For it is better, without the member of one precept — that is, its working or fruit — to remain sound and firm in the rest, and to enter as it were maimed into the kingdom of heaven, than, with the soundness of the commandment, to fall into some scandal, which, by a pernicious habit separating us from the rule of strictness and from the discipline of the purpose we have undertaken, leads us into such loss that, in no way compensating the future damage, it causes all our past fruits and the whole body of our labor to be burned up in the fires of Gehenna. Concerning these kinds of illusions it is elegantly expressed also in the Proverbs: 'There are ways which seem right to a man, but their end leads down into the depth of hell'; and again:
'The malignant one harms when he mingles himself with the just' — that is, the devil deceives when he is covered over with the color of holiness. 'But he hates the sound of protection' — that is, the force of discernment, which proceeds from the words and admonition of the elders. In which we know that abbot John, who dwells at Lycus, was of late deluded. For when, with his body exhausted and spent, he had put off the taking of food by a two-day fast, and the next day, as he was coming to his refreshment, the devil came in the figure of a stinking Ethiopian and, groveling at his knees, said: 'Pardon me, for it is I who imposed this labor upon you.'
And so that man, so great and perfect in the method of discernment, understood that under the color of a continence unfittingly exercised he had for this reason been circumvented by the craft of the devil and drawn out by such a fast, so as to add to his wearied body a needless weariness — nay, one that would even harm his spirit — being deluded, that is, by counterfeit coinage, while in it he venerated the image of the true king but scrutinized too little whether it was lawfully stamped.
But the last observance of this approved money-changer — which we said pertains to the inquiry of weight — will be fulfilled in this manner: if whatever our thought suggests is to be done, we re-examine it with all scruple and, placing it in the balance of our breast, weigh it with the most just equipoise, whether it be full of common honesty, whether it be weighty with the fear of God, whether it be sound in sense, whether it be light through human ostentation or through some presumption of novelty, whether the glory of empty vainglory has not diminished or gnawed away the weight of its merit.
And thus, forthwith weighing them at the public examination — that is, comparing them with the acts and testimonies of the prophets and apostles — either let us hold them as whole and perfect and matching those, or let us reject them with all caution and diligence as imperfect and harmful and not consonant with the weight of those.
This discernment, then, will be necessary for us in that fourfold manner we have described: first, that the material of the true or counterfeited gold be not hidden from us; secondly, that we reject those very thoughts which counterfeit works of piety as adulterine and false coins, inasmuch as they contain a false image of the king, not lawfully stamped; or that we may likewise be able, by discerning, to reject those which, in the most precious gold of the Scriptures, present by a corrupt and heretical sense the countenance not of the true king but of a tyrant; or those whose weight and value the rust of vanity, gnawing away, does not allow to be equaled to the scale of the elders, so that we may refuse the light and harmful coins that weigh too little; lest, falling into that which by the Lord's precept we are warned to observe with all our strength, we be defrauded of all the merits and wages of our labors:
'Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves dig through and steal.' For whatever we do out of regard for human glory, we shall know that we are laying up treasure on earth, according to the sentence of the Lord; and consequently that treasure, as though hidden in the ground and buried in the earth, is to be plundered by various demons, or consumed by the devouring rust of vainglory, or so devoured by the moths of pride, that it looks to no advantage or profit of him who lays it up.
All the recesses of our heart, therefore, are continually to be searched out, and the traces of those things that ascend into them are to be examined with the most sagacious investigation, lest perchance some intellectual beast — whether a lion or a dragon — passing through, should secretly imprint pernicious footprints there, by which access may be afforded also to the rest into the sanctuaries of our breast through the negligence of our thoughts. And so, furrowing the ground of our heart through each hour and moment with the evangelical plow — that is, with the continual remembrance of the Lord's cross — we shall be able to exterminate either the lairs of harmful beasts within us or the hiding-places of venomous serpents.
Beholding us stupefied at these things and kindled with an insatiable ardor at the words of his narration, the old man, out of admiration for our desire, having suspended his discourse for a little while, added again: Since your diligence, O sons, has provoked us to so long a disputation, and a certain fire supplies to our conference more fervent perceptions in answer to your desire — so that from this very thing I plainly perceive that you truly thirst for the doctrine of perfection — I wish to discourse to you a little further upon the excellence and grace of discernment, which among all virtues holds the citadel and the primacy, and to prove its excellence and usefulness not only by daily examples but also by the ancient consultations and sentences of the fathers.
For I frequently remember that, when not a few besought a discourse of this kind from me with groaning and tears, I too, though desiring to confer upon them some doctrine, was in no way able, and that so my sense, and even my very eloquence, so failed me, that I could not find how I might dismiss them even with a slight consolation. By which indications it is evidently recognized that the grace of the Lord inspires the discourse to those disputing according to the merit and desire of the hearers. And since this shortest remaining space of the night does not suffice to complete it, let us rather grant it to bodily rest — to which the whole must needs be paid, if that which is little be denied — and reserve the full order of the narration for the entire examination of a future day or night.
For it befits the best counselors of discernment first to lay bare in this the industry of their mind, and to prove by this sign and by patience whether they are, or can be, capable of it; so that, treating of that virtue which is the mother of moderation, they may by no means fall into the vice which is contrary to it — that of excess — violating in effect and in deed the force of the reason and nature of that which they extol in words. In this, then, let the good of discernment — concerning which, as much as the Lord shall grant, we still purpose to inquire — first profit us, that, discoursing of its own excellence and moderation, which is recognized to be the first virtue inherent in it, it may not permit us to exceed the measure also of our disputation or of the time.
And so, the blessed Moses, giving an end to our conference while we were still eager and hanging upon his lips, exhorted us to taste sleep for a little while, admonishing us to lie down upon those very rush-mats on which we were sitting, with bolsters likewise placed under our head in the stead of pillows: which, made of coarser papyrus pressed into long and slender bundles and bound together at intervals of a foot and a half, now indeed afford the brothers sitting in the assembly a most lowly seat in the place of a stool, and now, placed under the necks of sleepers, offer to the head a support not too hard, but pliant, fitting, and suitable.
For which uses of the monks these are held especially opportune and suitable, because they are not only somewhat soft and are prepared at little labor and cost — inasmuch as papyrus emerges everywhere along the banks of the river Nile — but also because they are of a handy material and a light nature, for removing, or, when it is necessary, for bringing near. And so, at the command of the old man, we at length composed ourselves for the tasting of sleep in a burdensome quiet, as much inflamed with joy at the conference now digested as held in suspense by the expectation of the promised disputation. Preface of abbot Moses upon the grace of discernment. What discernment alone confers upon the monk, and the disputation of the blessed Anthony upon this.
Of the error of Saul and Ahab, by which through the lack of discernment they were deceived. What things concerning the good of discernment are related in the Holy Scriptures. Of the death of the old man Heron. Of the ruin of two brothers on account of the lack of discernment. Of the illusion of another, which he incurred through the lack of discernment. Of the fall and deception of the monk of Mesopotamia. A question concerning the acquiring of true discernment. A response, in what manner true discernment is possessed. The words of abbot Serapion, and concerning the withering of thoughts laid open, and concerning the peril of one's own self-confidence. A confession of the bashfulness on account of which we would be confounded to reveal our thoughts to the elders. A response concerning the shame that is to be trampled underfoot, and concerning the peril of one who does not have compassion. Of the calling of Samuel.
Of the calling of the apostle Paul. Of discernment to be sought after. Of immoderate fasts and vigils. A question concerning the measure of continence or of refreshment. Of the best manner of daily food. An objection concerning the ease of continence, which might be sustained upon two small loaves. A response concerning the virtue and measure of tested continence. What the general measure of continence and refreshment may be. In what manner the abundance of genital humors is chastised. Of the labor of an equal refreshment, and of the voracity of brother Benjamin. A question, how one and the same measure can always be observed. A response concerning not exceeding the measure of refreshment.
And so, having tasted a little morning sleep, when at last, rejoicing that the dawn had broken for us, we began to demand the promised discourse, the blessed Moses began thus: Since I see you so inflamed with the ardour of desire that not even the very smallest moment of rest — which, taking it away from the spiritual conference, I had preferred to assign to the refreshment of the flesh — has, I believe, availed for the repose of your body, upon me too, as I consider this fervour of yours, a greater care presses. For it is necessary that I too, in paying my debt, should exercise a devotion all the greater the more attentively I see you demanding it, according to that saying:
'If you sit down to dine at the table of a ruler, consider wisely what is set before you, and put forth your hand, knowing that you ought to prepare such things yourself.' Wherefore, being about to speak of the good of discretion and of its power — into which the discourse of last night's conference, having entered, brought our discussion to its close — we think it fitting first to mark out its excellence by the sayings of the Fathers, so that, when it has become clear what our elders felt and declared concerning it, then, having brought forward both the ancient and the recent ruins and falls of various men who, because they had less attained it, were cast down in a ruinous fall, we may, so far as we are able, review its benefits and advantages:
When these have been discussed, we may be more effectively instructed how we ought to seek after and cultivate it, considering the dignity of its merit and grace. For it is no ordinary virtue, nor one that can everywhere be grasped by human industry, unless it has been bestowed by divine bounty; since among the noblest gifts of the Holy Spirit we read that this too is thus numbered by the Apostle: 'To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healings in the one Spirit'; and after a few words: 'to another the discerning of spirits.' Then, having completed the whole catalogue of the spiritual charisms, he adds:
'But all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to every one according as He wills.' You see, therefore, that the gift of discretion is neither earthly nor small, but the greatest reward of divine grace. And unless a monk has pursued it with all earnestness and has possessed, by sure reasoning, the discernment of the spirits that rise up within him, he must needs, like one wandering in the blind night and in foul darkness, not only fall into ruinous pits and precipices, but even stumble frequently upon level and straight ways. I remember, therefore, that once, when I was still set in the years of boyhood, in the parts of the Thebaid where the blessed Antony dwelt, the elders came together to him for the sake of inquiring about perfection.
And when the conference had been prolonged from the evening hours until dawn, this question consumed the greatest part of the night. For it was very long inquired what virtue or observance could keep a monk always unharmed from the snares and deceptions of the devil, or surely bear him along by the right path and with firm step to the summit of perfection.
And when each one brought forth his opinion according to the capacity of his own mind — some placing it in the zeal for fasts and vigils, since by these the mind, made thin and having attained purity of heart and body, would more easily be united to God; others in the contempt of all things, of which if the mind were utterly stripped bare, it would come to God the more unencumbered, as though no snares any longer held it back; others judging anchorite withdrawal necessary, that is, retirement and the secret places of the desert, in which, dwelling, one might more familiarly address God and more particularly cleave to Him; and some defining that the offices of charity, that is, of kindness, were to be pursued, since the Lord in the Gospel promises the kingdoms of heaven to these as it were more especially, saying:
'Come, ye 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,' and so forth. And when they were deciding that a surer approach to God could lie open in this way through the various virtues, and the greatest part of the night had been consumed in this inquiry, at last the blessed Antony interposed: All these things which you have said are indeed necessary and useful to those who thirst for God and desire to attain to Him. But the innumerable falls and experiences of many by no means permit us to assign to these the chief grace.
For often we have seen men who most keenly devoted themselves to fasts and vigils, who marvellously excelled in solitude, who so pursued the deprivation of all their goods that they did not suffer even one day's provision or a single denarius to remain to themselves, and who fulfilled the offices of kindness with all devotion — we have seen them suddenly so deceived that they could not bring the work they had undertaken to a fitting conclusion, and closed their highest fervour and praiseworthy manner of life with a detestable end. Wherefore we shall be able clearly to recognize what chiefly leads to God, if the cause of their ruin and deception is more diligently searched out by us.
For in them, though the works of the aforesaid virtues abounded, discretion alone being lacking did not permit them to endure to the end. Nor is any other cause of their fall found, except that, being too little instructed by their elders, they were by no means able to obtain the reasoning of discretion, which, passing by both excesses, teaches the monk always to walk by the royal way, and neither permits him to be lifted up on the right hand of the virtues — that is, by an excess of fervour to transgress with foolish presumption the measure of just continence — nor allows him, softened by relaxation, to turn aside to the vices on the left, that is, under the pretext of governing the body, to grow slack with the opposite lukewarmness of spirit.
For this is that discretion which in the Gospel is called the eye and lamp of the body, according to that saying of the Saviour: 'The lamp of thy body is thine eye: if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be dark' — because, discerning all the thoughts and acts of a man, it sees through and surveys all things that are to be done:
And if it be evil in a man — that is, not fortified by true judgment and knowledge, or deceived by some error and presumption — it makes our whole body dark; that is, it renders all the keenness of our mind and our acts obscure, wrapped, namely, in the blindness of vices and the darkness of disturbances. 'For if,' he says, 'the light that is in thee be darkness, how great shall that darkness be!' For there is no doubt to anyone that, when the judgment of our heart errs and is possessed by the night of ignorance, our thoughts too and our works, which proceed from the deliberation of discretion, are entangled in a greater darkness of sins.
In fine, he who first by the judgment of God merited the kingdom of the people of Israel, because he by no means had this eye of discretion, was as it were dark in his whole body and was cast down even from the kingdom itself, when, deceived by the darkness and error of this lamp, he judged his own sacrifices more acceptable to God than obedience to the command of Samuel, and incurred the cause of offence from that very quarter from which he had hoped to render the divine majesty propitious to himself.
The ignorance, I say, of this discretion compelled Ahab, king of Israel, after that triumph of a most exalted victory which had been granted to him by God's favour, to believe that his own mercy was better than the most severe execution of the divine command and, as it seemed to him, of a cruel decree. Softened by this consideration, while he preferred to temper a bloody victory with clemency, on account of an indiscreet mercy he was, as it were, rendered dark in his whole body and condemned to an irrevocable death. This is that discretion which is called by the Apostle not only the lamp of the body but even the sun, according to that word: 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.' It is also called the governance of our life, according to that word:
'They that have no governance fall like leaves.' This is most rightly named counsel, without which by the authority of Scripture we are permitted to do nothing at all, so that we are not even suffered to take the spiritual wine itself, which gladdens the heart of man, without its moderation, according to that word: 'Do all things with counsel, drink wine with counsel'; and again: 'As a city broken down and without walls, so is a man who does anything without counsel.' How ruinous the lack of this is for a monk, the example and figure of this testimony declares, comparing him to a broken-down city without walls.
In this wisdom, in this understanding and sense it consists, without which neither can our inner house be built nor can spiritual riches be gathered, according to that word: 'By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is again set up; by knowledge the storerooms are filled with all precious and good riches.' This, I say, is that solid food which cannot be taken except only by the perfect and the strong, according to that word: 'But solid food is for the perfect, for those who by habit have their senses exercised to the discerning of good and evil.' And it is proved so useful and necessary to us that it is even fitted to the Word of God and His powers, according to that word:
'For the word of God is living and effectual and more penetrating than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.' By these things it is most clearly declared that no virtue can either be perfected or stand perfectly without the grace of discretion. And thus it was defined by the opinion both of the blessed Antony and of all, that discretion is that which with fixed step leads the fearless monk to God and continually preserves the aforesaid virtues unharmed; with which one can ascend to the lofty heights of consummation with less fatigue, and without which many, even labouring more strenuously, have not been able to attain the summit of perfection.
For discretion is the mother, the guardian, and the moderatrix of all the virtues. And that a recent example, as we promised, may also confirm this same definition of old promulgated by holy Antony and the other Fathers, recall that which lately happened, which you saw with the gaze of your own eyes: namely the old man Heron, cast down but a very few days ago by the illusion of the devil from the heights to the depths, whom we remember to have kept, for fifty years in this desert, the rigour of continence with singular strictness, and to have pursued the secret places of solitude with a wondrous fervour beyond all who dwell here. This man, therefore —
in what manner and by what reasoning, after such great labours, deluded by the ambusher and collapsing in a most grievous fall, did he strike all who are established in this desert with mournful grief? Was it not because, possessing too little of the virtue of discretion, he preferred to be ruled by his own determinations rather than to obey the counsels or conferences of the brethren and the institutions of the elders? For indeed he always practised the immutable continence of fasting with such rigour, and so continually pursued the secret places of solitude and of his cell, that not even the veneration of the Paschal day could ever obtain from him a sharing in entering upon a banquet with the brotherhood.
On which day, when all the brethren were kept in church for the anniversary solemnity, he alone could not join them, lest by even the least partaking of pulse and bread he should seem to have relaxed from his purpose. Deceived by this presumption, receiving an angel of Satan as though an angel of light with the highest veneration, and obeying his commands with prone servitude, he cast himself headlong into a well whose depth the gaze of the eyes cannot reach, not doubting, of course, the promise of his angel, who had assured him that on account of the merit of his virtues and labours he could by no means now be subject to any peril.
That he might most evidently prove the truth of this matter by the experiment of his own safety, deluded, he threw himself into the aforesaid well in the dead of night, intending, forsooth, to prove the great merit of his virtue when he should come out unharmed. And when he had been drawn out of it by the immense labour of the brethren, now almost lifeless, about to end his life on the third day, and — what is worse than all this — he remained so in the obstinacy of his deception that not even by the experiment of his own death could he be persuaded that he had been deluded by the cunning of the demons.
Wherefore, on account of the merits of such great labours and the number of years which he had endured in the desert, this could scarcely be obtained from those who compassionated his end, with the utmost pity and kindness, by the presbyter abbot Paphnutius: namely, that, not being reckoned among the self-slain, he should not be judged unworthy even of the memorial and oblation for the departed. What shall I say of those two brethren who, dwelling beyond that desert of the Thebaid where the blessed Antony once was, moved by an insufficiently cautious discretion, going through the extended vastness of the solitude, resolved to take no food whatsoever except what the Lord Himself should provide them.
And when the Mazices espied them from afar as they wandered through the deserts and were now failing from hunger (which nation is more monstrous and cruel than almost all savage peoples —
for it is not the desire of plunder, as with some peoples, but the mere ferocity of mind that goads them to the shedding of blood) — and when, contrary to the nature of their savagery, they had come to meet them with loaves of bread, one of them, discretion coming to his aid, received them with joy and thanksgiving as though offered to him by the Lord, reckoning that food was being ministered to him divinely, and that it was not done without God that those who ever delighted in human blood should bestow the substance of life on men now failing and wasting away; but the other, refusing the food as though offered to him by man, was consumed by the failure of starvation.
Although the beginnings of both descended from a reprehensible persuasion, yet the one, discretion coming to his aid, amended that which he had rashly and incautiously conceived; but the other, persevering in foolish presumption and utterly ignorant of discretion, brought upon himself the death which the Lord willed to avert, by no means believing that it was done by divine prompting that the fierce barbarians, forgetful of their own savagery, had offered them bread instead of swords. What, too, shall I relate of that man — whose name, because he still survives, we do not wish to mention — who, while for a long time he received a demon in the brightness of an angel, deceived often by its innumerable revelations, believed it to be a messenger of righteousness?
For besides these things, every night it even furnished light in his cell without the service of any lamp. At last he is commanded by the demon to offer to God his own son, who dwelt together with him in the monastery, that by this sacrifice, forsooth, he might be made equal to the merits of the patriarch Abraham. By whose persuasion he was so far seduced that he would have accomplished the parricide in deed, had not the boy, seeing him prepare the knife by sharpening it beyond custom, and seeking out the bonds by which he was arranging to bind him as though about to offer him for immolation, fled away, terrified by the presage of the crime to come.
It would be long to run through in narration the deception of that Mesopotamian monk also, who, holding in that province a continence imitable by very few — which for many years he had passed shut up alone in his cell — was at last so deluded by diabolical revelations and dreams that, after such great labours and virtues by which he had surpassed all the monks residing there, he was rolled, by a miserable fall, into Judaism and the circumcision of the flesh.
For when the devil, wishing to entice him by the habit of visions to a belief in the deception to come, had for a long time, as though a messenger of truth, revealed all the truest things, at last he showed the Christian people, together with the chiefs of our religion and faith — namely the apostles and martyrs — dark and foul and wasted with every leanness and deformed; and, on the contrary, the people of the Jews, with Moses, the patriarchs, and the prophets, exulting with the highest joy and glittering with a most splendid light — persuading him that, if he preferred to become a partaker of their merit and blessedness, he should hasten to receive circumcision also.