Letters 1 part 2/55

And on this point, from where shall we not be able to demonstrate to you the absurdity of that statement? First, from the Old Testament.

For what do you think of the case of Daniel? Was he not, though not yet of the age lawfully appointed for speaking and bold address, praised for reproving the elders when they transgressed the law in condemning the holy Susanna — not merely reminding them, but even condemning them, yes or no? Then again, do you not accept the case of Joab, at the numbering of the people, when the deed was being done to the provoking of God's anger, entreating, imploring, and trying to persuade the divine David not to do this? For you know the story.

And Jethro too fills me with awe, reminding the great Moses and admonishing him not to govern the people in this way, instructing him as it were and reshaping him toward his own counsel.

And who was he? A foreigner, even though a father-in-law by marriage.

And to whom was he speaking? To one who did everything according to the revelation of God.

Let this suffice briefly, lest we speak at too great a length.

Let us also, if you will, all-renowned one, revere the pronouncement of the far-resounding herald to the whole world, namely, that if a revelation is made to the one who is last, let the first be silent;

not, as your friendship objects, that this applies only to matters of faith.

And how it very nearly slipped my mind — the great herald of truth, John, reproves Herod.

But close at hand, I know, stands the objection against me — the ridicule that this would put him on the same level as the prophet.

But it is not so, O best of men;

for these things, it is said, were written for our admonition.

Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.

And how indeed is it possible for one who acts crookedly to hold right belief, seeing that the divine James insists that faith is shown from works, and that those who fail in the one thing possess not even the other? Since, then, there are so many and such great testimonies, I do not think your nobility will contradict this;

but if he does, let a letter be sent back in reply to our simple-mindedness, offering reasoned solutions to what has been proposed, and clearer counter-arguments to whatever objections you may yet devise.

As for us, we shall be silent, and shall ask pardon for our objection, even though it was made in zeal.

For merely to rebuke is very easy, and within the power of anyone who wishes, as you may read; but to put forward one's own judgment in its place, supported by the testimony of the God-inspired Scripture, belongs to a man who is truly sound of mind and possessed of understanding.

We shall bring our discourse in this letter to a close here, having also set down quotations from the Great Basil for a more complete demonstration.

May you, our beloved master, be kept safe for us together with your whole household, being in good health in both respects;

for we, whether writing or not writing, long to hold fast to the good regard of your love.

From the Ascetica of St. Basil, from Discourse 20 [from the Longer Rules, in the Ethical discourse].

That the presiding leader ought to be reminded by those who excel within the brotherhood, should he ever go astray.

One who does not accept what has been approved by the superior ought to raise objection to him, openly or privately, if he has some strong argument in keeping with the intent of the Scriptures; otherwise, keeping silent, he ought to do what has been commanded.

But if he himself is ashamed to do so, let him make use of certain other mediators for this purpose.

From the Moral Discourses of the same author, Discourse 72.

That those among the hearers who are learned in the Scriptures ought to test what is said by the teachers.

That the one who presides over the discourse must, with much circumspection and much testing, both do and say each thing with a view to pleasing God, since he too ought to be tested by those who have been entrusted to him.

{To Theoktiste, his own mother} If it were possible to convey tears in writing, I would have filled this letter of mine with them and sent it to you in these days, my honored, sweet, and God-beloved mother.

For truly I cannot bear to hear the things concerning you — I do not mean funeral matters, but even fatal illnesses.

And why, my mother, have you chosen thus to leave us, having loved the age to come, so as to depart from us and dwell with the Lord? But surely you have loved the things there, transferred in your disposition out of a greater longing, since you have desired all the more to reach my good and holy sister and my sweet lord Euthymios — or rather, the choir of the saints.

And, O mother, how shall I bear it, how shall I read through this letter without tears? Is this truly reserved for my wretched life, that I should also hear of your death? That I should chant a dirge over you? That, beholding your tomb, I should inscribe elegies upon it? That you yourself should be laid beneath the earth in body — for in spirit I know you will dwell in the heavens — while I remain above the earth, still dragging out my painful and sin-laden life? And how are these things bearable? God forbid! Yet everything must be yielded to the counsel and will of our all-good God.

For He knows what is beneficial for each of us, He understands what is needful, He fits together what is fitting; He is a most affectionate Father, He orders all things well — aptly, prudently, most wisely, most excellently, unfailingly.

O the wisdom and the depth of His judgments, for His ways are unsearchable and untraceable!

He first took the sister, He second took the brother, and now He seeks a third.

Who might this be? If it is she herself, great is the praise.

For you are completing the prize of a threefold portion, having well exchanged this life, having abandoned all things, having given all to God — your head, your limbs, your very self — having worn down your honored body in asceticism, having traversed a life full of afflictions, or rather having walked the narrow and afflicted way of the Lord, and now in a good old age seeking your release.

This release, then, I pray against for the present; yet what is best is whatever is pleasing to God.

And who will take more intimate counsel concerning us than He? But farewell to me, mother, whether living or asleep in death.

For you will not die, because you are alive.

You depart free of care, without having made a will.

For you have nothing to bequeath except your worn-out garment, and whatever else belongs to the scheme of an unencumbered life.

From here you now stand naked before God, bearing a soul that is pure from the mire of material things.

But you do have something you will leave to us: the powerful prayer which you used to send down upon us even when we were still practically infants, marking and sealing us in the night hours, offering supplications to the Lord on our behalf at every season.

You will also leave your untiring diligence in the divine liturgies, your love of purity, your zeal, and the apostolic boast of your labor.

For indeed much labor has gone forth from your holy hands, and has sheltered and warmed not only us, but also the whole brotherhood.

They too, having you as a spiritual mother and cherishing you equally with us, are left behind by you and call out to you.

We have set these things down in writing as though they had not yet come to pass, thereby providing comfort for ourselves and showing you the things of our heart, which you also know of yourself.

As for me, then, my holy mother, as you know, even if I wished to come to you, I had no way to do so, on account of the care laid upon me — unworthily, and I know not by what reasoning.

For, as it is said, 'how marvelous, if even Saul is among the prophets' — and indeed Theodore among the abbots!

This is what confined me, this is what bound me.

For even if I had been fettered with iron chains, I would have broken them and stood before your face.

But now, in my place, I have sent you the presbyter for a little consolation, since he too is dear and honored to you, so that he may accompany you in every respect in your illness, visiting you and attending to what is needful — whether you remain there, he will remain with you, or whether you go elsewhere, he will go along with you together with the steward.

So then, honored mother, continue on as God shall grant success and as your illness allows, and do not strain yourself beyond your strength in wishing to go out.

But send us word quickly as to how you are faring in your illness, so that we may be a little heartened.

And all the brothers immediately established a rule of prayer for you, and they maintain continual prayer for your health.

Grant us your holy prayer, bless us with motherly gifts, embrace us through this letter, give us the peace which you have through the grace of Christ, and will have unto the ages of ages.

{To the Empress Irene} 'A voice,' says the most God-seeing Jeremiah, 'was heard in Ramah, lamentation and much wailing — Rachel weeping for her children.'

But what are present things like, and how great? From somewhere, only yesterday, our all-good sovereign lady, messengers from your sacred palace appeared and, making us hear all the praises now arising from your recent deeds, they truly made both our ears ring.

What, then, is it? That you have raised a standard of such great piety at the ends of the earth.

And behold, from all around, like flying clouds, countless supplications come to you, honoring God for your auspicious deeds.

Tell us, O sovereign lady, who is it that has raised your most pure mind to the heights of the thoughts of truth, so that, as from some lofty and elevated watchtower, you might survey such things pleasing to God and holy.

Teach us whence so great a love of piety fell upon you, enabling you nobly to be insatiable for the things pleasing to God, and to drive, beyond ordinary restraint, your abundantly beneficial provision, both spiritual and bodily, on behalf of the Christians.

Or is it because, being greatly minded of divine things and yearning with a mother's affection, you did not consider it sufficient merely to redeem your people, by help from above, from a kind of Egyptian slavery — I mean, from the impious faith — unless, along with the good deeds that had previously shone forth for you in manifold ways like stars, you should also add this present grace as a kind of crowning achievement of your virtues? Holy, holy, holy!

'Let the heavens above rejoice' — let us cry out with the most sacred-voiced Isaiah, bold though it be — 'for God has had mercy on His people through you.'

Your whole empire, then, has been filled with joy and exultation, because the lawless yoke lying upon it has been removed, and the rod that lay upon the neck of such domination.

And who has ever seen such and so great an achievement under any other reign? Praise her, all you peoples!

Magnify her together with us, rulers and ruled, priests and monks, and every Christian tribe.

For it is marvelous not only that the remission of so many talents of gold has taken place — although this in itself is unsurpassable — but that, in this matter, a manifold source of injustice has also been most sacredly cut off together with it.

There has been removed from the midst the knot of violent and soul-destroying exactions, which had escaped the notice of all those before you, even though some of them had reigned piously.

There has ceased the counter-swearing, the multiplied oath-taking — or rather, the perjury — on the part of both those who exacted it and those from whom it was exacted, both parties being ruined by it as it happened: the one trying to conceal whatever he could, the other, through excessive extortion, overburdening him with oaths.

There has ceased the oppressive burden of care upon those who were straitened and poor — not that they were seeking to find some protective remedy for their poverty, for that would have been a lesser grief, but so that they might pay off to the collectors that unmixed levy which had crept in from somewhere above, as it were the offspring of sin.

No longer are the roads taxed — as many as are by land, as many as are by sea.

These are echoing words of what was said by the great and holy Chrysostom.

No longer are travelers by land unjustly stripped of money in the narrow passes by those who lie in wait, like some wild demon or untamed beast, feeding always on the burden of the poor wayfarer; nor again, for fear of such shameful gains, do the destitute remain shut up at home, going neither to the places in the city nor to the coastal regions.

For everywhere the crags of injustice used to stand posted on watch.

No longer are sailors, setting out from east and west and north and putting in to harbor, choked, as if paying from their very throat the toll exacted at the narrow straits.

Those who pursued the trade of hunting and trapping have been set free, now conducting it lightheartedly, O Irene, sacred of soul.

The fisherman, having perhaps hauled up three fish — and this too after laboring much throughout the whole day — no longer pays over one of them.

The archer or the fowler, who perhaps has hunted a few birds, from which comes his necessary food, remaining unaccountable to any collector, may live well.

Soldiers' wives, having their own grief for the loss of their husbands, will no longer bitterly lament the pitiable and inhuman exaction demanded on account of the deceased.

And I pass over the swineherds, the sheep-traders, the wine-merchants.

I forbear to speak of the butchers, the weavers, the coppersmiths, the leather-workers, the dyers, the spice-merchants and the master-builders, and, to sum it up in a word, every trade — as many as pertain to goldsmithing, as many as pertain to woodworking, as many as are practiced upon every other material.

So that I do not draw out a long discourse in such minute enumeration, O most admirable sovereign lady, all clapped their hands and rejoiced with very great joy, speaking these words:

'I will bless You, O Lord, for You have had mercy on me and have become my salvation.'

'Therefore I shall put my trust in my God-given reign.'

All these things are full of praise and glorification, O Irene, friend of Christ — a sweet thing both in reality and in name.

These things will be spread abroad not only throughout the domain of your empire, but even to the ends of the inhabited world; and foreign nations will hear and marvel and be struck with awe at the excellent success of your wise policies.

'For even enemies,' it is said, 'revere the virtue of men,' as says the most eloquent-voiced among the theologians.

Thus your kingdom is kept unshaken; thus your subjects yield and gladly obey you.

By this you serve the Divine, by this you gladden the chosen angels of God, and indeed also those who live piously and righteously, O Irene, named of God.

In these things your piety shines forth; in these things every mouth and every tongue opens wide to your praise.

O vindicator of the patristic and God-inspired orthodoxy of the Christians, champion of God and of the truth — such are your great increases in virtue.

How great and praiseworthy are your rewards, how great and exceeding your recompense from the God of all!

For great indeed is it to save even one soul (how could it not be? since, as the divine Scripture says, 'he who brings out the worthy from the unworthy shall be as my mouth'), but to save so many souls and the whole of the people—how is this not great and reverend and truly worthy of the bounty that comes from above? You, then—a name truly great and effectual—have entered into the palace together with every good thing; and may you leave the remnants of righteousness to endure forever.

{To Symeon, Abbot} Your paternal holiness, esteeming our affairs beyond what is our due, has addressed to us, through its two sacredly-written letters, matters both strange and astonishing.

But concerning the letter-bearers, God was pleased—the abbot having yielded—that they be received back into their own monastery, your piety having done well in this, in bringing them back, through its instructive word, into the paternal and spiritual bosom.

But concerning our brother who has deserted and been, as it were, banished from the paradise of the cenobitic life, I know not what to say—we who had formerly seen the man as truly a vine planted by God, wholly genuine, wholly fruitful.

And how is it that now the boar out of the forest has ravaged it, and the wild solitary beast has fed upon it, it having turned, so to speak, into deadly bitterness? For is it not the case that, having been handed over to the untamed beasts of the passions—I mean love of the flesh and love of rule—one may now see him, in the contemplation of the mind, being devoured by them and torn apart as if from the mouth of lions? For the divine Basil, as you know, judges the man who irrationally withdraws and separates himself from his father—thereby also casting away the divine profession itself—to merit an equal downfall.

For this reason they are also liable to the same condemnation, in respect of excommunication and the other penalties.

But we, as sinners, pray that this man may look again upon the former light, out of his dim-sighted and darkened understanding, and return home once more to his sweet father and his most beloved brotherhood.

But we exhort the brothers themselves to stand bravely for the cenobitic contest, and not to be shaken by the fall of the impious one, but rather all the more to lay hold from this of a more genuine faith and an unbroken concord, even unto blood, as the God-bearing fathers proclaim, so that, by the perfection of their subject life, they may bind on the crown of martyrdom on the day of judgment, dancing together with Dositheus and Acacius and Dometian, the most all-holy ones, who completed their way of life in perfect obedience.

For today, as the rest of your holiness's words indicate, all is confusion and insubordination, since almost everyone, one might say, relies upon human customs and upon the retentions of those closer at hand, which are contrary to the commandments of God, choosing rather to observe the way of life of this or that abbot than that of our divinely-inspired fathers.

Hence we the shepherds, of whom I am first, have become foolish, and we do not seek the Lord, nor do we track out the blameless and unshaken way of life, but as though the divine law had grown old and the Gospel had become inactive and the spiritual institutions had grown feeble, and—that I may say something even more blasphemous—as though the unchangeable God himself had been changed.

For this is what lies behind saying and blaming the times and the days and the generations, as though those former ones were one way and these present ones another.

But I answer in turn that this has not come about because of any difference of time (for neither has the heaven become of a different shape, nor has the light-bearer that creates the day become differently moved or differently shining, nor does the universe move and proceed otherwise than in its former order;

as the oracles say: 'unto the age, and unto the age of the age';

'he set an ordinance, and it shall not pass away')—but this, O most holy one, has come about through the alteration of our self-determining free choice, which has grown negligent of divine love and has surrendered its own longing to material things, and which is neither willing nor disposed to lay hold of the illustrious examples, nor to be transcribed from the archetypal and paternal, God-like image, but rather from the misshapen and strange and monstrously-formed ones.

For this reason we bear about images imprinted upon the soul, some having a part of a man, others of a dog, others perhaps of a leopard, others of a fish or of some other creeping thing—your holiness understanding these things in an anagogical sense.

Those, then, who babble such things out of deceit—let them either tear apart, with bared head, the Gospels and the testimonies and the ordinances of the Lord and every tablet handed down by the saints, or else, if they do not do this, let them lay aside their infantile and irrational mind-set, and, as truly attaining to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, let them both walk and instruct others according to the God-given oracles;

or, if they do neither of the things said, let them at least accuse their own unwillingness and dissoluteness.

For perhaps there will then be for them a time of sobering up.

Alas for me, most honored father, for, being guilty of all that has been said and a minister of every perversity and crookedness, I have begun to intrude upon others and to legislate for them!

Let even the insensible stones themselves weep and lament over me, who am in danger every hour and who tear apart the flock of Christ, unworthily entrusted to me.

So much have I been moved to answer back to you, at your command, O God-honored one.

But may you yourself, being firmly grounded in the power of the Spirit and in the compass of the lawful and paternal commandments, remain unmoved and unshaken and undismayed by the little words that have been insinuated upon you in various ways by certain people, like winds or stormy waves, walking in the royal road of the pure way of life, and running past the empty talk of men on either side, praying unceasingly for the very best on behalf of our humility.

{To Gelasius, disciple} O my child, Abba Gelasius, how ever did the author of evil, Satan, banish you from your cenobitic paradise—as he once banished Adam from Eden, when Adam was persuaded by the counsel of the serpent-minded Ammoun? And now you lodge in places which the Lord does not oversee, bearing thorns and working, in the sweat of your face, the passions of dishonor.

For what good have you, having gone out, either done or are doing? What is there that is not rather evil and to be shunned? The intellectual light of guidance has failed you; the spark of spiritual friendship has been quenched.

Your friends and your neighbors (I mean not only your beloved brothers, but also the angels of God) have stood opposite you from afar, and the demons have drawn near, seeking to destroy your previously accomplished ascetic labors.

Where now is your pure prayer? Where now your unshaken confession of faith, your light-producing confession of sins, your angelic choral standing, your God-imitating obedience, your Christ-bearing humility, that good and pleasant thing which the psalm-writer David sings of—your dwelling together with the brothers in one place? Since you have become destitute of all these things, my child, you have in their place the opposites brought in upon you: darkening of the mind, insensibility of the soul, hardness of heart, distrust, hopelessness, negligence, fear of death, trembling at the reckoning.

And why must I list each one separately, seeing that you certainly live your whole life groaning and trembling like Cain? And I have not yet even mentioned the swarm of fleshly passions, fanning into flame what is within you and kindling sin.

...my child, having come to know the truth through my humble letter, and having looked up again to the light, and having been divinely pierced with compunction, and having been struck in a loving way, and having recalled and recognized whence you fell and in what terrible straits you were and where you now dwell—so to speak, among the tents of Kedar—rouse yourself, and leap up, and be raised, and be renewed, and be warmed again; and delay not an hour, not a day, not a week, but rather, having quickly bidden farewell to all, come vigorously and without hesitation to me, your wretched father, and to your good brotherhood, and to my great father who is also your father.

And to this end, when I learned that you had been driven out there, I also wished to send a brother along with the letter, that he might rescue you;

but since the letter-bearer, a presbyter, assured me that you would certainly come on the strength of the letter alone, for this reason I was content with the letter.

And so indeed, my child, as has been said, not only I, wretched as I am, and my father, but also our masters, the Forerunner and the Theologian, urge you to set out most speedily, before the end of an unexpected death overtakes you.

But if still—though I do not suppose it—you should be hardened in your hardening and act stubbornly, know that you are excommunicated both from all the saints and from us sinners, until you see our face.

But if you set out, as we have commanded, then, upon your coming, you are at once absolved, both with regard to the divine gifts and the other foods.

{To Nicholas, disciple} Since, by the good pleasure of God, you have been advanced, Nicholas my spiritual child, to the office of abbot, it is necessary that you carefully observe all that is enjoined upon you in this present letter.

You shall not, therefore, alter, in anything and without necessity, the pattern and rule which you received from your spiritual monastery.

You shall not acquire anything of this world, nor shall you lay up treasure privately for yourself, even to a single coin.

You shall not divide your soul and your heart in attachment and concern beyond those entrusted to you by God and who have become your spiritual sons and brothers, whether toward your former relatives according to the flesh, or kinsmen, or friends, or associates.

You shall not make use of the goods of your own monastery, either while living or after death, by way of almsgiving or inheritance, toward those aforementioned former relatives and friends (for you are not of the world, that you should share in the things of the world—except, perhaps, if some of them should pass over from the life in society into our order); and thus you shall take thought in imitation of the holy fathers.

You shall not acquire, as a slave, a man made according to the image of God—neither for your own personal use, nor for the monastery entrusted to you, nor for your fields;

for this has been permitted only to those living in the world.

But you must present yourself as a slave in disposition to your brothers who are of one soul with you, even though in outward appearance you are reckoned as master and teacher.

You shall not keep, for service, an animal of the female sex—you who have utterly renounced the female—neither in the monastery nor in the fields, just as none of our holy and reverend fathers made use of one, nor does nature itself permit it.

You shall not ride upon horses and mules without necessity, but shall go on foot in imitation of Christ;

but if you must, let your mount be a young donkey.

You shall by all means observe that all things in the brotherhood are held in common and undivided, and that nothing whatsoever, even to a needle, be under the private ownership of any individual;

but as for you—your very body and soul, let alone anything else—let them be distributed in equality of love to all your spiritual children and brothers.

You shall have no authority to do anything, whether with regard to office or to ordination, concerning your two brothers, who are also my children, apart from your paternal mandate.

For this is not found among the fathers, and even if it is found, it is rare, and this does not constitute a rule.

You shall not dine together with a woman, except your mother or sister according to the flesh—unless, I know not, some force and necessity should call for it—just as the holy fathers instruct.

You shall not have the habit of going out much and wandering about, without necessity, abandoning your own flock, since even while you remain settled among them, the most wayward and much-wandering rational sheep are scarcely kept safe.

You shall by all means observe giving catechetical instruction three times a week, and each evening, since this is a tradition handed down from the fathers and is salutary.

You shall not give what they call the 'lesser habit,' and then, after some time, another as the 'great habit';

for the monastic habit is one, just as baptism is one, according to the practice of the holy fathers.

You shall not transgress the laws and canons of the fathers, before all others those of our holy father Basil, but whatever you do or say, do it as having testimony from the Scriptures, or as from the custom of your fathers, without transgression of the commandment of God.

You shall not abandon your flock and move to another, nor run ahead to a greater dignity, without the discernment of your father.

You shall not become friends with a canoness, nor visit a convent of women, nor converse alone with a nun or a laywoman, unless necessity should require it—and then only with two persons present on each side;

for the one alone, as it is said, is easily assailed.

You shall not open the door of the fold for the entrance of any woman whatsoever, without great necessity;

but if you are able to receive her inconspicuously, not even this is to be rejected.

You shall not make for yourself, or for your spiritual children, a lodging-place—a secular house in which there are women—by visiting it frequently, but you shall choose to attend to your occasional and necessary needs at the houses of devout men.