Chapter LXXVIII
On The Profit [Arising] From The Flight From The World The Method Of Which Has Been Thought Out By The Fathers Through Prudent Examination
Strong indeed and difficult and very hard is the struggle which arises when things are near. And though a man may be excellent and vigorous, when things causing battles and strife are near, fear clings to him. Then he falls easier than when Satan personally meets him in battle. For when a man 537 is not far from those things which the heart is afraid of, the fiend has constantly the opportunity [to assail him]. And if it happens that he sleeps a while, the fiend can easily destroy him. For there the body is in danger of being injured, at any rate it has to be kept afar from sin. But here it is the soul that receives an invisible blow and it cannot fatigue the fiend so that he gives up fighting against it. For these things are of themselves able to move against it the disturbance of struggle at any time. And willingly it lets itself be captivated by them, without any one arousing strife against it from without. But the soul is in strife with itself through the allurements of those things which are arranged before the senses of the body, as has been said somewhere; for as soon as the soul is captivated by the injurious meetings with the world, these meetings become stumbling-blocks to it; or, as has also been said: The soul is naturally vanquished, when it meets those things. Therefore, because the ancient saints who have walked in these ways knew that the mind is not always healthy so as to be able to remain in one attitude, without deviation, and vigilant, because there is a time that the soul becomes enveloped in darkness without being able to look at those things which cause injury - they have examined prudently and [resolved to] put on renunciation, as a weapon. For it frees from:many struggles, as has been written. For some have escaped from sins, through their poverty and have migrated towards the desert where there is nothing to cause affections,
361
so that, when a time comes when they are weak, nothing is found to give occasion to fall. 538 I say: anger and desire and rancour and glory and the like are slight, because of the desert, and by it [those solitaries] were protected as by an invincible tower. Then every one of them was able to accomplish his strife in solitude, there where the senses found no support so as to become fiends by injurious meetings. Better for us is death in our struggle, than life with falling.