None of these, assuredly, would have been so mournfully deluded, if they had laboured to attain the reasoning of this discretion. Wherefore, how ruinous it is not to have the grace of discretion, the falls and experiences of many declare. To this Germanus said: Both by the recent examples and by the definitions of the ancients it has abundantly enough become manifest that discretion is, in a manner, the fountain and root of all the virtues.
We desire, therefore, to be taught how it ought to be acquired, or how it may be recognized whether it be true and from God, or false and diabolical; so that, according to that Gospel parable which you expounded in the previous treatise, by which we are commanded to become approved money-changers, perceiving the image of the true king impressed upon the coin, we may be able to detect what is not stamped in the lawful coinage, and may reject that — as, using the common word, you said in yesterday's conference — as counterfeit, being instructed in that skill which, having followed out quite copiously and fully, you signified must belong to the spiritual and evangelical money-changer.
For what will it profit to have known the merits of its virtue and grace, if we know not how it is to be sought after or acquired? Then Moses said: True discretion is not acquired except by true humility. And of this humility this will be the first proof: if all things — not only those which are to be done, but also those which are thought — be reserved for the examination of the elders, so that a man, trusting nothing to his own judgment, may acquiesce in their determinations in all things, and may learn from their tradition what he ought to judge good or evil. And this instruction will not only teach a young man to walk by the right path through the true way of discretion, but will also keep him unharmed from all the frauds and snares of the enemy.
For in no way can he be deceived who lives not by his own judgment but by the example of his elders, nor will the cunning enemy be able to mock his ignorance, who does not, through ruinous shame, know how to cover the thoughts arising in his heart, but by the mature examination of the elders either rejects or admits them. For immediately, as soon as a malignant thought has been disclosed, it withers, and before the judgment of discretion is even pronounced, the most foul serpent, drawn out as it were from a dark and subterranean cavern to the light by the power of confession, and, so to speak, paraded and disgraced, departs. For his hurtful suggestions dominate in us only so long as they are hidden in the heart.
And that you may more effectively gather the force of this saying, I will relate to you a deed of abbot Serapion, which he very frequently used to set forth to the younger men for the sake of instruction. When I was still a little boy, he said, and was dwelling with abbot Theonas, this habit had been thrust upon me by the assault of the enemy: that after I had refreshed myself at the ninth hour with the old man, I would daily hide one biscuit secretly in my bosom, which in the evening, unknown to him, I would eat in secret. And although I committed this theft with the connivance of my will and the incontinence of a desire once grown ingrained, without ceasing, yet, when the fraudulent concupiscence was satisfied, returning to myself I was more grievously tormented over the crime of theft I had committed than I had been gladdened over the eating of it.
And when I was compelled to fulfil this most troublesome work every single day, as though enjoined upon me by the taskmasters of Pharaoh in place of bricks, not without grief of my heart, and yet could not tear myself away from this most savage tyranny of theirs, and was ashamed to make the clandestine theft manifest to the old man, it happened, by the will of God, who wished to snatch me from this yoke of captivity, that certain brethren sought out his cell for the sake of edification.
And when, the meal being over, a spiritual conference had begun to be stirred, and the old man, answering their proposed questions, was discoursing about the vice of gluttony and the domination of hidden thoughts, and was setting forth their nature and the most atrocious power which they possess so long as they are concealed, I, pricked by the force of this conference and terrified by my accusing conscience — as one who believed that these things had been uttered for this reason, that the Lord had revealed to the old man the secrets of my breast — was roused first to hidden groans, then, as the compunction of my heart increased, bursting into open sobs and tears, I drew forth from my bosom, the accomplice and receiver of my theft, the biscuit which by my vicious habit I had withdrawn to eat secretly, and, bringing it into the midst, prostrate on the ground I confessed with a plea for pardon how I daily ate it in secret, and, with tears profusely poured out, I implored them to ask of the Lord absolution from this most dire captivity.
Then the old man said: Be confident, O boy. Even while I am silent, thy confession absolves thee from this captivity. For today thou hast triumphed over thy adversary the victor, laying him low more mightily by thy confession than thou hadst been cast down by him through thy silence. Whom, refuting him neither by thine own nor by another's answer, thou hadst until now permitted to dominate over thee, according to that saying of Solomon: 'Because sentence is not speedily pronounced against those who do evil, therefore the heart of the sons of men is filled within them to do evil.'
And therefore now, after this his exposure, this most wicked spirit will no longer be able to disquiet thee, nor will the most foul serpent henceforth usurp for himself a lurking-place in thee, having been drawn out from the darkness of thy heart to the light by saving confession. The old man had not yet finished these words, and behold, a lighted lamp, proceeding from my bosom, so filled the cell with a sulphurous odour that the vehemence of the stench itself scarcely allowed us to remain in it.
And the old man, resuming his admonition, said: Behold, the Lord has visibly approved to thee the truth of my words, so that thou mightest see with thine eyes the instigator of that passion driven from thy heart by candid confession, and mightest know by his open expulsion that the enemy, now revealed, will henceforth have no place in thee. And so, according to the saying of the old man, thus it was, he said: in me, by the power of this confession, the domination of that diabolical tyranny was so extinguished and lulled to rest for ever, that the enemy never afterward attempted to bring upon me even the memory of that concupiscence, nor did I after these things ever perceive myself assailed by the instigation of that stealthy desire.
Which sense we read also most beautifully figured in Ecclesiastes: 'If the serpent bite in silence, not with a hiss, there is no advantage for the charmer' — signifying that the bite of a silent serpent is ruinous; that is: if a diabolical suggestion or thought be not disclosed through confession to some charmer — namely, to a spiritual man, who by the incantations of the Scriptures is accustomed at once to heal the wound and to draw out from the heart the noxious venoms of the serpent — he will not be able to succour the one in peril and about to perish.
In this way, therefore, we shall most easily be able to attain to the knowledge of true discretion, if, following the footsteps of our elders, we presume neither to do anything new nor to discern by our own judgment, but walk in all things just as their tradition or the probity of their life shall have instructed us. Strengthened by this instruction, one will not only attain to the perfect reasoning of discretion, but will also remain most safe from all the snares of the enemy. For by no other vice does the devil draw a monk so headlong and lead him to death, as when, the counsels of the elders being neglected, he has persuaded him to trust in his own judgment and determination.
For indeed, since all the arts and disciplines discovered by human ingenuity — those which profit nothing more than the conveniences of this temporary life — although they can be handled by the hand and perceived by the eyes, nevertheless cannot rightly be grasped by anyone without the teaching of an instructor, how foolish it is to believe that this alone needs no teacher, which is both invisible and hidden, and which is perceived only by a most pure heart, whose error begets not a temporal loss, nor one that is easily repaired, but the perdition of the soul and everlasting death.
For [the monk] wages, not against visible foes but against invisible, savage, and pitiless enemies, a conflict both by day and by night; and this spiritual warfare is not against one or two but against countless troops, and its fall is the more ruinous for all in proportion as the foe is more hostile and the encounter more hidden. And therefore the footsteps of the elders must always be followed with the utmost caution, and to them all that arises in our hearts must be disclosed, with the veil of shame cast aside. GERMANUS:
An occasion for that ruinous false shame, by which we strive to conceal our evil thoughts, is chiefly created by this fact: we know that in the regions of Syria a certain man, reputed to be foremost among the elders, when a brother had disclosed his thoughts to him in simple confession, was afterward moved by a kind of indignation and gravely reproached him for those very thoughts. From this it comes about that, while we suppress these thoughts within ourselves and blush to make them public to the elders, we are unable to obtain the remedies of healing. MOSES: Just as not all the young are alike either fervent in spirit or trained in the best disciplines and morals, so neither can all the old be found either perfect or most approved in one and the same manner.
For the riches of the old are to be measured not by the greyness of their heads, but by the diligence of their youth and the wages of their past labours. For 'what you did not gather in your youth,' Scripture says, 'how will you find it in your old age?' For 'venerable old age is not that which is long-lived, nor is it reckoned by the number of years: for grey hairs are the understanding of a man, and the age of old age is an unspotted life.' And therefore we must not follow the footsteps of all elders whose heads greyness covers and whom mere length of life alone commends, nor receive their traditions and counsels, but only of those whom we have found to have marked out their life laudably and most approvedly in their youth, and to have been trained not by their own presumptions but by the traditions of their forebears.
For there are some—and, what is more lamentable, they are the greater number—who, growing old in the lukewarmness and sloth which they conceived from their adolescence, seek authority for themselves not by maturity of character but by number of years. To these that reproach of the Lord is quite properly directed through the prophet: 'And strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not: yea, grey hairs also are spread upon him, and he was ignorant of it.' These, I say, mere length of years has advanced as an example to the younger, and not any uprightness of life nor any praiseworthy and imitable strictness of this our purpose.
The most cunning enemy sets forth the grey hairs of such men as an already-established authority for the deception of the young, and hastens with fraudulent subtlety to subvert and deceive by their example even those who, whether by their own counsels or by others', might have been roused to the way of perfection—leading them by these men's doctrines and precepts either into a fresh lukewarmness or into deadly despair. Wishing to bring you an example of this matter, but suppressing the author's name—lest we too commit something similar to that man who published the vices of a brother revealed to him—I shall set forth only the deed itself, which may confer upon you the necessary instruction. When, therefore, to a certain elder
who was very well known to us—when a certain one of the not-at-all slothful young men had set out to him for the sake of his own progress and healing, and had simply confessed that he was troubled by the incentives of the flesh and by the spirit of fornication, believing that he would find consolation for his labours in the elder's prayer and a remedy for his inflicted wounds—that elder, rebuking him with the most bitter words and pronouncing him wretched and unworthy and not to be counted even by the name of monk, since he could be tickled by a vice and lust of this kind, so wounded him by his reproofs—which produced the very opposite effect—that he sent him away from his cell cast down in utter despair and overwhelmed with deadly sorrow.
And when this young man, oppressed by such grief, was pondering with deep deliberation no longer about a remedy for his passion but about the fulfilment of the lust he had conceived, Abba Apollos, most approved of the elders, met him; and, conjecturing from the appearance of his countenance and his dejection the toil and the vehemence of the assault that were silently revolving in his heart, he asked the cause of so great a disturbance. And when the youth could not return even a single word to the old man who gently addressed him, the old man, perceiving more and more that it was not without reason that he wished to conceal in silence the cause of so great a sadness—which he was not able even to disguise by his face—began to inquire the more intently of him the causes of his hidden grief.
Constrained by these, the youth confesses that he is going off to a village, in order that—since, according to that elder's verdict, he could not be a monk nor now had any power to curb the goads of the flesh and to obtain remedies against the assault—he might take a wife and, forsaking the monastery, return to the world. Him the old man soothed with kindly consolation, asserting that he himself was daily agitated by the same goads and heats of the incentives, and that therefore he ought by no means to fall away into despair nor to marvel at the ardour of the assault, which is overcome not so much by zeal of labour as by the mercy and grace of the Lord; and he begged of him a respite of one day only, and, having entreated him to return to his little cell, hastened with all speed to the monastery of the aforesaid elder.
And when he had drawn near to it, stretching out his hands and pouring forth prayer with tears, he said: 'Turn, O Lord, who alone art the merciful and hidden judge of secret powers and of human weakness, and the physician thereof—turn the assault of that young man upon this old man, that he may be taught even in old age to condescend to the weaknesses of those who labour and to have compassion on the frailty of the young.' And when he had concluded this prayer with a groan, he beheld a hideous Ethiopian standing over against the elder's cell and directing fiery darts against it.
When the elder had at once been wounded by these darts and, going forth from his cell, ran hither and thither like a madman and a drunkard, and, going out and coming in, could no longer contain himself within it, he began in his frenzy to make his way by the very same road along which that young man had departed. Abba Apollos, beholding him carried about as though made mad and driven by certain furies, understood that the fiery weapon of the devil which he had seen had been fixed in his heart, and that it was working that confusion of mind and disturbance of the senses in him with unbearable heats; and approaching him he said: 'Where are you hurrying? Or what causes are so childishly disquieting you, forgetful of that senile gravity of yours, and compelling you to run about so lightly?'
And when the elder, confounded by the guilt of his conscience and by his shameful agitation, believed that the ardour of his breast had been detected, and, his heart's secrets being now laid bare to the old man, dared to make no reply at all to his questioning, Apollos said: 'Return to your cell, and understand at last that hitherto you have been either unknown to the devil or despised by him, and not reckoned in the number of those whom he is daily incited to fight and to wrestle with, on account of their progress and endeavours—you who, after so long a series of years as you have worn away in this profession, could not, I will not say repel, but not even for a single day delay one dart of his aimed at you.
For this reason the Lord has allowed you to be wounded, that at least in old age you might learn to have compassion on the weaknesses of others and to condescend to the frailty of the young, and that you might be taught by your own examples and experience—you who, receiving a young man labouring under diabolical assault, not only cherished him with no consolation, but even, casting him down into ruinous despair, delivered him into the hands of the enemy, so far as in you lies, to be lamentably devoured by him.
Him the enemy would assuredly never have assailed with so vehement a conflict—him whom until now he has disdained to attack against you—had he not, envying his future progress, hastened to anticipate and forestall with his fiery darts that virtue which he perceived to be in the youth's soul, doubtless understanding him to be the stronger, one with whom he judged it worth the trouble to contend with such vehemence. Learn, therefore, by your own examples to have compassion on those who labour, and never to terrify those in peril by ruinous despair, nor to make them harsh with the hardest words, but rather to refresh them with gentle and kindly consolation; and, according to the precept of the most wise Solomon, 'deliver those who are led to death, and forbear not to redeem those who are slain'; and, after the example of our Saviour, not to break the bruised reed nor to quench the smoking flax; and to ask of the Lord that grace whereby you too may be able confidently to sing in deed and in power:
'The Lord has given me a learned tongue, that I may know how to sustain by a word him that is weary.' For no one could endure the snares of the enemy or the carnal heats that blaze with a kind of natural fire, or extinguish or repress them, unless the grace of God either aided our frailty or protected and fortified it. And therefore, this reasoning of the saving dispensation being concluded—by which the Lord willed both to free that young man from his ruinous heats and to instruct you concerning the vehemence of the assault and the affection of compassion—let us implore Him with common prayers, that He may command to be removed that scourge which for the sake of your profit the Lord has deigned to inflict upon you (for He Himself makes to grieve, and again heals:
'He strikes, and His hands heal; He humbles, and exalts; He kills, and makes alive; He leads down to hell, and brings back'); and that He may extinguish, by the overflowing dew of His Spirit, the fiery darts of the devil which, I being the arbiter, He permitted to be inflicted upon you. And though the Lord, at the single prayer of the old man, removed this temptation with the same swiftness with which He had inflicted it, yet by evident proof He taught that the disclosed vices of anyone are not only not to be reproached, but that the grief of one who labours is not to be lightly despised either.
And therefore let not the inexperience or levity of one elder, or of a few, in any way deter and exclude you from that saving way of which we have spoken before, and from the tradition of the forebears—whose grey hairs the most cunning enemy abuses for the deception of the young; but, without any covering of shame, all things ought to be revealed to the elders, and from them the remedies for wounds and the examples of conduct and of life ought to be confidently received. In which we shall experience equal help and a like effect, if we attempt to affect nothing whatever by our own judgment and presumption.
Finally, this maxim is proved to be so pleasing to God that we find this very instruction not idly inserted even in the Holy Scriptures, so that the Lord was unwilling to instruct by Himself, through the discipline of divine converse, the boy Samuel, chosen by His own judgment, but suffered him once and again to have recourse to an old man; and He willed him to be instructed unto that address which He was calling him to, by the teaching even of one who had offended God—provided it was that of an elder—and preferred that one whom He had judged most worthy of His own calling should be formed by the instruction of an elder: namely, that both the humility of him who was being called to the divine ministry might be proved, and a pattern of this submission might be set before the younger by his example.
Christ also, calling and addressing Paul by Himself, though He could have opened to him at once the way of perfection, chose rather to direct him to Ananias, and bade him learn the way of truth from him, saying: 'Arise and enter the city, and there it shall be told you what you must do.' Thus He sends him too to an elder, and judges it better that he be instructed by the other's teaching rather than by His own—namely, lest what had been rightly done in Paul's case should afford to later generations an evil example of presumption, while each one should persuade himself that he too, in like manner, ought to be formed rather by the teaching and instruction of God alone than by the training of the elders.
This presumption the apostle himself teaches, not only by his writings but also by his deed and example, to be in every way detested, asserting that he went up to Jerusalem for this reason only: that he might confer the gospel, which by the accompanying grace of the Holy Spirit he was preaching to the Gentiles with the power of signs and wonders, with his fellow-apostles and predecessors, by a kind of private and domestic examination—saying, 'And I conferred with them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest perhaps I should run, or had run, in vain.' Who then would be so presumptuous and blind as to dare to trust to his own judgment and discernment, when the vessel of election testifies that he had need of conference with his fellow-apostles?
Whence it is most manifestly proved that the way of perfection is shown by the Lord to no one who, having the means whereby he might be instructed, has despised the teaching and institutions of the elders, esteeming lightly that saying which ought most diligently to be kept: 'Ask your father, and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you.' With every effort, therefore, the good of discernment must be acquired by the virtue of humility, which can preserve us unharmed from either excess. For there is an ancient saying: 'akrotētes isotētes'—that is, 'excesses are equal.' For to one and the same end come both excess of fasting and gluttony; and by the same detriment does the immoderate prolonging of vigils involve the monk, as does the torpor of heaviest sleep.
For through excess of abstinence anyone who has been enfeebled must needs be recalled to that same state in which the negligent man is held through carelessness—so that frequently those whom we have seen could not be deceived through gluttony we have seen cast down through immoderation of fasting, and lapsed, by occasion of infirmity, into the very passion they had overcome. Vigils too and irrational night-watchings have cast down those whom sleep could not overcome.
Wherefore, according to the apostle, we must pass through 'by the arms of righteousness that are on the right hand and on the left' with right governance, and thus proceed between both excesses with discernment moderating, so that we neither consent to be led away from the handed-down path of continence, nor again fall by a harmful relaxation into the desires of the gullet and the belly. For I remember that I have frequently so utterly spurned the appetite for food, that, refection being deferred for two and three days, not even the memory of any eatable interrupted my mind; and again, that sleep was by the devil's assault so withdrawn from my eyes,
that for many nights and days I would beg the Lord that a little sleep might be poured into my eyes; and I felt that I was more gravely imperilled by loathing of sleep and food than by the fellowship of slumber and gluttony. And so, just as we must take care lest, by appetite for bodily pleasure, we slip into a harmful dissolution, and lest before the appointed time we presume either to indulge in food or to exceed its measure, so also the refreshment of food and sleep is to be taken in at the lawful hour, even if it be irksome. For each warfare arises from the adversary's contrivance, and immoderate continence more ruinously supplants a man than relaxed satiety. For from the latter one may ascend to the measure of strictness by a saving compunction intervening; from the former one cannot. GERMANUS:
What then is the measure of continence, holding which by an even governance we may pass unharmed between both excesses? MOSES: On this matter we know that a discussion was frequently held among our elders. For discussing the continences of various men—who continually passed their life on pulse alone, or on herbs only, or on fruits—they set before all these the refreshment of bread alone, of which they fixed the most equitable measure at two paximatia (small loaves), which it is quite certain that these little loaves scarcely have the weight of a single pound. This we gladly embraced, and answered that we by no means reckoned this measure as continence, seeing that we could by no means consume it whole. MOSES:
If you wish to test the force of this rule, keep to that measure continually, taking no cooked dish from without on the Lord's day or the Sabbath, nor on any occasion of arriving brethren. For the flesh, refreshed by these, will be able not only to be sustained on the remaining days with a smaller quantity, but even to defer the whole refection without labour, being propped up, namely, by the addition of those foods which it has taken from without. Which he will be in no wise able to do, nor to defer the refection of bread to the following day, whoever has always been content with the quantity of the aforesaid measure.
For I remember that our elders—which I too observe to have frequently endured—sustained this frugality with so great labour and difficulty, and kept the aforesaid measure with such abstinence and hunger, that in a manner unwillingly, and not without groaning and sadness, they imposed upon themselves this limit of refection. Yet this is the general measure of continence: that each one grant to himself only so much food, according to the capacity of the strength either of body or of age, as the sustenance of the flesh, not as the desire of satiety, demands. For on either side he will suffer the greatest loss, whoever, keeping inequality, now constricts his belly with the dryness of fasts, now distends it with excess of food.
For as the mind, wearied by emptiness of food, loses the vigour of prayer, while, weighed down by too great weariness of the flesh, it is compelled to fall asleep, so again, oppressed by excess of gluttony, it will not be able to send up to God prayers pure and light. But neither will it be able to preserve even the purity of chastity itself by an unbroken continuance, while for it, even on those days on which continence seems to chastise the flesh more sharply, the past material of food supplies fuel to the fire of carnal concupiscence. For what has once been concreted in the marrow through abundance of food must needs be expelled and driven out by the very law of nature, which does not suffer any superfluous excess of humour to reside within itself as noxious and contrary to it.