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WHILE, said he, I was still a lad, and stopping with Abbot Theonas,
this habit was forced upon me by the assaults of the enemy, that after I
had supped with the old man at the ninth hour, I used every day secretly to
hide a biscuit in my dress, which I would eat on the sly later on without
his knowing it. And though I was constantly guilty of the theft with the
consent of my will, and the want of restraint that springs from desire that
has grown inveterate, yet when my unlawful desire was gratified I would
come to myself and torment myself over the theft committed in a way that
overbalanced the pleasure I had enjoyed in the eating. And when I was
forced not without grief of heart to fulfil day after day this most heavy
task required of me, so to speak, by Pharaoh's taskmasters, instead of
bricks, and could not escape from this cruel tyranny, and yet was ashamed
to disclose the secret theft to the old man, it chanced by the will of God
that I was delivered from the yoke of this voluntary captivity, when
certain brethren had sought the old man's cell with the object of being
instructed by him. And when after supper the spiritual conference had begun
to be held, and the old man in answer to the questions which they had
propounded was speaking about the sin of gluttony and the dominion of
secret thoughts, and showing their nature and the awful power which they
have so long as they are kept secret, I was overcome by the power of the
discourse and was conscience stricken and terrified, as I thought that
these things were mentioned by him because the Lord had revealed to the old
man my bosom secrets; and first I was moved to secret sighs, and then my
heart's compunction increased and I openly burst into sobs and tears, and
produced from the folds of my dress which shared my theft and received it,
the biscuit which I had carried off in my bad habit to eat on the sly; and
I laid it in the midst and lying on the ground an begging for forgiveness
confessed how I used to eat one every day in secret, and with copious tears
implored them to intreat the Lord to free me from this dreadful slavery.
Then the old man: "Have faith, my child," said he, "Without any words of
mine, your confession frees you from this slavery. For you have today
triumphed over your victorious adversary, by laying him low by your
confession in a manner which more than makes up for the way in which you
were overthrown by him through your former silence, as when, never
confuting him with your own answer or that of another, you had allowed him
to lord it over you, according to that saying of Solomon's: 'Because
sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the heart of the
children of men is full within them to do evil:' and therefore after
this exposure of him that evil spirit will no longer be able to vex you,
nor will that foul serpent henceforth make his lurking place in you, as he
has been dragged out into light from the darkness by your life-giving
confession." The old man had not finished speaking when lo! a burning lamp
proceeding from the folds of my dress filled the cell with a sulphureous
smell so that the pungency of the odour scarcely allowed us to stay there:
and the old man resuming his admonition said Lo! the Lord has visibly
confirmed to you the truth of my words, so that you can see with your eyes
how he who was the author of His Passion has been driven out from your
heart by your life-giving confession, and know that the enemy who has been
exposed will certainly no longer find a home in you, as his expulsion is
made manifest. And so, as the old man declared, said he, the sway of that
diabolical tyranny over me has been destroyed by the power of this
confession and stilled for ever so that the enemy has never even tried to
force upon me any more the recollection of this desire, nor have I ever
felt myself seized with the passion of that furtive longing. And this
meaning we see is neatly expressed in a figure in Ecclesiastes. "If" says
he "a serpent bite without hissing there is no sufficiency for the
charmer," showing that the bite of a serpent in silence is dangerous,
i.e., if a suggestion or thought springing from the devil is not by means
of confession shown to some charmer, I mean some spiritually minded person
who knows how to heal the wound at once by charms from the Scripture, and
to extract the deadly poison of the serpent from the heart, it will be
impossible to help the sufferer who is already in danger and must soon die.
In this way therefore we shall easily arrive at the knowledge of true
discretion, so as by following the steps of the Elders never to do anything
novel nor to decide anything by or on our own responsibility, but to walk
in all things as we are taught by their tradition and upright life. And the
man who is strengthened by this system will not only arrive at the perfect
method of discretion, but also will remain perfectly safe from all the
wiles of the enemy: for by no other fault does the devil drag down a monk
so precipitately and lead him away to death, as when he persuades him to
despise the counsel of the Elders and to rely on his own opinion and
judgment: for if all the arts and contrivances discovered by man's
ingenuity and those which are only useful for the conveniences of this
temporary life, though they can be felt with the hand and seen with the
eye, can yet not be understood by anyone, without lessons from a teacher,
how foolish it is to fancy that there is no need of an instructor in this
one alone which is invisible and secret and can only be seen by the purest
heart, a mistake in which brings about no mere temporary loss or one that
can easily be repaired, but the destruction of the soul and everlasting
death: for it is concerned with a daily and nightly conflict against no
visible foes, but invisible and cruel ones, and a spiritual combat not
against one or two only, but against countless hosts, failure in which is
the more dangerous to all, in proportion as the foe is the fiercer and the
attack the more secret. And therefore we should always follow the footsteps
of the Elders with the utmost care, and bring to them everything which
rises in our hearts, by removing the veil of shame.
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