St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - On Touch

This sense is generally regarded to be based in the hands but it actually applies to the entirety of the body. St. Nicodemos warns Christians that we must not bring our hands or feet too close to other bodies, especially the young, and also we must be especially careful not accustom ourselves to touching our own bodies. This is something that is taught by St. Isaac the Syrian and other holy fathers. St. John Climacus writes that "It so happens that we are polluted bodily through the sense of touch." (Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, ch. VII) According to St. Isaac, we must be mindful of our guardian angel and a "Virgin is not one who has merely preserved one's body from sexual intercourse, but one who is modest unto oneself even when alone". This leads me to wonder whether this is describing the whole and entirety of the body or just certain parts of the body. This, especially as he further describes a man who breaks his marriage vows as saying, "Who sees me? Darkness surrounds me, and the walls hide me, and no one sees me."

Related to touch is the reception of gifts. By such reception of gifts, are hands are accustomed to the sense perception of various material, rich and elaborate, and we tend to desire more of the rich and elaborate. But also, it applies to bribes. "Moreover, it also means not to seek shameful profits, not to carry out shameful beatings, and not to ordain unworthy candidates to the priesthood." It is interesting the ordination of unworthy men to the priesthood is discussed here in this chapter of the Handbook. It is in dealing with the striking of both the faithful and the unbelievers that St. Nicodemos ties this to. For in such strikings, the clergy become accustomed to harming others which is unbefitting for the priests and the bishops. One must be cautious not to ordain such unworthy men who would go to such violent extremes to rebuke their flocks, especially when they ought to show utmost patience. "The bishops who have ordained unworthy candidates must render an account to God for all the sins that have been committed and may be committed by those whom they have so ordained." As St. John Chrysostom says, "Do not tell me that the presbyter has sinned, or that the deacon has sinned. The responsibility of all these is placed upon the heads of those who have ordained such unworthy candidates."

"The use of soft and fine clothing is another matter that wen can relate to in the sense of touch." Covering ourselves with clothing is a perpetual reminder of our exile from Paradise and it is necessary to be done as part of our punishment which was received after our disobedience. "We who were previously in Paradise, covered by divine grace and having no need of clothing, find ourselves now in need of covering and clothing for our bodies." Expensive and luxurious clothing destroys the purpose of clothing to serve as a reminder of our exile by showing such flashiness and exuberance as to negate the shamefulness of our fallen state. Clothing is to protect ourselves from cold in winter and heat in summer, no ore. Such clothes of soft silks and other expensive materials is deemed a vanity by the Hagiorite. Bishops of all people should not don such expensive clothings.

St. Nicodemos calls his readers away from such expensive and luxurious livings on the principles that this life is a journey to an eternal end. "Where are your predecessors and those before them? Having the same vain imaginations, have they not played out the short scene of life and the empty sentiments? Are they not now also deceived by the shortness of life and are already earth and dust in a forgotten place, according to David?" Gold and silver are nothing more than products of the earth and they will return to the ground much as every mortal body will soon return to the ground. Quoting St. Greogry, "Do not moreover try to grasp at something that simply escapes when held." This life is nothing more "but a strait of troubled waters", fine clothes are not meant to have anything to do with it. Fine clothes, silk materials, lace materials, may be soothing and expensive, but they are like the earth and they fade to dust. This is strong ascetical advice coming from the monastic.

But this is not the only problem with luxurious clothing. "It also nourishes vainglory; it is the mother of pride; it is the way to prostitution and it is the panderer of virtually all the passions." How frequently do we fall into sin based on the very types of clothing we wear! We wear certain clothes to appease the eyes of another or we even wear a certain clothing to cause arousal for our own selves. Citing the canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, St. Nicodemos warns the clergy not to wear such clothings because they are strictly forbidden from it. They are to wear the most modest and moderate apparel. "Everything that has no practical use but is merely cosmetic only adds to our condemnation, as St. Basil noted." Clement of Alexandria references both the Prophet Elijah who wore nothing more than sheepskins, the Prophet Isaiah who went about virtually naked, and the Prophet Jeremiah who only wore a linen garment. For this reason, men and women should follow the suit of the clergy, not desiring to dress themselves in fine garments.

In addition to this, soft beds must be avoided. Sleep is among the many idles that lead to spiritual sloth. A monastic is to be disciplined and guard himself against such sleep. A monastic is supposed to keep vigil. Soft beds lead to oversleeping. "Such comforts weaken the body; they submerge it into constant sleep; they warm it beyond measure, and therefore kindle the heat of passion." St. Nicodemos cites an example from the life of St. John the Merciful who accepted a precious bed covering from a ruler. Sleeping with it through the night, he struggled with his thoughts that he was in most comfortable position when so many poor men were out in the cold. He regretted having accepted such a gift and the next morning, sold it at a marketplace and distributed the money to the poor.

Most surprising of all from the ascetical disciplines of St. Nicodemos is perhaps that clergy should not take baths. They should not play games of chance for people who do so become drunkards. They end up gambling away fortunes. St. John Chrysostom said, "The vice of dice brings blasphemy, anger, harm, abuse, and a myriad more evils greater than these." Aristotle said, "A dice player, a thief and a robber are among those who are not free, for they acquire their gain shamefully." But clergy must also avoid baths as bathing opens up the vices caused by the sense of touch. According to St. Diadochos, "It is a manly and prudent thing to avoid baths. This way our bodies are not effeminated by the pleasurable flow of water over them, nor do we come to a remembrance of that shameful nakedness of Adam, so that we too seek to cover the shame with a fig leaves of a second excuse." Though it is acceptable to bathe occasionally for the sake of health and requirements of illness, bathing should never become more than what is necessary.

Should a monarch mandate vaccines?

*Note: I've read "the science" on both sides of the issue, I am only arguing on an ethical perspective. I have no interest in "science" on this one and any refutation of this argument should be based on the ethics. The fact of the matter is that "the science" is ridiculously based on junk propaganda hailing from both sides of the aisle on "vaccines are bad" to "vaccines end the spread of illnesses". When governmental "scientists" are literally talking about how vaccinated people and unvaccinated people with the same illness have "different levels of virus", we have literally creeped into cuckoo-ville. Either I just slept through all the "asymptomatic" spread alerts from 2020 or somehow the virus decided to "settle" down when an infected person who has been vaccinated ends up with COVID and has symptoms.

The question as to whether a monarch should mandate vaccines is a multi-faceted ethical argument that is based on the question of freedom and the role of the monarch in preserving freedom and order in society, the question of tyranny, and the question of holding medicine as a bargaining chip for earning freedom. Obviously, there are many things that we do in life that can justifiably end up with us being stripped of our freedoms and having to earn it back. Deliberately infecting someone with an illness is also provably monstrous. However, in the case of an epidemic or a pandemic in which a person can be exposed unknowingly to a disease at a given moment and then unknowingly spread it to another person is of an entirely different merit. No one has any control over nature. Vaccines are generally used to trigger the immune system to responding to a particular disease in order to prepare the immune system for defense against the particular disease they've received vaccination for. But also, likewise, is exposure to the actual illness for which the vaccine is for to have the same effect, obviously. This exposure to the illness builds up the immune response which in turn allows the body to be better equipped to fighting the disease. The theory is that the immune people will then prevent disease transmission. This is called herd immunity which the Encyclopedia Britannica describes as follows:

Herd immunity, also called community immunity, state in which a large proportion of a population is able to repel an infectious disease, thereby limiting the extent to which the disease can spread from person to person. Herd immunity can be conferred through natural immunity, previous exposure to the disease, or vaccination. An entire population does not need to be immune to attain herd immunity. Rather, herd immunity can occur when the population density of persons who are susceptible to infection is sufficiently low so as to minimize the likelihood of an infected individual coming in contact with a susceptible individual.

Note the part I bold. If one is going for herd immunity, natural immunity and previous exposure are both sufficient alternatives to vaccination. Ergo, the question as to whether someone who has been around a certain group of infected people should be mandated to take a vaccine is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica a "no". This will be elaborated even further when one considers corporate investment in medicines. I believe there is a strong need to be concerned given the socialization of medicine in recent years that we could see corporatist based medical tyranny.

What is freedom? According to H.J.A. Sire,

Freedom consists in the fulfilment of one's nature by the complete exercise of the human powers. Since its purpose is fulfilment, its proper objects are the things that truly fulfil man. In that, freedom may be compared to the commonplace function of eating, as a good and as a right. The good of eating embraces eating the things that we need to live on; it does not extend to an indiscriminate voracity for things that we should not be eating at all. ... [P]atriots rightly rebel against foreign domination; subjects do not rightly rebel against their legitimate king. To be free is to reject what is alien and to live under one's proper law, whether it is a political constitution or the moral law that defines human nature. (Phoenix From the Ashes, 349-350)

Freedom is not a right to excess but a basic need. Human interaction is not a right to excess but also a need. In fact, Solzhenitsyn also indicates that after the isolation that was imposed upon the enemies of the state in the Soviet Gulags that one would more than likely be begging to be put to death instead of putting up with the isolation (The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1, ch. 11). When God created man, he expressed that it was not good for the man to be alone. When someone disallows you a basic necessity and holds up another thing as a bargaining chip for you to get it back, that is called abuse. They are demanding that you place immediate trust that they will fulfill their word despite the fact that what has been taken away is a basic necessity. When someone refuses to feed you unless they first gain something in return from you, they are withholding your need to eat in order to gain something from you. That is not the behavior of a loving father but the behavior of an abusive father.

Plato describes his ideal ruler in The Republic. It is one who has the spirit of philosophy, a true lover of wisdom, control over his passions, and is reluctant to govern.

Until philosophers are kings, and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. (Republic, Bk. 5)

The ideal ruler does not rule in order to rule. "The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him" (Bk. 6) The true ruler is not concerned with maintaining power because he has no self-interests. He is a servant by example and a ruler because he leads. This is the best State. "Whereas the State in  which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst." (Bk. 7)

On contrast, the tyrant is rules in order to rule. He emerges from a democratic State which has indulged in the excesses of freedom. Freedom is a need but here, we see freedom being taken as a license to indulge in immorality. The tyrant emerges in order to solve a problem. Thus, the tyrant comes into play during a crisis scenario, claiming he is the one who can fix the problems. After he has fixed the problems though, he still has an appetite for power. He gins up wars against his enemies and instills fears into his citizens. He must convince the public that they always need a leader. But when he runs out of enemies, he must stir up other wars.

And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. (Bk. 8)

In Book 9, Plato describes the tyrant as someone always indulged in passions. He wants to entertain these passions to an excess but cannot find the funds. So he goes after his own subjects.

One thing clear about this pandemic from the beginning is that our leaders have always seen this as a war. They have routinely seen this issue in terms of martial concepts. Like the tyrant, they look to gin up fear in the populace and create an enemy. There is a convenience especially in a pandemic to gin up fear among the populace. Fear of death, fear of being infected with a disease one could die from, fear of neighbor who could likely infect them. The leaders have said they are the only ones who can resolve the problem, we must look to them without question as a quasi-Messianic figure leading us through darkness. They don't indicate when it will end or even if it is clear that it will end. This progresses toward an infinite loop where they are always creating a crisis. One moment, we could have basic liberties that we take for granted, attending church regularly, seeing our friends' faces, hanging out at the mall, etc. The next minute, all social interaction is cut off, we are locked in our houses, wearing masks, convinced to join our leaders in this war that has no mark on when it will end. Our leaders will give us a goal at one point and then a new one the next. This is the kind of behavior that Plato would more than likely see if he were alive today as tyrannical. The tyrant, in order to increase his power, must always be getting up a war so that he is continuously looked on as a leader.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite has the following to say about medical ethics:

[I]n such a time of famine, hunger, and sickness, or some other such calamity, you rich, you merchants, you buyers of wheat and other fruits, and likewise you physicians, for the love of God beware of selling your produce to the poor and needy at an exorbitant price; and you physicians, do not provide medical care for an excessive fee, and do not become bad doctors, as Job says—'But ye are all unjust physicians and healers of diseases'—finding time to be a helper in making a profit. (Christian Morality, Discourse VIII)

And what high price are the physicians of today's world placing us under? "No jab no job"? The day-to-day things you used to be able to do, you cannot do. Buy our medicine and inject it into yourself or you may not even be able to shop for food. But one might say that the government is paying for it. Well the government pays for it with our money which it taxes us for. The vaccine passport system that people are talking about is a license for governmental and major pharmaceutical company abuse. If it keeps going at this trend, we'll end up with a system of permanent corporatism, subject to the whims and research papers of medical companies that are more interested in making a profit for the medical care they offer. A vaccine passport currently expires after six months. Currently, only one booster shot is needful. But flu vaccines are distributed on a seasonal basis. Could we not assume that the COVID vaccine would also be the same? And then the big pharmaceutical companies price gouge and force us to buy their medicine whether directly or through taxation. They become the partners with the government. Is what we see here a wasteland or a monarchy?

But the true philosopher-king does not need to constantly stir up fear in order to keep his authority. He needs not beg his subjects to allow him to rule and continue to rule. He is not insensitive about his person. He governs himself. Unlike the tyrant. So the answer to the question as to whether a monarch should mandate vaccines, I would say, is no. The reason being that such mandates give leeway to tyrannical oppression and corrupt control over medicine, especially by the pharmaceutical companies that have manufactured the vaccine. Further, that control can easily be extended permanently, just by ginning up another crisis. As Plato states of the tyrant hoping to keep his power and prove that the people still need a leader to guide them, he is always looking to create a war. We are seeing an ongoing war against a virus which no one has control over. I emphasize this to stress that no one deliberately causes infection of another. The tyrant has insisted we are all too sick or might be too sick to even be with each other. At this point, one should ask with a clear and sober mind, do we fear a virus or do we fear each other?

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - On the Tongue

Though it is called taste in The Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, this next section really ought to be called "the tongue" because the topic that St. Nicodemos covers is all things related to the tongue. The mouth,according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, "is always filled yet always remains empty" (Hanbook of Spiritual Counsel, ch. 6). What is the need of all these wanton and surreptitious meals? The only need of them is to fuel the desires of the stomach and by doing so, one fuels their lusts for other sins, fornication, homosexuality, and all carnal and irrational passions are fueled by the sin of gluttony. This is nothing new to the teachings of St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite. St. John Climacus also maintains that the sin of gluttony leads to the sins of the carnal appetite. It is also established science that fat content triggers the libido in man driving his sexual desire leading him into sexual and carnal lusts.

St. Gregory Nyssa teaches us that "it is the preoccupation with the pleasures of eating that bring forth each of the many evils" (ibid). How can one contend against this? Is it not an elaborate banquet that drives man to pursue expensive and lush housings leaving within him nothing more than a love for money? Does this not only come with a pride of self in how many riches the man has? Behold, look how he hangs out with the finest and most intelligent group of individuals and serves them the best food! From this extends coveting, pride, wantonness, lust, and eventually fornication. From material attachment comes despair because man soon realizes that the material world fades to dust. Thus, gluttony ultimately drives the passions to the source of all evils.

Not only this, but those who indulge in the sense of taste are spiritually deprived as well. Which god does the Apostle Paul say these men serve? The god they serve is their belly. Thus, there is spiritual depravity that comes from overeating. The belly ends up governing the entire body. Sinfulness is what the person is led into.

"Sumptuous eating is harmful to all without exception, but especially to the young. The natural reason for this is obvious. The natural warmth of the young person is enhanced when it receives the fatty matter of various foods. The heavy foods consumed draw out the heavy excretions of digestion in the stomach. These in turn are converted into substances and blood and eventually into fatty tissue. The abundance of food creates a fat body that is susceptible to the forceful temptations of one's sexuality." (ibid)

There are three degrees in eating according to St. Gregory the Sinaite. Temperance is when we withhold from eating and even still hungry after eating. This is the best way to control the passion of gluttony. Sufficiency is when we eat no more than is necessary until we are sufficiently nourished. This teeters into gluttony. Satiety is when we eat until we are satisfied. This is not necessarily gluttonous but certainly borders into it the most. St. Basil did not forgive the young people who ate unto satiety but also the young who ate unto sufficiency. St. Basil wanted to train all people to eat temperately.

We are to keep the fasts every Wednesday and Friday. In the East, we fast every single Wednesday and Friday abstaining from all meats except shellfish, olive oil (though some jurisdictions forbid all oil), wine, and alcohol. St. Nicodemos emphasizes the importance of keeping these fasts because they keep a well-regulated routine for the Christian of constant depravity of the enjoyment of certain foods. Today, many Christians don't even fast at all, and if they do, it's only during Lent, every Friday. The ancient custom was to fast every Wednesday and Friday except for the week before Lent, Bright Week, and the week following Nativity. A Ruthenian deacon I know estimated about 200 days worth of fasting for the Byzantine Christian. God will put gluttons to the test and having a well-regulated fasting routine is important to combat this sin of gluttony.

Finally, St. Nicodemos reflects on other sins of the tongue. Christians must not conduct sins of the mouth which include "condemnation, slander, mocking, insults, unreasonable excommunications, curses, reprimands, obscene talk, and all the other idle and vain words" (ibid). We will have to give an account for this. St. Nicodemos also reproves Christians for laughter. Christians must guard against laughter as it "causes the gums and the teeth to show in those who laugh loudly just as they do with horses when they neigh". "[W]hen we take into account that our responsible and sinful life is carried on in a valley of sorrows, then even our laughter must be turned to mourning and our smile and joy to grief, as St. James the Brother of the Lord has said" (ibid). Jesus cried four times but is not recorded to have laughed once. I go into this more in another post so it is not necessary to go further here.

The sins of the tongue and taste are not limited to gluttony. Gluttony opens the floodgates to a mess of other sins including fornication and greed. The tongue must be guarded against all forms of ribaldry.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - On Hearing and Smell

Hearing and smell are the two senses St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite discusses the least and spends little time on in his Handbook on Spiritual Counsel. On hearing, he discusses three primary evils arising from sound and how our ears must guard against these so as not to arouse the mind. Because the mind is easily led astray by the body and the body easily leads astray the mind. The three evils that come with listening to certain sounds are that the soul becomes effeminate and lethargic, the mind is filled up with so many sensual passions that it eventually holds slave to them, and finally, even if the singer is not seen, and especially if the singer is a woman, these sounds are capable of impressing the imagination (Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, ch. 4).

St. Basil tells us not to "submit your souls to corrupt melodies that come to us through the ears" and St. Gregory the Theologian tells us to "not have the flute played to our hearing" and "in his Iambic poetry he wrote: 'Block your ears with wax, and foolish words hear not, nor pleasant songs or thrilling melodies'" (ibid). St. Nicodemos further makes his case by referencing the story of Odysseus. In the The Odyssey, there is a part where Odysseus and his men are sailing through an area of sirens who attempt to lure sailors to their watery graves with their songs. Their songs are so beautiful that the sailors are enchanted by them. Odysseus wants to hear the sirens so he has his men tie him up to the mast but he has his crew members fill their ears with wax. Odysseus is drawn to the sound of the sirens and even begins to beg his men to untie him but his men don't hear a sound. His men remain steadfast and obedient to the command they heard. Their ears are filled with wax and they remain unlured by the sirens.

Finally, St. Nicodemos addresses that we must not hear or regard slanderous thoughts or slanderous talking. While there is a point to make in regard to the more sensual sounds driving the mind to sensual thoughts and practices, there is a further point to make in regard to slanderous statements driving the mind to think evilly of one's neighbor. Especially unjustly, when we think of our neighbor in such ill-repute, we lead ourselves into entering into murderous libel against our neighbor for to hate our neighbor already makes us guilty of the sin of murder. He comments, without further statement or example, that the life of St. John the Merciful is filled with such examples of how we must not regard or listen to slanderous thoughts.

Smell has a similar line of thought to hearing. Once again, the fragrances of sweet-smelling perfumes lead a soul to becoming effeminate, desiring soft things, refusing to recognize its earthly origins. Sweet-smelling fragrances and perfumes "not only weaken the manly character of the soul and give it effeminate air, they also may incite the soul toward fornications and other moral licentiousness" (ch. 5). Veros of Sicily is read about in history books as a character resembling that of a wild boar. He never wanted to be without the smell of roses. He wore roses around him at all times. St. Nicodemos also comments on Marcus Aurelius "who was so immersed in the habit of pleasing his senses that he would literally fill up a pool of rose water and would swim in it with joy and pleasure" (ibid).

Seeing that these fragrances can lead even sound minds to such effeminate insanities, St. Arsenios would train himself "to endure humbly even the foul smells" and "would never change the water in which he soaked the palms of date trees and the young shoots which he braided into baskets" (ibid). This produced such a foul smell that he was eventually inquired as to why he persisted in doing this. St. Arsenios responded that it was a repayment of all the sweet smells of myrrh and perfume he had previously enjoyed from earthly kingdoms. If one refuses to remain idle, they must work. When one works, the body produces heat and the body emits sweat to regulate the cooling of the body. This leads to the body becoming stinky with the salts emitted from sweat. By sweating and remaining active we cut off the effeminate attachment to sweet fragrances and we also burn fats which fuel the libido and sexual drive. We become more able to combat passions.

St. Nicodemos also includes at the end of his chapter on smell that the clergy must not smoke. Several reasons he lists are that when people smoke through pipes, the smell of the smoke becomes caught in their lungs and they are forced to sneeze. They bring out their handkerchiefs in the sight of people and sneeze into it. The sneezing causes such a violent shaking of the head that people are driven to wish good health on the poor soul who was unfortunate enough to sneeze so violently. It also instills in the Christians that the clergy lead a good habit not to smoke themselves. Further, St. Nicodemos warns of the ill-effects of smoking. Writing around the turn of the 18th-19th century, he comments how smoking can actually lead to negative health effects. Some of the people who had smoked throughout their lives would be found after death with their lungs blackened and burnt. This also happened to their brains. Already, in the 19th century, St. Nicodemos knew that smoking was detrimental to physical and mental health. How is it no one else was able to see that but merely they skirted around the obvious?

Both smelling and hearing can lead to stirring up effeminate thoughts, inciting effeminate behavior, and corrupting the soul through attachments to effeminate things of nature. These two senses must be guarded. There must be holy sounds that fill their presence. The sound of hymns, the sound of praise, the sound of love. The smells of hard work are the best way to combat the effeminate fragrances we come across throughout the day. The smell of hard work will also greatly assist us in combatting the libido that drives the sensual passions.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - On Sight

St. Nicodemos's Handbook of Spiritual Counsel continues on the idea of the mind and goes now to sight. Sight is the most reliable sense. I remember when I was younger, the pastor at our non-denominational church once talked about how many of us would be fine losing our hearing but our sight, if we lost our sight, we would lose so many images of beauty. We can certainly all recall the healing of the man born blind. We think of him as blind for he could not see but we see that his spiritual vision was much better than many of us. Jesus doesn't talk about the deaf leading the deaf, he speaks of the blind leading the blind. When a blind man leads a blind man, it is inevitable they will bump into things.

Not too long ago, a blind man stepped into our parish with his cane looking for the entry to the nave. We have three doors of entry into the nave. One on the side, the main doors, and a set of doors in the baptistry. The former and the latter have been locked lately. This man tried to get into the nave through the door on the side. Another parishioner and I had to help him find the entry into the nave. Many of us cannot imagine being without our gift of sight because it provides a guide for us. But when we have become slaves of our bodies, it can destroy us too. The sight, for this reason, fuels the mind and the thoughts of the mind the most.

St. Nicodemos is no opponent of vision. He describes sight as "the most regal of all senses". As mentioned, it is both dependable and most knowledgeable. It gathers information and feeds it to our mind. This is why it is important we guard our sense of sight so strongly for if we are feeding ourselves with sights of immorality, we are feeding our mind nothing but immorality and negativity. Whether this be porn, a lustful glance, or violent imagery, we are sending negative images to our minds. Sight is how we touch things that we cannot touch with our hands is how St. Basil describes sight. St. Gregory the Theologian tells us that the "[l]amps of the eyes touch the untouchable".

The eyes both serve us but they can lead us away from God. Some may have seen my comments about flashing shoes in church. St. Nicodemos says, "[t]he eyes can distract the mind very quickly and cause it in a flash to slip into the place of sin." This is why when we are in church, it is very important not to dress in such a way that would cause our brother to stumble and not to create a spectacle of ourselves leading people away from the right worship of God. Because the eyes absorb so much information that is fed to our minds, the eyes can become both a primary cause of sin and a spiritual benefit for our souls. When we look toward an icon, we fill our mind with holiness, but when we look away from the icon we are led away from that vision of holiness. Eyes, according to Our Lord, can even lead into the sin of adultery (Matt. 5:27-30). We even observe how when Lot was fleeing from the city of Sodom with his wife and daughters how a glance upon the city turned her into a pillar of salt!

Looking at the tree led the woman into sin (Gen. 3:6). Looking at the daughters of men led the sons into fornication (Gen. 6:2). The angels who led Lot out of Sodom guarded their eyes (Gen. 19:1). David saw Bathsheba and was led into adultery (2 Sam. 11:1). The same Holy King also cries out to God "turn my eyes away from seeing vain things!" (Ps. 118:37) O, how sight can betray us so easily! Alexander the Great refused to look upon the daughters of Darius! St. Syngletike, the Holy Mother who wrote so much on guarding the thoughts of the mind and how to conquer these thoughts, tells us:

"If ever by thought an inappropriate fantasy comes to us, it must be expelled by reason. Thus, shut your eyes to this image. Remove from it the flesh of the cheeks, cut away the lips and imagine then a mass of bones which is deformed."

St. Syngletike's advice on governing the mind is employed here to show us how intricately linked the sense of sight is to that of our thoughts. All the moral theologians agree, sin begins in the mind and with the thought.

My friend Michelle gives us an example of
St. Syngletike's discipline in action

We can see how reliable the sense of sight is but from looking can come lusting while no-looking comes no-lusting. This is why the blind man who was healed by Our Lord retained such perfect spiritual vision. He never, at any point in his life, was feeding his mind negative imagery. He could not lust. And while St. Nicodemos mentions how women can easily lead men into sin, he also notes how we can lead ourselves into sin through our own attraction to ourselves. He comments on the hierarchs and priests who have fallen into sin by looking through mirrors! They fill their minds with the image of themselves and are distracted with how they appear to others so much that they fall in love with themselves. We can all recount the story of Narcissus who began to gaze upon the image of himself in the water and fell in love with his own beauty. Narcissus would then be drowned as a result of his shameful act of self-love! Let us guard ourselves from lusting after ourselves.

St. Nicodemos gives a final warning about sleep. For in sleep, many visions in the mind are fed and we must be cautious not to be attached to sleep. It is important to govern our sleep patterns such that we do not end up becoming dreamers. We see in this final warning about sleep how much more intricately connected the sense of sight is to the sense of the mind. It is no wonder St. Nicodemos starts with the mind and proceeds immediately from sight to the mind! There is a lot more that could easily be said about sight and its connections to our sense of thought, but for now, what I will say is let us guard our sight so that we may govern our thoughts!

Did Jesus laugh?

One of the things about Eastern Christian spirituality that many Westerns (and for that manner, Easterners) don't understand is that the life of the Christian is spent weeping far more than it is laughing. In fact, laughing was actually considered sinful in the earliest spirituality. Jesus most certainly spent no time laughing. This comes as a surprise to those of us so acquainted to laughing but in fact, there is precedent to establish this. St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, warns us:

Fear lest, when you laugh, the Master, who blesses those who lament, but deplores those who laugh, be angered; for lest the Devil, discovering your effusive laughter, cause your soul to lose fear of God and to forget what is profitable to you. (Christian Morality, Discourse VII citing St. John Chrysostom's That an Ascetic Should Not Engage in Buffonery)

At first, it seems like only a specific type of laughter is condemned in the ancient writings but there is actually something much more spiritually enlightening about this that can be further expounded on in the iconography of the Church. Laughter distracts us from the mission that we are in which is one of constant spiritual combat against the passions. A soldier ought not laugh during battle. A soldier's mission is to fight. He has no time for laughing. If he were to laugh on the battle lines, the enemy would quickly pick out his weakness and lapse and strike him more easily than had he not been laughing. The basic message is when we're at war with Satan, there ought to be no screwing around! There may be certain times of spiritual enjoyment and great joy in this life that we can reflect on but to break out in laughter is a sign of a drunkard!

He tells us how St. Basil's Ascetical Constitution teaches that an ascetic should not utter levities and imposes the penalty of not receiving antidoron on a monk who does. There, we see that a monk cannot even receive the holy bread that has not been sanctified and handed out after the liturgy. If this is such a "natural thing" that we can speculate that Jesus laughed, then how is it that such a penalty can be imposed upon a monk? It is clear that there is something spiritually detrimental to laughing. St. Nicodemos cites St. Gregory the Theologian: "Laughter meriteth laughter from those of sound mind; all laughter, forsooth, but especially the meretricious sort."

We see in Scriptures four different accounts of the Lord weeping. Once when He raised Lazarus from the dead. Once when He walked into Bethlehem on Palm Sunday. Once when He bore witness that one of His disciples would betray Him. And once in the Garden of Gethsemane when the time of His suffering was drawing near. Not once is it recorded in Scriptures of Jesus ever laughing. Indeed, He declares, "Woe to those who laugh!" (Luke 6:21, 25) There is a time for mourning and there is a time for laughter (Eccl. 2:2). But the time for laughter has not come. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall laugh. This should not be concluded that laughter then is for now for the Beatitudes give us an eschatological expectation. We shall laugh in the coming Heavenly Kingdom. Not now. Listen to Holy Father Abba John Climacus:

In your heart be like an emperor, seated high in humility, commanding laughter: "Go!" and it goes; and sweet weeping: "Come!" and it comes; and our tyrant and slave, the body: "Do this!" and it does it. (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 7)

Laughter may be a small sin but the more we guard against the small sins, the more we are able to guard against the larger sins. For we shall always be on the lookout to guard against these larger sins as we know what great spiritual damage they can bring to us but how we tend to overlook the small sins! If we can guard even against these tiny sins, we shall overcome all sin.

When I was younger and was a Protestant, we would find it reasonable to speculate on the infant Jesus and how He allegedly cried and laughed and did all sorts of things that a baby would be expected to do. But the problem is that there is an assumption we held to as Protestants. Namely that the Virgin Birth was otherwise an ordinary birth without anything else theologically significant about it. How wrong! The Virgin Birth of Christ was the restoration of an Edenic conception and birth. It was birth pains that came after the first sin! It was defects that came after the first sin. Jesus was born the way that Adam and Eve were originally created to have children! It would behoove us to dispel these images that the infant Jesus held any of the defects of an infant born under the stain of original sin.

Finally, in iconography, do you see the moods on these icons? They are, for the most part, expressionless. They portray neither anger, laughter, sadness, or any other emotion. They are icons of the Holy Ones who have been made perfect like Christ so it is fitting they show the arms they took up in the battle against the Evil One. They are stoic, like soldiers, showing no emotion during the heat of the battle. May they pray for us and shelter us from the Evil One!

The Theft of the Biden Administration

St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain describes the following story:

"That which a certain robber and pirate said to King Alexander [the Great] applies also to you. When arrested and asked why he stole, he replied shrewdly to the king that whereas he stole with a small boat, Alexander did so with a great armada." (Christian Morality, Discourse 8)

We here see the dignity of thieves over that of the crooks who do so in broad daylight. We've reached a position in our country where the Federal Reserve is pumping out money with reckless regard to inflation and the Biden administration is Hell-bent on raising taxes and raising gas taxes to pay for infrastructure. Contrary to when the Trump administration tried this, there is no existing accountability any more. Trump is gone, we can freely raise gas taxes for infrastructure. This harms people who drive 50+miles on a regular basis. People like me are constantly in need of gas and Pete Buttigieg is talking about how great an idea it would be to raise gas taxes according to the mile?

But the theft does not stop there. The Biden administration has now gotten involved in the case of a Colorado man, Edward Caniglia, whose wife falsely accused and slandered him of threatening to harm himself. The man was admitted to the hospital. The hospital found and determined he was of no harm to himself or others. But while he was gone, the cops came and found two guns in his house. Without a search warrant, they stole them. Like it or not, the guns were his personal property, he had the legal right to own them, he posed no danger to himself or others and the cops stole his personal property. Now the Biden administration is arguing in defense of the cops to the Supreme Court hoping that it can become a precedent when they start looting our weapons.

But these acts of theft have become so prevalent in government that no one says a word about them any more. The media cheers it on. It's Alexander the Great looting lands afar with a great armada. The thief will come in the night so as not to be seen. He knows the undignified nature of his business. He has more dignity than our looting and thieving government. Our government has taken after King Ahab. They see Naboth's vineyard and they want it. They desire it. They already have plenty of power but it's not enough. They want your inheritance with it. They take it, they seize it, they loot. They do it with the cops, they do it with the military, they come from abroad with an armada. These are not men of God. These are men of the greatest indignity. They do it in broad daylight, with a thunderous applause from their state-allied media corporations.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - Concerning the Mind

While the mind rules over the flesh in Man, it is also enslaved to the physical pleasures of Man. We know from St. Paul that in the realm of the flesh, we are enslaved to sin. The sinful passions begin to reign over us and we do the things that we do not desire but the things we do desire we cannot do. For the flesh has come into corruption from the sinful nature. But why, if the flesh is inherently good and the mind rules over it, does this occur? Why is the mind often found to be the slave to such earthly things? Is the premise that the flesh is inherently good wrong? Or perhaps the mind has allowed itself to be enslaved? Or is there another reason?

St. Nicodemos answers that "after the disobedience of Adam, his body received the whole of its existence from physical pleasure that is impassionate and irrational". From the moment of conception, man has become the recipient of physical pleasure. He is bound to physical pleasure until his spiritual senses are allowed to activate. This is called original sin. This is also why, until very recently, the Church has never held the position that an unbaptized infant could go to Heaven. The traditional teaching was that the unbaptized infant would be unconscious, at best, unable to fully experience the joy of the eternal beatific vision of God (Canon 120 of the Holy Council of Carthage, St. Gregory of Nyssa in Concerning Infants' Early Deaths implies this).

The mind is held captive by the physical nature from Adam's sin onward. It subjected to it by the sinfulness entering into the world. It has been held captive by the physical senses. It is the spiritual sense that must be awakened in man. If a man is blind, he is unaware of the gift of sight unless he previously had it. Man is born spiritually blind. What allows a man to see? It is the sacrament of baptism that awakens the senses of Man. But we first receive the physical senses and once a body has experienced the soft touch of clothing, the beauty of living bodies, the sounds of certain songs, the fragrances of myrrh and other aromatic smells, it is difficult to convince such person that what they have experienced is actually irrational and temporal.

The senses are liberated through a process. First, by reading and hearing the Sacred Scriptures and the Words of the Church Fathers. Second, by subduing the senses and by refusing to fuel their appetites. St. Nicodemos draws along the analogy of a king fighting off a severely fortified city by first cutting off the supply chain to the city depriving the city of food and military resources useful for battle. Thus, the mind subdues best the senses by cutting off that which fuels their physical pleasures. Attrition is the first war that the Church wages against the senses. The Church prescribes fasting periods as a primary means of subjecting the body's urge to eat and consume. This is not because food is evil but because the overeating of food distracts the mind from God and keeps him subjected to sinfulness.

"[T]he reason for the coming of the New Adam, Jesus Christ, can be said to be our liberation from seeking and loving only the visible things, and at the same time our exaltation to love and enjoy the spiritual realities, thus indicating our true transference to what indeed is better." Here, St. Nicodemos touches on something without actually explicitly stating it. The coming of Jesus was as a physical, fleshly, human. Jesus was fully Man. He was the incarnate Deity. His incarnation provides another means we escape bondage from the physical senses to the spiritual senses. The sacraments are the visible, physical, things that the Church has provided for us in order to elevate our physical nature to the divine, spiritual nature that God intends to elevate it to. Through baptism we are brought into union with God and become sons of God. Through chrismation we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the Eucharist we are fed by God with his own very flesh.

The mind wrestles with the physical senses but it can also be aided greatly by these same senses. When it is aided by these senses, the mind retains control of the body and is held in its proper state. When it allows itself to be controlled by these senses, the mind becomes subject to those same senses and it is brought down into destruction by these senses.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel

The opening chapter of St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite's A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel focuses on the senses. While the senses are from God, it is all the important, because of this, to guard them from the sinful temptations of the flesh. Why were the senses created? How are they to be protected? How are they to be guarded so as not to lead to temptations? A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel isn't so much to be a list of do's and don't's in the holy life but rather it serves as a guidebook, a handbook of counsel, to assist the soul in its struggle against the temptations of the mind and the flesh. St. Nicodemos starts with the temptations of the flesh but he will also navigate to the mind later on.

Why were the senses created? The answer that St. Nicdomos gives to this question is taken from the holy father St. Gregory the Theologian. "[I]n order to reveal a greater wisdom and the manifold purpose of nature". Man was created by God to be a cosmos, not, according to the philosophers, a microcosmos. Man is a macrocosmos "to be upon earth as a great world within the small one". Man "draws the two ends of the upper and the lower world together and thus reveals that the Creator of both is one".

The mind dwells in the body as a king according to St. Nicodemos. This indicates that the body "is likened to a royal place built by the  superb architectural skill of an omniscient Creator". Dualists assert the flesh is inherently evil. It is in contradiction to the mind. The soul is the what is holy while the flesh is corrupted and must be dispelled with. This is anathema to the Christian tradition. While there is a struggle between the weakened state of the flesh that emerges from the ancestral sin, the flesh is inherently good. It shows the earthly state of man and also shows the earthly palace that his mind dwells in. The state of dominion he holds over creation. It becomes a sacred temple for the Creator and reveals the Creator as creator of both the spiritual and material realms. Both are called good by the Creator and Man is declared very good. According to St. John Damascene,

"The irrational creatures are not autonomous; they do not lead but rather are led by nature. This is why they do not object to physical desire, but rush to action just as soon as they feel desirous. Man however being rational leads nature rather than is led by it. Thus when he would desire something, he has the authority either to overrule that desire or to follow it."

Baptism transforms the mind just as much as it does the body. According to St. John Chrysostom who is appealed to by St. Nicodemos, "no sooner are we baptized than the soul shines brighter than the sun, being purified by the Holy Spirit". Once again, the interconnectedness between the material and the spiritual is revealed before our eyes. In the very sacrament of baptism, we witness the transformative effect of the Holy Spirit upon the soul as the water wraps around the body of the Man. The child is lifted out of the water or the catechumen has the water poured over his head and the soul that was once the child of the flesh has become a child of God. He walks according to the law of God and no longer is enslaved to the law of the flesh. He is a freed man. The Eucharist is received not merely for the conversion of the soul but for healing of both body and soul. The tangible and the spiritual come into interaction with each other.

The senses open our minds to the natural world around us. They are given to us to be a guide for our mind to elevate itself toward God. Our eyes, when we look around us and fill ourselves with pure vision, allow us to see the beauty of the Creator and desire to know more of the Creation. Our ears can hear Scriptures and be lifted upward to God. So likewise the other senses operate for our benefits. But some men use the senses inappropriately and these men are led away by their physical desires. They become more like the beasts of the Earth and resemble less and less so Man as the way God created Man to be.