The Institutes 10.18–12.5

Then, going on to Miletus and sending from there to Ephesus, he called to himself the presbyters of the church of the Ephesians and gave them instructions on how they ought to govern the church of God in his absence, saying: "I have coveted no one's silver or gold; you yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my needs and to those who are with me. I have shown you all things, that by so labouring you ought to support the weak and remember the word of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive." He has left us a weighty example of his conduct, since he testifies that he worked not only for what would meet the needs of his own body, but also for what could suffice for the use of those who were with him, namely those who, occupied daily with necessary ministries, could by no means likewise provide their food with their own hands. And just as he said to the Thessalonians that he worked to give them a pattern to imitate him, so here too he added something similar, saying: "I have shown you all things, that by so labouring you ought to support the weak" — weak, that is, either in mind or in body — that is, that we should hasten to refresh them by our own labour and by the expense earned by the sweat of our work, and not from a heap of abundance or stored-up money, nor even from another's generosity and property.

And he says that this very thing is the Lord's command: "For he himself said," that is, the Lord Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." This is the generosity of the giver, more blessed than the want of the receiver: not that which is spent from money kept back through unbelief or distrust, nor from the hidden treasures of avarice, but that which is brought out from the fruit of one's own work and devout sweat. And therefore it is more blessed to give than to receive, because, although the giver has the poverty of the one who receives, he nevertheless hastens by his own labour to provide with devout care not only sufficiency for his own need but also something to give to the needy. So he is adorned with a double grace: he possesses the perfect nakedness of Christ by casting away all his possessions, and he shows the munificence of a rich man by his labour and his disposition; he honours God from his just labours and offers him the firstfruits of the fruits of his justice. But the other, dissolved by the torpor and inertia of idleness, proves himself unworthy even of the food of bread by the apostle's sentence, since, idle as he is, he takes it against his prohibition, not without the guilt of sin and contumacy.

We knew a brother whose name we would even reveal if it would add anything to this instruction. He lived in a coenobium, and necessity required him to hand over to the steward every day a fixed task of work. Lest he be stretched to a greater measure of work, or put to shame, by the example of someone labouring more eagerly, whenever he saw that some brother had entered the coenobium who wished in the ardour of faith to hand in something more of work, if he could not call him back from this intention by secret persuasion, he would persuade him by evil counsels and whisperings to move away from there. And to carry him off more easily, he would pretend that he too had long been offended for many reasons and wished to leave, if he could find the comfort of a journey or a companion. And when he had lured him into agreement by secret disparagements of the monastery, arranging with him the hour at which he should leave the monastery and the place where he would go ahead and wait for him, he himself stayed there, as though he were about to follow at once; and since the other, out of shame at his departure, did not dare to rejoin the monastery from which he had fled, the one who had enticed him to flight remained in the coenobium. Let it suffice to have given this one example of this kind of man for the caution of beginners, so that it may be seen more clearly how many evils idleness, according to the saying of Scripture, brings forth in a monk's mind, and how "evil conversations corrupt good morals."

The most wise Solomon too marks this vice of idleness most clearly in many places, saying: "He who pursues idleness will be filled with poverty" — whether visible or invisible, by which every idle man must be held entangled in various vices and be always a stranger to the contemplation of God and to spiritual riches, of which the blessed apostle says: "For in everything you have been made rich in him, in all speech and in all knowledge." Of this poverty of the idle man it is also written elsewhere: "And every sleepy man will be clothed in torn rags." Without doubt he will not deserve to be adorned with that garment of incorruption of which the apostle commanded, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ," and again, "having put on the breastplate of justice and love," and of which the Lord also speaks to Jerusalem through the prophet: "Arise, arise, Jerusalem, put on the garments of your glory" — whoever, overcome by the sleep of idleness or acedia, has chosen to be covered, not by the labour of his own diligence, but by the rags of inertia. Cutting these off from the perfect fullness and body of the Scriptures, he will fit to his own sloth, not a garment of glory or beauty, but a shameful veil of excuse. For those who are dissolved by this sluggishness, unwilling to be supported by the work of their hands, which the apostle practised unceasingly and commanded us to practise, usually use certain testimonies of Scripture to put a kind of veil over their inertia, saying that it is written, "Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life," and, "My food is to do the will of my Father." But these testimonies are certain rags cut from the solid fullness of the gospel reading, sewn on to cover the shame of our idleness and disgrace rather than to warm and adorn us with that precious and perfect garment of the virtues which that wise woman in Proverbs, who is clothed with strength and beauty, is described as having made for herself or for her husband; of whom it is also said next: "She is clothed with strength and beauty, and she has rejoiced in the last days." Of this disease of inertia the same Solomon again says: "The ways of those who do no work are strewn with thorns" — that is, with these and similar vices, which the apostle said above sprout from idleness; and again: "Every idle man is in desires," of which the apostle speaks, saying, "and that you desire nothing of anyone's"; and lastly: "For idleness has taught much evil." The apostle clearly enumerated these evils in the passages we have explained above, saying, "doing no work but being busybodies," and to this vice he joined another: "and that you make it your aim to be quiet," and then, "that you do your own business, and that you walk honourably towards those outside, and that you desire nothing of anyone's." He also brands such people as disorderly and rebellious, commanding all the zealous to separate from them: "that you withdraw yourselves," he says, "from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us."

Taught by these examples, the fathers throughout Egypt by no means allow monks, and especially the young, to be idle, measuring the state of the heart and progress in patience and humility by diligence in work. And not only do they not allow anything to be received from anyone for the use of their food, but from their own labours they not only refresh brothers who arrive and visitors, but also send huge supplies of food and provisions to the parts of Libya that suffer from barrenness and famine, and also, throughout the cities, to those who are wasting away in the squalor of prisons, believing that by such an offering they present to the Lord a rational and true sacrifice from the fruit of their hands.

Hence it is that in these regions we see no monasteries founded with such a great number of brothers, because they are not supported by the resources of their own work so as to be able to last in them continually; and even if a sufficiency of food could somehow be supplied to them by another's generosity, the pleasure of idleness and the wandering of the heart do not allow them to persevere long in the place. Hence there is this holy saying among the ancient fathers in Egypt: that a working monk is attacked by one demon, but an idle one is laid waste by countless spirits.

Finally, Abba Paul, most approved of the fathers, living in the vaster desert called Porphyrio, secure with the fruit of the palm trees and a small garden, had sufficient means of food and nourishment and could practise no other work by which to support himself, since his dwelling in that desert was separated from towns or habitable land by seven days' journey or more, and more would be asked for the cost of transport than the price of the work produced could be worth. Yet he gathered palm leaves and continually exacted of himself a daily task, as though he were to be supported by it. And when his cave had been filled with the work of a whole year, he would set fire to what he had laboured over with such care and burn it every year, proving so clearly that without manual work a monk can neither stay in one place nor ever climb to the summit of perfection, that, though the need of food by no means required it, he did it solely for the purification of his heart, the firmness of his thoughts, perseverance in the cell, and victory and conquest over acedia itself.

When, as a beginner living in the desert, I had told Abba Moses, the highest of all the saints, that I had been most severely afflicted the day before by the sickness of acedia and could not be freed from it in any other way than by running at once to Abba Paul, he said: "You have not freed yourself from it; rather, you have shown yourself its surrendered subject. For the adversary will attack you more heavily from now on as a deserter and runaway, since he saw you flee at once when defeated in the conflict — unless from now on, when battle is joined, you choose not to disperse its onsets for the moment by deserting your cell or by the torpor of sleep, but rather learn to triumph by endurance and struggle." Hence it has been proved by experience that the attack of acedia must not be fled from by avoiding it, but overcome by resisting it.

Our seventh contest is against the spirit of kenodoxia, which we can call vain or empty glory: a spirit many-shaped, varied, and subtle, so that even with the keenest eyes it can scarcely — I will not say be guarded against — but even be seen or detected.

For it attacks the monk not only, like the other vices, in the fleshly part, but also in the spiritual, insinuating itself into the mind with a subtler wickedness, so that those who could not be deceived by fleshly vices are wounded more sharply by their spiritual successes; and it is the more deadly to fight the more obscure it is to guard against. For the encounter with all the other vices is more manifest and open, and in each of them the instigator, refuted by firm contradiction, will withdraw weaker, and the defeated adversary will afterwards attack his conqueror more feebly. But this one, when it has attacked the mind with fleshly pride and has been repulsed by the shield of a reply, again, like a many-shaped wickedness, changing its former dress and character, tries to stab and slay the victor under the appearance of the virtues.

For the other vices or disturbances are known to be uniform and simple, but this one is manifold, many-shaped, and varied, meeting the fighter from every side and the victor from every quarter. For it tries to wound the soldier of Christ in his dress and appearance, in his walk, in his voice, in his work, in vigils, in fasts, in prayer, in withdrawal, in reading, in knowledge, in silence, in obedience, in humility, in long-suffering; and like a most deadly rock hidden by the swelling waves, it brings an unforeseen and miserable shipwreck on those sailing with a fair wind, since it is neither guarded against nor foreseen.

So one who wishes to walk on the royal road must, according to the apostle's teaching, pass through the arms of justice on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonour, through evil report and good report, and must direct the course of virtue among the swelling waves of temptations with such caution, discernment steering and the Spirit of the Lord blowing on us, that we know that if we turn aside a little to right or left we shall soon be dashed on deadly rocks. And therefore we are warned by the most wise Solomon: "Do not turn aside to the right or to the left": that is, do not flatter yourself about your virtues and be lifted up by successes on the right and spiritual ones, nor, turning aside to the left-hand path of the vices, seek glory for yourself from them in your shame, as the apostle says. For one in whom it could not produce kenodoxia under the appearance of a neat and elegant garment, it tries to plant it in through a squalid, unkempt, and cheaper one; one whom it could not cast down through honour, it trips up through humility; one whom it could not lift up by the adornment of knowledge and eloquence, it throws down by the gravity of silence. If he fasts openly, he is attacked by the glory of vanity; if he hides it in order to despise glory, he is struck by the same vice of pride. To avoid being stained by the contagion of vainglory, he avoids praying at length in the sight of the brothers; and because he does it secretly and has no one aware of the act, he does not escape the stings of vanity.

The elders beautifully describe the nature of this disease as like an onion or bulbs, which, when stripped of one skin, are found clothed again with another, and are found covered as often as they have been stripped.

In solitude too it does not cease to pursue one who flees the company of all mortals for the sake of glory; and the more someone has avoided the whole world, the more sharply it hunts him. It tries to lift up one because he is most patient in work and labour, another because he is most ready to obey, another because he surpasses the rest in humility; one is tempted by the length of his knowledge, another of his reading, another of his vigils. Nor does this disease try to wound anyone except through his own virtues, setting the stumbling blocks of destruction in the very things by which the rewards of life are gained. For the enemies, lying in wait for those who wish to walk the road of piety and perfection, hide the snares of deception nowhere else than in the way on which they walk, according to that saying of blessed David, "In this way on which I walked they hid a snare for me" — so that on this very road of the virtues, by which we go forward reaching for the prize of the heavenly calling, we may fall, lifted up by our successes, and, with the feet of our soul entangled, collapse, fettered by the snares of cenodoxia. And so it comes about that we who could not be overcome in conflict with the adversary are conquered by the height of our own triumph; or at least — which is another kind of deception — by exceeding the measure of continence or of our own capacity, we lose the perseverance of our course when bodily weakness intervenes.

All the vices, when overcome, wither away, and when conquered become weaker day by day, and are lessened and cool down either through place or time; or at least, being opposed by the contrary virtues, they are more easily guarded against or avoided. But this one, when thrown down, rises more sharply to the struggle, and when it is thought extinguished, grows stronger through its own death. The other kinds of vices usually attack only those whom they have overcome in the contest; but this one pursues its conquerors more sharply, and the more strongly it has been beaten down, the more violently it attacks through the pride of the victory itself. And this is the subtle cunning of the enemy: to make the soldier of Christ fall by his own weapons, when he could not overcome him with hostile arms.

Other vices, as we have said, sometimes subside through the benefit of place, and usually slacken and lessen when the material of sin, or its opportunity and occasion, has been removed; but this one enters the desert with the one who flees, and knows neither how to be shut out by place nor to wither when its material is removed from outside. For it is fed from no other source than the successes in virtue of the one it attacks. Some vices too, as we said before, are sometimes softened and vanish with the passing of time; but to this one long life, unless it is grounded in skilful diligence and prudent discernment, not only does no harm but even knows how to gather greater fuel for vanity.

Lastly, the other passions, being opposed to their contrary virtues and fighting openly as in broad daylight, are more easily overcome and guarded against; but this one, grafted onto the virtues and mixed into the battle line, fights as in a blind night and deceives more cruelly those who are unsuspecting and unwary.

For so we read that Hezekiah, king of Judah, a man of perfect justice in all things and approved by the testimony of the holy Scriptures, after countless praises of his virtues was cast down by one dart of pride; and he who by one prayer was able to obtain the slaughter of a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the army of the Assyrians, laid waste by an angel in the night, is overcome by boasting of vanity. To pass over so long a catalogue of his virtues, which would take very long to unfold, I will say this one thing: after the end of his life had been declared and the day of his death fixed by the Lord's sentence, he earned by one prayer to pass the limits of his life by fifteen years, while the sun went back ten steps which it had already lit on its way to setting, and, driving back by its return the lines which the following shadow had occupied as it withdrew, gave the whole world a doubled day by an unheard-of miracle against the fixed laws of nature. After such great and incredible signs, after such immense proofs of virtue, hear the Scripture telling how he was cast down by his own successes: "In those days," it says, "Hezekiah was sick to death, and he prayed to the Lord, and he heard him and gave him a sign" — that is, the one we read in the fourth book of Kingdoms was given through the prophet Isaiah by the return of the sun. "But he did not repay," it says, "according to the benefits he had received, for his heart was lifted up; and wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. And afterwards he was humbled because his heart had been exalted, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and therefore the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah." How deadly, how grave is the disease of pride! So much justice, so many virtues, so much faith and devotion, which deserved to change nature itself and the laws of the whole world, perish by one act of pride, so that, all his virtues being consigned to oblivion as if they had never been, he would at once have incurred the Lord's wrath had he not appeased it by taking up humility again; so that he who had fallen from so lofty a height of merits under the impulse of pride could climb back to the lost summit only by the same steps of humility. Do you wish to hear another example of a similar fall?

Uzziah, the great-great-grandfather of the king we have mentioned, himself also praised in all things by the testimony of Scripture, after immense praises of his virtues, after countless triumphs which he achieved by the merit of his devotion and faith — learn how he was cast down by the pride of vainglory: "And the name of Uzziah went forth," it says, "because the Lord helped him and strengthened him. And when he had been strengthened, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, and he neglected the Lord his God." You see another example of a most grievous fall, and you perceive in two men so just and so perfect how deadly successes in prosperity usually are, so that those who could not be broken by adversity are thrown down more sharply by prosperity if they are unwary, and those who escaped the dangers of death in conflict and battle succumb to their own trophies and triumphs.

Therefore the apostle warns: "Do not be desirous of vainglory"; and the Lord, rebuking the Pharisees, says: "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone?" Of these blessed David too says with a threat: "For God has scattered the bones of those who please men."

It also usually lifts up the minds of beginners, and of those who have made less progress so far in virtue of mind or knowledge, either because of the sound of their voice — because they sing psalms more tunefully — or because they are gaunt in flesh, or better off in body, or because they have rich and noble parents, or because they have despised military service and honours. Sometimes too it persuades someone that he would very easily have obtained dignities and wealth, which perhaps he could never have attained at all, if he had remained in the world, puffing him up with vain hope even about uncertain things, and lifting him up with the glory of vanity about things he never possessed, as though he had despised them.

Sometimes too it instils the desire for a clerical rank, the priesthood or the diaconate. It pictures to him that, if he had obtained it even against his will, he would fulfil it with such holiness and strictness that he could offer an example of holiness even to the other priests; and then that he would win many not only by the pattern of his conduct but also by his teaching and preaching. It also makes him, while living in solitude or in his cell, go round in mind and spirit the houses and monasteries of various people and gain the conversions of very many under the stimulus of imaginary exhortation.

So the unhappy soul is driven on, deceived by such vanity as by a very deep sleep, so that often, enticed by the sweetness of thoughts of this kind and filled with these images, it cannot even attend to its present actions or to the brothers, since it delights to cling, as if they were true, to the things it has dreamed while awake in the wandering of its thoughts.

I remember an old man, when I was living in the desert of Scete, who came to the cell of a certain brother to visit him. When he had approached the door and heard him murmuring something inside, he stopped for a little, wishing to learn what passage of Scripture he was reading, or, as is the custom, going over from memory while working. And when the most devout investigator, putting his ear carefully to the door, listened more curiously, he found him so enticed by the attack of this spirit that he believed he was delivering a sermon of exhortation to the people in church. And when the old man, standing there, had heard him finish his discourse and, changing his office again, celebrate as a deacon the dismissal of the catechumens, then at last he knocked at the door. The brother came out and met the old man with the usual reverence, and as he led him in, his conscience stung by his thoughts, he asked him how long ago he had come, lest he had suffered the discourtesy of standing too long at the door. The old man answered jokingly and kindly: "I came just now, when you were celebrating the dismissal of the catechumens."

I have thought it necessary to insert these things in this little work so that, instructed not only by reasoning but also by examples about the force and order of the attacks of the vices by which the wretched soul is torn, we may be more cautious in avoiding the snares and manifold traps of the enemy. For the Egyptian fathers bring these things out openly in this way, so that by their account they uncover and lay bare among themselves the struggles against all the vices — those which the younger monks suffer or will suffer — as though they themselves still endured them. In this way, when they set out the illusions of all the passions which belong to beginners and those fervent in spirit, the younger learn the secrets of their own struggles, and, contemplating them as in a mirror, are taught both the causes of the vices that attack them and their remedies; and being instructed about the encounters of future contests before they come, they are taught how they ought to guard against them, meet them, and fight them. Just as the most skilful physicians usually not only heal present diseases but also meet future ones with shrewd skill and forestall them by precepts or wholesome draughts, so these most true physicians of souls, killing in advance by spiritual conference, as by a heavenly antidote, the sicknesses of hearts that are about to arise, do not let them grow up in the minds of the young, revealing to them both the causes of impending passions and the remedies of health.

Therefore this is a saying of the fathers from of old that remains to this day, which I cannot bring forward without my own shame, since I could neither avoid my sister nor escape the bishop's hands: that a monk must by all means flee women and bishops. For neither of them allows one whom they have once bound to their friendship to give himself any longer to the quiet of the cell or to cling with the purest eyes to divine theōria through the contemplation of holy things.

Therefore the athlete of Christ who desires to contend lawfully in the true and spiritual contest should hasten by all means to overcome this many-shaped and varied beast. We shall be able to escape it, as it meets us from every side like a manifold wickedness, by this remedy. First, reflecting on that saying of David, "The Lord has scattered the bones of those who please men," let us not allow ourselves to do anything with the intention of vanity and for the sake of gaining empty glory. Next, let us try to guard with like watchfulness what we have done with a good beginning, lest the disease of cenodoxia creeping in afterwards make void all the fruits of our labours. Also, whatever the common practice in the life of the brothers does not accept or practise, let us avoid with all zeal as given to boasting; and let us shun those things that could make us conspicuous among the others, as though praise were to be sought among men for doing what we alone do. For by these signs above all it will be shown that the deadly contagion of cenodoxia clings to us. We shall very easily escape it if we consider not only that we shall entirely lose the fruits of whatever labours we have done with the intention of cenodoxia, but also that, made guilty of a great crime, we shall pay eternal punishments as sacrilegious, since, to God's injury, we chose to do for the sake of men the work we ought to have done for his sake, and are convicted by him who knows secret things of having preferred men to God and the glory of the world to the glory of the Lord.

Our eighth and last contest is against the spirit of pride. Although this disease is the last in the conflict with the vices and is placed last in order, it is first in origin and time: a most savage beast, more monstrous than all those above, tempting above all the perfect and feeding with a crueller bite on those already almost at the consummation of the virtues.

It has two kinds: one, by which we have said the spiritual and highest are attacked; the other, which embraces even beginners and the carnal. And although the harmful self-exaltation of both kinds of pride puffs up against God as well as against men, yet the first refers especially to God, while the second properly concerns men. We shall pursue its origin and remedies, as far as we can with God's gift, in the later parts of this book. Now our purpose is to discuss a few things about the first, by which, as we said, the perfect are especially tempted.

There is no other vice, then, which so drains all the virtues and strips and denudes a man of all justice and holiness as the evil of pride. Like a general and pestilent disease, it is not content to weaken one member or part, but corrupts the whole body with deadly ruin, and tries to cast down and slaughter with the heaviest fall those already placed at the summit of the virtues. For every vice is content with its own limits and end, and although it also troubles other virtues, it is directed chiefly against one, and especially oppresses and attacks it. To make clearer what we have said: gastrimargia, that is, the appetite of the belly or the desire of the palate, corrupts the strictness of temperance; lust defiles chastity; anger lays waste patience; so that sometimes someone given to one vice is not entirely destitute of the other virtues, but, only that virtue being cut off which gives way when the rival vice fights against it, he can keep the rest at least in part. But when pride has taken possession of the unhappy mind, like a most savage tyrant who has captured the highest citadel of the virtues, it destroys and overturns the whole city from its foundations; levelling the once lofty walls of holiness with the ground of the vices and mixing them with it, it allows no image of freedom to remain afterwards to the soul subject to it; and the richer the soul it has captured, the more heavily it will subject it to the yoke of slavery and strip it of all the resources of the virtues by the cruellest plundering.

And that we may know the power of its most grievous tyranny, we find that that angel who, because of the excess of his splendour and beauty, was called Lucifer, was cast down from heaven by no other vice than this, and, wounded by the dart of pride, fell from that blessed and lofty station of the angels to the regions below. If, then, one elation of heart could bring down from heaven to earth so great a power, adorned with the privilege of so great might, the very greatness of his fall shows with what watchfulness we, surrounded by the frailty of the flesh, ought to be on guard. We shall be able to learn how to avoid the most deadly poison of this disease if we trace the causes and origin of that fall. For sicknesses can never be cured, nor remedies applied to bad health, unless their origins and causes are first investigated by shrewd inquiry. For he, clothed with divine brightness and shining among the other heavenly powers by the Creator's bounty, believed that he possessed the splendour of wisdom and the beauty of virtues with which he was adorned by the Creator's grace by the power of his own nature, not by the gift of God's generosity; and lifted up on this account, as though he did not need divine help to persevere in this purity, he judged himself like God, since, like God, he needed nothing — trusting, that is, in the power of free will, believing that through it everything pertaining to the perfection of the virtues or the perpetuity of the highest blessedness would be abundantly supplied to him. This one thought became his first fall. Because of it, forsaken by God, whom he believed he did not need, he suddenly became unstable and tottering, felt the weakness of his own nature, and lost the blessedness he enjoyed by God's gift. And because "he loved words of ruin," by which he had said, "I will ascend into heaven," "and a deceitful tongue," by which he said either of himself, "I will be like the Most High," or to Adam and Eve, "You will be like gods," "therefore God will destroy him for ever, he will pluck him up and remove him from his dwelling, and his root from the land of the living. Then the just will see his fall and fear, and will laugh at him and say" — which will also most justly be directed at those who trust that they can accomplish the highest good without God's protection and help — "Behold the man who did not make God his helper, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and prevailed in his vanity."

This is the cause of the first fall and the origin of the principal disease, which, creeping again through the one who had been cast down by it into the first-formed man, sprouted the weaknesses and materials of all the vices. For while he believed that he could gain the glory of the Godhead by the freedom of his will and his own effort, he lost even that which he had obtained by the grace of the Creator.