December: Day 5: Teaching 2: Venerable Savvas the Sanctified

December: Day 5: Teaching 2:
Venerable Savvas the Sanctified
 
(About the Tenth Commandment of the Law of God, Which Prohibits Impure Thoughts and Desires)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the feast of our Venerable and God-bearing Father Savvas the Sanctified, who led a holy life and was so attentive to his spiritual state that he subjected every thought, every desire, every feeling, and the slightest movement of his heart to careful self-condemnation, lest he sin before the Lord not only in deed or word, but also in thought, it would be appropriate, my brethren, to reflect on whether we treat our thoughts and the desires of our hearts with the same caution with which the Venerable Savvas the Sanctified treated them, and whether we commit sins directly and clearly forbidden by the Tenth Commandment of the law of God.

II. a) The Tenth Commandment, which forbids impure thoughts and desires, serves, my brethren, as a complement to all the others. It explains to us that God demands of us not only outward virtue but also inner purity; He demands of us the sacrifice of our will, from which evil deeds arise. Human laws can only prohibit crimes visible to the eye; human thoughts are beyond their control.

The heart of fallen man resembles a gallery of impure imaginations, like the one the Prophet Ezekiel beheld with horror. But all is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. It is hidden from view in the mysterious depths of the personality, which in each of us forms, as it were, an island surrounded by an unnavigable sea. No one can ascend it or approach it. Only the holy Lawgiver can transform this dwelling and source of impure desires, this abomination in the eyes of the Lord, into His sanctuary. The Lord alone can pronounce a law forbidding not only transgression but even the desires of the heart.

b) The Tenth Commandment teaches us that God requires obedience, not only outward in rituals, but also from the heart.

Solomon says of the hypocrite: "As he thinks in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). "The Lord knows the thoughts of men" (Psalm 18:11). "The Lord searches all hearts and understands every inclination of the thoughts" (1 Chronicles 28:9).

The Pharisees taught people to be content with the outward purity of the cup and plate. But this law, requiring inner purity of heart, could have taught them that these external rites are simply abhorrent to God when they replace justice, humility, and love. Even the pagans recognized that God desires only the obedience of the heart. Their philosophers taught:

“Wickedness and injustice are in the thoughts” (Aristotle).

"The man who conceives a crime is as guilty as the one who commits it" (Juvenal).

“An envious look at another’s property is like theft” (Xenocrates).

c) This commandment is preventatively beneficial; it is mercifully intended to save us from error. Its purpose is not to frighten us, but to educate us. Like a glimpse from eternity, it reveals to us where and how we must attain the sole goal of our life. It says to us, like the Prophet who said to Jerusalem: "Wash away the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved: how long will wicked thoughts lodge in you?" (Jer. 4:14). And Solomon says: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). Yes, here lies the difficulty: it is easy to appear outwardly respectable, easy to adhere to the letter of the law, but to obey with all one's heart, all one's mind, all one's strength, fully, without any reservation in favor of a beloved sin, to adhere to the holy law of God constantly, during wayward adolescence, passionate youth, temptation-prone adulthood, and disillusioned age – who among us is such an honest and perfect person?

d) This commandment shows us that no disease can be cured without eliminating its cause.

Can a polluted source deliver clean water? Can a tainted tree produce good fruit?

Ah, fellow Christians, sons of the Orthodox Church, we must cast healing salt into the bubbling spring, lest the rivers flowing from it be filled with deadly poison. We must dig up the roots of the corrupted tree, not just pluck its buds and cut off its branches.

When we cast off long-standing sins, we accomplish a great feat, but this is not enough. We must cast off not only the sin itself, but every urge toward it. If we continue to love sin in the depths of our hearts, we have not been transformed. We must become dead to sin. Saint Paul implied this when, tormented by the anguish of his own experience, he said that we must circumcise our very hearts; that we must crucify our flesh with its passions and desires; that we must mortify the deeds of our bodies, mortify our members on earth, ungodly desires, greed — the semblance of idolatry — for for all these deeds the wrath of God will arise upon the sons of disobedience. This is the kind of circumcision necessary, and these are the evil impulses that must be cast out of us by the spirit of Jesus Christ. The lust of the flesh, the corruption of our bodily desires, the lust of the eyes, the vain desires and passions of the mind, boasting in life, our worship of mammon, our self-love, our arrogance, our empty vanity – this is what must be eradicated (Rom. 2:29; Acts 7:51).

We must raise the axe of this commandment to the very roots of the aforementioned vices, that is, to the impure desires of our hearts. The Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses, like Jesus Christ, tells us that until we cut them off and cast them away, we will not be transformed and saved (Matthew 18:8).

e) Perhaps you are thinking: "What's wrong with a single desire? What could be bad about an intangible thought?" The answer is twofold. First, this intangible desire, as you say, is of great importance to God. It is seen and heard in heaven, and in heaven we must seek forgiveness. Second, when you cherish an evil thought, it becomes the fertile mother of all sins — the egg from which the viper hatches. Sinful thoughts are the harbingers of sinful deeds. Sinful curiosity, hidden under the guise of an innocent child, stops at the borders of temptation and opens the door to sin; when it achieves its goal, it is transformed into a huge giant before the secret, timid, blushing apostate and opens the door to a multitude of moral failures.

What sin is there in, for example, one impure look, desire, or thought? But they are not at all innocent. From these bitter roots draw their sap and nourishment from the vines of Sodom and the grapes of Gomorrah. David's impious glance at Bathsheba (2 Kings 11:3) as he strolled along the palace roof; Achar's sinful thoughts (Josh. 7:21) to conceal valuables (clothing, silver, and gold); Ahab's sinful desires (3 Kings 21) to seize Naboth's vineyard — were they not the cause of many evils? First, lust led to adultery; second, to theft; third, to murder.

The only way to be freed from sin is to follow the admonition of the Holy Apostle James: “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:8).

We must not allow ourselves to think that God has assigned us an impossible task in this commandment. It is not particularly difficult for us to resist evil tendencies, to suppress the first stirrings of their inclinations with all our willpower. But once they have become manifest, they are not so easily vanquished.

f) Before committing an offense, we must go through four periods, the struggle in which gradually increases, since with each period more stability is required.

At first, a vague thought of sin appears; if we do not hasten to drive it out of our minds, then we ponder and entertain ourselves with it.

Then we enter into conversation with an impure thought and begin to experience a pleasant sensation; although the law forbids this, and our conscience reminds us of the law, the emerging passion bribes the mind and forces it to give voice to consent to sin.

Further, sensuality begins to oppress the will, without the freedom of which the conscience is powerless, and then the sin will be committed.

One can also call a person happy who can stop at the first sin; the second is committed much more easily than the first. Therefore, unless God, by His special mercy, removes the cause of temptation, one fall can easily turn into many. When a person becomes accustomed to transgressions, it becomes a thousand times more difficult to break the iron shackles with which habit binds a sinful body and a sinful soul. He who wishes to win the easiest battle must triumph over the thoughts of his heart, that is, drive them out before they arouse feelings that are harder to resist.

g) The Tenth Commandment dwells primarily on the external forms of lust: on greed, which is nothing other than idolatry; on the thirst for gain, against which it especially warns; on the love of gold, and similar impure desires of our sinful hearts. Is it not frightening to think that the mortal sin of Judas arose from greed? Even an apostle could be seduced by gain. And do we not see in every generation terrible proof that "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10)? Is it not sad to think that many women and men of great fame and high position, that many young men and women of great talent, have been ruined in a few months because of the desire to get rich quickly, not disdaining any dirty means? Could not this moral teaching be applied, for example, to Moscow and our other cities? Should we not fear that greed will fall upon us like the star "wormwood" (Rev. 8:11), as it says in the Apocalypse, and poison our rivers with its deadly bitterness? Are we not threatened by a terrible rivalry between the various classes, due to the selfish pomp of one and the bitter envy of another?

This commandment says to the modern rich: "What do you want to be, a free Christian or a slave to mammon? A defender of peace or its destroyer? An example for the world or its beast of burden? You grow richer every day. But prosperity does not mean wealth, only contentment. Therefore, woe to you who have ceased to be content, when the waves of wealth that washed over you turn into fiery lakes of intoxicating liquor or the foam of selfish gain. If this is so, then your glory will also vanish, like the beauty of Tyre, and all your wealth will crumble, like the Venetian palaces."

To the millions of our brethren at this moment, nervously exhausted, blinded and intoxicated by an insatiable thirst for gain, selling honor and honesty in order to get rich, shirking before God because of money — the Tenth Commandment says to all of them: seek true wealth; strive to be rich toward God (Luke 12:21). To be transformed, you must rediscover the true meaning of life, following the teaching of the Lord: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (v. 15).

h) This commandment, moreover, teaches us the most fruitful activity — self-denial, which brings complete happiness. The outward sign of this lofty virtue is our meekness. A person who has ceased to desire will be happy in his abstinence; a person who is not covetous will be glad to give with reasonable generosity; a Christian who has loved God and his neighbor as himself with all his heart will already here on earth have a premonition of heavenly blessedness — he will soon see that this is the only happiness possible for him on earth.

The power of pure love banishes base passions. The lives of saints cast a contemptuous silence upon gold. And how great is their reward? They rise above the base temptations that beset the toiling and languishing masses.

One saint said, "I don't have time to get rich." Another saint left his money on the window or staircase for someone to take; sometimes he covered it with dust, saying, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Numerous similar examples can be found in the Ancient Paterikon, the Memorable Tales of the Deeds of the Holy and Blessed Fathers, the Spiritual Meadow, the Lives of the Saints, and other spiritual books which, despite their edifying value, are, unfortunately, very little known among us.

III. Fellow Christians! The soul is happy only with God. The soul is too divine to be sold for evil thoughts and desires, which either decay, turning into defiled smoke, or turn into actions and torment the sinner with their emptiness and retribution.

He who gives all to Jesus Christ will receive all; and he who gives his life for Christ will always find it. Recently, a dying missionary wrote home from Africa: "Tell my family and friends that I am happy to have left everything for Christ. If I had to make my sacrifice again, I would make it not once, but a thousand times. I would not exchange my lot for the greatest blessings in the world." And could it be otherwise?

Let us, Orthodox Christians, vigilantly watch our hearts and their feelings for the Holy Church and for our neighbors, and let us direct them toward the Lord, imitating in this Saint Savvas the Sanctified and other saints of God, who always remembered the Lord's holy and great commandment: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.