The Conferences 1.14–2.1

“Therefore let each one know, while he is still in this body, that he will be assigned to that region or service in which he has shown himself a sharer and worker in this life; and let him not doubt that in that eternal age he will be the companion of the one whose servant and associate he now chooses to show himself, according to the saying of the Lord: ‘If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there my servant will be also.’ For as the kingdom of the devil is taken up by connivance with the vices, so the kingdom of God is possessed by the practice of the virtues, in purity of heart and spiritual knowledge. Where the kingdom of God is, there without doubt eternal life is found; and where the kingdom of the devil is, there death and hell undoubtedly are. One who is in it cannot praise the Lord, according to the saying of the prophet: ‘The dead shall not praise you, O Lord, nor all those who go down into hell’ (of sin, without doubt). ‘But we,’ he says, ‘who live’ (that is, not to the vices nor to this world, but to God), ‘will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.’ ‘For in death there is no one who remembers God; and in hell’ (of sin) ‘who will confess the Lord?’ That is, no one. For no one, though he declares a thousand times that he is a Christian or a monk, confesses God while he sins; no one who does what the Lord detests remembers God, nor truly declares himself the servant of one whose commands he despises with stubborn rashness. In this death the blessed apostle declares that widow to be who lives in pleasures: ‘The widow who lives in pleasures is dead while she lives.’ There are many, then, who while living in this body are dead, and lying in hell cannot praise God; and, on the contrary, there are those who, though dead in body, bless and praise God in the spirit, according to the words, ‘Bless the Lord, you spirits and souls of the righteous,’ and, ‘Let every spirit praise the Lord.’ And in the Apocalypse the souls of the slain are said not only to praise God but also to plead with him. In the Gospel, too, the Lord says still more plainly to the Sadducees: ‘Have you not read what was spoken by God, saying to you, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to him.’ Of them the apostle also says: ‘Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he has prepared a city for them.’ That souls are not idle after separation from this body, and do not lack all feeling, is shown also by the Gospel parable about the poor man Lazarus and the rich man clothed in purple: one of them wins the most blessed seat, that is, the rest of Abraham's bosom; the other is burned by the unbearable heat of eternal fire. And if we will consider what is said to the thief, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise,’ what else does it plainly mean than that there remains in souls not only their former understanding, but also that they enjoy a fitting lot according to the character of their merits and deeds? The Lord would never have promised him this if he had known that his soul, after separation from the flesh, would either be deprived of feeling or dissolved into nothing. For it was not his flesh but his soul that was to enter paradise with Christ. We must certainly beware of, and indeed detest with all horror, that most perverse punctuation of the heretics, who, not believing that Christ could be found in paradise on the same day on which he descended into hell, punctuate thus: ‘Truly I say to you today,’ and after the break add, ‘you will be with me in paradise’; so that this promise is understood as fulfilled not immediately after the passing of this life but after the coming of the resurrection. They do not understand what he said to the Jews before the day of his resurrection, who believed that he, like themselves, was confined by human limits and fleshly weakness: ‘No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.’ By these things it is plainly proved that the souls of the dead are not only not deprived of their senses, but do not lack even such affections as hope and sadness, joy and fear, and that they already begin to have some foretaste of what is reserved for them at that general judgment; and that they are not, as some unbelievers think, dissolved into nothing after departing this dwelling, but live on more vigorously and cling more intently to the praises of God. And indeed, to set aside the testimonies of Scripture for a moment and reason a little about the nature of the soul itself, as far as our modest understanding allows: is it not beyond, I will not say the foolishness, but the madness of all absurdity, even slightly to suspect that the more precious part of a human being, in which, according to the blessed apostle, the image and likeness of God consists, becomes senseless when this bodily burden that now dulls it is laid aside? For it contains in itself the whole power of reason, and by sharing itself makes even the dumb and senseless matter of the flesh sensible. Surely it follows, and the very order of reason requires, that the mind, stripped of this fleshly grossness by which it is now dulled, should restore its intellectual powers for the better and receive them purer and finer rather than lose them. So true does the blessed apostle know this to be that he even wishes to depart from this flesh, so that by separation from it he may be joined more closely to the Lord, saying: ‘I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, for it is much better’; ‘for while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. And therefore we are confident and have a good will rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we also strive, whether absent or present, to please him.’ He declares that the soul's dwelling in this flesh is absence from the Lord and separation from Christ, and trusts with full faith that its separation and departure from this flesh is presence with Christ. And again, still more clearly, the same apostle says of this most living state of souls: ‘But you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.’ Of these spirits he says in another place: ‘Then we had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we revered them: shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?’”

“The contemplation of God, however, is conceived in many ways. For God is known not only by wonder at his incomprehensible substance, which is still hidden in the hope of the promise, but he is also seen in the greatness of his creatures, or in the consideration of his justice, or in the help of his daily providence: when with a most pure mind we survey what he has done with his saints in each generation; when with trembling hearts we wonder at the power by which he governs, directs, and rules all things, at the immensity of his knowledge, and at the eye from which the secrets of hearts cannot be hidden; when we think of the sand of the sea and the number of the waves as measured and known to him; when in amazement we contemplate the drops of rain, the days and hours of the ages, and all things past and future as present to his knowledge; when we behold with a kind of ecstasy of wonder his unspeakable mercy, by which with unwearied patience he bears the countless crimes committed every moment in his sight; the calling by which, with no merits of ours going before, he took us up by the grace of his compassion; and finally how many occasions of salvation he grants to those who are to be adopted: that he ordained us to be born in such a way that grace and the knowledge of his law were handed on to us from the very cradle; that he himself, overcoming the adversary in us, rewards us with eternal blessedness and everlasting rewards for the mere consent of a good will; and lastly, when he undertook the dispensation of his incarnation for our salvation and spread the wonders of his mysteries among all nations. There are also countless other contemplations of this kind, which arise in our minds according to the quality of our life and our purity of heart, by which God is either seen or held by pure eyes. No one, surely, will keep them permanently in whom anything of fleshly affections still lives, because, the Lord says, ‘You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live’ — that is, live to this world and to earthly affections.”

Germanus: “How is it, then, that superfluous thoughts creep in on us so subtly and secretly, even against our will, and indeed without our knowing it, that it is exceedingly difficult not only to drive them out but even to notice and detect them? Can the mind, then, ever be found free of them and never be assailed by such illusions?”

Moses: “It is impossible for the mind not to be approached by thoughts; but it is possible for anyone who makes the effort to accept or reject them. So, just as their arising does not wholly depend on us, their rejection or choice lies with us. Yet from our saying that it is impossible for the mind not to be approached by thoughts, it must not all be attributed either to their onset or to the spirits who try to put them into us. Otherwise free will would not remain in a human being, nor would the effort to correct ourselves be in our power. But it is, I say, largely up to us that the quality of our thoughts be amended, and that either holy and spiritual thoughts or earthly and fleshly ones grow in our hearts. This is why frequent reading and constant meditation on the Scriptures are practised, so that from them we may be given the occasion of spiritual remembrance; why the psalms are sung often, so that from them constant compunction may be supplied to us; why diligence in vigils, fasts, and prayers is practised, so that the mind, made lean, may not savor earthly things but contemplate heavenly ones. When these cease through creeping negligence, the mind, hardened by the filth of the vices, must soon incline toward the fleshly side and fall.”

“This exercise of the heart is fittingly compared to millstones, which the headlong current of water turns with its whirling force. They can by no means stop their work while they are driven round by the force of the waters; but it lies in the power of the one in charge whether he prefers wheat, barley, or darnel to be ground. What is put in by the one entrusted with the care of that work is certainly what must be ground. So too the mind, driven round by the torrents of temptation pouring in from every side in the assaults of the present life, cannot be free of the surge of thoughts; but what kind it should reject or prepare for itself, the effort of its own zeal and diligence will provide. For if, as we have said, we continually return to meditation on the holy Scriptures and raise our memory to the remembrance of spiritual things, the desire for perfection, and the hope of future blessedness, the spiritual thoughts that arise from them must make the mind dwell on what we have meditated. But if, overcome by sloth or negligence, we are taken up with vices and idle talk, or entangled in worldly cares and superfluous anxieties, then a kind of darnel will spring up from them and supply our heart with harmful work as well; and according to the saying of the Lord and Savior, where the treasure of our works or intention is, there our heart must remain.”

“Above all we ought to know that there are three sources of our thoughts: from God, from the devil, and from ourselves. They are from God when he deigns to visit us with the illumination of the Holy Spirit, raising us to higher progress; when he chastens us with most wholesome compunction where we have gained too little or been overcome by acting slothfully; or when he opens heavenly mysteries to us and turns our purpose and will to better actions. So it was when King Ahasuerus, chastened by the Lord, was prompted to search the books of the annals, by which he remembered the good deeds of Mordecai, raised him to the highest rank of honor, and at once revoked the most cruel sentence for the slaughter of the Jewish nation. Or when the prophet says: ‘I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me.’ Another also says: ‘And the angel who spoke in me said.’ Or when the Son of God promises that he will come together with the Father and make his dwelling with us; and, ‘It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you’; and the chosen vessel: ‘You seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me.’ A train of thoughts arises from the devil when he tries to overthrow us both by the delight of the vices and by hidden snares, deceitfully showing evil things as good with the subtlest cunning and transforming himself before us into an angel of light. Or when the evangelist relates: ‘And when supper was over, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray the Lord’; and again, ‘After the morsel,’ he says, ‘Satan entered into him.’ Peter also says to Ananias: ‘Why has Satan tempted your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit?’ And what we read in the Gospel, foretold long before by Ecclesiastes: ‘If the spirit of the one who has power rises up against you, do not leave your place.’ Also what is said to God against Ahab in the third book of Kingdoms, in the person of an unclean spirit: ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ They arise from ourselves when we naturally remember what we are doing, have done, or have heard. Of these the blessed David says: ‘I thought of the days of old, and had the eternal years in mind; and I meditated; by night I communed with my heart, and searched my spirit.’ And again: ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain’; and, ‘The thoughts of the righteous are judgments.’ In the Gospel, too, the Lord says to the Pharisees: ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?’”

“We must therefore constantly observe this threefold distinction and examine with shrewd discernment all the thoughts that arise in our heart, first tracing their origins, causes, and authors, so that we can consider how we ought to treat them according to the merit of those who suggest them, and so become, according to the Lord's command, approved money-changers. Their highest skill and training is to test what is the purest gold, what is commonly called refined, and what has been less purified by fire; not to be deceived, by most prudent discernment, by a cheap copper coin if it imitates a precious one under the color of shining gold; not only to recognize wisely coins bearing the faces of usurpers, but also, with sharper skill, to detect those which bear the image of the true king but are not lawfully struck; and finally to examine carefully with the scales whether anything has been taken from their lawful weight. The Gospel saying, by the example of this term, shows that we too must observe all these things spiritually. First, whatever has crept into our hearts, or any teaching that has been introduced to us, we must examine most carefully to see whether it has been purified by that divine and heavenly fire of the Holy Spirit, or whether it belongs to Jewish superstition or comes down from the pride of worldly philosophy and displays piety only on the surface. We shall be able to do this if we follow the apostolic saying: ‘Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are from God.’ In this way those also were deceived who, after professing themselves monks, were enticed by elegance of speech and by certain teachings of the philosophers. Hearing at first sight some ideas that seemed pious and in keeping with religion, these deceived them like the gleam of gold, and, like copper and counterfeit coins, left those they had once enticed by their surface stripped and wretched for ever, either calling them back to the noise of the world or dragging them into heretical errors and swollen presumption. This is what we read in the book of Joshua that Achan suffered: coveting and stealing a golden bar from the camp of the Philistines, he deserved to be struck with the curse and condemned to eternal death. Second, we must carefully examine that a perverse interpretation fitted to the purest gold of the Scriptures does not deceive us by the preciousness of the metal. In this way the most cunning devil tried to impose even on the Lord and Savior, as though on a simple man: corrupting by a malicious interpretation what is to be understood generally of all the righteous, he tries to apply it specially to him who had no need of the guardianship of angels, saying: ‘For he shall give his angels charge concerning you, to keep you in all your ways; and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ So, by cunningly taking up the precious words of the Scriptures and twisting them to a contrary and harmful sense, he presents to us the image of a usurper's face under the color of deceptive gold. Or when he tries to deceive us with counterfeits, urging us to take up some work of piety which, not proceeding from the lawful coinage of the elders, leads to vices under the pretext of virtue; or, deceiving us by immoderate and unsuitable fasts, or excessive vigils, or disordered prayers, or unsuitable reading, draws us to a harmful end. Or when he persuades us to spend ourselves in pious intercessions and visits, by which he may shake us out of the spiritual enclosure of the monastery and the secrecy of friendly quiet; he suggests that we take on the cares and anxieties of religious and destitute women, so that, having ensnared the monk inextricably in such nets, he may distract him with the occupation of harmful cares. Or else he urges us to desire the holy office of the clergy, under the pretext of the edification of many and the love of spiritual gain, in order to tear us away from the humility and strictness of our way of life. All these things, though they are contrary to our salvation and profession, nevertheless, covered with a veil of mercy and religion, easily deceive the unskilled and unwary. For they imitate the coins of the true king, since for the present they seem full of piety; but they are not struck by lawful moneyers, that is, by approved and catholic fathers, nor do they come from the principal and public workshop of their conference, but are secretly forged by the fraud of demons and passed, not without loss, to the unskilled and ignorant. Though they seem useful and necessary for the present, yet if afterwards they begin to be contrary to the soundness of our profession and in some way to shake the whole body of our purpose, it is wholesome for us to cast them off and cut them away, like a member which is necessary but causes stumbling, and seems to perform the office of the right hand or foot. For it is better to remain sound and firm in the rest without one member of a command, that is, its practice or fruit, and to enter the kingdom of heaven as though maimed, than with the command intact to fall into some stumbling block which, separating us by a harmful habit from the rule of strictness and the discipline of the way of life we have taken up, leads us into such loss that, never making up for future damage, it causes all our past fruits and the whole body of our work to be burned in the fires of Gehenna. These kinds of illusions are also elegantly expressed in Proverbs: ‘There are ways that seem right to a man, but their end comes into the depth of hell’; and again: ‘The evil one does harm when he mingles with the righteous’, that is, the devil deceives when he is covered with the color of holiness; ‘but he hates the sound of safety’, that is, the power of discernment which comes from the words and admonition of the elders.”

“In this way, we know, Abba John, who lives at Lycus, was recently deceived. When his body was exhausted and worn out and he had put off taking food through a two-day fast, the devil came to him the next day, as he was going to his meal, in the form of a foul Ethiopian, and throwing himself at his knees said: ‘Forgive me, for it was I who laid this labor on you.’ So that great man, perfect in the practice of discernment, understood that under the color of an abstinence practised unsuitably he had been circumvented by the devil's cunning and drawn into such a fast that he imposed on his tired body a weariness that was unnecessary, and even harmful to the spirit. He had been deceived by a counterfeit coin: while he venerated the image of the true king on it, he did not examine closely enough whether it had been lawfully struck. The last observance of this approved money-changer, which we said concerns testing the weight, will be fulfilled in this way: if, reconsidering with all scruple whatever our thought suggests should be done, and placing it on the scales of our breast, we weigh with the most just balance whether it is full of the common good, whether it is heavy with the fear of God, whether it is sound in meaning, or whether it is light through human display or some presumption of novelty, and whether the glory of empty vainglory has not diminished or clipped the weight of its merit. And so, weighing these things at once in the public assay, that is, comparing them with the acts and testimonies of the prophets and apostles, let us either hold them as whole and perfect and matching those, or reject them with all caution and care as imperfect, harmful, and not agreeing with their weight.”

“This discernment, then, will be necessary to us in the fourfold way we have described: first, that the material of true or counterfeit gold may not escape us; second, that we may reject as adulterated and counterfeit coins those thoughts which falsely claim to be works of piety, since they bear a false image of the king, unlawfully stamped; or that we may likewise detect and reject those which, on the most precious gold of the Scriptures, display through a faulty and heretical sense the face not of the true king but of a usurper; or those whose weight and value the rust of vanity has eaten away, so that it does not match the standard weight of the elders, so that we may refuse them as light, harmful, and underweight coins. Otherwise we may fall into what we are warned by the Lord's command to guard against with all our strength, and be cheated of all the merit and wages of our labors: ‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth consume, and where thieves dig through and steal.’ For whatever we do with an eye to human glory we should know, according to the Lord's saying, we are laying up on earth; and consequently, as though hidden in the ground and buried in the earth, it will be plundered by various demons, or consumed by the devouring rust of vainglory, or so eaten by the moths of pride that it brings no use or profit to the one who stored it. All the recesses of our heart, then, must be searched continually, and the tracks of whatever enters them traced back with the shrewdest investigation, lest some intelligible beast, a lion or a dragon, passing through, secretly leave there its harmful tracks, by which access into the inner sanctuary of our breast may be given to others as well through the negligence of our thoughts. And so, hour by hour and moment by moment, ploughing the soil of our heart with the Gospel plough, that is, with constant remembrance of the Lord's cross, we shall be able to destroy the lairs of harmful beasts and the hiding places of poisonous serpents in us.”

The old man, seeing us astonished and burning with insatiable ardor at the words of his discourse, paused for a little in wonder at our desire, and then added: “Since your earnestness, my sons, has drawn us into so long a discussion, and a kind of fire, answering your desire, supplies more fervent thoughts to our conference, so that from this very fact I clearly see that you truly thirst for the teaching of perfection, I want to say a little more to you about the excellence and grace of discernment, which holds the citadel and first place among all the virtues, and to prove its excellence and usefulness not only by everyday examples but also by the ancient questions and sayings of the fathers. For I remember that often, when some asked for such a discourse with groans and tears, and I wanted to give them some teaching, I could not do so at all; not only my thoughts but even my very speech failed me, so that I could not find how to send them away even with a little consolation. By these signs it is clearly recognized that the grace of the Lord breathes speech into those who discuss, according to the merit and desire of the hearers. But since the very short space of the night that remains is not enough to complete it, let us rather give it to bodily rest, which must be paid in full if even its small portion is denied, and keep the full course of the discourse for the whole of the coming day or night. For it befits the best counsellors on discernment first to show the diligence of their mind in this, and to prove by this sign and patience whether they are, or can be, capable of it, so that in treating of the virtue that is the mother of moderation they do not fall into the vice contrary to it, excess, violating in fact and deed the power of the principle and nature that they cultivate in words. Let the good of discernment, then, which we intend to investigate further as far as the Lord grants, first benefit us in this: that as we discuss its excellence and moderation, which is known to be its first virtue, it may not allow us to exceed due measure in discussion or in time.” With these words the blessed Moses brought our conference to an end. While we were still eager and hanging on his lips, he urged us to taste a little sleep, telling us to lie down on the very psiathia on which we had been sitting, with the embrimia placed under our heads instead of pillows. These are made of thicker papyrus gathered into long, thin bundles and tied together at intervals of a foot and a half; sometimes they serve as a very low seat, instead of a footstool, for the brothers sitting at the synaxis, and sometimes, placed under the necks of sleepers, they give the head a support not too hard but pliant and suitable. They are considered especially suitable and fitting for the monks' use, not only because they are somewhat soft and are made at little cost and labor, since papyrus grows everywhere along the banks of the Nile, but also because they are of a light and handy material for putting away or bringing out when needed. And so at the old man's bidding we at last settled down to taste sleep, in a burdensome quiet, as much inflamed with joy at the conference we had held as held in suspense by expectation of the discussion promised.

So, having tasted the morning's sleep, when we saw with joy that daylight had at last dawned for us and began to ask again for the promised discourse, the blessed Moses began thus: “Since I see you so inflamed with the ardor of desire that I do not believe even that very short moment of rest, which I had preferred to take from our spiritual conference and give to the refreshment of the flesh, has served for the rest of your bodies, a greater anxiety also weighs on me as I consider this fervor of yours. For I too must take all the more care and devotion in paying my debt, the more earnestly I see you demand it, according to the saying: ‘If you sit down to dine at the table of a ruler, consider wisely what is set before you, and put out your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things.’ Therefore, since we are to speak about the good of discernment and its power, on which our night conference had entered when it ended our discussion, we think it fitting first to establish its excellence by the sayings of the fathers. Then, when it has become clear what our elders thought and declared about it, we shall set out the ancient and recent falls and misfortunes of various men who were cast down in ruinous collapse because they had failed to attain it, and review its benefits and advantages as far as we can. When these have been discussed, we shall be more effectively taught how we ought to seek and cultivate it, considering the dignity of its merit and grace. For it is no ordinary virtue, nor one that human effort can grasp at will, unless it is bestowed by divine generosity. For we read that the apostle counts it among the noblest gifts of the Holy Spirit: ‘To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healings in the one Spirit’; and a little later, ‘to another discernment of spirits.’ Then, having completed the whole catalogue of spiritual gifts, he adds: ‘But all these are worked by one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one as he will.’ You see, then, that the gift of discernment is not earthly or small, but the greatest prize of divine grace. Unless a monk has pursued it with all his intention and possesses by sure reckoning the discernment of the spirits that rise up in him, he must, like one who runs in a blind night and thick darkness, not only fall into dangerous pits and precipices, but also frequently stumble even on level and straight ground.”