The debt which was promised, in the preface of those volumes concerning the institutes of the coenobia and the remedies for the eight principal vices—which, with the Lord's help, were arranged in twelve little books for the most blessed pope Castor—has now, so far as the slenderness of our talent sufficed, been in some fashion discharged. Let me indeed see what, upon this matter, has been weighed by the fairness of the examination, whether his or yours: whether in things so profound and so sublime, and which, as I think, have not before come into the use of the pen, we have brought forth anything worthy of your acquaintance and of the desire of all the holy brethren.
But now, since the aforesaid pontiff, leaving us, has migrated to Christ, I have believed that these ten conferences of the highest fathers—that is, of the anchorites who abode in the desert of Scete—which he, burning with incomparable zeal for holiness, had bidden to be written down in a like discourse (not weighing, in the multitude of his charity, with how great a weight he would burden our feeble necks)—are to be consecrated preferably to you, O most blessed pope Leontius and holy brother Helladius. For one of you, joined to the said man both by the affection of kinship and by the dignity of the priesthood, and—what is greater than these—by the fervour of holy zeal, demands by hereditary right the fraternal debt owed:
the other has undertaken to follow the sublime institutes of the anchorites, not, as some do, by his own presumption, but grasping the lawful pathway of the doctrine—the Holy Spirit suggesting it—almost before he learned it, and preferred to be instructed not so much by his own inventions as by their traditions. In which matters an immense sea now opens before me, now set in the harbour of silence, namely that I should dare to hand down to the memory of writing certain things concerning the institute and the teaching of such great men.
For the skiff of our frail talent must be tossed amid the perils of a navigation the more profound, in proportion as anchoritism is greater than the coenobia, and the contemplation of God—to which those inestimable men are ever intent—is greater and loftier in act than the active life which is practised in the congregations. It is yours, therefore, to aid our endeavours with pious prayers, lest either so holy a matter, to be set forth in a discourse unskilled indeed yet faithful, should be endangered in us, or again our rusticity should be overwhelmed by the abysses of the same matter.
Accordingly, let us pass from the exterior and visible manner of life of the monks, which we have set forth in the earlier books, to the invisible habit of the inner man; and let our discourse ascend from the mode of the canonical prayers to the perpetual continuity of that prayer which the Apostle enjoins, so that whoever, by the reading of the earlier work, has merited the name of that intelligible Jacob by supplanting carnal vices, may now also, receiving the institutes not so much of mine as of the fathers, and passing over, by the gaze of divine purity, to the merit and, so to speak, the dignity of Israel, be likewise instructed as to what he ought to observe in this summit of perfection as well.
May your prayers therefore obtain from Him who has judged us worthy either of the sight of those men, or of their discipleship, or of their fellowship, that He may deign to confer upon us both a full memory of those same traditions and a discourse ready for the telling, whereby, expounding them as holily and as entirely as we received them from those men themselves, we may be able in some manner to present them, incorporated as it were into their own institutes and—what is greater—disputing in the Latin tongue.
This indeed we wish, above all things, both of these conferences and of the earlier volumes, that the reader be forewarned: that if perchance in these he shall think anything, according to the quality of his own state and purpose, or according to common usage and manner of life, to be either impossible or hard, he should measure it not according to the measure of his own capacity, but according to the dignity and perfection of the speakers, whose prior zeal and purpose let him conceive in his mind—by which, truly dead to this worldly manner of life, they are bound by no affections of carnal kinsfolk, by no bonds of secular actions.
Next let him consider also the quality of the places in which they dwell, wherein, established in a most vast solitude and separated from the fellowship of all mortals, and through this possessing an illumination of their senses, they contemplate or speak forth those things which, to the inexperienced and untaught, will perhaps seem impossible by reason of the condition and mediocrity of their own habit. Yet concerning these things, if anyone shall wish to bring forth a true judgment, and desires to make trial whether they can be fulfilled, let him first hasten to take up their purpose with a like zeal and manner of life; and then at length he shall find those things, which seemed to be above the capacity of man, to be not only possible, but even most sweet.
But now let us hasten to their conferences and institutes. Of the dwelling in Scete and the purpose of Abba Moses. Of the questioning of Abba Moses, asking what is the scope or what is the end for a monk. Of our answer. Of the questioning of Abba Moses upon the aforesaid proposition. Of the comparison of him who strives to strike the appointed mark. Of those who, renouncing the world, strive toward perfection without charity. Of the tranquillity of heart to be sought after. Of the principal endeavour toward the contemplation of divine things, and the likeness of Mary and Martha. A question, how the efficacy of the virtues does not persevere together with man. An answer, that it is not their reward, but their exercise, that shall cease. Of the perpetuity of charity.
A question concerning the perseverance of spiritual contemplation. An answer concerning the directing of the heart toward God, and concerning the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil. Of the perpetuity of the soul. Of contemplating God. A question concerning the mobility of the thoughts. An answer, what the mind can do concerning the state of the thoughts, and what it cannot. A comparison of the water-mill and the soul. Of the three origins of our thoughts. Of the discerning of thoughts after the likeness of an approved money-changer. Of the delusion of Abba John. Of the fourfold method of discretion. Of the discourse of a teacher according to the merit of the hearers.
When in the desert of Scete, where the most approved fathers of the monks and all perfection abode, I had, together with the holy abba Germanus, earnestly sought out Abba Moses—who among those excellent flowers breathed forth more sweetly not only in active but also in contemplative virtue—desiring to be grounded in his instruction (with whom, from the very apprenticeship and rudiments of the spiritual warfare, I had thereafter so undivided a companionship, both in the coenobium and in the desert, that all, to signify the parity of our comradeship and purpose, would declare there was one mind and one soul in two bodies); and when we both, with tears poured forth, begged of the same abba a discourse of edification (since we most manifestly knew this rigour of his mind, that…
…that he would by no means consent to open the door of perfection except to those who faithfully desired it and sought it with all contrition of heart—lest, namely, if he exhibited it indiscriminately either to those unwilling for it or lukewarmly thirsting after it, laying open to the unworthy and to those who received it fastidiously the necessary things which ought to be known only to those desiring perfection, he might seem to incur either the vice of boastfulness or the crime of betrayal)—at last, wearied by our entreaties, he thus began.
All arts and disciplines, he said, have a certain scope—that is, a mark to aim at—and a telos, that is, their own proper end, looking toward which the industrious aspirant of each art sustains all labours and perils and losses with an even and willing mind.
For the farmer too, now not shrinking from the scorching rays of the sun, now from frosts and ice, tirelessly cleaves the earth and subdues the untamed clods of the field with the frequent ploughshare, while he keeps his scope—that it may, purged of all thorns and freed from all weeds, be broken up by his labour into the fashion of loose sand—confident that he will not otherwise attain his end, that is, the reaping of abundant crops and a superfluity of harvests, whereby he may thereafter either lead his life secure, or enlarge his substance. He even gladly empties out from his stores the corn already gathered, and commits it with intent labour to the crumbling furrows, not feeling the present diminution in the contemplation of the future harvests.
Those too who are wont to exercise the commerce of trading do not fear the uncertain chances of the sea, nor dread any perils, while they are urged on by swift hope toward the end of gain. Likewise those who are inflamed with ambition for worldly warfare, while they look forward to the end of honours and of power, do not feel the destructions and dangers of their wanderings, nor are they broken by present hardships and wars, while they long to obtain the end of the dignity set before them.
Our profession, therefore, also has its own scope and its own end, for the sake of which we expend all labours not only tirelessly but even joyfully; for whose sake the fasting of our abstinence does not weary us, the fatigue of our vigils delights us, the continual reading and meditation of the Scriptures does not sate us, and even the incessant toil, and nakedness, and the privation of all things, and likewise the horror of this most vast solitude, does not deter us. For whose sake you yourselves, doubtless, have spurned the affection of your parents, and, passing through so many regions, have despised your native soil and the delights of the world, that you might be able to come to us, rustic and unlettered men, dwelling in this squalor of the desert.
Wherefore answer me, he said, what is your aim or end, which provokes us to endure all these things most willingly. And when he persisted in eliciting our judgment upon this question, we answered that all these things are borne for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. To which he said: Well; you have spoken shrewdly concerning the end. But what ought to be our scope—that is, the mark to which, ever cleaving, we may be able to attain the end—above all things you ought to know. And when we had simply confessed our ignorance, he added: In every art and discipline, as I have said, there precedes a certain scope, that is, the destination of the soul or the incessant intention of the mind.
And unless one shall have kept this with all zeal and perseverance, he will not be able to attain to the end of the desired fruit. For, as I have said, the farmer, having as his end to live securely and abundantly in the yield of fertile crops, bears as his scope—that is, his destination—to purge his field of all thorns and to empty it of all unfruitful weeds; nor does he trust that he will otherwise attain the opulence of a restful end, unless he first possess, by a certain reckoning of his labour and hope, that which he desires to obtain by use. The trader too does not lay aside the desire of procuring merchandise, whereby he may more profitably gather riches, since he would covet gain in vain, had he not chosen the way by which he might tend toward it.
And those who desire to be honoured with the various definite dignities of this world first set before themselves the office or rank to which they mean to devote themselves, so that by the lawful path of their hope they may also be able to attain the goal of the dignity they desire. So then, the end of our way of life is indeed the kingdom of God. But what its immediate aim is ought to be diligently inquired into; for if this has not likewise been made clear to us, we shall wear ourselves out striving in vain, since one who travels without a road has the toil of the journey but no progress. And as we stood amazed at this, the old man went on: The end of our profession, as we have said, is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven; but the immediate goal, that is, the mark, is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for anyone to reach that end.
Fixing our gaze upon this aim, therefore, as upon a fixed line, we shall direct our course most straight; and if our thought should for a little turn aside from it, we shall at once return to the contemplation of it and correct our thought most exactly, as by a kind of standard, which, ever recalling all our efforts to this one mark, will immediately convict us if our mind has strayed even a little from the intended direction.
Just as those skilled in the handling of weapons of war, when they wish to display before the king of this world the mastery of their art, strive to hurl their darts or arrows into certain very small shields, which have painted on them the prizes to be won, being sure that they cannot reach the end of the prize they long for except along the line of their aim—which they will then at last surely obtain when they have been able to hold to the mark they have set before them. But if that mark should chance to be withdrawn from their sight, however far the vain aim of the unskilled may wander from the straight path, they will not perceive that they have fallen away from the direction of that disciplined line, because they have no fixed mark to prove their skill in aiming or to convict their fault.
And therefore, when they have discharged their useless shots into the air and the void, they cannot judge in what they have erred or wherein they have been deceived, since no evidence accuses them of how far they have departed from the true direction, nor can their aimless gaze teach them by what means they ought thereafter to correct or recall the line of their discipline. So then, the end of our purpose, according to the Apostle, is indeed eternal life, as he himself declares: 'having your fruit unto sanctification, and the end everlasting life' (Rom 6:22); but the immediate goal is purity of heart, which he not undeservedly called sanctification, without which the aforesaid end cannot be attained—as though he had said in other words: having your goal in purity of heart.
and eternal life as the end. Teaching us about this aim, the same blessed Apostle expressed the very name, that is, the goal (scopos), significantly, saying thus: 'forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forward to the things that are before, I press on toward the mark, unto the prize of the high calling of the Lord' (Phil 3:13-14). This is set down more clearly in the Greek, kata skopon diōkō, that is, 'I press on according to the aim,' as if he had said: with this aim, whereby I forget the things that are behind—that is, the vices of the former man—I strive to reach the end of the heavenly prize.
Whatever, therefore, can direct us to this goal, that is, to purity of heart, is to be pursued with all our strength; but whatever draws us back from it is to be shunned as pernicious and harmful. For it is for the sake of this that we do and endure all things; for the sake of this parents, homeland, dignities, riches, the delights and every pleasure of this world are despised—namely, that purity of heart may be perpetually preserved. And so, this aim having been set before us, all our acts and thoughts will be directed most straightly toward obtaining it.
For if this be not continually set before our eyes, it will not only render all our labours empty and unstable, causing them to be poured out in vain and without any profit, but will also stir up all manner of divergent and mutually contradictory thoughts. For the mind that has nothing to which it may run back or to which it may principally cling must needs, at every hour and moment, be changed according to the variety of incoming impressions, and be at once transformed by the things that come from without into whatever state first presents itself to it.
Hence it comes about that we have seen some men who despised the greatest resources of this world—not only many talents of gold and silver, but even the magnificence of estates—afterwards moved to disturbance over a penknife, a stylus, a needle, or a reed pen. If they had held fast to the contemplation of purity of heart, they would certainly never have let themselves be provoked over such trifling things, seeing that, lest they should be provoked over great and precious wealth, they chose rather to cast that wealth entirely away.
For very often some men guard a book with such zeal that they will not suffer it even to be lightly read or touched by anyone, and thence they incur occasions of impatience and death, whence they are admonished to acquire the rewards of patience and love. And when they have distributed all their riches for the love of Christ, yet retaining their former disposition of heart in the smallest things, and sometimes flying into anger over these very things, they are rendered barren and unfruitful in all respects, as men who do not have apostolic love.
Foreseeing this in the Spirit, the blessed Apostle said: 'And if I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing' (1 Cor 13:3). Whence it is clearly proved that perfection is not immediately attained by nakedness, nor by the deprivation of all one's resources, nor by the renunciation of honours, unless there be that love whose members the Apostle describes, which consists in purity of heart alone. For what else is 'not to be envious, not to be puffed up, not to be provoked, not to deal perversely, not to seek one's own, not to rejoice in iniquity, not to think evil' and the rest (1 Cor 13:4-6), than ever to offer to God a heart perfect and most pure, and to keep it untouched by all disturbances?
All things, therefore, are to be done and sought by us for the sake of this. For the sake of this solitude is to be pursued; for the sake of this let us know that we must undertake fasts, vigils, labours, bodily nakedness, reading and the other virtues, so that through them we may be able to prepare and keep our heart unharmed by all noxious passions, and by leaning upon these steps may ascend to the perfection of love. And let us not, on account of these observances, if perchance, being forestalled by some honourable or necessary occupation, we have been unable to fulfil the strict rule of our discipline, fall into sadness or anger or indignation—the very things for the overcoming of which we were going to do that which has been omitted.
For the gain of fasting is not so great as the loss from anger, nor is the fruit gained from reading so great as the harm incurred by the contempt of a brother. The things, therefore, which are subordinate—that is, fasts, vigils, withdrawal into solitude, meditation on the Scriptures—we ought to practise for the sake of the principal goal, that is, purity of heart, which is love, and not on account of them to overthrow this principal virtue; for while this remains whole and unharmed in us, nothing will hurt us if any of the subordinate things be omitted through necessity. Indeed, it will profit nothing to have done all these things if this principal cause, of which we have spoken, be taken away, for the sake of whose attainment all things are to be performed.
For this reason a man hastens to procure and prepare for himself the tools of any craft, not that he may possess them idle, nor that he may place the fruit of the profit that is hoped from them in the mere possession of the instruments, but that by their service he may effectively attain the skill and end of that craft to which these are aids. So then, fasts, vigils, meditation on the Scriptures, nakedness and the deprivation of all resources are not perfection, but the instruments of perfection; for the end of that discipline does not consist in them, but through them one arrives at the end.
In vain, therefore, will he labour at these exercises who, content with them as with the highest good, has fixed the intention of his heart upon them alone, and has not stretched out every effort of virtue toward attaining the end for the sake of which these are to be sought—having indeed the instruments of that discipline, but being ignorant of the end in which all fruit consists. Whatever, therefore, can disturb this purity and tranquillity of our mind, however useful and necessary it may seem, is to be shunned as noxious. For by this rule we shall be able to escape the scatterings of all errors and wanderings, and to attain the desired end by the line of a sure direction.
Here, therefore, ought to be our principal effort; this immovable aim of the heart is continually to be sought after: that the mind may ever cling to divine things and to God. Whatever is diverse from this, however great, is to be judged secondary, or even lowest, or certainly noxious. This disposition, or rather this exercise, of the mind is most beautifully figured also in the Gospel by Martha and Mary. For while Martha was busied with a holy ministry, since she was ministering to the Lord Himself and to His disciples, and Mary, intent only on spiritual doctrine, clung to the feet of Jesus, which she kissed and anointed with the ointment of good confession, she is nevertheless preferred by the Lord, in that she both chose the better part and that which could not be taken away from her.
For when Martha laboured, stretched with pious solicitude and dispensation, seeing herself alone unable to suffice for so great a ministry, she asked the Lord for the help of her sister, saying: 'Does it not concern you that my sister has left me to minister alone? Tell her therefore to help me' (Luke 10:40). Surely she was calling her not to a mean task, but to a praiseworthy ministry. And yet what does she hear from the Lord? 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things: but few things are needful, or even one. Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her' (Luke 10:41-42). You see, then, that the Lord placed the principal good in theoria alone, that is, in divine contemplation.
Whence, though we pronounce the other virtues to be necessary and useful and good, we nevertheless decree that they are to be reckoned in the second rank, because they are all performed for the sake of this one thing. For when the Lord says, 'You are anxious and troubled about many things, but few things are needful, or even one,' He placed the supreme good not in active work, however praiseworthy and abounding in many fruits, but in its contemplation, which is truly simple and one; declaring that few things are needful for perfect blessedness—that is, that theoria which formerly was kept in the consideration of a few of the saints.
Ascending from the contemplation of these, he who is still set in the state of progress will come, with God's help, also to that which is called one—that is, to the sight of God alone—so that, having surpassed even the wondrous acts and ministries of the saints, he may now be fed by the beauty and knowledge of God alone. 'Mary, therefore, has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' And this is to be observed more carefully. For when it says, 'Mary has chosen the good part,' although it is silent about Martha and by no means seems to blame her, yet in praising the one it pronounces the other to be inferior.
Again, when it says, 'which shall not be taken away from her,' it shows that from Martha her portion can be taken away (for bodily ministry cannot remain with a person perpetually), whereas it teaches that the other's pursuit can in no age whatever be brought to an end. Greatly moved by this, we said: What then? Shall the labour of fastings, the diligence of reading, the works of mercy, justice, piety and kindness be taken away from us and not remain with their authors—especially since the Lord Himself promises the recompense of the kingdom of heaven for these very works, saying: 'Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink' (Matt 25:34-35), and the rest?
How then shall these things be taken away, which bring their doers into the kingdom of heaven? MOSES: Neither did I say that the reward of a good work is to be taken away, since the same Lord says: 'Whoever gives to one of these least ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward' (Matt 10:42); but I say that the activity is to be taken away, which either bodily necessity, or the assault of the flesh, or the inequality of this world requires to be administered. For the diligence of reading and the affliction of fasting are usefully practised for the cleansing of the heart and the chastening of the flesh only in the present life, so long as the flesh lusts against the spirit.
These things we sometimes see taken away even in the present life from those who are worn out by excessive labour, or by bodily sickness, or by old age, so that they cannot be perpetually practised by a person. How much more, then, shall these cease in the future, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this body which is now animal shall have risen spiritual, and the flesh shall have begun to be no longer such as to lust against the spirit! Concerning which the blessed Apostle also clearly declares, saying: 'Bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but piety' (which is doubtless understood as love) 'is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come' (1 Tim 4:8).
That which is said to be 'profitable for a little,' therefore, is clearly declared neither to be exercised for all time, nor by itself alone to be able to confer on the labourer the sum of perfection. Indeed, 'a little' can be referred to both—that is, either to the brevity of time, since bodily exercise cannot be co-eternal with a person both in the present and in the future, or certainly to the smallness of the profit that is gained from carnal exercise, in that bodily affliction produces certain beginnings of progress, not that very perfection of love, which has the promise of the present life and of that to come. And therefore we reckon the exercises of the aforesaid things to be necessary, because without them one cannot ascend to the summit of love.
These works of piety and mercy also, of which you speak, are necessary in this present time, while as yet an unequal diversity prevails; nor would their exercise even here be looked for, unless the greater part of the poor, the needy and the weak abounded—a state which has come about through the iniquity of men, namely of those who have kept the things granted to all by the common Creator seized for their own use alone, and yet without even using them. So long, therefore, as this inequality rages in this world, this activity will be necessary and useful to him who practises it, restoring indeed to good disposition and pious will the recompense of an eternal inheritance;