On the Enemy’s Wiles Against Those Who Have Entered the Good Path

But suppose someone has passed the first two obstacles, has desired to be freed from the bonds of sin and has set to work immediately—the enemy does not leave him even here, but merely changes his tactics, while his evil desire and expectation of tripping him over some stone of temptation and destroying him remain unchanged. The holy fathers depict such a person as being fired upon from all sides: from above and below, from right and left, from front and back—arrows fly at him from every direction. Arrows from above are suggestions toward excessive and impossible spiritual labors; arrows from below are suggestions to diminish or altogether abandon such labors through self-pity, sloth, and negligence; arrows from the right when enemies, in connection with some good beginnings and deeds, cast him into the temptation of danger of a fall; arrows from the left when open enemies present temptations and draw him toward sin; arrows from the front when enemies tempt and trouble him with thoughts about what is yet to come; arrows from behind when they tempt and disturb him with memories of past deeds and events. And all such tempting thoughts assail the soul either by an inward path or an outward one: inwardly through images and representations of the fancy imprinted upon consciousness—either in a mental manner or through the direct suggestion of evil to the heart, accompanied by the usual passionate movements; outwardly through the impressions of the external senses that pour in ceaselessly, as was already said above. Our enemies have as their helpers our former sinful habits and our nature corrupted in the fall. Having so many means of harming us, the enemy is not at all discouraged by initial failures and ceaselessly tries first one thing and then another, to trip up or knock off the path the servant of Christ who is slipping from his grasp.

The enemy’s first concern, once someone has resolved to leave evil ways and is actually leaving them, is to clear the field of action against him so that no one will hinder him. He succeeds in this when he suggests to the person who has entered the good path to act on his own, without seeking advice and guidance from those guides to a life pleasing to God who are always present in the Church. Whoever follows this guidance and verifies all his deeds—both inward and outward—by consulting his guides (parish priests in the world, experienced elders in monasteries), the enemy cannot reach. Whatever he suggests, an experienced eye will immediately see what he is aiming at and will warn his charge. Thus all his wiles are dismantled. But one who draws away from his guides is immediately thrown into confusion and knocked off the path by the enemy. There are many possibilities that seem not to be bad—and it is these that the enemy suggests. The inexperienced novice follows them and falls into an ambush where he is exposed to great dangers or perishes entirely.

The second thing the enemy arranges is to leave the novice not only without guidance but also without help. One who has resolved to go through life without counsel and guidance naturally moves of himself toward the conviction that outside help is unnecessary in the performance of his deeds and the ordering of a life pleasing to God. But the enemy accelerates this transition by hiding himself and making no attacks upon the novice who, feeling such freedom and ease, begins to imagine that this good condition is the fruit of his own efforts; and as a result he rests upon them, and in his prayers for help from above speaks as if only through his teeth—merely because that is how the prayers are written. Help that is not sought does not come, and thus the novice is left alone with only his own strength. And with such a person the enemy can easily deal.

The consequence of such self-deception is that some plunge into excessive ascetic feats that are beyond their strength and untimely. The strong arousal of energy by self-confidence gives them the strength to sustain such feats for a time; then their strength is exhausted and they no longer find within themselves enough even to maintain the most moderate efforts—and often they abandon even these. Others, inflaming their self-driven energy more and more, arrive at such self-assurance that they consider everything possible for themselves. In this excited state they take ruinous steps: they throw themselves into dried-up cisterns or off cliffs where they live in some cave, they refuse food entirely, and the like. All this the enemy contrives in ways imperceptible to those he is deceiving.

For others, the consequence of self-deception—of attributing their own success to themselves—is that they grant themselves the right to various indulgences and relaxations. There is a peculiar delusion whereby, when something new is introduced into a person’s life—as, for example, in the case of someone who has repented—the days seem like months and the weeks like years. By reason of this, after the novice has labored a little in the ways of the new life, the enemy easily drives into his head the fantasy: how much I have labored, how long I have fasted, how many nights I have gone without sleep—and the like. One might rest a little. “Rest,” the enemy whispers; “give the body some ease; a little distraction is possible.” The moment the inexperienced novice agrees to this, indulgence follows upon indulgence until at last all the patterns of a life pleasing to God are disrupted, and he slides back into the same life he had abandoned and begins once again to live in sloth and carelessness, with his sleeves rolled down, as they say.

Yet such temptations—to shun the counsel and guidance of others, to attribute successes to oneself, to aspire to extremes, and to yield to indulgences—the enemy does not only bring at the beginning of the good life; he makes attempts at these suggestions throughout the whole of it. You can therefore see for yourself how necessary it is for you to do everything with counsel, never to attribute to yourself—to your own strength and diligence—any success however small, to avoid every form of excess and indulgence, and to lead a life that is steady yet energetic and lively, always in the patterns once established and set according to the examples of the saints who lived before us and with the discernment of experienced people of our own time.