Sin, Passion, and Spiritual Healing: The Orthodox Understanding

Ask many Western Christians what sin is, and the answer will probably use the language of law: sin breaks God's commandments, incurs guilt, and needs a verdict of pardon. Ask an Orthodox priest, and you may hear a different vocabulary. Sin is a sickness of the soul, the passions are its symptoms, the Church is a place of healing, and repentance is the long work of getting well. Orthodox books often put the contrast sharply, as if the West built a courtroom and the East kept a hospital.

That contrast is worth testing. Where does the Orthodox language of "passions" come from? How did a list of eight evil thoughts from the Egyptian desert become the "seven deadly sins" of Western catechisms? Did St John Chrysostom really say the Church is a hospital and not a courtroom? And is it fair to say that Catholics and Protestants think only in legal terms? This article lets the sources answer, including where they complicate the popular Orthodox story.

In brief

The Orthodox understanding of sin as a disease of the soul, cured by grace and repentance, rests on a well-documented tradition. Its key text is the Praktikos of Evagrius of Pontus (345 to 399), who taught that eight "thoughts" (logismoi) lie behind every temptation and called freedom from the passions "the health of the soul." St John Cassian carried that list to the Latin West, and St Gregory the Great reshaped it into seven principal vices with pride as their root. That is the ancestry of the "seven deadly sins." In the East it runs through St John Climacus's Ladder and the Philokalia. Chrysostom did preach that the church is "a hospital, not a courtroom," though the longer quotation that circulates online is a modern composite. Healing language is not an Eastern monopoly: Gregory the Great, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Council of Trent, the current Catholic Catechism and Martin Luther all use it, and Orthodox texts use legal language too. The honest difference is one of emphasis and structure, not a clean split between a "legal" West and a "medical" East.

Thesis: The Orthodox Church reads sin chiefly as a sickness that grace heals and repentance cooperates with, a reading grounded in Scripture, the desert Fathers and the canons; it shares much of this with Western Christianity, and it is most convincing when it is presented without a caricature of the West.

What the Orthodox Church means by sin and passion

Orthodox Christians confess that God made human beings good, in his image, and called them to grow into his likeness. Sin is the turning away from that calling. The Orthodox tradition speaks of an inheritance from Adam that is chiefly mortality and corruption rather than Adam's personal guilt, a point explained in our article on original sin and ancestral sin. Because the problem is a damaged nature and not only a broken rule, the remedy is described as healing, and its goal is union with God, the theosis the Fathers spoke of.

The word "passion" (Greek pathos) needs care. In the ascetic Fathers it usually means a disordered, habitual drive that has taken control of a person: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger and the rest. A passion is more than a single sinful act. It is the settled inclination that produces such acts, much as an infection produces fever.

Jesus pointed in this direction when he located sin inside the person: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:19, NKJV). He also described his mission in medical terms: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Mark 2:17, NKJV).¹ St James joined confession and healing in one sentence: "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed" (James 5:16, NKJV). The desert monks built a whole spiritual science on texts like these.

The primary historical evidence

Evagrius and the eight thoughts

Evagrius, a monk from Pontus in Asia Minor who settled in the Egyptian desert, wrote a compact, systematic analysis of temptation. In chapter 6 of his Praktikos he names eight principal kinds of thoughts "that contain within themselves every [tempting-] thought": gluttony, sexual immorality, love of money, sadness, anger, acedia (a listless weariness of spirit), vainglory and pride.²

The same chapter draws the line that matters most for moral responsibility: "We cannot [control] whether these [tempting-thoughts] can agitate the soul or not; but whether they remain [in us] or not, and whether they move the passions or not that we can [control]."³ A passing thought is not yet a sin. What we do with it is the beginning of either sin or victory.

Evagrius's goal was apatheia, usually translated "dispassion." It does not mean indifference. He wrote that "apatheia is what we shall call the health of the soul," and that "Love is the offspring of apatheia."⁴ In chapter 86 he explained that the soul acts "according to nature" when its desiring part longs for virtue and its irascible part fights for it.⁵ The powers that the passions corrupt are, in themselves, good. Desire and anger are meant to be redirected toward God, not destroyed.

There is an awkward fact here, and it should be stated. {{strong: Evagrius's writings were condemned in Greek at the Council of Constantinople in 553, because of speculative ideas on cosmology and the Fall developed from Origen.}} Historians still debate exactly how and when the anti-Origenist anathemas of that year were passed, but the Church has received the council as condemning him. As Sebastian Brock notes, some of his monastic texts survived in Greek under other names, which is how his ascetic teaching kept its influence.⁶ The Church kept his practical wisdom about temptation while rejecting his speculation about cosmology and the Fall.

Cassian carries the list West

St John Cassian, who had lived among the monks of Egypt, brought the scheme to the monasteries of southern Gaul. From book 5 onward his Institutes take on "the eight principal faults," and he says he wants to explain their causes and "to bring forward fitly the cures and remedies for them."⁷ In his fifth Conference, Abba Serapion lists the same eight: gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory and pride.⁸

Cassian also shows how the passions feed one another. The first six, he says, are "linked together in a chain, so that any excess of the one forms a starting point for the next": gluttony leads to fornication, fornication to covetousness, and so on down to acedia. The cure works in the same order: "in order to destroy fornication, you must chastise the sin of gluttony."⁹ Orthodox fasting is aimed at that first link, as our guide to prayer, fasting and the Jesus Prayer explains.

The Benedictine scholar Columba Stewart has traced this path from Evagrius's diagnostic tool, through Cassian in Gaul, to Gregory the Great's seven capital vices.¹⁰

Gregory the Great and the seven

St Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome from 590 to 604, is a saint of the Orthodox Church as well, remembered on 12 March as Gregory the Dialogist and traditionally credited with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.¹¹ In his great commentary on Job, the Moralia, he rebuilt the list. Pride, "the queen of sins," now stands above the others: "seven principal vices, as its first progeny, spring doubtless from this poisonous root, namely, vain glory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, lust."¹²

Compare the lists and the changes are plain. Pride is promoted to the root of all the others, envy is added, and acedia no longer appears by name. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the capital sins are those "which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great," and lists "pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia."¹³ {{strong: The "seven deadly sins" of the West descend, through Cassian and Gregory, from Evagrius's eight thoughts.}}

St John Climacus and the Ladder

In the East, the most loved guide to the passions is The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John, abbot of the monastery at Sinai. Its thirty steps run from renunciation of the world to love. Most of the middle steps deal with particular passions: anger, remembrance of wrongs, slander, despondency, "that clamorous mistress, the stomach," love of money, vainglory and pride, before the book climbs to humility, discernment, stillness, prayer and dispassion.¹⁴ The Orthodox Church dedicates the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent to him.¹⁵ His dates are uncertain: two Orthodox Church in America pages give his birth as around 525 and around 570.

His step on repentance opens with definitions: "Repentance is the renewal of baptism. Repentance is a contract with God for a second life." Later in the same step he uses the image of a doctor's care: "While a wound is still fresh and warm it is easy to heal, but old, neglected and festering ones are hard to cure." He adds at once, "But with God all things are possible."¹⁶

The Philokalia

In 1782 St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios, Metropolitan of Corinth, published in Venice the Philokalia, an anthology of ascetic writings from the fourth century to the fifteenth, from Evagrius to Gregory Palamas and his successors.¹⁷ Its first volume, in the English translation by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, includes both Evagrios and St John Cassian; a Latin-speaking monk of Gaul belongs to the shared tradition.¹⁸ One passage in the third volume, from St Philotheos of Sinai, summarizes how a temptation becomes a passion: "First there is provocation; then a coupling with provocation; then assent to it; then captivity; then passion grown habitual; then continuous."¹⁹ The struggle is easiest at the first stage, which is why these writers stress watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer, as did the hesychast monks defended by St Gregory Palamas.

The Church as hospital: what the sources actually say

A popular sentence attributed to Chrysostom runs: "The Church is a hospital, and not a courtroom, for souls." J. V. Howry has traced the longer version to a 2013 English blog post translated from a modern Greek anthology of excerpts, and he suspects that the full text is not found, as a whole, in any work of Chrysostom.²⁰

The core idea, though, is genuinely his. In the third of his homilies On Repentance, printed in volume 49 of Migne's Patrologia Graeca, Chrysostom urges sinners to repent however often they fall, even in old age, and then says: iatreion gar estin entautha, ou dikasterion. In Howry's translation: "For here is a hospital, not a courtroom; not the demand for punishment of sins, but there is the forgiveness of sins."²¹ We checked the Greek against the scanned Migne volume. {{strong: Chrysostom did call the place of repentance "a hospital, not a courtroom," though the longer popular quotation is a modern compilation.}}

The idea also has canonical weight. Canon 102 of the Council in Trullo (691 or 692), which the Orthodox Church receives, tells those who "have received from God the power to loose and bind" to consider the sinner's disposition and "to apply medicine suitable for the disease," because "the disease of sin is not simple, but various and multiform."²² St Gregory the Theologian had already described the priest's task by "comparing the work of the physician of souls with the treatment of the body," and called the guiding of human beings "the art of arts and science of sciences."²³

Orthodox confession reflects this. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware wrote: "In confession we are not only to see Christ the Judge lifting from us the sentence of condemnation but also – and more fundamentally – we are to see Christ the Physician, restoring what is broken in us."²⁴ He keeps both images and ranks them, which is the most accurate summary of the Orthodox position. For how confession works in practice, see our guide to confession and why a priest is present.

Repentance as the path to health

Repentance, metanoia, means a change of mind and direction. In the Orthodox reading it is the whole Christian life after baptism, which is why Climacus calls it "the renewal of baptism." St Mary of Egypt is its great icon; our article on St Mary of Egypt looks at that story and its sources.

The therapy has recognizable parts. Prayer, above all the Jesus Prayer, guards the mind at the moment of "provocation." Fasting weakens the first link in Cassian's chain. Almsgiving loosens avarice. Confession brings hidden thoughts into the light, and Communion unites the sick person to Christ the physician. The cure takes time. Climacus told monks, "Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your ground courageously."²⁵ The goal is not a clean moral record but a healed person who loves God and neighbor freely.

Grace comes first throughout. The Orthodox speak of synergy, grace and human response working together, but the patient does not heal himself. The surgeon, in Ware's image, is Christ.

Is the West really a courtroom? A fair comparison

What Western Christians actually teach

There is a real Western tradition that frames sin chiefly in terms of debt, law and satisfaction. St Anselm of Canterbury argued in Cur Deus Homo that "to sin is nothing else than not to render to God his due."²⁶ The Council of Trent taught in 1551 that priestly absolution is "after the manner of a judicial act, whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge."²⁷ The Presbyterian Westminster Shorter Catechism defines sin as "any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God," and justification as an act in which God "pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight."²⁸ Paul himself writes, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1, NKJV), which is courtroom language.

But the same Western sources are full of medicine. Gregory the Great, the father of the seven capital vices, wrote in his Pastoral Rule that "the government of souls is the art of arts," and he warned against those who "profess themselves physicians of the heart" without training.²⁹ The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the council that made yearly confession obligatory in the West, told the priest to "pour wine and oil into the wounds of the one injured after the manner of a skilful physician," while also calling confession "the tribunal of penance."³⁰ Trent, in the same session that called absolution a judicial act, described penances as "remedies for the remains of sin" that "remove the habits acquired by evil living."³¹ The current Catechism of the Catholic Church calls Christ "physician of our souls and bodies" and names Penance one of the two "sacraments of healing," and it says sin "wounds the nature of man."³²

Protestants also speak of healing. The same Shorter Catechism defines sanctification as God's work "whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God." Martin Luther, in his lectures on Romans (1515 to 1516), compared the believer to a sick man in a physician's care, who is "a sinner in fact, but a righteous man by sure imputation and promise of God that He will continue to deliver him from sin until He completely cured him."³³

Orthodox texts use legal language too

The traffic also runs the other way. St Athanasius, a pillar of Orthodox theology, wrote that the Word, by offering his own body, "satisfied the debt by His death."³⁴ At every Divine Liturgy Orthodox Christians pray for "a good defense before the dread judgment seat of Christ."³⁵ The Orthodox understanding of why Jesus died emphasizes victory over death and healing, but it does not delete the judgment.

So what is the real difference?

{{moderate: The difference between East and West on sin is mainly one of emphasis and structure rather than of opposing vocabularies.}} Western theology, especially after Anselm and the Reformation, gave legal categories a governing place in systematic accounts of salvation: satisfaction, merit, imputation, and in Catholic teaching temporal punishment and purgatory (see our article on purgatory). Orthodox theology has generally let the medical categories govern and kept the legal ones as true but secondary. Ware's ranking, which sees Christ the Judge but "more fundamentally" Christ the Physician, captures that well.

The strongest objections

"Therapy language blurs the gospel" (a Protestant objection)

A Reformed Christian might say: if salvation is a lifelong cure, no one can be sure of being accepted by God, and grace becomes a reward for ascetic effort. Orthodoxy does not make forgiveness wait on full recovery. Chrysostom's hospital is the place where "there is the forgiveness of sins" first of all, and the sick are welcomed before they are well. Nor does fasting earn God's love; the tradition calls it medicine, not payment. Protestants themselves distinguish justification from sanctification and describe the second as renewal "in the whole man." The real disagreement is whether justification should be defined in strictly forensic terms and kept logically prior to healing. The Orthodox decline that strict separation; they do not deny that God forgives freely.

"You are attacking a straw man" (a Catholic objection)

A Catholic reader can point to Gregory the Great, Lateran IV, Trent's "remedies" and the Catechism's "sacraments of healing" and say, correctly, that the West never abandoned medicine. Orthodox writers who call Catholicism purely juridical overstate the case. What remains are real differences: the systematic place of satisfaction and temporal punishment, purgatory, and Trent's definition of absolution as a judicial act.

"This is Greek philosophy, not the Bible" (a skeptical objection)

Evagrius plainly used philosophical tools. His account of the soul's desiring, irascible and reasoning parts in Praktikos 86 reflects the threefold soul of Greek philosophy, and his ideal of apatheia has philosophical ancestors. The Church's own record shows it did not swallow this material whole: Evagrius's speculative theology was condemned in 553 while his practical observations were kept. The core claims, that sin begins in the heart and that Christ came as a physician to sinners, are in the Gospels.

"Calling sin a sickness excuses it"

The desert writers would reject this. Evagrius distinguished what is not in our control (a tempting thought) from what is (whether we let it stay), and Philotheos's stages are a series of choices. This sickness is something we partly bring on ourselves and must fight, under a physician's care.

What we can say confidently

• Evagrius of Pontus (345 to 399) set out eight principal tempting thoughts in Praktikos 6 and called freedom from the passions the health of the soul.
• John Cassian transmitted the eight to the Latin West, and Gregory the Great reworked them into seven principal vices with pride as their root.
• Evagrius's writings were condemned at Constantinople in 553 (the exact procedure is debated), yet his ascetic teaching survived, partly under other names.
• Chrysostom did describe the place of repentance as "a hospital, not a courtroom" in his third homily On Repentance; the longer quotation that circulates is a modern compilation.
• Canon 102 of Trullo makes spiritual medicine the model for the confessor's work.
• Both East and West use medical and legal images for sin and forgiveness.

What remains disputed

• How far Western theology became "juridical" in its structure, and whether Orthodox critics have described it fairly.
• How much Evagrius owed to Greek philosophy and how much to earlier monastic experience.
• The dates of St John Climacus, which Orthodox sources themselves give differently.
• Whether justification should be defined in strictly forensic terms. This remains a real point of difference between Orthodox and Reformed Christians.

Conclusion

The Orthodox understanding of sin takes sin more seriously, not less: as something that has got inside us and changed us, which a verdict alone does not undo. The desert Fathers studied the passions as good doctors study disease, so that people might be healed. Their wisdom passed into both halves of Christendom, and Catholic and Protestant Christians who pray against pride, envy or acedia are drawing from the same well as Orthodox monks.

The Orthodox Church offers that inheritance whole: the fasts, the Jesus Prayer, confession and Communion, set within the life of the Church, where Christ the Physician receives the sick before they are well. "For here is a hospital, not a courtroom." That is a hopeful word for anyone who has fallen again and again. The physician is the same Lord who will also judge, and he came, as he said, to call sinners to repentance.

Notes

1. Matthew 15:19; Mark 2:17; James 5:16; Romans 8:1, all The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), via biblegateway.com. ↩
2. Evagrius of Pontus, Praktikos 6, trans. Luke Dysinger, OSB, Greek-English text at ldysinger.com. ↩
3. Evagrius, Praktikos 6, Dysinger trans. Square brackets are the translator's. ↩
4. Evagrius, Praktikos 56 and 81, Dysinger trans. ↩
5. Evagrius, Praktikos 86, Dysinger trans. ↩
6. Sebastian P. Brock, "Evagrius (345-399)," in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, electronic edition, gedsh.bethmardutho.org. On the debate over how the 553 anathemas against Origenism were passed, see Henry R. Percival, "Excursus on the XV. Anathemas Against Origen," NPNF2 vol. 14 (1900), which judges a dogmatic answer "the height of rashness." ↩
7. John Cassian, Institutes 5.1, trans. C. S. Gibson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 11 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894), newadvent.org. ↩
8. John Cassian, Conferences 5.2, NPNF2 vol. 11, newadvent.org. ↩
9. Cassian, Conferences 5.10. ↩
10. Columba Stewart, "Evagrius Ponticus and the 'Eight Generic Logismoi,'" in In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard Newhauser, Papers in Mediaeval Studies 18 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005), 3-34; summarized from the published abstract. ↩
11. Gilbert Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I ('the Great')," Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909), newadvent.org; Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome," commemorated 12 March, oca.org. ↩
12. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job 31.45.87, in Morals on the Book of Job, Library of the Fathers (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844-1850), as reproduced at lectionarycentral.com. ↩
13. Catechism of the Catholic Church §1866, vatican.va. ↩
14. Step titles as listed in "The Ladder of Divine Ascent," OrthodoxWiki, following the translation of Archimandrite Lazarus Moore. ↩
15. Orthodox Church in America, "4th Sunday of Great Lent: St John Climacus (of the Ladder)" and "Venerable John Climacus of Sinai, Author of 'the Ladder'" (30 March), oca.org. ↩
16. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 5.1 and 5.30, trans. Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, as reproduced at churchmotherofgod.org ("On Repentance") and blog.bostoncathedral.org ("Sunday of St. John Climacus," 2025). ↩
17. "Philokalia," OrthodoxWiki; "Philokalia," Encyclopaedia Britannica online; publisher's description of The Philokalia (Penguin Classics), penguin.co.uk, for the fourth-to-fifteenth-century span. ↩
18. The Philokalia: The Complete Text, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1979-), vol. 1 contents, per the University of Pennsylvania Libraries catalogue record. ↩
19. St Philotheos of Sinai, in The Philokalia, vol. 3, p. 29, as quoted by Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky, "Falling for Satan," Orthodox Church in America, Reflections in Christ, 25 April 2010, oca.org. ↩
20. J. V. Howry, "Where does Chrysostom Say the Church is a Hospital not a Courtroom?," Notes by J. V. (Substack), 29 January 2026. ↩
21. John Chrysostom, De paenitentia, homily 3, in J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Graeca, vol. 49, Greek checked against the archive.org scan; English trans. Howry, "Where does Chrysostom Say." A complete English translation exists (Gus George Christo, trans., St. John Chrysostom: On Repentance and Almsgiving), but it was not consulted for this article. ↩
22. Council in Trullo, canon 102, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 vol. 14 (1900), newadvent.org. ↩
23. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.16, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, NPNF2 vol. 7 (1894), newadvent.org. ↩
24. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, "Coming to Christ the Physician: The Orthodox Experience of Confession," The Presbyter, PDF reproduced by St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church, Irvine, stpaulsirvine.org. ↩
25. Climacus, Ladder 5.30, Moore trans., as reproduced at blog.bostoncathedral.org and churchmotherofgod.org. ↩
26. Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo 1.11, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), Internet Medieval Sourcebook, sourcebooks.fordham.edu. ↩
27. Council of Trent, Session 14 (25 November 1551), Doctrine on Penance, ch. 6, in The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent, ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), Hanover Historical Texts Project. ↩
28. Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 14 and Q. 33, opc.org. ↩
29. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule 1.1, trans. James Barmby, NPNF2 vol. 12 (1895), newadvent.org. ↩
30. Fourth Lateran Council (1215), canon 21, trans. H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1937), Internet Medieval Sourcebook, sourcebooks.fordham.edu. ↩
31. Council of Trent, Session 14, Doctrine on Penance, ch. 8, Waterworth trans., 102-103. ↩
32. Catechism of the Catholic Church §§1421 and 1849, vatican.va. ↩
33. Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 35, opc.org; Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (on Romans 4:7), in Luther's Works, vol. 25, 260, as quoted by Matthew Phillips, "Unknowingly Righteous," Concordia University Nebraska faculty blog, 31 October 2014. ↩
34. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 9.2, trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF2 vol. 4 (1892), newadvent.org. ↩
35. Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, litany of supplication, as quoted in "What is the 'Judgment Seat?'," St. Michael Orthodox Church, Broadview Heights, Ohio, stmichaelscleveland.org. ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Evagrius of Pontus. Praktikos. Translated by Luke Dysinger, OSB. Greek-English edition, ldysinger.com.
• John Cassian. Institutes and Conferences. Translated by C. S. Gibson. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 11. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.
• Gregory the Great. Morals on the Book of Job. Library of the Fathers. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844-1850. And Pastoral Rule, translated by James Barmby, NPNF2 vol. 12, 1895.
• John Chrysostom. De paenitentia, homily 3. In Patrologia Graeca, edited by J.-P. Migne, vol. 49.
• Gregory of Nazianzus. Oration 2. Translated by Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow. NPNF2 vol. 7, 1894.
• Athanasius. On the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by Archibald Robertson. NPNF2 vol. 4, 1892.
• Council in Trullo (691/692). Canons. Translated by Henry Percival. NPNF2 vol. 14, 1900.
• Anselm of Canterbury. Cur Deus Homo. Translated by Sidney Norton Deane. Chicago: Open Court, 1903.
• Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Canons. In H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils. St. Louis: B. Herder, 1937.
• Council of Trent. The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Oecumenical Council of Trent. Edited and translated by J. Waterworth. London: Dolman, 1848.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• John Climacus. The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore. London: Faber and Faber, 1959.
• Palmer, G. E. H., Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, trans. and eds. The Philokalia: The Complete Text. London: Faber and Faber, 1979-.
• Ware, Kallistos. "Coming to Christ the Physician: The Orthodox Experience of Confession." The Presbyter. PDF at stpaulsirvine.org.
• Orthodox Church in America. Lives of the Saints: "Venerable John Climacus of Sinai," "4th Sunday of Great Lent: St John Climacus," "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome"; and Berzonsky, Vladimir, "Falling for Satan," Reflections in Christ, 2010. oca.org.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Stewart, Columba. "Evagrius Ponticus and the 'Eight Generic Logismoi.'" In In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages, edited by Richard Newhauser, 3-34. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005.
• Brock, Sebastian P. "Evagrius (345-399)." Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, electronic edition. gedsh.bethmardutho.org.
• Howry, J. V. "Where does Chrysostom Say the Church is a Hospital not a Courtroom?" Notes by J. V., 29 January 2026.

Sources from the traditions discussed (Catholic and Protestant)

• Catechism of the Catholic Church. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. vatican.va.
• Westminster Shorter Catechism. Orthodox Presbyterian Church edition, opc.org.
• Luther, Martin. Lectures on Romans. Luther's Works, vol. 25. Quoted from secondary reproductions; not opened directly.