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Thus saith the Lord: And many nations shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will tell us his way, and we will walk in it: for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. 4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into sickles: and nation shall not take up sword against nation, neither shall they learn to war any more. 5 And now, O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord. 6 For he has forsaken his people the house of Israel, because their land is filled as at the beginning with divinations, as the land of the Philistines, and many strange children were born to them. 7 For their land is filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures; their land also is filled with horses, and there was no number of chariots. 8 And the land is filled with abominations, even the works of their hands; and they have worshipped the works which their fingers made. 9 And the mean man bowed down, and the great man was humbled: and I will not pardon them. 10 Now therefore enter ye into the rocks, and hide yourselves in the earth, for fear of the Lord, and by reason of the glory of his might, when he shall arise to strike terribly the earth. 11 For the eyes of the Lord are high, but man is low; and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
St. Cyril of Alexandria contrasts the nobility of man’s first created nature with the degradation of man’s nature when he commits idolatry:
The God of all honored man by creating him by hand. He did not create man as he did all other creatures by means of a word, as when he said, “Let there be a firmament (Gen. 1:6),” and it was so. Instead, as Moses says, he took dust from the earth and fashioned man from it (Gen. 2:7). Man was made in the “image and likeness of God (Gen. 1: 28),” and he was appointed the ruler of everything on the earth (Gen. 1:28). Man was further honored with the presence of the Spirit of Life, for “he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). But, as it says in Scripture, “Man in his arrogance does not understand (Ps. 48:22).” He began to worship graven images, as the prophet put it: They bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. So man is humbled, and men are brought low (Esaias 2: 8-9). Such arrogance dishonors God and demeans human nature. For one is certainly able to perceive the Creator by analogy from the beauty of the things he has created. “His invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20.)” – St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Esaias, PG 70:16D-17A, 17C-20A
The one word “idolatry” encapsulates both the root of man’s original fall into sin and all of its ramifications. Adam fell because he accepted the primordial lie that he should worship himself rather than God, though he was really giving worship to the tempter. Either way – whether by worshipping his ego or worshipping the devil – fallen man unredeemed by grace worships the creature rather than the Creator, separates himself from the Source of life, and hands himself over to sin, the devil, death, and hell. This worship of the ego or of demons, however, does not usually manifest itself obviously as such. More often it takes the form of worshipping some created thing outside of ourselves, either directly in the form of the ritual idolatry of paganism or indirectly in sinful attachment to worldly goods and enslavement to our passions. All of these various excessive attachments, bad habits, and addictions are ramifications of our First Parents’ primordial transfer of the worship of their hearts from their Creator to the creation.
So all of these problems began when our First Parents accepted a lie as truth, which is delusion. The Fathers tell us that all sin, even now, begins with accepting as truth a logismos, that is, a misleading thoughtplanted in the mind either by the demons, by our fallen nature, or by the fallen world around us. Though, as St. Paul states in the passage quoted by St. Cyril, even fallen man can discern the existence of a single Creator and the basic moral law from simply observing the creation, he is still fundamentally powerless to resist the constant flow of logismoi that invade the mind every moment, until he enters the path of faith, baptism, and the liturgical, mysteriological, ascetical, saving and sanctifying life of the Church.
What is really difficult to accept is that even after we have believed the faith, been baptized, and started a regular life of daily prayer, confession, Holy Communion, and the struggle to cleanse the passions and to love God and neighbor, the thoughts that we think are good may still be misleading – either partially or entirely false. We know that the theological and moral dogmas of the Church, the main messages of Scripture and Tradition, are absolutely true and trustworthy. No problem there! But we have to apply these truths to the events and people in our lives, and, what is even harder, we have to apply these truths to understanding ourselves. Therein lies the rub. What we lack is that virtue called by the Fathers the “governing virtue”: discernment. And we are not alone: even men renowned for holiness of life have fallen before the end, because they lacked discernment; they accepted false thoughts about God or the creation or other people or themselves.
There are three powerful weapons against accepting false thoughts, and we need to use all three: The most essential of the three is, of course, frequent reception of Holy Communion after conscientious preparation. But to bear fruit in us, the reception of Holy Communion should be accompanied by two other practices: One is frequent revelation of our thoughts in confession, not only the obviously sinful ones such as impure, angry or anxious thoughts, but also those troubling or enticing thoughts that seem to be pious but which cause unease, gloominess, excessive trust or excessive distrust in one’s own judgment, thoughts that pose as accurate assessments of one’s spiritual state, and seemingly pious thoughts that arouse an unusual level of attraction or excitement. The third weapon is continual prayer using a short formula, which most often takes the form of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Continual prayer is not the same as continuous prayer. Continuous prayer is an advanced spiritual state available normally to those living in seclusion or to the elderly who have laid aside earthly responsibilities. But continual prayer – that is, very frequent prayer that becomes our “default” state of mind, though interrupted, albeit frequently, by distractions – can be practiced by all Orthodox Christians who ask the Lord for this grace and who apply themselves to the practice conscientiously.
When undertaken in the spirit of humility and repentance, strictly for the sake of our salvation, with no expectation of any high spiritual attainments, the simple practice of the Jesus Prayer becomes a strong bulwark against accepting false thoughts, thus enabling us to attain some level of discernment, the governing virtue, and thereby to escape the idolatry that arises when we accept the lie as the truth. Let us take this true thought to heart, and strive as best we can, God helping us.
Every Christian must always remember that he should unite with the Lord our Savior with all his being, letting Him come to dwell in his mind and in his heart; and the surest way to achieve such a union with the Lord, next to Communion of His Flesh and Blood, is the inner Jesus Prayer. Is the Jesus Prayer obligatory for laymen too, and not only for monks? Indeed it is obligatory, for, as we said, every Christian should be united with the Lord in his heart, and the best means to achieve such a union is precisely the Jesus Prayer. – Justin (Polyansky), Bishop of Ryazan, quoted in The Art of Prayer by Hegumen Chariton of Valaam, p. 88
