Library › Sayings of the Fathers (Systematic Collection, Latin)
Sayings of the Fathers (Systematic Collection, Latin)
tr. Chadwick, 1958; selections
1. Part 1: Of the Progress of the Fathers in Perfection
Someone asked Abba Antony: “What rules shall I keep to please God?” The old man replied: “Keep my instructions, and they are these: Wherever you go, recollect God in your mind’s eye. Whatever you do, do it after the example of Holy Scripture. And wherever you stay, be in no hurry to move. If you keep these three rules, you will be safe.”
Abba Pambo asked Abba Antony: “What shall I do?” The old man replied: “Trust not in your own righteousness. Be not penitent for a deed that is past and gone. And keep your tongue and your belly under control.”
St Gregory said: “God demands three things from a man who is baptized. To hold the true faith with all his soul and strength: to restrain his tongue: to be chaste in body.”
Abba Evagrius said: “Some of the fathers used to say that a dry and regular diet, combined with charity, will quickly bring the monk to the harbour where the storms of passion do not enter.”
The same said: “A certain monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger ‘Stop blaspheming. My father cannot die.’”
Abba Macarius said to Abba Zacharias: “Tell me, what makes a monk?” He said: “Is it not wrong that you should be asking me?” And Abba Macarius said to him: “I am sure I ought to ask of you, my son, Zacharias. I have one who urges me on to ask you.” Zacharias said to him: “As far as I can tell, Father, I think that whoever controls and forces himself to be content with necessities and nothing more, that man is a monk.”
They used to say about Abba Theodore (surnamed of Pherme) that he kept these three rules beyond many others—poverty, abstinence, and running from the company of men.
Abba John the Short said: “I would make up a man out of all the virtues. Rise at dawn every morning, take the beginning of each virtue, and keep God’s commandment—in great patience; fear; long-suffering; in the love of God; with a firm purpose of soul and body; in deep humility; in patience; in trouble of heart and earnestness of practice; in long prayer, with sorrow of heart; in purity of tongue, and guard of the eyes; in suffering injury without anger; peaceful, and not rendering evil for evil; not looking out for the faults of others, nor puffing up the self; meekly subject to every creature; renouncing material property and the things of the flesh; in crucifixion, struggle, lowliness of spirit, in good will and spiritual abstinence; in fasting, in penitence, in weeping, in the fight against evil; wise and discreet in the judgement; chaste in mind; receiving good with tranquillity; in working with your own hands; in watching in the night; in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in labours; burying yourself in a tomb as though you were already dead, and every day feeling that death is upon you.”
Abba Joseph of Thebes said: “Three things are honoured in the sight of God. First, when a man is weak, and then temptations come upon him, and yet he accepts them thankfully. The second is when a man’s every action is pure before God, mixed with no human motive. The third is when a man remains obedient to a spiritual father, and renounces all his self-will.”
Abba Cassian related this story of one Abba John, who ruled over a community because he was great in his way of life. When he was dying, cheerfully, and with his mind set upon the Lord, his brothers stood around him and asked for a sentence which would sum the way to salvation, and which he could bestow on them as a legacy by which they might mount to the perfection which is in Christ. With a sigh he said: “I never obeyed my own will, and I never taught anyone to do anything which I did not first do myself.”1
A brother asked an old man: “What thing is so good that I may do it and live by it?” And the old man said: “God alone knows what is good. Yet I have heard that one of the fathers asked the great Abba Nesteros, who was a friend of Abba Antony, and said to him, ‘What good work shall I do?’ And Antony replied, ‘Cannot all works please God equally? Scripture says, Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. And Elijah loved quiet, and God was with him. And David was humble and God was with him. So whatever you find your soul wills in following God’s will, do it, and keep your heart.’”
Abba Poemen said: “To keep guard—to meditate on itself—to judge with discernment—these are the three functions of the soul.”
A brother asked him: “How ought we to live?” The old man replied: “We have seen the example of Daniel. They made no charge against him, except that he rendered service to his God.”
The same old man said: “Poverty, tribulation and wise discernment—these are the three parts of the hermit’s life. It is written that there were these three, Noah, Job and Daniel. Noah is the type of those who own nothing, Job of those in tribulation, Daniel of those who judge wisely. If a man has these three qualities, God dwells in him.”
Abba Poemen said: “If a monk will hate two things, he can be free of this world.” And a brother said: “What are they?” And the old man said: “Bodily comfort and vain-glory.”
They used to tell of Abba Pambo that in the hour of his death he said to the holy men standing round: “From the time that I came into this lonely place, and built my cell and lived in it, I do not remember having eaten anything which my hands had not worked for, nor repenting of a word spoken until now. And so I go to the Lord, as one who has not yet made a beginning of serving God.”
Said Abba Sisois: “Be despised: put your self-will behind your back: be free of secular worries—and you shall have rest.”
When Abba Chame was dying, he said to his sons: “Do not live with heretics. Do not take notice of judges. And let not your hands be open to acquire, let them be stretched out to give.”
Said a brother to an old man: “How does the fear of God come into the soul?” And the old man said: “If a man has humility and poverty, and will not judge another, then the fear of God comes into him.”
An old man said: “Let fear, and humility, and want of food, and lamentation, abide in you.”
Some of the old men used to say: “Whatever you hate, do it not to another. If you hate being evil spoken to, do not speak evil to another. If you hate being slandered, do not slander another. If you hate him who tries to make you despised, or wrongs you, or takes away what is yours, or any such thing, do not do any such thing to him. If a man can keep this saying, it is enough for his salvation.”
An old man said: “This is the life of a monk: work, obedience, meditation, not to judge others, not to speak evil, not to murmur. For it is written ‘You who love God, hate evil.’2
This is the life of the monk: not to go in with the unrighteous, not to see evil, not to be inquisitive, not to be curious, not to hear gossip: not to use the hands for taking, but for giving: not to be proud in heart or wicked in thought: not to fill the belly: in everything to judge wisely.
That is where you find a monk.”
An old man said: “Ask God to give you heartfelt grief and humility. Look ever on your sins, and judge not another’s. Be subject to all. Be not friends with a woman, or a boy, or a heretic. Be not confident. Control your tongue and belly, and drink no wine. If anyone speaks to you on a matter of controversy, do not argue with him. If he speaks well, say ‘Yes.’ If he speaks ill, say ‘I am ignorant in the matter.’ But argue not with what he has said, and then your mind will be at peace.”
Notes
- Cassian, Institutes, V, 28.
- Ps. 97:10.