For they have according to themselves a body by which they subsist, though far more tenuous than our bodies are, according to the sentence of the Apostle who speaks thus: 'and there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies,' and again: 'it is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body.' By these things it is manifestly gathered that nothing is incorporeal save God alone, and that therefore he alone can be the penetrator of all spiritual and intellectual substances, in that he alone is both wholly and everywhere and in all things, so that he beholds and surveys both the thoughts of men and their inner movements and all the recesses of the mind. For it is concerning him alone that the blessed Apostle has pronounced, saying:
'For the word of God is living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching even to the divisions of the soul and spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart: and there is no creature invisible in his sight, but all things are naked and open to his eyes.' And the blessed David: 'who has fashioned,' he says, 'their hearts one by one,' and again: 'for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.' Job also: 'who alone knowest the hearts of men.' GERMANUS: By this reasoning by which you speak, these spirits cannot even behold our thoughts. Which we think must be esteemed exceedingly absurd, since Scripture says: 'If the spirit of one having power ascend upon thee,' and again:
'when the devil had put it into the heart of Simon Iscariot to betray the Lord.' Who, then, can be believed that our thoughts do not lie open to them, the seedbed of which, for the greatest part, we perceive to arise from their very injecting and instigating? SERENUS: There is no doubt that unclean spirits can touch the qualities of our thoughts—but by gathering them from without through perceptible signs, that is, either from our dispositions or from the words and pursuits toward which they have perceived us to be more readily inclined. But those which have not yet issued from the inner parts of the soul they cannot approach at all.
The very thoughts, too, which they instil—whether these have been received, and in what manner they have been received—they do not detect through the nature of the soul itself, that is, through that inner movement lurking, so to speak, in the marrow itself, but from the movements and signs of the outer man. For instance, when they have suggested gluttony, if they see a monk raise his eyes rather curiously to the window or to the sun, or inquire rather anxiously about the hour, they recognize that the desire of the gullet has been received.
If, injecting fornication, they perceive him to have received the dart of lust patiently, or see him stirred in the flesh, or at any rate to have sighed after the wantonness of the unclean suggestion otherwise than he ought, they understand that the javelin of lust has been fixed in the inner chambers of the soul. If they have applied the incitements of sadness, of anger, of fury, they discern by the gesture of the body and by perceptible commotion whether these have settled in the heart—when, namely, they observe him either to have silently growled, or to have sighed with a certain indignation, or to have changed his countenance with a certain pallor or redness—and thus they subtly detect to which vice each is given over.
For by a sure reasoning they recognize that each of us is delighted with that thing to whose instigation they have perceived, by some nod or movement of the body, that assent and connivance have soon been rendered by him. That these things should be detected in this way by those aerial powers is no wonder, since we see this done very often by prudent men also—namely, that they recognize the state of the inner man from the figure and countenance or quality of the outer. How much more surely, then, will these be able to be detected by those who, being of a spiritual nature, are without doubt far more subtle and sagacious than men.
For just as certain robbers, in those houses which they desire to enter by stealth, are wont to explore the hidden substance of men—who, through the foul darkness of night, cautiously scattering with the hand tiny grains of sand, detect by a certain ringing that answers to their fall the wealth hidden away which they cannot perceive by sight, and thus arrive at a most certain knowledge of a thing or of any metal by a certain betrayal of the elicited sound—so these too, in order to explore the treasure of our heart, scattering upon us as it were certain sands, that is, harmful suggestions, when they have seen the bodily affection emerge according to their quality, recognize by a certain ringing proceeding, as it were, from the inmost chambers, what lies hidden in the recesses of the inner man.
Yet this we ought to know: that not all demons brand all the passions into men, but that particular spirits brood over each vice—and that some indeed take delight in uncleannesses and the filth of lusts, others in blasphemies, others press more especially upon anger and fury, others feed on sadness, others are soothed by vainglory and pride; and that each one inserts into human hearts that vice in which he himself rejoices, yet they do not all alike thrust in their depravities, but by turns, according as the opportunity of time, or place, or of the one receiving may have provoked. GERMANUS:
Are we, then, to believe that among them there is an ordered and, so to speak, disciplined wickedness, such that a certain order of alternation is kept by them and a rational course of assault is carried on—when it is established that neither measure nor reason can subsist except among the good and honourable, according to that sentence of Scripture: 'Thou shalt seek wisdom among the wicked, and shalt not find it,' and: 'Our enemies are senseless,' and this also: 'There is no wisdom, there is no fortitude, nor is there counsel among the impious'? SERENUS: That there is not among the wicked a perpetual consensus in all things, nor can a perfect concord stand even in those very vices in which they are commonly delighted, is a sure definition.
For never, as you have said, can discipline and measure be kept in undisciplined things. In some matters, however—where, namely, either a community of operation or necessity demands, or the fellowship of some gain invites—it is necessary for them to accommodate a temporary consensus. That this exists in this warfare of spiritual wickedness we most manifestly perceive, in that they not only keep among themselves times and turns, but are also known to cleave especially to certain places and to besiege them continually.
For that they must exert their assaults with changed temptations and with certain vices and at certain times, we clearly prove from this: that no one can at once be deluded by the vanity of vainglory and be burned by the concupiscence of fornication, nor can he be puffed up swollen with the elation of spiritual pride and at the same time be brought low by the humility of carnal gluttony.
Nor can anyone be dissolved in foolish guffaws and laughter and at the same time be incited by the goads of anger, or indeed be filled up with the grief of gnawing sadness; but it is necessary that each spirit thus singly seize upon the assault of the mind, so that when it either withdraws vanquished, it yields the mind to another spirit to be assailed more sharply, or, if it has come off victor, it nonetheless hands the mind over to another to be likewise deluded.
This too we ought by no means to be ignorant of: that they are not all of the same ferocity and desire, nor even of the same strength and wickedness; and that for beginners and the weak only the weaker spirits are matched in the contest, and, when these spiritual wickednesses have been overcome, the battles of stronger ones are gradually always kindled against the athlete of Christ. For in proportion to the strength and progress of the man, the difficulty of the wrestling too is increased.
For in no way could any of the saints suffice to endure the malice of such and so great enemies, nor be able to withstand their snares, nor indeed bear their cruelty and savagery, unless Christ, the most merciful judge and president of the contest, presiding over our combat, both made equal the strength of the contenders and repelled and reined in their immoderate assaults, and with the temptation also made a way of escape, that we might be able to bear it. But we believe that they do not carry through this struggle without labor of their own; for they too have in their conflict a certain anxiety and sorrow, especially when they have engaged with stronger rivals, that is, with holy and perfect men.
Otherwise it would no longer be a conflict or a struggle, but merely a simple and, so to speak, secure deception of men allotted to them. And how then would that saying of the Apostle stand, which declares: 'Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places'? And this also: 'So I fight, not as one beating the air'; and again: 'I have fought the good fight.' For where a contest and a struggle and a fight are spoken of, it is necessary that on both sides sweat and toil and anxiety be undergone, and that equally there remains for them either grief and confusion over their defeat, or that joy follow from victory.
But where one struggles with sweat while the other contends at ease and in security, and to overthrow his rival uses only his will in proportion to his strength, this ought not to be called a fight or a wrestling or a contest, but a certain unjust and irrational pressure of assault. But plainly they too labor no less in attacking the race of men, and sweat, in order to prevail and to obtain from each that victory which they desire; and that confusion which awaited us, had we been crushed by them, is turned back upon them, according to that saying: 'The head of their surrounding: the labor of their own lips shall cover them'; and: 'His sorrow shall be turned upon his own head'; and again: 'Let the snare which he knoweth not come upon him: and let the net which he hath hidden catch him;'
'and let him fall into that very snare,' namely the one which he contrives for the deception of men. Therefore they too grieve no less, and just as they crush us, so likewise are they themselves crushed, nor do they depart vanquished without confusion. These downfalls and conflicts of theirs he who possessed sound eyes of the inner man beheld daily, and seeing them rejoice over the downfalls and falls of individuals, and fearing lest that same gladness should befall them over him as well, he entreats the Lord, saying: 'Enlighten my eyes, that I never sleep in death: lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him. They that trouble me will rejoice if I be moved.' And: 'O my God, let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts: Aha, aha, to our soul:'
'nor let them say: We have devoured him.' And: 'They have gnashed upon me with their teeth. Lord, when wilt thou look on? For he lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den. He lieth in wait to catch the poor.' And: 'He seeketh food for himself from God.' These, when again, all their efforts spent, they have not been able to obtain our deception, over their frustrated labor must needs be confounded and ashamed: 'Let them that seek my soul, to take it away, be put to shame; let them be clothed with shame and confusion that think evil against me.' Jeremiah too says: 'Let them be confounded, and let me not be confounded: let them be afraid, and let me not be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction destroy them.'
For it is doubtful to no one that, when they have been overcome by us, they must be crushed with a double destruction: first, because, when men sought after holiness, they who possessed it lost it and became the cause of human perdition; then, because spiritual substances were vanquished by carnal and earthly ones. Therefore, gazing upon these downfalls of the enemy and his own victories, each of the saints exclaims with exultation: 'I will pursue my enemies, and overtake them: and I will not turn again till they are consumed. I will break them, and they shall not be able to stand: they shall fall under my feet.' Against whom the same prophet also, praying, says: 'Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me, overthrow them that fight against me. Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me.'
'Draw out the sword, and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul: I am thy salvation.' When we have conquered these, with all our passions subdued and extinguished, we shall deserve consequently to hear that voice of blessing: 'Let thy hand be exalted over thine enemies, and let all thine enemies perish.' All these things, therefore, and things like them inserted in the sacred volumes, when reading or chanting, unless we have understood that they were written against those spiritual wickednesses which lie in wait for us by day and night, we shall not only gain from them no edification of gentleness and patience, but shall even conceive a certain dire disposition contrary to evangelical perfection.
For not only shall we be taught not to pray for our enemies nor to love them, but we shall even be incited to detest them with implacable hatred, and to curse them, and to pour out prayer against them unceasingly. But to understand that holy men and friends of God spoke these things in such a spirit is utterly wicked and profane—men for whom, before the coming of Christ, the Law was for this reason not laid down, because, transcending its commandments, they chose to obey the evangelical precepts and to strive after apostolic perfection, anticipating the dispensation of that time.
That they do not have power to harm any man, the example of blessed Job demonstrates by manifest reasoning, where the enemy dares not tempt him more than is granted him by divine dispensation; and the confession of those same spirits, inserted in the evangelical records, testifies, when they say: 'If thou cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.' These are much rather to be believed unable to enter of their own choice into any of the men who were created in the image of God, since they had no power to enter even into unclean and dumb animals without God's permission.
Moreover, none—I will not say of the young men whom we see most steadfastly abiding in this desert, but not even of the perfect—could dwell alone in the desert, surrounded by such great throngs of such enemies, if the faculty and liberty of harming or assailing lay in themselves according to their own will. This is confirmed still more evidently by the saying of our Lord and Saviour, which He uttered to Pilate on account of the humility of the manhood He had assumed, thus saying: 'Thou couldest have no power at all against me, unless it were given thee from above.'
Yet it has been sufficiently learned by us, both from our own experience and from the report of the elders, that the demons do not now have the same power as in an earlier time, at least in the beginnings of the anchorites, in which there still remained a scarcity of monks in the desert. For so great was their ferocity that scarcely a few, and those very stable and advanced in age, could endure the habitation of the solitude. Indeed, even in the cenobia themselves, in which eight or ten abode together, their savagery so raged, and their assaults were felt frequent and visible, that they did not dare all to sleep together at night, but by turns, while some tasted sleep, the others keeping watch clung to psalms and prayers and readings.
And when the necessity of nature had invited them to sleep, the others, being roused, were in like manner assigned to keep the watches for the guarding of those who were to sleep. Whence it cannot be doubted that one of two things confers this present security or confidence not only upon us, who seem to be somewhat strengthened by the experience of old age, but even upon those younger in years:
either the wickedness of the demons has been blunted, the virtue of the Cross penetrating even the deserts and its grace flashing everywhere; or else our own negligence has rendered them slower in their former assaulting, since they disdain to fight against us with that intensity with which they then raged against those most tried soldiers of Christ—crushing us, that is, more dreadfully by this fraud of ceasing from visible temptations.
For we see that some have collapsed into such lukewarmness that it becomes necessary to soothe them even with gentler admonitions, only lest, forsaking their cells, they roll back to more pernicious disquiets, and going about and wandering become entangled, so to speak, in grosser vices; and great fruit is believed to be obtained from them if only they are able to keep themselves in the solitude, even with any degree of sloth; and as a great remedy it is wont to be said to them by the elders: 'Sit in your cells and eat and drink and sleep as much as you please, provided only you continue in them without ceasing.'
It is agreed, therefore, that unclean spirits cannot otherwise penetrate into those whose bodies they are about to possess, unless they have first taken possession of their minds and thoughts. When they have stripped these of the fear and memory of God and of spiritual meditation, they boldly invade them as though disarmed of every safeguard and divine defense, easy to be bound, thereafter presuming a dwelling in them as in a possession handed over to them. Although it is agreed that those are far more grievously and vehemently vexed who, while they seem in no way to be filled bodily by them, are yet more perniciously possessed in mind, being namely enveloped in their vices and pleasures. For according to the Apostle's saying, 'By whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also the slave.'
Except that in this these are the more hopelessly diseased, in that, while they are the slaves of those spirits, they neither recognize that they are being assailed by them nor that they bear their dominion. Moreover, we have known even holy men to be delivered bodily to Satan or to great infirmities for the very slightest faults, since the divine clemency suffers not even the tiniest blemish or spot to be found in them on that day of judgment, smelting away in the present all the dross of their filth according to the prophet's—nay, God's—sentence, that it may pass them over to that eternity, needing no penal purgation, like refined bronze or silver. 'And I will smelt away thy dross unto pureness,' He says, 'and I will take away all thy tin.'
'And after this thou shalt be called the city of the just, the faithful city.' And again: 'As silver and gold are tried in the furnace, so the Lord chooseth hearts.' And again: 'The fire trieth gold and silver, but a man is tried in the furnace of humiliation.' This also: 'For whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.' Which we manifestly see fulfilled in that prophet and man of God in the third book of Kings, who, for the fault of a single disobedience—which nevertheless he contracted not deliberately nor by a fault of his own will, but by the circumvention of another—is immediately crushed by a lion, Scripture thus narrating concerning him:
'He is a man of God, who was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord delivered him to the lion, and it tore him according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken.' In which deed both the acquittal of the present fault and of the incautious error, and the merits of righteousness—for which the Lord delivered His prophet for a time to the tormentor—are shown by the very restraint and self-control of the predator, whereby the most voracious beast dares taste nothing at all of the corpse handed over to it. Of which thing, in our own times too, a sufficiently evident and open proof occurred in the case of Abbot Paul or Moses, who inhabited a place of this solitude which is called Calamus.
For the former dwelt in the desert which adjoins the city of Panephysis, which solitude we know was made not long ago by an inundation of most briny water. This water, as often as the north wind blows, being driven from the neighboring marshes and overflowing the adjacent lands, so covers all the surface of that region that it makes the old villages there—which long ago, for this very cause, were deserted by every inhabitant—appear like islands. Here, then, Abbot Paul had advanced, in the quiet of the solitude and its silence, to such purity of heart, that he would suffer to be presented to his sight not merely no woman's face, but not even the garments of that sex.
For when a woman had by chance met him as he was going, together with Abbot Archebius, an inhabitant of the same solitude, to the cell of a certain elder, offended by encountering her he ran back to his own monastery in such flight, abandoning the office of pious visitation which he had undertaken, as no one would flee from the face of a lion or of a most savage dragon; so that he could not even be swayed by the shout and entreaties of the aforesaid Abbot Archebius calling him back, that they might continue the journey they had begun to seek out the elder as they had proposed.
Which, although it was done from zeal for chastity and ardor for purity, nevertheless, because it was presumed not according to knowledge, but the observance of discipline and of just strictness went beyond due measure (for he believed that not only the familiarity of women, which is truly harmful, but the very form of that sex itself was to be abhorred), he was immediately smitten with such a chastisement that his whole body was dissolved by an infirmity of paralysis, and no member in him could at all perform its office; since not only his feet and hands, but even the motion of his tongue, by which the utterance of the voice is expressed, and his very ears so lost the sense of their proper hearing, that in him nothing more remained of a man than only an immobile and insensible form.
And he was reduced to such a state that no diligence of men could suffice to serve his infirmity, unless only womanly attentiveness ministered to him. For being carried to a monastery of holy virgins, food and drink, which he could not ask for even by a nod, were supplied to him by feminine service; and the same diligence served him in fulfilling all the necessities of nature for nearly four years, that is, until the end of his life.
Although he was constricted by so great a weakness of all his members that no joint in him retained a lively and sensible motion, nevertheless so great a grace of powers proceeded from him, that when the sick were anointed with oil which had touched his corpse—rather than his body—they were immediately cured of all their infirmities; so that even to the unbelievers themselves it became evidently and openly manifest, both that the weakness of all his members had been bestowed by the dispensation and love of the Lord, and that the grace of healings was granted to him, as a testimony of his purity and a manifestation of his merits, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But the second, whom we said dwelt in this desert, though he too was a singular and incomparable man, for the reproof of a single word which he had uttered somewhat too harshly while disputing against Abbot Macarius—being namely forestalled by a certain opinion—was immediately delivered to so dreadful a demon that he supplied and thrust human excrement into his own mouth from it. That the Lord had inflicted this scourge for the sake of purgation—lest, that is, even the stain of a momentary fault should remain in him—He demonstrated by the swiftness of his cure and the author of the remedy. For as soon as Abbot Macarius had bowed in prayer, quicker than the word, the wicked spirit was driven from him and departed.
From which it is manifestly weighed that we ought not to abominate or despise those whom we see delivered to divers temptations or to these spirits of wickedness; because these two things it behooves us to believe immovably: first, that without God's permission no one is tempted by them at all; second, that all things which are inflicted upon us by God, whether they seem sad for the present or joyful, are laid upon us for our benefits as by a most loving father and most merciful physician; and therefore those delivered as it were to tutors are humbled, that departing from this world they may either be transferred purer to the other life, or be punished with a lighter penalty—those who, according to the Apostle, 'are delivered in the present to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
GERMANUS: And how is it that we see them not only despised or dreaded by all, but even, in our provinces, perpetually kept from the Lord's communion, according to that saying of the Gospel: 'Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine'—when concerning them, as you say, it is to be believed that this humiliation of temptation is granted to them for the purpose of purgation or benefit? SERENUS:
If we have had this knowledge—nay, rather this faith which I comprehended above—that we believe both all things to be done through God and all things to be dispensed for the benefit of souls, then not only shall we by no means despise them, but we shall even pray for them incessantly as for our own members, and shall have compassion on them with our whole heart and with full affection (for 'when one member suffers, all the members suffer together'), knowing that we, without them as our members, cannot in any wise be brought to perfection; even as we read that not even our forefathers could obtain the sum of the promise without us, the Apostle thus declaring concerning them:
'And all these, being approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promises, God providing some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us.' But we do not remember that the most sacred communion was ever forbidden to them; nay rather, they judged that, if it were possible, it ought even to be imparted to them daily. For not according to the sentence of the Gospel, which you have incongruously fitted to this sense—'Give not that which is holy to the dogs'—is the most holy communion to be believed to reach the demon's food, but rather to the purgation and protection of body and soul; which, received by a man, burns and puts to flight, as with a certain fire, the spirit that sits in his members or attempts to lurk within them.
For in this way we lately beheld Abbot Andronicus cured, and very many others. For the enemy will insult more and more over the possessed man when he sees him separated from the heavenly medicine, and will assail him the more dreadfully and frequently the further he perceives him to be debarred from the spiritual remedy. Moreover, those are truly to be judged wretched and pitiable who, while they defile themselves with all crimes and disgraceful deeds, not only have no sign of diabolical filling visibly shown in them, but not even any temptation worthy of their works nor any scourge of correction is brought upon them.