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| Chapter I. Abbot Moses' introduction on the grace of discretion.
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Chapter I.
Abbot Moses’ introduction on the grace of
discretion.
And so when we had
enjoyed our morning sleep, when to our delight the dawn of light again
shone upon us, and we had begun to ask once more for his promised talk,
the blessed Moses thus began: As I see you inflamed with such an eager
desire, that I do not believe that that very short interval of quiet
which I wanted to subtract from our spiritual conference and devote to
bodily rest, has been of any use for the repose of your bodies, on me
too a greater anxiety presses when I take note of your zeal. For I must
give the greater care and devotion in paying my debt, in proportion as
I see that you ask for it the more earnestly, according to that saying:
“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler consider diligently what
is put before thee, and put forth thine hand, knowing that thou
oughtest to prepare such things.”1160
Wherefore as we are going
to speak of the excellent quality of
discretion and the virtue of it, on which subject our discourse of last
night had entered at the termination of our discussion, we think it
desirable first to establish its excellence by the opinions of the
fathers, that when it has been shown what our predecessors thought and
said about it, then we may bring forward some ancient and modern
shipwrecks and mischances of various people, who were destroyed and
hopelessly ruined because they paid but little attention to it, and
then as well as we can we must treat of its advantages and uses: after
a discussion of which we shall know better how we ought to seek after
it and practise it, by the consideration of the importance of its value
and grace. For it is no ordinary virtue nor one which can be freely
gained by merely human efforts, unless they are aided by the Divine
blessing, for we read that this is also reckoned among the noblest
gifts of the Spirit by the Apostle: “To one is given by the
Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same
Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gift of
healing by the same Spirit,” and shortly after, “to another
the discerning of spirits.” Then after the complete catalogue of
spiritual gifts he subjoins: “But all these worketh one and the
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He
will.”1161
You see then that
the gift of discretion is no earthly thing and no slight matter, but
the greatest prize of divine grace. And unless a monk has pursued it
with all zeal, and secured a power of discerning with unerring judgment
the spirits that rise up in him, he is sure to go wrong, as if in the
darkness of night and dense blackness, and not merely to fall down
dangerous pits and precipices, but also to make frequent mistakes in
matters that are plain and straightforward.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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