The Institutes 5.17–5.40

Do you wish to hear a true athlete of Christ contending by the lawful rule of the games? "I," he says, "so run, not as uncertainly; so I fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest, having preached to others, I myself should become reprobate." Do you see how he set the sum of the struggles in himself, that is, in his flesh, as on a most solid base, and placed the outcome of the fight solely in chastising the flesh and subjecting his body? "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly." He does not run uncertainly, because, looking at the heavenly Jerusalem, he has fixed the point towards which the unswerving swiftness of his heart must be directed. He does not run uncertainly, because, "forgetting what is behind and reaching out to what is ahead, he presses on towards the mark, to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Always directing the gaze of his mind towards it and hastening to it with all the speed of his heart, he proclaimed with confidence: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." And because he knew that he had run tirelessly after the fragrance of Christ's ointments with swift devotion of conscience, and had won the contest of the spiritual games by chastising the flesh, he adds with confidence and says: "For the rest, there is laid up for me the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will give me on that day." And to open to us too a like hope of reward, if we wish to imitate him in the contest of this race, he added: "And not to me only, but also to all who love his coming," declaring that we shall share in his crown on the day of judgment if, loving the coming of Christ — not only that coming in which he will appear even to the unwilling, but also this one by which he comes daily into holy souls — we gain the victory of the contest by chastising the body. Of this coming the Lord says in the gospel: "I and my Father will come to him and make our dwelling with him"; and again: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me."

Yet he does not describe himself as having completed only the contest of running when he says, "I so run, not as uncertainly" — which refers especially to the intention of his mind and the fervour of his spirit, with which he followed Christ with all ardour, singing with the bride, "We run after you to the fragrance of your ointments," and again, "My soul has clung to you" — but he testifies that he has won another kind of struggle as well, saying: "I so fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection." This refers properly to the pains of continence, bodily fasting, and affliction of the flesh. By it he describes himself as a vigorous boxer against his own flesh, showing that he did not deliver the blows of continence against it in vain, but gained the triumph of the fight by mortifying his body; and when it had been chastised by the blows of continence and beaten down by the gloves of fasting, he brought to his victorious spirit the crown of immortality and the palm of incorruption. You see the lawful order of the struggle and you behold the outcome of the spiritual contests: how the athlete of Christ, having won the victory over the rebellious flesh and having, as it were, put it under his feet, rides on as a lofty conqueror. And therefore he does not run uncertainly, because he trusted that he would soon enter the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. He so fights — with fasts and affliction of the flesh — not as one beating the air, that is, not throwing the blows of continence in vain; for by chastising his body he struck, not the empty air, but those spirits that dwell in it. For one who says "not as one beating the air" shows that, although he does not strike the empty and void air, he does strike some beings in the air. And because he had overcome these kinds of contest and went on enriched with the rewards of many crowns, he rightly begins to take on the struggles of stronger enemies; and having triumphed over his earlier rivals, he proclaims with confidence and says: "Our struggle now is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

For the athlete of Christ, while he remains in the body, the palm of struggles is never lacking; but the more he has grown through successive triumphs, the stronger the rank of struggles that follows for him. For when the flesh has been subdued and conquered, what cohorts of adversaries, what armies of enemies rise up against the victorious soldier of Christ, provoked by his triumphs — lest, growing slack in the leisure of peace, the soldier of Christ should begin to forget the glorious contests of his struggles and, dissolved by the idleness of security, be cheated of the rewards of his prizes and the merits of his triumphs. So if we wish to climb these steps of triumph as our virtue grows, we too must enter on the contests of the battles in the same order, and first say with the apostle, "I so fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection," so that when this conflict has been won we may again say with him: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." For otherwise we shall by no means be able to engage with them, nor shall we deserve to experience spiritual battles if we are thrown in the fleshly conflict and beaten in the struggle with the belly; and the apostle will rightly say to us in reproach: "No temptation has seized you except what is human."

A monk, then, who wishes to reach the battles of the inner contests should impose this precaution on himself first of all: never to allow himself, overcome by any pleasure in drink or food, to take anything at all outside the table before the lawful end of the fast and the common hour of the meal; and not even to permit himself to take the least thing after the meal is over; and likewise to keep the canonical time and measure of sleep. For these wantonnesses of the mind must be cut off with the same zeal as the vice of fornication. For how will one who could not restrain the superfluous appetites of the palate be able to extinguish the heat of fleshly desire? And how will one who could not check the small passions that lie in the open be able to conquer by governing discernment the hidden ones that itch with no human witness? And therefore the strength of the soul is proved in each movement and in any desire; and if it is overcome in the smallest and open desires, each one's own conscience is witness to what it would endure in the greatest, stronger, and hidden ones.

For we do not have an adversary to fear from outside; the enemy is shut up within ourselves, and a civil war is waged within us every day. When he has been conquered, everything outside will be made weak, and all things will be at peace and subject to the soldier of Christ. We shall have no adversary to fear from outside if what is within us has been conquered and subjected to the spirit. Nor should we believe that this fast from visible food alone can suffice for perfection of heart and purity of body unless a fast of the soul is joined to it. For the soul too has its own harmful foods; fattened on them, it rolls down the steep slope of lust even without an abundance of food. Detraction is its food, and a very sweet one. Anger too is its food, though by no means a gentle one; for a time it feeds the soul with an unhappy meal and at the same time lays it low with its deadly taste. Envy is a food of the mind, corrupting it with poisonous juices and never ceasing to torment the wretched soul continually with the prosperity of another's success. Cenodoxia, that is, vainglory, is its food; it soothes it with a delightful meal for a time, but afterwards leaves it empty, stripped of all virtue and naked, sending it away barren and void of all spiritual fruits, so that it not only makes the merits of immense labours perish but even brings on greater punishments. Every desire and every wandering of the unstable heart is a kind of pasture of the soul, nourishing it with harmful foods but leaving it afterwards without heavenly bread and solid food. If, then, we abstain from these with all the strength we have in a most sacred fast, we shall have a useful and profitable observance of bodily fasting. For the labour of the flesh joined to contrition of spirit will present to God a most acceptable sacrifice and a dwelling worthy of holiness in pure and clean inner chambers. But if, while fasting in body, we are entangled in the most deadly vices of the soul, the affliction of the flesh will profit us nothing when we are defiled in the more precious part — sinning, that is, in that substance by which we are made a dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For it is not so much the corruptible flesh as a pure heart that is made a dwelling for God and a temple of the Holy Spirit. So while the outer man fasts, the inner man too must likewise be restrained from harmful foods. The blessed apostle urges that the inner man above all be presented pure to God, so that it may deserve to receive Christ as a guest within it, in these words: "In the inner man, that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts."

Let us know, then, that we spend the labour of bodily continence so that by this fast we may be able to reach purity of heart. Otherwise the labour is spent by us in vain, if we sustain it tirelessly for the sake of its end but cannot obtain the end for which we have endured such afflictions; and it would have been better to have restrained the soul from forbidden foods than to have fasted in body from things allowed and less harmful. For in the latter there is a simple and innocent partaking of God's creature, which has no sin in itself; but in the former there is first a deadly devouring of the brothers, of which it is said: "Do not love to detract, lest you be uprooted"; and of anger and envy blessed Job says: "For anger kills the foolish man, and envy slays the little one." At the same time it should be noted that one who is angry is judged a fool, and one who envies is judged little. For the one is rightly declared a fool, since, spurred on by these goads, he brings death on himself voluntarily; and the other, while he is jealous, proves himself little and lesser; for while he envies, he testifies that the one whose prosperity torments him is greater.

So a food should be chosen that not only moderates and kindles less the heat of burning desire, but is also easy to prepare, cheaper and more convenient to buy, and suited to the common life and use of the brothers. For the nature of gluttony is threefold: one kind urges us to anticipate the canonical hour of the meal; another delights only in stuffing the belly and in fullness with any food at all; a third takes pleasure in more refined and richer dishes. And therefore against it the monk must keep a threefold observance: first, to wait for the lawful time for breaking the fast; next, to be content with restrained quantities; third, to be content with any food, even the plainer kinds. Whatever is taken up outside the custom and common use is marked by the most ancient tradition of the fathers as defiled by the disease of vanity, glory, and ostentation. Nor have we known any of those whom we have seen shine by the merit of knowledge and discernment, or whom the grace of Christ has set before all as most brilliant lights to imitate, to have abstained from eating bread, which among them is considered plain and easy to get; nor have we ever seen any of those who, turning aside from this rule and giving up the use of bread, followed a diet of beans or vegetables or fruit, counted among the most approved, nor even attaining the grace of discernment or knowledge. For they decide not only that a monk should not seek foods unusual among the others, lest his course, exposed to all as it were in the open, become empty and void and perish by the disease of cenodoxia, but they also declare that even the common discipline of fasting should not be easily revealed to anyone, but should be covered and hidden as far as possible. When brothers arrive, however, they have judged it more commendable to offer them the virtue of kindness and love than to display the strictness of continence and the rigour of one's daily rule; and not to attend to what our own will and advantage or the ardour of our desire demands, but to put first and gladly fulfil what the rest or weakness of the visitor requires.

When, wishing to learn the precepts of the elders, we had come from the parts of Syria to the province of Egypt, we marvelled that we were received there with such eagerness of heart that no rule of refreshment was kept until the appointed hour of the fast, as we had been trained in the monasteries of Palestine; but, except for the lawful fasts of Wednesday and Friday, wherever we went the daily fast was broken. When we asked why the daily fasts were so freely passed over among them, one of the elders answered: "Fasting is always with me; but you I shall soon send away, and I shall not be able to keep you with me always. And fasting, though it is useful and necessary, is the offering of a voluntary gift; but the necessity of the commandment requires the work of love to be fulfilled. So, receiving Christ in you, I ought to refresh him; but when I have sent you on your way, I shall be able to make up in myself, by a stricter fast, for the kindness shown for his sake. For the sons of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them; but when he has departed, then they will lawfully fast."

One of the elders, when he was urging me at a meal to eat a little more and I had said that I could not, answered: "I have already laid the table six times for different brothers who arrived, and, urging each one, I have eaten with them all, and I am still hungry; and you, eating now for the first time, already say you cannot?"

We saw another who lived in solitude, who testified that he had never allowed himself food alone, but even if none of the brothers had come to his cell for five whole days, he kept putting off his meal until on the Sabbath or the Lord's day, going to church for the devout assembly, he found some stranger; bringing him back from there to his cell, he took refreshment for his body with him as companion, not so much on account of his own need as for the sake of kindness and for the brother's sake. So, just as they know how to break their daily fasts freely when brothers come, so when they depart they make up for the refreshment allowed on their account by greater continence, exacting the taking of the smallest amount of food with sharper discipline, by cutting down not only on bread but also on sleep itself.

When the elder John, who was in charge of a great coenobium and a multitude of brothers, had come to the elder Paesius, who lived in a vast desert, and asked him, as a very old companion, what he had done during all the forty years in which he had been separated from him in solitude and scarcely disturbed by the brothers, he said: "The sun has never seen me eating." And the other said: "Nor me angry."

When this same elder was at his last breath, cheerful as one departing to his own home, the anxious brothers surrounding him humbly begged him to leave them some memorable command, as a kind of inherited legacy, by which they might more easily reach the summit of perfection through a brief precept. With a groan he said: "I never did my own will, and I never taught anyone what I had not first done myself."

We saw an elder named Machetes, living far from the crowds of the brothers, who had obtained this grace from the Lord by long prayers: that, however many days and nights a spiritual conference went on, he was never relaxed at all by the torpor of sleep. But if anyone tried to bring in a word of detraction or an idle word, he at once fell asleep, so that the poison of slander could not reach even so far as to pollute his ears.

This same elder, when teaching us that we ought to judge no one, added that there had been three things in which he had criticized or blamed the brothers: that some allowed their uvula to be cut out, that they had a cloak in their cells, and that they blessed oil and gave it to people of the world who asked for it; and he said that he himself had fallen into all these things. "For having contracted a disease of the uvula," he said, "I wasted away so long with its weakness that, compelled both by the necessity of pain and by the urging of all the elders, I allowed it to be cut out. On account of this illness I was also forced to have a cloak. And as for blessing oil and giving it to those who asked — which I loathed above all, judging that it came from great presumption of heart — I was suddenly surrounded by many people of the world and so hemmed in that I could by no means escape them otherwise, until by the greatest force and entreaties they wrung from me that I should place my hand, marked with the sign of the cross, on a little vessel they held out; and so, believing they had obtained the oil of blessing, they at last let me go. By these things I clearly learned that a monk is bound by the same causes and faults in which he has presumed to judge others. For each one ought to judge only himself and guard himself circumspectly and carefully in all things, and not examine the conduct and life of others, according to that precept of the apostle: 'But why do you judge your brother? To his own master he stands or falls,' and: 'Judge not, that you be not judged; for with the judgment you judge you will be judged.' For besides the reason we have given, it is also dangerous to judge others because, not knowing the necessity or the reason by which they do the things in which we take offence, either rightly before God or pardonably, we are found to have judged them rashly, and so we commit no light sin by thinking of our brothers otherwise than we ought."

This same elder showed by these signs that the devil is the patron of idle tales and always the opponent of spiritual conferences. For when he was discussing necessary and spiritual matters with some brothers and saw them sinking into a kind of Lethean slumber, unable to drive the weight of sleep from their eyes, he suddenly brought in an idle tale. When he saw that at the pleasure of it they had at once woken up and pricked up their ears, he groaned and said: "Until now we were speaking of heavenly things, and the eyes of all of you were weighed down with deadly sleep; but when an idle tale was brought in, we all woke up and shook off the torpor of the sleep that ruled us. Consider from this at least who was the opponent of that spiritual conference, and who is the one who slips in this fruitless and carnal talk. For it is most clearly detected to be he who, rejoicing in evil, never ceases either to foster the one or to oppose the other."

Nor do I think it less necessary to record this deed of a brother intent on the purity of his heart and very concerned for divine contemplation. When, after fifteen years, many letters were brought to him from his father and mother and his friends in the province of Pontus, he took the great bundle of letters and, turning it over in his mind for a long time, said: "How many thoughts will reading these cause me, which will drive me either to empty joy or to fruitless sadness! For how many days will the memory of those who wrote them call the attention of my breast away from the contemplation I have set before me! After how long a time must this confusion conceived in the mind be digested, and with how much labour must this state of tranquillity be restored again, if once the mind, moved by the feeling of the letters and going over the words and faces of those whom it left so long ago, begins to revisit them again and to be present with them and live with them in heart and mind! It will certainly profit nothing to have left them in the body if one begins to look on them in the heart, and, coming to life again, readmits the memory which everyone who renounces this world has given up as one dead." Turning this over in his breast, he decided not only not to open any letter, but not even to unseal the bundle itself, lest, by going over the names of those who had written or remembering their faces, he should fall away from the intention of his spirit. And so, just as he had received it tied up, he gave it to the fire to be burned, saying: "Go, thoughts of my homeland, be burned up together, and do not try to call me back any more to the things I have fled."

We also saw Abba Theodore, endowed with the highest holiness and knowledge, not only in the active life but also in knowledge of the Scriptures, which had been given him not so much by study of reading or worldly learning as by purity of heart alone; for he could barely understand or speak even a very few words of the Greek language. When he was seeking the explanation of a very obscure question, he persevered tirelessly in prayer for seven days and nights, until he learned the solution of the question put to him by the Lord's revelation.

So when some brothers marvelled at so brilliant a light of knowledge in him and asked him for the meaning of certain passages of Scripture, he said that a monk who wishes to attain knowledge of the Scriptures ought by no means to spend his labours on the books of commentators, but should rather keep all the diligence of his mind and the intention of his heart on cleansing himself from carnal vices. When these have been driven out, the eyes of the heart, the veil of the passions being removed, at once contemplate the mysteries of the Scriptures as by nature. For they were not made known to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit so as to be unknown or obscure; they are made obscure by our own fault, as the veil of sins clouds the eyes of the heart. When these are restored again to their natural health, the reading of the holy Scriptures itself is abundantly sufficient on its own for the contemplation of true knowledge, and they have no need of the instructions of commentators, just as these fleshly eyes need no teaching in order to see, provided they are free from cataract or the darkness of blindness. For this is why so much variety and so many errors have arisen even among the commentators themselves: because very many, rushing into interpreting the Scriptures without applying any diligence to the purification of the mind, have thought things different from and contrary to either the faith or one another, according to the grossness or impurity of their hearts, and have been unable to grasp the light of truth.

When this same man had come unexpectedly to my cell in the dead of night, secretly finding out with fatherly curiosity what I, still a novice anchorite, was doing alone, and had found me, just after finishing the evening service, beginning to refresh my tired body and lying on my mat, he drew deep sighs from his heart, and calling me by name he said: "How many, O John, are at this hour conversing with God and embracing and holding him within themselves! And you are cheated of so great a light, relaxed in idle sleep?" And since the virtues and grace of the fathers have led us on to this kind of narrative, I think it necessary to commit to this volume a memorable work of love which we experienced in the kindness of the eminent man Archebius, so that the purity of continence, set beside the work of love, may shine out more clearly, marked by a beautiful variety. For the gift of fasting is made acceptable to God only when it is completed by the fruits of love.

So when, still quite untrained, we had come from the monasteries of Palestine to a town of Egypt called Diolcos, and there saw, to our wonder, a very great crowd bound by the discipline of the coenobium and ordered in the excellent rule of monks which is also the first, we hastened, spurred on by everyone's praises, with a very eager heart to see another order too, which is held to be more excellent, that of the anchorites. For these, having first lived for a very long time in coenobia and having been carefully taught the whole rule of patience and discernment, and having gained the virtue of humility and nakedness and completely consumed all the vices, penetrate the deep recesses of the desert to engage in the most terrible battles with the demons. Learning, then, that men of this way of life lived on this side of the bed of the river Nile, in a place which, surrounded on one side by the river and on the other by the vast sea, forms an island habitable by none but monks seeking seclusion — for the saltness of the soil and the barrenness of the sand do not allow it to be fit for any cultivation — hastening to them, I say, with the greatest desire, we marvelled beyond measure at the labours they endure out of contemplation of the virtues and love of solitude. For they are so constrained by the very scarcity of water that they dispense it with such care and scrupulousness as none of the most frugal men uses to keep and spare the finest wine. For they bring it for their necessary uses from the bed of the river over three miles or more; and yet this distance, broken by sandy hills, is doubled by the heavy difficulty of the labour.

When, then, having seen these things, we were kindled with the ardour of imitating them, and the Archebius already mentioned, the most approved among them, had drawn us to his cell out of the grace of kindness, he discovered our desire and pretended that he wished to leave that place and to offer us his cell as if he were about to move away from there, declaring that he would do this even if we had not been present. We, kindled with the desire to stay there and giving unhesitating credit to the assurances of so great a man, gladly accepted and took over the cell with all its furniture and utensils. So, having achieved his pious deception, he left the place for a few days, while he gathered the means for building a cell; and returning afterwards he built himself another with the greatest labour. Not long afterwards, when brothers arrived who wished with the same desire to stay there, he deceived them with a similar lie of love and handed it over to them with all its equipment. And he himself, persevering tirelessly in the work of love, built himself a third cell to live in.

It seems worthwhile to me to record another work of love by the same man, by which the monks of our parts may be taught, by the example of one and the same man, to keep not only the rigour of continence but also the most sincere feeling of love. For he, born of no ignoble family, fled from his childhood, despising the affection of this world and of his parents, to a monastery which is about four miles from the town already mentioned. There he spent his whole life in such a way that for fifty whole years he never entered or even saw the village from which he had come, nor did he look on the face of any woman, not even of his own mother. Meanwhile his father, overtaken by death, left a debt of a hundred solidi. Although he himself was entirely free from all trouble, since he had been cut off from all his father's property, he learned that his mother was being severely harassed by the creditors. Then, softened by consideration of filial duty from that evangelical rigour by which, while his parents were in prosperity, he knew he had had neither father nor mother on earth, he believed that he had a mother and hastened to help her in her distress, yet in such a way as to relax nothing of the strictness he had undertaken. For remaining within the enclosure of the monastery he asked that his usual task of work be tripled; and toiling there day and night for a whole year, he paid the creditors the amount of the debt earned by his sweat and freed his mother from all the harm of harassment. So he rescued her from the burden of the debt without allowing anything of the rigour of his purpose to be lessened on the pretext of a dutiful necessity; he kept his usual strictness in such a way that he by no means denied the work of filial duty to his mother's heart, recognizing her again for Christ's love of duty, whom he had previously disregarded for the love of Christ.

When a brother very dear to us, named Symeon, entirely ignorant of the Greek language, had come from the parts of Italy, one of the elders, wishing to show a work of love to him as a stranger under some colour of repayment, asked him why he sat idle in his cell. He guessed from this that Symeon could not stay there long, both because of the wandering that idleness brings and because of the lack of necessities, being certain that no one can endure the attacks of solitude except one who is content to provide his food with his own hands. When Symeon answered that he knew nothing and was able to do none of the work practised there by the brothers except copying books, if indeed anyone in the land of Egypt had any use for a Latin book, then at last the elder, having found an occasion by which he could purchase the work of piety he desired under colour of a debt, said: "This occasion has been found by God; for I have long been looking for someone to write out the Latin apostle for me with his own hand. For I have a brother bound by the snares of military service and very well instructed in Latin, to whom I want to send something from the holy Scriptures to read for his edification." So, while Symeon gladly took up this occasion as offered him by God, the old man, more gladly embracing the pretext under cover of which he could freely do the work of piety, at once not only brought him all his needs for a whole year under the pretext of wages, but also brought the parchment and the implements needed for writing; and when the book was written he received it — a book that would be of no use or benefit, since everyone in that region was entirely ignorant of this language — except that by this subtlety and at greater expense he had bought this: that Symeon could receive the necessary food for his living, without the shame of embarrassment, as the reward of his labour and work, and he himself could fulfil the kindness of his generosity as if under the necessity of a debt. And he gained for himself a reward all the more abundant, because with greater contrivance he had given the stranger brother not only the necessities of life but also the tools for work and the occasion of working.

But since works and affection of love seem to have been mixed in at the place where we set out to say something about the rigour of fasts and continence, returning to our purpose we shall insert in this little work a memorable deed of some who were boys in age but not in understanding. When someone had brought, to everyone's amazement, some figs from the parts of Mareotis in Libya, as something never seen before in that place, to Abba John, the steward in the desert of Scete, who governed the administration of that church entrusted to him by the blessed presbyter Paphnutius in his time, he at once sent them by two young boys to an old man who was suffering from ill health in the inner parts of the desert; for he lived eighteen miles from the church. Having received the fruit, as they were making for the old man's cell, a very thick mist suddenly came down — which easily happens there even to the elders — and they lost the track of the right path. And when, running about all day and night through the trackless waste of the desert, they could not find the sick man's cell at all, worn out by the weariness of the journey as well as by hunger and thirst, they fixed their knees in the office of prayer and gave up their spirit to the Lord. Afterwards, when they had been sought for a very long time by the traces of their footprints — which in those sandy places are marked as if pressed in snow, until the fine sand, moved even by a light breath of wind, covers them again — they were found to have kept the figs untouched as they had received them, choosing rather to give up their soul than to betray the trust of what had been entrusted to them, and to lose their temporal life rather than violate the elder's command.