St.
Ignatius (Brianchaninov) (1807-1867) clearly explained the teaching of
the Holy Fathers about delusion for the modern readers. This teaching is
summarized in the article about St. Ignatius in the Orthodox Encyclopedia as follows:
St. Ignatius believed that the main danger in the spiritual life is falling into delusion. The saint devoted large portion of his works to analysis of this phenomenon. By definition of St. Ignatius, "delusion is the wounding of human nature by falsehood" (On the Jesus Prayer: Conversation of an elder with a disciple // Complete set of works Vol. 1. P. 212). The devil used lies to tempt Adam and Eve already in the Paradise. Progenitors of the human race considered false words of the tempter to be true and doubted the words of God. As a result, they broke the commandment given by God and fell away from the source of life. Being affected by sin, human nature in the descendants of Adam and Eve was more eager to the evil than to the good, taking pleasure from communicating with the evil. Such deception is caused by the fact that the strength of the human soul - will, feeling, mind - are perverted by sin. "We are born such”, St. Ignatius said, “We can not be others: because all of us, without exception, are in a state of self-delusion and demonic deception" (Ibid, pp. 213). Lord Jesus Christ saved people from this deception, which all the mankind succumbed to. Lord Jesus, who himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14: 6) proclaimed this truth to the world. The freedom is given to persons to obey either God or the devil that tempts each person. "He is trying to seduce and deceive us, basing on our state of self-delusion; he sets in motion our passions - these painful craving; he makes their adverse claims look like plausibility, increasingly inclines us to the satisfaction of the passions"(Ibid, pp. 214). Those who do not resist the temptation using the teachings of the Gospel, according to St. Ignatius, become totally subordinate to the devil and go from self-deception to the state of demonic delusion.
St. Ignatius believed that there are different kinds of delusion corresponding to passions, by which they are generated. Pride is an indication of any kind of delusion. "Terrible pride, like the pride of demons”, St. Ignatius wrote, “is the main feature of those who assimilated one or another delusion" (Ibid, pp. 233). All sorts of delusion are associated with prayer. They "arise from the fact that repentance is not the foundation of prayer" (Ibid. 215), and are reduced to two main ones, "occurring because of improper action of the mind, or the wrong action of the heart" (Ibid pp. 239). The first kind of the delusion is that "the praying person uses the power of imagination to make up the dreams or pictures, borrowing them, apparently, from the Holy Scriptures, but in fact from his own state ..." (Ibid, pp. 216). St. Ignatius called such prayer dreamy and considered it "the influence of Satan". Such prayer is usually associated with the appearance of visions, light, smelling fragrance, hearing voices, and so on. Another more extensive kind of delusion is connected to this one; St. Ignatius called it "conceit". A person in this state does not excite the imagination, but he focuses on the experience of a variety of "heart sensations" and erroneously attributes them to the action of grace. Dreaminess also operates in such a man, but "acts solely in the abstract field" (Ibid, pp. 232). The deluded person makes up "false spiritual state, close fellowship with Jesus, the inner conversation with Him, the mysterious revelation, voices of pleasure ..." (Ibid). In addition to striving for grace feelings, people exposed to this error have a high opinion of themselves and attribute to themselves the gifts of grace and spiritual virtues, " they seem to be intoxicated with themselves, with their state of self-delusion, seeing it as the state of grace" (Ibid, pp. 230) . On this basis, St. Ignatius believes that heresies, schisms, impiety, blasphemy originated from this "conceit" (Ibid, pp. 235). Interconnection of both types of delusion is that the mind and the heart, not purified from the passions and not renovated by the Holy Spirit, aspire to see God and to experience His presence in the soul, but, not being able to this, make up imaginary grace gifts for the purpose of enjoyment. Thus, such states "are the actions of subtle vanity and lust" (Ibid, pp. 233).
The only way to avoid delusion is repentant arrangement of the soul, i.e. permanent contrition of the heart, because the commandment of repentance accommodates all the other commandments of God (Ibid, pp. 228). Only those who walk the path of repentance gradually acquire gifts of grace, which the deluded persons try to find prematurely. Genuine gracious revelation has different nature than it is imagined by the carnal man. Likewise, the true senses of grace have nothing to do with the experience of the deluded persons and come with purification of the soul through repentance.
St. Ignatius believed that the main danger in the spiritual life is falling into delusion. The saint devoted large portion of his works to analysis of this phenomenon. By definition of St. Ignatius, "delusion is the wounding of human nature by falsehood" (On the Jesus Prayer: Conversation of an elder with a disciple // Complete set of works Vol. 1. P. 212). The devil used lies to tempt Adam and Eve already in the Paradise. Progenitors of the human race considered false words of the tempter to be true and doubted the words of God. As a result, they broke the commandment given by God and fell away from the source of life. Being affected by sin, human nature in the descendants of Adam and Eve was more eager to the evil than to the good, taking pleasure from communicating with the evil. Such deception is caused by the fact that the strength of the human soul - will, feeling, mind - are perverted by sin. "We are born such”, St. Ignatius said, “We can not be others: because all of us, without exception, are in a state of self-delusion and demonic deception" (Ibid, pp. 213). Lord Jesus Christ saved people from this deception, which all the mankind succumbed to. Lord Jesus, who himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14: 6) proclaimed this truth to the world. The freedom is given to persons to obey either God or the devil that tempts each person. "He is trying to seduce and deceive us, basing on our state of self-delusion; he sets in motion our passions - these painful craving; he makes their adverse claims look like plausibility, increasingly inclines us to the satisfaction of the passions"(Ibid, pp. 214). Those who do not resist the temptation using the teachings of the Gospel, according to St. Ignatius, become totally subordinate to the devil and go from self-deception to the state of demonic delusion.
St. Ignatius believed that there are different kinds of delusion corresponding to passions, by which they are generated. Pride is an indication of any kind of delusion. "Terrible pride, like the pride of demons”, St. Ignatius wrote, “is the main feature of those who assimilated one or another delusion" (Ibid, pp. 233). All sorts of delusion are associated with prayer. They "arise from the fact that repentance is not the foundation of prayer" (Ibid. 215), and are reduced to two main ones, "occurring because of improper action of the mind, or the wrong action of the heart" (Ibid pp. 239). The first kind of the delusion is that "the praying person uses the power of imagination to make up the dreams or pictures, borrowing them, apparently, from the Holy Scriptures, but in fact from his own state ..." (Ibid, pp. 216). St. Ignatius called such prayer dreamy and considered it "the influence of Satan". Such prayer is usually associated with the appearance of visions, light, smelling fragrance, hearing voices, and so on. Another more extensive kind of delusion is connected to this one; St. Ignatius called it "conceit". A person in this state does not excite the imagination, but he focuses on the experience of a variety of "heart sensations" and erroneously attributes them to the action of grace. Dreaminess also operates in such a man, but "acts solely in the abstract field" (Ibid, pp. 232). The deluded person makes up "false spiritual state, close fellowship with Jesus, the inner conversation with Him, the mysterious revelation, voices of pleasure ..." (Ibid). In addition to striving for grace feelings, people exposed to this error have a high opinion of themselves and attribute to themselves the gifts of grace and spiritual virtues, " they seem to be intoxicated with themselves, with their state of self-delusion, seeing it as the state of grace" (Ibid, pp. 230) . On this basis, St. Ignatius believes that heresies, schisms, impiety, blasphemy originated from this "conceit" (Ibid, pp. 235). Interconnection of both types of delusion is that the mind and the heart, not purified from the passions and not renovated by the Holy Spirit, aspire to see God and to experience His presence in the soul, but, not being able to this, make up imaginary grace gifts for the purpose of enjoyment. Thus, such states "are the actions of subtle vanity and lust" (Ibid, pp. 233).
The only way to avoid delusion is repentant arrangement of the soul, i.e. permanent contrition of the heart, because the commandment of repentance accommodates all the other commandments of God (Ibid, pp. 228). Only those who walk the path of repentance gradually acquire gifts of grace, which the deluded persons try to find prematurely. Genuine gracious revelation has different nature than it is imagined by the carnal man. Likewise, the true senses of grace have nothing to do with the experience of the deluded persons and come with purification of the soul through repentance.
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