Excerpt from The Life of St. Antony:

And he said they often appeared as the Lord revealed the devil to Job, saying, "His eyes are as the morning star. From his mouth proceed burning lamps and hearths of fire are east forth. The smoke of a furnace blazing with the fire of coals proceeds from his nostrils. His breath is coals and from his mouth issues flames." When the prince of the demons appears in this wise, the crafty one, as I said before, strikes terror by speaking great things, as again the Lord convicted him saying to Job, for "he counteth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood, yea he counteth the sea as a pot of ointment, and the depth of the abyss as a captive, and the abyss as a covered walk." And by the prophet, "the enemy said, I will pursue and overtake ," and again by another, "I will grasp the whole world in my hand as a nest, and take it up as eggs that have been left." Such, in a word, are their boasts and professions that they may deceive the godly. But not even then ought we, the faithful, to fear his appearance or give heed to his words. For he is a liar and speaketh of truth never a word. And though speaking words so many and so great in his boldness, without doubt, like a dragon he was drawn with a hook by the Saviour, and as a beast of burden he received the halter round his nostrils, and as a runaway his nostrils were bound with a ring, and his lips bored with an armlet. And he was bound by the Lord as a sparrow, that we should mock him. And with him are placed the demons his fellows, like serpents and scorpions to be trodden underfoot by us Christians. And the proof of this is that we now live opposed to him. For he who threatened to dry the sea and seize upon the world, behold now cannot stay our discipline, nor even me speaking against him. Let us then heed not his words, for he is a liar: and let us not fear his visions, seeing that they themselves are deceptive. For that which appears in them is no true light, but they are rather the preludes and likenesses of the fire prepared for the demons who attempt to terrify men with those flames in which they themselves will be burned. Doubtless they appear; but in a moment disappear again, hurting none of the faithful, but bringing with them the likeness of that fire which is about to receive themselves. Wherefore it is unfitting that we should fear them on account of these things; for through the grace of Christ all their practices are in vain.

On Repentance:

To repent means to feel in our hearts the falsehood, the madness, the wickedness of our sins; it means to ackowledge that we have offended, by them, our Creator, our Lord, our Father, our Benefactor, who is infinitely holy, and infinitely abhors sin; it means to desire with the whole soul to amend and to atone for our sins.


St. John of Kronstadt

Excerpt from "Spokesman for true Orthodoxy":

In a short essay sub--titled "A Reminder for Everyone Who Considers Himself an Orthodox Christian," Archbishop Averky further discusses the danger of allowing this false zeal to enter into church life:

“The Church is not an arena for the struggle of power, nor any other political or partisan struggle, in which the opponents, for the most part, are governed by their pride or vanity, by their ambition to 'play a role',... The Church exists not for the mutual antagonism of those who seek honor and prominence, not for partisan squabbles, nor for the sowing of enmity, intrigue, calumny, and slander, nor for the earning of scores."

Archbishop Averky, Spokesman for true Orthodoxy, Orthodox America

Excerpt from The Life of St. Antony:

The demons, therefore, if they see all Christians, and monks especially, labouring cheerfully and advancing, first make an attack by temptation and place hindrances to hamper our way, to wit, evil thoughts. But we need not fear their suggestions, for by prayer, fasting, and faith in the Lord their attack immediately fails. But even when it does they cease not, but knavishly by subtlety come on again. For when they cannot deceive the heart openly with foul pleasures they approach in different guise, and thenceforth shaping displays they attempt to strike fear, changing their shapes, taking the forms of women, wild beasts, creeping things, gigantic bodies, and troops of soldiers. But not even then need ye fear their deceitful displays. For they are nothing and quickly disappear, especially if a man fortify himself beforehand with faith and the sign of the cross. Yet are they bold and very shameless, for if thus they are worsted they make an onslaught in another manner, and pretend to prophesy and foretell the future, and to shew themselves of a height reaching to the roof and of great breadth; that they may stealthily catch by such displays those who could not be deceived by their arguments. If here also they find the soul strengthened by faith and a hopeful mind, then they bring their leader to their aid.

ON THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE EPHESIANS :

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart: who being past feeling, gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness."

"Who bring past feeling," saith he, "gave themselves up."
Whenever then ye hear, that "God gave them up unto a reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28), remember this expression, that "they gave themselves up." If then they gave themselves over, how did God give them over? and if again God gave them over, how did they give themselves over? Thou seest the seeming contradiction. The word, "gave them over," then, means this, He permitted them to be given over. Seest thou, that the impure life is the ground for like doctrines also? "Every one," saith the Lord, "that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light." (John iii. 20.) For how could a profligate man, one more immersed in the practice of indiscriminate lewdness than the swine that wallow in the mire, and who is a lover of money, and has not so much as any desire after temperance, enter upon a life like this? They made the thing, saith he, their "work." Hence their "hardening" (ver. 19), hence the "darkness of their understanding." There is such a thing as bring in the dark, even while the light is shining, when the eyes are weak; and weak they become, either joy the influx of ill humors, or by superabundance of rheum. And so surely is it also here; when the strong current of the affairs of this life overwhelms the perceptive power of the understanding, it is thrown into a state of darkness. And in the same way as if we were placed in the depths under water, we should be unable to see the sun through the quantity of water lying, like heart takes place, that is, an insensibility, whenever there is no fear to agitate the soul. "There is no fear of God," it saith, "before his eyes" (Ps. xxxvi. 1); and again, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." (Ps. xiv. 1.) Now blindness arises from no other cause than from want of feeling; this dogs the channel; for whenever the fluids are curdled and collected into one place, the limb becomes dead and void of feeling; and though thou burn it, or cut it, or do what thou wilt with it, still it feels not. So is it also with those persons, when they have once given themselves over to lasciviousness: though thou apply the word to them like fire, or steel, yet noting touches, nothing reaches them; their limb is utterly dead. And unless thou canst remove the insensibility, so as to touch the healthy members, everything thou doest is vain.

HOMILIES OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE EPHESIANS,HOMILY XIII.

On the Antichrist (A Prophecy, continued):

Then he will begin to show false signs in the heavens and upon the earth, upon the sea and upon the dry land. He will summon the rain, and it will descend. He will command the seed, and the seed will germinate. This he will do, not in reality, but by enchantments. He will rebuke the waves, and they will become quiet; the winds, and they will obey him. He will cause fruit to hang from the trees, and bring forth water from the earth. He will speak with lepers, and they will be purifies; the blind, and they will see; he will call the deaf, and they will hear; the dumb, and they will speak. He will do all the signs our Lord wrought in the world. But he shall not raise the dead; for he has no power over the spirits.

The lightnings will be his servants, and he will give a sign of his coming. Demons will be his forces; the princes of the demons his disciples. He will send the leaders of his forces into far distant regions, and will give then power and healing, and they will seduce the whole world. And the Apostle has written and warned us in his Epistle to the Thessalonians: "Be not terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, because this is not from us; for there shall first come a revolt, and the man of sin will be revealed, and he will be lifted up, and he will show himself as if he were God, and make himself God" (II Thes.2:2-4).

St. Ephraim the Syrian, excerpt from: Sunday Sermons of the Fathers, Volume 4

On Despondency:

Even the saints of God were at a time seized with diabolical despair and despondency. What therefore can we sinners expect? The enemy often wounds us by implanting in our heart wrath, shame and cruel despondency. We must turn to God continually; every moment we must be with him, in order that we may not be besieged with the wrath and despondency of the enemy.

There are other means of escaping from despair and despondency - the broad way of the world: if you give yourself up to owrldly pleasures, despondecy will leave you for a time, at least while the pleasures last. But afterwards you will be captivated by these pleasures; they will become a necessity to you, and you will find comfort and joy in them alone. May God preserve every Christian from finding his only way of escape from the despondency of the Devil through such means.

St. John of Kronstadt

On the Antichrist (A Prophecy):

In that day in which the 'son of perdition' shall come upon the earth, there shall be great confusion throughout the whole world, and bewilderment shall come upon the earth. The sun shall be darkened, and the stars shall fall from heaven. All the heavenly bodies shall be darkened, and the stars shall fall from heaven. All the heavenly bodies shall be extinguished, and darkness envelop the world. The earth shall tremble to it's foundations; "the mountains shall be moved and the hills shall tremble' (Isaiah 54:10). Springs and fountains shall dry up; the waves shall be swallowed in the depths of the sea, and fish shall disappear. Rulers shall cease from judgement, and priests tremble in the sanctuary. The power of the strong shall collapse. There shall be stupor upon the earth; the hands of all shall be undone. The man of evil will prepare, and coming he will enter Jerusalem; he will build up and establish Sion, and will make himself God, and entering he will sit in the temple, as the Apostle has written (II Thes. 2:4) "as if he were God".

The Jews will glory in him, and will assemble to join him. He will blaspheme, declaring: 'I am the Father and the Son, the first and the last, and there is no other God but me.' In that moment ten thousand Jews shall deny him, and they shall answer him: 'Thou art "the seducer" of the world' (II John7). For He WHom our fathers fastened to a cross on Golgotha, He has saved creatures, and has ascended to Him Who sent Him.' And raging in fury, the Evil One will command that those who deny him shall be instantly slain by the sword. And because of this all shall fear to deny him.


St. Ephraim the Syrian, SUnday Sermons of the Fathers, volume 4

Excerpt from The Life of St. Antony:

'First, therefore, we must know this: that the demons have not been created like what we mean when we call them by that name for God made nothing evil, but even they have been made good. Having fallen, however, from the heavenly wisdom, since then they have been grovelling on earth. On the one hand they deceived the Greeks with their displays, while out of envy of us Christians they move all things in their desire to hinder us from entry into the heavens; in order that we should not ascend up thither from whence they fell. Thus there is need of much prayer and of discipline, that when a man has received through the Spirit the gift of discerning spirits, he may have power to recognise their characteristics: which of them are less and which more evil; of what nature is the special pursuit of each, and how each of them is overthrown and cast out. For their villainies and the changes in their plots are many. The blessed Apostle and his followers knew such things when they said, "for we are not ignorant of his devices ;" and we, from the temptations we have suffered at their hands, ought to correct one another under them. Wherefore I, having had proof of them, speak as to children.

On the forgivess of Sins:

The purpose of the advent of the Saviour, when He gave us His life giving commandments as purifying remedies in our passionate state, was to cleanse the soul from the damage done by the first transgression and bring it back to its original state.

Behold, baptism gives freely and demands nothing except faith; but if a man repents his sins after baptism, God does not forgive him freely, but demands works, suffering, sorrows, contrition, tears, a long time of mourning - and then forgives. The Lord forgave the theif freely, merely for his confession uttered on the cross, and promised him the Kingdom; but in the case of the woman who had sinned He demanded also faith and tears.

St. Issac the Syrian, Directions in Spiritual Training

'God may be' to us 'all in all':

If we too wish to approach God with a pure and spotless affection of heart, we should also retire from all the disturbance and confusion of crowds, so that while still living in the body we may manage in some degree to adapt ourselves to some likeness of that bliss which is promised hereafter to the saints, and that 'God may be' to us 'all in all' (I Cor. 15:23)...When God will be all our love, and every desire and wish and effort, every thought of ours, and all our life and words and breath, and that unity which already exists between the Father and the Son has been shed abroad in our hearts and minds, so that we also may be joined to Him by a lasting and inseprable affection...to possess even in the body an image of future bliss, and that he may begin in this world to have a foretaste of a sort of earnest of that celestial life and glory until the whole life and all the thoughts of the heart become onne continuous prayer.

St. John Cassian, Second Conference of Abbot Issaac

On Humility:

The unholy demons once began to murmur praise in the heart of an ascetic who was struggling to achieve blessed humility. However, God inspired him to use a holy trick to defeat the cleverness of these spirits. The monk got up and on the wall of his cell he wrote in sequence the names of the major virtues: perfect love, angelic humility, pure prayer, unassailable chastity, and others of a similar kind. The result was that whenever vainglorious thoughts began to puff him up, he would say: "Come! Let us go to be judged." Going to the wall he would read the names there and would cry out to himself:" When you have every one of these virtues within you, then you will have an accurate sense of how far from God you still are."

St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

On the Remembrance of Death:

Our mind is so darkened by the fall that unless we force ourselves to remember death we can completely forget about it. When we forget about death, then we begin to live on earth as if we were immortal, and we sacrifice all our activity to the world without concerning ourselves in the least either about the fearful transition to eternity or about our fate in eternity. Then we boldly and peremptorily override the commandments of Christ; then we commit all the vilest sins; then we abandon not only unceasing prayer but even the prayers appointed for definite times - we beginn to scorn this essential and indispensable occupation as if it were an activity of little importance and little needed. Forgetful of physical death, we die a spiritual death.

Bishop Ignatius (Brianchaninov), The Arena, Chapter 28, pg 90

Excerpt from The Life of St. Antony:

'And let us strive that wrath rule us not nor lust overcome us, for it is written, "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. And lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin, and the sin when it is full grown bringeth forth death.'' Thus living, let us keep guard carefully, and as it is written, "keep our hearts with all watchfulness." For we have terrible and crafty foes--the evil spirits--and against them we wrestle, as the Apostle said," Not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Great is their number in the air around us", and they are not far from us. Now there are great distinctions among them; and concerning their nature and distinctions much could be said, but such a description is for others of greater powers than we possess. But at this time it is pressing and necessary for us only to know their wiles against ourselves.

On Prayer:

'Pray without ceasing' (I Thess. 5:17). The Apostle divides prayer into a fourfold manner: 'I exhort therefore first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made' ( I Tim. 2:1). Supplications is an imploring or petition concerning sins, in which one who is sorry for his present or past deeds ask for pardon. Prayers are a vow to God...We pray when we renounce this world, we pray when we promise that, despising secular honors and scorning earthly riches, we willcleave to the Lord in all sorrow of heart and humility of spirit. We pray when we promise that we will ever maintain the most perfect purity of body and steadfast patience, root out of our hearts anger or sorrow that works death. Intercessions are prayers for others also, making request either for those dear to us or for peace. Thanksgiving is for past benefits, present ones or future, which God has prepared for those who love Him.


St. John Cassian, First Conference on Abbot Isaac

On Glorifying God:

He who gives thanks, and he who glorifies, have kindred feelings, in that they bless their Helper for the benefits they have received. So the Apostle exhorts all men to this, saying, 'Glorify God with your body;' and the prophets commands, saying, 'Give glory to God.' Although testimony was borne by Caiaphas against our Redeemer, and He was set at nought by the Jews, and was condemned by Pilate in those days, yet exalted exceedingly and most mighty was the voice of the Father which came to Him; 'I have glorified and will glorify again.' For those things which He suffered for our sake have passed away; but those which belong to Him as the Savior remain forever.

St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Letter VI

On Choosing Good:

Three principles move us to good: the seeds in our nature, the holy powers, and our will for good. Seeds we have from nature when, for example, we treat others as we wish to be treated by them, or when we see a man in want and in trouble and naturally show compassion to him. Holy powers, when feeling an impulse to some good deed, we find blesses assistance, and are successful. Finally, will for good, when we distinguish good from evil and choose the good.

St. Maximos the Confessor, Second Century on Love, Text #32