Progress in Self-Knowledge
I pray you, brothers and sisters: let us strive with every means at our disposal to know ourselves. Then each one of us, starting with this self-knowledge, will be able to discover what is too high for us.
We need to know ourselves so well that we can say like David: ‘I am a worm and no man’ [Ps. 22:7] or like Abraham: ‘I am dust and ashes.’ [Gen. 18:7] Otherwise it will be impossible to understand even the smallest part of the Word of God, to interpret it in a spiritual way worthy of the Spirit of wisdom. Without humility it is not possible to become the recipient of the gifts of the Spirit.
When souls undergo purification through penitence and the practice of the commandments, they receive grace to discover themselves completely and to know what is beyond their reach. By intensifying their purification, by deepening their humility, they begin gradually to understand, albeit in obscure fashion, the things of God and what belongs to God.
According to the measure of their understanding they increase their penitence, they become ever more humble, they consider themselves more and more unworthy of such knowledge and of the revelation of the divine mysteries.
Humility is a solid wall protecting them. If this understanding is like a house in which they have taken up residence, they can dwell there safe from any kind of arrogance.
Grow in this way from day to day in faith, hope and love for God, go ahead in knowledge and sanctification. Go ahead and he can clearly keep track of your progress.
Simeon the New Theologian Theological and Ethical Treatises, 9, 44off. (SCI29, p.253)
God has Created Nothing Evil
Never let us try to maintain that God has created anything that is intrinsically bad. We read in Scripture: ‘And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good.’ [Gen. 1:31]
Perhaps someone is asserting that God created the devils as they are, or that right from the beginning he assigned them their role of deceiving and ruining human beings? If so, he is contradicting Scripture and insulting God by thinking of him as the inventor and creator of evil.
In reality, before forming the visible world, God made the spiritual powers of heaven so that they might unceasingly give thanks and praise to their Creator, knowing that they had been made from nothing and were destined for the glory of heavenly felicity.
In fact, the Lord himself says of these powers: ‘When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.’ [Job 38:7]
The beginning of everything is Christ in whom the Father has created all that exists. We read in Scripture: ‘All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.’ [John 1:3] And again: ‘In Christ all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him.’ [Col. 1:16]
Cassian Conferences, 8, 6ff. (SCS4, pp.14ff.)
~ Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain, A Patristic Breviary: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
