Ascetic Works 1-1 part 2/2

Both the virtues and the vices make the mind blind:

the former, so that it may not see the vices;

the latter, so that it may not, in turn, see the virtues.

Concerning the symbols of dispassion. Whenever the mind begins to make its prayers undistractedly, then the whole warfare, night and day, is concentrated about the irascible part of the soul.

A token of dispassion: a mind that has begun to see its own light, and that remains tranquil before the apparitions in sleep, and that looks upon things with serenity.

The mind is strong (sound) when it imagines nothing of this world at the time of prayer.

A mind that, with God's help, has accomplished the practical life and drawn near to knowledge perceives little or nothing at all of the irrational part of the soul, knowledge snatching it up on high and separating it from the things of sense.

The soul has dispassion not when it does not suffer toward things, but when it remains untroubled even toward the memories of them.

The perfect man does not practise continence, and the dispassionate man does not endure (with patience), since endurance belongs to one who suffers, and continence to one who is troubled.

It is a great thing to pray undistractedly, but a greater thing still to sing psalms undistractedly.

He who has established the virtues within himself and has become wholly blended with them no longer remembers law or commandments or punishment, but says and does whatever the best disposition (habitus) dictates.

Practical contemplations, seventy-one. Demonic songs stir up our desire and cast the soul into shameful fantasies;

but psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs ever summon the mind to the remembrance of virtue, cooling our seething irascible part and withering our desires.

If those who wrestle are in the act of pressing and being pressed in return, and the demons wrestle with us, then they too, in pressing us, are pressed in return by us.

"For I will press them hard," it says, "and they shall not be able to stand."

"Those who pressed me and my enemies, they themselves grew weak and fell."

Rest is yoked together with wisdom, but toil with prudence;

for it is not possible to acquire wisdom without warfare, and it is not possible to succeed in the warfare without prudence;

for this [prudence] is entrusted with resisting the fury of the demons, compelling the powers of the soul to operate according to nature, and preparing in advance the way of wisdom.

Temptation for the monk is a thought that rises up through the passible part of the soul and darkens the mind.

Sin for the monk is the consent of the thought to the forbidden pleasure.

The angels rejoice when vice is diminished, but the demons when virtue is diminished;

for the former are ministers of mercy and love, the latter subjects of anger and hatred;

and the former, drawing near, fill us with spiritual contemplation, while the latter, approaching, cast the soul into shameful fantasies.

The virtues do not cut off the assaults of the demons, but they preserve us blameless.

The practical life is a spiritual method that purifies the passible part of the soul.

The activities of the commandments do not suffice to heal perfectly the powers of the soul, unless suitable contemplations also succeed to occupy the mind.

It is not possible to resist all the thoughts cast in upon us by the angels, but it is possible to overturn all the thoughts cast in by the demons;

and the former thoughts are followed by a peaceful condition, the latter by a disturbed one.

And dispassion is the flower of the practical life;

and the practical life is constituted by the keeping of the commandments;

and the guardian of these is the fear of God, which is the offspring of right faith;

and faith is an inward good, which is wont to exist even in those who have not yet believed in God.

Just as the soul, working through the body, perceives the ailing members,

so too the mind, when it exercises its own activity, comes to recognize its own powers, and through what hinders it, discovers the commandment that heals it.

The mind that wages the warfare of the passions will not behold the principles (logoi) of the warfare;

for it is like one who fights in the night;

but having acquired dispassion, it will easily come to know the wiles of the enemies.

The end (goal) of the practical life is love;

and the beginnings of both [practical life and love] are faith and natural contemplation;

and all those demons that fasten upon the passible part of the soul are said to oppose the practical life;

but all those, in turn, that trouble the rational part are named enemies of all truth and adversaries of contemplation.

Nothing of the things that cleanse bodies remains afterward with those that have been cleansed;

but the virtues both cleanse the soul and, when it has been cleansed, remain together with it.

The rational soul operates according to nature when its concupiscible part longs for virtue, its irascible part struggles on behalf of it, and its rational part applies itself to the contemplation of created things.

He who advances in the practical life diminishes the passions, and he who advances in contemplation diminishes ignorance;

and of the passions there will at some time be even a complete destruction, but of ignorance they say that of the one kind there is an end, and of the other there is not.

Things good and evil according to their use become productive of the virtues and of the vices;

and it belongs to prudence, then, to use these things toward the one or the other.

Since, according to our wise teacher, the rational soul is tripartite, when virtue comes to be in the rational part, it is called prudence, understanding, and wisdom;

and when in the concupiscible part, chastity, love, and continence;

and when in the irascible part, courage and endurance;

and in the whole soul, righteousness.

And the work of prudence is to take command against the opposing powers, to shield the virtues, to draw up battle line against the vices, and to administer things indifferent according to the occasions;

the work of understanding is to manage suitably all that contributes to our aim;

the work of wisdom is to contemplate the principles (logoi) of bodily and incorporeal beings;

the work of chastity is to look dispassionately upon the things that stir up in us irrational fantasies;

the work of love is to present itself to every image of God almost as it is toward the Prototype itself, even when the demons attempt to defile them;

to shake off with joy every pleasure of the throat (palate);

and not to fear the enemies, but readily to persevere in hardships, belongs to endurance and courage;

the work of righteousness is to bring about a certain concord and harmony among the parts of the soul.

The fruit of seeds is the sheaves, and of the virtues, knowledge;

and as tears follow upon the sowing, so joy follows upon the sheaves.

Sayings of the holy monks. It is necessary also rightly to inquire into the ways of the monks who have gone before, and to be set right with reference to them;

for one may find many things well said and well done by them;

among which one of them also says this: that a drier and not irregular regimen, joined with love, more quickly brings the monk into the harbour of dispassion.

The same man freed from apparitions a certain one of the brothers who was troubled at night, by commanding him to minister to the sick while fasting;

for, when asked, he said that by nothing are such passions so quenched as by mercy.

To the righteous Antony there came one of the wise men of that time, and he said, "How do you hold out, father, deprived of the consolation that comes from books?" And he replied:

"My book, O philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is present whenever I wish to read the words (logoi) of God."

The vessel of election, the Egyptian elder Macarius, once asked me:

"Why is it that, when we bear a grudge against men, we obliterate the soul's power of memory, but when we bear a grudge against demons, we remain unharmed?" And when I was at a loss for an answer and begged to learn the reason, he said: "Because the former is contrary to the nature of the irascible part, but the latter is according to its nature."

I came to the holy father Macarius at the very height of a steady noonday, and, being exceedingly inflamed with thirst, I asked for water to drink;

for many now, whether travelling by land or sailing, are deprived even of this.

Then, as I was rehearsing words to him about continence... [the text breaks off here]

Take courage, my child, he said: in twenty whole years I have never had my fill of bread, of water, or of sleep;

for I ate my bread by weight, drank my water by measure, and, leaning myself against the walls, I would snatch only a small portion of sleep.

The death of his father was announced to one of the monks;

but he said to the one who brought the news, Stop blaspheming;

for my father is immortal.

One of the brethren asked one of the elders whether he would permit him, when visiting the house, to eat together with his mother and his sisters;

but he said, You shall not eat with a woman.

One of the brethren possessed only a Gospel book, and having sold even this he gave the proceeds for food to the hungry, uttering a saying worthy of remembrance;

for he said, I have sold the very word that says to me,

Sell what you have and give to the poor.

There is an island near Alexandria, lying toward the northern part of the lake called Maria, and there dwells a monk of the camp of the gnostics, a most approved man;

who declared that everything done by the monks is done for five reasons:

for God, for nature, for custom, for necessity, and for the work of the hands.

The same man said again that virtue is by nature one, but takes on distinct forms in the powers of the soul;

for it is formless, he said, yet it is its nature to be shaped according to the windows through which it enters.

And yet another of the monks said:

I do away with pleasures, he said, in order to cut off the occasions of anger;

for I know that it is always fighting on behalf of the pleasures, troubling my mind and driving away knowledge.

One of the elders used to say that love does not know how to keep deposits of food or money.

I do not know, he said, having been deceived by the demons twice in the same matter.

It is not possible to love all the brethren equally, but it is possible to associate with all dispassionately, being free from grudge-bearing and hatred;

we must love the priests, after the Lord, who cleanse us through the holy mysteries and pray on our behalf;

and we must honor our elders as the angels;

for it is they who anoint us for the contests and heal the bites of the wild beasts.

But for now let this much be said by me to you concerning the practical life, most beloved brother Anatolios, as much as, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we have found by gleaning while our grape-cluster was just ripening in its seed;

but if the Sun of righteousness shines steadily upon us and the cluster becomes fully ripe, then we shall also drink of its wine that gladdens the heart of man, through the prayers and intercessions of the righteous Gregory who planted me, and of the holy Fathers now living who water me, and by the power of Christ Jesus our Lord who gives me increase, to whom be glory and might unto the ages of the ages.