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Knowing these things, let us fear God and keep His commandments, so that we may be perfect and entire in the virtues. And having a humbled spirit and a contrite heart, let us repeat unceasingly to the Lord the prayer of the great and divine Arsenios : 'My God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good before Thee, but grant me, in Thy compassion, the power to make a start.' For the whole of our salvation lies in God's mercy and compassion. To Him be glory, might and worship: to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and through all the ages. Amen.
'''== Theoritikon =='''
What an immense struggle it is to break the fetter binding us so strongly to material things, to stop worshipping these things, and to acquire instead a state of holiness. Indeed, unless our soul is truly noble and courageous it cannot embark on such a task. For our goal is not merely the purification of the passions : this by itself is not real virtue, but preparation for virtue. To purification from vicious habits must be added the acquisition of the virtues.<br>
With respect to its intelligent aspects, to purify the soul is to eradicate and completely expunge from it all degrading and distorted features, all 'worldly cares', as the Divine Liturgy puts it, all turbulence, evil tendencies and senseless prepossessions. With respects to its desiring aspect, it is to purge away every impulsion towards what is material, to cease from viewing things according to the senses, and to be obedient to the intelligence. And with respect to the soul's incesive power, purification consists in never being perturbed by anything that happens.<br>
In the wake of this purification, and the mortification or correction of ugly features, there should follow spiritual ascent and deification. For after abandoning what is evil, one must practise what is good. One must first deny oneself and then, taking up the cross, must follow the Master towards the supreme state of deification.<br>
What are ascent and deification? For the inttelect, they are perfect knowledge? For the intellect, they are perfect knowledge of created things, and of Him who is above created things, so far as such knowledge is accessible to human nature. For the will, they are total and continuous striving towards primal goodness. And for the incensive power, they are energetic and effective impulsion towards the object of aspiration, persistent, relentless, and unarrested by any practical difficulties, pressing forward impetuously and undeviatingly.<br>
The soul's impulsion towards beauty should surpass its impulsion towards what is base to the same degree as intelligible beauty surpasses sensible beauty. One should provide the body only with what is needed to keep it functioning properly. To intend to do this is easy, but to achieve it is more difficult, for without great effort one cannot uproot the soul's well-entrenched habits.<br>
Nor indeed is knowledge to be acquired without effort. Certainly, to keep one's vision intently fixed on divine things until the will acquires the habit of doing this requires considerable labout over a long period of time. The intellect has to exert itself to oppose the downward drag of the senses; and this contest and battle against the body continues until death, even if it seems to diminish as anger and desire wither away, and as the senses are subjugated to the transcendent knowledge of the intellect.<br>
It should be remarked, however, that an unillumined soul, since it has no help from God, can neither be genuinely purified, nor ascend to the divine light. What was said above refers to those who are baptized.<br>
Moreover, a distinction should be made between different kinds of knowledge. Knowledge here on earth is two kinds : natural and supranatural. The second can be understood by reference to the first. Natural knowledge is that which the soul can acquire through the use of its natural faculties and powers when investigating creation and the cause of creation - in so far, of course, as this is possible for a soul bound to matter. For, when speaking of the senses, the imagination and the intellect, it has to be said that the energy of the intellect is blunted by being joined and mingled with the body. As a result, it cannot have direct contact with intelligible forms, but requires, in order to apprehend them, the imagination, which by nature uses images, and shares in material extension and density. Accordingly, the intellect while in the flesh needs to use material images in order to apprehend intelligible forms. We call natural knowledge, then, whatever knowldege the intellect in such a state acquires by its own natural means.<br>
Supranatural knowledge, on the other hand, is that which enters the intellect in a manner transcending its own means and power; that is to say, the intelligible objects that constitute such knowledge surpass the capacity of an intellect joined to a body, so that a knowledge of them pertains naturally only to an intellect which is free from the body. Such knowledge is infused by God alone when He finds an intellect purified of all material attachment and inspired by divine love.<br>
Not only knowledge but virtues as well is divided in this way. One kind of virtue does not transcend nature, and this can fittingly be called natural virtue. The other, which is energized only by the primal source of beauty, is above our natural capacity and state; and this kind of virtue should be called supranatural.<br>
Knowledge and virtue, then, are divided in this way. An unillumined person may possess natural knowledge and virtue, but never those which are supranatural. How could he, since he does not participate in their energizing cause? But the illumined man can possess both. Moreover, although he cannot acquire supranatural virtues at all unless he has first acquired natural virtue, he can participate in supranatural knowledge without first acquiring natural knowledge. In addition, just as sense and imagination are far superior and more noble in man than they are in animals, so natural virtue and knowledge are far superior and more noble in the person who is illumined than in the person who is unillumined, although both may possess them.<br>
Further, that aspect of natural knowledge concerned with the virtues and with the habits opposing them also seem to be of two kinds. One kind is theoritical knowledge, when a man speculates about these matters but lacks experience of them, and is sometimes unsure about what he says. The other is practical and, so to speak, alive, since the knowledge in question is confirmed by experience, and so is clear and trustworthy, and in no way uncertain or doubtful.<br>