The Conferences 3.7–3.19

“Therefore it will not profit us much to have undertaken the first renunciation with the greatest devotion of faith if we do not fulfil the second with the same zeal and ardor. And when we have attained this too, we shall be able to reach the third as well, by which, going out from the house of our former parent, whom we remember to have been our father from the beginning of our birth according to the old man, when we were by nature children of wrath like the rest, we shall turn the whole gaze of our mind to heavenly things. Of this father it is said to Jerusalem, which had despised God, its true father: ‘Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite’; and in the Gospel: ‘You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.’ When we have left him, passing from the visible to the invisible, we shall be able to say with the apostle: ‘For we know that if our earthly house of this dwelling is dissolved, we have a dwelling from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’; and what we mentioned a little before: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory’; and that saying of the blessed David: ‘For I am a sojourner on the earth, and a stranger, as all my fathers were’; so that, according to the Lord's words, we may become such as those of whom the Lord spoke to the Father in the Gospel: ‘They are not of this world, as I also am not of this world’; and again to the apostles themselves: ‘If you were of this world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of this world, therefore the world hates you.’ We shall deserve to obtain the true perfection of this third renunciation when our mind, not dulled by any contagion of fleshly grossness, but polished by the most skilful filing from every earthly affection and quality, has passed through unceasing meditation on divine things and spiritual contemplations to the invisible, so far that, intent on things above and incorporeal, it does not feel itself surrounded by the frailty of the flesh and the position of the body, and is caught up into such ecstasies that it not only receives no sounds with the bodily hearing and is not occupied in looking at the images of passers-by, but does not even see the masses lying nearby and the huge objects set before the eyes of the flesh. No one will grasp the truth and power of this except one who has perceived what is said here with experience as his teacher: one, that is, whose heart's eyes the Lord has so called away from all present things that he regards them not as things that will pass but as things already past, and sees them dissolved into nothing like empty smoke; and, walking with God like Enoch, and translated from human life and ways, is not found in the vanity of the present age. The reading from Genesis records that this happened to him even bodily: ‘And Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, because God translated him.’ The apostle also says: ‘By faith Enoch was translated so that he should not see death.’ Of this death the Lord says in the Gospel: ‘Whoever lives and believes in me shall not die for ever.’ Therefore, if we desire to attain true perfection, we must hasten so that, just as we have despised in body our parents, homeland, the riches and pleasures of the world, so also, leaving all these in heart, we may never return with desire to what we have left. Like those who were led out by Moses: though they did not return in body, yet they are said to have returned in heart to Egypt, abandoning God who had brought them out with such power of signs and worshipping the idols of Egypt which they had despised, as Scripture records: ‘And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us.’ Otherwise we may be condemned together with those who, living in the desert after the food of heavenly manna, longed for the foods of foul and sordid vices, and we may seem to murmur like them: ‘It was well with us in Egypt, where we sat by the pots of flesh and ate onions and garlic and cucumbers and melons.’ Though this figure was first shown in that people, yet we see it fulfilled every day now too in our order and profession. For everyone who after renouncing this world returns to his old pursuits and is called back to his former desires proclaims in deed and mind the same thing as they, saying: ‘It was well with me in Egypt.’ I fear that as great a multitude of these may be found as the crowds of transgressors we read existed then under Moses. For though six hundred and three thousand armed men are numbered as having come out of Egypt, of these no more than two entered the land of promise. So we must hasten to take our examples of virtue from the few and very rare, because, according to the figure we have spoken of, in the Gospel too many are said to be called but few chosen. Bodily renunciation, then, and what is in a way a local migration from Egypt, will profit us nothing if we are not able likewise to attain the renunciation of the heart, which is higher and more useful. For of that bodily renunciation the apostle declared: ‘If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.’ The blessed apostle would never have said this unless he had foreseen in the Spirit that some, having spent all their goods on feeding the poor, would be unable to reach evangelical perfection and the steep summit of love, because, keeping their former vices and unrestrained habits, with pride or impatience ruling in their hearts, they would take no care to cleanse themselves of them, and therefore would not reach the love of God, which never fails. Having fallen short in this second degree of renunciation, they grasp still less that third, which is without doubt higher. But weigh this too more carefully in your mind: he did not say simply, ‘If I distribute my goods.’ For then he might seem perhaps to have spoken of one who had not yet fulfilled the Gospel command and had kept something back from them for himself, as some of the lukewarm do. But he says: ‘If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor,’ that is, even if I have renounced these earthly riches perfectly. And to this renunciation he added something greater: ‘and give my body to be burned, but have not love, I am nothing’; as if he had said in other words: If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor according to that Gospel command in which it is said, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven,’ renouncing in such a way as to keep nothing at all back for myself; and if to this giving away I add martyrdom by the burning of my flesh, so as to give my body for Christ; and yet I am impatient, or wrathful, or envious, or proud, or am inflamed by others' injuries, or seek my own, or think what is evil, or do not bear patiently and willingly everything that can be inflicted on me: the renunciation and burning of the outer man will profit me nothing while the inner man is still wrapped in his former vices. For in the fervor of my first conversion I despised the mere substance of this world, which is defined as neither good nor evil but indifferent, but did not take care likewise to throw away the harmful possessions of a vicious heart, nor did I attain the love of the Lord, which is patient, which is kind, which does not envy, is not puffed up, is not provoked, does not act wrongly, does not seek its own, does not think evil, which bears all things, endures all things, and finally never lets its follower fall by the tripping of sin.”

“We must hasten, then, with all urgency, so that our inner man too may cast away and scatter all the riches of his vices which he gathered in his former way of life. These, clinging continually to body and soul, are properly our own, and unless they are cast away and cut off while we are still in this body, they will not cease to accompany us after our departure. For just as the virtues, or love itself, which is their source, when acquired in this world, make their lover beautiful and splendid even after the end of this life, so the vices send the mind on to that everlasting dwelling darkened and as it were stained with foul colors. For the beauty or ugliness of the soul is produced by the quality of the virtues or vices, from which it takes on a certain color that either makes it so splendid that it deserves to hear from the prophet, ‘And the king shall desire your beauty,’ or else black, foul, and ugly, so that it confesses the stench of its own disgrace and says, ‘My wounds have grown foul and festered because of my foolishness’; and the Lord himself says to it: ‘Why has the wound of the daughter of my people not been healed over?’ And therefore these are our own riches, which dwell continually with the soul, which no king and no enemy will be able either to give us or take from us. These are our own riches, which not even death will be able to separate from the soul; by renouncing them we can reach perfection, or, bound by them, be punished with eternal death.”

“For riches are understood in the holy Scriptures in three ways: evil, good, and indifferent. Evil riches are those of which it is said, ‘The rich have become needy and hungry,’ and, ‘Woe to you, rich, for you have received your consolation’; to have cast away these riches is the highest perfection. In distinction from them are those poor who are praised by the Lord's voice in the Gospel, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’ and in the psalm, ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,’ and again, ‘The poor and needy shall praise your name.’ There are also good riches, the acquiring of which is a mark of great virtue and merit, for possessing which the righteous man is praised, as David says: ‘The generation of the upright shall be blessed; glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures for ever’; and again, ‘The ransom of a man's soul is his own riches.’ Of these riches it is said in the Apocalypse to one who does not have them and is blameworthily poor and naked: ‘I will begin to spew you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich and wealthy and need nothing, and do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and be clothed in white garments, and the shame of your nakedness may not appear.’ There are also indifferent riches, that is, those which can be either good or evil, for they are turned to either side according to the will and character of those who use them. Of these the blessed apostle says: ‘Command the rich of this world not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy; to do good, to give readily, to share, to lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may lay hold on the true life.’ And again, that rich man in the Gospel who kept them and never gave them to the needy, the rich man from whose crumbs poor Lazarus, laid at his gate, longed to be fed, is assigned to the unbearable fires of Gehenna and to eternal burning.”

“In leaving these visible riches of the world, then, we cast away possessions that are not ours but another's, even though we boast that they were acquired by our own labor or handed down to us by inheritance from our parents. For nothing, as I said, is ours except only what is possessed in the heart and clings to our soul, and so can be taken away by no one at all. Of those visible riches Christ speaks in rebuke to those who keep them as their own and will not share them with the needy: ‘If you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own?’ So not only does daily experience teach that these riches are another's, but the Lord's saying has marked it by its very name. But of the invisible and worst riches Peter says to the Lord: ‘Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what then shall we have?’ And yet it is certain that they left nothing more than the cheapest torn nets. Unless all this is understood of this renunciation of the vices, which is truly great and supreme, we shall find neither that the apostles left anything precious, nor that the Lord had any reason to grant them so great a glory of blessedness that they deserved to hear from him: ‘In the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’ If, then, those who perfectly give up these earthly and visible possessions cannot, for certain reasons, reach that apostolic love, and are not able to climb with ready vigor to that third and higher degree of renunciation, belonging to very few, what ought those to judge of themselves who do not even take up perfectly the first, which is very easy, but, keeping the old filth of their money together with their former unbelief, think they may boast only in the bare name of monks? The first renunciation we have spoken of, therefore, is of what belongs to another, and so it is not enough by itself to confer perfection on one who renounces, unless he comes to the second, which is truly the renunciation of what is ours. Having attained this by the expulsion of all the vices, we shall climb also to the summit of the third renunciation, by which, passing beyond in spirit and mind not only everything that is done in this world or possessed by individuals, but even the very fullness of all the elements, which is thought to be magnificent, as subject to vanity and soon to pass away, we despise it, looking, according to the apostle, not at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen; ‘for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.’ So at last we may deserve to hear that supreme word which is said to Abraham: ‘And come into the land which I will show you.’ By this it is clearly shown that, unless someone has fulfilled those three renunciations above with all ardor of mind, he cannot reach this fourth, which is given as a reward and prize to one who has renounced perfectly: that he may deserve to enter the land of promise, which no longer sprouts for him the thorns and thistles of the vices. This land is possessed in this body, after the expulsion of all the passions, by purity of heart; and not the virtue or effort of the one who labors, but the Lord himself promises that he will show it: ‘And come,’ he says, ‘into the land which I will show you.’ By this it is plainly proved that the beginning of our salvation comes about by the calling of the Lord, who says, ‘Go out from your land,’ and that the completion of perfection and purity is likewise granted by him, when he says, ‘And come into the land which I will show you’: that is, not one which you can know of yourself or find by your own effort, but one which I will show you, when you not only do not know it but are not even seeking it. From this it is plainly gathered that, just as we run to the way of salvation called forth by the inspiration of the Lord, so also, led by his teaching and illumination, we reach the perfection of the highest blessedness.”

Germanus: “In what, then, does free will consist, and how is it credited to our effort that we are praiseworthy, if God both begins and completes in us everything that belongs to our perfection?”

Paphnutius: “This would rightly have troubled you if in every work or discipline there were only a beginning and an end, and not also a middle between them. So, just as we know that God works the occasions of salvation in various ways, so it is ours to serve the occasions granted by the Godhead either more earnestly or more slackly. For as the offer, ‘Go out from your land,’ belonged to God who called, so the obedience belonged to Abraham who went out; and as the words, ‘And come into the land,’ are the work of one who obeys and carries them out, so what is added, ‘which I will show you,’ is the grace of God who commands or promises. Yet we must be certain that, though we practise every virtue with unwearied efforts, we can by no means reach perfection by our own diligence and zeal, nor is human earnestness enough, by the merit of its labors, to attain such sublime rewards of blessedness, unless we obtain them with the Lord working with us and directing our heart to what is profitable. Therefore we ought to pray every moment with David and say: ‘Make my steps perfect in your paths, that my footsteps may not be moved’; and: ‘He set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps’; so that that invisible ruler of the human mind may deign to turn back to the pursuit of the virtues our will, which is more inclined to be carried toward the vices, either through ignorance of the good or through the delight of the passions. This we read most plainly sung by the prophet in a single little verse: ‘I was pushed and overturned, so that I might fall’: in this the weakness of free will is signified. ‘And the Lord upheld me’: again the Lord's help is shown as always joined to it; by it, lest we fall utterly through free will, when he sees that we have tottered, he supports and strengthens us, as it were by stretching out his hands. And again: ‘If I said, My foot has slipped’ (that is, by the slippery power of the will), ‘your mercy, O Lord, helped me.’ Again he joins God's help to his own instability, since he confesses that it was not by his own effort but by the Lord's mercy that the foot of his faith was not moved. And again: ‘According to the multitude of the sorrows in my heart’ (which arose in me, certainly, from free will), ‘your consolations have gladdened my soul’: that is, coming into my heart by your inspiration and opening up the contemplation of the future goods which you have prepared for those who labor for your name, they have not only taken away all the anxiety of my heart but have also brought the greatest joy. And again: ‘Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul had almost dwelt in hell.’ He testifies that through the perversity of free will he would have dwelt in hell, had he not been saved by the Lord's help and protection. For ‘the steps of a man are directed by the Lord’ (not by free will), ‘and when the righteous man falls’ (by free will, that is), ‘he shall not be bruised.’ Why? ‘Because the Lord puts his hand under him.’ This is to say most plainly: none of the righteous is sufficient of himself to obtain righteousness, unless at every moment, as he totters and falls, the divine mercy puts the support of its hand under him, lest he perish utterly, prostrate, when he has collapsed through the weakness of free will.”

“Nor indeed did the holy men ever testify that they had obtained by their own effort the direction of the way by which they walked, striving toward progress in the virtues and toward perfection; rather they begged it from the Lord, saying: ‘Direct me in your truth,’ and: ‘Direct my way in your sight.’ Another proclaims that he has discovered this very thing not only by faith but also by experience, and as it were in the very nature of things: ‘I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself; nor is it in a man to walk and direct his steps.’ And the Lord himself says to Israel: ‘And I will direct him like a green fir tree; from me your fruit has been found.’”

“They also desire to gain knowledge of the law itself daily, not by diligence in reading but by the teaching and illumination of God, saying to him: ‘Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths’; and: ‘Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law’; and: ‘Teach me to do your will, for you are my God’; and again: ‘You who teach man knowledge.’”

“The blessed David also asks to receive from the Lord the very understanding by which he may know God's commandments, which he certainly knew were written in the book of the law, saying: ‘I am your servant: give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments.’ He certainly possessed the understanding given him once for all by nature, and he certainly had at hand knowledge of God's commandments, which were written down in the law. And yet he begged the Lord that he might grasp it more fully, knowing that what is implanted by the nature of creation could by no means be enough for him, unless his mind were enlightened by the Lord's daily illumination to understand the law spiritually and to know his commandments more clearly. The chosen vessel himself proclaims what we are saying still more clearly: ‘For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish, for his good will.’ What could be said more plainly than that he declares both our good will and the completion of the work to be fulfilled in us by the Lord? And again: ‘For it has been given to you for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him.’ Here too he declared that both the beginning of our conversion and faith and the endurance of sufferings are given us by the Lord. David, understanding this, likewise prays that this very thing may be granted him by the Lord's mercy, saying: ‘Confirm, O God, what you have worked in us,’ showing that the beginnings of salvation, bestowed by God's gift and grace, are not enough for him unless they are completed by his same mercy and daily help. For not free will, but ‘the Lord sets free those in fetters’; not our strength, but ‘the Lord raises up those who are bowed down’; not diligence in reading, but ‘the Lord enlightens the blind,’ which in Greek is kyrios sophoi typhlous, that is, ‘the Lord makes the blind wise’; not our caution, but ‘the Lord guards the strangers’; not our strength, but ‘the Lord lifts up’ (or supports) ‘all who fall.’ We say this not to make void our zeal, labor, and effort, as though they were spent vainly and to no purpose, but so that we may know that without God's help we cannot even strive, nor are our efforts effective for grasping so immense a reward as purity, unless it is granted to us by the Lord's help and mercy. For ‘the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but help is from the Lord’; ‘for a man is not powerful by strength.’ We ought therefore always to sing with the blessed David: ‘My strength and my praise’ is not free will, but ‘the Lord, and he has become my salvation.’ The teacher of the Gentiles, too, not ignorant of this, proclaims that he was made fit for the ministry of the new covenant not by his own merit or sweat but by God's mercy: ‘Not that we are sufficient,’ he says, ‘to think anything of ourselves, as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.’ This can be said less in good Latin but more expressively as: ‘our fitness is from God.’ Then follows: ‘who has also made us fit ministers of the new covenant.’”

“The apostles felt so strongly that everything belonging to salvation was granted them by the Lord that they asked the Lord to give them faith itself, saying: ‘Increase our faith,’ not presuming that its fullness came from free will but believing that it must be given them by God's gift. Then the same author of human salvation teaches us how slippery and weak our faith itself is, and by no means sufficient for itself unless it is strengthened by the Lord's help, when he says to Peter: ‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to sift you like wheat; but I have asked my Father that your faith may not fail.’ Another, feeling this happen in himself, and seeing his faith driven by the waves of unbelief toward the rocks of a ruinous shipwreck, asks the same Lord for help for his faith, saying: ‘Lord, help my unbelief.’ So strongly, then, did the men of the Gospel and the apostles feel that all good things are completed by the Lord's help, and so little did they trust that they could keep even their faith unharmed by their own strength or freedom of will, that they asked the Lord either to help it in them or to give it to them. If Peter needed the Lord's help so that his faith might not fail, who will be so presumptuous and blind as to believe that he does not need the Lord's daily help to guard it? Especially since the Lord himself expressed this very thing plainly in the Gospel, saying: ‘As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me’; and again: ‘For without me you can do nothing.’ How foolish and sacrilegious it is, then, to attribute any of our good acts to our own effort and not to God's grace and help is plainly proved by the Lord's declaration that no one can show spiritual fruits without his inspiration and cooperation. ‘For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.’ Zechariah too: ‘For if there is anything good, it is his; and if anything best, it is from him.’ And therefore the blessed apostle says firmly: ‘What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?’”

“The blessed apostle also declares that the sum of endurance by which we can bear the temptations brought upon us consists not so much in our own strength as in God's mercy and governance: ‘No temptation has taken hold of you but what is human. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will make with the temptation also a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.’ The same apostle teaches that God also fits or strengthens our minds for every good work and works in us what is pleasing to him: ‘Now the God of peace, who brought out of darkness the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, Jesus Christ, make you fit in every good thing, working in you what is pleasing in his sight.’ He also prays that this may happen to the Thessalonians, saying: ‘Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal consolation and good hope in grace, exhort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.’”

“Finally, the prophet Jeremiah plainly testifies, in the person of God, that the very fear of God by which we may hold firmly to him is poured into us by the Lord, saying: ‘And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me all their days, and that it may be well with them and with their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and I will not cease to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.’ Ezekiel also: ‘And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them; and I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my precepts and keep my judgments and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.’”

“By these we are most plainly taught that the beginning of a good will is granted to us by the Lord's inspiration, when he draws us to the way of salvation either by himself, or by the exhortation of some person, or by necessity; and that the perfection of the virtues is likewise given by him; but that it is ours to follow God's exhortation and help either more slackly or more earnestly, and that for this we most justly deserve either reward or punishment, according as we have either neglected or striven, by the devotion of our obedience, to correspond to his dispensation and providence, bestowed on us with most kind condescension. This is plainly and openly described in Deuteronomy: ‘When the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you are going in to possess, and has destroyed many nations before you, the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations far more numerous and stronger than you, and the Lord has delivered them to you, you shall strike them down to utter destruction. You shall make no covenant with them, nor make marriages with them.’ That they are brought into the land of promise, that many nations are destroyed before them, that peoples more numerous and stronger than the people of Israel are delivered into their hands, Scripture declares to be the grace of God. But whether Israel strikes them down to utter destruction or keeps and spares them, and whether or not it makes a covenant with them, and whether or not it makes marriages with them, it testifies to be their own. By this testimony it is plainly distinguished what we ought to ascribe to free will and what to the dispensation and daily help of the Lord: that it belongs to divine grace to provide us with the occasions of salvation, prosperous outcomes, and victory, but it is ours to follow up the benefits God has granted either more intently or more sluggishly. We see this principle quite plainly expressed also in the healing of the blind men. That Jesus passes by them is the grace of divine providence and condescension; that they cry out and say, ‘Have mercy on us, Lord, son of David,’ is the work of their faith and belief; that they receive the sight of their eyes is the gift of divine mercy. And that, even after receiving any gift, both the grace of God and the exercise of free will continue, is shown by the example of the ten lepers who were healed together. When one of them, by the goodness of his own will, returned thanks, the Lord, asking after the nine and praising the one, shows that he keeps his helping care constant even toward those who forget his benefits. For this very thing is a gift of his visitation, that he either receives and approves the grateful or seeks out and rebukes the ungrateful.”