BOOK X. OF THE
SPIRIT OF ACCIDIE.1
Chapter I. How our
sixth combat is against the spirit of accidie, and what its character
is.
Our sixth combat is with what the Greeks call achdia, which we may term weariness or
distress of heart. This is akin to dejection, and is especially trying
to solitaires, and a dangerous and frequent foe to dwellers in the
desert; and especially disturbing to a monk about the sixth hour, like
some fever which seizes him at stated times, bringing the burning heat
of its attacks on the sick man at usual and regular hours. Lastly,
there are some of the elders who declare that this is the "midday
demon" spoken of in the ninetieth Psalm.2
Chapter II. A
description of accidie, and the way in which it creeps over the heart
of a monk,
and the injury it inflicts on the soul.
And when this has taken possession of some unhappy soul, it
produces dislike of the place, disgust with the cell, and disdain and
contempt of the brethren who dwell with him or at a little distance, as
if they were careless or unspiritual. It also makes the man lazy and
sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within the
enclosure of his dormitory. It does not suffer him to stay in his cell,
or to take any pains about reading, and he often groans because he can
do no good while he stays there, and complains and sighs because he can
bear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that society; and he
complains that he is cut off from spiritual gain, and is of no use in
the place, as if he were one who, though he could govern others and be
useful to a great number of people, yet was edifying none, nor
profiting any one by his teaching and doctrine. He cries up distant
monasteries and those which are a long way off, and describes such
places as more profitable and better suited for salvation; and besides
this he paints the intercourse with the brethren there as sweet and
full of spiritual life. On the other hand, he says that everything
about him is rough, and not only that there is nothing edifying among
the brethren who are stopping there, but also that even food for the
body cannot be procured without great difficulty. Lastly he fancies
that he will never be well while he stays in that place, unless he
leaves his cell (in which he is sure to die if he stops in it any
longer) and takes himself off from thence as quickly as possible. Then
the fifth or sixth hour brings him such bodily weariness and longing
for food that he seems to himself worn out and wearied as if with a
long journey, or some very heavy work, or as if he had put off taking
food during a fast of two or three days. Then besides this he looks
about anxiously this way and that, and sighs that none of the brethren
come to see him, and often goes in and out of his cell, and frequently
gazes up at the sun, as if it was too slow in setting, and so a kind of
unreasonable confusion of mind takes possession of him like some foul
darkness,3 and
makes him idle and useless for every spiritual work, so that he
imagines that no cure for so terrible an attack can be found in
anything except visiting some one of the brethren, or in the solace of
sleep alone. Then the disease suggests that he ought to show courteous
and friendly hospitalities to the brethren, and pay visits to the sick,
whether near at hand or far off. He talks too about some dutiful and
religious offices; that those kinsfolk ought to be inquired after, and
that he ought to go and see them oftener; that it would be a real work
of piety to go more frequently to visit that religious woman, devoted
to the service of God, who is deprived of all support of kindred; and
that it would be a most excellent thing to get what is needful for her
who is neglected and despised by her own kinsfolk; and that he ought
piously to devote his time to these things instead of staying uselessly
and with no profit in his cell.
And so the wretched soul, embarrassed by such contrivances of
the enemy, is disturbed, until, worn out by the spirit of accidie, as
by some strong battering ram, it either learns to sink into slumber,
or, driven out from the confinement of its cell, accustoms itself to
seek for consolation under these attacks in visiting some brother, only
to be afterwards weakened the more by this remedy which it seeks for
the present. For more frequently and more severely will the enemy
attack one who, when the battle is joined, will as he well knows
immediately turn his back, and whom he sees to look for safety neither
in victory nor in fighting but in flight: until little by little he is
drawn away from his cell, and begins to forget the object of his
profession, which is nothing but meditation and contemplation of that
divine purity which excels all things, and which can only be gained by
silence and continually remaining in the cell, and by meditation, and
so the soldier of Christ becomes a runaway from His service, and a
deserter, and "entangles himself in secular business," without at all
pleasing Him to whom he engaged himself.4
All the inconveniences of this disease are admirably expressed
by David in a single verse, where he says, "My soul slept from
weariness,"5
that is, from accidie. Quite rightly does he say, not that his body,
but that his soul slept. For in truth the soul which is wounded by the
shaft of this passion does sleep, as regards all contemplation of the
virtues and insight of the spiritual senses.
And so the true Christian athlete who desires to strive
lawfully in the lists of perfection, should hasten to expel this
disease also from the recesses of his soul; and should strive against
this most evil spirit of accidie in both directions, so that he may
neither fall stricken through by the shaft of slumber, nor be driven
out from the monastic cloister, even though under some pious excuse or
pretext, and depart as a runaway.
And whenever it begins in any degree to overcome any one, it
either makes him stay in his cell idle and lazy, without making any
spiritual progress, or it drives him out from thence and makes him
restless and a wanderer, and indolent in the matter of all kinds of
work, and it makes him continually go round, the cells of the brethren
and the monasteries, with an eye to nothing but this; viz., where or
with what excuse he can presently procure some refreshment. For the
mind of an idler cannot think of anything but food and the belly, until
the society of some man or woman, equally cold and indifferent, is
secured, and it loses itself in their affairs and business, and is thus
little by little ensnared by dangerous occupations, so that, just as if
it were bound up in the coils of a serpent, it can never disentangle
itself again and return to the perfection of its former profession.
The blessed Apostle, like a true and spiritual physician,
either seeing this disease, which springs from the spirit of accidie,
already creeping in, or foreseeing, through the revelation of the Holy
Spirit, that it would arise among monks, is quick to anticipate it by
the healing medicines of his directions. For in writing to the
Thessalonians, and at first, like a skilful and excellent physician,
applying to the infirmity of his patients the soothing and gentle
remedy of his words, and beginning with charity, and praising them in
that point, that6
this deadly wound, having been treated with a milder remedy, might lose
its angry fostering and more easily bear severer treatment, he says:
"But concerning brotherly charity ye have no need that I write to you:
for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For this ye
do toward all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia."7 He first began with
the soothing application of praise, and made their ears submissive and
ready for the remedy of the healing words. Then he proceeds: "But we
ask you, brethren, to abound more." Thus far he soothes them with kind
and gentle words; for fear lest he should find them not yet prepared to
receive their perfect cure. Why is it that you ask, O Apostle, that
they may abound more in charity, of which you had said above, "But
concerning brotherly charity we have no need to write to you"? And why
is it necessary that you should say to them: "But we ask you to abound
more," when they did not need to be written to at all on this matter?
especially as you add the reason why they do not need it, saying, "For
you yourselves have been taught of God to love one another." And you add
a third thing still more important: that not only have they been taught
of God, but also that they fulfil in deed that which they are taught.
"For ye do this," he says, not to one or two, but "to all the
brethren;" and not to your own citizens and friends only, but "in the
whole of Macedonia." Tell us then, I pray, why it is that you so
particularly begin with this. Again he proceeds, "But we ask you,
brethren, to abound the more." And with difficulty at last he breaks
out into that at which he was driving before: "and that ye take pains
to be quiet." He gave the first aim. Then he adds a second, "and to do
your own business;" and a third as well: "and work with your own hands,
as we commanded you;" a fourth: "and to walk honestly towards those
that are without; "a fifth: "and to covet no man's goods." Lo, we can
see through that hesitation, which made him with these preludes put off
uttering what his mind was full of: "And that ye take pains to be
quiet;" i.e., that you stop in your cells, and be not disturbed by
rumours, which generally spring from the wishes and gossip of idle
persons, and so yourselves disturb others. And, "to do your own
business," you should not want to require curiously of the world's
actions, or, examining the lives of others, want to spend your
strength, not on bettering yourselves and aiming at virtue, but on
depreciating your brethren. "And work with your own hands, as we
charged you;" to secure that which he had warned them above not to do;
i.e., that they should not be restless and anxious about other people's
affairs, nor walk dishonestly towards those without, nor covet another
man's goods, he now adds and says, "and work with your own hands, as we
charged you." For he has clearly shown that leisure is the reason why those
things were done which he blamed above. For no one can be restless or
anxious about other people's affairs, but one who is not satisfied to apply
himself to the work of his own hands. He adds also a fourth evil, which
springs also from this leisure, i.e., that they should not walk dishonestly:
when he says: "And that ye walk honestly towards those without." He cannot
possibly walk honestly, even among those who are men of this world, who is
not content to cling to the seclusion of his cell and the work of his own
hands; but he is sure to be dishonest, while he seeks his needful food; and
to take pains to flatter, to follow up news and gossip, to seek for
opportunities for chattering and stories by means of which he may gain a
footing and obtain an entrance into the houses of others. "And that you
should not covet another man's goods." He is sure to look with envious eyes
on another's gifts and boons, who does not care to secure sufficient for his
daily food by the dutiful and peaceful labour of his hands. You see what
conditions, and how serious and shameful ones, spring solely from the malady
of leisure. Lastly, those very people, whom in his first Epistle he had
treated with the gentle application of his words, in his second Epistle he
endeavours to heal with severer and sterner
remedies, as those who had not profited by more gentle treatment; and
he no longer applies the treatment of gentle words, no mild and kindly
expressions, as these, "But we ask you, brethren," but "We adjure you,
brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw from
every brother that walketh disorderly."8 There he asks; here
he adjures. There is the kindness of one who is persuading; here the
sternness of one protesting and threatening. "We adjure you, brethren:"
because, when we first asked you, you scorned to listen; now at least
obey our threats. And this adjuration he renders terrible, not by his
bare word, but by the imprecation of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ:
for fear lest they might again scorn it, as merely man's word, and
think that it was not of much importance. And forthwith, like a
well-skilled physician with festering limbs, to which he could not
apply the remedy of a mild treatment, he tries to cure by an incision
with a spiritual knife, saying, "that ye withdraw yourselves from every
brother that walketh disorderly, and not according to the tradition
which ye received of us." And so he bids them withdraw from those who
will not make time for work, and to cut them off like limbs tainted
with the festering sores of leisure: test the the malady of idleness,
like some deadly contagion, might infect even the healthy portion of
their limbs, by the gradual advance of infection. And when he is going
to speak of those who will not work with their own hands and eat their
bread in quietness, from whom he urges them to withdraw, hear with what
reproaches he brands them at starting. First he calls them
"disorderly," and "not walking according to the tradition." In other
words, he stigmatizes them as obstinate, since they will not walk
according to his appointment; and "dishonest," i.e., not keeping to the
right and proper times for going out, and visiting, and talking. For a
disorderly person is sure to be subject to all those faults. "And not
according to the tradition which they received from us." And in this he
stamps them as in some sort rebellious, and despisers, who scorned to
keep the tradition which they had received from him, and would not
follow that which they not only remembered that the master had taught
in word, but which they knew that he had performed in deed. "For you
yourselves know how ye ought to be followers of us." He heaps up an
immense pile of censure when he asserts that they did not observe that
which was still in their memory, and which not only had they learned by
verbal instruction, but also had received by the incitement of his
example in working.
Chapter VIII. That he is sure to be restless
who will not be content with the work of his own hands.
"Because we were not restless among you." When he wants
to prove by the practice of work that he was not restless among them,
he fully shows that those who will not work are always restless, owing
to the fault of idleness. "Nor did we eat any man's bread for nought."
By each expression the teacher of the Gentiles advances a step in the
rebuke.9 The
preacher of the gospel says that he has not eaten any man's bread for
nought, as he knows that the Lord commanded that "they who preach the
gospel should live of the gospel:"10 again, "The
labourer is worthy of his meat."11 And so if he who
preached the gospel, performing a work so lofty and spiritual, did not
venture in reliance on the Lord's command to eat his bread for nought,
what shall we do to whom not merely is there no preaching of the word
intrusted, but no cure of souls except our own committed? with what
confidence shall we dare with idle hands to eat our bread for nought,
when the "chosen vessel," constrained by his anxiety for the gospel and
his work of preaching, did not venture to eat without labouring with
his own hands? "But in labour," he says "and weariness, working night
and day lest we should be burdensome to any of you."12 Up to this point
he amplifies and adds to his rebuke. For he did not simply say, "We did
not eat bread for nought from any of and then stop short. For it might
have been thought that he was supported by his own private means, and
by money which he had saved, or by other people's, though not by their
collections and gifts. "But in labour," he says, "and weariness,
working night and day is, being specially supported by our own labour.
And this, he says, we did not of our own wish, and for our own
pleasure, as rest and bodily exercise suggested, but as our necessities
and the want of food compelled us to do, and that not without great
bodily weariness. For not only throughout the whole day, but also by
night, which seems to be granted for bodily rest, I was continually
plying the work of my hands, through anxiety for food.
Chapter IX. That not the
Apostle only, but those two who were with him laboured with their own
hands.
And he testifies that it was not he alone who so lived among
them, lest haply this method might not seem important or general if he
depended only on his example. But he declares that all those who were
appointed with him for the ministry of the gospel, i.e., Silvanus and
Timothy, who wrote this with him, worked in the same fashion. For by
saying, "lest we should be burdensome to any of you, he covers them
with great shame. For if he who preached the gospel and commended it by
signs and mighty works, did not dare to eat bread for nought, lest he
should be burdensome to any, how can those men help thinking that they
are burdensome who take it every day in idleness and at their leisure?
Chapter X. That for this reason
the Apostle laboured with his own hands, that he might set us an
example of work.
"Not as if we had not power; but that we might give ourselves
a pattern to you to imitate us." He lays bare the reason why he imposed
such labour on himself: "that we might," says he, "give a pattern to
you to imitate us, that if by chance you become forgetful of the
teaching of our words which so often passes through your ears, you may
at least keep in your recollection the example of my manner of life
given to you by ocular demonstration. There is here too no slight
reproof of them, where he says that he has gone through this labour and
weariness by night and day, for no other reason but to set an example,
and that nevertheless they would not be instructed, for whose sakes he,
although not obliged to do it, yet imposed on himself such toil. "And
indeed," he says "though we had the power, and opportunities were open
to us of using all your goods and substance, and I knew that I had the
permission13
of our Lord to use them: yet I did not use this power, lest what was
rightly and lawfully done on my part might set an example of dangerous
idleness to others. And therefore when preaching the gospel, I
preferred to be supported by my own hands and work, that I might open
up the way of perfection to you who wish to walk in the path of virtue,
and might set an example of good life by my work."
Chapter XI. That he preached
and taught men to work not only by his example, but also by his words.
But lest haply it might be thought that, while he worked in
silence and tried to teach them by example, he had not instructed them
by precepts and warnings, he proceeds to say: "For when we were with
you, this we declared to you, that if a man will not work neither
should he eat." Still greater does he make their idleness appear, for,
though they knew that he, like a good master, worked with his hands for
the sake of his teaching and in order to instruct them, yet they were
ashamed to imitate him; and he emphasizes our diligence and care by
saying that he did not only give them this for an example when present,
but that he also proclaimed it continually in words; saying that if any
one would not work, neither should he eat.
Chapter XII. Of his saying:
"If any will not work, neither shall he eat."
And now he no longer addresses to them the advice of a teacher
or physician, but proceeds with the severity of a judicial sentence,
and, resuming his apostolic authority, pronounces sentence on his
despisers as if from the judgment seat: with that power, I mean, which,
when writing with threats to the Corinthians, he declared was given him
of the Lord, when he charged those taken in sin, that they should make
haste and amend their lives before his coming: thus charging them, "I
beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present, against some,
with that power which is given to me over you." And again: "For if I
also should boast somewhat of the power which the Lord has given me
unto edification, and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed."14 With that power, I
say, he declares, "If a man will not work, neither let him eat." Not
punishing them with a carnal sword, but with the power of the Holy
Ghost forbidding them the goods of this life, that if by chance,
thinking but little of the punishment of future death, they still
should remain obstinate through love of ease, they may at last, forced
by the requirements of nature and the fear of immediate death, be
compelled to obey his salutary charge.
Then after all this rigour of gospel severity, he now lays
bare the reason why he put forward all these matters. "For we have
heard that some among you walk disorderly, working not at all, but
curiously meddling." He is nowhere satisfied to speak of those who will
not give themselves up to work, as if they were victims of but a single
malady. For in his first Epistle15 he speaks of them
as "disorderly," and not walking according to the traditions which they
had received from him: and he also asserts that they were restless, and
ate their bread for nought. Again he says here, "We have heard that
there are some among you who walk disorderly." And at once he subjoins
a second weakness, which is the root of this restlessness, and says,
"working not at all;" a third malady as well he adds, which springs
from this last like some shoot: "but curiously meddling."
And so he loses no time in at once applying a suitable remedy
to the incentive to so many faults, and laying aside that apostolic
power of his which he had made use of a little before, he adopts once
more the tender character of a good father, or of a kind physician,
and, as if they were his children or his patients, applies by his
healing counsel remedies to cure them, saying: "Now we charge them that
are such, and beseech them by the Lord Jesus, that working with silence
they would eat their own bread." The cause of all these ulcers, which
spring from the root of idleness, he heals like some well-skilled
physician by a single salutary charge to work; as he knows that all the
other bad symptoms, which spring as it were from the same clump, will
at once disappear when the cause of the chief malady has been removed.
Nevertheless, like a far-sighted and careful physician, he is
not only anxious to heal the wounds of the sick, but gives suitable
directions as well to the whole, that their health may be preserved
continually, and says: "But be not ye weary in well doing:" ye who
following us, i.e., our ways, copy the example given to you by
imitating us in work, and do not follow their sloth and laziness: "Do
not be weary in well doing;" i.e., do you likewise show kindness
towards them if by chance they have failed to observe what we said. As
then he was severe with those who were weak, for fear lest being
enervated by laziness they might yield to restlessness and
inquisitiveness, so he admonishes those who are in good health neither
to restrain that kindness which the Lord's command bids us show to the
good and evil,17
even if some bad men will not turn to sound doctrine; nor to desist
from doing good and encouraging them both by words of consolation and
by rebuke as well as by ordinary kindness and civility.
Chapter XVI. How we ought to
admonish those who go wrong, not out of hatred, but out of love.
But again in case some might be encouraged by this gentleness,
and scorn to obey his commands, he proceeds with the severity of an
apostle: "But if any man obey not our word by this Epistle, note that
man and do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed." And in
warning them of what they ought to observe out of regard for him and
for the good of all, and of the care with which they should keep the
apostolic commands, at once he joins to the warning the kindness of a
most indulgent father; and teaches them as well, as if they were his
children, what a brotherly disposition they should cultivate towards
those mentioned above, out of love. "Yet do not esteem him as an enemy,
but admonish him as a brother." With the severity of a judge he
combines the affection of a father, and tempers with kindness and
gentleness the sentence delivered with apostolic sternness. For he
commands them to note that man who scorns to obey his commands, and not
to keep company with him; and yet he does not bid them do this from a
wrong feeling of dislike, but from brotherly affection and out of
consideration for their amendment. "Do not keep company," he says,
"with him that he may be ashamed;" so that, even if he is not made
better by my mild charges, he may at last be brought to shame by being
publicly separated from all of you, and so may some day begin to be
restored to the way of salvation.
Chapter XVII. Different
passages in which the Apostle declares that we ought to work,
or in which it is shown that he himself worked.
IN the Epistle to the Ephesians also he thus gives a charge on
this subject of work, saying: "He that stole, let him now steal no
more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that
is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffereth need."18 And in the Acts of
the Apostles too we find that he not only taught this, but actually
practised it himself. For when he had come to Corinth, he did not
permit himself to lodge anywhere except with Aquila and Priscilla,
because they were of the same trade which he himself was accustomed to
practise. For we thus read: "After this, Paul departing from Athens
came to Corinth; and finding a certain Jew named Aquila, born in
Pontus, and Priscilla his wife, he came to them because they were of
the same trade; and abode with them, and worked: for they were
tent-makers by trade."19
Chapter XVIII. That the
Apostle wrought what he thought would be sufficient for him and for
others who were with him.
Then going to Miletus, and from thence sending to Ephesus, and
summoning to him the elders of the church of Ephesus, he charged them
how they ought to rule the church of God in his absence, and said: "I
have not coveted any man's silver and gold; you yourselves know how for
such things as were needful for me and them that are with me these
hands have ministered. I have showed you all things, how that so
labouring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of
the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is more blessed to give than to
receive."20 He
left us a weighty example in his manner of life, as he testifies that
he not only wrought what would supply his own bodily wants alone, but
also what would be sufficient for the needs of those who were with him:
those, I mean, who, being taken up with necessary duties, had no chance
of procuring food for themselves with their own hands. And as he tells
the Thessalonians that he had worked to give them an example that they
might imitate him, so here too he implies something of the same sort
when he says: "I have showed you all things, how that so labouring you
ought to support the weak," viz., whether in mind or body; i.e., that
we should be diligent in supplying their needs, not from the store of
our abundance, or money laid by, or from another's generosity and
substance, but rather by securing the necessary sum by our own labour
and toil.
And he says that this is a command of the Lord: "For He
Himself," namely the Lord Jesus, said he, "said it is more blessed to
give than to receive." That is, the bounty of the giver is more blessed
than the need of the receiver, where the gift is not supplied from
money that has been kept back through unbelief or faithlessness, nor
from the stored-up treasures of avarice, but is produced from the
fruits of our own labour and honest toil. And so "it is more blessed to
give than to receive," because while the giver shares the poverty of
the receiver, yet still he is diligent in providing with pious care by
his own toil, not merely enough for his own needs, but also what he can
give to one in want; and so he is adorned with a double grace, since by
giving away all his goods he secures the perfect abnegation of Christ,
and yet by his labour and thought displays the generosity of the rich;
thus honouring God by his honest labours, and plucking for him the
fruits of his righteousness, while another, enervated by sloth and
indolent laziness, proves himself by the saying of the Apostle unworthy
of food, as in defiance of his command he takes it in idleness, not
without the guilt of sin and of obstinacy.
WE know a brother, whose name we would give if it would do any
good, who, although he was remaining in the monastery and compelled to
deliver to the steward his fixed task daily, yet for fear lest he might
be led on to some larger portion of work, or put to shame by the
example of one labouring more zealously, when he had seen some brother
admitted into the monastery, who in the ardour of his faith wanted to
make up the sale of a larger piece of work, if he found that he could
not by secret persuasion check him from carrying out his purpose, he
would by bad advice and whisperings persuade him to depart thence. And
in order to get rid of him more easily he would pretend that he also
had already been for many reasons offended, and wanted to leave, if
only he could find a companion and support for the journey. And when by
secretly running down the monastery he had wheedled him into
consenting, and arranged with him the time at which to leave the
monastery, and the place to which he should go before, and where he
should wait for him, he himself, pretending that he would follow,
stopped where he was. And when the other out of shame for his flight
did not dare to return again to the monastery from which he had run
away, the miserable author of his flight stopped behind in the
monastery. It will be enough to have given this single instance of this
sort of men in order to put beginners on their guard, and to show
clearly what evils idleness, as Scripture says,21 can produce in the
mind of a monk, and how "evil communications corrupt good manners."22
And Solomon, the wisest of men, clearly points to this fault
of idleness in many passages, as he says: "He that followeth idleness
shall be filled with poverty,"23 either visible or
invisible, in which an idle person and one entangled with different
faults is sure to be involved, and he will always be a stranger to the
contemplation of God, and to spiritual riches, of which the blessed
Apostle says: "For in all things ye were enriched in him, in all
utterance and in all knowledge."24 But concerning
this poverty of the idler elsewhere he also writes thus: "Every
sluggard shall be clothed in torn garments and rags."25 For certainly he
will not merit to be adorned with that garment of incorruption (of
which the Apostle says, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,"26 and again: "Being
clothed in the breastplate of righteousness and charity,"27
concerning which the Lord Himself also speaks to Jerusalem by the prophet:
"Arise, arise, O Jerusalem, put on the garments of thy glory"28), whoever,
overpowered by lazy slumber or by accidie, prefers to be clothed, not
by his labour and industry, but in the rags of idleness, which he tears
off from the solid piece and body of the Scriptures, and fits on to his
sloth no garment of glory and honour, but an ignominious cloak and
excuse. For those, who are affected by this laziness, and do not like
to support themselves by the labour of their own hands, as the Apostle
continually did and charged us to do, are wont to make use of certain
Scripture proofs by which they try to cloak their idleness, saying that
it is written, "Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that
which remains to life eternal;"29 and "My meat is to
do the will of my Father."30
But these proofs are (as it were) rags, from the solid piece of the
gospel, which are adopted for this purpose, viz., to cover the disgrace
of our idleness and shame rather than to keep us warm, and adorn us
with that costly and splendid garment of virtue which that wise woman
in the Proverbs, who was clothed with strength and beauty, is said to
have made either for herself or for her husband; of which presently it
is said: "Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she rejoices in the
latter days."31
Of this evil of idleness Solomon thus makes mention again: "The ways of
the idlers are strown with thorns;"32 i.e., with these
and similar faults, which the Apostle above declared to spring from
idleness. And again: "Every sluggard is always in want."33 And of these the
Apostle makes mention when he says, "And that you want nothing of any
man's."34 And
finally: "For idleness has been the teacher of many evils:"35 which the Apostle
has clearly enumerated in the passage which he expounded above:
"Working not at all, but curiously meddling." To this fault also he
joins another: "And that ye study to be quiet;" and then, "that ye
should do your own business and walk honestly towards them that are
without, and that you want nothing of any man's." Those also whom he
notes as disorderly and rebellious, from these he charges those who are
earnest to separate themselves: "That ye withdraw yourselves," says he,
"from every brother that walketh disorderly and not according to the
tradition which they received from us."36
Chapter XXII. How
the brethren in Egypt work with their hands, not only to supply their
own needs,
but also to minister to those who are in prison.
And so taught by these examples the Fathers in Egypt never
allow monks, and especially the younger ones, to be idle,37 estimating the
purpose of their hearts and their growth in patience and humility by
their diligence in work; and they not only do not allow them to receive
anything from another to supply their own wants, but further, they not
merely refresh pilgrims and brethren who come to visit them by means of
their labours, but actually collect an enormous store of provisions and
food, and distribute it in the parts of Libya which suffer from famine
and barrenness, and also in the cities, to those who are pining away in
the squalor of prison; as they believe that by such an offering of the
fruit of their hands they offer a reasonable and true sacrifice to the
Lord.
Hence it is that in these countries we see no monasteries
found with such numbers of brethren: for they are not supported by the
resources of their own labour in such a way that they can remain in
them continually; and if in some way or other, through the liberality
of another, there should be a sufficient provision to supply them, yet
love of ease and restlessness of heart does not suffer them to continue
long in the place. Whence this saying has been handed down from the old
fathers in Egypt: that a monk who works is attacked by but one devil;
but an idler is tormented by countless spirits.
Lastly, Abbot Paul, one of the greatest of the Fathers, while
he was living in a vast desert which is called the Porphyrian desert,39 and being relieved
from anxiety by the date palms and a small garden, had plenty to
support himself, and an ample supply of food, and could not find any
other work to do, which would support him, because his dwelling was
separated from towns and inhabited districts by seven days' journey,40 or even more,
through the desert, and more would be asked for the carriage of the
goods than the price of the work would be worth; he collected the
leaves of the palms, and regularly exacted of himself his daily task,
as if he was to be supported by it. And when his cave had been filled
with a whole year's work, each year he would burn with fire that at
which he had so diligently laboured: thus proving that without manual
labour a monk cannot stop in a place nor rise to the heights of
perfection: so that, though the need for food did not require this to
be done, yet he performed it simply for the sake of purifying his
heart, and strengthening his thoughts, and persisting in his cell, and
gaining a victory over accidie and driving it away.
When I was beginning my stay in the desert, and had said to
Abbot Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly
troubled yesterday by an attack of accidie, and that I could only be
freed from it by running at once to Abbot Paul, he said, "You have not
freed yourself from it, but rather have given yourself up to it as its
slave and subject. For the enemy will henceforth attack you more
strongly as a deserter and runaway, since it has seen that you fled at
once when overcome in the conflict: unless on a second occasion when
you join battle with it you make up your mind not to dispel its attacks
and heats for the moment by deserting your cell, or by the inactivity
of sleep, but rather learn to triumph over it by endurance and
conflict." Whence it is proved by experience that a fit of accidie
should not be evaded by running away from it, but overcome by resisting
it.41
1 See note on the
Bk. V. c. i.
2 Ps. xc. (xci.) 6., where the Latin "et
daemonio meridiano" follows the LXX. kai daimoniou meshmbrinou, instead of "the
destruction that wasteth at noonday."
3 Velut toetra suppletur caligine
(Petschenig); the text of Gazaeus reads terra for taetra.
4 2 Tim. ii. 4.
5 Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 28, where the LXX.
has enustaxen h quch mou apo akhdia.
6 Quousque is used as equivalent to donec,
again in Conf. XXIII. xii.
7 1 Thess. iv. 9, 10.
8 2 Thess. iii. 6.
9 Increpationis (Petschenig). Interpretationis
(Gazaeus).
10 1 Cor. ix. 14.
11 S. Matt. x. 10.
12 2 Thess. iii. 8.
13 Permissum (Petschenig). Promissum
(Gazaeus).
14 2 Cor. x. 2, 8.
15 A mistake on Cassian's part: the
reference being to 2 Thess. iii. 6.
16 The text of Gazaeus has oratio,
but the reading which Petschenig gives, operatio manuum, is
clearly so.
17 S. Matt. v. 43-45.
18 Eph. iv. 28.
19 Acts xviii. 1-3.
20 Acts xx. 33-35.
21 The reference is probably to Ecclus
xxiii. 29, "Idleness hath taught much evil."
22 1 Cor. xv. 33.
23 Prov. xxviii. 19.
24 1 Cor. i. 5.
25 Prov. xxiii. 21. (LXX.).
26 Rom. xiii. 14.
27 1 Thess. v. 8.
28 Is. lii. 1.
29 S. John vi. 27.
30 S. John iv. 34.
31 Prov. xxxi. 25.
32 Prov. xv. 19 (LXX.).
33 Prov. xiii. 4 (LXX.).
34 1 Thess. iv. 11.
35 Ecclus. xxxiii. 29.
36 2 Thess. iii. 11; 6; 1 Thess. iv. 11.
37 The monks of Egypt were famous for their
labours, and Cassian's language might be illustrated from many passages
in the Fathers; e.g., Epiphanius, in his third book against heresies,
compares the monks, and especially those in Egypt, to bees, because of
their diligence. So S. Jerome, writing to Rusticus (Ep. cxxv.), says
that no one is received in a monastery in Egypt unless he will work,
and that this rule is made for the good of the soul rather than for the
sake of providing food. Compare also Sozomen H. E. VI. xxviii., where
it is said of Serapion and his followers in the neighbourhood of
Arsinoe that "they lived on the produce of their labour and provided
for the poor. During harvest-time they busied themselves in reaping:
they set aside sufficient corn for their own use, and furnished grain
gratuitously for the other monks." S. Basil also, in his Monastic
Constitutions cc. iv. and v., speaks strongly of the value of labour
and the Rule of S. Benedict (c.xlvili.) enjoins that "as idleness is
the enemy of the soul, the brethren are to be employed alternately in
manual labour and pious reading."
38 This Paul is perhaps the same as the one
mentioned in connection with Abbot Moses in Conference VII. xxvi. As he
was a contemporary of Cassian he must be carefully distinguished from
his more illustrious namesakes, the first hermit and the disciple of S.
Antony.
39 Also called the desert of Calamus,
Conference XXIV. iv., but its position has not been ascertained.
40 Mansio used here and again in
Conference XXIV. iv. for the stage of a day's journey.
41 This Abbot Moses is probably the one to
whom the first two Conferences are attributed (cf. also Conference VII.
xxvi.); and possibly the second of this name (Moses the Libyan)
mentioned by Sozomen, H. E. VI. xxxix. Cf. also Palladius, the Lausiac
History. c. xxii.
