The Conferences 22.3–22.14

“Our forebears declared that this trouble, which breaks through the measure of its appointed time with untimely excesses, has a threefold cause. It is either accumulated by a superfluous excess of food, or it slips out through carelessness of mind, or it is provoked by the snares of the mocking enemy. First, then, the vice of gastrimargia, that is, voracity or gluttony, pushes out this overflow of unclean fluid. For even when it defiles the state of purity in a time of stricter abstinence, it is poured out not, as you think, from the present hunger but from the excess of past satiety. For what had been accumulated in the marrow through the gorging of voracity must be expelled, through itching or at any rate unawares, from a body however wasted by great fasting. So we must abstain not only from richer dishes but also refrain with equal self-restraint from cheaper foods; indeed, we must beware of being filled even with bread and water, so that the purity of body we have acquired may remain in us long and in some way imitate the undefiled chastity of the spirit. We must admit, indeed, that sometimes some, even without any effort of mind, through the temperament of their bodies or the maturity of their age, are more rarely soiled, or not polluted by the discharge of this flux at all. But one who obtains peace by an idle good fortune has one merit, and one who earns a triumph by glorious virtues has another. For the power of the latter, which has conquered all the vices, is worthy of wonder; the former, whom the necessity of a good he did nothing for protects in his sloth, I would call worthy of pity rather than praise. The second cause of that impure flow is when the mind, empty of spiritual pursuits and exercises and not trained in the disciplines of the inner man, has drawn over itself, through the habit of continual torpor, a kind of rust of sloth; or when, not guarding against the small beginnings of unclean thoughts, it desires that most sublime purity of heart so lazily that it believes the whole sum of perfection and chastity consists in the chastisement of the outer man alone. Through the fault of this error and sluggishness it will follow that not only will a many-sided wandering of thoughts break shamelessly and insolently into the secret place of the mind, but the seeds of all its former passions will remain within it. As long as these lie hidden in its inner chambers, however much the body is chastised with rigid fasting, they still disturb it in sleep with enticing phantasms, by which unclean fluids are drawn out before the course of the natural time, no longer from the necessity of nature but still from the deceit of wickedness. If these cannot be wholly checked, they are at least brought, with the help of God’s grace, to that simple kind of discharge, not so much by emptiness of the flesh as by the watchfulness and strength of the mind. So, first of all, the wanderings of the senses must be restrained, lest the mind, grown used to these excesses, be drawn in dreams to fouler incitements of lust. The third cause is when, by an ordered and careful discipline of self-restraint, through contrition of heart and body, we long to acquire the lasting purity of chastity, and, while we are excellently caring for the good of flesh and spirit, the envy of the most deceitful enemy so attacks us that, trying to cast down the confidence of our conscience and to humble us as if with some guilt, he defiles us, especially on the days on which we most desire to please the divine sight by greater merit of integrity, without any itching of the flesh or consent of the mind and not through the illusion of any phantasm, but by a simple discharge of that flux, in order to frighten us away from the holy communion. It is believed, indeed, that in the case of some beginners, whose bodies have not yet been thinned by the long chastisement of fasts, this illusion comes about by the devil’s scheming for this purpose: when he learns that they are applying themselves to more intense fasts, he overturns all their efforts by this trick, so that, feeling that they have not only made no progress in purity of body by stricter fasting but have even been assailed more heavily, they come to dread strictness of abstinence, the teacher of incorruption and nurse of purity, as if it were an enemy. So we must know that we ought to be purged of each vice not only because it occupies our mind with its disturbances, but because it is not content to rule alone without the company of others, but, bringing in the more dreadful fellowship of all the vices, it lays waste the mind subject to it with manifold captivity. And so gastrimargia must be conquered not only for its own sake, lest it corrupt us with burdensome voracity, nor only lest it set us on fire with carnal desire, but lest it also make us slaves of anger, rage, dejection, and all the other passions. For when food and drink are served us too little, too late, or too carelessly, if we are held down by the dominion of the belly, it follows that we are also spurred by the goads of anger. Again, we cannot be soothed by pleasant flavors without the plague of covetousness, through whose superfluous preparations luxury delights in great expense. And covetousness, vainglory, pride, and the whole multitude of vices are joined in an inseparable fellowship; so each vice, if it begins to be strong in us even alone, supplies growth to the others as well.”

Germanus: “We believe it is by God’s dispensation that this question has been brought forward, so that what we could never be taught, because shame held back our confidence to ask, we may now, spurred on by the occasion of the conference and the order of the matter itself, dare to ask with confidence. If, then, at the time when we ought to approach the holy mysteries, we find that we have been polluted by an illusion in sleep, should that holy reception of the saving food be ventured or avoided?”

Theonas: “We ought indeed to strive with all diligence, as far as lies in us, to keep the spotless purity of chastity above all at the time when we wish to stand at the venerable altars, and we must take care with the most watchful circumspection that the integrity of the flesh, kept through the preceding time, is not stolen from us especially on the night in which we are preparing ourselves for communion in the saving banquet. But if that most wicked enemy, in order to take from us the medicine of the heavenly remedy, has mocked the guard of the mind while it slept, only in such a way that we are defiled by no blameworthy itching intervening and no consent of delight, but he has put forward, as a hindrance to our sanctification, some discharge forced by necessity according to nature, or at any rate drawn out by the devil’s assault without any feeling of pleasure, then we can and ought to approach the grace of the saving food with confidence. But if this accumulation has been discharged by our own fault, let us, examining our conscience, fear that word of the apostle: ‘Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks the bread and cup of the Lord unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body’; that is, by no means distinguishing that heavenly food from the cheapness of common foods, nor judging it to be such that it may not be taken except with a pure mind and flesh. Then he adds, ‘That is why many among us are weak and sick, and many sleep,’ saying that spiritual weakness and death are produced chiefly by this presumption. For many who take it by unlawful usurpation are weak in faith and feeble in mind, entangled in the illnesses of the passions, and sleep the sleep of sin, never rising from this deadly slumber with saving anxiety. Then it follows: ‘But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged’; that is, if, whenever we are overtaken by the wound of sin, we judged ourselves unworthy of receiving the sacraments, we would certainly apply ourselves to approach them worthily through the amendment of repentance, and would not be chastised by the Lord with the severest scourges of sicknesses as unworthy, so that, pricked at least in this way, we run back to the remedies for our wounds, lest, not being thought worthy of the very brief correction of the present age, we be condemned in the future together with the sinners of this world. This is also commanded with a plain declaration in Leviticus: ‘Everyone who is clean shall eat the flesh; and whatever soul eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offering, which is the Lord’s, while there is uncleanness on it, shall perish before the Lord.’ In Deuteronomy too the unclean man is likewise mystically separated from the spiritual camp: ‘If there is any man among you,’ it says, ‘who has been polluted by a dream at night, he shall go out of the camp and shall not return until he is washed with water in the evening; and after sunset he shall return into the camp.’”

“But that it may be proved more plainly that this impurity is sometimes drawn out by the scheming of the enemy: we knew a brother who continually possessed chastity of heart and body, won by the greatest circumspection and humility, and was never tempted by nightly mockeries; yet whenever he had prepared himself to receive the Lord’s communion, he was defiled in sleep by an unclean flux. When he had for a long time kept himself away from the holy mysteries in fear, he at last brought this question to the elders, trusting that he would obtain a remedy for his assaults and his grief through their healing counsel. The teaching of those spiritual physicians first examined the first cause of this disease, which usually comes from an abundant taking of food, and they found that it was not present in this brother; it was plain that this illusion did not arise from the fault of satiety, since neither the known strictness of the brother nor the special exception of the feast days on which that pollution occurred allowed them to think so. They at once moved their search on to the second cause of this illness, examining whether perhaps, through a fault of the soul, the flesh, though exhausted by fasting, was pressed by impure illusions, by which even the strictest men, when they have been a little lifted up about the purity of their body, are polluted through the vice of pride, since they have believed that they obtained by human virtues that special gift of God, the chastity of the body. When, then, he was asked whether he believed himself so capable of this virtue by his own effort that he did not need divine help, he rejected this impious thought with the greatest abhorrence and humbly declared that he could not have kept purity of body even on the other days unless divine grace had helped him in everything. At once they turned to the third cause and saw through the hidden snares of the devil’s scheming. Judging that the fault was neither of soul nor of flesh, they decided most confidently that he ought to take part in the holy banquet, lest, if he persisted in this obstinacy, he should be bound by the cunning snares of the malignant enemy and be unable to share in sanctification and the body of Christ, and through this fraud be cheated forever of the medicine of the saving remedy. When this was done, the whole scene of the devil’s scheming was so exposed that soon, with the power of the Lord’s body protecting him, that habit of the former illusion ceased. In this the enemy’s trick was clearly revealed, and the judgment of the elders was set out and proved alike, which taught that this most impure flux is very often forced out not by a fault of the flesh or of the soul but by the scheming mockery of the adversary. So that the deceptive imagination of dreams, the enticer of impure discharge, may be unknown either forever or at least, to speak of the humbler or common state, for certain months, we must, after that faith by which we should constantly hope for the gift of purity especially from the grace of God, chastise excess of food and drink. For from their abundance such fluids must be produced more readily; and since, once accumulated, they cannot fail to be discharged and are pushed out by the very law of nature, they come out on the occasion of any itching or illusion. But when fullness of food is removed, it follows that those unclean discharges too are produced more slowly. So it comes about that, as their flux, so too the illusion disturbs sleepers either more rarely or more lightly, since the discharge does not so much come from the imagination as the imagination from an excess of discharge. So if we wish to be freed from the enticements of these illusions, we must strive with all our strength: first, that, the passion of sexual immorality being conquered, according to the blessed apostle, sin may not reign in our mortal body so that we obey its desires; second, that, the enticing movement of the body itself being wholly calmed and put to sleep, we may by no means present our members to sin as weapons of iniquity; third, that, our inner man too being mortified in every way and to the marrow from that titillation of lust, we may present ourselves to God as living from the dead; and so, coming by this progress to the lasting quiet of our body, we may present our members to God as weapons no longer of lust but of righteousness. Founded in this purity of chastity, sin will not have dominion over us. For we are not under the law, which, while it commends the lawful rights of marriage, also feeds and keeps in our marrow that heat by whose service the work of unlawful sexual immorality is accomplished; but under grace, which, while it instills the incorruption of virginity, destroys even this harmless and simple movement of the body and the pleasure even of lawful intercourse. And so, when all the fluids of that most impure flood are dried up, we shall become those excellent and praiseworthy eunuchs proclaimed by Isaiah and shall deserve to possess the blessedness promised them: ‘For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: Those who keep my sabbaths, and choose what I have willed, and hold fast my covenant, I will give them in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not perish.’ Who are these sons and daughters, to whom these eunuchs are so preferred that they are even said to be going to receive a better place and name, if not those saints who, remaining in the union of marriage under the Old Testament, rightly came to the adoption of the sons of God by keeping the commandments? And what is that name which is promised them as something special by way of the highest reward, if not this, that we are counted by the name of Christ? Of this name the same prophet also says elsewhere, ‘And he will call his servants by another name, in which he who is blessed on the earth shall be blessed in God, Amen; and he who swears on the earth shall swear by God, Amen’; and again, ‘And a new name shall be called for you, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.’ And for this purity of heart and body they will also enjoy that special and singular blessedness of continually singing that song which no other of the saints can sing but these alone, ‘who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; for they are virgins, and have not defiled themselves with women.’ So if we wish to reach this most exalted glory of virgins, let us cultivate with all our strength the incorruption of mind and spirit, lest we fall into the number of those foolish virgins to whom virginity was not reckoned, because they only kept themselves free from carnal intercourse; and so they are called virgins indeed, but foolish, because when the oil of inner purity failed in their vessels, the brightness and splendor of bodily virginity was extinguished. For chastity must be supplied to the outer man too by the nourishment and fuel of inner purity, and constantly quickened to persevere in lasting incorruption. And so the foolish, though virgins, do not deserve to enter the glorious bridal chamber of the Bridegroom with those wise ones who kept their spirit and soul and body whole and blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. For those are true and incorrupt virgins of Christ, those are reckoned admirable and excellent eunuchs, not those who are afraid or do not wish to commit sexual immorality, nor those who restrain the reins of unchastity, but those who have conquered even the smallest titillation of the mind and the faintest incitements of lust, and have so weakened, so to speak, that sense of the flesh that they are touched by no delight from its stirring, nor even by a slight titillation.”

“But we ought to fence our heart with such a guard of humility that we hold this conviction with constant steadiness of mind: that we can by no means reach such merit of purification that, even if by the grace of God we have done everything I spoke of above, we should not believe ourselves unworthy of the communion of the holy body. First, because the majesty of that heavenly manna is so great that no one clothed in this clay flesh receives it by his own merit, and not by the free generosity of the Lord. Then, because no one can be so circumspect in the conflict of this world that the darts of sins, however rare or light, do not strike him; for it is impossible not to sin through ignorance, negligence, surprise, thought, necessity, forgetfulness, or sleep. For even if someone has climbed so splendid a summit of virtues that he can cry out, without boasting, that word of the apostle, ‘But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by any human day; indeed, I do not judge myself; for I am conscious of nothing against myself,’ let him still know that he cannot be without sin. For not in vain did the same teacher add, ‘But I am not justified by this’; that is, I shall not at once possess the glory of true righteousness if I believe myself righteous, nor am I stained by no contagion of filth because my conscience pricks me with the reproach of no sin; for many things are hidden even from my conscience which, though unknown or obscure to me, are known and plain to God. And so he adds, ‘But he who judges me is the Lord’; that is, the examination of true judgment on me is given only by him from whom the secrets of hearts are not hidden.”

Germanus: “It was said above that only saints ought to share in the heavenly sacraments; now it is added that it is impossible for a man to be wholly free from fault. If, then, no one is free from guilt, no one is holy; and if no one is holy, it follows that a man who lacks holiness cannot share in the mysteries of Christ, and ought not even to hope for the kingdom of heaven, which the Lord promises to the saints alone.”

Theonas: “We cannot deny that there are many holy and righteous men; but there is a great difference between holy and spotless. For it is one thing for someone to be holy, that is, consecrated to divine worship; for this name, as Scripture testifies, is common not only to men but also to places and to the vessels and basins of the temple. It is another thing to be without sin, which belongs uniquely to the majesty of our one Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the apostle too declares, as something special and peculiar, ‘who did no sin.’ For he would have ascribed to him a rather cheap praise, unworthy of his glory, as if it were something incomparable and divine, if we too could achieve a life untouched by any sin. Again the apostle, to the Hebrews: ‘For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one tempted in all things according to our likeness, without sin.’ If, then, our earthly lowliness can have this in common with that exalted and divine high priest, that we too are tempted without any offense of sin, why did the apostle, looking up to this in him as unique and singular, separate his merit from all men by so great a distinction? He is distinguished from all of us by this one exception, that it is clear we are tempted not without sin, while he was tempted without sin. For what man, however brave and warlike, is not often exposed to the enemy’s darts? Who, as though clothed in impenetrable flesh, can mingle in the dangers of such battles without danger? But he alone, ‘beautiful in form above the sons of men,’ taking on the condition of human death with all the frailty of the flesh, was never stained by the touch of any filth.”

“For he was tempted according to our likeness first by the vice of gastrimargia, when that cunning serpent, in the same order in which he had earlier deceived Adam, tried to mock him, when he was hungry, with the desire for food, saying, ‘If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But he contracted no sin from this temptation; although he undoubtedly had the power, he rejected the food that the craftsman of deceptions offered, saying, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ He was also tempted by vainglory according to our likeness, when it was said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.’ But he was not caught by the devil’s crafty suggestion, and, refuting the most vain seducer by quoting the Scriptures, he said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ He was also tempted by the swelling of pride according to our likeness, when all the kingdoms of the world and their glory were promised him by the devil; but the vanity of the tempter was mocked and rebuked. For he answered him, ‘Get behind me, Satan; it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.’ By these testimonies we are taught that we too must likewise resist the deceitful suggestions of the enemy by the remembrance of the Scriptures. Again he was tempted by pride according to our likeness, when the same craftsman of snares tried to force on him through men the kingdom he had earlier rejected when offered by the devil himself. But he mocked the tempter’s snares without sin: ‘For when Jesus knew that they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, he fled again to the mountain by himself alone.’ He was tempted according to our likeness when he was beaten with scourges, struck with slaps, spattered with the horror of spitting, and at last endured all the most refined tortures. But he was driven by no insults, I will not say ever, nor even by tortures, to the swelling of even the slightest indignation; set on the cross, he cried out mercifully, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.’”

“And how will we take that other saying, where the apostle records that he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, if we too can have flesh stained by no taint of sin? For this too is recorded as unique of him who alone is without sin: ‘God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh’; because, taking the true and complete substance of human flesh, he must be believed to have taken in it not sin itself but the likeness of sin. For ‘likeness’ is to be referred not to the reality of the flesh, according to the perverse view of certain heretics, but to the image of sin. For there was in him true flesh, but without sin; like, that is, to sinful flesh. The one pertains to the reality of human substance; the other refers to vices and conduct. He had the likeness of sinful flesh when, like a man who did not know and was concerned about food, he asked, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ But just as his flesh was by no means subject to sin, so his soul was not subject to ignorance. Then the evangelist at once adds, ‘Jesus said this to test them, for he himself knew what he would do.’ He had flesh like sinful flesh when, as if thirsty, he asked the Samaritan woman for a drink. But it was not stained by the filth of sin, for on the contrary the woman was moved to ask for living water, which would never let her thirst but would become in her a spring of water welling up to eternal life. He had the reality of this flesh when he slept in the boat; but so that those sailing with him might not be deceived by the likeness of sin, ‘he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.’ He seemed subject to sin by the common lot of all when it was said of him, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman has touched his feet.’ But he did not have the reality of sin, for he refuted the Pharisee’s blasphemous thought and at once forgave the woman’s sins. He was thought to bear flesh sinful like the rest when, like a man placed in the danger of death and struck with terror at the tortures hanging over him, he prayed, ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,’ and, ‘My soul is sorrowful even to death.’ But that sorrow knew no contagion of sin, since the author of life could not fear death. For he says, ‘No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.’”

“In this, then, that man who was born of a virgin is separated by a great distance from all who are produced by the union of both sexes: that while all of us bear in the flesh not the likeness but the reality of sin, he took on, in assuming true flesh, not the reality but the likeness of sin. Finally, although the Pharisees remembered very clearly what was written of him in the prophet Isaiah, ‘who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth,’ they were still so deceived by the likeness of sinful flesh that they said, ‘Behold, a man who is a glutton and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners,’ and to the blind man who had been given sight, ‘Give glory to God; for we know that this man is a sinner,’ and to Pilate, ‘If this man were not a sinner, we would not have handed him over to you.’ Whoever, then, dares to profess that he is without sin will claim for himself, with the crime of blasphemous pride, equality with the thing that belongs uniquely and properly to him alone. For it follows that he says that he has the likeness of sinful flesh and not the reality of sin.”

“But Scripture plainly declares that righteous and holy men are not free from fault, saying, ‘For the righteous man falls seven times and rises again.’ For what else is falling but sinning? And yet, though he is said to fall seven times, he is nonetheless called righteous, and the fall of human frailty does not prejudice his righteousness, because there is a great difference between the fall of a holy man and that of a sinner. For it is one thing to commit a mortal sin, and another to be overtaken by a thought that is not without sin, or to offend through the error of ignorance or forgetfulness, or through the ease of an idle word, or to hesitate for a moment in inner contemplation through the fault of unbelief, or to be struck by a subtle titillation of vainglory, or to fall back a little from the highest perfection through the necessity of nature. These are the seven kinds of falls in which, though a holy man sometimes falls, he does not cease to be righteous. However light and small they seem, they still make it impossible for him to be without sin. For he has faults for which, doing penance daily, he must truly ask pardon and pray unceasingly for his sins, saying, ‘Forgive us our debts.’ And to prove by the clearest examples that some of the saints erred and yet did not depart from their righteousness: surely that most blessed and outstanding apostle Peter must be believed to have been nothing but holy, especially at the time when the Lord said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven also.’ What could be more splendid than this praise from the Lord, what more exalted than this power and blessedness? And yet a little later, when, not knowing the mystery of the passion, he unwittingly opposed so great a benefit to the human race, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you,’ he deserved to hear, ‘Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me, because you do not think the things of God but the things of men.’ When justice itself rebuked him with these words, must he be believed either not to have fallen at all or not to have remained in holiness and righteousness? And at that other time, when under the threat of fear of his persecutors he was driven to deny the Lord three times, must it be denied that he plainly suffered a fall? But at once, with repentance following, washing away the stain of so great a crime with most bitter tears, he did not lose the merits of holiness and righteousness. Of him, then, and of saints like him we must take what is sung by David: ‘The steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and he will greatly delight in his way. When the righteous man falls, he will not be troubled, for the Lord puts his hand under him.’ Whose steps can be directed by the Lord but a righteous man’s? And yet of this very man it is said, ‘When he falls, he will not be dashed.’ What is ‘when he falls,’ if not when he incurs the fall of some sin? ‘He will not be dashed,’ he says; that is, he will not be crushed for long by the onset of sin, but, though for the present he seems struck down, yet, raised up by the divine help he implores, he will not lose the steadiness of righteousness because of a swift rising again; or, even if he loses it for the present through the frailty of the flesh, he will recover it by the placing of the Lord’s hand beneath him. For he does not cease to be holy after a fall who, knowing that he cannot be justified by trust in his own works, and believing that he must be freed from such great bonds of sins by the grace of the Lord alone, does not cease to cry out with the apostle: ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’”

“For when the apostle Paul, recognizing that the immeasurable abyss of purity cannot be penetrated by man while the surges of thoughts resist, had long been tossed as if through the deep, he had said earlier, ‘For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate, that I do,’ and again, ‘But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me,’ and, ‘I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members.’ Having wholly perceived the frailty, whether his own or of nature itself, and terrified by the vastness of so immense a height, he fled to the safest harbor of divine help; and, as if despairing, because of natural weakness, of his ship weighed down with the cargo of mortality, he begged the remedy for shipwreck from him to whom nothing is impossible, crying out with a pitiful wail, ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?’ And at once he confidently counted on the release, which he despaired of from the weakness of nature, from the goodness of God, adding with confidence, ‘The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’”