The Conferences 15.1–16.9

After the evening synaxis we sat down together on our mats, as is the custom, intent on the promised account. When we had kept silence for a while out of reverence for the old man, he forestalled the silence of our modesty with these words: “The order of the preceding discussion had come to the point of setting out the explanation of spiritual gifts, which we have received by the tradition of the elders to be threefold. The first cause of healing is when the grace of signs accompanies certain chosen and righteous men for the merit of their holiness, as it is plain that the apostles and many of the saints performed signs and wonders according to the authority of the Lord, who says: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give.” The second is when, for the edification of the church, or for the faith of those who bring their sick or of those who are to be healed, the power of healing proceeds even from sinners and the unworthy. Of these the Savior says in the gospel: “Many will say to me on that day: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” And on the other hand, if the faith of those who bring the sick or of the sick themselves is lacking, it does not allow even those on whom the gifts of healing have been conferred to exercise the power of healing. Of this the evangelist Luke says: “And Jesus could not do mighty works among them because of their unbelief.” Hence the same Lord said: “There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” The third mode of healing is feigned by the collusion and contrivance of demons, so that, when a man bound by manifest crimes is believed, because of admiration for his signs, to be holy and a servant of God, others may be persuaded to imitate his vices too, and so, the door opened to detraction, the holiness of religion itself may be defamed; or at least so that one who believes he has the gifts of healing may be lifted up by pride of heart and fall more heavily. Hence it is that, calling on the names of those whom they know to have no merits of holiness and no spiritual fruits, they pretend to be burned by their merits and to be put to flight from the bodies they possess. Of these it is said in Deuteronomy: “If there arises in your midst a prophet, or one who says he has seen a dream, and foretells a sign and a wonder, and what he said comes to pass, and he says to you: Let us go and follow strange gods which you do not know, and serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer; for the Lord your God is testing you, to make it plain whether you love him or not, with all your heart and with all your soul”; and in the gospel: “False Christs and false prophets will arise, and will give great signs and wonders, so as to lead into error, if possible, even the elect.”

“Therefore we should never admire those who aim at these things for such powers, but rather consider whether they have been made perfect by the expulsion of all vices and the amendment of their conduct; for this is granted, by the dispensation of God’s grace, not for another’s faith or for a variety of reasons, but for each one’s own effort. For this is practical knowledge, which by another name is called love by the apostle, and which by apostolic authority is preferred to all the tongues of men and angels, to fullness of faith that could even move mountains, to all knowledge and prophecy, to the giving away of all one’s goods, and finally to glorious martyrdom itself. For when he had listed all the kinds of gifts, and said: “To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to another the grace of healings, to another the working of miracles,” and the rest, notice in a few words how, when about to speak of love, he preferred it to all the gifts: “And yet,” he says, “I show you a more excellent way beyond measure.” By this it is plainly shown that the sum of perfection and blessedness lies not in working those wonders but in purity of love. And rightly. For all those things will be made void and destroyed, but love will remain for ever. And therefore we have seen that our fathers by no means aimed at such works of signs; on the contrary, though they possessed them by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they never wished to exercise them unless extreme and unavoidable necessity compelled them.

“So, we remember, a dead man was raised by Abba Macarius, who was the first to find a dwelling in the desert of Scetis. For when a certain heretic who followed the unbelief of Eunomius was trying to overthrow the sincerity of the catholic faith by the art of dialectic, and had already deceived a great multitude of people, blessed Macarius, asked by catholic men who were most gravely troubled by the ruin of so great a subversion, came to free the simplicity of all Egypt from the shipwreck of unbelief. When the heretic attacked him with the art of dialectic and wished to lead him, unskilled as he was, into Aristotelian thorns, blessed Macarius, cutting short his wordiness with apostolic brevity, said: “The kingdom of God is not in word but in power. Let us go, then, to the tombs and call the name of the Lord over the first dead man we find, and, as it is written, let us show our faith by works, so that the clearest proofs of the right faith may be declared by his testimony, and we may prove the evident truth not by an empty dispute of words but by the power of signs and by that judgment which cannot be deceived.” When he heard this, the heretic, constrained by shame before the people standing round, pretended for the moment to agree to the proposed condition and promised to be there the next day. But on the following day, while everyone was waiting, having gathered eagerly at the appointed place in their desire for this spectacle, he fled, terrified by the consciousness of his unbelief, and at once left the whole of Egypt. When blessed Macarius, having waited with the people until the ninth hour, saw that he had avoided it because of his conscience, he took the people who had been led astray by him and went to the appointed tombs. The flooding of the Nile has brought this custom to the Egyptians: since the whole breadth of that land is covered for no small part of the year by the usual overflow of waters, like an immense sea, so that no one then has any means of travel except by being carried in boats, the bodies of the dead, embalmed with fragrant spices, are laid in raised chambers. For the soil of that land, soaked with continual drunkenness, prevents the service of burial; if it receives any corpses buried in it, it is forced by the excess of the floods to vomit them up to its surface. When, then, blessed Macarius stood by a very ancient corpse, he said: “O man, if that heretic, the son of perdition, had come here with me, and in his presence I had cried out calling on the name of Christ my God, tell me whether you would have risen before these people who had almost been overthrown by his fraud.” Then the man rose and answered with a voice of assent. Abba Macarius asked him what he had once been when he enjoyed this life, in what age of men he had lived, and whether he had known the name of Christ at that time. He answered that he had lived under very ancient kings and declared that he had not heard the name of Christ in those times. Abba Macarius said to him again: “Sleep in peace with the others in your order, to be raised by Christ at the end of time.” This power and grace of his would perhaps always have remained hidden, as far as it depended on him, had not the need of the whole endangered province and his full devotion and sincere love toward Christ compelled him to perform this miracle. It was certainly not the display of glory but the love of Christ and the good of all the people that wrung it from him, as the reading of Kings shows that blessed Elijah also did, when he asked for fire to come down from heaven upon the victims laid on the pyre, in order to free the faith of the whole people, endangered by the deceits of false prophets.

“Why should I also recall the deeds of Abba Abraham, who is surnamed haplous, that is, “the simple,” for the simplicity and innocence of his conduct? When he had gone from the desert to Egypt during the days of Pentecost to help with the harvest, and was pressed with tearful prayers by a woman who held out her little child, already wasting away and half dead for lack of milk, he gave her a cup of water to drink, marked with the sign of the cross. As soon as she drank it, her breasts, which had been completely dry, wonderfully overflowed with an abundance of milk.

“Or when the same man, going to a village, was surrounded by mocking crowds, who in derision showed him a man with a contracted knee, who for many years had been deprived of the use of walking and crawled about from long-standing weakness, and, testing him, said: “Show us, Abba Abraham, if you are a servant of God, and restore this man to his former health, that we may believe that the name of Christ whom you worship is not empty.” Then at once, calling on the name of Christ, he bent down, took hold of the man’s withered foot, and pulled it. At his touch the dry and bent knee was immediately straightened, and the man went away rejoicing, having recovered the use of walking, which years of weakness had already consigned to oblivion.

“These men, then, claimed nothing for themselves for the power of such wonders, since they confessed that these were done not by their merit but by the Lord’s mercy, refusing human glory in the admiration of signs with the apostolic words: “Men, brothers, why do you marvel at this, or why do you look at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made this man walk?” Nor did they think that anyone should be praised for the gifts and wonders of God, but rather for the fruits of his own virtues, which are produced by the effort of the mind and the power of works. For often, as has been said above, “men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith,” both cast out demons and work very great miracles in the name of the Lord. When the apostles complained of them and said: “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us,” although Christ answered them for the moment: “Do not forbid him; for he who is not against you is for you,” yet he declares that to those who say at the end, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” he will answer: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.” And therefore he warns even those to whom he himself granted this glory of signs and miracles for the merit of their holiness not to be lifted up by them, saying: “Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

“Finally, the author of all signs and miracles himself, when he called his disciples to the school of his teaching, showed plainly what his true and chosen followers should learn from him in particular: “Come,” he says, “and learn from me,” not, surely, to drive out demons by heavenly power, not to cleanse lepers, not to give light to the blind, not to raise the dead; for even if I work these things through some of my servants, the human condition cannot insert itself into the praises of God, nor can the minister and servant claim any share for himself in what is the glory of the Godhead alone. “But you,” he says, “learn this from me, that I am meek and humble of heart.” For this it is possible for all in general to learn and practise, whereas works of signs and miracles are neither always necessary, nor good for all, nor granted to all. Humility, then, is the teacher of all virtues; it is the firmest foundation of the heavenly building; it is the proper and magnificent gift of the Savior. For he performs all the miracles that Christ worked without danger of pride who follows the meek Lord not in the loftiness of signs but in the virtue of patience and humility. But whoever longs to command unclean spirits, or to give gifts of healing to the sick, or to show the people some wonderful sign, even though he calls on the name of Christ in his displays, is a stranger to Christ, because with a proud mind he does not follow the teacher of humility. For even when he was returning to the Father and, so to speak, making a kind of testament, he left this to his disciples: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another,” and he added at once: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He does not say, “if you do signs and miracles likewise,” but “if you have love for one another,” which it is certain only the meek and humble can keep. Therefore our elders never considered as upright monks, or free from the disease of vainglory, those who profess themselves exorcists before men and publish, with most boastful display among admiring crowds, this grace which they have either merited or presumed. But in vain. For “he who leans on lies feeds the winds; the same also chases flying birds.” For without doubt there will happen to them what is said in Proverbs: “As winds and clouds and rain are most evident, so are those who boast of a false gift.” And therefore, if anyone does any of these things in our presence, he ought to be praiseworthy among us not for the wonder of his signs but for the adornment of his conduct; and we should ask not whether demons are subject to him but whether he possesses the members of love that the apostle describes.

“And indeed it is a greater miracle to root out the tinder of lust from one’s own flesh than to drive unclean spirits out of the bodies of others, and it is a more magnificent sign to restrain the savage movements of anger by the virtue of patience than to command the princes of the air; and it is more to have shut out the most devouring bites of sadness from one’s own heart than to have expelled another’s sicknesses and bodily fevers. In short, it is in many ways a more glorious virtue and a higher progress to cure the diseases of one’s own soul than those of another’s body. For the higher the soul is than the flesh, the more excellent is its health; and the more precious and excellent its substance, the more grievous and ruinous is its fall.

“And of those healings it is said to the most blessed apostles: “Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you.” For it was not their own power that did this but the power of the name invoked; and therefore they are warned not to dare to claim for themselves any blessedness or glory on this account, since it is accomplished only by God’s might and power, but on account of that inmost purity of their life and heart for which their names deserve to be written in heaven.

“And to prove what we have said by the testimonies of the ancients or by divine oracles, we shall better set forth in his own words and experiences what blessed Paphnutius thought about the admiration of signs and the grace of purity, or rather what he learned by the revelation of an angel. He had flourished for many years in such outstanding strictness that he believed himself wholly freed from the snares of carnal desire, because he felt that he had become superior to all the attacks of the demons with which he had long and openly contended. While he was preparing for some holy men who had come to him a dish of lentils, which they call athera, his hand, as often happens, was burned in the oven by a flame flaring over it. At this he was greatly saddened, and began to turn over silently within himself: “Why,” he said, “is fire not at peace with me, when the far more dreadful battles of the demons have given way to me? Or how will that unquenchable fire, which searches out all merits, not seize me as I pass through on that fearful day of examination, when this little temporal fire outside me has not spared me now?” While he was agitated by such thoughts and sadness, a sudden sleep came over him, and an angel of the Lord came and said: “Why are you sad, Paphnutius, that this earthly fire is not yet at peace with you, when there still remains in your members a stirring of carnal movements not yet refined to purity? As long as its roots live in your marrow, they will by no means allow this material fire to be at peace with you. You will not be able to feel it harmless unless you find by these signs that all inner movements have been extinguished in yourself: go, take hold of a naked and most beautiful virgin, and if, holding her, you feel that the tranquillity of your heart has remained unmoved and the heats of the flesh have stayed at peace within you, then the touch of this visible flame too will lick you gently and harmlessly, like that of the three young men in Babylon.” The old man, struck by such a revelation, did not indeed risk the dangers of the test divinely shown, but questioning his conscience and examining the purity of his heart, and judging that the weight of his chastity did not yet balance the weight of this test, he said: “It is no wonder if, though the battles of unclean spirits have given way to me, I still feel the burnings of fire raging against me, which I believed to be less than the most dreadful encounters with demons. For it is a greater virtue and a higher grace to extinguish the inner lust of the flesh than to subdue, by the sign of the Lord and the power of the Most High, the wickednesses of demons that rush in from outside, or to drive them out of possessed bodies by invoking the divine name.”” Thus far Abba Nesteros, completing his account of the true working of spiritual gifts, escorted us with his instruction as we hurried to the cell of the old man Joseph, which was about six miles away from him.

Blessed Joseph, whose instructions and precepts must now be set out, was one of the three whom we mentioned in the first conference. He was of a very distinguished family and a leading man of his city in Egypt, which is called Thmuis, and he was so carefully trained not only in Egyptian but also in Greek eloquence that he could discourse most elegantly with us, or with those who knew no Egyptian at all, not through an interpreter as the others did, but by himself. When he perceived that we desired his instruction, he first asked whether we were brothers by birth; and hearing from us that we were bound together by a brotherhood not carnal but spiritual, and that from the beginning of our renunciation we had always been united in an inseparable bond, both in the journey abroad which we had both undertaken for the sake of spiritual warfare and in the discipline of the coenobium, he began his discourse thus.

“There are many kinds of friendship and companionship which bind the human race together in a fellowship of love in various ways. For some a previous recommendation has led to enter into acquaintance first, and afterward into friendship too. In others some contract or bargain of giving and receiving has joined the bonds of affection. Some have been tied by the bonds of friendship through the likeness and sharing of business or military service, or of a craft or pursuit; by this even savage hearts grow gentle toward one another, so that even those who delight in robbery in forests and mountains and take pleasure in shedding human blood embrace and cherish the partners of their crimes. There is also another kind of love, which is joined by the instinct of nature itself and the law of kinship, by which fellow tribesmen, spouses, parents, brothers, and children are naturally preferred to others; and this is found to exist not only in the human race but in all birds and animals. For, moved by natural affection, they so protect and defend their chicks or cubs that they often do not fear to expose themselves even to dangers and death for them. Indeed even those kinds of beasts, serpents, or birds which unbearable ferocity and deadly venom separate and set apart from all, such as basilisks, unicorns, or griffins, though they are said to be destructive to all even by their very sight, nevertheless remain peaceful and harmless among themselves because of the fellowship of their origin and affection. But all these kinds of love we have described, just as we see them to be common to the bad and the good, and even to wild beasts and serpents, so it is certain that they cannot last to the end. For distance of place, forgetfulness over time, and the dealings of words, affairs, or business often interrupt and divide them. For as they are usually acquired from various partnerships of gain, desire, kinship, or various relationships, so they are dissolved when any occasion of separation intervenes.

“Among all these, then, there is one kind of love that cannot be dissolved, which is joined not by the favor of a recommendation, nor by the greatness of services or gifts, nor by the terms of any contract, nor by the necessity of nature, but only by likeness in virtue. This, I say, is the one that is never broken by any chances, which not only distances of place and time cannot separate or destroy, but which not even death itself tears apart. This is the true and unbroken love, which grows through the twofold perfection and virtue of the friends, and whose bond, once entered, neither variety of desires nor quarrelsome opposition of wills will break. But we have known many in this way of life who, though bound in the most ardent companionship for the love of Christ, could not keep it for ever or unbroken, because, although they relied on a good beginning of fellowship, they did not hold the purpose they had taken up with one and equal zeal, and there was between them a merely temporary affection, since it was kept not by the equal virtue of both but by the patience of one. However magnanimously and tirelessly it is kept by one, it must nevertheless be broken by the faint-heartedness of the other. For the weaknesses of those who seek the health of perfection lukewarmly, however much they are supported by the forbearance of the strong, are not borne by the weak themselves. For they have causes of irritation implanted in them that do not allow them to be at peace; as those who are held by bodily sickness are accustomed to blame the distaste of their stomach and their weakness on the negligence of cooks or servants, and, however much care those who wait on them take, nevertheless to ascribe to the healthy the causes of their irritation, which they do not feel to be in themselves through the fault of their illness. Therefore this, as we have said, is the faithful and indissoluble union of friendship, which is bound only by equality in virtues: for “the Lord makes those of one manner dwell in a house.” And therefore unbroken love can remain only in those in whom there is one purpose and will, one willing and not willing. If you too wish to keep it inviolate, you must hasten, first driving out the vices, to put to death your own wills, and with united zeal and purpose diligently to fulfil that in which the prophet greatly delights: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity.” This must be understood not of place but spiritually. For it is of no use if those who disagree in conduct and purpose are joined in one dwelling, nor is it any harm for those grounded in equal virtue to be separated by distances of place. For with God it is sharing a dwelling in conduct, not in place, that joins brothers in a united dwelling, and the wholeness of peace can never be kept where there is diversity of wills.

Germanus: “What then? If one wants to do something that he sees to be profitable and wholesome according to God, and the other does not give his consent, should it be carried out even against the brother’s wish, or set aside at his discretion?”

Joseph: “That is why we said that the full and perfect grace of friendship cannot last except between perfect men of the same virtue, whom the same will and one purpose allow never, or at least rarely, to think differently or to disagree in what concerns progress in the spiritual life. But if they begin to seethe with heated disputes, it is certainly clear that they were never in accord according to the rule we have stated. But since no one can make a beginning from perfection unless he has started from its very foundation, and you are asking not how great it is but how it can be reached, I think it necessary to disclose to you in a few words its rule and a kind of path by which your steps may be directed, so that you may more easily obtain the good of patience and peace.

“The first foundations of true friendship, then, lie in contempt for worldly property and disregard for all the things we have. For it is most unjust and impious if, after renouncing the vanity of the world and all that is in it, the cheapest leftover furniture should be preferred to the most precious love of a brother. The second is that each one should so cut off his own wishes that he does not, judging himself wise and experienced, prefer to obey his own decisions rather than his neighbor’s. The third is that he should know that everything, even what he thinks useful and necessary, must be set after the good of love and peace. The fourth, that he should believe that one must never be angry at all, for just or unjust causes. The fifth, that he should wish to cure his brother’s anger against himself, even if conceived without reason, in the same way as his own, knowing that another’s resentment is as harmful to himself as if he himself were stirred against another, unless he drives it out of his brother’s mind as far as lies in him. The last is that which is undoubtedly the general destroyer of all vices: that he should believe that he will depart from this world any day. This conviction will not only allow no resentment to remain in the heart, but will also suppress all the movements of desires and of all sins. Whoever holds to these, then, will be able neither to suffer nor to inflict the bitterness of anger and discord. But when these fail, as soon as that enemy of love has gradually poured the poisons of resentment into the hearts of friends, it is inevitable that, love growing cold little by little through frequent quarrels, he will at some point separate the hearts of those who love, long ulcerated. For how can one who walks the path of the direction we have described ever disagree with his friend, when, claiming nothing as his own, he has cut off at the root the first cause of quarrels, which usually arises from small things and the cheapest matters, keeping with all his strength what we read in the Acts of the Apostles about the unity of the believers: “Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common”? Then, how will a seed of dissension spring up from one who, serving not his own will but his brother’s, has become an imitator of his Lord and maker, who, speaking in the person of the man he bore, said: “I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”? And how will he stir up any tinder of contention who has resolved to trust, concerning his own understanding and opinion, not so much his own judgment as his brother’s examination, approving or disapproving his own ideas at his brother’s discretion, and fulfilling with humility of devout heart that gospel saying: “Yet not as I will, but as you will”? Or for what reason will he allow anything that saddens his brother, who judges nothing more precious than the good of peace, never losing the memory of that saying of the Lord: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” by which, as by a special seal, Christ willed that the flock of his sheep be recognized in this world and distinguished from others, so to speak, by this mark? And for what cause will he bear either to receive the rancor of resentment into himself or to let it remain in another, whose first principle is that there can be no just causes for anger, which is pernicious and unlawful, and that he cannot pray when his brother is angry with him any more than if he himself were angry with his brother, always keeping in a humble heart that saying of the Lord and Savior: “If you offer your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar and go first to be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift”? For it will profit you nothing if you claim that you are not angry and believe that you fulfil the command that says: “Let not the sun go down upon your anger,” and: “Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment,” but with a stubborn heart despise another’s resentment, which you could have soothed by your gentleness. For you will be punished in the same way for transgressing the Lord’s command. For he who said that you should not be angry against another also said that another’s resentment should not be despised, since with God, “who wills all men to be saved,” it makes no difference whether you destroy yourself or someone else. For by the ruin of anyone the same loss comes to him; and likewise the one to whom the destruction of all is welcome gains one profit by the death either of you or of your brother. Finally, how can he keep even a slight resentment against his brother who believes that he will depart from this world any day, or rather at any moment?”

“So, just as nothing is to be preferred to love, so, on the other hand, nothing is to be set below anger or rage. For all things, however useful and necessary they seem, must be scorned in order to avoid the disturbance of anger, and all things, even those thought adverse, must be accepted and borne, in order to keep the tranquillity of love and peace unharmed; for nothing is to be believed more pernicious than anger and resentment, or more useful than love.

“For just as the enemy quickly separates brothers who are still carnal and weak over cheap and earthly property, so among spiritual men too he produces discord over differences of understanding, from which there very often arise without doubt those contentions and quarrels about words which the apostle condemns; and from these the envious and malicious enemy consequently introduces separations between brothers of one mind. For true is that saying of the most wise Solomon: “Contention stirs up hatred, but friendship will protect all who do not contend.”

“Therefore, to preserve lasting and inseparable love, it is of no use to have cut off the first cause of division, which usually arises from perishable and earthly things, and to have despised everything carnal and allowed our brothers to share indiscriminately in all the things we need for our use, unless we likewise cut off the second, which usually arises under the appearance of spiritual ideas, and acquire in all things a humble mind and harmonious wills.