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| Chapter IV. What sorts of work should be chosen by solitaries.
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Chapter IV.
What sorts of work should be chosen by solitaries.
Everyone therefore who
constantly perseveres in this watchfulness will effectually fulfil what
is very plainly expressed by the prophet Habakkuk: “I will stand
upon my watch, and ascend upon the rock, and will look out to see what
He shall say to me, and what I may answer to Him that reproveth
me.”2303
And how
difficult and tiresome this is, is very clearly shown by the experience
of those who live in the desert of Calamus or Porphyrion.2304
| 2304 Cf. Institutes X.
xxiv. | For though they are separated from all
the cities and dwellings of men by a longer stretch of desert than the
wilderness of Scete (since by penetrating seven or eight days’
journey into the recesses of the vast wilderness, they scarcely arrive
at their hiding places and cells) yet because there they are devoted to
agriculture and not in the least confined to the cloister, whenever
they come to these squalid districts in which we are living, or to
Scete, they are annoyed by such harassing thoughts and such anxiety of
mind that, as if they were beginners and men who had never given the
slightest attention to the exercises of solitude, they cannot endure
the life of the cells and the peace and quietness of them, and are at
once driven forth and obliged to leave them, as if they were
inexperienced and novices. For they have not learnt to still the
motions of the inner man, and to quell the tempests of their thoughts
by anxious care and persevering efforts, as, toiling day after day in
work in the open air, they are moving about all day long in empty
space, not only in the flesh but also in heart; and pour forth their
thoughts openly as the body moves hither and thither. And therefore
they do not notice the folly of their mind in longing for many things,
nor can they put a check upon its vague discursiveness; and as they
cannot bear sorrow of spirit they think that the fact of a continuance
of silence is unendurable, and those who are never tired by hard work
in the country, are beaten by silence and worn out by the length of
their rest.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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