See your calling, dearly beloved brethren. To come to the desert is indeed the highest perfection; not to live perfectly in the desert is the highest condemnation. What does it profit if quiet be kept in the place, and disquiet be turned about in the heart? If there be silence in the dwelling, and in the dwellers a tumult of vices and a wrestling of passions; if outward calm hold our exterior, and a tempest our interior? We are wont to reckon up our years and the spans of time in which we now live: let not the number of days deceive you, whoever you are, which you have here spent, having forsaken the world bodily. Count that you have lived only that day on which you denied your own wills, which you passed without any transgression of the rule.
Count that you have lived only that day on which you denied your own wills, on which you resisted your desires, which you passed without any transgression of the rule. Count that you have lived that day which no malice, no envy, no pride defiled, which no fault of lying or perjury bespattered. Count that you have lived that day which had the light of purity and holy meditation, which no dark manner of life changed into night. That day, I say, apply to your life whose gain comes to your soul. We are wont also to flatter ourselves with the assiduity of bodily vigils—we who, after the vigils, and perhaps from the very vigils, go forth to detractions, to wordy chatter, to murmurings.
For he who withdraws himself from the choir of psalm-singers to shameful revels and furtive drinkings—not by a damnable transgression, but by an abominable usefulness—it would be far lighter for him if he slept with drunkenness prevailing. And he who, while fasting, carries about a burdened and overladen breast in the strictness of wrath or indignation, because he abstains from wine, and yet in his senses is troubled by the bitter poison, by the drunkenness of most bitter discord; he, I say, who macerates himself outwardly by a wholesome sparingness of cups, while his inward parts belch forth the deadly poison of hatreds—does he not understand that the prophetic voices are aimed at himself, being already even in this present life foredoomed: Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord (Isai. LVIII)? Or that other word:
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vines are of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, and a cluster of bitterness is in them (Deut. XXXII). So too sometimes the devil, when he perceives a soul empty of faith and stripped of the fear of God, so intoxicates the mind with diverse passions that when we curse, or grow angry, or detract—when we do these things—we believe that we harm others and not ourselves. But it is not so. For the evil of each vice recoils upon its own author, as the divine word says: Son, if you be evil, you alone shall drain your evils. The slanderer stains his own tongue, the detractor ulcerates his own heart, the wrathful man blinds the light of his own mind, the envious man corrupts his own soul as a moth.
And just as vipers are born from ulcerated parents—just as, I say, the viper's brood is said to be born by the bursting of the mother's vitals—so human hearts are torn asunder by the very passions which they first conceived. Those hearts, I say, from which the serpentine generation of vices is brought forth, are themselves first violated by the monstrous fecundity of their offspring. Of such a birth the divine word says: Behold, he has brought forth injustice, he has conceived sorrow, and has borne iniquity. His sorrow shall be turned upon his own head, and his iniquity shall descend upon the crown of his own head (Ps. VII).
Having therefore set forth these things—from a charity fervent toward you, which was long tormented with grief over the negligences of some—and having in some measure unburdened the seething of our breast, we charge, we admonish, and moreover we entreat you for your own sakes (if only you do not disdain to hear the affection of one who charges you), that henceforth you correct your ways and amend your negligences, lest we come to you afterward not with the tongue and the rod of speech, but with those stripes which hardened hearts demand. Labour, dearly beloved brethren, that henceforth you may contend among yourselves in praiseworthy rivalry and in a better emulation at last.
Let each one of you strive to be more forward in the work of God, more frequent in prayer, more careful in reading, purer in chastity, more sparing in sobriety, more lavish in the abundance of tears, more decorous in body, more sincere in heart, gentler in anger, more moderate in meekness, more rare in laughter, more fervent in compunction, more grounded in gravity, more delightful in charity. And therefore let us chastise our very selves, and daily render an account with ourselves concerning our daily conduct. Let each soul address itself in the secret of the heart, and say: Let me see whether I have passed this day without sin, without envy, without detraction and murmuring.
Let me see whether today I have wrought anything that pertains to my own progress, that pertains to the edification of others. I think that today I foolishly tore that man down; today I was disobedient to my elder, I lied, I forswore myself; I was overcome by anger or gluttony. Today I laughed more, indulged more in food and drink, more in idleness and sleep than was fitting. I read less, I prayed less than I ought. Who shall restore to me this day, which I have lost in empty tales? And thus, brethren, over all our negligences let us be pricked with compunction in what is fitting—that is, in our hearts. If you do so, we indeed shall rejoice over your progress, but you shall rejoice over the salvation you have won. We shall be subject to you for the winning of your salvation.
May the loving-kindness of Him who is mighty teach you so to profit from our discourse, that you in turn may aid us by your merits, and be to us both an ornament in the present world and a defence in the world to come. Our Lord Jesus Christ helping us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns as God through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.