Catecheses 1 part 14/23

And mourning on this account and being of gloomy countenance, I walk in truth and, lamenting my life, I renounce it, because I do not count it gain to be saved alone, nor do I wish to glorify God apart from you.

If, then, these things concerning me are sufficient, do you also make your defense, if you wish anything, and say to which side you incline, and ratify the word by deed, that I may either be gladdened or again likewise grieved.

But I hope, and looking invisibly toward the Lord I pray, that you will not prove false, nor speak one thing while meaning another, but rather will demonstrate in deed the things you have promised in words.

Do not, then, waver at all concerning these things, nor let reasonings of unbelief arise in your hearts, my brothers; but listen to my words spoken with pain, and see that I shall say nothing empty or deceitful.

Look up to the heaven above and to the earth below, and consider what works, and how many, God has made—all of them for our sake.

...being constituted of bodily things; but when it is torn away from this, at that very hour it is set beyond all knowledge, and is enrolled only among the immaterial and intelligible things.

If, then, it is illumined by the light of Christ's commandments and comes to be in the boundless light of His compassionate Godhead, it has found unutterable and unending gladness.

But if it is encompassed by the darkness of sins, it comes to be, alas, likewise in unending darkness, mingled with a burning fire.

Since, then, these things are so, and since you also rightly acknowledge them, why do we delay, and why do we not flee the bitter darkness?

And why do we pronounce woe upon the lovers of the world and the lovers of pleasure, while being among these ourselves, and yet do not perceive it?

Truly blessed are those who seek out the Lord and set their hopes upon Him; but you do not perceive your own wretchedness, fleeing from it, do you?

Where do you set your hope, forsaking the good things that are in your hands, and attaching yourselves to the vain and fleeting things?

Tell me, how do you speak?—that I may turn my word also to each one of those who cling to the vanity of things present.

'I know all things: that I am mortal, and that the things seen are a shadow, and that death is untimely, and that the glory of the righteous is eternal, and that the shame of sinners has no end—and yet you yourself do not depart from evils?'

For if you see, how is it that, like a blind man stumbling, you have blackened your whole body and your whole soul?

If you have beheld the better things, how is it that, as though having no perception, you practice the worse?

If you know that all things are a shadow and that all the things seen pass away, are you not ashamed to sport with a shadow and to lay up treasure that flows away?

For just like a child drawing water into a perforated vessel, you do not perceive it, and yet you think yourself to be sensible, dearest one—as though it were exceedingly grievous merely to seem and to suppose, since from these very things being itself has been taken away!

O man, do you believe that Christ is God?

If, then, you believe, fear Him and keep His commandments.

But if you disbelieve, then question the demons themselves, whom perhaps you deem even more worthy of credence.

Learn from those to whom you are enslaved and whom you follow, that there is no other God besides Him, to whom no one has been made like, nor is able to be made like.

He is the unutterable light, the unapproachable, He who alone truly is; He Himself, in His appearing, will annihilate from before His face His enemies and those who have not done His ordinances, even as the sun, rising, drives away the gloom of night. And the Lord our God shall be uncontainable among things uncontainable and incomprehensible among things incomprehensible, appearing only to the worthy according to the measure of their faith in Him; but the sinners shall be as those covered with darkness in the midst of light, ashamed in the midst of joy, and themselves melting away in the midst of gladness, and terribly burning, and punished by the various forms of their own passions—just as the righteous shall be crowned with the various virtues.

Thus, then, I found these things laid down also in the letter in the God-inspired Scriptures, and spiritually I was taught them by the Spirit; and for your full assurance, out of great love not holding back, I have written them.

Behold, then, I have announced all things to you, and I have not hidden the talent, and I have not begrudged your salvation.

Each of you henceforth shall choose what he wills.

For I have already been acquitted of the charge concerning you, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Concerning renunciation and the cutting off of self-will, to those who asked to have written for them how one ought to accomplish the ascetic life.

...to a father, for the learning of the virtue and the hard-to-achieve labor of the ascetic art.

And concerning the faith which is toward the spiritual fathers, and the contemplation of the light, by which every soul that is illumined advances into the love of God.

My beloved and greatly longed-for brothers, often you desired to hear a word of profit from our humble self, and because of your having to withdraw quickly, we did not, for your good, wish to speak to you the needful things by mouth, as though they were something incidental.

For this reason, just as you have now besought your beloved self to write, we have fittingly been made eager;

not the things pertaining to admonition (for we are indeed unworthy), but the things pertaining to counsel and reminder, as loving you exceedingly, and as much as we know to be profitable and helpful to a soul both for its flight from the world and for its estrangement from the passions, and for the love of God and perfect dispassion.

Therefore I judged it right to make the beginning, toward a man thirsting for the salvation of his soul, from nowhere else whatsoever than from that ever-flowing fountain itself, our Savior Christ and God, on account of whom is our word and every undertaking, and toward whom is all our zeal with good hope, and every thought.

It is His holy voice that I heard, saying to all in common:

'Whoever will not forsake father and mother and brothers and all that he possesses, and take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.'

For no other reason, then, was the cross set down last—as I was both taught by the Scripture and have learned by experience itself—than for the sake of the endurance of afflictions and trials, and lastly for the sake of that voluntary death itself, which in those former times, when the heresies prevailed, many chose through martyrdom and the manifold tortures; but now, by the grace of Christ, in a time of deep and perfect peace, we have been fully assured that there is no other cross and death than the utter mortification of one's own will.

For he who fulfills his own will in any way whatsoever will never at any time be able to keep the commandment of the Savior Christ.

In order, then, that I may address my discourse to you as though to a single person, I say this to you:

Brother, earnestly beseech God to show you a man able to shepherd you well, one whom you ought to obey as though he were God himself, and to fulfill without hesitation the things spoken to you by him, even if the things commanded seem to you contrary and harmful according to your own judgment.

And if, concerning the spiritual father whom you already have, your heart is the more fully assured by grace, then do whatever he tells you, and you shall be saved;

for it is better to be called the disciple of a disciple, and not to live according to one's own way and to reap the useless fruits of one's own will.

But if the Holy Spirit should send you forth to another, do not hesitate in the least;

for we hear that Paul planted, and Apollos watered, and Christ gave the increase.

Do therefore, brother, as we have said, and go to the man whom God will point out to you, either mystically through Himself or openly through His servant.

And as though seeing and speaking with Christ Himself, so reverence him, and so be taught by him the things that are profitable.

For if you hear from him:

concerning your own frame of mind, do not doubt, nor blush, being overcome by vainglory.

'Come to the land of obedience which I will show you,' run, my brother, with all your strength; give no sleep to your eyes, nor bend your knee, being slackened by sloth or negligence.

For perhaps there God will appear to you, He who is about to declare you a father of many spiritual children and to grant you the land of promise, which the righteous alone inherit.

If he leads you up to the mountain, ascend eagerly;

for indeed you shall behold, I know well, Christ transfigured and shining far above the sun with the light of the Godhead; and perhaps you shall fall down, unable to bear the sight of what you have never beheld; and you shall hear a fatherly voice from on high, and shall see a cloud overshadowing, and prophets standing by and confirming that He is the God and Lord of the living and the dead.

If he urges you to follow, go about the cities with him boldly;

for indeed you shall be greatly profited, if you look to him and to him alone.

If you see him eating together with harlots and tax collectors and sinners, reckon nothing passionate or human, but consider all things dispassionate and holy, and keep in mind the saying, 'I became all things to all men, that I might gain all,' seeing him condescending to human infirmities.

But do not, even when seeing with your eyes, put your trust wholly in these;

for these too deceive, as I have learned by experience.

While following him and obeying the things spoken by him, do not look at those who are with you, nor speak concerning anyone;

but always attend to yourself, and keep death before your eyes, and consider with reflection by what virtue you shall glorify God.

Do not be lifted up because you are honored by someone greater on account of your teacher, nor because, on account of his name, you have many who obey you; but rejoice rather if your name is written in the heaven of humility.

If he urges you to sit at table, if it be near him, accept it graciously, and keep reverence and honor toward him in silence, and do not touch any of the things set before you without his blessing;

nor give any to another, nor dare to prefer anyone, without his opinion and command.

But if he calls you altogether to the last place, do not say:

'I shall sit on the right hand or the left,' knowing that this is prepared for others, and having heard that 'He who wishes to be first of all, let him be last'; and accept the lower place as securing you the higher, and love your teacher as one who through lowly things is procuring for you the greater things.

But do not, out of presumption, dip your hand into the dish before him;

for you are not ignorant whose act this presumption is.

If you wish to wash his feet, revere him as Lord and teacher, and defer the undertaking.

'You have no part with me unless I wash your feet'; eagerly offer even your whole body for cleansing, that you may learn from what is done to you the great height of the deifying humility, and that you may then be all the more profited, if you have a conscience, than when you should wash the feet of your father.

'One of you shall betray me,' or causes me to stumble—do not conceal the treachery, but if you are conscious of it, confess it;

but if not, falling upon your face at his feet, ask with tears;

but to fall upon the breast of your father is not profitable for you;

for he himself, even when he had done all things, was commanded to call himself an unprofitable servant.

If you see the one who guides you working wonders and being glorified, believe and be glad, and give thanks to God that you have obtained such a teacher; but do not be scandalized, seeing him dishonored by the envious, perhaps even struck and dragged about, but like the fervent Peter take the sword, and stretching out your hand, cut off not only the ear but also the hand and the tongue of him who attempts to speak against your father or to lay hold of him.

But even if you are rebuked as he was, you shall certainly and all the more be praised on account of your great love and faith.

But even if you are rebuked as he was, you shall certainly and all the more be praised on account of your great love and faith.

But if, being terrified as a man, you say:

'I do not know the man,' then weep again afterward bitterly over this, and be not swallowed up by despair;

and I am persuaded that he will be the first to draw you back to himself.

And if you see him crucified as a malefactor and suffering at the hands of malefactor men, if it be possible, die together with him;

but if not, do not join the wicked as one wicked and a betrayer, nor share with them in innocent blood, but as a coward and faint-hearted one, leaving the shepherd for a little while, keep your faith in him.

If he is released from his bonds, come to him again and revere him the more as a martyr;

but if he dies together in the trials, boldly seek out his body and honor it even more than when you stood beside him while he was living, and anointing him with costly ointments, bury him.

For even if not on the third day, yet he shall rise last of all together with all men.

But believe that he stands before God with boldness, even though you laid his body in the tomb, and without hesitation call upon his intercession;

and he will help you here and guard you from all adversaries, and will receive you when you depart from the body, and will prepare for you the one eternal abode.

If, after all the aforesaid things, calling you aside privately, he urges you to be still, and says:

'Sit here without going out until you are clothed with power from on high,' obey with sure hope and unfulfilled joy.

Such a teacher, my brother, is truthful and genuine.

For the same power of the All-Holy Spirit shall come upon you now also, not appearing perceptibly in the form of fire, nor with a great sound and a mighty wind—for these things happened then for the sake of the unbelievers—but in the form of an intelligible light it shall be seen by you noetically, with all calm and gladness, which is the prelude of the eternal and first light, and is the radiance and splendor of everlasting blessedness.

Then the eyes of the heart are cleansed, and they see that which is written in the Beatitudes.

Then the soul, beholding as in a mirror even its own small faults, is carried down into the abyss of humility; and perceiving the greatness of the glory, it is filled with all joy and gladness, and being amazed at the marvel beyond hope, it pours forth fountains of tears.

And thus the man is wholly transformed, and knows God and is first known by Him.

For this alone causes a man to despise all things earthly and heavenly, present and to come, sorrowful and joyful; and it makes him a friend of God, and a son of the Most High, and, as far as is attainable by men, a god himself.

These things, therefore, I have written to your love, that having in writing the very things which you deemed worthy to ask once from my wretchedness, you may read them whenever you wish.

As the Spirit shall command, all things will come to pass in due order, just as we have said; and whatever we have omitted—for indeed they are many—Christ Himself will teach you through His own self.

But if these things appear incredible and not pleasing to you, forgive me for advising the things which I have learned, and do you follow all the better things which you know;

for those who know how to shepherd well and to heal rational souls are truly rare, and especially so.

For fasting and vigil and a form of piety many perhaps have feigned, or even acquired in deed, and the majority readily commit much to memory and teach by words; but to cut out the passions by struggle and to acquire the comprehensive virtues inalienably—very few are found who do so.

By comprehensive virtues we mean humility, the destroyer of the passions and the procurer of the heavenly and angelic dispassion; and love, which never stands still nor falls, but is always added to what went before, taking longing upon longing and yearning upon yearning, from which perfect discernment is supplied—that discernment which guides both itself and those who follow it, and conveys them without stumbling across the noetic sea;

which discernment I also pray may be granted to you by God, and now most of all, that you may discern the things concerning yourself in a manner pleasing to God, and so act and be diligent as to find Christ working together with you in the present and in the age to come richly granting you the enjoyment of the illumination that comes from Him; and that you may neither follow the wolf as a shepherd, nor enter into a diseased flock, nor be found alone by yourself—lest either you be seen to have become the prey of the soul-destroying wolf, or, having fallen sick with disease upon disease, you die spiritually, or, falling alone, you gain the woe.

For he who has given himself to a good teacher will be anxious about none of these things, but living free from care will be saved in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory unto the ages.

And what a good end his thrice-blessed brother Antony was granted!

And at the end, a funeral oration concerning him.

Brethren and fathers, I pray to the God who has had mercy on me that the things pertaining to the salvation of all may be ordered, and that our souls may be well disposed for the life yonder, where the brethren and parents who have gone before us await us, where our thrice-blessed and blessed brother, the lord Antony, has passed over—having conducted himself here well and in holiness, having repented sincerely, having confessed with labor the things which few of the monks reckon to be sins.

For being pure and having acquired a heart clean from impassioned thoughts, that holy man both had and confessed the small and, as I think, altogether negligible faults as though they were great sins, since, sheltered by the grace of God, he passed through life a virgin, chaste in body and in heart.

For from the time he entered the gate of the monastery and enrolled himself with Christ, he did not defile the tunic of his flesh or of his soul, neither by the coupling of thoughts, nor by the assent of reasonings, nor by any deed—as he declared to me, seated beside his bed and weeping, saying thus:

'I have not denied faith toward God, but I have kept it, I hope, as that man did;

from the time I came to this holy monastery—I say it not boasting, but trusting in God and in the prayer of our holy father—I have not committed a sin of the flesh.'

Eating and drinking, I have passed my days in negligence.

Yet I commit myself to the loving-kindness of God, who knows all things, and to whatever He shall do with my lowliness.

Why, then, do the last words and sayings of the great fathers prove to be more than those of our own brother?

For he made known to us with boldness his purity and virginity, and again he preserved for his own soul the unfailing steadfastness of his humility, thereby guarding the Lord's word, or rather His commandment, which says:

'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were bound to do.'

After these things he related to our holy father those matters which astonished both the holy father himself and us as well; and not only so, but they also amazed all who heard them after that man's death.

For none of us had hoped that such a treasure of purity and virginity lay hidden within him.

But even so, having put on the holy and angelic great habit, with great eagerness, amid many outpourings of tears, in unbroken faith and perfect knowledge, thus on the seventh day this newly-illumined one and freshly-enlisted soldier—he who in the present life entered last, after us, yet first forsook the vanity of the world—departed to his own Master with unutterable joy, leaving unceasing grief to us who are wretched.

For whenever I call to mind—as you also know—the things I did and said to him, I, the vain one, striving for the salvation of his soul, I am utterly beside myself, and my mind and understanding and heart are set aflame: how I deceived myself, how I was made foolish in instructing a man from whom I rather ought to have been instructed;

for judging his virtues to be shortcomings, I grieved exceedingly and was in anguish over the soul-salvation of my beloved brother—for so it is fitting, not to lie.

In Christ I boast, and again I am held fast by unutterable joy, that I thus sent forth my brother from this life, and amid such works and deeds was I counted worthy to see him departing to Christ.

For God, the examiner of our thoughts and reasonings, knows that from the beginning I had much zeal and care concerning this, and that I poured out many fountains of tears for this very cause.

And God who loves mankind did not despise the supplication of me, the wretched one, but in love toward one another, and in humility and faith toward us, he thus flew away to heaven, leaving only his body in my miserable hands.

For as I was lamenting and saying, 'Do not forget us, brother,'

'for now you are departing and leaving us,' he thus serenely made answer:

'No; I hope in God.'

And having uttered this last word with his most pure lips, he departed to God, saying it not once, but twice.

That is to say, when I first had asked, 'Do not forget us, dearly-longed-for brother,' he for the second time promised beforehand not to forget us.

And lifting up his feet and forming his hands crosswise, in an untroubled state and movement of soul, he thus fell asleep in that sweetest slumber in deep peace, and slept the sleep befitting the righteous, having shown no attachment to any of present things.

He passed over to the spiritual kingdom, having become in very truth a worthy inhabitant and heir of those things.

For if God has commanded us, who are naked, to clothe our brethren, how much more shall He become a garment and a covering to my sweetest brother, who for His sake stripped off all the world and the things of the world, and departed naked to Him?

But let us all, contemplating anew the life of our brother, imitate—I beseech you—his faith, his struggles, his confession, his repentance, so that we too, when we come to our departure from the body, may fearlessly and untroubled, as he did, depart from the body, and going to God, may dwell in Him with good hopes and find rest in eternal tabernacles, where is the dwelling of all who rejoice, and where the choir of our blessed and holy fathers takes up its abode.

But O most dear and God-beloved, thrice-longed-for brother, remember your promise, and do not forget your last and to me most sweet words, interceding on behalf of us your brethren and of all your kindred.

For you know in what evils we are, you yourself having come to be among good things and many blessings;

for he who has been delivered from the darkness knows exactly the wretchedness of those held fast within it.

Beseech, then—we ask—even now God on behalf of all your brotherhood in Christ, you who never disregarded anyone who made request of you, nor deprived the needy of your own necessary food.

Entreat on behalf of the brethren who hang upon their longing for you and are unable to bear the separation and cannot restrain their grief, that you may receive us with you, and may propitiate the supremely good God to dwell in the tabernacle together with you, and prepare a place of rest for us, wrought through your good conduct here below, so that with you and beside you—as also in the present life—we may there abide together and rejoice together, being counted worthy to inhabit and behold the sorrowless and blessed life.

And just as we, when you had run from the world to the monastic way of life, prepared for you a lodging and dwelling, so now do you also, having gone before us into that ineffable and divine and immaterial mode of existence, gladly receive us—or rather take us to yourself, and journey with us and labour with us, as a brother-loving brother, and set us free from those who attempt to hinder and prevent our coming to you, remembering that we too aided your brotherhood and laboured together with it in this life.

For we now have need of your co-working rather than you had of ours then, when you set about to escape from the nets of the world.

For many are our burdens, sweetest brother, which weigh down our lowly soul and body, of which the most grievous of all is loneliness and the great care for the brethren who are with us—concerning which you also know me to be a most passionate zealot.

For you now know full well the disposition of my heart toward you, and that it was not out of hatred or loathing of you that I used to rebuke you and by every means fortify you with admonitions, but out of exceeding love for you, and being unremittingly inflamed with longing for you.

For you now behold—I know well—having gone out from the gloom and mist of this body, and you see naked my soul and its mind, even as you yourself are now naked of the body.

Do not, then, be found a liar to the covenants made with us, nor forget the brother who loved you beyond measure and—if it be not too bold to say—laid down even his very soul for you.

living together with the ineffable light in the incorruptible life, in the unutterable joy, in the indescribable glory and splendour, which is beheld and worshipped in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unto the ages.

And an instruction concerning those who say that it is impossible, in the midst of the affairs of life, to attain the perfection of the virtues.

Brethren and fathers, it is good for us to proclaim to all the mercy of God, and to make known to our neighbours His compassion toward us and His unspeakable goodness.

As you see, then, I did not fast, I did not keep vigil, I did not sleep on the ground; but I humbled myself, and the Lord saved me speedily, as the divine David says.

But to speak much more briefly:

For many are the things that hinder us from acquiring humility, but there is nothing that prevents us from finding faith.

For if we will it from the soul, faith at once has worked its effect; for it is a gift of the Master and a natural advantage, even though it too is subject to the self-determination of our free choice—for indeed even Scythians and barbarians believe one another's words.

But that I may show you in a practical way the working of heartfelt faith, listen, and I will relate to you a narrative for the confirmation of what has been said, which I heard from a truthful mouth.

A certain man named George, young in age and himself about twenty years old, dwelling in Constantinople in our own times, comely in appearance and possessing a showy manner both in figure and in bearing and in gait—so that on this account some even held wicked suspicions concerning him, namely those who look only at the outward covering and wrongly judge what belongs to others—became acquainted with a certain holy monk who was living in one of the monasteries of the city.

And having laid open to him the matters of his soul, he received from him a small commandment merely as a reminder.

The young man also sought to receive a book from him, one containing the accounts of the monks' way of life and of their practical asceticism; and the elder gave him the treatise of the monk Mark, that which teaches concerning the spiritual law.

And the young man, receiving this as though sent from God Himself, and hoping to reap some great benefit from it, thus with longing and attentiveness went through the whole of it.

And having profited from all of it, he fixed in his heart, so to speak, only three chapters.

And the one, being that which is set down in these very words: