制度與會談錄 第 2 章 第 11/15 段

Finally the blessed Apostle, using the testimony of this verse, when he had said: 'Be angry and sin not,' added: 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.' If it is harmful for the Sun of righteousness to go down upon our wrath, and if by being angry we at once give place to the devil in our heart, how did he above command us to be angry, saying: 'Be angry and sin not'? Does he not clearly say this: Be angry at your vices and your fury, lest, if we connive, the Sun of righteousness, Christ, on account of your wrath begin to set upon minds darkened, and, when He departs, you give place to the devil in your hearts? Concerning which Sun God clearly makes mention through the prophet, saying thus:

'But unto you that fear my name the Sun of righteousness shall arise, and health in his wings.' Who again is said to set upon sinners and false prophets and those who are angry, at midday, as the prophet says: 'Their sun shall set at noonday.' Or certainly, according to the tropical sense, the mind—that is, the nous, or the reason, which because it surveys all the thoughts and discernments of the heart is deservedly called the sun—is extinguished by the vice of anger, lest, when it sets, the darkness of the disturbances, with the devil their author, seize the whole perception of our heart, and, possessed by the darkness of anger as in blind night, we may not know what we ought to do.

In this sense we have set forth—though at somewhat greater length, because it was necessary to show how the elders felt concerning anger—this passage of the Apostle as handed down to us by the institutes of the elders: they who do not permit anger to penetrate our heart even for a moment, observing in every way that word of the Gospel: 'He that is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.' But if we may be angry until the setting of the sun, then the satiety of fury and the avenging commotions of anger will be able to fill up the harmful disturbance before that sun bends toward its setting. But what indeed is to be said of those (which indeed I cannot say without my own confusion), to whose implacability not even the setting sun sets a term, but prolonging it through many days...

...prolonging it, and reserving rancor of soul against those with whom they have been provoked—do they not, though they deny that they are angry in words, yet in the very fact and in deed prove that they are most grievously indignant? For neither do they address them with fitting speech, nor converse with them with affability, and they think that in this they by no means offend, in that they do not demand vengeance for their commotion: which nevertheless, because they either do not dare or certainly cannot bring it forth openly and carry it out, turning back the venom of wrath to their own ruin, they let it simmer in a silent heart, and consume it, mute, within themselves—not straightway expelling the bitterness of sadness by strength of soul, but digesting it over the course of days and somehow mitigating it in time.

As though indeed this were not each man's very limit of vengeance, and as though one had abundantly satisfied his own fury or sadness, if he has accomplished, at the instigation of anger, that which he is able (which these men too are known to do, who restrain their motions not from a desire for calm but from lack of means for vengeance: for they can inflict nothing further upon those with whom they are angry than to converse with them the less with their accustomed affability), or as though anger were to be moderated only in the outcome of deed, and not rather to be plucked out from the secret places of our breast. Because of the darkness of that anger, when we are darkened we can admit neither the light of salutary counsel nor of knowledge, nor can we, with an evil spirit dwelling within us, exist as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

For fury restrained in the heart does not indeed offend the men standing by, but it equally shuts out the most splendid radiance of the Holy Spirit as if it had been brought forth. Or how does the Lord will it to be retained even for a moment, He who does not permit even the spiritual sacrifices of our prayers to be offered, if we know that another holds any rancor against us, saying: 'If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift'?

How then—I will not say for many days, but even until the setting of this sun—are we permitted to retain sadness against a brother, we who are not allowed to offer our prayers to God even when he has nothing against us? To whom it is commanded by the Apostle: 'Pray without ceasing,' and: 'In every place lifting up pure hands, without anger and contention.'

It remains, therefore, that either we never pray while retaining this venom in our hearts, and are subject to this apostolic precept, as also to the evangelical one, by which we are commanded to pray unceasingly and everywhere; or, if deceiving our own selves we presume to pour out prayer against His prohibition, let us know that we are offering to the Lord not prayer, but the contumacy of a rebellious spirit.

And because for the most part we either despise the brethren whom we have injured and saddened, or certainly scorn them saying that they were offended by no fault of ours, the Physician of souls and the One who knows hidden things, willing to pluck out by the roots the occasions of anger from our hearts, commands us not only, if we have been injured, to forgive and be reconciled to our brethren and to retain no memory of injury or offense against them, but also, if we know that they have anything against us, whether justly or unjustly. Likewise He has commanded that, leaving our gift—that is, restraining our prayers—we hasten first to make satisfaction to them, and thus, the healing of the brother being first accomplished, present the gifts of our prayers unimpaired.

For the Lord common to all is not so delighted by our services that, what He gains in one, He should lose in another, while sadness holds sway. For in the loss of anyone whatsoever He suffers a single detriment, He who in like manner desires and awaits the salvation of all His servants. And therefore our prayer will be equally ineffective when a brother has anything against us, as if we ourselves were to reserve, with a swelling spirit of indignation, bitterness against him. But why do we linger longer over the evangelical and apostolic precepts, when even the old Law, which seems to have something of relaxation, provides against these same things, saying: 'Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart,' and again: 'Thou shalt not be mindful of the injury of thy fellow-citizens,' and again:

'The ways of those who retain the memory of a wrong lead to death.' You see that there too wickedness is cut away not only in the deed, but even in the secret thoughts, since not only the requital of hatred and injury, but even the very memory of them, is commanded to be plucked out by the roots from the heart. Sometimes, overcome by pride or impatience, when we are unwilling to amend our undisciplined and disordered manners, we complain that we desire solitude, as though there, with none provoking us, we would at once find the virtue of patience—excusing our own negligence and saying that the causes of our commotion are engendered not by our own impatience but by the fault of the brethren. And while we turn the causes of our error upon others, we shall never be able to arrive at the summit of patience and perfection.

The sum, therefore, of our amendment and tranquility is not to be placed in another's choice, which is by no means subject to our power, but rather let it stand in our own jurisdiction. And so, that we may not be angry, it ought not to descend from another's perfection, but from our own virtue, which is acquired not by another's patience, but by our own long-suffering. Moreover, the desert ought to be sought by the perfect and by those purged of every vice, and, having burned away their vices to purity in the congregation of the brethren, they should enter it not as a refuge of faint-heartedness, but for the sake and the desire of divine contemplation and of a loftier gaze, which can be attained only in solitude and by the perfect alone.

For whatever vices we have brought uncured into the desert will be felt to be hidden in us, not abolished. For solitude, just as it knows how to unlock the purest contemplation for amended characters, and to reveal, by a most sincere gaze, the knowledge of spiritual mysteries, so it is wont not only to preserve, but even to aggravate, the vices of those who are less amended. And for so long a man seems patient and humble, until he mingles in the company of no man; but he soon returns to his former nature when any occasion of commotion has interfered—it emerges at once...

For thereupon at once the vices which lay hidden, like unbridled horses that, nourished by too long idleness, break forth from their stalls, rush out the more keenly and fiercely to the ruin of their own driver. For the vices in us are the more made savage when human exercise and use ceases, unless they have first been purged; and we lose, through the sloth of security, even that shadow of patience which, mingled among the brethren, we seemed to possess in imagination—at least out of respect for them and for public reputation. As though indeed the whole venomous brood of serpents or of wild beasts, when they linger in solitude and in their own lairs, did not remain harmful. Nor yet can they for that reason be pronounced harmless, because they harm no one: for this is conferred on them not by any disposition of goodness,

but the necessity of solitude confers it. When these have gained the opportunity of harming, they at once pour forth and display the venom stored up within themselves, that savagery of soul. And therefore for those who seek perfection it is not enough not to be angry against a man.

For we remember, while dwelling in solitude, that against the reed—when either its thickness or its thinness displeased us—and against the penknife, when with a blunt edge it cut sluggishly what was to be incised, and against the flint, if perchance while we hastened to our reading a spark of fire flashed too tardily from it, such a movement of indignation crept in, that we could disperse and vent the disturbance of the mind in no other way than by a curse uttered either against the insensible objects or certainly against the devil. Wherefore, for the reckoning of perfection at least, it will not much profit to be absent from the men against whom anger might be moved, since, if patience has not first been acquired,

the affection of anger can be exercised in like manner even upon mute things, which, residing in our heart, will permit us neither to possess a continual state of tranquility nor to be free from the remaining vices. Unless perhaps we think that some gain or remedy is procured for our commotions by this, that inanimate and mute things by no means answer back to our curses or our anger, and do not provoke the intemperance of our heart to blaze up into a greater madness of fury. Wherefore, if we desire to attain that highest divine reward, of which it is said: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' not only must this be amputated from our actions, but it must also be uprooted from the inner parts of the soul by the roots.

For it will not greatly profit that the fury of anger be restrained in word and not brought into effect, if God—from whom the secrets of hearts are not hidden—perceives it to be present in the secret places of our breast. For the evangelical word commanded that the roots of vices be cut out rather than their fruits, which, once the kindling has been rooted out, will beyond doubt never sprout again: and thus the mind will be able to endure continually in all patience and holiness, when these things have been rooted out not from the surface of works and acts, but from the inner recesses of the thoughts. And therefore, lest murder be perpetrated, anger and hatred are cut down, without which the crime of murder can in no way be committed. For 'whosoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment,' and: 'he who...

'he who hates his brother is a murderer.' Namely, in that he desires in his heart that one to perish, whose blood he is known by no means to have shed with his own hand or weapon among men, he is pronounced a murderer by the Lord through the disposition of anger—He who will render to each, not only for the effect of the deed, but also for the desire of the will and the wish, either reward or punishment, according to that which He Himself speaks through the prophet: 'But I know their works and their thoughts: I come to gather them together with all nations and tongues,' and again: 'their thoughts among themselves accusing or also defending one another, in the day when God shall judge the hidden things of men.' It must nevertheless be known that, in that which is found in certain copies:

'whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment'—the 'without cause' is superfluous and was added by those who thought that anger for just causes was by no means to be cut away, since assuredly no one, however unreasonably provoked, would say that he is angry without cause. Wherefore it appears to have been added by those who did not understand the intention of the Scripture, which wills to amputate in every way the kindling of anger and to reserve utterly no occasion of indignation, lest, while we are commanded to be angry with cause, an occasion of being angry even without cause be introduced to us. For the end of patience consists not in being angry justly, but in not being angry at all.

Although I know that this very phrase 'without cause' is by some interpreted thus: that he is angry 'without cause' to whom, though angry, it is not permitted to seek vengeance. Yet it is better so to hold it as many of the newer copies and all the ancient ones are found to be written. Wherefore the athlete of Christ, contending lawfully, ought to pluck out by the roots the movements of anger.

The perfect medicine for this disease will be this: that first we believe that it is in no way lawful for us to be angry, whether for just or unjust causes, knowing that we shall at once lose the light of discernment and the firmness of right counsel, honesty itself too and the governance of justice, if the ruling part of our heart be darkened by its shadows; and then, that the purity of our mind will straightway be thrown into disorder, and that it can in no way become the temple of the Holy Spirit while the spirit of anger dwells within us:

and lastly, that we consider that it is by no means lawful for us to pray, nor to pour out prayers to God while angry, and, above all, keeping before our eyes the uncertain state of the human condition, that we believe daily that we are about to depart from the body; and that nothing will be of any avail to us—not the continence of chastity, not the renunciation of all possessions, not the contempt of riches, not the labors of fastings and vigils—for whom, on account of anger and hatred alone, eternal torments are promised by the Judge of all. ON THE SPIRIT OF SADNESS. CHAPTERS. I. That the fifth combat is against the spirit of sadness, and what losses are inflicted upon the mind through it. II. With what caution the disease of sadness is to be cured. III.

To what comparison the soul is likened which is devoured by the biting pangs of sadness. IV. Whence and in what ways sadness is engendered. V. That commotions are stirred up in us not by the fault of others, but by our own. VI. That no one falls by a sudden collapse, but, relapsing little by little through long carelessness, perishes. VII. That the fellowship of the brethren is not to be deserted in order that perfection may be sought, but patience is continually to be cultivated. VIII. That, if we have kept our characters amended, we can be in agreement with all. IX. Of another kind of sadness, which brings in despair of salvation. X. In what alone sadness is useful to us. XI.

How it may be discerned which sadness is useful and according to God, and which is diabolical and death-dealing. XII. That, apart from that salutary sadness which is engendered in three ways, all sadness is to be repelled as harmful. XIII. The remedies by which we may be able to exterminate sadness from our hearts. In the fifth combat the stings of devouring sadness are to be beaten back. If this, roaming through its several assaults, has gained the faculty of taking possession of our soul amid uncertain and various mischances, it separates us at every single moment from all gaze of divine contemplation, and, casting the very mind down from its whole state of purity, utterly weakens and depresses it:

it does not permit the mind to fulfill its prayers with the accustomed alacrity of heart, nor suffers it to dwell upon the remedies of the sacred readings. It does not allow one to be tranquil and gentle toward the brethren, and renders him impatient and harsh toward all the offices of work or of religion; and, all salutary counsel being lost and the constancy of the heart thrown into disorder, it makes him as it were mad, and makes his sense drunk, and breaks and overwhelms him with penal despair. Wherefore, with no less foresight, if we lawfully desire to strive in the contests of the spiritual combat, this disease too must be cured by us. For 'as the moth to a garment, and the worm to wood, so sadness harms the heart of a man': quite clearly and aptly the divine Spirit has expressed the force of this harmful and pernicious vice.

For a garment touched by the eating of moths will no longer be able to have any commerce of price or of honorable use, and likewise wood eaten through by worms will deserve to be assigned no longer to the adornment even of a modest building, but to the burning of fire. So therefore also the soul which is devoured by the most devouring bites of sadness will be useless even for that pontifical garment which the ointment of the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven, is by the prophecy of holy David declared to be wont to receive first upon the beard of Aaron, then upon its own hem, according to that: 'As the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the hem of his garment:'

But neither will it be able to pertain to the structure and adornment of that spiritual temple, whose foundations Paul, the wise architect, laid, saying: 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.' Of what sort its timbers should be, the Bride describes in the Song of Songs, saying: 'Our beams are of cypress, the rafters of our houses are of cedar.' And therefore such kinds of timber are chosen for the temple of God, as are both of good fragrance and imperishable, and such as can be subject neither to the corruption of age nor to the devouring of worms. Sometimes, however, sadness is wont to follow upon the vice of preceding anger, or from some desire or gain not obtained, when one sees that he has fallen away from some hope of these things conceived in his mind.

But sometimes indeed, even with no existing causes by which we might be provoked to fall into this blemish, by the instigation of the subtle enemy we are suddenly weighed down with so great a gloom that we cannot receive even the arrival of our own dear ones and intimates with the accustomed affability, and whatever is uttered by them in fitting conversation is judged by us to be importunate and superfluous, and no gracious response is rendered to them by us, all the recesses of our heart being occupied by the gall of bitterness.

Whence it is most manifestly proved that the stings of commotions are not always stirred up in us by the fault of others, but rather by our own, we who have within our very selves stored-up causes of offenses and seedbeds of vices, which, when the rain-shower of temptation has washed over our mind, at once burst forth into buds and fruits. For no one, provoked by another's fault, is ever forced to sin, if he does not have within his own heart the stored-up matter of transgressions; nor is anyone to be believed to have been suddenly deceived when, at the sight of a woman's form, he has fallen into the abyss of shameful concupiscence, but rather that hidden and latent diseases, deep within, were then brought to the surface by the occasion of the sight.

And therefore God, the Creator of all, knowing before all things the cure of His own handiwork, and that the roots and causes of offenses reside not in others but in our very selves, commanded that the fellowship of the brethren is not to be deserted, nor those to be avoided whom we deem injured by us or by whom we think ourselves offended, but bids that they be soothed—knowing that perfection of heart is acquired not so much by separation from men as by the virtue of patience: which, when firmly possessed, just as it can keep us peaceable even with those who hate peace, so, if it has not been won, makes us continually at variance even with those who are perfect and better than we.

For the occasions of commotions, on account of which we hasten to desert those with whom we are joined, cannot be lacking in human intercourse: and therefore we do not escape the causes of sadness, on account of which we separate ourselves from our former companions, but merely change them. It must therefore be procured by us that we rather hasten to amend our own vices and to correct our manners. And when these have beyond doubt been amended, we shall very easily be in agreement—I will not say with men, but even with wild beasts and brutes—according to that which is said in the book of the blessed Job: 'For the wild beasts shall be at peace with thee.' For we shall not fear the offenses coming from without, nor will any be able...

...scandals will be able to be brought upon us from without, if within our very selves the roots of them have not been received and grafted in: 'for they have great peace that love thy name: and there is no stumbling-block to them.' There is also another, more detestable kind of sadness, which puts into the sinner not the correction of life nor the amendment of vices, but a most pernicious despair of soul: which made neither Cain repent after his fratricide, nor Judas hasten after his betrayal to the remedies of satisfaction, but by its despair dragged him to the hanging of the noose. And therefore sadness is to be judged useful to us for one thing only, when we conceive it kindled either by penitence for our offenses, or by desire of perfection, or by contemplation of future blessedness.

Concerning it the blessed Apostle also speaks: 'The sorrow which is according to God,' he says, 'works repentance unto steadfast salvation; but the sorrow of the world works death.' Yet that sorrow which works repentance unto steadfast salvation is obedient, courteous, humble, gentle, sweet and patient, springing as it does from the love of God; and, tirelessly stretching itself toward every affliction of body and contrition of spirit through the desire of perfection, and in a manner glad and quickened by hope of its own advancement, it retains all the sweetness of affability and long-suffering, having within itself all the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which the same Apostle enumerates:

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, faith, gentleness, self-control.' But this other sorrow is most harsh, impatient, hard, full of rancor and unfruitful grief and penal despair; the one whom it has seized it breaks and calls back from diligence and salutary sorrow, being irrational and cutting off not only the efficacy of prayers but also emptying out all those spiritual fruits which we mentioned above, which the former knows how to confer.

Wherefore, apart from that sorrow which is undertaken either for salutary repentance, or for zeal for perfection, or for the desire of things to come, all sadness is to be repelled alike as of the world and as that which brings death, and, like the spirit of fornication or of avarice or of anger, is to be utterly thrust out of our hearts. This most pernicious passion, then, we shall be able to expel from ourselves in this way: by keeping our mind continually occupied with spiritual meditation, and by lifting it up with the hope of things to come and the contemplation of the promised blessedness.

For in this way we shall be able to overcome all kinds of sorrow—whether those which descend from previous anger, or those which come upon us from the loss of gain or from damage inflicted, or those begotten from injury done to us, or those which proceed from an irrational confusion of mind, or those which bring upon us deadly despair—since, by the contemplation of eternal and future things, remaining ever glad and immovable, we shall neither be cast down by present misfortunes nor lifted up by prosperity, viewing both as fleeting and soon to pass away. ON THE SPIRIT OF ACEDIA. CHAPTERS. I. That the sixth combat is against the spirit of acedia, and concerning its nature. II.

An exposition of acedia, or how it creeps into the heart of a monk, and what losses it inflicts on the mind. III. By what means acedia overcomes a monk. IIII. That acedia blinds the mind from all contemplation of the virtues. V. That the assault of acedia is twofold. VI. How those who begin to be conquered by acedia fall away. VII. The testimonies of the Apostle against the spirit of acedia. VIII. That he who is unwilling to be content with the work of his own hands must needs be restless. VIIII. That not only the Apostle, but also those who were with him, worked with their own hands. X. That the Apostle worked with his own hands for this reason, that he might set us an example of working. XI.

That he admonished them to work not only by example but also by preaching in words. XII. Concerning that which he says: 'If any will not work, neither let him eat.' XIII. Concerning that which he says: 'For we have heard that certain among you walk disorderly.' XIIII. That the work of the hands cuts off many vices. XV. That kindness is to be shown even to the idle and negligent. XVI. That we ought to correct those who transgress not out of hatred but out of love. XVII. Various testimonies by which the Apostle enjoined that men ought to work, or shows himself to have worked. XVIII. That the Apostle worked so much as could suffice not for himself alone but also for those who were with him. XVIIII. How this ought to be understood: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' XX.

Concerning a slothful brother who was inciting others to leave the monastery. XXI. Various testimonies from Solomon against acedia. XXII. That throughout Egypt the brethren work with their own hands in such a way that they not only satisfy their own needs, but also minister to those who are in prison. XXIII. That it is by reason of idleness that in the regions of the West there are no monasteries of monks. XXIIII. Concerning Abbot Paul, who every year burned up in a fire all the work of his hands. XXV. The words of Abbot Moses, which he spoke to me concerning the remedy for acedia. Our sixth combat is that which the Greeks call akēdia, which we may term weariness or anxiety of heart.