On Humility and Obedience, and Trampling Down Pride (complete)

We speak to people of the world in the church in one way; to you we ought to speak in another. To them we sometimes speak things that have sound but not power, for, like the weak, they delight in the sounds of words, not in the power of God. But you, in the name of Christ, do not delight in this; you wish to hear the word of salvation to which you have been called, and you have put on these garments of mourning in the world, waiting for better ones with God. You already know and understand. You have already had a long time here against the one with whom you have your struggle; your adversary is not outside but inside, in your very bowels; and in our very members we have an opponent. For if the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that we do not do what we wish, you see that this adversary is within. But this adversary is not overcome except by humility and love; for our Lord Jesus Christ himself would not have overcome the devil had he not been humbled; and humbled not by necessity but by love. For had he not loved, he would not have been made lowly. For love of us he was made lowly. If, then, he who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, the Lord of all the angels, who created all things, was made lowly for our sake, why do we refuse humility for our own sake? So the way of salvation is not open to us unless we are humbled. When you have begun humility, seek it for God's sake, and for the sake of the community itself, bear with it. And in the community itself, though you are equals, each ought to consider the other his superior, even if he is not superior. He does not do this unless he has humility. No other reward is needed by the servants of God but humility; for humility, if it is in a man, makes him obedient. And he who is obedient, or who pursues obedience, obeys not men but God.

For so the Lord says: “He who hears you hears me; he who hears me [hears] him who sent me.” The abbot is father; the brothers who follow are patriarchs. And whoever else among you perhaps has a good life, better self-control, better vigils, better guarding of the body, he too is a father because of the example he gives. Do these things among yourselves, then: first, guard humility, not so as to seem humble to men, but to God. That is true humility which is shown to God, not to men. For the humility that is shown to men is pretence, not humility, which ought to be wholly foreign to the servants of God. I do not think there are such among you; but I warn you so that such a disease may not creep in. For we are men, and we speak to men. Therefore you ought first to show humility to your brothers for their imitation, so that humility itself may be founded inwardly in the heart, according to God. For when humility has been founded in your heart for God's sake, then God grants him, that is, your brother, to understand and imitate your humility. But if humility has not been founded in your heart, God shows your brother that your humility is feigned. This, then, is the first way of salvation: to hold humility simply for God's sake, not for man's; not to please men by it, but to please God. Let obedience follow humility, and obey one another as the members obey one another. Do the members obey by deliberation, and not by natural love? If the foot stumbles, the hand runs to help, lest the whole body be hurt and fall. As the apostle says: “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.” From what, then, except from love? If, then, you love one another, there will be no disturbance. Let no one suffer offence,

not on account of food, not on account of drink, not on account of clothing, not on account of vigils, not on account of work, not on account of the kitchen, not on account of service. Once you love one another, if anyone does something he ought not, that love does not allow you to take offence. Have, then, brothers, humility and obedience, which peace follows, so that you may be sons of peace; for love, as the apostle says, is the bond of perfection. When someone has humility, he imitates Christ, who was made lowly for us. When someone has obedience, he imitates Christ, who became obedient unto death. When someone has love, he imitates Christ, for God is love. But first labour to overcome your vices within. Let there first be peace of the soul and heart with God's command, so that against the habit and frailty of the body there may be two victors: God's command and your consent. For the case is like this: a physician, a sick man and a sickness. If the sick man gives himself over to the sickness, the physician is beaten; two are made against one, and the physician is overcome. But if the sick man gives himself to the physician, the illness is overcome. The physician is Christ; we are the sick; the disease of the sickness is the habit of sin. So let one who has partly renounced the world, though he lives in the world, look where he ought to cling: to the disease or to the physician. If he does not cling to the physician, the physician labours. Therefore the gospel cries out to us in the world and says: “Agree quickly with your adversary while you are with him on the way.” It does not teach us to agree with the adversary the devil, but teaches us to agree with the adversary that is God's command, which opposes our evils, opposes our habit, opposes our iniquities. If we consent, we are made of one heart with God's command, and we receive as it were God's yoke;

for which reason the Lord says: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke, for it is light, and my burden is light.” Behold, what is so light? Consider, in short, how those who have something in this world fear that it will be snatched away. How they fear to lose what they have acquired! In what ways they are tormented, carrying anxiety as under a most heavy weight! But you labour for nothing else but to do what the abbot commands. You are already under the yoke; you do not think where you are to live, because you ought not to think of it. There is someone to rule you; there is someone to care for you. The thought of food and clothing ought not to concern you at all. What the abbot gives, consider it as if God had given it; for that is true humility. But perhaps one has more and another less; take this too as done by God. One sits at another table: if the abbot so orders, if he so approves, take it as though God had ordered it. I do not want you to ask questions about it, so as to say, “Tomorrow I shall sit there.” I do not want you to make a habit of it, so as to impose that necessity on yourself. If perhaps there is nothing to give, or it does not seem good to give, take it so: either there is nothing to give, or it has seemed not expedient to give. If you keep these things, brothers, you will surely have eternal life. Do not let yourselves be driven by evil words. If perhaps someone weak falls so as to speak perverse things, restrain him at once; say at once: “Do not do it, do not, brother; you are sinning.” For since you are in one place and have one abbot, you ought also to be abbots to one another. Can one man, because he has two eyes and two ears, as abbot hear all or see all? Or has he no need to go out somewhere and provide something?

Be abbots to yourselves; and as you feared the abbot when present, fear him also when absent, for God is present. Above all fear this, dread this, that God is always present. And if one man bears the care of so many, how much more ought all of you to bear it, so that he may not find cause to be angry, to grieve, to be offended, to groan, to think that his labour of so long a time will perish? For these things will profit us only if we have humility, obedience and love. There is no other way to God but humility, obedience and love. He himself is the way, the truth and the life. For to torment oneself, to fast for two, three, four days, often to keep whole weeks, makes brothers proud, thinking that what they themselves do another cannot do; they think it something immense that another cannot do. Or one walks barefoot and thinks he alone can do this; or perhaps one does not even drink mixed water; it is a temporary exercise, because he cannot always do it. But let him think rather of humility, of piety, love, obedience. For to break the strength of the body, to tame blood and flesh, he should take these up like a good athlete; but let him not glory in them, lest he lose what he has done. For that Pharisee who went up into the temple to pray, were the works he listed small? They were immense: to fast twice a week, to give tithes of all his goods to the poor, not to commit fraud, not to commit adultery is a great thing; but because he flaunted it in pride, all that he did was pride. Therefore David says: “Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the sinner move me. There all who work iniquity have fallen.” Where have they fallen? In the fall of pride. For thence the devil fell; he fell through pride. Let no pride at all, then, be admitted among the servants of God. He, then, who now lives differently and has ordered his life better, let him not be like that Pharisee. But the tax collector, humbled, did not dare even to raise his eyes to heaven, and, praised by the Lord's sentence, went back to his house justified rather than that Pharisee. For we have found by experience, both in the holy Scriptures themselves and in our brothers, that whoever has kept the way of humility makes progress and does not perish.