The Conferences 19.1–19.16

After a very few days, drawn by the desire for greater teaching, we went back with the greatest eagerness to the coenobium of Abba Paul. Although more than two hundred brothers lived there, a countless crowd of monks from other coenobia too had streamed together in honor of a festival being held at that time; for the anniversary of the burial of the former abbot who had governed that coenobium was being solemnly kept. We have mentioned this gathering in order briefly to describe the patience of a certain brother, which shone out with unshaken gentleness in the presence of the whole assembly. For although the aim of this work tends elsewhere, namely to set out the words of Abba John, who left the desert and submitted himself to that coenobium with the greatest virtue of humility, we think it by no means out of place if, without any roundabout words, great edification is offered, as we believe, to all who are eager for the virtues. So while that multitude of monks sat in a huge open court, divided into circles of twelve, one of the brothers brought in a dish he had taken up a little too slowly. The aforesaid Abba Paul, who was hurrying anxiously about among the crowds of brothers serving, saw it, and, stretching out his hand, struck him a blow in the sight of all, so that the sound of the slap echoed even in the ears of those who sat with their backs turned or farther off. But the young man of memorable patience received it with such gentleness of mind that not only did no word slip from his mouth, nor even the faintest murmur shown by a silent movement of the lips, but not even the modesty and calm of his face or his color changed in the least. This deed seemed so wonderful not only to us, who had recently come from a monastery in Syria and had not learned the virtue of this patience from such clear examples, but to all who were not inexperienced in such pursuits, that even the greatest men received special instruction from it: namely, that although the fatherly rebuke had not moved his patience, not even the sight of so great a multitude had tinged his face with any sign of a blush.

In this coenobium we found a very old man named John, whose words, and the humility in which he surpassed all the saints, we decided we must by no means pass over in silence. We knew that he was strong above all in this perfection, which, though it is the mother of all virtues and the most solid foundation of the whole spiritual building, is utterly banished from our own practice. So it is no wonder that we cannot climb to their height, for, I will not say we cannot remain in the discipline of the coenobium until old age, but, scarcely willing to bear the yoke of subjection for two years, we at once fly off to the presumption of a harmful liberty; and even in that short time we appear to be subject to the command of an elder only after a fashion, not according to the rule of strictness but according to the liberty of our own will. When we had seen this old man in the coenobium of the aforesaid Abba Paul, we first admired his age and the grace with which he was endowed, and then, with our faces bent to the ground, began to beg him to be so good as to tell us why he had left the liberty of the desert and that lofty profession, in which a most famous reputation commended him above the other men of the same way of life, and had chosen to come under the yoke of the coenobium. He said that he had returned to the school of the juniors because he was unequal to the anchoritic discipline and unworthy of the summit of so great a perfection, if only he could fulfil even their practices as the profession deserves. When the resistance of our entreaty would not accept the humility of this answer, at last he began thus.

“The anchoritic discipline, which you wonder that I have left, I not only do not reject or refute, but rather embrace and take up with all veneration. After the thirty years I had spent living in a coenobium, I rejoice that I completed another twenty in it in such a way that I was not altogether marked as slothful among those who pursued it even moderately. But because its purity, once tasted, was sometimes soiled by being interrupted with anxiety about carnal things, it seemed better to run back to the coenobium, so that I might more readily achieve the fulfilment of the plainer purpose I had taken up, and run less danger from the humility of having presumed on the loftier profession. For it is better to be found devout in lesser promises than undevout in greater. And so, if I perhaps say something rather lofty, or rather rather free, I ask you to judge that it has been brought out not from the vice of boasting but from zeal for your edification; and since I think nothing of the truth should be kept back from you who ask so earnestly, put it down to love rather than to boasting. For I think something of instruction may be offered you if, laying humility aside for a little, I simply lay open the whole truth of my purpose. For I trust that I shall incur neither the mark of vainglory with you for the freedom of what I say, nor, in my own conscience, the guilt of lying for suppressing the truth.”

“If anyone else, delighting in the secret places of the desert, has been able to forget human company and to say with Jeremiah, ‘I have not desired the day of man, you know,’ I too confess that by the Lord’s gracious gift I either attained it or at least strove to attain it. And so I remember that by the loving gift of our Lord I was often caught up into such an ecstasy that I forgot I was clothed with the burden of bodily frailty, and my mind so suddenly rejected all the outward senses and was so utterly banished from all material things that neither my eyes nor my ears performed their proper function. My soul was so filled with divine meditations and spiritual contemplations that often at evening I did not know whether I had taken food, and on the following day was quite uncertain whether I had broken my fast the day before. For this reason, too, a week’s food, that is, seven pairs of paxamatia, is put by on the Saturday in a prochirion, that is, a basket kept at hand, so that a missed meal may not go unnoticed. By this custom the error of that forgetfulness is also excluded, so that the number of loaves used up shows that the course of the week is complete and the festival day has come round, and the feast of the holy day and the gathering of the community cannot escape the solitary. And if that ecstasy of mind we spoke of should perhaps upset even this order, the measure of daily work, marking the number of the days, still keeps off error. And to pass over the other virtues of the desert in silence (for we are to treat not of their number and multitude but of the end of the solitary life and of the coenobium), I will briefly explain the reasons why I chose to leave it, which you too wished to know, and will touch in a short discourse on all those fruits of solitude I have mentioned which, on the other hand, I judged must be set below higher merits.”

“As long, then, as the fewness of those who lived in the desert at that time charmed us with a broader liberty in the wider expanse of the solitude, as long as, withdrawn into deeper seclusion, we were very often caught up into those heavenly ecstasies, and no great crowd of visiting brothers burdened our senses with the distractions of huge cares through the need of providing hospitality, I pursued with insatiable desire and all the ardor of my soul the peaceful seclusion of solitude and that way of life comparable to the blessedness of the angels. But when, as I said, a greater number of brothers began to seek to live in that solitude, and, having narrowed the liberty of the vaster desert, not only made that fire of divine contemplation grow cold but also fettered the mind in many ways with the chains of carnal things, I chose to fulfil in some fashion the purpose of this discipline rather than grow sluggish in that so lofty profession through providing for carnal needs. So if that liberty and spiritual ecstasies are denied me, yet, having cast away all anxiety for tomorrow, the fulfilment of the Gospel command may console me, and what is taken from me of that contemplative height may be made up by this subjection of obedience. For it is a wretched thing for anyone to profess the discipline of any art or study and never reach its perfection.”

“So I will briefly explain how great are the advantages I now enjoy in this way of life. Weigh for yourselves, from what I have set out, whether those gains of solitude can be offset by these benefits; from it you can also judge whether I chose to be confined within the narrow bounds of the coenobium out of distaste for that solitary purity or out of desire for it. In this way of life, then, there is no providing for the day’s work, no distraction of selling or buying, no unavoidable care for the year’s bread, no anxiety about bodily things by which necessities are prepared not only for one’s own use but for the use of many visitors; finally, none of the arrogance of human praise, which is more unclean than all these in the sight of God and sometimes makes void even the great labors of the desert. But to pass over those waves of spiritual pride in the anchoritic discipline and the dangers of deadly vainglory, let us return to this burden common to all, that is, the shared anxiety of preparing food. This has gone so far beyond the measure, I do not say of that ancient strictness which knew nothing at all of the use of oil, but even of the relaxation of our own time, with which it is no longer content. In our time one sextarius of oil and likewise one modius of lentils, prepared for the use of visitors, supplied the needs of a whole year’s meals; now, with twice and three times the amount, the need for food can scarcely be met. And the force of this harmful relaxation has grown so much among some that, when they mix vinegar and brine, they do not add that single drop of oil which our predecessors, who followed the practices of the desert with greater virtue of abstinence, used to let fall only to ward off vainglory; instead they break in Egyptian cheese in place of salt and pour over it more oil than is needed, and so take two foods, distinct in their own flavor, each of which could most pleasantly have refreshed a monk separately and at different times, under the pleasure of a single taste. Indeed this hylikē ktēsis, that is, possession of material things, has grown so much that they have even begun to keep a blanket in their cells, which I cannot mention without shame, on the pretext of hospitality and of receiving visitors to this anchorite. And I pass over those things by which the soul, rapt and always intent on spiritual contemplations, is especially burdened: the gatherings of brothers, the duties of receiving and escorting guests, mutual visits, and the endless care of various conversations and occupations. Even at the times when these hindrances seem to cease, the very expectation of them distracts the mind, kept in suspense by the constancy of its habitual restlessness. So it comes about that the liberty of anachoresis, hindered by such bonds, never at all rises to that ineffable eagerness of heart and loses the fruit of the hermit’s profession. If that fruit is now denied me, placed as I am in a community and among crowds, at least rest of soul and tranquillity of heart, freed from all occupations, will not be lacking. Unless those who live in solitude also have this, they will bear the labors of anachoresis but be cheated of its fruit, which is gained only by the quiet stability of the mind. Finally, even if, placed in the coenobium, something is taken away from me of that purity of heart, I shall be content with the compensation of the Gospel precept alone, which certainly cannot be ranked below all those fruits of the desert: namely, to take no thought for tomorrow and, subject to an abbot to the end, to seem in some measure to imitate him of whom it is said, ‘He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death,’ and to be worthy to say humbly in his words, ‘For I did not come to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.’”

Germanus: “Since it is clear that you have reached not merely the beginnings of both professions, as many have, but their very summits, we long to know what is the end of the cenobite and what is the end of the hermit. For no one doubts that none can discuss these things more faithfully or more fully than one who, having attained both perfections by long practice and with experience as his teacher, can make known their merit and their end by truthful teaching.”

John: “I could have declared absolutely that one and the same man cannot be perfect in both professions, were I not held back by the example of a very few. It is a great thing for anyone to be found complete in either of them; how much more is it clear that it is hard, and, I might almost say, impossible for a man to fulfil both fully. Yet if this does happen sometime, it cannot at once be made a general formula. For a universal rule must be set forth not from a very small part, that is, from considering a few, but from what lies within the power of many, or rather of all. Whatever is attained very rarely and by very few, and exceeds the capacity of common virtue, as though granted above the condition and nature of human frailty, must be kept apart from general precepts and brought forward not so much as an example as a miracle. So I will briefly set out what you ask according to the modest measure of my understanding. The end of the cenobite is to mortify and crucify all his own wills and, according to the saving command of Gospel perfection, to take no thought for tomorrow. It is quite certain that no one but a cenobite can fulfil this perfection. Describing this man, the prophet Isaiah blesses and praises him thus: ‘If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, from doing your will on my holy day, and glorify it while you do not go your own ways, and your will is not found, so as to speak a word: then you will delight in the Lord, and I will lift you up above the heights of the earth, and will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ The perfection of the hermit, on the other hand, is to have a mind stripped of all earthly things and, as far as human weakness can, to unite it thus with Christ. Describing this man, the prophet Jeremiah says, ‘Blessed is the man who has borne the yoke from his youth; he will sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken it upon himself.’ And the Psalmist: ‘I have become like a pelican of the wilderness. I have watched, and have become like a sparrow alone on the housetop.’ Unless each of them reaches this end, which we have said belongs to each profession, the one seeks the discipline of the coenobium and the other that of anachoresis in vain; for neither has fulfilled the virtue of his profession.”

“But this is merikē, that is, not whole perfection complete in all things, but a part of perfection. Perfection, then, is rare and granted by the gift of God to very few. For he is truly perfect, and not in part, who bears with equal greatness of soul both the squalor of solitude in the desert and the weakness of the brothers in the coenobium. And so it is hard to find anyone complete in every respect in both professions, because neither can the anchorite fully attain aktēmosynē, that is, contempt and deprivation of material things, nor the cenobite the purity of contemplation; although we know that Abba Moses and Paphnutius and the two Macarii possessed both perfectly. They were thus perfect in both professions. While they withdrew farther than all the dwellers of the desert and fed insatiably on the secrecy of solitude, and, as far as lay with them, never sought human company, they yet so bore with the crowds and weaknesses of those who flocked to them that, when a countless multitude of brothers streamed to them for a visit or for their own progress, they endured with unshaken patience the almost constant disturbance of receiving guests, so that they were thought to have learned or practiced nothing else in all their lives than to serve the common duties toward visitors. So it was uncertain to all in which profession their diligence was greater, that is, whether their greatness of soul was more wonderfully suited to that hermit’s purity or to this common life.”

“Some, however, are made so wild by the long silence of solitude that they utterly dread human company, and when they are drawn even a little from the habit of their seclusion by a visit from the brothers, they boil with noticeable anguish of mind and plain signs of faintheartedness. This happens above all to those who were not perfectly trained in the coenobia and, before their former vices were burned out, moved to the solitary life with an unripe desire. Imperfect in both respects, always fragile, they lean whichever way the breeze of disturbance drives them. For just as they boil over impatiently at the company or interruption of the brothers, so when they live in solitude they cannot bear the vastness of the very silence they seek, since they do not know even the reason for which solitude should be desired or sought, but think that this is the virtue and the sum of this profession: to shun the company of the brothers and simply flee and loathe the sight of men.”

Germanus: “By what remedy, then, can help be given to us, or to others of the same weakness and measure, who, thinly trained in the disciplines of the coenobium, began to aim at living in solitude before the expulsion of all our vices? Or how shall we be able to lay hold of the constancy of an untroubled mind and the unshaken firmness of patience, we who have untimely left the community of the coenobium and abandoned, as it were, the very school and training-ground of this exercise, in which our beginnings ought to have been fully taught and perfected? How, then, now living alone, shall we attain perfect long-suffering and patience, or how will our conscience, the searcher of inner movements, discover whether these virtues are in it or lacking, lest perhaps, because we are separated from human company and provoked by no irritations from men, we are deceived by a false opinion and believe that we possess an unshaken tranquillity of mind?”

John: “Remedies for healing cannot be lacking from that truest physician of souls to those who seek medicine in truth, especially to those who have not despised their illnesses by despairing or neglecting them, nor concealed the dangers of their wounds, nor rejected the medicine of repentance with an insolent mind, but for weaknesses contracted through ignorance, error, or necessity have fled to the heavenly physician with a humble and yet careful mind. And so we must know that if we withdraw into solitude or hidden places with our vices not yet cured, only their effect is repressed; their affection is not extinguished. For the root of all sins that has not been pulled out lies hidden within us, or rather even creeps on, and we discover that it still lives in us by these signs. For example, if, living in solitude, we receive the arrival of the brothers, or even their very brief stay, with a certain anxiety of a seething mind, let us know that the tinder of a most lively impatience is still in us. When we are expecting some brother’s arrival, if, when he perhaps delays a little from some necessity, the silent indignation of our mind blames his slowness and anxiety over the untimely waiting disturbs our mind, the examination of our conscience will prove that the vices of anger and dejection clearly remain in us. Again, if a brother asks for a book to read or some other thing to use, and either his request saddens us or our refusal repels him, there is no doubt that we are still fettered by the snares of avarice or covetousness. If a sudden thought or the course of a sacred reading brings to our mind the memory of a woman, and we feel ourselves struck by a certain titillation in it, let us know that the heat of sexual immorality is not yet extinguished in our members. And if, comparing our strictness with another’s laxity, even the faintest pride tempts our mind, it is certain that we are corrupted by the dreadful plague of pride. When, therefore, we discover these signs of vices in our heart, let us plainly recognize that what we lack is not the affection for sin but only its effect. These passions, if we ever mix with human society, at once come out of the caverns of our senses and prove that they are not born only when they break out, but only then made public because they have long lain hidden. And so even the solitary, if he is eager not to display his purity to men but to present it unblemished to the sight of him from whom no secrets of the heart can be hidden, will discover by sure signs that the roots of each vice are fixed in him.”

Germanus: “We have grasped clearly and plainly enough the proofs by which the signs of weaknesses are gathered, and the method of distinguishing diseases, that is, how the vices hidden in us can be detected; for we see everything just as it has been said, in daily experience and in the daily movements of our thoughts. It remains, then, that just as the proofs and causes of the diseases have been laid open to us by most evident reasoning, so the medicine of cures should also be shown. For no one doubts that he can discuss most correctly the remedy of evil illnesses who has first detected their causes and origins, with the conscience of the sick bearing witness. And so, although the teaching of your blessedness has laid bare the secrets of our wounds, so that we dare to hope for something from the remedies, since so plain a statement of the disease promises hope of a remedy, yet because, as you say, the beginning of health is gained first in communities, and none can be healthy in solitude but those whom the medicine of the coenobia has first healed, we fall again into ruinous despair, lest perhaps we who left the coenobium imperfect may never be able to be perfect in the desert.”

John: “A saving remedy cannot be lacking to those who are anxious about the cure of their diseases, and so remedies must be sought in the same way in which the signs of each vice are detected. For just as we said that the vices of human society are not lacking to solitaries, so we do not deny that the pursuit of virtues and the instruments of health are available to all who are separated from human society. When, then, anyone has discovered by the signs we showed above that he is being assailed by disturbances of impatience or anger, let him always exercise himself with the opposite provocations. Setting before himself many kinds of injuries and losses as if inflicted on him by another, let him accustom his mind to yield with perfect humility to everything that wickedness can inflict; and, frequently confronting himself with every harsh and intolerable thing, let him meditate continually with all contrition of heart on how great the gentleness is with which he ought to meet them. And so, looking to those sufferings of all the saints, or of the Lord himself, and declaring that every kind not only of insults but also of punishments is less than his deserts, he will prepare himself to bear every pain. And when at some time he is called back to a gathering of the brothers by some invitation, which cannot fail to happen, if only rarely, even to the strictest dwellers in the desert, if he finds that his mind has been silently disturbed even over trivial things, let him at once, as a most severe censor of his hidden movements, reproach himself with those harshest kinds of injury with which he used to train himself for perfect endurance in daily meditation, and so address himself with rebuke and reproof: ‘Are you that fine fellow who, while you were training in the wrestling-school of your solitude, most confidently assumed that you would overcome every evil? Who not long ago, when you were setting before yourself not only the extremes of bitter insults but even unbearable tortures, believed yourself strong enough and unshaken against all storms? How is it that your invincible patience has been thrown into confusion by the prelude of the lightest word? How has a light breeze shaken your house, built, as you thought, with such a mass upon that most solid rock? Where is what you used to proclaim with empty confidence, longing for war in time of peace, “I am ready, and I am not troubled,” and what you often said with the prophet, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart,” and, “Prove me, O Lord, and know my heart; question me and know my paths, and see if there is a way of iniquity in me”? How has a slight shadow of the enemy terrified so great a preparation for battle?’ So, condemning himself by such punishment of compunction, let him not allow the stealthy approach of his disturbance to go unpunished, but, chastising his flesh with the stricter correction of fasting and vigils and tormenting the fault of his instability with continual penalties of self-restraint, let him, now settled in solitude, consume by this fire of exercise what he ought to have fully burned out in the life of the coenobium. To obtain constant and stable patience, indeed, this must be held constantly and unshakably: it is not lawful for us, to whom by the divine law not only the avenging but even the remembering of injuries is forbidden, to be moved to anger on the pretext of any loss or provocation. For what graver loss can befall the soul than that, deprived by the sudden blindness of anger of the brightness of the true and eternal light, it should depart from the contemplation of him who is gentle and humble of heart? What, I ask, is more pernicious or more shameful than that someone should lose the judgment of what is honorable and the rule and discipline of right discernment, and, sane and sober, commit what not even a drunk man or one out of his senses could have done excusably? Whoever weighs these and similar losses will easily despise not only every kind of damage but also whatever injuries and punishments the cruelest can inflict, judging nothing more costly than anger and nothing more precious than tranquillity of mind and the perpetual purity of his heart; for its sake the advantages not only of carnal things but even of those that seem spiritual are to be scorned, if they cannot otherwise be acquired or achieved except with the disturbance of this tranquillity.”

Germanus: “Just as a remedy has been shown for the other wounds, that is, anger, dejection, and impatience, by setting the opposite things before oneself, so we wish to be taught what kind of cure we ought to apply against the spirit of sexual immorality: that is, whether the fire of lust can be put out, as there, by setting before oneself greater increases of provocation. We believe this is quite contrary to chastity, if the incitements of lust are not only heaped up in us but even touched on by the mind’s passing glance.”

John: “Your shrewd question has anticipated a matter that would have followed our account even if you had said nothing, and so I do not doubt that your minds will take it in effectively, since the sharpness of your understanding has run ahead of our teaching. For the obscurity of any question is cleared up without effort when the inquiry, anticipating its solution, goes ahead to where it must be led. For the remedies of the vices we spoke of above, human company not only does no harm but helps a great deal. For the more often it lays bare one’s impatience and the more it brings constant sorrow of compunction on those who are overcome, the more quickly it brings health to those who labor. For this reason, even when we live in solitude, where the tinder and matter of provocations cannot arise from men, we ought still to go over their incitements deliberately, so that, fighting against them with a constant wrestling of the thoughts, we may be given a readier cure. But against the spirit of sexual immorality the reasoning is different and the case unlike. For just as the practice of lust and nearness to the flesh must be wholly withdrawn from the body, so must its very memory be withdrawn from the mind. For it is quite pernicious for hearts still weak and sick to admit even the faintest recollection of this passion, so much so that sometimes the goad of harmful titillation is stirred in them even by recalling holy women or by the narrative of a sacred reading. For this reason our elders very prudently pass over such readings in the presence of the young. For the perfect, indeed, and those made complete in the disposition of chastity, there cannot be lacking tests by which they can examine themselves, by which the perfect integrity of their heart may be proved by the incorrupt judgment of their conscience. There will therefore be, for the fully mature man only, a similar test in the case of this passion too: one who knows that he has utterly pulled out the roots of this disease may, for the sake of testing his chastity, form some image in his mind of an enticing kind. But it is by no means fitting for those who are still weak to attempt this examination (for it would be more harmful to them than useful), that is, to dwell in their hearts on union with a woman and on a caress that is, as it were, tender and very soft. When, then, one who is grounded in perfect virtue finds in himself, at the enticement of the most alluring touches he has imagined in thought, no consent of the mind and no stirring of the flesh roused up, he will have the surest proof of his purity. Training himself to this firmness of purity, he will not only possess the good of chastity and incorruption in his mind, but will even abhor bodily contact with a woman, if any necessity should bring it about.” With this Abba John, perceiving that the ninth-hour meal was at hand, brought the conference to an end.