And so, since even in his youth he was of such great virtue and grace that even the illustrious and highest men of that time marvelled at his gravity and immovable constancy, and, although he was younger in age, yet for the merit of his virtues reckoned him equal to the elders and judged that he should be enrolled in their order, that envy which of old had instigated the fraternal minds against the patriarch Joseph kindled a certain one of the number of the brethren with a devouring fire: who, desiring to deform his beauty with some blemish and spot, devised this kind of malignity—that he should watch for an opportune time when Paphnutius, about to go forth to the church on the Lord's Day, would be absent from his cell.
Stealthily bursting into which, he secretly hid his own book among the man's plaited work, which he was wont to weave from palm-leaves; and, secure in the plot he had contrived, he too came to the church as though of a pure and simple conscience. And when the whole solemnity had been celebrated according to custom, he laid a complaint before holy Isidore, who was presbyter of that same desert before this same Paphnutius, in the presence of all the brethren, asserting that his book had been carried off from his cell by theft.
When this complaint of his had so stirred the minds of all the brethren, and especially of the presbyter, that they knew neither what first to suspect nor what to decide, all being struck with the utmost astonishment at the strangeness of so unheard-of a crime in that place—since no one could recall its like having been committed in that desert before that time, nor was it ever perpetrated afterward—the accuser who had brought the matter forward pressed his demand: that, while all were kept within the church, chosen men be sent to search one by one the cells of each of the brethren.
When this task had been enjoined by the presbyter upon three of the elders, they went through the sleeping-quarters of all, and at last, in the cell of Paphnutius, they found a book hidden among the plaited palm-fronds—which those men call "siras"—just as the plotter had concealed it. When the searchers immediately carried it off to the church and produced it before all, Paphnutius, though secure in the sincerity of his own conscience, nevertheless, as one who acknowledged the charge of theft, gave himself wholly over to making satisfaction and humbly begged for a place of penitence—looking to this out of his modesty and reserve, lest, if he tried to wash away the stain of theft with words, he should moreover be branded with lying, since no one indeed suspected anything other than what had been found.
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And when he had straightway withdrawn from the church—not so much cast down in mind as trusting in the judgment of God—he prostrated himself with the deepest humility of soul, even in the sight of men, pouring out tears continually in prayer and tripling his fasts. But when for nearly two weeks he had thus subjected himself to every contrition of flesh and spirit, so that on the Sabbath or the Lord's Day he came in the early morning not to receive the sacred Communion, but to prostrate himself on the threshold of the church and humbly to beg for pardon, the Witness and Knower of all hidden things by no means suffered him either to be crushed further by himself or to be defamed by others. For—
that which the discoverer of the crime—shameless thief of his own deed, cunning defamer of another's praise—had committed with no human witness, he made public through the devil, who had been the instigator of that very crime. For, seized by a most savage demon, he laid bare all the snares of his hidden conspiracy, and became the betrayer of the accusations and frauds of which he had been the contriver. And he was so grievously and so long tormented by that unclean spirit that not even by the prayers of the holy men who dwelt there—who by the merit of their divine gifts had command over demons—could he be cleansed; nay, not even the singular grace of the presbyter Isidore drove out from him that most cruel tormentor, though upon him such power had been bestowed by the bounty of the Lord that—
scarcely ever was any demoniac brought even to his threshold who was slow to be healed—Christ reserving this glory for the young man Paphnutius, that by his prayers alone the one who had plotted against him should be purified; and that the envious enemy, who had believed he could pluck something from his praise, should, by proclaiming his very name, receive both pardon for his offense and an end to his present punishment. These things, then, Paphnutius, even in his youth foreshadowing the tokens of his coming character, traced out even in his boyish years certain outlines of that perfection which was to be increased with the maturity of age. If, therefore, we wish to attain to the summit of his virtues, such foundations of beginnings must be laid by us.
A twofold reason has indeed impelled me to recount this deed: first, that by weighing this man's steadfastness and constancy, we may take on a greater disposition of tranquility and patience, in proportion as the enemy assails us with lesser snares; and second, that we may hold with firm conviction that we are not safe from the storms of temptation and the assaults of the devil if we place all the defense of our patience and all our confidence not in the strength of our inner man, but in the enclosures of a cell, or in the recess of solitude, or in the fellowship of holy men, or in the protection of anything that lies outside ourselves. For unless He shall have strengthened our mind by the power of His protection, who says in the Gospel:
"The kingdom of God is within us," we vainly believe that we can conquer the snares of the aerial foe by the help of men dwelling with us, or evade them by change of place, or shut them out by the fortification of roofs. For though holy Paphnutius did not lack all these things, yet the tempter could not fail to find an approach for his assault against him; and neither the enclosure of walls, nor the solitude of the desert, nor the merits of so many holy men in that congregation drove back that most wicked spirit. But because the holy servant of God had fixed the hope of his heart not on those things that are outside, but on the very Judge of all hidden things, he could not be shaken by the engines of so great an assault. On the other hand, that man whom envy hurled to so great a crime—
did he not enjoy both the benefit of solitude, and the fortification of a more remote dwelling, and the fellowship of the blessed abbot and presbyter Isidore and of the other holy men? And yet, because the diabolical whirlwind found him upon the sand, it not only struck against his dwelling but even overthrew it. Let us not, then, seek our peace from without, nor think that another's patience can aid the faults of our own impatience. For as the kingdom of God is within us, so too the enemies of a man are those of his own household. For no one is more my adversary than my own feeling, which is truly my most intimate foe. And therefore, if we are watchful, we can in no way be harmed by our domestic enemies.
For where our own household does not oppose us, there the kingdom of God is gained in tranquility of mind. For if you carefully examine the matter, I cannot be harmed by any man, however malicious, so long as I do not myself fight against him with an impatient heart. But if I am harmed, it is not the fault of another's assault, but of my own impatience. For as heavy and solid food is beneficial to the healthy, so is it harmful to the sick. Yet it cannot harm the one who takes it, unless the weakness of the recipient lends it strength to do injury.
If, then, a like temptation should ever arise among the brethren, let us by no means, shaken from the course of our tranquility, open a door to the blasphemous carpings of worldly men, nor let us marvel that certain perverse and detestable persons lie hidden, mingled among the number of holy men; for so long as we are trodden and threshed upon the threshing-floor of this world, it is necessary that even the chaff, destined for perpetual fire, be mingled among the choicest grains. In short, if we remember that Satan was chosen among the angels, or Judas among the apostles, or Nicolas, the inventor of a most depraved heresy, among the deacons, it can be no wonder that most wicked men are found inserted into the order of the saints.
For although some assert that this Nicolas was not the one who was chosen by the apostles for the work of the ministry, nonetheless they cannot deny that he was of that number of disciples—all of whom it is manifest were at that time such and so perfect as we now scarcely find a very few to be in the monasteries.
Let us, then, set before ourselves not the ruin of the aforesaid brother, who fell in that desert by so mournful a lapse, nor that horrible stain which he afterward blotted out with immense tears of penitence, but rather the examples of the blessed Paphnutius; nor let us be overthrown by the downfall of one whose ancient vice of envy his affected religious profession only drove further into evil, but let us with all our strength imitate the humility of Paphnutius—a humility which the rest of the desert did not suddenly beget in him, but which the solitude perfected and refined after it had been acquired among men. It should indeed be known that the disease of envy comes to healing with more difficulty than the other vices. For I would almost say that the man whom it has once corrupted with the plague of its poison is beyond remedy.
For this is that very plague of which it is figuratively said through the prophet: "Behold, I will send among you serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm, and they shall bite you." Rightly, then, are the bites of envy compared by the prophet to the deadly poisons of the basilisk, by which the very first author and chief of all poisons both perished and destroyed. For he was his own destroyer before he was the destroyer of the one he envied, and before he poured out the venom of death upon man, he himself destroyed himself: "for by the envy of the devil death entered into the world." Therefore those who are on his side imitate him.
For just as he who was first corrupted by the plague of this same evil admitted neither the remedy of penitence nor the balm of any cure, so also these who have given themselves over to be struck by the same bites shut out all the help of the holy charmer; for since they are tormented not by any fault of those whom they envy, but by their prosperity, and are ashamed to disclose the very truth, they seek out for themselves from without certain superfluous and foolish grounds of offense—the cure of which is vain, since they are in every way false, while that deadly venom which they will not disclose lies hidden in the marrow. Concerning these that most wise man aptly declared: "If the serpent bite without hissing, there is no advantage to the charmer."
For these are the silent bites against which alone the medicine of the wise gives no aid. For this ruin is so incurable that it is exasperated by soothing, inflamed by attentions, provoked by gifts; for, as the same Solomon says, "jealousy endures nothing." For the more another advances, whether by the submission of humility, or by the virtue of patience, or by the praise of generosity, so much the more is the envious man goaded by greater stings of envy, since he desires nothing but the ruin or death of the one he envies. In short, the jealousy of those eleven patriarchs could in no wise be soothed by any submission of their innocent brother, so that Scripture records of them:
"And his brethren envied him, because his father loved him; and they could not speak anything peaceably to him"—until their jealousy, which bore no blandishments of a compliant and submissive brother, desiring his death, could scarcely be sated even by the crime of a fraternal sale. It is established, therefore, that envy is more pernicious than all the vices and more difficult to purge, since it is kindled by the very remedies by which the rest are extinguished. For, by way of example, he who grieves at a loss inflicted upon him is cured by the compensation of a gift; he who is indignant at an injury done to him is appeased by humble satisfaction.
But what will you do with the man who is the more offended by this very thing—that he perceives you humbler and kinder—whom neither cupidity, which is appeased by a reward, provokes to anger, nor the injury of a wrong or the desire of vengeance inflames, which is overcome by the blandishments of good offices, but whom the mere success of another's happiness irritates? And who is there who would, in order to satisfy the one who envies him, wish to be robbed of good things, or estranged from prosperity, or wrapped in some calamity? Wherefore, lest the basilisk with a single bite of so great an evil destroy all that is living in us and, as it were, animated by the vital vigor of the Holy Spirit, let us continually implore the divine help, to which nothing is impossible.
For the other poisons of serpents—that is, carnal sins or vices, by which human frailty is as quickly entangled as it is easily purged—leave in the flesh certain traces of their wounds; and although the earthly body swells most perniciously from them, yet if some most skilled charmer of divine songs apply the remedy of an antidote, or that healing of saving words, the virulent destruction does not attain to the perpetual death of the soul. But the venom of envy, poured out as it were by the basilisk serpent, shuts out the very life of religion and faith before the wound is felt in the body.
For it is not against man, but plainly against God, that he is blasphemously exalted, who, carping at nothing in his brother but his happiness, reproaches not the fault of a man, but only the judgments of God. This, then, is that root of bitterness springing up on high, which, raising itself to the heights, tends to the outrage of the very Author who confers good things upon man. Nor let it move anyone that God threatens that He will send basilisk serpents to bite those with whose crimes He is offended.
For although it is certain that God cannot be the author of envy, yet it is just and worthy of the divine judgment that, while good gifts are conferred upon the humble and denied to the proud and reprobate, envy should smite and consume, as though sent by Him, those who, according to the Apostle, deserve to be given over to a reprobate mind—according to that word: "They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God; and I will provoke them to jealousy with that which is not a people." With this discourse the blessed Piamun the more ardently inflamed our desire, whereby from the first schools of the cenobium we had begun to reach out toward the second grade of anchoritic life. For the beginnings of the solitary way of dwelling—the knowledge of which we afterward more fully attained in Scete—we first received under him as our teacher.
ON THE END OF THE CENOBITE AND THE HERMIT. CHAPTERS. On the cenobium of Abbot Paul and the patience of a certain brother. On the humility of Abbot John and our questioning. The reply of Abbot John, as to why he had left the desert. On the virtue of the aforesaid elder which he practiced in the anchoritic discipline. On the advantages of the desert. On the usefulness of the cenobium. A question concerning the fruit of the cenobium or of solitude. A reply to the question proposed. On consummate and true perfection. Concerning those who imperfectly seek the desert. A question concerning the remedy of those who quickly depart from the community of the cenobium. A reply, as to how the solitary can recognize his own vices.
A question, how one may be healed who has entered solitude without having purged his vices. A reply concerning their cure. A question, whether chastity, like the other passions, ought to be tested. A reply, by what proofs it may be recognized. After a very few days, drawn by desire of greater instruction, we set out again with the utmost eagerness to the cenobium of Abbot Paul. There, although a number of more than two hundred brethren dwelt, yet in honor of the solemnity which was being celebrated at that same time, a countless throng of monks from other cenobia also had flocked together; for the anniversary of the death of the former abbot who had presided over that same cenobium was being solemnly observed.
We have made mention of this gathering for this reason: that we may briefly touch upon the patience of a certain brother, which shone forth in the presence of the whole congregation with its unshaken gentleness. For although the intent of this work tends elsewhere—namely, that we may set forth the sayings of Abbot John, who, having forsaken the desert, had subjected himself to that cenobium with the utmost virtue of humility—yet we by no means think it out of place if, without any circumlocution of words, a great edification (as we believe) be conferred upon any who are zealous for the virtues.
So then, in a huge open-air court, as that multitude of monks was seated in circles arranged by the number of twelve, when one of the brethren brought in a dish he had taken up a little too tardily, the aforesaid abbot Paul, who was anxiously running about among the throngs of ministering brethren, saw this and, with outstretched hand, struck him a blow in the sight of all, so that the sound of the striking palm echoed even to the ears of those who were turned away or seated at a distance. But that youth of memorable patience received it with such gentleness of soul that not only did no word slip from his mouth, nor even the faintest murmur marked by the silent motion of his lips, but not even the very composure and tranquility of his countenance, nor his color in the least degree, was changed.
This deed was so marvelous not only to us—who, having lately come from a monastery of Syria, had not perceived the virtue of this patience by such evident examples—but also to all who were not strangers to such pursuits, that even upon the greatest men a signal instruction was imparted through this deed: namely, that although his paternal correction had not moved his patience, not even the spectacle of so great a multitude had tinged his countenance with any sign of blushing.
In this cenobium, then, we found a most aged elder named John, whose words together with the humility by which he stood pre-eminent above all the saints we have judged by no means to be passed over in silence, knowing that he flourished especially in this perfection which, since it is the mother of all virtues and the most solid foundation of the whole spiritual structure, is utterly banished from our own institutions.
Wherefore it is no wonder that we cannot ascend to their sublimity, we who—I will not say cannot persevere in the discipline of the cenobium until old age—but who, scarcely content to bear the yoke of subjection for two years, straightway fly off to the presumption of a harmful liberty, while even during that little time we seem to be subjected to the command of an elder not according to that strict rule, but as suits the license of our own will. When, therefore, we had seen this elder in the cenobium of the aforesaid abbot Paul, admiring first the age and the grace with which the man was endowed, with our face cast down to the ground we began to entreat him to deign to disclose to us for what cause he had abandoned the liberty of the desert and that sublime profession—
by which fame most celebrated commended him above the rest of the men of that same way of life—and had preferred to enter under the yoke of the cenobium. He said that he had returned to the schools of the juniors as one unequal to the anchoritic discipline and unworthy of the summit of so great a perfection—if indeed he could fulfill even their institutions according to the merit of his profession. When the refutation of our entreaty overcame the humility of his reply, at last he began thus: "The anchoritic discipline, which you marvel that I have deserted, I not only do not spurn nor refuse, but rather embrace and receive with all veneration;
in which, after the thirty years that I had spent in the dwelling of the cenobium, I rejoice to have completed a further twenty in such a way that among those who sought it even moderately I was not everywhere marked for slothfulness. But because its purity, once tasted, grew sordid, being interrupted at times by anxiety over carnal matters, it seemed more expedient to have recourse to the cenobium, so that both a readier consummation of the plainer purpose undertaken might follow, and there might be less peril concerning the presumption of a loftier profession undertaken. For it is better to be found devout in lesser promises than lukewarm in greater ones.
And therefore, if I bring forth anything somewhat lofty, or rather perhaps too free, I beg that you reckon it to have been uttered not from the vice of boastfulness, but from zeal for your edification; and since I judge that nothing of the truth is to be withheld from you who inquire so earnestly, that you impute it rather to charity than to boastfulness. For I think that some instruction may be conferred upon you if, laying aside humility for a little while, I plainly disclose the whole truth of my purpose. For I am confident that I shall incur neither the mark of vainglory before you for the freedom of my words, nor before my own conscience any charge of falsehood for suppressing the truth. If, then, any other, delighted by the secret places of the desert, was able to consign to oblivion human fellowship and to say, according to Jeremiah:
'and I have not desired the day of man, Thou knowest'—I too confess that, by the bounty of the Lord's own grace, I either attained this, or at least strove to attain it. And so, by the loving gift of our Lord, I remember that I was frequently caught up into such an ecstasy of this kind, that I forgot I was clothed with the burden of bodily frailty, and my mind so suddenly spurned all the outward senses and was in every way exiled from all material things, that neither my eyes nor my ears performed their proper function. And my soul was so filled with divine meditations and spiritual contemplations that often toward evening I did not know whether I had taken food, and on the following day was utterly in doubt about the previous day's breaking of the fast.
For which cause also a week's supply of food—that is, seven pairs of small loaves—is set aside and stored on the Sabbath day in the 'prochirion,' that is, the ready-to-hand basket, so that a meal that has been omitted may not go unnoticed; and by this custom the error of that forgetfulness too is excluded, so that the finished number of loaves may indicate the completed course of the week and the return of the solemnity of that very day, and the festivity of the sacred day and the solemnity of the assembly cannot lie hidden from the solitary. But if perchance that mental ecstasy of which we spoke should disturb even this arrangement, nonetheless the measure of the daily work, marking the number of days, wards off the error.
And, to pass over the other virtues of the desert in silence (for our task is not to treat of their number and multitude, but of the end of solitude and the cenobium), I will rather briefly set forth the causes for which I preferred to desert it—the very causes which you too wished to know—and in a brief address I will touch upon all those fruits of solitude which I have accounted, on the other hand, to be postponed to loftier merits.
So long, then, as the rarity of those who at that time dwelt in the desert allured us with a more ample liberty by the more diffuse vastness of the solitude; so long as, remote in the greater recesses, we were most frequently caught up to those heavenly ecstasies, and no such rushing multitude of visiting brethren burdened our senses with distracting concerns of great cares by the necessity of preparing hospitality—I pursued with insatiable desire and with the whole ardor of my soul the truly tranquil secrets of solitude, and that manner of life which is to be compared to angelic blessedness.
But when, as I said, a greater number of brethren began to seek out a dwelling in that solitude, and, the liberty of the vaster desert being cramped, had not only made that fire of divine contemplation grow cold but even fettered the mind with the manifold chains of carnal matters, I chose to fulfill somehow the purpose of this discipline rather than to grow torpid in that so lofty profession through the provision for carnal necessities; so that, if that liberty and those spiritual ecstasies be denied me, yet, all anxiety about the morrow being utterly cast off, the fulfillment of the Gospel precept might console me, and that which is withdrawn from me of that contemplative sublimity might be compensated by this subjection of obedience.
For it is a wretched thing that anyone should profess the discipline of any art or study and yet by no means attain to its perfection. Wherefore I will briefly set forth how great are the advantages I now enjoy in this manner of life. Do you, by an orderly narration, weigh whether those gains of solitude are able to be compensated by these benefits—by which it is also possible to prove whether it was from distaste or from desire of that solitary purity that I preferred to be confined within these straits of the cenobium.
In this manner of life, then, there is no provision for daily work, no distraction of selling or of buying, no unavoidable care for the year's bread, no anxiety over bodily things—by which necessities are prepared not only for one's own uses but also for those of many who come—and finally, no arrogance of human praise, which, more unclean than all these things in the sight of God, is wont sometimes to render void even the great labors of the desert.
But, to pass over in that anchoritic discipline those surges of spiritual elations and the perils of destructive vainglory, let us return to this general burden of all—that is, the common anxiety of procuring sustenance—which has exceeded the measure, I do not say of that ancient strictness which knew no use of oil at all, but has not even begun to be content with this relaxation of our own time, in which, with one sextary of oil and likewise a modius of lentils prepared for the uses of those who came, the duties of the whole year's refreshment were fulfilled—so that now, with the amount doubled and tripled, the necessity of victuals can scarcely be met.
And among some the force of this harmful relaxation has grown to such a degree that, to vinegar and brine mixed together, they add not that one drop of oil which our predecessors—who followed the institutions of the desert with a greater virtue of abstinence—were wont to let fall for the sake only of repelling vainglory, but, breaking the Egyptian custom, they pour over cheese, in place of salt, more oil than is necessary, and thus, under the delight of a single savor, they take two foods differing in their own sweetness, which singly and at different times could have most agreeably refreshed the monk.