Isaac of Nineveh, Mystic Treatises
IX – ON SINS (COMMITTED) INTENTIONALLY AND WITH EVIL WILL AND ON THOSE (COMMITTED) ACCIDENTALLY
There are sins in which a man is entangled through weakness and accidentally. And there are sins the source of which is the will; others (spring) from an uncultivated mind. Some are committed occasionally, others continually; others are customary. And all these classes and kinds of sins, though bound by the common verdict of reprehension, have a different character and their punishment may be greater or smaller.
Some sins are reprehended severely; others are near to mercy. God has also shown unto Adam, Eve and the serpent, though not one of them was exempted from receiving the retribution of his fault, a great variety in the curse which was directed against each one of them; and so He did in the curses directed against their offspring. In accordance with the propensity and inclination of each unto sin, is judgement made more heavy, in If any one be not inclined to follow sin, but he be drawn towards it on account of neglect regarding righteousness, although he be not zealous for it, his judgement will be severe even if the connection with sin be difficult for him. But if he be diligent and temptations rise, mercy is near to purify him, without doubt. For it is another thing that a man who is careful regarding excellence and constant in its works, meditating on it even in the night, should fail in any of its duties; while by day he is loaded with its burden and goes around with it, all his thoughts concentrated upon justness – it is a different thing that, while he is occupied with such things, through ignorance or the compulsion of opposition on the way of excellence and the mighty waves that arise every moment in his limbs, and the propensity towards aberration which is implanted in him as a test of freedom, the indicator of his scale should point somewhat to the left, and through the sickness of the flesh he should be entangled in any kind of sin and suffer and be sorry on account of it and bewail himself passionately because of his miserable weakness in the face of what overtakes him now and then.
It is a very different thing, that one being lax in the works of righteousness or wholly neglectful of the way, should run like a slave in complete obedience to all the delights of sin, and try to find the means of its accomplishment; and that like a slave he should purpose zealously to perform the will of his adversary, his limbs serving him as weapons on behalf of Satan in complete obedience and that he should not even think of repentance so as to draw nearer unto excellence and end his path of shortcomings.
Different are the trespasses and the stumbling-blocks laid on the way of virtue and in the course of righteousness. As the Fathers say: On the way of excellence there are stumbling-blocks, there are varying states, there is compulsion, and the like.
A different thing is death of the soul and complete destruction and total abandonment. This is known thereby that, although one falls, he does not forget the love of his Father; and although he is loaded with trespasses of every kind, his zeal for the service of good is not held back, nor does he desist from his course, nor abhor to stand in struggle against these things anew and with the same chance of being vanquished, nor cease from demolishing every day his building and beginning a (new) foundation.
And the word of the prophet is in his mouth: Till the hour of my departure from this world, rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. And he will not cease to struggle till death. He will not allow himself to be vanquished, as long as there is breath in his nostrils. And though his ship is wrecked every day and the sweat of his commerce becomes a prey to the depths, he does not cease to borrow and fit out ships and navigate with good hope; till the Lord, seeing his zeal, has mercy for his shipwrecks and inclines unto him in compassion and gives him strong impulses towards