By Photios Kontoglou
On Pascha [Easter] Monday, in the sunset once midnight, previously dishonesty down to rest, I went out happening the little garden in imitation of my meeting. The sky was dark and wearing a veil with stars. I seemed to see it for the to start with time, and a unfamiliar psalmody seemed to relax from it. My chops murmured, very softly: "Elevate ye the Noble our God, and respect at the footstool of His feet." A holy man as soon as told me that inside these hours the reveal are opened. The air exhaled a scent of the vegetation and herbs I had planted. "Paradise and earth are bursting with the government of the Noble."I may perhaps well store remained in attendance without a friend in the world until break of day. I was as if apart from a suppose and apart from any perceptive to the earth. But fearing that my like would anxiety populate with me in the meeting, I returned and lay down.
Nap had not really engaged get of me; I do not know whether I was anger or out cold, afterward hastily a inexplicable man rose up previously me. He was as light as a dead man. His eyes were as if open, and he looked at me in fright. His purpose was be after a cover, be after a mummy's. His shimmering, dark orangey shield was unfolded go on hunger strike complete his dead man's intelligence with all its cavities. He was as if puffed. In one hand he engaged some generous of curious resolve which I may perhaps not make out; the other hand was clutching his breast as if he were nuisance.
This creature bursting me with fright. I looked at him and he looked at me apart from spoken language, as if he were waiting for me to recognize him, inexplicable as he was. And a express believed to me: "It is so-and-so!" And I well-known him at once. Subsequently he opened his chops and sighed. His express came from far away; it came up as from a unquestionable well.
He was in large drag, and I suffered for him. His hands, his feet, his eyes - everything showed that he was nuisance. In my despondency I was leaving to help him, but he gave me a sign with his hand to ruin. He began to polish in such a way that I froze. Subsequently he believed to me: "I store not come; I store been sent. I quaver apart from stop; I am scatterbrained. Self-control God to store pity on me. I seek to die but I cannot. Alas! No matter which you told me previously is true. Do you hoist how, particular days previously my death, you came to see me and pull your leg about religion? Submit were two other friends with me, unbelievers be after in my opinion. You pull your leg, and they mocked. In the role of you used up, they said: since a pity! He is smart and he believes the irrational things old women believe!'
"Another time, and other era too, I told you: feel affection for Photios, stop up money, or as well you wish die a pauper. Think at my currency, and I seek foster of them.' You told me then: store you signed a composition with death, that you can last longer than as tons living as you seek and blow your own horn a pleasurable old age?'
"And I replied: 'You wish see to what an age I wish last longer than. Now I am 75; I wish last longer than outer surface a hundred. My children are free from seek. My son earns a lot of money, and I store matrimonial my teenager to a thriving Ethiopian. My companion and I store foster money than we need. I am not be after you who channel to what the priests say: "A Christian come to an end to our life..." and the rest. Whatsoever store you to get from a Christian ending? Unscramble a full pinch and no doubts... Be inflicted with alms? Why did your so kindly God invent paupers? Why have to I food them? And they ask you, in order to go to Paradise, to food idlers! Do you seek to homily about Paradise? You know that I am the son of a priest and that I know well all these behavior. That populate who store no take care regard them is well ample, but you who store a protection store gone off course. If you continue to last longer than as you are perform, you wish die previously me, and you wish be likely for populate you store led off course. As a medical doctor I state you and avow that I wish last longer than a hundred and ten living...'"
After saying all this, he turned this way and that as if he were on a grille. I heard his groans: "Ah! Ouch! Oh! Oh!" He was ending for a use, and after that continued: "This is what I believed, and in a few days I was dead! I was dead, and I lost the wager! Whatsoever commotion was victim, what horror! Out of the frame, I descended happening the gulf. Whatsoever nuisance I store had up to now, what agony! No matter which you told me was true. You store won the wager!
"In the role of I was in the world anywhere you are now, I was an civilizing, I was a medical doctor. I had perceptive how to speak and to be listened to, to lampoon religion, to present whatever falls under the motive. And now I see that everything I called stories, myths, paper lanterns - is true. The drag which I am experiencing now - this is what is true, this is the animal that never sleeps, this is the gnashing of teeth."
After having unrecorded fittingly, he passed away. I easygoing heard his groans, which little by little sun-bleached out-of-the-way. Nap had begun to capture get of me, afterward I felt an icy hand tinge me. I opened my eyes and saw him anew previously me. This time he was foster profound and less important in suppose. He had become be after a be bothered baby, with a large old man's intelligence which he was shaking.
"In a squat time the day wish break, and populate who store sent me wish come to do research me!"
"Who are they?"
He pull your leg some mystified words which I may perhaps not make out. Subsequently he added: "Submit anywhere I am, in attendance are moreover tons who lampoon you and your wish. Now they understand that their spiritual darts store not gone out of the cemetery. Submit are each one populate you store done good to, and populate who store slandered you. The foster you absolve them, the foster they abhor you. Man is evil. Significantly of gala him, consideration makes him accusatory, equally it makes him enclose his prevention. The citizens of these following is drop than victim. They cannot foundation their dark cell to come and find you as I store done. They are dismally angst-ridden, lashed by the beat of God's love, as one of the Saints has believed [St. Isaac the Syrian]. The world is no matter which as well utterly from what we see! Our intelligence shows it to us in reverse. Now we understand that our intelligence was on its own irrational, our conversations were spiteful meanness, our joys were lies and illusions.
"You, who post God in your hearts, Whose word is Fixed idea, the on its own Fixed idea - you store won the large venture in the midst of believers and unbelievers. This venture I store lost. I contract, I sigh, and I find no rest. In truth, in attendance is no contrition in hell. Woe to populate who stroll as I did afterward I was on earth. Our flesh was smashed and mocked populate who whispered in God and eternal life; around anyone commended us. They treated you as mad, as imbeciles. And the foster you deal with our mockeries, the foster our rage increases.
"Now I see how furthest the go in front of evil men grieved you. How may perhaps you post with such forbearance the tainted darts which issued from our chops which treated you as hypocrites, mockers of God, and deceivers of the family. If these evil men who are easygoing on earth would see anywhere I am, if on its own they were in my place, they would contract for everything they are perform. I would be after to aspect to them and state them to distress their path, but I do not store the evidence to do so, in basic terms as the thriving man did not store it afterward he begged Abraham to send Lazarus the pauper. Lazarus was not sent, so that populate who sinned force be worthy of discipline and populate who went on the ways of God force be worthy of link.
"He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness yet more; and he that is grimy, let him he made grimy yet foster. And he that is perfectly, let him do righteousness yet more; and he that is holy, let him be made holy yet foster" (Apoc. 22:11).
Next these words he passed away.
Reference: masonsofheaven.blogspot.com
