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| Chapter XI. The words of Abbot Serapion on the decline of thoughts that are exposed to others, and also on the danger of self-confidence.
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Chapter XI.
The words of Abbot Serapion on the decline of thoughts
that are exposed to others, and also on the danger of
self-confidence.
While, said he, I was
still a lad, and stopping with Abbot Theonas,1183
| 1183 See the note on
Conf. xxi. i. | this habit was forced upon me by the
assaults of the enemy, that after I had supped with the old man at the
ninth hour, I used every day secretly to hide a biscuit in my dress,
which I would eat on the sly later on without his knowing it. And
though I was constantly guilty of the theft with the consent of my
will, and the want of restraint that springs from desire that has grown
inveterate, yet when my unlawful desire was gratified I would come to
myself and torment myself over the theft committed in a way that
overbalanced the pleasure I had enjoyed in the eating. And when I was
forced not without grief of heart to fulfil day after day this most
heavy task required of me, so to speak, by Pharaoh’s taskmasters,
instead of bricks, and could not escape from this cruel tyranny, and
yet was ashamed to disclose the secret theft to the old man, it chanced
by the will of God that I was delivered from the yoke of this voluntary
captivity, when certain brethren had sought the old man’s cell
with the object of being instructed by him. And when after supper the
spiritual conference had begun to be held, and the old man in answer to
the questions which they had propounded was speaking about the sin of
gluttony and the dominion of secret thoughts, and showing their nature
and the awful power which they have so long as they are kept secret, I
was overcome by the power of the discourse and was conscience stricken
and terrified, as I thought that these things were mentioned by him
because the Lord had revealed to the old man my bosom secrets; and
first I was moved to secret sighs, and then my heart’s
compunction increased and I openly burst into sobs and tears, and
produced from the folds of my dress which shared my theft and received
it, the biscuit which I had carried off in my bad habit to eat on the
sly; and I laid it in the midst and lying on the ground an begging for
forgiveness confessed how I used to eat one every day in secret, and
with copious tears implored them to intreat the Lord to free me from
this dreadful slavery. Then the old man: “Have faith, my
child,” said he, “Without any words of mine, your
confession frees you from this slavery. For you have today triumphed
over your victorious adversary, by laying him low by your confession in
a manner which more than makes up for the way in which you were
overthrown by him through your former silence, as when, never confuting
him with your own answer or that of another, you had allowed him to
lord it over you, according to that saying of Solomon’s:
‘Because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil,
the heart of the children of men is full within them to do
evil:’1184
and therefore
after this exposure of him that evil spirit will no longer be able to
vex you, nor will that foul serpent henceforth make his lurking place
in you, as he has been dragged out into light from the darkness by your
life-giving confession.” The old man had not finished speaking
when lo! a burning lamp proceeding from the folds of my dress filled
the cell with a sulphureous smell so that the pungency of the odour
scarcely allowed us to stay there: and the old man resuming his
admonition said Lo! the Lord
has visibly confirmed to you the truth of
my words, so that you can see with your eyes how he who was the author
of His Passion has been driven out from your heart by your life-giving
confession, and know that the enemy who has been exposed will certainly
no longer find a home in you, as his expulsion is made manifest. And
so, as the old man declared, said he, the sway of that diabolical
tyranny over me has been destroyed by the power of this confession and
stilled for ever so that the enemy has never even tried to force upon
me any more the recollection of this desire, nor have I ever felt
myself seized with the passion of that furtive longing. And this
meaning we see is neatly expressed in a figure in Ecclesiastes.
“If” says he “a serpent bite without hissing there is
no sufficiency for the charmer,”1185
showing that the bite of a serpent in silence is dangerous, i.e., if a
suggestion or thought springing from the devil is not by means of
confession shown to some charmer, I mean some spiritually minded person
who knows how to heal the wound at once by charms from the Scripture,
and to extract the deadly poison of the serpent from the heart, it will
be impossible to help the sufferer who is already in danger and must
soon die. In this way therefore we shall easily arrive at the knowledge
of true discretion, so as by following the steps of the Elders never to
do anything novel nor to decide anything by or on our own
responsibility, but to walk in all things as we are taught by their
tradition and upright life. And the man who is strengthened by this
system will not only arrive at the perfect method of discretion, but
also will remain perfectly safe from all the wiles of the enemy: for by
no other fault does the devil drag down a monk so precipitately and
lead him away to death, as when he persuades him to despise the counsel
of the Elders and to rely on his own opinion and judgment: for if all
the arts and contrivances discovered by man’s ingenuity and those
which are only useful for the conveniences of this temporary life,
though they can be felt with the hand and seen with the eye, can yet
not be understood by anyone, without lessons from a teacher, how
foolish it is to fancy that there is no need of an instructor in this
one alone which is invisible and secret and can only be seen by the
purest heart, a mistake in which brings about no mere temporary loss or
one that can easily be repaired, but the destruction of the soul and
everlasting death: for it is concerned with a daily and nightly
conflict against no visible foes, but invisible and cruel ones, and a
spiritual combat not against one or two only, but against countless
hosts, failure in which is the more dangerous to all, in proportion as
the foe is the fiercer and the attack the more secret. And therefore we
should always follow the footsteps of the Elders with the utmost care,
and bring to them everything which rises in our hearts, by removing the
veil of shame.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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