Read an Excerpt
The Struggle for Virtue
Asceticism in a Modern Secular Society
By Averky Taushev Holy Trinity Publications
Copyright © 2014 Holy Trinity Monastery
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-88465-374-5
CHAPTER 1
Self-Asserting Pride and Christian Humility
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming; and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:1–3)
If such a warning by the beloved disciple of Christ, the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, was necessary in apostolic times, then it is all the more timely now. For it is unlikely that at any time in human history have so many false prophets captivated people with the specter of good as now, in our times. If we approach this spirit with the standard indicated by the Apostle, then it can be shown that they "do not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," even if certain of them do not display open hostility to our Lord and Saviour.
So what was the essence of the sin of Adam and Eve?
It was that they questioned the all-good God the Creator and put more faith in the devil, the enemy of God, than in God, thereby breaking God's commandment and wishing to become gods themselves knowing good and evil.
And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Gen 3:1–7)
Therefore, the essence of our primogenitors' sin was that they did not want to obey God, but rather desired to become gods themselves. The devil, in seducing them, communicated to them that same spirit of self-asserting pride that had been the cause of his own fall. The spirit of self-asserting human pride, and with it protest against the all-good will of God, has ever since become rooted in people's souls and has become the cause of mankind's infection with sin and sinful corruption. We can find its footprints throughout the entire history of mankind.
It was precisely this spirit of self-asserting human pride that was the cause of the first war: the fratricide performed by Cain, who was envious of his brother Abel. This awful sin of fratricide led mankind to such a hopeless situation of complete depravity that the Lord had to have recourse to as radical a means of suppressing the spread of sin as the universal flood. Yet sinful corruption made itself known again in Noah's descendants who survived the flood. His son Ham, whose name became a byword, became a striking example of disrespect to parents and of rejection of parental authority — the source of which was rooted, of course, in that same self-affirming human pride that induces one to act condescendingly, contemptuously, scornfully, and sarcastically towards other people, even if they are older and worthy of the respect due to their position.
It was this same human pride that induced people, for the sake of "making a name for themselves," to begin construction of the Tower of Babel, which prompted God to counteract against human pride by confusing the tongues, after which people dispersed over all the earth and formed various nations, among whom there has been constant warfare ever since. As such, pride has engendered division among people, making them alien and hostile towards one another.
Dispersed all over the world, people became divided into different tribes and nations; all the while, at the foundation of this division lay that very same self-asserting human pride in the form of so-called national pride. This has given birth to embittered enmity between different nations and the countless wars with which human history is filled, giving the impression, if one opens any modern textbook of history, that the entire history of the human race is essentially a history of war: one war succeeds another — and that is all there is to it. It makes perfect sense that mankind, having lost its unity and having been divided into many nations warring against one another, would have therewith lost faith in the One God and knowledge of the oneness of the Divinity. Every nation came to have its own national gods that corresponded to its spirit and tastes. Every nation reflected its own national character in its religion, creating gods "in its own image." Such is the origin of paganism, that perverted religion created as the result of that same spirit of self-asserting human pride. This oblivion to the One True God and worship of false gods created by man's imagination "in his own image," this idolization of his own passions and vices, became the occasion for a profound moral fall, into the abyss of which the ancient world descended ever more deeply before the coming of Christ.
The Apostle Paul speaks eloquently of this in his Epistle to the Romans: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do these things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful (Rom 1:28–31).
When evil had reached its highest strain on earth, when mankind through its limitless fall had reached a complete moral impasse, then the "great mystery of Godliness" was accomplished: God sent His Only-Begotten Son to earth to save the perishing human world. How did the Son of God, having come to earth, heal fallen mankind? Naturally, with the very medicine that was capable of healing man's primary disease. Mankind, as we have seen, was sick with pride — so the Lord healed it with humility. The Lord teaches this lesson of humility not only through His preaching, but above all through His own example — the example of His earthly life, beginning with His very birth.
Where was the Lord born? Neither in a rich home nor in a luxurious palace, but in a poor cave; not in Rome, the capital of the world in those days, but in the scorned, pitiful, and poor land of Judea. Where did the Lord live? He lived, in His own words, having nowhere to lay His head (Luke 9:58). How did His life on earth end? Shamefully, in the eyes of society back then, executed on a cross like the endmost criminal. Celsus, a famous enemy and opponent of Christianity, wrote: "His life was most reprehensible, and His death was most miserable." Having given His own life as an example of the most profound humility, the incarnate Only-Begotten Son of God also lay humility as the foundation of His teaching. From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt 4:17). "Repent" — that is, lay aside your pride, acknowledge yourself as a sinner, and hasten to God not with a feeling of self-satisfied superiority, but with the feeling of your spiritual poverty, your nothingness, your indecency, and pray to God for the forgiveness of your sins and for mercy. He began His Sermon on the Mount by glorifying the poor in spirit, that is, the humble: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). Calling to Himself in particular all that labor and are heavy laden, as being the most capable of acquiring the virtue of humility, He says to them, Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:29). He also taught His Apostles humility, cutting short in them all pretensions and strivings for precedence by saying to them more than once: Whosoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant (Matt 20:26).
According to the Lord's words, those who desire to enter the Kingdom of God must humble themselves like little children. At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:1–3).
At the Mystical Supper, wishing once again to emphasize the necessity of humility for His followers, the Lord washed the feet of His disciples, saying: Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord: and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you (John 13:12–15).
Such, then, is the "spirit of Christ"! The spirit of Christ is the spirit of humility, the antithesis of the spirit of self-asserting human pride. Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart (Matt 11:29) — these words should be the life's motto of every Christian. Let this mind be in you, writes the Apostle Paul, which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5). What is this "mind"? This is what: Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:6–8). But you will say — and, indeed, many have said this and continue to say this — what good is there in the spirit of weakness, feebleness, poverty, and powerlessness? Is it not better, is it not more important, to have boldness, energy, and confidence in oneself and one's powers in life? Many do just that: the Christian teaching of humility is antithetical to the doctrine of the strong personality that battles persistently and overcomes all obstacles. Such, for example, was the teaching of the German philosopher Nietzsche concerning the Übermensch. He, like many others, considered Christian humility a form of weakness. But this is a mistake, a gross misunderstanding of the facts. Christian humility is not in any way a form of weakness, but just the opposite: it is strength in a person, although not human strength, but rather God's strength. My strength is made perfect in weakness, said the Lord to the Apostle Paul when the latter asked the Lord that the messenger of Satan that was buffeting him depart from him (2 Cor 12:9). Therefore, the Holy Apostle, understanding the significance of the Lord's words, said: Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Cor 12:9). Man has free will, and therefore the grace or power of God is fully manifested in him only when he wholly gives himself over to God, that is, when he is permeated with the spirit of humility and obedience to God's will. Human pride, however, thinking that it can cope through its own powers alone, interferes with the manifestation of God's power in man. Therefore, a humble person is not weak, but actually strong, because God's power manifests itself and acts through him; the proud man is weak, for he rejects God's all-powerful grace and is left with only his human powers, which are, of course, immeasurably weaker and less significant than God's all-powerful grace. Therefore, pride always sooner or later disgraces itself, and the proud man falls, perishing with all his self-confidence, plans, and calculations. In this way, in order to rectify our primogenitors' fall into sin, which had poisoned all mankind with the poison of pride and disobedience, the Lord Jesus Christ taught, and demonstrated by the example of His own life, humility, and obedience to the will of God. The ideal of humility and obedience has since then become the ideal for the new Christian mankind, renewed by the Lord Christ. However, the spirit of self-asserting pride, which had already taken root in people's souls, did not want to give way to the spirit of Christ. A terrible battle began, a bloody battle, not against life, but against death. For more than two centuries, Christians — those meek and humble followers of Christ's teaching — were martyred and tortured by pagans, who handed them over to horrible, unheard-of punishments. What was the ultimate result? From the point of view of those who consider humility to be a manifestation of weakness, one should have expected that all Christians would have been exterminated and that Christianity would have disappeared from the face of the earth. Yet just the opposite happened. The meek sheep of Christ's flock transformed the wolfish wrath of their persecutors into the meekness of lambs. Christianity did not disappear; on the contrary, paganism ceded its place to it. Christianity was victorious over paganism, becoming the reigning religious confession of the entire civilized world of that time. Is it not obvious that the truth of the following words has been borne out: My strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9)?
The spirit of self-asserting pride, however, did not cede its place conclusively. It found a place for itself in the hearts of those who had become Christians but had not fully assimilated the spirit of Christian humility. Disagreement began to appear in Christian society in the form of false teachings, in the so-called heresies and schisms. What was the origin of the heresies that especially shook the Church in the period from the fourth to the sixth centuries? Naturally, the same self-asserting human pride. One of the most horrible and dangerous heresies for the Church was Arianism, which denied the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father and, as a consequence, negated Christianity. It owed its origins to Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who began preaching his new false teaching, which he had concocted himself, because he was offended that he had been overlooked when the new Archbishop of Alexandria was chosen. But the motives for the rise of a heresy are not always so crude; very often they are extremely subtle. Very subtle spiritual pride, self-opinion, and vainglory — almost unnoticeable to the person himself — can be produced by an ascetic life that lacks the spirit of true humility. It very often compels one to preach one's own new teaching, which contradicts the Church's teaching, because it springs from an unclean source: a soul contaminated by the spirit of pride and self-opinion. This explains why heretics were people who seemed to lead lofty ascetic lives, fasters and ascetics — such as, for example, Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, founder of the so-called "Nestorian" heresy.
The spirit of self-asserting human pride brought about, finally, a frightful and disastrous schism within the very heart of the Christian Church. The entire Western Roman Church, with its patriarch-pope at its head, fell away from ecclesial unity. And in turn Protestantism, with its numberless multitude of assorted branches or so-called sects, separated itself from it as well. Where do the roots of this schism lie? The causes are all too clear and obvious to any observant and thoughtful historian. The western world with Rome reigning at its head, before which all the nations of the world once trembled, demonstrated that it was incapable of properly assimilating and absorbing the spirit of Christian humility; pagan pride, love of authority, and the unquenchable thirst to rule and command continued to live even in Christian Rome, which had adopted the teaching of Christ superficially and shallowly. This spirit of pagan pride expressed itself in the pretensions of the Roman patriarch-pope to rule the entire Christian world. The pope continued the tradition of the pagan emperors of Rome, becoming as it were a successor to their politics of subjecting all nations under them. They forgot Christ's testimony to His Apostles: Whosoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant (Matt 20:26). The pope placed himself above all other bishops, and pronounced his pretension to be the head of the entire Christian Church. This sad schism took place on July 16, 1054.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Struggle for Virtue by Averky Taushev. Copyright © 2014 Holy Trinity Monastery. Excerpted by permission of Holy Trinity Publications.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
