If you attend diligently, most beloved brethren, and venerable sons, you clearly recognize that no man lives for himself alone, and no one dies for himself alone. This the apostle Paul also confirms in similar words, saying: For no one lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For every man, to however many he has offered an example of holy conduct, with so many and for the sake of so many will arrive at the eternal rewards. And on the contrary, whoever has shown an example of an evil life and perverse action, to however many by his evil habits he has provoked to wicked works, with so many and for the sake of so many he will endure everlasting torments.
But let us not only refrain from offering others an example of evil living, but also let us continually provoke them by holy and wholesome admonition to humility and charity and obedience. Let us not be among those who are wont to furnish fuel to the pride of any brothers or sisters who are angry or raging, by giving evil counsel, saying that they ought not for so long to abase themselves in cast-down humility. Let us not be among such as, through their most bitter tongues, not only refuse to heal the wounded, but even strive to wound those who are whole: who by murmuring, by detracting, through disobedience and wrath, are accustomed not to serve Christ but to soldier for the devil.
For that crafty and cruel enemy, the devil, by the cunning of his ancient artifice and manifold ingenuity, compels those souls whom once, by his most wicked persuasion, he has rendered slothful, tepid, or negligent, to serve him even in the ruin of others; concerning whom it is written: Would that you were hot or cold: but now, because you are lukewarm, I will begin to spew you out of my mouth (Apoc. III). For such souls, prepared for disobedience and pride, the devil blinds with all light of truth and charity, and, like a most robust hunter and most cunning fowler, he fits and prepares them as decoys for himself, to capture, if he can, even holy souls.
Just as fowlers are wont to do, who blind the doves they have first caught and make them deaf, so that when the other doves gather to them they may be caught in the nets prepared: so also the ancient enemy is accustomed to work upon lukewarm clerics and negligent monks and slothful virgins, so that when he has closed in them the eyes of patience, and extinguished the fire of compunction and the flame of true charity, and has persuaded them to glory in the mere garb of religion, as I have already said, unto the destruction of others, he sets them forth and prepares them as decoys by way of example, so that while the simple and less careful imitate them, they may be caught in various snares and nets.
Such persons will have to render an account on the day of judgment not only for themselves, but also for others whom, by the example of their evil conduct, they have called back from the good of humility and obedience. For the ancient enemy, who has ever been wont to envy the good, first persuades the servants and handmaids of God whom he perceives to be tepid and negligent to be occupied with idle tales, to provoke them by murmuring and detracting to contumacy, and to render them most slow to hear the reading; so that when he has induced in their hearts, as it were, a callus and, so to speak, the dross of lukewarmness, he makes them ready for any evil works whatever, and wretchedly compels them to serve every vice and negligence, according to that which the Truth said:
Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin (John VIII). And by whom anyone is overcome, of him he also is made the slave (II Pet. II). For just as holy and spiritual souls, kindled by the fervour of charity, are led by the Holy Spirit and are continually prepared for every good work, according to that which the Apostle says: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Rom. VIII); so, on the contrary, the negligent and lukewarm are possessed by that opposing spirit of whom it is written: When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest, and finds none; then returning he finds his house empty and swept clean, and he brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself;
and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first (Luke XI). For without doubt clerics, monks, and virgins who are proud, disobedient, and lukewarm suffer this. For when, at the beginnings of their conversion, having left behind the manner of life of the world, they have taken refuge with fervent spirit in the warfare of holy discipline, through the grace of God they are emptied of all evils. But afterward, when through negligence and sloth they do not apply their zeal, so as to be filled with spiritual goods with God's help, the vices which had departed, finding them empty, returning with a manifold retinue, compel them to return to their vomit. Just as a dog, when it returns to its vomit, becomes hateful, so also a sinner when he returns to his sin.
Concerning such the apostle Peter cries out terribly: For if, having fled the pollutions of the world, they are again entangled in them and overcome, their latter things become worse than the former. It would have been better for them, he says, not to have known the way of justice, than after knowing it to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them. For that of the true proverb has befallen them: The dog returned to its own vomit, and the washed sow to her wallowing in the mire (II Pet. II). This befalls those who, after abstinence, return to gluttony; after vigils, to sleepiness; after humility, to pride; after obedience, to contumacy; after patience, to wrath, like a dog to its vomit, and like swine they return to the wallowing-place of lust.
And therefore whoever recognizes himself to be such, while it is a time for correcting, let him strive with roaring and groaning to apply the medicine of humility to the wound of pride, and let him hasten to receive the added remedy of obedience against the poison of murmuring and wrath. And before his soul, guilty of many sins, departs from this light, let him acquire for himself a remedy in the day of necessity, and let him strive to prepare the oil of humility and charity for his lamp extinguished by pride, while it is a time for gathering and buying: so that among the holy virgins, with the lamp of virginity kindled, he may overflow with the oil of charity in the little vessel of his soul; for virginity in the body will profit nothing at all, if charity or humility has departed from the heart.
And these things indeed the holy souls observe, and those who wish to be like them do not cease to do them. But others, who live not spiritually but carnally, submit their unhappy necks not to humility but to pride; nor do they gather spiritual honey like bees, but pour out cruel poisons like wasps. When they are disobedient to their elders, when they are inflamed with the flames of wrath, when they store up hatred in the heart, when by their murmurings they, driven out of the harbor of obedience by the wind of pride and cast from the tranquillity of patience, make both themselves and others suffer shipwreck.
And those who, at the beginnings of their conversion, having left behind the waves of the world, took refuge in the quiet of the monastery, are now, by the excessive fury of pride, proven to suffer shipwreck in the very harbor amid the storms of wrath. Better than such as these are those who are seen to serve the world, because far better is a humble married state than a proud virginity. And more praiseworthy are those who, with God helping, keep themselves in the midst of the open sea, than those who in the harbor are drowned through excessive negligence or complacency. Blessed therefore are those souls who thus strive to fill their heart with the diverse aromas of the virtues, by Christ's gift,
so that from their mouth nothing is uttered but charity and humility, nothing but chastity or gentleness and obedience, whereby they may procure for themselves eternal rewards, and offer to others examples of holy conduct. Just as, on the contrary, unhappy and wretched and to be bewailed with every fountain of tears are those who are so corrupted by evil habits that from their mouth or thought proceed not the medicines of Christ, but the poisons of the devil: who, though outwardly they are covered with the religious garb as with sheep's skins, are known inwardly to be ravening wolves, and after the manner of serpents or vipers, are seen to display a feigned humility in bodily bearing only so long as they are corrected by no chastisement.
But as soon as even a slight admonition is present, then, the false humility being removed, the concealed pride will appear; and then in truth it is recognized that one thing was uttered in the mouth, another was hidden in the heart. A false humility was feigned in the body, and the venom of pride was covered in the mind. All these things, therefore, fearing them rather than thinking anything sinister about you, with all humility and fatherly solicitude we have suggested to your charity. And so, before your eyes we have wished to set forth the negligences of the lukewarm, so that, spiritually rejoicing over the good things which by the divine gift have been conferred upon you, you may render thanks to God;
and for me and those like me, who are still burdened by many negligences, may you continually implore God's mercy, so that when before the tribunal of Christ a crown is granted to you for perseverance in good works, to us through your intercession may pardon of our sins be conceded, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.