Guarding against sins

Through their multitude, sins that are not unto death can bring the soul the same perdition as the sin unto death.

St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

 

Whoever endures with greatness of soul the afflictions sent to him by God; whoever zealously occupies himself with the study of the word of God, that one has the precious pledge of salvation. One more struggle awaits such a person: he has an absolute need to guard his great treasure – his salvation – from sins, and especially from the sins unto death. What is the sin unto death? The sin unto death is the sin that kills the soul of its doer with eternal death. If a man dies in a sin unto death, without the due offering of repentance being brought for it, the demons seize his soul and bring it down into the dark and suffocating depths beneath the earth, into hell, for eternal torment.

The sins unto death are the following: heresy, schism, denial of the Christian faith, blasphemy against God, witchcraft and incantation, murder and suicide, fornication, adultery, unnatural fornication, drunkenness, theft of holy things, robbery, stealing, and any cruel, inhuman oppression. Among the sins unto death, only for suicide there is no repentance — from the great, unspeakable mercy of God toward fallen mankind, the other sins unto death are healed through repentance. Repentance for the sin unto death consists in confessing the sin to the spiritual father, receiving a penance from him, and not falling again into that sin. But how many who have fallen into a sin unto death have no longer had the opportunity to repent for it! One became drunk, and his soul departed from his body in that state! Another went to steal, to rob, and the wrath of God struck him even in the midst of his lawlessness! Guard yourselves, brothers, from the sins unto death! I repeat to you: the sin unto death kills the soul. If someone has died in a sin unto death, without having managed to repent for it, his soul goes to hell. He has no hope of salvation.

Which sins are not unto death? The sins of thought, of word, of deed, in knowledge and in ignorance, which do not kill the soul, but only wound it more or less. From these sins even the Saints are not strangers – but the Saints have watchfulness over themselves, and when they notice a fault into which common human weakness has dragged them, they immediately heal it through repentance.

If the separation of the soul from the body follows at that very moment, without the man having managed to wash through repentance the sins which are not unto death, his soul is not brought down, because of these sins, into hell; it is permitted that on the way to heaven, in the air, he be held to account by the wicked spirits, in fellowship with whom men commit sins, and the redemption of the faults is demanded through good deeds.

If the soul has enough good deeds and especially, if during earthly life it has done much almsgiving, through this almsgiving and through the other good deeds it redeems its faults; the heavenly gates are opened to it and it enters into heaven for eternal rest and joy. However, it happens that the soul has so many sins that are not unto death and so few good deeds that, because of the multitude of these sins, it is cast into hell. The Holy Fathers have likened the sin unto death to a heavy stone, and the sin which is not unto death to an insignificant grain of sand. If you tie a single large stone to a man's neck and throw him into deep water, he will drown: a single sin unto death is enough to cast the soul into the depths of hell. A few grains of sand have no weight: in the Saints of God, the sin which is not unto death, being continually diminished and reduced through constant self-examination and repentance, has almost no influence upon their eternal fate. But the same sin which is not unto death gains unusual weight in the souls that have given themselves over to worldly cares and especially to worldly amusements, and just like the sin unto death, it casts the wretched soul into hell. For example, if someone has said a word of jest and even an improper one, and then repented of it, his sin is easily forgiven – but if he constantly speaks words of jest, vain talk, and even shameful words, for his persistent idle and impure speech he may be subject to eternal torment in hell. Through their multitude, sins that are not unto death can bring the soul the same perdition as the sin unto death, just as a sack filled with fine sand and tied around a man’s neck can drown him just as easily as the heaviest stone.

Source: Predici la Octoih, Sofia Publishing, Bucharest, 2005, pp. 266-268.