The Degrees of Moral Condition #
Bishop Innokenty (Usov)
The Fathers of the Church divide those who do good and fulfill the will of God into four ranks or degrees: slave, hireling, son, and friend of God. He who does not commit evil and fulfills the commandments of God out of fear of eternal torments is in the rank of a slave, who fulfills the will of his master primarily out of fear of punishment—so that if there were no fear, he would certainly neither work for his master nor, perhaps, even stay with him at all. Likewise is the one who fulfills the commandments of God out of fear of punishment from God—whether punishment in this present life, or the torments of the life to come. If there were no such punishments, he would likely be ready neither to fulfill the Lord’s commandments, nor to live virtuously, nor to avoid doing evil or sinning. This is the first and lowest degree of moral perfection.
The second degree of this perfection is the rank of the hireling. He belongs to this rank who fulfills the will of God and does good for the sake of future reward or in expectation of the Kingdom of Heaven. The hireling, as is well known, works for his employer because he is paid; otherwise, he would not work at all. So too with the one who fulfills the commandments of God for the sake of reward in this life or the next: if he did not expect to receive a reward for his good deeds, he likely would not do them.
The third, higher degree of moral perfection is the rank of the loving son. Such a son fulfills the will of his parent and labors for him not out of fear of punishment, nor for expectation of payment, but out of love for his father and generally for his family. Likewise is the one who does good and fulfills the will of God not for any other reason, but solely out of love for God and neighbor.
On the very highest degree of moral perfection stand those of whom the Lord Himself said: “Ye are My friends” (John 15:14). In this rank—the rank of the friends of God—stood the holy apostles and stand all who, like them, do good for the sake of good itself, out of love for good. And since God is the ineffable Good, it is clear that they do so, first of all, out of love for Him—not only as for a Father, but also as for Him Who, by His ineffable love and goodness, has deigned to honor them with the name of His friends.
Thus, even if there were neither eternal torments in hell for evil deeds nor eternal blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven for virtues, we ought nonetheless to do good for higher reasons: out of love for God and His creatures, and for the sake of goodness itself. But if someone is unmoved even by these more sensitive motivations—if even the fear of dreadful eternal torments cannot deter him from evil, nor the hope of ineffable eternal blessedness entice him to do good—then for this alone he is worthy of the most terrible torments and of being deprived of every blessedness in the life to come. He is not even worthy of the title of hireling or slave; he is a frivolous and shameless squanderer of the wealth entrusted to him. This is the first degree of moral downfall.
The second degree of this downfall is found in one who commits evil out of indifference or insensitivity to his neighbors, or out of selfishness and vanity, seeking praise for boldness in evil and sinful deeds. Such a man is a self-serving traitor to God.
But there are also those who commit evil out of hatred for people and for other creatures of God. These are the destroyers of God’s work, true evildoers; they stand on the third and particularly low degree of moral downfall.
On the very lowest degree of this downfall is he who does evil out of love for evil itself and hatred for good and for God Himself. Such a man is an enemy of God; this is the state of demons—the final and most terrible degree of moral corruption.
How then can one be delivered from moral downfall, from the commission of evil and immoral deeds, when there sometimes arises an almost irresistible inclination toward them? Only by constantly doing good deeds. Created in the image and likeness of the Creator, man cannot remain idle; his very nature compels him to create and to act continually. What he chooses to create or act upon, however, is the matter of his will and self-determination. Thus, if a man does not do good, he does evil; if he does not strive forward or upward, he falls downward. It cannot be otherwise.
To remain aloft, a bird must constantly fly either upward or forward; it cannot, with folded wings, stay suspended in the air at one spot—otherwise, it falls and perishes. Likewise, a man, in the atmosphere of the moral life, cannot remain stationary but must continually move either upward or forward lest he fall.
Therefore, those who think to remain in a state where they neither do good nor commit evil are gravely and cruelly mistaken. The very fact of not doing good is itself a great evil. The time of our life is nothing other than a talent—or, in modern terms, a capital—given to us by God for continual use, and only for good deeds. Therefore, those who do not do good and think that they do no evil act like a steward who, having shut up his master’s shop, does no trade, or like the servant who buried his talent in the ground, using it for no work, and afterward returned it whole, thinking he had done well. But what happened to him? His talent was taken away, and he was cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:30).
Thus, it is impossible to remain idle, doing neither good nor evil. One must always do good in order to remain on some degree of moral perfection. Only by this path can one restrain the tendency toward evil.
But even when doing good, we must strive toward the highest perfection. One and the same good deed may be done by different people for different motives, and for this reason they find themselves at different degrees of moral perfection. Take, for example, the virtue of almsgiving. Many give alms in order that prayers may certainly be offered on their behalf. This, of course, is not an evil thing. One who receives alms is morally obligated to pray to God for the benefactor. Yet to give alms with the condition that prayers must necessarily be offered for the giver is not pure and perfect almsgiving; in it something of self-interest clearly appears—indeed, a rather strong self-interest: money is paid in order to receive the fruits of prayer, which are immeasurably greater and more precious than any sum of money, more valuable than any material thing.
By saying this, I by no means intend to reproach those who give for the sake of prayer. On the contrary, I sincerely wish that Christians would always make use of this necessary and salvific remedy—to ease the sufferings of their conscience, to heal the sicknesses of their soul, and to strengthen the health of their spirit, feelings, and mind. I only wish to point out that such giving should not properly be called “almsgiving,” but rather “remuneration” for the labors of prayer, which are heavier, more responsible, and more precious than any other labors, and from which benefactors benefit through their gifts and good deeds.
Pure and perfect almsgiving, like every pure virtue, must be entirely free from all self-interest. According to the commandment of the Lord, we ought not only to give alms, but even to lend without any thought of return: “hoping for nothing again” (Luke 6:35). But even that is not enough. We Christians must give alms and do good not only to those who love us and pray for us, or from whom we expect nothing in return, but even to those who hate us. “Do good to them which hate you,” said the Savior, “that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44-45). And if we do good only to those who love us, we hardly differ even from pagans, who also love and do good to those who love them (Matthew 5:46-47; Luke 6:32-33).
But if someone is so heartless and cruel that he will not give anything even for the sake of prayers being offered for him—thus failing to show kindness even to those who love him—he is worse than a pagan, worse than an unbeliever. “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel,” testifies the holy Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 5:8).
Striving for the highest moral perfection—to become a son and friend of God—we must not despair if, it seems, we do not reach it, finding ourselves instead in the rank of a slave or a hireling. It has happened that good deeds have proved salvific even when performed not from entirely pure motives. In the Prolog, there is a story about a certain Peter the Merciful, who had once been so merciless that he never gave anything to anyone. One day, some beggars, discussing among themselves the various benefactors and non-benefactors, marveled at Peter’s lack of mercy, for his stinginess surpassed all others, and it had never happened that anyone had obtained even a little alms from him.
One of the beggars insisted that he had succeeded in obtaining something from Peter. The others disputed him. To prove his skill, the beggar went and began asking alms from Peter, who at that moment was unloading loaves of bread from a wagon into a barn. At first, Peter paid no attention, occupied with his business. But the persistent beggar continued to ask so insistently that Peter finally lost his temper. In a fit of anger, he rushed to grab something to drive away the annoying petitioner—but there was no stone, no stick, nothing nearby except the loaves of bread. Peter seized a loaf and hurled it at the beggar, who caught it and brought it back to his companions as proof of his success.
Soon afterward, Peter fell ill and approached death. God revealed to him in a vision that he had no good deeds to his account—save for that single act of almsgiving, when he had thrown the loaf at the beggar. Because of this, he was granted time for repentance. This so affected Peter that he became extraordinarily merciful: he freed all his slaves and gave away all his possessions to the poor, down to the last penny. When he had nothing left to give, Peter ordered himself to be sold into slavery and the money received to be given to the poor. Thus he earned the Kingdom of Heaven and was numbered among the saints.
Thus, if even an almsgiving done from such an impure motive as anger was counted as a true work of mercy and served as the cause of salvation for the one who performed it—how much more salvific are good deeds done from other, purer, nobler motives!
Therefore, strive to do good deeds from every possible motivation, in every moral condition: good is always good, though not always of equal worth. May the Lord God help you to bear fruits of goodness a hundredfold, or at least sixtyfold, and in the worst case thirtyfold, according to the parable of the Gospel. And from the state of seeds that are dried up along the wayside, choked by thorns, or destroyed upon stony ground, may He preserve you by His grace and loving-kindness.
Bishop Innokenty (Usov),
of Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma,
Collected Works, Vol. 1, pp. 45–49