Institutes & Conferences 2 part 7/15

You see how in himself, that is in his own flesh, he has set the sum of his struggles as upon a most firm base, and has placed the outcome of the fight solely in the chastising of the flesh and the subjection of his body? I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty. He does not run at an uncertainty, because, gazing upon the heavenly Jerusalem, he has it fixed before him, toward which the unswerving swiftness of his heart is to be directed. He does not run at an uncertainty, because, forgetting the things that are behind, he stretches himself toward the things that are before, pressing on toward the mark, toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Ever directing thither the gaze of his mind and hastening toward it with all the eagerness of his heart, he proclaimed with confidence:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. And because he knew that he had run tirelessly, following the fragrance of the ointments of Christ with the swift devotion of his conscience, and had won the contest of the spiritual arena by the chastising of his flesh, he adds with confidence and says: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall render to me in that day. And that he might open to us also a like hope of recompense, if we are willing to imitate him in the contest of this course, he added:

And not to me only, but also to all them that love his appearing. Thus he declares that we shall be partakers of his crown in the day of judgment, if, loving the appearing of Christ—not only that appearing which shall be manifested even to the unwilling, but also this one which daily comes into holy souls—we obtain the victory of the contest by the chastising of the body. Of which coming the Lord in the Gospel says: I and my Father, he says, will come unto him, and will make our abode with him; and again: Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Yet he does not describe himself as having finished only the contest of the course, when he says:

So I run, not as at an uncertainty (which refers specially to the intention of the mind and the fervor of his spirit, with which he followed Christ with all his ardor, singing with the bride: We will run after thee in the fragrance of thine ointments, and again: My soul hath clung after thee); but he also testifies that he had conquered another kind of struggle, saying: So fight I, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection—which pertains properly to the pains of continence and to bodily fasting and the affliction of the flesh; describing himself thereby as a certain vigorous boxer of his own flesh, and indicating that he had not exercised the blows of continence against it in vain, but had gained the triumph of the fight by the mortification of his body:

By which, when it had been chastised with the blows of continence and beaten down with the gauntlets of fasting, he bestowed on the victorious spirit the crown of immortality and the palm of incorruption. You see the lawful order of the struggle, and you behold the outcome of the spiritual contests, how the athlete of Christ, having gained the victory over the rebellious flesh, is borne along as an exalted triumphant conqueror, that flesh being in a manner subjected beneath his feet. And therefore he does not run at an uncertainty, because he was confident that he would forthwith enter the holy heavenly city of Jerusalem.

So he fights, namely with fastings and carnal affliction, not as one beating the air, that is, not aiming the blows of continence in vain; for by them he beat, not the empty air, but those spirits that dwell in it, by the chastising of his own body. For he who says not as one beating the air shows that, although not the empty and void air, yet he does beat certain beings in the air. And because he had overcome these kinds of contests and, enriched with the pay of many crowns, was advancing, not without reason he begins to undertake the struggles of stronger enemies; and, having triumphed over his former rivals, he proclaims with confidence and says:

Now our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. To the athlete of Christ dwelling in the body the palm of struggles is never wanting; but the more he has grown by successes of triumphs, so much the more a mightier rank of struggles succeeds for him.

For when the flesh has been subdued and conquered, how many cohorts of adversaries, how many hosts of enemies rise up against the victorious soldier of Christ, roused by his triumphs—namely, lest the soldier of Christ, growing slack in the ease of peace, should begin to forget the glorious contests of his struggles, and, dissolved by the sloth of security, should be defrauded of the pay of rewards and the merits of triumphs. And so, if we desire to ascend to these degrees of triumphs by increasing virtue, we too must enter upon the contests of battle in the same order, and first say with the Apostle: So fight I, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection; so that, this conflict overcome, we may again be able to say with him:

Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. For otherwise we shall be in no way able to engage with them, nor shall we deserve to experience the spiritual battles, if we have been cast down in the carnal conflict and beaten in the struggle of the belly; and deservedly it will be said to us by the Apostle with reproach: No temptation has taken you but such as is human.

Therefore the monk who desires to attain to the battles of the inner contests first of all lays down this precaution for himself: that, overcome by no delight of drink or food, he should by no means permit himself to take anything outside the table before the appointed lawful station and the common hour of refreshment; nor even, when the meal is over, allow himself to presume to take from these things even the least amount; and likewise let him keep the canonical time and measure of sleep. For these wantonnesses of the mind are to be cut off with the same zeal with which the vice of fornication is to be pruned away. For he who could not restrain the superfluous appetites of the gullet, how shall he be able to extinguish the heat of carnal concupiscence?

And he who could not restrain even those passions set in the open and small, how, by the moderating power of discretion, shall he be able to overcome those which itch secretly and with no human witness? And therefore in each single motion and in every desire the strength of the soul is proved: and if it is overcome in the smallest and most open cravings, what it may endure in the greatest and stronger and more hidden ones, each man's own conscience is witness. For we have no adversary from without to be feared: within our very selves the enemy is shut up; a domestic war is waged in us daily. When he is conquered, all that is outside will be rendered weak, and all things will be pacified and made subject to the soldier of Christ.

We shall have no adversary from without to fear, if the things that are within us are conquered and made subject to the spirit; nor let us believe that this fasting from visible foods alone can suffice for the perfection of the heart and the purity of the body, unless a fasting of the soul also be joined to it. For the soul too has its own harmful foods, by which, made fat even without abundance of viands, it is rolled down to the precipices of luxury. Detraction is its food, and indeed a very sweet one. Anger too is its food, though by no means a mild one, feeding it for an hour with unhappy eating and at the same time laying it low with a deadly savor.

Envy is a food of the mind, corrupting it with venomous juices and ceasing not to torment the wretched soul continually with the prosperity of another's success. Vainglory, that is empty glory, is its food, which soothes it for a time with a delightful morsel, but afterwards renders it empty and stripped of every virtue and bare, leaving it barren and void of all spiritual fruits, so that it not only makes the merits of immense labors perish, but even procures greater punishments. Every concupiscence and unstable wandering of the heart is a certain pasture of the soul, feeding it with harmful foods, but leaving it thereafter without share in the heavenly bread and solid food.

Abstaining therefore from these, as much as our strength allows, by a most holy fasting, we shall have a useful and profitable observance of bodily fasting. For the labor of the flesh, joined to contrition of spirit, will present a most acceptable sacrifice to God and a worthy dwelling of holiness in pure and clean recesses. But if, while fasting bodily, we are entangled in the most pernicious vices of the soul, the affliction of the flesh will profit us nothing, since we are polluted in the more precious part, sinning namely through that substance by which we are made the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For not so much the corruptible flesh as a clean heart is made the dwelling of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

It behooves us therefore, while the outer man fasts, to temper the inner man likewise from harmful foods; which inner man the blessed Apostle chiefly admonishes to be presented pure to God, that it may deserve to receive Christ as a guest within itself, in these words: That Christ may dwell in the inner man through faith in your hearts. Let us therefore know that we spend the labor of bodily continence for this end, that by this fasting we may be able to attain to purity of heart.

But our labor is spent in vain if we indeed sustain it tirelessly with a view to the end, yet are unable to obtain the very end for the sake of which we endured such great afflictions; and it were better to have tempered the soul from forbidden foods than to have fasted bodily from those which are lawful and less harmful. For in the latter there is a simple and innocent partaking of God's creature, having in itself nothing of sin; but in the former there is, first of all, the pernicious devouring of the brethren, of which it is said: Love not to detract, lest thou be uprooted; and concerning anger and envy the blessed Job says: For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the little one. And it is at the same time to be noted that he who is angry is judged foolish, and he who envies is judged little.

For the former is not without reason pronounced foolish, since, goaded by these stings, he voluntarily brings death upon himself; and the latter, while he is envious, proves himself little and lesser, for while he envies, he testifies that the one by whose prosperity he is tormented is greater.

Therefore the food to be chosen is not only that which tempers the burning heats of raging concupiscence and inflames it less, but also that which is easy to prepare and offers, for its purchase, the more convenient economy of a cheaper price, and which is suited to the common life and use of the brethren. For gluttony is of a threefold nature: one which compels the canonical hour of refreshment to be anticipated; another which rejoices only in the gorging and satiety of the belly with foods of any kind whatever; a third which delights in more elaborate and daintier dishes.

And therefore against it the monk must keep a threefold observance: that is, first, that he await the lawful time of the meal's release; secondly, that he be content with restrained portions; thirdly, that he be content with any foods whatever and cheaper ones. But whatever is presumed beyond custom and common use, the most ancient tradition of the Fathers marks as polluted with the disease of vanity and glory and ostentation.

Nor have we come to know that any of those whom we have observed to shine forth by merit of knowledge and discretion, or whom the grace of Christ has set before all as the most brilliant lights to be imitated, abstained from eating the bread which among them is held cheap and easily obtained; nor have we ever beheld any of those who, declining this rule and setting aside the use of bread, followed a refreshment of pulse or vegetables or fruits, held among the most approved, nor even attained the grace of discretion or knowledge.

For they decree not only that a monk ought not to seek out foods unusual to the rest—lest namely his course, laid open as it were in public to all, being made empty and void, should perish through the disease of vainglory—but they pronounce that not even the chastisement of fastings itself ought to be easily made known to anyone in common, but rather, as much as can be done, should be equally covered and hidden. And when brethren arrive, they judged it more commendable that the virtue of kindness and love be offered rather than that the strictness of continence and the rigor of the daily purpose be displayed; and that we should not attend to what our own will and advantage or the ardor of desire demands, but should set before it and gladly fulfill what the rest or infirmity of the arriving guest requires.

When, desiring to learn the decrees of the elders, we had come from the regions of Syria to the province of Egypt, and there marveled that we were received with such eagerness of heart that no rule of refreshment at all was kept, as we had been instructed in the monasteries of Palestine, until the appointed hour of fasting, but rather—apart from the lawful fasts of the fourth and sixth day of the week—wherever we went the daily station was released, one of the elders, when we asked why the daily fasts were thus so indifferently passed over among them, replied: Fasting is always with me, but you I am presently about to send away, and I shall not be able to keep you continually with me.

And fasting, though useful and necessary, is nevertheless the offering of a voluntary gift; but the work of charity the necessity of the precept requires to be fulfilled. And so, receiving Christ in you, I ought to refresh him; but when I have escorted you away, I shall be able to compensate in myself, by a stricter fasting, for the kindness shown for his sake. For the children of the bridegroom cannot fast so long as the bridegroom is with them; but when he shall have departed, then they will fast as is lawful. A certain one of the elders, when he was urging me as I refreshed myself still to eat a little more, and I had already said I could not, replied:

I have already six times, with various brethren arriving, set the table, and, urging each one, have taken food with them all, and I am still hungry; and you, now refreshing yourself for the first time, already say you cannot? We saw another dwelling in the solitude, who testified that he had never indulged food to himself alone, but that even if for five whole days none of the brethren had come to his cell, he continually put off his refreshment, until, going forth to church on a Sabbath or the Lord's day on account of the assembly of the devout congregation, he found some pilgrim, whom, leading back thence to his cell, he took, with that one as his companion, a refreshment for the body, not so much on account of his own need as by grace of kindness and for his brother's sake.

And so, just as they know how to release the daily fasts indifferently at the arrival of the brethren, so at their departure they compensate, by a greater continence, for the refreshment allowed on their account, exacting the partaking of the smallest food by a sharper chastisement, and enforcing it more severely not only by diminution of bread but also of sleep itself. When the elder John, who was set over a great monastery and a multitude of brethren, had come to the elder Paesius dwelling in the vast desert, and inquired of him, as of a most ancient companion, what he had done through all the forty years during which, separated from him, he had lived in the solitude and had scarcely been interrupted by the brethren, he said: Never has the sun seen me eating. And the other said: Nor me angry.

When the same elder, cheerful as one migrating to his own home, was now set in his last breath, and the anxious brethren, surrounding him, humbly besought him to leave them some memorial charge, as a certain hereditary legacy, through which they might more easily attain to the summit of perfection by the compendium of a precept, he, groaning, said: Never have I done my own will, nor have I taught anyone what I had not first done myself. We saw an elder named Machetes, dwelling far from the crowds of the brethren, who by long prayers had obtained this grace from the Lord: that, for however many days and nights a spiritual conference should be carried on, he was never at all relaxed by the torpor of sleep.

But if anyone attempted to introduce a word of detraction or an idle one, he forthwith fell into sleep, and the poison of evil-speaking could not reach even to the pollution of his ears. This same elder, when he was instructing us that we ought to judge no one, added that there had been three things in which he had examined or reproved the brethren: namely, that some suffered a bunch of grapes to be cut for themselves, that they kept a cloak in their cells, and that, blessing oil, they gave it to seculars who asked for it; and he said that he had fallen into all these things himself. For, he said, contracting a sickness from grapes, I so pined away in its languor, that, compelled as much by the necessity of pain as by the exhortation of all the elders, I permitted a bunch to be cut for me.

By occasion of that same infirmity I was also compelled to have a cloak. As for blessing oil and giving it to suppliants, which above all things I abhorred, judging it to proceed from great presumption of heart, being suddenly surrounded by many seculars, I was so constrained that I could in no way otherwise escape them, unless they should have wrested it from me by utmost force and adjurations, that upon the little vessel offered by them I should lay my hand with the sign of the cross impressed: and so, believing themselves to have obtained the oil of blessing, they at length let me go. By which it was plainly ascertained by me that a monk is bound by the same causes and vices in which he has presumed to judge others.

For it behooves each one to judge himself alone, and to guard himself circumspectly and warily in all things, not to scrutinize the conduct and life of others, according to that precept of the Apostle: But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? To his own lord he stands or falls; and: Judge not, that ye be not judged: for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. For besides this cause which we have named, it is dangerous to judge concerning others also for this reason: that, ignorant either of the necessity or of the reason by which they do these things in which we take offense, either rightly before God or pardonably, we are found to have judged them rashly, and thereby we commit no light sin, feeling something concerning our brethren otherwise than we ought.

This same elder declared, by these signs, that the devil is ever the promoter of idle tales and the assailant of spiritual conferences. For when he was disputing with certain brethren about necessary and spiritual matters, and saw them sunk in a certain Lethean drowsiness and unable to drive the weight of sleep from their eyes, he suddenly introduced an idle tale. And when he saw that at its charm they had at once awakened and had their ears erect, groaning he said: Until now we were speaking of heavenly things, and the eyes of all of you were weighed down with a deadly slumber; but when an idle tale was brought in, all of you, roused, shook off the torpor of the sleep that was mastering us.

From this, therefore, weigh who was the assailant of that spiritual conference, or who is the instigator of this unfruitful and carnal one. For that one is most plainly detected to be present, who, rejoicing in evils, ceases not either to foster the one or to assail the other. Nor do I think it less necessary to commemorate this deed also of a brother intent upon the purity of his own heart and very solicitous about divine contemplation. When, after fifteen years, several letters from his father and mother and friends from the province of Pontus had been delivered to him, receiving a great bundle of letters and long turning it over within himself, he said:

How many thoughts, he said, will the reading of these be the cause of to me, which will impel me either to empty joy or to unfruitful sorrows? For how many days will the recollection of those who wrote recall the intention of my breast from the contemplation I have set before me? After how great a space of time must this confusion, conceived in the mind, be dispelled? And with how great labor must that state of tranquility again be repaired, if once the soul, moved by the affection of the letters and by reviewing the words and countenances of those whom for so long a time it has forsaken, should begin again to revisit them and to be present in soul and mind, dwelling together with them?

Surely it will profit nothing to have deserted them bodily, if the heart should begin to gaze upon them and, coming to life again, should admit again to itself that memory which, renouncing this world, each one has abjured as though dead. Turning these things over in his breast, he determined not only to open no letter, but not even to unseal the bundle itself, lest namely, by reviewing the names or by recalling the countenances of those who had written, he should cease from the intention of his spirit. And so, just as he had received it bound up, he gave it to the fire to be burned, saying: Go, thoughts of my homeland, be burned up together, and try not further to recall me to those things which I have fled.

We saw also the abbot Theodore, endowed with the highest sanctity and knowledge, not only in the active life but also in the understanding of the Scriptures, which not so much the study of reading or worldly learning had conferred on him as the sole purity of his heart, since indeed he could scarcely either understand or utter even a very few words of the Greek language itself. When he was inquiring into the explanation of a certain most obscure question, he persisted tireless in prayer for seven days and nights, until he came to know the solution of the proposed question by the Lord's revealing it.

This man therefore, when certain brethren marveled at so brilliant a light of his knowledge and inquired of him certain meanings of the Scriptures, said that a monk desiring to attain to the knowledge of the Scriptures ought by no means to spend his labors upon the books of commentators, but rather to detain all the industry of his mind and the intention of his heart upon the cleansing of the carnal vices; and when these are expelled, at once the eyes of the heart, the veil of the passions being lifted, would naturally contemplate the mysteries of the Scriptures, since indeed they have been promulgated to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit not that they should be unknown or obscure, but are rendered obscure by our own fault, the veil of sins beclouding the eyes of our heart:

but when these are again restored to their natural soundness, the very reading of the holy Scriptures alone abundantly suffices for the contemplation of true knowledge, nor do they need the instructions of commentators, just as these carnal eyes need no one's teaching in order to see, provided only they be free from the suffusion or darkness of blindness. For this reason, indeed, so great a variety and errors have arisen among them, because most, applying no diligence at all to the purgation of the mind and leaping forth to interpret them, on account of the grossness or uncleanness of their heart, thinking things diverse and contrary either to the faith or to themselves, were unable to grasp the light of truth.

This same man, when he had come unexpectedly to my little cell in the dead of night, secretly watching with a father's solicitude what I, still a raw and solitary anchorite, might be doing, and had found me just then, the evening office being ended, beginning to refresh my weary body and lying down upon my rush mat, drew sighs from his inmost heart and, calling me by name, said: 'How many, O John, at this very hour hold converse with God, and embrace and hold Him fast within themselves! And you are defrauded of so great a light, dissolved in idle sleep?'

And since the virtues and grace of the Fathers have drawn us into a narration of this kind, I think it necessary to commit to this volume a memorable work of charity, which we experienced through the kindness of that most excellent man Archebius, so that the purity of continence, interwoven with the work of charity, may shine forth the more brightly, adorned with a beautiful variety. For then the gift of fasting is rendered acceptable to God, when it has been perfected by the fruits of charity.

And so, when as complete novices we had come from the monasteries of Palestine to a town of Egypt called Diolcos, and there saw a very great throng bound by the discipline of the coenobium and wonderfully instituted in the best order of monks—which is also the first order—we were spurred on by everyone's praises and hastened with most eager heart to behold also another order, which is held to be more excellent, namely that of the anchorites. For these, first dwelling a very long time in the coenobia, diligently taught every rule of patience and discretion, and having likewise possessed the virtue of humility and nakedness, and being purged to the utmost of the whole company of vices, penetrate the deep recesses of the desert, there to engage in the most savage battles with the demons.

Learning, then, that men of this purpose dwelt on this side of the channel of the river Nile, in a place which, being surrounded on one side by that same river and on the other by the vastness of the sea, forms an island habitable by no others than monks seeking solitude—for neither does the saltness of the soil nor the barrenness of the sands allow it to be fit for any cultivation—to these men, I say, hastening with the utmost longing, we admired beyond measure the labours which they endure out of contemplation of the virtues and love of solitude. For they are so constrained by the very scarcity of water that they dispense it with such care and scruple as no most frugal man preserves and spares the most precious kind of wine.

For they bring it three miles or even more from the channel of the aforesaid river for their necessary uses, and yet this distance, divided by sandy hills, is doubled by the very grievous difficulty of the labour. When, then, we had seen these things, and the ardour of imitating them had kindled us, and the aforesaid Archebius, most approved among them, had drawn us by his grace of kindness to his cell, having discovered our desire, he pretended that he himself wished to depart from that place and to offer us his cell as though he were about to migrate from it, affirming that he would do this even had we not been present at all.