Discourse 81

The answer to the question of the brother who follows him: whether, when he compares the silence with that multitude of the father in heaven, he should prefer mercy. But the solitaries, then, to silence, do they honor it more than her? And he brings forth a spirit upon this: and it is not right to bring forth in afflictions and pains when they approach. P1. It is good from the Gospel: a likeness is brought and a response from the search for the great conduct of silence, like one who searches against this which stands: or they are silent to begin it as something extraordinary. He compares: he prefers mercy to the likeness of the father to approach her foundations. This is true. And not even the solitaries: they honor silence except from mercy. When from distress and disturbance as much as possible: they strive to distance themselves from being seized. Not against the afflictions and stand when they arise, but they care for silence, because the solitary's desire is toward God to be filled. In him it is more possible to pray from solitude: and toward the power of this air to approach even one time. And when it is necessary: not even from that do they believe. When they compel themselves gently: that they may be filled at all times from within with mercy over every rational nature. For thus commands the teaching of our Lord: and this is the distinction of silence, and not of disturbance.

when he enters within: when the time comes for the servant to perform the work and to fulfill the commandments, he does not even look at anyone from the practices, but shows his love openly. Especially those who, for silence, not within the boundary of complete destruction of themselves, and who have not encountered anyone, but for whom silence is in the space of weeks and months. For those who are like this: from practices and mercies toward the neighbor, they are not even able to complete the boundaries of their own space. But if there is anyone who has greatly renounced, and before his face and in his eyes silence is held in living things, in that they know that without the love of the neighbor, it is not possible to attain divine desire and love. And they ask from the wise solitaries: when he has food and clothing, and sees his neighbor hungry and naked, does he refrain from giving to him? Or they ask: when the son of his flesh is sick and afflicted and lacking in provisions, does he, because of the love of silence, consider the space of his confinement more than the life of his neighbor? But where there are no such commandments of neighbors, there they preserve love and mercies toward the neighbor. But when the practice of the neighbor is near, and the work is to be completed in the servant, then fully follow from them God.

It is known, indeed, that if you do not restrain something, you will not be able to encounter purity and tranquility because of the poor. But from these which you have, you are pursued. And if again you distance yourself in the monastery from the company of the brethren and from the mixture and sight of men, it is not required of you to abandon your course and your sitting, the common and the solitary, and to give yourself to go out into the world to serve the sick and to be occupied with works such as these. It is known, indeed, that from greatness to smallness comes one who is like this. If then you are in a monastery of many, and are near the brethren in a common sitting with them, and are also spread out in the weariness of others, wasting your health and your strength, this is what he also does, which is required of him, and not that he from others fully follows. When, however, he sees outside his flesh and his order that he is constrained, he flees and hides, murmuring the false quiet. For one who is like this, indeed, this one who has no compassion. Do not bring to my memory the Thebaid, John, and Arsenius and his companions. For what did they give themselves to works such as these, or did they care for the sick or the poor, and find rest in quiet? Do not approach the stories of these.

If, indeed, you are far from all the toil and encounter of the people, their thoughts give you permission to rest in this manner. But if you are far from those who are perfect, then the passions of the body and worldly affairs are always with you. Why do you rest in the command of your measure, while you are adorned with the great conduct of the saints, which does not suit you? But rather, not even to bring to remembrance that which the great Macarius said: that as the folly of those who rest upon their brothers is marked, so that he went at the time of the evening meal to a certain old man who was named Zachariah. And when he asked him if he desired anything, he said to him: I desire a little moist bread. Because those solitaries used to bake bread for the whole year, as in the Scetis. Thus was the custom of these regions. And that blessed man went, a man of ninety years, from the Scetis to Alexandria the city, forty miles and more, carrying dry bread in a sack. And he brought to that Zachariah the thing he desired. But rather, and also another great one did this, a man of the same measure as this one, a certain Agatho, a man who among all the solitaries of that time honored silence and stillness more than anyone.

Thus he went and hired himself out for a wage: he worked with his hands. And he found a certain foreign man who cast him into the marketplace and hired him. And he took the hire of the house and remained with him, while he worked with his hands and spent upon him. And he gave the hire of the house and served him, the hired man, for six months, until that sick man was healed. This, then, is like the story that is told: he used to say, "I wished that I might find a lion and give him my body and take his." Behold, perfect love: it is likened to our fathers, who were worthy of grace like them. For the fearers of God, our beloved, without distress, the observance of the commandments of our Lord is accomplished, even in their hands, its finding, and quietude is borne upon its face. But the perfection of them and their hanging is Christ, by two commandments that hold the sum of all. Love, he says, of God, and silence, its acquisition of this: love toward his image. And the first is strong: the vision of the contemplation of the spirit; but the second: of theory and practice. Therefore, because the divine purity is simple and not composite, and not visible together, and not ascended in its purity, it has no—and also the contemplation that is ascended in its exercise—upon practice and embodiment of work, something, and the movement of the body.

He is simple in his labor, and in the solitude of his thought, in his mind, like the simplicity of the cause, prostrating himself and above sensible perception and the flesh. The second commandment, which is the love of humanity, according to his chastity, the chaste one, thus also the chaste one is concerned with his perfection. He says, however: That which is in the end is not to be fulfilled in a visible manner, and in the body together and openly, but in a hidden manner, and those which are completed in the surroundings, and with that which is in the end. For thus man is composed of two natures: this body and the soul; thus also all the chaste things that are concerned with him are according to the chastity of his rank. Just as, in all your earlier practices, theoria is not possible for a man to ascend to that high station, but first he must complete that which is low in action. And therefore there is no man who can speak concerning the quality of the love that he has for his neighbor, if the thought that is fulfilled in the body, like strength and vigor, and the place that gives a hand to action, remains. And then the thought of love is believed, which in the end is united and known.

of the faithful and the true, as if by a kind of compulsion. Then, to the great station of high and divine contemplation, power is given to the soul to extend itself by simple and immaterial movements. But where man has no place, there, by means of action, he fulfills the love of the neighbor in visible things, through desires and the body. It is sufficient for God that which is preserved from him only by intention: the love of the neighbor. Especially if that station is a binding one, and its likeness is excellent: it is sufficient for us to be occupied with its service. Then, from the completion of that binding station, we are deficient, and we fulfill its deficiency by the commandment of its possessor, which is: by perceptible action. That which, at the time of distress, completes the work and the giving of alms through the labor of the body, so that our freedom may not be a cause for the flesh, while under the guise of solitude it busies itself with empty thoughts. For it is known that there is no permission for any of the spiritual exercises that are hidden from completion, and the whole is hindered in God when he is dead to all, by the concealment of his course, to follow from such a service of the saints.

The place of the station of silence is the limit of weeks and Sabbaths. And after the completion of his station, he meets, mixes, and is mingled with the living, and he shines with the compulsion of his brothers, while supposing that the station of the Sabbath is held bound. Thus, he is excommunicated. For he knows this: that from the concealment of mercy and from hope and from deceptive thoughts, he mingles himself with desires such as these, which are not to be entered into. That he shines with the sick, he does not see the light. And that he turns his face from the oppressed, his day becomes dark. And that he raises his voice like a striker, in the darkness he moves among his own. He does not harm the great name of silence without knowledge. For every conduct, time, place, and distinction. And then to God who knows all, his service is accepted. And that which is apart from these, his service is vain. For all motions are directed toward completion. The place that is fitting to be mingled and to be hidden in his lowliness from others, he humbles himself, even to be worthy of his neighbor in the times that are healed. That his service of silence may be a cause of joy, and he is free from hope and from the error of demons.

It was said by one of the holy fathers, Evagrius: There is nothing that delivers the solitary from the demon of pride and helps him towards the limit of asceticism at the time of the flame of the passion of zeal, like that which is not felt by those who throw themselves upon their couches and are occupied with the affliction of the body, the stomach. Great is the angelic work of silence, when a mixture such as this is mingled with it, because of the ascent over humility. For when they do not know, they are plundered, the brothers. These I said: Not that which is pleasant and easy for the conduct of silence. The brother who is wholly persuaded concerning this. Not that which stands in opposition to words, he is now found. It is not felt that he lets slip the naked word from his saying, and when he leaves the rest, he takes this without understanding. Vigilant is he who, in many of his practices, said when he is persuaded: that not even if he were to become weary and cease from the end, would he be felt in his cell because of the straits of the weakness of nature. It would be chosen for him because of this, the complete departure from it and the external work, better than the cessation there. The departure from the end, I said: Not that he should receive at the time of the difficult labor that which befalls him, the weeks something, by which the remainder would be bartered, or the life of his neighbor. Cessation he would consider this.

If there is a man who trusts in himself that he is perfect, and elevates himself above all on account of his intimacy with God, and his distance from every visible action, he will be stripped even of these. Great is the labor of discernment for one who is mingled with God. For He, in His mercy, gave to us that we might fulfill the word of him who said: Everything that you wish that men would do to you, thus also you do to them. For to Him belong praise and honor from all creation forever and ever. Amen.