St. Isaac the Syrian

THE

ASCETICAL HOMILIES

OF

ST. ISAAC THE SYRIAN

HOMILY THIRTY-NINE

On the Different Methods of the Devil’s Warfare Against

Those Who Journey on the Narrow Way That Transcends the World

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On the First Method

OUR ADVERSARY, the devil, has the long-standing habit of artfully choosing modes of warfare against those who enter upon the ascetic contest according to the form of their weapons, and he changes the manner of his struggle against them according to the aim of each. He observes those who are indolent in their volition and whose thoughts are infirm, and from the very beginning he vehemently wars upon them, raising up against them vigorous and potent temptations. He does this in order to make them taste the modes of his wickedness at the start of their course, so that they should be overcome by fear and their pathway should seem to them rugged and impassable. Thus they will say to themselves, ‘If the beginning of the way is so arduous and harsh, who until the end can confront the many struggles that lie herein?’ Thenceforth they are unable to withstand anymore, to make any further progress, or even to take anything else into consideration, because their thought is so obsessed with apprehension. The devil has only for a little while to straiten them with his warfare before they turn to flight. Nay rather, it is God Himself Who permits the devil to prevail upon them, and He gives them no aid whatever. And this is because they entered the Lord’s contest with doubt and coldness. For the prophet says: ‘Cursed is the man who does the works of the Lord carelessly, keeping back his sword from blood ‘; and again, ‘The Lord is nigh unto them that fear Him. ‘ For God commands us to confront the devil with fearlessness and ardour, saying: ‘Start now to destroy him, rush to war against him, grapple with him manfully, and I shall put the fear of you upon your foes that are under heaven, saith the Lord.’ For if you do not voluntarily die a sensory death for the sake of God’s goodness, involuntarily you will die a noetic death, [ falling] away from God.

Whatever your portion should be, without misgivings voluntarily accept temporary sufferings for its sake, that you may enter into the glory of God. For if you suffer bodily death in the Lord’s contest, the Lord Himself will crown you, and God will give your venerable relics the honour of the martyrs. Therefore, as I said above, those who are negligent and slothful at the beginning and have not undertaken mightily to surrender themselves to death, are found always to be inferior and cowardly in every battle. Nay rather, God permits them to be pursued and warred upon, because they did not truly seek Him, but as tempters and mockers of God they endeavoured to do His work. Hence the devil himself knew them from the beginning and tested their thoughts, revealing those men to be cowardly, self-loving and, moreover, sparers of their bodies. So he drives them like a hurricane, since he does not see in them the noetic power that he is accustomed to see in the saint for in proportion to a man’s volition to strive toward God, and in proportion to his purpose to attain his goal for God’s sake, God works with him, helps him, and manifests His providence in him. The devil cannot draw near to a man or attack him with temptations unless it be permitted by the bidding of Heaven, or he grows lax and surrenders himself to shameful thoughts and to distraction, or he becomes proud and conceited, or he accepts thoughts of doubt and cowardliness.

Now the devil does not so ask God for such men as these, for unskilled and inexperienced beginners, in order to tempt them, as he does for holy and great men, for he knows that God will not permit the former to fall into his hands. God knows that they do not have the strength for the devil’s temptations, and so He does not surrender them unless they have within them one of the causes aforementioned; in such a case, the power of God’s providence withdraws from them. This is the first method of the devil’s warfare.

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On the Second Method of the Devil’s Warfare

Whenever the devil sees men who are courageous and strong, who reckon death as nothing, who go forth with great zeal, who give themselves up to every trial and death, and who set at naught the life of the world and of the body and every temptation, he does not confront them immediately, nor does he openly reveal himself to them, but he restrains himself, giving place to them; and he does not go out to meet them at their first assault, nor does he draw himself up to do battle with them. For he knows that a man’s beginning in every war is more fervent, and that zealous warriors are not lightly vanquished, and he sees how his antagonist has great zeal. It is not, however, that the devil does this from fear of them, but it is the Divine power that covers them which frightens him. So long as he sees them in this state, he dares not touch them; but he waits to see them cool from their zeal and cast off the weapons they had fashioned for themselves in their minds by the diverse Divine words [of Scripture] and recollections which assist and help them. He watches for the time when they are lax, and when they turn aside a little from their former thoughts, and when through the seductive reflections that well up in their minds they begin of themselves to devise inventions for their own defeat. They, by themselves, dig a pit of perdition for their souls with the wandering thoughts arising in their minds from indolence, through which coldness reigns within them, that is, in their hearts. When the devil refrains from warring against them and, as it were, spares them, he does not do so voluntarily, nor does he fear them, nor is he put to shame by them. For he holds them in contempt. But I think that it is because a certain power encompasses those who strive toward God with ardent zeal, who go forth like children, who renounce the world indiscriminately, hoping and believing on God, and who have no conception of him against whom they must fight. For this reason God repels from them the violence of the devil’s wickedness, that it might not come near them. For the enemy is bridled when he beholds the guardian [angel] who always shields them. If they do not cast off from themselves the causes of their being helped, that is to say, their prayers, labours, and humility, then their defender and helper will never depart from them.

See, and write these things in your heart; for the love of pleasure and ease is a cause of abandonment. But if a man perseveres and keeps himself firmly from this, God’s assistance will never leave him, and the enemy will not be permitted to attack him. And if it happens that one time he is permitted to attack him, it is for instruction; but the holy power continues to accompany and support him, and he does not fear the devil’s temptations, for his thought is confident, and because of that [holy] power he despises them. The Divine power teaches him just as a man teaches a small boy to swim. When the boy begins to sink, the man raises him up, because the boy swims above the hands of his teacher.

And when he begins to grow fearful that he will drown, the teacher who holds him in his arms cries out to him encouragingly, ‘Do not fear, I am holding you!’ And just as a mother, who, in teaching her infant son to walk, steps back from him and calls him, and as he comes toward her on his little feet he begins to tremble and is about to fall by reason of their softness and delicacy, and she runs and catches him in her embrace, so the grace of God also embraces and teaches men who purely and with simplicity have surrendered themselves into the hands of their Creator, and who have renounced the world with their whole heart and follow after Him.

But you, O man who has set out in pursuit of God, always remember throughout your life of struggle the first beginning and first zeal you had when entering upon the path, and the ardent thoughts with which you left your home and enrolled yourself in the fighting ranks. In this manner examine yourself each day, that there should be no cooling of your soul’s ardour with respect to any of the weapons that you carry, nor in the zeal which blazed up within you at the commencement of your struggle, lest you lose any of those weapons with which you were arrayed at the start of your contest. Constantly raise your voice in the camp, encouraging and urging to valour the sons of the right [that is, your own thoughts] and show the others [that is, the enemy’s forces] that you are keeping watch. If at the beginning you see that the tempter violently assaults you to frighten you, do not grow faint-hearted, for perhaps this is profitable for you. For He Who saves you does not permit anything to approach you, unless He should bring about thereby some provision for your profit. Do not be slothful at the beginning lest, having been lethargic now, you should fall when you try to advance, and be no longer able to withstand the afflictions that come upon you, I mean from hunger, sickness, terrifying apparitions, and the like. Do not pervert the intention of Him Who has set your contest, because it procures help for you against your adversary, so that he will not find you as he hopes. But entreat God unceas­ingly; weep before His grace, lament, and toil until He sends you a helper. For if but once you see him that saves you at your side, you will no longer be defeated by your enemy who opposes you. Thus far two methods of the devil’s warfare have been described.

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On the Third Method of the Enemy’s Warfare Against

Strong and Courageous Men

After all this, the devil again rises up against a man, but he has not the power to with- stand him in the contest; nay rather, he cannot withstand the angel who strengthens and helps the man. Because of his helper the man is exalted above the devil, and from him he receives strength and patience, such that his dense, material body can vanquish a bodiless and noetic being. When, therefore, the enemy sees all this strength the man has received from God, and that his external senses are not overwhelmed by what he sees and the sounds he hears, and that his thoughts are not weakened by his enticements and panderings, then the crafty one seeks a way to part the angel, the man’s helper, from him. Nay more, the crafty one wishes to blind the intellect of the man who receives help, that he may be helpless, and to stir up proud thoughts within him, that he might think that all his strength originates from his own forces, that he acquired this wealth by himself, and that by his own power he keeps himself safe from the adversary and manslayer. Sometimes he thinks that he defeated the enemy by chance, sometimes because of the enemy’s powerlessness [I shall remain silent concerning the enemy’s other methods and the blasphemous thoughts which cause the soul terror by the very memory of them alone]. Sometimes the enemy introduces his delusion under the guise of divine revelations, and he shows diverse things to the man through dreams. When the man is awake, the wily one transforms him· self into an angel of light. He tries all of this in order little by little to persuade a man to concur with it, so that the man will surrender himself into his hands. But if the prudent man keeps his thoughts in safety, or rather, if he can hold fast to the memory of Him Who aids him, and fix the eye of his heart steadfastly upon Heaven, that he may not see those who whisper these things to him, then the enemy will be diligent once again to devise other methods of warfare.

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On the Enemy’s Fourth and Obdurate Warfare

Finally there remains for him only this warfare, since nature is kindred to it, and for this reason he has a special expectation that he will destroy the man thereby. What is this device? It is to attack a man through his natural functions. For often the athlete’s intellect is blinded by the sight and nearness of the objects of sense, and he is easily defeated in his struggle when he is near to them, and particularly when they are before his very eyes. The villainous devil employs this method with knowledge and experience, that is, the experience he has with many ascetics, mighty men, and the great who have fallen by means of these things, and he does this very shrewdly. Although he cannot force a man to do anything in actual deed, because of the safety that stillness furnishes the man, and because his dwelling-place is far from the occasions and causes of sin, yet he endeavours to delude his intellect with illusions and to represent to him false phantasies in the mask of truth. And to the end that a man will begin to desire these things, the devil stimulates him and makes movements to arise within him; thus he brings him to ponder upon them with shameful thoughts, to consent to them, and to become guilty of them, so that the man’s helper might depart from him. For he knows well that a man’s victory, defeat, treasure, succour, and simply everything that pertains to an ascetic, are secured through his thought and are gained in an instant, such that his thought need only move from its place, and descend from the heights to earth, and his volition show its consent but for an instant, as has happened to many of the saints through phantasies of a woman’s beauty. And many times he has devised means actually to bring women to those who dwell a mile or two miles or a day’s journey from the world. But since he is unable to do this to those who remain far withdrawn from the world, he shows woman’s beauty to them in phantasies sometimes adorned with elegant clothing and lascivious in appearance, and sometimes he shamelessly shows them a woman’s nakedness. For by these things and such as these he has conquered some in the actual deed, some he has mocked in phantasies by reason of the laxity of their thoughts, so that he might throw them into the abyss of despair; and this becomes cause for them to return to the world and their souls to fall away from their heavenly hope.

But other men, stronger than these, who were enlightened by grace vanquished both him and his phantasies, and trampled upon the pleasures of the flesh, and were found to be approved in their love of God. Often, too, the enemy has caused them to behold apparitions of gold, precious things, golden treasures; and at times he showed these things to them in reality, that by means of these different phantasies he might, perhaps, stop some one of them in his course and trip him up by one of his snares and nets.

A Prayer. But Lord, O Lord, Thou Who knowest our infirmity, lead us not into these temptations, for mighty and proven men hardly emerge from this gate victorious!

The devil and tempter is allowed to make war upon the saints in all these ways of temptation, that thereby their love of God may be proven, and that it may become evident whether, when they are separated, secluded, deprived, and destitute of these objects of sense, they remain lovers of God, abiding in His love and truly loving Him; and whether, when they draw near to such things, they endeavour to despise and repudiate them because of their love for God, and being enticed by them, they remain undefeated and do not alter their love for God. They are tried in this manner, that they may be singled out not only by God, but also by the devil. For the enemy greatly desires to tempt and try every man, if this were possible to him, and to ask God for them all that he might tempt them, even as he asked for the righteous man Job. And when for a brief time God gives His permission, the devil draws nigh to tempt them vehemently, in proportion to the strength of those whom he tempts; thus the iniquitous one assails them as he desires. By this means, however, those who are true and steadfast in the love of God are proven as to whether they despise all these things and reckon them as nothing in comparison with the love of God. Ever humbling themselves in this manner, they ascribe glory to Him Who works with them in all things and is the Source of their victory; and in their struggle they surrender themselves into His hands, saying to God, ‘Thou art the Mighty One, O Lord, and Thine is the contest: wage war on our behalf and be therein victorious, O Lord.’ At such a time they are proven as gold in the furnace.

But when alloyed and spurious men are tested and known in these temptations, they fall away from God as dross, since giving way to the enemy they leave the field of battle laden with guilt, either because of the laxity of their mind or because of their pride. They were not worthy to receive the power that the saints had working within them, for the power that helps us cannot be defeated. The Lord is almighty and more powerful than all, and at all times He is victorious in the bodies of mortal men when He descends to aid them in their warfare. But if they are defeated, it is evident that they are defeated without Him. These are men who have voluntarily stripped themselves of God by reason of their ungratefulness, since they have not been accounted worthy of that power which assists the victorious, and they perceive that they are even devoid of their own power which they were accustomed to have at the times of their violent battles. How do they perceive this? They see that their defeat is pleasurable and sweet in their eyes, and that it is difficult for them patiently to endure the hardship of their struggle with the enemy’ the same hardship they were wont zealously to overcome completely by the impulse inherent in their nature’s movement, which was formerly so fervent and keen. But now they do not find this in their souls.

Those who are slothful and lax when they begin are overcome not only by these struggles and their like, but they are even frightened and troubled by the rustle of a leaf, and are vanquished by some brief necessity due to hunger and by some slight illness; thus they renounce and turn back. But those who are proven and true do not even take their fill of greens and vegetables; and even if they eat nothing but the roots of dried herbs, they cannot be persuaded to taste any food before the established meal-time. Moreover, they lie upon the ground because of their body’s enervation, their eyes are dimmed by their extreme physical exhaustion, and their very soul is constrained and nigh to depart from their body, but even so they do not give themselves over to defeat, nor do they abandon their firm volition. For they long for and yearn to do violence to themselves for the love of God, and they freely choose to labour for virtue’s sake rather than to possess this transient life and its every comfort. And whenever temptations come upon them, they especially rejoice and are the more perfected by them. Nor do the arduous labours, which they endure, make them doubt the love of Christ, but until they quit this life, they much prefer valiantly to accept abuse and they do not retreat. But to our God be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

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HOMILY FIFTY-ONE

On the Harm of Foolish Zeal That Has the Guise of Being

Divine, and on the Help That Comes of Clemency

and on Other Subjects

A ZEALOUS MAN never achieves peace of mind. But he who is a stranger to peace is a stranger to joy. If, as it is said, peace of mind is perfect health, and zeal is opposed to peace, then the man who has a wrong1 zeal is ill with a grievous disease. Though you presume, a man, to send forth your zeal against the infirmities of other men, you have expelled the health of your own soul; be assiduous, rather, in labouring for your own soul’s health. If you wish to heal the infirm, know that the sick are in greater need of loving care than of rebuke. Therefore, although you do not help others, you expend labour to bring grievous illness upon yourself. Zeal is not reckoned among men to be a form of wisdom, but as one of the illnesses of the soul, namely narrow-mindedness and deep ignorance. The beginning of divine wisdom is clemency and gentleness, which arise from greatness of soul and the bearing of the infirmities of men. For, he says, ‘Let the strong bear the infirmities of the weak’, and ‘Restore him that has fallen in the spirit of meekness.’ The Apostle numbers peace and patience among the fruits of the Spirit.

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WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “DEATH TO THE WORLD”?

“The world is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them the world. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them the passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure from which comes sexual passion, love of honour which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancour and resentment, and physical fear. Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world, and how far you are dead to it”

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St Isaac the Syrian: On the Three Degrees of Knowledge

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On the First Degree of Knowledge

When knowledge cleaves to the love of the body, it gathers up the following provisions: wealth, vainglory, honour, adornment, rest of the body, special means to guard the body’s nature from adversities, assiduity in rational wisdom, such as is suitable for the governance of the world and which gushes forth the novelties of inventions, the arts, sciences, doctrines, and all other things which crown the body in this visible world. Among the properties of this knowledge belong those that are opposed to faith, which we have stated and enumerated above. This is called shallow knowledge, for it is naked of all concern for God. And because it is dominated by the body, it introduces into the mind an irrational impotence, and its concern is totally for this world. This measure of knowledge does not reckon that there is any noetic power and hidden steersman over a man, nor any Divine care that shelters and takes concern for him. It takes no account of God’s providential governance; but on the contrary, it attributes to a man’s diligence and his methods every good thing in him, his rescue from what harms him, and his natural ability to avert the plights and many adversities that secretly and manifestly accompany our nature. This degree of knowledge presumes that all things are by its own providence, like those men who assert that there is no Divine governance of visible things. Nevertheless, it cannot be without continual cares and fear for the body. Therefore it is a prey to faintheartedness, sorrow, despair, fear of the demons, trepidation before men, the rumour of thieves and the report of murders, anxiety over illnesses, concern over want and the lack of necessities, fear of death, fear of sufferings, of wild beasts, and of other similar things that make this knowledge like a sea made turbulent by great waves at every hour of the night and day. For knowledge does not know how to cast its care upon God through the confident trust of faith in Him; wherefore in all things that concern it, it is constantly engaged in devising devices and clever contrivances. But when in some instance the modes of its contrivances prove fruitless, it strives with men as though they hindered and opposed it, since it does not see in this the mystical hand of providence.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree that uproots love, is implanted in this very knowledge. It investigates the small faults of other men and the causes thereof, and their weaknesses; and it arms a man for stubbornly upholding his opinion, for disputation, and aids him in cunningly employing devices and crafty contrivances and other means which dishonour a man. In this knowledge are produced and are found presumption and pride, for it attributes every good thing to itself, and does not refer it to God.

Faith, however, attributes its works to grace. For this reason it cannot be lifted up with pride, as it is written: “I can do all things through Christ Which strengtheneth me”; and again, “Not I, but the grace of God which is in me”; and also “Knowledge puffeth up”; which the blessed Apostle said of this same knowledge, since it is not mingled with faith and hope in God, but he said it not concerning true knowledge, far be it!

By humility true knowledge makes perfect the soul of those who have acquired it, like Moses, David, Esaias, Peter, Paul, and the rest of the saints who have been accounted worthy of this perfect knowledge to the degree possible for human nature. And by diverse theorias and divine revelations, by the lofty vision of spiritual things and by ineffable mysteries and the like, their knowledge is swallowed up at all times, and in their own eyes they reckon their soul to be dust and ashes. But that other knowledge is puffed up, even as is meet, since it walks in darkness and values that which belongs to it by comparison with things of earth, and it does not know that there is something better than itself. And so all who cling to such knowledge are seized by the uplifting of pride, because they measure their discipline according to the standard of the earth and the flesh, they rely upon their works, and their intellects do not enter into incomprehensible matters. But as many as reflect upon the waves of the glorious splendour of the Godhead, and whose labour is on high, their minds do not turn aside with inventions and vain thoughts. For those who walk in the light cannot go astray, and for this reason all those who have strayed from the light of the knowledge of the Son of God, and have turned away from the truth, journey in these pathways just mentioned. This is the first degree of knowledge; in it a man follows the desire of the flesh. We find this knowledge blameworthy and declare it to be opposed not only to faith, but to every working of virtue.

On the Second Degree of Knowledge

But when a man renounces the first degree and turns toward deep reflections and the love of the soul, then he practises the aforementioned good deeds with the help of his soul’s understanding, in co-operation with the senses of his body, and in the light of his soul’s nature. These deeds are: fasting, prayer, mercy, reading of the divine Scripture, the modes of virtue, battle with the passions, and the rest. For all these good things, all the various excellences seen in the soul and the wondrous means that are employed for serving in Christ’s court in this second degree of knowledge, are made perfect by the Holy Spirit through the action of its power. This knowledge makes straight the pathways in the heart which lead to faith, wherewith we gather supplies for our journey to the true age. But even so, this knowledge is still corporeal and composite; and although it is the road that leads us and speeds us on our way toward faith, yet there remains a degree of knowledge still higher than it. If it goes forward, it will find itself raised up by faith with the help of Christ, that is, when it has laid the foundation of its action on seclusion from men, reading the Scriptures, prayer, and the other good works by which the second degree of knowledge is made perfect. It is by this knowledge that all that is excellent is performed; indeed, it is called the knowledge of actions, because by concrete actions, through the senses of the body, it accomplishes its work on the external level.

On the Third Degree of Knowledge, which is the Degree of Perfection

Hear now how knowledge becomes more refined, acquires that which is of the Spirit, and comes to resemble the life of the unseen hosts which perform their liturgy not by the palpable activity of works, but through the activity accomplished in the intellect’s meditation. When knowledge is raised above earthly things and the cares of earthly activities, and its thoughts begin to gain experience in inward matters which are hidden from the eyes; and when in part it scorns the recollections of things (whence the perverseness of the passions arises), and when it stretches itself upward and follows faith in its solicitude for the future age, in its desire for what has been promised us, and in searching deeply into hidden mysteries: then faith itself swallows up knowledge, converts it, and begets it anew, so that it becomes wholly and completely spirit.

Then it can soar on wings in the realms of the bodiless and touch the depths of the unfathomable sea, musing upon the wondrous and divine workings of God’s governance of noetic and corporeal creatures. It searches out spiritual mysteries that are perceived by the simple and subtle intellect. Then the inner senses awaken for spiritual doing, according to the order that will be in the immortal and incorruptible life. For even from now it has received, as it were in a mystery, the noetic resurrection as a true witness of the universal renewal of all things.

These are the three degrees of knowledge wherein is brought together a man’s whole course in the body, in the soul, and in the spirit. From the time when a man begins to distinguish between good and evil until he takes leave of this world, his soul’s knowledge journeys in these stages. The fullness of all wrong and impiety, and the fullness of righteousness, and the probing of the depths of all the mysteries of the Spirit are wrought by one knowledge in the aforementioned three stages; and in it is contained the intellect’s every movement, whether the intellect ascends or descends in good or in evil or in things midway between the two. The Fathers call these stages: natural, supranatural, and contranatural. These are the three directions in which the memory of a rational soul travels up or down, as has been said: when the soul works righteousness in the confines of nature, or when through her recollection she is caught away to a state higher than nature in the divine vision of God, or when she recedes from her nature to heard swine, as did that young man who squandered the wealth of his discretion and laboured for a troop of demons.

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St. Justin of Serbia speaking of (and quoting) St. Isaac the Syrian says:

Knowledge bears within itself an irresistible pull towards the infinite mystery, and this hunger for truth that is instinctive to human knowledge is never satisfied until eternal and absolute Truth itself becomes the substance of human knowledge until knowledge, in its own self-perception, acquires the perception of God, and in its own self knowledge comes to the knowledge of God. But this is given to man only by Christ, the God-Man, He who is the only Incarnation and personification of eternal truth in the world of human realities. When a man has received the God-Man into himself, as the soul of his soul and the life of his life, then that man is constantly filled with the knowledge of eternal truth.

Holy knowledge comes from a holy life, but pride darkens that holy knowledge. The light of truth increases and decreases according to a man’s way of life. Terrible temptations fall upon those who seek to live a spiritual life. The ascetic of faith must therefore pass through great sufferings and misfortunes in order to come to knowledge of the truth.

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Just as the sun’s rays are sometimes hidden from the earth by  thick cloud, so for a while a person may be deprived of spiritual comfort and of grace’s brightness: this is caused by the cloud of the passions. Then, all of a sudden, without that person being aware, it is all given back. Just as the surface of the earth rejoices at the rays of the sun when they break through the clouds, so the words of prayer are able to break through to drive the thick cloud of the passions away from the soul.

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THE ASCETICAL HOMILIES OF ST. ISAAC THE SYRIAN

HOMILY SEVENTY-ONE

Question What are the special characteristics of humility?

Answer Just as presumption dissipates the soul through imaginings that distract her and gives her free rein to fly among the clouds of her thoughts and to circle round all creation, so humility collects the soul through the stillness of the thoughts and concentrates her within herself. As the soul is unknown and invisible to corporeal eyes, so a humble man remains unknown amid men. As the soul abiding within the body is hidden from the sight and association with all men, so the truly humble man not only does not wish to be seen or known by men (for which reason he is secluded and distant from all men), but more, his will is – if possible – to plunge himself away from himself into himself. He wishes to enter and dwell in stillness, to forsake totally his former conceptions together with his senses, and to become as something that does not exist in creation, that has not come into being in this world, that is totally unknown even to his soul and his senses. And so long as such a man is hidden, locked away and withdrawn from the world, he remains wholly with his Lord.

A humble man is never pleased to see gatherings, confused crowds, tumult, shouts and cries, opulence, adornment, and luxury, the cause of insobriety; nor does he take pleasure in conversations, assemblies, noise, and the scattering of the senses; but above all he chooses to be by himself and to collect himself within himself, being alone in stillness, separated from all creation, and taking heed to himself in a silent place. Insignificance, absence of possessions, want and poverty are in every wise beloved by him. He is not engaged in manifold and fluctuating affairs, but at all times he desires to be unoccupied and free of the cares and the confusion of the things of this world, that he may keep his thoughts from going outside himself. For he is persuaded that if he becomes involved with many activities, it is not possible for him to remain without confused and disturbed thoughts. For many activities collect many cares and a swarm of diverse and complicated thoughts. These cause a man to leave the peacefulness of his thoughts (whereby he was superior to all earthly cares, except for the small necessities of life which are inevitable), and a state of mind that has a single concern amid peaceful reflections. And when necessities do not permit him to restrain his mouth from speaking, he is both harmed and causes harm. Then the door is thrown open to the passions, the tranquillity of discernment retires, humility flees, and the door to peace is shut. For all these reasons a humble man unceasingly protects himself from many affairs, and thus at all times he is found to be tranquil, gentle, peaceful, modest, and reverent.

A humble man is never rash, hasty, or perturbed, never has any hot and volatile thoughts, but at all times remains calm. Even if heaven were to fall and cleave to the earth, the humble man would not be dismayed. Not every quiet man is humble, but every humble man is quiet. There is no humble man who is not self-constrained; but you will find many who are self-constrained without being humble. This is also what the meek and humble Lord meant when He said, ‘Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ For the humble man is always at rest, because there is nothing which can agitate or shake his mind. Just as no one can frighten a mountain, so the mind of a humble man cannot be frightened. If it be permissible and not incongruous, I should say that the humble man is not of this world. For he is not troubled and altered by sorrows, nor amazed and enthused by joys, but all his gladness and his real rejoicing are in the things of his Master. Humility is accompanied by modesty and self-collectedness: that is, chastity of the senses; a moderated voice; mean speech; self-belittlement; poor raiment; a gait that is not pompous; a gaze directed toward the earth; superabundant mercy; easily flowing tears; a solitary soul; a contrite heart; imperturbability to anger; undistracted senses; few possessions; moderation in every need; endurance; patience; fearlessness; manliness of heart born of a hatred for this temporal life; patient endurance of trials; deliberations that are ponderous, not light; extinction of thoughts; guarding of the mysteries of chastity; modesty; reverence; and above all, continually to be still and always to claim ignorance were any truly humble man who would venture to supplicate God when he draws nigh to prayer, or to ask to be accounted worthy of prayer, or to make entreaty for any other thing, or who would know what to pray. For the humble man keeps a reign of silence over all his deliberations, and simply awaits mercy and whatever decree should come forth concerning him from the countenance of God’s worshipful majesty. When he bows his face to the earth, and the divine vision within his heart is raised to the sublime gate leading to the Holy of Holies, wherein is He Whose dwelling-place is darkness which dims the eyes of the Seraphim and Whose brilliance awes the legions of their choirs and sheds silence upon all their orders [and when they are waiting for mysteries to shine forth from the Invisible One in that airless realm through a soundless motion, through bodiless senses, through image less perception of that formless Essence and of revelations which surpass them, the power of their thoughts being too weak to contain the waves of those mysteries]: then he dares only to speak and pray thus, ‘May it be unto me according to Thy will, O Lord.’ And may we also say the same for ourselves. Amen.