Institutes & Conferences 2 part 9/15

Here too he has plainly declared that without holiness—which he is wont to call integrity of mind or purity of body—God can by no means be seen. For here likewise he similarly adds, explaining the same sense: 'Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau.' And so, as sublime and heavenly as the reward of chastity is, so much the more grievously is it assailed by the snares of its adversaries. And therefore we must apply the more diligently not only continence of body but also contrition of heart with constant groanings of prayer, so that the furnace of our flesh, which the king of Babylon does not cease to kindle with the incitements of carnal suggestions, may be extinguished by the dew of the Holy Spirit descending into our hearts.

For as the elders say that this cannot be attained unless the foundations of humility have first been laid in the heart, so too they define that one cannot even reach the fountain of true knowledge until the root of this virtue has settled in the inmost parts of our soul; and that it is indeed possible for integrity to be found without the grace of knowledge, but impossible for spiritual knowledge to be possessed without the chastity of integrity. For the gifts are diverse, and neither grace of the Holy Spirit is granted to all, but to whatever grace each one has shown himself worthy and fit by his own zeal and effort.

Finally, though the virtue of perfect integrity is believed to have existed in all the holy Apostles, yet the gift of knowledge overflowed more abundantly in Paul, because he prepared himself for it with skilful zeal and effort. There is handed down a stern saying of the holy Basil, bishop of Caesarea: 'I know not woman,' he said, 'and yet I am not a virgin.' To such a degree did he understand that incorruption of the flesh consists not so much in abstinence from woman as in integrity of heart, which truly guards the perpetually incorrupt holiness of the body, whether by the fear of God or by love of chastity.

And so this is the goal and perfect proof of integrity: if, while we are at rest, no titillation of pleasure creeps upon us, and only through the necessity of nature, without our being conscious of it, the impure secretions are discharged. To cut these off entirely and forever is above nature; but to reduce them to nature's unavoidable and most rare necessity belongs to the highest virtue, which is wont to assail the monk at intervals of two months.

Yet let this be said according to our own experience, not according to the opinion of the elders, by whom even this respite of the aforesaid interval was judged rather too narrow; for if we were to expound it in the way we have received it from them, we might perhaps be thought to have described things incredible or impossible to those who, through their own negligence or slacker zeal, have less experienced this purity.

We shall be able to hold this state perpetually and never exceed the natural measure nor the time above mentioned, if we consider that God is by day and by night alike the inspector and witness not only of our secret acts but also of all our thoughts, and if we believe that we shall render an account to him for all that passes in our heart, just as for our deeds and works. To this point, then, we must press on, and thus far must we fight against the motions of the soul and the incitements of the flesh, until this condition of the flesh fulfils the necessity of nature but does not stir up pleasure—expelling the accumulated superfluity without any itching or harm, and stirring up no battle against chastity.

For the rest, when the mind, while still asleep, is deceived by the vision of images, let it know that it has not yet been refined to the full perfection of chastity. Therefore, that these illusions may not steal upon us even while sleeping, an even and moderate fasting must always be maintained. For whoever exceeds the measure of strictness must of necessity also exceed the measure of relaxation. Held fast by such inequality, he will without doubt be recalled from this most level state of tranquillity—now failing through excessive emptiness, now distended by too plentiful food. For with a change of nourishment the quality of our purity must likewise change.

Next, continual humility and patience of heart must be perpetually applied, and throughout the day a watchful guard against anger and the other passions. For where the venom of fury lodges, there also the fire of lust must of necessity penetrate. Above all, an ever-vigilant nightly solicitude is necessary. For as purity and the guarding of the day prepare the chastity of the night, so the nightly vigils lay for both the heart and the daily observance a most solid state and strength. ON THE SPIRIT OF AVARICE. CHAPTERS. I. That the war of avarice is foreign, and is not natural in man as the other vices are. II. How pernicious the disease of avarice is. III. What use there is for us in the natural vices. IIII.

That we may say certain vices are natural in us without any injury to the Creator. V. On the vices that are contracted outside the natural motion by our own fault. VI. How difficult it is, once the disease of avarice has been admitted, to drive it out. VII. By what beginnings avarice is engendered, and of how many evils it is the mother. VIII. That avarice hinders all the virtues. VIIII. That a monk possessing money cannot remain in the monastery. X. What labour the deserter of the monastery, who before murmured at the lightest tasks, undergoes because of avarice. XI. That on the pretext of guarding money the fellowship of women is sought. XII. An example of a certain lukewarm monk bound by the snares of avarice. XIII.

What the elders confer upon the younger in the laying bare of vices. XIIII. By what examples the disease of avarice is shown to be threefold. XV. In what the one who renounces badly differs from the one who does not renounce at all. XVI. Under the colour of what testimony those shelter themselves who are unwilling to be stripped of their possessions. XVII. On the renunciation of the Apostles and of the primitive Church. XVIII. That, if we wish to imitate the Apostles, we ought not to live by our own definitions, but to follow their examples. XVIIII. The saying of the holy bishop Basil brought forth against Syncletius. XX. How shameful it is to be overcome by avarice. XXI. In what manner avarice is to be overcome. XXII. That one may be judged avaricious even without possessing money. XXIII. An example concerning Judas. XXIIII.

That avarice cannot be conquered except by nakedness. XXV. On the death of Ananias and Sapphira and of Judas, which they underwent at the impulse of avarice. XXVI. That avarice brings a spiritual leprosy upon the soul. XXVII. Testimonies from the Scriptures, by which the one desiring perfection is taught not to take back what he renounced and abandoned. XXVIII. That victory over avarice cannot otherwise be won except by nakedness. XXVIIII. In what manner nakedness can be retained by a monk. XXX. Remedies against the disease of avarice. XXXI. That no one can conquer avarice unless he perseveres in the monastery, and in what manner he can remain there.

Our third conflict is against avarice, which we may call the love of money—a foreign war and outside nature, taking its beginning in the monk from nowhere else than the sloth of a corrupt and torpid mind, and most often from a renunciation badly undertaken at the outset and founded upon a lukewarm love toward God. For the other incitements of the vices, being ingrafted into human nature, seem to have their beginnings as it were innate in us, and, in a manner interwoven with the flesh and almost coeval with our very birth, they anticipate the discernment of good and evil; and although they seize hold of man first, yet they are overcome by long toil.

But this disease, coming upon us later and approaching from without, the more easily it can be guarded against and rejected, so much the more, once neglected and let into the heart, does it become more pernicious than all the rest and more difficult to expel. For it becomes the root of all evils, sprouting manifold kindlings of the vices. As for instance the simple motions of the flesh—do we not see them not only in boys, in whom innocence still anticipates the discernment of good and evil, but even in infants and sucklings? Who, though they have not in themselves even the beginning of any lust, yet show that the motions of the flesh are inherent in them by a natural incitement.

The fierce stings of anger too—do we not similarly behold them already vigorous in little ones? And before they know the virtue of patience, we see them stirred up by injuries and feeling the insults of words inflicted even in jest. And sometimes, when their strength is lacking, yet the will to revenge is not lacking, since anger goads them on. Nor do I say this to call the nature of our condition into blame, but to assert that these motions, which proceed from us, are some indeed implanted in us for our benefit, but others are introduced from without through the vice of negligence and the choice of an evil will.

For those carnal motions which we mentioned above were usefully implanted in our body by the providence of the Creator for the reparation of offspring and for raising up the propagation of posterity, not for perpetrating the outrages of debaucheries and adulteries, which are condemned even by the authority of the law. The stings of anger too—do we not understand them most wholesomely allotted to us, so that, being indignant at our own vices and errors, we may rather be occupied with virtues and spiritual pursuits, showing all charity to God and patience to our brethren? Of sorrow too we know how great is the usefulness, which, among the other vices, is reckoned when it is changed into a contrary disposition.

For it is both most necessary according to the fear of God and exceedingly pernicious according to the world, as the Apostle teaches, saying: 'For the sorrow that is according to God works steadfast repentance unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world works death.' Therefore, if we have said that these motions were implanted in us by the Creator, he will not on that account be seen as blameworthy, if, wickedly abusing them, we prefer to twist them rather toward harmful ministries, and choose to be sorrowful over unfruitful and worldly losses instead of over salutary repentance and the correction of our vices, or if indeed we are angry not usefully to our own selves but against the Lord's prohibition, at our brethren.

And if a man should choose to twist iron, granted for a necessary and useful ministry, toward the slaughter of the innocent, he will not truly on this account defame the maker of the material, if what the one furnished as fit and necessary for the use of good living, the other has used for doing harm. Yet we say that certain vices grow up without any preceding natural occasion, but by the choice of a corrupt and evil will alone—as is the case with envy and with avarice itself; which, since they have in us no beginnings from natural instinct, are contracted from without.

Yet these, as much as they are easy to guard against and opportune to avoid, so much the more do they make wretched the mind they have seized and possessed, and scarcely allow it to reach the remedies of health—either because they do not deserve to be cured by swift medicine who have been wounded by those things which they could have ignored or avoided or most easily conquered; or indeed because, being badly founded, they are unworthy to receive the structure of the virtues and the summit of perfection. Wherefore let this disease seem cheap and despicable to no one, which, as it can most easily be shunned, so, if it has possessed anyone, scarcely permits him to reach the remedies of health. For it is a receptacle of vices and the root of all evils, and becomes an inextricable kindling of wickedness, as the Apostle says:

'The root of all evils is avarice, that is, the love of money.' This, then, when it has possessed the slack and lukewarm mind of the monk, first soliciting him with a trifling sum, sets before him certain just and seemingly reasonable pretexts, on account of which he ought either to reserve some money for himself or to procure it. For he complains that the things provided in the monastery are not sufficient and can scarcely be borne by a sound and robust body. What is to be done if some bodily illness should arise and nothing private has been laid by, wherewith infirmity may be sustained? The provision of the monastery is very meagre, and the negligence toward the sick very great. If there be nothing of one's own by which care of the body can be applied, one must die miserably.

Even the clothing provided is not enough, unless he sees to it that he can supply himself with other. Finally, that he cannot long dwell in the same place or monastery, and unless he prepares for himself provision for the journey and the fare for passage overseas, he cannot migrate when he wishes, and, constrained by the necessity of want, will continually endure a laborious and wretched life without any profit, and, needy and naked always, will have to be sustained by another's substance not without reproach. And so, when it has ensnared his mind with thoughts of this kind, he devises how he may acquire at least a single denarius. Then, with anxious mind, he seeks out some private work to ply without the abbot's knowledge.

Selling this secretly, and having at last gained the coveted coin, he is more sharply and vehemently tormented as to how he may double it, being uncertain where to store it or to whom to entrust it. Then, with heavier care, he is racked over what he may buy with it and by what trade he may double it. And when this too has fallen out according to his wish, a greedier hunger for gold grows upon him, and is stirred up the more vehemently as the sum of gain set before him is greater. For with the increase of money the madness of covetousness is increased. Then next a long life is promised him, a bent old age, and various and prolonged infirmities, which cannot be borne in old age unless a larger sum has been prepared in youth.

And so the unhappy soul, bound by serpentine coils, while it covets with baser care to increase the ill-heaped store, itself gives birth to the plague by which it is the more grievously inflamed; and, wholly possessed by the thought of gain, it looks upon nothing else with the eye of the heart than whence it may be able to procure money, through which it may as quickly as possible fly away from the discipline of the monastery—showing no fidelity wherever some hope of a coin can gleam.

For its sake he shudders not to commit the crime of lying, of perjury, of theft; not to break faith, not to be filled with the noxious fury of wrath if he has fallen short of the hope of gain from anyone; he fears not to transgress the measure of honour and of humility, and gold and the hope of gain become to him in all things, as the belly is to others, in the place of God. Whence the blessed Apostle, foreseeing the noxious venoms of this disease, pronounced it to be not only the root of all evils, but also the service of idols, saying: 'and avarice' (which in Greek is called philargyria), 'which is the service of idols.'

You see, then, to what ruin this madness grows through each successive step, so that it is even pronounced by the Apostle's voice to be the service of idols or images—because, having set aside the figure and image of God, which one devoutly serving God ought to have kept unstained within himself, he preferred to love, in the place of God, the figures of men stamped upon gold, and to safeguard them. Growing worse, therefore, by such advances of decline, he is content henceforth to retain not, I will not say the virtue, but not even the shadow of humility, of charity, of obedience; he is indignant at everything, murmurs and sighs at each single task, and, no reverence being now preserved, is borne like a most stubborn horse, unbridled, toward the precipice:

Content neither with his daily food nor with his customary clothing, he protests that he will not endure these things any longer, and proclaims that God is not in that place alone, nor is his salvation shut up in that place only, whence, if he does not more speedily carry himself off somewhere, he grievously groans that he will straightway perish. And so, having money as the provision of his instability, in whose protection he has fitted himself as it were with wings, and being now ready to migrate, he answers insolently to all commands, and, bearing himself as a stranger and foreigner, whatever he perceives as needing correction, he neglects and despises.

And while he stealthily possesses hidden money, he complains that he does not even have shoes and clothing, and is indignant that they are given him too slowly. And if perchance, by the elder's dispensation, something of these has been imparted first to one who is known to have nothing at all, he burns with greater goads of anger and thinks himself despised as a stranger; and, not content to apply his hands to any work, he reproaches everything that the utility of the monastery compels to be necessarily done. Then he diligently seeks out occasions by which he ought to be offended or to be angry, lest he should seem to leave the discipline of the community when only lightly moved.

Yet not content to migrate alone, lest he be thought to have deserted through his own vice, he ceases not to corrupt by clandestine whisperings as many as he can. But if perhaps the harshness of the season has cut off the passage of his journey or voyage, throughout all that time, sitting with suspended and anxious heart, he does not cease to sow or stir up sorrows, believing that he will find the solace of his departure and the excuse for his fickleness in no other way than in some blemish or stain of the monastery. And so he is borne on, kindled more and more by the torches of his money, which, once possessed, never permit a monk either to reside in a monastery or to live under the institution of a rule.

And when thereupon, like some savage beast, avarice has separated him from the assembly of the flock, making him a sheep opportune for prey by the deprivation of his companions, and rendering him easy for devouring by the privation of fellowship, it compels him—who before had disdained to perform the light works of the monastery—to labour tirelessly day and night in the hope of gain: it permits him not to keep the solemnities of prayers, nor the measure of fasts, nor the rule of vigils, nor does it suffer him to fulfil the offices of honourable intercessions, provided only that he can either sate the madness of avarice or meet his daily needs—kindling the fire of covetousness while he believes he is extinguishing it by acquiring.

Hence now some, fallen over a sheer precipice, are borne by an irrevocable ruin to death; and, not content to possess alone the money which they had either never had or had reserved from an evil beginning, they seek out the fellowship of women, who are to guard the things ill-heaped or ill-retained. And they involve themselves in occupations so noxious and pernicious that, rolled down even to the depths of hell, while they refuse to acquiesce in that apostolic sentence—that having food and clothing they should be content with what the frugality of the monastery provides—but rather, wishing to become rich, they fall into temptation and the snare of the devil, and many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

'For the root of all evils is covetousness, that is, avarice, which some coveting have erred from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.' I am not ignorant of a certain man who claims himself to be a monk, and (which is worse) flatters himself concerning his perfection.

Who, having been received into the community, when he was admonished by his abbot not to roll back to those things which in renouncing he had abandoned, and to free himself from avarice, the root of all evils, and from earthly snares—and, if he preferred to be cleansed of his former passions, by which the abbot saw him most grievously pressed at every moment, to cease longing after those things which he had not even possessed before, and by whose bonds fettered he could without doubt not attain to the purgation of his vices—did not hesitate to answer him with a savage countenance: 'If you have very much wherewith to sustain yourself, why do you forbid me likewise to have?' But let these things seem to no one either superfluous or troublesome.

For unless the kinds of wounds and the origins and causes of the diseases have first been set forth and traced out, neither can a fitting cure of medicine be applied to the sick, nor can the safeguard of perfect health be conferred upon the strong. For both these and many more things besides are wont to be brought forth in conference by the elders, who have witnessed innumerable falls and ruins of various persons, for the instruction of the younger. Recognizing many of these things full often in ourselves, as the elders thus expounded and revealed them—as though they too were assailed by these same passions—we were cured without the shame of our own confusion, while we silently learned both the remedies and the causes of the vices that beset us.

These things we have neither veiled nor passed over out of fear for the body of the brotherhood, but lest perchance the book, slipping into the hands of those who seem less instructed in this purpose, should disclose to the inexperienced what ought to be known only to those who sweat and hasten to attain the summit of perfection. Threefold, then, is the disease of this malady, which is condemned by all the Fathers with equal detestation: one, this, whose blemish we described above, which, deceiving all the wretched, persuades them to heap up those things which they did not even possess before while they lived in the world; another, which compels them to take back after this, and again to desire, those things which at the outset of their renunciation they had cast away;

the third, which, contracted from an evil and vicious beginning and starting from imperfection, does not allow those whom it has once infected with this lukewarmness of mind—terrified by the fear of poverty and distrust—to strip themselves of all worldly resources, and, permitting them to reserve the money or substance which as renouncers they ought certainly to have cast away, never grants them to attain to evangelical perfection. Of which three ruins we find examples in the Holy Scriptures also to have been condemned with no light penalty.

For Gehazi, wishing to acquire what he had not even possessed before, not only did not deserve to keep the grace of prophecy, which he had received from his master as by hereditary succession, but on the contrary was drenched, by the curse of holy Elisha, with an everlasting leprosy. Judas, again, wishing to take back the money which he had earlier cast away when he followed Christ, not only fell into the betrayal of the Lord and lost the rank of his apostleship, but did not even deserve to end his very life by a common death, and closed it by the death of one who is self-slain. Ananias and Sapphira, keeping back a certain part of what they had possessed, were punished with death by the mouth of the apostle.

Concerning those, therefore, who say that they have renounced this world, yet, shaken again by unbelief, are afraid to be stripped of earthly wealth, it is mystically commanded in Deuteronomy: 'If there be a man fearful and faint of heart, let him not go forth to battle; let him depart and return to his own house, lest he make the hearts of his brethren to fear, even as he himself is stricken with terror.' What, I ask, could be plainer than this testimony? Does not Scripture manifestly prefer that such men should claim for themselves neither the beginning nor even the name of this profession, rather than that by a corrupt exhortation and example they should call others back from evangelical perfection and weaken them with faithless dread?

It is therefore commanded them that, departing from the battle, they should return to their own house, because no one can with a double heart wage the wars of the Lord (for 'a man of double mind is inconstant in all his ways'), and, weighing, according to that parable of the Gospel, that he who goes forth with ten thousand cannot fight against the king who comes with twenty thousand, they should, while he is yet far off, sue for peace—that is, that they should rather not lay hold even of the beginning of renunciation than, pursuing it lukewarmly afterward, entangle themselves in greater peril. For it is better not to make a vow than to vow and not to pay. And beautifully is the one described as coming with ten thousand and the other with twenty thousand.

For the number of the vices that assail us is greater than that of the virtues that fight on our behalf. 'And no man can serve God and mammon,' nor is anyone 'who puts his hand to the plough and looks back fit for the kingdom of God.' These men, therefore, strive to bring back upon themselves the occasion of their former covetousness by a certain authority of Holy Scripture, which, interpreting it with a more vicious understanding, they long to corrupt the meaning of the apostle—nay, of the Lord—and to distort it to their own desire; not fitting their own life or understanding to the sense of the Scriptures, but doing violence to the Scriptures for the desire of their own lust, they wish to make them agree with their own opinions, and say that it is written: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

By whose most depraved interpretation they think that that sentence of the Lord is enervated in which it is said: 'If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' And under this pretext they judge that they ought not to cast away their riches, pronouncing themselves, forsooth, the more blessed, if, supported by their former substance, they bestow upon others out of its superabundance—while they blush to take up with the apostle a glorious nakedness for Christ's sake, and are unwilling to be content either with the work of their hands or with the frugality of the monastery.

For such men it remains either to recognize that they are deceiving themselves and have by no means renounced this world, while they still brood over their former riches; or, if they truly desire to prove the profession of a monk in deed and in work, to scatter and cast away all things, reserving nothing of what they had renounced, and to glory with the apostle 'in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.'

As though, forsooth, that man too could not likewise have been sustained by his former means—he who testifies that he was not of ignoble rank even in the order of this world, when he asserts that he was set above others by the dignity of a Roman citizen from his birth—if he had judged this more advantageous for perfection; and as though those men at Jerusalem, who, being possessors of fields or houses, sold all and, reserving to themselves absolutely nothing of these things, brought the prices of them and laid them at the apostles' feet, could not have supported the necessity of their body from their own resources, if this had been judged more perfect by the apostles, or they themselves had proved it to be more profitable: