修道著作（修行篇/論思念/致歐羅吉烏） 第 2-1 章 第 1/2 段

Of the demons that oppose the practical life, the first to take their stand in the war are those entrusted with the pleasures (or appetites) of gluttony, those who suggest the love of money to us, and those who call us toward the esteem of men.

All the others march behind these, and take over those who have been wounded by them.

For it is not possible to fall into the hands of the spirit of fornication unless one has first fallen through gluttony;

and it is not possible to stir up anger unless one is fighting for food, money, or glory, or for the desires of irrational things;

and it is not possible to escape the demon of sadness when one has been deprived of all these, or has been unable to obtain them;

nor will anyone escape pride, the first offspring of the devil, unless he has banished the root of all evils, the love of money, since indeed poverty humbles a man, according to the wise Solomon;

and to put it briefly, it is not possible for a man to fall into the hands of a demon unless he has first been wounded by those leaders in the front rank; therefore the devil also brought these three thoughts to the Savior:

first, urging that the stones become loaves, then promising the whole world if He would fall down and worship,

and third, saying that He would be glorified if He listened, suffering nothing from so great a fall; but our Lord, having shown Himself superior to these, ordered the devil to get behind Him, thereby teaching us also that it is not possible to drive away the devil unless we despise these three thoughts.

All demonic thoughts bring into the soul concepts of sensible objects, in which the mind, being stamped, carries about within itself the forms of those objects, and from the object itself it thereafter recognizes the demon that has drawn near;

for example, if the face of the one who has wronged or dishonored me arises in my mind, the thought of grudge-bearing is convicted of having intruded.

Again, if a remembrance of money or glory should arise, the one afflicting us will clearly be recognized from the object;

and likewise in the case of the other thoughts, from the object you will find the demon that stands by and suggests the fantasies.

But I do not say that all the memories of such objects come from demons;

since it is the nature of the mind itself, when moved by the man, to bring up the fantasies of past events; rather, I mean those memories that draw along with them anger or desire contrary to nature.

For because of the disturbance of these two powers, the mind commits adultery in thought and fights, being unable to receive the image of Him who gave it the law.

That radiance indeed appears to the ruling faculty at the time of prayer through the privation of all concepts arising from objects.

A man could not put away the passionate memories unless he took care of desire and anger, consuming the one by fasting, vigils, and sleeping on the ground, and taming the other by long-suffering, freedom from grudges, and almsgiving;

for from these two passions arise almost all the demonic thoughts that cast the mind into ruin and destruction.

It is impossible for anyone to overcome these passions unless he has entirely despised food, money, and glory, and moreover his own body too, because of those who often attempt to strike it;

there is then every necessity to imitate those who, in danger at sea, throw out the cargo because of the force of the winds and the rising waves.

But here one must take careful heed, lest in throwing out the cargo we do it to be seen by men;

for then we have our reward, and another shipwreck worse than the former will overtake us, when the demon of vainglory blows against us.

Therefore our Lord also in the Gospels, instructing the pilot-mind, says, Take heed that you do not do your alms before men to be seen by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. And again:

When you pray, He says, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, so that they may be seen by men;

truly I say to you, they have their reward. And again He says:

When you fast, do not be gloomy like the hypocrites;

for they disfigure their faces, so that they may appear to men to be fasting;

truly I say to you, they have their reward. But here one must attend to the physician of souls, how through almsgiving He heals anger, through prayer He cleanses the mind, and again through fasting He withers desire, out of which is constituted the new man, who is being renewed according to the image of his Creator, in whom, because of holy dispassion, there is neither male nor female, nor, because of the one faith and love, Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all in all.

One must inquire how the demons in dreams stamp and shape our ruling faculty;

for such a thing seems to happen to the mind either when it sees through the eyes, or hears through the hearing, or again through some other sense, or from memory, which stamps the ruling faculty not through the body, but it sets in motion those things which it received through the body.

The demons, then, seem to me, by setting memory in motion, to stamp the ruling faculty;

for the bodily organ is held inactive by sleep.

How then, again, they set memory in motion must be inquired—perhaps through the passions? And this is clear from the fact that the pure and dispassionate no longer suffer anything of the sort.

There is also a certain simple movement produced by us, or by the holy powers, according to which we meet with the saints in our sleep, and converse, and feast together.

But one must take note that whatever images the soul receives together with the body, these the memory sets in motion without the body; and this is plain from the fact that we often experience this even in sleep while the body is at rest.

For just as it is possible to remember water both with thirst and without thirst,

so it is possible to remember gold with greed and without greed, and likewise in the case of the other objects.

But for the mind to find these or those differences of fantasies is a mark of their (the demons') malicious craft.

At the same time one must also know this, that the demons make use even of external objects for their fantasies, as in the case of those at sea with the sound of the waves.

...to give to those who make the suggestions.

This I know many often do, and more than is proper, being inflamed over small pretexts.

For tell me, on whose account do you quickly rush into a fight, if indeed you have despised food, glory, and money? And why do you feed the dog, while professing to possess nothing? But if it barks and attacks people, it is plain that you possess something within and wish to guard these things.

But I am persuaded that such a man is far from pure prayer, knowing that anger is the destroyer of such prayer.

Besides this I am astonished, as if the saints had been forgotten—David crying out, Cease from anger and forsake wrath; and Ecclesiastes commanding, Put away anger from your heart and remove evil from your flesh; and the Apostle enjoining, that in every place men lift up holy hands to the Lord without wrath and reasonings. Why do we not learn even from the mystical and ancient custom of men, which drives the dogs out of the houses at the time of prayer, hinting thereby that anger ought not to be present with those who pray? And again:

Their wine is the wrath of dragons. But the Nazirites abstained from wine.

One of the outside (pagan) sages declared that gall and loins are not to be eaten by (offered to) the gods, not knowing, I think, what he meant; of these, I for my part consider the one to be a symbol of anger, and the other of irrational desire.

Concerning not being anxious about clothing or food, I think it superfluous to write, since our Savior Himself in the Gospels forbade it, saying, Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, or what you shall put on. For this is plainly the way of the heathen and of unbelievers, who reject the providence of the Master and deny the Creator;

but such a thing is altogether foreign to Christians, who have once for all believed that even two sparrows sold for a farthing are under the dispensation of the holy angels.

Yet this too is a habit of the demons, to cast in, after the unclean thoughts, also the thoughts of anxiety, so that Jesus may slip away, there being a crowd of concepts in the place of the mind, and the word may become fruitless, choked by the thorns of anxiety.

Therefore, having put away the thoughts arising from anxiety, let us cast our care upon the Lord, being content with what we have at hand, living a frugal life, and let us strip off the garments of vainglory in broad daylight.

And if anyone thinks it unseemly to wear a poor garment, let him look at holy Paul, who in cold and nakedness awaited the crown of righteousness.

But since the Apostle called this world a theater and a stadium, let us see whether it is possible, having clothed oneself in the thoughts of anxiety, to run for the prize of the upward calling, or to wrestle against the principalities and powers, and against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age;

I for my part do not know, being instructed even from the sensible history itself.

For that wrestler will plainly be hindered by his tunic, and will easily be dragged about, just as the mind is by the thoughts of anxiety, if indeed He speaks truly who says that the mind clings to its own treasure: For where your treasure is, He says, there will your heart be also. CHAPTER.

Of the thoughts, some cut off, and others are cut off;

and the evil ones cut off the good, while again the evil ones are cut off by the good; the Holy Spirit, then, attends to the thought first set forth, and judges or accepts us according to that one. What I mean is this:

I have this thought for the Lord's sake, but when the tempter comes upon it, it is cut off by his suggesting that I show hospitality for the sake of glory.

I have the thought of hospitality in order to appear to men, but this too is cut off when a better thought comes upon it, one that directs our virtue rather toward the Lord and compels us not to do these things for the sake of men.

If then by our deeds we afterward abide in the former thoughts, while being tempted by the latter, we shall have the rewards only of the former thoughts that were first set forth, because, being men and wrestling with demons, we are not able always to keep the right thought incorruptible, nor again to have the evil thought untested, since we possess seeds of virtues.

But if one of the cutting thoughts lingers, it takes the place of the one being tempted, and the man, thereafter moved according to that thought, will act accordingly.

Of the angelic thoughts, the human, and those from demons, we have come to know, with much observation, this difference: that first, the angelic thoughts carefully examine the natures of things and search out their spiritual principles.

For instance, for what purpose was gold created, and why is it sandy and scattered down in the parts of the earth, and found with much toil and labor; and how, when found, it is washed with water and given over to fire, and so is put into the hands of craftsmen who make the lampstand of the tabernacle, the censer, the incense-cups, and the bowls, in which the king of Babylon no longer drinks, because of the grace of our Savior, while Cleopas bears a heart burning with these mysteries.

But the demonic thought neither knows nor understands these things;

it only suggests the acquisition of sensible gold, and foretells the luxury and glory that will come from it;

but the human thought neither seeks the acquisition, nor examines of what gold is a symbol, but only brings into the mind the bare form of the gold, separated from the passion of greed;

and the same account will be given concerning the other objects too, when one is mystically trained according to this rule.

There is a demon called the wanderer, who especially stands by the brethren toward dawn, and leads the mind of the anchorite about from city to city, from house to house, from village to village, at first making merely bare encounters and meeting with certain acquaintances and talking at length, and corrupting his own proper state toward those he meets, and gradually withdrawing far from the knowledge of God, from virtue, and from his profession, and falling into forgetfulness.

The anchorite must therefore watch this demon, where it begins and where it ends;

for not at random, nor by chance, does it make that long circuit, but, wishing to corrupt the state of the anchorite, it does these things, so that the mind, being inflamed by them and made drunk by the many encounters, may immediately fall into the demon of fornication, or of anger, or of sadness, which especially mar the brightness of his state.

But we, if indeed we have the aim of clearly knowing its craftiness, must not speak quickly to it, nor show what is happening, how it works the encounters according to the mind, and in what manner it gradually drives the mind toward death, since it will flee from us;

for it does not consent to be seen doing these things;

and then we shall learn nothing of what we were eager to learn.

But let us allow it yet another day, or even a second, to complete its task, so that, having accurately learned its scheme, we may afterward, refuting it by word, put it to flight.

But since it happens at the time of temptation that the mind, being troubled, does not accurately see what is taking place, let this be done after the demon's departure;

sitting by yourself, recall the things that happened to you, from where you began and where you went, and in what place you were captured by the spirit of fornication, or of anger, or of sadness, and how all that happened came to pass, and learn these things accurately, and hand them over to memory, so that you may have the means to refute it when it approaches, and to point out the place it hides, and you will no longer follow it.

But if you wish sometime to provoke it even to madness, refute it immediately when it stands by, and reveal the first place into which it entered, and the second, and the third; for it is greatly vexed, unable to bear the shame;

and the proof that you have spoken to it opportunely will be the flight of the thought from you;

for it is impossible thereafter for it to stand when it is openly refuted.

After this demon of wandering has been defeated, there follows a very heavy sleep, and a deadening with much coldness of the eyelids, and countless yawns, and shoulders that grow heavy and numb, all of which the Holy Spirit will dissolve by intense prayer.

Hatred against the demons contributes greatly to our salvation, and is well suited to the working of virtue;

but we are not strong enough to nourish this within ourselves like some good offspring, since the pleasure-loving spirits corrupt it and call the soul back again to friendship and familiarity;

but this friendship, or rather this hard-to-heal gangrene, the physician of souls heals by means of abandonment;

for He allows us to suffer something fearful from them by night or by day, and again the soul runs back to its original hatred, being taught to say to the Lord, according to David, I hated them with a perfect hatred; they became enemies to me. For he hates the enemies with a perfect hatred who sins neither in act nor in thought;

which is a token of the first and greatest dispassion.

But concerning the demon that makes the soul insensible, what need is there to speak? For I am afraid even to write about it, how the soul departs from its own proper state;

for at the time of its sojourn, the soul puts off both the fear of God and reverence, and reckons sin to be no sin, and does not regard lawlessness as lawlessness; it remembers eternal punishment and judgment as a mere word, but truly laughs at the fiery earthquake (of hell), and confesses God, as it were, yet does not know what He has commanded;

you beat upon your breast as it (the soul) is moved toward sin, and it does not feel it.

You discourse from the Scriptures, and it is wholly hardened and does not hear;

you bring upon it the reproach that comes from men, and it does not reckon the shame before men, and it understands nothing at all, like a pig that has shut its eyes and breaks through the fence;

this demon is brought on by lingering thoughts of vainglory, and unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.

For of those who rarely visit the brethren, the cause too is evident;

for upon the misfortunes of others—when they are pressed by sicknesses, or suffer in prisons, or fall into sudden deaths—this demon is put to flight, as the soul is little by little pierced with compunction and comes to compassion, and the demonic hardening is dissolved; from these things we are deprived because of the desert and the scarcity of the sick among us.

This demon especially the Lord puts to flight, when in the Gospels He commanded us to visit the sick and to look in upon those in prison;

For I was sick, He says, and you visited Me, and I was in prison and you came to Me. But this must be known, that if any of the anchorites, having fallen in with this demon, did not receive thoughts of fornication, nor abandoned his cell out of accidie, he has received chastity and endurance come down from heaven, and is blessed, having been counted worthy of such dispassion.

But as many as, of those professing piety, choose also to dwell together with worldly people, let them guard against this demon.

For I am ashamed to say or to write anything more about it, and ashamed before men.

All the demons teach the soul to love pleasure;

only the demon of sadness does not consent to do this, but even corrupts the thoughts of those who have entered, cutting off every pleasure and withering it by means of sadness.

Since the bones of a sorrowful man are dried up, and when it wars in moderation it makes the anchorite approved;

for it persuades him to admit nothing of this world and to avoid every pleasure; but pressing on more, it begets thoughts that counsel him to take himself away from the soul (i.e., suicide), or compel him to flee far from the place;

which holy Job once also reckoned and suffered, being harassed by this demon;

For would that I might be able, he says, to lay hands on myself, or having besought another, that he would do this for me. The symbol of this demon is the viper, the beast, whose nature, when given in love (in due measure), destroys the venoms of the other beasts, but when taken immoderately destroys the living creature itself.

To this demon Paul handed over the one who transgressed in Corinth, wherefore he also writes again earnestly:

Confirm, he says to the Corinthians, your love toward him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sadness. But he knows that this spirit, when it afflicts men, also becomes for them the procurer of a good repentance;

whence also holy John the Baptist (addressed) those goaded by this demon and fleeing to God:

Brood of vipers, he says, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father;

for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. But everyone who has imitated Abraham, and gone out from his land and from his kindred, has himself also become stronger than this demon.

If anyone has mastered anger, he has mastered the demons; but if anyone has been enslaved by this passion, he is altogether a stranger to the monastic life and alien to the ways of our Savior;

since indeed our Lord Himself is said to teach the meek His ways;

wherefore the mind of the anchorites also becomes hard to capture, fleeing into the plain of meekness;

for the demons fear almost none of the virtues so much as meekness;

for this also that Moses possessed, who was called meek above all men.

And holy David too declared this worthy of God's remembrance;

Remember, Lord, he says, David and all his meekness. But the Savior Himself also commanded us to become imitators of His meekness;

...(speaking) to our dog (i.e., the soul's spiritedness), and it must be taught to destroy only the wolves and not to devour the sheep, showing all meekness toward all men.

Alone among the thoughts, that of vainglory is rich in material, and embraces almost the whole inhabited world, and opens the doors to all the demons, like some wicked traitor of a good city.

Wherefore it greatly humbles the mind of the anchorite, filling it with many words and matters, and ruining his prayers, by which he is eager to heal all the wounds of his soul.

All the demons, when defeated, help to increase this thought, and again through it they all gain entrance into the souls, truly making the last things worse than the first.

And from this thought is begotten also that famous one of pride, which cast down from heaven to earth the seal of the likeness and the crown of beauty.

But leap away from this thought and do not linger, lest we betray our life to others and our manner of living to the merciless.

This demon is put to flight by persistent prayer, and by doing nothing willingly of the things that contribute to that accursed glory.

When the mind of the anchorites has laid hold of a little dispassion, then, having acquired a horse of vainglory, it immediately drives off to the cities, taking its fill of unmixed praise from glory; against this, by (God's) dispensation, the spirit of fornication meets it, and shutting it up in one of the pigsties, teaches it no longer to leave the bed before complete recovery of health, nor to imitate the undisciplined among the sick, who, still carrying about in themselves the remnants of weakness, give themselves over to journeys and untimely baths, and fall into relapsing illnesses.

Therefore, sitting still, let us rather attend to ourselves, so that, advancing in virtue, we may become hard to move toward evil; and being renewed in knowledge, we may receive a multitude of varied contemplations; and being again lifted up in prayer, we may behold more clearly the light of our Savior.

I am not able to write all the evil deeds of the demons, and I am ashamed to recount their wicked devices, fearing for the simpler among those who will read.

Yet hear the craftiness of the spirit of fornication.

When someone has acquired dispassion of the concupiscible part, and the shameful thoughts have thereafter become rather cool, then it brings forward men and women playing with one another, and makes the anchorite a spectator of shameful acts and postures.

But this temptation is not among those that linger;

for intense prayer, and a most strict regimen with vigil, and the exercise of spiritual contemplations, drive it off like a waterless cloud.

There are times when it even touches the flesh, levering it up to irrational burning, and this all-wicked one contrives countless other things, which it is not necessary to make public and commit to writing.

But a boiling up of anger, stirred against the demon, contributes greatly against these thoughts, an anger which it especially fears when it is troubled over the thoughts and destroys its concepts;

and this is the meaning of, Be angry, and do not sin. This is a useful medicine, applied to the soul in such temptations.

...(cleanse) the mind of idols, so that, not lingering in them, it may not become at the time of prayer like a smoldering firebrand.

Into these temptations the irascible fall, and especially those easily kindled to anger, who are far from pure prayer and from the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ.

The concepts of this age the Lord has handed over to man, the good shepherd, like certain sheep;

for, it says, He has set the age in his heart;

having yoked to him anger and desire for help, so that through anger he may put to flight the concepts of the wolves, and through desire he may cherish the sheep, though often struck by rains and winds.

And besides these He has given him also a pasture, that he may shepherd the sheep, and a place of green grass, and water of rest, and a psaltery, and a harp, and a rod, and a staff, so that from this flock he may both be nourished and clothed, and gather mountain hay.

For who, it says, shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? The anchorite must therefore guard this flock night and day, lest any of the concepts become prey to beasts or fall among robbers; and if any such thing should happen in the glen, he must immediately snatch it from the mouth of the lion or the bear.

The concept concerning a brother becomes prey to beasts if it is pastured within us with hatred; and that concerning a woman, if it is turned about within us with shameful desire; and that concerning silver and gold, if it lodges with greed.

And the concepts of the holy gifts (of grace), if they are grazed in the mind with vainglory;

and in the case of the other concepts likewise it will turn out, when they are stolen by the passions.

And not only in the day must these things be guarded, but also keeping watch by night.

For it happens that one, fantasizing shamefully and wickedly, loses what is his own;

and this is what was said by holy Jacob: