Some monks were eating at a festival, and one said to the serving man, “I
eat nothing cooked; tell them to bring me salt.” The serving man began
to talk loudly: “That brother eats no cooked meat; bring him a little
salt.” Quoth Abbot Theodore: “It were more better for thee, brother, to
eat meat in thy cell than to hear thyself talked about in the presence of
thy brethren.”
Again: a brother came to Abbot Silvanus, in Mount Sinai, and found the
brethren working, and said, “Why labour you for the meat which perisheth?
Mary chose the good part.” The abbot said, “Give him a book to read, and
put him in an empty cell.” About the ninth hour the brother looked out,
to see if he would be called to eat, and at last came to the abbot, and
asked, “Do not the brethren eat to-day, abbot?” “Yes.” “Then why was
not I called?” Then quoth Abbot Silvanus: “Thou art a spiritual man: and
needest not their food. We are carnal, and must eat, because we work:
but thou hast chosen the better part.” Whereat the monk was ashamed.
As was also John the dwarf, who wanted to be “without care like the
angels, doing nothing but praise God.” So he threw away his cloak, left
his brother the abbot, and went into the desert. But after seven days he
came back, and knocked at the door. “Who is there?” asked his brother.
“John.” “Nay, John is turned into an angel, and is no more among men.”
So he left him outside all night; and in the morning gave him to
understand that if he was a man he must work, but that if he was an
angel, he had no need to live in a cell.
Consider again the saying of the great Antony, when some brethren were
praising another in his presence. But Antony tried him, and found that
he could not bear an injury. Then said the old man, “Brother, thou art
like a house with an ornamented porch, while the thieves break into it by
the back door.”
Or this, of Abbot Isidore, when the devil tempted him to despair, and
told him that he would be lost after all: “If I do go into torment, I
shall still find you below me there.”
Or this, of Zeno the Syrian, when some Egyptian monks came to him and
began accusing themselves: “The Egyptians hide the virtues which they
have, and confess vices which they have not. The Syrians and Greeks
boast of virtues which they have not, and hide vices which they have.”
Or this: One old man said to another, “I am dead to this world.” “Do not
trust yourself,” quoth the other, “till you are out of this world. If
you are dead, the devil is not.”
Two old men lived in the same cell, and had never disagreed. Said one to
the other, “Let us have just one quarrel, like other men.” Quoth the
other: “I do not know what a quarrel is like.” Quoth the first: “Here—I
will put a brick between us, and say that it is mine: and you shall say
it is not mine; and over that let us have a contention and a squabble.”
But when they put the brick between them, and one said, “It is mine,” the
other said, “I hope it is mine.” And when the first said, “It is mine,
it is not yours,” he answered, “If it is yours, take it.” So they could
not find out how to have a quarrel.
Anger, malice, revenge, were accursed things in the eyes of these men.
There was enough of them, and too much, among their monks; but far less,
doubt not, than in the world outside. For within the monastery it was
preached against, repressed, punished; and when repented of, forgiven,
with loving warnings and wise rules against future transgression.
Abbot Agathon used to say, “I never went to sleep with a quarrel against
any man; nor did I, as far as lay in me, let one who had a quarrel
against me sleep till he had made peace.”
Abbot Isaac was asked why the devils feared him so much. “Since I was
made a monk,” he said, “I settled with myself that no angry word should
come out of my mouth.”
An old man said, “Anger arises from these four things: from the lust of
avarice, in giving and receiving; from loving one’s own opinion; from
wishing to be honoured; and from fancying oneself a teacher and hoping to
be wiser than everybody. And anger obscures human reason by these four
ways: if a man hate his neighbour; or if he envy him; or if he look on
him as nought; or if he speak evil of him.”
A brother being injured by another, came to Abbot Sidonius, told his
story, and said, “I wish to avenge myself, father.” The abbot begged him
to leave vengeance to God: but when he refused, said, “Then let us pray.”
Whereon the old man rose, and said, “God, thou art not necessary to us
any longer, that thou shouldest be careful of us: for we, as this brother
says, both will and can avenge ourselves.” At which that brother fell at
his feet, and begged pardon, promising never to strive with his enemy.
Abbot Pœmen said often, “Let malice never overcome thee. If any man do
thee harm, repay him with good, that thou mayest conquer evil with good.”
In a congregation at Scetis, when many men’s lives and conversation had
been talked over, Abbot Pior held his tongue. After it was over, he went
out, and filled a sack with sand, and put it on his back. Then he took a
little bag, filled it likewise with sand, and carried it before him. And
when the brethren asked him what he meant, he said, “The sack behind is
my own sins, which are very many: yet I have cast them behind my back,
and will not see them, nor weep over them. But I have put these few sins
of my brother’s before my eyes, and am tormenting myself over them, and
condemning my brother.”
A brother having committed a fault, went to Antony, and his brethren
followed, upbraiding him, and wanting to bring him back; while he denied
having done the wrong. Abbot Paphnutius was there, and spoke a parable
to them:—
“I saw on the river bank a man sunk in the mud up to his knees. And men
came to pull him out, and thrust him in up to the neck.”
Then said Antony of Paphnutius, “Behold a man who can indeed save souls.”
Abbot Macarius was going up to the mountain of Nitria, and sent his
disciple on before. The disciple met an idol-priest hurrying on, and
carrying a great beam: to whom he cried, “Where art thou running, devil?”
At which he was wroth, and beat him so that he left him half dead, and
then ran on, and met Macarius, who said, “Salvation to thee, labourer,
salvation!” He answered, wondering, “What good hast thou seen in me that
thou salutest me?” “Because I saw thee working and running, though
ignorantly.” To whom the priest said, “Touched by thy salutation, I knew
thee to be a great servant of God; for another—I know not who—miserable
monk met me and insulted me, and I gave him blows for his words.” Then
laying hold of Macarius’s feet he said, “Unless thou make me a monk I
will not leave hold of thee.”
After all, of the best of these men are told (with much honesty) many
sayings which show that they felt in their minds and hearts that the
spirit was above the letter: sayings which show that they had at least at
times glimpses of a simpler and more possible virtue; foretastes of a
perfection more human, and it may be more divine.
“Better,” said Abbot Hyperichius, “to eat flesh and drink wine, than to
eat our brethren’s flesh with bitter words.”
A brother asked an elder, “Give me, father one thing which I may keep,
and be saved thereby.” The elder answered, “If thou canst be injured and
insulted, and hear and be silent, that is a great thing, and above all
the other commandments.”
One of the elders used to say, “Whatever a man shrinks from let him not
do to another. Dost thou shrink if any man detracts from thee? Speak
not ill of another. Dost thou shrink if any man slanders thee, or if any
man takes aught from thee? Do not that or the like to another man. For
he that shall have kept this saying, will find it suffice for his
salvation.”
“The nearer,” said Abbot Muthues, “a man approaches God, the more he will
see himself to be a sinner.”
Abbot Sisois, when he lay dying, begged to live a little longer, that he
might repent; and when they wondered, he told them that he had not yet
even begun repentance. Whereby they saw that he was perfect in the fear
of the Lord.
But the most startling confession of all must have been that wrung from
the famous Macarius the elder. He had been asked once by a brother, to
tell him a rule by which he might be saved; and his answer had been
this:—to fly from men, to sit in his cell, and to lament for his sins
continually; and, what was above all virtues, to keep his tongue in order
as well as his appetite.
But (whether before or after that answer is not said) he gained a deeper
insight into true virtue, on the day when (like Antony when he was
reproved by the example of the tanner in Alexandria) he heard a voice
telling him that he was inferior to two women who dwelt in the nearest
town. Catching up his staff, like Antony, he went off to see the wonder.
The women, when questioned by him as to their works, were astonished.
They had been simply good wives for years past, married to two brothers,
and living in the same house. But when pressed by him, they confessed
that they had never said a foul word to each other, and never quarrelled.
At one time they had agreed together to retire into a nunnery, but could
not, for all their prayers, obtain the consent of their husbands. On
which they had both made an oath, that they would never, to their deaths,
speak one worldly word.
Which when the blessed Macarius had heard, he said, “In truth there is
neither virgin, nor married woman, nor monk, nor secular; but God only
requires the intention, and ministers the spirit of life to all.”