Chapter 12

To this Josaphat said: How, then, will anyone keep himself pure of all sin after baptism? For even if there is, as you say, repentance for those who fall, yet it is in toil and labor, in weeping and mourning, which seem to me not easily accomplished by most people. I would rather find a way of keeping the commandments of God exactly and not swerving from them, nor, after the forgiveness of former evils, provoking again the most sweet Master and God. Barlaam said: You have spoken well of these things, my lord and king; this is my own wish too. But it is hard, and altogether impossible, for one who keeps company with fire not to be smoked by it. So it is hard to accomplish, and very steep going, for one bound to the affairs of this life, taken up with its cares and turmoils, living amid wealth and luxury, to walk unswervingly the way of the Lord's commandments and to preserve himself pure of them. For the Lord says: No one can serve two masters;

for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. And his beloved disciple, John the evangelist and theologian, writes likewise in his epistle: Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and the desire of it; but the one who does the will of God abides forever. Our divine and God-bearing Fathers, then, considering these things, and hearing the Apostle's word that through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of heaven, hastened after holy baptism to keep the garment of incorruption spotless and unstained; and so some of them set themselves to receive a second baptism as well—I mean the one through blood and martyrdom. For this too has been called a baptism, and a most honorable and venerable one; for it is not defiled by a second defilement of sin. This our Lord himself, accepting it for our sake, fittingly called a baptism. From that source, then, becoming his imitators and his zealous followers,

first those who had seen him with their own eyes, his disciples and apostles, and then the whole chorus of holy martyrs, gave themselves over for the name of Christ to the idol-serving kings and tyrants, and endured every kind of torment, encountering wild beasts and fire and the sword; and, confessing the good confession, finishing the course and keeping the faith, they obtained the prizes of righteousness, becoming the companions of the Angels and fellow-heirs with Christ. Their virtue shone so brightly that their sound went out into all the earth, and the splendor of their achievements flashed to the ends of the world. Of these, not only the words and deeds, but their very blood and bones are full of all holiness, driving out demons by main force and granting healings of incurable diseases to those who touch them in faith; and their garments, and whatever else came near their precious bodies, are forever held in reverence by all creation. Of them there is much to be told, to recount their exploits one by one. But when those cruel and beastlike tyrants perished, evil men evilly, and the persecution ceased, and faithful kings reigned throughout the world,

there came others to succeed them, imitating the zeal and the divine longing of those men—I mean the martyrs—and, wounded in their souls with the same love, they devised most excellently how to present soul and body undefiled to the Lord, cutting away all the workings of the passions and cleansing themselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit. And since they knew that this is achieved in no other way than by keeping the commandments of Christ, and perceived that keeping the commandments and practicing the virtues comes about with difficulty amid the tumults of the world, they took up a certain other way of life, strange and altered; and, according to the divine voice, leaving all things—parents, children, friends, kin, wealth and luxury—and hating all that is in the world, they departed to the deserts like fugitives, in want, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in wildernesses and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth, removing themselves far from all the delights and enjoyments of earth, and having very scant supply even of bread itself and of covering;

and they did this with two purposes: that, not seeing the materials of the passions, they might tear up the desires of them by the roots out of the soul, and, wiping out the memories of them, might plant in themselves love and longing for the things of God and of heaven; and besides this, that, having consumed the flesh through hardship and become martyrs in their resolve, they might not fall short of the glory of those perfected through blood, but, becoming imitators as far as in them lay of the sufferings of Christ, might be sharers also in the kingdom that has no end. So, having considered all this most excellently, they took up the solitary and quiet life—some enduring in the open air, worn down by the blaze of scorching heat and by savage frosts and rains and the buffeting of winds; others, having fixed huts for themselves, or hidden in caves and grottoes, lived out their days. Pursuing virtue thus, they renounced to the end all comfort and rest of the flesh, holding to a diet of raw vegetables and herbs, or wild fruits, or dry and very hard bread—not only renouncing the quality of pleasant things, but, by their surpassing self-control, stretching their devotion to the matter of quantity as well. For they partook of even these cheap and most necessary foods only so far as merely to stay alive. Some of them, continuing without food through all the days of the week, took nourishment on the Lord's day;

others remembered to eat twice in that week; others ate every other day, or in the evening, only so much as to taste food. By prayers and vigils they came near to rivaling the life of the angels, having said farewell altogether to the possession of gold and silver, and forgetting that buying and selling existed at all among men. Envy and arrogance, which are most apt to follow good works, found no place in them. For neither did the lesser man, in the sweat of his ascetic labor, harbor within himself any thought of jealousy against the one who shone more brightly; nor again did boastful pride lift up the man who accomplished great things to conceit against the weaker, deceiving him into despising his neighbor, or glorying in his asceticism, or thinking highly of himself for his achievements. For the one who had the greater share in virtue, ascribing the whole not to his own labors but to the power of God, persuaded himself by a humble mind that he was accomplishing nothing at all, but was rather a debtor for more, as the Lord says: When you have done all that was commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, for we have done what we ought to have done. And others again did not even persuade themselves that they had ever done what was commanded, but that what was lacking was more than what had already been accomplished. And the one who fell short in asceticism,

perhaps through bodily weakness, belittled himself, counting himself wretched and reckoning his deficiency to slackness of mind, not to weakness of nature. Thus, then, each was more modest than the other, and all than all; and where among those men was the passion of vainglory or of pleasing men? They who had fled the inhabited world and for this reason dwell in the desert, wishing to show their achievements not to men but to God, from whom also they hope for the rewards of their achievements—knowing well that ascetic labors performed for vainglory are without reward, since they are done for the praise of men and not for God; whence such men are doubly wronged, wasting the body and receiving no reward. But those who reach out for the glory above and press on toward it despised all earthly and human glory. As for their dwellings: some carry through the contest in utter withdrawal and solitude, removing themselves from the company of men for the whole time of their lives and drawing near to God; others, having fixed their dwellings far from one another, gather on the Lord's days into a single church, and share in the divine mysteries—I mean the bloodless sacrifice, the undefiled body and the precious blood of Christ, which the Lord gave to the faithful for the forgiveness of sins and for the illumination and sanctification of soul and body; and, feasting one another with the exercise of the divine words and with moral exhortations, and making public the hidden warfare of their adversaries, so that no one ignorant of the method of the struggle may be caught by them,

each returns again to his own home, laying up devotedly the honey of virtue in the hives of their hearts, and cultivating a most sweet fruit worthy of the heavenly table. Others take up the common life: who, gathered in great numbers in one place, set themselves under one captain and superior, the most excellent of all, slaughtering every will of their own with the sword of obedience; and, reckoning themselves of their own accord to be bought slaves, they no longer live to themselves, but to him under whom, for love of Christ, they have subjected themselves—or, to say it more properly, they live no longer to themselves, but Christ lives in them, whom they have followed, renouncing all things. For this is withdrawal: a willing hatred of the world, and a renunciation of nature out of longing for the things above nature. These men, then, live as angels upon the earth, singing psalms and hymns to the Lord with one accord, and proving themselves confessors in the contests of obedience; in whom also the word of the Master is fulfilled. For he says: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them—not confining the gathering in his name to this measure, but by "two or three" indicating an unbounded number. For whether few or many be gathered for his holy name, serving him with fervent longing, there we believe him to be present in the midst of his servants. By these patterns and such ways of life the earthly and dust-born have rivaled the life of the

heavenly: in fastings and prayers and vigils, in warm tears and unwavering mourning, in living as strangers and the remembrance of death, in gentleness and freedom from anger, in silence of the lips, in poverty and possessing nothing, in chastity and self-control, in a humble mind and stillness, in perfect love toward God and toward one's neighbor—completing the present life and becoming angels in their ways. Whence God adorned them with wonders and signs and various powers, and made the sound of their wondrous way of life echo to the ends of the world. And if I bring before you the life of one of them, telling it in detail by word of mouth—he who is said to have been the founder of the monastic way of life, Antony by name—you will surely know from the one tree the sweetness of the fruits of its kind and like, and what a foundation of asceticism that man laid, and what a roof he fixed upon it, and what gifts he was counted worthy to receive from the Savior. And many others after him, contending the same contest, obtained the like crowns and rewards. Blessed are these, and thrice blessed, who loved God and for love of him despised all things. For they wept and mourned day and night, that they might attain the comfort that has no end; they humbled themselves willingly, that there they might be exalted; they wasted their flesh with hunger and thirst and vigil, that there the luxury and exultation of paradise might receive them;

they became a dwelling of the Holy Spirit by purity of heart, as it is written: I will dwell in them and walk among them; they crucified themselves to the world, that they might stand at the right hand of him who was crucified; they girded their loins in truth, and kept their lamps always ready, awaiting the coming of the immortal Bridegroom. For having acquired spiritual eyes, they continually foresaw that awesome hour, and held the contemplation of the good things to come and of the eternal punishment inseparable from their hearts; and they were eager to labor, that they might not fall short of everlasting glory. They became free of passion like the angels; and now they dance with those whose life they imitated. Blessed are these, and thrice blessed, because with the undeceived eyes of the mind they perceived the emptiness of present things, and the unsteadiness and unevenness of human prosperity, and, renouncing it, laid up for themselves the eternal good things, and laid hold of the life that never fails nor is cut short by death. These wondrous and holy men, then, we too, cheap and unworthy as we are, are eager to imitate,

though we do not attain the height of their heavenly-citizen way of life; but, so far as is possible to our weak and wretched strength, we mark out the character of their life and have clothed ourselves in their habit, even if we fall short of their works. For we know that this divine profession is a procurer of sinlessness and a fellow-worker of the incorruption given to us through holy baptism. And, following the words of those blessed men, we utterly condemn these corruptible and perishable affairs of life, in which nothing can be found that is secure, or even, or standing fast in the same state; but all things are emptiness and a grasping after wind, bearing many changes in a moment. For they are weaker than dreams and a shadow and a breeze blowing through the air; small and brief is their charm, and not even a charm, but a kind of wandering and deceit of the world's wickedness, which we have been taught not to love at all, but rather to hate from the heart. And it is in truth hateful and to be shunned; for whatever it gives to its friends, it snatches away again in anger, and sends them off to eternal affliction stripped of every good and clothed in shame, with heavy burdens laid upon them;

and those again whom it exalts, it soon brings down to the utmost wretchedness, making them footstools and a mockery of all their enemies. Such, then, are its favors; such are its gifts. For it is an enemy of its friends, and a plotter against all who do its will, and it dashes down terribly those who lean upon it, and unnerves those who trust in it. It makes agreements and false promises with the foolish, only to draw them in; but when they have been treated faithlessly, it shows itself faithless and false, fulfilling none of what it agreed. For having today smoothed their throats with sweet foods, tomorrow it sets them all as food for their enemies. Today it shows a man a king, and tomorrow hands him over to some wretched slavery; today flourishing with countless good things,

tomorrow a beggar and the slave of slaves. Today it sets the crown of its glory on his head; tomorrow it dashes his face to the ground. Today it adorns his neck with the splendid honors of high office; tomorrow it humbles him, bound in chains of iron. For a little while it makes him desirable to all; and after a little, strongly hated and abhorred. Today it gladdens him, and tomorrow wastes him away with laments and beatings of the breast. And what end it lays upon them, hear: it makes those who loved it pitiably the dwellers of Gehenna. Such is its mind always, such its purpose, plainly. It neither laments those who have passed away nor pities those who are left. For having dreadfully deceived those and shut them up in its nets, it tries to turn its skill again upon these, wishing none to escape its grievous snares. Those, then, who serve such a cruel and wicked master, who have in their madness removed themselves from the good and loving God, and stand gaping after present things and cling fast to them, taking no thought at all for the things to come,

and who press on without ceasing toward the enjoyments of the body, but let their souls waste away with hunger and be tormented with countless evils—these I think to be like a man fleeing from the face of a raging unicorn, who, unable to bear the sound of its roar and its fearful bellowing, and running hard to escape becoming its food, in his swift flight fell into a great pit; and as he fell into it, stretching out his hands and grasping a certain tree, he held it firmly, and, planting his feet on a kind of ledge, thought himself henceforth to be in peace and safety. But looking, he sees two mice, the one white, the other black, gnawing without ceasing at the root of the tree from which he hung, and all but reaching the point of cutting it through. And gazing at the bottom of the pit, he saw a dragon fearful to behold, breathing fire and glaring most fiercely, with its mouth gaping terribly and straining to swallow him. And looking again at the ledge on which he had set his feet, he saw the heads of four asps jutting out from the wall on which he was resting. And lifting up his eyes, he sees a little honey dripping from the branches of that tree. So, leaving off to consider the calamities surrounding him—

how outside the unicorn, raging dreadfully, sought to devour him, and below the bitter dragon gaped to swallow him, and the tree he had grasped was all but about to be cut down, and his feet rested on a slippery and untrustworthy ledge—forgetting unreasonably all these so many and so dreadful sights, with his whole mind he hung upon the sweetness of that little honey. This is the likeness of those who cling to the deceit of the present life, the meaning of which I will tell you at once. The unicorn would be the figure of death, which always pursues and presses to overtake the race of Adam; the pit is the world, full of all kinds of evils and death-bearing snares; the tree, ceaselessly gnawed by the two mice, which he had grasped, is the course of each one's life, spent and consumed through the hours of day and night, drawing little by little nearer to being cut off; the four asps signify the structure of the human body, set upon four treacherous and unstable elements, by whose disorder and disturbance the constitution of the body is dissolved. Besides this, that fiery and cruel dragon represents the fearful belly of Hades, raging to receive those who prefer the present delights to the good things to come. And the drop of honey shows the sweetness of the world's pleasures, by which it deceives its own friends and does not let them take thought for their salvation.