The Conferences 2.14–3.6

“Indeed, this principle is proved to be so pleasing to God that we find this same training not idly included in the holy Scriptures. The Lord did not wish to instruct the boy Samuel, chosen by his judgment, in the discipline of divine conversation by himself alone, but allowed him to run once and again to the old man. He was willing that one whom he was calling to converse with himself should be taught by the instruction even of a man who had offended God, provided he was an elder; and he preferred that one whom he had judged most worthy of his call should be formed by the training of an elder, so that the humility of one called to the divine ministry might be proved, and the pattern of this subjection might be set before the young by his example.”

“Christ, too, calling Paul and speaking to him himself, though he could have opened the way of perfection to him at once, preferred to send him to Ananias and commanded him to learn the way of truth from him, saying: ‘Arise and go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.’ So he sends him too to an elder, and judges that he should be taught by the other's instruction rather than his own, lest what had been rightly done in Paul's case should give a bad example of presumption to those who came after, if each one persuaded himself that he too ought in the same way to be formed by the teaching and instruction of God alone rather than by the training of the elders. The apostle himself teaches, not only by his letters but also by his deeds and example, that this presumption is to be utterly detested. He declares that he went up to Jerusalem for this reason only: to compare the gospel which he was preaching to the Gentiles, with the grace of the Holy Spirit accompanying it and with the power of signs and wonders, with his fellow apostles and predecessors, in a private and as it were domestic examination. ‘And I conferred with them,’ he says, ‘about the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest perhaps I should run or had run in vain.’ Who then is so presumptuous and blind as to dare to trust himself to his own judgment and discernment, when the chosen vessel testifies that he needed the conference of his fellow apostles? From this it is most clearly proved that the Lord shows the way of perfection to no one who, having the means to be taught, despises the teaching or practices of the elders, making light of that saying which ought to be most carefully kept: ‘Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will tell you.’”

“With every effort, then, the good of discernment must be acquired by the virtue of humility, which can keep us unharmed by both extremes. For there is an old saying: akrotētes isotētes, that is, extremes are equal. For excess of fasting and gluttony come to the same end, and immoderate continuation of vigils brings the monk the same loss as the torpor of the heaviest sleep. For anyone weakened by excess of self-control must be brought back to the state in which the negligent person is held through carelessness. So we have often seen that those whom we observed could not be deceived by gluttony were cast down by immoderate fasting, and through the occasion of weakness fell into the very passion they had overcome. Unreasonable vigils and all-night watches have also overthrown those whom sleep could not overcome. Therefore, according to the apostle, we must pass through ‘by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left’ with right moderation, and so walk between both extremes under the guidance of discernment, that we neither consent to be led away from the path of self-control handed down to us nor, again, fall by harmful relaxation into the desires of the palate and the belly.”

“I remember that I have often so entirely rejected the desire for food that, when I had put off eating for two or three days, not even the memory of any food disturbed my mind; and again sleep was so taken from my eyes by the assault of the devil that for several nights and days I begged the Lord to pour a little sleep upon my eyes. And I felt that I was in greater danger from disgust for sleep and food than from the temptation of slumber and gluttony. So, just as we must take care not to slip into harmful laxity through the desire for bodily pleasure, and not presume to indulge in food before the appointed time or to exceed its measure, so also the refreshment of food and sleep must be taken at the proper hour, even if we shrink from it. For both battles arise by the scheming of the adversary, and immoderate self-control trips us up more ruinously than relaxed satiety. For from satiety one can climb up to the measure of strictness, with the help of saving compunction; from immoderate self-control one cannot.”

Germanus: “What, then, is the measure of self-control, by keeping which with even moderation we may pass unharmed between both extremes?”

Moses: “We know that this matter was often discussed among our elders. Examining the abstinence of various men, who lived continually either on pulse alone, or on vegetables only, or on fruit, they preferred to all of these a meal of bread alone, the fairest measure of which they fixed at two paxamatia, small loaves which certainly weigh scarcely a pound.”

We gladly welcomed this and answered that we did not regard this measure as abstinence at all, since we could by no means eat it all.

Moses: “If you want to test the force of this rule, keep to this measure constantly, taking no cooked relish besides, on Sunday or Saturday, or on the occasion of brothers arriving. For the flesh, refreshed by these, can not only be sustained on a smaller quantity on the remaining days, but can even put off its whole meal without difficulty, being supported by the addition of the food it has taken besides. But one who is always content with the quantity of the measure mentioned will by no means be able to do this or put off his meal of bread to the next day. For I remember that our elders, and I recall that we ourselves have often experienced it, kept this frugality with such labor and difficulty, and observed the measure with such hunger and want, that they imposed this limit on their meal as if against their will, and not without groaning and sadness.”

“The general measure of self-control, however, is this: that each one allow himself as much food as the support of the flesh requires, according to the capacity of his strength, body, or age, not as much as the desire for satiety demands. For whoever is uneven, now constricting the belly with the dryness of fasts, now distending it with excess of food, will suffer the greatest harm on both sides. For just as the mind, wearied by lack of food, loses the vigor of its prayers while, weighed down by excessive weariness of the flesh, it is forced to doze, so again, oppressed by excess of gluttony, it will not be able to send up pure and light prayers to God. Nor will it be able to keep even the purity of chastity with unbroken continuity, since even on those days on which it seems to chasten the flesh with sharper abstinence, the matter of food previously taken supplies the fire of fleshly desire.”

“For whatever has once been formed in the marrow by abundance of food must be expelled and driven out by the very law of nature, which does not allow an excess of any superfluous fluid to remain within it, as harmful and contrary to it. Therefore our body must always be chastened by a reasonable and even frugality, so that, if we who dwell in the flesh cannot be wholly free of this natural necessity, at least it may find us defiled by this discharge rarely, and not more than three times in the course of a whole year. Yet let a quiet sleep expel it without any itching, and let not a deceptive image, betraying hidden pleasure, draw it out. This, then, is the moderate evenness and measure of self-control we have spoken of, which is also approved by the judgment of the fathers: that daily hunger accompany the daily meal of bread, keeping soul and body alike in one and the same state, and allowing the mind neither to collapse from the fatigue of fasting nor to be weighed down by satiety. For it is limited by such frugality that sometimes, after evening, one neither feels nor remembers having eaten.”

“And this is achieved with such labor that those who do not know the perfection of discernment prefer even to prolong their fasts for two days and keep for tomorrow what they would have taken today, provided that when they come to their meal they may enjoy the satiety they long for. You know that your fellow citizen Benjamin recently held stubbornly to this. Rather than take two paxamatia every day and keep constantly to a continuous frugality with even discipline, he preferred always to keep two-day fasts, so that when he came to his meal he might fill the greed of his belly with a double measure; that is, by eating four paxamatia he enjoyed the satiety he desired, and in a way bought the filling of his belly with a two-day fast. You surely remember how he ended his way of life, who by the obstinacy and stubbornness of his mind trusted his own decisions rather than the traditions of the elders. Leaving the desert, he rolled back again to the empty philosophy of this world and the vanity of the age, so that he confirms the elders' saying by the example of his fall, and teaches everyone by his ruin that no one who trusts his own decisions or judgment can ever climb to the summit of perfection, nor even avoid being deceived by the devil's ruinous illusion.”

Germanus: “How then can this measure be kept by us without a break? For sometimes, when the fast has already been ended at the ninth hour and brothers arrive, it is necessary for their sake either to add something to the fixed and usual measure, or else to avoid altogether the kindness we are commanded to show to all.”

Moses: “Both must be observed in the same way and with equal care. For we ought to keep the measure of food with all scruple for the sake of self-control and purity, and likewise to show kindness and encouragement to arriving brothers for the sake of love; for it is quite absurd, when you offer a table to a brother, or rather to Christ, not to eat with him, or to make yourself a stranger to his meal. So we shall be found blameworthy on neither side if we keep this custom: at the ninth hour, of the two paxamatia which are rightfully due to us as the canonical measure, let us take one, and keep the other for the evening in expectation of this; and if any of the brothers arrives, let us eat it together with him, adding nothing more to our usual custom. By this arrangement the arrival of a brother, which ought to be most welcome to us, will not sadden us at all, since we shall show him the services of kindness in such a way as to relax nothing of the rigor of self-control. But if no one comes, we shall freely take this one too, as due to us by the canonical measure. By this frugality the stomach cannot be weighed down in the evening, since one paxamatium has already been taken at the ninth hour; which usually happens to those who, believing they keep a stricter abstinence, put off their whole meal to the evening. For food freshly taken does not allow the mind to be found fine and light in either the evening or the night prayers. Therefore the ninth hour has been granted as a quite convenient and useful time for the meal: a monk who eats then will be found not only light and empty in the night vigils, but also most fit in the evening services themselves, the food being already digested.” With such a feast of twofold instruction the holy Moses fed us. He showed us not only the grace and power of discernment, by the present teaching of his words, but also, in the earlier discussion, the reason for renunciation and the goal and end of our way of life. What we had pursued before only with fervor of spirit and zeal for God, with our eyes in a way closed, he opened more clearly than the light, and made us feel how far we had strayed until then from purity of heart and the line of direction; since even the discipline of all the visible arts in this world cannot exist without the principle of a goal, nor be reached at all without looking to a sure end.

In that choir of saints, who shone like the purest stars in the night of this world, we saw the holy Paphnutius shining with the brightness of knowledge like a great light. He was presbyter of our congregation, that is, of the one that lived in the desert of Scetis. He stayed there until extreme old age, and never moved from the cell he had begun to live in as a young man, which was five miles from the church, even to a place nearer, so as not to be troubled by so long a journey when, worn with years, he came to church on Saturday or Sunday. Nor was he content to return from there empty-handed: he carried back to his cell on his shoulders a vessel of the water he was to use for the whole week, and even when he was past ninety years of age he never allowed it to be brought to him by the labor of younger men. From his youth he gave himself to the schools of the coenobia with such ardor that, though he stayed in them only a short time, he was enriched equally with the good of subjection and with knowledge of all the virtues. By the discipline of humility and obedience he mortified all his own wishes; and when by this all his vices had been extinguished and all the virtues perfected which the institutions of the monasteries and the teaching of the most ancient fathers have established, burning with the ardor of higher progress he hastened to penetrate the secret places of the desert, so that he might be more easily united, with no human company any longer holding him back, to the Lord, to whom he had thirsted to cling inseparably while placed among crowds of brothers. There again, with such fervor, surpassing even the virtues of the anchorites themselves in his desire and intention for that constant and divine contemplation, he avoided the sight of everyone, going into the vaster and inaccessible places of the wilderness and hiding in them for a long time, so that he was found only with difficulty and very rarely even by the anchorites themselves, and was believed to enjoy and delight in the daily company of angels. Because of this virtue they gave him the surname of the Buffalo.

Wishing to be instructed by his teaching, and stirred also by the goads of our thoughts, we came to his cell as day was already drawing to evening. After keeping silence for a while, he began to praise our purpose: that we had left our homeland and, after travelling through so many provinces for the love of the Lord, were striving so hard to bear the poverty and desolation of the desert and to imitate the rigor of their way of life, which even those born and brought up in the same need and want could scarcely endure. We answered that we had come to his teaching and instruction so that we might be to some extent imbued with the training and perfection of so great a man, which we had perceived in him by countless proofs; not so that we might be burdened with praises that did not apply to us, or be puffed up by his words too with the elation of mind by which we were sometimes tickled, even in our own cells, at the suggestion of the enemy. We therefore begged him rather to pour into us words by which we might be pierced and humbled, not those by which we might flatter and exalt ourselves.

Then the blessed Paphnutius said: “There are three kinds of callings, and we should know that three renunciations are also necessary for a monk in whatever kind of calling he has been placed. First we must carefully inquire into the reason why we have said there are three kinds of callings, so that, when we recognize that we have been brought to the service of God by the first degree of calling, we may make our way of life fit its sublimity; for it will profit nothing to have begun sublimely if we do not show an end like the beginning. And if we know that we were drawn from the life of the world by the last kind, then the less praiseworthy the beginning of religious life on which we seem to rest, the more keenly let us take care to spur ourselves on with spiritual fervor to a better end. We must also know thoroughly the second matter, the threefold renunciation, because we shall by no means be able to reach perfection if we are either ignorant of it or, knowing it, do not strive to fulfil it in deed.”

“To set out these three modes of calling with particular distinction: the first is from God, the second through a man, the third from necessity. It is from God whenever an inspiration sent into our heart, sometimes even while we are asleep, rouses us to the desire of eternal life and salvation, and urges us with most wholesome compunction to follow God and cling to his commandments. So we read in the holy Scriptures that Abraham was called out by the Lord's voice from his native land, from the affections of all his kindred, and from his father's house, when the Lord said: ‘Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house.’ In this way too we know that the blessed Antony was called, who received the occasion of his conversion from the Godhead alone. For he went into a church and heard the Lord proclaiming in the Gospel: ‘Whoever does not hate father and mother and children and wife and fields, and his own life also, cannot be my disciple’; and, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ He received this command of the Lord with the greatest compunction of heart, as though it were addressed specially to him, and at once renounced everything and followed Christ, moved by no exhortation or teaching of men. The second mode of calling, which we said comes through a man, is when we are fired with the desire of salvation, spurred on by the examples or the admonitions of some of the saints. In this way we too recall that we were brought, by the grace of the Lord, when we gave ourselves to this pursuit and profession, spurred on by the admonitions and virtues of the man mentioned above. In this way also we read in the holy Scriptures that the children of Israel were freed from the affliction of Egypt through Moses. The third mode of calling is that which comes from necessity: when, bound by the riches or pleasures of this world, we are suddenly assailed by temptations which threaten us with the danger of death, or strike us with the loss of our goods and with confiscation, or pierce us with the death of those dear to us, and we are compelled at least to hasten to lean on God, whom we despised to follow in prosperity. This necessity of calling we also find very often in the Scriptures, when we read that the children of Israel were handed over by the Lord to their enemies because of their sins, and that because of their rule and most savage cruelty they turned again and cried out to the Lord. ‘And the Lord sent them a savior,’ it says, ‘Ehud, the son of Gera, the son of Jemini, who used both hands as the right.’ And again: ‘They cried to the Lord, who raised up a savior for them and delivered them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.’ And of such people it is said in the psalm: ‘When he slew them, then they sought him; and they returned and came to God early in the morning. And they remembered that God is their helper, and the most high God their redeemer.’ And again: ‘And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble, and he delivered them from their distresses.’”

“Of these three modes, although the first two seem to rest on better beginnings, yet we sometimes find that even from the third degree, which seems the lowest and lukewarm, perfect men most fervent in spirit have come, like those who began the Lord's service from the best beginning and spent the rest of their lives in praiseworthy fervor of spirit; and again, that very many of the higher degree have become lukewarm and very often fallen back to a blameworthy end. Just as it did the former no harm that they were converted not by their own choice but under the compulsion of necessity, since the kindness of the Lord provided them with the very occasion of their compunction, so it did the latter no good at all to have had more sublime beginnings of conversion, because they did not take care to end the rest of their life fittingly. Abba Moses, who lived in the place in this desert called Calamus, lacked nothing of the merit of perfect blessedness because he fled to the monastery driven by fear of death, which threatened him for the crime of murder. He so seized upon the necessity of his conversion that, turning it into willingness by the ready strength of his mind, he reached the highest summits of perfection. So too, on the contrary, it profited nothing to very many, whom I ought not to name, to have taken up the service of the Lord from a better beginning; for afterwards, through the sloth and hardness of heart that followed, they fell into harmful lukewarmness and the deep abyss of death. We see this clearly expressed in the calling of the apostles too. For what did it profit Judas to have taken up willingly the most sublime rank of apostleship in the same order in which Peter and the other apostles were called, when, ending the splendid beginning of his calling with the deadly end of covetousness and love of money, he broke out into the betrayal of the Lord as a most cruel murderer? Or what harm did it do Paul that, suddenly blinded, he seems to have been drawn to the way of salvation as if against his will, when afterwards, following the Lord with all fervor of mind, he completed his beginning of necessity with willing devotion and closed a life glorious with such virtues by an incomparable end? Everything, then, depends on the end, in which one who was dedicated by the beginnings of the best conversion may be found inferior through negligence, and one who was drawn by necessity to profess the name of monk may be made perfect through the fear of God and diligence.”

“Now we must speak about the renunciations, which the tradition of the fathers and the authority of the holy Scriptures show to be three, and which each of us must fulfil with all zeal. The first is that by which we despise bodily all the riches and possessions of the world; the second, that by which we reject our former habits, vices, and affections of soul and flesh; the third, that by which we call our mind away from all present and visible things, contemplate only the things to come, and desire what is invisible. We read that the Lord commanded Abraham to fulfil these three together when he said to him: ‘Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house.’ First he said ‘from your land,’ that is, from the possessions of this world and earthly wealth; second, ‘from your kindred,’ that is, from our former way of life, habits, and vices, which, clinging to us from our birth, are related to us as if by a kind of kinship and blood relationship; third, ‘from your father's house,’ that is, from every memory of this world that meets the gaze of the eyes. For of the two fathers, that is, the one who is to be forsaken and the one who is to be sought, it is sung through David in the person of God: ‘Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear; and forget your people and your father's house.’ For he who says ‘Hear, O daughter’ is certainly a father, and yet he testifies that the one whose house and people he urges her to forget was also her father. This happens when, having died with Christ to the elements of this world, we contemplate, according to the apostle, no longer the things that are seen but the things that are not seen; ‘for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal’; and, going out in heart from this temporal and visible house, we direct our eyes and mind to that in which we shall remain for ever. We shall fulfil this when, walking in the flesh, we have begun not to fight for the Lord according to the flesh, proclaiming in deed and power that saying of the blessed apostle: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven.’ To these three renunciations the three books of Solomon properly correspond. Proverbs fits the first renunciation, since by it the desire for fleshly things and earthly vices are cut away; Ecclesiastes the second, where everything done under the sun is declared vanity; the Song of Songs the third, in which the mind, passing beyond all visible things, is now joined to the Word of God by the contemplation of heavenly things.”