Chapter LXXX
On Vigils And On The Many Different Kinds Of Labours During Them And That It Is Not Becoming That The Aim Of Our Labours Should Be The Fulfilling Of A Quantity But [To Work] In Freedom And With Discrimination As Children Of God Who Work With Their Father In The Alertness Of Love And How Precious the labour of vigils Is More Than That Of All Other Duties And what this labour imposes On Those Who Choose It And How They Have To Walk In It And On The Gifts Of Which They Are Deemed Worthy By God And On The Battles Against Them On The Part Of The Principal Of This World
When thou desirest to rise for the service of thy vigils, then, with the help of our Lord, do as I say to thee. Bend thy knees as usually, and rise. Then do not begin with thy service at once. But when thou hast prayed and concluded and signed thy heart and thy limbs with the living sign, rise for a short time, in silence, till thy senses are at rest and thy emotions in peace. Then lift up thy inward gaze towards our Lord and beseech Him passionately that He may support thy
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weakness. And let the words of thy tongue and the emotions of thy heart be to the pleasure of His will. And say thus, quietly in the prayer of thy heart: My Lord and my God, maker of thy creation, to whom our affections are revealed as well as the weakness of our nature and the strength of our fiend, do Thou guard me against his wickedness, for his power is strong and our nature is wretched and our strength is weak. Thou art benignant who art acquainted with our 5 47 weakness and bearest the difficulties of our illness; guard me from the disturbance of deliberations and the vehemence of affections and make me worthy of this holy service. Lest I spoil its taste by my affections and be found audacious before Thee. But with pure deliberations and in clearness of thought let me stand before Thee, as is beautiful to Thy holiness, for the splendour of which the chariot with the Seraphs, who sanctify and praise the holiness of Thy being with vibrating hot emotions to their delight, are not sufficient. And with these deliberations thy heart will suddenly be opened by grace and thou wilt shed tears at the beginning of thy prayer. And thy deliberations will be purified by the recollection of the Lord. And thy soul will receive quiet and pure chastity. And while thy spirit is concentrated and pure, thou wilt begin thy service, without disturbance, and thou wilt continue it till the end, with delight. It is becoming for us to continue our service, with complete freedom, apart from all disturbing thoughts of youth. If we see however that there is not much time and light dawns before we have finished, we should leave out on purpose and consciously one or two of the usual eulogies rather than to let perturbancy spoil the taste of our service and disturb also the Psalms of the morning. If during thy service, a deliberation says to thee whisperingly: Hasten somewhat, let us do much work, then thou wilt soon be ready - do not look at 'it. If, however, it urges thee, recite in inverse order some marmita's 1) of the Psalter; and every sentence, the sense of which involves the sign of the 54s cross, repeat it many times; and if it disturbs or troubles thee again: then cease reciting Psalms, and kneel in prayer, and say: I do not wish to count milestones, but I seek to enter
I) tenth part
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the Apartment. Every way which leads me quickly to the aim, I will go. The people who fashioned the calf in the desert, walked forty years erring in the desert, went up and down mountains and hills, but the promised land they did not even see from afar. And if, during thy vigils, long standing overcome thee by its duration, and thou become weak by fatigue, and delibera· tion say to thee, or rather that cunning one who speaks through it as through the serpent: Finish now, because thou hast no strenght to stand - then answer: Not so, but let us sit down, this is much better than to sleep. For even though I do not recite a Psalm, let my tongue be silent, while my mind is occupied with prayer and intercourse with God. To be awake is at any rate better than sleep. Vigils do not wholly demand standing nor solely the reciting of Psalms. But some spend the whole night with the recitation of Psalms; some with kneelings and passionate prayers and humble prostrations on the earth; some with weeping and tears and bewailing of their sins. It is said concerning one of our Fathers, that for forty years his prayer consisted in one sentence: I have sinned, as man; do Thou as God forgive me. And the Fathers and brethren 549 heard him repeating this sentence, weeping passionately, without ceasing. And this prayer alone, during night and day, took for him the place of service. Some pass a small part of the evening with the recitation of Psalms and the rest of the night with songs and glorifi. cations and hymns and other mournful melodies. Others assign the hours of the night to liturgical recitations; and between every two parts they enliven and enjoy themselves by reading the Scripture. Others impose upon themselves the rule, that they never shall bend their knees, not even in the prayer forming the conclusion to a marmita 1), though this is the custom of those who practice vigils. But they pass the whole night in · one attitude. Concerning one of the saints, therefore, it is said that because the demon of fornication made war against him and did not neglect to use against him any means, he gave himself to the labour of vigils and imposed upon himself the rule,
I) See above, p. 3 5 7, note
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that he would never bend his knees, but stood the whole night, his eyes open, without bending his knees, till morning. All these distinctions are in the labour of vigils, and by them the virtous put off the old man who is depraved by the desires of seduction and put on Christ and are saved. On account of these kinds of labour performed in wisdom, the saints are deemed worthy of ecstasy caused by divine revelation, which is exalted above fleshly thought. While the virtuous in their vigils enjoy such various kinds 5 ° of things, they pass, without dejection the whole space of the 5 long hours of night, while their soul exults and rejoices and forgets the coat of flesh, woven from affections, with which it was clad. And on account of the delight and the joy of their heart, they do not remember sleep. For they imagine themselves to have put off the body and to be already in the state which comes after the resurrection. And in consequence of their great joy, they leave their Psalms from time to time, and they fall on their faces on account of the power of the gladness which moves in their soul. And the whole long night is to them as the day, and darkness.as sunrise, on account of the hope which elevates their heart and makes them drunk with its thought and by the blazing of their mind which burns by the recollection of future good. And while the tongue continually plays on the spiritual harp, mind is occupied with its own things; sometimes it turns towards the understanding of the sentences, sometimes it pushes away the foreign 1) deliberation which tries to enter in. Sometimes, when it becomes weary, it turns towards the contents of the daily recitation. And the recollection which it has gathered from it and collected in its treasury, causes at these times emotions at which the mind delights, so that there is no room at all for foreign deliberations. And then quickly the mind is drawn towards the understanding of prayer and Psalms, lest, by abiding too long in this state - profitable though meditation upon them may be -it should be bereaved of discourse with God and the light of contemplation which the mind is wonted to receive from prayer without distraction in which it speaks in loneliness with its Lord 5 5 1 through the secrecy of the heart, in humility of deliberations.
1)..<;�� = proselyte
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In these and similar things they pass their whole lifetime, every one of them pleasing his Lord by his labours in accordance with his degree and his power, in total application of will. If anyone, however, desire to give his body some rest, he may finish and sit down [turned] towards the East. As long however as he is sitting, he shall not allow his mind to be idle; but he shall meditate and think and deliberate on the greatness of this duty; and on what his performance is; and how it is done, and how great his crown, and how glorious the fruit of his labour is; and what watchfulness it demands; and how the ancients have dealt with it, and of what things they have been deemed worthy through the fulfilment of their struggles; and how by the mercy of Jesus he was turned from the world, he that was occupied with vain labours the end of which is destruction from God and reprehension through sins; and how this mercy brought him to this performance of the angels, the hope of which is a veracious hope, and its joy is a joy which is beyond the. power of distress and its confidence a confi d ence which cannot be fallacious. For a man may work ever so much, his labours are small compared with that which he will receive at his end in the pledge of good things, to the delight of his soul. While these and similar deliberations are in his heart and · he is astonished at them he places his mind in the spiritual chariot and lets it fly and be occupied with all the holy Fa-552 thers of all generations, the inheritance of whose behaviour
he possesses, [thinking of] how every one of them has accomplished, with various districtions, this spiritual service; and of how they have abandoned the inhabited world and mankind and have withdrawn themselves from the allurements of the world and from the disturbancies of life and have gone and hidden themselves in mountains and caverns and removed and and lonely places, because they saw that this course of life cannot be accomplished among men, on account of the many hindrances; and have become dead in their lifetime for the sake of life in God, erring through desert places and between rocks as those who have lost their way; people [of such worth] that every single one's glory is not equalled by the whole world. Some of them lived on rough and steep rocks, some at the foot of mountains, or in deep valleys; some in the
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caves of the ground and in caverns, as those who dig after foxes in order to surprise then; some in graves and on mountain cliffs. Some have constructed a small hovel in the desert and passed there the rest of their life; some have built a small pen on the top of a mountain, viz. a small cell, and have dwelt therein with pleasure as if in a royal palace. And because they did not care for their livelihood, they only thought of how each of them should please God and accomplish his struggle beautifully. And what kind of a life did these saints lead in these places? 55 3 Did they live with the body, or a life above flesh and blood? Did they not become pusillanimous in that total desert? Did the power of endurance not abate during that long time, did the body not become weak during that prolonged period, through their being deprived of the use of natural needs? How was human life preserved in them? And in all this, what struggles have they endured and what troubles! How strenuously and without perturbance did they endure various difficult wars in which the evil spirits assailed them! How did they not in their life time - even till the end - become relaxed so as to neglect their difficult and wearying labours? How did their spirit not become sorry through this utter · loneliness, cut off from all visible consolations? Is there really all this strength in human nature; and how did divine power preserve them without injury, under all those various temptations; and how did it prepare for every one of them by various provisions, in accordance with one's dwelling place, the fulfilling of the need which was necessary for him? Some of them were sustained by a bird. Behold, these last sixty years I have the half of my bread from such a bird. Others are sustained by some tree or palm in a supernatural way, as one of them has said, viz. the bishop who repented in the desert. I am now in this desert nine and forty years. God has granted me life 5 5 4 through this palm. And so it was with the saint who was in his monastery, in a fallen state, for six months; and who fled and went unto the interior of the desert in order to repent his sin. When his stomach ached through and through, the angel came and cured him. Some are sustained by the beasts; as that blessed one who dwelt in a cavern in the desert of Sodom. Some, who are dwelling in the desert near the inhabited world, are furnished by men, as that strenuous man whom
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Serapion visited; and as the blessed Martinianus who dwelt in a lonely island and was visited by a merchant two times a year. Where no habitation was near and there were no ways whatever, [divine power] visited them through an angel, as is said concerning the blessed Apelles who dwelt in the declivity of a mountain in a small grotto. His work consisted therein that he offered prayer to God during the whole day and a hundred times during the night. His food, without care on his part, came in the desert through an angel. He was clad in a shirt, and on his head he wore a small cowl; and these remained on him in the desert, without becoming worn out. Doest thou see, how God cares for his soldiers in every respect? Others fed upon roots; others upon eatable greens, which grow of themselves; others upon crops which had to be watered and upon dried vegetables, which are sown on purpose; others upon the fruits of trees. To others a bed of parsley and a 5 5 5 streaming well were sufficient for the wants of this ephemeral life, in so far as the body is maintained by them, apart from profitable recollections, which at these times are stirred by grace, to the consolation of man. When a man is occupied in his mind with these and similar things, he becomes drunk as it were with living wine, and forgets himself. Then he sees himself again and wonders that during the whole of this travel through the desert and during the meeting with saints, no injury at all has met the mind. And now it seems to him as if he were with those saints and saw them manifestly. And on, account of this recollection of the behaviour of the saints which the mind imagines to itself through the remembrance of their tales, and through meditation upon them, dejection vanishes; and languor is driven forth; the limbs are strengthened; sleep is driven away from the eyelids; the spirit is strengthened and throws fear away; distraction is crushed heroically; the mind is concentrated; a fervent heat burns in the heart and unspeakable joy arises in the soul. Further sweet tears moisten the cheeks; spiritual exultation makes the mind drunk; inexplainable consolations are received by the soul; hope supports the heart and strengthens it. Then it is to him as if he dwelled in heaven, during his vigils that are so full of good things. By these and similar ways those proceed who perform vigils with discrimination. For there is nothing which makes the mind
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5 56 pure and glad and enlightens it and expels evil deliberations so that the soul exults, to such an extent as continual vigils do. For this reason all the Fathers were persevering in this labour of vigils, and clung to the rule of abiding awake in the nights, during the whole course of their behaviour; especially because they heard our Saviour in several places warning us earnestly, by His living word: Watch ye therefore and pray always 1). And: Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation 2). And again: Pray and do not faint 3) and soon. And it was not sufficient to warn us by words only, but He gave us even an example in His person. thereby that He always honoured the practice of prayer above all other things. And therefore He perpetually separated Himself, also for prayer, not arbitrarily, but chose for time, night, and for place, the desert; that we, avoiding all crowds and tumult, might be able to pray in solitude, as is becoming. Also all the revelations which happened to the saints, on various subjects, - whether they served to make them prudent or to common instruction - usually happened to them during the night and at the time of prayer. Therefore our Fathers have received this elevated instruction concerning prayer as it were from Christ; and the state of " waking during prayer they chose in the first place, according to the order of the Apostle, 5 7 for solitude and reclusion from the whole world, in order that 5 they might be, without a break, in the vicinity of God, through continual prayer. They fled into solitude not only lest anything should prevent them from constant prayer, but lest any foreign thing from without should hurt them and disturb their pure mind, and their gladdening vigils should be troubled, which are the light of the soul. They also fed themselves moderately lest the vapour which rises from a full stomach should obscure the mind so as to deprive it of its discriminating quiet and take away the spiritual delight which is granted through prayer. In short: they were zealous in every respect that they might be able to speak with God without a screen, as much as possible, the mind not being hindered by anything at all. Therefore, because Satan knows, that all these good things are collected in this wonderful performance which occupies the place of the soul with regard to all the sundry members of
1) Luke 2 1, 36 2) Matth. 26, 4 1 3) 1 The ss. 5, I 7
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the body of excellence, he envies it more than all other duties the which all men know by experience and there is nothing in man at which he aims and against which he directs his zeal, and which he prepares himself to combate more than vigils - whether those of a solitary, or of a coenobite, or a layman. Here he cannot but show himself openly, in manifest war against man, without an intermediary, without perceiving 5 5 8 at all the gifts which those receive who perform vigils; but he envies them on account of their chaste habit of standing, and through their perseverance, against sleep, in waking, and glorifications, and singing of Psalms, and prayers and inclinations, and stretching [of the hands], and prostrations, and lying down on the earth, and beseechings of the heart during the whole night. He is especially envious because others lie on their beds as dead at whom he makes mock, according to his pleasure, by sordid visions and impure phantasies, and immerses them during the whole night as it were in mire by various phantasies during the heavy sleep that has its origin in a full stomach - whereas these depart hence with their soul unto the waking state of resurrection. And he sees them, though still bound under the curtain of the body, while perpetually waves of mortality assail them and they are confined by a life limited under the government of the air of this world - still showing in their mortal nature a type of future behaviour. A great power possesses prayer which is offered at nighttime, more than that offered in the day. Therefore all the saints used to pray during the night, while they were combating against the heaviness of the body and the sweetness of sleep, and expelling bodily nature. As also the Prophet says: I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim 1), while he was sighing in passionate prayer, from the depth of his heart. And further: I rose in the midst of night to praise Thee because of Thy judgments, Thou righteous one 2). For every request which they demanded from 5 5 9 God with power, they armed themselves with prayer in vigils, and at once they received what they had asked. There is nothing so feared, even by Satan, as prayer which is offered during vigils. And even if it takes place with distraction, it does not return fruitless, unless that which is asked,
1) Ps. 6, 6 z)?
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should be what is not becoming. Therefore he engages himself in severe battle with them, in order to turn them away from this performance, if possible, namely those who are constantly at it. Those who are somewhat strengthened against his evil stratagems, and have tasted the gifts of God which are granted during vigils, and experienced personally the greatness of God's help which has presented itself to them, despise him utterly, him and all his devices. Therefore, more than the whole community of the church, the order of the solitaries wages war with them, in the struggle of prayer and vigils, in the first place, because they are free from visible things; in the second place, because of their continual solitude. For, because they are free from incitements, he is not able to turn away their deliberations from the thought of God and to detain them from continual beseechings, in their war against him, so that from the beginning of their apprenticeship till their old age they do not neglect the labour of vigils in any way, but it is a performance well known to them, to stand during the whole night; even as we learn from the written stories of every one of them. s6o For Mar Athanasius, says in his story on the mirror of the solitaries 1), that he kept vigils plentifully, so that he passed the main part of the nights without sleep. And it was in this point that Satan found an occasion to wage his first battle against the victorious one; and this happened while he was still a boy. We often read in many stories, that he did not neglect vigils during his whole lifetime, as he did not even when he visited others; as for instance, when he went to see the blessed Father Paul, when they ate their meal [furnished to them] through a bird, and stood in prayer during the whole night. Which of the saints, though possessing all the virtues together, could neglect this duty, and not be rockened to be idle without it? For this is the light of the mind. By it the intellect is elevated and the spirit concentrated, the mind fl i es [on high] and gazes at spiritual things and becomes young and illuminated in prayer. By it the goods of future life, and the presents the mysteries of which are indicated in the holy scriptures are given as a pledge. Therefore our Fathers did not
1) Athanasius in his.E.'pistola ad Monachos does not speak of vigils. Or is Euagrius' work meant here?
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neglect this labour from the beginning of their apprenticeship till [they reached] the measure of perfection, so that, even at the time of old age which when a man can hardly stand on his feet, they did not let languor gain power over themselves so as to detain them from continual vigils by giving their 5 6 1 bodies rest in a short sleep; as we also learn from the stories which are told concerning that perfect image of excellence and of all spiritual beauties, I mean the blessed Arsenius. When that famous man of Skete had withdrawn himself from all intercourse with men and removed his dwelling-place to a long distance even from the brethren, he gave himself wholly to the wonderful performance of vigils. His standing during vigils differed also from that of all the Fathers of his time. To which also his story is witness. On the evening before Sunday he set his back to the sun and stretched his hands unto heaven, till the sun rose before him. Again in another place: he passed the whole night in vigils; and when, towards morning he wished to take rest, because nature demanded it, ·
while he struggled with sleep, he said: Go and leave me, evil maid. And so he expelled sleep quickly and remained awake. And this happened at that high age, concerning which it is said that it had bent him. And in order that his assiduity in vigils may better be known, let us hear another story concerning him; how he persevered during all his old age and weakness, a man ninety 5 62 years old. Once he called two of his disciples, who were highly esteemed Fathers, and said to them: Because the demons struggle with me and I am not sure that they will not betray me during sleep, [come and] labour with me this night in vigils, and guard me and look whether I fall asleep. during vigils. So one sat down at his right hand and one at his left, from the evening till the morning. [Afterwards] they said: We have slept and waked, but we have not seen him sleeping at all. And when dawn began, whether he assumed such an attitude as to make us believe that he slept, or whether sleep really overwhelmed him, we do not know. Three times [we heard] his breath leave his nostrils, then he rose and said to us: I have slept, did I not? We answered and said to him: We do not know it, for we have slept. In these delightful labours of vigils those rejoiced who were the leaders of our course. What then was the delight which
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the glorious Arsenius gathered from this vexation with which he tortured his body to such an extent? It is clear that he did not vainly persevere in all these things. For we see that not only his inner man became enlightened on account of his delight, by the exalted ray, but also his outward man, which is material and corruptible nature, was clad with the glory with which all the saints will be clad in the end, on account of the variation which the whole inner nature of men undergoes. 5 63 Wherefrom do we learn this? Once one of the brethren went to the cell of Aba Arsenius and looked through the window and saw the Father standing who was wholly as burning fire. For this brother who had gone to see the Father, was worthy of this sight: he did not belong to the small but to the great ones. The blessed one was famous on account of his exalted behaviour and all Fathers desired to see him. And because they especially desired to see him, [it was] as Aba Macarius said to him: Why doest thou flee from us! Therefore the strangers who came to Skete desired chiefly to see him and to receive his blessing. - When that brother knocked at his door, the Father came outdoors. And when he saw that his visitor was astonished at what he saw, he said to him: Was it time for thee to knock? Hast thou seen anything? The other answered: No. So he dismissed him. And what shall I say concerning the blessed Pacomius? The counterpart of the former, and among others the chief, the valiant in strife, the fervent and heroic in his vigils, the man who passed a long time fighting against the demons as a glorious champion, in the way of the holy Antonius, who, because many demons used to come to him during the nights, asked God during his vigils that He might free him from sleep, so that night and day he should be without sleep, so as to be able to subdue the power of the Fiend. As it has 564 been said: Let me not turn my back before having crushed them, for they are powerless against the faith of the Lord. -Then this gift was granted him, as he had asked, for a long time>. And be cause his heart was pure - the sight of his soul having been purified through vigils and solitude and prayer - he saw God, who is invisible, as it were in a mirror. These are the fruits of vigils, and these are the boons of those who perform them, and these are the crowns [granted on account of persevering in] this struggle.
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Thou also, o brother, if thou desirest to be the fellow of these saints and an heir of their behaviour, cling to solitude, without dejection, that thou also mayest persevere in the work of prayer without a break. Bear its troubles, in order to acquire its good. And if thy body should be bent down by different reasons and desist from labour, and thou shouldst not be able to accomplish the works of solitude as usual, and thou shouldst begin to be despised by thy heart and to become dejected and worried - because this is the work of the heart, especially for those who have the right intention: not to desist from reprehending and reproving - do not say: Woe to me, that I am idle, and it would be better for me to be in the world and to perform any work whatever, and not possess an idle reputation of solitude and reclusion, and yet to cease from performance, being a solitary and lonely, yet afar from duties. 565 Do not say this. For God's lovingkindness bears the load of our weakness; He asks man from what he has, and He knows us better than we do ourselves what our strength is. When thy strength is sufficient, work. And even if thou art not able to perform but little, thou must bear with joy the laziness of thy solitude and be patient. And thou must know that, if thou leavest solitude, even the thought will not stay with thee which causes thee to be chastised by thy conscience on account of laziness. On the contrary: many circumstances will injure thee on account of distraction and laxity of the senses, which destroy even that which has been performed by thee before, because the grace of solitude has been taken from thee, And thou wilt fall into temptations and many circumstances will befall thee, of which thou didst not think. If thou doest fall into temptations, do not despair. For there is no merchant who travels on seas and roads without suffering losses; and there is no husbandman who simply reaps the whole; and there is no champion who suffers not blows and strokes even if he gains victory in the end. So in the things of God, in the things of the merchants who go this invisible road, there are profits and losses, blows and victory. When thou art hit, do not turn thy back. Pardon me.
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