(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)
Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.
JOHN CASSIAN
THE CONFERENCES: Part I, conferences VI-X.
[Translated by the Rev. Edgar C. S. Gibson, M.A., Principal of the
Theological College, Wells, Somerset.]
VI. CONFERENCE OF ABBOT THEODORE.(1)
ON THE DEATH OF THE SAINTS.
CHAPTER I: Description of the wilderness, and the question about the death
of the saints.
IN the district of Palestine near the village of Tekoa which had the
honour of producing the prophet Amos, (2) there is a vast desert which
stretches far and wide as far as Arabia and the dead sea, into which the
streams of Jordan enter and are lost, and where are the ashes of Sodom. In
this district there lived for a long while monks of the most perfect life
and holiness, who were suddenly destroyed by an incursion of Saracen
robbers: (3) whose bodies we knew were seized upon with the greatest
veneration (4) both by the Bishops of the neighbourhood and by the whole
populace of Arabia, and deposited among the relics of the martyrs, so that
swarms of people from two towns met, and made terrible war upon each other,
and in their struggle actually came to blows for the possession of the holy
spoil, while they strove among themselves with pious zeal as to which of
them had the better claim to bury them and keep their relics -- the one
party boasting of their vicinity to the place of their abode, the other of
the fact that they were near the place of their birth. But we were upset by
this and being disturbed either on our own account or on account of some of
the brethren who were in no small degree scandalized at it, inquired why
men of such illustrious merits and of so great virtues should be thus slain
by robbers, and why the Lord permitted such a crime to be committed against
his servants, so as to give up into the hands of wicked men those who were
the admiration of everybody: and so in our grief we came to the holy
Theodore, a man who excelled in practical common sense. For he was living
in Cellae,(1) a place that lies between Nitria and Scete, and is five miles
distant from the monasteries of Nitria, and cut off by eighty intervening
miles of desert from the wilderness of Scete where we were living. And when
we had made our complaint to him about the death of the men mentioned
above, and expressed our surprise at the great patience of God, because He
suffered men of such worth to be killed in this way, so that those who
ought to be able by the weight of their sanctity to deliver others from
trials of this kind, could not save themselves from the hands of wicked men
(and asked) why it was that God allowed so great a crime to be committed
against his servants, then the blessed Theodore replied.
CHAPTER II: Abbot Theodore's answer to the question proposed to him.
This question often exercises the minds of those who have not much
faith or knowledge, and imagine that the prizes and rewards of the saints
(which are not given in this world, but laid up for the future) are
bestowed in the short space of this mortal life. But we whose hope in
Christ is not only in this life, for fear lest, as the Apostle says, we
should be "of all men most miserable" (2) (because as we receive none
of the promises in this world we should for our unbelief lose them also in
that to come) ought not wrongly to follow their ideas, lest through
ignorance of the true real explanation, we should hesitate and tremble and
fail in temptation, if we find ourselves given up to such men; and should
ascribe to God injustice or carelessness about the affairs of mankind--a
thing which it is almost a sin to mention -- because He does not protect in
their temptations men who are living an upright and holy life, nor requite
good men with good things and evil men with evil things in this world; and
so we should deserve to fall under the condemnation of those whom the
prophet Zephaniah rebukes, saying "who say in their hearts the Lord will
not do good, nor will He do evil:" (3) or at least be found among those of
whom we are told that they blaspheme God with such complaints as this:
"Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such
please Him: for surely where is the God of judgment?" (4) Adding further
that blasphemy which is described in the same way in what follows: "He
laboureth in vain that serveth God, and what profit is it that we have kept
His ordinances, and walked sorrowful before the Lord? Wherefore now we call
the proud happy, for they that work wickedness are enriched, and they have
tempted God, and are preserved." (5) Wherefore that we may avoid this
ignorance which is the root and cause of this most deadly error, we ought
in the first place to know what is really good, and what is bad, and so
finally if we grasp the true scriptural meaning of these words, and not the
false popular one, we shall escape being deceived by the errors of
unbelievers.
CHAPTER III: Of the three kinds of things there are in the world; viz.,
good bad, and indifferent.
ALTOGETHER there are three kinds of things in the world; viz., good,
bad, and indifferent. And so we ought to know what is properly good, and
what is bad, and what is indifferent, that our faith may be supported by
true knowledge and stand firm in all temptations. We must then believe that
in things which are merely human there is no real good except virtue of
soul alone, which leads us with unfeigned faith to things divine, and makes
us constantly adhere to that unchanging good. And on the other hand we
ought not to call anything bad, except sin alone, which separates us from
the good God, and unites us to the evil devil. But those things are
indifferent which can be appropriated to either side according to the fancy
or wish of their owner, as for instance riches, power, honour, bodily
strength, good health, beauty, life itself, and death, poverty, bodily
infirmities, injuries, and other things of the same sort, which can
contribute either to good or to evil as the character and fancy of their
owner directs. For riches are often serviceable for our good, as the
Apostle says, who charges "the rich of this world to be ready to give, to
distribute to the needy, to lay up in store for themselves a good
foundation against the time to come, that" by this means "they may lay hold
on the true life." (1) And according to the gospel they are a good thing
for those who "make to themselves friends of the unrighteous mammon." (2)
And again, they can be drawn in the direction of what is bad when they are
amassed only for the sake of hoarding them or for a life of luxury, and are
not employed to meet the wants of the poor. And that power also and honour
and bodily strength and good health are indifferent and available for
either (good or bad) can easily be shown from the fact that many of the Old
Testament saints enjoyed all these things and were in positions of great
wealth and the highest honour, and blessed with bodily strength, and yet
are known to have been most acceptable to God. And on the contrary those
who have wrongfully abused these things and perverted them for their own
purposes are not without good reason punished or destroyed, as the Book of
Kings shows us has often happened. And that even life and death are in
themselves indifferent the birth of S. John and of Judas proves. For in the
case of the one his life was so profitable to himself that we are told that
his birth brought joy to others also, as we read "And many shall rejoice at
his birth;" (3) but of the life of the other it is said: "It were good for
that man if he had never been born." (4) Further it is said of the death of
John and of all saints "Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints:"(5) but of that of Judas and men like him "The death of the
wicked is very evil." (6) And how useful bodily sickness sometimes may be
the blessing on Lazarus, the beggar who was full of sores, shows us. For
Scripture makes mention of no other good qualities or deserts of his, but
it was for this fact alone; viz., that he endured want and bodily sickness
with the utmost patience, that he was deemed worthy of the blessed lot of a
place in Abraham's bosom. (7) And with regard to want and persecution and
injuries which everybody thinks to be bad, how useful and necessary they
are is clearly proved by this fact; viz., that the saints not only never
tried to avoid them, but actually either sought them with all their powers
or bravely endured them, and thus became the friends of God, and obtained
the reward of eternal life, as the blessed Apostle chants: "For which cause
I delight myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in
persecutions, in distresses for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am
strong, for power is made perfect in infirmity." (8) And therefore those
who are exalted with the greatest riches and honours and powers of this
world, should not be deemed to have secured their chief good out of them
(for this is shown to consist only in virtue) but only something
indifferent, because just as to good men who use them well and properly
they will be found to be useful and convenient (for they afford them
opportunities for good works and fruits which shall endure to eternal
life), so to those who wrongfully abuse their wealth, they are useless and
out of place, and furnish occasions of sin and death.
CHAPTER IV: How evil cannot be forced on any one by another against his
will.
PRESERVING then these distinctions clear and fixed, and knowing that
there is nothing good except virtue alone, and nothing bad except sin alone
and separation from God, let us now carefully consider whether God ever
allows evil to be forced on his saints either by Himself or by some one
else. And you will certainly find that this never happens. For another can
never possibly force the evil of sin upon anyone, who does not consent and
who resists, but only on one who admits it into himself through sloth and
the corrupt desire of his heart. Finally, when the devil having exhausted
all his wicked devices had tried to force upon the blessed Job this evil of
sin, and had not only stripped him of all his worldly goods, but also after
that terrible and utterly unlooked for calamity of bereavement through the
death of his seven children, had heaped upon him dreadful wounds and
intolerable tortures from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he
tried in vain to fasten on him the stain of sin, because he remained
steadfast through it all, never brought himself to consent to blasphemy.
CHAPTER V: An objection, how God Himself can be said to create evil.
GERMANUS: We often read in holy Scripture that God has created evil or
brought it upon men, as is this passage: "There is none beside Me. I am the
Lord, and there is none else: I form the light and create darkness, I make
peace, and create evil." (1) And again: "Shall there be evil in a city
which the Lord hath not done?" (2)
CHAPTER VI: The answer to the question proposed.
THEODORE: Sometimes holy Scripture is wont by an improper use of terms
to use "evils "for "affliction;" not that these are properly and in their
nature evils, but because they are imagined to be evils by those on whom
they are brought for their good. For when divine judgment is reasoning with
men it must speak with the language and feelings of men. For when a doctor
for the sake of health with good reason either cuts or cauterizes those who
are suffering from the inflammation of ulcers, it is considered an evil by
those who have to bear it. Nor are the spur and the whip pleasant to a
restive horse. Moreover all chastisement seems at the moment to be a bitter
thing to those who are chastised, as the Apostle says: "Now all
chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy but
sorrow; but afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by it most
peaceable fruits of righteousness," and "whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth: for what son is
there whom the father doth not correct?" (3) And so evils are sometimes
wont to stand for afflictions, as where we read: "And God repented of the
evil which He had said that He would do to them and He did it not." (4) And
again: "For Thou, Lord, are gracious and merciful, patient and very
merciful and ready to repent of the evil," (5) i.e., of the sufferings and
losses which Thou art forced to bring upon us as the reward of our sins.
And another prophet, knowing that these are profitable to some men, and
certainly not through any jealousy of their safety, but with an eye to
their good, prays thus: "Add evils to them, O Lord, add evils to the
haughty ones of the earth;" (6) and the Lord Himself says "Lo, I will bring
evils upon them," (7) i.e., sorrows, and losses, with which they shall for
the present be chastened for their soul's health, and so shall be at length
driven to return and hasten back to Me whom in their prosperity they
scorned. And so that these are originally evil we cannot possibly assert:
for to many they conduce to their good and offer the occasions of eternal
bliss, and therefore (to return to the question raised) all those things,
which are thought to be brought upon us as evils by our enemies or by any
other people, should not be counted as evils, but as things indifferent.
For in the end they will not be what he thinks, who brought them upon us in
his rage and fury, but what he makes them who endures them. And so when
death has been brought upon a saint, we ought not to think that an evil has
happened to him but a thing indifferent; which is an evil to a wicked man,
while to the good it is rest and freedom from evils. "For death is rest to
a man whose way is hidden." (8) And so a good man does not suffer any loss
from it, because he suffers nothing strange, but by the crime of an enemy
he only receives (and not without the reward of eternal life) that which
would have happened to him in the course of nature, and pays the debt of
man's death, which must be paid by an inevitable law, with the interest of
a most fruitful passion, and the recompense of a great reward.
CHAPTER VII: A question whether the man who causes the death of a good man
is guilty, if the good man is the gainer by his death.
GERMANUS: Well then, if a good man does not only suffer no evil by
being killed, but actually gains a reward from his suffering, how can we
accuse the man who has done him no harm but good by killing him?
CHAPTER VIII: The answer to the foregoing question.
THEODORE: We are talking about the actual qualities of things good and
bad, and what we call indifferent; and not about the characters of the men
who do these things. Nor ought any bad or wicked man to go unpunished
because his evil deed was not able to do harm to a good man. For the
endurance and goodness of a righteous man are of no profit to the man who
is the cause of his death or suffering, but only to him who patiently
endures what is inflicted on him. And so the one is justly punished for
savage cruelty, because he meant to injure him, while the other
nevertheless suffers no evil, because in the goodness of his heart he
patiently endures his temptation and sufferings, and so causes all those
things, which were inflicted upon him with evil, intent, to turn out to his
advantage, and to conduce to the bliss of eternal life.
CHAPTER IX: The case of Job who was tempted by the devil i and of the Lord
who was betrayed by Judas: and how prosperity as well as adversity is
advantageous to a good man.
FOR the patience of Job did not bring any gain to the devil, through
making him a better man by his temptations, but only to lob himself who
endured them bravely; nor was Judas granted freedom from eternal
punishment, because his act of betrayal contributed to the salvation of
mankind. For we must not regard the result of the deed, but the purpose of
the doer. Wherefore we should always cling to this assertion; viz., that
evil cannot be brought upon a man by another, unless a man has admitted it
by his sloth or feebleness of heart: as the blessed Apostle confirms this
opinion of ours in a verse of Scripture: "But we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God."(1) But by saying "All things work
together for good," he includes everything alike, not only things
fortunate, but also those which seem to be misfortunes: through which the
Apostle tells us in another place that he himself has passed, when he says:
"By the amour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left," i.e.,"
Through honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, as
deceivers and yet true, as sorrowful but always rejoicing, as needy and yet
enriching many:"(2) All those things then which are considered fortunate,
and are called those "on the right hand," which the holy Apostle designates
by the terms honour and good report; and those too which are counted
misfortunes, which he clearly means by dishonour and evil report, and which
he describes as "on the left hand," become to the perfect man "the armour
of righteousness," if when they are brought upon him, he bears them
bravely: because, as he fights with these, and uses those very weapons with
which he seems to be attacked, and is protected by them as by bow and sword
and stout shield against those who bring these things upon him, he secures
the advantage of his patience and goodness, and obtains a grand triumph of
steadfastness by means of those very weapons of his enemies which are
hurled against him to kill him; and if only he is not elated by success or
cast down by failure, but ever marches straightforward on the king's
highway, and does not swerve from that state of tranquillity as it were to
the right hand, when joy overcomes him, nor let himself be driven so to
speak to the left hand, when misfortunes overwhelm him, and sorrow holds
sway. For "Much peace have they that love Thy law, and to them there is no
stumbling block."(3) But of those who shift about according to the
character and changes of the several chances which happen to them, we read:
"But a fool will change like the moon."(4) For just as it is said of men
who are perfect and wise: "To them that love God all things work together
for good,"(5) so of those who are weak and foolish it is declared that
"everything is against a foolish man,"(6) for he gets no profit out of
prosperity, nor does adversity make him any better. For it requires as much
goodness to bear sorrows bravely, as to be moderate in prosperity: and it
is quite certain that one who fails in one of these, will not bear up under
the other. But a man can be more easily overcome by prosperity than by
misfortunes: for these sometimes restrain men against their will and make
them humble and through most salutary sorrow cause them to sin less, and
make them better: while prosperity puffs up the mind with soothing but most
pernicious flatteries and when men are secure in the prospect of their
happiness dashes them to the ground with a still greater destruction.
CHAPTER X: Of the excellence of the perfect man who is figuratively spoken
of as ambidextrous.
THOSE are they then who are figurately spoken of in holy Scripture as
amphoterode'xion, i.e., ambidextrous, as Ehud is described in the book of
Judges "who used either hand as the right(1) hand." And this power we also
can spiritually acquire, if by making a right and proper use of those
things which are fortunate, and which seem to be "on the right hand," as
well as of those which are unfortunate and as we call it "on the left
hand," we make them both belong to the right side, so that whatever turns
up proves in our case, to use the words of the Apostle, "the armour of
righteousness." For we see that the inner man consists of two parts, and if
I may be allowed the expression, two hands, nor can any of the saints do
without that which we call the left hand: but by means of it the perfection
of virtue is shown, where a man by skilful use can turn both hands into
right hands. And in order to make our meaning clearer, the saint has for
his right hand his spiritual achievements, in which he is found when with
fervent spirit he gets the better of his desires and passions, when he is
free from all attacks of the devil, and without any effort or difficulty
rejects and cuts off all carnal sins, when he is exalted above the earth
and regards all things present and earthly as light smoke or vain shadows,
and scorns them as what is about to vanish away, when with an overflowing
heart he not only longs most intensely for the future but actually sees it
the more clearly, when he is more effectually fed on spiritual
contemplations, when he sees heavenly mysteries more brightly laid open to
him, when he pours forth his prayers to God with greater purity and
readiness, when he is so inflamed with fervent of spirit as to pass with
the utmost readiness of soul to things invisible and eternal, so as
scarcely to believe that he any longer remains in the flesh. He has also a
left hand, when he is entangled in the toils of temptation, when he is
inflamed with the heat of desire for carnal lusts, when he is set on fire
by emotion towards rage and anger, when he is overcome by being puffed up
with pride or vainglory, when he is oppressed by a sorrow that worketh
death, when l he is shaken to pieces by the contrivances and attacks of
accidie, and when he has lost all spiritual warmth, and grows indifferent
with a sort of lukewarmness and unreasonable grief so that not only is he
forsaken by good and kindling thoughts, but actually Psalms, prayer,
reading, and retirement in his cell all pall upon him, and all virtuous
exercises seem by an intolerable and horrible loathing to have lost their
saviour. And when a monk is troubled in this way, then he knows that he is
attacked "on the left hand." Anyone therefore who is not at all puffed up
through the aid of vainglory by any of those things on the right hand which
we have mentioned, and who struggles manfully against those on the left
hand, and does not yield to despair and give in, but rather on the other
hand seizes the armour of patience to practise himself in virtue--this man
can use both hands as fight hands, and in each action he proves triumphant
and carries off the prize of victory from that condition on the left hand
as well as that on the fight. Such, we read, was the reward which the
blessed Job obtained who was certainly crawned (for a victory) on the right
hand, when he was the father of seven sons and walked as a rich and wealthy
man, and yet offered daily sacrifices to the Lord for their purification,
in his anxiety that they might prove acceptable and dear to God rather than
to himself, when his gates stood open to every stranger, when he was "feet
to lame and eyes to blind,"(2) when the shoulders of the suffering were
kept warm by the wool of his sheep, when he was a father to orphans and a
husband to widows, when he did not even in his heart rejoice at the fall of
his enemy. And again it was the same man who with still greater virtue
triumphed over adversity on the left hand, when deprived in one moment of
his seven sons he was not as a father overcome with bitter grief but as a
true servant of God rejoiced in the will of his Creator. When instead of
being a wealthy man he became poor, naked instead of rich, pining away
instead of strong, despised and contemptible instead of famous and
honourable, and yet preserved his fortitude of mind unshaken, when, lastly,
bereft of all his wealth and substance he took up his abode on the
dunghill, and like some stern executioner of his own body scraped with a
potsherd the matter that broke out, and plunging his fingers deep into his
wounds dragged out on every side masses of worms from his limbs. And in all
this he never fell into despair and blasphemy, nor murmured at all against
his Creator. Moreover also so little was he overcome by such a weight of
bitter temptations that the cloak which out of all his former property
remained to cover his body, and which alone could be saved from destruction
by the devil because he was clothed with it, he rent and cast off, and
covered with it his nakedness which he voluntarily endured, which the
terrible robber had brought upon him. The hair of his head too, which was
the only thing left untouched out of all the remains of his former glory,
he shaved and cast to his tormentor, and cutting off even that which his
savage foe had left to him he exulted over him and mocked him with that
celestial cry of his: "If we have received good at the hand of the Lord,
should we not also receive evil? Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and
naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away;
as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done; blessed be the name of the
Lord."(1) I should also with good reason call Joseph ambidextrous, as in
prosperity he was very dear to his father, affectionate to his brethren,
acceptable to God; and in adversity was chaste, and faithful to the Lord,
in prison most kind to the prisoners, forgetful of wrongs, generous to his
enemies; and to his brethren who were envious of him and as far as lay in
their powers, his murderers, he proved not only affectionate but actually
munificent. These men then and those who are like them are rightly termed
amphoterode'xion, i.e., ambidextrous. For they can use either hand as the
right hand, and passing through those things which the Apostle enumerates
can fairly say: "Through the armour of righteousness on the right hand and
on the left, through honour and dishonour, through evil report and good
report etc." And of this right and left hand Solomon speaks as follows in
the Song of songs, in the person of the bride: "His left hand is under my
head, and his right hand shall embrace me."(2) And while this passage shows
that both are useful, yet it puts one under the head, because misfortunes
ought to be subject to the control of the heart, since they are only useful
for this; viz., to train us for a time and discipline us for our salvation
and make us perfect in the matter of patience. But the right hand she hopes
will ever cling to her to cherish her and hold her fast in the blessed
embrace of the Bridegroom, and unite her to him indissolubly. We shall then
be ambidextrous, when neither abundance nor want affects us, and when the
former does not entice us to the luxury of a dangerous carelessness, while
the latter does not draw us to despair, and complaining; but when, giving
thanks to God in either case alike, we gain one and the same advantage out
of good and bad fortune. And such that truly ambidextrous man, the teacher
of the Gentiles, testifies that he himself was, when he says: "For I have
learnt in whatsoever state I am, to be content therewith. I know both how
to be brought low and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I
am instructed both to be full and to De hungry, both to abound and to
suffer need. I can do all things in Him which strengtheneth me."(3)
CHAPTER XI: Of the two kinds of trials, which come upon us in a three-fold
way.
WELL then, though we say that trial is twofold, i.e., in prosperity and
in adversity, yet you must know that all men are tried in three different
ways. Often for their probation, sometimes for their improvement, and m
some cases because their sins deserve it. For their probation indeed, as we
read that the blessed Abraham and Job and many of the saints endured
countless tribulations; or this which is said to the people in Deuteronomy
by Moses: "And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy
God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee
and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made
known, whether thou wouldst keep His Commandments or no:"(4) and this which
we find in the Psalms: "I proved thee at the waters of strife."(5) To Job
also: "Thinkest thou that I have spoken for any other cause than that thou
mightest be seen to be righteous?"(6) But for improvement, when God
chastens his righteous ones for some small and venial sins, or to raise
them to a higher state of purity, and delivers them over to various trials,
that He may purge away all their unclean thoughts, and, to use the
prophet's word, the "dross," which he sees to have collected in their
secret parts, and may thus transmit them like pure gold, to the judgment to
come, as He allows nothing to remain in them for the fire of judgment to
discover when hereafter it searches them with penal torments according to
this saying: "Many are the tribulations of the righteous."(7) And: "My son,
neglect not the discipline of the Lord, neither be thou wearied whilst thou
art rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth, and scourgeth
every son whom He receiveth. For what son is there whom the father doth not
correct? But if ye are without chastisement, whereof all are partakers,
then are ye bastards, and not sons."(1) And in the Apocalypse: "Those whom
I love, I reprove and chasten."(2) To whom under the figure of Jerusalem
the following words are spoken by Jeremiah, in the person of God: "For I
will utterly consume all the nations among which I scattered thee: but I
will not utterly consume thee: but I will chastise thee in judgment, that
thou mayest not seem to thyself innocent."(3) And for this life-giving
cleansing David prays when he says: "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; turn my
reins and my heart."(4) Isaiah also, well knowing the value of this trial,
says "O Lord, correct us but with judgment: not in Thine anger."(5) And
again: "I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, for thou wast angry with me:
Thy wrath is turned away, and Thou hast comforted me."(6) But as a
punishment for sins, the blows of trial are inflicted, as where the Lord
threatens that He will send plagues upon the people of Israel: "I will send
the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon
the ground:"(7) and "In vain have I struck your children: they have not
received correction."(8) In the Psalms also: "Many are the scourges of the
sinners:"(9) and in the gospel: "Behold thou art made whole: now sin no
more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee."(10) We find, it is true, a
fourth way also in which we know on the authority of Scripture that some
sufferings are brought upon us simply for the manifestation of the glory of
God and His works, according to these words of the gospel: "Neither did
this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested
in him:"(11) and again: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory
of God that the Son of God may be glorified by it."(12) There are also
other sorts of vengeance, with which some who have overpassed the bounds of
wickedness are smitten in this life, as we read that Dathan and Abiram or
Korah were punished, or above all, those of whom the Apostle speaks:
"Wherefore God gave them up to vile passions and a reprobate mind:"(13) and
this must be counted worse than all other punishments. For of these the
Psalmist says: "They are not in the labours of men; neither shall they be
scourged like other men."(14) For they are not worthy of being healed by
the visitation of the Lord which gives life, and by plagues in this world,
as "in despair they have given themselves over to lasciviousness, unto the
working of all error unto uncleanness,"(15) and as by hardening their
hearts, and by growing accustomed and used to sin they have got beyond
cleansing in this brief life and punishment in the present world: men, who
are thus reproved by the holy word of the prophet: "I destroyed some of
you, as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a firebrand
plucked out of the burning: yet you returned not to Me, saith the
Lord,"(16) and Jeremiah: "I have killed and destroyed thy people, and yet
they are not returned from their ways."(17) And again: "Thou hast smitten
them and they have not grieved: Thou hast bruised them and they refused to
receive correction: they have made their faces harder than the rock, they
have refused to return."(18) And the prophet seeing that all the remedies
of this life will have been applied in vain for their healing, and already
as it were despairing of their life, declares: "The bellows have failed in
the fire, the founder hath melted in vain: for their wicked deeds are not
consumed. Call them reprobate silver, for the Lord hath rejected them."(19)
And the Lord thus laments that to no purpose has He applied this salutary
cleansing by fire to those who are hardened in their sins, in the person of
Jerusalem crusted all over with the rust of her sins, when He says: "set it
empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the brass thereof may be
melted; and let the filth of it be melted in the midst thereof. Great pains
have been taken, and the great rust thereof is not gone out, no not even by
fire. Thy uncleanness is execrable: because I desired to cleanse thee, and
thou art not cleansed from thy filthiness."(20) Wherefore like a skilful
physician, who has tried all saving cures, and sees there is no remedy left
which can be applied to their disease, the Lord is in a manner overcome by
their iniquities and is obliged to desist from that kindly chastisement of
His, and so denounces them saying: "I will no longer be angry with thee,
and thy jealousy has departed from thee."(21) But of others, whose heart
has not grown hard by continuance in sin, and who do not stand in need of
that most severe and (if I may so call it) caustic remedy, but for whose
salvation the instruction of the life-giving word is sufficient--of them it
is said: "I will improve them by hearing of their suffering."(1) We are
well aware that there are other reasons also of the punishment and
vengeance which is inflicted on those who have sinned grievously--not to
expiate their crimes, nor wipe out the deserts of their sins, but that the
living may be put in fear and amend their lives. And these we plainly see
were inflicted on Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and Baasha the son of Ahiah,
and Ahab and Jezebel, when the Divine reproof thus declares: "Behold, I
will bring evil upon thee, and will cut down thy posterity, and will kill
of Ahab every male, and him that is shut up and the last in Israel. And I
will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and like
the house of Baasha the son of Ahiah: for that which thou hast done to
provoke Me to anger, and for making Israel to sin. The dogs also shall eat
Jezebel in the field of Jezreel. If Ahab die in the city, the dogs shall
eat him: but if he die in the field the birds of the air shall eat him,"(2)
and this which is threatened as the greatest threat of all: "Thy dead body
shall not be brought to the sepulchre of thy fathers."(3) It was not that
this short and momentary punishment would suffice to purge away the
blasphemous inventions of him who first made the golden calves and led to
the lasting sin of the people, and their wicked separation from the Lord,--
or the countless and disgraceful profanities of those others, but it was
that by their example the fear of those punishments which they dreaded
might fall on others also, who, as they thought little of the future or
even disbelieved in it altogether, would only be moved by consideration of
things present; and that owing to this proof of His severity they might
acknowledge that there is no lack of care for the affairs of men, and for
their daily doings, in the majesty of God on high, and so through that
which they greatly feared might the more clearly See in God the rewarder of
all their deeds. We find, it is true, that even for lighter faults some men
have received the same sentence of death in this world, as that with which
those men were punished who, as we said before, were the authors of a
blasphemous falling away: as happened in the case of the man who gathered
sticks on the Sabbath,(4) and in that of Ananias and Sapphira, who through
the sin of unbelief kept back some portion of their goods: not that the
guilt of their sins was equal, but because they were the first found out
in a new kind of transgression, and so it was right that as they had given
to others an example of sin, so also they should give them an example of
punishment and of fear, that anyone, who should attempt to copy them, might
know that (even if his punishment were postponed in this life) he would be
punished in the same way that they were at the trial of the judgment
hereafter. And, since in our desire to run through the different kinds of
trials and punishments we seem to have wandered somewhat from our subject,
on which we were saying that the perfect man will always remain steadfast
in either kind of trial, now let us return to it once more.
CHAPTER XII: How the upright man ought to be like a stamp not of wax but of
hard steel.
AND so the mind of the upright man ought not to be like wax or any
other soft material which always yields to the shape of what presses on it,
and is stamped with its form and impress and keeps it until it takes
another shape by having another seal stamped upon it; and so it results
that it never retains its own form but is turned and twisted about to
correspond to whatever is pressed upon it. But he should rather be like
some stamp of hard steel, that the mind may always keep its proper form and
shape inviolate, and may stamp and imprint on everything which occurs to it
the marks of its own condition, while upon it itself nothing that happens
can leave any mark.
CHAPTER XIII: A question whether the mind can constantly continue in one
and the same condition.
GERMANUS: But can our mind constantly preserve its condition unaltered,
and always continue in the same state?
CHAPTER XIV: The answer to the point raised by the questioner.
THEODORE: It is needful that one must either, as the Apostle says, "be
renewed in the spirit of the mind,"(5) and daily advance by "pressing
forward to those things which are before,"(6) or, if one neglects to do
this, the sure result will be to go back, and become worse and worse. And
therefore the mind cannot possibly remain in one and the same state. Just
as when a man, by pulling hard, is trying to force a boat against the
stream of a strong current he must either stem the rush of the torrent by
the force of his arms, and so mount to what is higher up, or letting his
hands slacken be whirled headlong down stream. Wherefore it will be a clear
proof of our failure if we find that we have gained nothing more, nor
should we doubt but that we have altogether gone back, whenever we find
that we have not advanced upwards, because, as I said, the mind of man
cannot possibly continue in the same condition, nor so long as he is in the
flesh will any of the saints ever reach the height of all virtues, so that
they continue unalterable. For something must either be added to them or
taken away from them, and in no creature can there be such perfection, as
not to be subject to the feeling of change; as we read in the book of Job:
"What is man that he should be without spot, and he that is born of a woman
that he should appear just? Behold among His saints none is unchangeable,
and the heavens are not pure in His sight."(1) For we confess that God only
is unchangeable, who alone is thus addressed by the prayer of the holy
prophet "But Thou art the same,"(2) and who says of Himself "I am God, and
I change not,"(3) because He alone is by nature always good, always full
and perfect, and one to whom nothing can ever be added, or from whom
nothing can be taken away. And so we ought always with incessant care and
anxiety to give ourselves up to the acquirement of virtue, and constantly
to occupy ourselves with the practice of it, lest, if we cease to go
forward, the result should immediately be a going back. For, as we said,
the mind cannot continue in one and the same condition, I mean without
receiving addition to or diminution of its good qualities. For to fail to
gain new ones, is to lose them, because when the desire of making progress
ceases, there the danger of going back is present.
CHAPTER XV: How one loses by going away from one's cell.
AND so we ought always to remain shut up in our cell. For whenever a
man has strayed from it and returns fresh to it and begins again to live
there he will be upset and disturbed. For if he has let it go he cannot
without difficulty and pains recover that fixed purpose of mind, which he
had gained when he remained in his cell; and as through this he has gone
back, he will not think anything of the advance which he has missed, and
which he would have secured if he had not allowed himself to leave his
cell, but he will rather congratulate himself if he finds that he has
regained that condition from which he fell away. For just as time once lost
and gone cannot any more be recovered, so neither can those advantages
which have been missed be restored: for whatever earnest purpose of the
mind there may be afterwards, it will be the profit of the day then
present, and the gain that belongs to the time that then is, and will not
make up for the gain that has been once for all lost.
CHAPTER XVI: How even celestial powers above are capable of change.
BUT that even the powers above are, as we said, subject to change is
shown by those who fell from their ranks through the fault of a corrupt
will. Wherefore we ought not to think that the nature of those is
unchangeable, who remain in the blessed condition in which they were
created, simply because they were not in like manner led astray to choose
the worse part. For it is one thing to have a nature incapable of change,
and another thing for a man through the efforts of his virtue, and by
guarding what is good through the grace of the unchangeable God, to be kept
from change. For everything that is secured or preserved by care, can also
be lost by carelessness. And so we read: "Call no man blessed before his
death,"(4) because so long as a man is still engaged in the struggle, and
if I may use the expression, still wrestling--even though he generally
conquers and carries off many prizes of victory,--yet he can never be free
from fear, and from the suspicion of an uncertain issue. And therefore God
alone is called unchangeable and good, as His goodness is not the result of
effort, but a natural possession, and so He cannot be anything but good. No
virtue then can be acquired by man without the possibility of change, but
in order that when it once exists it may be continually preserved, it must
be watched over with the same care and diligence with which it was
acquired.
CHAPTER XVII: That no one is dashed to the ground by a sudden fall.
But we must not imagine that anyone slips and comes to grief by a
sudden fall, but that he falls by a hopeless collapse either from being
deceived by beginning his training badly, or from the good qualities of his
soul failing through a long course of carelessness of mind, and so his
faults gaining ground upon him little by little. For "loss goeth before
destruction, and an evil thought before a fall,"(1) just as no house ever
fails to the ground by a sudden collapse, but only when there is some flaw
of long standing in the foundation, or when by long continued neglect of
its inmates, what was at first only a little drip finds its way through,
and so the protecting wails are by degrees ruined, and in consequence of
long standing neglect the gap becomes larger, and break away, and in time
the drenching storm and rain pours in like a river: for "by slothfulness a
building is cast down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall
drop through,"(2) And that the same thing happens spiritually to the soul
the same Solomon thus tells us in other words, when he says: "water
dripping drives a man out of the house. on a stormy day."(4) Elegantly then
does he compare carelessness of mind to a roof, and to tiles that have not
been looked after, through which in the first instance only very slight
drippings (so to speak) of the passions make their way to the soul: but if
these are not heeded, as being but small and trifling, then the beams of
virtues will decay and be carried away by a great tempest of sins, through
which "on a stormy day," i.e., in the time of temptation, the devil's
attack will assail us, and the soul will be driven forth from the abode of
virtue, in which, as long as it preserved all watchful diligence, it had
remained as in a house that belonged to it.
And so when we had heard this, we were so immensely delighted with our
spiritual repast, that the mental pleasure with which we were filled by
this conference outweighed the sorrow which we had experienced before from
the death of the saints. For not only were we instructed in things about
which we had been puzzled, but we also learnt from the raising of that
question some things, which our understanding had been too small for us to
ask about.
VII. FIRST CONFERENCE OF ABBOT SERENUS.
ON INCONSTANCY OF MIND, AND SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS.
CHAPTER I: On the chastity of Abbot Serenus.(3)
As we desire to introduce to earnest minds the Abbot Serenus, a man of
the greatest holiness and continence, and one who answers like a mirror to
his name, whom we admired above all others with peculiar veneration, we
think that we only carry out our desire by the attempt to insert his
conferences in our book. To this man beyond all other virtues, which shone
forth not merely in his actions and manners, but by God's grace in his very
look as well, there was granted by a special blessing the gift of
continence, so that he never felt himself disturbed even by natural
incitements even in sleep. And how it was that by the assistance of God's
grace he attained such wondrous purity of the flesh, as it seems beyond the
conditions of human nature, I think that I ought first of all to explain.
CHAPTER II: The question of the aforesaid old man on the state of our
thoughts.
This man then in his prayers by day and night, and in fasts and vigils
unweariedly entreated for inward chastity of heart and soul, and seeing
that he had obtained what he wished and prayed for, and that all the
passions of carnal concupiscence in his heart were dead, was roused as it
were by the sweetest taste of purity, and inflamed by his zeal for chastity
towards a yet more ardent desire, and began to apply himself to stricter
fasts and prayers that the mortification of this passion which by God's
grace had been granted to his inner man, might be extended also so as to
include external purity, to such an extent that he might no longer be
affected by any simple and natural movement, such as is excited even in
children and infants. And by the experience of the gift he had obtained,
which he knew he had secured by no merit of his labours, but by the grace
God, he was the more ardently stimulated to obtain this also in like
manner, as he believed that God could much more easily tear up by the roots
this incitement of the flesh, (which even by man's art and skill is
sometimes destroyed by potions and remedies or by the use of the knife)
since He had of His own free gift conferred that purity of spirit which is
a still greater thing, and which cannot be acquired by human efforts and
exertions. And when with unceasing supplications and tears he was applying
himself unweariedly to the petition he had commenced, there came to him an
angel in a vision by night, and seemed to open his belly, and to remove
from his bowels a sort of fiery fleshly humour, and to cast it away, and
restore everything to its place as before; and "lo" he said, "the
incitements of your flesh are removed, and you may be sure that you have
this day obtained that lasting purity of body for which you have faithfully
asked." It will be enough thus briefly to have told this of the grace of
God which was granted to this famous man in a special way. But I deem it
unnecessary to say anything of those virtues which he possessed in common
with other good men, for fear lest that particular narrative on this man's
name might seem to deprive others of that which is specially mentioned of
him. Him therefore, as we were inflamed with the greatest eagerness for
conference with and instruction from him, we arranged to visit in Lent; and
when he had very quietly inquired of us of the character of our thoughts
and the state of our inner man, and what help we had got towards its purity
from our long stay in the desert, we approached him with these complaints:
CHAPTER III: Our answer on the fickle character of our thoughts.
THE time spent here, and the dwelling in solitude, and meditation,
through which you think that we ought to have attained perfection of the
inner man, has only done this for us; viz., teach us that which we are
unable to be, without making us what we are trying to be. Nor do we feel
that by this knowledge we have acquired any fixed steadfastness of the
purity which we long for, or any strength and firmness; but only an
increase of confusion and shame: for though our meditation in all our
discipline aims at this in our daily studies, and endeavours from trembling
beginnings to reach a sure and unwavering skill, and to begin to know
something of what originally it knew but vaguely or was altogether ignorant
of, and by advancing by sure steps (so to speak) towards the condition of
that discipline, to habituate itself perfectly to it without any
difficulty, I find on the contrary that while I am struggling in this
desire for purity, I have only got far enough to know what I cannot be. And
hence I feel that nothing but trouble results to me from all this
contrition of heart, so that matter for tears is never wanting, and yet I
do not cease to be what I ought not to be. And so what is the good of
having learnt what is best, if it cannot be attained even when known? for
when we have been feeling that the aim of our heart was directed towards
what we purposed, insensibly the mind returns to its previous wandering
thoughts and slips back with a more violent rush, and is taken up with
daily distractions and incessantly drawn away by numberless things that
take it captive, so that we almost despair of the improvement which we long
for, and all these observances seem useless. Since the mind which every
moment wanders off vaguely, when it is brought back to the fear of God or
spiritual contemplation, before it is established in it, darts off and
strays; and when we have been roused and have discovered that it has
wandered from the purpose set before it, and want to recall it to the
meditation from which it has strayed, and to bind it fast with the firmest
purpose of heart, as if with chains, while we are making the attempt it
slips away from the inmost recesses of the heart swifter than a snake.
Wherefore we being inflamed by daily exercises of this kind, and yet not
seeing that we gain from them any strength and stability in heart are
overcome and in despair driven to this opinion; viz., to believe that it is
from no fault of our own but from a fault of our nature that these
wanderings of mind are found in mankind.
CHAPTER IV: The discourse of the old man on the state of the soul and its
excellence.
Serenus: It is dangerous to jump to a conclusion and lay down the law
hastily on the nature of anything before you have properly discussed the
subject and considered its true character. Nor should you, looking only at
your own weakness, hazard a conjecture instead of pronouncing a judgment
based on the character and value of the practice itself, and others'
experience of it. For if anyone, who was ignorant of swimming but knew that
the weight of his body could not be supported by water, wished from the
proof which his inexperience afforded, to lay down that no one composed of
solid flesh could possibly be supported on the liquid element, we ought not
therefore to think his opinion a true one, which he seemed to bring forward
in accordance with his own experience, since this can be shown to be not
merely not impossible but actually extremely easily done by others, by the
clearest proofs and ocular demonstration. And so the nou^s, i.e., the mind,
is defined as aeiki'nhtos kai` poluki'nhtos, i.e., ever shifting and very
shifting: as it is thus described in the so called wisdom of Solomon in
other words: kai gew^des skh^nos bri'thei nou^n poluphro'ntida, i.e.," And
the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth on many
things."(1) This then in accordance with its nature can never remain idle,
but unless provision is made where it may exercise its motions and have
what will continually occupy it, it must by its own fickleness wander about
and stray over all kinds of things until, accustomed by long practice and
daily use--in which you say that you have toiled without result--it tries
and learns what food for the memory it ought to prepare, toward which it
may bring back its unwearied flight and acquire strength for remaining, and
thus may succeed in driving away the hostile suggestion of the enemy by
which it is distracted, and in persisting in that state and condition which
it yearns for. We ought not then to ascribe this wandering inclination of
our heart either to human nature or to God its Creator. For it is a true
statement of Scripture, that "God made man upright; but they themselves
found out many thoughts"(2) The character of these then depends on us
ourselves, for it says "a good thought comes near to those that know it,
but a prudent man will find it."(3) For where anything is subject to our
prudence and industry so that it can be found out, there if it is not found
out, we ought certainly to set it down to our own laziness or carelessness
and not to the fault of our nature. And with this meaning the Psalmist also
is in agreement, when he says: "Blessed is the man whose help is from Thee:
in his heart he hath disposed his ascents."(4) You see then that it lies in
our power to dispose in our hearts either ascents, i.e., thoughts that
belong to God, or descents; viz., those that sink down to carnal and
earthly things. And if this was not in our power the Lord would not have
rebuked the Pharisees, saying "Why do ye think evil in your hearts?"(5) nor
would He have given this charge by the prophet, saying: "Take away the evil
of your thoughts from mine eyes;" and "How long shall wicked thoughts
remain in you?"(6) Nor would the character of them as of our works be taken
into consideration in the day of judgment in our case as the Lord threatens
by Isaiah: "Lo, I come to gather together their works and thoughts together
with all nations and tongues;"(7) nor would it be right that we should be
condemned or defended by their evidence in that terrible and dreadful
examination, as the blessed Apostle says: "Their thoughts between
themselves accusing or also defending one another, in the day when God
shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel."(8)
CHAPTER V: On the perfection of the soul, as drawn from the comparison of
the Centurion in the gospel.
Of this perfect mind then there is an excellent figure drawn in the
case of the centurion in the gospel; whose virtue and consistency, owing to
which he was not led away by the rush of thoughts, but in accordance with
his own judgment either admitted such as were good, or easily drove away
those of the opposite character, are described in this tropical form: "For
I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to
this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my
servant, Do this, and he doeth it."(9) If then we too strive manfully
against disturbances and sins and can bring them under our own control and
discretion, and fight and destroy the passions in our flesh, and bring
under the sway of reason the swarm of our thoughts, and drive back from our
breast the terrible hosts of the powers opposed to us by the life-giving
standard of the Lord's cross, we shall in reward for such triumphs be
promoted to the rank of that centurion spiritually understood, who, as we
read in Exodus, was mystically pointed to by Moses: "Appoint for thee
rulers of thousands, and of hundreds, and of fifties and of tens."(1) And
so we too when raised to the height of this dignity shall have the same
right and power to command, so that we shall not be carried away by
thoughts against our will, but shall be able to continue in and cling to
those which spiritually delight us, commanding the evil suggestions to
depart, and they will depart, while to good ones we shall say "Come," and
they will come: and to our servant also, i.e., the body we shall in like
manner enjoin what belongs to chastity and continence, and it will serve us
without any gainsaying, no longer arousing in us the hostile incitements of
concupiscence, but showing all subservience to the spirit. And what is the
character of the arms of this centurion, and for what use in battle they
are, hear the blessed Apostle declaring: "The arms," he says "of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God." He tells us their character;
viz., that they are not carnal or weak, but spiritual and mighty to God.
Then he next suggests in what struggles they are to be used: "Unto the
pulling down of fortifications, purging the thoughts, and every height that
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every understanding unto the obedience of Christ, and having in readiness
to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall be first
fulfilled."(2) And since though useful, it yet belongs to another time to
run through these one by one, I only want you to see the different sorts of
these arms and their characteristics, as we also ought always to walk with
them girt upon us if we mean to fight the Lord's battles and to serve among
the centurions of the gospel. "Take," he says "the shield of faith,
wherewith ye may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one."(3)
Faith then is that which intercepts the flaming darts of lust, and destroys
them by the fear of future judgment, and belief in the heavenly kingdom.
"And the breastplate," he says, "of charity."(4) This indeed is that which
going round the vital parts of the breast and protecting what is exposed to
the deadly wounds of swelling thoughts, keeps off the blows opposed to it,
and does not allow the darts of the devil to penetrate to our inner man.
For it "endureth all things, suffereth all things, beareth all things."(5)
"And for an helmet the hope of salvation."(6) The helmet is what protects
the head. As then Christ is our head, we ought always in all temptations
and persecutions to protect it with the hope of future good things to come,
and especially to keep faith in Him whole and undefiled. For it is possible
for one who has lost other parts of the body, weak as he may be, still to
survive: but even a short time of living is extended to no one without a
head. "And the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God."(7) For it is
"sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of
soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart:"(8) as it divides and cuts off whatever
carnal and earthly things it may find in us. And whosoever is protected by
these arms will ever be defended from the weapons and ravages of his foes,
and will not be led away bound in the chains of his spoilers, a captive and
a prisoner, to the hostile land of vain thoughts, nor hear the words of the
prophet: "Why art thou grown old in a strange country?"(9) But he will
stand like a triumphant conqueror in the land of thoughts which he has
chosen. Would you understand too the strength and courage of this
centurion, by which he bears these arms of which we spoke before as not
carnal but mighty to God? Hear of the selection by which the King himself
marks and approves brave men when he summons them to the spiritual combat.
"Let," says He, "the weak say that I am strong;" and: "Let him who is the
sufferer become a warrior."(10) You see then that none but sufferers and
weak people can fight the Lord's battles, weak indeed with that weakness,
rounded on which that centurion of ours in the gospel said with confidence:
"For when I am weak, then am I strong," and again, "for strength is made
perfect in weakness."(11) Of which weakness one of the prophets says: "And
he that is weak among them shall be as the house of David.(12) For the
patient sufferer shall fight these wars, with that patience of which it is
said "patience is necessary for you that doing the will of God you may
receive the reward."(13)
CHAPTER VI: Of perseverance as regards care of the thoughts.
But we shall find out by our own experience that we can and ought to
cling to the Lord if we have our wills mortified and the desires of this
world cut off, and we shall be taught by the authority of those who in
converse with the Lord say in all confidence: "My soul hath stuck close to
Thee;" and: "I have stuck unto Thy testimonies, O Lord;" and: "It is good
for me to stick fast to God;" and: "He who cleaveth to the Lord, is one
spirit."(1) We ought not then to be wearied out by these wanderings of mind
and relax from our fervour: for "he that tilleth his ground shall be filled
with bread: but he that followeth idleness shall be filled with
poverty."(2) Nor should we be drawn away from being intent on this
watchfulness through a dangerous despair, for "in every one who is anxious
there is abundance, for he who is pleasant and free from grief will be in
want;" and again: "a man in grief labours for himself, and forcibly brings
about his own destruction."(3) Moreover also: "the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence and the violent take it by force,"(4) for no virtue is
acquired without effort, nor can anyone attain to that mental stability
which he desires without great sorrow of heart, for "man is born to
trouble,"(5) and in order that he may be able to attain to "the perfect
man, the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"(6) he must ever
be on the watch with still greater intentness, and toil with ceaseless
carefulness. But to the fulness of this measure no one will ever attain,
but one Who has considered it beforehand and been trained to it now and has
had some foretaste of it while still in this world, and being marked a most
precious member of Christ, has possessed in the flesh an earnest of that
"joint"(7) by which he can be united to His body: desiring one thing alone,
thirsting for but one thing, ever bringing not only his acts but even his
thoughts to bear on one thing alone; viz., that he may even now keep as an
earnest that which is said of the blessed life of the saints hereafter;
viz., that "God may be" to him "all in all."(8)
CHAPTER VII: A question on the roving tendency of the mind and the attacks
of spiritual wickedness.
GERMANUS: Perhaps this tendency of the mind to rove might to some
extent be checked were it not that so great a swam of enemies surrounded
it, and ceaselessly urged it toward what it has no wish for, or rather
whither the roving character of its own nature drives it. And since such
numberless foes, and those so powerful and terrible, surround it, we should
not fancy that it was possible for them to be withstood especially by this
weak flesh of ours, were we not encouraged to this view by your words as if
by oracles from heaven.
CHAPTER VIII: The answer on the help of God and the power of free will
SERENUS: No one who has experienced the conflicts of the inner man, can
doubt that our foes are continually lying in wait for us. But we mean that
they oppose our progress in such a way that we can think of them as only
inciting to evil things and not forcing. But no one could altogether avoid
whatever sin they were inclined to imprint upon our hearts, if a strong
impulse was present to force (evil) upon us, just as it is to suggest it.
Wherefore as there is in them ample power of inciting, so in us there is a
supply of power of rejection, and of liberty of acquiescing. But if we are
afraid of their power and assaults, we may also claim the protection and
assistance of God against them, of which we read: "For greater is He who is
in us than he who is in this world:"(9) and His aid fights on our side with
much greater power than their hosts fight against us; for God is not only
the suggester of what is good, but the maintainer and insister of it, so
that sometimes He draws us towards salvation even against our will and
without our knowing it. It follows then that no one can be deceived by the
devil but one who has chosen to yield to him the consent of his own will:
as Ecclesiastes clearly puts it in these words: "For since there is no
gainsaying by those who do evil speedily, therefore the heart of the
children of men is filled within them to do evil."(10) It is therefore
clear that each man goes wrong from this; viz., that when evil thoughts
assault him he does not immediately meet them with refusal and
contradiction, for it says: "resist him, and he will flee from you."(11)
CHAPTER IX: A question on the union of the soul with devils.
GERMANUS: What, I pray you, is that indiscriminate and common union of
the soul with those evil spirits, by which it is possible for them to be (I
will not say joined with but) united to it in such a way that they can
imperceptibly talk with it, and find their way into it and suggest to it
whatever they want, and incite it to whatever they like, and look into and
see its thoughts and movements; and the result is so close a union between
them and the soul that it is almost impossible without God's grace to
distinguish between what results from their instigation, and what from our
free will.
CHAPTER X: The answer how unclean spirits are united with human souls.
SERENUS: It is no wonder that spirit can be imperceptibly joined with
spirit, and exercise an unseen power of persuasion toward what is allowed
to it. For there is between them (just as between men) some sort of
similarity and kinship of substance, since the description which is given
of the nature of the soul, applies equally well to their substance. But it
is impossible for spirits to be implanted in spirits inwardly or united
with them in such a way that one can hold the other; for this is the true
prerogative of Deity alone, which is the only simple and incorporeal
nature.
CHAPTER XI: An objection whether unclean spirits can be present in or
united with the souls of those whom they have filled.
GERMANUS: To this idea we think that what we see happen in the case of
those possessed is sufficiently opposed, when they say and do what they
know not under the influence of the spirits. How then are we to refuse to
believe that their souls are not united to those spirits, when we see them
made their instruments, and (forsaking their natural condition) yielding to
their movements and moods, in such a way that they give expression no
longer to their own words and actions and wishes, but to those of the
demons?
CHAPTER XII: The answer how it is that unclean spirits can lord it over
those possessed.
SERENUS: What you speak of as taking place in the case of demoniacs is
not opposed to our assertion; viz., that those possessed by unclean spirits
say and do what they do not i want to, and are forced to utter what they
know not; for it is perfectly clear that they are not subject to the
entrance of the spirits all in the same way: for some are affected by them
in such a way as to have not the slightest conception of what they do and
say, while others know and afterwards recollect it. But we must not imagine
that this is done by the infusion of the spirit in such a way that it
penetrates into the actual substance of the soul and, being as it were
united to it and somehow clothed with it, utters words and sayings through
the mouth of the sufferer. For we ought not to believe that this can
possibly be done by them. For we can clearly see that this results from no
loss of the soul but from weakness of the body, when the unclean spirit
seizes on those members in which the vigour of the soul resides, and laying
on them an enormous and intolerable weight overwhelms it with foulest
darkness, and interferes with its intellectual powers: as we see sometimes
happen also from the fault of wine and fever or excessive cold, and other
indispositions affecting men from without; and it was this which the devil
was forbidden to attempt to inflict on the blessed Job, though he had
received power over his flesh, when the Lord commanded him saying: "Lo, I
give him into thine hands: only preserve his soul,"(1) i.e., do not weaken
the seat of his soul and make him mad, and overpower the understanding and
wisdom of what remains, by smothering the ruling power in his heart with
your weight.
CHAPTER XIII: How spirit cannot be penetrated by spirit, and how God alone
is incorporeal.
FOR even if spirit is mingled with this crass and solid matter; viz.,
flesh (as very easily happens), should we therefore believe that it can be
united to the soul, which is in like manner spirit, in such a way as to
make it also receptive in the same way of its own nature: a thing which is
possible to the Trinity alone, which is so capable of pervading every
intellectual nature, that it cannot only embrace and surround it but even
insert itself into it and, incorporeal though it is, be infused into a
body? For though we maintain that some spiritual natures exist, such as
angels, archangels and the other powers, and indeed our own souls and the
thin air, yet we ought certainly not to consider them incorporeal. For they
have in their own fashion a body in which they exist, though it is much
finer than our bodies are, in accordance with the Apostle's words when he
says: "And there are bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial:" and again:
"It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;"(1) from which
it is clearly gathered that there is nothing incorporeal but God alone, and
therefore it is only by Him that all spiritual and intellectual substances
can be pervaded, because He alone is whole and everywhere and in all
things, in such a way as to behold and see the thoughts of men and their
inner movements and all the recesses of the soul; since it was of Him alone
that the blessed Apostle spoke when he said: "For the word of God is quick
and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the
dividing of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow; and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and there is no
creature invisible in His sight, but all things are naked and open to His
eyes."(2) And the blessed David says: "Who fashioneth their hearts one by
one;" and again: "For He knoweth the secrets of the heart;"(3) and Job too:
"Thou who alone knowest the hearts of men."(4)
CHAPTER XIV: An objection, as to how we ought to believe that devils see
into the thoughts of men.
GERMANUS: In this way, which you describe, those spirits cannot
possibly see into our thoughts. But we think it utterly absurd to hold such
an opinion, when Scripture says: "If the spirit of him that hath power
ascend upon thee;"(5) and again: "When the devil had put it into the heart
of Simon Iscariot to betray the Lord."(6) How then can we believe that our
thoughts are not open to them, when we feel that for the most part they
spring up and are nursed by their suggestions and instigation?
CHAPTER XV: The answer what devils can and what they cannot do in regard to
the thoughts of men.
SERENUS: Nobody doubts that unclean spirits can influence the character
of our thoughts, but this is by affecting them from without by sensible
influences, i.e., either from our inclinations or from our words, and those
likings to which they see that we are especially disposed. But they cannot
possibly come near to those which have not yet come forth from the inmost
recesses of the soul. And the thoughts too, which they suggest, whether
they are actually or in a kind of way embraced, are discovered by them not
from the nature of the soul itself, i.e., that inner inclination which lies
concealed so to speak in the very marrow, but from motions and signs given
by the outward man, as for example, when they suggest gluttony, if they
have seen a monk raising his eyes anxiously to the window or to the sun, or
inquiring eagerly what o'clock it is, they know that he has admitted the
feeling of greediness. If when they suggest fornication they find him
calmly submitting to the attack of lust, or see him perturbed in body, or
at any rate not groaning as he ought under the wantonness of an impure
suggestion, they know that the dart of lust is already fixed in his very
soul. If they stir up incitements to grief, or anger, or rage, they can
tell whether they have taken root in the heart by the movements of the
body, and visible disturbances, when, for instance, they have noticed him
either groaning silently, or panting with indignation or changing colour;
and so they cunningly discover the fault to which he is given over. For
they know that every one of us is enticed in a regular way by that one, to
the incitement of which they see, by a sort of assenting motion of the
body, that he has yielded his consent and agreement. And it is no wonder
that this is discovered by those powers of the air, when we see that even
clever men can often discover the state of the inner man from his mien and
look and external bearing. How much more surely then can this be discovered
by those who as being of a spiritual nature are certainly much more subtle
and cleverer than men.
CHAPTER XVI: An illustration showing how we are taught that unclean spirits
know the thoughts of men.
FOR just as some thieves are in the habit of examining the concealed
treasures of the men in those houses which they mean to rob, and in the
dark shades of night sprinkle with careful hands little grains of sand and
discover the hidden treasures which they cannot see by the tinkling sound
with which they answer to the fall of the sand, and so arrive at certain
knowledge of each thing and metal, which betrays itself in a way by the
voice elicited from it; so these too, in order to explore the treasures of
our heart, scatter over us the sand of certain evil suggestions, and when
they see some bodily affection arise corresponding to their character, they
recognize as if by a sort of tinkling sound proceeding from the inmost
recesses, what it is that is stored up in the secret chamber of the inner
man.
CHAPTER XVII: On the fact that not every devil has the power of suggesting
every passion to men.
BUT we ought to know this, that not all devils can implant all the
passions in men, but that certain spirits brood over each sin, and that
some gloat over uncleanness and filthy lusts, others over blasphemy, others
are more particularly devoted to anger and wrath, others thrive on
gloominess, others are pacified with vainglory and pride; and each one
implants in the hearts of men that sin, in which he himself revels, and
they cannot implant their special vices all at one time, but in turn,
according as the opportunity of time or place, or a man, who is open to
their suggestions, excites them.
CHAPTER XVIII: A question whether among the devils there is any order
observed in the attack, or system in its changes.
GERMANUS: Must we then believe that wickedness is arranged and so to
speak systematized among them in such a way that there is some order in the
changes observed by them, and a regular plan of attack carried out, though
it is clear that method and system can only exist among good and upright
men, as Scripture says: "Thou shalt seek wisdom among the ungodly and shalt
not find it; and: "our enemies are senseless;" and this: "There is neither
wisdom, nor courage, nor counsel among the ungodly."(1)
CHAPTER XIX: The answer how far an agreement exists among devils about the
attack and its changes.
SERENUS: It is a true assertion that there is no lasting concord among
bad men, and that perfect harmony cannot exist even in regard to those
particular faults which have attractions for them all in common. For, as
you have said, it can never be that system and discipline are preserved
among undisciplined things. But in some matters, where community of
interests, and necessity enforces it, or participation in some gain
recommends it, they must arrange for some agreement for the time being. And
we see very clearly that this is so in the case of this war of spiritual
wickedness; so that not only do they observe times and changes among
themselves, but actually are known specially to occupy some particular
spots and to haunt them persistently: for since they must make their
attacks through certain fixed temptations and well defined sins, and at
particular times, we clearly infer from this that no one can at one and at
the same time be deluded by the emptiness of vainglory and inflamed by the
lust of fornication, nor at one and the same time be puffed up by the
outrageous haughtiness of spiritual pride, and subject to the humiliation
of carnal gluttony. Nor can anyone be overcome by silly giggling and
laughter and at the same time be excited by the stings of anger, or at any
rate filled with the pains of gnawing grief: but all the spirits must one
by one advance to attack the soul, in such a way that when one has been
vanquished and retreated, he must make way for another spirit to attack it
still more vehemently, or if he has come forth victorious, he will none the
less hand it over to be deceived by another.
CHAPTER XX: Of the fact that opposite powers are not of the same boldness,
and that the occasions of temptation are not under their control.
WE ought also not to be ignorant of this, that they have not all the
same fierceness and energy, nor indeed the same boldness and malice, and
that with beginners and feeble folk only the weaker spirits join battle,
and when these spiritual wickednesses are beaten, then gradually the
assaults of stronger ones are made against the athlete of Christ. For in
proportion to a man's strength and progress, is the difficulty of the
struggle made greater: for none of the saints could possibly be equal to
the endurance of the malice of so many and so great foes, or meet their
attacks, or even bear their cruelty and savagery, were it not that the
merciful judge of our contest, and president of the games, Christ Himself,
equalized the strength of the combatants, and repelled and checked their
excessive attacks, and made with the temptation a way of escape as well
that we might be able to bear it.(1)
CHAPTER XXI: Of the fact that devils struggle with men not without effort
on their part.
BUT our belief is that they undertake this struggle not without effort
on their part. For in their conflict they themselves have some sort of
anxiety and depression, and especially when they are matched with stronger
rivals, i.e., saints and perfect men. Otherwise no contest or struggle, but
only a simple deception of men, and one free from anxiety on their part
would be assigned to them. And how then would the Apostle's words stand,
where he says: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against world-rulers of this darkness,
against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places;" and this too: "So fight
I, not as one that beateth the air;" and again: "I have fought a good
fight"?(2) For where it is spoken of as a fight, and conflict, and battle,
there must be effort and exertion and anxiety on both sides, and equally
there must either be in store for them chagrin and confusion for their
failure, or delight consequent upon their victory. But where one fights
with ease and security against another who struggles with great effort, and
in order to overthrow his rival makes use of his will alone as his
strength, there it ought not to be called a battle, struggle, or strife,
but a sort of unfair and unreasonable assault and attack. But they
certainly have to labour, and when they attack men, exert themselves in no
lesser degree in order to secure from each one that victory which they want
to obtain, and there is hurled back upon them the same confusion which was
awaiting us had we been worsted by them; as it is said: "The head of their
compassing me about, the labour of their own lips shall overwhelm them;"
and: "His sorrow shall be turned on his own head;" and again: "Let the
snare which he knoweth not come upon him, and let the net which he hath
hidden catch him, and into that very snare let him fall;"(3) viz., that
which he contrived for the deception of men. They then themselves also come
to grief, and as they damage us so are they also in like manner damaged by
us, nor when they are worsted do they depart without confusion, and seeing
these defeats of theirs and their struggles, one who had good eyes in his
inner man, seeing also that they gloated over the downfall and mischances
of individuals, and fearing lest his own case might furnish them with this
kind of delight, prayed to the Lord saying: "Lighten mine eyes that I sleep
not in death: lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him. They that
trouble me will rejoice if I be moved;" and: "O My God, let them not
rejoice over me; let them not say in their hearts, Aha, Aha, our very wish;
neither let them say; we have devoured hint." and: "They gnashed their
teeth upon me. Lord, how long wilt Thou look on this?" for: "he lieth in
wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to ravish the poor;"
and: "He seeketh from God his meat."(4) And again when all their efforts
are exhausted, and they have failed to secure our deception, they must "be
confounded and blush" at the failure of their efforts, "who seek our souls
to destroy them: and let them be covered with shame and confusion who
imagine evil against us."(5) Jeremiah also says: "Let them be confounded,
and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid:
bring upon them the fury of Thy wrath, and with a double destruction
destroy them."(6) For no one can doubt that when they are vanquished by us
they will be destroyed with a double destruction: first, because while men
are seeking after holiness, they, though they possessed it, lost it, and
became the cause of man's ruin; secondly, because being spiritual
existences, they have been vanquished by carnal and earthly ones. Each one
then of the saints when he looks on the destruction of his foes and his own
triumphs, exclaims with delight: "I will follow after mine enemies and
overtake them: and I will not turn until they are destroyed. I will break
them and they shall not be able to stand: they shall fall under my
feet,"(7) and in his prayers against them the same prophet says: "Judge
thou, O Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me.
Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me. Bring out the sword
and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul, I am
thy salvation."(8) And when by subduing and destroying all our passions we
have vanquished these, we shall then be permitted to hear those words of
blessing: "Thy hand shall be exalted over thine enemies, and all thine
enemies shall perish."(1) And so when we read or chant all these and such
like passages found in holy writ, unless we take them as written against
those spiritual wickednesses which lie in wait for us night and day, we
shall not only fail to draw from them any edification to make us gentle and
patient, but shall actually meet with some dreadful consequence and one
that is quite contrary to evangelical perfection. For we shall not only not
be taught to pray for or to love our enemies, but actually shall be stirred
up to hate them with an implacable hatred, and to curse them and
incessantly to pour forth prayers against them. And it is terribly wrong
and blasphemous to think that these words were uttered in such a spirit by
holy men and friends of God, on whom before the coming of Christ the law
was not imposed for the very reason that they went beyond its commands, and
chose rather to obey the precepts of the gospel and to aim at apostolical
perfection, though they lived before the dispensation of the time.
CHAPTER XXII: On the fact that the power to hurt does not depend upon the
will of the devils.
BUT that they have not the power of hurting any man is shown in a very
clear way by the instance of the blessed Job, where the enemy did not
venture to try him beyond what was allowed to him by the Divine permission;
and it is evidenced by the confession of the same spirits contained in the
records of the gospel, where they say: "If Thou cast us out, suffer us to
go into the herd of swine."(2) And far more must we hold that they cannot
of their own free will enter into any one of men who are created in the
image of God, if they have not power to enter into dumb and unclean animals
without the permission of God. But no one--I will not say of the younger
men, whom we see living most steadfastly in this desert, but even of those
who are perfect--could live alone in the desert, surrounded by such swarms
of foes of this kind, if they had unlimited power and freedom to hurt and
tempt us: and still more clearly is this supported by the words of our Lord
and Saviour, which in the lowliness of the manhood He had assumed, He
uttered to Pilate, when He said: "Thou couldest have no power against Me at
all, unless it were given thee from above."(3)
CHAPTER XXIII: Of the diminished power of the devils.
BUT we have thoroughly discovered both by our own experience and by the
testimony of the Elders that the devils have not now the same power as they
had formerly during the early days of the anchorites, when yet there were
only a few monks living in the desert. For such was their fierceness that
it was with difficulty that a few very steadfast men, and those advanced in
years were able to endure a life of solitude. Since in the actual
monasteries where eight or ten men used to live, their violence attacked
them so and their assaults were experienced so frequently, and so visibly,
that they did not dare all to go to bed at once by night, but took turns
and while some snatched a little sleep, others kept watch and devoted
themselves to Psalms and prayer and reading. And when the wants of nature
compelled them to sleep, they awoke the others, and committed to them in
like manner the duty of keeping watch over those who were going to bed.
Whence we cannot doubt that one of two things has brought about this result
not only in the case of us who seem to be fairly strong from the experience
which our age gives us, but also in the case of younger men as well. For
either the malice of the devils has been beaten back by the power of the
cross penetrating even to the desert, and by its grace which shines
everywhere; or else our carelessness makes them relax something of their
first onslaught, as they scorn to attack us with the same energy with which
they formerly raged against those most admirable soldiers of Christ; and by
this deceit and ceasing from open attacks they do us still more damage. For
we see that some have fallen into so sluggish a condition that they have to
be coaxed by too gentle exhortations for fear lest they should forsake
their cells and fall into more dangerous troubles, and wander and stray
about and be entangled in what I would call grosser sins; and it is thought
that a great thing is got from them if they can even with some listlessness
remain in the desert, and the Elders often say to them as a great relief:
Stop in your cells, and eat and drink and sleep as much as you like,(4) if
only you will stay in them always.
CHAPTER XXIV: Of the way in which the devils prepare for themselves an
entrance into the bodies of those whom they are going to possess.
IT is clear then that unclean spirits cannot make their way into those
whose bodies they are going to seize upon, in any other way than by first
taking possession of their minds and thoughts. And when they have robbed
them of fear and the recollection of God and spiritual meditation, they
boldly advance upon them, as if they were dispossessed of all protection
and Divine safeguard, and could easily be bound, and then take up their
dwelling in them as if in a possession given over to them.
CHAPTER XXV: On the fact that those men are more wretched who are possessed
by sins than those who are possessed by devils.
ALTHOUGH it is a fact that those men are more grievously and severely
troubled, who, while they seem to be very little affected by them in the
body, are yet possessed in spirit in a far worse way, as they are entangled
in their sins and lusts. For as the Apostle says: "Of whom a man is
overcome, of him he is also the servant." Only that in this respect they
are more dangerously ill, because though they are their slaves, yet they do
not know that they are assaulted by them, and under their dominion. But we
know that even saintly men have been given over in the flesh to Satan and
to great afflictions for some very slight faults, since the Divine mercy
will not suffer the very least spot or stain to be found in them on the day
of judgment, and purges away in this world every spot of their filth, as
the prophet, or rather God Himself says, in order that He may commit them
to eternity as gold or silver refined and needing no penal purification.
"And," says He, "I will clean purge away thy dross, and I will take away
all thy tin; and after this thou shall be called the city of the just, a
faithful city." And again: "Like as silver and gold are tried in the
furnace, so the Lord chooseth the hearts;" And again: "The fire tries gold
and silver; but man is tried in the furnace of humiliation;" and this also:
"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth."(1)
CHAPTER XXVI: Of the death of the prophet who was led astray, and of the
infirmity of the Abbot Paul, with which he was visited for the sake of his
cleansing.
AND we see clear instance of this in the case of that prophet and man
of God in the third book of Kings, who was straightway destroyed by a lion
for a single fault of disobedience, in which he was implicated not of set
purpose nor by the fault of his own will but by the enticement of another,
as the Scripture speaks thus of him: "It is the man of God, who was
disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord delivered him to the
lion, and it tare him according to the word of the Lord, which He
spake."(2) In which case the punishment of the present offence and
carelessness together with the reward of his righteousness, for which the
Lord gave over his prophet in this world to the destroyer, are shown by the
moderation and abstinence of the beast of prey, as that most savage
creature did not dare even to taste the carcass that was given over to him.
And of the same thing a very clear and plain proof has been given in our
own days in the case of the Abbots Paul and Moses who lived in a spot in
this desert called Calamus,(3) for the former had formerly dwelt in the
wilderness which is hard by the city of Panephysis,(4) which we know had
only recently been made a wilderness by an inundation of salt water; which
whenever the north wind blew, was driven from the marshes and spreading
over the adjacent fields covered the face of the whole district, so as to
make the ancient villages, which on this very account had been deserted by
all their inhabitants, look like islands. Here, then, the Abbot Paul had
made such progress in purity of heart in the stillness and silence of the
desert, that he did not suffer, I will not say a woman's face, but even the
clothes of one of that sex to appear in his sight. For when as he was going
to the cell of one of the Elders together with Abbot Archebius(5) who lived
in the same desert, by accident a woman met him, he was so disgusted at
meeting her that he dropped the business of his friendly visit which he had
taken in hand and dashed back again to his own monastery with greater speed
than a man would flee from the face of a lion or terrible dragon; so that
he was not moved even by the shouts and prayers of the aforesaid Abbot
Archebius who called him back to go on with the journey they had undertaken
to ask the old man what they had proposed to do. But though this was done
in his eagerness for chastity and desire for purity, yet because it was
done not according to knowledge, and because the observance of discipline,
and the methods of proper strictness were overstrained, for he imagined
that not merely familiarity with a woman (which is the real harm,) but even
the very form of that sex was to be execrated, he was forthwith overtaken
by such a punishment that his whole body was struck with paralysis, and
none of his limbs were able to perform their proper functions, since not
merely his hands and feet, but even the movements of the tongue, which
enables us to frame our words, (were affected) and his very ears lost the
sense of hearing, so that there was left in him nothing more of his manhood
than an immovable and insensible figure. But he was reduced to such a
condition that the utmost care of men was unable to minister to his
infirmity, but only the tender service of women could attend to his wants:
for when he was taken to a convent of holy virgins, food and drink, which
he could not ask for even by signs, were brought to him by female
attendants, and for the performance of all that nature required he was
ministered to by the same service for nearly four years, i.e., to the end
of his life. And though he was affected by such weakness of all his members
that none of his limbs retained their keen power of motion and feeling,
nevertheless such grace of goodness proceeded from him that when sick
persons were anointed with the oil which had touched what should be called
his corpse rather than his body, they were instantly healed of all
diseases, so that as regards his own malady it was made clearly and plainly
evident even to unbelievers that the infirmity of all his limbs was caused
by the providence and love of the Lord, and that the grace of these
healings was granted by the power of the Holy Ghost as a witness of his
purity and a manifestation of his merits.
CHAPTER XXVII: On the temptation of Abbot Moses.
BUT the second person whom we mentioned as living in this desert,
although he was also a remarkable and striking man, yet, in order to punish
a single word, to which in a dispute with Abbot Macarius,(1) he had given
utterance somewhat too sharply, as he was anticipated in some opinion, he
was instantly delivered to so dreadful a demon that he filled his mouth
with filth(2) which he supplied, and the Lord showed by the quickness of
his cure, and the author of his healing, that He had brought this scourge
upon him to purify him, that there might not remain in him any stain from
his momentary error: for as soon as Abbot Macarius committed himself to
prayer, quicker than a word the evil spirit tied away from him and
departed.
CHAPTER XXVIII: How we ought not to despise those who are delivered up to
unclean spirits.
FROM which it plainly results that we ought not to hate or despise
those whom we see to be delivered up to various temptations or to those
spirits of evil, because we ought firmly to hold these two points: first,
that none of them can be tempted at all by them without God's permission,
and secondly that all things which are brought upon us by God, whether they
seem to us at the present time to be sad or joyful, are inflicted for our
advantage as by a most kind father and most compassionate physician, and
that therefore men are, as it were, given into the charge of schoolmasters,
and humbled in order that when they depart out of this world they may be
removed in a state of greater purity to the other life, or have a lighter
punishment inflicted on them, as they have been, as the Apostle says,
delivered over at the present time "to Satan for the destruction of the
flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."(3)
CHAPTER XXIX: An objection, asking why those who are tormented by unclean
spirits are separated from the Lord's communion.
GERMANUS: And how is it that we see them not only scorned and shunned
by everybody, but actually always kept away from the Lord's communion in
our provinces, in accordance with these words of the gospel: "Give not that
which is holy to the dogs, neither cast four pearls before swine;"(4) while
you tell us that somehow we ought to hold that the humiliation of this
temptation is brought upon them with a view to their purification and
profit?
CHAPTER XXX: The answer to the question raised.
SERENUS: If we had this knowledge. or rather faith, of which I treated
above; viz., to believe that all things were brought about by God, and
ordered for the good of our souls, we should not only never despise them,
but rather pray without ceasing for them as our own members, and sympathize
with them with all our hearts and the fullest affection (for "when one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it"(1)), as we know that we
cannot possibly be perfected without them inasmuch as they are members of
us, just as we read that our predecessors could not attain the fulness of
promise without us, as the Apostle speaks of them as follows: "And these
all being approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promise, God
providing some better thing for us that they should not be perfected
without us."(2) But we never remember that holy, communion was forbidden
them; nay rather if it were possible, they thought that it ought to be
given to them daily; nor indeed according to the words of the gospel which
you incongruously apply in this sense "Give not that which is holy to
dogs,"(3) ought we to believe that holy communion becomes food for the
demon, and not a purification and safeguard of body and soul; for when it
is received by a man it, so to speak, burns out and puts to flight the
spirit which has its seat in his members or is trying to lurk in them. For
in this way we have lately seen Abbot Andronicus and many others cured. For
the enemy will more and more abuse the man who is possessed, if he sees him
cut off from the heavenly medicine, and will tempt him more often and more
fearfully, as he sees him removed the further from this spiritual
remedy.(4)
CHAPTER XXXI: On the fact that those men are more to be pitied to whom it
is not given to be subjected to those temporal temptations.
BUT we ought to consider those men truly wretched and miserable in
whose case, although they defile themselves with all kinds of sins and
wickedness, yet not only is there no visible sign of the devil's possession
shown in them, nor is any temptation proportionate to their actions, nor
any scourge of punishment brought to bear upon them. For they are
vouchsafed no swift and immediate remedy in this world, whose "hardness and
impenitent heart," being too much for punishment in this life, "heapeth up
for itself wrath and indignation in the day of wrath and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God," "where their worm dieth not, and their fire is
not quenched."(5) Against whom the prophet as if perplexed at the
affliction of the saints, when he sees them subject to various losses and
temptations, and on the other hand sees sinners not only passing through
the course of this world without any scourge of humiliation, but even
rejoicing in great riches, and the utmost prosperity in everything,
inflamed with uncontrollable indignation and fervour of spirit, exclaims:
"But as for me, my feet had almost gone, my treadings had well nigh
slipped. For I was grieved at the wicked, when I saw the peace of sinners.
For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their
stripes. They are not in the labour of men, neither shall they be scourged
like other men,"(6) since hereafter they shall be punished with the devils,
to whom in this world it was not vouchsafed to be scourged in the lot and
discipline of sons, together with men. Jeremiah also, when conversing with
God on this prosperity of sinners, although he never professes to doubt
about the justice of God, as he says "for Thou art just, O Lord, if I
dispute with Thee," yet in his inquiry as to the reasons of this
inequality, proceeds to say: "But yet I will speak what is just to Thee.
Why doth the way of the wicked prosper? Why is it well with all them that
transgress and do wickedly? Thou hast planted them and they have taken
root: they prosper and bring forth fruit. Thou art near in their mouth and
far from their reins."(7) And when the Lord mourns for their destruction by
the prophet, and anxiously directs doctors and physicians to heal them, and
in a manner urges them on to a similar lamentation and says: "Babylon is
suddenly fallen: she is destroyed. Howl for her: take balm for her pain, if
so she may be healed;" then, in their despair, the angels, to whom is
entrusted the care of man's salvation, make reply; or at any rate the
prophet in the person of the Apostles and spiritual men and doctors who see
the hardness of their soul, and their impenitent heart: "We have healed
Babylon: but she is not cured. Let us forsake her, and let us go every man
to his own land because her judgment hath reached even to the heavens, and
is lifted up to the clouds."(1) Of their desperate feebleness then Isaiah
speaks in the Person of God to Jerusalem: From the sole of the foot unto
the top of the head there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and
swelling sores: they are not bound up nor dressed nor fermented with
oil."(2)
CHAPTER XXXII: Of the different desires and wishes which exist in the
powers of the air.
BUT it is clearly proved that there exist in unclean spirits as many
desires as there are in men. For some of them, which are commonly called
Plani,(3) are shown to be so seductive and sportive that, when they have
taken continual possession of certain places or roads, they delight
themselves not indeed with tormenting the passers by whom they can deceive,
but, contenting themselves merely with laughing at them and mocking them,
try to tire them out rather than to injure them: while some spend the night
merely by harmlessly taking possession of men, though others are such
slaves to fury and ferocity that they are not simply content with hurting
the bodies of those, of whom they have taken possession, by tearing them in
a dreadful manner, but actually are eager to rush upon those who are
passing by at a distance, and to attack them with most savage slaughter:
like those described in the gospel, for fear of whom no man dared to pass
by that way. And there is no doubt that these and such as these in their
insatiable fury delight in wars and bloodshed. Others we find affect the
hearts of those whom they have seized with empty pride, (and these are
commonly called Bacucei(4)) so that they stretch themselves up beyond their
proper height and at one time puff themselves up with arrogance and
pomposity, and at another time condescend in an ordinary and bland manner,
to a state of calmness and affability: and as they fancy that they are
great people and the wonder of everybody, at one time show by bowing their
body that they are worshipping higher powers, while at another time they
think that they are worshipped by others, and so go through all those
movements which express true service either proudly or humbly. Others we
find are not only keen for lies, but also inspire men with blasphemies. And
of this we ourselves can testify as we have heard a demon openly confessing
that he had proclaimed a wicked and impious doctrine by the mouths of Arius
and Eunomius. And the same thing we read that one of them openly proclaimed
in the fourth book of Kings: "I will go forth," he said, "and will be a
lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets."(5) On which the Apostle,
when reproving those who are deceived by them, adds as follows: "giving
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils speaking lies in
hypocrisy."(6) And that there are other kinds of devils which are deaf and
dumb the gospels testify. And that some spirits incite to lust and
wantonness the prophet maintains saying: "The spirit of fornication
deceived them and they went astray from their God."(7) In the same way the
authority of Scripture teaches us that there are demons of the night and of
the day and of the noonday:(8) But it would take too long to search through
the whole of Scripture and run through the different kinds of them, as they
are termed by the prophets onocentaurs, satyrs, sirens, witches, howlers,
ostriches, urchins; and asps and basilisks in the Psalms; and are called
lions, dragons, scorpions in the gospel, and are named by the Apostle the
prince of this world, rulers of this darkness, and spirits of
wickedness.(9) And all these names we ought not to take as given at random
or haphazard, but as alluding to their fierceness and madness under the
sign of those wild beasts which are more or less harmful and dangerous
among us, and by comparing them to the poisonous wickedness or power which
among other beasts or serpents, some pre-eminence in evil confers on them,
they are called by their names, in such a way that to one is assigned the
name of lion because of the fury of his rage and the madness of his anger,
to another that of basilisk because of his deadly poison, which kills a
person before it is perceived, and to another that of onocentaur or urchin
or ostrich because of his sluggish malice.
CHAPTER XXXIII: A question as to the origin of such differences in powers
of evil in the sky.
GERMANUS: We certainly do not doubt that those orders which the Apostle
enumerates refer to them: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against spirits of wickedness in heavenly places:"(1) but we want
to know whence comes such a difference between them, or how such grades of
wickedness exist? Were they created for this, to meet with these orders of
evil, and in some way to serve this wickedness?
CHAPTER XXXIV: The postponement of the answer to the question raised.
SERENUS: Although your proposals would rob us of our whole night's
rest, so that we should not notice the approach of the rising dawn, and
should be tempted greedily to prolong our conference till sunrise, yet
since the solving of the question raised, if we began to trace it out,
would launch us on a wide and deep sea of questions, which the shortness of
the time at our disposal would not permit us to traverse, I think it will
be more convenient to reserve it for consideration another night, when by
the raising of this question I shall receive from your very ready converse
some spiritual joy and richer fruit, and we shall be able if the Holy
Spirit grants us a prosperous breeze to penetrate more freely into the
intricacies of the questions raised. Wherefore let us enjoy a little sleep,
and so shake off the drowsiness that steals over our eyes, as the dawn
approaches, and then we will go together to church, for the observance of
Sunday bids us do this, and after service will come back, and as you wish,
discuss with redoubled delight what the Lord may have given to us for our
common improvement.
VIII. THE SECOND CONFERENCE OF ABBOT SERENUS.
ON PRINCIPALITIES.
CHAPTER I: Of the hospitality of Abbot Serenus.
WHEN we had finished the duties of the day, and the congregation had
been dismissed from Church we returned to the old man's cell, and enjoyed a
most sumptuous repast. For instead of the sauce which with a few drops of
oil spread over it was usually set on the table for his daily meal, he
mixed a little decoction and poured over it a somewhat more liberal
allowance of oil than usual; for each of them when he is going to partake
of his daily repast, pours those drops of oil on, not that he may receive
any enjoyment from the taste of it (for so limited is the supply that it is
hardly enough I will not say to line the passage of his throat and jaws,
but even to pass down it) but that using it, he may keep down the pride of
his heart (which is certain to creep in stealthily and surely if his
abstinence is any stricter) and the incitements to vainglory, for as his
abstinence is practised with the greater secrecy, and is carried on without
anyone to see it, so much the more subtly does it never cease to tempt the
man who conceals it. Then he set before us table salt, and three olives
each: after which he produced a basket containing parched vetches which
they call trogalia,(2) from which we each took five grains, two prunes and
a fig apiece. For it is considered wrong for anyone to exceed that amount
in that desert. And when we had finished this repast and had begun to ask
him again for his promised solution of the question, "Let us hear," said
the old man, "your question, the consideration of which we postponed till
the present time."
CHAPTER II: Statements on the different kinds of spiritual wickednesses.
THEN GERMANUS: We want to know what is the origin of the great variety
of hostile powers opposed to men, and the difference between them, which
the blessed Apostle sums up as follows: "We wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers
of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places:"(1) and
a again: "Neither angels nor principalities nor powers nor any other
creature, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord."(2) Whence then arises the enmity of all this malice jealous of us?
Are we to believe that those powers were created by the Lord for this;
viz., to fight against men in these grades and orders?
CHAPTER III: The answer on the many kinds of food provided in holy
Scripture.
SERENUS: The authority of holy Scripture says on those points on which
it would inform us some things so plainly and clearly even to those who are
utterly void of understanding, that not only are they not veiled in the
obscurity of any hidden meaning, but do not even require the help of any
explanation, but carry their meaning and sense on the surface of the words
and letters: but some things are so concealed and involved in mysteries as
to offer us an immense field for skill and care in the discussion and
explanation of them. And it is clear that God has so ordered it for many
reasons: first for fear lest the holy mysteries, if they were covered by no
veil of spiritual meaning, should be exposed equally to the knowledge and
understanding of everybody, i.e., the profane as well as the faithful and
thus there might be no difference in the matter of goodness and prudence
between the lazy and the earnest: next that among those who are indeed of
the household of faith, while immense differences of intellectual power
open out before them, there might be the opportunity of reproving the
slothfulness of the idle, and of proving the keenness and diligence of the
earnest. And so holy Scripture is fitly compared to a rich and fertile
field, which, while bearing and producing much which is good for man's food
without being cooked by fire, produces some things which are found to be
unsuitable for man's use or even harmful unless they have lost all the
roughness of their raw condition by being tempered and softened down by the
heat of fire. But some are naturally fit for use in both states, so that
even when uncooked they are not unpleasant from their raw condition, but
still are rendered more palatable by being cooked and heated by fire. Many
more things too are produced only fit for the food of irrational creatures,
and cattle, and wild animals and birds, but utterly useless as food for
men, which while still in their rough state without being in any way
touched by fire, conduce to the health and life of cattle. And we can
clearly see that the same system holds good in that most fruitful garden of
the Scriptures of the Spirit, in which some things shine forth clear and
bright in their literal sense, in such a way that while they have no need
of any higher interpretation, they furnish abundant food and nourishment in
the simple sound of the words, to the hearers: as in this passage: "Hear, O
Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord;" and: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength."(3) But there are some which, unless they are weakened down by an
allegorical interpretation, and softened by the trial of the fire of the
spirit cannot become wholesome food for the inner man without injury and
loss to him; and damage rather than profit will accrue to him from
receiving them: as with this passage: "But let your loins be girded up and
your lights burning;" and: "whosoever has no sword, let him sell his coat
and buy himself a sword;" and: "whosoever taketh not up his cross and
followeth after Me is not worthy of Me;"(4) a passage which some most
earnest monks, having "indeed a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge"(5) understood literally, and so made themselves wooden crosses,
and carried them about constantly on their shoulders, and so were the cause
not of edification but of ridicule on the part of all who saw them. But
some are capable of being taken suitable and properly in both ways, i.e.,
the historical and allegorical, so that either explanation furnishes a
healing draught to the soul; as this passage: "If any one shall smite thee
on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;" and: "when they persecute
you in one city, flee to another;" and: "if thou wilt be perfect, go, sell
all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven, and come follow Me."(6) It produces indeed "grass for the cattle"
also, (and of this food all the fields of Scripture are full); viz., plain
and simple narratives of history, by which simple folk, and those who are
incapable of perfect and sound understanding (of whom it is said "Thou,
Lord, wilt save both man and beast")(7) may be made stronger and more
vigorous for their hard work and the labour of actual life, in accordance
with the state and measure of their capacity.
CHAPTER IV: Of the double sense in which Holy Scripture may be taken.
WHEREFORE on those passages which are brought forward with a clear
explanation we also can constantly lay down the meaning and boldly state
our own opinions. But those which the Holy Spirit, reserving for our
meditation and exercise, has inserted in holy Scripture with veiled
meaning, wishing some of them to be gathered from various proofs and
conjectures, ought to be step by step and carefully brought together, so
that their assertions and proofs may be arranged by the discretion of the
man who is arguing or supporting them. For sometimes when a difference of
opinion is expressed on one and the same subject, either view may be
considered reasonable and be held without injury to the faith either
firmly, or doubtfully, i.e., in such a way that neither is full belief nor
absolute rejection accorded to it, and the second view need not interfere
with the former, if neither of them is found to be opposed to the faith: as
in this case: where Elias came in the person of John,(1) and is again to be
the precursor of the Lord's Advent: and in the matter of the "Abomination
of desolation" which "stood in the holy place," by means of that idol of
Jupiter which, as we read, was placed in the temple in Jerusalem, and which
is again to stand in the Church through the coming of Antichrist,(2) and
all those things which follow in the gospel, which we take as having been
fulfilled before the captivity of Jerusalem and still to be fulfilled at
the end of this world. In which matters neither view is opposed to the
other, nor does the first interpretation interfere with the second.
CHAPTER V: Of the fact that the question suggested ought to be included
among those things to be held in a neutral or doubtful way.
AND therefore since the question raised by us, does not seem to have
been sufficiently or often ventilated among men, and is clear to most
people, and from this fact what we bring forward may perhaps appear to some
to be doubtful, we ought to regulate our own view (since it does not
interfere with faith in the Trinity) so that it may be included among those
things which are to be held doubtfully; although they rest not on mere
opinions such as are usually given to guesses and conjectures, but on clear
Scripture proof.
CHAPTER VI: Of the fact that nothing is created evil by God.
GOD forbid that we should admit that God has created anything which is
substantially evil, as Scripture says "everything that God had made was
very good."(3) For if they were created by God such as they are now, or
made for this purpose; viz., to occupy these positions of malice, and ever
to be ready for the deception and ruin of men, we should in opposition to
the view of the above quoted Scripture slander God as the Creator and
author of evil, as having Himself formed utterly evil wills and natures,
creating them for this very purpose; viz., that they might ever persist m
their wickedness and never pass over to the feeling of a good will. The
following reason then of this diversity is what we received from the
tradition of the fathers, being drawn from the fount of Holy Scripture.
CHAPTER VII: Of the origin of principalities or powers.
NONE of the faithful question the fact that before the formation of
this visible creation God made spiritual and celestial powers, in order
that owing to the very fact that they knew that they had been formed out of
nothing by the goodness of the Creator for such glory and bliss, they might
render to Him continual thanks and ceaselessly continue to praise Him, For
neither should we imagine that God for the first time began to originate
His creation and work with the formation of this world, as if in those
countless ages beforehand He had taken no thought of Providence and the
divine ordering of things, and as if we could believe that having none
towards whom to show the blessings of His goodness, He had been solitary,
and a stranger to all bountifulness; a thing which is too poor and
unsuitable to fancy of that boundless and eternal and incomprehensible
Majesty; as the Lord Himself says of these powers: "When the stars were
made together, all my angels praised Me with a loud voice."(4) Those then
who were present at the creation of the stars, are most clearly proved to
have been created before that "beginning" in which it is said that heaven
and earth were made, inasmuch as they are said with loud voices and
admiration to have praised the Creator because of all those visible
creatures which, as they saw, proceeded forth from nothing. Before then
that beginning in time which is spoken of by Moses, and which according to
the historic and Jewish interpretation denotes the age of this world
(without prejudice to our interpretation, according to which we explain
that the "beginning," of all things is Christ, in whom the Father created
all things, as it is said "All things were made by him, and without Him was
not anything made,")(1) before, I say, that beginning of Genesis in time
there is no question that God had already created all those powers and
heavenly virtues; which the Apostle enumerates in order and thus describes:
"For in Christ were created all things both in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether they be angels or archangels, whether they be
thrones or dominions, whether they be principalities or powers. All things
were made by Him and in Him."(2)
CHAPTER VIII: Of the fall of the devil and the angels.
AND So we are clearly shown that out of that number of them some of the
leaders fell, by the lamentations of Ezekiel and Isaiah, in which we know
that the prince of Tyre or that Lucifer who rose in the morning is lamented
with a doleful plaint: and of him the Lord speaks as follows to Ezekiel:
"Son of man, take up a lamentation over the prince of Tyre, and say to him:
Thus saith the Lord God: Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom,
perfect in beauty. Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God: every
precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz and the jasper, the
chrysolyte and the onyx and the beryl, the sapphire and the carbuncle and
the emerald: gold the work of thy beauty, and thy pipes were prepared in
the day that thou wast created. Thou wast a cherub stretched out and
protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked in
the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day
of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy
merchandise thy inner parts were filled with iniquity and thou hast sinned;
and I cast thee out from the mountain of God, and destroyed thee, O
covering cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire. And thy heart was
lifted up with thy beauty: thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty, I have
cast thee to the ground: I have set thee before the face of kings, that
they might behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude
of thy iniquities and by the iniquity of thy traffic."(3) Isaiah also says
of another: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in
the morning? how art thou fallen to the ground, that didst wound the
nations? and thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the
covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds. I will be like the Most High."(4) But Holy Scripture relates that
these fell not alone from that summit of their station in bliss, as it
tells us that the dragon dragged down together with himself the third part
of the stars.(5) One of the Apostles too says still more plainly: "But the
angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own dwelling, He
hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the
great day."(6) This too which is said to us: "But ye shall die like men and
fall like one of the princes,"(7) what does it imply but that many princes
have fallen? And by these testimonies we can gather the reason for this
diversity; viz., either that they still retain those differences of rank
(which adverse powers are said to possess, after the manner of holy and
heavenly virtues) from the station of their former rank in which they were
severally created, or else that, though themselves cast down from heavenly
places, yet, as a reward for that wickedness of theirs m which they have
graduated in evil, they claim in perversity these grades and titles of rank
among themselves, by way of copying those virtues which have stood firm
there.
CHAPTER IX: An objection seating that the fall of the devil took its origin
from the deception of God.
GERMANUS: Up till now we used to believe that the reason and
commencement of the ruin and fall of the devil, in which he was cast out
from his heavenly estate, was more particularly envy, when in his spiteful
subtlety he deceived Adam and Eve.
CHAPTER X: The answer about the beginning of the devil's fall.
SERENUS: The passage in Genesis shows that that was not the beginning
of his fall and ruin, as before their deception it takes the view that he
had already been branded with the ignominy of the name of the serpent,
where it says: "But the serpent was wiser" or as the Hebrew copies express
it, "more subtle than all the beasts of the earth, which the Lord God had
made."(1) You see then that he had fallen away from his angelic holiness
even before he deceived the first man, so that he not only deserved to be
stamped with the ignominy of this title, but actually excelled all other
beasts of the earth in the subterfuges of wickedness. For Holy Scripture
would not have designated a good angel by such a term, nor would it say of
those who were still continuing in that state of bliss: "But the serpent
was wiser than all the beasts of the earth." For this title could not
possibly be applied I say not to Gabriel or Michael, but it would not even
be suitable to any good man. And so the title of serpent and the comparison
to beasts most clearly suggests not the dignity of an angel but the infamy
of an apostate. Finally the occasion of the envy and seduction, which led
him to deceive man, arose from the ground of his previous fall, in that he
saw that man, who had but recently been formed out of the dust of the
ground, was to be called to that glory, from which he remembered that he
himself, while still one of the princes, had fallen. And so that first fall
of his, which was due to pride, and which obtained for him the name of the
serpent, was followed by a second owing to envy: and as this one found him
still in the possession of something upright so that he could enjoy some
interchange of conference and counsel with man, by the Lord's sentence he
was very properly cast down to the lowest depth, that he might no longer
walk as before erect, and looking up on high, but should cleave to the
ground and creep along, and be brought low upon his belly and feed upon the
earthly food and works of sins, and henceforward proclaim his secret
hostility, and put between himself and man an enmity that is to our
advantage, and a discord that is to our profit, so that while men are on
their guard against him as a dangerous enemy, he can no longer injure them
by a deceptive show of friendship.
CHAPTER XI: The punishment of the deceiver and the deceived.
BUT we ought in this matter, in order that we may shun evil counsels,
to learn a special lesson from the fact that though the author of the
deception was visited with a fitting punishment and condemnation, yet still
the one who was led astray did not go scot free from punishment, although
it was somewhat lighter than that of him who was the author of the
deception. And this we see was very plainly expressed. For Adam who was
deceived, or rather (to use the Apostle's words) "was not deceived" but,
acquiescing in the wishes of her who was deceived, seems to have come to
yield a consent that was deadly, is only condemned to labour and the sweat
of his brow, which is assigned to him not by means of a curse upon himself,
but by means of a curse upon the ground, and its barrenness. But the woman,
who persuaded him to this, is visited with an increase of anguish, and
pains and sorrow, and also given over to the yoke of perpetual subjection.
But the serpent who was the first to incite them to this offence, is
punished by a lasting curse. Wherefore we should with the utmost care and
circumspection be on our guard against evil counsels, for as they bring
punishment upon their authors, so too they do not suffer those who are
deceived by them to go free from guilt and punishment.
CHAPTER XII: Of the crowd of the devils, and the disturbance which they
always raise in our atmosphere.
BUT the atmosphere which extends between heaven and earth is ever
filled with a thick crowd of spirits, which do not fly about in it quietly
or idly, so that most fortunately the divine providence has withdrawn them
from human sight. For through fear of their attacks, or horror at the
forms, into which they transform and turn themselves at will, men would
either be driven out of their wits by an insufferable dread, and faint
away, from inability to look on such things with bodily eyes, or else would
daily grow worse and worse, and be corrupted by their constant example and
by imitating them, and thus there would arise a sort of dangerous
familiarity and deadly intercourse between men and the unclean powers of
the air, whereas those crimes which are now committed among men, are
concealed either by walls and enclosures or by distance and space, or by
some shame and confusion: but if they could always look on them with open
face, they would be stimulated to a greater pitch of insanity, as there
would not be a single moment in which they would see them desist from their
wickedness, since no bodily weariness, or occupation in business or care
for their daily food (as in our case) forces them sometimes even against
their will to desist from the purposes they, have begun to carry out.
CHAPTER XIII: Of the fact that opposing powers turn the attack, which they
aim at men, even against each other.
FOR it is quite clear that they aim these attacks, with which they
assault men, even against each other, for in like manner they do not cease
to promote with unwearied strife the discords and struggles which they have
undertaken for some peoples because of a sort of innate love of wickedness
which they have: and this we read of as being very clearly set forth in the
vision of Daniel the prophet, where the angel Gabriel speaks as follows:
"Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to
understand, to afflict thyself in the sight of thy God, thy words have been
heard: and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of the
Persians resisted me one and twenty days: and behold Michael one of the
chief princes came to help me, and I remained there by the king of the
Persians. But I am come to teach thee what thinks shall befall thy people
in the latter days."(1) And we can not possibly doubt that this prince of
the kingdom of the Persians was a hostile power, which favoured the nation
of the Persians an enemy of God's people; for in order to hinder the good
which it saw would result from the solution of the question for which the
prophet prayed the Lord, by the archangel, in its jealousy it opposed
itself to prevent the saving comfort of the angel from reaching Daniel too
speedily, and from strengthening the people of God, over which the
archangel Gabriel was: and the latter said that even then, owing to the
fierceness of his assaults, he would not have been able to come to him, had
not Michael the archangel come to help him, and met the prince of the
kingdom of the Persians, and joined battle with him, and intervened, and
defended him from his attack, and so enabled him to come to instruct the
prophet after twenty-one days. And a little later on it says: "And the
angel said: Dost thou know wherefore I am come to thee? And now I will
return to fight against the prince of the Persians. For when I went forth,
there appeared the prince of the Greeks coming. But I will tell thee what
is written down in the Scriptures of truth: and none is my helper in all
these things but Michael your prince."(2) And again: "At that time shall
Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy
people."(3) So then we read that in the same way another was called the
prince of the Greeks, who since he was patron of that nation which was
subject to him seems to have been opposed to the nation of the Persians as
well as to the people of Israel. From which we clearly see that
antagonistic powers raise against each other those quarrels of nations, and
conflicts and dissensions, which they show among themselves at their
instigation, and that they either exult at their victories or are cast down
at their defeats, and thus cannot live in harmony among themselves, while
each of them is always striving with restless jealousy on behalf of those
whom he presides over, against the patron of some other nation.
CHAPTER XIV: How it is that spiritual wickednesses obtained the names of
powers or principalities.
WE can then see clear reasons, in addition to those ideas which we
expounded above, why they are called principalities or powers; viz.,
because they rule and preside over different nations, and at least hold
sway over inferior spirits and demons, of which the gospels give us
evidence by their own confession that there exist legions. For they could
not be called lords unless they had some over whom to exercise the sway of
lordship; nor could they be called powers or principalities, unless there
were some over whom they could claim power: and this we find pointed out
very clearly in the gospel by the Pharisees in their blasphemy: "He casteth
out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils,"(4) for we find that they
are also called "rulers of darkness,"(5) and that one of them is styled
"the prince of this world."(6) But the blessed Apostle declares that
hereafter, when all things shall be subdued to Christ, these orders shall
be destroyed, saying: "When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God
even the Father, when He shall have destroyed all principalities and powers
and dominions."(7) And this certainly can only take place if they are
removed from the sway of those over whom we know that powers and dominions
and principalities take charge in this world.
CHAPTER XV: Of the fact that it is not without reason that the names of
angels and archangels are given to holy and heavenly powers.
FOR no one doubts that not without cause or reason are the same titles
of rank assigned to the better sort, and that they are names of office and
of worth or dignity, for it is plain that they are termed angels, i.e.,
messengers from their office of bearing messages, and the appropriateness
of the name teaches that they are "archangels" because the preside over
angels, "dominions" because they hold dominion over certain persons, and
"principalities" because they have some to be princes over, and "thrones"
because they are so near to God and so privy and close to Him that the
Divine Majesty specially rests in them as in a Divine throne, and in a way
reclines surely on them.
CHAPTER XVI: Of the subjection of the devils, which they show to their own
princes, as seen in a brother's victim.
BUT that unclean spirits are ruled over by worse powers and are subject
to them we not only find from those passages of Scripture, recorded in the
gospels when the Pharisees maligned the Lord, and He answered "If I by
Beelzebub the prince of the devils cast out devils,"(1) but we are also
taught this by clear visions and many experiences of the saints, for when
one of our brethren was making a journey in this desert, as day was now
declining he found a cave and stopped there meaning to say his evening
office in it, and there midnight passed while he was still singing the
Psalms. And when after he had finished his office he sat down a little
before refreshing his wearied body, on a sudden he began to see innumerable
troops Of demons gathering together on all sides, who came forward in an
immense crowd, and a long line, some preceding and others following their
prince; who at length arrived, being taller and more dreadful to look at
than all the others; and, a throne having been placed, he sat down as on
some lofty tribunal, and began to investigate by a searching examination
the actions of each one of them; and those who said that they had not yet
been able to circumvent their rivals, he commanded to be driven out of his
sight with shame and ignominy as idle and slothful, rebuking them with
angry wrath for the waste of so much time, and for their labour thrown
away: but those who reported that they had deceived those assigned to them,
he dismissed before all with the highest praise amidst the exultation and
applause of all, as most brave warriors, and most renowned as an example to
all the rest: and when in this number some most evil spirit had presented
himself, in delight at having to relate some magnificent triumph, he
mentioned the name of a very well known monk, and declared that after
having incessantly attacked him for fifteen years, he had at last got the
better of him, so as to destroy him that very same night by the sin of
fornication, for that he had not only impelled him to commit adultery with
some consecrated maid, but had actually persuaded him to keep her and marry
her. And when there arose shouts of joy at this narrative, he was extolled
with the highest praise by the` prince of darkness, and departed crowned
with great honours. And so when at break of day the whole swarm of demons
had vanished from his eyes, the brother being doubtful about the assertion
of the unclean spirit, and rather thinking that he had desired to entice
him by an ancient customary deceit, and to brand an innocent brother with
the crime of incest, being mindful of those words of the gospel; viz., that
"he abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and its
father,"(2) he made his way to Pelusium, where he knew that the man lived,
whom the evil spirit declared to be destroyed: for the brother was very
well known to him, and when he had asked him, he found that on the same
night on which that foul demon had announced his downfall to his company
and prince, he had left his former monastery, and sought the town, and had
gone astray by a wretched fall with the girl mentioned.
CHAPTER XVII: Of the fact that two angels always cling to every man.
FOR Holy Scripture bears witness that two angels, a good and a bad one,
cling to each one of us. And of the good ones the Saviour says: "Do not
despise one of these little ones; for I say unto you that their angels in
heaven do always behold the face of thy Father which is in heaven:"(3) and
this also: "the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear
Him, and deliver them."(4) Moreover this also which is said in the Acts of
the Apostles, of Peter, that "it is his angel."(1) But of both sorts the
book of the Shepherd teaches us very fully.(2) But if we consider about him
who attacked the blessed Job we shall clearly learn that it was he who
always plotted against him but never could entice him to sin, and that
therefore he asked for power from the Lord, as he was worsted not by his
(Job's) virtue but by the Lord's protection which ever shielded him. Of
Judas also it is said: "And let the devil stand at his right hand."(3)
CHAPTER XVIII: Of the degrees of wickedness which exist in hostile spirits,
as shown in the case of two philosophers.
BUT of the difference that there is between demons we have learnt a
great deal by means of those two philosophers who formerly by acts of magic
had oftentimes great experience both of their laziness and of their courage
and savage wickedness. For these looking down on the blessed Antony as a
boor and rustic, and wanting, if they could not injure him any further, at
least to drive him from his cell by illusions of magic and the devices of
demons, despatched against him most foul spirits. for they were impelled to
this attack upon him by the sting of jealousy because enormous crowds came
daily to him as the servant of God. And when these most savage demons did
not even venture to approach him as he was now signing his breast and
forehead with the sign of the cross, and, now devoting himself to prayer
and supplication, they returned without any result to those who had
directed them; and these again sent against him others more desperate in
wickedness, and when these too had spent their strength in vain, and
returned without having accomplished anything, and others still more
powerful were nevertheless told off against the victorious soldier of
Christ, and could prevail nothing against him, all these great plots of
theirs devised with all the arts of magic were only useful in proving the
great value that there is in the profession of Christians, so that those
fierce and powerful shadows, which they thought would veil the sun and moon
if they were directed towards them, could not only not injure him, but not
even draw him forth from his monastery for a single instant.
CHAPTER XIX: Of the fact that devils cannot prevail at all against men
unless they have first secured possession of their minds.
AND when in their astonishment at this they came straight to Abbot
Antony and disclosed the extent of their attacks and the reason of them and
their plots, they dissembled their jealousy and asked that they might
forthwith be made Christians. But when he had asked of them the day when
the assault was made, he declared that at that time he had been afflicted
with the most bitter pangs of thought. And by this experience the blessed
Antony proved and established the opinion which we expressed yesterday in
our Conference, that demons cannot possibly find an entrance into the mind
or body of anyone, nor have they the power of overwhelming the soul of
anyone, unless they have first deprived it of all holy thoughts, and made
it empty and free from spiritual meditation. But you must know that unclean
spirits are obedient to men in two ways. For either they are by divine
grace and power subject to the holiness of the faithful, or they are
captivated by the sacrifices of sinners, and certain charms, and are
flattered by them as their worshippers. And the Pharisees too were led
astray by this notion and fancied that by this device even the Lord the
Saviour gave commands to devils, and said "By Beelzebub the prince of the
devils He casteth out devils," in accordance with that plan by which they
knew that their own magicians and enchanters--by invoking his name and
offering sacrifices, with which they know he is pleased and delighted--have
as his servants power even over the devils who are subject to him.
CHAPTER XX: A question about the fallen angels who are said in Genesis to
have had intercourse with the daughters of men.
GERMANUS: Since a passage of Genesis was a little while ago by the
providence of God brought forward in our midst, and happily reminded us
that we can now conveniently ask about a point which we have always longed
to learn, we want to know what view we ought to take about those fallen
angels who are said to have had intercourse with the daughters of men, and
whether such a thing can literally take place with a spiritual nature. And
also with regard to this passage of the gospel which you quoted of the
devil a little while back, "for he is a liar and his father,"(1) we should
like in the same way to hear who is to be understood by "his father."
CHAPTER XXI: The answer to the question raised.
SERENUS: You have propounded two not unimportant questions, to which I
will reply, to the best of my ability, in the order in which you have
raised them. We cannot possibly believe that spiritual existences can have
carnal intercourse with women. But if this could ever have literally
happened how is it that it does not now also sometimes take place, and that
we do not see some in the same way born of women by the agency of demons
without intercourse with men? especially when it is clear that they delight
in the pollution of lust, which they would certainly prefer to bring about
through their own agency rather than through that of men, if they could
possibly manage it, as Ecclesiastes declares: "What is it that hath been?
The same that is. And what is it that hath been done? The same that is
done. And there is nothing new that can be said under the sun, so that a
man can say: Behold this is new; for it hath already been in the ages which
were before us."(2) But the question raised may be resolved in this way.
After the death of righteous Abel, in order that the whole human race might
not spring from a wicked fratricide, Seth was born in the place of his
brother who was slain, to take the place of his brother not only as regards
posterity, but also as regards justice and goodness. And his offspring,
following the example of their father's goodness, always remained separate
from intercourse with and the society of their kindred descended from the
wicked Cain, as the difference of the genealogy very clearly tells us,
where it says: "Adam begat Seth, Seth begat Enos, Enos begat Cainan, but
Cainan begat Mahalaleel, but Mahalaleel begat Jared, Jared begat Enoch,
Enoch begat Methuselah, Methuselah begat Lamech, Lamech begat Noah."(3) And
the genealogy of Cain is given separately as follows: "Cain begat Enoch,
Enoch begat Cainan, Cainan begat Mahalaleel, Mahalaleel begat Methuselah,
Methuselah begat Lamech, Lamech begat Jabal and Jubal."(4) And so the line
which sprang from the seed of righteous Seth always mixed with its own kith
and kin, and continued for a long while in the holiness of its fathers and
ancestors, untouched by the blasphemies and the wickedness of an evil
offspring, which had implanted in it a seed of sin as it were transmitted
by its ancestors. As long then as there continued that separation of the
lines between them, the seed of Seth, as it sprang from an excellent root,
was by reason of its sanctity termed "angels of God," or as some copies
have it "sons of God;"(5) and on the contrary the others by reason of their
own and their fathers' wickedness and their earthly deeds were termed
"children of men." Though then there was up to this time that holy and
salutary separation between them, yet after this the sons of Seth who were
the sons of God saw the daughters of those who were born of the line of
Cain, and inflamed with the desire for their beauty took to themselves from
them wives who taught their husbands the wickedness of their fathers, and
at once led them astray from their innate holiness and the single-
mindedness of their forefathers. To whom this saying applies with
sufficient accuracy: "I have said: Ye are Gods, and ye are all the children
of the Most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the
princes;"(6) who fell away from that true study of natural philosophy,
handed down to them by their ancestors, which the first man who forthwith
traced out the study of all nature, could clearly attain to, and transmit
to his descendants on sure grounds, inasmuch as he had seen the infancy of
this world, while still as it were tender and throbbing and unorganized;
and as there was in him not only such fulness of wisdom, but also the grace
of prophecy given by the Divine inspiration, so that while he was still an
untaught inhabitant of this world he gave names to all living creatures,
and not only knew about the fury and poison of all kinds of beasts and
serpents, but also distinguished between the virtues of plants and trees
and the natures of stones, and the changes of seasons of which he had as
vet no experience, so that he could well say: "The Lord hath given me the
true knowledge of the things that are, to know the disposition of the whole
world, and the virtues of the elements, the beginning and the ending and
the midst of times, the alterations of their courses and the changes of
their seasons, the revolutions of the year and the disposition of the
stars, the natures of living creatures and the rage of wild beasts, the
force of winds, and the reasonings of men, the diversities of plants and
the virtues of roots, and all such things as are hid and open I have
learnt."(1) This knowledge then of all nature the seed of Seth received
through successive generations, handed down from the fathers, so long as it
remained separate from the wicked line, and as it had received it in
holiness, so it made use of it to promote the glory of God and the needs of
everyday life. But when it had been mingled with the evil generation, it
drew aside at the suggestion of devils to profane and harmful uses what it
had innocently learnt, and audaciously taught by it the curious arts of
wizards and enchantments and magical superstitions, teaching its posterity
to forsake the holy worship of the Divinity and to honour and worship
either the elements or fire or the demons of the air. How it was then that
this knowledge of curious arts of which we have spoken, did not perish in
the deluge, but became known to the ages that followed, should, I think, be
briefly explained, as the occasion of this discussion suggests, although
the answer to the question raised scarcely requires it. And so, as ancient
traditions tell us, Ham the son of Noah, who had been taught these
superstitions and wicked and profane arts, as he knew that he could not
possibly bring any handbook on these subjects into the ark, into which he
was to enter with his good father and holy brothers, inscribed these
nefarious arts and profane devices on plates of various metals which could
not be destroyed by the flood of waters, and on hard rocks, and when the
flood was over he hunted for them with the same inquisitiveness with which
he had concealed them, and so transmitted to his descendants a seed-bed of
profanity and perpetual sin. In this way then that common notion, according
to which men believe that angels delivered to men enchantments and diverse
arts, is in truth fulfilled. From these sons of Seth then and daughters of
Cain, as we have said, there were I born still worse children who became
mighty, hunters, violent and most fierce men who were termed giants by
reason of the size of their bodies and their cruelty and wickedness. For
these first began to harass their neighbours and to practise pillaging
among men, getting their living rather by rapine than by being contented
with the sweat and labour of toil, and their wickedness increased to such a
pitch that the world could only be purified by the flood and deluge. So
then when the sons of Seth at the instigation of their lust had
transgressed that command which had been for a long while kept by a natural
instinct from the beginning of the world, it was needful that it should
afterwards be restored by the letter of the law: "Thou shalt not give thy
daughter to his son to wife, nor shalt thou take a wife of his daughters to
thy son; for they shall seduce your hearts to depart from your God, and to
follow their gods and serve them."(2)
CHAPTER XXII: An objection, as to how an unlawful intermingling with the
daughters of Cain could be charged against the line of Seth before the
prohibition of the law.
GERMANUS: If that command had been given to them, then the sin of
breaking it might fairly have been brought against them for their audacity
in so marrying. But since the observance of that separation had not yet
been established by any rule, how could that intermingling of races be
counted wrong in them, as it had not been forbidden by any command? For a
law does not ordinarily forbid crimes that are past, but those that are
future.
CHAPTER XXIII: The answer, that by the law of nature men were from the
beginning liable to judgment and punishment.
SERENUS: God at man's creation implanted in him naturally complete
knowledge of the law, and if this had been kept by man, as at the
beginning, according to the Lord's purposes, there would not have been any
need for another law to be given, which He afterwards proclaimed in
writing: for it were superfluous for an external remedy to be offered,
where an internal one was still implanted and vigorous. But since this had
been, as we have said, utterly corrupted by freedom and the opportunity of
sinning, the severe restrictions of the law of Moses were added as the
executor and vindicator of this (earlier law) and to use the expressions of
Scripture, as its helper, that through fear of immediate punishment men
might be kept from altogether losing the good of natural knowledge,
according to the word of the prophet who says "He gave the law to help
them:"(1) and it is also described by the Apostle as having been given as a
schoolmaster(2) to little children, as it instructs and guards them to
prevent them from departing through sheer forgetfulness from the teaching
in which they had been instructed by the light of nature: for that the
complete knowledge of the law was implanted in man at his first creation,
is clearly proved from this; viz., that we know that before the law, aye,
and even before the flood, all holy men observed the commands of the law
without having the letter to read. For how could Abel, without the command
of the law, have known that he ought to offer to God a sacrifice of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof,(3) unless he had been
taught by the law which was naturally implanted in him? How could Noah have
distinguished what animals were clean and what were unclean,(4) when the
commandment of the law had not yet made a distinction, unless he had been
taught by a natural knowledge? Whence did Enoch learn how to "walk with
God,"(5) having never acquired any light of the law from another? Where had
Shem and Japheth read "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father,"
so that they went backwards and covered the shame of their father?(6) How
was Abraham taught to abstain from the spoils of the enemy which were
offered to him, that he might not receive any recompense for his toil, or
to pay to the priest Melchizedec the tithes which are ordered by the law of
Moses?(7) How was it too that the same Abraham and Lot also humbly offered
to passers by and strangers offices of kindness and the washing of their
feet, while yet the Evangelic command had not shone forth?(8) Whence did
Job obtain such earnestness of faith, such purity of chastity, such
knowledge of humility, gentleness, pity and kindness, as we now see shown
not even by those who know the gospels by heart? Which of the saints do we
read of as not having observed some commandment of the law before the
giving of the law? Which of them failed to keep this: "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord thy God is one Lord?"(9) Which of them did not fulfil this: "Thou
shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything
which is in heaven or in the earth or under the earth?" Which of them did
not observe this: "Honour thy father and thy mother," or what follows in
the Decalogue: "Thou shalt do no murder; Thou shalt not commit adultery;
Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false witness; Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour's wife,"(10) and many other things besides, in which
they anticipated the commands not only of the law but even of the gospel?
CHAPTER XXIV: Of the fact that they were justly punished, who sinned before
the flood.
And so then we see that from the beginning God created everything
perfect, nor would there have been need for anything to have been added to
His original arrangement--as if it were shortsighted and imperfect--if
everything had continued in that state and condition in which it had been
created by Him. And therefore in the case of those who sinned before the
law and even before the flood we see that God visited them with a righteous
judgment, because they deserved to be punished without any excuse, for
having transgressed the law of nature; nor should we fall into the
blasphemous slanders of those who are ignorant of this reason, and so
depreciate the God of the Old Testament, and run down our faith, and say
with a sneer: Why then did it please your God to will to promulgate the law
after so many thousand years, While He suffered such long ages to pass
without any law? But if He afterwards discovered something better, then it
appears that at the beginning of the world His wisdom was inferior and
poorer, and that afterwards as if taught by experience He began to provide
for something better, and to amend and improve His original arrangements. A
thing which certainly cannot happen to the infinite foreknowledge of God,
nor can these assertions be made about Him by the mad folly of heretics
without grievous blasphemy, as Ecclesiastes says: "I have learnt that all
the words which God hath made from the beginning shall continue forever:
nothing can be added to them, and nothing can be taken away from them,"(11)
and therefore "the law is not made for the righteous, but for the
unrighteous, and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the wicked
and profane."(12) For as they had the sound and complete system of natural
laws implanted in them they had no need of this external law in addition,
and one committed to writing, and what was given as an aid to that natural
law. From which we infer by the clearest of reasonings that that law
committed to writing need not have been given at the beginning (for it was
unnecessary for this to be done while the natural law still remained, and
was not utterly violated) nor could evangelical perfection have been
granted before the law had been kept. For they could not have listened to
this saying: "If a man strikes thee on the right cheek, turn to him the
other also,"(1) who were not content to avenge wrongs done to them with the
even justice of the lex talionis, but repaid a very slight touch with
deadly kicks and wounds with weapons, and for a single truth sought to take
the life of those who had struck them. Nor could it be said to them, "love
your enemies,"(2) among whom it was considered a great thing and most
important if they loved their friends, but avoided their enemies and
dissented from them only in hatred without being eager to oppress and kill
them.
CHAPTER XXV: How this that is said of the devil in the gospel is to be
understood; viz., that "he is a liar, and his father."
But as for this which disturbed you about the devil, that "he is a liar
and his father,"(3) as if it seemed that he and his father were pronounced
by the Lord to be liars, it is sufficiently ridiculous to imagine this even
cursorily. For as we said a little while ago spirit does not beget spirit
just as soul cannot procreate soul, though we do not doubt that the
compacting of flesh is formed from man's seed, as the Apostle clearly
distinguishes in the case of both substances; viz., flesh and spirit, what
should be ascribed to whom as its author, and says: "Moreover we have had
fathers of our flesh for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not
much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? "(4) What
could show more clearly than this distinction, that he laid down that men
were the fathers of our flesh, but always taught that God alone was the
Father of souls. Although even in the actual compacting of this body a
ministerial office alone must be attributed to men, but the chief part of
its formation to God the Creator of all, as David says: "Thy hands have
made me and fashioned me:"(5) And the blessed Job: "Hast thou not milked me
as milk, and curdled me as cheese? Thou hast put me together with bones and
sinews;"(6) and the Lord to Jeremiah: "Before I formed thee in the womb, I
knew thee."(7) But Ecclesiastes very clearly and accurately gathers the
nature of either substance, and its beginning, by an examination of the
rise and commencement, from which each originated, and by a consideration
of the end to which each is tending, and decides also of the division of
this body and soul, and discourses as follows: "Before the dust returns to
the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it."(8) But
what could be said with greater plainness than that he declares that the
matter of the flesh which he styled dust, because it springs from the seed
of man, and seems to be sown by his ministration, mush as it was taken from
the earth, again return to the earth, while he points out that the spirit
which is not begotten by intercourse between the sexes, but belongs to God
alone in a special way, returns to its creator? And this also is clearly
implied in that breathing by God, through which Adam in the first instance
received his life. And so from these passages we clearly infer that no one
can be called the Father of spirits but God alone, who makes them out of
nothing whenever He pleases, while men can only be termed the fathers of
our flesh. So then the devil also in as much as he was created a spirit or
an angel and good, had no one as his Father but God his Maker. But when he
had become puffed up by pride and had said in his heart: "I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High,"(9) he
became a liar, and "abode not in the truth;"(10) but brought forth a lie
from his own storehouse of wickedness and so became not only a liar, but
also the father of the actual lie, by which when he promised Divinity to
man and said "Ye shall be as gods,"(11) he abode not in the truth, but from
the beginning became a murderer, both by bringing Adam into a state of
mortality, and by slaying Abel by the hand of his brother at his
suggestion. But already the approach of dawn is bringing to a close our
discussion, which has occupied nearly two whole nights, and our brief and
simple words have drawn our bark of this Conference from the deep sea of
questions to a safe harbour of silence, in which deep indeed, as the breath
of the Divine Spirit drives us further in, so is there ever opened out a
wider and boundless space reaching beyond the sight of our eye, and, as
Solomon says, "It will become much further from us than it was, and a great
depth; who shall find it out?"(12) Wherefore let us pray the Lord that both
His fear and His love, which cannot fail, may continue steadfast in us, and
make us wise in all things, and ever shield us unharmed, from the darts of
the devil. For with these guards it is impossible for anyone to fall into
the snares of death. But there is this difference between the perfect and
imperfect, that in the case of the former love is steadfast, and so to
speak riper and lasts more abidingly and so makes them persevere in
holiness more steadfastly and more easily, while in the case of the latter
its position is weaker and it more easily grows cold, and so quickly and
more frequently allows them to be entangled in the snares of sin. And when
we heard this, the words of this Conference so fired us that when we went
away from the old man's cell we longed with a keener ardour of soul than
when we first came, for the fulfilment of his teaching.
IX: THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF ABBOT ISAAC.
ON PRAYER.
CHAPTER I: Introduction to the Conference.
What was promised in the second book of the Institutes(1) on continual
and unceasing perseverance in prayer, shall be by the Lord's help fulfilled
by the Conferences of this Elder, whom we will now bring forward; viz.,
Abbot Isaac:(2) and when these have been propounded I think that I shall
have satisfied the commands of Pope Castor of blessed memory, and your
wishes, O blessed Pope Leontius and holy brother Helladius, and the length
of the book in its earlier part may be excused, though, in spite of our
endeavour not only to compress what had to be told into a brief discourse,
but also to pass over very many points in silence, it has been extended to
a greater length than we intended. For having commenced with a full
discourse on various regulations which we have thought it well to curtail
for the sake of brevity, at the close the blessed Isaac spoke these words.
CHAPTER II: The words of Abbot Isaac on the nature of prayer.
The aim of every monk and the perfection of his heart tends to
continual and unbroken perseverance in prayer, and, as far as it is allowed
to human frailty, strives to acquire an immovable tranquillity of mind and
a perpetual purity, for the sake of which we seek unweariedly and
constantly to practise all bodily labours as well as contrition of spirit.
And there is between these two a sort of reciprocal and inseparable union.
For just as the crown of the building of all virtues is the perfection of
prayer, so unless everything has been united and compacted by this as its
crown, it cannot possibly continue strong and stable. For lasting and
continual calmness in prayer, of which we are speaking, cannot be secured
or consummated without them, so neither can those virtues which lay its
foundations be fully gained without persistence in it. And so we shall not
be able either to treat properly of the effect of prayer, or in a rapid
discourse to penetrate to its main end, which is acquired by labouring at
all virtues, unless first all those things which for its sake must be
either rejected or secured, are singly enumerated and discussed, and, as
the Parable in the gospel teaches,(3) whatever concerns the building of
that spiritual and most lofty tower, is reckoned up and carefully
considered beforehand. But yet these things when prepared will be of no use
nor allow the lofty height of perfection to be properly placed upon them
unless a clearance of all faults be first undertaken, and the decayed and
dead rubbish of the passions be dug up, and the strong foundations of
simplicity and humility be laid on the solid and (so to speak) living soil
of our breast, or rather on that rock of the gospel,(4) and by being built
in this way this tower of spiritual virtues will rise, and be able to stand
unmoved, and be raised to the utmost heights of heaven in full assurance of
its, stability. For if it rests on such foundations, then though heavy
storms of passions break over it, though mighty torrents of persecutions
beat against it like a battering ram, though a furious tempest of spiritual
foes dash against it and attack it, yet not only will no ruin overtake it,
but the onslaught will not injure it even in the slightest degree.
CHAPTER III: How pure and sincere prayer can be gained.
And therefore in order that prayer may be offered up with that
earnestness and purity with which it ought to be, we must by all means
observe these rules. First all anxiety about carnal things must be entirely
got rid of; next we must leave no room for not merely the care but even the
recollection of any business affairs, and in like manner also must lay
aside all backbitings, vain and incessant chattering, and buffoonery; anger
above all and disturbing moroseness must be entirely destroyed, and the
deadly taint of carnal lust and covetousness be torn up by the roots. And
so when these and such like faults which are also visible to the eyes of
men, are entirely removed and cut off, and when such a purification and
cleansing, as we spoke of, has first taken place, which is brought about by
pure simplicity and innocence, then first there must be laid the secure
foundations of a deep humility, which may be able to support a tower that
shall reach the sky; and next the spiritual structure of the virtues must
be built up upon them, and the soul kept free from all conversation and
from roving thoughts that thus it may by little and little begin to rise to
the contemplation of God and to spiritual insight. For whatever our mind
has been thinking of before the hour of prayer, is sure to occur to us
while we are praying through the activity of the memory. Wherefore what we
want to find ourselves like while we are praying, that we ought to prepare
ourselves to be before the time for prayer. For the mind in prayer is
formed by its previous condition, and when we are applying ourselves to
prayer the images of the same actions and words and thoughts will dance
before our eyes, and make us either angry, as in Our previous condition, or
gloomy, or recall our former lust and business, or make us shake with
foolish laughter (which I am ashamed to speak of) at some silly joke, or
smile at some action, or fly back to our previous conversation. And
therefore if we do not want anything to haunt us while we are praying, we
should be careful before our prayer, to exclude it from the shrine of our
heart, that we may thus fulfill the Apostle's injunction: "Pray without
ceasing;" and: "In every place lifting up holy hands without wrath or
disputing."(1) For otherwise we shall not be able to carry out that charge
unless our mind, purified from all stains of sin, and given over to virtue
as to its natural good, feed on the continual contemplation of Almighty
God.
CHAPTER IV: Of the lightness of the soul which may be compared to a wing or
feather.
For the nature of the soul is not inaptly compared to a very fine
feather or very light wing, which, if it has not been damaged or affected
by being spoilt by any moisture falling on it from without, is borne aloft
almost naturally to the heights of heaven by the lightness of its nature,
and the aid of the slightest breath: but if it is weighted by any moisture
falling upon it and penetrating into it, it will not only not be carried
away by its natural lightness into any aerial flights but will actually be
borne down to the depths of earth by the weight of the moisture it has
received. So also our soul, if it is not weighted with faults that touch
it, and the cares of this world, or damaged by the moisture of injurious
lusts, will be raised as it were by the natural blessing of its own purity
and borne aloft to the heights by the light breath of spiritual meditation;
and leaving things low and earthly will be transported to those that are
heavenly and invisible. Wherefore we are well warned by the Lord's command:
"Take heed that your hearts be not weighed down by surfeiting and
drunkenness and the cares of this world."(2) And therefore if we want our
prayers to reach not only the sky, but what is beyond the sky, let us be
careful to reduce our soul, purged from all earthly faults and purified
from every stain, to its natural lightness, that so our prayer may rise to
God unchecked by the weight of any sin.
CHAPTER V: Of the ways in which our soul is weighed down.
But we should notice the ways in which the Lord points out that the
soul is weighed down: for He did not mention adultery, or fornication, or
murder, or blasphemy, or rapine, which everybody knows to be deadly and
damnable, but surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares or anxieties of
this world: which men of this world are so far from avoiding or considering
damnable that actually some who (I am ashamed to say) call themselves monks
entangle themselves in these very occupations as if they were harmless or
useful. And though these three things, when literally given way to weigh
down the soul, and separate it from God, and bear it down to things
earthly, yet it is very easy to avoid them, especially for us who are
separated by so great a distance from all converse with this world, and who
do not on any occasion have anything to do with those visible cares and
drunkenness and surfeiting. But there is another surfeiting which is no
less dangerous, and a spiritual drunkenness which it is harder to avoid,
and a care and anxiety of this world, which often ensnares us even after
the perfect renunciation of all our goods, and abstinence from wine and all
feastings and even when we are living in solitude--and of such the prophet
says: "Awake, ye that are drunk but not with wine;"(1) and another: "Be
astonished and wonder and stagger: be drunk and not with wine: be moved,
but not with drunkenness."(2) And of this drunkenness the wine must
consequently be what the prophet calls "the fury of dragons": and from what
root the wine comes you may hear: "From the vineyard of Sodom," he says,
"is their vine, and their branches from Gomorrha." Would you also know
about the fruit of that vine and the seed of that branch? "Their grape is a
grape of gall, theirs is a cluster of bitterness"(3) for unless we are
altogether cleansed from all faults and abstaining from the surfeit of all
passions, our heart will without drunkenness from wine and excess of any
feasting be weighed down by a drunkenness and surfeiting that is still more
dangerous. For that worldly cares can sometimes fall on us who mix with no
actions of this world, is clearly shown according to the rule of the
Elders, who have laid down that anything which goes beyond the necessities
of daily food, and the unavoidable needs of the flesh, belongs to worldly
cares and anxieties, as for example if, when a job bringing in a penny
would satisfy the needs of our body, we try to extend it by a longer toil
and work in order to get twopence or threepence; and when a covering of two
tunics would be enough for our use both by night and day, we manage to
become the owners of three or four, or when a hut containing one or two
cells would be sufficient, in the pride of worldly ambition and greatness
we build four or five cells, and these splendidly decorated, and larger
than our needs required, thus showing the passion of worldly lusts whenever
we can.
CHAPTER VI: Of the vision which a certain Elder saw concerning the restless
work of a brother.
And that this is not done without the prompting of devils we are taught
by the surest proofs, for when one very highly esteemed Elder was passing
by the cell of a certain brother who was suffering from this mental disease
of which we have spoken, as he was restlessly toiling in his daily
occupations in building and repairing what was unnecessary, he watched him
from a distance breaking a very hard stone with a heavy hammer, and saw a
certain Ethiopian standing over him and together with him striking the
blows of the hammer with joined and clasped hands, and urging him on with
fiery incitements to diligence in the work: and so he stood still for a
long while in astonishment at the force of the fierce demon and the
deceitfulness of such an illusion. For when the brother was worn out and
tired and wanted to rest and put an end to his toil, he was stimulated by
the spirit's prompting and urged on to resume his hammer again and not to
cease from devoting himself to the work which he had begun, so that being
unweariedly supported by his incitements he did not feel the harm that so
great labour was doing him. At last then the old man, disgusted at such a
horrid mystification by a demon, turned aside to the brother's cell and
saluted him, and asked "what work is it, brother, that you are doing?" and
he replied: "We are working at this awfully hard stone, and we can hardly
break it at all." Whereupon the Elder replied: "You were right in saying
'we can,' for you were not alone, when you were striking it, but there was
another with you whom you did not see, who was standing over you not so
much to help you as urge you on with all his force." And thus the fact that
the disease of worldly vanity has not got hold of our hearts, will be
proved by no mere abstinence from those affairs which even if we want to
engage in, we cannot carry out, nor by the despising of those matters which
if we pursued them would make us remarkable in the front rank among
spiritual persons as well as among worldly men, but only when we reject
with inflexible firmness of mind whatever ministers to our power and seems
to be veiled in a show of right. And in reality these things which seem
trivial and of no consequence, and which we see to be permitted
indifferently by those who belong to our calling, none the less by their
character affect the soul than those more important things, which according
to their condition usually intoxicate the senses of worldly people and
which do not allow(1) a monk to lay aside earthly impurities and aspire to
God, on whom his attention should ever be fixed; for in his case even a
slight separation from that highest good must be regarded as present death
and most dangerous destruction. And when the soul has been established in
such a peaceful condition, and has been freed from the meshes of all carnal
desires, and the purpose of the heart has been steadily fixed on that which
is the only highest good, he will then fulfil this Apostolic precept: "Pray
without ceasing;" and: "in every place lifting up holy hands without wrath
and disputing:"(2) for when by this purity (if we can say so) the thoughts
of the soul are engrossed, and are re-fashioned out of their earthly
condition to bear a spiritual and angelic likeness, whatever it receives,
whatever it takes in hand, whatever it does, the prayer will be perfectly
pure and sincere.
CHAPTER VII: A question how it is that it is harder work to preserve than
to originate good thoughts.
Germanus: If only we could keep as a lasting possession those spiritual
thoughts in the same way and with the same ease with which we generally
conceive their germs! for when they have been conceived in our hearts
either through the recollection of the Scriptures or by the memory of some
spiritual actions, or by gazing upon heavenly mysteries, they vanish all
too soon and disappear by a sort of unnoticed flight. And when our soul has
discovered some other occasions for spiritual emotions, different ones
again crowd in upon us, and those which we had grasped are scattered, and
lightly fly away so that the mind retaining no persistency, and keeping of
its own power no firm hand over holy thoughts, must be thought, even when
it does seem to retain them for a while, to have conceived them at random
and not of set purpose. For how can we think that their rise should be
ascribed to our own will, if they do not last and remain with us? But that
we may not owing to the consideration of this question wander any further
from the plan of the discourse we had commenced, or delay any longer the
explanation promised of the nature of prayer, we will keep this for its own
time, and ask to be informed at once of the character of prayer, especially
as the blessed Apostle exhorts us at no time to cease from it, saying "Pray
without ceasing." And so we want to be taught first of its character, i.e.,
how prayer ought always to be offered up, and then how we can secure this,
whatever it is, and practise it without ceasing. For that it cannot be done
by any light purpose of heart both daily experience and the explanation of
four holiness show us, as you have laid it down that the aim of a monk, and
the height of all perfection consist in the consummation of prayer.
CHAPTER VIII: Of the different characters of prayer.
ISAAC: I imagine that all kinds of prayers cannot be grasped without
great purity of heart and soul and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. For
there are as many of them as there can be conditions and characters
produced in one soul or rather in all souls. And so although we know that
owing to our dulness of heart we cannot see all kinds of prayers, yet we
will try to relate them in some order, as far as our slender experience
enables us to succeed. For according to the degree of the purity to which
each soul attains, and the character of the state in which it is sunk owing
to what happens to it, or is by its own efforts renewing itself, its very
prayers will each moment be altered: and therefore it is quite clear that
no one can always offer up uniform prayers. For every one prays in one way
when he is brisk, in another when he is oppressed with a weight of sadness
or despair, in another when he is invigorated by spiritual achievements, in
another when cast down by the burden of attacks, in another when he is
asking pardon for his sins, in another when he asks to obtain grace or some
virtue or else prays for the destruction of some sin, in another when he is
pricked to the heart by the thought of hell and the fear of future
judgment, in another when he is aglow with the hope and desire of good
things to come, in another when he is taken up with affairs and dangers, in
another when he is in peace and security, in another when he is enlightened
by the revelation of heavenly mysteries, and in another when he is
depressed by a sense of barrenness in virtues and dryness in feeling.
CHAPTER IX: Of the fourfold nature of prayer.
AND therefore, when we have laid this down with regard to the character
of prayer, although not so fully as the importance of the subject requires,
but as fully as the exigencies of time permit, and at any rate as our
slender abilities admit, and our dulness of heart enables us,--a still
greater difficulty now awaits us; viz., to expound one by one the different
kinds of prayer, which the Apostle divides in a fourfold manner, when he
says as follows: "I exhort therefore first of all that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made."(1) And we cannot possibly
doubt that this division was not idly made by the Apostle. And to begin
with we must investigate what is meant by supplication, by prayer, by
intercession, and by thanksgiving. Next we must inquire whether these four
kinds are to be taken in hand by him who prays all at once, i.e., are they
all to be joined together in every prayer,--or whether they are to be
offered up in turns and one by one, as, for instance, ought at one time
supplications, at another prayers, at another intercessions, and at another
thanksgivings to be offered, or should one man present to God
supplications, another prayers, another intercessions, another
thanksgivings, in accordance with that measure of age, to which each soul
is advancing by earnestness of purpose?
CHAPTER X: Of the order of the different kinds laid down with regard to the
character of prayer.
AND so to begin with we must consider the actual force of the names and
words, and discuss what is the difference between prayer and supplication
and intercession; then in like manner we must investigate whether they are
to be offered separately or all together; and in the third place must
examine whether the particular order which is thus arranged by the
Apostle's authority has anything further to teach the hearer, or whether
the distinction simply is to be taken, and it should be considered that
they were arranged by him indifferently in such a way: a thing which seems
to me utterly absurd. For one must not believe that the Holy Spirit uttered
anything casually or without reason through the Apostle. And so we will, as
the Lord grants us, consider them in the same order in which we began.
CHAPTER XI: Of Supplications.
"I EXHORT therefore first of all that supplications be made."
Supplication is an imploring or petition concerning sins, in which one who
is sorry for his present or past deeds asks for pardon.
CHAPTER XII: Of Prayer.
PRAYERS are those by which we offer or vow something to God, what the
Greeks call euchh', i.e., a vow. For where we read in Greek ta`s eucha's
mou tw^ kuriw^ apodw'sw, in Latin we read: "I will pay my vows unto the
Lord;"(2) where according to the exact force of the words it may be thus
represented: "I will pay my prayers unto the Lord." And this which we find
in Ecclesiastes: "If thou vowest a vow unto the Lord do not delay to pay
it," is written in Greek likewise: ea'n eu'xh(i) euchh`n tw^ kuriw^ i.e.,
"If thou prayest a prayer unto the Lord, do not delay to pay it,"(3) which
will be fulfilled in this way by each one of us. We pray, when we renounce
this world and promise that being dead to all worldly actions and the life
of this world we will serve the Lord with full purpose of heart. We pray
when we promise that despising secular honours and scorning earthly riches
we will cleave to the Lord in all sorrow of heart and humility of spirit.
We pray when we promise that we will ever maintain the most perfect purity
of body and steadfast patience, or when we vow that we will utterly root
out of our heart the roots of anger or of sorrow that worketh death. And
if, enervated by sloth and returning to our former sins we fail to do this
we shall be guilty as regards our prayers and vows, and these words will
apply to us: "It is better not and not to pay," which to vow, than to vow
and not to pay can be rendered in accordance with the Greek: "It is better
for thee not to pray than to pray and not to pay."(4)
CHAPTER XIII: Of Intercession.
IN the third place stand intercessions, which we are wont to offer up
for others also, while we are filled with fervour of spirit, making request
either for those dear to us or for the peace of the whole world, and to use
the Apostle's own phrase, we pray "for all men, for kings and all that are
in authority."(1)
CHAPTER XIV: Of Thanksgiving.
THEN in the fourth place there stand thanksgivings which the mind in
ineffable transports offers up to God, either when it recalls God's past
benefits or when it contemplates His present ones, or when it looks forward
to those great ones in the future which God has prepared for them that love
Him. And with this purpose too sometimes we are wont to pour forth richer
prayers, while, as we gaze with pure eyes on those rewards of the saints
which are laid up in store hereafter, our spirit is stimulated to offer up
unspeakable thanks to God with boundless joy.
CHAPTER XV: Whether these four kinds of prayers are necessary for everyone
to offer all at once or separately and in turns.
AND of these four kinds, although sometimes occasions arise for richer
and fuller prayers (for from the class of supplications which arises from
sorrow for sin, and from the kind of prayer which flows from confidence in
our offerings and the performance of our vows in accordance with a pure
conscience, and from the intercession which proceeds from fervour of love,
and from the thanksgiving which is born of the consideration of God's
blessings and His greatness and goodness, we know that oftentimes there
proceed most fervent and ardent prayers so that it is clear that all these
kinds of prayer of which we have spoken are found to be useful and needful
for all men, so that in one and the same man his changing feelings will
give utterance to pure and fervent petitions now of supplications, now of
prayers, now of intercessions) yet the first seems to belong more
especially to beginners, who are still troubled by the stings and
recollection of their sins; the second to those who have already attained
some loftiness of mind in their spiritual progress and the quest of virtue;
the third to those who fulfil the completion of their vows by their works,
and are so stimulated to intercede for others also through the
consideration of their weakness, and the earnestness of their love; the
fourth to those who have already torn from their hearts the guilty thorns
of conscience, and thus being now free from care can contemplate with a
pure mind the beneficence of God and His compassions, which He has either
granted in the past, or is giving in the present, or preparing for the
future, and thus are borne onward with fervent hearts to that ardent prayer
which cannot be embraced or expressed by the mouth of men. Sometimes
however the mind which is advancing to that perfect state of purity and
which is already beginning to be established in it, will take in all these
at one and the same time, and like some incomprehensible and all- devouring
flame, dart through them all and offer up to God inexpressible prayers of
the purest force, which the Spirit Itself, intervening with groanings that
cannot be uttered, while we ourselves understand not, pours forth to God,
grasping at that hour and ineffably pouring forth in its supplications
things so great that they cannot be uttered with the mouth nor even at any
other time be recollected by the mind. And thence it comes that in whatever
degree any one stands, he is found sometimes to offer up pure and devout
prayers; as even in that first and lowly station which has to do with the
recollection of future judgment, he who still remains under the punishment
of terror and the fear of judgment is so smitten with sorrow for the time
being that he is filled with no less keenness of spirit from the richness
of his supplications than he who through the purity of his heart gazes on
and considers the blessings of God and is overcome with ineffable joy and
delight. For, as the Lord Himself says, he begins to love the more, who
knows that he has been forgiven the more.(2)
CHAPTER XVI: Of the kinds of prayer to which we ought to direct ourselves.
YET we ought by advancing in life and attaining to virtue to aim rather
at those kinds of prayer which are poured forth either from the
contemplation of the good things to come or from fervour of love, or which
at least, to speak more humbly and in accordance with the measure of
beginners, arise for the acquirement of some virtue or the extinction of
some fault. For otherwise we shall not possibly attain to those sublimer
kinds of supplication of which we spoke, unless our mind has been little by
little and by degrees raised through the regular course of those
intercessions.
CHAPTER XVII: How the four kinds of supplication were originated by the
Lord.
THESE four kinds of supplication the Lord Himself by His own example
vouchsafed to originate for us, so that in this too He might fulfil that
which was said of Him: "which Jesus began both to do and to teach."(1) For
He made use of the class of supplication when He said: "Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me;" or this which is chanted in His
Person in the Psalm: "My God, My God, look upon Me, why hast Thou forsaken
me,"(2) and others like it. It is prayer where He says: "I have magnified
Thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do,"
and this: "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also may be
sanctified in the truth."(3) It is intercession when He says: "Father,
those Whom Thou hast given me, I will that they also may be with Me that
they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me;" or at any rate when He
says: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."(4) It is
thanksgiving when He says: "I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy
sight:" or at least when He says: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast
heard Me. But I knew that Thou hearest Me always."(5) But though our Lord
made a distinction between these four kinds of prayers as to be offered
separately and one by one according to the scheme which we know of, yet
that they can all be embraced in a perfect prayer at one and the same time
He showed by His own example in that prayer which at the close of S. John's
gospel we read that He offered up with such fulness. From the words of
which (as it is too long to repeat it all) the careful inquirer can
discover by the order of the passage that this is so. And the Apostle also
in his Epistle to the Philippians has expressed the same meaning, by
putting these four kinds of prayers in a slightly different order, and has
shown that they ought sometimes to be offered together in the fervour of a
single prayer, saying as follows: "But in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God."(6) And by this he wanted us especially to understand that in prayer
and supplication thanksgiving ought to be mingled with our requests.
CHAPTER XVIII: Of the Lord's Prayer.
AND so there follows after these different kinds of supplication a
still more sublime and exalted condition which is brought about by the
contemplation of God alone and by fervent love, by which the mind,
transporting and flinging itself into love for Him, addresses God most
familiarly as its own Father with a piety of its own. And that we ought
earnestly to seek after this condition the formula of the Lord's prayer
teaches us, saying "Our Father." When then we confess with our own mouths
that the God and Lord of the universe is our Father, we profess forthwith
that we have been called from our condition as slaves to the adoption of
sons, adding next "Which art in heaven," that, by shunning with the utmost
horror all lingering in this present life, which we pass upon this earth as
a pilgrimage, and what separates us by a great distance from our Father, we
may the rather hasten with all eagerness to that country where we confess
that our Father dwells, and may not allow anything of this kind, which
would make us unworthy of this our profession and the dignity of an
adoption of this kind, and so deprive us as a disgrace to our Father's
inheritance, and make us incur the wrath of His justice and severity. To
which state and condition of sonship when we have advanced, we shall
forthwith be inflamed with the piety which belongs to good sons, so that we
shall bend all our energies to the advance not of our own profit, but of
our Father's glory, saying to Him: "Hallowed be Thy name," testifying that
our desire and our joy is His glory, becoming imitators of Him who said:
"He who speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory. But He who seeks the
glory of Him who sent Him, the same is true and there is no unrighteousness
in Him."(7) Finally the chosen vessel being filled with this feeling wished
that he could be anathema from Christ(8) if only the people belonging to
Him might be increased and multiplied, and the salvation of the whole
nation of Israel accrue to the glory of His Father; for with all assurance
could he wish to die for Christ as he knew that no one perished for life.
And again he says: "We rejoice when we are weak but ye are strong."(1) And
what wonder if the chosen vessel wished to be anathema from Christ for the
sake of Christ's glory and the conversion of His own brethren and the
privilege of the nation, when the prophet Micah wished that he might be a
liar and a stranger to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, if only the
people of the Jews might escape those plagues and the going forth into
captivity which he had announced in his prophecy, saying: "Would that I
were not a man that hath the Spirit, and that I rather spoke a lie;"(2)--to
pass over that wish of the Lawgiver, who did not refuse to die together
with his brethren who were doomed to death, saying: "I beseech Thee, O
Lord; this people hath sinned a heinous sin; either forgive them this
trespass, or if Thou do not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast
written."(3) But where it is said "Hallowed be Thy name," it may also be
very fairly taken in this way: "The hallowing of God is our perfection."
And so when we say to Him" Hallowed be Thy name" we say in other words,
make us, O Father, such that we maybe able both to understand and take in
what the hallowing of Thee is, or at any rite that Thou mayest be seen to
be hallowed in our spiritual converse. And this is effectually fulfilled in
our case when "men see our good works, and glorify our Father Which is in
heaven."(4)
CHAPTER XIX: Of the clause "Thy kingdom come."
THE second petition of the pure heart desires that the kingdom of its
Father may come at once; viz., either that whereby Christ reigns day by day
in the saints (which comes to pass when the devil's rule is cast out of our
hearts by the destruction of foul sins, and God begins to hold sway over us
by the sweet odour of virtues, and, fornication being overcome, charity
reigns in our hearts together with tranquillity, when rage is conquered;
and humility, when pride is trampled under foot) or else that which is
promised in due time to all who are perfect, and to all the sons of God,
when it will be said to them by Christ: "Come ye blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;"(5)
(as the heart) with fixed and steadfast gaze, so to speak, yearns and longs
for it and says to Him "Thy kingdom come." For it knows by the witness of
its own conscience that when He shall appear, it will presently share His
lot. For no guilty person would dare either to say or to wish for this, for
no one would want to face the tribunal of the Judge, who knew that at His
coming he would forthwith receive not the prize or reward of his merits but
only punishment.
CHAPTER XX: Of the clause "Thy will be done."
THE third petition is that of sons: "Thy will be done as in heaven so
on earth." There can now be no grander prayer than to wish that earthly
things may be made equal with things heavenly: for what else is it to say
"Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth," than to ask that men may be
like angels and that as God's will is ever fulfilled by them in heaven, so
also all those who are on earth may do not their own but His will? This too
no one could say from the heart but only one who believed that God disposes
for our good all things which are seen, whether fortunate or unfortunate,
and that He is more careful and provident for our good and salvation than
we ourselves are for ourselves. Or at any rate it may be taken in this way:
The will of God is the salvation of all men, according to these words of
the blessed Paul: "Who willeth all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth."(6) Of which will also the prophet Isaiah says in
the Person of God the Father: "And all Thy will shall be done."(7) When we
say then "Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth," we pray in other
words for this; viz., that as those who are in heaven, so also may all
those who dwell on earth be saved, O Father, by the knowledge of Thee.
CHAPTER XXI: Of our supersubstantial or daily bread.
NEXT: "Give us this day our bread which is epiou'sion," i.e.,
"supersubstantial," which another Evangelist calls "daily."(8) The former
indicates the quality of its nobility and substance, in virtue of which it
is above all substances and the loftiness of its grandeur and holiness
exceeds all creatures, while the latter intimates the purpose of its use
and value. For where it says "daily" it shows that without it we cannot
live a spiritual life for a single day. Where it says "today" it shows that
it must be received daily and that yesterday's supply of it is not enough,
but at it must be given to us today also in like manner. And our daily need
of it suggests to us that we ought at all times to offer up this prayer,
because there is no day on which we have no need to strengthen the heart of
our inner man, by eating and receiving it, although the expression used,
"today" may be taken to apply to his present life, i.e., while we are
living in this world supply us with this bread. For we know that it will be
given to those who deserve it by Thee hereafter, but we ask that Thou
wouldest grant it to us today, because unless it has been vouchsafed to a
man to receive it in this life he will never be partaker of it in that.
CHAPTER XXII: Of the clause: "Forgive us our debts, etc."
"AND forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors." O
unspeakable mercy of God, which has not only given us a form of prayer and
taught us a system of life acceptable to Him, and by the requirements of
the form given, in which He charged us always to pray, has torn up the
roots of both anger and sorrow, but also gives to those who pray an
opportunity and reveals to them a way by which they may move a merciful and
kindly judgment of God to be pronounced over them and which somehow gives
us a power by which we can moderate the sentence of our Judge, drawing Him
to forgive our offences by the example of our forgiveness: when we say to
Him: "Forgive us as we also forgive." And so without anxiety and in
confidence from this prayer a man may ask for pardon of his own offences,
if he has been forgiving towards his own debtors, and not towards those of
his Lord. For some of us, which is very bad, are inclined to show ourselves
calm and most merciful in regard to those things which are done to God's
detriment, however great the crimes may be, but to be found most hard and
inexorable exactors of debts to ourselves even in the case of the most
trifling wrongs. Whoever then does not from his heart forgive his brother
who has offended him, by this prayer calls down upon himself not
forgiveness but [condemnation, and by his own profession asks that he
himself may be judged more severely, saying: Forgive me as I also have
forgiven. And if he is repaid according to his own request, what else will
follow but that he will be punished after his own example with implacable
wrath and a sentence that cannot be remitted? And so if we want to be
judged mercifully, we ought also to be merciful towards those who have
sinned against us. For only so much will be remitted to us, as we have
remitted to those who have injured us however spitefully. And some dreading
this, when this prayer is chanted by all the people in church, silently
omit this clause, for fear lest they may seem by their own utterance to
bind themselves rather than to excuse themselves, as they do not understand
that it is in vain that they try to offer these quibbles to the Judge of
all men, who has willed to show us beforehand how He will judge His
suppliants. For as He does not wish to be found harsh and inexorable
towards them, He has marked out the manner of His judgment, that just as we
desire to be judged by Him, so we should also judge our brethren, if they
have wronged us in anything, for "he shall have judgment without mercy who
hath shown no mercy."(1)
CHAPTER XXIII: Of the clause: "Lead us not into temptation."
NEXT there follows: "And lead us not into temptation," on which there
arises no unimportant question, for if we pray that we may not be suffered
to be tempted, how then will our power of endurance be proved, according to
this text: "Every one who is not tempted is not proved;"(2) and again:
"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation?"(3) The clause then, "Lead us
not into temptation," does not mean this; viz., do not permit us ever to be
tempted, but do not permit us when we fall into temptation to be overcome.
For Job was tempted, but was not led into temptation. For he did not
ascribe folly to God nor blasphemy, nor with impious mouth did he yield to
that wish of the tempter toward which he was drawn. Abraham was tempted,
Joseph was tempted, but neither of them was led into temptation for neither
of them yielded his consent to the tempter. Next there follows: "But
deliver us from evil," i.e., do not suffer us to be tempted by the devil
above that we are able, but "make with the temptation a way also of escape
that we may be able to bear it."(1)
CHAPTER XXIV: How we ought not to ask for other things, except only those
which are contained in the limits of the Lord's Prayer.
YOU see then what is the method and form of prayer proposed to us by
the Judge Himself, who is to be prayed to by it, a form in which there is
contained no petition for riches, no thought of honours, no request for
power and might, no mention of bodily health and of temporal life. For He
who is the Author of Eternity would have men ask of Him nothing uncertain,
nothing paltry, and nothing temporal. And so a man will offer the greatest
insult to His Majesty and Bounty, if he leaves on one side these eternal
petitions and chooses rather to ask of Him something transitory and
uncertain; and will also incur the indignation rather than the propitiation
of the Judge by the pettiness of his prayer.
CHAPTER XXV: Of the character of the sublimer prayer.
THIS prayer then though it seems to contain all the fulness of
perfection, as being what was originated and appointed by the Lord's own
authority, yet lifts those to whom it belongs to that still higher
condition of which we spoke above, and carries them on by a loftier stage
to that ardent prayer which is known and tried by but very few, and which
to speak more truly is ineffable; which transcends all human thoughts, and
is distinguished, I will not say by any sound of the voice, but by no
movement of the tongue, or utterance of words, but which the mind
enlightened by the infusion of that heavenly light describes in no human
and confined language, but pours forth richly as from copious fountain in
an accumulation of thoughts, and ineffably utters to God, expressing in the
shortest possible space of time such great things that the mind when it
returns to its usual condition cannot easily utter or relate. And this
condition our Lord also similarly prefigured by the form of those
supplications which, when he retired alone in the mountain He is said to
have poured forth in silence, and when being in an agony of prayer He shed
forth even drops of blood, as an example of a purpose which it is hard to
imitate.
CHAPTER XXVI: Of the different causes of conviction.
But who is able, with whatever experience he may be endowed, to give a
sufficient account of the varieties and reasons and grounds of conviction,
by which the mind is inflamed and set on fire and incited to pure and most
fervent prayers? And of these we will now by way of specimen set forth a
few, as far as we can by God's enlightenment recollect them. For sometimes
a verse of any one of the Psalms gives us an occasion of ardent prayer
while we are singing. Sometimes the harmonious modulation of a brother's
voice stirs up the minds of dullards to intense supplication. We know also
that the enunciation and the reverence of the chanter adds greatly to the
fervour of those who stand by. Moreover the exhortation of a perfect man,
and a spiritual conference has often raised the affections of those present
to the richest prayer. We know too that by the death of a brother or some
one dear to us, we are no less carried away to full conviction. The
recollection also of our coldness and carelessness has sometimes aroused in
us a healthful fervour of spirit. And in this way no one can doubt that
numberless opportunities are not wanting, by which through God's grace the
coldness and sleepiness of our minds can be shaken off.
CHAPTER XXVII: Of the different sorts of conviction.
BUT how and in what way those very convictions are produced from the
inmost recesses of the soul it is no less difficult to trace out. For often
through some inexpressible delight and keenness of spirit the fruit of a
most salutary conviction arises so that it actually breaks forth into
shouts owing to the greatness of its incontrollable joy; and the delight of
the heart and greatness of exultation makes itself heard even in the cell
of a neighbour. But sometimes the mind hides itself in complete silence
within the secrets of a profound quiet, so that the amazement of a sudden
illumination chokes all sounds of words and the overawed spirit either
keeps all its feelings to itself or loses(2) them and pours forth its
desires to God with groanings that cannot be uttered. But sometimes it is
filled with such overwhelming conviction and grief that it cannot express
it except by floods of tears.
CHAPTER XXVIII: A question about the fact that a plentiful supply of tears
is not in our own power.
GERMANUS: My own poor self indeed is not altogether ignorant of this
feeling of conviction. For often when tears arise at the recollection of my
faults, I have been by the Lord's visitation so refreshed by this ineffable
joy which you describe that the greatness of the joy has assured me that I
ought not to despair of their forgiveness. Than which state of mind I think
there is nothing more sublime if only it could be recalled at our own will.
For sometimes when I am desirous to stir myself up with all my power to the
same conviction and tears, and place before my eyes all my faults and sins,
I am unable to bring back that copiousness of tears, and so my eyes are dry
and hard like some hardest flint, so that not a single tear trickles from
them. And so in proportion as I congratulate myself on that copiousness of
tears, just so do I mourn that I cannot bring it back again whenever I
wish.
CHAPTER XXIX: The answer on the varieties of conviction which spring from
tears.
ISAAC: Not every kind of shedding of tears is produced by one feeling
or one virtue. For in one way does that weeping originate which is caused
by the pricks of our sins smiting our heart, of which we read: "I have
laboured in my groanings, every night I will wash my bed; I will water my
couch with my tears."(1) And again: "Let tears run down like a torrent day
and night: give thyself no rest, and let not the apple of thine eye
cease."(2) In another, that which arises from the contemplation of eternal
good things and the desire of that future glory, owing to which even richer
well-springs of tears burst forth from uncontrollable delights and
boundless exultation, while our soul is athirst for the mighty Living God,
saying, "When shall I come and appear before the presence of God? My tears
have been my meat day and night,"(3) declaring with daily crying and
lamentation: "Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged;" and: "Too long
hath my soul been a sojourner."(4) In another way do the tears flow forth,
which without any conscience of deadly sin, yet still proceed from the fear
of hell and the recollection of It hat terrible judgment, with the terror
of which the prophet was smitten and prayed to God, saying: "Enter not into
judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be
justified."(5) There is too another kind of tears, which are caused not by
knowledge of one's self but by the hardness and sins of others; whereby
Samuel is described as having wept for Saul, and both the Lord in the
gospel and Jeremiah in former days for the city of Jerusalem, the latter
thus saying: "Oh, that my head were water and mine eyes a fountain of
tears! And I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my
people."(6) Or also such as were those tears of which we hear m the hundred
and first Psalm: "For I have eaten ashes for my bread, and mingled my cup
with weeping."(7) And these were certainty not caused by the same feeling
as those which arise in the sixth Psalm from the person of the penitent,
but were due to the anxieties of this life and its distresses and losses,
by which the righteous who are living in this world are oppressed. And this
is clearly shown not only by the words of the Psalm itself, but also by its
title, which runs as follows in the character of that poor person of whom
it is said in the gospel that "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven:"(8) "A prayer of the poor when he was in distress
and poured forth his prayer to God."(9)
CHAPTER XXX: How tears ought not to be squeezed out, when they do not flow
spontaneously.
FROM these tears those are vastly different which are squeezed out from
dry eyes while the heart is hard: and although we cannot believe that these
are altogether fruitless (for the attempt to shed them is made with a good
intention, especially by those who have not yet been able to attain to
perfect knowledge or to be thoroughly cleansed from the stains of past or
present sins), yet certainly the flow of tears ought not to be thus forced
out by those who have already advanced to the love of virtue, nor should
the weeping of the outward man be with great labour attempted, as even if
it is produced it will never attain the rich copiousness of spontaneous
tears. For it will rather cast down the soul of the suppliant by his
endeavours, and humiliate him, and plunge him in human affairs and draw him
away from the celestial heights, wherein the awed mind of one who prays
should be steadfastly fixed, and will force it to relax its hold on its
prayers and grow sick from barren and forced tears.
CHAPTER XXXI: The opinion of Abbot Antony on the condition of prayer.
AND that you may see the character of true prayer I will give you not
my own opinion but that of the blessed Antony: whom we have known sometimes
to have been so persistent in prayer that often as he was praying in a
transport of mind, when the sunrise began to appear, we have heard him in
the fervour of his spirit declaiming: Why do you hinder me, O sun, who art
arising for this very purpose; viz., to withdraw me from the brightness of
this true light? And his also is this heavenly and more than human
utterance on the end of prayer: That is not, said he, a perfect prayer,
wherein a monk understands himself and the words which he prays. And if we
too, as far as our slender ability allows, may venture to add anything to
this splendid utterance, we will bring forward the marks of prayer which
are heard from the Lord, as far as we have tried them.
CHAPTER XXXII: Of the proof of prayer being heard.
WHEN, while we are praying, no hesitation intervenes and breaks down
the. confidence of our petition by a sort of despair, but we feel that by
pouring forth our prayer we have obtained what we are asking for, we have
no doubt that our prayers have effectually reached God. For so far will one
be heard and obtain an answer, as he believes that he is regarded by God,
and that God can grant it. For this saying of our Lord cannot be retracted:
"Whatsoever ye ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive, and they
shall come to you."(1)
CHAPTER XXXIII: An objection that the confidence of being thus heard as
described belongs only to saints.
GERMANUS: We certainly believe that this confidence of being heard
flows from purity of conscience, but for us, whose heart is still smitten
by the pricks of sins, how can we have it, as we have no merits to plead
for us, whereby we might confidently presume that our prayers would be
heard?
CHAPTER XXXIV: Answer on the different reasons for prayer being heard.
ISAAC: That there are different reasons for prayer being heard in
accordance with the varied and changing condition of souls the words of the
gospels and of the prophets teach us. For you have the fruits of an answer
pointed out by our Lord's words in the case of the agreement of two
persons; as it is said: "If two of you shall agree upon earth touching
anything for which they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in heaven."(2) You have another in the fulness of faith, which is
compared to a grain of mustard-seed. "For," He says, "if you have faith as
a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain: Be thou removed,
and it shall be removed; and nothing shall be impossible to you."(3) You
have it in continuance in prayer, which the Lord s words call, by reason of
unwearied perseverance in petitioning, importunity: "For, verily, I say
unto you that if not because of his friendship, yet because of his
importunity he will rise and give him as much as he needs."(4) You have it
in the fruits of almsgiving: "Shut up alms in the heart of the poor and it
shall pray for thee in the time of tribulation."(5) You have it in the
purifying of life and in works of mercy, as it is said: "Loose the bands of
wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress;" and after a few words in which
the barrenness of an unfruitful fast is rebuked, "then," he says, "thou
shall call and the Lord shall hear thee; thou shalt cry, and He shall say,
Here am I."(6) Sometimes also excess of trouble causes it to be heard, as
it is said: "When I was in trouble I called unto the Lord, and He heard
me;"(7) and again: "Afflict not the stranger for if he crieth unto Me, I
will hear him, for I am merciful." (8) You see then in how many ways the
gift of an answer may be obtained, so that no one need be crushed by the
despair of his conscience for securing those things which are salutary and
eternal. For if in contemplating our wretchedness I admit that we are
utterly destitute of all those virtues which we mentioned above, and that
we have neither that laudable agreement of two persons, nor that faith
which is compared to a grain of mustard seed, nor those works of piety
which the prophet describes, surely we cannot be without that importunity
which He supplies to all who desire it, owing to which alone the Lord
promises that He will give whatever He has been prayed to give. And
therefore we ought without unbelieving hesitation to persevere, and not to
have the least doubt that by continuing in them we shall obtain all those
things which we have asked according to the mind of God. For the Lord, in
His desire to grant what is heavenly and eternal, urges us to constrain Him
as it were by our importunity, as He not only does not despise or reject
the importunate, but actually welcomes and praises them, and most
graciously promises to grant whatever they have perseveringly hoped for;
saying, "Ask and ye shall receive: seek and ye shall find: knock and it
shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that
seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened;"(1) and
again: "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall
receive, and nothing shall be impossible to you."(2) And therefore even if
all the grounds for being heard which we have mentioned are altogether
wanting, at any rate the earnestness of importunity may animate us, as this
is placed in the power of any one who wills without the difficulties of any
merits or labours. But let not any suppliant doubt that he certainly will
not be heard, so long as he doubts whether he is heard. But that this also
shall be sought from the Lord unweariedly, we are taught by the example of
the blessed Daniel, as, though he was heard from the first day on which he
began to pray, he only obtained the result of his petition after one and
twenty days.(3) Wherefore we also ought not to grow slack in the
earnestness of the prayers we have begun, if we fancy that the answer comes
but slowly, for fear lest perhaps the gift of the answer be in God's
providence delayed, or the angel, who was to bring the Divine blessing to
us, may when he comes forth from the Presence of the Almighty be hindered
by the resistance of the devil, as it is certain that he cannot transmit
and bring to us the desired boon, if he finds that we slack off from the
earnestness of the petition made. And this would certainly have happened to
the above mentioned prophet unless he had with incomparable steadfastness
prolonged and persevered in his prayers until the twenty-first day. Let us
then not be at all cast down by despair from the confidence of this faith
of ours, even when we fancy that we are far from having obtained what we
prayed for, and let us not have any doubts about the Lord's promise where
He says: "All things, whatsoever ye shall ask m prayer believing, ye shall
receive."(4) For it is well for us to consider this saying of the blessed
Evangelist John, by which the ambiguity of this question is clearly solved:
"This is," he says, "the confidence which we have in Him, that whatsoever
we ask according to His will, He heareth us."(5) He bids us then have a
full and undoubting confidence of the answer only in those things which are
not for our own advantage or for temporal comforts, but are in conformity
to the Lord's will. And we are also taught to put this into our prayers by
the Lord's Prayer, where we say "Thy will be done,"--Thine not ours. For if
we also remember these words of the Apostle that "we know not what to pray
for as we ought"(6) we shall see that we sometimes ask for things opposed
to our salvation and that we are most providentially refused our requests
by Him who sees what is good for us with greater right and truth than we
can. And it is clear that this also happened to the teacher of the Gentiles
when he prayed that the messenger of Satan who had been for his good
allowed by the Lord's will to buffet him, might be removed, saying: "For
which I besought the Lord thrice that he might depart from me. And He said
unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for strength is made perfect in
weakness."(7) And this feeling even our Lord expressed when He prayed in
the character(8) of man which He had taken, that He might give us a form of
prayer as other things also by His example; saying thus: "Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will but as Thou
wilt,"(9) though certainly His will was not discordant with His Father's
will, "For He had come to save what was lost and to give His life a ransom
for many;"(10) as He Himself says: "No man taketh my life from Me, but I
lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take
it again."(11) In which character there is in the thirty-ninth Psalm the
following sung by the blessed David, of the Unity of will which He ever
maintained with the Father: "To do Thy will: O My God, I am willing."(12)
For even if we read of the Father: "For God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son,"(1) we find none the less of the Son: "Who gave
Himself for our sins."(2) And as it is said of the One: "Who spared not His
own Son, but gave Him for all of us,"(3) so it is written of the other: "He
was offered because He Himself willed it."(4) And it is shown that the will
of the Father and of the Son is in all things one, so that even in the
actual mystery of the Lord's resurrection we are taught that there was no
discord of operation. For just as the blessed Apostle declares that the
Father brought about the resurrection of His body, saying: "And God the
Father, who raised Him from the dead,"(5) so also the Son testifies that He
Himself will raise again the Temple of His body, saying: "Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up again."(6) And therefore we
being instructed by all these examples of our Lord which have been
enumerated ought to end our supplications also with the same prayer, and
always to subjoin this clause to all our petitions: "Nevertheless not as I
will, but as Thou wilt."(7) But it is clear enough that one who does not(8)
pray with attention of mind cannot observe that threefold reverence(9)
which is usually practised in the assemblies of the brethren at the close
of service.
CHAPTER XXXV: Of prayer to be offered within the chamber and with the door
shut.
BEFORE all things however we ought most carefully to observe the
Evangelic precept, which tells us to enter into our chamber and shut the
door and pray to our Father, which may be fulfilled by us as follows: We
pray within our chamber, when removing our hearts inwardly from the din of
all thoughts and anxieties, we disclose our prayers in secret and in
closest intercourse to the Lord. We pray with closed doors when with closed
lips and complete silence we pray to the searcher not of words but of
hearts. We pray in secret when from the heart and fervent mind we disclose
our petitions to God alone, so that no hostile powers are even able to
discover the character of our petition. Wherefore we should pray in
complete silence, not only to avoid distracting the brethren standing near
by our whispers or louder utterances, and disturbing the thoughts of those
who are praying, but also that the purport of our petition may be concealed
from our enemies who are especially on the watch against us while we are
praying. For so we shall fulfil this injunction. "Keep the doors of thy
mouth from her who sleepeth in thy bosom."(10)
CHAPTER XXXVI: Of the value of short and silent prayer.
WHEREFORE we ought to pray often but briefly, lest if we are long about
it our crafty foe may succeed in implanting something in our heart. For
that is the true sacrifice, as "the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit."
This is the salutary offering, these are pure drink offerings, that is the
"sacrifice of righteousness," the "sacrifice of praise," these are true and
fat victims, "holocausts full of marrow," which are offered by contrite and
humble hearts, and which those who practise this control and fervour of
spirit, of which we have spoken, with effectual power can sing: "Let my
prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense: let the lifting up of my
hands be an evening sacrifice."(11) But the approach of the right hour and
of night warns us that we ought with fitting devotion to do this very
thing, of which, as our slender ability allowed, we seem to have propounded
a great deal, and to have prolonged our conference considerably, though we
believe that we have discoursed very little when the magnificence and
difficulty of the subject are taken into account.
With these words of the holy Isaac we were dazzled rather than
satisfied, and after evening service had been held, rested our limbs for a
short time, and intending at the first dawn again to return under promise
of a fuller discussion departed, rejoicing over the acquisition of these
precepts as well as over the assurance of his promises. Since we felt that
though the excellence of prayer had been shown to us, still we had not yet
understood from his discourse its nature, and the power by which
continuance in it might be gained and kept.
X. THE SECOND CONFERENCE OF ABBOT ISAAC.
ON PRAYER.
CHAPTER I: Introduction.
AMONG the sublime customs of the anchorites which by God's help have
been set forth although in plain and unadorned style, the course of our
narration compels us to insert and find a place for something, which may
seem so to speak to cause a blemish on a fair body: although I have no
doubt that by it no small instruction on the image of Almighty God of which
we read in Genesis will be conferred on some of the simpler sort,
especially when the grounds are considered of a doctrine so important that
men cannot be ignorant of it without terrible blasphemy and serious harm to
the Catholic faith.
CHAPTER II: Of the custom which is kept up in the Province of Egypt for
signifying the time of Easter.
IN the country of Egypt this custom is by ancient tradition observed
that--when Epiphany is past, which the priests of that province regard as
the time, both of our Lord's baptism and also of His birth in the flesh,
and so celebrate the commemoration of either mystery not separately as in
the Western provinces but on the single festival of this day,(1)--letters
are sent from the Bishop of Alexandria through all the Churches of Egypt,
by which the beginning of Lent, and the day of Easter are pointed out not
only in all the cities but also in all the monasteries.(2) In accordance
then with this custom, a very few days after the previous conference had
been held with Abbot Isaac, there arrived the festal letters of
Theophilus(3) the Bishop of the aforesaid city, in which together with the
announcement of Easter he considered as well the foolish heresy of the
Anthropomorphites(4) at great length, and abundantly refuted it. And this
was received by almost all the body of monks residing in the whole province
of Egypt with such bitterness owing to their simplicity and error, that the
greater part of the Elders decreed that on the contrary the aforesaid
Bishop ought to be abhorred by the whole body of the brethren as tainted
with heresy of the worst kind, because he seemed to impugn the teaching of
holy Scripture by the denial that Almighty God was formed in the fashion of
a human figure, though Scripture teaches with perfect clearness that Adam
was created in His image. Lastly this letter was rejected also by those who
were living in the desert of Scete and who excelled all who were in the
monasteries of Egypt, in perfection and in knowledge, so that except Abbot
Paphnutius the presbyter of our congregation, not one of the other
presbyters, who presided over the other three churches in the same desert,
would suffer it to be even read or repeated at all in their meetings.
CHAPTER III: Of Abbot Sarapion and the heresy of the Anthropomorphites into
which he fell in the error of simplicity.
AMONG those then who were caught by this mistaken notion was one named
Sarapion, a man of long-standing strictness of life, and one who was
altogether perfect in actual discipline, whose ignorance with regard to the
view of the doctrine first mentioned was so far a stumbling block to all
who held the true faith, as he himself outstripped almost all the monks
both in the merits of his life and in the length of time (he had been
there). And when this man could not be brought back to the way of the right
faith by many exhortations of the holy presbyter Paphnutius, because this
view seemed to him a novelty, and one that was not ever known to or handed
down by his predecessors, it chanced that a certain deacon, a man of very
great learning, named Photinus, arrived from the region of Cappadocia with
the desire of visiting the brethren living in the same desert: whom the
blessed Paphnutius received with the warmest welcome, and in order to
confirm the faith which had been stated in the letters of the aforesaid
Bishop, placed him in the midst and asked him before all the brethren how
the Catholic Churches throughout the East interpreted the passage in
Genesis where it says "Let us make man after our image and likeness."(1)
And when he explained that the image and likeness of God was taken by all
the leaders of the churches not according to the base sound of the letters,
but spiritually, and supported this very fully and by many passages of
Scripture, and showed that nothing of this sort could happen to that
infinite and incomprehensible and invisible glory, so that it could be
comprised in a human form and likeness, since its nature is incorporeal and
uncompounded and simple, and what can neither be apprehended by the eyes
nor conceived by the mind, at length the old man was shaken by the numerous
and very weighty assertions of this most learned man, and was drawn to the
faith of the Catholic tradition. And when both Abbot Paphnutius and all of
us were filled with intense delight at his adhesion, for this reason; viz.,
that the Lord had not permitted a man of such age and crowned with such
virtues, and one who erred only from ignorance and rustic simplicity, to
wander from the path of the right faith up to the very last, and when we
arose to give thanks, and were all together offering up our prayers to the
Lord, the old man was so bewildered in mind during his prayer because he
felt that the Anthropomorphic image of the Godhead which he used to set
before himself in prayer, was banished from his heart, that on a sudden he
burst into a flood of bitter tears and continual sobs, and cast himself
down on the ground and exclaimed with strong groanings: "Alas! wretched man
that I am! they have taken away my God from me, and I have now none to lay
hold of; and whom to worship and address I know not." By which scene we
were terribly disturbed, and moreover with the effect of the former
Conference still remaining in our hearts, we returned to Abbot Isaac, whom
when we saw close at hand, we addressed with these words.
CHAPTER IV: Of our return to Abbot Isaac and question concerning the error
into which the aforesaid old man had fallen.
ALTHOUGH even besides the fresh matter which has lately arisen, our
delight in the former conference which was held on the character of prayer
would summon us to postpone everything else and return to your holiness,
yet this grievous error of Abbot Sarapion, conceived, as we fancy, by the
craft of most vile demons, adds somewhat to this desire of ours. For it is
no small despair by which we are cast down when we consider that through
the fault of this ignorance he has not only utterly lost all those labours
which he has performed in so praiseworthy a manner for fifty years in this
desert, but has also incurred the risk of eternal death. And so we want
first to know why and wherefore so grievous an error has crept into him.
And next we should like to be taught how we can arrive at that condition in
prayer, of which you discoursed some time back not only fully but
splendidly. For that admirable Conference has had this effect upon us, that
it has only dazzled our minds and has not shown us how to perform or secure
it.
CHAPTER V: The answer on the heresy described above.
ISAAC: We need not be surprised that a really simple man who had never
received any instruction on the substance and nature of the Godhead could
still be entangled and deceived by an error of simplicity and the habit of
a longstanding mistake, and (to speak more truly) continue in the original
error which is brought about, not as you suppose by a new illusion of the
demons, but by the ignorance of the ancient heathen world, while in
accordance with the custom of that erroneous notion, by which they used to
worship devils formed in the figure of men, they even now think that the
incomprehensible and ineffable glory of the true Deity should be worshipped
under the limitations of some figure, as they believe that they can grasp
and hold nothing if they have not some image set before them, which they
can continually address while they are at their devotions, and which they
can carry about in their mind and have always fixed before their eyes. And
against this mistake of theirs this text may be used: "And they changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of
corruptible man."(1) Jeremiah also says: "My people have changed their
glory for an idol.(2) Which error although by this its origin, of which we
have spoken, it is engrained in the notions of some, yet none the less is
it contracted in the hearts also of those who have never been stained with
the superstition of the heathen world, under the colour of this passage
where it is said "Let us make man after our image and our likeness,"(3)
ignorance and simplicity being its authors, so that actually there has
arisen owing to this hateful interpretation a heresy called that of the
Anthropomorphites, which maintains with obstinate perverseness that the
infinite and simple substance of the Godhead is fashioned in our lineaments
and human configuration. Which however any one who has been taught the
Catholic doctrine will abhor as heathenish blasphemy, and so will arrive at
that perfectly pure condition in prayer which will not only not connect
with its prayers any figure of the Godhead or bodily lineaments (which it
is a sin even to speak of), but will not even allow in itself even the
memory of a name, or the appearance of an action, or an outline of any
character.
CHAPTER VI: Of the reasons why Jesus Christ appears to each one of us
either in His humility or in His glorified condition.
FOR according to the measure of its purity, as I said in the former
Conference, each mind is both raised and moulded in its prayers if it
forsakes the consideration of earthly and material things so far as the
condition of its purity may carry it forward, and enable it with the inner
eyes of the soul to see Jesus either still in His humility and in the
flesh, or glorified and coming in the glory of His Majesty: for those
cannot see Jesus coming in His Kingdom who are still kept back in a sort of
state of Jewish weakness, and cannot say with the Apostle: "And if we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more;"(4) but only
those can look with purest eyes on His Godhead, who rise with Him from low
and earthly works and thoughts and go apart in the lofty mountain of
solitude which is free from the disturbance of all earthly thoughts and
troubles, and secure from the interference of all sins, and being exalted
by pure faith and the heights of virtue reveals the glory of His Face and
the image of His splendour to those who are able to look on Him with pure
eyes of the soul. But Jesus is seen as well by those who live in towns and
villages and hamlets, i.e., who are occupied in practical affairs and
works, but not with the same brightness with which He appeared to those who
can go up with Him into the aforesaid mount of virtues, i.e., Peter, James,
and John. For so in solitude He appeared to Moses and spoke with Elias. And
as our Lord wished to establish this and to leave us examples of perfect
purity, although He Himself, the very fount of inviolable sanctity, had no
need of external help and the assistance of solitude in order to secure it
(for the fulness of purity could not be soiled by any stain from crowds,
nor could He be contaminated by intercourse with men, who cleanses and
sanctifies all things that are polluted) yet still He retired into the
mountain alone to pray, thus teaching us by the example of His retirement
that if we too wish to approach God with a pure and spotless affection of
heart, we should also retire from all the disturbance and confusion of
crowds, so that while still living in the body we I may manage in some
degree to adapt ourselves to some likeness of that bliss which is promised
hereafter to the saints, and that "God may be" to us "all in all."(5)
CHAPTER VII: What constitutes our end and perfect bliss.
FOR then will be perfectly fulfilled in our case that prayer of our
Saviour in which He prayed for His disciples to the Father saying "that the
love wherewith Thou lovedst Me may be in them and they in us;" and again:
"that they all may be one as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee, that they
also may be one in us,"(1) when that perfect love of God, wherewith" He
first loved us"(2) has passed into the feelings of our heart as well, by
the fulfilment of this prayer of the Lord which we believe cannot possibly
be ineffectual. And this will come to pass when God shall be all our love,
and every desire and wish and effort, every thought of ours, and all our
life and words and breath, and that unity which already exists between the
Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father, has been shed abroad in our
hearts and minds, so that as He loves us with a pure and unfeigned and
indissoluble love, so we also may be joined to Him by a lasting and
inseparable affection, since we are so united to Him that whatever we
breathe or think, or speak is God, since, as I say, we attain to that end
of which we spoke before, which the same Lord in His prayer hopes may be
fulfilled in us: "that they all may be one as we are one, I in them and
Thou in Me, that they also may be made perfect in one;" and again: "Father,
those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, they may also be
with Me."(3) This then ought to be the destination of the solitary, this
should be all his aim that it may be vouchsafed to him to possess even in
the body an image of future bliss, and that he may begin in this world to
have a foretaste of a sort of earnest of that celestial life and glory.
This, I say, is the end of all perfection, that the mind purged from all
carnal desires may daily be lifted towards spiritual things, until the
whole life and all the thoughts of the heart become one continuous prayer.
CHAPTER VIII: A question on the training in perfection by which we can
arrive at perpetual recollection of God.
GERMANUS: The extent of our bewilderment at our wondering awe at the
former Conference, because of which we came back again, increases still
more. For in proportion as by the incitements of this teaching we are fired
with the desire of perfect bliss, so do we fall back into greater despair,
as we know not how to seek or obtain training for such lofty heights.
Wherefore we entreat that you will patiently allow us (for it must perhaps
be set forth and unfolded with a good deal of talk) to explain what while
sitting in the cell we had begun to revolve in a lengthy meditation,
although we know that your holiness is not at all troubled by the
infirmities of the weak, which even for this reason should be openly set
forth, that what is out of place in them may receive correction. Our notion
then is that the perfection of any art or system of training must begin
with some simple rudiments, and grow accustomed first to somewhat easy and
tender beginnings, so that being nourished and trained little by little by
a sort of reasonable milk, it may grow up and so by degrees and step by
step mount up from the lowest depths to the heights: and when by these
means it has entered on the plainer principles and so to speak passed the
gates of the entrance of the profession, it will consequently arrive
without difficulty at the inmost shrine and lofty heights of perfection.
For how could any boy manage to pronounce the simplest union of syllables
unless he had first carefully learnt the letters of the alphabet? Or how
can any one learn to read quickly, who is still unfit to connect together
short and simple sentences? But by what means will one who is ill
instructed in the science of grammar attain eloquence in rhetoric or the
knowledge of philosophy? Wherefore for this highest learning also, by which
we are taught even to cleave to God, I have no doubt that there are some
foundations of the system, which must first be firmly laid and afterwards
the towering heights of perfection may be placed and raised upon them. And
we have a slight idea that these are its first principles; viz., that we
should first learn by what meditations God may be grasped and contemplated,
and next that we should manage to keep a very firm hold of this topic
whatever it is which we do not doubt is the height of all perfection. And
therefore we want you to show us some material for this recollection, by
which we may conceive and ever keep the idea of God in the mind, So that by
always keeping it before our eyes, when we find that we have dropped away
from Him, we may at once be able to recover ourselves and return thither
and may succeed in laying hold of it again without any delay from wandering
around the subject and searching for it. For it happens that when we have
wandered away from our spiritual speculations and have come back to
ourselves as if waking from a deadly sleep, and, being thoroughly roused,
look for the subject matter, by which we may be able to revive that
spiritual recollection which has been destroyed, we are hindered by the
delay of the actual search before we find it, and are once more drawn aside
from our endeavour, and before the spiritual insight is brought about, the
purpose of heart which had been conceived, has disappeared. And this
trouble is certain to happen to us for this reason because we do not keep
something special firmly set before our eyes like some principle to which
the wandering thoughts may be recalled after many digressions and varied
excursions; and, if I may use the expression, after long storms enter a
quiet haven. And so it comes to pass that as the mind is constantly
hindered by this want of knowledge and difficulty, and is always tossed
about vaguely, and as if intoxicated, among various matters, and cannot
even retain firm hold for any length of time of anything spiritual which
has occurred to it by chance rather than of set purpose: while, as it is
always receiving one thing after another, it does not notice either their
beginning and origin or even their end.
CHAPTER IX: The answer on the efficacy of understanding, which is gained by
experience.
ISAAC: Your minute and subtle inquiry affords an indication of purity
being very nearly reached. For no one would be able even to make inquiries
on these matters, I will not say to look within and discriminate,--except
one who had been urged to sound the depths of such questions by careful and
effectual diligence of mind, and watchful anxiety, and one whom the
constant aim after a well controlled life had taught by practical
experience to attempt the entrance to this purity and to knock at its
doors. And therefore as I see you, I will not say, standing before the
doors of that true prayer of which we have been speaking, but touching its
inner chambers and inward parts as it were with the hands of experience,
and already laying hold of some pans of it, I do not think that I shall
find any difficulty in introducing you now within what I may call its hall,
for you to roam about its recesses, as the Lord may direct; nor do I think
that you will be hindered from investigating what is to be shown you by any
obstacles or difficulties. For he is next door to understanding who
carefully recognizes what he ought to ask about, nor is he far from
knowledge, who begins to understand how ignorant he is. And therefore I am
not afraid of the charge of betraying secrets, and of levity, if I divulge
what when speaking in my former discourse on the perfection of prayer I had
kept back from discussing, as I think that its force was to be explained to
us who are occupied with this subject and interest even without the aid of
my words, by the grace of God.
CHAPTER X: Of the method of continual prayer.
WHEREFORE in accordance with that system, which you admirably compared
to teaching children (who can only take in the first lessons on the
alphabet and recognize the shapes of the letters, and trace out their
characters with a steady hand if they have, by means of some copies and
shapes carefully impressed on wax, got accustomed to express their figures,
by constantly looking at them and imitating them daily), we must give you
also the form of this spiritual contemplation, on which you may always fix
your gaze with the utmost steadiness, and both learn to consider it to your
profit in unbroken continuance, and also manage by the practice of it and
by meditation to climb to a still loftier insight. This formula then shall
be proposed to you of this system, which you want, and of prayer, which
every monk in his progress towards continual recollection of God, is
accustomed to ponder, ceaselessly revolving it in his heart, having got rid
of all kinds of other thoughts; for he cannot possibly keep his hold over
it unless he has freed himself from all bodily cares and anxieties. And as
this was delivered to us by a few of those who were left of the oldest
fathers, so it is only divulged by us to a very few and to those who are
really keen. And so for keeping up continual recollection of God this pious
formula is to be ever set before you. "O God, make speed to save me: O
Lord, make haste to help me,"(1) for this verse has not unreasonably been
picked out from the whole of Scripture for this purpose. For it embraces
all the feelings which can be implanted in human nature, and can be fitly
and satisfactorily adapted to every condition, and all assaults. Since it
contains an invocation of God against every danger, it contains humble and
pious confession, it contains the watchfulness of anxiety and continual
fear, it contains the thought of one's own weakness, confidence in the
answer, and the assurance of a present and ever ready help. For one who is
constantly calling on his protector, is certain that He is always at hand.
It contains the glow of love and charity, it contains a view of the plots,
and a dread of the enemies, from which one, who sees himself day and night
hemmed in by them, confesses that he cannot be set free without the aid of
his defender. This verse is an impregnable wall for all who are labouring
under the attacks of demons, as well as impenetrable coat of mail and a
strong shield. It does not suffer those who are in a state of moroseness
and anxiety of mind, or depressed by sadness or all kinds of thoughts to
despair of saving remedies, as it shows that He, who is invoked, is ever
looking on at our struggles and is not far from His suppliants. It warns us
whose lot is spiritual success and delight of heart that we ought not to be
at all elated or puffed up by our happy condition, which it assures us
cannot last without God as our protector, while it implores Him not only
always but even speedily to help us. This verse, I say, will be found
helpful and useful to every one of us in whatever condition we may be. For
one who always and in all matters wants to be helped, shows that he needs
the assistance of God not only in sorrowful or hard matters but also
equally in prosperous and happy ones, that he may be delivered from the one
and also made to continue in the other, as he knows that in both of them
human weakness is unable to endure without His assistance. I am affected by
the passion of gluttony. I ask for food of which the desert knows nothing,
and in the squalid desert there are wafted to me odours of royal dainties
and I find that even against my will I am drawn to long for them. I must at
once say: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." I
am incited to anticipate the hour fixed for supper, or I am trying with
great sorrow of heart to keep to the limits of the right and regular meagre
fare. I must cry out with groans: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord,
make haste to help me." Weakness of the stomach hinders me when wanting
severer fasts, on account of the assaults of the flesh, or dryness of the
belly and constipation frightens me. In order that effect may be given to
my wishes, or else that the fire of carnal lust may be quenched without the
remedy of a stricter fast, I must pray: "O God, make speed to save me: O
Lord, make haste to help me." When I come to supper, at the bidding of the
proper hour I loathe taking food and am prevented from eating anything to
satisfy the requirements of nature: I must cry with a sigh: "O God, make
speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." When I want for the sake
of steadfastness of heart to apply myself to reading a headache interferes
and stops me, and at the third hour sleep glues my head to the sacred page,
and I am forced either to overstep or to anticipate the time assigned to
rest; and finally an overpowering desire to sleep forces me to cut short
the canonical rule for service in the Psalms: in the same way I must cry
out: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." Sleep
is withdrawn from my eyes, and for many nights I find myself wearied out
with sleeplessness caused by the devil, and all repose and rest by night is
kept away from my eyelids; I must sigh and pray: "O God, make speed to save
me: O Lord, make haste to help me. While I am still in the midst of a
struggle with sin suddenly an irritation of the flesh affects me and tries
by a pleasant sensation to draw me to consent while in my sleep. In order
that a raging fire from without may not burn up the fragrant blossoms of
chastity, I must cry out: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste
to help me." I feel that the incentive to lust is removed, and that the
heat of passion has died away in my members: In order that this good
condition acquired, or rather that this grace of God may continue still
longer or forever with me, I must earnestly say: "O God, make speed to save
me: O Lord, make haste to help me." I am disturbed by the pangs of anger,
covetousness, gloominess, and driven to disturb the peaceful state in which
I was, and which was dear to me: In order that I may not be carried away by
raging passion into the bitterness of gall, I must cry out with deep
groans: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." I am
tried by being puffed up by accidie, vainglory, and pride, and my mind with
subtle thoughts flatters itself somewhat on account of the coldness and
carelessness of others: In order that this dangerous suggestion of the
enemy may not get the mastery over me, I must pray with all contrition of
heart: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." I
have gained the grace of humility and simplicity, and by continually
mortifying my spirit have got rid of the swellings of pride: In order that
the "foot of pride" may not again "come against me," and "the hand of the
sinner disturb me,"(1) and that I may not be more seriously damaged by
elation at my success, I must cry With all my might, "O God, make speed to
save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." I am on fire with innumerable and
various wanderings of soul and shiftiness of heart, and cannot collect my
scattered thoughts, nor can I even pour forth my prayer without
interruption and images of vain figures, and the recollection of
conversations and actions, and I feel myself tied down by such dryness and
barrenness that I feel I cannot give birth to any offspring in the shape of
spiritual ideas: In order that it may be vouchsafed to me to be set free
from this wretched state of mind, from which I cannot extricate myself by
any number of sighs and groans, I must full surely tryout: "O God, make
speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." Again, I feel that by the
visitation of the Holy Spirit I have gained purpose of soul, steadfastness
of thought, keenness of heart, together with an ineffable joy and transport
of mind, and in the exuberance of spiritual feelings I have perceived by a
sudden illumination from the Lord an abounding revelation of most holy
ideas which were formerly altogether hidden from me: In order that it may
be vouchsafed to me to linger for a longer time in them I must often and
anxiously exclaim: "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to
help me." Encompassed by nightly horrors of devils I am agitated, and am
disturbed by the appearances of unclean spirits, my very hope of life and
salvation is withdrawn by the horror of fear. Flying to the safe refuge of
this verse, I will cry out with all my might: "O God, make speed to save
me: O Lord, make haste to help me.' Again, when I have been restored by the
Lord's consolation, and, cheered by His coming, feel myself encompassed as
if by countless thousands of angels, so that all of a sudden I can venture
to seek the conflict and provoke a battle with those whom a while ago I
dreaded worse than death, and whose touch or even approach I felt with a
shudder both of mind and body: In order that the vigour of this courage
may, by God's grace, continue in me still longer, I must cry out with all
my powers "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me." We
must then ceaselessly and continuously pour forth the prayer of this verse,
in adversity that we may be delivered, in prosperity that we may be
preserved and not puffed up. Let the thought of this verse, i tell you, be
conned over in your breast without ceasing. Whatever work you are doing, or
office you are holding, or journey you are going, do not cease to chant
this. When you are going to bed, or eating, and in the last necessities of
nature, think on this. This thought in your heart maybe to you a saving
formula, and not only keep you unharmed by all attacks of devils, but also
purify you from all faults and earthly stains, and lead you to that
invisible and celestial contemplation, and carry you on to that ineffable
glow of prayer, of which so few have any experience. Let sleep come upon
you still considering this verse, till having been moulded by the constant
use of it, you grow accustomed to repeat it even in your sleep. When you
wake let it be the first thing to come into your mind, let it anticipate
all your waking thoughts, let it when you rise from your bed send you down
on your knees, and thence send you forth to all your work and business, and
let it follow you about all day long. This you should think about,
according to the Lawgiver's charge, "at home and walking forth on a
journey,"(1) sleeping and waking. This you should write on the threshold
and door of your mouth, this you should place on the walls of your house
and in the recesses of your heart so that when you fall on your knees in
prayer this may be your chant as you kneel, and when you rise up from it to
go forth to all the necessary business of life it may be your constant
prayer as you stand.
CHAPTER XI: Of the perfection of prayer to which we can rise by the system
described.
THIS, this is the formula which the mind should unceasingly cling to
until, strengthened by the constant use of it and by continual meditation,
it casts off and rejects the rich and full material of all manner of
thoughts and restricts itself to the poverty of this one verse, and so
arrives with ready ease at that beatitude of the gospel, which holds the
first place among the other beatitudes: for He says "Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."(2) And so one who becomes
grandly poor by a poverty of this sort will fulfil this saying of the
prophet: "The poor and needy shall praise the name of the Lord."(3) And
indeed what greater or holier poverty can there be than that of one who
knowing that he has no defence and no strength of his own, asks for daily
help from another's bounty, and as he is aware that every single moment his
life and substance depend on Divine assistance, professes himself not
without reason the Lord's bedesman, and cries to Him daily in prayer: "But
I am poor and needy: the Lord helpeth me."(4) And so by the illumination of
God Himself he mounts to that manifold knowledge of Him and begins
henceforward to be nourished on sublimer and still more sacred mysteries,
in accordance with these words of the prophet: "The high hills are a refuge
for the stags, the rocks for the hedgehogs,"(1) which is very fairly
applied in the sense we have given, because whosoever continues in
simplicity and innocence is not injurious or offensive to any one, but
being content with his own simple condition endeavours simply to defend
himself from being spoiled by his foes, and becomes a sort of spiritual
hedgehog and is protected by the continual shield of that rock of the
gospel, i.e., being sheltered by the recollection of the Lord's passion and
by ceaseless meditation on the verse given above he escapes the snares of
his opposing enemies. And of these spiritual hedgehogs we read in Proverbs
as follows: "And the hedgehogs are a feeble folk, who have made their homes
in the rocks."(2) And indeed what is feebler than a Christian, what is
weaker than a monk, who is not only not permitted any vengeance for wrongs
done to him but is actually not allowed to suffer even a slight and silent
feeling of irritation to spring up within? But whoever advances from this
condition and not only secures the simplicity of innocence, but is also
shielded by the virtue of discretion, becomes an exterminator of deadly
serpents, and has Satan crushed beneath his feet, and by his quickness of
mind answers to the figure of the reasonable stag, this man will feed on
the mountains of the prophets and Apostles, i.e., on their highest and
loftiest mysteries. And thriving on this pasture continually, he will take
in to himself all the thoughts of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in
such a way that he will utter them with the deepest emotion of heart not as
if they were the compositions of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were
his own utterances and his very own prayer; and will certainly take them as
aimed at himself, and will recognize that their words were not only
fulfilled formerly by or in the person of the prophet, but that they are
fulfilled and carried out daily in his own case. For then the Holy
Scriptures lie open to us with greater clearness and as it were their very
veins and marrow are exposed, when our experience not only perceives but
actually anticipates their meaning, and the sense of the words is revealed
to us not by an exposition of them but by practical proof. For if we have
experience of the very state of mind in which each Psalm was sung and
written, we become like their authors and anticipate the meaning rather
than follow it, i.e., gathering the force of the words before we really
know them, we remember what has happened to us, and what is happening in
daily assaults when the thoughts of them come over us, and while we sing
them we call to mind all that our carelessness has brought upon us, or our
earnestness has secured, or Divine Providence has granted or the promptings
of the foe have deprived us of, or slippery and subtle forgetfulness has
carried off, or human weakness has brought about, or thoughtless ignorance
has cheated us of. For all these feelings we find expressed in the Psalms
so that by seeing whatever happens as in a very clear mirror we understand
it better, and so instructed by our feelings as our teachers we lay hold of
it as something not merely heard but actually seen, and, as if it were not
committed to memory, but implanted in the very nature of things, we are
affected from the very bottom of the heart, so that we get at its meaning
not by reading the text but by experience anticipating it. And so our mind
will reach that incorruptible prayer to which in our former treatise, as
the Lord vouchsafed to grant, the scheme of our Conference mounted, and
this is not merely not engaged in gazing on any image, but is actually
distinguished by the use of no words or utterances; but with the purpose of
the mind all on fire, is produced through ecstasy of heart by some
unaccountable keenness of spirit, and the mind being thus affected without
the aid of the senses or any visible material pours it forth to God with
groanings and sighs that cannot be uttered.
CHAPTER XII: A question as to how spiritual thoughts can be retained
without losing them.
GERMANUS: We think that you have described to us not only the system of
this spiritual discipline for which we asked, but perfection itself; and
this with great clearness and openness. For what can be more perfect and
sublime than for the recollection of God to be embraced in so brief a
meditation, and for it, dwelling on a single verse, to escape from all the
limitations of things visible, and to comprise in one short word the
thoughts of all our prayers. And therefore we beg you to explain to us one
thing which still remains; viz., how we can keep firm hold of this verse
which you have given us as a formula, in such a way that, as we have been
by God's grace set free from the trifles of worldly thoughts, so we may
also keep a steady grasp on all spiritual ones.
CHAPTER XIII: On the lightness of thoughts.
FOR when the mind has taken in the meaning of a passage in any Psalm,
this insensibly slips away from it, and ignorantly and thoughtlessly it
passes on to a text of some other Scripture. And when it has begun to
consider this with itself, while it is still not thoroughly explored, the
recollection of some other passage springs up, and shuts out the
consideration of the former subject. From this too it is transferred to
sortie other, by the entrance of some fresh consideration, and the soul
always turns about from Psalm to Psalm and jumps from a passage in the
Gospels to read one in the Epistles, and from this passes on to the
prophetic writings, and thence is carried to some spiritual history, and so
it wanders about vaguely and uncertainly through the whole body of the
Scriptures, unable, as it may choose, either to reject or keep hold of
anything, or to finish anything by fully considering and examining it, and
so becomes only a toucher or taster of spiritual meanings, not an author
and possessor of them. And so the mind, as it is always light and
wandering, is distracted even in time of service by all sorts of things, as
if it were intoxicated, and does not perform any office properly. For
instance, while it is praying, it is recalling some Psalm or passage of
Scripture. While it is chanting, it is thinking about something else
besides what the text of the Psalm itself contains. When it repeats a
passage of Scripture, it is thinking about something that has to be done,
or remembering something that has been done. And in this way it takes in
and rejects nothing in a disciplined and proper way, and seems to be driven
about by random incursions, without the power either of retaining what it
likes or lingering over it. It is then well for us before everything else
to know how we can properly perform these spiritual offices, and keep firm
hold of this particular verse which you have given us as a formula, so that
the rise and fall of our feelings may not be in a state of fluctuation from
their own lightness, but may lie under our own control.
CHAPTER XIV: The answer how we can gain stability of heart or of thoughts.
ISAAC: Although, in our former discussion on the character of prayer,
enough was, as I think, said on this subject, yet as you want it repeated
to you again, I will give you a brief instruction on steadfastness of
heart. There are three things which make a shifting heart steadfast,
watchings, meditation, and prayer, diligence in which and constant
attention will produce steadfast firmness of mind. But this cannot be
secured in any other way unless all cares and anxieties of this present
life have been first got rid of by indefatigable persistence in work
dedicated not to covetousness but to the sacred uses of the monastery, that
we may thus be able to fulfil the Apostle's command: "Pray without
ceasing."(1) For he prays too little, who is accustomed only to pray at the
times when he bends his knees. But he never prays, who even while on his
bended knees is distracted by all kinds of wanderings of heart. And
therefore what we would be found when at our prayers, that we ought to be
before the time of prayer. For at the time of its prayers the mind cannot
help being affected by its previous condition, and while it is praying,
will be either transported to things heavenly, or dragged down to earthly
things by those thoughts in which it had been lingering before prayer.
Thus far did Abbot Isaac carry on his Second Conference on the
character of Prayer to us astonished hearers; whose instruction on the
consideration of that verse quoted above (which he gave as a sort of
outline for beginners to hold) we greatly admired, and wished to follow
very closely, as we fancied that it would be a short and easy method; but
we have found it even harder to observe than that system of ours by which
we used formerly to wander here and there in varied meditations through the
whole body of the Scriptures without being tied by any chains of
perseverance. It is then certain that no one is kept away from perfection
of heart by not being able to read, nor is rustic simplicity any hindrance
to the possession of purity of heart and mind, which lies close at hand for
all, if only they will by constant meditation on this verse keep the
thoughts of the mind safe and sound towards God.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/XI, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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