Institutes & Conferences 1 part 38/44

to compel them by the necessity of the legal tithes—a thing which may indeed profit the weak, but cannot prejudice the perfect, who, being set under the grace of the Gospel, transcend the law by a voluntary devotion, that they may be able to attain to that beatitude of the apostolic saying: 'For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.' For truly sin cannot exercise dominion over him who abides faithfully under the liberty of grace. GERMANUS: Since this saying of the apostle cannot be deceptive, which promises security not only to monks but generally to all Christians, it seems to us exceedingly obscure.

For when he declares that all who believe the Gospel are free and estranged from the yoke and dominion of sin, how is it that in almost all the baptized the dominion of sins prevails, according to that saying of the Lord in which He says: 'Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin'? THEONAS: Your inquiry again stirs up for us an excessive question. Though I know that its force can neither be transmitted to nor grasped by the inexperienced, yet, as far as I am able, I shall attempt to resolve it in words and briefly to unfold it—provided only that your understanding follows what we say also in deeds.

For whatever things are known not through teaching but through experience, just as they cannot be transmitted by the inexperienced, so neither can they be conceived in the mind or held by one who has not been grounded by a like zeal and discipline. And therefore I think it necessary that we first inquire more diligently what is the purpose or intent of the law, and what is the discipline and perfection of grace, so that consequently from these we may be able to recognize either the dominion of sin or its expulsion. And so the law principally commands that the union of marriage be sought, saying: 'Blessed is he that hath seed in Zion and a household in Jerusalem,' and: 'Cursed is the barren woman that hath not borne.'

On the contrary, grace invites us to the purity of perpetual incorruption and to the chastity of blessed virginity, saying: 'Blessed are the barren, and the breasts that have not given suck,' and: 'He that hateth not father and mother and wife cannot be my disciple,' and that word of the apostle: 'It remaineth that they also who have wives be as though they had none.' The law says: 'Thou shalt not delay to offer thy tithes and thy firstfruits'; grace: 'If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor.' The law does not forbid the requital of revilings and injuries, saying: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'

Grace, by the doubling of the injuries or the blows that have been inflicted, wills our patience to be proved, and commands us to be prepared to endure a twofold loss, saying: 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, offer to him the other also. And to him who would contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, yield to him thy cloak also.' The law bids enemies be held in hatred; grace decrees that they be so loved that one should ever judge it right to make supplication to God even on their behalf.

Whosoever, therefore, shall have ascended this summit of evangelical perfection, he assuredly, exalted above all law by the merits of such great virtues, and despising as trivial all the precepts that were given through Moses, knows himself to be only under the grace of the Saviour, by whose help he understands himself to have attained to that most sublime state.

Sin, therefore, does not have dominion in him, because the love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us shuts out every affection for any other thing, and cannot either desire what is forbidden or despise what is commanded; for his whole zeal and whole longing, being ever intent upon the divine love, is so far from being captivated by delight in vile things that he does not even make use of those things which are permitted.

But under the law, in which the rights of marriage are preserved, although the wandering of lust, being restrained, is bound to one woman only, yet the goads of carnal concupiscence can by no means fail to be active; and it is difficult that a fire, to which fuel is even zealously supplied, should be so enclosed within fixed bounds that it does not, straying beyond them, scorch whatever it touches. And even if that lawful object of his ever confronts him so that he is not allowed to burn outwardly, yet even while restrained it kindles, because the will itself is culpable, and the habit of intercourse is hurried away into the swiftest excesses of adulteries.

But those whom the grace of the Saviour has enflamed with a holy love of incorruption so consume all the thorns of carnal desires by the fire of the Lord's love that not even a warm ember of vices diminishes the refreshment of their integrity. The servants of the law, therefore, slide down from the use of lawful things to unlawful; the partakers of grace, while they despise lawful things, know nothing of unlawful ones. And just as sin lives in the lover of marriage, so also it lives in him who is content only to render his tithes and firstfruits. For it is necessary that he, while he delays or neglects, should sin either in the quality of these, or in the quantity, or in the daily distribution.

For he who is bidden to minister untiringly to the needy those things which are his own—however great the faith and devotion with which he dispenses them—still can hardly avoid frequently running into the snares of sins. But in those who did not scorn the counsel of the Lord, but, bestowing all their substance upon the poor and taking up their cross, follow the Giver of grace, sin cannot have dominion.

For no anxious care for keeping the sustenance of an unbeliever will gnaw at him who is now dispensing wealth already consecrated to Christ and monies as though belonging to another by a pious distribution; nor will sad hesitation drive away the cheerfulness of his almsgiving, because what he has once offered whole to God, that he now scatters as another's, without any recollection of his own need or fear of scanty sustenance—being sure that when he shall have attained to the longed-for nakedness he shall be fed by God far more surely than the bird of heaven.

On the contrary, he who, retaining worldly substance, distributes either the tithes of his fruits and firstfruits, or a portion of his monies, constrained by the sanction of the ancient law—although he may in great measure quench the fire of his sins by this dew of almsgiving—yet, with however great magnanimity he dispenses his wealth, it is impossible for him to deliver himself fully from the dominion of sin, unless perchance, through the grace of the Saviour, together with the substance he also lays aside the very affection of possessing.

In like manner, whosoever prefers, by the precept of the law, to pluck out an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or to hold his enemy in hatred, cannot but be enslaved to the bloody rule of sin; because it is necessary that he, while he desires to avenge his injury by the retaliation of requital, and while he keeps the bitterness of hatred against his enemies, should ever be inflamed by the disturbance of fury and wrath.

But whosoever lives under the illumination of evangelical grace, overcoming evil not by resisting but by bearing, does not hesitate voluntarily to offer even the other cheek to him who smites his right cheek, and yields his cloak also to him who would stir up a lawsuit against him over his coat, and loves his enemies and prays for those who slander him—this man has thrust off the yoke of sin and burst its bonds. For he does not live under the law, which does not slay the seed-beds of sins (whence not undeservedly the blessed apostle says of it: 'There is a setting aside of the former commandment because of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof:

for the law made nothing perfect'; and the Lord says through the prophet: 'And I gave them precepts that were not good, and ordinances wherein they shall not live'); but under grace, which not only lops off the branches of wickedness, but utterly plucks up the very roots of the harmful will. Whosoever, therefore, has striven to hold the perfection of the evangelical teaching, this man, being set under grace, is not pressed down by the dominion of sin; for this is to be under grace: to fulfil the things that are commanded by grace. But whosoever will not be subject to the fullness of evangelical perfection, let him not be ignorant that he, although he seems to himself baptized and a monk, is not under grace, but is still hindered by the bonds of the law and weighed down by the burden of sin.

For it is the purpose of Him who takes up in the grace of adoption all by whom He is received, not to destroy but to build upon, not to make void but to fulfil the Mosaic sanctions. And some, being utterly ignorant of this and neglecting the magnificence of Christ's counsels and exhortations, are so loosed by the security of a presumptuous liberty that they not only do not attain to Christ's precepts as being too hard, but even despise as antiquated those very things which were enjoined upon them, as beginners and little ones, by the Mosaic law—saying, in that harmful liberty which the apostle execrates: 'We have sinned, because we are not under the law but under grace.'

He, therefore, who is neither under grace, because he has by no means ascended the summit of the Lord's teaching, nor under the law, because he has not even received those little precepts of the law, this man, oppressed by the twofold rule of sins, believes that he has received the grace of Christ for this alone: that through a harmful liberty he might be made estranged from Him—falling into that which the apostle Peter warns us not to run into: 'As free,' he says, 'act, and not as having your liberty for a cloak of malice.' The blessed apostle Paul also says: 'For ye, brethren, have been called unto liberty'—that is, that ye may be freed from the dominion of sin—'only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh'; that is, do not believe the frustration of the legal precepts to be a license for vices.

But that this liberty is nowhere save only there where the Lord abides, the apostle Paul teaches, saying: 'Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' Wherefore I do not know whether I have been able to express and elucidate this meaning of the blessed apostle as those who have experienced it perceive it: one thing I know most clearly, that it is disclosed even without anyone's exposition to all who have perfectly held the πρακτική, that is, the practical discipline. For they will not labor to understand by disputing what they have already learned by doing. GERMANUS: Thou hast most clearly revealed a most obscure question, and one, as we think, unknown to many.

Wherefore we beseech thee to add this also to our advancement: that thou wouldst diligently explain why sometimes, even when we fast quite intently and are exhausted and worn out, more violent battles of the body are stirred up. For very often, even when awakened from sleep, when we discover that we have suffered the defilement of a filthy discharge, we are so cast down in conscience that we do not dare even to rise confidently to prayer itself. THEONAS: Your zeal indeed, whereby you desire to attain the way of perfection not in passing but fully and completely, untiringly provokes us to cleave to this discussion.

For you inquire diligently not about outward chastity and manifest circumcision, but about that which is in secret, knowing that in this visible continence of the flesh there is not the fullness of perfection—which can be had even by unbelievers, whether through necessity or through hypocrisy—but in that voluntary and invisible purity of the heart, which the blessed apostle thus proclaims: 'For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God'—who alone, that is, searches out the secrets of hearts.

Yet because your desire cannot be fully satisfied (for the brief space of night that remains does not suffice for tracking out this most abstruse question), I think it fitting that it be for the meantime deferred. For these things must be gradually brought forth by us, and imparted to your minds, with the heart utterly freed from all the tumult of thoughts, since, just as they ought to be inquired into for the sake of the common purification, so they cannot be transmitted and assigned except by one who has experienced the gift of integrity. For it is not asked what the empty arguments of words, but what the inward faith of conscience and the greater force of truth may impress upon us.

And therefore concerning the knowledge and teaching of this cleansing, nothing can be brought forth save by one who is experienced, nor can anything be poured over save into one who is a most eager and very anxious lover of the truth itself, who desires to attain it not by inquiring with empty and bare words, but by striving with all the powers of his soul—that is, not by a zeal for unfruitful loquacity, but by a longing for inward purification. ON NOCTURNAL ILLUSIONS. CHAPTERS. Of our return again to abbot Theonas and his exhortation. A record of our question, why a greater assault of the flesh sometimes follows greater abstinence. That the discharge of the genital flux comes about for a threefold reason.

An inquiry, whether it is permitted to approach the most holy Communion for those defiled by a nocturnal illusion. A reply, as to when the passion of one sleeping incurs guilt. That this illusion sometimes happens even by the contrivance of the enemy. That no one should ever judge himself worthy of the Lord's Communion. An objection, that all would have to be deprived of the Lord's Communion, if no one is without sin. A reply, that although many may be holy, yet no one is without sin except Christ. That the Son of God alone conquered the tempter without any wound of sin. That Christ alone came in the likeness of sinful flesh. That the just and holy were all not in the likeness, but in the truth of sin.

That the sins of the saints are not so grievous as to take away from them the merit of holiness. How that saying of the apostle is to be understood: 'For the good that I would, I do not.' An objection, that the apostle is rather to be believed to have said this in the person of sinners. A postponement of the question that has been proposed.

After nearly seven days, when the solemnity of Pentecost was over, at the very beginning of the night—that is, after the evening assembly—we had entered the cell of holy Theonas, held in suspense by expectation of the promised discussion; and the sprightly old man, addressing us first with cheerful countenance and gentle speech, said: 'I was marveling that your most ardent zeal could put off for these seven days the resolution of the question proposed, and could grant so long a delay to its debtor, especially when he was not asking it. It is therefore most just that, since your kindness has of its own accord granted me so generous a respite, I too should make no delay in repaying the debt.'

For pleasing indeed is the occupation of this interest, which, while it is paid, gains greater increases, and not only enriches the receiver but also does not diminish the giver. For the dispenser of spiritual things gathers a double gain, since he obtains the highest profits not only in the advancement of him who hears, but also in his own discourse—kindling himself no less to the desire of perfection while he instructs the hearer. Wherefore your ardor is my advancement, your anxious care is my compunction. For indeed I myself would now be torpid in mind and would ponder nothing in my heart concerning the things you have sought, were it not that your ardor and expectation somehow roused me, sleeping, to the recollection of spiritual things.

And therefore let the question be brought into the midst, if it seems good, whose resolution we lately chose to postpone on account of the shortness of the time. For this, unless I am mistaken, your inquiry embraced: why sometimes, when we take our ease more relaxedly, we are tickled by the milder goads of this flesh, and sometimes, when we abstain more strictly, with body afflicted and worn out we are pressed by sharper incitements—so that, as your confession disclosed, when awakened we find ourselves besprinkled by a discharge of natural humors. Of this infestation, therefore, our elders have handed down a threefold cause, which breaks in with untimely excesses upon the measure of the appointed time.

For it is either heaped up by superfluous excess of food, or slips out through carelessness of mind, or is provoked by the snares of the mocking enemy. First, then, the vice of gastrimargia—that is, of gluttony or greed—thrusts out this overflow of the obscene humor. For even when it defiles the state of purity in a time of stricter abstinence, it is poured out not, as you suppose, from present fasting, but from the excess of past satiety. For what had been concreted in the marrow through the gullet of voracity must needs be discharged through itching, or certainly through ignorance, even from a body wasted by great fasting. Wherefore not only must one abstain from richer dishes, but even from cheaper foods one must be restrained with an equal continence:

nay, even satiety of bread and water itself is to be guarded against, so that the purity of body once acquired may long remain in us and in a manner imitate the undefiled chastity of the spirit—although we must confess that sometimes, even without any diligence of mind, whether through the temperament of bodies or through the maturity of age, certain persons are more rarely defiled, or certainly are not polluted by the discharge of this flux. But of one merit is he who attains peace by an inert happiness, of another he who earns the triumph by glorious virtues; for the power of this latter, the conqueror of all vices, is worthy of a miracle, while him whom the necessity of a good thing protects in his own sloth I would call worthier of pity than of praise.

The second cause of that impure flow is if the mind, being empty of spiritual studies and exercises and not instructed in the disciplines of the inner man, has drawn over itself, through the habit of continual torpor, a certain rust of sluggishness; or when, by not guarding against the trifles of filthy thoughts, it so sluggishly desires that most sublime purity of heart that it believes the whole sum of perfection and chastity to consist in the mere chastisement of the outer man. By the vice of this error and folly it will consequently come to pass that not only the manifold roving of thoughts breaks in shamelessly and boldly upon the secret places of the mind, but also the seeds of all former passions persist within it.

And these, as long as they lurk in its inmost recesses—although the body be chastised by rigid fasting—nevertheless no less disquiet the sleeper with alluring phantasms, by which, before the course of the lawful time, the obscene humors are drawn forth, now not from the necessity of nature but still from the deceit of wickedness; and these humors, if they cannot be wholly restrained, are, by the help of God's grace, brought at least to that simple quality of discharge, not so much by the emptying of the flesh as by the circumspection and virtue of the mind. And therefore, first of all, the wanderings of the senses must be checked, lest the mind, accustomed to these excesses, be dragged in dreams to the fouler incitements of lust.

The third cause is when, by an ordered and careful discipline of continence, with contrition of heart and body, we desire to acquire perpetual purity of chastity, but the envy of the most treacherous enemy assails us—who are excellently providing for the welfare of flesh and spirit—so that, while he strives to cast down the confidence of our conscience and to humble us as though by some guilt, on those days especially on which, by a greater merit of integrity, we desire to please the divine sight, he defiles us, indeed without any itching of the flesh or consent of the mind and not through the illusion of any phantasm, yet by a simple discharge of that flux, that he may frighten us away from the most holy Communion.

It is believed that in certain beginners, whose bodies have not yet been made thin by long chastisement of fasting, this illusion happens for this reason, by a diabolical contrivance: that, when he has learned that they are striving after more intense fasts, he may overthrow all their efforts by this artifice—so that, when they perceive that not only have they profited nothing toward the purity of the body by their stricter fasting, but even that they have been more grievously assailed, they may shudder at the strictness of abstinence, the mistress of incorruption and nurse of purity, as though it were their adversary.

Wherefore we ought to know that we must be purged from each and every vice not merely because it occupies our senses with its own disturbances, but because it is not content to rule alone, without the company of others, but, having brought in the more savage college of all the vices, it ravages the mind subject to it with a multiplied captivity. And therefore gastrimargia must be overcome not for its own sake only—lest, that is, it corrupt us with burdensome voracity—nor for this alone, lest it inflame us with the fire of carnal concupiscence, but lest it also make us the bondslaves of wrath or fury and sadness and of all the other passions.

For when food and drink are furnished to us either too scantily or too tardily or too carelessly, if we are pressed down by the dominion of the gullet, it follows that we are also incited by the goads of wrath. And again, we cannot be soothed by voluptuous flavors without the plague of avarice, through whose superfluous provisions luxury rejoices in great expenditures. But avarice, vainglory and pride, and the multitude of all the vices, are joined by an indivisible fellowship; and thus each single vice, if it has begun to flourish in us even alone, furnishes increases also to the rest. GERMANUS:

We believe that by the dispensation of God this question has been brought into the midst, so that what we could never be taught—since bashfulness restrained our confidence in asking—we may now, provoked by the opportuneness of the conference and by the very order of the subject, dare confidently to inquire. If, therefore, at that time when it is proper to approach the most sacred mysteries, we have perceived ourselves defiled by the illusion of a dream, is that most sacred partaking of the saving food to be presumed upon or to be shunned? THEONAS:

With all diligence indeed, as far as in us lies, we ought to strive to keep the spotless purity of chastity at that time above all, when we desire to stand before the venerable altars; and with most vigilant circumspection it must be guarded against, lest the integrity of the flesh preserved in the preceding time should be defrauded especially on that night in which we prepare ourselves for the communion of the saving banquet.

But if that most wicked enemy, in order to withdraw from us the medicine of the heavenly remedy, has mocked the guard of the drowsy mind—yet only in such a way that it is defiled by no blameworthy itching intervening, by no assent of delight, but he has held out, as a hindrance to our sanctification, some discharge compelled by necessity according to nature, or certainly one elicited by the assault of the devil without any sensation of pleasure—then we can and ought to approach confidently to the grace of the saving food. But if this concreted matter has been discharged through our own fault, let us, examining our conscience, dread that apostolic saying: 'He that shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.'

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he who eats and drinks the bread and cup of the Lord unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body — that is, in no way distinguishing that heavenly food from the commonness of ordinary meats, nor judging it to be of such a kind that it may not be received except with a pure mind and pure flesh. Then he adds: for this cause many among you are weak and feeble, and many sleep — meaning that spiritual weakness and death are chiefly begotten from this presumption.

For many who presume to take it with unlawful usurpation are made weak in faith and feeble in mind, being wrapped up, that is, in the languors of the passions; and they sleep the sleep of sin, in no way rising from this deadly torpor by any saving anxiety. Then there follows: but if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

That is, if, as often as we are overtaken by the wound of sin, we should judge ourselves unworthy of the reception of the sacraments, we would surely expend our zeal so as to be able to approach it worthily through the amendment of penitence, and would not be chastised by the Lord like the unworthy with the most severe scourges of infirmities — so that, being thus pricked in conscience, we might have recourse to the remedies of our wounds, lest, not being counted worthy of the very brief correction of the present age, we be condemned in the world to come together with the sinners of this world. This too is enjoined in Leviticus with plain declaration: every one that is clean shall eat the flesh; and the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of salvation, which is the Lord's, having uncleanness upon him, shall perish before the Lord.

In Deuteronomy likewise the unclean man is mystically separated from the spiritual camp: if there be, it says, among you any man who is defiled by a nocturnal dream, he shall go forth outside the camp, and shall not return before he is washed with water toward evening; and after the going down of the sun he shall return into the camp. But that it may be more manifestly proved that this impurity is sometimes drawn forth even by the machination of the enemy: we knew a brother who, though he continually possessed the chastity of heart and body, merited by the utmost circumspection and humility, and was in no way tempted by nocturnal delusions, yet, as often as he had prepared himself to receive the Lord's communion, was defiled in his sleep by an unclean flux.

When for a long time he had trembling abstained from the most sacred mysteries, at length he brought this question to the elders, trusting that he would obtain a remedy for his assaults and his grief by their healing counsel.