The Lessons of Sin and the Desires of the Soul

Regarding the body: when I take an eye that does not see, seeing in a harmful or adulterous way, I have removed the eye of death from the essence. And upon every member and upon every sense, if this happens, the body of death is cast off. It is not the body we cast off, but the body of death. And if we see a worthless man having changed into a significant one, we say that the worthless man was destroyed, not the man.

'And we were bowed down.' Lowly wickedness is, it bows down the one possessing it; for always the great sorrows lie upon one, crushing and bowing down the one carrying them. Immediately, indeed, regarding her who had that 'spirit of infirmity' for eighteen years, it says: 'she was bent over and could not raise herself to the full.' She never raised herself up. The one sinning, therefore, bends down and looks below. It says, therefore: 'they set their eyes to bend down toward the earth' (Ps 118:25); and again in Jeremiah it is said: 'having turned away to the earth they have written(Jer 17:13). Those having turned away from the divine spring are written of, being enrolled in the earth, as having the citizenship below and bearing 'the image of the jar' (cf. 2 Tim 2:20). But of the disciples, 'the names are written in the heavens' (Luke 10:20). He does not speak of these designations by combining letters, but of the very qualities which signify them, for the definition of a name is given thus: a name is a principal designation representing the quality of the one named. This is the descriptive name: man, heaven. 'Is written,' therefore, that is, has been arranged.

7 I was walking, mourning all the day. Even if 'I was bowed down to the end' because of the approaching misery, I did not become insensitive to this. Mourning, therefore, I walk, 'working the godliness according to God, the sorrow leading to repentance unto salvation without regret' (2 Cor 7:10). And so mourning I walk all the day. And the 'I walk' is good. It does not remain cast down, but it walks. It did not 'sink down to earth in sitting,' it did not set its transferred habits upon the earth, but it walks. 'Mourning,' therefore, 'I was walking.' Those things were working which were transferring me out of the misery. Then, however, I am transferred out of the misery, if I cast off the causes of the misery. 8 For my soul was filled with instructions. My soul was filled with sins. And instructions are...

Regarding sins: the deceiver plays with the deceived, and thus the soul is filled with lessons. In some copies, it says 'my loins.' It is said concerning these that the seeds consist. When someone is thus drawn into lawlessness and hastens more toward lust or toward being a lover of God, he has the loins filled with lessons.

“And there is no healing in my flesh” (Ps 32:18). As long as I am filled with these lessons, not only is my flesh not healthy, but having become diseased and thus disposed, it does not receive healing. Just as it is impossible for a sensory person, while still in the state of being sick, to recover health, so the one filled with lessons is not able to make the flesh peaceful, that is, sober, or not divided against itself.

“I was afflicted and humbled exceedingly” (Ps 32:3). It is possible to say 'I was afflicted and humbled' voluntarily. Since I have become in sensation of the swelling of evil and harm and blindness, I led myself volitionally toward humiliation so that I might be exalted; for “everyone who humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt 23:12). One must take the affliction and the humiliation from a parallel source. But then it happens voluntarily when, as I have said, the one who was exalted humbles himself, so that he might be exalted by God. It is also possible in this way: from the surrounding oppressors and heavy burdens, “I was humbled, I was afflicted exceedingly.” I had the affliction stretched out.

“I cried out from the sighing of my heart” (Ps 34:1). Not mockingly wailing about the evils surrounding me, but “from the sighing of my heart”; understanding in what kind of sighing one must sigh, a sigh.

“And all my desire is against you” (Ps 38:9). The righteous man always has love and longing for the virtues and for things done praiseworthily. It is indeed said concerning the righteous: “All the desire of the righteous is good” (Ps 37:4). And the good things have the boldness to be additional to God. “Against you,” therefore, that is, before you, is “all my desire.” Praise is therefore to be taken here for “my desire,” which is also what this same one says: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, who fills your desire with good things” (Ps 103:5). All such desires, being the righteous, are bold to be additional to God. But it is also possible to take the word toward the other meaning. Because...