How their so long perseverance and humility and subjection endures so lasting, and by what discipline it is formed, through which they persevere in the coenobium even to bowed old age, I think we ought above all things first to touch upon (for it is as great as we remember no one who has entered our monasteries to have maintained for even a whole year), so that, when we have seen the beginnings of their renunciation, we may understand that it followed consequently that upon foundations of such beginnings there should rise up such lofty heights of perfection.
Therefore whoever aspires to be received within the discipline of the coenobium is by no means admitted at all, until, keeping watch before the doors for ten days or more, he has demonstrated the proof of his perseverance and of his desire, and likewise of his humility and patience.
And when, having cast himself at the knees of all the brethren as they pass by, and having been deliberately rebuffed, rejected, and looked down upon by every one of them, as though he were a man who sought to enter the monastery under the pretext not of religion but of necessity, and when, being subjected also to many injuries and reproaches, he has given proof of his constancy and, by his patient endurance of insults, has shown what manner of man he will be amid temptations, and when, his ardour of mind having thus been tested, he has at last been received, then it is inquired into with the utmost care lest any taint of even a single coin from his former possessions still cling to him.
For they know that such a man cannot long abide under the discipline of the monastery, nor will he ever lay hold of the virtue of humility or of obedience, nor will he be content with the poverty and strictness of the community, if in his conscience there lurks even the smallest sum of money; but rather, as soon as any occasion whatever has stirred up in him some commotion, emboldened by confidence in that little hoard, he will straightway flee from the monastery like a stone from a whirling sling.
And therefore they will not consent to receive from him any money, even such as might be of use to the community, first, lest, being puffed up by confidence in this offering, he should in no wise deign to hold himself equal to the poorer brethren; and next, lest through this pride, never at all descending to the humility of Christ, when he has been unable to persevere under the discipline of the community, he should on departing thence contrive, with sacrilegious spirit, afterward grown lukewarm, to take back and demand again — not without injury to the monastery — those things which at the beginning, kindled with spiritual fervour of his renunciation, he had brought in. That this ought by all means to be observed they have often been taught by many proofs.
For in other, less cautious monasteries, certain men who had been received without such precaution afterward attempted, with grievous blasphemy, to demand the restitution of those things which they had brought in and which had already been spent in the work of God. Wherefore every man, when he has been received, is so stripped of all his former substance that he is not permitted to keep any longer even the very garment with which he is clothed; but, brought forward into the midst in the assembly of the brethren, he is unclothed, and by the hands of the abbot is clad in the garments of the monastery, so that by this he may know himself not only despoiled of all his old possessions, but also, having laid aside all worldly pride, to have descended to the poverty and want of Christ, and that he is henceforth to be sustained by goods not procured by the art of the world nor kept back out of unbelief.
but knowing that from the holy and pious bounties of the monastery he is to receive the wages of his warfare, and thence to be henceforth clothed and fed; and, according to the sentence of the Gospel, he learns both to have nothing and yet to be no less unanxious for the morrow, and not to be ashamed to be made equal to the poor, that is, to the body of the brotherhood — with whom Christ was numbered, and whom He was not ashamed to call His brethren, nay rather, let him glory that he has been made a sharer with His own household.
But those garments which he has laid aside are consigned to the steward and kept as long as it takes them clearly to recognize, through diverse temptations and trials, the virtue of his progress, his manner of life, and his endurance. And if indeed they perceive that as time goes on he is able to persevere there and to continue in the same fervour with which he began, they give those same garments to the needy; but if they detect that some fault of murmuring or any small blame of disobedience has appeared in him, they strip him of the garments of the monastery with which he had been clothed, and, re-clothing him in his old garments which had been set aside, they drive him away.
For it is by no means lawful for him to depart with those things which he received, nor do they suffer any man henceforth to be clothed in them whom they have once seen to have grown cold from the rule of his profession. Whence indeed no one is at all granted the opportunity of departing openly, unless either, after the manner of a runaway slave, watching for the thickest darkness, he flees away by night, or else, being by this order and profession judged unworthy, he is expelled with confusion and disgrace before all the brethren, having laid aside the garment of the monastery.
When therefore anyone has been received and proved by that perseverance of which we have spoken, and, having laid aside his own garments, has been girt with the monastic habit, he is not at once permitted to mingle with the congregation of the brethren, but is assigned to a senior who, dwelling apart not far from the vestibule of the monastery, has the appointed care of pilgrims and newcomers, and bestows upon them all the diligence of hospitality and kindness.
And when he has served there for a whole year and, without any complaint, has shown his service toward the pilgrims, being imbued through these things with the first schooling of humility and patience, and having become well-known by this long exercise therein, he is thenceforth handed over, that he may be admitted into the congregation, to another senior who presides over ten juniors, whom, entrusted to him by the abbot, he instructs and governs together — according to that which we read to have been ordained in Exodus through Moses. His chief solicitude and instruction will be that whereby the junior, thus introduced, may afterward be strong to climb even to the heights of perfection: namely, that he should first teach him to conquer his own wishes.
And exercising him zealously and diligently in these things, he will make it his deliberate business always to command him those things which he perceives to be contrary to his mind. For, taught by many proofs, they hand down that a monk, and especially the juniors, cannot even bridle the pleasure of his own concupiscence unless he has first learned through obedience to mortify his own wishes. And therefore they declare that he is in no way able to overcome or extinguish either anger or sadness or the spirit of fornication, nor to retain true humility of heart, nor perpetual unity with the brethren, nor firm and lasting concord, nay, nor even to remain long in the community, who has not first learned to overcome his own wishes.
By these institutions, then, they hasten to imbue and to form those whom they initiate — as though with certain elements and syllables — toward perfection, discerning clearly through these things whether they are grounded in feigned and imaginary humility or in true; and, that they may easily be able to attain to this, they are consequently instructed to conceal in the heart no thoughts whatever that itch within, with pernicious confusion, but, as soon as they have arisen, to disclose them to their senior, and not to commit anything to their own discretion concerning the judgment of them, but to believe that thing to be evil or good which the examination of the senior has weighed and pronounced.
And so it comes to pass that the crafty enemy can in no wise prevail to circumvent the young man as one inexperienced and ignorant, nor by any deceit to beguile him whom he sees fenced not by his own but by his senior's discretion; and he cannot be persuaded to hide from his senior his suggestions and fiery darts, whatsoever he has cast into his heart. For otherwise the most subtle devil will not be able to mock or cast down the junior, save when he has enticed him, whether through arrogance or through false shame, to the concealment of his own thoughts. For they declare it to be a general and evident sign of a diabolical thought, if we are ashamed to disclose it to our senior.
After these things, the rule of obedience is kept with such great observance that the juniors, without the knowledge or permission of their superior, dare not only not go forth from their cell, but do not even presume by their own authority to satisfy the common and natural necessity. And thus they hasten to fulfil all things whatsoever have been commanded by him — as though they were divinely issued from heaven from God — without any discussion, so that sometimes they receive even things impossible commanded to them with such faith and devotion that they strive with all their strength and without any hesitation of heart to perform and complete them, and do not measure even the impossibility of the command, out of reverence for the senior. Concerning their obedience I now forbear to speak in detail:
for by examples themselves we purpose a little later to set it forth in its proper place, if the Lord shall grant us the opportunity through your prayers. Now let us pursue the remaining institutions, forbearing to weave in those things which in this region can neither be handed on to the monasteries nor be kept by them — as we promised in our little preface that we would do — namely, that they use no woollen garments, but linen only, and not even these doubled; of which the superior of each deanery furnishes a replacement to every man, when he has seen that those with which they are clothed have become soiled.
That arduous and lofty kind of continence likewise passing over — wherein it is reckoned the highest of delicacies if a herb seasoned with salt, which they call labsanion, diluted with water, is set before the brethren for their refreshment, and very many other things like these, which in this province neither the temper of the climate nor the quality of our frailty admits — I shall pursue only those things which no infirmity of the flesh, no situation of place can hinder, if only the frailty of the soul and lukewarmness of mind do not take them away.
And so, sitting within their cells and giving their attention alike to work and to meditation, when they have heard the sound of one knocking at the door and striking the cells of the various brethren, inviting them, namely, to prayer or to some work, each one bursts forth vying from his cell, so that he who plies the work of a scribe does not dare to finish the letter which he has been found to have begun, but at the very instant at which the sound of the knocker has come to his ears, springing forth with the utmost speed, he interposes not even so much delay as would complete the shape of the character he has begun, but leaving the lines of the letter unfinished, he strives not so much to pursue the gains or profits of the work as, with all zeal and emulation, to fulfil the virtue of obedience.
This virtue they prefer not only to the work of the hands or to reading or to the silence and quiet of the cell, but even to all the virtues, so that they judge all things ought to be postponed to it, and are content to undergo every loss, provided only that they may seem in no wise to have violated this good. That virtue, indeed, among their other institutions I think it superfluous even to mention, namely, that it is lawful for no one to possess a little chest, for no one a private basket, nor any such thing which, keeping it as his own, he ought to secure with his own seal.
These men we have known to be so utterly stripped in every part that, besides a tunic, a hood, sandals, a sheepskin cloak, and a rush mat, they have nothing more; while in other monasteries also, in which some things are more leniently indulged, we see this rule most strictly kept even to this day, that no one dares even by a word to call anything his own, and it is accounted a great crime if there has proceeded from the mouth of a monk 'my book,' 'my tablets,' 'my grain,' 'my tunic,' 'my sandals,' and for this he must make satisfaction by a fitting penance, if by any chance, through inadvertence or ignorance, a word of this kind has slipped from his mouth.
And although each one of them daily contributes to the monastery so great returns from his own work and sweat that from these he is able not only to sustain his own frugality, but is even able to abound for the needs of many, yet he is in no wise puffed up, nor does he flatter himself over so great a gain and sweat of his own work; but besides two small loaves, which are there sold for scarcely three denarii, no one presumes anything more for himself. Among them no private work — which is shameful even to mention, and which would that we knew not to be done in our monasteries — is at all affected by anyone, I will not say in deed, but not even in thought.
And although he believes the whole store of the community to be his own substance, and, as lord of all, bestows all care and solicitude upon all things, nevertheless, in order to retain the virtue of the nakedness he has embraced — which he studies to keep perfectly and inviolably to the very end — he judges himself so much a stranger to all things and so alien from everything that he bears himself as a pilgrim and a sojourner of this world, and reckons himself rather a nursling of the monastery and its servant than presumes to be lord of anything whatsoever.
To these things what do we wretched men say, who, dwelling in communities and set under the care and solicitude of an abbot, carry about with us private keys, and, having trampled underfoot all the modesty and shame of our profession, wear even rings with which we may seal the things stored away.
We are not ashamed to wear them openly on our fingers, we for whom not only little chests or baskets, but not even coffers or cupboards suffice for storing away the things we heap up or which, on leaving the world, we kept back; and who sometimes are so inflamed for the meanest and most worthless things, claiming even these as our own, that if anyone should presume to touch anything of these even with a finger, we are filled with such wrath against him that we cannot recall the commotion of our heart even from our lips and from the indignation of our whole body. But, passing over our vices and consigning to silence those things which it is not even worthy to mention, according to that saying:
'Let not my mouth speak the works of men' — let us rather pursue, in the begun order of our narration, the virtues which are among them, and those things which we too ought with all zeal to strive after; and let us now set down cursorily and briefly the very rules and patterns, so that, when after these things we come to certain deeds and works of the seniors, which we purpose zealously to commit to memory, we may confirm as with most powerful testimonies these things which have been arranged in our exposition, establishing all that we have said rather by their examples and by the authority of their life.
If, then, anyone by some chance has broken an earthen pitcher — which they call a baucalis — he shall atone for his negligence in no other way than by a public penance, and, when all the brethren are gathered together in the synaxis, he shall lie prostrate on the ground and beg pardon for so long, until the solemnity of the prayers is completed, obtaining it when, by the judgment of the abbot, he has been bidden to rise from the ground.
In the same manner shall he make satisfaction, whoever, being summoned to some work or to the accustomed assembly, comes too late; or if, while chanting a psalm, he has stumbled even a little; likewise if he has answered too superfluously, too harshly, or too obstinately; if he has fulfilled the enjoined services too negligently; if he has murmured even lightly; if, preferring reading to work or to obedience, he has too sluggishly executed the appointed offices; if, when the synaxis is dismissed, he has not hastened swiftly to run back to his cell; if he has stopped with anyone even for a moment, or if he has withdrawn anywhere for an instant of time; if he has held another's hand; if he has presumed to converse ever so little with one who is not the cohabitant of his cell; if he has prayed with one who is suspended from prayer; if he has seen any of his kindred or worldly friends, or conversed with them without his senior; if he has attempted to receive a letter from anyone, or to write back, without his abbot.
Thus far, and in offences of this kind and the like, spiritual chastisement proceeds. But the rest, which among us are committed indifferently and are also more reprehensibly tolerated by us — that is, open reproaches, manifest contempts, swollen contradictions, free and unbridled going about, familiarity with women, angers, quarrels, feuds and brawls, the presumption of private work, the contagion of avarice, the affection and possession of superfluous things which are not had by the other brethren, extraordinary and stealthy taking of food, and the like — these are corrected not by that spiritual rebuke of which we have spoken, but either by blows or by expulsion. But as to the practice that, while the brethren are taking refreshment, sacred readings
that in the communities these should be recited — let us know that this did not proceed from the pattern of the Egyptians, but of the Cappadocians. And it is doubtless to no one that they wished to establish this as much for the sake of spiritual exercise as for the sake of restraining superfluous and idle conversation, and especially the contentions which for the most part are wont to be engendered at banquets, seeing that these could not otherwise be checked among them. For among the Egyptians, and especially the Tabennesiotes, so great a silence is maintained by all that, when so great a multitude of brethren has sat down together on the occasion of the meal, no one dares even to mutter, except him who presides over his deanery, who nevertheless,
if he has perceived that anything necessary needs to be brought to the table or taken away, signifies it by a sound rather than by voice. And so great a discipline of this silence is preserved while they are eating that, with their cowls let down beyond the eyelids of their eyes — lest, namely, the free glance should have the opportunity of wandering too curiously — they gaze at nothing more than the table and the foods set upon it or which they take from it; so that no one notices in turn in what manner or how much another takes his refreshment.
Before or after the lawful and common refreshment, it is preserved with the utmost caution that no one presume at all to indulge his mouth with any food outside the table; so that, as they walk through the gardens and orchards, though the fruits hanging on the trees here and there not only offer themselves to the breasts of those passing by, but even, strewn upon the ground, offer themselves to be trodden underfoot, and though ready for gathering they may easily entice the beholders to the consent of concupiscence and, by opportunity or abundance, provoke to their own desire even the most strict and abstinent — it is reckoned sacrilegious not only to taste anything of these, but even to touch them with the hand, apart from what is publicly set forth for all who are refreshing together in common and is publicly ministered for receiving, by the stewards' dispensation, through the services of the brethren.
Lest indeed we should seem to have passed over anything of the institutions of the communities, I think it should be briefly recalled in what manner daily services are rendered by the brethren also throughout other regions. For throughout all Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Cappadocia, and the whole East, the brethren succeed one another by turns each week for the rendering of these offices, so that according to the multitude of the community the number of ministers also is appointed.
These they hasten to discharge with as great devotion and humility as no slave renders his service to the most cruel and mighty master; so that, not content even with these services alone which are discharged by the canonical rule, they even rise by night, and, with their zeal, relieve those upon whom this care especially rests, and, stealthily forestalling them, strive to fulfil the things which are to be performed by them. And each one, taking up these weeks, keeps them, ready to minister, until the supper of the Lord's day.
When this is finished, the ministry of the whole week is so concluded that those to whom the succession is due, when the brethren come together into one to chant the psalms which they are wont to sing before going to rest, wash the feet of all in order — faithfully seeking from them, for the labour of the whole week, this reward of the blessing, namely, that, as they fulfil the commandment of Christ, a prayer sent forth generally by all the brethren may accompany them, which may intercede either for their ignorances or for the sins committed through human frailty, and may commend to God, as a rich sacrifice, the completed services of their devotion. And thus on the second day of the week, after the morning hymns, others again succeeding, they consign the utensils and vessels in which they have ministered:
which those who receive them guard with such great solicitude and care lest anything of them be diminished or lost, that they believe they will render an account even for the least of the vessels — as though for things sacrosanct — not only to the present steward, but even to the Lord, if by chance anything of them has been diminished through their negligence. What measure this discipline has, or with how great faith and caution it is preserved, you will be able to recognize by one testimony, which I shall set down by way of example. For just as we are eager to satisfy your fervour — by which, desiring the full knowledge of all things, you wish that even those things which you know best be repeated to you in this little book — so we fear to exceed the measure of brevity.
In the week of a certain brother, when the steward, passing by, had seen three grains of lentil lying on the ground — which had slipped from between the hands of the hebdomadary, as he hastened, together with the water in which they were being washed, while he was preparing it for cooking — he straightway consulted the abbot about this; and by him, being judged as an embezzler and neglecter of the sacred property, he was suspended from prayer. The guilt of his negligence was not remitted to him otherwise than if he had atoned for it by a public penance. For they believe that not only are they themselves not their own, but also that all things which are theirs are consecrated to the Lord.
Wherefore, if anything has once been brought into the monastery, they decree that it ought to be handled with all reverence, as sacrosanct; and they procure and dispense all things with such great faith that even those things which are held in contempt and reckoned small and worthless — if they have but moved them from their place or arranged them more fittingly, if they have filled a pitcher with water, if they have offered it to anyone to drink, if they have removed a slender straw from the oratory or cell — they trust with all confidence that they will obtain a reward from the Lord.
We have known brethren in whose week, when there had befallen so great a scarcity of firewood that there was utterly nothing wherewith the customary foods might be prepared for the brethren, and it had been commanded by the abbot's authority that, until what was bought could be brought, they should be content with dry food (xerophagia), and this was pleasing to all, nor could anyone hope for any cooked dish — those brethren, as men who would be defrauded of the fruit and reward of their labour and service if they did not prepare foods for the brethren in the order of their turn according to custom, imposed upon themselves so much voluntary work and solicitude that, in those dry and barren places, in which wood, unless it be cut from fruit-bearing trees, can by no means be found (for there are not, as among us,
any wild thickets to be found), running through the extended trackless wastes and traversing the desert which stretches toward the Dead Sea, gathering into their bosoms and laps the slender twigs and little thorns which the wind had scattered here and there, they prepared the whole solemnity of the foods by their voluntary services, so that they suffered nothing to be diminished from the accustomed provision — offering these their duties to the brethren with such great faith that, even when either the scarcity of firewood or the abbot's command could honestly have excused them, they were unwilling, for their fruit and reward, to abuse this liberty.
Let these things be said according to the pattern, as we have premised, of the whole East, which we say ought necessarily to be observed also in our parts. But among the Egyptians, whose greatest care is for work, there is no mutual alternation of weeks, lest under the occasion of this office all should be hindered from the canon of work; but the care of the storeroom or of the kitchen is committed to one of the most approved of the brethren, who continually, as long as his strength or age permits, may perpetually perform this work.
For he is not wearied by great labour of the body, because not so great a care of preparing foods or of cooking is bestowed among them, seeing that they use for the most part dry foods (xerophagia) or raw foods (omophagia); and among them the highest delight is, in single months, leek-leaves, wild mustard (labsania), roasted salt, olives, and small salted fish, which they call maenomenia.
And since this book is concerning the instruction of him who renounces this world — through which, namely, being introduced to true humility and perfect obedience, he may be able to ascend also to the heights of the other virtues — I deem it necessary to set forth, by way of example, as we promised, certain deeds of the seniors by which they shone through this virtue, plucking indeed but a very few out of many, so that to those who are eager to pursue loftier things there may proceed not only an incitement to this perfect life, but even a pattern of the purpose.
Therefore, bringing forward two or three out of so countless a multitude of the Fathers for the compass of this little book, we set down first Abbot John, who dwelt near Lyco, which is a town of the Thebaid, and who, on account of the virtue of his obedience, was raised even to the grace of prophecy, and so shone forth to the whole world that even to the kings of this age he was rendered illustrious by his own merit. For while, as we have said, he abode in the farthest parts of the Thebaid, the emperor Theodosius would not presume to advance to war against most powerful tyrants before he was heartened by that man's oracles and answers; trusting in which, as though they had been conveyed to him from heaven, he carried off trophies from wars and enemies that had been despaired of.
This blessed John, then, from his youth until his full and manly age, served an elder, so long as that man endured in the manner of life of this world, and clung to his obedience with such humility that his obedience struck the utmost astonishment even into the elder himself. Wishing to explore more clearly whether this virtue of his descended from true faith and a deep simplicity of heart, or whether it was feigned and in some way forced and offered only to the face of the one commanding, the elder rather frequently laid upon him many tasks that were superfluous and less than necessary, or even impossible. Of these I shall set down three, through which the integrity both of his mind and of his submission can be made manifest to those who wish to know it.