As he concludes his letter, Paul asks the Roman Christians to avoid those who bring divisions into the community, reminding them that they need to be "wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil" (vv. 17-19). This appeal was entirely natural in the context of everything Paul had written to the church in Rome about Christ, about the Kingdom, and about spiritual life. Wisdom, understood as most biblical authors usually understand it, that is, as an art or practical skill, meant nothing less, when applied to goodness, than the art of righteous living and the skill of following the Torah. Such skill was necessary for those who wanted to walk the path of righteousness before Jesus Christ came into the world, but it was especially important for those who chose to follow Christ and live in the Kingdom. In the present age, the age of the Kingdom's confrontation with a world not yet fully transformed, the requirement to follow the Torah and walk the path of righteousness is, for those who have chosen the Kingdom, essentially a daily confirmation of the choice once made and the promises once given.

Yet choosing the Kingdom does not mean that the faithful reject the world: they will have to be witnesses to Christ and to the Kingdom precisely here, in our world, which is being transformed and yet still resists Christ and the Kingdom. They will have to face the evil in which the world lies every day and every hour. In such an encounter, simplicity, of course in the biblical sense of the word, becomes absolutely necessary. In the biblical and Gospel sense, simplicity has nothing to do with stupidity, naivete, or lack of knowledge. The corresponding Greek word means first of all that spiritual wholeness of the person without which righteousness is impossible in principle. Without such simplicity, it is impossible to follow Christ, impossible to receive the Kingdom, and impossible to live in it. The apostle understands this well, and at the end of his letter he once again reminds the Roman Christians of the main thing that forms the foundation of the spiritual life of everyone who walks the path of righteousness and seeks the Kingdom.

In the Christian world there is a certain byword: ecumenism. To be sure, the division of the Church is a grave problem that brings both grief and temptation. And Paul's words today speak precisely about divisions: beware of those who bring divisions and temptations. The second word in the original is skandala, and it has entered our modern language without translation. The danger of divisions and scandals, mainly confrontations in the style of "you are wrong," existed, as we see, as early as about A.D. 58, when the epistle was written. The apostle says that people who sow strife serve themselves, not Christ.

We sometimes think that one division or another can be justified and understood. No, it cannot. When a scandalous confrontation in a family leads to divorce, it is grief and sin. In the Church it is the same. This is an offensive thought for Christians of every confession. There are also words on this subject from the same apostle Paul: "you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness" (Gal. 6:1). They are offensive too, because we are often guilty against these words. In a scandal there are always at least two sides. I am afraid both must be considered scandal-makers.

But here is what matters: an ecumenist expects to hear from the apostle something like, "admonish such people so that you may remain together"; an anti-ecumenist expects, "deliver them to Satan." But the apostle says, "avoid them," and this is an entirely exact translation of the Greek ekklinete. Avoid them, because your road is not here. Where is it? The apostle wants the recipients of the letter to be wise in what is good and akeraious, pure, uninjured in regard to evil. "Simple" in the Russian and Slavonic translations is not the opposite of wisdom. The point is that one should make progress in good and keep oneself from evil ("Children, keep yourselves from idols," 1 John 5:21). The path of unity in the Church is not so much in sorting out relationships and then restoring them. The path of unity is progress in good. The Church always follows this path, but this is a spiritual reality, while history, as a human view, records mainly what can be touched. Incidentally, we see an example of this in the actions of the Ecumenical Councils: they seek to formulate the truth, not to deal, as people now say, with the bad ones.

Paul especially warns the recipients of his epistle against fellowship with those who bring divisions into the life of the community and what the Synodal translation calls "temptation," something that can serve as a stumbling block and a reason for discord. It is hard to say exactly what the apostle has in mind: this could mean the disputes he himself mentions about observing the religious prescriptions of Judaism, or something else about which Paul does not speak.

However, disputes about religion have always divided people, and therefore one may think that the apostle advises avoiding precisely them, as he writes about this in his epistle to the Roman church. Paul does not advise entering into disputes on these themes with those who want to start them. He understands perfectly that zealots of religion absolutely need disputes for self-assertion and for proving their religious rightness, whereas people living a genuine Christian life do not need them at all.

Any disputes about rites, rituals, and other religious prescriptions are harmful to spiritual life in general because they distract from the main thing: from relationships with God and with Christ, and from the spiritual work connected with strengthening and deepening them. The wisdom that Paul advises his addressees to keep is connected precisely with the practice of such relationships: this was the meaning of the word "wisdom" in Gospel times.

At the same time, wisdom was understood not as theory, but precisely as practice, to which the apostle calls his readers. As for unnecessary disputes, the apostle recommends the "simplicity" that presupposed nonparticipation in evil, at least the corresponding Greek word means exactly this: nonparticipation in evil, abstaining from it. This is understandable: it hardly makes sense to argue seriously with people who, in Paul's words, "serve their own belly."

And the point here, of course, is not that the disputants were striving to gain some material benefit from their disputes and from victory in debates, although in certain cases influence in the community could be used in that way. The point is that self-assertion was more important to them than the search for truth. It is quite obvious that if a dispute from the beginning has self-assertion as its goal, participating in it is useless: it is not one of those disputes in which truth is born. And therefore, for a Christian, participation in such disputes is only a waste of time that distracts from the main thing: from the Kingdom and its life.