The Institutes 4.13–4.34

I think it superfluous even to mention among their other institutions that virtue, namely that no one is allowed to possess a box or a basket of his own, or anything of the kind that he might keep as his own and ought to secure with his seal. We know that they are so completely stripped that they have nothing more than a colobium, a mafors, sandals, a melota, and a mat; and in other monasteries too, where some things are allowed more leniently, we see this rule kept most strictly to this day, that no one dares even in word to say that anything is his own, and it is a great offence if there has come out of a monk's mouth "my book," "my tablets," "my pen," "my tunic," "my sandals"; and he must make satisfaction for this by suitable penance if by some chance such a word has escaped his lips through inadvertence or ignorance.

And although each of them brings in daily to the monastery such income from his own work and sweat that from it he could not only support his own frugal needs but could also supply the uses of many in abundance, yet he is in no way puffed up, nor does he flatter himself over so great a profit from his work and sweat, but apart from two small loaves, which sell there for barely three denarii, each one claims nothing more for himself. Among them no private work — which I am ashamed to say, and which I wish we did not know to be done in our monasteries — is aimed at by anyone, I do not say in deed, but not even in thought. And although each believes the whole store of the coenobium to be his own property, and devotes all care and concern to everything as if he were the master of all, yet, in order to keep the virtue of the nakedness he has embraced, which he strives to guard perfectly and inviolably to the end, he considers himself so much a stranger to everything and so alien from all things that he behaves as a pilgrim and sojourner in this world, and thinks of himself as a nursling and servant of the monastery rather than presume to be the master of anything.

What do we wretches say to this, we who, living in coenobia and placed under the care and concern of an abbot, carry our own keys about with us, and, trampling on all the modesty and shame of our profession, are not even ashamed to wear openly on our fingers rings with which to seal what we have stored away; for whom not only boxes and baskets, but not even chests and cupboards are enough to store what we heap up or what we kept back when we left the world; and who are sometimes so inflamed over the most trifling things of no value, claiming them as our own, that if anyone presumes to touch any of them even with a finger, we are filled with such anger against him that we cannot keep the disturbance of our heart even from our lips and from the indignation of our whole body. But passing over our own vices, and consigning to silence those things which are not even worth mentioning, according to that saying, "Let my mouth not speak the works of men," let us pursue in the order of our account the virtues that are found among them, and those which we too ought to seek with all zeal; and let us now set down the rules and patterns themselves, quickly and briefly, so that when afterwards we come to certain acts and works of the elders, which we intend to record carefully, we may strengthen what has been set out in our account as by the most powerful testimonies, confirming all we have said rather by their examples and by the authority of their lives.

If, then, anyone has by some accident broken an earthenware jar, which they call a baucalis, he will wash away his negligence only by public penance: when all the brothers are gathered at the synaxis, he will lie prostrate on the ground asking pardon until the service of prayers is completed, and he will obtain it when he is ordered by the abbot's judgment to rise from the ground. Anyone will make the same satisfaction who, called to some work or to the usual assembly, comes too late; or if while singing a psalm he stumbles even a little; likewise if he answers needlessly, harshly, or insolently; if he carries out the services enjoined on him negligently; if he grumbles even slightly; if, preferring reading to work or obedience, he performs his appointed duties sluggishly; if, when the synaxis is dismissed, he does not hurry back quickly to his cell; if he stops with anyone even for a moment, or goes aside anywhere for an instant; if he holds another's hand; if he presumes to talk even a little with one who does not share his cell; if he prays with one who is suspended from prayer; if he sees any of his relatives or worldly friends, or talks with them, without his elder; if he tries to receive a letter from anyone, or to reply, without his abbot. The spiritual correction goes this far, and for faults like these. But the rest, which among us are committed without distinction and are borne by us too more blameworthily — that is, open abuse, manifest contempt, swollen contradiction, free and unbridled going out, familiarity with women, fits of anger, quarrels, enmities and disputes, presuming to do private work, the contagion of love of money, the desire for and possession of superfluous things which the other brothers do not have, extraordinary and secret eating, and things like these — are corrected, not by the spiritual rebuke we have described, but either by blows or by expulsion.

We should know that the custom of reading the sacred lessons in the coenobia while the brothers eat did not come from the Egyptian pattern but from that of the Cappadocians. No one doubts that they wished to establish it, not so much for the sake of spiritual exercise, as to check superfluous and idle talk, and especially the arguments that usually arise at meals, seeing that these could not otherwise be restrained among them. For among the Egyptians, and above all the Tabennesiots, such silence is kept by all that, when so great a number of brothers has sat down together to eat, no one dares even to mutter except the one in charge of his group of ten; and even he, if he sees that anything needs to be brought to the table or taken away, signals it by a sound rather than by his voice. And such discipline of silence is kept while they eat that, with their hoods drawn down beyond their eyelids so that the eye may not have freedom to wander too curiously, they see nothing more than the table and the food set on it or what they take from it, so that no one notices how or how much another is eating.

Before or after the lawful common meal the greatest care is taken that no one presumes to allow himself any food at all outside the table. So, when they walk through the gardens and orchards, where fruit hanging temptingly here and there on the trees not only presents itself to the chests of those passing by but also lies strewn on the ground to be trodden underfoot, and, ready to be gathered, could easily entice those who see it to consent to desire, and by the opportunity and abundance could provoke even the strictest and most abstinent to long for it — they consider it sacrilege, not only to taste any of it, but even to touch it with the hand, except what is openly set before all at the common meal and is publicly served, by the steward's arrangement, through the service of the brothers.

So that we may not seem to have passed over anything about the institutions of the coenobia, I think I should briefly mention how the daily services are rendered to the brothers in other regions too. Throughout all Mesopotamia, Palestine, Cappadocia, and the whole East, the brothers succeed one another each week in turn in performing these duties, and the number of servers is assigned according to the size of the coenobium. They hasten to fulfil them with such devotion and humility as no slave shows in serving the harshest and most powerful master, so that, not content even with the services rendered by canonical rule, they also rise at night to relieve by their own zeal those on whom this charge especially rests, and try to anticipate secretly and carry out what those men should do. Each one who undertakes these weeks keeps them, serving until the supper of the Lord's day. When this is over, the service of the whole week is concluded in this way: when the brothers gather to sing the psalms they usually sing before going to rest, those who are to hand over their office wash the feet of all in order, faithfully asking of them, as the reward of their blessing for the labour of the whole week, that the prayer offered by all the brothers together may accompany them as they fulfil Christ's commandment, interceding for their ignorances or for sins committed through human frailty, and commending to God as a rich sacrifice the completed services of their devotion. And so on Monday, after the morning hymns, they hand over to those who succeed them the utensils and vessels in which they have served. These receive them and guard them with such care and concern that nothing of them may be lost or perish, since they believe that even for the smallest vessels, as for sacred ones, they will give account not only to the present steward but also to the Lord, if by chance anything is lost through their negligence. What is the measure of this discipline, and with what faithfulness and care it is kept, you will be able to recognize from one testimony, which I shall give as an example; for just as we strive to satisfy your fervour, by which, desiring full knowledge of everything, you wish even things you know very well to be repeated to you in this book, so we fear to exceed the measure of brevity.

In the week of a certain brother, the steward, passing by, saw three grains of lentils lying on the ground, which had slipped from the hands of the weekly server, who was hurrying as he prepared them for cooking, together with the water in which they were being washed. At once he consulted the abbot about it, and the brother was judged by him as a waster and neglecter of sacred property and was suspended from prayer. The guilt of his negligence was not forgiven him until he had washed it away by public penance. For they believe that not only they themselves are not their own, but also that everything that is theirs is consecrated to the Lord. Therefore, if anything has once been brought into the monastery, they decide that it ought to be treated with all reverence as sacred; and they manage and dispense everything with such faithfulness that, even in things considered contemptible and thought small and worthless — if they move them from their place or put them in a more suitable one, if they fill a jar with water, if they offer a drink from it to anyone, if they remove a tiny straw from the oratory or the cell — they trust with complete belief that they will receive a reward from the Lord.

We knew brothers in whose week such a shortage of firewood occurred that there was nothing at all with which to prepare the usual food for the brothers; and until wood could be bought and brought in, it had been ordered by the abbot's authority that they should be content with dry food. This was agreeable to all, and no one could hope for any cooked dish. But these brothers, as if they would be cheated of the fruit and reward of their labour and service if in the order of their turn they did not prepare food for the brothers in the usual way, imposed on themselves so much voluntary work and care that, in those dry and barren places where wood cannot be found at all unless it is cut from fruit trees (for there are no wild thickets there as there are among us), they ran over wide trackless places and went through the desert that stretches towards the Dead Sea, gathering in their laps and the folds of their garments the tiny straws and thorns that the wind had scattered here and there; and so by their voluntary service they prepared the whole customary meal, allowing nothing to be lessened from the usual provision. They rendered these services to the brothers with such faithfulness that, although either the shortage of wood or the abbot's command could honourably have excused them, they would not make use of this permission, for the sake of their fruit and reward.

Let this be said, as we stated at the beginning, according to the pattern of the whole East, which we say must necessarily be kept in our parts too. But among the Egyptians, whose chief concern is work, there is no alternation of weeks, lest under pretext of this office all be hindered from their fixed amount of work. Instead, the care of the storeroom or the kitchen is entrusted to one most approved brother, who performs this work continually for as long as his strength or age allows. For he is not wearied by great bodily labour, since among them not much care is spent on preparing or cooking food, as they mostly use dry or raw food; and among them the greatest delicacy is leaves of leeks cut once a month, charlock, roasted salt, olives, and tiny salted fish which they call maenomenia.

And since this book is about the training of one who renounces this world, by which, being introduced to true humility and perfect obedience, he can also climb the heights of the other virtues, I think it necessary, as we promised, to set out as examples some deeds of the elders in which they shone by this virtue, picking out a very few from many, so that those who strive to follow higher things may find in them not only an incentive to the perfect life but also a model for their purpose. Therefore, bringing forward two or three out of so countless a multitude of fathers, for the sake of the brevity of this book, we put first Abba John, who lived near Lyco, a town of the Thebaid, and who, raised by the virtue of obedience even to the grace of prophecy, became so famous throughout the whole world that by his merit he was made illustrious even to the kings of this world. For although, as we said, he lived in the farthest parts of the Thebaid, the emperor Theodosius did not presume to go forth to the wars against very powerful usurpers until he had been encouraged by his oracles and answers; and trusting in these as if brought down from heaven, he won trophies from wars and enemies that had seemed hopeless.

This blessed John, then, served an elder from his youth until mature manhood, as long as the elder remained in this life, and attended on him with such humility that his obedience struck even the old man himself with the greatest astonishment. Wishing to test more clearly whether this virtue of his came from true faith and deep simplicity of heart, or was affected and somehow forced and shown only in the presence of the one giving orders, he frequently enjoined on him many things that were even superfluous and less necessary, or impossible. I shall give three of these, by which the integrity of his mind and his submission may be shown to those who wish to know. The old man took from his woodpile a stick which had been cut long before and prepared for use in the fire; and since there had been no occasion for cooking, it lay there not only dry but almost rotten with the passage of time. He planted this in the ground before John and ordered him to bring water and water it twice a day, so that, taking root with the daily moisture and coming to life again as a tree, as it had been of old, it might spread its branches and offer a pleasant sight to the eyes and shade to those sitting under it in the burning heat. The young man received this command with his usual reverence, without any thought of its impossibility, and carried it out every day, constantly carrying water from nearly two miles away and never ceasing to water the wood; for through the whole year neither bodily sickness, nor the solemnity of a feast, nor the pressure of any necessity which might honourably have excused him from carrying out the command, nor finally the harshness of winter coming on, could hinder him from observing this precept. The old man, silently and secretly watching this diligence of his every day, and seeing that he kept his command with simple affection of heart as if it had been given by God, without any change of expression or discussion of its reason, approved the sincere obedience of his humility; and at the same time, pitying the long labour he had spent with zealous devotion through the whole year, he went up to the dry stick and said: "O John, has this tree put out roots or not?" When John said he did not know, the old man, as if inquiring into the truth of the matter and testing whether it was now supported by its own roots, pulled up the stick before him with a light movement, and throwing it away told him to stop watering it from then on.

So, as the young man, trained by exercises of this kind, grew daily in this virtue of obedience, and the grace of his humility shone out, and the sweet fragrance of his obedience spread through all the monasteries, some brothers came to the old man to test him, or rather to be edified; and as they marvelled at the submission of which they had heard, the old man suddenly called him and said: "Go up, take the flask of oil, and throw it down through the window." (This flask alone supplied the tiniest quantity of oil in the desert for his own use and for that of visitors.) John ran quickly upstairs, held it out through the window, and let it fall to the ground to be smashed, giving little thought or consideration to the absurdity of the command, to their daily need, to bodily weakness, to the lack of means, or to the hardships and difficulties of the barren desert, in which, even if money were available, the lost goods could not be found or replaced.

Again, when others wished to be edified by the example of his obedience, the elder called him and said: "Run, John, and roll that rock here as quickly as possible." At once he strove to roll forward, with such effort and exertion, a huge rock which great crowds of men could not have moved — applying now his neck, now his whole body — that with the sweat of all his limbs he not only soaked his whole garment but even wet the rock itself with his neck. In this too he gave little thought to the impossibility of the command or the task, out of reverence for the old man and in the sincere simplicity of his obedience, by which he believed with complete faith that the old man could command nothing in vain or without reason.

Let it be enough to have told these few things out of many about Abba John. Now I shall record a deed of Abba Patermutus worthy of memory. Wishing to renounce this world, he lay outside the doors of a monastery for so long that by his immovable perseverance he obtained, against all the custom of the coenobia, to be received together with his little son, who was about eight years old. When at last they had been received, they were at once not only handed over to different superiors but also separated in the cells where they lived, so that the father, by constantly seeing the child, should not remember that, of all the property and fleshly attachment he had cast away in renouncing, at least his son remained to him; and that, just as he knew he was no longer rich, so he might not know that he was a father. To test more fully whether he would put first the affection of blood and love for his own flesh, or obedience and the mortification of Christ, which everyone who renounces ought to prefer for his love, the child was deliberately neglected, dressed in rags rather than clothes, and so covered and fouled with dirt that he might offend rather than delight his father's eyes whenever he saw him. He was also exposed to cuffs and slaps from various people, which the father often saw inflicted even without cause on the innocent child before his very eyes, so that he never saw his cheeks except stained with the dirty traces of tears. And although the child was treated like this before his eyes day after day, yet for the love of Christ and by the virtue of obedience the father's heart always remained firm and unmoved. For he no longer regarded him as his son, since he had offered him to Christ together with himself; nor did he care about the child's present injuries, but rather rejoiced because he saw that they were by no means endured without fruit, giving little thought to his tears but concerned for his own humility and perfection. The elder of the coenobium, seeing this strictness of his mind and his immovable firmness, wishing to test the constancy of his heart completely, one day, when he had seen the child crying, pretended to be angry with him and ordered the father to take him and throw him into the river. Then, as if the Lord had commanded him, he at once snatched up his son in his arms and ran with him to the river bank to throw him in. This would certainly have been carried out in deed, in the fervour of his faith and obedience, had not brothers been deliberately stationed to watch the river bank carefully; they snatched the child, who had already been thrown and was as it were on the surface of the stream, and so held back from its actual effect and outcome a command that had been completed by the father's obedience and devotion.

His faith and devotion were so acceptable to God that they were at once confirmed by divine testimony. For it was immediately revealed to the elder that by this obedience he had performed the deed of the patriarch Abraham. And when, a short time afterwards, the same abbot of the coenobium passed from his sojourn in this world to Christ, he left Patermutus in charge of all the brothers as his successor and abbot of the monastery.

We shall not be silent either about a brother known to us who, by the order of this world, was of a very high family: for he was the son of a count and a very rich man, and he had been well educated in the liberal studies. When he had left his parents and hastened to the monastery, to test the humility of his mind and the ardour of his faith, the elder at once ordered him to load on his shoulders ten baskets, which there was no need to sell in public, and to carry them round the streets for sale; with the added condition, to keep him longer at this task, that if anyone wished to buy them all together he should not agree, but should sell them one by one to those who asked. He did this with complete devotion, and trampling on all the shame of embarrassment for the name and desire of Christ, he put the baskets on his shoulders, sold them at the fixed price, and brought the money back to the monastery. He was not at all frightened by the novelty of so lowly and unaccustomed a task, nor did he consider the indignity of the thing, the splendour of his birth, or the humiliation of selling, since he desired to obtain, through the grace of obedience, that humility of Christ which is true nobility.

The measure of this book compels us to hasten to the end; but the good of obedience, which holds first place among the other virtues, does not allow us to pass over entirely in silence the deeds of those who shone by it. So, tempering both aims fittingly — serving both brevity and the desires and benefit of the studious — we shall give one more example of humility, which, having been carried out not by a beginner but by a perfect man and an abbot, will be able by its reading not only to instruct the younger but also to rouse the older to the perfect virtue of humility. We saw Abba Pinufius. He was the presbyter of a huge coenobium in Egypt, not far from the city of Panephysis, and because of the reverence due to his life, his age, and his priesthood he was honoured and venerated by all. Seeing that for this very reason he could not practise the humility he desired with the ardour of his mind, and had no means of exercising the virtue of the submission he longed for, he fled secretly from the coenobium and withdrew alone to the farthest parts of the Thebaid. There he laid aside the monastic habit, put on secular clothes, and sought out the coenobium of the Tabennesiots, which he knew to be the strictest of all, and in which he thought he would be unknown because of the distance of the region, or could easily be hidden because of the size of the monastery and the number of brothers. There he persevered for a long time at the doors, throwing himself at the knees of all the brothers and begging with the most earnest prayers to be received. When at last he had been admitted with much contempt — because, they said, a decrepit old man who had lived out his whole life was asking to enter the coenobium at a time when he could no longer serve his pleasures, and was seeking it, they claimed, not even for the sake of religion but compelled by hunger and want — the care and tending of the garden was entrusted to him, as to an old man fit for no work at all. He did this under another, younger brother, who kept him as entrusted to himself, and he was so subject to him and cultivated the humility he desired with such obedience that every day, with all diligence, he carried out not only what belonged to the care of the garden but also all the duties that were hard or degrading for everyone and that all shrank from. Many things, too, he rose at night and did so secretly, with no witness or confidant, under cover of darkness, that no one at all discovered who had done the work. When he had lain hidden there for three years, and was being sought throughout all Egypt by brothers scattered everywhere, he was at last seen by someone who had come from the parts of Egypt, and could hardly be recognized because of the humbleness of his dress and the lowliness of the work he was doing. For he was bent down with a hoe, loosening the soil for the vegetables, and then carrying manure on his shoulders and putting it round their roots. When the brother who saw this had hesitated for a very long time over recognizing him, he at last came nearer, and after carefully examining not only his face but also the sound of his voice, he fell at his feet. At first this struck all who saw it with the greatest astonishment, that he should have done this to one who was held among them as the lowest, a novice lately come out of the world; but afterwards they were struck with greater wonder when he at once revealed his name, which had become widely famous among them too. Then all the brothers asked his pardon for their former ignorance, because they had counted him for so long among the juniors and the children; and though he was unwilling and weeping, because through the devil's envy he had been cheated of a way of life and a humility worthy of him, which he rejoiced at last to have found after seeking it for so long, and had not been counted worthy to end his life in the submission he had taken up, they brought him back to his own coenobium, guarding him with the greatest care lest he should slip away from them too and flee somewhere in the same way.

When he had stayed there for a short time, he was again kindled by the same desire and ardour for humility, and taking advantage of the silence of the night he fled, this time seeking not a neighbouring province but unknown and foreign regions far away. For he boarded a ship and made his way to Palestine, believing that he would lie hidden more safely if he took himself to places where not even his name had been heard. When he arrived, he at once sought out our monastery, which was not far from the cave in which our Lord deigned to be born of a virgin. Hiding there for a very short time, he could not, according to the Lord's saying, be hidden for long, like a city set on a hill. For at once some brothers who had come from Egypt to the holy places to pray recognized him and with the most urgent prayers called him back to his own coenobium.

Afterwards, because of the familiarity we had with him in our monastery, we sought this old man out most eagerly in Egypt; and I intend to weave into this little work the exhortation he gave to a brother whom he received into his coenobium in our presence, since I think some instruction can come from it. "You know," he said, "for how many days you lay outside the doors before being received today. You ought first to understand the reason for this difficulty. For it can help you greatly on this road you wish to enter, if, having understood its reason, you come to the service of Christ in due order and as you ought."

"For just as immense glory is promised in the future to those who serve God faithfully and cleave to him according to the rule of this way of life, so the heaviest punishments are prepared for those who have carried it out lukewarmly and negligently and have failed to show him fruits of holiness fitting to what they have professed or to what men believe them to be. For, according to the saying of Scripture, 'It is better for someone not to vow than to vow and not to pay,' and 'Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord negligently.' That is why you were refused by us for so long: not because we do not desire with all our longing to embrace your salvation and that of all, nor because we do not wish to run out even from afar to meet those who desire to turn to Christ; but lest, by receiving you rashly, we should make ourselves guilty of levity before God and you guilty of a heavier punishment, if, being easily received now and not understanding the weight of this profession, you should afterwards turn out a deserter or lukewarm. Therefore you ought first of all to understand the very reason for renunciation; when you have seen it, you will be taught more clearly by its reason what you ought to do."

"Renunciation is nothing other than a sign of the cross and of mortification. And so you should know that today you have died to this world and its deeds and desires, and that, according to the apostle, you have been crucified to this world and this world to you. Consider, then, the conditions of the cross, under whose mystery you must from now on live in this light, since it is no longer you who live, but he lives in you who was crucified for you. We too, then, must spend this life in the same state and form in which he was hung on the cross for us, so that, according to David, piercing our flesh with the fear of the Lord, we may have all our wills and desires, not serving our own lust, but fastened to its mortification. For so we shall fulfil the Lord's command, who says: 'He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.' But perhaps you will say: How can a man carry his cross continually, or how can anyone be crucified while he is alive? Hear the reason briefly."