April: Day 9: Teaching 1:
Venerable Martyr Vadim
(You Must Listen To the Voice of Your Conscience)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Venerable Martyr Vadim
(You Must Listen To the Voice of Your Conscience)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The Venerable Martyr Vadim, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the 4th century in a Persian city during the reign of King Shapur. Having built a monastery outside the city at his own expense, he lived there. At that time, the sun and fire were worshiped in Persia. Shapur began to persecute Christians. Many of them were imprisoned, including Vadim. Unfortunately, not all of them were firm in their faith; some renounced their faith. Among those who renounced was a certain Prince Nersan. Shapur demanded that Nersan kill Vadim as proof of his sincere renunciation. Nersan agreed, but as soon as he raised his hand with the sword, his conscience began to speak in him, he trembled, and his hand dropped. But Nersan did not listen to the voice of conscience, again raised his trembling hand with the sword and, although not once, beheaded the monk, who fearlessly accepted a martyr's death.
After the death of the Venerable Martyr Vadim, Nersan, who bought his life by renouncing Christ and involuntarily killing a courageous confessor of the Christian faith, lost his peace and joy. His conscience did not give him peace, and he died by suicide.
II. From the brief outline of the life of the Venerable Martyr Vadim we have seen, brethren, what a daring crime the apostate Nersan committed, and how, tormented by his conscience, he reached despair, ending in suicide. It is so dangerous to become a victim of the torments of conscience and so necessary to listen to the saving voice of conscience in time.
Here are the reasons why you need to listen to this voice of conscience.
a) Conscience is the power of our soul, which prompts us to good and warns us against evil, it is the interpreter of the moral law inscribed by God on our hearts, it is the voice of God in us. The demands of conscience are similar to the prescriptions of the written, revealed law of God. What the law of God teaches and commands, that is what conscience teaches and inspires. What the law of God forbids, that is what conscience forbids. The law of God commands us to believe in God, to honor Him above all creatures, to obey Him as the Lord of all, to fear God as the most righteous Judge, to love Him more than anything, to thank Him as the all-generous Benefactor, to hope in Him as the All-Good and Almighty - conscience inspires the same in us.
The law of God commands us to show respect and obedience to parents and all authorities established by God, and conscience also inspires the same.
The law of God forbids harming a person, taking his life, forbids debauchery, forbids stealing someone else's property openly and secretly by cunning and violence, forbids lying, flattering, deceiving, slandering a neighbor, envying another's happiness, wishing ill and gloating over the misfortune of a brother: conscience forbids the same. Pay attention, brethren, to your conscience and do not delay in fulfilling what it will inspire. Conscience is a true teacher; he who listens to it is not subject to stumbling. In all your deeds use conscience as a lamp: for it shows all your deeds in life, both bad and good, perfectly.
b) Our conscience not only disposes us to do good and protects us from evil, but it also impartially and incorruptibly judges us for our actions, mercilessly and inexorably punishes us for any evil we have done. Conscience is a true domestic court. “A criminal can sometimes escape human judgment, but he will never escape the judgment of his conscience,” teaches Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Epistle 5). Conscience feels every movement of the heart, every intention, desire, every thought, every deed it gives a proper assessment: it condemns evil, frightens, delays, and praises, approves, encourages good; it punishes for evil with anxiety, fear, shame, remorse, melancholy, and rewards for good with peace, complacency, self-indulgence, and unearthly joy. What made grave, criminal offenders reveal their secret crimes, knowing that for them they would be punished by human judgment? Was it not the convictions of conscience, which did not give them peace? Why does a thief become overwhelmed with timidity, an adulterer with shame, a murderer with fear, a sacrilegious person with trembling, when they commit atrocities in the darkness of night, unknown to others? Is it not from the persecution of their conscience? Why do many hardened villains and grave criminals who committed many atrocities and crimes, without shame and fear, finally decided on suicide? From the rebellion against them of a hitherto suppressed conscience, from its sharp accusations and unbearable remorse. So it happened with Judas the traitor, who, being cruelly tormented by the conscience awakened in him, hanged himself; so it happened, as we have seen, with Nersan the apostate.
c) True, there are people whom conscience does not judge, does not convict, does not torment: but these people have either ascended to the heights of virtue, or have fallen into the abyss of vice.
A perfectly righteous person has nothing for which conscience can convict or reproach, and in a conscience stained with sins, even great sins are not noticeable; just as in a smoked mirror the one looking into it does not see either his face or his shortcomings.
The soul of a sinner, not convicted by his conscience, is a sea, calm on the surface, but in its depths nest and move "insects, of which there is no number!" The imaginary calm of such a sinner is the silence before the storm, because sooner or later, but at last the minutes will come when the voice of conscience, muffled by him, will resound with all its force in his soul and shake its whole being, as the vaults of heaven are shaken by strong peals of thunder. Such minutes happen during the adversities of life, and especially the minutes before death, when everything we have done throughout our lives, beginning with early childhood, appears before us as clearly as if in the palm of our hand, will seem to us to have been done as if yesterday, and in the afterlife the pangs of conscience will become for sinners that worm that never dies and that fire that never goes out, which is spoken of in the Gospel.
III. Therefore, brethren, we must live according to the law of God and according to our conscience, so that for us conscience would not be a cruel accuser and tormentor, but a good and gentle comforter and guide. It is necessary to develop and sharpen our conscience by studying the written law of God and the instructions of the God-wise teachers.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
