Taken from a talk by Fr. Seraphim Rose “The Signs of the Times”, in which Fr. Seraphim gives an overview of trends in the modern-day world of spirituality, pseudo-spirituality, and events leading up to the coming of the antichrist.

 The most important thing that one acquires through reading such basic Orthodox literature as this [that will be described and referenced below] is a virtue called discernment. When we come to two phenomena which seem to be exactly alike or very similar to each other, the virtue of discernment allows us to see which of them is true and which is false: that is, which has the spirit of Christ and which might have the spirit of Antichrist.

The very nature of Antichrist, who is to be the last great world ruler and the last great opponent of Christ, is to be anti-Christ—and “anti” means not merely “against,” but also “in imitation of, in place of.” The Antichrist, as all the Holy Fathers say in their writings about him, is to be someone who imitates Christ, that is, tries to fool people by looking as though he is Christ come back to earth. Therefore, if one has a very vague notion of Christianity or reads the Scriptures purely from one’s own opinions (and one’s opinions come from the air, and the air is not Christian now, but anti-Christian), then one will come to very anti-Christian conclusions. Seeing the figure of Antichrist, one will be fooled into thinking that it is Christ.

…  these different kinds of writings help to prepare us with basic Christian knowledge; that is, catechisms, commentaries on Scripture, books on spiritual life, more recent patristic books in this same spirit, and histories of the Church. …, we should have a basic background in all of these categories of books. All of them prepare one to understand something about the signs of the times. Once one has begun to prepare oneself like this, it is not merely a matter of adding knowledge up in one’s head and being able to repeat by heart certain phrases, to have exactly the right interpretation of a Bible verse, or anything of the sort. The most important thing that one acquires through reading such basic Orthodox literature as this is a virtue called discernment.

The best books are the basic spiritual textbooks. First of all there are basic texts of Orthodox dogmas, the various catechisms.

Catechisms

One of the best is the eighth-century work of St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, which goes through the whole of the catechism. An even earlier one is St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lectures, that is, lectures prepared for people about to be baptized, which goes through the whole Creed and tells what the Church believes. There are many similar books of catechism, both in ancient times and in more modern times. More recently we have the catechisms in Russian of Metropolitan Platon and Metropolitan Philaret, which are a little shorter and simpler.

Commentaries on Holy Scriptures

Then there is a different kind of book: commentaries on Holy Scriptures. There are not too many of these in English [see St. Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on the Scripture (Logos, six volumes) and The Explanation of the New Testament by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria (Chrysostom Press) published after this talk], but we do have some of the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom. This area is a little bit weak in English, because there are many good books in Russian that are not in English yet, including more recent books of commentaries on the Scriptures, even on the Apocalypse. Archbishop Averky’s books are very good, but they’re just being put into English now. God willing, before too long, they will be out

Books on spiritual life

Then, besides these two kinds of books—basic catechism and commentaries on Scripture—there are all the books on Orthodox spiritual life. These include the Lausiac History (which tells about how the monks lived in Egypt, and how they fought spiritually), the Dialogues of St. Gregory of Rome, the Lives of Saints, The Ladder [of Divine Ascent] of St. John, the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great, the books of St. John Cassian, the Philokalia, Unseen Warfare and St. John of Kronstadt’s My Life in Christ. These books deal with basic Orthodox spiritual life, spiritual struggle, how to discern the wiles of the demons, how not to fall into deception. All of them give a basic foundation by which to understand the signs of the times.

More recent patristic books in this same spirit

Then there are the works of more recent writers who are in the same patristic spirit as the ancient Holy Fathers. The main examples are the two great writers of nineteenth century Russia, St. Theophan the Recluse and St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, whose works are now coming out gradually in English. Bishop Ignatius’ book The Arena and various articles by St. Theophan are in English [now in English are St. Theophan’s Kindling the Divine Spark, Path to Salvation, The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned To It]. These two writers are very important because they transmit the patristic teaching down to our times. They have already explained many questions that arise concerning how to understand the Holy Fathers. For example, the new Orthodox Word has a whole text of Bishop Ignatius on the toll-houses which the soul meets after death. Sometimes, in reading the Holy Fathers, one has questions on such subjects and doesn’t quite know how to understand what the ancient Fathers say, and these more recent Father explain these texts.

Histories of the Church

There are the histories of the Church, which tell of God’s revelation to men and how God acts with regard to men. It is very instructive to read the stories of the Old Testament, because exactly the same things repeat themselves in the New Testament. Then one should read, along with the New Testament, the histories of the New Testament Church. For example, there’s a pocketbook of Eusebius’ History of the Church, which traces the history of the Church down through the first three centuries, written from an Orthodox Christian point of view. It’s very important to see what early Church writers saw was important in the history of the Church: the martyrs, the apostles, and so forth.