St. Ignatius, Bishop of the Caucasus and Black Sea
Earthly life
Having chased the man for the place of paradise on earth, the Lord installed "to the delights of Paradise" (Gen.3, 24) so that, turning his gaze to him permanently, he nourished hope to return, and he remained in constant tears of repentance. The living memory of Paradise was given to Adam. The earth itself evoked, because her beauty was saved to some extent, after the fall. She was assigned to our ancestors and to all mankind after them as the place of repentance. Humanity must be immersed in repentance and inconsolable crying. He must wander on the ground, attach some heart to any object that adorns this asylum, thinking constantly to his heavenly home, and seek all his strength to return. God decided to reign on earth toil and suffering, which are the indispensable companions of repentance and parents of humility, which in turn leads to repentance. Man must always remember that God commanded him to earn by the sweat of his brow, not only his bread equipment, but also his spiritual bread. It must also be remembered that is land and he must return to the land he was born. Everything down here also helps to remind him: he rubs constantly suffering, he must fight against his own wickedness, against that of his family, he must fight against the elements, against the earth itself was cursed because of him and obey him at the cost of a sweat like drops of blood, her brothers are excited one after another by the merciless death. It must use the land for what is essential, not for frills that diverts meditation on eternity.
Thus lived all the righteous of the Old Testament, who wander the earth after Adam. They lived in exile in tears and repentance, nourished by the hope of promised deliverance, and eternity watching with the eye of faith. The Apostle says of them that "they went hither and thither dressed in skins of sheep and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, abused, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and in the mountains, caves and caverns of the earth. All these, to the faith of which it was testified, (...), died in faith without having received the promises but having seen and praised by far, acknowledging that they were aliens and strangers on earth "(Heb. 11).
The world
These words of the Apostle can be applied to very few men, few indeed are those who have spent their life on earth as God wanted. Deeply damaged by the fall man threw the crying for the enjoyment and success material, which kill life in God. It began with some of the children of Adam, attracted less by the stories of Heaven and the spiritual state of man, by the food and the satisfaction of animal passions. Subsequent generations were desirous further develop the material life, forgetting forever. This attitude was then generally, if we except the chosen few stories about Paradise being treated as fables, fruit of a superstitious imagination. Death mowed then men in vain, since they acted as if they were on earth for eternity.
Instead of supporting the body's need for food just frugal, they opted for the sweetness of foods eaten to satiety. Instead of simply quench his thirst, was preferred variety of beverages and drunkenness. Instead of covering her naked skin unattractive, we Para rich clothing and accessories. The humble house for protection from weather and wild beasts gave way to the sumptuous and magnificent palace. Luxury appeared, with its attendant requirements for the company and became an implacable law forfeited. Natural procreation became a insatiable lust, even going against the increase of mankind. And it still was not enough! Heated by an uncontrolled lust, completely deprived of a just aspiration, forged man sins against nature.
In the soul, the strength of energy, opposed by the desires and requirements unappeasable sinful indulged in quarrels, insults, looting, wars and conquests. The force of reason was entirely used to seek profits and benefits land to increase its assistance to sin, giving birth to lies, deceit, malignity and the hypocrisy. Thus, since the fall of man, and increasingly over time, developed a world which by its very nature became hostile to God.
The world is a life fully turned towards the earth, the sinful desires, material success, carnal enjoyment. This life has a purpose completely contrary to the goal high and good God who had brought him to place man on earth. "The world is the common name of all the passions. The world, that's life and carnal carnal reasoning. Where the stop motion and action of the passions, the world dies "(St. Isaac the Syrian). The Holy Spirit will control the world and hate to give it up: "Love not the world nor the things in the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because everything is in this world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life, not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass, but he who does the will of God abides forever "(1Jn.2 0.15 to 17). "The world is enmity against God: whoever wants to be friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (Jac.4, 4).
When Holy Scripture says that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn .3,16), the word "world" here refers to all people, including sinners. "The love of God has been expressed to us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him "(Jn.4, 9).
It also means by the word "world", all human society, united to his life of sin, his carnal desires, his material success, his Babylonian construcion. This world is hostile to God and his servants. "If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love him, but because you are not of the world and that I have chosen you out of the world, because of this the world hates you " (Jn.15 0.18 to 19). This world has remained and still remains alien to God the Creator and Redeemer God, he believes it serves the truth in persecuting and killing God's servants (Jn.16, 2).
The fallen angel is the leader of the world hostile to God he has people in this foolish and audacious battle other fallen angels and the men he has seduced. The very earth and its creatures, previously submitted to Adam, submitted him to Satan after the fall. Satan himself shows his power over the world who dared approach the Son of God to tempt him, he took him up on a high mountain and showed Him told Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, "I'll give all this power and glory of these kingdoms, for it was given to me and I give it to whoever I want" (Luke 4.6). Satan does not consider its power over the world as its own benefit, but as a gift. "The enemy who seduced Adam and was able and rule over it, deprived of all power and was declared ruler of this world. At the beginning, God created man prince of this world and lord of all that is visible. When the man succumbed to the lie of the enemy, he gave his authority to her seducer. For this reason, magicians and wizards, by the action of the adverse power and with God's permission, do some amazing things seem to have power over venomous beasts, enter safely into the fire and water "(Saint Macarius the large). Thus the Scriptures the fallen angel called "master of the universe and ruler of this world" (Jn.12, 31; Eph.2, 2; 6:11-12).
Idolatry
Satan was not satisfied with having enslaved the humans, to keep the prisoner chained by various passions, making it a slave to sin . The thought of becoming equal to God, who took to the sky fallen angel, had not abandoned the land, which became for him an antechamber of hell. He realized in practice this thought by introducing idolatry. Gradually, as the human race grew on the land, its activity was spending more and more of the basic needs than the whims and desires guilty. Yet the knowledge of God and of oneself is incompatible with such a life! The men drowned in the enjoyment and material concerns, became only the flesh, have lost the concept of the true God.
However, the worship of God is an inalienable sense of the human heart, an innate and natural, it has been destroyed by the fall, but only deprived of its correctness. Guided by this unconscious sense, the men went to the father and instigator of sin, the fallen angel, and the assembly of demons worship due to God. The man turned into gods sin that killed him and his representatives, the demons. He considered the satisfaction of the passions as a divine enjoyment. Honors were rendered to the debauchery, drunkenness, theft and murder. Each passion was represented a statue or idol. The idol, the symbol of the devil, is completely foreign to life, quite dead to spiritual sensations. At such idols are worshiped together, or a particular religion, domestic. Before they were sacrificed animals and sometimes men. The death of the Spirit was even stronger than it was manifested by a negative life. Serving idols was basically serve the demons, as the divine Apostle Paul teaches (1Cor.10, 20). The temples of idols and the idols themselves were the favorite residences of the demons they emit sounds and throwing blame for seducing the hapless humanity. The man himself, ceases to be the abode of the living God, became the temple of satan (Luc11 0.24 to 26). Idolatry was on all men and all the earth. Few were those who kept the true knowledge of God by giving him a proper worship. Subsequently, God chooses to serve the people of Israel, giving him the written law. But the evil of idolatry acted so strongly about fallen humanity as the chosen people, at times abandoning the worship of the one true God, turned to the worship of statues.
Deprived of the Holy Spirit, divine light, because of his fall, man had to settle for intelligence, poor and low light. Unfortunately, she could not drive that very few men to the true knowledge of God, it served primarily to the acquisition of various facilities for terrestrial life, invention of arts and sciences that contributed and still contribute to the development material comfort, and thus to a life of sin. The fall is thereby strengthened and sealed, decorated with multiple illusions of well-being and triumph. Science, these fruits of the fall that make the man so many satisfactions, have the grace of God and God himself as useless, they blame, humiliate and reject the Holy Spirit; So they are the weapon of the devil's most effective to maintain and strengthen the sin fall. The light of men united to that of demons to develop this science is hostile to God, that corrupts man by a devilish pride (1Cor.3 0.17 to 18). Invaded by evil knowledge, the wise of this world to submit all his reason and become an idol for himself, realizing in his person the proposal of satan: "be as gods, knowing good and evil" . The information delivered to itself is an illusion, a deception demonic false knowledge which defines in a false place of the scholar in the universe (1Cor.3, 18). Science is madness and abomination before God, she comes from the devil: it also proclaims his own blindness by presenting knowledge in a highly satisfactory appearance, sank in a fall and incurable attribute of the scribe or Pharisee (John 9.41). "The carnal reasoning is the enemy of God, he does not submit to God's law and do not even. The carnal reasoning is death "(Rom.8 0.6 to 7). The Holy Spirit will control who wants to approach God and communion with spiritual wisdom to reject human wisdom (1Cor.3, 18). The Apostle Paul notes that few scholars have adhered to the Christian faith (1Cor.1, 26); to Rather, these so-called wise and proud, spiritual wisdom, which is abundantly and perfectly in Christ, is pure madness (1Cor.1, 23). Philosophers and artists were great supporters of idolatry and the enemies of true knowledge.
When Christianity was established in the world, science has produced countless heresies and tried to break the Holy Faith. The greatest crime, the murder of the God-Man, was done by scientists on behalf of the wisdom of their law (Jn.11 0.49 to 50). Nowadays, science refers to paganism pagans who had converted, it introduces again idolatry and the service of Satan, changing strategy to attract more easily humanity. It is very rare that a scientist discovers the Heavenly Kingdom and outlines the new teaching of the Spirit before his colleagues. Still use there old rags of human knowledge to pass more easily from his speech of those who prefer the old to new (Mt.13, 52; Luc5, 39).
death and hell
After the fall of our ancestors, all men have completed their earthly journey through the death of the body and the descent of the soul in the prison of hell. Hell is located in the heart of the earth, where burn "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mt.25, 41), which also shows that the collapse of these last preceding the creation of the material world. Here lie the outer darkness, gnashing of teeth, the worm does not die, inconsolable crying, incessant and futile. There are various degrees of pain corresponding to the diversity of sins and the degree of guilt. The death of the soul, which struck the human race through our ancestors, and who demonstrates his power over Land of the pilgrim's body from diseases and untold suffering, expressed by the separation of soul and body at the end of earthly journey. Before the coming of the Redeemer, the power of death knew his full development: the stench of decomposing bodies in the earth and the descent into hell of the soul, the just for the wicked. The souls of the wicked were thrown into the eternal fire for the eternal death of the righteous ones down in shallower prisons where they were living in pain, but with hope and consolation to the future redemption.
On earth everything reminds man that he was exiled because of his crime, and death more than anything. She does not respect the greatness of man, not youth and beauty, nor genius, nor the power nor wealth. Man can not in any way to escape this pitiless death that serves as tangible evidence of his fall, his sin before God, his punishment. It testifies to all that man is a creature, a slave who rebelled against his Lord and Creator, the works of man here below will be useless in eternity, "what is exalted among men is a abomination before God "(Luc16, 15). Death is a punishment. Striking each man, it proves that all criminals are punished for a crime common to all humanity. Death does not respect the piety: prayer of a righteous can sometimes stop the ax from death and delay its time (Is 38.5). St. Basil the Great died in thwarting predictions of a fully Jewish doctor. The latter was so sure of his predictions without hesitation he attributed his error to the power of Christ and was baptized when no arguments of St. Basil could never convince him.
The progress of evil on earth
After that mankind had spent centuries in a cruel bondage to the fallen angel, the Redeemer promised by God came on earth. Before describing this event so great and wonderful, still looking at the unhappy state of the world when the Lord descended on earth and became man, for the renewal and salvation of mankind. The world was fully immersed in idolatry. Swollen with hatred and envy, men sprinkled the blood in fierce fighting, during which many people were exterminated, passed to the sword, deprived of their identity to be sold on slave markets, like animals or vulgar things. These disasters were the glory of conquerors, who had covered the blood of their fellows, and did declare their living gods. Others, who had distinguished themselves by sordid vices, received the honors after their death due to the gods. The satisfaction of the most shameful passions was considered a great enjoyment. Some men, among the most depraved, entered in clear relationship with Satan, to put on her strength, and helped to assert its dominion over the earth and humankind (Ex.7 ff; Act.8, 9 ,...).
This domination had peaked, it had also been right of the people of Israel. Reduced to extremities by his low numbers, civilly forfeited, the people fell under the domination of the idolaters. Her inner strength, nourished by communion with God caused by the practice of the commandments, exhausted. This life according to the commandments of God, which cleanses the mind and heart and draws the grace of God, which illuminates the man by giving him the true spiritual understanding and the true theology, was replaced in the greatest number and a scholastic study Act, neglect to carry a life pleasing to God, this life that the scribes and Pharisees of the time hypocritically pretending to lead (Mt.23, 13 and 28-29). These scholars, blinded by pride, satanic (Jn.8, 44), full of contempt and hatred for the people (Mt.12, 39), slave of the passions, unable to have faith because of their unlimited devotion and fanatical to the glory land (Jn.5, 44), on the contrary capable of all crimes and criminals in fact, seized the teaching of faith, rejected the commandments of God or the traditions mingled with absurd , persisting in their blindness, leading the people in their wake (Mt.15, 14; Luc11, 52). Very few men remained faithful to God in their lives and their knowledge of God. Their names are saints in the Holy Gospel: Zechariah and Elizabeth, St. Simeon the God-Bearer, St. Anne, the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel ...
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( The Treaty on Human ends there. Saint Ignatius wanted to supplement it with another Treaty the Redeemer, but he died before he could complete his work.)
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