Unseen Warfare trilogy, by Jack Sparks

  • Victory in the Unseen WarfareSaint Theo­phan the Recluse’ 19th cen­tury book “Unseen War­fare” is a clas­sic of Ortho­dox lit­er­a­ture, but it is a very dif­fi­cult read, both because of some archaic lan­guage and styling and because it is just very pro­found mate­r­ial writ­ten by a great spir­i­tual war­rior. Father Sparks has refash­ioned the book into three books — “Vic­tory in the Unseen War­fare,” “Virtue in the Unseen War­fare” and “Prayer in the Unseen War­fare” — and in doing so has man­aged to keep the incred­i­ble insight and aids of the orig­i­nal while putting the text into a form that makes it eas­ier to under­stand. Because he ends each chap­ter with a few ques­tions to help you con­sider the read­ing, it seems to me to be ideal mate­r­ial for a young adult or adult study group.

    Just to restate, for those who aren’t famil­iar with St. Theo­phan, the mate­r­ial isn’t for the faint of heart, a fact that Fr. Sparks alludes to the preface:

    The book you are hold­ing con­tains essen­tial infor­ma­tion for all Chris­tians. Its use, how­ever, requires a con­text: the Church and Ortho­dox spir­i­tual guid­ance. No one should under­take to fol­low all that is said here with­out guid­ance. Every­one needs a spir­i­tual father or guide.

    In case a per­sonal anec­dote says it bet­ter, this is my sec­ond time through the tril­ogy. The first time around, I had to get some cor­rec­tive instruc­tion from my spir­i­tual father to help me out of some of the prob­lems I got into by get­ting too ambi­tious for my level of spir­i­tual maturity.

    I think the best way to illus­trate both the edi­fi­ca­tion and dif­fi­culty of the mate­r­ial is just to offer the first chap­ter from “Vic­tory in the Unseen War­fare” as an excerpt. It makes for a long read, but I think this chap­ter in its entirety con­tains some of the best advice a new Ortho­dox begin­ner — or an old one — may ever get. (If you really want the 1-minute ver­sion, skip to the parts I’ve ital­i­cized, though you’ll be miss­ing some of the con­text):

    The Chal­lenge of Chris­t­ian Per­fec­tion
    As sin­cere Chris­tians, we wish to be what­ever God wants us to be — and ulti­mately, that means to be per­fect. Our Lord com­mands: “There­fore you shall be per­fect, just as your Father in heaven is per­fect” (Matthew 5:48).
    Saint Paul tells us, “Do not be chil­dren in under­stand­ing; how­ever, in mal­ice be babes, but in under­stand­ing be mature” (1 Corinthi­ans 14:20). He also writes, “Epa­phras … [labors] fer­vently for you in prayers, that you may stand per­fect and com­plete in all the will of God” (Colos­sians 4:12). In another place we read, “There­fore, leav­ing the dis­cus­sion of the ele­men­tary prin­ci­ples of Christ, let us go on to per­fec­tion, not lay­ing again the foun­da­tion of repen­tance from dead works and of faith toward God” (Hebrew 6:1).

    The com­mand to strive for per­fec­tion is found in the Old Tes­ta­ment as well. In Deuteron­omy, God says to Israel, “You shall be blame­less [or per­fect] before the Lord your God” (Deut. 18:13). David advises his son Solomon, “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal [or per­fect] heart and with a will­ing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and under­stands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you for­sake Him, He will cast you off for­ever” (1 Chron­i­cles 28:9).
    We can­not fail to see from these exam­ples that God calls for per­fec­tion on the part of Chris­tians — that is, He wants us to be per­fect in all virtues.

    What is Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion?
    If we wish to reach such heights, we must first learn what con­sti­tutes Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion. If we have not learned this les­son, we may turn away from the right path and go off in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, think­ing all the while that we are pro­gress­ing toward perfection.

    Here is the truth we must absorb: The great­est and most per­fect thing a human being can ever desire to achieve is to come near to God and dwell in union with Him.

    Some peo­ple — those who judge by appear­ances — say the per­fect Chris­t­ian life con­sists in car­ry­ing out fasts, vig­ils, pros­tra­tions, sleep­ing on bare earth, and sim­i­lar sever­i­ties of the body. Oth­ers will say it con­sists in say­ing many prayers at home and attend­ing long ser­vices in church. Still oth­ers think per­fec­tion con­sists entirely of men­tal prayer, soli­tude, iso­la­tion and silence.

    The major­ity, how­ever, will say per­fec­tion comes only by strictly observ­ing all the rules and prac­tices of the tra­di­tion, nei­ther going over­board nor being defi­cient, but keep­ing to a sort of “golden moderation.”

    So we see that, by and large, peo­ple judge per­fec­tion by the exter­nal stan­dard of obser­vance of cer­tain prac­tices. But all the virtues men­tioned above do not, in and of them­selves, con­sti­tute the Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion we are seek­ing. They are only means and meth­ods designed to help us acquire it — and they may or may not do so.

    There is, of course, no doubt these things do help some peo­ple to attain per­fec­tion in the Chris­t­ian life. There are vir­tu­ous peo­ple who prac­tice these virtues as they should, to acquire strength and power against their own sin­ful ten­den­cies. Through these prac­tices, they gain courage to with­stand the temp­ta­tions and seduc­tions of our three main ene­mies: the world, the flesh and the devil. By using these means prop­erly, and at the right time, they gain the spir­tual sup­port so nec­es­sary to all ser­vants of God, and espe­cially to beginners.

    These vir­tu­ous peo­ple prac­tice piety, each as is appro­pri­ate for him­self. They may fast to sub­due their unruly flesh, prac­tice vig­ils to sharpen their inner vision, and sleep on uncom­fort­able sur­faces to keep their minds and bod­ies from becom­ing soft through too much sleep. They may prac­tice silence and go into soli­tude to avoid any entice­ment to offend the All-Holy God. They also recite prayers, attend church ser­vices, and carry out other acts of devo­tion in order to keep their minds on heav­enly things.

    In addi­tion, they read of the life, suf­fer­ing and death of our Lord for the sole pur­pose of under­stand­ing more clearly their own defi­cien­cies and the mer­ci­ful loving-kindness of God. This read­ing helps them desire and learn to fol­low the Lord Jesus Christ, bear­ing their cross with self-denial. It also strength­ens their love of God as they learn to abhor their own sinfulness.

    Pit­falls of decep­tion
    On the other hand, these same activ­i­ties may do more harm than good to those who take them as the sole basis of their life and their hope. It is also dan­ger­ous to under­take them inde­pen­dently or inap­pro­pri­ately, with­out the direc­tion of a spir­i­tual father or guide. The harm can come, not from the nature of the deeds, but through the fault of those who use them improp­erly — giv­ing atten­tion only to the exter­nal prac­tice, allow­ing their hearts to be moved only by their own will and the will of the devil. In their case the devil, see­ing that they have left the right path, glee­fully refrains from inter­fer­ing with their activ­i­ties, even allow­ing them to increase and mul­ti­ply their efforts in obe­di­ence to their vain ideas.

    Expe­ri­enc­ing cer­tain spir­i­tual stir­rings and com­forts along with their pious activ­i­ties, such peo­ple begin to imag­ine they have already attained the con­di­tion of the angels and to feel that God Him­self is present in them. At times, in fact, engrossed in the con­tem­pla­tion of abstract and unearthly things, they imag­ine they have com­pletely tran­scended this world and have been trans­ported to the third heaven.

    Nev­er­the­less, Chris­tians who exam­ine the life and char­ac­ter of such peo­ple can clearly see how sin­fully they behave and how far they are from true per­fec­tion. As a rule, peo­ple who rely on their right­eous deeds as their sole basis of life and hope dis­play cer­tain dis­cernible characteristics:

    • They always wish to be con­sid­ered bet­ter and more impor­tant than other people.
    • They want their own way and are stub­born in their decisions.
    • They are blind in every­thing con­cern­ing them­selves, but are very clear­sighted when it comes to exam­in­ing the words and actions of others.

    If some­one else is held by oth­ers in the same esteem, these peo­ple think they enjoy (or should enjoy), they can­not bear it and become openly hos­tile to that per­son. And if any­one interef­eres with them in their pious activ­i­ties, God for­bid! They imme­di­ately become indig­nant, boil over with anger, and become quite unlike what they are believed to be.

    If, desir­ing to bring them to a knowl­edge of them­selves and to lead them on the right path to per­fec­tion, God sends them afflic­tions and sick­ness — or allows them to be per­se­cuted, the means by which He ordi­nar­ily tests His true and real ser­vants — this test imme­di­ately shows what is hid­den in their hearts and how deeply they are cor­rupted by pride. For what­ever afflic­tion comes upon them, they refuse to bend their necks to the yoke of God’s will and to trust in His secret and right­eous judg­ments. They do not want to fol­low the exam­ple of our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, who hum­bled Him­self and suf­fered for our sakes. They refuse to be hum­ble, to con­sider them­selves the low­est of all crea­tures, to regard their per­se­cu­tors as good friends, tools of God’s gen­eros­ity toward them and helpers in their salvation.

    Thus, it is clear such peo­ple are in great dan­ger. Their inner eye, that is, their spirit, is dark­ened, and look­ing at them­selves through it, they see incor­rectly. Remem­ber­ing their exter­nal pious works and con­sid­er­ing them good, they imag­ine they have already reached per­fec­tion. Puff­ing them­selves up, they begin to judge oth­ers. After this it is impos­si­ble for any­one to con­vert such peo­ple, except through God’s spe­cial influ­ence. An obvi­ous sin­ner will turn toward good much more eas­ily than will a secret sin­ner who hides under the cloak of vis­i­ble virtues.

    Draw­ing near to God
    Now, hav­ing seen clearly and def­i­nitely that spir­i­tual life and per­fec­tion do not con­sist in these vis­i­ble virtues of which we have writ­ten, we must learn in what they do con­sist: in com­ing near to God and dwelling in union with Him, as we said at the very beginning.

    Along with this will come a heart­felt real­iza­tion of the good­ness and great­ness of God,. together with con­scious­ness of our own weak­ness, inabil­ity, and sus­cep­ti­bil­ity to sin. We must love God and feel remorse for our sins, hum­bling our­selves not only before God but also before all peo­ple, for the sake of our love of God. We must renounce all will of our own and learn per­fect obe­di­ence to the will of God. Finally, we must desire all these things with a pure heart, to the glory of God (1 Corinthi­ans 10:31), from sheer desire to please God — because He Him­self wishes it and because we should so love Him and work for Him.

    This is the law of love, which the Holy Spirit Him­self has writ­ten on the hearts of the faith­ful. This is the self-denial our Sav­ior calls for so earnestly in the Gospels. This is the blessed yoke of Jesus Christ and His bur­den that is light. This is the sub­mis­sion to God’s will which our Redeemer and Teacher demands from us both by His word and by His example.

    Did not our Mas­ter, the Author of our sal­va­tion, our Lord Jesus Christ, tell us to say when pray­ing to the heav­enly Father, “Our Father … Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9, 10)? And did not He Him­self exclaim on the eve of His suf­fer­ing and death, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42)? And did He not say of His whole work, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38)?

    Do you now see what all this means, broth­ers and sis­ters? Like most sin­cere Chris­tians, you are prob­a­bly already express­ing your readi­ness and are long­ing to reach the height of such per­fec­tion. Blessed by your zeal! But pre­pare your­self for labor, sweat, and strug­gle, begin­ning with your very first steps on the path. You must sac­ri­fice every­thing to God and do only His will. You will meet within your­self a mul­ti­tude of desires, all clam­or­ing for sat­is­fac­tion, whether or not it agrees with the will of God. Nor can you reach per­fec­tion all at once — some­times a life­time is required.

    There­fore, to reach our cho­sen aim, we must first curb our own desires, sub­mit­ting them to the will of God. In order to suc­ceed in this, we must con­stantly oppose all evil in our­selves and urge our­selves toward good. In other words, we must cease­lessly fight against our­selves and against every­thing that arouses and sup­ports our sin­ful pas­sions. So pre­pare your­self for this strug­gle and this war­fare, know­ing the crown — the attain­ment of your desired aim — is given to none but the most coura­geous of those who go to war.

    Weapons for vic­tory
    But if this is the hard­est of all wars — since it is within our­selves that we meet oppo­si­tion — vic­tory in it is the most glo­ri­ous of all. And, what is most impor­tant, it is the most pleas­ing to God. If, inspired by devo­tion, we over­come and put to death our unruly pas­sions — our sin­ful lusts and desires — we will please God more and will work for Him more beau­ti­fully than if we whip our­selves till we draw blood, or exhaust our­selves by fasts more than any ancient her­mit of the desert.

    On the other hand, not even the most mag­nif­i­cent good deed will save us if we remain slaves to our pas­sion. Indeed, what­ever work we may under­take, how­ever glo­ri­ous, will not lead us to our desired aim if we give our pas­sions free rein, allow­ing them to live and act within us.

    Finally, if after learn­ing what con­sti­tutes Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion, and real­iz­ing that to achieve it you must wage a con­stant, cruel war with your­self, you really desire to be vic­to­ri­ous in this unseen war­fare and be rewarded with a crown, you must plant in your heart the fol­low­ing four dis­po­si­tions and spir­i­tual activ­i­ties. You must arm your­self with these invis­i­ble weapons, the most trust­wor­thy and uncon­quer­able of all:

    • Do not rely on your­self in the spir­i­tual warfare.
    • Bear always in your heart a per­fect and all-daring trust in God alone.
    • Strive with­out ceasing.
    • Remain con­stantly in prayer.

    Study ques­tions
    [first sec­tion] “What is Chris­t­ian perfection?”

    1. Be sure you under­stand the def­i­n­i­tion of Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion. Try to give it in one brief sentence.
    2. Con­sider the things many peo­ple think con­sti­tute the per­fect Chris­t­ian life. Why would they think this way? Con­sider what Scrip­ture says con­cern­ing each of these practices.
    3. What is the value of those vir­tous prac­tices con­sid­ered so impor­tant? Con­sider them one by one. What role can they play in mak­ing us what God wants us to be?

    “Pit­falls of deception”

    1. What is the dan­ger in mis­use of these vir­tous practices?
    2. What are some signs of their mis­use? What dan­ger signs should we look for in ourselves?
    3. How can we help our­selves when we see we are in such danger?


    “Draw­ing near to God”

    1. Con­sider those qual­i­ties of heart, soul, and spirit which are con­nected with per­fec­tion. What is their dis­tin­guish­ing mark?

    “Weapons for victory”

    1. How can we make our­selves ready for the pur­suit of Chris­tians per­fec­tion, for the unseen warfare?

    Related posts:

    1. Spir­i­tual Coun­sels by Fr. John of Kronstadt
    2. Rec­om­mended read­ing (and a rant)
    3. Prayer request

    November 20th, 2005 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • jean 11.20.2005

    Hmmmm. I have read quotes from St. Stephan the Recluse, but never have been able to locate the sources. Chris­t­ian Per­fec­tion was a Wes­leyan empha­sis, and still gets some lip ser­vice from United Method­ism, although Wes­ley defined it dif­fer­ently: the love of God with all one’s heart, strength, soul and mind, and the love of neigh­bor as one­self. Jesus’ two great­est commandments.

    Thanks for this post.

  • Grace

    I tried doing a Google search for St. Stephen the Recluse and I didn’t come up with any­thing. (This book’s author is St. Theo­phan the Recluse, but I assume you were think­ing of somone similar?)

    You’ve got me think­ing about the word “per­fect” as it was used here. I sup­pose in a way I skimmed past it. I tend to inter­pret things more fig­u­ra­tively than lit­er­ally, and I think of the quest of “per­fec­tion” just as being that which you know you’ll have to keep try­ing for but which you’ll never attain this side of glory. But that’s not to say that’s accu­rate — it may just be all I can fig­ure out.

  • This Side of Glory » Blog Archive » The way there

    […] It’s so easy to stay busy with dietary restric­tions and extra prayer ser­vices and miss the whole point of Lent. In the book “Spir­i­tual War­fare” (turned into an excel­lent three-book series by Fr. Jack Sparks), Saint Theo­phan tells us what the Lenten duties are, but also — this was the impor­tant part for me — what they’re NOT: …We must first learn what con­sti­tutes Chris­t­ian per­fec­tion. If we have not learned this les­son, we may turn away from the right path and go off in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, think­ing all the while that we are pro­gress­ing toward perfection. … […]

  • ROY SAMUEL

    i am ortho­dox chris­t­ian from ker­ala india.

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