Life of Syncletica

Contents

Reading pages: 1–32 · 33–67 · 68–97 · 98–113

1. 1The writer compares Syncletica to a pearl whose worth he did not at first recognize, until others taught him its beauty.
2. 2No one can adequately describe Syncletica’s life, as no one can look straight at the sun.
3. 3The writer explains his sources: what he learned of her, and what her contemporaries told him of her early life.
4. 4Syncletica’s family came from Macedonia and settled in Alexandria, drawn by the faith of its Christians.
5. 5Syncletica had a sister and two brothers; one brother died young, and the other fled on the eve of his wedding to join the company of ascetics.
6. 6From childhood she trained her soul in love of God and watched over her natural impulses.
7. 7Though beautiful and sought by many suitors, she refused her parents’ plans for marriage, devoted to Christ as her Bridegroom.
8. 8Syncletica is likened to Thecla, Paul’s disciple: both brides of Christ in the Church; Thecla fought beasts and fire, Syncletica a harder battle against inward thoughts.
9. 9Unmoved by finery, music or family pleas, she shut her senses and conversed with Christ, avoiding idle talk and attending to edifying words.
10. 10She loved fasting as the foundation of the virtues, so that eating out of season made her pale; her body wasted while her soul flourished.
11. 11After her parents died she moved with her blind sister to a family tomb outside the city, gave her property to the poor and had a presbyter cut her hair, becoming a consecrated virgin.
12. 12Having given away her wealth, she said she could never repay God, to whom all things belong, and she lived in humble quiet.
13. 13Prepared by earlier discipline, she built her spiritual house not by gathering but by emptying herself of wealth and passions, founding it on the rock.
14. 14Even as a beginner she surpassed experienced ascetics.
15. 15She hid her ascetic practice from all, following Christ’s command that the left hand should not know what the right does.
16. 16In youth she avoided company, even of women, to escape praise and distraction.
17. 17She pruned her thoughts by fasting and prayer, and punished every stirring of desire by hard bodily discipline.
18. 18Against the devil’s attacks she prayed, fasted on bran bread and little water and slept on the ground, armed with prayer, faith, hope and love.
19. 19When the attacks ceased she moderated her fasting, acting with discretion, like sailors who rest in a calm but stay watchful; she steered her soul safely to harbor by faith.
20. 20Her apostolic life of faith, poverty, love and humility fulfilled the promise of victory over the enemy and earned the master’s praise of the faithful servant.
21. 21As her fame spread, women came to ask how to be saved; after long silence and tears, and protesting that all have one Teacher in Scripture, she yielded to their pleas to speak.
22. 22Syncletica begins her teaching: salvation depends on keeping the two great commandments of love, on which all that profits the soul depends.
23. 23Using the parable of the hundred-, sixty- and thirtyfold yield, she urges virgins to advance and warns against those who would abandon virginity for marriage, reckoning the thirtyfold enough.
24. 24Virgins must keep chastity in every sense, guarding eyes, tongue and ears.
25. 25To guard the senses virgins must avoid going out to the marketplace, where sights and words defile like smoke through open windows.
26. 26Even in seclusion virgins must watch, for the devil moves from bodily temptation to the senses and then to the mind; consenting to impure imaginations is itself a kind of fornication.
27. 27The devil uses even spiritual friendships between virgins and monks to lead them into sin, disguising his snares as good.
28. 28Against the devil’s snares one must be wise as serpents to detect them and innocent as doves in conduct, always watchful.
29. 29Against impure thoughts she advises prayer and asceticism, and also picturing the desired body as decaying flesh and bone, and above all controlling the belly.
30. 30Asked whether poverty is a perfect good, she answers that it is very good for the strong, who are cleansed by it like strong cloth, but ruins the weak.
31. 31Poverty should be undertaken only after training in other ascetic labors; those who rush into it often regret it.
32. 32Gluttony and luxury must be overcome before money can be given up; Christ first asked the rich young man about keeping the law before telling him to sell his goods.
33. 33Poverty is good for the mature, who, rid of superfluities, look to the Lord for their food.
34. 34The poor, like beasts of burden content with food, work only for daily bread and trust God, who feeds the birds.
35. 35The devil cannot harm those who own nothing, since most temptations come through loss of property.
36. 36Love of money is the root of all evils and is never satisfied; it brings envy, which destroys its owner first, like the viper said to kill its mother at birth.
37. 37Merchants endure great dangers for worldly gain, while ascetics, gaining a little virtue, boast of it and lose it; good deeds should be kept secret.
38. 38Virtue should be hidden like treasure, while faults are confessed; praise melts the soul like wax before fire.
39. 39As praise weakens the soul, reproach and insult strengthen it, as the Beatitudes and Psalms show.
40. 40There is godly grief over sin and for others’ salvation, and a destructive grief from the devil, acedia, which must be driven away by prayer and psalmody.
41. 41No life is free of care: the head’s toil stands for the ascetic life, the heart’s grief for the restless worldly life.
42. 42The life of married women is not carefree: childbirth, nursing and children’s illnesses and failings bring toil, and childlessness brings reproach.
43. 43Teaching must suit the hearer: some live like land animals, some soar like birds, some are sunk in sin like fish; virgins should rise like eagles and master the devil by giving their whole mind to Christ.
44. 44The higher one rises, the more the demons oppose, since they begrudge even earthly treasure, let alone heaven.
45. 45The soul, like a ship, is threatened both by outward storms and by bilge water within; inner thoughts, which rise unnoticed, are the more dangerous.
46. 46The devil attacks the soul like a house, through its foundation of good works, its roof of faith or its windows of the senses, so one must be watchful everywhere.
47. 47Life is a sea: ascetics sail in calm daylight and worldly people in storm and darkness, yet the worldly may be saved by vigilance and the ascetic sink through carelessness.
48. 48Those who stand must not despise the fallen but fear falling deeper themselves, and keep constant watch against the devil.
49. 49After gluttony, lust and greed are overcome, the devil attacks with pride, making the ascetic forget her sins and dream of honors, as he himself fell by pride.
50. 50Against pride one should meditate on texts of human lowliness; a proud solitary should be put in a community, made to eat more, rebuked, set to serve, and shown the lives of greater saints.
51. 51Pride is preceded by disobedience and cured by obedience.
52. 52Discouraged souls should be encouraged and their sins made light of, since the devil makes beginners despair; Rahab, Paul, Matthew and the penitent thief show that none should despair.
53. 53To humble the proud ascetic, point to others whose fasting and hardship exceed hers, and to the demons, who neither eat, drink, marry nor sleep.
54. 54Despair and pride are opposite dangers: virtue is lost by arrogance as a fire is scattered by too much wind, or by negligence as it dies without wind; asceticism must be moderated to keep it humble.
55. 55The despairing must be encouraged like a weak plant watered by a farmer, while the overeager are pruned, as doctors treat different patients differently.
56. 56Humility, the one virtue the devil cannot counterfeit, binds all the others together; the three youths counted the humble among those who praise God.
57. 57Christ himself put on humility and told us to learn it from him; even after keeping every commandment we must call ourselves unprofitable servants.
58. 58Humility grows through insults and blows, which Christ himself endured.
59. 59Feigned humility is exposed when the slightest insult provokes venom.
60. 60Coming to God means struggle at first and then unspeakable joy, as lighting a fire means smoke and tears before the flame; some give up through impatience.
61. 61Love is the greatest good and anger a great evil; for every weapon of the devil the Lord provides a stronger virtue.
62. 62Anger should be directed against the demons, not against people, whom one should correct only after anger has passed.
63. 63Bearing grudges is worse than anger, for anger passes like smoke but a grudge hardens the soul beyond any beast; it disobeys Christ’s command to be reconciled.
64. 64Anger must not outlast the day; one should hate the devil who causes the wrong, not the person; Ps 52 threatens the grudge-bearer with destruction.
65. 65Grudges, envy and slander seem small but kill the soul unnoticed, while great sins are often healed by repentance.
66. 66Listening to slander stains prayer and colors one’s view of everyone, so one should refuse to hear it.
67. 67One must neither speak nor listen to slander, but be like the deaf and mute of the psalm.
68. 68One should not gloat over others’ misfortunes, since in this life the same things befall righteous and sinner.
69. 69Christ commands love of enemies; loving the lovable needs no effort, but overcoming evil requires divine teaching and toil.
70. 70Ps 18:26 does not mean one should avoid sinners for fear of corruption, but that one should draw the crooked to the right.
71. 71Of three kinds of people, the wicked worsen sinners, the middling avoid them for fear of contagion, and the perfect live among them to save them, like Christ eating with sinners, enduring insults out of love.
72. 72As vices follow from greed, the virtues follow from love, which cannot be attained without poverty, since love extends to all.
73. 73Almsgiving, commanded to those in the world, is a training in love, as circumcision foreshadowed circumcision of the heart; those who have nothing should not seek property in order to give alms.
74. 74Having given everything away, the ascetic should aim at love, like the apostles who left all and had no silver or gold.
75. 75Alms should be given with Abraham’s heart; God set two orders, the married, under laws, and the virgins, living like angels under grace.
76. 76The ascetic life is a dying to the world; mercy is shown in the soul, so that, as lust in the heart is sin, merciful intent without money counts as alms.
77. 77As masters keep some servants on the farm and bring the finest into the house, God leaves the married in the world and takes virgins into his own service.
78. 78The married and the virgins have one Lord, like chaff and grain from one wheat; but heavenly fruit ripens only when worldly glory falls away like leaves.
79. 79One should not teach without having practiced; words without deeds are like flaking paint, but teaching by example carves Christ’s image in the soul.
80. 80Having cut off their hair, ascetics must also remove the lice of slander, perjury and greed; in a clean life even small sins show, so the soul must be cleaned constantly by prayer and fasting.
81. 81Belief in astral fate (genesis) is a demonic snare; the virtuous ascribe good to God and choice to their own will, while the lazy blame fate to excuse themselves.
82. 82Fatalists blame their sins on the stars, which ends in despair and abolishes God’s judgment, since only voluntary sins are punishable.
83. 83Whether God is placed before, after or alongside fate, the fatalist view makes God the author of evil or sets two principles at war; Scripture calls such people fools.
84. 84Fatalists twist Scripture: Matthew’s “genesis” of Christ means birth, the star announced Christ, Isaiah’s “evils” are corrective hardships from God, and “ways” are life and death, not vices.
85. 85Fatalism destroys free will and lets the devil steer souls; he tempts even the zealous, especially former philosophers, to credit their virtue to the stars, and suits his poisons to each person’s nature.
86. 86Some were shipwrecked by speculating about God’s essence before mastering the practical life; worldly learning must be humbled, becoming like a child and a fool for God.
87. 87Avoid idle disputes; the astrologers’ predictions are conjectures like a sailor’s weather lore, or come from demons like the sayings of ventriloquists, so their art is vain.
88. 88The devil’s shifting suggestions, fate, chance, the mortality of the soul, betray their falsehood; a servant of God carefully observed the sequence and duration of his thoughts.
89. 89Like merchants weighing daily gains, ascetics should watch their progress, and when they fall not despair but seek the lost sheep, trusting the Lord who upholds.
90. 90This life is like a second womb compared to the kingdom to come; having known earthly food and light, we should long for heavenly ones.
91. 91The righteous pass from this life to a higher one as infants to birth, sinners to deeper darkness; there are three births: bodily, baptismal, and that of repentance.
92. 92As brides adorn themselves for husbands, virgins betrothed to Christ should adorn their souls with faith, hope, love, humility, chastity and poverty, and pray with understanding, lest they lack oil like the foolish virgins.
93. 93Like two buckets on a windlass, as the body is lightened by asceticism the soul rises filled with good.
94. 94A nun or monk in a community should not move from place to place, as a bird leaving its eggs makes them barren.
95. 95Do not envy the rich their fine food; fasting on plain fare surpasses their abundance.
96. 96Desire, pleasure and grief are the devil’s three chief weapons; desire must be stopped at its first stirring, for once it acts the others follow in a circle.
97. 97Some flourish in community, others in solitude; one can be a solitary in the city or worldly in the desert, for it is the mind that counts.
98. 98The devil afflicts with sickness those he cannot tempt with pleasure; the sinner should accept illness as chastisement, the righteous as refining, like Paul’s thorn, looking to the refreshment to come.
99. 99Sickness that prevents prayer and fasting does their work for them; enduring it with thanksgiving is the great asceticism, for loss of the senses frees the inner man.
100. 100In community, obedience is better than extreme asceticism; true fasting is distinguished from the demonic and heretical kind by measure and right faith, as true coins by their stamp.
101. 101In community one must obey the superior and not seek one’s own will; having chosen exile from the world, the nun accepts reproach and want as a voluntary prison for her sins.
102. 102Sickness is no excuse for not fasting, since non-fasters fall ill too.
103. 103Once the good is begun, one should persevere against the enemy, who is defeated by patience.
104. 104As sailors persist through contrary winds, the ascetic should set the cross as her sail and continue.
105. 105Envying the good she did, the devil asked leave to afflict Syncletica in a final contest, striking her inward organs with incurable pain.
106. 106In her eightieth year the devil struck her lungs with consumption and fever for three and a half years, a trial harsher than Job’s or the martyrs’, since it burned from within.
107. 107Despite her illness she went on teaching, healing souls wounded by the devil and protecting others by exposing his snares.
108. 108Those dedicated to God must always be watchful, for the devil waits for any lapse; even the virtuous have faults, as even the wicked have some good.
109. 109Small faults must not be neglected; God delivers from great dangers by grace but leaves small ones to our free effort, as a father lets a child take small steps.
110. 110The devil then struck her mouth so she could no longer speak, but the sight of her endurance taught her visitors more than words.
111. 111A diseased tooth spread gangrene through her jaw with a terrible stench; she refused treatment as part of her contest, but accepted the physician’s embalming spices for the sake of the women who nursed her.
112. 112The devil struck her where her words had flowed, but was caught like a fish on a hook by despising a weak woman; for three months, unable to eat or sleep, she was sustained by divine power.
113. 113Near death she saw angels, virgins and the light of paradise, foretold her death in three days, and departed to the Lord.