I don’t know why, but I am amazed when I find wisdom in a man who lived in the 8th century AD. For some reason I tend to think that people who lived 1200 years ago would only be able communicate to each other in one or two word phrases like “food. good. mmm.” and “cold. you. make fire.” Yet out of these medieval times emerges a man like Saint Peter Damaskin who speaks words that are still relevant today, over a millennium later.
Damaskin explains that “we are obligated to give thanks to God for all gifts and with patience and hope to endure all tribulations and evil consequences. For all of that which God gives us or permits to befall us, benefits our salvation.” He understood that each person is born into different circumstances and with different character qualities. Therefore Damaskin believed that God apportioned individual and particular gifts to each man according to what we need for our own salvation and according to what we can use to bless others.
These gifts might be:
- Riches for the sake of charity or poverty for the sake of patience with humility.
- Authority for the sake of justice and the strengthening of virtues or subjugation and slavery for the sake of the expeditious salvation of the soul.
- Health for the sake of helping the infirm or illness for the sake of the wreath of patience.
- Understanding and skill in gain for the sake of virtue or weakness and lack of skill for the sake of submissive humility.
Read it again and listen closely for these statements are profound. “All of this” he says, “even though it appears contrary to one another, nevertheless, it is by its purpose very good.” The sad thing is we often don’t use the positive gifts to benefit others nor do we easily learn from the painful “gifts”.
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Amazing article Natie boy!
As your words have immensely inspired me, let me reflect further upon this great man who left even to these days a significant written legacy. I found some stuff in couple of sources.
As I learned, there were actually two Saint Peter Damaskins, one who lived in the eighth century and the other who lived in the twelfth. Both died as Christian martyrs, martyred by the Arabs for defending the Christian Faith in the Middle East during very difficult times. The first was a Bishop of Damascus who so infuriated the Arab conquerors by his fearless preaching of Christ that the Caliph ordered his tongue cut out and exiled him to the south of Arabia. But even there, he continued to teach the Faith of Christ until he was martyred. The second Saint Peter of Damascus, lived four centuries later and was a monk with great experience of the inner struggle with the passions. He was a dedicated reader of Holy Scripture and of the Church Fathers was supposed to become a bishop of the city of Damascus, but was martyred for his defense of the Faith and beheaded by the Muslims. The focus of his work was discovering the root of man’s destruction and salvation, and which of his actions or practices does or does not bring him to salvation. The Saint tells us that the beginning of our spiritual development is the natural knowledge given us by God. That natural knowledge may come to us by the study of Scripture or other sacred works, or may be imparted “by means of the angel that is given in divine baptism to guard the soul of every believer, to act as his conscience and to remind him of the divine commandments of Christ. If the baptized person keeps these commandments, the grace of the Holy Spirit is preserved in him… Then, alongside this knowledge, there is our capacity to choose. This is the beginning of our salvation; by our free choice we abandon our own wishes and thoughts and do what God wishes and thinks. If we succeed in doing this, there is no object, no activity or place in the whole of creation that can prevent us from becoming what God from the beginning has wished us to be; that is to say, according to His image and likeness, gods by adoption through grace, dispassionate, just, good and wise, whether we are rich or poor, married or unmarried, in authority and free or under obedience and in bondage—in short, whatever our time, place or activity.” Saint Peter emphasizes the concept of our free will, of our freedom to choose God’s way, or the way of fallen mankind: “We do not all receive blessings in the same way. Some, on receiving the fire of the Lord, that is, His word, put it into practice and so become softer of heart, like wax, while others through laziness become harder than clay and altogether stone-like. And no one compels us to receive these blessings in different ways. It is as with the sun whose rays illumine all the world: the person who wants to see it can do so, while the person who does not want to see it is not forced to, so that he alone is to blame for his lightless condition. For God made both the sun and man’s eyes, but how a man uses them depends on himself. Similarly, then, God irradiates knowledge to all and at the same time He gives us faith as an eye through which we can perceive it.” Saint Peter Damaskin continues by writing that, should we grasp knowledge of God by our faith, and put that knowledge into practice in our lives, God will grant us greater knowledge which forces us to ever greater efforts until, we have control of ourselves and control of the passions that, if given free rein, threaten to deprive us of eternal life. “Once we have advanced thus far we shall not wish for anything except the will of God; rather we will joyfully abandon this transitory life out of love for God and our fellow-men. Through the wisdom and indwelling of the Holy Spirit and through adoption to sonship, we are crucified with Christ and buried with Him and we rise with Him and ascend with Him spiritually by imitating His way of life in this world.” Man possesses the gift of free will and therefore he may choose to plunge into pride, pleasures and glories of this world, or he may direct himself towards the eternal rewards of the world to come. May all of us choose wisely!
God bless you brother Nathaniel!