'If My people had heard Me, if Israel had walked in My ways, I would surely have humbled his enemies to nothing, and laid My hand upon those that afflicted him.' For just as free will is demonstrated through the people's disobedience, so God's dispensation and His help is declared at the very beginning and end of that same verse, when He recalls both that He had spoken first, and that He would afterward humble his enemies, had He been heard by the same people. For by these things which we have brought forward we do not wish to remove man's free will, but to prove that the Lord's help and grace are necessary for him through each single day and moment.
Instructed by these discourses, Abba Paphnutius sent us out from his cell before midnight, not so much cheered as compunct of heart, conferring upon us this as the chief gift of his conference: that, whereas we had believed we were to attain the summits of perfection through the consummation of the first renunciation, which we were striving with all our might to fulfil, we began to recognize that we had not yet begun even to dream of the heights of the monks; inasmuch as we, but little instructed in the coenobia concerning the second renunciation, knew that we had not previously so much as heard by report of the third, in which all perfection is contained and which surpasses those two lower ones in many ways. Of the life of Abba Daniel.
An inquiry into whence arises the sudden change of minds from ineffable joy to the most sorrowful dejection of soul. The answer to the question proposed. That there is a twofold cause of God's dispensation and testing. That our zeal and industry avail nothing without God's help. That it is sometimes useful for us to be forsaken by the Lord. On the usefulness of that struggle which the Apostle sets forth in the conflict of flesh and spirit. A question: what is it that, in the chapter of the Apostle, is added as a third will after the desires of flesh and spirit that oppose each other. An answer concerning the understanding of one who rightly inquires. That the word 'flesh' is not used in a single sense.
What in this place is named 'flesh' by the Apostle, and what is the concupiscence of the flesh. What is our own will, which is placed between the concupiscence of flesh and spirit. On the usefulness of the hesitation which arises from the conflict of flesh and spirit. On the incorrigible malice of spiritual wickednesses. What the concupiscence of the flesh against the spirit profits us. On the goadings of the flesh, by which, unless we were humbled, we would fall more grievously. On the lukewarmness of eunuchs. A question: what is the difference between the carnal man and the animal man. An answer concerning the threefold state of souls. On those who renounce badly. On those who, despising great things, are occupied in trifles.
Among the other men of Christian philosophy we also saw Abba Daniel, equal indeed in every kind of virtue to those who dwelt in the desert of Scetis, but more particularly adorned with the grace of humility. He, on account of the merit of his purity and gentleness, was advanced by blessed Paphnutius, the presbyter of that same solitude—and that although he was much younger in age—to the office of the diaconate. For so greatly did that same blessed Paphnutius rejoice in his virtues, that, since he knew him to be his equal in the merits and grace of life, he hastened to make him equal to himself even in the order of the priesthood.
since he could by no means bear that he should linger any longer in a lower ministry, and desiring to provide for himself a most worthy successor, he, while still living, advanced him to the honour of the presbyterate. Yet he, not abandoning the custom of his former humility, never while the other was present granted himself anything of the addition of the higher order, but always, when Abba Paphnutius offered the spiritual sacrifices, this man remained, as a deacon, in the office of his former ministry. In this, however, this hope of substitution and choice was frustrated for blessed Paphnutius—though he was such a man and so great that in many things he even possessed the grace of foreknowledge—for not long after, he sent on before him to God this man whom he had prepared for himself as a successor.
This blessed Daniel, then, when we inquired why it is that sometimes, while sitting in our cell, we are filled with such alacrity of heart, with a certain ineffable joy and an overflowing of most sacred perceptions, that not only could speech not follow it, but not even the perception itself could keep up; and prayer too is sent forth pure and ready, and the mind, full of spiritual fruits, feels its supplications, effective and gentle, reaching God even in sleep as it prays; and again, with no causes existing, we are suddenly filled with such great anguish and pressed by a certain irrational sadness, that we feel not only ourselves to grow parched with feelings of this kind, but even the cell grows loathsome, reading grows tedious, and prayer itself is sent forth unstable and wavering and, as it were,
drunken, so that, though we groan and strive to be called back to our former direction, our mind cannot be recalled; and the more intently it is led back to the contemplation of God, the more vehemently it is snatched away by a slippery deviation to unstable wanderings, and is thus rendered barren of all spiritual fruit, so that it can be roused from this deadly sleep, as it were, neither by desire of the kingdom of heaven nor by fear of hell set before it—thus he replied: A threefold explanation concerning this sterility of mind of which you speak has been handed down to us by our elders.
For it descends either from our own negligence, or from the assault of the devil, or from the dispensation and testing of the Lord. From negligence indeed, when, our own lukewarmness going before as a fault, showing ourselves incautious and slack, and feeding on harmful thoughts through slothful idleness, we make the soil of our heart bring forth thorns and briars; and as these sprout up in it, we are consequently made barren and fasting from all spiritual fruit and contemplation. From the assault of the devil, indeed, when, even while sometimes given to good pursuits, the adversary penetrating our mind by cunning subtlety, we are drawn away from our best intentions, whether unknowingly or unwillingly. But of the dispensation and testing there is a twofold cause.
The first, that, being for a little while forsaken by the Lord and humbly beholding the weakness of our mind, we may in no way be exalted over the preceding purity of heart which was given to us by His visitation; and that, proving ourselves forsaken by Him, we may understand that by our own groanings and industry we cannot recover that state of joy and purity, and that the past alacrity of heart was conferred on us not by our own zeal but by His condescension, and that the present is to be sought again from His grace and illumination.
But the second cause of testing is that our perseverance, or the constancy of our mind and its desire, may be proved, and that it may be made manifest in us with what intention of heart or persistence of prayers we seek after the visitation of the Holy Spirit that has forsaken us; and that likewise, recognizing with how great labour that spiritual joy and gladness of purity is sought out, once found we may study more solicitously to guard it and more attentively to hold it. For whatever is believed able to be easily repaired is wont to be guarded somewhat more negligently. By these things it is plainly proved that God's grace and mercy always work in us the things that are good;
and that, when it forsakes us, the zeal of the labourer avails nothing, and however much one strives, without His help again one cannot recover the former state; and that this is fulfilled in us continually: 'It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.' Which grace, on the contrary, sometimes does not refuse to visit us who are negligent and dissolute with that holy and abundant inspiration of spiritual thoughts of which you speak, but inspires the unworthy, rouses the sleeping, and enlightens those possessed by the blindness of ignorance; and mercifully reproves and chastises us, pouring itself into our hearts, that even so, instigated by its own compunction, we may be provoked to rise up from the sleep of sloth.
Finally, frequently we are even filled, in these very visitations, with fragrances suddenly surpassing all sweetness of human compounding, so that the mind, relaxed by this delight, is caught up into a certain rapture of spirit and forgets that it is dwelling in the flesh. But that withdrawal, or, so to speak, that desertion of God which we have mentioned, blessed David knew to be so useful, that he by no means chose to pray that he should be in no way at all forsaken by God (for he knew this to be unfitting either for himself or for human nature attaining to any perfection whatever), but rather prayed that it be tempered, saying: 'Do not forsake me utterly'—as if to say in other words:
I know that You are wont profitably to forsake Your holy ones, that You may prove them. For otherwise they cannot be tempted by the adversary, unless they are for a little while forsaken by You. And therefore I do not ask that You should never forsake me, because it is not expedient for me—so that I may not, feeling my own weakness, say: 'It is good for me that You have humbled me,' or that I may not have the exercise of combat, which without doubt I could not have if divine protection had clung to me always and without interruption. For, propped up by Your defence, the devil would not dare to tempt me, casting up and reproaching either me or You with that which he is wont to utter with slanderous voice against Your athletes: 'Does Job worship God for nothing?'
Have you not encompassed him and his house and all his substance round about? Yet rather I beg that you not forsake me utterly, which in Greek is said ἕως σφόδρα, that is, even to excess.
For it is greatly profitable to me if You leave me a little to myself, so that the constancy of my longing may be tested; yet it is as harmful if, according to my merits and my sins, You suffer me to be too much forsaken. For no human virtue, if it be for long left destitute of Your help in temptation, can endure by its own constancy and not straightway succumb either to the might or to the craft of the adversary, unless You Yourself, who are conscious of human powers and the moderator of our struggles, permit us not to be tempted beyond what we are able, but make with the temptation also a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it. Something of this kind we read also mystically signified in the Book of Judges, concerning the extermination of the spiritual nations that oppose Israel:
These are the nations which the Lord left, that by them He might instruct Israel, and that they might have practice in warring with their enemies; and again, after a little: And the Lord left them, that in them He might prove Israel, whether they would hear the commandments of the Lord which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses, or not. This warfare God indeed reserved, not begrudging Israel its rest, nor ill advising it, but knowing it to be profitable; so that while Israel is ever pressed by the assault of those nations, it might never feel itself not to need the Lord's help, and on that account, ever persisting in meditation upon Him and in calling upon Him, might neither be dissolved in slothful ease nor lose the practice of warfare and the exercise of valour.
For frequently those whom adversity could not overcome, security and prosperity have cast down. This same warfare, profitably grafted into our members also, we read of thus even in the Apostle: For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye do not the things that ye would. Here too you have a warfare, as it were implanted in our very body by the Lord's provident dispensation. For whatever is generally and without any exception present in all, what else can it be judged but something attributed, as it were naturally, to the very substance of humanity after the fall of the first man?
And what is found to be inborn and ingrained in all men, how can it be believed to have been implanted otherwise than by the will of the Lord, who does no harm but takes counsel for our good? Now the cause of this warfare, that is, of flesh and spirit, He declares to be this: that ye do not, He says, the things that ye would. Therefore that which God has provided so that it cannot be fulfilled by us, namely that we should not do whatever we will—if it were fulfilled, what else could be believed but that it would be harmful? And this warfare, in a manner, is profitable to us, implanted by the dispensation of the Creator, and provoking and compelling us toward a better state; and were it taken away, without doubt a peace on the contrary side, a pernicious peace, would succeed. GERMANUS:
Although some line of understanding already seems to shine before us, yet because we cannot as yet perceive the Apostle's meaning clearly, we wish these things to be explained to us more openly. For three things seem here to be indicated: first, the warfare of the flesh against the spirit; second, the lusting of the spirit against the flesh; third, our own will, which is placed as it were in the middle, of which it is said: so that ye do not the things that ye would. Concerning which matter, although, as I have said, we may gather certain surmises of understanding from the things that have been set forth, yet, since the occasion of this conference has offered itself, we wish something to be discussed for us more lucidly. DANIEL:
To discern the divisions and lines of questions is a part of understanding, and the greatest part of intelligence is to know what you do not know. For this reason it is said: To the foolish man who asks, wisdom shall be reckoned; because, although he who asks is ignorant of the force of the question proposed, yet because he inquires prudently and understands what he does not understand, this very thing is reckoned to him for wisdom, in that he prudently recognized what he did not know. According to your division, then, three things seem in this passage to be named by the Apostle: the lust of the flesh against the spirit and of the spirit against the flesh, whose mutual warfare against each other seems to have this cause and reason, namely, that we cannot do, he says, the things that we would.
There remains, therefore, a fourth cause which you have by no means observed, namely that we should do that which we would not. Now, therefore, it is needful for us first to recognize the force of the two lusts, that is, of the flesh and of the spirit, and only then to be able to discuss what our will is, which is placed between the two; and thereafter likewise to discern what may be that which is not of our will. The word 'flesh' we read named in the Holy Scriptures in manifold ways. For sometimes it signifies the whole man, that is, one who consists of body and soul, as here: And the Word was made flesh; and: All flesh shall see the salvation of our God; sometimes it means sinful and carnal men, as here:
My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh. Sometimes it is put for sins themselves, as here: But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit; and again: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God; and it follows: Neither shall corruption possess incorruption. Sometimes for kinship and relationship, as here: Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh; and the Apostle: If by any means I may provoke to emulation my flesh, and may save some of them. We must therefore inquire according to which of these four significations we ought here to understand 'flesh.' For it is manifest that it cannot altogether stand according to that which is written: And the Word was made flesh, or that:
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God, to stand at all. But neither according to that which is said: My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh; for 'flesh' is not here put abruptly of the sinful man, as it is there, when he says: The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For he speaks not of substantial things, but of active ones, which in one and the same man strive either together or singly, with a certain alternation and change of time.
Wherefore in this passage by 'flesh' we ought to understand not the man, that is, the substance of man, but the will of the flesh and its most evil desires; just as by 'spirit' we ought to understand not any substantial thing, but the good and spiritual desires of the soul. This same sense the blessed Apostle above evidently expressed, beginning thus: But I say, Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the desires of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye do not the things that ye would.
Since both of these, that is, the desires of the flesh and of the spirit, are in one and the same man, an inward war is daily waged within us, while the lust of the flesh, which is borne headlong toward vices, rejoices in those delights which pertain to present ease. To these, on the contrary, the lust of the spirit, being opposed, so desires to cleave wholly to spiritual pursuits that it even wishes to exclude the necessary uses of the flesh, longing to be so continually occupied with those things that it would wish to impart no care at all to its frailty. The flesh delights in wantonness and lust; the spirit is not content even with the natural desires.
The one desires to be sated with sleep and filled with food; the other is so fattened with vigils and fastings that it is unwilling to admit even the sleep and food necessary for the use of life. The one longs to abound in all supplies; the other is not content to have even the daily sustenance of a small loaf. The one seeks to grow sleek with baths and to be thronged by daily crowds of flatterers; the other rejoices in the squalor of filth and in the vastness of the inaccessible desert, and shudders at the presence of all mortals. The one is cherished by the honours and praises of men; the other glories in the injuries and persecutions inflicted upon it.
Between these two lusts, then, the will of the soul, standing in a certain more blameworthy middle position, neither delights in the outrages of vices nor acquiesces in the pains of virtues, thus seeking to be tempered away from carnal passions in such a way that it in no wise wishes to sustain the necessary pains without which the desires of the spirit cannot be possessed: desiring to obtain chastity of body without the chastisement of the flesh, to acquire purity of heart without the labour of vigils, to abound in spiritual virtues while the flesh is at rest, to possess the grace of patience without the provocation of any insult, to exercise the humility of Christ without the loss of worldly honour, to pursue simplicity of religion together with secular ambition, to serve Christ together with the praise and favour of men, to utter the strictness of truth without even the slightest offence to anyone:
In short, it prefers so to attain future goods that it may not lose present ones. Such a will would never make us arrive at true perfection, but would place us in a certain most wretched lukewarmness, and would make us such as those who in the Apocalypse are chastised by the Lord's rebuke: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou wert cold or hot. But now thou art lukewarm, and I will begin to spew thee out of my mouth—unless these arising wars broke through this most lukewarm state from either side.
For when, serving this will of ours, we are unwilling to relax ourselves even a little toward this remission, straightway the stings of the flesh rise up, and wounding us with their vices and passions, in no wise permit us to stand in that quality of purity in which we delight, but drag us off to that cold way, full of thorns, of pleasures which we dread. Again, if kindled with the fervour of the spirit, wishing to extinguish the works of the flesh, we attempt, without any regard to human frailty, to carry ourselves wholly, by an elation of heart, to immoderate zeal for virtues, the weakness of the flesh interposing calls us back and retards us from that reprehensible excess of the spirit.
And thus it comes about that, by such a contest with the two lusts alternately warring against each other, the will of the soul—which wishes neither to give itself wholly to carnal desires nor to sweat with the labours of virtues—is in a manner tempered by a just moderation, while this contention between the two, excluding that more pernicious will of the soul, sets up as it were a certain balance of equity in the scales of our body, which by a just weighing distinguishes the borders of spirit and flesh, permitting neither the mind kindled with the ardour of the spirit to preponderate on the right, nor the flesh with the stings of vices to preponderate on the left.
And while this war is daily and profitably stirred up within us, we are wholesomely compelled to arrive at that fourth thing which we would not: namely, to acquire purity of heart not by ease nor by security, but by continual sweat and contrition of spirit; to retain chastity of the flesh by strict fastings, hunger, thirst, and watchfulness; to seize also uprightness of heart by reading, vigils, continual prayer, and the squalor of solitude; to keep patience by exercises of tribulations; to serve our Author amid blasphemies and a surfeit of reproaches; to pursue truth, if need be, together with the world's envy and enmities; and, warring by such a struggle in our body, being dragged forth from this idle security and toward
that labour and zeal for virtues which we would not, the equity is most excellently kept in the middle; and the fervour of the spirit on this side, the most icy rigour of the flesh on that side, temper with most moderate warmth the lukewarm judgement of our will; so that the lust of the spirit does not suffer the mind to be dragged to unbridled vices, nor again does the frailty of the flesh suffer the spirit to be exalted to irrational appetites for virtues; lest either on that hand the kindlings of every kind of vice should sprout, or on this hand the elation of the chief malady, emerging, should pierce us with the heavier dart of pride. But a just equilibrium of these wars succeeding, it opens up a sound and moderate way of virtues between the two, teaching the soldier of Christ ever to advance by the royal road.
And thus it will come about that, when for the lukewarmness of that most slothful will which we have mentioned the mind has been too readily rolled down to the desires of the flesh, it is restrained by the lust of the spirit, in no wise acquiescing therein to earthly vices; and again, if by immoderate fervour, through an excess of heart, our spirit has been snatched away toward things impossible and inconsiderate, it is drawn back by the infirmity of the flesh to a just measure, and transcending the most lukewarm state of our will, by a most fitting temperance and by a level path with the industry of sweat, it advances along the way of perfection. Something similar we read to have been dispensed by the Lord in the building of that tower in the book of Genesis, where the sudden confusion of tongues restrained the sacrilegious and wicked daring of men.
For there too the harmful agreement against God—nay rather against those who had begun to assail His divine majesty—would have persisted, had not the diversity of tongue, resisting them by God's dispensation, through the discord of speech compelled them to advance into a better state; and those whom a pernicious concord had animated to their own destruction, a good and useful discord recalled to safety—beginning, that is, through the intervening division, to feel human frailty, of which, puffed up before by a harmful conspiracy, they had been ignorant. And so greatly does a profitable hesitation arise for us out of the diversity of this war, and a salutary delay out of this contest, that, with the bodily solidity resisting, while we are retarded from the effect of those things which we have wickedly conceived in mind, we are sometimes corrected into a better state—either by a repentance following after, or by some amendment which is wont to come through the postponement of the deed and the intervening reconsideration.
Finally, those whom we understand to be retarded by no obstacle of the flesh in fulfilling the desires of their wills—namely the demons and spiritual wickednesses, and that too though they have fallen from the higher order of angels—we behold to be more detestable than men, in that, with the capability lying ready for their desires, they do not delay to accomplish, with irrevocable evil, whatever they have once wickedly conceived; because, just as their mind is swift to devise, so is their substance nimble and unimpeded to accomplish; and while a prone facility supplies them for carrying out whatever they may wish, no intervening salutary deliberation amends the evil conceived.
For the spiritual substance, bound by no solidity of flesh, as it admits no excuse for the depraved will that has arisen within itself, so it excludes pardon for its malice, because it was in no way provoked to sin from without by an assault of the flesh, as we are, but was kindled solely by the vice of an evil will. And on this account its sin is without pardon, and its sickness without remedy. For as it fell with no earthly matter soliciting it, so neither can it obtain indulgence or place for repentance. From which things it is evidently gathered that this contention of flesh and spirit, which is stirred up in us against each other, is not only not harmful, but even confers upon us much profit.
First, because it straightway convicts our slothfulness and negligences; and, like some most diligent tutor never permitting us to deviate from the line of strictness and discipline, if our security has a little exceeded the measure of befitting seriousness, it straightway goads us with the scourges of incitements, and rebukes us, and recalls us to fitting restraint.
Secondly, because in respect of the integrity of chastity and purity, when by the grace of God granting it we have seen ourselves for a long time free from generative pollution, so that we believe we shall no more be disquieted even by the simple stirring of the flesh, and through this, as though we no longer bear the corruption of the flesh, we have become exalted in the secrets of our conscience, then, visiting us again by its flow, however quiet and simple, it humbles us and beats us down, and admonishes by its stings that we are but men.