We know indeed that for the spiritual warfare to which we have bound ourselves a great reward is laid up in the future; but if we look well, in this very work which we carry on we already, in a certain manner, possess even in the present world a part of the reward. And plainly it is a great fruit of life to have been able to despise the world and to have begun to serve God; to have escaped the most unhappy dominion of the vices, and to have fled the most foul servitude of gluttony and luxury. What then? Is it not already a great part of the reward to have nothing in common with the world, not to be exercised (tortured) by desires for vain things, not to be mingled in crimes, and to pass the day with innocence, to give attention to blessed chastity, to possess the sufficiency of glorious poverty with the fear of the Lord?
Of which Wisdom speaks: 'Better is a little portion with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures without the fear of Him' (Prov. 15). Let us understand therefore how much the Lord has bestowed on us by His holy calling. Let us number, if we can, from that time in which we are seen to dwell here, how many sins we have gained the advantage over, from how many frauds, from how many adulteries, robberies, perjuries, sacrileges the Lord has delivered us; and then we shall see how much also of present benefits we owe to the Lord. If we were now in the world, what else would we do but be rolled about in our evils, and defile (pollute) our souls with daily stains, and pierce them with daily wounds, so that we could not even feel it.
For the unhappy habit of sinning has this: that the more anyone sins, the less he understands the sins themselves; and so much the more does sinning delight him, and there comes that which the prophet cries out to sinners: 'God is not before his eyes; thy judgments are taken away from his face' (Ps. 10). For indeed, when the delight of sinning creeps in, forgetfulness at once hides the day of the future judgment. On the contrary, however, the more solicitous anyone is about himself, the more he fears, as Scripture says: 'A wise man by fearing declineth from evil.' The wise man therefore is always in compunction, and always in fear; and as he sighs over past (present) evils, so with ever-watchful solicitude he trembles at future perils.
He who is anxious about the past, and ponders and turns over within himself, lest perhaps he has too little bewailed things past, lest perhaps he has not yet made satisfaction for his innumerable debts, lest perhaps he has laid new wounds upon his old iniquities, lest he has impressed still-recent crimes upon the ancient stains of conscience, and has assumed the name of conversion for this, that he might offend the more grievously under a sacred profession. Some of us think it sufficient for us that we have ascended to this state, that we have changed our place and habit, that we have spent some time here, placing all our hope in the number of years, and thus deceiving ourselves by a pernicious...
...persuasion deceiving ourselves, we suppose that our evils have vanished with the passage of time. And because we have forgotten them, we believe that they have slipped from the memory of the divine severity; but it is not so. All things are stored up (gathered) and sealed with Him. Let us hear what he says who fights hand to hand in single combat with the devil himself, the holy Job: 'Thou hast sealed up my sins as it were in a bag' (Job 14). And the Lord says: 'Are not these things laid up with me, and sealed up in my treasures?' (Deut. 32). Let us not suppose that crimes once committed, and impressed with a deep wound upon the inward parts of the soul, can be so easily remitted. Much weeping is needed, much groaning, many contritions of the body, to heal those very sorrows of the heart.
With the whole compunction of the spirit must we press on, that old evils, like certain arrows, may be plucked out from the inward parts of the conscience. It does not suffice to say with the top of the lips: 'I have sinned, spare and remit.' Saul too said, 'I have sinned'; but he did not obtain that pardon which David merited by a single word of penitence (1 Sam. 15). And why is this? Because he expressed that confession naked, rather than one of true groaning; because the light humiliation (perhaps the mild insolence) of the suppliant was not weighed against the greatness of the crime. Not with light contrition must we act, that those debts may be redeemed for which eternal death is owed; nor is transitory satisfaction needful for those evils on account of which eternal fire is prepared.
If we wish to understand how grave our Judge holds the faults of men to be with Him, let us look to the punishments. For as patient as our God now is in bearing our offences, so severe will He be in scrutinizing our deeds; and just as He has prepared an inestimable punishment for the wicked, so He is about to confer unspeakable glory upon the just. Therefore let us, on the contrary, gather the bitterness of the torments from the greatness of the rewards. Because He who knows how to reward merits, knows how to punish faults. Most salutary therefore, and very necessary, is the remembrance of the future judgment and the recollection of things past, or the deploring of one's faults.
But if there is anyone who flatters himself concerning the merits of a past unharmed life, and still thinks that he has passed innocent to the service of the Lord, and therefore believes himself to be secure, let such a one consider how uncertain and how slippery are the outcomes of life. Of which it is said: 'Praise not a man in his lifetime'; and when he shall have perceived that he now has nothing from the past to bewail, he has from the future something to fear. Let no one therefore be secure concerning the past: so many snares are set before the feet of our soul, so innumerable enemies watch and keep guard over our way, so great pits and so steep precipices, so many difficulties of things lie between us and our end.
The very road, which of itself is narrow and steep, is beset by so many ambushes of spiritual robbers, and so many reefs and so many waves must we cross, that we know not what may befall before we have set our anchor on the longed-for shore. And do we suppose that we ought to be secure about things past, and to pass our day without daily care, without daily fear and trembling? Whoever is crossing over the depth of some river along the narrows of a very narrow bridge, even if he has passed the greater part with unstumbling foot, should he then believe that he has already escaped the danger, when on the last stretch of the bridge, if he totter but a little, he may meet with the very fall that he had avoided in the middle span?
So too with us: even if a great part of this life seem to have been passed through, let us not on that account presume upon confidence, since danger still threatens at the very end. Who, when set in the battle-line, would lay down his arms before the end of the contest, or before the security of victory? Let no one, then, judge that he ought to be secure before he arrives at the end with a happy consummation. Nor let us think it enough for us unto full salvation that we are reckoned among the servants of God either by dwelling-place or counted by name, that we are bidden to live in salvation and to chant psalms among monks. For our Lord cries out to us: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. VII). And why is this?
Because it is not the hearers of the law that are just before the Lord, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Rom. II). Wherefore, even if we have lived well, we ought to commend our course by steadfastness and perseverance, by persisting in the place of our calling and by bringing it to perfection (or rather, making progress in it). Truly I say: even if we had here spent twenty or thirty years upon the Lord—to whom in any case we know we owe all that we live—and were then to spend but a single year in the world, it would be beyond all reckoning how much we should defraud ourselves of the joys of eternal life, because all our hope rests in the consummation and the end.
What does it profit me if the standing crops, green in the blade, show me the hope of a harvest, and then, at the very time of the sickle, a sudden inclemency of the air or a flood of rains deceives me? What will it profit me if the vine promises all hope in its blossom, and then an incursion of wild beasts or the ruin of hail withdraws all hope at the very consummation? And therefore all prosperity and all the felicity of our labours rests in the end. And since even those are to be mourned who, after many wages of toil, after some years' advance, are here drawn away by certain desires,
what shall become of those who here believe four or five years to be a very long time, and consume all the remaining span of their life in the vanity of the world—when even a single year of the world can so devour the labours we have gathered in the desert, as though the great sea should receive within itself the tiniest brook and swallow it up, leaving it not even a name? I know not for what gains we should wish to live in the world; for since here it is deemed a great loss not to gain something daily, there it is to be reckoned a great profit even not to lose what has been gained. Here, I say, it is held to be a grievous detriment not to make daily progress; but there the highest virtue is not to perish. Therefore, if we are still slender and poor, let us labour here to obtain something.
But if we have obtained something, let us take care here to preserve it. This alone shall be your gain and joy: that here you have lived unto the Lord; for as long as we remain here, it lies within our own choice to turn aside to the world whenever we will. But once you have turned aside, it will then be hard and well-nigh impossible even in thought to look back to this place. And if anyone therefore thinks himself secure, that he can one day depart from this place because he has here run well, because he has here laboured much—such a man does the same as one who should loose from harbour a ship laden with merchandise, and hand it over to the tempests, and steer it toward the reefs and rocks. The more, then, we labour, the more cautious we ought to be;
for the enemy lies in wait for those who make progress, and where he sees any hope or any grace, there, like a roaring lion prowling about, he throws his whole weight upon seizing the prey. And so, because he cannot prevail to harm those set here, he wishes to lead forth some of the less cautious, through thoughts and through diverse temptations, out of this place in a certain way—as though outside the camp—and to cast them down as it were from a most lofty (or most invincible) citadel; and when he has cast them down, to fight them as from a higher ground, so that even if he could not sink the ship, he might at least, from the losses and damages that abound in the world, carry off a most delightful prey.
First he sends in diverse intentions, indignities, animosities, so that while a man strives to fulfil what he has once resolved and settled upon in his fury, he considers not his own loss, nor looks to his ruin; and when the enemy has cast him down, then there succeeds a repentance which is now to profit him nothing. Here we are, and we are not safe: for either we are agitated by the varied, wicked, and dishonourable thoughts of the heart, or we are wounded by the poisoned swords of the tongue, being scandalized over the least and most worthless of matters.
At times too—which does not befit a monk—breaking out into quarrels and strifes, we violate our profession by transgression of the rule, bearing theft toward our superiors—nay rather toward our own souls—not fearing to do beneath the eyes of God what we would fear to do in the presence of our superiors; whereas we ought not to commit beneath God's eyes what we dread to do in our superiors' presence. Nor are we content with what is necessary, but again, through the lukewarmness of our heart, we desire the abundance we left behind in the world. Wherefore it profits us little to have shaken off whatever possessions we had, when the very greeds still dwell within us. Hence it is that at times we are stirred up over the most worthless (or trifling) things, and over an appetite for cheap things we set in motion the gravest contentions. And why is this?
Because although we have relinquished the outward goods among our possessions, we still retain the inward evils within our hearts. And amid these, how our adversary exults, when he sees that we have despised the greatest things for this—that in the least we might be more shamefully overcome! Therefore let those things which, though set outside, have clung to the very vitals of the soul, be torn up by the roots. Hence too the Apostle did not say: Gold or silver is the root of all evils, but rather, the greed of riches (1 Tim. VI). And not only the rich, but, They who wish to become rich fall into a snare and a temptation. The Apostle rebukes not only those who possess, but also him who cherishes the very will of possessing (or retains within himself the desire of having).
Therefore a man profits nothing by relinquishing what he has outside himself, if he retains the vices within himself. And so, as I said, brethren, here we are, and we are not safe. And if, set within the walls, we scarcely resist, what shall we do when exposed in the world? How shall he be able to stand in the wave and in the very onset of the buffeting storms, who is so gravely imperilled in the harbour? Therefore, as far as we are able, let us be steadfast in this most tranquil bay (or harbour); for however lukewarm he be, he does not run in vain who by persevering has reached the palm of consummation. Our Lord Jesus Christ helping us, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.