On Patience (Part 1)

“The home of the soul is patience: for she lives in it; the food of the soul is humility: for she is nourished by it”—so said the holy Elias Ecdicus.[1]

Indeed: nourished by the holy food of humility, one can abide in the holy home of patience. But when this food is lacking, the soul goes out from the home of patience. Like a whirlwind, agitation seizes her, sweeps her away, and spins her about. Like waves, various passionate thoughts and feelings rise within her, drowning her in the depths of senseless and sinful reflections, fantasies, words, and deeds. The soul falls into a state of enfeeblement, dark despondency, and often draws near to the abyss of deadly despair and complete disorder.

Do you wish to dwell without departure in the holy home of patience? — Lay in a store of the food necessary for such dwelling: acquire and multiply within yourself humble thoughts and feelings. The form of humility that prepares one for the patient bearing of afflictions before they arrive, and that assists in their serene endurance once they have come, has been called “self-reproach” by the holy Fathers.

Self-reproach is the accusation of oneself in the sinfulness common to all mankind and in one’s own particular sinfulness. In this practice it is useful to recall and enumerate one’s own violations of the Law of God—with the exception of sins of impurity and stumbling, of which the Fathers forbid detailed recollection, since it renews in the person the sensation of sin and delight in it.[2]

Self-reproach is a monastic practice, a mental work set in opposition and counteraction to the painful property of fallen nature, whereby all people—even the most manifest sinners—strive to appear as righteous and to prove their righteousness by every possible artifice. Self-reproach is a violence done to fallen nature, just as prayer and the other monastic struggles are a violence to it—those by which “the kingdom of heaven is taken by force” and by which “those who use force seize it” (Mt 11:12). Self-reproach has, at the beginning of practice, the character of an unconscious mechanism—that is, it is uttered by the tongue without any particular sympathy of the heart, even contrary to the feeling of the heart; then, little by little, the heart begins to be drawn into sympathy with the words of self-reproach; finally, self-reproach will be uttered from the whole soul, in an abundant feeling of weeping. It will diminish and hide from us the shortcomings and transgressions of our neighbors; it will reconcile us to all men and to all circumstances; it will gather thoughts scattered throughout the world into the work of repentance; it will bestow an attentive prayer full of compunction; it will inspire and arm us with an invincible power of patience.

Humble thoughts of self-condemnation fill all the prayers of the Orthodox Church. But monks set apart a portion of each day especially for the practice of self-reproach. They endeavor by means of it to convince themselves and persuade themselves that they are sinners: the fallen nature is unwilling to believe this, unwilling to make this knowledge its own. In general, self-reproach is beneficial for all monks: both for beginners and for the advanced, both for those living in community and for those living in stillness. For the latter, the most dangerous passion that destroys all their work is pride;[3] while, by contrast, the foundational virtue for them, upon which all other virtues rest and are sustained, is self-reproach.[4] This is why the abbot of the Nitrian solitaries said that the chief practice among them, in his estimation, is constant self-reproach. Self-reproach, when it reaches its fullness, uproots malice from the heart entirely, completely eradicating from it the craftiness and hypocrisy that never cease to live in the heart as long as self-justification finds a place there.[5] The Venerable Pimen the Great said that the hatred of evil consists in a man’s justifying his neighbor and accusing himself in every circumstance. This saying is founded on the words of the Saviour: the Saviour called everyone who condemns his neighbors a hypocrite (Mt 7:5). Through self-reproach, the one given to stillness will see all men as saints and angels, and himself as the sinner of sinners, and will plunge—as into an abyss—into constant compunction.

Excellent models of self-reproach are to be found in the Lamentations of the Venerable Isaiah the Hermit and in the twentieth Homily of the holy Isaac the Syrian. The holy Isaac, whose book in general contains instructions for those given to stillness, gave the following title to his Homily: “A homily containing the most needful and beneficial daily reminder for one who is in stillness in his cell and desires to attend to himself alone.”

“A certain brother,” says the holy Isaac, “wrote the following, and set it constantly before himself as a reminder: ‘In foolishness you have spent your life, O shamed man, worthy of every evil! At least guard yourself in this day that remains from your days—days which have been offered up to vanity, void of good activity, enriched with evil activity. Ask not about this world, nor about its state, nor about monks, nor about their activity—of what kind it is, nor about the measure of their struggle—do not be drawn into concern about any such thing. You have gone out from the world in mystery, you have been reckoned dead for Christ’s sake: live no more for the world, nor for what belongs to the world, that rest may come upon you, and that you may live in Christ. Be prepared and ready to bear every reproach, every insult, and shame and rebuke from all. Accept all this with joy, as truly deserving it. Endure with thanksgiving to God every pain, every affliction and trouble from the demons, whose will you have fulfilled. Manfully bear every want and bitterness that nature brings. With hope in God, endure the deprivation of the body’s necessities, which will shortly return to decay. All this receive with good will in hope of God, expecting neither deliverance nor consolation from any other. ‘Cast upon the Lord’ all your care (Ps 54:23), and in all your temptations accuse yourself as their cause. Be scandalized by nothing, and reproach none of those who offend you: for you have tasted of the forbidden tree, and have acquired manifold passions. Receive these bitternesses with joy; let them shake you somewhat, so that you may afterward taste sweetness. Woe to you and to your foul reputation! You have left your soul, full of every sin, without attention, as if not subject to judgment, yet you have condemned others both in word and in thought. Leave this food of swine upon which you have fed until now. What have you to do with men, O defiled one! Are you not ashamed to associate with them, having spent your life in foolishness! If you will turn your attention to this and remember all these things, you may perhaps be saved with God’s assistance. But if not, you will go into the dark country, into the dwelling-places of the demons, whose will you have fulfilled shamelessly. Behold! I have testified all these things to you. If God in righteousness raises men up against you to repay you for the insults and reproaches that you have pondered and uttered against them, then the whole world ought to rise up against you forever. And so, from this time forward, cease from what you have done until now, and endure the recompenses that are permitted to come upon you.’ — All these things the brother reminded himself of each day, so as to be in a condition to bear with thanksgiving to God and with benefit to his own soul the temptations and afflictions when they came. Let us also endure with thanksgiving what is permitted to come upon us, and thereby receive benefit through the grace of the merciful God.”

Self-reproach has this particular, most beneficial, and mysterious property: that it calls to memory even those sins which had been completely forgotten or to which no attention had been paid.

The exercise of self-reproach introduces the habit of reproaching oneself. When any affliction befalls the man who has acquired this habit, the action of the habit immediately appears, and the affliction is accepted as deserved. “The chief cause of all agitation,” says the Venerable Abba Dorotheus, “if we examine carefully, is that we do not reproach ourselves. From this every disorder flows; it is for this reason that we never find rest. And so it is no wonder that we hear from all the saints: ‘There is no other path besides this.’ We do not see that any of the saints, traveling by any other path, found rest! Yet we want to have it while holding to the right path without ever desiring to reproach ourselves. Truly, if a man accomplishes ten thousand virtues but does not hold to this path, he will never cease to give offence and to take offence, thereby destroying all his labors. Whereas the one who reproaches himself is always in joy, always in peace. He who reproaches himself, wherever he may go—as Abba Pimen also said—whatever may happen to him, whether harm or dishonor or any affliction, already considers himself beforehand as worthy of all that is unpleasant, and is never agitated. Can anything be more peaceful than this state? But someone may say: If a brother offends me, and I, examining myself, find that I gave him no occasion for it, how can I reproach myself? Truly, if anyone examines himself in the fear of God, he will find that he somehow gave occasion—either by deed, or by word, or in some way. But if he sees, as he says, that he gave no occasion at the present time, then at some earlier time he offended this brother or another in this matter or in some other, and ought to have suffered for it, or else for some other sin—as often happens. Yes! if anyone examines himself, as I have said, in the fear of God and searches his conscience, he will in every case find himself guilty.” A wondrous thing! Beginning to reproach ourselves mechanically and forcibly, we eventually arrive at a self-reproach so convincing and so effective that with its help we endure not only ordinary afflictions but even the greatest calamities. Temptations no longer have such power over one who is making progress;[6] rather, in proportion to progress, they grow lighter, even when they are in themselves heavier. In proportion to progress, the soul grows stronger and receives the capacity to bear patiently what befalls it. This strength is given as a specially nourishing food by the humility that has sunk deep into the heart. And this strength is patience.[7]

Unwavering faith in Divine Providence establishes one in patience and assists self-reproach. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny”, the Lord said to His disciples, “and not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father? But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore” (Mt 10:29–30). With these words the Saviour of the world depicted that sleepless care which God has—and which only an almighty and omnipresent God can have—for His servants and ministers. By God’s such care for us, we are delivered from every faint-hearted anxiety and fear for ourselves, prompted by our unbelief. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet 5:6–7). When we are subjected to affliction, God sees it. This comes to pass not only by His permission but by His all-holy Providence for us. He allows us to be tormented for our sins in time, in order to deliver us from torment in eternity. It often happens that a hidden and grievous sin of ours remains unknown to men, remains without punishment, covered by God’s mercy; yet at the same time, or after some interval, we are constrained to suffer somewhat as a result of slander or vexation, as if unjustly and innocently. Our conscience tells us that we are suffering for our hidden sin! God’s mercy, which covered that sin, gives us the means to be crowned with the crown of innocent sufferers through the endurance of slander, and at the same time to be cleansed from the hidden sin by punishment. Contemplating this, let us glorify the all-holy Providence of God and humble ourselves before it.

An instructive example of self-condemnation and self-reproach united with the glorification of the righteous and most merciful judgments of God was given by the three holy Hebrew youths in captivity and in the furnace of Babylon. “Blessed are You, O Lord God of our fathers”, they said, “praised and glorified is Your name forever. For You are righteous in all that You have done for us, and all Your works are true, and Your ways are straight, and all Your judgments are true, and You have made true judgments in all that You have brought upon us and upon the holy city of our fathers Jerusalem; for in truth and in justice You have brought all these things upon us because of our sins. For we have sinned and transgressed, departing from You, and in all things we have acted wrongly” (Dan 3:26–29). The holy Youths, cast into the burning furnace for their faithfulness to the true God, and not burning there but dwelling in it as in a cool chamber, acknowledged and confessed themselves as having sinned together with their compatriots, who had in fact departed from God. Out of love for their neighbors, they extended to themselves the sins of their neighbors. Out of humility, though they were themselves holy and righteous, they did not wish to separate themselves from the brethren who were enslaved to sin. From this condition—from the state of self-condemnation, humility, and love for mankind, from the justification of God’s permissions—they then offered prayer to God for their salvation. In this same way, let us glorify God’s Providence and confess our sinfulness in all the afflictions that befall us—both personal and communal—and upon the foundation of this glorification and confession let us entreat God for mercy. Holy Scripture testifies that upon God’s servants who walk the path of God’s commandments, particular afflictions are sent as an aid to their work, as the Saviour of the world also said, that the heavenly Father “every branch that bears fruit” in Christ, “He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (Jn 15:2). These purifying afflictions are called the permissions or judgments of God; of them the holy David sang: “The judgments of the Lord are true and altogether righteous” (Ps 18:10). “Teach me Your judgments!” (Ps 118:108). May I know and be assured that all the bitter things that happen to me come by the Providence of God, by the will of my God! Then I shall also know that “Your judgments will help me” in my feeble and inadequate service of God (Ps 118:175).

As an example of how God’s judgments assist His servants who desire to please Him—how they raise them toward that holy activity to which they could in no way have attained without the help of God’s judgments—let us cite the events involving the Constantinople nobleman Xenophon, his wife, and his two sons. The wealthy and eminent Xenophon led a life of the most devout kind—the kind that the general piety of Christians of that age made possible amid the world, and that today can be lived only in withdrawal from the world. He wished his two sons to be heirs both to his estate and to his position at the imperial court, and to his piety. At that time there was a famous school in Syrian Berytus (the modern Beirut). There Xenophon sent his sons to study the wisdom of this age. The route from Constantinople to Berytus was by sea. Once, his sons, having visited their father on account of his dangerous illness, were returning to school. Suddenly a most powerful storm arose on the Mediterranean Sea; the ship was wrecked, and both young men were cast by the waves at different places onto the shores of Palestine. In this dire situation, nourished from childhood by devout thoughts and inclinations, the sons of Xenophon recognized in the affliction that had overtaken them a Divine calling to the monastic life, and—as if by mutual agreement—entered Palestinian monasteries. After a considerable time they encountered one another; after a considerable time Xenophon learned that the ship on which his sons had been sailing had been wrecked in the storm, and that all those on board had vanished without a trace. The deeply grieved father turned to prayer; after an all-night vigil in his cell he received a Divine revelation that his sons were overshadowed by a special mercy and grace of God. Understanding from this that they had taken monastic vows, and knowing that in Palestine—off the shores of which the ship had been wrecked—there were very many monasteries, Xenophon set out for Jerusalem with his wife: there he saw his sons, and returned to Constantinople no more. From Jerusalem he arranged the disposal of his estate, which was sold: the proceeds were distributed among monasteries, churches, and the poor.[8] Xenophon and Maria (as his wife was called) followed the example of their sons John and Arcadius, entered the monastic life, and in it both parents and children attained great spiritual progress. They could in no way have been found worthy of it had they remained in the worldly life, however devout. God, foreseeing their progress, led them to it by His inscrutable judgments. The path of God’s judgments is bitter, as the holy Apostle testified: “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives” (Heb 12:6). The fruits of God’s judgments are most desirable and priceless. From the lives of many other chosen ones of God we are convinced that God sends afflictions to aid the good work of His servants, and through them purifies and perfects that work. A person’s own work alone is insufficient, as the Venerable Symeon the New Theologian observes. “Gold covered with rust,” he says, “can in no other way be purified and regain its natural luster than by being cast into fire and carefully hammered with the hammers: so also the soul, defiled by the rust of sin and rendered entirely useless, can in no other way be cleansed and regain its ancient beauty than by abiding through many temptations and entering the furnace of afflictions. This is expressed also by the words of our Lord God and Saviour: ‘Sell what you possess and take up your cross, and come, follow Me’ (Mt 19:21; Mk 10:21). Here, by the cross, temptations and afflictions are signified. To distribute all one’s possessions and yet not struggle manfully against the temptations and afflictions that occur seems to me a sign of a negligent soul that does not know what is for its good: for those who renounce their possessions gain nothing from that renunciation alone, if they do not endure to the end in temptations and afflictions for God’s sake. Christ did not say: in the laying aside of your possessions, but ‘by your endurance you will gain your souls’ (Lk 21:19). It is clear that giving to the needy and fleeing from the world are praiseworthy and beneficial; but they alone, by themselves, without the endurance of temptations, cannot make a man perfect according to God… One who has scattered his wealth among the needy and withdrawn from the world and from material things glories with great satisfaction of conscience in the hope of reward, and sometimes his very reward is stolen away by vainglory. But one who, after giving all to the poor, endures sorrows with thanksgiving of soul and lives amid afflictions—he tastes every bitterness and painful labor, yet his reward remains unplundered; great recompense awaits him in this age and the next, as one who has imitated Christ’s sufferings, as one who has suffered with Him in the days of the visitation of temptations and afflictions. And therefore I implore you, brethren in Christ: let us strive, according to the word of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, as we have renounced the world and all that belongs to the world, to pass also through the ‘narrow gate’ (Lk 13:24), which consists in the cutting off of our fleshly understanding and will and in fleeing from them: for without dying to the flesh, to its lusts and will, it is impossible to obtain the rest, the liberation from the passions, and the freedom that appear in us from the consolation wrought by the Holy Spirit.” Why are we unwilling to submit to the afflictions permitted to us by God’s Providence for the salvation of our souls—to which God Himself calls us?[9] — Because sensual pleasure and vainglory hold dominion over us: at the instigation of the first, we are unwilling to constrain our body; at the instigation of the second, we value the opinion of men. Both these passions are trampled by living faith, just as, conversely, they operate because of unbelief. To the Venerable Abba Dorotheus’ question: “What am I to do? I fear the shame of dishonors”, the holy John the Prophet answered: “Not to endure dishonor is the work of unbelief. Brother! Jesus became man and endured dishonors: are you greater than Jesus? This is unbelief and demonic spiritual delusion. He who desires humility, as he says, but does not endure dishonor cannot acquire humility. You have now heard the true teaching: do not disregard it. Otherwise the matter itself will disregard you. Concerning shame: by calling to mind the public shame before the Lord which will overtake sinners, you will count all temporal shame as nothing.” In general, the remembrance of God’s omnipresence and omnipotence restrains the heart from that vacillation into which the thoughts of unbelief strive to cast it, leaning upon vainglory and a wrong love for the body. The holy Prophet David said: “I keep the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad; moreover, my flesh also will dwell in hope”[10] (Ps 15:8–9). “My heart rejoiced” through the action of faith and humility! The words of glorifying God and of self-reproach bring joy to the lips and tongue! The very flesh feels the power of incorruption entering into it and being poured into it from the feelings of a heart that is contrite and humble, consoled and consoled by God!

If no temptation can touch a person without God’s will, then complaints, murmuring, resentment, self-justification, and the blaming of neighbors and circumstances are movements of the soul against God’s will—they are attempts to resist and oppose God.[11] Let us be terrified by this calamity! When reflecting on whatever affliction is ours, let us not linger too long in reflection, lest it imperceptibly draw us from humble-mindedness into manifest or concealed self-justification, into a state contrary to God’s dispensation for us. Distrusting our own weakness, let us quickly take refuge in the sure weapon of self-reproach! On two crosses near the Saviour two thieves were crucified. One of them railed and blasphemed against the Lord; the other acknowledged himself worthy of punishment for his evil deeds, while recognizing the Lord as an innocent sufferer. Suddenly, self-reproach opened for him the eyes of his heart, and in the innocent human sufferer he beheld the all-holy God suffering for mankind. This was not seen by the learned, nor by the priests, nor by the Jewish hierarchs, though they rested upon the Law of God and had studied it diligently according to the letter. The thief becomes a theologian, and before the face of all who counted themselves wise and mighty—who were mocking the Lord—he confesses Him, trampling by his holy opinion the erroneous self-opinion of the wise in themselves and the strong in themselves. The thief-blasphemer was brought down to hell by the sin of blasphemy, which is the most grievous of all sins; there the eternal torment was increased for him. The thief who came through sincere self-condemnation to true knowledge of God—through his confession of the Redeemer, possible and fitting only for the humble—was led into paradise. The same cross belongs to both thieves! Contrary thoughts, feelings, and words were the cause of contrary consequences.[12] With complete justice these two thieves serve as an image of all humanity: every man, having spent his life wrongly, contrary to God’s purpose, to the harm of his salvation and blessedness in eternity, is in relation to himself both a thief, a robber, and a murderer. To this evildoer a cross is sent as the last means of salvation, so that the evildoer, confessing his crimes and acknowledging himself worthy of punishment, may retain the salvation granted by God. To ease the suffering and to supply spiritual consolations during the crucifixion and sojourn upon the cross, the incarnate God was crucified and hung upon the wood of the cross near the crucified man. He who murmurs, complains, and is indignant at his afflictions definitively rejects his own salvation: not recognizing and not confessing the Saviour, he is cast down into hell, into eternal and fruitless torments, as one who has fully alienated and rejected God. He who, on the contrary, opens his sinfulness through self-reproach, acknowledging himself worthy of temporal and eternal punishment, enters by degrees through self-reproach into an active and living knowledge of the Redeemer, which is “eternal life” (Jn 17:3). To the one crucified on the cross by God’s will, glorifying God from his cross, the “mystery of the cross” is revealed, and with it the mystery of the redemption of mankind by the God-man. Such is the fruit of self-reproach. In relation to God’s almighty and all-holy will, no other fitting feelings can exist in man besides unlimited reverence and equally unlimited submission. From these feelings, when they have become the possession of a person, “patience” is formed.