of the origin of the sin, made on the basis of their own observation and experience: first of all the sin is conceived not on the body surface, but in the depths of the spirit. The body by itself is not guilty and is not the source of the sin, but only the instrument, through which one or another sinful thought can appear. Every sin does not begin suddenly, automatically, but through the complex process of the internal ripening of one or another sly thought.

Our official books, in particular the Oktoechos and the Lenten Triodion are full of prayers and chants about our salvation from the devil’s temptations. “The start of temptation” is the involuntary motion of the heart under the effect of any external perception (visual, auditory, gustatory and so forth) or a thought, which arrived from the outward, saying to do this or that. These are the arrows of the devil or, according to the expression of the asceticism, “the start” or attack of a sly thought that can be very easily dismissed. Without detaining our thought on this sinful image or expression, we immediately repulse them. This thought dies off as swiftly as it appeared. But if one detains this thought, gets interested in this tempting image, it enters more deeply into his consciousness. There occurs the so called “preoccupation” or the combination of our mind with the attacking thought. The fight can be rather mild at this step of development as well, although it is not that simple as in the first stage of the start of the attack. Not being able to deal with “preoccupation,” but focusing on it and thinking it over seriously, internally examining the pleasing us outlines of this image, we enter into the stage of “attention,” i.e. that we are almost in the power of this temptation. Mentally we are already captivated by it. The following step is called “satisfaction,” when we internally perceive the entire charm of the sinful action, construct in ourselves even more exciting and carrying along images and give in not only in the mind, but also by a feeling into the authority of this sly thought. If at this step of development of the sin one does not give it a decisive repulse, then we are already in the authority of the “wish,” or consent with the sin, after which there is only one step to the accomplishment of one or another misdeed: be it embezzlement, trying the forbidden fruit, an insulting word, hand blow and so forth. The different ascetic writers call these different steps differently, but the matter is not in the names and not in their elaboration. The fact is that the sin does not come to us suddenly, unexpectedly. It passes its natural stage of development in the soul of the man, precisely: being conceived in the mind, it penetrates into attention, feelings, will and finally is carried out in the form of one or another sinful act.

Therefore a confessor in his lectures to those fasting before confession can explain this complex process of the spiritual life, warn against dangerous temptations, call to the struggle with sly thoughts, point at the roots of our sinful deeds, i.e. passions or sly thoughts, and explain, how the sin gradually captivates us.

Here are several useful thoughts, found in the ascetics’ works. “The coming bad thought is an involuntary recollection of the previously committed sins. The one who still fights with passions, tries not to allow such thought to become a passion, while the other, who already conquered them, drives off the very first preoccupation” (the Philocalia 1, p. 553). “Preoccupation” is the involuntary motion of the heart, not accompanied by any images. It is similar to a key; it opens the door into the heart for the sin. That is why the experienced people try to catch it at the very beginning, — so teaches St. Mark the Recluse (the same source). But if a thought itself is something that comes from the outside, then nevertheless it finds in the man the certain weak place, toward which it feels most convenient to be directed. Thus, same St. Mark teaches: “Do not say: I do not want, but a thought attacks by itself. Though you do not like the very thought, then you are sure to love its causes” (p. 554). This means that in our heart or mind there is already some reserve of the previous sinful habits, which react more easily on the attacking thoughts, than by those people, who do not have such habits. Therefore, the means of fight are in the gradual purification of the heart, which ascetics call “steadiness” i.e. the constant observation of themselves and the effort not to let a bad thought to enter into the mind by any means. Purification or steadiness is accomplished with unceasing prayer best than with anything else, for that simple reason, that if the mind is occupied with the praying thought, then in the same time no other, sinful thought can rule our mind. Therefore St. Hesychius of Jerusalem teaches: “As without a large ship it is not possible to swim across the deep, it is not possible to banish a sly thought without appealing to Jesus Christ” (the Philocalia 2, p. 188).