9. Self-Justification.

The opposite of despair is carelessness and stony insensibility. People experience this

more often and, like despair, it is not easily cured. Of course it borders closely on weak

faith, although less decisively than the conscious doubts of a philosopher or reasoner, but

it is certainly no less stubborn, if not more so. Leo Tolstoy writes in his Confession that

he only began to think about questions of conscience and eternity in the fiftieth year of

his life, and previously he had not gotten round to this. He lived a “life like a drinking

bout,” passing from one attraction to another, and never thought deeply about questions

of eternity. Thus in confession people admit to committing adultery, to offending their

wives and parents, to deception, to total removal of their life from God’s temple, but so

lightheartedly that you will clearly see this means nothing to them, and that they are not

even thinking of beginning to struggle with these sins. This is what you must tell them:

“Although your sins are serious in themselves and would require exclusion from Holy

Communion for so many years — yet more terrible is this stupefaction of your con-

science, in the power of which you clearly experience no repentant grief over your sins.

You must know that Holy Communion can be given to you only after you promise to hate

these sins and begin to struggle with them. Otherwise you will not only not be worthy of

2 “Embittered” is a rendering of the Russian “ozlobleny.” It implies a general feeling of

antagonism and hostility towards others, including God, together with grief and

depression.

Holy Communion (which perhaps will not distress you very much in your present state),

but also, you will not remain at your present level of sinfulness. You see, none of the

world’s evildoers or criminals were born murderers or robbers, but before their first

offenses they differed from ordinary sinners only in that they did not take their sins and

mistakes to heart at all, did not repent of the offenses they had caused to others, and

whenever they were reproached by their elders or comrades they blamed someone else

for what had happened, like Adam and Eve after their fall into sin. And so you, while you

were innocent, despised adulterers, but after you fell, you began to justify yourself, and

then, when you were used to this abomination, you even boasted of it and, going even

further, you began to mock those who preserve their chastity. In a similar way the

conscience is lulled to sleep by worldly dissipation and corrupt comradeship, and it grows

ever deeper and deeper into other sins, desires and passions, and you are soon near to

daring calmly to commit criminal offenses.”

When he is admonishing such unconcerned people, both during confession and

while edifying his flock as a whole, the priest must warn them particularly persistently

against the spirit of self-justification, which is one of the principal enemies of our

salvation. Some people accepted the preaching of our Saviour and His Apostles, and

others rejected it. Within both groups there were great sinners and people of righteous

life. What were the spiritual qualities which caused them to accept or reject the Gospel of

salvation? It was almost always this: whoever had the spirit of self-justification and

considered himself a decent enough person rejected the preaching of repentance, the

preaching of the Gospel; and whoever considered himself a guilty sinner before God and

men accepted it and was saved, like Zaccheus, like the Wise Robber on the cross.

It is the same with Christians who have come to believe. The difference between

those who are being saved and those who are perishing, or are far from salvation, lies not

so much in the number of their sins, but in the inclination, or lack of it, to admit that they

are guilty and sinful. “You feel bitterly offended by your neighbour, you are convinced,

and perhaps correctly, that you are being unjustly deprived of your employment or

promotion; that you are being slandered, that your merits are unrecognized. Let us agree

that this is so. At present it is not possible to demand that you should be completely

insensitive towards all this. But, although you take these offenses to heart, remember

even more strongly and lament in your soul over the side of these events in which you

yourself sinned through laziness, malice, lying, obstinacy and so on. You will not be

justified before God by offenses that others commit against you, but you will have to

answer for your own guilt, especially if you do not wish to admit to it with repentance.

Let the Lord justify you for your repentance; do not justify yourself before Him, but

accuse yourself. Once, someone was talking to St. Tikhon of Zadonsk3 and could not find

any words with which to oppose his arguments about the faith, so he struck the saint in

the face. Then St. Tikhon himself fell at his feet and asked forgiveness for not warning

him against such a sin as striking one of God’s bishops in the face. Readiness to condemn

3 St. Tikhon of Zadonsk: A famous Russian bishop of the eighteenth century. As the bishop of

Voronezh he fought against the extreme ignorance of the local clergy and vestiges of pagan customs among

the people. He spent the last years of his life retired to a monastery in great meekness and humility. He is

the author of many very widely read spiritual works. See his life in “The Orthodox Word,” July-August,

1966.

oneself and not others is a great virtue, which not only exalts people in the eyes of God,

but also attracts the hearts of men.” Convince your spiritual children that they must fight

above all against the spirit of self-justification and condemnation of others, and explain

that if anyone comes to confession in such a spirit he will not receive any benefit from

the Holy Mystery. The benefit received from this depends on the degree of contrition of

heart. Let no one reassure himself that he is honourable or faithful to his wife or even that

he has preserved his virginity. Perhaps he is free from serious falls, but what would he be

like if he had undergone such temptations as his fallen brothers have, if he had not

received such good influences from people and books and such gifts from God, of which

others are deprived? “It is possible that in your condition they would have shown

incomparably more of their own good will towards spiritual perfection, and flourished in

various virtues and spiritual struggles. Behold those who seem to be poorer than you, and

behold those who struggle more earnestly than you for the salvation of their souls and

even pour forth constant tears of repentance. If even the great Ephraim the Syrian, who

was granted visions from God, wept profusely, then how can we sinners be strangers to a

spirit of constant repentance and self-reproach?” Admonish all your flock with such

words, but especially those who stand before you at holy confession without repentant

contrition. It is possible to be saved without many virtues, says St. Simeon the New

Theologian, but nobody has been saved who has not attained a spirit of compunction —

that is, of compunctionate repentance for one’s sins and joy over the mercy of God.