Sermo De Obedientia Et Humilitate

SERMON ON OBEDIENCE AND HUMILITY. It is a fragment of uncertain authorship, but ancient, recognized from the very old Colbertinus codex and other manuscripts. CHAPTER ONE. Obedience, how pleasing to God. Without obedience, virtues are nothing. Where it is absent, pride is present. Nothing pleases God as much as obedience. Ham was cursed (Gen. 9:25), and after many ages it is said, "The seed of Canaan, and not of Judah" (Dan. 13:50), because he did not obey his father. But Shem, who obeyed his father, had blessing for all ages. So I say this: it is not for sons to judge their fathers. No one goes to a teacher and teaches his own teacher. You have come to me so that I may teach you letters: if I write to you and say to you, "Write as I write," you certainly ought to imitate the teacher you have chosen. Is someone learned? And he goes to a more skilled teacher. Why do I say this? So that we may show obedience to our fathers. He who does not obey his fathers does not obey God. For the Lord says, "He who despises you, despises me" (Luke 6). Therefore, he who despises the Apostles despises Christ: he who despises the fathers despises Christ, who is in the fathers. I say this because here among us the highest and only virtue is obedience.

If you have fasted day and night, and made prayer, if you have lain on sackcloth or in ashes, if you have done nothing else except whatever is commanded in the law, and you have been wise in your own eyes, and you have not been obedient to your father, you have squandered all virtues. Obedience alone is worth more than all other virtues. Fasting or continence, unless you attend to yourself diligently, produces pride in you; pride, however, is an enemy of God. God hates nothing as much as pride. Whoever does not obey does not act from holiness, but from pride. For a man does not obey because he thinks himself better than the one he does not obey. CHAPTER TWO. Pride, the worst sin of all. Pride can have the appearance of virtue, not the reality. I tell you plainly: God hates all sins—lying, perjury, theft, robbery, adultery, fornication—in which, if someone were caught, he could not lift his eyes, but we would hold him as if accursed. If someone is proud, he commits a far worse sin than adultery; and yet we speak with him. He who fornicates can say something: "My flesh overcame me, my youth overpowered me." I do not say that you should do that, since God hates this too; but in comparison of evil I say: Whoever has committed another sin, for example, if he has committed theft, can excuse himself. For what does he say? "I committed theft because I was in need, because I was dying of hunger, because I was sick." What can a proud man say?

Therefore, see how great an evil pride is, that it has no excuse. Other vices harm those who commit them; but pride harms more than all. So I say this, lest you think that pride is a small sin. Indeed, what does the Apostle say? "Let no one," he says, "fall into the judgment of the devil" (1 Tim. 3:6). See, then, that whoever becomes puffed up falls into the judgment of the devil. So I say this according to what is written, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (1 Pet. 5:5), that we may flee all sins, but especially pride. I tell you about pride: it always thinks itself wise. If one of the brothers gives him advice and says to him, "Brother, you should not act thus," he does not deign to listen, because he thinks himself wiser than the one who gives the advice. And what does he say in his heart? "I am wiser than you; therefore, do I not have counsel? Are you wiser than me?" Although he does not say it, yet from the fact that he scorns the advice of a brother, he speaks in his heart.

Therefore, I say this: whoever has pride, without cause has other virtues. Has virtues? No, he does not have them, but seems to have them. For whoever has that which is contrary to God, how can he have anything that is a friend to God? Pride arises in the monastery. If we fast, we are puffed up. We offer prayer for sins, and we are puffed up with pride. Does someone fast for his sins, and do penance for his sins? He is exalted in pride. Therefore, do you fast, do you pray, do you perform the precepts, so that you act against God? Chapter III. It is better to be given over to all vices than to be proud. Brothers withdrawing from the monastery into the desert do not despise the community of the brethren. Those who do otherwise are compelled. Hence, those who visit brothers from the deserts in the coenobium are not to be reproached. If a monk is proud, it would have been much better for him if he had taken a wife. I say simply, and I say with a free brow, that whoever is proud, it would have been better for him (and I say this in comparison of evil) to have all other vices, because from his evils he would be inclined to penance, and he would not despise everyone. But if after sins he did penance, he would certainly merit God's mercy. But whoever is proud has the beginning of all evils, and does not do penance, as if he were just. For this reason pride is contrary to God, because we are not subject to God. For he conducts himself as if just. The proud man does not do penance for his evils, and glories as if for good deeds.

Why I have said these things, you yourselves understand, and the ruins of others ought to be examples for us. For this reason we have come into the monastery: we have lost the freedom of the world, that we might receive the servitude of Christ. Moreover, I speak these things concerning the brothers who are accustomed to dwell farther from the monastery, lest pride should arise in them from that example. You have lived in the coenobium; it pleased you to remain at the tenth milestone? You ought not to despise the synaxis of the holy brothers. Do not, therefore, think yourself more worthless if you come to the brothers in the city. If you had the necessity to go and see women, and you had the necessity to go into the streets, you would rightly not go. Do you not go to the synaxis of the holy brothers? You who dwell in seclusion are either better than the brothers who are in the coenobia, or you are worse. If you are better, come so that you may give them an example of your life; if, however, you are worse, come so that you may learn what you do not know. Pride arises when someone says that he sits in seclusion and does not deign to see and visit the brothers, and is puffed up with pride. I speak these things in the presence of the holy brother who does this work, so that you may know that he does in deed what I speak. Finally, many holy fathers, who are truly fathers, who rule the souls of the saints, when they have seen some young men go to the deserts and not come to the coenobium, and be in pride, they go and use force against them, and bring them, not to harm them, but so that pride may be removed from them.

I say this so that those who remain in the solitary life and come to the monastery and visit the brothers are not reproached by those in the monasteries as if they were impatient, but rather as humble. Let no one say of you, "Look, that one who sits in the desert, because he cannot endure it, has come." He has come so that he may edify you, not destroy you, and so that he may lose his pride. See what kind of life his is. He lives in the desert, and yet he does not have the glory of those who are in the desert. Therefore may almighty God cause us also to fulfill by the prayers of the saints everything we have spoken. For it is no great thing to speak, but to do. But what I cannot do and yet speak, I speak so that whoever can do it may do it; whoever has ears to hear may hear, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is honor, virtue, and power for ever and ever. Amen.