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A TWOFOLD reason however led me to relate this fact, first that we may
weigh this steadfastness and constancy of the man, and as we are attacked
by less serious wiles of the enemy, may the better secure a greater feeling
of calmness and patience, secondly that we may with resolute decision hold
that we cannot be safe from the storms of temptation and assaults of the
devil if we make all the protection for our patience and all our confidence
consist not in the strength of our inner man but in the doors of our cell
or the recesses of the desert, and companionship of the saints, or the
safeguard of anything else outside us. For unless our mind is strengthened
by the power of His protection Who says in the gospel "the kingdom of God
is within you," m vain do we fancy that we can defeat the plots of our
airy foe by the aid of men who are living with us, or that we can avoid
them by distance of place, or exclude them by the protection of walls. For
though none of these things was wanting to Saint Paphnutius yet the tempter
did not fail to find a way of access against him to attack him; nor did the
encircling walls, or the solitude of the desert or the merits of all those
saints in the congregation repulse that most foul spirit. But because the
holy servant of God had fixed the hope of his heart not on those external
things but on Him Who is the judge of all secrets, he could not be moved
even by the machinations of such an assault as that. On the other hand did
not the man whom envy had hurried into so grievous a sin enjoy the benefit
of solitude and the protection of a retired dwelling, and intercourse with
the blessed Abbot and Presbyter Isidore and other saints? And yet because
the storm raised by the devil found him upon the sand, it not only drove in
his house but actually overturned it. We need not then seek for our peace
in externals, nor fancy that another person's patience can be of any use to
the faults of our impatience. For just as "the kingdom of God is within
you," so "a man's foes are they of his own household." For no one is
more my enemy than my own heart which is truly the one of my household
closest to me. And therefore if we are careful, we cannot possibly be
injured by intestine enemies. For where those of our own household are not
opposed to us, there also the kingdom of God is secured in peace of heart.
For if you diligently investigate the matter, I cannot be injured by any
man however spiteful, if I do not fight against myself with warlike heart.
But if I am injured, the fault is not owing to the other's attack, but to
my own impatience. For as strong and solid food is good for a man in good
health, so it is bad for a sick one. But it cannot hurt the man who takes
it, unless the weakness of its recipient gives it its power to hurt. If
then any similar temptation ever arises among brethren, we need never be
shaken out of the even tenor of our ways and give an opening to the
blasphemous snarls of men living in the world, nor wonder that some bad and
detestable men have secretly found their way into the number of the saints,
because so long as we are trodden down and trampled in the threshing floor
of this world, the chaff which is destined for eternal fire is quite sure
to be mingled with the choicest of the wheat. Finally if we bear in mind
that Satan was chosen among the angels, and Judas among the apostles, and
Nicholas the author of a detestable heresy among the deacons, it will be no
wonder that the basest of men are found among the ranks of the saints. For
although some maintain that this Nicholas was not the same man who was
chosen for the work of the ministry by the Apostles, nevertheless they
cannot deny that he was of the number of the disciples, all of whom were
clearly of such a character and so perfect as those few whom we can now
with difficulty discover in the coenobia. Let us then bring forward not the
fall of the above-mentioned brother, who fell in the desert with so
grievous a collapse, nor that horrible stain which he afterwards wiped out
by the copious tears of his penitence, but the example of the blessed
Paphnutius; and let us not be destroyed by the ruin of the former, whose
ingrained sin of envy was increased and made worse by his affected piety,
but let us imitate with all our might the humility of the latter, which in
his case was no sudden production of the quiet of the desert, but had been
gained among men, and was consummated and perfected by solitude. However
you should know that the evil of envy is harder to be cured than other
faults, for I should almost say that a man whom it has once tainted with
the mischief of its poison is without a remedy. For it is the plague of
which it is figuratively said by the prophet: "Behold I will send among you
serpents, basilisks, against which there is no charm: and they shall bite
you." Rightly then are the stings of envy compared by the prophet to the
deadly poison of basilisks, as by it the first author of all poisons and
their chief perished and died. For he slew himself before him of whom he
was envious, and destroyed himself before that he poured forth the poison
of death against man: for "by the envy of the devil death entered into the
world: they therefore who are on his side follow him." For just as he
who was the first to be corrupted by the plague of that evil, admitted no
remedy of penitence, nor any healing plaster, so those also who have given
themselves up to be smitten by the same pricks, exclude all the aid of the
sacred charmer, because as they are tormented not by the faults but by the
prosperity of those of whom they are jealous, they are ashamed to display
the real truth and look out for some external unnecessary and trifling
causes of offence: and of these, because they are altogether false, vain is
the hope of cure, while the deadly poison which they will not produce is
lurking in their veins. Of which the wisest of men has fitly said: "If a
serpent bite without hissing, there is no supply for the charmer." For
those are silent bites, to which alone the medicine of the wise is no
succour. For that evil is so far incurable that it is made worse by
attentions, it is increased by services, is irritated by presents, because
as the same Solomon says: "envy endures nothing." For just in proportion
as another has made progress in humble submission or in the virtue of
patience or in the merit of munificence, so is a man excited by worse
pricks of envy, because he desires nothing less than the ruin or death of
the man whom he envies. Lastly no submission on the part of their harmless
brother could soften the envy of the eleven patriarchs, so that Scripture
relates of them: "But his brothers envied him because his father loved him,
and they could not speak peaceably unto him" until their jealousy, which
would not listen to any entreaties on the part of their obedient and
submissive brother, desired his death, and would scarcely be satisfied with
the sin of selling a brother. It is plain then that envy is worse than all
faults, and harder to get rid of, as it is inflamed by those remedies by
which the others are destroyed. For, for example, a man who is grieved by a
loss that has been caused to him, is healed by a liberal compensation: one
who is sore owing to a wrong done to him, is appeased by humble
satisfaction being made. What can you do with one who is the more offended
by the very fact that he sees you humbler and kinder, who is not aroused to
anger by any greed which can be appeased by a bribe; or by any injurious
attack or love of vengeance, which is overcome by obsequious services; but
is only irritated by another's success and happiness? But who is there who
in order to satisfy one who envies him, would wish to fall from his good
fortune, or to lose his prosperity or to be involved in some calamity?
Wherefore we must constantly implore the divine aid, to which nothing is
impossible, in order that the serpent may not by a single bite of this evil
destroy whatever is flourishing in us, and animated as it were by the life
and quickening power of the Holy Ghost. For the other poisons of serpents,
i.e., carnal sins and faults, in which human frailty is easily entangled
and from which it is as easily purified, show some traces of their wounds
in the flesh, whereby although the earthly body is most dangerously
inflamed, yet if any charmer well skilled in divine incantations applies a
cure and antidote or the remedy of words of salvation, the poisonous evil
does not reach to the everlasting death of the soul. But the poison of envy
as if emitted by the basilisk, destroys the very life of religion and
faith, even before the wound is perceived in the body. For he does not
raise himself up against men, but, in his blasphemy, against God, who carps
at nothing in his brother except his felicity, and so blames no fault of
man, but simply the judgment of God. This then is that "root of bitterness
springing up" which raises itself to heaven and tends to reproaching the
very Author Who bestows good things on man. Nor shall anyone be disturbed
because God threatens to send "serpents, basilisks," to bite those by
whose crimes He is offended. For although it is certain that God cannot be
the author of envy, yet it is fair and worthy of the divine judgment that,
while good gifts are bestowed on the humble and refused to the proud and
reprobate, those who, as the Apostle says, deserve to be given over "to a
reprobate mind," should be smitten and consumed by envy sent as it were
by Him, according to this passage: "They have provoked me to jealousy by
them that are no gods: and I will provoke them to jealousy by them that are
no nation."
By this discourse the blessed Piamun excited still more keenly our
desire in which we had begun to be promoted from the infant school of the
coenobium to the second standard of the anchorites' life. For it was under
his instruction that we made our first start in solitary living, the
knowledge of which we afterwards followed up more thoroughly in Scete.
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