Institutes & Conferences 1 part 34/44

So greatly indeed has this hylikē ktēsis—that is, the possession of material things—increased, that they have even begun to keep in their cells a cloak (which I cannot relate without shame), under the pretext of humanity and of receiving this anchorite; to say nothing of those things by which the soul, astonished and ever intent upon spiritual contemplations, is more especially weighed down—namely, the concourse of brethren, the duties too of receiving and escorting guests, mutual visits, and the interminable care of diverse conversations and occupations, by which, even at that time when these hindrances seem to cease, nevertheless the very expectation of them distends the mind, kept in suspense by the constant persistence of habitual disquiet.

And so it comes to pass that the liberty of the anchoritic life, hampered by bonds of this kind, never at all ascends to that ineffable eagerness of heart, and loses the fruit of the eremitic calling. Yet if this be denied to me now, set as I am within a community and amid crowds, at least there will not be lacking the repose of soul and the tranquillity of heart that is freed from all occupations. But unless this too be at hand even for those who dwell in solitude, they will indeed endure the labours of the anchoritic life, while being cheated of its very fruit, which is won only by the quiet steadfastness of the mind.

Lastly, even if, established in a monastery, something be diminished in me of that purity of heart, I shall be content with the recompense of the sole evangelical precept, which surely cannot be ranked below all those fruits of the desert: namely, that I take no thought for the morrow, and, subject to the abbot even to the end, seem in some measure to imitate Him of whom it is said: 'He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death'; and that I may deserve humbly to say in His words: 'For I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me, the Father.' GERMANUS:

Since it is manifest that you have not, like many, merely touched upon the beginnings of both callings, but have climbed their very summits, we desire to learn what is the goal of the coenobite and what the goal of the hermit. For no one can doubt that no one is able to discourse of these things more faithfully or more fully than he who, having attained both perfections by long practice and by the teaching of experience, can convey their worth and their goal by a truthful doctrine. JOHN: I could have flatly declared that one and the same man cannot be perfect in both callings, were I not held back by the example of a very few. For it is a great thing to find anyone made perfect in either of them:

how much more evidently is it arduous—and I would almost say impossible for man—to bring both to full perfection. Yet if this should ever come to pass, it cannot at once be reduced to a general rule. For a universal rule is to be laid down, not from the smallest part, that is, from the consideration of a few, but from those things that lie within the capacity of the many, indeed of all. But whatever things are obtained most rarely and by the very fewest, and exceed the possibility of common virtue, being as it were granted above the condition and nature of human frailty, are to be set apart from the general precepts and to be brought forward not so much as an example as a miracle. Wherefore I will briefly explain what you inquire according to the mediocrity of my understanding.

The goal of the coenobite is to mortify and crucify all his own wishes, and, according to the saving command of evangelical perfection, to take no thought for the morrow. That this perfection can be fulfilled by none save the coenobite is most certain. Describing such a man, the prophet Isaiah thus blesses and commends him: 'If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy will on My holy day, and shalt glorify Him while thou doest not thine own ways, and thy will is not found so that thou shouldst speak a word: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will lift thee up above the height of the earth, and will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'

But the perfection of the hermit is to have the mind stripped of all earthly things, and, so far as human weakness allows, thus to unite it with Christ. Describing such a man, the prophet Jeremiah says: 'Blessed is the man that hath borne the yoke from his youth; he shall sit solitary and hold his peace, because he hath taken it up upon himself.' The Psalmist likewise: 'I am become like a pelican of the wilderness. I have watched, and am become as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.' Unless, therefore, each of these attains to this goal, which we have said belongs to each calling, in vain does the one seek the discipline of the coenobium and the other that of the anchoritic life: for neither has fulfilled the virtue of his calling.

But this is a partial perfection—μερική, that is, not an entire perfection consummated in all things, but a part of perfection. Perfection, therefore, is rare, and granted by the gift of God to the very fewest. For he is truly and not in part perfect who both in the desert sustains the squalor of solitude and in the coenobium sustains the weakness of the brethren with equal magnanimity. And therefore it is difficult to find one consummated in every respect in both callings, since neither can the anchorite attain in full to ἀκτημοσύνη, that is, the contempt and privation of material things, nor the coenobite to theoretical purity; although we have known abbots Moses and Paphnutius and the two Macarii to have possessed both perfectly.

And thus they were perfect in both callings; and although, withdrawing beyond all the dwellers of the desert, they fed insatiably on the secrecy of solitude, and, so far as in them lay, in no way sought human companionship, yet they so bore the frequent visits and frailties of those who flocked to them, that when an innumerable multitude of brethren streamed together to them for the sake of visitation or of profit, enduring with unmoved patience the almost continual disquiet of receiving them, they were believed throughout all the time of their life to have learned or practised nothing else than only to serve the common offices of those who came, so that among all it was a matter of doubt

in which calling their diligence was the greater—that is, whether in that eremitic purity or in this common way of life their magnanimity was more wondrously fitted. But some are wont to be so made savage by the long silence of solitude that they utterly shudder at human companionship, and when they have departed even a little from their accustomed seclusion through the intervening visit of brethren, they seethe with notable anguish of mind and evident signs of faintheartedness. This is wont to happen especially to those who, not perfectly trained in the coenobia, and with their former vices not burned out, have transferred themselves to the solitary life with an immature desire:

who, imperfect in both respects, are always frail, and are swayed in whatever direction the breeze of agitation drives them. For just as they impatiently seethe at the companionship or interruption of the brethren, so, dwelling in solitude, they cannot bear the vastness of that very silence which they seek; since they do not even know the reason for which solitude ought to be desired or sought, but think that this itself is the virtue and the very sum of this calling: that, shunning the companionship of the brethren, they merely flee and detest the sight of men. GERMANUS:

By what remedy, then, can help be given to us, or to the others who are of the same frailty and measure, who, slenderly trained in the coenobitic disciplines, have begun to aspire to the dwelling of solitude before the expulsion of all our vices; or in what way shall we be able to lay hold of the constancy of an untroubled mind and the immovable firmness of patience—we who, out of season, having abandoned the assembly of the coenobium, have in a manner forsaken the very schools and the training-ground of this exercise, in which our beginnings ought to have been fully instructed and perfected?

How, then, dwelling now as solitaries, shall we attain the perfection of longsuffering and patience; or in what way shall the conscience, that explorer of inward motions, detect whether these virtues are present in us or lacking—lest perhaps, because, being separated from the companionship of men, we are provoked by no irritations from them, we, deceived by a false estimation, believe that we possess an immovable tranquillity of mind? JOHN:

For those who in truth seek healing, remedies of cure cannot be lacking from that most truthful Physician of souls—especially for those who have not despised their maladies by despairing or neglecting them, nor concealed the perils of their wounds, nor spurned with a defiant mind the medicine of repentance, but for languors contracted through ignorance or error or necessity have taken refuge with a humble yet wary mind in the heavenly Physician. And therefore we ought to know that if we withdraw to solitude or to hidden places with our vices not yet cured, only the effect of them is repressed, but the disposition is not extinguished.

For there lurks within us—nay, even creeps—the root of all sins that has not been uprooted; and we detect that it still lives in us by these signs. For example: if, established in solitude, we receive the arrival of brethren or even their very brief stay with a certain anxiety of a seething mind, we may know that there is still within us the tinder of a most lively impatience. But when we hope for the arrival of some brother, if, when he perhaps tarries a little through some necessity, either a silent indignation of mind blames his slowness and the anxiety of unseasonable expectation troubles our mind, the examination of our conscience will prove that the manifest vices of anger and sadness remain in us.

Likewise, if, when a brother asks for a book to read or any other thing to use, either his request grieves us or our refusal repels him, there is no doubt that we are still fettered by the snares of avarice or covetousness. But if a sudden thought, or the course of some sacred reading, brings to us the recollection of a woman, and we feel ourselves struck therein by a certain titillation, let us know that the ardour of fornication is not yet extinguished in our members. And if, from a comparison of our own strictness and another's laxity, even the slightest elation tempts our mind, it is certain that we are corrupted by the dire plague of pride.

When, therefore, we have detected these signs of vices in our heart, let us plainly recognize that it is not the disposition, but the effect, of sin that is lacking in us. And these passions, if at any time we mingle with human society, straightway coming forth from the caverns of our senses, prove that they were not then first born when they burst forth, but were then at last made public because they had long lain hidden. And thus even the solitary will detect by sure signs that the roots of every vice are fixed within him—whoever strives not to display his purity to men, but to exhibit it inviolate to the gaze of Him from whom none of the heart's secrets can lie hidden. GERMANUS:

The arguments by which the signs of infirmities are gathered, and the method of discerning maladies—that is, how the vices that are concealed in us may be detected—we have perceived clearly enough and plainly enough; for all these things we behold, just as they have been described, by daily experience and by the daily motions of our thoughts. It remains, therefore, that just as the proofs and causes of the diseases have been laid open to us by a most evident method, so also the medicine of the cures may be shown. For no one can doubt that he can most rightly discourse on the remedy of evil maladies, who has first detected their causes and origins, with the conscience of the sick bearing witness.

And so, although the teaching of your blessedness has laid bare the secrets of our wounds—whence it comes that we dare to hope something concerning the remedies, because so evident a declaration of the disease promises hope of a cure—yet, because, as you say, the beginning of salvation is first acquired in communities, and men cannot be sound in solitude save those whom the medicine of the coenobia has first healed, we fall again into a pernicious despair, lest perhaps we who, imperfect, left the coenobium, may now by no means be able to be perfect in the desert. JOHN: To those anxious about the cure of their maladies the saving remedy cannot be lacking; and therefore, in the same way in which the signs of each vice are detected, its remedies also are to be sought.

For just as we have said that the vices of human intercourse are not lacking to solitaries, so we do not deny that the pursuits of virtue and the instruments of healing are available to all who are separated from human intercourse.

When, therefore, anyone has detected that he is being incited by the perturbations of impatience or of anger by those signs which we have shown above, let him always exercise himself with contrary objections; and, setting before himself manifold kinds of injuries and losses, as though inflicted upon him by another, let him accustom his mind to submit with perfect humility to all that wickedness can bring to bear; and, frequently setting before himself all things harsh and intolerable, let him continually meditate, with all contrition of heart, with how great gentleness he ought to meet them:

and thus, looking to the sufferings of all the saints, or of the Lord Himself, pronouncing every kind not only of reproaches but even of punishments to be inferior to his own deserts, he will prepare himself for all endurance of pains. And when at any time he is recalled to the gatherings of the brethren by some invitation—which cannot fail to happen, even if but rarely, even to the strictest dwellers of the desert—if he has detected that his mind has been silently stirred even over any trivial matters, let him, as a most severe censor of his hidden motions, straightway reproach himself with those hardest kinds of injuries by which he was exercising himself in daily meditations unto perfect endurance, and thus, chiding and rebuking himself, let him address himself:

Are you that good man who, while you exercised yourself in that training-ground of your solitude, most steadfastly presumed that you would overcome all evils—you who, a while ago, when you set before yourself not only the greatest bitternesses of reproaches, but even intolerable torments, believed yourself strong enough and immovable against all storms? How has that invincible patience of yours been confounded by the mere prelude of a most trifling word? How has a light breeze shaken your house, built, as it seemed to you, upon that most solid rock with so great a mass? Where is that which, with vain confidence desiring war in time of peace, you used to proclaim: 'I am ready, and am not troubled'; and, often saying with the prophet: 'Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart'; and:

'Prove me, O Lord, and know my heart; examine me, and know my paths; and see if there be any way of iniquity in me.' How did the faint shadow of the enemy terrify the vast array of your combat? Condemning himself, therefore, with such rebuke of compunction, let him not suffer the intrusion of his agitation to go unpunished; but, chastising his flesh with a sharper correction of fasting and vigils, and torturing the fault of his instability with the continual penalties of continence, let him consume in solitude, by this fire of exercise, that which he ought to have burned out to the full in the life of the coenobium.

This assuredly is to be held constantly and immovably for the obtaining of continual and stable patience: that it is not lawful for us—to whom by the divine law not only the avenging of injuries, but even the remembrance of them, is forbidden—to be moved to wrath under pretext of any loss or provocation whatsoever. For what heavier loss can befall the soul than that, through the sudden blindness of agitation, deprived of the brightness of the true and eternal light, it should depart from the contemplation of Him who is meek and lowly of heart? What, I ask, is more pernicious or more disgraceful than that a man should lose the judgment and rule of honour and the discipline of right discretion, and, sound and sober, should perpetrate those things which not even one drunken and out of his senses would have committed pardonably?

Whoever, therefore, shall weigh these and other like losses, will despise with easy endurance not only every kind of loss, but also whatever injuries and punishments can be inflicted by the most cruel men, judging nothing more costly than wrath, nor anything more precious than tranquillity of mind and the perpetual purity of his own heart—for the sake of which not only carnal advantages, but even those which seem spiritual, are to be scorned, if they cannot otherwise be acquired or accomplished save with the disturbance of this tranquillity. GERMANUS:

Just as, for the other wounds—that is, of anger, sadness, impatience—the medicine has been shown through the setting-forth of contrary things, so we would fain be taught what kind of cure we ought to apply also against the spirit of fornication: that is, whether the fire of concupiscence can be extinguished, as in that case, by setting before oneself greater incitements of provocations—which we believe to be quite contrary to chastity, if not only the incentives of lust be heaped up in us, but even be touched by a passing glance of the mind. JOHN:

Your shrewd question has forestalled a matter which, even had we been silent, would have followed our discourse; and therefore I do not doubt that it is to be effectively grasped by your understanding, since indeed the keenness of your genius has outrun our instruction. For without any labour the obscurity of any question is made clear, when the inquiry, anticipating its solution, goes before whither it is to be led. And so, for the remedies of those vices which we have mentioned above, human companionship not only in no way hinders, but even greatly contributes. For the more frequently a man's impatience, laid bare by frequent occasions, has brought upon those who overcome it a continual pain of compunction, so much the swifter is the healing it confers upon the labouring.

On account of which, even when we are dwelling in solitude, since the tinder and matter of provocations cannot arise from men, we ought nevertheless of set purpose to call up the incitements of these same things, so that, as we fight against them by continual conflict of thoughts, a readier remedy may be conferred upon us. But against the spirit of fornication the reasoning is different and the case is unlike. For just as the use of lust and the proximity of the flesh, so also the very memory of it, must be utterly withdrawn from the mind.

For it is quite pernicious for hearts still infirm and sick to admit even the slightest recollection of this passion; so that sometimes even under the recollection of holy women, or under the history of sacred reading, the goad of hurtful titillation is stirred up in them. For which cause our elders are wont most prudently to pass over readings of this kind in the presence of the younger. But to the perfect, and to those already consummated in the disposition of chastity, there cannot be lacking proofs by which they may test themselves, whereby their perfect integrity of heart may be approved by the uncorrupt judgment of their conscience.

There will therefore be, for the consummated man alone, a proof also over this passion: that he who has recognized that he has utterly uprooted the roots of this malady may, for the sake of testing his chastity, conceive some image with an enticing mind. But by those who are still infirm, this examination ought by no means to be attempted (for it will be more pernicious than useful to them)—namely, that they should in some way handle in their heart the union with a woman and a certain soft and most delicate caressing.

When, therefore, anyone, grounded in perfect virtue, upon the enticement of the most alluring touches which he has fashioned in imagination, has detected in himself no assent of mind, no stirring of the flesh aroused, he will receive most certain documents of his purity; so that, exercising himself unto this firmness of purity, he may possess the good of chastity and incorruption not only in mind, but so that, even if any necessity should bring the bodily touch of a woman, he may abhor it. When abbot John perceived that the refection of the ninth hour was drawing near, he brought his conference to a close with this ending. ON THE END OF PENITENCE AND THE SIGN OF SATISFACTION. CHAPTERS. On the humility of abbot Pinufius and his hiding-place. On our coming to him.

A question on the end of penitence and the sign of satisfaction. A reply on the humility of our question. On the manner of penitence and the proof of pardon. A question whether sins are to be recalled for the compunction of the heart. A reply, how far the recollection of former deeds is to be kept. On the diverse fruits of penitence. That forgetfulness of sin is useful to the perfect. That the recollection of disgraceful deeds is to be avoided. On the sign of satisfaction and the abolition of past crimes. In what penitence is to be practised for a time, and in what it can have no end.

Being about to relate the precepts of the illustrious and singular man, abbot Pinufius, concerning the end of penitence, I seem to myself to cut off a great part of my material, if, consulting the reader's weariness, I here pass over in silence the praise of his humility, which in the fourth book of the Institutes—that which is entitled 'On the training of those who renounce the world'—I touched upon in a brief discourse; especially since many, not having knowledge of that little work, may fall upon this reading, and the whole authority of the words would totter, if the merit of the speaker were withdrawn.

For this man, when—not far from Panephysis, a city of Egypt, as was there said—he presided as abbot and presbyter over a great coenobium, and all that province had so exalted him with the glory of his virtues and his signs that he now seemed to himself to have received the reward of his labours in the recompense of human praise, fearing lest the emptiness of popular favour, especially odious to him, should void the fruit of the eternal reward, secretly fleeing his monastery, made his way to the innermost recesses of the monks of Tabennae; where he chose to be subjected—not to the solitude of the desert, nor to the security of the solitary life, which even the imperfect, unable to bear the labour of obedience in the coenobia, sometimes affect with proud presumption—but to a most crowded coenobium; where, however, lest he should be betrayed by any indication of his rank, clad in a secular garment, weeping for many days, as is the custom there, he kept watch before the gates, and, prostrate at the knees of all, after the long disdain of those who—saying that in his extreme old age, driven as it were by want of bread, he had not sincerely sought the holiness of that profession—were testing his desire, at last obtained to be received.

There, being assigned as a helper to a certain young brother who had undertaken to cultivate the garden, he not only fulfilled with the admiration of so holy a humility all that the same superior might command, or that the care of the enjoined work required, but even performed certain necessary tasks which, on account of their loathsomeness, were shunned by the rest, accomplishing them by stealthy labour through the night, so that when dawn came, all that community, marvelling at works so useful, was ignorant of their author; and when he had thus spent nearly three years there, rejoicing in the longed-for labours of so injurious a subjection, it happened that a certain brother known to him arrived from those parts of Egypt whence he himself had departed.

When this man, long hesitating, restrained the ease of a most ready recognition on account of the meanness of his clothing and office, after a most manifest scrutiny, prostrate at his knees, he first struck astonishment into all the brethren, and then, his name being disclosed—which even among them the fame of his eminent sanctity had made known—he also struck a pang of compunction, namely that they had assigned a man of such merit and priesthood to such injurious tasks.

But after, weeping copiously and imputing the ruin of his betrayal as it were to the grievous envy of the devil, he was led back to his own monastery amid the honourable escort of the brethren, having tarried there a short time, he was again offended by the very homages of his honour and primacy, and, secretly boarding a ship, crossed over to the province of Palestine in Syria; where, received as though a beginner and novice into that monastery's lodging in which we were dwelling, he was directed by the abbot to lodge in our cell. But not even there could his virtues and merits long lie hidden. For, detected by a like betrayal, he was recalled to his own monastery with great honour and praise.

When, therefore, after no long time, the desire of holy instruction had compelled us also to seek Egypt, seeking him out with the utmost affection and desire, we were received by him with such grace and kindliness that he honoured us with the hospitality of his own cell—which he had built in the furthest part of his garden—as though we were his former fellow-cell-dwellers.

When there he had, in the presence of all the brethren in the synaxis, delivered precepts, exceedingly lofty and sublime, to a certain brother entering upon the rule of the monastery—which precepts, as we have said, I have embraced with as much brevity as I could in the fourth book of the Institutes—the summits of true renunciation seemed to us so incomprehensible, so marvellous, that we could in no way believe our lowliness able to climb thither. And so, cast down by despair, and not concealing even in our very countenance the inward bitterness of our thoughts, we hastened with a very anxious mind to the blessed old man; and to him, straightway inquiring the cause of so great sadness, abbot Germanus, groaning heavily, thus replied.