St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), hagiographical border scene from
an icon by Alexei Kozlov.
The Significance of Fasting in the Struggle against Fallen Spirits
The
Lord said to His Apostles about the evil spirits,
This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer
and fasting (Mk. 9:29). Here is a new aspect of
fasting! Fasting is acceptable to God when it is
preceded by the great virtue of mercy; fasting prepares
a reward in heaven when it is foreign to hypocrisy and
vainglory; fasting works when it is joined with another
great virtue—prayer. How does it work? It not
only tames the passions in the human body, but it
enters into battle with the spirits of evil, and
conquers them.
How can fasting, which is actually a bodily podvig
[ascetical labor], work or cooperate with prayer in a war
against spirits? Why do the bodiless spirits submit to the
power that fasting has over them?
The reason fasting works against the evil spirits lies in
its powerful influence upon our own spirits. When the body
is tamed by fasting, it brings freedom, strength,
sobriety, purity, and refinement to the human soul. Our
spirit can withstand its unseen enemies only when it is in
such a state. But as for me, said the God-inspired
David, When they (the demons) troubled me, I put
on sackcloth. And I humbled my soul with fasting, and my
prayer shall return to my bosom (Ps. 34:13). Fasting
gives the mind sobriety, while prayer is the weapon the
mind uses to drive away the invisible adversary. Fasting
humbles the soul, and frees it from the callousness and
inflatedness brought on by satiety; while the prayer of
one who fasts becomes especially strong. Such prayer is
not just external, but comes from the very soul, from the
depths of the heart. Fasting directs and carries prayer to
God.
The dark and evil spirits committed two serious
crimes:[1] the first crime caused their expulsion
from the hosts of holy angels; the second crime was the
cause of their irrevocable banishment. They lifted
their heels against God in heaven. Their chief, blinded
by conceit, wanted to become equal to God. For their
crime they were cast out of heaven to the earth below,
and there they began to envy the blessedness of
newly-created man. Then they committed a new crime:
seducing man, and luring him into his fall. This latter
crime of the fallen angels finally decided their
lot—they impressed themselves into evil by it;
God’s grace entirely departed from them because
of it; they were given over to their own selves, to
their own evil, and to their own sin that they had
conceived and borne in themselves, and which they
allowed to penetrate their nature. Now, a good thought
or feeling will never come to an outcast angel. He is
entirely submerged in evil, desires evil, and invents
evil. Scorched with an unquenchable thirst for evil, he
seeks to be sated with evil, but cannot. All the evil
he does or can perform seems to him little next to the
evil that he imagines and which his insufferable thirst
for evil seeks. Created as a light-bearing angel, he
was cast down lower than all the beasts of the earth
for his crimes. Because thou hast done this
murder of a man, said God in His wrath to satan when He
caught him at the scene of the crime in paradise, near
the man and woman whom he had caused to fall, thou
art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of
the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt
thou eat all the days of thy life (Gen. 3:14). A
bodiless spirit is condemned to thoughts and feelings
that are only earthly and passionate; his life and
treasure is in them. A spirit, he has lost the ability
to do anything spiritual—he is completely
engrossed in fleshly works. A spirit who lives a mental
life is demoted from the hosts of spirits to a fleshly
state, and he takes a place lower in rank than all
cattle and beasts of the earth. Cattle and beasts act
according to the laws of their nature, while the fallen
spirit, who is mingled into the nature of cattle and
beasts, is mingled into a nature that is foreign to his
own, and humiliating. He neither wants nor is able to
act correctly in this nature—he continually
abuses this nature.
This sinful materiality of the fallen angel makes him
subject to the effect of fasting, which frees our spirit
from the flesh’s reign. When the fallen angel
approaches a person who is fasting, he does not see the
material domination that he needs and desires; he cannot
stir up the blood that has been beneficently cooled by
fasting; he cannot arouse the flesh that is not inclined
to play, for it has been restrained by fasting; the mind
and heart are not obedient to him, for they have felt an
especial spiritual vigor due to fasting. Seeing this
resistance, the proud, fallen spirit departs, because he
cannot endure being resisted or contradicted. He loves
unhesitating agreement and submission. Despite the fact
that he crawls upon his belly, despite the fact that he
eats only dust, the thought of being like God has not left
him, and he looks for people to worship him.
He audaciously showed the Son of God all the kingdoms
of the world in a moment of time, and promised to give
him all power over them and the glory of
them, demanding to be worshipped in return (Lk.
4:5-7). Even now, he does not cease to present to those
who follow the Son of God all the beauty of the world,
painting it in their dreams with the most tempting
features and colors in order to extract worship of himself
by whatever trick. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you, said the Apostle James (Js. 4:7); and
another Apostle said, Above all, taking the shield of
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked (Eph. 6:16). Let us raise our eyes
to eternity through the power of faith, to the unspeakable
blessedness that awaits the righteous in eternity;
likewise let us observe the equally unspeakable torments
that await the serpent’s unrepentant and stubborn
followers. We can have such contemplation when the body is
put in order and maintained within the order of fasting;
when with the pure prayer that is only obtainable through
fasting, we cleave to the Lord, and become of one
spirit (1 Cor. 6:17) with Him. “The serpent
crawls continually upon the ground as he was sentenced to
do from on High,” says St. John Chrysostom.
“If you wish be to safe from his poisonous bite, let
your mind and heart be always above the
earth.”[2] Then you will be able to resist him,
and that proud serpent who cannot endure resistance
will flee from you.
Where are the people who are possessed by evil spirits?
Where are those people whom he would tear and torment,
like he tore and tormented the youth mentioned today in
the Gospels? Apparently there aren’t any, or they
are very rare—thus reasons the person who sees
everything superficially, and brings his life as a
sacrifice to distractions and sinful pleasures. But the
holy fathers saw things differently. They say, “From
the moment they caused man to be exiled from paradise and
separated from God through disobedience, the devil and the
demons received the freedom to mentally stir any
person’s rational nature, both day and
night.”[3] Very similar to those torments and
tearing of the Gospel youth’s body by the evil
spirit are the sufferings of the soul that willfully
submits itself to the influence of the evil spirit, and
who accepts as truth that murderous lie which the devil
ceaselessly shows to us in order to make us perish,
hiding it behind a façade of truth to more
easily deceive us, and to succeed in his wickedness.
Be sober, be vigilant, the Apostle Peter warns
us, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring
lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom
resist steadfast in the faith (1 Pet. 5:8–9).
What does the fallen angel use against us? Mostly
sinful thoughts and fantasies. He runs from those who
resist him, but he sways, torments, and destroys those
who do not recognize him, who enter into conversation
with him, and entrust themselves to him. He himself
crawls on his belly and is incapable of spiritual
thought. He vividly depicts this transitory world with
all its allurements and pleasures; meanwhile he enters
into conversation with the soul about how it can make
its pipe dreams come true. He offers us earthly glory,
he offers us riches, he offers us satiety, and delight
in fleshly impurities. As St. Basil the Great expresses
it, the devil not only received a feeling for fleshly
impurities, but since he was created as a bodiless
spirit, he gave birth to them.[4] He presents all this as a fantasy, but
he also provides illicit ways to realize these illicit
dreams. He casts us into sorrow, depression, and
despair. In a word—he tirelessly works to obtain
our destruction in seemingly decent as well as indecent
ways: by obvious sin, by sin hidden behind a good
façade, and by waiving the bait of pleasure in
front of us.
This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our
faith, says St. John the Theologian (1 Jn. 5:4). Faith
is our weapon of victory over the world; it is also our
weapon of victory over the fallen angels. Who has looked
with the eye of faith to the eternity proclaimed by
God’s Word and not cooled to the world’s
quickly-passing beauty? What true disciple of our Lord
Jesus Christ will want to trample upon His all-holy
commandments for the sake of sinful pleasure, which seems
alluring before it is tasted, but is vile and murderous
after tasting? What power over the disciple of Christ has
the enchanting picture of earthly benefits and pleasures,
or even the horrifying picture of earthly calamities,
which the evil spirits draw in order to bring the viewer
to depression and despair, when magnificent pictures of
eternity are impressed upon his soul through the power of
God’s Word, before which all earthly scenes are pale
and insignificant? When St. John the Theologian proclaims
that the victory that overcometh the world is
our faith, he salutes the true children of Christ
who have overcome the world on their victory over the
fallen angel and his minions: I write unto you, young
men, he says, because ye have overcome the wicked
one (1 Jn. 2:13). Here “young men”
is what he calls Christians who are renewed by Divine
grace. When a servant of Christ shows courage and
constancy in his struggle against the evil spirits as he
should, then Divine grace descends into his soul and
grants him victory, and his youth shall be renewed as
the eagle’s (Ps. 102:5)—youth which never
ages, with which he was adorned by the Creator when he was
created, and which he exchanged for incurable agedness at
his voluntary fall. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is
of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust
thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for
ever (1 Jn. 2:15–17).
Beloved brethren! Why shouldn’t we also be victors
over the world and over its prince? People like us have
overcome them, people clothed in flesh and human weakness.
Not only valiant men have been victorious over them, but
also frail elders, weak women, and little children; they
won, and left us no excuse for losing if we give ourselves
up to them. The same world with all its allurements was
before them, the same invisible serpents crawled around
them, applying every effort to taunt out their souls and
make them to live in the dust. The hearts and thoughts of
the conquerors were raised up! Guarding their bodies with
fasting, they tamed them and stopped the impulse for
earthly pleasures in them! Through fasting, they gave
their spirit the opportunity to abide in ceaseless
sobriety and vigilance, and the opportunity to
unsleepingly heed and watch out for the multifarious
snares of the devil! By lightening their bodies—and
even their very spirits—with fasting, they gave the
spirit the opportunity to cleave to the Lord with pure and
constant prayer, to receive Divine aide, to enliven their
faith from hearing (cf. Rom. 10:17), from hearing to make
their faith substance (cf. Heb. 11:1) and spiritual
strength—and by this strength to obtain decisive
victory over the world and the evil spirits. St. John the
Theologian calls such faith the confidence that we have
in God, and he teaches us from his own holy experience
that it is attained through prayer that is heard [by
God].[5] The righteous as if see the invisible
God through such faith, as the Apostle Paul
said.[6] Naturally, the world hides from view
at the sight of God! The transitory world becomes as if
non-existent, and the prince of the world has no
support in his warfare. Be sober, be vigilant;
because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist
steadfast in the faith (1 Pet. 5:8–9),
taking the shield of faith (Eph.
6:16)—faith that is active, living, grace-filled.
Only the ascetical laborer of Christ is capable of such
faith. He has prepared himself for warfare with the
evil spirits by forgiving his neighbors’
sins—that is, through mercy and
humility—and has entered the fight bearing the
weapon of fasting and prayer. Amen.
[1] St. John Cassian, Discourses 8, 9, 10.
[2] St. John Chrysostom, “Homily 8, on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans.”
[3] St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Philokalia, Part 2. See the Homily of Nicephorus the Monk.
[4] From the Kanonik, (Canon Book), the first prayer against defilement.
[5] See 1 Jn. 5:13–15.
[6] See Heb. 11:27.
Source-www.pravoslavie.ru
[2] St. John Chrysostom, “Homily 8, on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans.”
[3] St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Philokalia, Part 2. See the Homily of Nicephorus the Monk.
[4] From the Kanonik, (Canon Book), the first prayer against defilement.
[5] See 1 Jn. 5:13–15.
[6] See Heb. 11:27.
Source-www.pravoslavie.ru
No comments:
Post a Comment