Reflection on St. Isaac the Syrian: The Beauty of Hesychia and the Vigil of the Heart

Mt. Tabor Monks of Holy Transfiguration Monastery Discussion of The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian Homily 19 paragraphs 3-7 and Homily 20 paragraphs 1-3:

In these passages, St. Isaac the Syrian opens a window into the heart of the ascetical life, revealing the beauty, delicacy, and fragility of hesychia, the silence of the heart that allows the soul to drink deeply of divine sweetness. This silence is not mere withdrawal but a communion, a tasting of that wine of divine love which causes the heart to cry out with the psalmist, “My soul thirsted for Thee, the mighty, the living God.” For St. Isaac, such moments of divine visitation mark the soul forever. Once tasted, their absence becomes a wound, a grief sharper than any earthly loss. The one who has been enflamed by divine intimacy and then falls into laxity knows how terrible is the darkness that follows, how painful the dulling of the heart that once burned with unceasing prayer.

The Delicacy of Stillness

Hesychia is like a tender blossom, the bloom of virtue nourished by repentance and softened by tears. St. Isaac compares its growth to a fruit tree nourished by living water, yet this growth is easily destroyed by the frost of worldly contact. Even brief and seemingly innocent conversation, he warns, can chill the soul and scatter the warmth of divine contemplation. For one who lives in stillness, distractions are not neutral. They strike at the very root of the virtues just beginning to flower. The world, with its noise and vanity, becomes a subtle poison that seeps into the mind through the senses, making it turbid and unfit to receive divine knowledge. Thus St. Isaac insists that the hesychast must guard his solitude as one would guard a holy flame, for its light can be quickly extinguished by the winds of human chatter and curiosity.

The Blindness of Pride

At the heart of this loss of grace lies pride, the refusal to walk in the path of humility. Pride darkens the intellect and blinds the soul to the light of divine wisdom. The proud man, even when he speaks of spiritual things, walks in darkness, mistaking his own thoughts for divine illumination. God hides His will from such a one, for he has chosen to live apart from the humble knowledge that is born of silence, repentance, and vigil. The hesychast, by contrast, descends into humility and there discovers the true knowledge of God, for the divine mysteries are revealed only to the lowly of heart.

The Vigil of the Angels

In the continuation from Homily 20, St. Isaac turns to the crown of the hesychast’s life, the night vigil. He calls it “the work of the angelic estate,” for in keeping watch through the night, the monk participates in the ceaseless praise of heaven. Vigil is both the fruit and the guardian of hesychia. By it the mind is purified of darkness, the heart kept alert, and the soul made capable of divine vision. The one who labors in vigil with discernment will find his mind light and buoyant, able to take flight as on wings and behold the glory of God. Such a man, St. Isaac says, will not be left without great gifts from God, for the Lord cannot but honor those who seek Him in the long hours of the night when all creation sleeps.

The Cost of Neglect

Yet St. Isaac also warns that vigils without watchfulness of heart are fruitless. To rise in the night while the mind remains distracted by worldly concerns is to sow seeds without harvest. The monk who labors in psalmody yet allows his thoughts to wander will find only fatigue and weariness. True vigil demands not only wakefulness of body but the vigilance of the inner man, a guarding of the heart from the disturbances of the day so that the mind may stand wholly before God. Without this purity, the night becomes toil without fruit, and the sweetness of hesychia is lost.

The Wisdom of the Desert

Together these homilies reveal the coherence of St. Isaac’s vision. The life of stillness, tears, humility, and vigil forms one unbroken movement toward God. Hesychia prepares the soil, tears water it, humility roots it, and vigil brings it to fruition. But the soul must guard this hidden garden with great care. For just as a single frost can destroy a season’s growth, so too a moment of distraction, pride, or worldly curiosity can undo months of silent labor. The hesychast’s life is thus one of continual repentance and interior watchfulness, where every glance and word are weighed against the desire to appear before the face of the Lord.

In the end, St. Isaac’s teaching is both severe and tender. He knows the frailty of man and yet points to the divine beauty that awaits those who persevere. To live in hesychia is to live already in the borderlands of heaven, to taste that angelic state of ceaseless prayer and light. Yet it is also to carry within oneself a deep sorrow for every moment that veils this vision. The loss of silence becomes a kind of exile. The return to stillness, a homecoming. For the heart created for God can find rest nowhere else.

Morning Prayer in the Silence Before Dawn

O Lord,

In the stillness before the dawn,

when the house lies cloaked in darkness

and the only light is the gentle glow of the hearth,

my heart turns to You.

You alone are the warmth that stirs life within me,

the quiet flame that awakens prayer upon my lips.

Though my body is weary and illness lingers like a shadow,

I lift my mind to Your Name:

Jesus, my mercy, my peace, my strength.

The day stretches before me with its weight and unknown burdens,

yet I surrender them all into Your hands.

Let me bear each moment with humble trust,

accepting every trial as gift,

every joy as a sign of Your nearness.

Banish, O Lord, the spirit of despondency

that seeks to cloud the heart.

Let the joy of Your kingdom shine within me;

a quiet joy that no sorrow can quench.

May the light that burns upon this hearth

become the flame of faith within my soul,

until all that I am gives glory to You,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Becoming Desert: A Journal of Hesychastic Struggle in the West - Part V: "The First Light of Grace"

 

Introduction

I did not go into the wilderness. I was not tonsured on a holy mountain. I live in the West, where noise seeps into the bones and the air is thick with restlessness. Yet something in me aches for the desert, for that place where men and women once wrestled with God and were broken open until mercy filled them.

This is not a manual, not a polished theology, not a record of visions. It is simply a journal of one who seeks hesychasm in hiddenness. I am not a monk in the desert but a struggler in a room. Yet the Fathers said: “Go to your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” So I go.

What follows are fragments from that cell: noise, failure, temptation, tears, glimpses of grace. The desert is not far away. The desert is within.

Part V: The First Light of Grace

Entry 25: A Breath of Stillness

It comes without warning. One moment the usual swarm of thoughts, the next—stillness. Not because I fought them off, but because something greater hushed them. A few breaths of quiet, as if the heart itself bowed low. It doesn’t last, but it’s enough to keep me pressing forward. The Fathers say grace visits in flashes. I believe them now.

Spiritual adultery

Sorsky encourages the pray-er to hold fast to silence and when it has been achieved in the mind and heart not to seek that which is of lesser value.  We must come to seek out the silence of prayer as the most sublime gift we could receive and as that which fills us with the greatest joy.  Let go of the trivial matters of the world and the trivial nature of your thoughts and meet God who is peace and tranquility.

. . . to leave God within you in order to seek him from outside is like leaving him from the heights to call on him by stooping lower.  But when you allow any distraction to disturb the mind, such draws the mind away from silence.  For silence is had only in peace and tranquility, since God is peace and is beyond all  agitation and noise.  

For the minds of those who idly turn away from the remembrance of God and busy themselves with trivial matters commit spiritual adultery.  St. Isaac writes sublimely on such matters and insists on this: "When such person possess such unspeakable joy, it cuts away any lip-prayer.  Then the mouth and tongue become silenced.  Also the heart is silenced, which stands as a guard over fantasies along with the mind which directs the feeling senses and controls the thoughts that are like swift and bold flying birds."

Nil Sorsky

Ladder of Divine Ascent - Step 27 on Stillness

            Stillness may be equated to peace of soul; the absence of spiritual warfare and the presence of calm.  We beginners in the spiritual life cannot imagine what it would be like to be totally unaffected by the disquietude of the world; it is beyond our ability to comprehend never being tempted to speak in haste and never experiencing the movements of anger in our hearts.  The beginner must be content with experiencing moments of this peace.  He must strive to win this peace, by overcoming all the passions which seek to overthrow it. 

            It is only when we begin to center our thoughts on the spiritual world within by pushing far from us the noise of the external world that we notice how little peace is found there.  The first notice of this peacelessness is often enough to drive many back to the diversions of the world.  For some, the existential pain of their passionate soul is too great to bear and they choose to run away rather than stay and face it.  For those who choose to stay, the experience of the true state of their souls is a necessary lesson.  We first learn the presence of our soul by its pain rather than its peace.  As we continue in our spiritual lives, it is this pain which will always direct us back to the concerns of the soul when we begin to stray.

            As we set a priority on peace, we will begin to notice more and more the things in our lives that rob us of peace.  We will begin to find the noise of this world to be a hindrance rather than a help.  We will notice how much of our time is spent following distractions.  We will begin to change our lifestyle on the basis of what produces peace in our souls.  We will inevitably be led to a love of quiet and solitude.

            However, an important thing to note is that this is a gradual process.  St. John is very quick to point out the dangers of embracing too much "stillness" before we are spiritually ready:  "The man who is foul-tempered and conceited, hypocritical and a nurse of grievances, ought never to enter the life of solitude, for fear that he should gain nothing but the loss of his sanity."

            Above all, then, we must remember that the path to internal peace is not an easy one.  Therefore, we must set ourselves for a long struggle.  We will not achieve the state of constant peace in a day.  Perhaps it is enough for us today not to have allowed anger to enter our soul; perhaps it is enough for us to have refrained from that idle word which stirs up passion; perhaps it is enough for us to have refrained from viewing those things which would have aroused our sexual passions.  Each day we add virtue to virtue.  Each day we embrace the struggle.  Each day we repent of our failures.  Each day we continue the struggle.  In this way, although we may never be completely successful, we will never stop trying.  And God who grants the prize, will consider our struggles to be victory and will grant us His peace for eternity.

1-29            In these opening paragraphs, St. John defines stillness, distinguishes its various stages and describes the qualities of those who are seeking or have obtained this virtue.

            Stillness of the body is the accurate knowledge and management of one's feelings and perceptions.  Stillness of soul is the accurate knowledge of one's thoughts and is an unassailable mind. 

            The start of stillness is the rejection of all noisiness as something that will trouble the depths of the soul.  The final point is when one has no longer a fear of noisy disturbance, when one is immune to it.  He who when he goes out does not go out in his intellect is gentle and wholly a house of love, rarely moved to speech and never to anger.  The opposite to all this is manifest.

            The cell of a hesychast is the body that surrounds him, and within him is the dwelling place of knowledge. 

           

Close the door of your cell to your body, the door of your tongue to talk, and the gate within to evil spirits.  The endurance of the sailor is tried by the noonday sun or when he is becalmed, and the endurance of the solitary is tested by his lack of necessary supplies.  The one jumps into the water and swims when he is impatient, the other goes in search of a crowd when he is discouraged.

            Sit in a high place and keep watch if you can, and you will see the thieves come, and you will discover how they come, when and from where, how many and what kind they are as they steal your clusters of grapes.

            When the watchman gets tired, he stands up and he prays.  And then, sitting down once more, he bravely carries on his task.

            The solitary runs away from everyone, but does so without hatred, just as another runs toward the crowd, even if without enthusiasm.  The solitary does not wish to be cut off from the divine sweetness.

            Go now.  At once.  Give away everything you have. ("Sell what you own."  That needs time) . . .  Take up your cross, carrying it in obedience, and endure strongly the burden of your thwarted will.  And then, "Come, follow me" (Matt. 19:21).  Come to union with most blessed stillness and I will teach you the workings and behavior of the spiritual powers.  They never grow tired of their everlasting praise of their Maker, nor does he who has entered into the heaven of stillness cease to praise his Creator.  Spirits have no thought for what is material, and those who have become immaterial in a material body will pay no attention to food, for the former know nothing of it and the latter need no promise of it; the former are unconcerned about money and chattels and the latter are heedless of the malice of evil spirits.  In those dwelling above, there is no yearning for the visible creation, while those on earth below have no longing for what can be sensed, because the former never cease to make progress in love and the latter will never cease to imitate them.  The former know well the value of their progress; the latter understand their own love and longing for the ascent to heaven.  The former will desist only when they rise to the realm of the Seraphim; the latter will grow tired only when they come at last to be angels.

30-45            St. John then describes the differences between the various kinds of stillness.  He depicts how the virtue is practiced rightly or wrongly by those living the solitary life and those living the common life. 

            The man who is foul-tempered and conceited, hypocritical and a nurse of grievances, ought never to enter the life of solitude, for fear he should gain nothing but the loss of his sanity.  Someone free of these faults will know what is best.  Or perhaps, I think, not even he.

            The following are the signs, the stages, and the proofs of practicing stillness in the right way - a calm mind, a purified disposition, rapture in the Lord, the remembrance of everlasting torments, the imminence of death, an insatiable urge for prayer, constant watchfulness, the death of lust, no sense of attachment, death of worldliness, an end to gluttony, a foundation for theology, a well of discernment, a truce accompanied by tears, and end to talkativeness, and many other such things alien to most men.

            The following are signs of stillness practiced wrongly - poverty of spiritual treasures, anger on the increase, a growth of resentment, love diminished, a surge of vanity.

            With regard to those who lawfully, chastely, and in pure fashion are wedded to this orderly and admirable way of obedience, there are manifestations - validated by the divinely inspired Fathers and brought to perfection in their own time - manifestations accompanied by daily increase and progress.  There is an advance in basic humility.  There is lessening of bad temper, which must after all diminish as the gall is depleted.  Darkness is scattered and love approached.  Lust, under ceaseless criticism, diminishes; despondency is unknown; and zeal grows.  There is compassionate love and a banishment of pride.  This is what everyone must seek, though few will be completely successful.

            A young wife who strays from her marriage defiles her body.  A soul unfaithful to his vow defiles his spirit.  The former is denounced, hated, beaten, and, most pitiable of all, thrown out.  For the latter there is pollution, forgetfulness of death, an insatiable belly, eyes out of control, vainglory at work, a longing for sleep, a calloused heart, insensitivity, a storing up of bad thoughts, an increase of consent, captivity of heart, spiritual upheaval, disobedience, argumentativeness, attachment to things, unbelief, doubt, talkativeness, and - most serious this - free and easy relationships.  Most wretched of all is a heart without compunction, which, in the careless, is succeeded by insensitivity, the mother of devils and of lapses.

43-87            St. John then begins to describe the struggle for stillness.  First, St. John details those things that threaten to destroy or prevent one from obtaining an inner state of peace.  He identifies in particular the five demons that attack the solitary (despondence, vainglory, pride, dejection and anger) and the three that assail those living in community (gluttony, lust, and avarice).  Second, St. John identifies the essential virtues of the hesychast (unceasing prayer, discretion, faith, fear of God, patience, prudence and a discerning spirit).  He concludes by exhorting his readers to use every means to protect and strengthen the gift.

            Of the eight evil spirits, five attack the solitary and three assail those living in obedience.

            The spirit of despondency is your companion.  Watch him every hour.  Note his stirrings and his movements, his inclinations and his changes of face.  Note their character and the direction they take.

            The first task of stillness is disengagement from every affair good and bad, since concern with the former leads on to the latter.  Second is urgent prayer.  Third is inviolable activity of the heart.  And just as you have to know the alphabet if you are to read books, so if you have missed out on the first task, you cannot enter upon the other two. 

            The demon of despondency, as I have discovered, opens the way for the demons of lust. . .  .  Fight hard against these demons and they in turn will furiously attack you.  They will try to force you to desist from your labors, which, they will tell you, are of no value.

            A small hair disturbs the eye.  A minor concern interferes with stillness, for, after all, stillness means the expulsion of thoughts and the rejection of even reasonable cares.

            The man who wishes to offer a pure mind to God but who is troubled by cares is like a man who expects to walk quickly even though his legs are tied together.

            A man without experience of God ought not to undertake the solitary life.  He leaves himself open to many hazards.  Stillness chokes the inexperienced.  Never having tasted the sweetness of God, such people waste time being set upon, robbed, made despondent, distracted.

            It is better to live poor and obedient than to be a solitary who has no control over his thoughts.

            Stillness is worshipping God unceasingly and waiting upon Him. 

            Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with your every breath.  Then indeed you will appreciate the value of stillness.

            Self-will is the ruin of the monk living in obedience.  But ruin for the solitary is the interruption of prayer.

            . . . the model for your prayer should be the widow wronged by her adversary (Luke 18:1-8) . . .            

                       

            Faith is the wing of prayer, and without it my prayer will return to my bosom.  Faith is the unshaken stance of the soul and is unmoved by any adversity.  The believing man is not one who thinks that God can do all things, but one who trust that he will obtain everything.  Faith is the agent of things unhoped for, as the thief proved (Luke 23:42-43).  The mother of faith is hard work and an upright heart; the one builds up belief, the other makes it endure.  Faith is the mother of the hesychast, for after all, how can he practice stillness if he does not believe?

            A man chained in prison is fearful of his judge, and the monk in his cell is fearful of God.  But the court holds less terror for the one than the judgment seat of God for the other.  My good friend, you have to be very much afraid if you are to practice stillness, and nothing else is quite so effective in scattering despondency.  The prisoner is always on the watch for the judge to come to the jail, and the true worker is ever on the watch for the coming of death.  A weight of sorrow bears down on the one, while for the other there is a fountain of tears.

            Take hold of the walking stick of patience, and the dogs will soon stop their impudent harassment.  Patience is a labor that does not crush the soul.  It never wavers under interruptions, good or bad.  The patient monk is a faultless worker who has turned his faults into victories.  Patience sets a boundary to the daily onslaught of suffering.  It makes no excuses and ignores the self.  The worker needs patience more than food, since the one brings him a crown while the other brings destruction.  The patient man has died before his death, his cell being his tomb.  Patience comes from hope and mourning, and indeed to lack those is to be a slave to despondency. 

            Pay careful attention to whatever sweetness there may be in your soul, in case it has been concocted by cruel and crafty physicians.

            . . . until you have acquired spiritual power, do not read works that have various levels of meaning since, being obscure, they may bring darkness over the weak.

            Let the soul's eye be ever on the watch for conceit, since nothing else can produce such havoc.

            Once outside your cell, watch your tongue, for the fruits of many labors can be scattered in a moment.

            Stay away from what does not concern you, for curiosity can defile stillness as nothing else can. 

            When people visit you, offer them what they need for body and spirit.  If they happen to be wiser than we are, then let our own silence reveal our wisdom.  If they are brothers who share with us the same type of life, we should open the door of speech to them in proper measure.  Best of all, however, is to deem everyone our superior.

            Wealth and numerous subjects constitute the power of a king.  Abundance of prayer constitutes the power of the hesychast.

           

Ladder of Divine Ascent - Step Fifteen On Chastity

In this step, St. John writes about the struggle for chastity: "The man who decides to struggle against his flesh and to overcome it by his own efforts is fighting in vain.  The truth is that unless the Lord overturns the house of the flesh and builds the house of the soul, the man wishing to overcome it has watched and fasted for nothing.  Offer the Lord the weakness of your nature.  Admit your incapacity and, without your knowing it, you will win for yourself the gift of chastity."

            Sadly, in today's world, these words sound foreign.  As a society, we have abandoned the concept of sexual virtue and purity.  On our television screens and in the movie theaters, we calmly watch without reaction repeated violations of chastity.  As Christians we have come to accept and tolerate attitudes and behaviors in ourselves and others that at another time would have been unthinkable.  In so many ways we have lost sight of the fact that Chastity is not only precious in the eyes of God but a necessary virtue for us to obtain in our ascent to heaven.  Holy Scripture makes this clear: "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness . . . and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal 5:19,21).  For this reason, St. John calls unchastity "a sort of death within us, a sin that is catastrophic."

            What then is Chastity?  St. John answers: "The chaste man is not someone with a body undefiled, but rather a person whose members are in complete subjection to the soul."  One must remember that for St. John the body is both adversary and friend: adversary in as much as it has been marred by the fall, friend in as much as it remains God's creation and is called to share in the resurrection glory.  For the Christian, the body is not a tomb or prison, not a piece of clothing to be worn for a time and then cast aside, but an integral part of the true self.  The Christian's aim is "a body made holy."  Likewise, the passions, although a consequence of the fall and therefore no true part of human nature, are merely the distortion of the natural impulses implanted by God.  While repudiating the passions, we should not reject the natural God-given impulses that underlie them, but should restore to good use that which has become misdirected as a result of the fall.  Our watchword should be "transfigure" not "suppress"; "educate" not "eradicate".  Therefore, physical eros is not to be considered sinful, but can and should be used as a way of glorifying God.  Sin is evil, but not the body and its natural impulses.  In fact, physical love can be a paradigm of our longing for God.  The struggle for chastity, then, begins with controlling the body's sexual desires, through prayer and spiritual discipline, and ends with their transfiguration.  Having overcome the passion, we are free to be our true selves, free to love others, free to love God.

            How do we fight against the spirit of unchastity?  St. John speaks a great deal about the necessity of doing serious battle against  "evil thoughts" - that is, thoughts provoked by demons.  This also includes conceptual images such as fantasies.  Through ascetical discipline and prayer we must foster watchfulness - a state of spiritual sobriety, alertness, and vigilance in which one constantly guards the heart and intellect.  In our discipline we must be as relentless and cunning as the demons who tempt us.  With one difference - - We must in humility recognize our weakness and absolute dependence upon God to attain this virtue.

1-8            Chastity defined: its nature and qualities.  As a rightly ordered love it shares something in common with and belongs to all virtues.

            Chastity is a supernatural denial of what one is by nature, so that a mortal and corruptible body is competing in a truly marvelous way with incorporeal spirits.  A chaste man is someone who has driven out bodily love by means of divine love, who has used heavenly fire to quench the fires of the flesh.

            Chastity is a name common to all virtues.

            Anyone trained in chastity should give himself no credit for any achievements, for a man cannot conquer what he actually is.  When nature is overcome, it should be admitted that this is due to Him Who is above nature, since it cannot be denied that the weaker always yields to the stronger.

            The chaste man is not someone with a body undefiled but rather a person whose members are in complete subjection to the soul, for a man is great who is free of passion even when touched, though greater still is the man unhurt by all he has looked on.  Such a man has truly mastered the fires of earthly beauty by his attention concentrated on the beauties of heaven.  In driving off this dog by means of prayer he is like someone who has been fighting a lion.  He who subdues it by resistance to it is someone still chasing an enemy.  But the man who has managed to reduce its hold completely, even when he himself is still in this life, is someone who has already risen from the dead.

9-19            John then describes the different levels of self-restraint.  He warns, however, that whatever level of restraint we may have achieved we must never trust ourselves.  It the battle for chastity, we must rely only on the grace of God.  It alone can transform nature.

            The man who struggles against this enemy by sweat and bodily hardships is like someone who has tied his adversary with a reed.  If he fights him with temperance, sleeplessness, and keeping watch, it is as if he had put fetters on him.  If he fights with humility, calmness, and thirst, it is as though he had killed the enemy and buried him in sand, the sand being lowliness since it does nothing to feed the passions and is only earth and ashes.

            The fox pretends to be asleep; the body and the demons pretend to be chaste.  The former is on the watch to seize a bird, the latter to catch a soul.  So as long as you live, never trust that clay of which you are made and never depend on it until the time you stand before Christ himself.  And never imagine that abstinence will keep you from falling.  It was a being who never ate that was nevertheless thrown out of heaven.

            Do not imagine that you will overwhelm the demon of fornication by entering into an argument with him.  Nature is on his side and he has the best of the argument.  So the man who decides to struggle against his flesh and to overcome it by his own efforts is fighting in vain.  The truth is that unless the Lord overturns the house of the flesh and builds the house of the soul, the man wishing to overcome it has watched and fasted for nothing.  Offer up to the Lord the weakness of your nature.  Admit your incapacity and, without your knowing it, you will win for yourself the gift of chastity.

20-26            John warns that we must not be fooled by periods of continence.  Rather we must take precautions against the enemy, studying how he works.

            When our spiritual foes are drawn up to do battle with us, we should ponder what it is they can do, just as we would take precautions in a visible war.  For those foes have their proper tasks, strange as this may seem.

            In the battle against ascetics and those leading the solitary life, the devil regularly uses all his force, zeal and low skill, all his intrigue, cleverness, and evil designs to overpower them by means that are unnatural rather than according to nature.  And so it happens that when ascetics meet women and find themselves assailed neither by desire nor by evil thoughts, they occasionally come to imagine that they have achieved true blessedness.  Poor idiots!  They do not realize that a smaller lapse was not required since a major fall had in fact been prepared for them.

            Our relentless enemy, the teacher of fornication, whispers that God is lenient and particularly merciful to this passion, since it is so very natural.  Yet if we watch the wiles of the demons we will observe that after we have actually sinned they will affirm that God is a just and inexorable judge.  They say one thing to lead us into sin, another thing to overwhelm us in despair.  And if we are sorrowful or inclined to despair, we are slower to sin again, but when the sorrow and the despair have been quenched, the tyrannical demon begins to speak to us again of God's mercy.

27-51            In the following paragraphs John tells us that in striving for chastity we need not only cultivate temperance, but the virtues of obedience wherein one learns to renounce his own life and desires to God, stillness through which one develops and accurate knowledge of his feelings, thoughts and perceptions, and humility wherein one acknowledges his absolute dependence upon the grace of God.  In every way we must be sober and watchful, guarding each of the senses, knowing the times when temptation is most likely to come, and arming ourselves with the necessary weapons for battle.

            The mother of chastity is stillness and obedience.  Often the dispassion of body attained by stillness has been disturbed whenever the world impinged on it.  But dispassion achieved through obedience is genuine and is everywhere unshakable.

            The man who imagines he can conquer the demon of fornication by gluttony and by stuffing himself is quite like someone who quenches fire with oil.  And the man who tries to put an end to this struggle by means of temperance only is like someone trying to escape from the sea by swimming with just one hand.  However, join humility to temperance, for the one is useless without the other.

            The body can be defiled by the merest touch, for of all the senses this is the most dangerous.

            We have to be especially sober and watchful when we are lying in bed, for that is the time when our mind has to contend with demons outside our body.  And if our body is inclined to be sensual then it will easily betray us.  So let the remembrance of death and the concise Jesus prayer go to sleep with you and get up with you, for nothing helps you as these do when you are asleep.

            When temptation comes, our best weapons are sackcloth and ashes, all-night vigils standing up, hunger, the merest touch of water and most important of all, humility of heart; and if possible a spiritual director or a helpful brother, old in wisdom rather than years, should also support us.  Indeed it would come as a great surprise if anyone could, by his own efforts alone, save his ship from the sea.

52-60            It is also important to know the reasons behind periods of continence.  We must guard against becoming prideful or easing up on our discipline.  Demons, John warns, often hide themselves in order to bring about a greater fall.  Therefore, we must never look upon or listen to those things which may lead to impurity.  We must not subject ourselves even once to anything that is sinful.  To do so is to weaken our resolve and to expose ourselves to future conflict.

            If we have to go out into the world one some legitimate task, we have the hand of God to guard us, probably because our spiritual director is praying that we may not be a cause of blasphemy against the Lord.  Sometimes we are protected by our insensitivity or by the fact that long experience has exhausted for us the spectacle of the world, its sounds and all its works.  But sometimes the reason lies in the fact that the devils have left deliberately so that only the demon of pride remains to take over from all of them.

            But all of you who wish to practice purity and preserve it would listen now to another cunning stratagem of that deceiver, for I have been told by someone who had to suffer the experience that the demon of sensuality often hid himself completely.  Then he would have a monk sit or talk with women.  He would inspire him with great piety and even a flood of tears, and then suggest that he speak about the remembrance of death, judgment, and chastity.  The unfortunate women, deceived by his words and spurious piety, would rush to him, thinking him to be a shepherd instead of the wolf he really was.  Acquaintance would grow into familiarity, and the wretched monk would suffer his downfall.

            We should strive in all possible ways neither to see nor to hear of that fruit we have vowed never to taste.  It amazes me to think we could imagine ourselves to be stronger than the prophet David, something quite impossible indeed.

            The serpent of sensuality has many faces.  To those who have had no experience of sin he suggests the idea of trying it once and then stopping.  Then the crafty creature, exploiting the recollection of having sinned once, urges them to try again.  And many of the people without experience feel no conflict within themselves because they do not know what is evil, whereas the experienced, knowing the evil for what it is, suffer disturbance and conflict . . .

61-74            John gives us an analysis of the process of temptation in order that we might learn how the demons seek to incite us to sin.  He admits, that while one may understand this process, the onslaught of a disturbance and thought is often so swift that it is beyond a man's recognition.  This demon is persistent and patient.  It is cunning; even when thwarted by our efforts it will always seek a new point of entry.  We must fight hard and get into the habit of waging war for, as John warns, this demon tries harder than all the others.

            Among the discerning Fathers, distinctions are recognized between provocation, coupling, assent, captivity, struggle, and the disease called passion, which is in the soul.  These blessed Fathers say that provocation is a simple word or image encountered for the first time, which has entered into the heart.   Coupling is conversation with what has been encountered, whether this be passionately or otherwise.  Assent is the delighted yielding of the soul to what it has encountered.  Captivity is a forcible and unwilling abduction of the heart, a permanent lingering with what we have encountered and which totally undermines the necessary order of our souls.  By struggle they mean force equal to that which is leading the attack, and this force wins or loses according to the desires of the spirit.  Passion, in their view, is properly something that lies hidden for a long time in the soul and by its very presence it takes on the character of a habit, until the soul of its own accord clings to it with affection.

            The first of these conditions is free of sin, the second sometimes, the condition of the soul determines whether or not the third is sinful.  Struggle can earn a crown or punishment.  Captivity is judged in different ways, depending on whether it happens at the time of prayer or at some other time, whether it happens in regard to what is unimportant or in the context of evil thoughts.  But passion is unequivocally denounced in every situation and requires suitable repentance or future punishment.  From all of which it follows that he who regards the first encounter with detachment cuts off with one blow all the rest that follow.

            The most exact of the spiritual Fathers point to another more subtle notion, something they call pararripismos, or disturbance of the mind.  What happens is this.  In a moment, without a word being spoken or an image presented, a sudden passionate urge lays hold of the victim.  It comes faster than anything in the physical world and is swifter and more indiscernible than any spirit.  It makes its appearance in the soul by a simple memory, which is unconnected with anything, independent of time and inexpressible, and in some cases comes without the person himself realizing the fact.  Someone who has been able to detect such a subtlety, someone with the gift of mourning, may be able to explain how with the eye alone, with a mere glance, by the touch of the hand, through a song overheard, the soul is led to commit a definite sin of unchastity without any notion or evil thought.

            After we have fought long and hard against this demon, this ally of the flesh, after we have driven it out of our heart, torturing it with the stone of fasting and the sword of humility, this scourge goes into hiding in our bodies, like some kind of worm, and it tries to pollute us, stimulating us to irrational and untimely movements.  This particularly happens to those who have fallen to the demon of vainglory, for since dirty thoughts no longer preoccupy their hearts they fall victim to pride.  Such people can discover whether or not this is true if once they have attained a certain stillness they quietly take stock of themselves.  For they will then discover that deep down in their hearts, like a snake in dung, is the notion that by their own efforts and enthusiasm they made great advances in purity.  Poor wretches!  They forget the saying: "What have you got that you did not receive as a gift either from God or as a result of the help and prayers of others?" (cf. 1 Cor 4:7).  Let them beware then.  Let them with all zeal eject from their hearts the snake mentioned above.  Let them kill it with great humility . . .  .

             This demon is especially on the lookout for our weak moments and will viciously assail us when we are physically unable to pray against it.

            The effort of bodily prayer can help those not yet granted real prayer of the heart.  I am referring to the stretching out of the hands, the beating of the breast, the sincere raising of the eyes heavenward, deep sighs and constant prostrations.  But this is not always feasible when other people are present, and this is when the demons particularly like to launch an attack and, because we have not yet the strength of mind to stand up against them and because the hidden power of prayer is not yet within us, we succumb.  So go somewhere apart, if you can.  Hide for a while in some secret place.  If you can, lift up the eyes of your soul, but if not, the eyes of your body.  Stand still with your arms in the shape of the cross so that with this sign you may shame and conquer your Amalek.  Cry out to God, Who has the strength to save you.  Do not bother with elegant and clever words.  Just speak humbly, beginning with, "Have mercy on me, for I am weak" (Ps. 6:3).  And then you will come to experience the power of the Most High and with help from heaven you will drive off your invisible foes.  The man who gets into the habit of waging war in this way will soon put his enemies to flight solely by means of spiritual resources, for this is the reward God likes to bestow on those who put up a good struggle, and rightly so.

            All demons try to darken our minds so that they may then suggest to us what they want us to do, and so long as the mind stays awake we will not be robbed of our treasure.  But the demon of fornication tries harder than all the others.  First, by darkening our minds, which guide us, it urges and inclines us in the presence of other people to do things that only the mad would think of.  Then when our minds are cleared we become ashamed of these unholy deeds, words, and gestures, not only before those who saw us but before ourselves, and we are astounded by this earlier blindness of ours.

75-79            In these final paragraphs John poetically describes the mystery of the human person, the disunity that we experience within ourselves and the nature of our quest for personal integration.

            By what rule or manner can I bind this body of mine?  By what precedent can I judge him?  Before I can bind him he is let loose, before I can condemn him I am reconciled to him, before I can punish him I bow down to him and feel sorry for him.  How can I hate him when my nature disposes me to love him?  How can I break away from him when I am bound to him forever?  How can I escape from him when he is going to rise with me?  How can I make him incorrupt when he has received a corruptible nature?  How can I argue with him when all the arguments of nature are on his side?

            If I try to bind him through fasting, then I am passing judgment on my neighbor who does not fast - with the result that I am handed over to him again.  If I defeat him by not passing judgment I turn proud - and I am in thrall to him once more.  He is my helper and my enemy, my assistant and my opponent, a protector and a traitor.  I am kind to him and he assaults me.  If I wear him out he gets weak.  If he has a rest he becomes unruly.  If I upset him he cannot stand it.  If I mortify him I endanger myself.  If I strike him down I have nothing left by which to acquire virtues.  I embrace him.  And I turn away from him.

            What is this mystery in me?  What is the principle of this mixture of body and soul?  How can I be my own friend and my own enemy?  Speak to me!  Speak to me, my yoke-fellow, my nature!  I cannot ask anyone else about you.  How can I remain uninjured by you?  How can I escape the danger of my own nature?  I have made a promise to Christ that I will fight you, yet how can I defeat your tyranny?  But this I have resolved, namely, that I am going to master you.

            And this is what the flesh might say in reply: "I will never tell you what you do not already known.  I will speak the knowledge we both have.  Within me is my begetter, the love of self.  The fire that comes to me from outside is too much pampering and care.  The fire within me is past ease and things long done.  I conceived and give birth to sins, and they when born beget death by despair in their turn.  And yet if you have learned the sure and rooted weakness within both you and me, you have manacled my hands.  If you starve your longings, you have bound my feet, and they can travel no further.  If you have taken up the yoke of obedience, you have cast my yoke aside.  If you have taken possession of humility, you have cut off my head."

            This is the fifteenth reward of victory.  He who has earned it while still alive has died and been resurrected.  From now on he has a taste of the immortality to come.