Let us now enter into the heart of the matter with faith, love, and trembling, because when talking about the Trinity, angels tremble at its horror.

1- “I believe in one God”

Ignorance in the past The world was immersed in pagan worship. In ancient times, the human mind came to believe in the existence of a Creator. But sin wronged him and he was not guided to the true God. God guided us first in the person of our father Abraham. Thus, God planted in the earth the seed of worship of the one immaterial and invisible God. The plant grew in the midst of violent storms, because the darkness of sin corrupted minds and hearts. Faith is not belief but communion. Abraham was God's friend, his friend.

Abraham's descendants - Rather, before the appearance of our Lord Jesus, there were people who believed in a God who is spirit and not matter, who is invisible, incomprehensible, capable of everything, who is one, and who is unlimited in time, space, and power: they are the people of the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, humans learned that God is one and has no equal in creation. The Old Testament is a staunch enemy of polytheism and idolatry. The concept of God has transcended everything that is material, created, and limited.

This step is a qualitative leap in world history, if we borrow this expression from biologists: the liberation of the human mind from the concept of God by relying on its senses and earthly thought. A process of mental abstraction took place in which thought was liberated from imagining “God” just as one imagines creatures (29).

Jesus - It is a qualitative leap in the development of human beings towards a more complete knowledge than that, that is - one day - our knowledge of God through God Himself, through our Lord Jesus. So what did the Lord Jesus come to us with?

God's unity - He did not deviate from the teaching of the Old Testament in stating the unity of God. God is one. He cannot have a partner to compete with or share power with. He cannot be a created being, otherwise his being a single Creator would be null and void, and there is no Creator other than Him.

Its unit is not numerical. Two is more than one, and three is more than two. The number of million is more important than the number of thousand, and so on.

God's oneness - God's oneness is a qualitative oneness: he is unparalleled. It is of a special quality, in fact it is above all classification. It is higher than unity, oneness, and everything that human geniuses can imagine.

Humility before Him - It is beyond our understanding. With our mind, we reach the conviction that there is one Creator. If we dare to do more than that, we will fall prey to our pride and the arrogance of our powerful minds. The closest path to God is complete humility before Him, like a drowning man’s eagerness to escape from the storms of a raging sea. Then God takes pity on our humility and eagerness, so He sends a gentle ray into our minds and hearts to guide us to Him. Satan once said to Saint Macarius of Egypt: You did not defeat me by fasting and staying up late, but by humility.

We cannot know God without God. He is the subject of knowledge and its mediator. He reveals himself to us, but in humility, not in arrogance, philosophizing, arrogance of science and philosophy, and divinity. (30) Empty or false..

Pride is the enemy of faith - Without humility, cross out everything: peace be upon the world. Disbelief, atheism, and heresy are linked to pride in a certain way that differs among people. The arrogant Pharisee fell from God’s mercy, even though he was a religious scholar, but he was hollow, hypocritical, and hypocritical. As for the tax collector (31) The sinner was filled with God's mercy because he humbled himself. How far the Pharisees of all times were from the Jesus of the Gospel.

2- God is Triune Persons

Jesus Christ came to us with a more complete teaching than the Old Testament. He taught us that one God is three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This teaching angered the Jews, and still does. This teaching destroyed the structure of Judaism, and after it, a religion of isolation returned, while Christ swept through Palestine and the world. Christ is for the whole world, while Judaism is an ethnic religion linked to a region of the earth.

God is 1=3

Jesus crucifies our minds with this teaching. However, we accepted the cross and do not accept it as an alternative, because we accepted Jesus himself, so we accepted his teaching according to his person.

Our acceptance of the person of Jesus made us accept his message, despite all the crosses of the mind, desires, and lusts it contains. They are all crosses, they are all heroics for conquering the world. It is very easy for a person to feel in the presence of Jesus that he is entering a furnace that turns him away from himself: 1- Mentally, Jesus delivers to me teachings that do not stand up to the arrogance of my ruthless, dissecting, critical mind. 2- Administratively, I am asked to go against my desires and will. 3- Emotionally, he is asking me to crucify myself, to carry my cross and walk with him all day and night, as long as I am on earth. 4- In life, he asks me to sacrifice myself for him and for humanity. It glorifies - primarily - the death of martyrdom. His most perfect servants - after his virgin mother and his apostles - are the martyrs. His golden age is the age of martyrs. He prefers the cold ones over the lukewarm, neglectful, and negligent ones (Revelation 3:15-22). How did people accept him, and how did his religion spread? How did people agree to become madmen and martyrs for his sake and blame cowards, negligent people, and fugitives?

This is the secret of his divine person. This is the secret of his mighty right hand. His loyal followers would rather have people put them in hell than put them in bliss (32). His fire is sweeter than this false bliss. Hell - if we allow ourselves this expression - is better than any other heaven.

The success of Jesus' call is linked to his person. Without it, the Christian religion remains devoid of any practical flavor, because it is a religion of hanging oneself in this world, in order to live in the afterlife.

So: We accepted Jesus, so we accepted from him everything he wanted to say to us. Is it easy for someone to reject Jesus? Without him, the universe is empty and a shell. What is the value of believing in the existence of a God if we do not accept Jesus? Who is God if we do not see him in the face of Jesus? Let us say to him with Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68. Revised Orthodox Version).

We accepted Jesus, so we accepted to believe that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom every atom of the contrite and humble entity can prostrate, forever.

Who is this Triune God who cannot be comprehended by the mind?

The early church believed that God is one and three, and baptized people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And it continues to do so to this day and forever (Matthew 28:19).

But church scholars tried to bring this teaching closer to understanding. The task was arduous, because the things of God are beyond human understanding.

Asceticism is not only staying up late, fasting, cleaving, sleeping on the ground, and fighting against desires, against oneself, against desires, inclinations, and whims. It is a general ritual that includes the entire human being.

The mind also needs asceticism. He must abandon earthly notions, humble himself before God, purify himself from every worldly thought, and pray to God a righteous, pure, humble prayer that takes up his entire being, in order to draw closer to God. We can only know Him to the extent that He Himself reveals Himself to us. We owe it to him, so the credit should be to God, not to us.

The Greek language - the language of science and philosophy at that time - was not suitable for helping men of Christian thought. This is with the knowledge that European languages still today borrow from them the structure of theological, philosophical and scientific terms.

Theological terminology – Inspiring parents have created new terms. Explain it to us. Thus, they imitated us in a loose, luminous theological garb. Our faith is divine light. To explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Fathers used the following terms: essence, nature, hypostasis, person, equal in essence.

They said: God is one essence. They used “nature” to mean “essence.”

They said: God is one. It is the essence of God.

They said: The unity of God is the unity of essence, the unity of divinity.

They said: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have one essence and one divinity.

They said: Since the essence is one, then God is one.

They said: If the essence of the Father was other than the essence of the Son, and the essence of the Holy Spirit were other than the essence of the Father and other than the essence of the Son, they would have 3 essences.

They said: If they had 3 jewels, they would be 3 independent gods. The multiplicity of essences means the multiplicity of gods. This is polytheism and idolatry.

So: Christianity remained true to Jewish monotheism, which says that God is one and has no partner.

Unity of essence - So what is unity? What is its importance? How do we understand it? It is the unity of essence. As long as the essence of the Trinity is one, then God is one and the divinity is one. The Trinity does not change anything in unity because the essence is one without division. But how is God three?

Hypostasis and person - The Church Fathers used the word “hypostasis” and the word “person.” Then they made the two words synonymous. Every human being is a person. But are there five billion human beings in the world equal to the number of members of the human race? We are all descendants of Adam. Our personal differences do not reach an extent that allows us to say that the nature of one of us is different from the nature of the rest of human beings.

But human persons are separate. Each of them possesses human nature specifically. He owns it all in his person, separate from other people. They are not heads of one body. What is relied upon is personal. Nature exists in the person. The person is a document of nature. Nature resides in the person, not outside of him. But what is it like for God?

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are 3 persons (i.e. 3 hypostases) who together possess all the divine essence, i.e. the divine nature, i.e. the divinity is present together in its entirety in each one of them.

The Father owns it all. The son owns it all. The Holy Spirit owns it all. It is not owned by one person individually, as is the case with humans. The divine essence is entirely that of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, without separation, division, or division (33).

Humans are people. But also individuals.

There is no individuality in God. There is no divine essence specific to the Son, for example. The essence is one. It is entirely the Father's, entirely the Son's, and entirely the Holy Spirit's.

Among humans, I am privileged due to my human nature. And you are privileged in your human nature. In the Holy Trinity, this is missing. No one of the hypostases is unique in relation to essence, just as I am unique in my human nature.

Equal in essence - That is why the fathers used the word “equal in essence.” In the Greek language, the word means that the hypostases have one specific essence. If we say that the Son or the Holy Spirit is equal in essence to the Father, we mean that they have the same essence.

God is one, essence is one, divinity is one, Father is one, so why three? Or what distinguishes one from the other?

Birth and emergence - The Father begot the Son. The Son proceeds from the Father by birth. The Holy Spirit by emanation, the Son and the Holy Spirit emanate from the hypostasis of the Father.

Birth and emanation are matters related to the hypostasis of the Father, not to the essence of the Father. If the Son were born of the essence of the Father, he would also be born of himself, and would be his own son. If the Holy Spirit emanated from the essence of the Father, it would emanate from Himself, that is, the Holy Spirit would emanate from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In other words: If the Son were born of the essence of the Father, he would have been born of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and likewise the Holy Spirit would have emanated from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is the cause of the Trinity. From Him proceeds the Son by birth, the Holy Spirit by emanation. It is the title of the unit and its source.

There is no distinction between the three except by these three characteristics: 1- Fatherhood is the property of the father. 2- Filiation is the property of the son. 3- Emanation is a characteristic of the Holy Spirit (34).

Other than that, everything is shared by the Holy Trinity without division. Equality between persons is complete. If the Son or the Holy Spirit were less than the Father, they would have been created, and would be less than the Father. There is no difference between the three at all. The Father alone is the cause, and from Him proceeded the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Each of them contains both without mixing or mixing. There is no separation or division between them. Each of them is capable of everything and present everywhere. We cannot worship the Father without the Son, nor the Son without the Holy Spirit.

When a Christian says: “Oh God, Lord, have mercy on me.” He says: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have mercy on me.” There is no god but the Holy Trinity.

God is not one thing, but the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are another. God does not consist of all three. God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Every one of them is a god. But they are not gods. They are one God.

They are not one closed God. The God of Christians differs from the image of God among Greek philosophers and among Jews. God is not an abstract philosophical concept and is not one single God residing on high and isolated.

An open God - The Christian God is a Trinity, one God in 3 persons. He is an open God. His world is the world of open people. It is not an abstract theoretical essence like Greek philosophy. It is 3 people who contain each other in loving company.

The person is knowledgeable and open to others. His world is a world of “you and us.”

 God is love. The Orthodox distinguish in God between the incomprehensible essence and the divine powers. Basically, all the divine names are considered powers. So: righteousness, love, light, life, wisdom, righteousness, justice, and grace are essential divine forces emanating from the essence of God without being the essence. We are united with God by grace. We become gods by grace, not by substance (Palamas, Defense of the Hesychasts).

God of love - The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Father loves the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit loves the Father and the Son. The Son loves the Holy Spirit.

John the Evangelist said: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).

With absolute love, each of the three hypostases embraces the other two.

It is also through love that I, the human person, can open up to divine persons, enter into their personal world, and belong to it.

The difference between me and God is unlimited. He is God and I am a dweeb. Except that I am a person. He is also a person. The world of people is the world of openness, the world of company, the world of osmosis. In other words, the person permeates the person (35). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dialogue and say: Let us make man in our image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Jesus saved the Father.

The Apostle Paul taught us that the Holy Spirit residing in us calls upon the Heavenly Father in us: “Abba.” That is, the Holy Spirit within us says to the Father: “Abba” (Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6).

“We” world – When my connection with the brothers in any matter we say: “We.” For example, we prayed together, we confessed to God together...

The world of “we” is the world of divine persons. It is also - to a much weaker extent - the world of human persons. Intimacy exists between souls, not between bodies and stones.

Personalist theology - This personal theology is beyond human understanding, but fills a huge void in human lives. It makes God closer to man than to himself. It is not surprising if we read from Chrysostom and Nicholas Kabasilas these two immortal sayings related to Jesus:

It is “closer to us than the body is to the head” (Dhahabi, Sermon, 3:19 on John). He is “closer to us than our own soul” (from the Greek Kabasilas 712:150).

prayers - O our Trinity, O Trinity of love, overwhelm us with your tenderness and bring us into the depth of our communion. Take us out of our limitations imposed on us for two reasons: 1- Because we were created. 2- Because we are sinful, dark, lost, confused, and lost. After the sin of Adam and Eve, we lost maturity and guidance.

Bring us out of our limitations and join our persons to the lights of your divine persons. Destroy our selfishness, destroy our selfishness, so that we can go into the vastness of your personal world shining with light and joy. Make us transparent to Your grace, so that it may appear in us from every side, so that it may appear in us from every side.

3- The Controller and Creator

In the Church, in the Bible, and in teaching, we sometimes attribute some characteristics to the Father and others to the Son. And the Holy Spirit in the third part. But it is not limited. The same qualities return elsewhere to appear, especially in the Son or the Holy Spirit.

Usually, we say: “The grace of the Holy Spirit.” But in the New Testament there is also “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” “the grace of God our Savior.” We say about Jesus more than anything else, “our Savior,” while we see Paul saying here: “The grace of God our Savior.” The New Testament usually used the word “Lord” for Jesus. However, he also applied it to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The Constitution said: “The Almighty Father, Creator of heaven and earth...”

One capacity – The Father is not the only Almighty, that is, the All-Powerful (36). The Son and the Holy Spirit are his full partners in this ability. Potency is one among them as is substance. Everything that is the Father's is the Son's, as Jesus said.

Creators together - They are creators together. Creation is their one act. It comes from them as one action for them.

Creation did not arise from their essence, but from their will. Therefore, creation was capable of being an event in time, not eternal, without beginning or end.

Nothing changes or changes to the essence of the Trinity. If creation came from substance, then creation would be eternal and eternal like substance.

Creation is an event that occurred in time by divine will.

God does not need a mediator. He created everything visible and invisible according to His divine will. No mediator mediated.

from nothing - He created it out of nothing. There was no previously existing matter from which God created the world. Greek philosophy said that the world is eternal. The Bible said that the world happened in time. God created time and space. Time and space define the world of creation, but God's world is the world of eternity, which has no beginning and no end. The world has a beginning and an end. God is without beginning and without end.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created angels, the material world, animals, and man out of absolute nothingness. A group of angels fell and became devils (37).

middle creature - As for man, he is a “created medium” between the angels (non-corporeal spirits) and the animal and material world. There is a soul in it (38)And angels are spirits. It has a body similar to that of animals. With death, his body returns to its earthy origin, it returns to dust, it returns to matter that has lost life and has been separated from the spirit.     

Perspective and non-perspective There is - then - an unseen world, which is the souls, and a visible world, which is our visible universe. Man is similar to the first in his spirit and similar to the second in his body. In his one person he contains two worlds: spirit and matter, the spiritual world and the material world.

Every creation is God's creation, whether angels, humans, or other substances. Nothing happened except by His divine will.

Image of God – He created man in His image, to follow His example and become like Him. We said that God is three persons and man is one person. Our person is in the image of the Holy Trinity. Our entire person - soul and body - is in the image of the Trinity. Therefore, we can communicate with God as friends and children with great pampering. We teach our children to call their fathers “Daddy” (39). Paul said that the Holy Spirit calls the Father in us: “Abba.”

What is this sound? Saint Gregory of Nyssa, brother of Basil, said that it is unknown, just as its origin, that is, God, is unknown, or rather, unknowable. The same applies to her: we do not know her. No matter how much we analyze a person, our knowledge of him remains very limited. This knowledge is very incomplete because sin has weakened our spiritual powers.

4- Human surroundings

God placed man in a paradise planted with trees, so that he could grow spiritually to the full stature of God. Make him free and his nature tends toward good. However, freedom gives him room for choice. With his freedom he reaches the heights of holiness, and with his freedom he descends to the seat of impurity. Satan envied him and tempted him to deify him, so God portrayed him as envious and jealous. Adam sought deification without God, so he fell from God's mercy.

the fall - The Bible’s account of creation and the fall is brief, but wonderful in its conception of man: He was in the image of God and fell: 1- He desired deification without God’s help, so he relied on himself and became arrogant. 2- He craved a forbidden fruit with his eyes, tasted it, and his senses became corrupted. 3- Disobedience entered his heart, and he died spiritually before he died physically. Physical death was the result of spiritual death. 4- He was separated from God, so God threw him into his own destiny of corruption, evil, and destruction until the time for mercy came. 5- His powers became dark, and he sank into paganism and moral decadence. 6- It was torn internally into conflicts and divisions. This deserves a special title and technical treatment with reasonable and simplified brevity (40).

5- Internal division and rupture

The confusion of tongues in Babel is an image of the confusion of man within himself and the confusion of individuals and peoples among each other.

The Apostle Paul depicted the matter in Romans (7) and in Galatians (5) as a conflict between two wills or between what the soul desires and what the body desires. John Chrysostom explained Romans (7) in a way that makes it clear that sin resides in our members, but it is not our organs. This is consistent with the tradition of the Fathers who say: Misuse is what turns our organs and powers into instruments of evil. This is why Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas argued that the misuse of the passions is what makes them tools for evil. That is, passion is not corrupt in and of itself, but rather by misuse of my will for it. This is a new meaning of passion after its meaning prevailed (and still prevails) as a corrupt passion.

Evagrius paid attention in his book “The Monk” (41) By healing the human soul. Asceticism is necessary to heal the passionate part of the soul, by applying the commandments of the Gospel to get rid of corrupt desires. He sometimes called them “spirits.” He also called them “ideas,” borrowing from Jesus in the Gospel (42). However, victory over it and reaching a state of lack of passion (43)They will not bear fruit if one does not enjoy divine visions (44).

In my introduction to “The Law of Jesus,” I did not differentiate between virtues and prayer. They are conjoined twins, inseparable. A ritual without prayer is trouble and hardship. Prayer without ritual is a bird with wings, not full wings.

John Chrysostom, after Basil, dealt with the subject at some length. He believed that the state of Adam and Eve in Paradise was a state of virginity. But their fall overthrew virginity. Thus, virginity was transferred from heaven and from earth. However, Jesus Christ restored virginity to earth (45). Adam and Eve were in heaven like angels (46)Man was the master of his actions, and the parts of the body were subject to the will of the soul (47).

But after the fall, the situation changed.

internal war - Human nature became divided against itself, and a war arose within man that could not be calmed (48)His passions began to declare war on him. It is much more dangerous than ferocious, raging brutality. He faces a revolution against him that is so enormous that he finds himself unable to control it within himself (49). Before the coming of Christ, the body was easily subject to sin. When human nature was subjected to corruption and death, a nest of many passions infiltrated it. That is why man is no longer so agile to run in the race of virtue. Before Christ, the Holy Spirit had not yet come to help him, as it did on the day of Pentecost, and baptism had not yet occurred to kill the sting of sin in him. He was like a wild horse, running, without a doubt, but often falling and falling. Although the law was illuminating the path, it was unable to help except as advice to the warriors (50)The horse was weighed down and became a sun (51). If it were not for Jesus, there would be no hope of salvation.

And so this eternal rock, Al-Dhahabi, made us hear:

“Even if we make a thousand efforts, we will never be able to accomplish anything good, if we do not also have the power from above.” (52). Al-Dhahabi goes on to talk at length about the interdependence of the hand of God and the hand of man, and about God’s respect for our freedom. He does not take it by force, but rather supports our good intentions and our choice for good, to support us on the path of virtue. (53). Al-Dhahabi is a Chalcedonian before the Council of Chalcedon (the year 451), and Theodoleti (who believed in two wills) before Maximus the Confessor (662) and the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681).

Spiritual conflict - Thus, Chrysostom found himself led to speak about the spiritual conflict in special terms. He considered attacks of desires more violent than attacks in war. Therefore, those who fight passions were considered to be fighters in the ranks of the martyrs, bearing the “characteristics” of Christ (Galatians 6:17), and the monks were considered the successors of the martyrs and imitators of the early Christians. (54).

Diachus said that the “bath” of incorruption (i.e., baptism) expels the multiform serpent from the treasures of the soul. But the duality of our will remains, and the devils continue to fight us through the flesh (55). We will return to Diachus's opinion in solving the dilemma.

Maximus the Confessor approaches the subject. I mentioned its text in our introduction to the Law of Jesus (56).

Harmony: The Apostle Paul said that the recognition of Jesus as Lord comes from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Maximus mentioned the ideal state of harmony. Harmony is achieved by eliminating the division between the forces of the soul. How can the division between the three forces of the soul, rational, lustful, and angry, be eliminated? It is removed through: A- Readings, contemplation, chanting, and prayer for the rational faculty. B- Self-control, fasting, staying up late, etc. with regard to lustful power. C- Love, gentleness, humility, forbearance, and... in relation to the strength of virtue. D- Patience against spiritual laziness that disturbs these three powers (57).

brutality of people - Sin divided people. Maximus said: “We who constitute one nature devour one another in return, like serpents.” (58). “Love alone transcends the division of human nature.” (59). Many fathers spoke about the corruption of man. One of the last ancients, Theodore Abu Qara, Bishop of Harran (died 825 AD), said: Nine out of ten people are evil, and that nations were lions that swallowed people, crushed their bones, and ate their flesh without mercy or pity. (60). This is old. In the era of atomic weapons, we are incapable of description.

Distraction - “The seal of sin is upon me.” The habit of thinking about earthly things is the reason for my distraction. I remain without strength because the Holy Spirit does not come to me and help me. (That is, the Holy Spirit who restores the unity of mind, heart and body separated by the terrible fall of man. Without the help of the all-powerful and creative (Holy) Spirit, my powers alone remain empty. (61). And also: “It is natural for a multitude of thoughts and images to emerge from a fallen being...” (62). “Temptations and defects multiply to infinity. Criminal love, in its many forms, reigns over human society like an all-powerful tyrant.” (63). And also: “Our normal state, the state of all humanity, is a state of fall, illusion, and loss.” (64). Saint Theodore also said: “Fallen nature generates sin in various forms through actions, thoughts, emotions of the heart, and feelings of the body.” (65)“.

Existentialists and personalists have statements that run on the fringes of this patristic thinking without much success. Martin Heidegger came up with the idea of the state of abandonment. She has: Man exists like this, abandoned. This is a negative, non-spiritual philosophical position, far from the spiritual concept of the fathers. The fathers talked about God neglecting them after abundant blessings, to increase their humility, training, grief, lamentation, longing, heroism, experience, sophistication, skill, and wisdom. (66).

I don't want to go into the research until the end. Parents are advised not to bring up matters before they are mature enough to do so (67). Analysts say that the explanations given to patients before repressed thoughts rise from the unconscious to the “pre-conscious” remain without result because the patient does not accept them with understanding, at least. The Lord Jesus taught us not to give what is holy to dogs and not to throw pearls in front of pigs.

Effect, contrast - Maximus the Confessor made “voluptuousness” the mother of all sins. Psychoanalysis said that there are two instincts (sexual and aggressive). The first contradiction (68) Ambivalence: In the subconscious, love and hate coexist. The conflicts that take place in people's souls are enormous. People's desire for gain and their preparations for aggression in billions and billions of colors and for malicious, moderate and simple reasons make every mind and understanding unable to analyze and comprehend them.

Instability - The Fathers spoke at length about the speed with which the soul changes, about its instability. The contradiction causes the decreasing fluctuations in the lives of the individual and the group that electronic brains cannot count. The hadith is problematic.

Preoccupation with God - What is the solution? Diadochus: The ways of the duality of the soul and how it is attracted by conflicting, opposing desires (69)And he mentioned mindfulness. The mind never stops working. It must be operated by something. If we fight evil thoughts and block our outlets to the mind, then what is left for it to do if we do not occupy it with an authentic alternative that keeps evil thoughts and the demons that are their allies expelled? Pascal said: “Man is a reed, but he is a thinking reed.” Descartes said: “I think, therefore I exist.” (70). The solution according to Diadochus is to bring the name of the Lord Jesus to mind (71). God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). Jesus Christ fills the void, burns sins, cauterizes demons, inflames the soul’s warmth and love for God, and raises it one degree by another to His height. John the Ladder, Callistus, Ignatius Xanthapule, and Seraphim of Sarov advised us to flog demons with prayer. (72). In the end, where to?

If I wanted to analyze people and societies and were able to write, I would create dozens of huge volumes, containing details about the subtleties of human souls that turn minds into confusion.

But all of this does not amount to anything significant in my view on the path to heaven. It's a waste of time. Prayer is more important than these empty concerns.

Transmission of longing - All divinity is confined to a human being who has succeeded in completely transferring the longings of his mind, heart, senses, and body towards God. This man - as the fathers said - died and rose again before death reached him. This is a living martyr. This person may be illiterate and only understands how to chant in wakefulness, dream and sleep: “My Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” He may be the greatest of scholars: Jesus leads the two in humility, love, and prayer. Theology is not doctoral theses. Every person can put himself in the school of prayer, the school of invoking the Lord Jesus, from the most naive people to the most thoughtful and knowledgeable people.

jesus prayer – The Jesus Prayer does not require philosophy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, etc. And whoever masters it becomes the greatest theologian, because he has embraced in his heart the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one God, that is, the source of all knowledge, knowledge, power, and existence.

Many fathers - From Basil to Palamas - they regretted the time they wasted in worldly sciences. It does not bring us closer to God.

All knowledge is false except the knowledge of the perfect Jesus prayer, the leader of the choir of virtues. If my missionary educational template has prompted me to write books and defend the faith, then all my supplication to God is to cut off my mind from the world and confine it completely to the name of Jesus. This is the bliss of man on earth.

What remains is vanity of vanities. What's the point if you gain the world and lose Jesus...? May God grant this desire, which my inability to fulfill is eating away at my bones, because my desires are a dictator who flogs me because of slackness, inaction, and distraction. What to do? Maximus said that nature was torn into a thousand pieces - it was a mirror that fell to the ground and shattered. Jesus rebuked Martha who was scattered, and praised Mary who chose the good part that would not be taken away from her.

Detachment from the world - A radical process of abandonment is necessary in order for a person to adhere completely to Jesus. There must be an absolute detachment from this world in order to attach ourselves to the afterlife. It is necessary to eliminate the disarray of thoughts, desires, desires, tastes, interests, hopes, dreams, purposes, goals, aspirations, and every kind of wandering in thought, emotions, and inclinations. We must close all the outlets of our attachment to ourselves and the world, in order to collect all the power of our love, to transfer it in its entirety to Jesus.

Then I lose interest even in my health. The martyrs lost feeling the pain of torture. They endured beyond human strength: with great joy.

Desire for martyrdom- As long as the perfect Christian is the martyr, if the circumstances of martyrdom actually did not exist, I had to bear witness with my thoughts, my intention, my words, my desire for the death of martyrs, a sincere and fervent martyrdom. I must at every moment be a martyr with intention and martyrdom.

Living conscience - There is what the fathers called “martyrdom of conscience.” A living conscience is a hot iron like the disk of the sun: it burns away my evil and my sins.

This living conscience is the dwelling place of the fire of the Holy Spirit. From Him, the Holy Spirit guides my thoughts, emotions, inclinations, and actions and restrains my desires. My conscience is my authority placed in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit molded my entire being from the position of His strong tower in my conscience, God’s will became my will. God became everything in my life. I lost control of myself. I lost my sense of myself. My feelings and senses were disrupted and the Holy Spirit took control of them. (73).

Complete asceticism - As a result: I will no longer be so-and-so, the son of so-and-so. Therefore, the Lord Jesus taught that we should not be attached to money, family, friends, or self. He taught us to be ascetic even in ourselves, and to heroically advance to the holocausts of martyrdom.

I say or do - But there is a huge gap between these words and my bitter reality. I am eloquent in speech, but I am criminal in my actions, thoughts, forgetfulness, and desires. If the Holy Spirit revealed to me all my evenings, I would faint to death. I protect myself by escaping from seeing myself as I really am. As soon as my conscience begins to dig up my crimes, I hide them so that I do not faint from the intensity of my feelings of inferiority, disgrace, hideous disgrace, and scandal.

Before I, along with the saints, reach the complete conviction that I am evil (i.e. “evil”) to all people, I remain attached to the devils. I must be convinced that I am a decadent and corrupt person: O Jesus, Son of God! Why did you come to Earth if you did not save me from this cover allied with my evil desires? My words are sinful. My prayers are sinful. I am sin, I am evil itself, I am the ultimate bottom of sin.

But I say this with tongue and pen, and my heart remains a solid rock, devoid of feeling for it. My Lord, make me forget the eloquence of speech and pen, and teach me the eloquence of strong feelings. My Lord, sharpen my tongue and my pen and move to my inner being. Save me from the outside, and settle in the inside. My appearance is directed towards people hypocritically. My Lord, flay him, even burn him, so that you alone remain standing alone inside me. Expose my evils before My eyes, in all their dimensions of filth and impurity.

There are no solutions in this world. There is only one solution: Either Jesus absorbs me completely until my bones are pure, or I become a child of hell.

Our saintly fathers, who from ancient times bequeathed to us the protection of the name of the Lord Jesus, are among our guardian angels and guides.

Prayer is more important than studying - This great heritage, which the monks of Mount Athos have represented for centuries, deserves to be spread throughout the Christian world. The historical and cultural circumstances of Catholics and Protestants gave knowledge almost absolute importance at the expense of prayer. The influence of Dionysius the Syrian on Western spirituality was rational, while Orthodox spirituality modified his influence with the mysticism of Macarius the Syrian. The Jesus Prayer School is a school alone. Every other school is a deceptive mirage. A head bowed at Jesus' feet wets the ground with tears of blood. With a sweat of blood - like Christ in Gethsemane - billions of times more powerful than all the libraries of the world.

prayers - O Jesus, Son of God! Give me torrents of blood to wash away the filth of my dirty soul, which claims to love You, while it is the devil’s toy. Grant that I may become mute and deaf, so that my conversation with you may be in the heart only, where I do not hear or communicate with anyone but you. My Lord, my Lord, my Lord, I am eloquent, eloquent in speech, and eloquent in deeds. Make my deeds upright, lest my words become a hot sword of judgment to equip me on the Day of Judgment. Actions are the basis, otherwise words are empty and a deception of oneself and others. Embodied in my actions so that my words come from Her grace.

In the end, a person must empty himself of himself in order to fill it with Christ. This is the whole religion. The person decreases little by little until he becomes a transparent white garment from which nothing is visible but Jesus, until he becomes a crystal from which Jesus is visible from every direction.

Europeans and Americans wrote thousands of books on Christianity. What is the use of it if I memorize it in its entirety if Christ is not a shining sun residing in me and I am only a transparent garment that does not block any ray of His light, no matter how small?

John Al-Salami and others warned of the danger of expanding studies on the spiritual life. Some of them demanded that we always interrupt it with periods of prayer.

Religion is not science (74) – Religion is not science, but rather a righteous prayer that raises sacred fiery arrows from a soul that does not live itself... but rather Jesus lives in it.

A devout shepherd - The weakness that afflicts Christians results from deviation from this royal path. An illiterate shepherd high in the mountains who made his life a flute praising the Holy Trinity is better than a billion holders of theology degrees who do not weave their lives out of glorifying the Holy Trinity, even if they are the pinnacle and masters of Christian society. The rest is peels.

O Jesus! Transform the cells of all our beings into fires of prayer. Let prayer emerge even from the hair of our heads, the tips of our nails, the eyelids of our eyes, the depths of our chests, and the movements of our breathing. Let us breathe your name more than we breathe the air. Be the fresh air of our lungs and the only one of our lives.

Devoted to Jesus - If Jesus did not pierce us like arrows pierce the body, we would be worthless. If we had an ounce of ourselves left, we would be fake, not authentic. I am unable to depict the truth. God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24). The Christian is thrown into this fire to extract the metal. It is a dark mass in which the sun entered and turned into light.

Delete self - The Christian is a being who deleted himself and installed Jesus in its place.

Asceticism in money - This is impossible without asceticism, asceticism and humility. Those who flock to the tables of food and drink, those who swim in the hell of pleasures, and those who are drowning in the sea of gold and possessions revolve outside the orbit of Jesus. Jesus did not allow us to be concerned with daily food and clothing, so that our minds would be occupied with other things. So how do we put our hope in money and food? How can we fear death, when death for Jesus alone gives life? Our Lord! We ask for your kindness towards us.

6- Did Adam’s body change...?

But Adam's nature did not change. But his strength weakened, and darkness enveloped him. His strength darkened. The image of God was distorted in him. Maximus said it was broken into a thousand pieces.

While he was under God's protection in Paradise, Adam failed to remain with God. When his powers were intact to connect with God, he lost their ability, and was no longer able to connect himself with God.

What to do? There is no solution other than for God to make up for the deficiency.

This is what will happen when the Son of God is incarnated.

Adam's misery - God expelled Adam from Paradise, so that he and Eve could live in misery. They were in heaven, saved from pain, corruption, and decadence, and immortal by God’s grace. They were two innocent virgins. Outside of paradise, they became miserable and miserable. They got to know each other and gave birth to offspring who inherited death and calamity from them, drowning in darkness, pagan worship, evil, and barbarism. What are the guarantees in humans? He is a traitor, a treacherous murderer, unless Jesus changes him.

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(29) When the Apostle Paul passed by Athens, he saw it full of idols (Acts 17:16)... Neither the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, nor anyone else was religiously advanced, so their idols multiplied. Morally: I mentioned in the book “Women in the View of the Church” an overview of moral decadence in ancient Greek thought. Before the Bible - as we see in the aforementioned book - women were inferior to animals. With Christ, women and morals transcended. Neither philosophy nor anything else promoted human beings, but rather the Gospel.

(30) Theology is the claim to speak theology without originality or authentic theological justification. It is as if the matter is ordinary, while it is heavenly.

(31) In our days, he is a “financial collector,” plural of “collectors.”

(32) The great Greek, Latin and French (and soon Arab) synagogues are full of martyrs who preferred fire to false bliss.

(33) The legal language is clear in talking about the owner, the owned, and joint ownership, but here we find the possibility of separation, of sorting, dividing, and dividing. Basil also used the general terms “essence” and the specific terms “hypostasis” (see The Secret of Dispensation).

(34) We draw attention to the fact that the distinction between the hypostases is based on relationship, not on opposition, isolation, and isolation. The Father is the source of the Son by birth, and the Holy Spirit by emanation. The Son is the Son of the Father, begotten. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Gregory the Theologian, Damascus, and others taught us that we do not know the difference between birth and emanation into the Trinity. The whole issue is beyond our understanding. If we say that the Father begot the Son, we understand that the essence of the Son is the essence of the Father. But God's truth is higher than our perceptions. Christian inspiration descended to a level with which we understand some understanding, as the Son wanted to reveal to us: in so far (Matthew 11:27).

(35) Abraham is God's friend. In “The Counterfeiters,” we explained the meaning of “imbalance.” The two boyfriends interfere with each other. In the theology of the Holy Trinity, we say that the hypostases coexist one in the others. This is the absolute depth of immorality that is infinite, indescribable, and incomprehensible. Therefore, the Holy Trinity is the God of the absolute openness of each of the two hypostases to the Trinity. The God of the Jews is a terrifying God who cannot be approached. Our God is the Father who sent the Holy Spirit to make humanity from Mary’s womb for his Son, Christ. Christ our incarnate God is God and man together in one hypostasis. The God of the Jews is a God who resides in isolation, isolation, and transcendence over humans. Our God is a person who comes into contact with our people.

(36) In Revelation 1:8 Jesus is the Pandocrator (Greek).

(37) The Bible says that demons exist. Satan tempted Jesus himself. Jesus told Peter that Satan would sift them. He said he was the president of this world. It is an evil force that misleads people and tempts them to do evil. He envies a person and harms him.

(38) Jesus said: “Do not be afraid of him who kills the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 102:28). So where are the implications of the theory of evolution? Behold, in the words of Jesus, the soul is a non-material element, that is, it did not emanate from the body. He also said: It is the spirit that gives life, but the flesh benefits nothing” (John 6:64). The Apostle James said: “The body without the spirit is dead” (2:26). And many others.

(39) Abba is a Syriac word that we teach young children to call their fathers. We pronounce it with emphasis, appa, but Paul mentioned it in Greek, abba.

(40) In Arabic, see: 1- Dr. Adnan Al-Trabelsi: A- The Orthodox vision of man. B- And Adam fell. 2- A- Espero Djabour: The secret of divine management and others. Maximus the Confessor and the evening of Mount Anus: “A person is cut into a thousand pieces. A mirror fell and shattered. In the Orthodox view, the soul and the body struggle (Romans 7 and Galatians 5), but a person remains a person in spirit and body. The unity of the hypostasis, that is, the person, has not been broken. The French Descartes separated the soul from the body and was blind to the concept of the person. He - while he was a believer - was the father of the fall of Western thought into materialism and atheism. Man is one, not two.” The spirit is the engine, not the body. Strength lies in the soul. The body is not matter, and the soul is form, as according to the followers of Aristotle, including Western philosophers and scholars, including, ultimately, even Karl Marx. Man is not an animal except with his body. His value is in his immortal spiritual person.

(41) Practicos, Sources chrétiennes, p666…, Centuries II.19 (in Clément, Sources, p123).

(42) Matthew 19:15 and Mark 21:7.

(43) Lack of passion (Greek apatheia). The Stoics used this word in an emotional-negative sense. Gregory of Nyssa gave it the meaning of victory over the passions, a corruption of its meaning.

(44) Evagrius said: “The body of Christ is the acquired virtues. Whoever eats it finds inner freedom. The blood of Christ is a vision of beings, and whoever drinks it will be enlightened by it (i.e. Jesus enlightens him). And the breast of Christ is the knowledge of God, and whoever rests on Him becomes a theologian” (Monks’ Mirror, 118-120, according to Clement, p. 120).

(45) Golden, Greek Min 350:51. Ali bin Abi Talib said about the virginity of Adam and Eve in Paradise (p. 23 of Nahj al-Balagha and its explanations by Muhammad Abdo).

(46) Al-Dhahabi, Sermons on Genesis 5:15, Min 123:53 and 247:43b.

(47) Al-Dhahabi, Sermons on Genesis 5:12, Min 104:53a.

(48) Al-Dhahabi on Virginity 83, Greek Min 594:48.

(49) Golden Sermons on Psalm 148:3, Greek Min 460:55a.

(50) Golden Sermons on Romans 3:11, Greek Min 487:60-8.

(51) Golden Sermons on Romans 3:12, Greek Min 498:60.

He repeated something of this in another place: “When Adam stepped, his body became mortal and subject to pain. Many kinds of deficiencies (shortcomings) occurred in his nature, and the horse was found burdened and difficult to control” (Sermons on Romans 3:12 in the Greek Minh 490:60).

(52) Al-Dhahabi, Sermons on Genesis 5:58, Greek Min 513:54. See the sermons on Matthew 4:82, Greek Min 742:58.

(53) Also his sermons on Hebrews 3:12, Greek Min 99:63.

(54) Greek min 677:50, 124:60, 478:63, 52, 267:49.

(55) The 78th and 79th centenaries in the translation of Deir al-Harf and Christian Springs.

(56) The Law of Jesus, Orthodox Publications 1984. Accordingly, Niketas Stethatos has three cents: 14:1 and 52.

(57) Maximus Centenaries 52:2, 54, 57:4, 58. Also 70:2 and 20:3. And also 79:1, 80 and 47:2, The Ascetic Book, 19-27.

(58) Maximus, Min Greek 260:90. Yes: Humans are snakes in their hatred and harm.

(59) Maximus, Min Greek 396:91.

(60) Harran is a Syrian city that was usurped by the Turks. It is located in the north of Al Jazeera Governorate. See his book “Mimer in the Existence of the Creator and the Right Religion,” Pauline Library, Jounieh, 1982, pp. 188, 252-253, 256, and 265-267.

(61) Emile Simonod, The Priest of Jesus, edition of Presence, p. 137.

(62) Idem. P130. 

(63) Idem. P126.

(64) Idem. P100

(65) Ignace Briantchaninov. Introduction to the traditional English language. And now. Paris 1978. p.137.

(66) Diodochus, Centenaries: 77, 87, 90, 94, 95 and Maximus, Centenaries in Love 96:4.

(67) From Brenchaninov, The Jesus Prayer, p. 109: “It is not right for you to know what will come before you acquire empirical knowledge of what has come before. Such curiosity is a sign of dullness and a mind that admires itself.”

(68) I previously addressed the topic of antithesis in French in a joint book.

Jacques Berque and Divers, Live in the Arab culture. Ed Anthropos, Paris 1967.

(69) 24th and 25th percentile.

(70) Descartes and Pascal are rationalists. The Orthodox existentialist Berdyaev contradicted Descartes' saying: “I exist, therefore I think.”

(71) Centenary 69. Ishaq Al-Syriac has something similar to this, Al-Nasakiat, p. 161 of the Arabic translation.

(72) Al-Sulami said: “Stretch out your hands and flog your warriors in the name of Jesus, for there is no weapon stronger in heaven and on earth (than it) (7:21, p. 161) and also: These impure people will flee from your prayer because it scours them as with fire (Peace to God, 63:28, p. 265). ). “Smite your enemies (by) the name of Jesus.” There is no weapon in heaven and on earth stronger than it. And do not add anything else (Callistus and Ignatius, Centenary 49). Princhinov narrated about Seraphim of Sarov: “He testified that the prayer of Jesus was an attack against the body and carnal desires.” (Simonod, p. 115). It is clear that all the others are influenced by the great peacemaker.

(73) In our book, “Confession and Psychological Analysis,” there is an analysis of idolatry, martyrdom of conscience, and martyrdom of ascetics. Effort is the enemy of pure love. Nassif Al-Yaziji complained about the scarcity of loyal (friendly) vinegar. Opportunity is the mother of disloyalty to friends and others. Child impact. Saving him from influence requires special spiritual education. Only the martyr is pure from selfishness (i.e., hateful selfishness). Except for colors and races. Selfishness is the enemy of the spiritual shine evident in the faith, love, and hope of the martyrs. It is the cancer of every newborn until God heals it.

(74) Of course, I do not call for illiteracy, ignorance, and stupidity, but rather I fight those who made Christian theology studies in the manner of analyzing literary, philosophical, and historical texts, thereby stifling the spirit of the Christian religion. Hearts tremble at the remembrance of Jesus. In studies, hearts are not shaken. We leave prayer for the sake of research and investigations. It must be inoculated with prayer, prostration, and monasticism.