We have often said that Christians suffer persecution. This world lies in wickedness (cf. 1 John 5:19). Our adversary the devil reigns in the world, and we think that we do not suffer persecution. For what thing does not persecute the Christian? We are amazed if others persecute us. If we have willed to serve Christ, who is the life of all, even our own parents persecute us. Whoever is unlike us persecutes us and holds us in hatred; and are we amazed if others persecute us, when our very own body persecutes us? If I eat a little, and my poor body grows robust, the health of my body persecutes my soul. Wherever I turn, there is persecution for me.
If I see a woman, my eye persecutes me, it desires to slay my soul. If I see riches, gold, silver, possessions — whatever I see and desire, this persecutes my soul. Let us not think that only the shedding of blood is martyrdom, for it is always martyrdom. If the lust of the flesh persecutes a young man, it wishes to kill and pour out the blood of his soul. But when your soul is imperiled and set in great danger, then it behooves the mind to stand firm in fasting and prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ, and not to consent to death. If, therefore, there are martyrdoms in time of peace, there are also denials. Let no one, then, say there is no martyrdom: both there is martyrdom, and there is denial.
I today, who seem to be a monk, if I break my vow, I have denied Christ. And if in peace I deny Christ, what would I do in persecution? If, while I am not tortured nor burned, I deny — if I were tortured and burned, what would I do? For what wound is there that ought to separate me from the love of Christ? For what is said to you is this: you were burning in the flames, you were hanging on the rack, you were being tortured for my sake — and you say, 'I could not endure the torments'? How did Peter endure them? How Paul? How did the other martyrs endure them? They had bodies just as you have. O monk, you who flee fasting, do you think you flee the fire? You who consent to drunkenness, do you believe you escape the bronze serpent?
This, then, I say to you, brethren, that in every time there are martyrdoms, and there are also transgressions. Finally, what does the Apostle say of widows who took second husbands? What does he say? 'Having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith' (1 Tim. 5:12). What does he say of the widow? O widow, before you promised me that you would be a widow, it was in your power to marry; from the time you confessed that you would remain mine, from that time you began to be mine. If you wish to take a second husband, you have despised me. So also you, monk: before you made your promise to me, it was in your will to do what you wished; your voice bound you to me. Did I compel you? Did you do it out of necessity? Were you not free?
It was in your power to make the promise. You promised, and you began to be mine: I do not want you to forsake what is mine; it is not lawful for you to forsake it, because you have a cause with me. To promise was yours; to forsake is not yours. If you forsake, I no longer have you in that rank in which I formerly had you. At first you were free; you were of your own household, you were not of my household; you were not before my eyes, you were not among my ministers — yet you were of my household; you were not with me, but nevertheless you were my creature. From the time you began to serve as my soldier, if you withdraw, I do not have you as of my household, but assuredly as a fugitive and a transgressor. For you will not find where you can flee from me. Therefore I say all this, because it is in our power to promise to God, but it is not in our power to forsake.
You promised — you will have the reward; you denied — you will have [endure] the penalty; both are for the sake of confusion. We say again, and again we say: Behold, before your eyes are the way of death and the way of life: choose which you will. All this I say, dearest brethren, lest any of you think he has free power to depart and to descend with the devil into hell. Therefore I, who am a monk, who have ceased to be a man of the world, and have been made a monk: either I am saved as a monk, or otherwise I am not saved. Blessed Paul himself daily cried aloud, in the voice of the Holy Spirit: 'Brethren, do not err: God is not mocked; for whatever a man shall sow, that also shall he reap; for he who sows in his own flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption;'
but he who sows in the Spirit, of the Spirit shall reap life everlasting (Gal. 6:7-8). And again: 'Do you not know, brethren, that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey — whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice?' (Rom. 6:16). Therefore the devil suggests, and our flesh too, still bound by the obligations of the world, that we sin and depart. Let us therefore reflect on the days of old, and set the eternal years before our eyes (cf. Ps. 76:6); and in penance let us call upon our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and let us weep, saying: 'O Lord God, who do not will the death of sinners, but rather that they be converted and live' (Ezek. 18:23,
cf. Ezek. 18): look, O Lord, according to your mercy, upon us, and let the ropes of our enemies be broken, that we may not perish. Look, O Lord, from your holy seat and from the council-hall of your majesty, and drive away the darkness of our heart by the ray of your light. Protect us, O Lord, with the shield of your truth and faith, that the fiery darts of the devil may not penetrate; that whatever it is which our iniquity does not know how to ask of you, that you, O Lord, according to your power, would grant, whereby you may save our souls from death. Let us cry these things, and let us not despair of God's mercy: for despair is certain death. If, therefore, you have sinned as a monk, then you are a wretched monk, yet you are a monk.
By no means is it lawful for us to change our vow, but rather to return to the place of penance. For in the monastery, whatever the servants of God are, whatever they do — if not for necessary use but for the sake of adornment or of some elegance, without the command of the superior — let them be corrected, because in this too we perceive the mind to be sick with vice: those who, by their garments or footwear, wish to please men not for use but for the sake of display. But God has most manifestly declared this: 'For every tree,' he says, 'is known by its own fruit.' And: 'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven' (cf. Matt. 7:17, 21).