And therefore our body must always be chastised with a reasonable and even frugality, so that, if by this natural necessity, dwelling in the flesh, we cannot in every way be free of it, at least the course of the whole year may find us more rarely and no more than three times besprinkled with this defilement; which, however, a quiet slumber may discharge without any titillation, and no deceptive image, an index of hidden pleasure, may elicit. Wherefore this is that tempered equality and measure of continence which we have spoken of, which is also proved by the judgment of the Fathers: that a daily hunger accompany the daily refection of bread, preserving soul and body alike in one and the same state, permitting the mind neither to sink through the fatigue of fasting nor to be weighed down by satiety.
For it is bounded by so great a frugality that sometimes, after vespers, one neither feels nor remembers that he has refreshed himself. And this is accomplished not without labour, so much so that those who are ignorant of the perfection of discernment prefer even to prolong their fasts over two days, and to reserve for the morrow what they were to have taken today, provided that, coming to their refection, they may enjoy the desired satiety.
This, as you know, a citizen of yours, Benjamin, obstinately maintained; who, rather than by daily receiving two paximatia and observing continual frugality by an equal chastisement, chose always to continue his fasts for two days, provided that, coming to his refection, he might fill up the gluttony of his belly with a doubled measure—that is, that by eating four paximatia he might enjoy the desired satiety, and might in a manner compensate the filling of his belly by a two-day fast.
By what end he concluded his purpose—he who, by the obstinacy and stubbornness of his mind, acquiesced rather in his own definitions than in the traditions of the elders—you doubtless remember; seeing that, having forsaken the desert and rolled back again into the empty philosophy of this world and the vanity of the age, he marks by the example of his own fall the aforesaid maxim of the elders, and by his ruin teaches all that no one who trusts in his own definitions or his own judgment can ever mount to the summit of perfection, but cannot even fail to be deceived by the ruinous illusion of the devil. GERMANUS: How then can this measure be kept by us without interruption?
For sometimes at the ninth hour, the station of the fast being already relaxed, when brethren arrive it is necessary, on their account, either to add something to the appointed and customary measure, or else utterly to avoid that humanity which we are bidden to show to all. MOSES: Both must be observed in one manner and with equal solicitude. For we ought both to keep the measure of food, for the sake of continence and purity, with all scrupulousness, and likewise to show humanity and encouragement to arriving brethren for the sake of charity; because it is quite absurd that, offering a table to a brother—nay, to Christ—you should not take food together with him, or make yourself a stranger to his refreshment.
Thus we shall be found blameworthy on neither side, if this custom be kept by us: that at the ninth hour, of the two paximatia which by canonical measure are rightly owed to us, having first tasted one paximatium, we reserve the other, for the sake of this expectation, until the evening; so that, if any brother should arrive, we may consume it together with him, adding nothing further to our accustomed usage. And by this dispensation the arrival of a brother, who ought to be most welcome to us, will by no means sadden us; seeing that we shall so render to him the services of humanity that we relax nothing from the rigour of continence. But if no one arrives, we shall freely presume upon this one too, as owed to us from the canonical measure.
By which frugality the stomach cannot be burdened in the evening, seeing that at the ninth hour one paximatium has already been sent ahead; which is wont to befall those who, believing themselves to keep a stricter abstinence, defer the whole refection to the evening. For a recent taking of food does not allow a fine and light disposition to be found, whether in the evening or in the nocturnal prayers. And therefore the time of the ninth hour has been granted as quite convenient and useful for refection, in which the monk who refreshes himself will be found not only light and empty in the nocturnal vigils, but even most fit, the food being now digested, in the very evening solemnities.
With such feasts of a twofold instruction did the holy Moses fatten us, demonstrating not only the grace and virtue of discernment by the present erudition of his words, but also the reason of renunciation, and the aim and end of our purpose, by the disputation already carried on; so that what before, by fervour only of spirit and zeal of God, we were pursuing with our eyes as it were closed, he might open more clearly than light, and make us perceive how far, at that time, we had strayed from purity of heart and from the line of direction—seeing that even the discipline of all the arts visible in this world cannot at all subsist without a reason of aim, nor be attained without the contemplation of a certain end. Of the conduct and life of Abba Paphnutius.
Of the discourse of the same elder and our reply. The proposition of Abba Paphnutius concerning the three kinds of vocation and the three renunciations. An exposition of the three vocations. That the first vocation profits not the slothful, and the last does not harm the strenuous. An exposition of the three renunciations. In what manner the perfection of each renunciation is to be apprehended. Of our own riches, in which consists the beauty or foulness of the soul. Of the threefold kind of riches. That no one can be perfect in only the first degree of renunciation. A question concerning man's free will and the grace of God. A reply concerning the dispensation of divine grace, the liberty of the will remaining. That the direction of our way is from God.
That the knowledge of the law is conferred by the teaching and enlightenment of the Lord. That the understanding by which we may know the commandments of God, and the effecting of a good will, are bestowed by the Lord. That faith itself is granted by the Lord. That the moderation and endurance of temptations is imparted to us by the Lord. That the perpetuity of the fear of God is conferred on us by the Lord. That the beginning of a good will and its consummation are from the Lord. That nothing in this world is done without God. An objection concerning the power of free will. A reply: that our free will always stands in need of the help of the Lord.
In that choir of saints who shone forth like purest stars in the night of this world, we beheld the holy Paphnutius glittering, in the stead of a great luminary, with the brightness of knowledge. For he was presbyter of our congregation, that is, of the one which dwelt in the desert of Scete, in which he so endured to his extreme old age that he never migrated, even to nearer places, from the cell which as a younger man he had begun to inhabit—which was five miles distant from the church—lest, wearied by his years, when on the Sabbath or Lord's day he was to come to the church, he should be vexed by the space of so long a journey.
But, not content to return thence even empty-handed, he would carry back to his cell, laid upon his own neck, a vessel of water which he would use throughout the whole week; and though he had passed ninety years of age, he never suffered it to be brought to him by the labour of the younger. This man, then, from his adolescence gave himself to the schools of the cenobia with so great ardour that, tarrying in them a little time, he was enriched alike with the good of subjection and with the knowledge of all the virtues.
For by the discipline of humility and obedience mortifying all his own wills, and, through this, all vices being extinguished and all the virtues consummated which the institutions of the monasteries and the teaching of the most ancient Fathers had founded, kindled by ardour for a loftier progress, he hastened to penetrate the secret places of the desert, that he might more easily be united to the Lord—to whom, placed amid the throngs of the brethren, he thirsted to cleave inseparably—with no human fellowship henceforth drawing him back.
There again, surpassing with such fervour even the very virtues of the anchorites themselves in his desire and his intent upon that unbroken and divine contemplation, he shunned the sight of all men, penetrating the more remote and inaccessible places of the desert and hiding himself there for a long time, so that, being discovered by the anchorites themselves only with difficulty and very rarely, he was believed to delight in and enjoy the daily companionship of the angels; and for the merit of this virtue the surname 'Bubalus' (the Buffalo) was bestowed upon him by them. Desiring, therefore, to be instructed under his tutelage, and being driven also by the goadings of our thoughts, we came to his cell when the day was already drawing toward evening.
After keeping silence for a little while, he began to commend our purpose, namely that, having left our homeland and traversed so many provinces for the love of the Lord, we should strive so earnestly to endure the destitution and desolation of the desert and to imitate the rigour of their manner of life, which scarcely even those who were born and reared in that same hardship and want could sustain. We answered that we had made our way to his teaching and instruction for this reason: that we might in some measure be steeped in the disciplines and perfection of so great a man, which we perceived to be present in him through countless proofs; and not that, being burdened with no praises (which indeed were not in us) nor with any pride of soul—by which suggestion the enemy sometimes tickled us even in our own cells—we might also be puffed up by his very words.
Wherefore we prayed that those things rather might be poured into us by which we could be pricked with compunction or humbled, not those by which we might flatter and exalt ourselves. Then the blessed Paphnutius said: There are three orders of callings, and we should likewise know that there are three renunciations necessary for a monk, whatever the order of his calling in which he is set. And first we must diligently inquire into the reason why we say there are three orders of callings, so that, when we have recognized that we have been admitted to the worship of God in the first grade of calling, we may accordingly temper the conformity of our manner of life to its sublimity. For it will profit nothing to have begun sublimely, if we do not also present an end conformable to our beginnings.
But if we recognize that we have been drawn out from the manner of life of the world even in the last order, then, the less commendable the beginning by which we seem to have leaned toward religion, the more keenly let us take care to spur ourselves on with spiritual fervour toward a better end. It also befits us to know in every way the second reason for the threefold renunciation, since we shall in no way be able to attain perfection if we either are ignorant of it, or, knowing it, do not strive to bring it to completion in our work. That these three modes of callings, then, may be set forth with their proper distinction: the first is from God, the second through man, the third from necessity.
And it is indeed from God whenever a certain inspiration, sent into our heart, sometimes even while we are sleeping, rouses us to the desire of eternal life and salvation, and with a most wholesome compunction exhorts us to follow God and to cleave to His precepts—as in the Holy Scriptures we read that Abraham was called by the divine voice from his native soil and from the affections of all his kindred and from his father's house, the Lord saying: Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house. In this manner too we have learned that the blessed Anthony was summoned, who received the occasion of his conversion from the Godhead alone. For having entered the church and there heard the Lord proclaiming in the Gospel:
He who does not hate father and mother and sons and wife and lands, and moreover his own soul as well, cannot be My disciple; and: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me—he received this precept of the Lord as though specially directed to himself, with the deepest compunction of heart, and at once, renouncing all things, followed Christ, provoked by no exhortation nor teaching of men. The second mode of calling is that which we said comes about through man, when, incited by the examples of certain holy men or by their admonitions, we are kindled to the desire of salvation.
By which we too, through the grace of the Lord, are held as those who have been admitted, we who, incited by the admonitions and virtues of the aforesaid man, have given ourselves over to this pursuit and profession. In which order also, in the Holy Scriptures, we read that the sons of Israel were delivered through Moses from the affliction of Egypt. But the third mode of calling is that which descends from necessity, when, bound by the riches or the pleasures of this world, and suddenly overwhelmed by assailing temptations—which either threaten the perils of death, or strike with the loss of goods and proscription, or prick us with the death of those dear to us—we are compelled at least to hasten to lean upon God, whom we scorned to follow in the prosperity of our affairs.
The necessity of which calling we also find very often in the Scriptures, since we read that the sons of Israel, on account of the demerits of their sins, were delivered by the Lord to their enemies, and, on account of the most savage domination and cruelty of these, again turned to the Lord and cried out. And the Lord, it says, sent them a saviour, Aoth (Ehud), son of Gera, son of Jemini, who used both hands as a right hand. And again, it says, they cried to the Lord: who raised up for them a saviour, and delivered them, Othoniel (Othniel), the younger son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb. And concerning such is it said in the psalm: When He slew them, then they sought Him: and they returned, and came early to God. And they remembered that God is their helper:
and the Most High God is their redeemer. And again: And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble: and He delivered them out of their distresses. From these three modes, therefore, although the former two seem to rest upon better beginnings, nevertheless we sometimes find that even from the third grade—which seems the lowest and most lukewarm—there have arisen perfect men and men most fervent in spirit, and men equal to those who, having entered upon the Lord's service with an excellent beginning, spent the rest of their life too with a praiseworthy fervour of spirit; and again, that very many from that higher grade have grown lukewarm and have very often fallen back to a blameworthy end.
And accordingly, just as it did no harm to those who were converted not by the choice of a sweet will but by the compulsion of necessity—since indeed the Lord's kindness procured for them this very occasion by which they might be pricked with compunction—so likewise it profited these others nothing at all to have had loftier beginnings of conversion, because they did not take pains to bring the rest of their life to a fitting end. For neither did anything at all be lacking to Abba Moses, who dwelt in the place of that desert which is called Calamus, for the merit of perfect blessedness, in that, driven by the fear of the death which was threatened against him because of the crime of homicide, he had fled to the monastery.
For he so seized upon the necessity of his conversion that, turning it into a willing act by the ready virtue of his soul, he arrived at the highest summits of perfection. Just as also, on the contrary, it profited very many—whom I ought not to name individually—nothing at all to have seized upon the service of the Lord with a better beginning, who thereafter, through the sloth and hardness of heart that followed, sank into a hurtful lukewarmness and into the deep pit of death. Which thing we see clearly expressed in the calling of the apostles as well.
For what did it profit Judas to have voluntarily undertaken the most sublime grade of the apostolate, admitted in the same order as Peter and the rest of the apostles, who, bringing the illustrious beginnings of his calling to a pestilent end of covetousness and love of money, broke forth even to the betrayal of the Lord as a most cruel parricide? Or what did it harm Paul that, suddenly blinded, he seems to have been drawn to the way of salvation as though against his will, who afterward, pursuing the Lord with the whole fervour of his soul, and completing the beginning of necessity with a voluntary devotion, brought a life glorious with so many virtues to an incomparable end?
The whole matter, therefore, consists in the end: in which a man both, though dedicated to the beginnings of an excellent conversion, may through negligence be found inferior, and, though drawn by necessity to profess the name of monk, may through the fear of God and diligence be made perfect. Now we must discourse of the renunciations, which the tradition of the Fathers and the authority of the Holy Scriptures show to be three, and which each of us ought to fulfil with all zeal. The first is that by which we bodily despise all the riches and resources of the world; the second, that by which we cast off the former ways and vices and affections of soul and flesh; the third, that by which we call our mind away.
our mind from all present and visible things, that we may contemplate only the things to come and long for those things that are invisible. That these three might be accomplished together, we read that the Lord also commanded Abraham, when He said to him: Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house. First He said, from your land, that is, from the resources of this world and earthly wealth; secondly, from your kindred, that is, from the manner of life and the ways and vices of former days, which, cleaving to us from our very birth as by a kind of affinity and consanguinity, are akin to us; thirdly, from your father's house, that is, from all memory of this world which meets the gaze of our eyes.
For concerning two fathers—that is, either concerning him who must be forsaken, or concerning Him who must be sought—it is thus sung through David in the person of God: Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear: and forget your people, and your father's house. For He who says, Hearken, O daughter, is surely a father, and He testifies that He whose house or people He persuades ought to be given over to oblivion was nonetheless a father to His daughter. And this comes to pass when, being mortified with Christ from the elements of this world, we contemplate, according to the Apostle, no longer the things that are seen but the things that are not seen:
for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal; and, going forth in heart from this temporal and visible house into that one in which we are to abide forever, we direct our eyes and our mind. This we shall fulfil when, walking in the flesh, we begin to war for the Lord not according to the flesh, crying out that saying of the blessed Apostle in deed and in virtue: But our citizenship is in heaven. To these three renunciations the three books of Solomon are properly fitted.
For Proverbs agrees with the first renunciation, in which the concupiscence of carnal things and earthly vices are cut away; with the second renunciation, Ecclesiastes, where all things that are done under the sun are pronounced vanity; with the third, the Song of Songs, in which the mind, transcending all visible things, is now joined by the Word of God to the contemplation of heavenly things. Wherefore it will not much profit us to have undertaken the first renunciation with the utmost devotion of faith, if we do not fulfil the second with the same zeal and the same ardour.
And thus, when we have attained this one also, we shall be able to reach that third renunciation as well, by which, having gone out from the house of our former parent—whom we remember to have been our father from the very beginning of our birth according to the old man, when we were by nature children of wrath even as the rest—we shall turn every gaze of the mind toward heavenly things. Concerning which father it is said also to Jerusalem, which had despised God its true Father: Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite; and in the Gospel: You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do. Whom when we have dismissed, migrating from visible to invisible things, we shall be able to say with the Apostle:
But we know that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, we have a habitation from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven; and that which we recalled a little before: But our citizenship is in heaven, whence also we await the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who will refashion the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of His glory; and that saying of the blessed David: For I am a sojourner in the land, and a pilgrim as all my fathers were—that, according to the Lord's word, we may become such as those of whom the Lord spoke thus to the Father in the Gospel: They are not of this world, even as I am not of this world; and again, to the apostles themselves:
If you were of this world, the world would surely love its own: but because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of this world, therefore the world hates you.
Therefore we shall then deserve to obtain the true perfection of this third renunciation, when our mind, dulled by no contagion of carnal grossness, but refined by the most skilful polishings, has, through unceasing meditation upon divine things and spiritual contemplations, passed over from every affection and earthly quality to those things that are invisible, to such a degree that, intent upon things heavenly and incorporeal, it no longer feels itself encompassed by the frailty of the flesh and the condition of the body, and is caught up into such an ecstasy that it not only receives no voices by bodily hearing, nor is occupied in beholding the images of things passing by, but does not even behold the very masses lying near and the huge substances set before the eyes of the flesh.
The credibility and reality of which thing no one will grasp except him who has perceived, by the schooling of experience, these things that are being said: whose eyes of the heart the Lord has so called away from all present things that he reckons them not as things about to pass away, but as things already passed, and beholds them dissolved into nothing like empty smoke; and, walking as Enoch with God, and translated from human converse and ways, he is not found in the vanity of the present age. That this was accomplished even bodily in him, the reading of Genesis thus records: And Enoch walked with God, and was not found: because God translated him. The Apostle also: By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death.
Concerning which death the Lord says in the Gospel: He who lives and believes in Me shall not die forever. Wherefore we ought to hasten, if we desire to attain true perfection, that just as we have despised in body our parents, our homeland, the riches and pleasures of the world, so also, forsaking all these in heart, we may not again return to these things which we have relinquished by any concupiscence—like those who, having been led out through Moses, though indeed they did not return in body, are yet said to have returned in heart to Egypt, having, that is, forsaken the God who had led them out with such power of signs, and venerated the idols of Egypt which they had despised, as the Scripture records: And they turned back in their hearts to Egypt, saying to Aaron:
Make us gods to go before us—lest we be condemned together with those who, dwelling in the desert, after the food of the heavenly manna longed for the fetid and sordid food of vile things, and lest we be seen likewise to murmur with them: It was well with us in Egypt, where we sat over pots of meat, and ate onions and other things and cucumbers and melons. Although this figure came to pass beforehand in that people, yet even now we see it fulfilled daily in our own order and profession. For everyone whatsoever who, after renunciation of this world, turns back to his ancient pursuits and is called back to his former desires, proclaims this same thing with them in deed and in mind, saying: It was well with me in Egypt.
Of whom I fear that as great a multitude may be found as we read arose then of transgressors under Moses. For when six hundred and three thousand armed men were counted as having gone out of Egypt, of these no more than two only entered the land of promise. Whence we must hasten to take examples of virtues from the few and the very rare, because, according to that figure which we have mentioned, in the Gospel too many are said to be called, but few chosen. Nothing, therefore, will it profit us to make a bodily and, in a manner of speaking, local renunciation—a migration out of Egypt—if we are not able likewise to obtain the renunciation of the heart, which is loftier and more useful.
For concerning that bodily renunciation of which we spoke, the Apostle thus pronounced: If I distribute all my resources for the food of the poor, and deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing. Which the blessed Apostle would never have said, save that he foresaw in the Spirit that it would come to pass that some, having scattered all their resources for the sustenance of the poor, could not attain to evangelical perfection and the arduous summit of charity, because, namely, retaining their former vices and the incontinence of their ways—with either pride or impatience dominating in their hearts—they took no care to purge themselves from them, and on that account attained by no means to the charity of God which never fails.
Who, being thus rendered inferior in this second grade of renunciation, much less lay hold of that third grade which is beyond doubt more sublime. Yet ponder this too more diligently in your mind, that he did not say simply, 'If I distribute my resources.' For he might perhaps have seemed to speak of him who, not yet fulfilling the evangelical commandment, had reserved something for himself out of them, as some of the lukewarm do. But: If I distribute, he says, all my resources for the food of the poor, that is, even if I perfectly renounce these earthly riches. To this renunciation also he joined another greater one: and deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, I am nothing—as if he had said in other words: