Discourse 57

On the endurance that is on account of the love of God: how much help is found from God. However much a person rejoices in this world, when he fears that he is without God, in this way he approaches Him with divine humility, and through her help he perceives in secret, and is given fine movements to contemplate her. Even if it is not by his will that a man is deprived of the good things of this world, as much as he needs from them, in this way mercy cleaves to him, and he tastes divine compassion. Glory to the one who, in the right and in the left, lives for us, and in every cause places for us the finding of our life! For those who, by their own will, are weak for the sake of the end of their lives, in the affliction that is not by will, they raise themselves towards excellence. Even that poor Lazarus was not by his will deprived of the good things of this world, but his body was rotting with sores. Two bitter pains he had, one of which was more severe than its companion: sickness and poverty. Yet, through the merit of the fathers, he was honored in the end. God draws near to a suffering heart that cries out to Him from distress.

And also in the body, there is a time when endurance is helped by suffering: like a physician who, in a severe illness, applies painful remedies to bring about health, but in his own great self, the Lord acts according to the severity of his pains. When, therefore, the love of Christ is not thus in you, that there be no pain in all your afflictions because of the joy in Him, know that you love the world more than Christ. When illnesses and deficiencies, or injury of the body, or fear from your enemies, disturb your mind from the joy of your hope and the pure trust in our Lord, know that you love the body and not Christ. Whichever of these is more powerful over you than His love, that is alive in you. If, at the time of the fulfillment of all the desires of wantlessness, and the body is not troubled, and there is no sting of adversaries, then you can purely pursue your discipline towards Christ, know that you are pure in your mind, and you are lacking the taste of the praise of God. Not because of anything else are you thus, but only that you may know how lacking you are from perfection, and also from the beginning of the conduct of the saints who were before you.

Do not say: "No human being has been found whose mind was raised above sickness to perfection." Even when the body is worn out by every kind of affliction, the side of the love of Christ for the suffering of the mind prevails. But I cease from bringing to remembrance these things of the martyrs, lest it not be possible for us to stand before the burden of their sufferings, how much the side of endurance from the power of love prevails over the difficulty of its affliction and over the love of the body itself. But because these difficulties and their remembrance are painful to the spiritual person—since they are known by the greatness of the will and the wonder of its sight—they have been left to the philosophers without God. And from there they learned about the weakness of the will from the measure of their endurance. But even this was preserved for its time, for in its own time it is destined to be shown to you, while you know that this too is a sickness. For from themselves they do not judge the will, so that you may believe how much the lowly are exalted, and that what is lowly becomes high to perfection. Never believe a drunkard that there are many who do not even drink wine. And do not think that there is one who is not even moved by passion. And do not suppose that there is one who is not constrained by nature: that there is one who is not at all constrained by this, even if he is shaken by other things.

Nor should you say in a weak-minded way: "There is a body that is not subject to the affliction of illnesses." For even if those whose mind is not able to conquer completely, yet in this it is: that there is no human being who lacks the purification of these things to perfection. For there is a man whose love of Christ has compassion on the weakness of the ascetic, and he has prevailed over the body, and his love is complete: and the mind was not separated from the joy that is in Christ, and they gave way to purification from the stones of the obstacles that come from the side of the body; and the labors conquered the insufficiency of the ascetic, but not to the point of complete faith. Not that the difficulties of the path of God are diminished, says the man, or that there is one who lives a life without care on this path. But on the contrary, the man says: that he who lives in abundance, day by day his afflictions increase. And the closer he draws to his goal, the more he is afflicted by troubles. And this is the sign of the truth of his discipline: that he lives a bitter life in this world, and departs from this body with longing. Because the world of the righteous is not this one. And without affliction, it is not possible to be in it. But the will can be found through the labor of endurance, and by prevailing over all, and by keeping the mind without separation, in the joy of the love of Christ.

that there is a human being who has attained this; and it is possible even now that there should be one like this, by the abundance of the gifts of Christ. O human being, do not judge the actions of all human beings from your own will. And do not weigh their conduct by the measure of your own weakness. If you wish, you will begin with hope, and you will be aided. And do not be without faith, lest you also be deprived of that which sows in you, so that you may attain the measure of your own deficiency, how great it is, from the example of those who have conquered the world and its passions completely. If you do not believe the Church, go to the philosophers. And you will see how much power the will has to be above the body, and that it can endure without passion in the choice that it makes. When you see these, who did not even know God, how much profit and strength they showed to the world through the heroism of the will, and they showed how much power that natural faculty within has. For if it wishes, it conquers everything. As from the reading of their histories, wonder falls upon a human being: how much power God placed in this nature, that if it wills, it conquers everything. And because we do not will, we proclaim the weakness of the nature.

and by the weakness of his will they seek to excuse the strength of the pure one, they say: How is it possible to conquer these from the beginning? For one man indeed, up to this time, was emboldened against the will of the body, because the chosen one of the grave did not cease and become equal to it; so that not even the drawn sword of the time of David terrified his mind, and the fear of death did not set a limit for his soul. He who, when the years were not few, kept silence; and the king of the Jews was astounded at the hearing of his will; and he desired to take his counsel, he commanded to bring him before him. And when he was silent concerning everything that he spoke with him and asked him, and he answered him nothing at all. The king was enraged, and commanded that he be put to death; so that not even from the honor of his throne and his crown was he moved. He, however, was not moved by this, but kept his law with force. The king, however, warned the executioners: If he who keeps his law ceases, while being cut by the sword, kill them. But if he stands in his will, bring them back to him alive. He, however, when the time came, and they pressed him to do what was decreed upon him, that he should cease his will or else die.

He was considered to have broken the death of a single moment by enduring, while the boundary of his will was preserved: that this entire time he was oppressed in it, from love and from fear of death, and he was diminished in his wisdom, and was found lowly, because that thing which from every side was destined to come to him was that which would encounter him whenever it would. And by this readiness of will and manly intention, he was delivered even from death, and in his law he was found firm and true. Have you seen the power of the pure will? He stretched his neck before this wise sword, and did not loosen the law of his self. And others: upon the pure desire of the pure one they trampled, and they were above him by the command that was confirmed in him. Others: in afflictions, immovable they stood firm. Others: in beatings without injury, they were found without anger. And these from among those of the furnace, that which diminishes endurance. Others: and even from those who were very few. Others: in the plunder of their possessions, without enmity and without wrath they endured. Others: in severe and difficult illnesses, they showed endurance without bitterness. And with them they added also the virtues of others. Others: labors of the will. Others: nakedness to the end, apart from the covering of a garment, and a dwelling exposed and endurance of the cold which from his self he knows.

Just as also King Alexander, when he was appointed to see a single moment, he did not hear from it, but rather on the contempt of the world. And all these things, because they were not abolished from the meditation and practice of their wisdom. If the labor of learning and the discipline of wisdom, apart from the fear of God and the light of faith and the hope of the future world, these are able to be overcome: how much more so that he was not broken from his vigil, by which all the light of Christ that was poured upon the world, and many branches of the simple abundantly, and the hope of God which from day to day is strengthened by deeds: until now he has conquered the difficulties and pleasures of this body, and he does not remain like Adam because of the love of God, and he rejoices joyfully over everything? But also that he has a contest, how he conquers the living ones for these things: that no man is able by his own power to do anything, for every wise man knows this. That with the help of God and a purified will, one can think from it: this is possible. By these things, solitary men were strengthened, and they sent, they left from me to the world and to their own, and they went out and stood against all adversities, and they conquered by the power of will and the help of their Lord all the difficulties that exist. For among them they were dwelling.

Many of them were from the teaching of the philosophers. For if even the external sages, for the sake of wisdom that passes away and the study of the teaching of this world that is abolished, apart from the path of God, they endure to the point that they even become alienated from the world and are outside of it in their pursuits, because they have attained the desire of their will, and there is no weariness in their mind, nor any hope after death in their labors, and all this is upon the face of empty hope. How much more fitting is it for us to endure for the sake of the love of God, and to be vigilant over all our afflictions, for the great hope that is stored up for us. And they were strengthened in this thought, and they deliberated on the slackening of their thoughts, and they went up to the arena and did not turn back until they received the crown. And they were a spectacle even for the generations after them, and they established a sign for the world, of how it is fitting for them to enter the arenas that this path employs.