Book to the Pastor

from on high, and that you be instructed not through sense, but through the spirit ^A. Let not that saying of Paul escape you: *Not from men, nor through man, teaching the doctrine.* The earth does not cultivate heaven: the skilled pilot saves the ship, and the good shepherd will give life and health not only to the bodies but to the rational sheep. Inasmuch as the sheep follow the shepherd without failing in their progress, to that extent will he give an account for them to the Master of the house. Let the shepherd rebuke with language those sheep that remain sluggish or gluttonous; for this too is a mark of a good shepherd, that when the sheep begin, from the heat of the inferno—or rather, from the conflagrations of the body—to despair in their soul, then the shepherd, looking toward heaven, should watch ^B more intensely for them. For it is the custom in that time of burning that many should be devoured by wolves; yet if they also, according to the outward pattern visible in the sheep, incline the head of their soul down to the earth in the time of that scorching heat, we have One who consoles us: *A contrite and humble heart God will not despise.* When, therefore, a dark night of perturbations of soul and tempests settles upon the flock, and the whole heaven grows dark, then station the dog without tumult at the night watch, that he may cry out assiduously to God. Nor will you err far if you consider your own mind ^C (as another Hercules) a slayer of monsters and wild beasts.

ON CHAPTER I.

*Scholion 1.* By a "sound body" he does not here mean one that does not contract sickness from a change or a superfluity of the constituent elements, but one that has cast off and put away all wicked lusts and pleasures, and the corruption that follows them. Just as he also taught in the *Degrees of Tranquility of Soul*. He is truly a victor over all lusts who has brought his body to incorruption and raised his soul above created nature.

*Scholion 2.* He who is not instructed by God, but still savors of earthly things, how will he heal those like himself? *For if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.*

*Scholion 3.* The other, that is, the spiritual sense: for just as you instruct your disciples through the senses, so also does God instruct you ^D intellectually.

CHAPTER II.

The similitude of the physician and the cenobiarch is set forth more fully.

The good Lord has implanted this too into the nature of things, that a sick man, even if he is likely to receive no help from the physician, is nevertheless refreshed by his very sight and presence. And you, a man worthy of admiration, see that you have prepared the amulets of remedies, I mean plasters, vulneraries, cataplasms, and powders: keep them, O admirable man, and possess them, including bandages, dry medicines, eye-salves, potions, sponges, nausea-inducers, lancets, cauteries, ointments, sleeping draughts, a knife, and cauterization...

^A If we are at a loss for these, how shall we demonstrate our skill? In no way; for rewards are given not for words, but for deeds. A plaster is the healing of an apparent evil, that is, of bodily passions. A dose is the healing of internal passions, and an evacuation of hidden filth. A caustic agent is a stinging reproach, healing the decay of inflated pride. An eye-salve is a cleansing of the eye of the soul, troubled by the turbid fog of anger. A potion is a biting rebuke, healing shortly thereafter. A lancet is the brief evacuation of a hidden obsession; a lancet is, strictly speaking, a violent and sudden pressure devised for the salvation of the sick. A sponge is, after the lancet or surgery, the gentle word and mild, humane address of the physician, by which pain in the sick, in a certain manner, is wiped away. ^B A cautery is a censure and penalty decreed (by the Church) for a time, mercifully imposed upon the delinquent for repentance. An ointment is, after the burning of the hot iron, the consolation of a brief exhortation to the sick. A sleeping draught is taking the burden of the subordinate upon oneself, and through obedience, securing for him rest and dreamless sleep, and a holy blindness, that he may not see his own merits and be filled with pride. Bandages are the bonds by which those who are loosened and made faint by vainglory are, through patience even unto death, held fast and restrained as if in a pillory. Finally, when the whole art of healing is despaired of, there remains the iron and the blade of anathema, by which, through decree and sentence, the rotten and dead member of the spirit is cut off, lest it infect the rest of the body with its scabies and plague. Furthermore, that happy nausea-resistance in physicians (which takes away all horror and nausea or disgust) is, in the curators of souls, a settled quiet and void of all agitation of the mind. Thus, just as those who are not offended by the gravity of any disease whatsoever run eagerly to cure any type of illness, so the physicians of souls, even though a soul may be lacking in heavenly and spiritual life and dead, will be able to recall it to life. And this unique cure is brought about by the prayers and vows of the pastor, while he assists each one according to his respective state of soul, and through paternal commiseration, he himself endures and suffers the diseases of each, ^C lest perchance, like Jacob, he offend the beloved and his family—which usually happens when the senses and affections of the soul do not yet have, through use and exercise, the power to distinguish evil from good, and intermediate things from both, so that they might separate them to a nicety.

IN CHAPTER II.

for not by words, as I think, is this said—it is not by names of leaders, but by our acting out the words of life that rewards are given.

*Another Scholion.* Look to life or word: by word teach virtue; by life proclaim and confirm it.

*Another.* It is for the better men to teach, but it also creates greater dangers; but to learn, as it is more modest, so is it more secure.

*Another of Gregory the Theologian.* No one has ever been raised to heaven without an honest life, but many have been without the fair-sounding din of words; for the grace of God belongs not to those who speak well, but to those who live well. ^B

*Scholion 3.* Collyrium is a medicine by which the eye of the mind, troubled by the cloud of the storm of anger, is cleansed. An astringent rebuke is a bitter potion; and the rest.

*Of Divine Chrysostom.* Some things are good, others are indifferent: for example, the soul and the body are among the indifferent, as they can become this or that by their own capacity. But the spirit is always among the good, and never changes its state. Again, the mind of the flesh—that is, wicked action—is always among the evils; for it is not subject to the law of God. If, therefore, you yield your soul and body to the better part, you have become a sharer of his lot; but if to the worse, then you have become a companion and participant of destruction here—not contrary to the nature of the soul and body, but contrary to the will, which as mistress ^C is able to choose both of these things.

*Another.* He who winks at and does not rebuke the sin of his neighbor is unmerciful, just like one who allows poison to be injected into the one bitten by a serpent.

CAPUT III. That the Cenobite should be most closely united with God.

It is shameful for a master of virtues, when he strives to obtain from God for his own disciples the virtue which he himself lacks. ^D Just as those who have been admitted into the sight of the King, and have been included among his intimates, can easily thereafter introduce their own servants, and strangers, and even enemies, when they please, to behold the King and to contemplate and enjoy his royal majesty; so likewise think it will be in divine matters. The intimate friends of the King are pursued with veneration even by other friends of the King, and they obey them, and even if they are reluctant, these others even force themselves upon them and serve them. It is an excellent thing to have wise friends at hand; for no one can bring more help and weight to the acquisition of virtue. Someone from this list of divine friends related to me that God rewards His worshippers with heavenly gifts, always indeed at other times, but then most especially when the solemn and anniversary days are celebrated as holy to the Lord.

CHAPTER IV

^A It is necessary for the physician to strip himself completely of his own passions, so that in due time he may be able to feign them, especially anger, towards others. For if he has not cast them away to the ultimate degree, he will not be able to put them on in a passionless manner. I once observed an untamed horse, still quite untrained, which, though led by a bridle and walking quietly, suddenly plotted against its own master the moment the bridle was slackened by a little. This problem usually follows from two demons; let those who wish to inquire do so with diligence.

TO CHAPTER IV

Scholion 1

To vainglory and gluttony or lust; for these are the vices that to the very end do not cease their war against us.

Another

These are the spirits of irascibility and lust; for if one relaxes even slightly, they are quickly stirred up—and they are so relentless that they accompany us to the very death, and they enslave our nature as if they were natural to us.

Another

If, therefore, gluttony and lust are joined together, both vices are set down as if they were one. But you should look also for the other passion, which is vainglory.

OBSERVATION OF THE INTERPRETER ON CHAPTER IV

Climacus wishes the director of religious persons to be free from every perturbation of soul and to administer his office in supreme tranquility of soul; this serenity and tranquility of soul he calls in the twenty-ninth step *apatheia*, the heaven of the heart, the palace of the supreme King, a certain mortal immortality of the body. Some (a) find fault with this opinion of Climacus, and they judge him to be more a Stoic than a Christian, or even a human being. But I do not know whether they do this justly or unjustly. The decree of the Stoics is plain: that the fibers of anger, cupidity, and even of the remaining affections are to be plucked out, and all elements of flaws and vices are to be eradicated. The Latin philosopher (b) does not deny that anger falls upon man alone, yet he asserts that it is against nature. Aristotle (c), with the council of the Peripatetics, and Plato (d), with the Academic senate, decree that anger is not to be excluded entirely from the human breast: it is often useful. Anger, Aristotle says, is necessary, for nothing can be overcome without it, provided it fills the soul and ignites the spirit. It must be used, however, not as a leader, but as a soldier. Our Climacus is of the opinion that anger and all noxious affections of the soul are to be thoroughly stripped away—which Seneca also teaches (e), as do all religious men, who call this effort to overcome the affections *nekrosis*, our religious term for "mortification," from which that tranquil serenity of mind and body results, so that one, as a victor over oneself placed on a high watchtower, may look down in safety and security upon all lower things shaken by the winds of storms and struck by the tempests of whirlwinds; yet he may, if he wishes, assume anger or any affection for a time, or rather (f) feign it. Hence, I do not know if John Gerson and Dionysius the Carthusian, and other holy men, ought to repent of their opinion, when the former annotated Climacus *concerning repentance*, and the latter *concerning apatheia*, even though in the fifth step he treats not of a prescription, but of the voluntary zeal of those doing penance: although a certain place and manner of living were generally established for penitents, many nonetheless of their own accord afflicted themselves with much heavier sufferings of soul—things to be admired, certainly, if not imitated. But regarding the tranquility of soul and the extirpation of all desires, from which that *apatheia* and secure serenity is born, I would hold in less regard the opinion of others who condemn it, or deem it something almost impossible, since the divine Paul, in his letters sent to the Corinthians, seems to have depicted that very thing, when

^A he described the nature and effects of charity: Charity, he says, is patient, is kind; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Does he not seem to you, in this supreme affection, to be without affection? Is he not one who has gone out of his senses, who bears all things and endures all things? Such is the *apatheia* of Climacus, this man, who feeling, does not feel; seeing, does not see; whom neither is another's envy tormented by emulation, nor puffed up by knowledge through pride, nor wounded by the injury of a detractor, and what things are akin to these, by which human patience is wont to be wearied. I could, if I had the plan, weave from the writings of the pagans, and the monuments of the Christians, a syllabary of the most mild-hearted men, who either never provoked, or immediately having revoked it, brought no death to their anger, although for inflaming the fire of wrath there were no lack of kindling.

And although Climacus desires all the perturbations of the soul to be so deleted, that no trace of them in any way remains in us, yet his ultimate opinion arrives at this, that he would rather have them lulled to sleep than utterly extinguished; so that when there is need, they may be roused like dogs, and be used for pursuing the beasts of vices: yet so, that they do not harm the hunter; and do not vent their fury upon him, but only upon the monsters of vices. Therefore, he wishes them bound and ready at the nod of their master, no differently than those who practice the theatrical art, and either take on a royal persona; or that of a military leader, at whose commands the soldier either unsheathes his arms, or puts them down; or like the practiced Ulysses, who held the fury of the winds locked in a leather bag, and would loosen them when he had to sail, or tighten them when he had to rest. Some of the ancients progressed further in that matter, taking man almost out of man, and the body out of the body, as Saint Jerome argues; and he names Evagrius Ponticus as the author of his *apatheia* just as he names an Origenist, and reports that this opinion flowed from the fountainhead of the Stoics. ^B Our most learned and religious Bernard Rosignolius treats of this imperturbability or impassibility (as Saint Jerome interprets it), or *indolentia* (insensibility) as Cicero says, or tranquility of soul, and the vacation from all perturbations, in Book II of *De disciplina Christiana perfectionis*, in the whole chapter, where he also praises Climacus with these words: "John Climacus reproves Evagrius Ponticus by this name, noting his *apatheia* with the name of *alacritas sensus* (liveliness of sense): because perhaps he used that name himself, so that he might more easily deceive the simple: whence it also came about that a certain holy man, who published notes on Climacus, not at all having grasped his meaning, preferred the sense of Evagrius to the text of Climacus." Not so the most learned and most illustrious Cardinal Caesar Baronius: for he, narrating the history of *apatheia*, clearly having grasped the sense of Climacus, commends him, and condemns Evagrius, as he deserves. Such is Rosignolius. But Baronius says concerning Evagrius: "But he who attempted to introduce Stoic *indolentia* into the Church, and promised by these same writings that a man could be raised at once to the summit of perfection, was mocked on that account by others: for among others is this from Climacus about him: 'Evagrius thought himself to become the wisest of all by the liveliness of his sense, but the wretched man, having suffered a fraud, lied to himself, and was the most foolish of the foolish, as is shown by this very pretension.'" These things Baronius from a not altogether optimal interpreter of Climacus. The place, nor the step, is not expressed from Climacus: and Climacus treats nothing of *apatheia* or *indolentia* in that step, in which these words are read; but of gluttony and abstinence or fasting. The chapter or step is the fourteenth:

Concerning the belly, the mother of many and of the evil master,

in his *Limonarium* (a) says: Abba John of Cilicia said to us who were staying at the Ninth [station] of Alexandria: an Egyptian monk came to us and related to us, saying: A brother from a distant region came to the Monastery of the Cells, wishing to dwell there; and having prostrated himself, he begged the presbyter that he might live in the cell of Evagrius. But the presbyter said that he could not dwell there; and the presbyter said to the brother as he departed: "My son, a most troublesome demon dwells there. For he who seduced Evagrius and turned him away from the true faith, and instilled in him wicked dogmas, he does not permit anyone to dwell there." This Moschus relates; and he adds that the stranger could not be deterred by the counsel of the elder, but entered the cell of Evagrius, and after another week was found with a rope about his neck and his throat broken, having expired. So much do the traces even of heretics leave the plague impressed behind them.

But let us return to Climacus’s *apatheia*, which does not wish the passions and movements of the soul to be rooted out, but to be so restrained that they do not move themselves against the will of the soul; yet they are present when summoned for commands, and they respond to the use and will of the one commanding, and add strength to the soul. There are elegant little stories in A. Gellius (b) concerning the Stoics’ *apatheia*, which I would add here in gratitude, were they not too long; they exist in Book I, chap. 2, and Book XIX, chap. 12. I conclude with the holy Jerome, to whom there is either God or a stone [as the only choice], for certainly Climacus did not wish us to migrate into a stone.

CAPUT V. The pastor’s industry in what he must observe.

^A Tune medicus animorum, a Deo se donatum sapientia intelligat, cum ipse morbos multis immedicabiles curare poterit. In nulla admiratione ponendus doctor est is, qui alumnos ingenio promptos et dociles, doctos efficit et eruditos, sed qui tardos et hebetes, litteratos reddit et doctrina praestantes. Decus aurigarum est, cum equis abjectis et ingloriis vincunt, et ipsos equos incolumes servant, tum, inquam, omnium ore celebrantur et praedicantur. Quod si tibi datum, ut futuram possis tempestatem providere, denuntia illam aperte classiariis: sin minus jam tu naufragii certissimus es auctor, ut cui una omnium sententia gubernaculum optima fide sit commissum. Vidi medicos qui laborantes de periculo serius admonerent: unde factum, ut aeger juxta ac medicus in ultimum discrimen salutis inciderent. Eadem est ratio pastoris, who ^B if he has found the faith of those who obey him, or of those coming to him from elsewhere (for the sake of salvation) toward himself to be tested, will all the more carefully observe all his own words and deeds: certain that the eyes and souls of all are fixed upon him as upon an archetype image, and they reckon his [words and deeds] to be a limit and a law. Truth shows the true shepherd, for it was for love that the shepherd was crucified. ^D [He is] held and judged as a norm and law of life. The true pastor is shown by the charity which led the prince of pastors to the cross.

CAPUT VI. The duty of the pastor toward his subjects.

^C With gentle speech, care for the other. It is not necessary to use great bashfulness or reverence here always. Afflict the sick person for a time, lest the disease become chronic, or the sick person perish from your detestable silence. Many, because of the governor's patience and silence, thought they were sailing with following winds, until they struck upon rocky reefs and ran aground in shallow waters. Let us hear the great Paul writing to Timothy. "Persist," he says, with them,

in season and out of season: in season, I suppose, when those who are rebuked accept the rebuke willingly; but out of season, when they are stung by it. For even springs, even when no one is thirsty, gush forth their waters; there is ^A a nature, if I may so speak, that accompanies the office of oversight, which is bashful, and often holds its peace when it ought to speak even to those who are in debt. That which the teachers ought to do regarding their disciples, let them not refuse. And let them endeavor to record the necessary instructions for them in writing. Let us hear the divine voice speaking in some places: "Cut it down, why does it even waste the ground?" And: "Remove the evil person from among you." And: "Do not pray for this people." And the same is said concerning Saul. It is necessary for the shepherd to know all these things: in what cases, and how, and when they ought to be applied. For nothing is more truthful than God. He who is rebuked privately and is not ashamed, such a one, when rebuked before the multitude, has only made it an occasion for shamelessness, of his own will loathing his own salvation.

TO CHAPTER VI. Scholion 1.

To the one presiding over the flock, and who receives the account of the thoughts of the brethren, the word says: When someone comes to you to confess, and often hesitates in anxiety, take care that you soothe his soul with words alone, and render him gentle. For example, say to him: "It is not for you, brother, to be anxiously saddened; for even I have done this and that." Or other things that he has done, so that he, having taken confidence, may relate everything to you sincerely; but take care that you do not teach those things which you say by deed, or commit them, and so make him more familiar; but use only bare words, and no care, or harm, will come to you from it.

John of Damascus, 2.

There are four kinds of sadness: achos (anguish), achthos (heaviness), phthonos (envy), and eleos (mercy). Achos is sadness that produces speechlessness; achthos is sadness that depresses and weighs down the soul; phthonos is sadness at the goods of others; and eleos is sadness at the misfortunes of others.

Scholion.

Rebuke the sinner without anger, so that he may be corrected by the word rather than by anger over what he has sinned.

Another.

The ruler of the people shall pay the penalty when he does not also take away ^D their lesser sins.

Another.

It is fitting to rebuke the sinner diligently and severely.

and diligently toward amendment. But if he persists in his vice and malice, being unreformed, he must be expelled from the fellowship of the brethren, so that he may not also pervert the rest. ^A

*Aliud.* It is written concerning every authority, whether great or small, that they should testify to those set under them, and not pass over in silence their transgressions, whether small or great. For one who has the power to cut out the evil and does not cut it out, does not escape condemnation by mere testimony. But he who does not have the power, yet has testified, and is not obeyed, he indeed delivers his own soul; but those who do the evil will die in their sin. And every authority is required to testify, and to see that those who are walking rightly do not fall away; since, if any of the just who are under him should fall away, and he did not previously testify to him, the one in charge will receive punishment. ^B

*Scholion.* From high priests and kings and the rest, down to the lowliest pauper over whom he has authority, an account is required of these things, so that according to his own ability each may exhort and testify to his own, not only to the disorderly, but also to the virtuous; and leaders of subjects must, according to Job, pray not only in regard to contrary acts, but also for the evil thoughts of those under them. ^C

Chapter 7. Subjects are to be treated according to the variety of their natures.

***

[i] Ezech. III, 19.

to set out on the path, having consulted those whom they believed knew the way, and having learned from them that it was straight, level, and safe from all ambushes, they became more remiss due to that ^A announcement; and, broken in the middle of their journey, they fell into the greatest danger of salvation, or certainly turned back, because they had been instructed to endure afflictions. On the other hand, I would have you understand that where the torch of divine love has blazed in the heart, there the thunder of words causes no terror; and where the fear of the punishments in the underworld has shone forth, there is the greatest patience in all labors. Lastly, where the hope of the heavenly kingdom shines, there immediately follows a contempt for all human things. A skilled leader must thoroughly know the spirits and ranks of the soldiers subject to him; perhaps there lie hidden in the crowd the bravest champions and front-line fighters for the army along with him, and those who might dare to challenge the enemy to single combat, who, if neglected at home, spend their time in idleness and languish. A captain will not save a ship from shipwreck without the help of the sailors. A physician will not heal the wounded unless he is asked, and the wound is opened to him, and the entire method of treatment is committed to his diligence and faith. Those who, out of shame, ^B conceal their wounds, foster worms and rot, and not a few have died from this, nor is it rare.

CAPUT VIII. The pastor's assiduous exhortation is useful; his submissiveness, his pride.

In pasturing the flock, let the master of the herd make assiduous use of the pipe of speech, especially when the sheep are proceeding toward rest: for the wolf fears nothing so much as the sound of the pastoral reed; nor should a guide of souls ever humble himself too much and beyond reason, nor ever foolishly exalt himself, but in both he should follow Paul as his leader. God frequently as it were bandages the eyes of the subjects, so that they may not discover the vices of their superiors, which, if the pastor were to open to them, would destroy their trust in him. I have seen a superior of religious who, in certain matters, consulted his little children out of the greatest humility of soul. I have noted another who displayed his own foolish "wisdom" out of conceit, wanting to make a show of it to them, and behaving ironically toward them. Rarely, indeed, but nevertheless for some reason, I have observed some who were prone to the ^C vices and perturbations of the soul presiding over those who were perfect and freed from all diseases of desire, who, gradually put to shame by the virtue of their subjects, amended their own vices as well—which I believe the virtue and merits of the subjects, destined for heaven, brought about in them. And it happened that the duty of administering provided the vicious man with an occasion for perfection.

CAPUT IX. The pastor should be constant in adversity.

We must take care not to scatter on the open sea what we have acquired in the harbor. Those understand—that is, they know—what this saying means for them, who, regarding the ^D disturbances and tumults of external affairs

inexperienced go forth. It is truly a great thing to endure courageously and bravely the heat of silence, and the tranquility, and the neglect, and not to seek the agitations and consolations of those outside the ship of the cell, as do the fainthearted among sailors in a time of calm who give themselves over to every luxury and play in the waters. But it is much more glorious, and beyond comparison, not to fear the tumults situated outside ourselves, but in such disturbances and uproar to remain fearless and unmoved, dwelling and living both among assemblies of men exteriorly, and in the soul interiorly ^A with God.

Chapter IX

De recipiendis tironibus (On receiving beginners)

AD CAP. X. Scholion (To Caput X. Scholion)

CAPUT XI. Mansuetudo et pietas pastori commendatur (Caput XI. Meekness and piety are commended to the pastor)

^A clearly among hens. But what is more unseemly than an irate shepherd? For the fox slaughters the hens, but the bilious shepherd disturbs and destroys rational souls. Beware of inquiring too curiously into the smallest things, for by doing so you will no longer be an imitator of God. Entrust God, as you yourself are the steward and guide of all your inner and outer actions, as if He were a most excellent pilot; and through Him, by cutting off your own will, you will become like an infant or a fool, guided solely by His nod. This must be seen by you and all others, lest the mercy of God should choose to work certain singular wonders through the faith of those who come to us, rather than through any virtue of our own. For many, defiled by vices and passions, have in the way already mentioned accomplished wonderful works. When, it is said, "many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?" and what follows, the point being made is not ^B incredible; for He who has truly reconciled God to himself, and who provides help to the suffering without their even noticing it, is able to accomplish two most excellent things: first, he keeps himself, in this way, untouched by the rust of vainglory; and second, he makes those whom he has reconciled to God prepare to offer to God alone the thanksgivings that are due.

TO CAP CHAPTER XI.

Scholion 2. ^C Do not forcefully constrain with contention the one who does not obey you at your first word, but make the gain that he cast away your own, and accommodate and apply it to yourself. For you will reap more benefit from your own patience than from his amendment. Another. If you have been allotted the duty of teaching and are not heard (and do not progress), grieve in your soul, but outwardly do not show any sign of perturbation. For if you are pained by the stubborn, you will not be condemned; but if you are perturbed, you will be caught being involved in the same failure. Another of Mark. You who have accepted the duty of ruling over brothers, perform your office, and do not, because of those who contradict you, keep silent about what must ^D be said and done; for in those things in which they obey you, you will receive a reward for their virtue, but in those things in which they disobey you, you will completely forgive them, and you will receive the same from Him who said: "Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you."

CHAPTER XII. On the discipline of subjects.

^A To those who run the stadium of the religious life with alacrity, offer more solid and firmer nourishment. To those who lag behind in mind or manners, offer milk, as one does to infants; for there is a season for every kind of food. ^B The same diet strengthens some and breaks others. Those who preside must take great care to have regard for time, person, capacity, and measure when sowing the seed. There are those who, disregarding the judgment or peril involved in taking others under their care, rashly and without reason take upon themselves the charge of souls; and yet, having been filled with great treasures of heavenly things before accepting this province, they departed from this life afterward with empty hands, as the saying goes, and left to others the wealth they might have gathered from their undertaking. Just as among children there are those who are legitimate and true-born, and others who are from a second marriage, others from a bondwoman, and others born of adultery or fornication, so too is there a great variety in the status of those taken under charge. The task of taking charge requires one who is prepared in all things to lay down his life for another’s soul. Some take into account only the sins committed by their charges before their admission. Others, only those committed after. Some care only about what they themselves command, and take upon themselves no other burden, owing, indeed, to a poverty of spirit and a mind not yet free from unruly turbulence and passions. ^C Indeed, even in the actual perfect assumption of a charge, we incur the danger or judgment of condemnation regarding the cutting off of our own will. A true-born son is known by his father’s absence. Let the archimandrite be vigilant and observe with care those who are refractory in certain matters, and those who speak back; let him rebuke them most severely, even in the presence of leading men, so that the others may be struck with fear through them, even if they bear that rebuke with difficulty and are wounded. For it is better that many be healed and become wise from the wound of one. There are some who, kindled by the torches of divine love, attempt to take upon themselves burdens beyond their own strength for others, treating that saying of Christ: *Greater love than this no man hath*, and what follows. There are others who have perhaps received from God that prudence for instructing others in the religious life, but they take upon themselves that burden unwillingly, even though the brother’s salvation depends upon it; them I regard as miserable and destitute of all charity. ^D Concerning the former, I have read somewhere: *He who brings forth the precious from the vile and base, shall be as my mouth.* And: *As you have done, it shall be to you.* And I would have you note this, that the sin of a prelate, conceived and committed by will and mind alone, is often judged to be worse than the deeds of an inferior. A soldier sins more lightly than a general who, through a perverse plan...

sin, and exhort the subjects so that they do not express the lapses of the flesh and the desires of Venus with such precision, but rather that they revolve the rest of their faults specifically and individually for a long time, both day and night. See that they deal with one another candidly and openly, and show yourself as a model of the matter. And indeed, especially against the snares of demons, render them cautious and prudent. Have a clear understanding of the mind, and the goal or scope, and all the affections of your flock, whither they aim; for this (hellish) wolf strives, by means of the sluggish, to break even the industrious and render them slothful. Do not delay to pray and implore even for those who are completely loose and listless, not so that they may be deemed worthy of heavenly mercy—for this cannot happen as long as they themselves do not assist [labor] ^A—but that they may be stirred up by God to virtue. With heretics, those who are not firm and ardent in faith should not sit at table or communicate, as is in the sacred canons; but those who are constant and fervent, when usage demands it, and when they are pressed by the perfidious and unbelievers in the cause of the faith, if they wish to descend into the struggle, let them be sent. Where the glory of God is at stake, do not excuse ignorance. For he who has sinned out of ignorance will be punished, because he did not learn what ought to be said. ^B

TO CHAPTER XII.

Scholion 1. I think he means this, that to those coming to a religious school to receive the fruit of spiritual seeds, the same things ought not to be taught to all indiscriminately, nor in the same manner, but the teacher should have regard for the person, the time, the readiness, and the multitude of those who are being taught.

Scholion 2. He means that there are some religious pastors who do not wish to receive the burden of the judgments of others in their subjects, on account of a lack, as he says, of perfection. This we see happening ^C even now in many cases, where those who do not wish to receive or hear the cares and thoughts of the religious subjects under them, while in the meantime they severely exact what they themselves command: these will render an account, and bear the burden, as having been the cause of the detriment which the subjects receive; or whatever fruit they draw only from the mandates, as they command them to others.

Scholion 3. Not to be able to help is a sign of helplessness; not to wish to do so is of the utmost malice.

Scholion 4. Great is the benefit from the matter, both for those who are strong and for those who act in such a way that it both heals the sick and leads the healthy to perfection.

Scholion 5. But if someone cannot preside over his own house, ^D how will he provide for the Church of God?

CHAPTER XIII.

Varia documenta. It is shameful for a teacher of virtue to fear death, when obedience is presented as the security of death. Seek, I Tim. III, 5.

^A O blessed one, consider without which virtue no one is admitted to the sight of God; and instill that into your disciples by whatever art you can, and keep them far from the sight of smooth and womanly forms. Let there be for all who serve under the banners of Christ among us various stations and dwellings, according to the measure of their age. For no one is to be cast out from the port of religion before having displayed a prudence to be approved by the world as well. Do not lay hands quickly on anyone, lest, through ignorance, some of the sheep, having embraced religious discipline, should later, upon learning the state and difficulty of things, become impatient of the burden and heat of religion, and return to the world by the way they came—a thing which constitutes no small danger before God for those who ordained them. Who, then, is such a steward of God, who is in no need of his own springs and labors, and who, having been irrigated by copious showers of tears from God, abounds, and uses them liberally for the cleansing, or rather the purification and praise of God, for the cleansing of others’ souls—cleansing souls and bodies especially when defiled—so that he may not cease, that he may seek with boldness from the good Giver of the prize the crowns not only of his own soul, ^B but also of the souls of others? I have seen a weak man cure the weakness of another weak man out of faith, using a praiseworthy boldness toward God on his behalf, and laying down his soul for a soul; yet in humility [he did this] for the other’s healing, and subsequently healed himself. And I have seen one who did the same out of pride, and heard, "Physician, heal yourself," with a rebuke. It is possible to forgo a good for a greater good, as he who did not flee from martyrdom out of cowardice, but for the benefit of those being saved and enlightened by him; there is one who has given himself over to ignominy for the sake of the honor of others, and is considered by many to be a lover of pleasure, yet he is a deceiver and truthful nonetheless. If he who possesses the word of benefit and does not distribute it abundantly will not be unpunished, how great, do you think, O friend, is the danger of those who are able, by their own cooperative works, to suffer with the afflicted, yet do not share the toil? Deliver, you who have been delivered by God, and save, you who have been saved, those being led to death, and do not spare in buying back those being slain by demons. For this is the great reward of every empowered spirit before God, greater than all the labor and contemplation of mortals and immortals, that he proves himself to be a co-worker of the incorporeal and intellectual powers, by the purity given to him by God, cleansing the filth of others, and offering to God gifts that are spotless from those that were stained. For this, and this alone, is always the work of the divine ministers. ^C For all those around Him shall bring gifts, [namely] souls. Nothing so manifests the philanthropy and goodness of the Creator toward us as the leaving behind of the ninety-nine sheep to seek the one that was lost. Pay attention, therefore, O trusted one, and show all your zeal, your love, your fervor, your care, and your prayer to God on behalf of those who are greatly lost and contrite. For where the diseases are great, ^D and where there are stripes, undoubtedly great gifts are also given. Let us consider...

observe, and do. For the head does not always need to prefer strict justice, on account of weakness. I have seen two people being judged by a most wise judge: he declared the unjust one, as being weaker, to be just, and condemned the just one, as being brave and stout-hearted, so that the schism might not become greater through strict justice. Yet he spoke to each of them separately and in private, and most of all to the one who was sick in soul. A grassy meadow is suitable for all sheep alike; but instruction and the reminder of one's departure are more fitting for all rational beings, capable of healing every scab. Look upon the stout-hearted, and honor them; ^B but put to shame, if need be, in the presence of the weak, so that by another medicine you may heal another’s wound, and teach the bearers to be among the faint-hearted. Never does God seem to have made public the sins heard through confession, lest he might by that disclosure deter the rest from the confession of sins, and henceforth prepare them to nurse incurable diseases. For even if we possess foreknowledge, let us not blurt out the failings to those who are stumbling, but rather let us urge them to confession through riddles; for there is given to them, from the confession made to us, no small forgiveness. ^C Let us deem them worthy, after confession, of greater care and familiarity than before, and of greater boldness toward us; for they progress greatly thereby in faith and love toward us. And we ought to show them a pattern of extreme humility, and also teach them to learn to revere us. See to it, however, that your humility toward your children does not, beyond what is necessary to your office, heap burning coals upon their heads. You ought to be patient toward all, except in the case of what is called disobedience. Observe whether you see in your field trees that make the land idle, but which might perhaps be able to bear fruit in another place; let us not, through loving repose, ever shrink from transplanting them by our counsel. There is a time when the one who presides works virtue without danger in places that are unsuitable and pleasure-seeking, or more secular. ^D Let the one who presides, therefore, consider the reception of his charges; for not every rejection and turning away is forbidden by God. If the physician has plenty of peace of soul, he does not need as much of the physical kind for the care of the sick; but if he is lacking in the former, he will make use of the latter. There is no gift so acceptable to God from us as to offer Him rational souls through repentance. The whole world is not worth a soul; for the one passes away, but the other is incorruptible and exists and remains.

^A

TO CHAPTER XIII

Scholion 1. Observe that the beardless ought to have their own separate dining areas and dwellings, just as the great Basil teaches.

Another. He speaks of the education and reception of children, or of those who are smooth-faced and beardless, so that they might be separated in space.

Scholion 2. He treats of the depraved passions of the body. For even as he who encourages others to virtue, although he does not attain what he desires, nevertheless shall receive a crown—for he has done what he could—so he who incites to wickedness shall be punished, even if he achieves nothing by his inciting; for he too has done what he intended.

Scholion 3. He hints at tears and groans, and also at their abundance, their wealth, and their ever-flowing stream.

Scholion 4. He refers to Gregory the Wonderworker, who preferred the solitude ^B given by God over the care of the episcopacy.

Scholion of Maximus 5. He who has been made a partaker of good things from God is obliged to share those same things with others: "Freely," he says, "you received, freely give." For he who hides his talent in the earth slanders his master as harsh and austere. He who has forsaken virtue flatters the flesh. He who sells the truth to the enemy is later caught as a man guilty of vain glory, and since he cannot bear the shame, he hangs himself.

^C

CHAPTER XIV

Do not therefore count those happy, blessed one, who offer gold to God, but rather those who offer rational sheep to Christ. Make the whole burnt offering unblemished, since you have gained nothing for yourself. Just as one must understand that "the Son of Man must be betrayed, but woe to him through whom He is betrayed"—so understand for me the converse, that while many are destined for eternal salvation, the reward shall be with those who, after Christ, became the authors of that salvation. We have need of spiritual power before all things, venerated father, so that those whom we have undertaken to bring into the Holy of Holies, and whom we have sought to show Christ resting upon their mystical and hidden table, ^D especially when they happen to be in the vestibules of the entry; when we see

Chapter XIV

^B It has been said, O greatest of the Fathers, in the preceding writings concerning that father of the Fathers and master of teachers—who he was and how great, entirely adorned with heavenly wisdom, sincere, ingenious, sharp, temperate and modest, easy to grant pardon, and alacritous in spirit; and what is more wonderful, when he marked some who were studious of their own salvation, he expended even greater care upon them. But those whom he saw to be headstrong, abusing their own will for their own desires, he so repressed from the impetus of their affections that the others took great care to give no indication of the things by which they were affected. Furthermore, that most celebrated man always affirmed that it was better to cast the subjects out of the monastery than to permit them to live according to their own judgment, and to be allowed to live by their own sense and arbitration. For it does not rarely happen that he who expelled another was the author of the expelled subject learning modesty and the utter renunciation of his own judgment and will. But he who, through a specious display of humanity and clemency, winks at them and does not deny what they desire, is, when they are at the point of death, ^C fixed by them in a pitiable manner with all manner of curses and imprecations, because he deceived the subjects more than he profited them.

It was therefore possible to see that excellent prelate, after the evening prayers, sitting on a throne (outwardly indeed woven from wood, but inwardly redundant with divine power and heavenly graces), in the manner of a king, whom clever bees, that is, the religious gathering of the brethren, surrounded, who obeyed his orders no differently than if they heard the voice of God. This one was commanded, before he gave himself to rest, to recite fifty psalms; another thirty; another a hundred; another was commanded to bow his knees as many times; another to fall asleep while sitting; another to devote an hour to reading; another to persevere in prayers for the same time; and he nominated two from their number to that task, who would watch the companions by day and correct those idling poorly; and by night [to watch] for unseasonable vigils, and those things which modesty forbids committing to writing. Nor was this the end of his care: he also prescribed a certain diet for each, for they did not all use the same victuals, but according to each one's progress and state of health, the table was tempered, and a drier food was provided by that good head of the family for some, and a richer food for others. ^D There was also a Laura subject to the illustrious man, in which that man, perfect in all things, established those from the monastery who were capable of stillness. He would place the more unseasonable ones into the cunning of thoughts, or rather, if—

and what is marvelous, things commanded by all were carried out without any objection as if they had been given from heaven. The same man, deserving of praise, had a laura subject to him, in which, from the monastery, that prelate, complete in every respect, led those who were more perfect to the quiet of solitude. Beware lest you translate simpler minds toward versatility and craftiness; but rather, if it can be done by any reason, bring the deceitful, the crafty, or the wily toward a certain religious simplicity, ^B although this may seem absurd to them. For he who has arrived at the peak of the soul and body’s purity by way of a perfect victory over all desires, he will use, as a certain heavenly arbiter, accurate reason and diligence in punishing the sins of those subject to him. But he who is subject to the perturbations of the soul and the senses is blunted in his conscience, so that he cannot take notice of the sins of others or expiate them at his own discretion. Above all, leave to your disciples the patrimony of sincere piety and incorrupt doctrine, so that you may lead not only children, but also grandchildren along the paths of orthodox religion to the Lord. Do not fear to press and emaciate lascivious youths, so that at the end of their lives they may pray well for you with thanksgiving. And in this also, that great Moses has prescribed for you a form, most wise one, ^C since he could not deliver the people subject to him—although they were following him willingly and promptly—from the tyranny of Pharaoh, unless they first tasted unleavened bread and wild lettuces. The unleavened bread is the mind that does not defend the dictates of its own will, and keeps its judgments repressed in duty, for the proper will is wont to inflate and exalt the soul; but the unleavened is stationary, and does not swell, but always settles. Wild lettuces denote now the harsher precepts for the subject, now the afflictions of abstinence and fastings. Indeed, while I write these things to you, greatest of Fathers, I am struck by that saying of the one who warns: "You who teach another, do you not teach yourself?" But now, having added this word, I shall bring my discourse to an end.

CAPUT XV.

A mind joined to God through purity desires no instruction, ^D since that blessed one carries within herself the immortal Word of the Father, the heavenly teacher and master by whom she is instructed and illuminated; such a mind—a mind, I say, most pure—I have learned is in your sacrosanct and illustrious dignity, not from bare words alone, but from your deeds, and by use and experience. This shines forth most of all from your gentleness, the singular slayer of monsters, and your modesty, which, as if by certain rays, shines forth just as it does from that great lawgiver, Moses, whose footsteps you follow most patiently; nor are you far from his praise and reward through the struggle of innocence and temperance, nay, you almost surpass them. Through these virtues especially, we must approach God, the purest God and the author and actor of all perfection (who, while we are yet acting on earth, transfers us through this from earth to heaven), by which you, like another Elias, a cultivator of purity, have impigre ascended the flaming chariot. Nor did your virtue fail in this: but you have finished that Egyptian with your hand, and in the sand of submission—

^A or rather, in the beasts of a way of life difficult to traverse—and you have enjoyed the divine voice and the light-bearing brightness; and you have loosed the sandals, I mean all the death-dealing covering; and you have laid hold of the tail—that is, the end—of him who fell from an angel into a dragon, and you have delivered him up, as if in his own lair and in a deep pit, in Egypt and in the blinding gloom of darkness.

Furthermore, you have triumphed over that insolent and proud Pharaoh. You have afflicted the Egyptians with most grievous ills, and you have slain their firstborn—or, what deserves a greater reward, their primogeniture. Hence the Lord of heaven has designated you as the unconquered leader of the brethren, whom you, the prince of leaders, have fearlessly delivered from the muddy work of brick-making in Egypt, and to them you have granted the experience of the vision of God’s fire and the cloud of purity, which extinguishes every flame. And not only this, but you have also scattered for them that Red and raging sea, in which most of us are wont to be in danger of our salvation, and by your rod and pastoral skill have made them victors and trophy-bearers, and have utterly drowned all those who were pursuing them behind their backs.

Nor is this all, but after this, you have also put to flight Amalek, swelling with pride—who is wont to meet the victors after the victory of the sea—by the stretching out of your hands, standing in the midst ^B between action and contemplation, and for the sake of your God-entrusted and God-illumined people, you have conquered the nations. You have brought those with you up to the mountain of stillness, you have established priests, you have delivered the circumcision, without which it is impossible to see God. You have ascended to the height, scattering every fog and gloom and storm—I mean the threefold darkness of ignorance—and you have approached the light, far more venerable and dimmer and higher than that of the bush; you were deemed worthy of a voice, deemed worthy of vision and prophecy. Perhaps even while still here, you saw the things that are yet to be, I mean that final illumination of knowledge which shall happen there. Then, having heard the voice through the cloud, *Man shall not see me and live*, you have descended from the vision of God into the deepest valley of humility in Horeb, bringing with you the tables of knowledge and ascent, your face and body luminous.

Woe is me for my fellowship ^C and the image of the golden calf! Woe is me for the breaking of the tables! And what next? You took the hand of the people and led them through the desert wilderness. Perhaps also for this people, being burned by the heat of the fire of their own nature, you have created a fountain of tears through the wood (I mean the crucifixion of the flesh with its passions ^D and desires). You fight against the nations that encounter you, burning them with the fire of the Lord. You come to the Jordan—for nothing prevents us from briefly traversing the history—and you divide it for the people, just as Jesus did in the Word: the former waters you have assigned to the sea of salt and of death, while the waters of love you have stationed elsewhere from above, in the eyes of these your intelligible Israelites.

^A You further command that twelve stones be carried, having either built upon them the apostolic rank, or, by hinting at the victory over the eight nations of passions [note 9] and in turn the four most general virtues, you have made the Dead and barren sea entirely behind you. You come against the city of the enemy; you blow the trumpet in prayer throughout this seventh [note 87] eternal cycle; you have broken it, you have conquered it, so that you too might henceforth sing to your incorporeal ally: "The swords of my enemy have failed unto the end, and you have destroyed the cities of my passions."

If you wish, to speak of what is most sovereign and powerful of all, you have ascended to Jerusalem—the vision of the soul's perfect peace—and you see Christ, the God of peace. You suffer with Him as a good soldier, being crucified [note 88] together with Him in the flesh, and with the passions, and with the desires. And reasonably so, for since you have been made a god against Pharaoh and all his opposing power, you are consequently buried and descend into Hades [note 10]—a theology, I say, and one fragrant with ineffable mysteries and scented by kin and friendly matrons, or rather, virtues. For what stops me from speaking and declaring this word by word? Since even in heaven you are seated at the right hand [note 11] (O the theft!), ^B and you yourself rise on the third day after the victory over the three tyrants; or perhaps, to speak more fittingly, after the victory of body, soul, and spirit, or after the cleansing of the soul's supposed three days—I speak of passion, irascibility, and the rational faculty [note 12]—you come to the Mount of Olives (for one must be concise and not weave idle sophistries, being filled with wisdom, especially when writing a letter, and excelling in knowledge all those who are over us). Concerning this mountain, a certain eminent runner, as I suspect, said while ascending: "The high mountains are for the harts," [note 60] that is, for souls that destroy the beasts. Running alongside and accompanying this, you have arrived at its base, having looked up to heaven; for again I lead the pattern of the discourse back to the discourse.

You have blessed us, your disciples; you have looked upon the ladder of virtues that has been set forth and firmly established, the foundation of which you have laid—or rather, its completion—as a wise architect, according to the grace of God given to you; even if you have tyrannized us simpletons, being cast out of humility, to lend our filthy mouths to your people. And it is no wonder; for it is customary, according to the pattern of history, even for Moses to call himself weak-voiced and slow of tongue; but he secured Aaron as an excellent interpreter and master of words. But you, O mystic, I know not from whence you have arrived at this point to a waterless spring and one full of Egyptian frogs—or rather, coals [note a]. But since, O runner of heaven, it is not proper that I, having been caught by the fable, should leave the middle of your course and go away, again...

weaving the tribute of your beauty, let us say this: that you have approached the holy mountain, and lifted your eyes to heaven, and placed your foot upon the base, and have run and re-run, and been exalted, and stepped upon the Cherubim of virtues, and have been fledged, and ascended in acclamation, having routed the enemy; and you have cleared the way and led the van; or rather, even now you lead and go before us all, having run up to the very summit of the holy ladder and been united with love; and love is God. To Him be glory, power, honor, and worship unto all the ages of ages. Amen. ^B

ON CHAPTER XV

Scholion 8.

Scholion 9.

Scholion 10.

Scholion 11.

Scholion 12.

Another Scholion of Maximus.

SAINT JOHN, ABBOT OF RAITHU, On the Scholia to the Ladder of Saint John, nicknamed the Scholastic or Climacus.

^A From God Himself let us begin, etc. God is the beginning of all things, as Creator; the middle, as Provider; the end, as Perfecter: from whom we ought to make not only the beginning of speech, but also of intention and work, so that our things may be done for His sake and in Him. And they are called "friends of God," whose experience is possessed by those who are minded toward humility. But he is called "friend" on account of the delightful, as he is called "servant" on account of the useful and the good; and this, indeed, [is so] by condition and creation, as a son; [he is a son] by faith and manner of life, as Paul and Moses. *Through unhesitating obedience* (1): He calls obedience here "unhesitating" on account of the fullness of faith and the perfect mortification of one's own will. *With sorrowful and resplendent humility*: He calls humility itself "sorrowful" because of the support of temptations and punishments, because of the endurance of sad things, and adversities, and penalties, and pressures, and the pursuit of utility, and the chastisement of the body, and the remembrance of death; but he calls the same "resplendent" on account of the inward peace, the beauty of the virtues, the heavenly desires, the hope of eternal things, the charity toward God, and the dignity which it bestows upon its possessors. Humility is also "sorrowful" to the tepid and the negligent, who murmur, are anxious, and grieve in their labors and pains for God's sake; but it is "resplendent" to those who recognize that they are suffering death, and adversities, and martyrdoms for the sake of Christ, and the utility of tribulations, and pains, and death, because of the Holy Spirit. He says *on spiritual tablets*, on account of the firm, solid and indelible character; *on papers*, on account of a clean, chaste, meek, and humble heart; *by will and free choice*: choice and the will of the faculty of decision differ, because the will is of things possible and impossible, but choice is only of things possible; finally, because the will is pre-eminently of the end, but choice is of those things which are toward the end; *Life for all*. According to the reason of creation and the providence of those things that are made, God is called the true life of believers, of the obedient and the diligent; He is excellently called life and salvation, according to the text: "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." *The impious man*: the definition of the pious is manifested in the definition of the impious; and the definition of the unjust, in the definition of the just; although he who is without law, or a transgressor of the law, is called "iniquitous"; but the "unjust" insinuates a transgression of the law of nature, and written [law], and of grace. The impious man is, therefore, he who ^D

^B professes the evangelical and religious life and art, and, being worldly and loose, in delicacies and resolutions and pleasures of this fleeting life, cherishes the broad way [and] converses. The impious man is also he who does not profess the evangelical life on account of the foolishness of human prudence, according to the text: "The fool hath said in his heart," etc., because this person honors and prizes creation rather than the Creator. *Is a lover of God*: he shows the difference between the divine love [of a monk] and that of the world, namely, the holy seculars and the order of the married and the more perfect monks. He says, therefore, concerning the secular saint: He is a lover of God, who, living bodily in the world, does not take part in the aversions that are against nature, since he prefers the motion and order which is according to nature, and the will of God, to everything, united to the charity of Christ. *Perpetual violence of nature*. In the rational nature, there are affections and habits: namely, in the irascible part, fury, anger, indignation, spite; in the concupiscible part, pleasure, desire, sadness. Therefore, he who ascends above these has denied nature entirely. *Whoever... of the present life*: Three intentions of those withdrawing from the world accord with the three renunciations and the three degrees of serving God, according to the great Gregory the Theologian who says: "I indeed know three orders of those being saved: of servitude, of reward, and of sonship." *Let him imitate him who, etc.* Here, according to that great elder who made a monument for himself and his disciple, so that he might lead him to mourning, and might teach him both by example and by word, this saint speaks: and in the present word of contemplation he shows that mourning sanctifies, works, and guards, and stands as a herald of blessed impassibility. *Whoever goes forth from Egypt*: it behooves him who renounces the world to persevere in a cenobium. But if he does not renounce [it] in a cenobium, then he has need to be formed under a master and spiritual father to the mortification of his own will, and to the direction of manners, and the discipline of the discernment of thoughts and spirits: for he proves and praises this through the examples of Moses, and of the Israelites, and of the angel, and of Lot. For if someone is not easily directed in the arts without a master, how much more in this art of arts do we need a master and guide; therefore, there is need of humility, and especially of the prayers of the Fathers, [which] those renouncing the world need. The father says, therefore, that those who renounce, who [are troubled] by spiritual vices (to wit, ^C

^A pride, vainglory, envy, sloth, elation, and sadness), have need of a teacher and guide who is most gentle and merciful, and who indulges the flesh but little, so that they may not be further puffed up as if they were abstinent and zealous: and these are compared to those who have departed from Egypt under Moses. But those who are attacked by carnal vices (namely, gluttony, lust, avarice), have need of a guide who is an abstinent, austere, and uncompassionate man, one who perfects an angelic life almost without flesh, and who by fasting and austerity chastises the flesh and mortifies the vices: and these are compared to those who have departed from Sodom and been directed by an angel.

"The dog used to the slaughterhouse": he calls the vicious mind a dog, on account of its persistence in the thoughts of gluttony and lust, by the metaphor of a dog that lingers in slaughterhouses, ^B because just as that [dog] does not depart from eating the dung-filled intestines of animals, so the gluttonous and fornicating mind cannot abstain from these filthy vices unless (being anticipated by the grace of God) it incessantly exercises itself violently in fatigue, vigils, labor, pain, and mourning. For just as he places the lover of the slaughterhouse first, and afterwards the lover of food: so he joins first the lover of chastity, and afterwards the lover of any visitation. For it is manifest that fornication is opposed to chastity, just as the love of food is opposed to the love of visitation. It is necessary, therefore, for the mind to look upon things lovable to God, and to renounce the things of the soul that are desirable according to the flesh: and thus to prick the deliberation of the will toward the assumption of those things that chastise the flesh, and through the love of virtues, to kill the vicious affections with the sword of the spirit.

"Hard and arduous, but a light struggle": he calls the struggle hard, on account of the chastisement of the flesh; hard, on account of the strict custody of the senses; [hard] on account of the laying aside of old evil habits. Hard, on account of the mortification of one's own will; light, on account of confidence in God, and the gift of grace, and the progress in virtues, and the purity of impassibility.

"To leap into the fire": by fire, understand the temptations of the devil, the world, and the flesh.

"With bitternesses": a laborious and bitter exercise of continence, and of the mortification of the flesh, and of one's own will; but you must add bread: fatigue in true humility, and renunciation, and the struggle against nature and invisible powers. If not everyone who is baptized is saved, but [only] the one who does and keeps the commandments, [so it is] not everyone who is tonsured [who is saved], but he who keeps the things suited to monastics.

"I will be silent about the rest": understand "those who do not keep them, [I will be silent about the fact that they] will suffer worse things": for the future condemnation is most bitter, and for the present, it is a privation of grace, blindness of mind, lack of sorrow, insensibility of heart, and the impious idolatry of avarice, and the prison of shameful passions.

"Not an obscure argument": an argument is that which always behaves in a similar way, like smoke and ash from fire; but a sign is sometimes thus, and sometimes otherwise, just as a striking is a sign of a fight. ^A A sign also is of contingent and probable things, but an argument is of things that follow nature.

"Through another gate": he says, which of the senses, through which the mind living without fear is captured by oblivion and negligence, and the snares of the devil, whence, through grace, mortifying the sense again, it rises up liberated from the prison of its own insensibility.

"Whoever [is moved] by fear": because the operation of intellectual fear is twofold, therefore it is called twofold, namely, purgative and perfective. But the Father speaks here of the purgative [fear], by whose operation we are pricked and incited to the hatred of all visible and concupiscent things, and of our own body, and of our own will, and we are animated to do penance and to leave the world, and we are filled with solicitude and zeal to serve the Lord without negligence day and night. But it belongs to the perfective [fear] to enlighten, to vivify, and to illuminate the soul, and to show God present to the memory, and to reveal to the intelligence the truth and wisdom of God, and to have a sense so that we may experience and know how we are in him, [how] we are moved, and [how] we live. 1. "Who is moved by purgative fear," (says the Father), "is compared to incense," because he begins vehemently from the zeal of spiritual conversation, and ends through tepidity in the highest degree of negligence.

"An ass-mill, indeed, is": but he who through hope seeks a reward is compared to an ass-mill, always in motion, and through the carrying [of the load] making gain, and aggregating tribute, the precious and venerable work of subjection. But he who [acts] out of divine charity, if he finds someone in the field, solicitous and eager, kindled by the fire of charity, he will not relax from his promptness, until he reaches [the end], according to the one saying: "When shall I come, and appear before the face of the Lord."

"There are some who [build] upon stones": hence the holy man speaks of those who renounce, that there are some building upon the rock, upon the bricks, and these are they who perform the building of great virtues in the beginnings without subjection, and (because they have no experience of humble struggles and obedience) they become as fragile [and] weak. But those who place columns upon the earth are those who wish to follow the anachoretic life immediately, from the beginnings, before the purging of vices: for existing without the foundation of subjection, they are cast down and fall. But those who walk a little on foot are those who, without the swelling of elation, take the yoke of obedience, and walk the safe path of subjection with reverence. These, gradually strengthened and kindled by the heat of the Spirit, become indefatigable and impregnable, and having the experience of battles, with the help of God they quickly cross over to the end.

"Not without labor and violence": because with custom perfected into habit, and almost turned into nature, it is truly a struggle to remove and transmute it. For just as a wound of long standing is, as it were, incu-

- rable, so is the use of malice over a long time, and it is grave to abandon it. Hence the Lord says, for the "Kingdom of heaven suffers violence" (Matt. xi, 21). Without sorrow, because of the increase in virtues, and the commutation and liberation from sins; or certainly with very little. But one is slightly saddened because of the desire for perfection, and the fear that we have, lest by falling we offend again. The countenances of our souls: here he speaks of the face of the soul, its virtues. For from the examples of our way of life, and from our changes, and our animal affections, our enemies, the demons, see our consistency and disposition—not that they know our deliberations and minds of themselves: far be it! But they only sow their own arts’ malignity, and wait to see with what affection we receive the snares of their probation: whence we, because of our negligence and sloth, make them see (though they do not). The Lord hides from those in the world the difficulty of the race: he calls it the importunity of the race, according to the acceptance of those who understand badly, to whom the struggle of the contest seems an importunity, whereas it is truly a necessary opportunity: yet the same opportunity (appearing as importunity) God hides from those who are in the world, since if they had looked toward what is opportune for them, no one of such would ever have renounced it. For if, according to the Apostle: "the animal man does not perceive the things ^A that are of the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. ii, 14), but to be joined to God by charity and love is spiritual: how (according to the world) would they have renounced it, even abnegating their own mammon of riches, and the ownership of confusion, unless by a compendium and holy circumvention, He drew and called them? For "flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. xv, 50).—Holding fire in their hands: they hold fire in their hands, so that through consent and vicious acts, they incline to carnal and animal things, and thus they burn us (namely, body and soul). Concerning the three most principal things: by sacred and evangelical authority (from the three distinctions of the monastic way of life), he declares the middle way of virtues, insinuating that the blessed middle way is alone found in the perfect virtues which the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, taught and perfected, and ceasing in wonder; but everywhere in the middle way of virtues, he says that those who recede and seek what is harmful to themselves do so because, without fight and without labor, without vigils and without spiritual exercise, with self-love, they pretend to serve Christ. Whence such as these are not gathered in the name of Christ, because they are ignorant of the will and intention of Christ who gathers. But where "two or three ^B are gathered," etc. Two or three gathered in the name of Christ, active and contemplative, and ruling both body and soul, mind, reason, and will: or, body, soul, and spirit, or rational, concupiscible, and irascible, through the operation of divine good pleasure and command, on the right and on the left, through "infamy and good report."

Chapter II (Col. 654 C)

He spoke concerning every affection of this kind, since by the choice of affection (giving the habit to God) he appointed and devoted to it both the natural, and the accidental, and the artificial habit. For every deposition of habit and affection, contempt, and vileness, and integral repentance, and humble prudence in the end and resolution, exist as the beneficence and provision for our pilgrimage. "Bury the dead," etc. (Matt. viii, 22). Just as he is mortified to the world who has withdrawn from the properties of the world, so he is dead to the life of grace who does not do the precepts of the life of grace: and as, because of the lack of motion and the privation of work, we call an animal dead, so is a man understood ^C to be dead, and is, and is called, from the fact that he does not want to work and imitate the perfection of Christ's commandments, and refuses to adhere to the eternal life which is in the commandment itself, through the voluntary abnegation of the flesh. Adulterous and fake: he calls the good way of life of seculars adulterous, because of praises and vain glory, and because of the use of his own will, and a tumultuous way of life in the cares of existence, and the ownership of things: since those things which are done by the counsel and obedience of the Fathers, and those things which are approved and confirmed by their examination, are right and remaining, and pleasing to God, because they are done according to the will of Him who says: "And I do nothing of myself" (Joan. viii, 58). For that which is done in this way (when it has the quality of being perfect) is preserved unharmed from all vanity. "I have beheld many in the world," etc. This happens according to the industry of the guile and fraud of the deluding enemy, since, detained in the secular life, which is full of many sins and tumults, in which they seemed to be right and to live well, and to progress in virtues according to appearance, they are snared, and fall miserably defiled. This also happens to them because of negligence, irreverence, ingratitude, and elation, and from corrective permission, and from the fact that they do not devoutly hear their pastor, but leave him. Understand "the uncleanness of the world" as the concupiscences and delights of the flesh and the world, and the love of material things and the love of honors and glory. For man is ^D not created unclean, nor is the nature of things or matter such, but because man turns away by his own will from that which is convenient and honest, seeking delectable and sublime things, he is high in heart, because of which he is unclean in the sight of God. The importunate fire of the heart: the importunate fire is all carnal love, and all vicious concupiscence and delight. Therefore the opportune fire is the love of God and knowledge, and the burning and communication of the Holy Spirit: and it is called opportune, because it makes one esteem all things as dung for the sake of God (Phil. iii, 8), just as he is called importunate who...

defiles and stains and destroys the soul: * Abstain from all delights and vices (8*): Here he says one must abstain from all delights and malice. For by delights, understand the lusts of the flesh and all the pleasures of the world; but by malice, understand anger, and uncleanness, and pride, and the remaining inventions. For [the author speaks of] the haven and of salvation, etc. Of salvation, indeed, on account of vigils, conversation, humility, sobriety, and virtuous solicitude; but of dangers, on account of faintheartedness, negligence, lukewarmness, and the evil reassumption of one's own will: because on account of these things, those who are religious are endangered in the haven of the angelic life, just as through obedience and reverence they enjoy peace and salvation.

Cap. III. — Definition of spiritual pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is a true separation from all lusts, pleasures, and malice: for because of separation from vices [one is] inseparable from God, for with vices present, nothing is profitably accomplished. *Every affection of one’s own and of others*: the saint calls "one's own" the attachment of pleasures to oneself, and to one's own things, that is, to household and kin: but "of others," all friendship and affection for any sensual thing, and for all other things that are outside, whether of money or possessions. Or, I judge "one's own" to be [an expression] regarding the wills that are convenient according to the flesh. But "of others," regarding all things which are outside, those mentioned above, from which being alienated, he walks a rational path that bears well toward salvation. *As soon as you have received the flame, run.* Because of our inconstancy and changeability, by which we turn ourselves away from the ray of grace, we are said to be abandoned by God, because He, remaining unmoved in the identity of His own dwelling, and placing and urging Himself upon us, equally and continuously and without acceptation of persons, drawing us also, is not subject to change. Hence our withdrawal is called His abandonment, because by His immobility the cause of our aversion is demonstrated. Therefore, *receiving the flame*, that is, the ascent of grace: *run*, that is, strive to cooperate with it with all virtue: *for you do not know when it will be extinguished*, he says, on account of your temperament, which is unexpected and insufferable, and prone to transmutations. *Then already [come] the thoughts of vanity (9)*: When someone is exalted, and thinks himself to be something, he loses being true: because, since he is nothing, to believe and think this is for him to depart from the truth. *To think humbly* is to be in the truth. *To think proudly* is not to be in the truth: because vanity is a lie and does not allow one to have true being. Vanity, moreover, [consists of] the thoughts and intentions of elation which, taking hold of those who receive them, make them ostentatious and lovers of glory; NOT HIS WIFE, LOT, BUT FOLLOWING HIM, FLEE: for love and affection for one’s own wife turned Lot into a pillar of salt. Affection for food deprived Esau of his birthright. Affection for one's own will raised Lucifer in pride, and cast him into the depths with his followers. Affection for pleasures killed Jezebel, and perverted Solomon into idolatry (11). Affection for money made Judas the traitor of Christ. But he who withdraws from these finds the life of Abraham who was truly a pilgrim, and imitates not his wife, but Lot himself. For hearts which have turned back to that [world]. See, says the saint, how the conversion of the Israelites was not toward the things, but the intention and affection of their minds approached and erred toward the discourses of those things, and on that account they were condemned: for the mind of the people descended not into Egypt, but to those things which were in Egypt. Fear, therefore, even you, O humble servant of God, to have consent to the thoughts of vices, lest you too be condemned by them. And Moses, he who had seen God: Egypt signifies ignorance of God and sin and impiety, but Moses signifies perfect men and preachers of God, who endure many darkenings with such things: who, having often made progress, are burdened by the ignorance, sin, and impiety of wicked men: and more often exaggerated (10) by the conversation of the wicked, they are wrapped as if in certain shadows of anxiety, while they are distressed by the carnal offense, out of zeal for the Lord’s praise. Those who are sent to their own [people] in the same ways in which the Lord was mocked in Nazareth: namely, lest by chance they might say: *Physician, heal thyself* (11). And lest they might say, for *he is our adversary*: and, lest they might say, if he had done signs, we too would have believed: and therefore they also are sent, because Jesus did few miracles there. But when he says, *who is my mother, and what follows* (13), he shows that neither to bear Christ nor to give birth to that super-admirable offspring would have reward or merit without virtue. Therefore he demonstrates that there would be no utility from this, unless he did and fulfilled those things which are becoming, virtuously and supremely. And indeed, in this word, he insinuates true maternal humility to the people, while he demonstrates that she thought or imagined nothing high about such a great Son. Not that [he tells us to hate] our relatives and native lands: *Hatred is a hidden affection, which is adverse to those who grieve us in anything.* Hatred is alienation from that which is sad or an aversion for those who grieve us. Therefore, in none of these things is there a withdrawal by the monk from household and kin, therefore he says us, not as obedient. *For let the Lord rejoice*, etc. (12). God, the lover of men, became humanized, so that He might free you from the poison of worldly and human love. For worldly and human love of the flesh is a prison, and a chain, and hell, and death: from which, whoever

is detained by virtue, height, and clarity, can neither taste, nor see, nor understand, ^A nor think. Therefore, the joy of Christ is in our perfect withdrawal from earthly, worldly, and carnal love. Beware, I implore you. The devil, in order to turn back the servants of God under the guise of seeming reasonable piety, shows them that either their parents are in great penury and countless tribulations, or that they are living in great danger of soul and ignorance, and that all they possess must be submerged under a kind of flood of divine judgment, unless he quickly helps them, who are so vehemently afflicted, with an ark of counsel or favor. Therefore, this holy man says now: See, see, that neither under the pretext of preaching, nor under the guise of bodily relief, is it permitted for you to turn back to the love or care of parents: because this world, which to you, as you ^B passibly love your own, seems to be filled with waters, flesh and blood have revealed, along with Satan, so that you might perish and poorly abandon the harbor of angelic conversation. They promise us cunningly: They are ours, and they are not ours, those parents according to the flesh; who are ours by the condition of nature, are not ours according to the purpose and will of the service of God: whose thoughts are frequently directed against us by the demons, so that those things which are of strangers may become ours. But they, being accepted, become ours through consent, having had their origin from the strangers and hostile demons and parents, and we are punished for them. Evil communications, secular as well as shameful. And indeed, worldly speeches, wisdom, and prudence are embellished, because by the pride of eloquence they inflate vanity and extol pride; they are incongruous and remain unadorned among the servants of God: for worldly speeches are unadorned, ^C lasciviously and viciously and shamefully spoken, which, even if they are said elegantly and gracefully, yet do not injure slightly but maximally. Therefore, worldly speeches are utterly useless, because they are either temporal and carnal, or proud and erroneous, and entirely to be avoided and fled from. ^D A dream is a movement of the mind. A vision is a certain phantasy, by which, as if in sense, it is seen almost manifestly. A dream is that which (while sleeping) is imagined in phantasy. He speaks of the immobility, pause, and rest of the body, according to which sleepers rest, and the body remains motionless, the one suffering, the other subsisting.

Chapter IV. — What Abnegation Is (col. 679 A)

^A One states that obedience is the stadium of intellectual confession, and a spiritual struggle of martyrdom, and the patient endurance of the yoke of Christ, the deposition of sins, an enrollment in the book of life, a crossing of the fluctuating sea. Whence one will not think to pass over to anything more perfect without it; but since the malignant one is accustomed to bring this trouble upon those who are under obedience—namely, that they should undervalue themselves, for the reason that they do not have fasting, nor pure prayer, nor diligent exercise, nor other spiritual works that are in those who are in seclusion—this our holy Father enumerates the goods of obedience, compared to which all other goods are nothing; for obedience fills the place of all these. When it has been perfected, it itself, in its own time, brings with it all spiritual goods, and leads its possessors to varied contemplation, perfection, and quiet. Stadium of the concourse: the stadium is the progress of the spiritual fight, and the sweet odor of good operations, an unceasing zeal in the mortification of the will and the senses of the flesh, and a humble exercise for every good work, and a meditation on the commandments of God and an imitation of his passion and death. Whoever the yoke of Christ: Understand obedience, because just as through it we have been redeemed and saved by Christ Jesus, so we, through it properly and singularly, bear the yoke, and the Fathers call it martyrdom, because it is the furnace and exercise of the servants of God, and compared to it all goods whatsoever that are done by one's own sense and will are nothing. But if we have acted otherwise ^C he argues, he is the cause of dangers to himself and his disciple. Otherwise, he says, one who curiously searches for the sins of others, and scrutinizes, discerns, suspects, and judges, and especially those of his superior, has not seen the way of penitence, nor made a beginning of penitence, but holds the way of pride and precipice. No one without which of the vicious: For many have pleased God without subjection, such as Paul the Hermit and Mary of Egypt, and many others: how then, without it, will no one see God? We say, therefore, that he who perfectly subjects the flesh to the spirit, and possesses the goad of conscience as a judge, and obeys it, leaving nothing to himself of his own will, he, having become obedient to divine precepts, before he passes through visible obedience, reaches intellectual obedience, which much exceeds the visible. If the soul, body, and spirit replace the letter and grace of the Gospel, the law and glory, grace and it, it makes them commendable. And you have those who around the great Anthony shone through intellectual obedience, and as angels through it obeyed the Lord, only minding heavenly things, of whom the world was not worthy. Intellectual obedience therefore precedes visible obedience incomparably; and as the sun by its rising hides the stars, so does intellectual obedience hide the visible. Wherefore, those who do not possess intellectual [obedience], but are still troubled by vices, cannot progress or be saved without visible obedience, like little children and under the night of vices. It is well then said ^A without which no one of the vicious will see the Lord Jesus Christ: Since therefore intellectual obedience is perfected by divine illumination, and possesses conscience as a judge, we must see what conscience is: Conscience is the motion and operation of divine knowledge, with ours and in our knowledge. Conscience is a spark of divine light, sub-sown in man from the beginning, as a certain warmer, illuminative thought, containing in itself the word or reason of light, and showing him good and evil: and this conscience is called the natural law. This is the well of Jacob, as the Fathers said, which the Philistines filled up. To which, as long as we are on the way, we are commanded to consent; but we consent to it when we keep it toward God, through faith and obedience, and the love of the commandments; toward our neighbor, through piety, patience, and humility; toward ourselves, through the mortification of the senses, the custody of the heart and tongue, and hatred of the body and of all visible things and of one's own will: toward matters and the use of things, through temperance and sobriety and their faithful custody, showing in them, as in sacred things, the reverence and servitude of the Lord. He who is subject: He who is humbly subject will not think himself to be perfectly subject or to obey, because he understands that the work of obedience is immense; but he who does something out of his own sense and will, although he may appear to obey, yet he himself carries a burden against himself; whence, if he who is in charge of such a one does not ^D exist. Therefore, the Father says: I have nothing to say on this, because by a dubitative word he shows him to be guilty in judgment. Regarding confession, without which no one has remission, etc.: Because we are bound to confess sins simply by the necessity of the divine commandment, it is evident from apostolic traditions and the rules proposed by them to the catholic Church, through the Holy Spirit, whose canons and institutes we holding, by confessing our sins to the priests (according to their precept) we are made worthy to receive indulgence and remission: therefore, without which, the holy Father says: No one will see God. - Of the brother so that in nothing his conscience might be wounded. Conscience is wounded by many deeds: by arrogance and pride, superfluous prudence, seduction, infidelity, lying, fraud, deception, contempt, spite, murmuring, detraction, vengeance, and the rest that are born from these. So that it might be precipitated into the most grave ruin of the soul. He says that the most grave fall of the soul is none other than that he should have extraordinarily tasted and furtively and secretly eaten of those things which the animals were carrying, which is a most grave sin, and almost inexpiable, as our great Father Basil clearly declares in the Prologues of his rule, where he shows that one defiled by such a fault will be as if incorrigible. Whence he teaches that the commission of such evil, even to the mere taste of the tongue, is to be entirely (like an obligation of death) avoided. Who, therefore, this fur-

-^Ather asserts, has brought himself into the most serious fall of the soul.

“Statue in the gateway of thy heart severe doorkeepers.” By “severe doorkeepers,” he means the special and general virtues of the soul—namely, fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. “Fix them to the wood of the soul,” etc. By “wood,” he speaks of the mortification of the flesh and its crucifixion with its desires. By the “cross of the soul,” he speaks of the mortification of one's own judgment and one's own will, through which we conquer the devil and possess imperturbable peace. For we attain no profit from the crucifixion of the flesh unless we bind and confirm within it the mortification and crucifixion of our own judgment and our own will.

“Again to an inept and useless and thorny prayer.” The holy Father calls those things “not elegant,” “not profitable,” and “thorny” that are his own—namely: not elegant according to eloquence, on account of a simple and ordered mode of speech; not profitable according to worldly rest and convenience; thorny, according to the harsh narration and the hard rule of the spiritual life, according to that evangelical saying: “This saying is hard.” It is indeed excellent to admire the labors of the saints. Since God is good and a lover of mankind, He reveals to us many ways of saving justice so that we might not perish, but be saved according to His great mercy; because God did not make man so that he might perish, but so that he might serve Him and be saved. Therefore, the callings of men are various, and His gifts different. Hence, one is a lover of hospitality, another is a keeper of quiet and solitary withdrawal; another consoles and exhorts the afflicted, another guards his tongue and is silent. This one eats once in the week; that one eats every day. Wherefore, it is impossible for all these things to be practiced by one person. “Until our violence, which we suffer as if from ourselves.” Those who offer violence are those who have been wounded by divine charity and who offer violence to God through prayer and virtuous works, and are drawn by divine love to bear the yoke of Christ with a humble heart and a devoted spirit, who do violence to themselves, according to that saying: “I was troubled, and I did not speak.” “When I had fallen, you again brought me back”—that is, after a fall. Do not, however, understand a fall that separates one from God, but a fall which (to those serving and ministering) happens out of negligence and imperfect obedience. “But he who hides it in the secret places of his heart,” etc. It must be known that sins which are not confessed are practiced without dread and fear. To take away the conscience of confession, therefore, is to open the door to sins and to sow heresy. “When he who is subject has escaped two snares.” By “these two,” he means disobedience and elation. “Beyond the accustomed manner, turbulent”—that is, those who are easily moved to fury and anger, like a mill which, by the force of the wheel and the water, determines motion. ^A It is necessary for the sea to turn and be troubled.

He introduces the likeness of the sea to demonstrate the passion of the vicious mind, which, just like the sea, is troubled and inflated by intellectual winds—that is, by the temptations and injuries and insults of those who are under the president—and is moved by the rebukes which are brought upon it for test and utility by the brotherhood. Therefore, while vices are stirred up within, and move the irascible part to anger, and confuse the rational part, not allowing it to see what is useful and to hold what is better, as if vomiting forth the pre-assumed filth, the sea of the mind shows what the rivers of vices had first brought into it, namely, in a time of tranquility and good constitution. Now, therefore, it is necessary for the sea to be troubled, because, since we do not take the argument of humility from our own conduct, we are necessarily immersed in temptations, that we may be tested and weakened, and being weakened, be purged, and be perfectly humbled. He says, therefore, it is necessary for the sea to be shaken and troubled. From obedience comes humility. For obedience is the principle of humility, since he who does not condemn himself as falling short of the virtues is not able to be under the hand of another. Therefore, such condemnation draws and agitates the soul to obedience; but obedience, strengthened by the fear of the Lord, generates humility, while humility makes one a perpetual exile from pride. But he who is free from this, and cleansed from the rest, is therefore announced as a house of impassibility and purity.

Therefore, he appropriates obedience, humility, and impassibility to three, namely: Moses, the Synagogue, and Mary. Since the Jews, while crossing the Red Sea and singing the triumphal praise of God over the victory, had Moses as the progenitor and author of that same praise and victory, and Mary as the perfecter (being indeed one from the common), so also he now says that we must receive obedience in the person of Moses; humility in the synagogue; and impassibility in Mary. Moses is interpreted as “water,” or “taken from the waters.” Mary is interpreted as “light,” which had derived its origin from the Synagogue. Therefore, in the one taken from the waters is the generation and fecundation of the rest through obedience; but obedience gives the possession of humility; humility, however, provides the light of impassibility; but impassibility, over the victory, perfects the praise, the canticle, singing in joy for the liberation from the intelligible Egypt of sin. “I have seen,” as Job says, “that to the habit and illegal natural [inclination] and exterior composition of manners and the apparent fictitious honesty to which the crowd occurs, is bound the nature of the variety of malice.” The crowds name and extol that which appears humble and well-mannered and composed according to the face; on account of which proud and irritable hypocrites (the saint says) are stung by praises and elation, and pa-

- ^B riet tears. Considering these things, as most wisely and clearly as possible, this Father has determined that malice is multiform. Indeed, if one is slow and negligent, or appears naturally suitable in some bodily matter, he has pleased many, and has been praised for the gravity of his morals and for his honesty: just as someone who appears naturally suitable for some bodily task, only on the surface, has pleased many. Therefore, usually, natural sufficiency or diminution has been reputed as a virtue of the soul: lax and insolent, meek and disorderly, and deserting the things of the spirit, solicitous, slothful and sad, a talker, talkative and vain: a savior of souls; he is held by those who do not know how to discern what is right and what is vicious to be one deluded by demons, a contemplator, and a foreseer of future events. Indeed, (as he who exults in praises) blind man is ignorant of himself and errs: focusing on the false judgments of the many, he will prick his soul out of elation and vanity, and grieving he will be crushed, and he will bring forth tears. Therefore, the Father wonders that malice is thus multiform and varied. He who has secretly persuaded himself secretly. In the heart (he says) study to strengthen a good purpose, and do not speak in a pompous and ostentatious manner, expanding your mouth. For he who praises himself pompously, and trusts and glories in himself, being relaxed, is punished by the Lord by a fall: but the death of the soul exists as worse than a thousand deaths. If, therefore, his death is sin, how much vigilance and solicitude is necessary for us against sin: therefore, he who knows these things will strengthen ^C himself in hope and silence, for the sake of patience, in order to persevere in the stadium of monastic life: and even if he offends and sins, he will repent again, and he will never withdraw from the stadium of holy necessity. But if any have departed. Understand, from the monument of the angelic [(17)] life, from work and affection, with the obedience of the Fathers rejected. Consider that they have died with an immortal death, and have been separated from God, which is infinitely worse than any bodily death. When they have felt—for they are more fragile and sluggish—heavy [burdens], etc. When, therefore, you approach the labor of your hands, reform such a thought in yourself, you who minister to Christ who informs you for works (even unto death) through precept and example. While working, praise your God with your tongue, reflect in your mind, and glorify with your intention. For he who is unfaithful and lazy in labors and works will be much more lazy, unfaithful, and lax in prayer. Truly, prayer will by no means be directed [well] in bodily rest, but in labor and action. The love of rest. He proclaims that it is the extermination of prayer and the diminution of virtues, and he proclaims one ought to neglect the commandments. Hence, the Father shows that he who leaves the service of ministry (that is, the operation of the hands)—that initial work meant to help and quiet the brother—when asked by the brother, [is wrong]. He desires and understands the works of the hands to be heavenly and not earthly: therefore, not his own, but he wishes them to be common, for the utility of the needy. But the others, not out of chari- ^D ty but viciously, seek what is their own badly, not the things of Jesus Christ. Let them attend to themselves, because one thing is what we are, another is what is ours, another is what is around us, another is what is outside us, and another is what is against us. Many from the flock of the obedient, etc. Never receive him who is subject to you, saying to you: "Give me license and power to perform such an operation or virtue," and: "Allow me thus to direct myself toward that which is spiritual." For he who speaks thus, it is manifest that he is seduced and has fulfilled his own will, and despises the covenants of the best obedience, and being deceived and deluded, he loses the merit of obedience before God: There are some who, having accepted the command, etc. Each of these, in his own time, is laudable. For the second, according to the beginning of the discipline introductory to the virtues, does better, being obedient inconstantly: for he is still from the rank of those to be tested. But the first, because he now approaches perfection, and has exhibited the demonstration of obedience for a long time, sensing the will of the Father, does good, not doing what he knows that He does not want. For he will not further offer rational service as a slave, but as a son and a friend, searching out the will of the Father, he will perform the well-pleasing will. It is impossible that the devil, etc. It is unworthy and inconsistent, he says, that the devil should resist his own will. For he wants every man to live negligently and viciously, and to fulfill his own will, rather than God’s: If therefore he finds any such, he will not resist them, because, if he resisted them, he would altogether resist his own will. Which is not for the sake of judging, etc. I do not speak, he says, judging from suspicion, but I show the efficacious movement of the vice in the name of the preceptor, but not in reality, and I manifest the passion of a young man over-ascending the virtues of the elders and the greater ones. But when he, having received a seal from the king, etc. The seal of faith is baptism. The signs of spiritual warfare are repentance and tears which purge this; but the shield is the flight from the world, the hatred of every pleasure of the present life; the sword is faith toward the pastor; the blade is the renunciation of one's own will; the bow is prayer through which demons are shot; the military garment is humility, and the covering of the virtues that come from it. 5 Step 5. And the secure care of oneself. Because he cares for no earthly thing, but is solicitous for himself as to how he may reconcile God to himself, and find his salvation lost through sin, by repenting and mourning he hastens and becomes one judged for himself, because he who is penitent contemns all things that are of the world, and by punishing himself, and being vigilantly distanced from all judgment, from the true knowledge of himself, he discerns himself worthy of the extreme judgment. Through himself, therefore, the thought is judged, because he needs no other for judgment: but he who is penitent is himself his own judge and avenger. Before we fall, etc. Pleasant and...

sweet to us, he proposes the demon externally, in order to draw us to sin, suggesting and asserting that the guilt of sin is almost nothing, and that God is benign and merciful. In this he is truly an enemy, because internally, what is evil and bitter (namely the death of body and soul) he fraudulently hides: ^A which after the fall, that he may make us despair, he proclaims insulting us, becoming an avenger who had been (by seducing us) a treacherous enemy. For often small gifts, etc. Demons do not want us to understand how bitter it is to sin and offend God. Therefore, when they see us approaching a certain sense of the infinite bitterness hidden in our sins, then they press in and say: "Why do you crush yourself and despair? For you have not committed such or so great a sin (as many others have)." For demons hate the spirit of contrition, and they strive to sow the joy of false hope in us, so that they may otherwise extinguish the spirit of contrition in us. Do not, however, obey them: because, just as small gifts frequently mitigate the anger of a judge, so too, for the most part, what are deemed by us to be small offenses (when they have been repeated more often) when aggregated together, make Christ our most benign judge rise justly against us in fury. Moses, when he had seen God, etc. The sign of a perfect and virtuous conversation is to see the fire in the bush ^B; for it is inaccessible to many. But then the fire burns in the bush, when the flesh and the will, being both mortified, sense and love those things which are of the spirit. But for the most part, human frailty slides down from the height of the spirit, and succumbs in the battles. But will he who falls not rise again? But, like David and Peter, let him strive not only to rise again, but to ascend to higher things. The Father shows, therefore, by the example of Moses and Job, that it is possible after a fall, even to return to impassibility, the confidence of which hope the devil buffets through negligence and idleness, while he extirpates within us the works (through which impassibility is perceived). Attend, I pray, more diligently, etc., namely with the eyes of the mind and spirit, because seduced by sensual delight we have wandered, but we must return by a shorter way: namely, through humble wisdom, and through a humble word, and a contrite heart, and a sincere and complete confession. Since in damp wood, ^C fire is kindled with difficulty. Deeply in a heart loving rest and pleasures, the fire of the spirit will not burn, but in a contrite and humbled soul, which deems labors to be delights. Mourning is a goad of the soul, golden. This is said to differentiate it from the iron goad which pricks those who love earthly and vicious things through the sadness of death, and is full of deadly poison. But the golden goad pricks with a holy and gladdening sadness and with divine charity, bearing upwards to heavenly things those who love the virtues of Christ and faithfully perform his commands. Confession is an oblivion of nature, etc. It is, however, a true confession, through divine knowledge, an ecstasy into God; from which follows the oblivion of one's own nature in him who, according to the Prophet [∗∗], forgets to eat his bread. Stand in the prayer of petition, etc. Just as one bound by iron ^D cannot run, so also the mind, serving vices, cannot see the place of spiritual prayer. For he who tries to carry out prayer with vices is captured by vicious thoughts and seductive intellects. Rightly, therefore, is the fight against impurities, that through purity you may find prayer. And write this in your heart, that the love of pleasure and rest is the cause of separation from God. For the heart that loves these things is the dung-heap and sewer of the creature. For the bitterness which is hidden in these same pleasures and rest is felt uselessly at the time of departure. But a heart that loves labors, reproaches, and sorrows, is an open gate, by which it will find pastures at the time of departure. As a creature, etc. By itself motion, and always motion, is divine providence; the alteration of motion, and easily motion, is the alteration and motion of the creature, which is not always motion. It is said, however, that compunction of heart arising from the grace of God is an alteration of motion, to differentiate it from the compunction coming from human effort, which is of itself motion. Illustration 18 is a certain ineffable efficacy, etc. Not through mourning alone, but through the patience of tribulations and temptations is the servant of God approved: and through true mortification of all the senses of body and soul, he is cleansed from the pollution of vices: and through contemplation and the reception of the high illuminations of God, he is made perfect. For the Lord came from Sina: that is, from temptations and tribulations; and shone upon us from Seir, which is, bodily labors and sorrows; and rested from Mount Pharan with thousands of Kadesh, that is, from the mount of faith, with the infinite sciences of the saints. There are materials which our sources, etc. As pleasures, gluttonies, banquetings, wine, women, the use of delights, and the love of all sensuality and carnality, all of which do not only dry up tears, but exterminate every good. Flee therefore, flee, you who are religious, from delights, wine, and women, which are for you a cause of sin, and make the wise to apostatize 19. For even the just Lot, Noah, David, and Solomon, were led astray by these things. There are also other materials, such as the love of position and honor, and the desire for praise, name, knowledge, and sanctity, which puff up empty wisdom into pride, and pluck it up by the roots from every virtue, and cast it down to the infernal regions, by which even the devil fell: That the materials of virtues, are the materials of vices 19, etc. The mothers of virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, which are said to be made occasionally by adversaries the mothers of malice, not by conversion, but by abuse, which is truly a fall from them. Indeed, by excess and deficiency, we depart from the middle way of the virtues: as, from prudence, through craftiness and…

fear; from temperance, through incontinence and severity; ^A from justice, through avarice and falsehood, and through the fervent zeal of anger and a false piety. "May Jesus teach you," etc. Elias, and John, are the type and form of perfect conversation. Those who withdraw and pray, and who, seeking and cultivating solitary places far from the world, and segregated from the tumults of seculars, have taught the lovers of perfection that both the place and the manner are equally optimal and necessary for the study of the virtues. And they have shown how the place gives beauty and form to the manner of living perfectly. Wherefore it is not the manner alone (as some simply and wrongly say), but also the place, that is necessary for the operation of virtue, which contributes most greatly both the solace and the help to those seeking perfection. Whence also our adversary (says this holy Father) for the most part moves the servants of God—who for some reason are conversing in cities and among the tumults of men—to tears, so that he may deceive them in such a way, and make them draw near to the world, and, from this, be defiled in their words, conversations, and works.

Chapter VIII (col. 827 C).

The voiding of anger is the overcoming of nature. He calls it the victory of nature, the total deposition of anger and fury, and the mortification of concupiscence: for men naturally have the capacity to be angry and to covet. Iracundia [irascibility] is sudden heat of the heart, etc. Anger is a lingering sadness, and a persevering impulse toward vengeance. Or, anger is an habituated memory of malice, with hatred for the one who causes the sadness. Fury is an inconstant movement of the character, etc. Fury is an ebullition and inflammation and evaporation, precipitously rushing toward the retribution of one who causes sadness. Indeed, just as they might have demolished the whiteness of the dove with ink, etc. He who acts patiently according to outward appearance, and pretends to love Christ, and (until the time of retribution) hides himself through silence, and waits that he may return evil for evil, as if by ink, he exterminates the dove: because he kills the charity and purity, which is signified by the ^B dove, through the tenebrous memory of malice and the black lividness of fury, with the tranquility of the heart, and the peace and longanimity lost, in which the hope of God was resting. Therefore, "the sum against the serpent," etc. He calls anger and fury the serpent, on account of the hard, lethal, and malignant heart: hard, because the furious man wounds now this one, now that one, because, while he exhibits himself as a servant to the vice through consent and evil work, he offers an occasion of disturbance and scandal to the rest every day (with the adversary cooperating). Anger is, moreover, a frenzied passion, infatuating those who have knowledge, making the soul feral, and causing it to decline from every affability, and from this it is dire, lethal, and malignant: by which it is moved by a vehement wind, and the furious man is disturbed by thoughts which are without intellect. The evaporations of darkness obscure the air, and the movements of fury the mind of the irascible man, [the anger] has darkened the sun—a cloud running downward, and the mind [darkened] by the thought of malice. The lion, in the hunt, frequently moves its tail; and the furious man, in his cell, [moves] the thoughts of anger. Another [point], in those who are still being instructed, who are raw, from weeping, etc. Those who are newly introduced, as if by a certain bridle, with tears and sighs, and obedience, in a subjected mind, restrict and bind every anger and fury. Those, however, who are perfect, are armed as if with a two-edged sword with blessed impassibility, and in it they kill and put to death every anger, and fury, and they remain for the rest free from snares. Indeed, the holy virtues are compared to Jacob’s ladder, etc. Fittingly, on account of the lifting up and carrying upward to heavenly things: but malice is compared to a chain, on account of the fact that it is heavy and hinders every good, and binds, and weighs down, and ^C drags toward more confused manners and works, and one link is joined to another in a chain, because out of one malice another is contracted. But beautifully he compares malice to a chain falling from Peter, the head of the apostles, because he declares that it is possible for us by the grace of God, through fervent faith and true penance (which are signified in Peter), to cast it from us, and return to the liberty of the virtues. "This is also tenebrous," etc. This, he says, is a vice especially sad and more tenebrous, among all things that generate and those that are not generated, as also the vices that are generated. For it is generated by the memory of malice, and by fury: for anger with fury generates it itself, but it itself brings forth hatreds and homicides: wherefore he says it, more than the generators, and not generators, and the generated, to have sadness.

Cap. X (col. 846 C).

Therefore, and after greater things, etc. The progenitors of detraction are these: fury, from anger; from anger, hatred; from hatred, memory of malice; from memory of malice, detraction; from these, envy, and thus finally homicide. "Thin languor," etc., because, as if there were no fault, it appears to the detracting person, but detraction is altogether thick, and as it were a latent and hidden perdition of the soul. Just as certain ones are adolescent girls, etc. These are: gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, scurrility, vainglory.

Cap. XI (col. 851 B).

The watchtower of the enemies. Because it not only guards against attackers, silence in knowledge, but it does not even allow them to approach. It is of the few, in truth, etc. By the obstruction of the belly from which it is prohibited, and through abstinence, the tongue is bound, for what is food for a body that is in good health, this is a temptation for a manly mind and one that loves God. The north wind, nourishes the crops and makes them take root, and temptations prove and strengthen the hearts of holy men and their souls. Clouds without water are driven away by the wind, and a lying man, repels the justice of God from himself.

Cap. XII.

Who, with jokes and idle speech, etc. Scurrility is joculatorious discourse, and the producing of laughter, into which one frequently is precipitated by much speaking.

^A Audientium luctus, miserabiliter demoliti sunt. Audientes [Hearers] are those who are in repentance: for there is a rank of those existing in repentance, which is called the mourners, who stand outside the gates of the Church. The Father therefore calls these "Hearers," namely, those who lament over their transgressions. There is, therefore, an apostolic tradition concerning the division and ordination of penitents, of those to be purified, and of catechumens. There are indeed five places for penitents: the place of the mourners, when the penitent stands outside the precinct of the church, and falling down with weeping, asks for prayer from those entering, prostrated before their feet; the place which is called the hearers, before the gates which are called the basilica, to hear the service, where the penitents hear the divine office; the subsequestration, which is the station of the church, within the precinct of the church, in the rear part of the ambo. Whence also, he who is there, in the exclamation which is made to those about to leave, even he leaves with them from the consistory, and is settled there, who continue until the completion of the sacred mystery. The station with the faithful is the participation of the life-giving bread, and the communion and libation of the cup of the Lord. *When we have been cleansed from lying, etc.* But, he says, when the time calls the one who in all things and everywhere is truthful and simple to exchange either word, or death, or supposition, you have David, Abraham, Rahab and Samuel in the anointing of David.

CHAPTER XIII.

^C Whoever therefore keeps the first commandment. Whoever agonizes and struggles out of the fear of the Lord, so that he may please God, he, being freed from carnal fear, and gluttony, and the vanity of life, has his conversation in heaven: because from struggles, humility; from humility, divine illumination; from divine illumination, chastity comes to man, and thus he remains a son of Christ's regeneration, freed from the contagion of the prevarication of Adam and from the curse of the Law, being made a little lower than the angels through death, so that, having been thus humbled, he might hate and cut away sin, and might be by virtue and grace a Son of God. And a terrestrial shield for the heart, that is, a ^D converter and repeller of demons; for the difference of the shield of the paraclete and the angelic, manifesting, from this, the excellence of the future glory of the defense of the Holy Spirit, and of angelic dignity, by whose ministration we are protected and fortified as if by an impregnable shield. *Not he who has kept the clay of the flesh without stain, etc.* After the fall of the first parent, he says the body is corruptible, whose members he subjects to the spirit, who uses the senses according to nature and divine service, and in nothing offends God, but looks toward Him and imagines Him, and contemplates the eternal and remaining beauties, which are in His kingdom. *For from the whiteness of the dawn, light, etc.* In the present example, one exists as the conciliator of the other: for the dawn of light is the light of the sun. He calls the dawn, humility; he calls the light, divine illumination; he calls the sun, chastity. Therefore, from struggles, humility, from ^A [A, continued] the same, divine illumination; from the same, chastity. He compares the first to the daystar, the second to the full moon, the third to the sun. For these, by reason, as if by a certain sword, cut away themselves, etc. Because they manfully storm the principles of vicious thoughts, and recoil from every delight, and consent, and evil work. *Wretched indeed is he who falls, etc.* Everyone who by a word of doctrine, or by the example of a work, or by an indiscreet or unjust precept, pushes and immerses a brother or a subject into a pit, is, before the Lord, guilty of himself and his neighbor: whence he shall be judged indeed as the author and actor of death. Let us observe diligently, and we shall see our very spiritual ^B enemies, etc. Truly, let us observe, he says, how the enemy, against each one, according to what he has seen him disposed, sets an battle: and in what he has known us to be more inclined, and that we can be more easily captured; therein he stretches the snares of his malignity: as for instance, according to custom, or age, or mode, or place, or manner of familiarity, he introduces not indecent, but compatible and possible inventions and thoughts and prepares occasions, by which he may impugn each one, and easily supplant and destroy. *This, neither mine nor mine, etc.* He called the flesh "mine," as indeed joined to the soul, and beloved by it: but "not mine" as warring against the soul, and as its apparent impugner. Whence the Apostle 21, because of the scandals to the soul coming about through the flesh and from the flesh, called it death. Gregory the Theologian ^C indeed called corporeal generation libidinous, servile, and nocturnal, as a work of concupiscence and of lust and of night, and spiritual, and contrary to the generation of the letter, from infirmity and original contagion. Nor from this is the flesh accused or cursed; for he does not say, the body of sin, but the body of death; namely, subject to servitude by death, but not generating death: which indeed is not of the malignity of the flesh, but is the riddle of the fall which it sustained. And as, being captured by the Barbarians, one is not a Barbarian: so the body is called a body of death, because it exists conquered and detained by death; and therefore the body is not death, nor the begetter of death: wherefore neither does he himself ask to be freed from the body, but from the mortal body. *I think it should be asked, who might be greater, etc.* Not dying, are by nature angels: to these are likened those who, by the grace of Christ, have kept their chastity of natural excellence; but the dying and rising one is Christ. ^D From which, this saint consoles those rising after the death of the flesh, because of humble and prompt repentance and obedience beating them: insinuating from this, that no one of men is ever entirely without sin, although some appear to us to have fled vices and sins. For there is no man who lives and does not sin. Wherefore he concludes: he who beats him who according to appearance is without sin, is deceived, because Christ alone is without sin, who also died, and rose again. Who

^A then is it who escapes the death of sin? For there is surely no one who does not offend and sin. These, therefore, are those who are to be blessed, who by true repentance are recalled and renewed. Let him, therefore, who has chosen the way of repentance and [a] religious [life] see how he might live according to God: for if he does not mortify himself perfectly from cares and delights and vices, he becomes a liar, denying what he promised, and he proves himself entirely unworthy of the number of those to be blessed, if he does not amend himself as quickly as possible through true confession and repentance. What is it that creates such a man, seduced by other sins, etc.? Indeed, someone offends, and through the very path by which he was perverted, he returns again to the Lord. For he denied (if it may be said so) with his tongue, and with his tongue he confessed again: he committed theft with his hands, and with his hands he again dispersed and gave to the poor, and in other things similarly. But he who commits fornication, he will not return to the Lord by the same path through which he fell: wherefore, properly, fornication is called a fall, and not an offense. Indeed, because for the monastic conversation this is surely (namely, to have and preserve virginity) above other things supremely proper, which the profession of the name of monk and the promise both require: rightly, therefore, he who has corrupted his virginity has truly fallen, violating what he promised. Wherefore, strictly speaking, fornication is called a fall and not an offense, both because it falls from the integrity of nature and because it falls from the proper dignity of the profession. To this, one who offends against opinion, by thinking that he judges rightly, is struck with a blow according to ignorance. But he who commits fornication, knowing that it is an evil work, overflows with that delight in his senses and does not suffer out of ignorance. And heresy, indeed, consists of evil only in the soul, but fornication has completed the sin of corruption in the body by consenting to evil from the election of the soul’s will. Since, however, there is nothing natural that might attack him who is being converted from error, he is totally cleansed by conversion: but he who [is converted] from fornication needs time, labor, and tears, so that he might avert the qualified and infused delight and the wound of concupiscence. Avarice or cupidity is the worship of idols. There are three things causing avarice: the love of concupiscence, the love of glory, and infidelity, which is even crueler than the two. Indeed, just as it is impossible for life and death to exist together in the same thing, so it is impossible for one fond of money to have charity.

CAP. XIV.

CHAPTER XV. — To step 21.

Chapter XVI.—To step 22.

CHAPTER XVII.—Ad gradum 23.

Chapter XVIII.—Ad gradum 24.

CHAPTER XIX. — To step 25.

*Unus in omni creatura locus, etc.* The chorus is the depth of the Red Sea which, in the crossing of the children of Israel, once saw the sun: and one thought, that is, the fixed thought of death, and meditation on eternal judgment, and on the cross and death of Christ, has many times brought forth humility. *Uno et solo die totus mundus exsultavit, etc.* Namely, on the day of Christ's resurrection, or of his nativity. Others have spoken of the day on which Noah went out from the ark with his wife and sons and all the animals, and offered sacrifice to God. Spiritually it is said: the reasons of all existing things, in the creation of the producer, are seen in man alone, made from intelligible and sensible things. Therefore, on the day of this privation from sin, and of resurrection in grace, every creature exults, because the reasons of all existing things, in the very operation of their properties, show the mode and beauty of perfection. *Prior enim omnem diem indicat, etc.* That is, through pride, the disobedient one, having been made, dissolves all precepts. For *post conjunctionem meam, etc.* To him who is joined to humility, no law is imposed, because, according to what abbas Isaac says, humility has no tongue, nor eyes, nor ears, nor other powers of the soul, nor members of the body, because it neither does evil, nor feels or thinks of things done by others, but is entirely peaceful and merciful, bewailing the sins of all as its own, and its own only.

^A It is said that humility could make certain demons into angels, if demons were capable of being humbled. But demons, remaining impenitent and obstinate, and not being able to be humbled, remain demons. We, however, since we are human, even if we are falling, are able to repent and be humbled. Wherefore let us have confidence, and as often as we fall, let us rise again through penitence. These are the nerves and the paths, etc. For what nerves are in animals, such precisely are paths to those traveling toward a city. Surely, animals would neither stand without nerves, nor would men journey to a city without paths. This same thing (says the saint) is poverty and pilgrimage, likewise humility, and the remaining virtues, without which humility cannot stand: for he who is moving toward it will not arrive at it without them. Therefore they are nerves and paths, and not signs, which he enumerates.

Chap. XX. — To the 26th degree.

^B It is said that humility could make certain demons into angels [referring to the text], etc. From the defection of demons, one weighs, and knows not how to weigh the faults of others. Therefore, he who is free, transgressing the law alone, keeps the Gospel of Christ’s grace and true liberty. There are others also, to this magnificent possessor, etc. He calls the possessor great, for he is humble; because he who is humble possesses from humility the perfection of every monastic and angelic conversation, in whose soul are all the aforementioned properties, which are significant of spiritual riches: one only excepted, which is according to that which pleases the humble, namely, the abyss of vileness and one's own self-despisal; because this is hidden from those who see: for he himself rests in the sole abyss of vileness. Humility is the gate of the heavenly kingdom. Understand this concerning one entering the monastic life; because he who through humility, by the imitation of Christ, enters the life of monks, he enters well into it through the gate, and shall depart from the present life with joy, and shall find pastures in paradise. Near to this is divine mercy: he calls mercy the grace which is effective of humility in the soul. Disgrace, however, proves this. Truly Christ, who suffered for us, placed labor in his precepts, so that vanities defiling us might be purged, and evil morals and vices might be changed by patience in tribulations, and that pride might be vomited out through humility by confession, and by intention, and by work: for indeed he who has promised a religious life, and refuses to suffer evils, does not follow Christ through penitence, but (deluded by self-love) denies by his work what he promises by his word, and imitates not Christ, but the concupiscence and pride of this fleeting life. For vain glory and pride cause one to serve sin through prosperity and pleasant things (as if they were licit), and they infect our tepid will in such a way by deluding it, and render it sterile of the goods of grace: Nature brings it about, that sterility and the defect of the fruits of the chick-peas (23); etc. Hypocrisy is the observation of the commandments of God, which makes a monk conform to this world, to be puffed up in worldly works, and to be variously implicated: wherefore also by the Apostle 31, he who is such is not undeservedly called idle and sterile. But he who exists as a faithful operator of God’s commandments, full of the fruits of the humble, bowed down, delivers the branches of long-suffering to everyone for the sustaining of mockery and illusions and shakings. Therefore, overcoming nature, he who is humble knows not how to think highly; but the spirit of humility conforms to him who emptied himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross 32. Hence the saint says, that trees, etc. [There is not, in a creature, to see a small and a great fire by nature; and there is not, in humility, any species of matter to remain at all.] In sincere humility, no species of matter remains, because perfect humility loves nothing viciously: and it is forgetful of all things that are under heaven; it tastes and feels only those things which are of God. If pride from ^D this one who, with religious piety, manages the three enemies, etc. He now says there are eight vices of malice, by which the devil attacks us: of which, he who has cast down three has obtained the victory over all. These, therefore, are those three, in which our King Christ in the desert completed all victory, namely gluttony, avarice, and vain glory, prostrating them through abstinence, humility, and prayer, receiving angels as ministers 33. Unless first, in the day of the soul, it is too late. And too late is the darkening of the soul, which is negligence, forgetfulness, and concupiscence. For unless through concupiscence we have fallen into ignorance and forgetfulness and insolence, we shall not be made devoid of the operation which is according to the commandment; unless the mind grows dark, vices and passions will not dominate it: He will persuade you of this, entirely, he who, etc. He speaks of Abbot Leon, who spontaneously delivered himself into death for the sake of liberating a certain brother. Or of the military magistrate, who in Corinth chose to undergo martyrdom for the sake of preserving the virginity of a certain virgin. Intellectual mind, intellectual sense, etc. It has an intellectual sense and knowledge; which, existing in us and not in us, let us not cease to seek. The intellectual sense is in us, as coherent and united. But in the mind of every man, though not in us, as if covered by passions and existing in vicious habits, it remains without operation, unknown and nowhere appearing. This, the saint admonishes us to seek with all our heart; because, when it is in us, it will repel all vices: which he also calls divine, because it has been repaired through the death and baptism of Christ and the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out in us. For the purging of filth, it has drunk the cup of obedience. He says that filth arrives and comes to be in the flesh from the uncleanness of delights: but he calls the eye of the soul, the intellect, weakened and disturbed by vicious affection. But it is certain that this is helped by silence, for the reason that over-talking

extinguishes the warmth of the spirit in the soul, and has the nature ^A of causing flux; but it cleanses the field of the soul from every defilement, and guards it with fear: Evil is in itself any vice. Malice is a false judgment of those things which are understood and felt. What follows is the abuse (24) of things. Malice is the wicked use of those things which have been given to us by God for our good. Vice is a movement of the soul, contrary to nature, whether towards irrational friendship or indiscreet hatred. It is conquered, most of all, by two general virtues: by humble abstinence and simple obedience; of which, the first destroys desire and pleasures; the second, however, strengthens the ruin of the will through mortification.

Thence the holy man says: *He who has ears to hear, let him hear*. Therefore, if you wish to obey me. If (he says) you wish to obey me, I will tell you how you will flee the infinite battles of the demons. Life from death, rest from passion and labor, and glory from the ignominy of Christ, has been given and born to men. He who fruitfully holds the memory of these things flees, scorns, and hates the riches, delights, and heights of this passing life, and its rest, and pleasures, and desires; and he seeks and loves shame, tribulations, and sorrows, that he may imitate Christ, without whose love no one is saved. Delights (brothers) reawaken vices, and the glory and rest of the flesh, all the wicked desires which vary and divide ^B men from God and subject them to the empire of the devil. But he who hates them, and abominates them, and flees them, is not varied nor divided from the way of virtues, but imitates Christ, and adheres to Him with his whole affection.

In the most blessed Trinity. By the help, therefore, and grace of the holy Trinity, we shall be able to struggle against and resist the three most general vices: the love of glory, the love of desire and pleasurable things, and the love of money and all greed; if, however, we go to the fight armed with three virtues, namely, abstinence, charity, and humility: for abstinence destroys carnal love; humility, the love of glory; charity, the love of money, as it kills it by being communicative.

It is indeed very difficult to manage these disturbances. Wherever "presumption" or "pre-assumption" or "pre-conception" is written in this book, whether in the singular or in the plural number, it means the involuntary memory and passion of previous vices, whether arriving through hearing or otherwise. Whence, presumption or pre-assumption is a temptation arising from vicious operation and habit implanted in us and arriving with abstraction. And because from past sins our mind and our flesh, often indeed like wounds with scars, rot as if festering from the memories of them, and are miserably bowed down under many temptations, therefore the holy man says: "It is indeed very difficult," etc.

The example of the Fear of the Lord. The Father condescends to our infirmity, and from the smallest things he attempts to hand down to us great things: by instructing us with the example of beasts and of corporal love, in order to possess divine fear and love: and this is because we cannot perfectly fear and love God on account ^C of our own depravity and infirmity. For if we understood that which the master of perfection says: *Do not fear those who kill the body, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell*. And that: *You shall love the Lord your God, with your whole heart*, and what follows: we certainly would have no need of these. I saw also the laborers. In the intellectual vineyard of the Church, the monk is called to cultivate virtues; which he will not fulfill, unless he guards his soul from every defilement, and keeps it with fear.

Another thing is the guarding of thoughts. The guarding of the mind is to powerfully expel thoughts reformed and sent into the mind through the intellect; but the keeping of the mind is to preserve it from being at all receptive to the intellect of thoughts, and to always extend and raise it in divine things. Likewise, it is the guarding of the mind to repel the species of thoughts through struggles and prayers; but it is the keeping of the mind to have a heart that cannot be captured, and to have the incurable memory of Christ Jesus.

Another thing is to pray against thoughts. This first level is for the weak and those beginning; the second is for those progressing and struggling (25-26); the third is for the perfect, the contemplative, and the invincible. It is impossible by nature. The human mind is naturally unstable and incorporeal: which is then stabilized from its own movement and varied seduction, and is saved from being scattered anywhere by erring, when it is united and coupled with God, through the Holy Spirit: for then it has all things in God; which indeed holds the final truly desired object, through rest and contemplation. Or understand it thus again: An ^D incorporeal soul is contained by the body, which is the work and manifestation of infinite wisdom and power alone, above human reason and sense; but it is much more ineffable how the Lord remains in it through the Holy Spirit: since *he who adheres to God is one spirit*.

Often the spirit of greed and avarice. The demon of avarice suggests not giving alms; but through humility, to flee the unity and the name of an almsgiver. For he supposes that from this you will flee the complacency of men: just as the demon of vain glory incites one to give pompously and ostensibly, to please men. Thus the demon of lust: for he exhorts and inclines the lustful to give alms, especially to virgins and those beautiful in body, so that familiarity being thus had, they may fall with them into the pit of their own perdition. It must be asked which of these is the more humble: Altogether, he who receives rewards after his labors is the more humble.

Another thing is sin, another is idleness: For sin is the corruption of our own species, mode, order, and dignity: or, sin is the prevarication of divine law, and the disobedience of celestial commandments. Idleness is not to labor and not to do the works of God, as it was said to them: *Why do you stand idle all the day*? Negligence is,

^A confirming and transforming oneself through consent and delight toward those things which are harmful and illicit. A fall occurs when the body slips toward infidelity, or lust, and passions. It often happens that rest is [taken] through enmities. More often, because of the frailty of nature, or infirmity, or old age, or from the obedience of the Fathers, rest is received—unloved by the servant of God (the Father says)—which awakens the virtue of the mind from enmity and does not inflame the lust of the flesh: just as much mortification of the flesh, performed without humility and discretion, stirs up the motions of the flesh because of pride; although, for those who fast humbly, the holy Father says that this same thing sometimes occurs through divine providence: so that we may be perfectly humbled and not trust in our own works. Those indeed who set their minds on things above. For without ^B virtue and without wisdom, no one can be saved. Whence everyone who becomes a participant in salvation attains the heavenly inheritance either by action or by contemplation; and there is no other middle way. Therefore, those who, neglecting the divine summit, incline themselves toward the affections of the body, or who refuse to fight manfully and hostilely against vices and demons—abstracted and enticed by bodily rest, through segregation, they go downward away from virtue. Wherefore the possession of the eternal kingdom is given only to those who set their minds on things above; nor is there any other middle way of salvation ordained for the sons of men than to set their minds on things above through virtue and knowledge. Wherefore just as, between those dying in vices and money, and those migrating to God with virtues and charity, there is a middle state ^C for repentance and for propitiating God—a middle state of coexistence—but an eternal dwelling is rendered to both according to their operations and merits. Therefore the saint says: Those who set their minds on things above, segregated from vices and the body particularly, return by mind and affection to celestial things; but those who are below, that is, those who dwell in sins and vices, descend to the lower regions, the places of punishments, and no middle way to merit will be granted to them any longer. He also says that one of the creatures in the other, that is, the rational soul in the body, received existence, and exists; naturally, because when separated from the body, the soul has the nature to consist perfectly in itself, leaving us to inquire why the soul is bound to something worse, because this very thing, along with the aforementioned reason, why the soul is bound to the flesh, are these: First, that through the struggle and fight against visible things and concupiscible things, it might inherit the promised glory: and, like gold in a furnace, crucified by tribulations, and temptations, and sorrows, it might receive the prize of virtues. And this also happens from the supreme goodness of God, who disposes things so that we might not only receive what is hoped for by His gift and grace, but rather, by the voluntary election and cooperation of our free will, He kindly willed that what is good and His own should become ours. Second, that the soul might force what is worse (that is, the flesh) to serve the spirit, and, set above all sensible things, might dissolve and destroy every concupiscence and ^D malice, and the pride of life. Third, that God might be for the soul what the soul is for the body, repelling every animality and ferality from itself, and seeking and holding to what is friendly and pleasing to God, not permitting anything inconvenient, or deformed, or dishonest to prevail against itself, and hating the evil of pride, and fleeing from high-mindedness, and consenting to humility. A vehement admiration holds me. Because it is much lighter to execute the corruption of the contrary than virtue, animality is indeed a desirable and prompt business for the sons of men; and therefore it was said to them: *Ye sons of men, how long heavy-hearted*? And again: *I said in my excess: Every man is a liar*. Truly, nothing is so easy as becoming evil, even if no one acts to drive us toward malice—for this is what most circumvents goodness—malice, the possession of good is a rare business, and [so is] being toward the good. Few pay attention, although there is much that calls and draws one toward it. And this is what the prophet Haggai says: *Ask the priests the law, if the sanctified flesh sanctifies*. And consequently showing that the good of human nature is difficult to apprehend, like fire in watery and moist matter: but many are prepared for the participation of evil, like some stubble, ignited and consumed by a spark of fire and wind. Yet the Father solves the question, leading us to contemplate the secrets of the mysteries. He says therefore: If all created things preserve and hold what they naturally received in creation, how is man, who is the image of God among creatures, joined to corruptible flesh? Understand, because through free will he was honored, he dishonored God, nor does he keep what he received in condition and making, but handed over his own rule to the adversary of God, having become disobedient to God: therefore he earns death, so that he might have hatred for sin, and receive the end [which is] evil, and punishment becomes a kindness, because, by adhering to God in such a way, he is instructed. Because, therefore, through sin, I am not that which I was created: therefore I am struck by concupiscence and ignorance, and I insatiably crave and desire what is evil. But because I am once punished, and am instructed daily by scourges, and this, lest I incur the judgment of eternal damnation, and the Word of God came to me (His image) so that He might save the image, and make the flesh immortal, and He gave grace and power, that I might become and be a son of God and an heir: I have no excuse if I do not follow Him, if I do not look to Him, if I do not continue to aspire to Him with my whole heart and affection, because He Himself is the true God and life eternal. As the lights of human eyes are various. He narrates nine differences and varieties of the overshadowing of spiritual grace occurring from Christ in the soul that loves God. The first indeed he says, which happens through bodily tears in the spirit of conturbation; the second, which happens through tears of devotion and love toward God, which he calls spiritual, and this happens in the spirit.

piety; he speaks of a third, which occurs through the eyes of the body when, through the things that are seen, we are stirred and lifted upward toward knowing and praising the Creator, in accordance with the Apostle; he speaks of a fourth, which is through the eyes of the intellect, because our intellect is illuminated by the ^A understanding of intelligible things, and it is moved, not by anything existing, but solely in an unknown manner concerning divine things. That illumination which occurs through the hearing of the word, he says, is brought about from faith, in the taste of faith, with some manifestation of the mysteries of God; but that which is moved by itself, in the soul, is that exultation of which John says: *Because his anointing will teach you about all things.* [1 John 2:27]. He calls that which comes from the removal of thoughts discretion and preservation, along with the reception of divine illumination and knowledge. He understands that which is from the obedience of virtue and humility to be a sense which those crucified to the passions and to the world receive from our God Jesus Christ, and he says that it offers to Christ, through ecstasy, a new supernatural abstraction of the mind ^B into God, brought about through the power of divine strength: which is symbolically figured in the hidden manna and the morning star, and no one knows this except him who receives it. Therefore, let the wise man, even more, acquire mothers. Call the mothers of the virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope, mercy, obedience, discretion, humility, and charity; but call daughters those which arise from these. He who is not struck by wars. He who has conquered the demons that strike and beat him, by manfully resisting and repelling them and striking them back—even if he is struck—shall be crowned. For he who is tempted receives blows, and he who powerfully attacks and repels temptations deals blows; but he who consents is not only struck, but dies, and is not crowned; yet he who does not consent, through manly resistance, strikes the demons. Wherefore, on account of the anguishes and labors which he sustains, he shall be crowned. Three nights, in the ground, ^C when someone had done so. For Christ our God spent in the universe three days and three nights without life in the ground; but he who in imitation of Christ has conquered the sin of three hours shall not die. There are three hours in the assault of temptation: the reception of the suggestion, the delight, and the consent, which he who virtuously conquers shall not die. Or he calls the three hours youth, middle age, and old age, which the Gospel also calls three watches. Or he calls them the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life—that is, vainglory, gluttony, and avarice—by conquering which one has suppressed every vice. A certain one of the Fathers used to say: "I fear these three things: the departure from the body, the presentation before God, and the sentence of judgment." If at any time through discipline, divine, etc. The lover of mankind, God, anticipates His servants with the blessings of grace, that He may purge them of vices and make them perfect in virtues. ^D Therefore the Father says that, as we are left to be tested as if at dawn—that is, He has made us understand that this is useful for us, because after many darkenings of the mind and avarices and cruel battles of vices and demons, afflicted, mourning, and humbled, we are likewise stirred by grace and, strengthened in Him, we are made firm. But when by heavenly conversation, through the habit of the virtues, we have become agile and light, and have been removed from earthly things, then the Lord shall sit and rest in our bodies and souls, and from His perfect dwelling within us, our every effort and every mortal thinking will be taken away from our midst, and then we shall truly be the children of God, His kingdom and priesthood. But we must seek how, and in what ways. In the flight from fornication and all those who attack, the servant of God possesses the crown in chastity, in the flight from the delights of gluttony and all things adverse and contrary to humility, and in the flight from murmuring, detraction, and judgment. Darkening comes as a cause of offense. Ignorance darkens, concupiscence offends and stumbles, delight to which one consents falls and dies, but through work and through use, it reeks. Another thing is perturbation. Concupiscence disturbs, avarice and worldly solicitude spread, self-will blinds. For everyone who does not fall into the same sin has also rightly performed penance. He has done penance, but not rightly. For he who does penance rightly does not repeat his fall, but equally repels from himself every chance of death. However, we show all cheerfulness. For he who does penance out of pusillanimity and departs from the good purpose of obedience in order to live alone, dissolves the good things gathered from such penance, until he feels the damage to his own sense through the mercy of Jesus Christ Who calls back those who have fallen. Indeed, he who ascends to better things through more perfect penance dissolves the evils that were done: thus too, he who progresses into worse things, adding evils to evils, incurs the crime of apostasy and infidelity. Whence it must be observed by us when and how we may be healed by some bitter and harsh training, the gall of vicious conversation (as if having drunk from a cup), and not even this always, but at the proper time. And to be affected by the evils of sensible things. If anyone, therefore, has obtained a truly invariable purpose of mind, having leisure for God through prayer and being elevated toward the intelligible things of God, he is dead to all sensible things here, and possesses the oblivion of the delights of life. For he who dies to sensible things lives for Christ: flashing prefigures the sound of thunder, and pride announces the arrival of vainglory. Unless the soul has been stained by pride, it is not mocked by the fantasies of demons. We can understand this from natural things. Understand it from the stag and the example of its own property, just as from the example of the serpent which follows: Unless through the narrow and strait path of fasting. Those who serve vainglory, gluttony, and luxury, and preach the words of God, are like harlots admonishing others about chastity. As

^A purity is far from those who commit fornication daily, so too are the sense of spiritual virtues and contemplation far from them. He who restrains his belly diminishes his vices, and he who is overcome by foods increases libidinous delights. The beginning of the nations is Amalek, but the beginning of vices is gluttony. For much wood excites the flame, but a multitude of foods excites luxury. The desire of the belly has brought forth disobedience, and the sweetness of taste cast man out of paradise: so too the gluttonous monk breaks the covenant of chastity and is cast out from the beauty of contemplation.

CHAPTER IX. — Ad gradum 27.

Not ignorant of a certain dog. By “dog” he means the demon of vainglory, who with his impudence lies in wait for all good things, and gnaws away with curiosity, and talkativeness, and superfluity, and ostentation, and malignancy, and corrupts the souls of the imprudent. “A lover of quiet, he is a certain strong man.” A lover of solitary quiet, when exiting his cell with silence, meekness, mental prayer, and charity, does not progress [in anything wrong]; his speech does not depart from the spiritual consistency of the soul, even if he seems to be outside the quiet of solitude, with his body physically departing. “He watches indeed for the mouse which he hunts,” etc. By the “intellectual mouse,” he means the murderous devil, whom the intention of the one resting watches-vigilantly, just as a cat watches a mouse. “That one monk joined to another monk”: The Father places two monks here: one, deserted by men, who is called and is a solitary monk corporeally; the other, however, separated from his own wills, thoughts, and vices, whom he calls a spiritual monk and a solitary; ^B just as being anxious about those things which are merely of the soul, and a monk to a monk, that is, standing solely before God. Indeed, he who is alone corporeally is not liberated from a fall in the same way as the monk living with a monk in the aforementioned manner, since out of the eight spirits of malice, five primarily attack the solitaries, namely, acedia, sadness, anger, vainglory, and pride. Three, however, [attack] the obedient: gluttony, luxury, and avarice. A solitary is a terrestrial form of an angel. That is, according to what is possible, following Him, freeing his own prayer from all negligence and pusillanimity. For he who has not received the grace of the Paraclete will not have permanence and perpetuity of prayer; but when the Paraclete has been in a man, then, sitting and walking, sleeping and waking, laboring and ^C resting, alone or with companions, speaking and silent, he prays; he is an angel, an intellectual substance always mobile; free in will, serving God, receiving and having that which is immortal in nature: the definition and form of whose substance only the Creator knows. “Why, I ask, not so many, among the Tabennesiotes,” etc. Because the operators and possessors of greater quiet, and larger removal, and nakedness, and prayer, and silence, and [harsh] conditions of life, and intelligible obedience have been [present], both useful and harmful, [depending on their] direction under elders, without the tumult of coenobia, holding to quiet with reverence and perfect mortification unto the end. Therefore, even if the angelic work of solitary quiet be great, and of greater progress than the coenobia for those truly purged of vices, he does not wish to say this on account of the more infirm, whom the same conversation melts like lead in a furnace: for in the infirm, there is for the most part an appetite for things that cause harm, wherefore they often relapse, taking things that are contrary, because the food of the perfect is not for babes.

“Indeed, I myself, indeed.” He says, “He himself, indeed, will know what is expedient for him, unless he has had a perfect study of the observance of the commandments and of virtuous ^D conversation.” “The hastening of death.” That is, from promptitude and good will, through the imitation of the new man, to show the mortification of the flesh and of vices, and to have nothing in common with the world, but at every hour to desire to die, and to be with Christ. It is impossible for the habit of true charity to be in him who favors something viciously, nor is it in his prayer, but rather, there will be a stain on the prayer, and in his prayer, an increase of anger, and fury, and fear, and the assumption of elation. Knowing and being prudent, I will be silent about the rest: understand, falls of the flesh, excesses of the mind, and the vexations of Satan. For with the bile emptied out, that is, with one’s own will denied and mortified and held in hatred, a diminution of vices occurs. “When I had reached that middle.” The holy man did not clearly narrate the contemplation, because he did not wish to reveal such things to all; but he says, carrying out prayer vigilantly and without intermission and sloth, which is the middle of the three operations. “I was made an intermediate effect.” In the midst (he says) I was made effective, namely, for the angelic and intellectual orders, which is the middle of God and men. “And it illuminated me as I thirsted.” And I was illuminated by Him (he says) supernaturally. “And behold, again it was in them.” And behold (he says), again the mind was in them, upon spiritual [things] and divine emissions, and in the contemplation concerning Him, not being able, because of the inaccessible light, to be carried and extended upward to Christ God, the prince of all creation, from this I desired to contemplate. What indeed was in

original-script column: see facsimile

^A be perfected by the fire of the Holy Spirit, which consumes all things. But this vision must be left to be interpreted by those who are expert. Furthermore, fulfilling the "middle," that is, of prayer, which is achieved in the mind after the state of virtues and the cleansing of vices have been established, "I have been made in the midst of virtues and contemplation," he says. For there are mortal virtues, and those of the soul already cleansed, or contemplative ones, which are exemplary or intellectual, just as there are contemplations immediate, mediate, and subordinate; with which the active, contemplative, or intellectual and transductive virtues of existing things are in harmony. But the end of mortal virtues is piety or compassion: the end of the virtue of the soul already cleansed, or contemplative virtues, is the immissable deposition of passions and the body. The end of intellectual or exemplary virtues is deiformity and grace. The middle degree of the virtues, therefore, is illumination and intellectual explanation: thus, the middle of intermediate cognitions, too, are contemplative and intellectual matters. Therefore, fulfilling the middle, "I have been made in the midst," he says, that is, accomplishing and crossing over active and moral virtues, and having been cleansed from vices and distanced from the body. "I have been made in the midst" of cognitions, contemplative and intellectual: and "He illuminated the one who thirsts, He from whom comes every good gift and perfect gift" ^B; and He purged away from me the virus that presides over such operations, and chasing away all gloom from the soul, He circumfused me as I thirsted insatiably for the infusions of illumination. And after these things? Again there was in them (supply: "in the midst") divine illumination according to the disposition of the mind. And flaming affections compel the lover to inquire of the prince of vision concerning the vision of truth or symbols, and concerning the Word before the assumption of human nature, and what follows, as is read above.

"When you proceed, guard what has been gathered." That is, guard your mouth and your heart in your speech, taking care not to disclose virtues, because if the mouth is opened uselessly, indiscreetly, and vainly, the virtues which exalted the mind to God are lost and fly away and disappear. For "to a forward mouth approaches ruin" ^C. Silence, indeed, is the guard of virtues. Patience is the daily expected resolution of vexation. According to the measure of humility, patience is given in tribulations and temptations, and according to one's patience, the burden of tribulations is lightened; and proceeding through it, one participates, and according to consolation, one's charity toward God is magnified, and according to charity, one possesses joy. Certainly, patience is born of hope and mourning; but he who exists without these two is a slave to sloth, lazy in all things. For he who is such does not possess the haste of good will, but in all his works he is anxious and becomes powerless, and he thinks that his powerlessness, boredom, and lack of disposition—which are sloth—are a weakness of the body; and so he excuses himself as infirm, serving his gluttony and idleness.

^D "I desire," he says, "more to speak words to my mind," etc. The sense of the soul is the ineffable taste of divine consolation, which occurs with the beauty of charity. Therefore, he speaks five words in his own sense, he who (having been made sentient through the Holy Spirit) understands, participates in, and tastes the illuminations, divine fires, and perfections of the virtues that are spoken of according to their proper nature. Every teacher who applies appropriate remedies of work and doctrine to the individual senses that are in us speaks five words. For "in this, monks shall receive a hundredfold": that is, divine gifts. But what is meant by what follows—namely, the graces which are distributed to the merciful monks through prayer—is that which is: namely, eternal life and the incorruptible goods which will be rendered to them. "I call the two essences of one substance," etc. As if he meant: I say that the different ones themselves, as they exist, are of one operation and substance. "Seeing fire and water." By the burning fire he means devotion to God: and by water, he means tears. By one word often emitted incautiously, [there is danger] of one's own commendation and boasting. It is one thing to observe more frequently with the heart. To be visited, indeed, is to be turned to one's own consideration from the contrition that supervenes and to contemplate, and to gather, and to have care for those things which are toward God, within oneself; but to visit is, in a primary and sacerdotal manner, to cleanse the hearts of others, and to offer many acceptable sacrifices to God by word, prayer, and example. To visit is to consider yourself continuously and fixedly, and without remission to look ceaselessly, and to gather the senses and powers of soul and body in a primary way, and to offer them devoutly to God through unceasing prayer. "By heart, mind, and spirit" (29). By soul he means the sensitive and vital powers; by spirit, the deliberative wills and intellectual affections; the Spirit, indeed, is the rational and intellectual soul, and the whole together is called Spirit.

Expliciunt glosse sancti P. N. Joannis abbatis Raythu, super textibus Climaci.

THE FIVE BOOKS OF THE HISTORIES OF AGATHIAS OF MYRINA WITH THE LATIN VERSION AND ANNOTATIONS OF BON. VULCANIUS. GREEK TEXT EDITED BY B. G. NIEBUHR, C.F. (Bonn, published by Ed. Weber, 1828.)

PREFACE

No fair-minded person will criticize the fact that the Histories of Agathias—a work of no great bulk—is now appearing in this edition, which is the beginning of the Bonn collection of Byzantine historians, provided they learn how arduous the difficulties were that stood in our way when we undertook this work. For in a town from whose printing presses a Greek book of even moderate size had never before emerged, there were neither typesetters sufficiently experienced in this genre, nor proofreaders learned in the usage of errors, who—with Schopen moderating and putting the finishing touches to the work—might be engaged in this labor with sufficient accuracy and diligence. And so we have progressed very slowly. Yet there is that with which we may console ourselves: for with great tedium and labor we have certainly achieved this, that no rather serious error has been left behind in the Greek text or in the critical scholia; for regarding the Latin version, which I would have preferred to cast aside, I was certainly little concerned. As for the rest, when Schopen had corrected them from others, I myself recognized them, letter by letter, with as much care as I could. Now, however, for the future, these troubles have either been overcome or at least greatly diminished, since a man has been found, learned and tireless, who will devote himself entirely to the correction of the proofs; in such a way, indeed, that nothing further remains for Schopen to attend to, other than what he can execute while beset by other labors.

I had taken upon myself from the beginning the task of editing Agathias, at which time I did not think of difficulties of this kind, such as those I subsequently experienced; and at the same time, with no greater hope yet stirred, I proposed to myself only this: that the vulgate edition might be mended as far as conjecture and ingenuity could achieve it without the manuscripts, by casting out the many errors and rash innovations that defile the Paris edition. I had read the book, not altogether unrefined, many years ago for the sake of learning the subject matter, and calling it back to memory, I persuaded myself that by that method it could not indeed be polished and embellished, but nevertheless it could be corrected in such a way that, once the thorns and brambles were uprooted, it might emerge sufficiently clear. There was, however, already known to me at that time and very dear, Joannes Classen of Hamburg, who, having been instructed in the discipline of the supreme man HERMANN, had come here so that he might also listen to us, who explain philological disciplines in this university of letters. I asked this excellent young man, whom I now rejoice to have living in my quarters and domestic familiarity, to read Agathias through attentively and to annotate what might come to his mind; for [it was difficult] for me to undertake the work, on account of the fre-