...continued from part ten.
17. The Influence of Evil Spirits on People After Their Death
The influence of evil spirits on people does not end with the limits of a person’s earthly life, but continues after death. According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, Angels of God and tormenting spirits appear to people who are dying, when the soul is separated from the body. Jesus Christ Himself, in the Parable of the Rich Fool, says: “And God said: Fool! This night your soul will be required of you” (Luke 12:20) – or "they will take," which in Slavonic is “istyazut”, i.e. evil spirits; and in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus He said: “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22). “Then the angels led Lazarus away”, reasons Saint John Chrysostom. “On the contrary, the soul of that (rich man) was taken by some terrible forces, perhaps sent for this, for the soul does not depart from this life by itself, since this is impossible. If we, moving from one city to another, need a guide, then the soul, torn from the body and presented to the future life, will need guides even more. Therefore, flying away from the body, it is afraid and trembles; the consciousness of sins always torments us, but especially at that hour when we are about to be led away to the tortures there.”
And indeed, if the air is filled with evil spirits (Eph. 6:12), then the soul of man inevitably, upon separation from the body, enters their realm. Saint Athanasius the Great relates the following: “Once, at the coming of the ninth hour, Anthony the Great was suddenly taken up by the Spirit and placed on high. The demons in the air resisted his progress, the Angels, arguing with them, demanded that he state the reasons for their opposition, because Anthony had cleansed himself of sins. The demons tried to expose the sins he had committed from his very birth, but the Angels stopped the mouths of the slanderers, telling them that they should not count his sins from birth, already blotted out by the grace of Christ, but let them present, if they have any, the sins he committed after the time he accepted monasticism. During the accusation the demons uttered many impudent lies, but since their slanders were devoid of evidence, a free path was opened for Anthony.”
Saint Basil the Great says in one place: “Let no one flatter himself with vain words, for 'sudden destruction comes upon them' (1 Thess. 5:3), and an upheaval will befall you like a storm. A gloomy Angel will come, forcibly lead and drag your soul, bound by sins, often turning to what it leaves here, and weeping silently, because the instrument of weeping has already closed.”
Blessed John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria, speaks thus about the departure of the soul from the body: “When the soul leaves the body and begins to ascend to heaven, demons meet it and subject it to many tortures... During the soul’s journey, the holy Angels cannot help it; only repentance, good deeds, and most of all, almsgiving help it. If we do not repent of some sin here through forgetfulness, then by almsgiving we can free ourselves from the violence of demonic ordeals.” The Venerable Isaiah the Hermit says in his sixth discourse: “When the soul leaves the body, Angels accompany it; dark forces come out to meet it, wishing to restrain it with something. At that time, it is not the Angels who oppose the enemies, but the deeds done by the soul that protect and guard it from sins, not allowing them to touch it. If her deeds prevail, then the Angels sing a song of praise to her and lead her with joy before the face of God.”
Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his “Discourse on the Departure of the Soul” testifies especially clearly that the power of evil spirits over people extends even after death: “What fear and trembling awaits you, soul, on the day of death! You will see terrible, wild, cruel, merciless, shameless demons, like dark Moors, standing before you. One vision of them is more cruel than any torment. The soul, seeing them, becomes confused, agitated, restless, seeks to hide, runs to God's Angels. The Holy Angels hold the soul; passing with them through the air and rising, it encounters the tollhouses that guard the path from earth to heaven. Each tollhouse tests the sins belonging to it; each passion, each sin has its tormentors. What fear, trembling and anxiety the soul must feel, seeing all this, until the sentence is pronounced that frees it. The divine powers stand in the face of the evil spirits and present the good thoughts, words and deeds belonging to the soul, and it, in fear and trembling, in the midst of the Angels and demons arguing about it, has either its justification and liberation, or condemnation and destruction. If it has lived a piously and God-pleasing life, then the Angels accept it, and it calmly goes to God ... If it turns out that the soul has lived in negligence and fornication, then it will hear the most fierce voice: 'Let the wicked be taken away, lest he see the glory of God.' The holy Angels of God leave it and the Moorish demons snatch it away. They begin to beat it without mercy and bring it down to earth; then they cast it into a dark and gloomy country, where there is neither light nor life for man, but eternal darkness and endless sorrow. There is heard incessantly: 'Alas! Alas!' There they call, but there is no one to help; there they cry out, and no one delivers. There is no way to tell of the misfortune there, there is no way to express the darkness there to which the souls imprisoned there are subjected.”
The truth of the above words of the holy father is confirmed by the following incident, given in the Menaion. In Carthage there lived a warrior Taxiotes, who spent his life in sin. A plague that occurred in the city had a beneficial effect on Taxiotes. Fearing death, he repented and settled outside the city, but, at the suggestion of the devil, he got together with the wife of a farmer. Soon he was bitten by a snake and died, not having time to repent. He was buried in a neighboring monastery. Six hours after the burial he rose from the dead, but came to his senses a little on the fourth day, and this is what he told the blessed Carthaginian bishop Tarasios: “When I was dying, I saw the Moors appearing to me. Their appearance was very terrible: my soul, looking at them, was very disturbed. Then I saw two beautiful youths, in whose company I began to ascend to the heights. And so we reached the toll houses that guard the rising and hold every soul. And I saw that the Angels were holding all my good deeds in a small chest and comparing them with the evil ones. Thus we passed several toll houses and approached the toll house of fornication; here the evil spirits held me and presented me with all the carnal deeds committed since childhood. The angels who guided me said: 'All the sins you committed in the city, God forgave you, because you repented of them.' To this the demons replied: But, having left the city, in the village you fell into sin with the farmer’s wife.' The angels, hearing this and not finding a good deed with which to atone for my sin , departed; then I was lowered into the underworld of hades.”
The teaching of the Holy Church about the power of evil spirits over us even after death runs through the entire divine services. Wishing to sow in our hearts a soul-saving fear and prepare us for a good answer “at the Dread Judgment of Christ,” the Holy Church reminds us of the tollhouses in its hymns. In the Canon of Supplication to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos, sung at the separation of the soul from the body, it is read:
“Enable me to pass unhindered over the prince of the air, the violent, the tormentor, the keeper of terrible paths and the vain interrogator of these words, as I depart from the earth.”
“Drive away the ruler of bitter ordeals, the ruler of the world, far from me.”
In the prayer before the kontakion and oikos of the Akathist to the Mother of God it is read:
“The dead are revived by You (Mother of God), for You have given birth to hypostatic Life: those who were previously mute become eloquent, lepers are cleansed, illnesses are driven away, and multitudes of spirits of the air are defeated.”
In the “Rite for the Separation of the Soul from the Body, When a Person Suffers for a Long Time,” it is read:
17. The Influence of Evil Spirits on People After Their Death
The influence of evil spirits on people does not end with the limits of a person’s earthly life, but continues after death. According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, Angels of God and tormenting spirits appear to people who are dying, when the soul is separated from the body. Jesus Christ Himself, in the Parable of the Rich Fool, says: “And God said: Fool! This night your soul will be required of you” (Luke 12:20) – or "they will take," which in Slavonic is “istyazut”, i.e. evil spirits; and in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus He said: “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22). “Then the angels led Lazarus away”, reasons Saint John Chrysostom. “On the contrary, the soul of that (rich man) was taken by some terrible forces, perhaps sent for this, for the soul does not depart from this life by itself, since this is impossible. If we, moving from one city to another, need a guide, then the soul, torn from the body and presented to the future life, will need guides even more. Therefore, flying away from the body, it is afraid and trembles; the consciousness of sins always torments us, but especially at that hour when we are about to be led away to the tortures there.”
And indeed, if the air is filled with evil spirits (Eph. 6:12), then the soul of man inevitably, upon separation from the body, enters their realm. Saint Athanasius the Great relates the following: “Once, at the coming of the ninth hour, Anthony the Great was suddenly taken up by the Spirit and placed on high. The demons in the air resisted his progress, the Angels, arguing with them, demanded that he state the reasons for their opposition, because Anthony had cleansed himself of sins. The demons tried to expose the sins he had committed from his very birth, but the Angels stopped the mouths of the slanderers, telling them that they should not count his sins from birth, already blotted out by the grace of Christ, but let them present, if they have any, the sins he committed after the time he accepted monasticism. During the accusation the demons uttered many impudent lies, but since their slanders were devoid of evidence, a free path was opened for Anthony.”
Saint Basil the Great says in one place: “Let no one flatter himself with vain words, for 'sudden destruction comes upon them' (1 Thess. 5:3), and an upheaval will befall you like a storm. A gloomy Angel will come, forcibly lead and drag your soul, bound by sins, often turning to what it leaves here, and weeping silently, because the instrument of weeping has already closed.”
Blessed John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria, speaks thus about the departure of the soul from the body: “When the soul leaves the body and begins to ascend to heaven, demons meet it and subject it to many tortures... During the soul’s journey, the holy Angels cannot help it; only repentance, good deeds, and most of all, almsgiving help it. If we do not repent of some sin here through forgetfulness, then by almsgiving we can free ourselves from the violence of demonic ordeals.” The Venerable Isaiah the Hermit says in his sixth discourse: “When the soul leaves the body, Angels accompany it; dark forces come out to meet it, wishing to restrain it with something. At that time, it is not the Angels who oppose the enemies, but the deeds done by the soul that protect and guard it from sins, not allowing them to touch it. If her deeds prevail, then the Angels sing a song of praise to her and lead her with joy before the face of God.”
Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his “Discourse on the Departure of the Soul” testifies especially clearly that the power of evil spirits over people extends even after death: “What fear and trembling awaits you, soul, on the day of death! You will see terrible, wild, cruel, merciless, shameless demons, like dark Moors, standing before you. One vision of them is more cruel than any torment. The soul, seeing them, becomes confused, agitated, restless, seeks to hide, runs to God's Angels. The Holy Angels hold the soul; passing with them through the air and rising, it encounters the tollhouses that guard the path from earth to heaven. Each tollhouse tests the sins belonging to it; each passion, each sin has its tormentors. What fear, trembling and anxiety the soul must feel, seeing all this, until the sentence is pronounced that frees it. The divine powers stand in the face of the evil spirits and present the good thoughts, words and deeds belonging to the soul, and it, in fear and trembling, in the midst of the Angels and demons arguing about it, has either its justification and liberation, or condemnation and destruction. If it has lived a piously and God-pleasing life, then the Angels accept it, and it calmly goes to God ... If it turns out that the soul has lived in negligence and fornication, then it will hear the most fierce voice: 'Let the wicked be taken away, lest he see the glory of God.' The holy Angels of God leave it and the Moorish demons snatch it away. They begin to beat it without mercy and bring it down to earth; then they cast it into a dark and gloomy country, where there is neither light nor life for man, but eternal darkness and endless sorrow. There is heard incessantly: 'Alas! Alas!' There they call, but there is no one to help; there they cry out, and no one delivers. There is no way to tell of the misfortune there, there is no way to express the darkness there to which the souls imprisoned there are subjected.”
The truth of the above words of the holy father is confirmed by the following incident, given in the Menaion. In Carthage there lived a warrior Taxiotes, who spent his life in sin. A plague that occurred in the city had a beneficial effect on Taxiotes. Fearing death, he repented and settled outside the city, but, at the suggestion of the devil, he got together with the wife of a farmer. Soon he was bitten by a snake and died, not having time to repent. He was buried in a neighboring monastery. Six hours after the burial he rose from the dead, but came to his senses a little on the fourth day, and this is what he told the blessed Carthaginian bishop Tarasios: “When I was dying, I saw the Moors appearing to me. Their appearance was very terrible: my soul, looking at them, was very disturbed. Then I saw two beautiful youths, in whose company I began to ascend to the heights. And so we reached the toll houses that guard the rising and hold every soul. And I saw that the Angels were holding all my good deeds in a small chest and comparing them with the evil ones. Thus we passed several toll houses and approached the toll house of fornication; here the evil spirits held me and presented me with all the carnal deeds committed since childhood. The angels who guided me said: 'All the sins you committed in the city, God forgave you, because you repented of them.' To this the demons replied: But, having left the city, in the village you fell into sin with the farmer’s wife.' The angels, hearing this and not finding a good deed with which to atone for my sin , departed; then I was lowered into the underworld of hades.”
The teaching of the Holy Church about the power of evil spirits over us even after death runs through the entire divine services. Wishing to sow in our hearts a soul-saving fear and prepare us for a good answer “at the Dread Judgment of Christ,” the Holy Church reminds us of the tollhouses in its hymns. In the Canon of Supplication to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos, sung at the separation of the soul from the body, it is read:
“Enable me to pass unhindered over the prince of the air, the violent, the tormentor, the keeper of terrible paths and the vain interrogator of these words, as I depart from the earth.”
“Drive away the ruler of bitter ordeals, the ruler of the world, far from me.”
In the prayer before the kontakion and oikos of the Akathist to the Mother of God it is read:
“The dead are revived by You (Mother of God), for You have given birth to hypostatic Life: those who were previously mute become eloquent, lepers are cleansed, illnesses are driven away, and multitudes of spirits of the air are defeated.”
In the “Rite for the Separation of the Soul from the Body, When a Person Suffers for a Long Time,” it is read:
“Behold, a multitude of evil spirits have appeared, holding the record of my sins, and they are calling out loudly, seeking the humble shamelessness of my soul.”
In the Canon to the Guardian Angel we read:
“I pray to you, my Guardian, be my protector and invincible champion when I pass through the tollhouses of the cruel ruler of the world.”
In the Octoechos the following prayers are sent to the Mother of God:
“At the hour of my end, O Virgin, snatch me away from the hands of the demons, and from the trial and the debate, and the terrible torture and bitter ordeals, and the cruel prince.”
“O Most-Pure One, in the hour of death snatch me from the demons.”
From the above words, borrowed from church hymns, the belief of the Orthodox Church in the existence of tollhouses clearly follows. How disheartening this belief is for sinners! The evil spirits to whom the sinner surrenders himself do not leave him when the instrument of sin – the body – disappears. They poison the last minutes of his life, prevent him from imitating the thief who “repented in a single hour.” Indeed, will repentance come to a person’s mind when evil demons surround his bed, when in his troubled soul there is an awareness of the gravity of his sins, leading it to despair. Such people die with curses, but evil spirits will not approach those who have won the battle over evil spirits while in the mortal body after death. (see the book of Abbot Mark: “Evil Spirits”, St. Petersburg, 1899).
PART TWELVE
In the Canon to the Guardian Angel we read:
“I pray to you, my Guardian, be my protector and invincible champion when I pass through the tollhouses of the cruel ruler of the world.”
In the Octoechos the following prayers are sent to the Mother of God:
“At the hour of my end, O Virgin, snatch me away from the hands of the demons, and from the trial and the debate, and the terrible torture and bitter ordeals, and the cruel prince.”
“O Most-Pure One, in the hour of death snatch me from the demons.”
From the above words, borrowed from church hymns, the belief of the Orthodox Church in the existence of tollhouses clearly follows. How disheartening this belief is for sinners! The evil spirits to whom the sinner surrenders himself do not leave him when the instrument of sin – the body – disappears. They poison the last minutes of his life, prevent him from imitating the thief who “repented in a single hour.” Indeed, will repentance come to a person’s mind when evil demons surround his bed, when in his troubled soul there is an awareness of the gravity of his sins, leading it to despair. Such people die with curses, but evil spirits will not approach those who have won the battle over evil spirits while in the mortal body after death. (see the book of Abbot Mark: “Evil Spirits”, St. Petersburg, 1899).
PART TWELVE
