On the Excellence of Monks

Contents

Reading pages: 1–19 · 20–27

1. 1People who judge city ascetics superior to desert monks are like the unskilled judging an art: they count only sins of act and ignore the hidden victories and defeats of thought.
2. 2Inner purity matters more than outward; even a virtuous city ascetic is as far behind the desert monk as a mere hand-healer is behind a physician who knows the causes of disease.
3. 3Sin grows from sight to thought, desire, pleasure, consent and act, and must be stopped at the start by guarding the senses under a sober mind.
4. 4The desert monk fights the memory of passions directly and so can conquer them, while the city ascetic's mind is flooded with ever-changing images and never cleansed.
5. 5The city ascetic's senses are battered all day by sights and sounds; in quiet the passions, left unstirred, grow weaker until only bare memories remain.
6. 6In quiet the passions are unlearned as a sated man loses appetite; the methodical desert ascetic is like a general who wins by strategy rather than by reckless frontal attack.
7. 7Our nature already has the fire of desire; the senses supply the kindling, as in the law about fire spreading through thorns, so small sins must be avoided because they lead to great ones.
8. 8Passions must be crushed at their first appearance, like the serpent's head or Babylon's infants dashed against the rock; once grown they are hard to defeat, and only then comes the peace of contemplation.
9. 9Only after the battle is over can the enemy's tricks be seen and the victories remembered; the city ascetic busy helping others neglects his own soul, though every tradesman minds his own affairs first.
10. 10Praising the city ascetic who helps others is like praising a man who leaves his house burning to help friends; the senses feed the fire of passion, as Jeremiah's image of gathering wood shows.
11. 11The senses give shape and fuel to formless passions; quiet keeps them from being seen, remembered and stirred, which is why Moses pitched his tent outside the camp.
12. 12Joshua, Elijah, John, Jeremiah and Christ himself sought solitude; city ascetics grow callous to the harm they suffer, like bare feet that no longer feel thorns.
13. 13Those who live among distractions do not notice the harm they suffer until night or solitude, when the images they took in rise up against them.
14. 14Impressions taken in through the senses grow like thorns or the hydra's heads; even charity toward a needy woman can kindle desire, so one must not help others at the cost of one's own soul.
15. 15The angel told Lot to save his own life and not look back; caring for others at the cost of one's own salvation is wrong, and the monk who tends his soul in quiet pleases God more.
16. 16Christ preferred Mary, who sat undistracted at his word, to Martha busy with serving, gently rebuking Martha's zeal for hospitality.
17. 17The Levites and Nazirites served God apart; Abel and Dinah came to harm by going out; and Scripture repeatedly praises staying within, which keeps the soul safe.
18. 18The solitary fights an unarmed enemy, the city ascetic an army; it is folly to choose a road full of robbers over a safe one.
19. 19No one sensible prefers a dangerous road; the city ascetic's passions are fanned daily into habit, while the solitary has only bare natural reminders to fight, which fade with time.
20. 20Passions are strong when their objects are present and weak without them; memories can be overcome by prayer and Scripture, but one who lives in the world cannot escape its stains.
21. 21Harm absorbed gradually goes unnoticed, like poison taken in small doses; even David, after a life of virtue, let his eye wander and fell into adultery and murder, so one must flee bad company.
22. 22Life among the wicked makes one like them; Holofernes was undone by the sight of Judith's sandal, and the senses are constantly ensnared by beauty, wealth, scents and food.
23. 23A mind freed from vain cares turns to prayer, reading and contemplation of creation, and can watch its passions decline; the busy ascetic has no leisure to know his own state.
24. 24Passions dulled by distraction are like snakes torpid in winter, not dead; a desert monk counted his good and bad thoughts each day with pebbles, which no busy person could do.
25. 25The solitary walks virtue's road in daylight, the city ascetic in the dark, buffeted by praise, contempt and pride; alone with God the monk escapes these, though he must guard against praising himself.
26. 26Virtue done before others is spoiled by praise; city ascetics are like doves whose chicks are taken for slaughter, desert monks like turtle-doves that send their young safely to God.
27. 27Even a blameless city ascetic suffers from witnessing injustice and may even blame God, as Habakkuk did; the desert monk's virtues are seen by God alone, who rewards them with eternal life.