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| Chapter V. How the first of these calls is of no use to a sluggard, and the last is no hindrance to one who is in earnest.
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Chapter V.
How the first of these calls is of no use to a sluggard,
and the last is no hindrance to one who is in earnest.
Of these three calls
then, although the two former may seem to rest on better principles,
yet sometimes we find that even by the third grade, which seems the
lowest and the coldest, men have been made perfect and most earnest in
spirit, and have become like those who made an admirable beginning in
approaching the Lord’s service, and passed the rest of their
lives also in most laudable fervour of spirit: and again we find that
from the higher grade very many have grown cold, and often have come to
a miserable end. And just as it was no hindrance to the former class
that they seemed to be converted not of their own free will, but by
force and compulsion, in as much as the loving kindness of the Lord
secured for them the opportunity for repentance, so too to the latter
it was of no avail that the early days of their conversion were so
bright, because they were not careful to bring the remainder of their
life to a suitable end. For in the case of Abbot Moses,1206
| 1206 Moses. This Abbot is
possibly a different person from the author of the first two
Conferences, who had in his youth been a pupil of Antony; whereas the
one here mentioned only took the monastic life out of fear of death on
a charge of murder. He is mentioned again in Conferences VII. xxvi.,
XIX. xi., and some account of him is given in Sozomen H.E. VI.
xxix. | who lived in a spot in the wilderness
called Calamus,1207
| 1207 Calamus, mentioned
again in the Institutes X. xxiv. (where see note), and cf. Conf. VII.
xxvi.; XXIV. iv. | nothing was
wanting to his merits and perfect bliss, in consequence of the fact
that he was driven to flee to the monastery through fear of death,
which was hanging over him because of a murder; for he made such use of
his compulsory conversion that with ready zeal he turned it into a
voluntary one and climbed the topmost heights of perfection. As also on
the other hand; to very many, whose names I ought not to mention, it
has been of no avail that they entered on the Lord’s service with
better beginning than this, as afterwards sloth and hardness of heart
crept over them, and they fell into a dangerous state of torpor, and
the bottomless pit of death, an instance of which we see clearly
indicated in the call of the Apostles. For of what good was it to Judas
that he had of his own free will embraced the highest grade of the
Apostolate in the same way in which Peter and the rest of the Apostles
had been summoned, as he allowed the splendid beginning of his call to
terminate in a ruinous end of cupidity and covetousness, and as a cruel
murderer even rushed into the betrayal of the Lord? Or what hindrance
was it to Paul that he was suddenly blinded, and seemed to be drawn
against his will into the way of salvation, as afterwards he followed
the Lord with complete fervour of soul, and having begun by compulsion
completed it by a free and voluntary devotion, and terminated with a
magnificent end a life that was rendered glorious by such great deeds?
Everything therefore depends upon the end; in which one who was
consecrated by a noble conversion at the outset may through
carelessness turn out a failure, and one who was compelled by necessity
to adopt the monastic life may through fear of God and earnestness be
made perfect.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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