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Sayings of the Fathers (Systematic Collection, Latin)

tr. Chadwick, 1958; selections

3. Part 3: Of Compunction

It was said of Abba Arsenius that all his life, whenever he worked with his hands, he kept a handkerchief in his breast because tears fell so often from his eyes.

A brother asked Abba Ammon, saying: “Speak to me a word.” The old man said to him: “Go, and meditate like the criminals in prison. For they keep asking, where is the judge, and when will he come? And because they await him they lament their punishment. The monk ought always to be awaiting his trial, and to chide his soul, saying: ‘Woe is me, how shall I stand before the judgement seat of Christ? How shall I give an account of my actions?’ If you always meditate like this, you will be saved.”

Abba Evagrius said: “While you sit in your cell, draw in your mind, and remember the day of your death. And then you will see your body mortifying. Think on the loss, feel the pain. Shrink from the vanity of the world outside. Be retiring, and careful to keep your vow of quiet, and you will not weaken. Remember the souls in hell. Meditate within on their condition, the bitter silence and the moaning, the fear and the strife, the waiting and the pain without relief, the tears that cannot cease to flow.

Remember too the day of resurrection, imagine God’s terrible and awful judgement. Bring into your sight the confusion of sinners before God and his Christ, before angels and archangels and powers, and all the human race: punishment, everlasting fire, the worm that never dies, the darkness of Tartarus—and above them all the sound of the gnashing of teeth, fearfulness and torments.

Bring before your eyes the good laid up for the righteous, their confidence before God the Father and Christ his Son, before angels and archangels and the powers, and all the people: the kingdom of heaven and its gifts, joy and rest.

All this remember. Weep and lament for the judgement of sinners, bring to life the grief they suffer; be afraid that you are hurrying towards the same condemnation. Rejoice and exult at the good laid up for the righteous. Aim at enjoying the one, and being far from the other. Do not forget it, whether you are in your cell or abroad. Keep these memories in your mind and so cast out of it the sordid thoughts which harm you.”

Said Abba Elias: “I fear three things: the first, the time just before my soul goes out from my body: the second, the time just before I meet God face to face: the third, the time just before he pronounces his sentence upon me.”

When archbishop Theophilus of holy memory was dying, he said: “Abba Arsenius, you are a man blessed of God, because you have always kept this moment before your eyes.”

There was a story that once when some brothers were eating together at a love-feast, one of the brothers at the table laughed. When Abba John saw it, he wept, and said: “What do you think that brother has in his heart, that he laughed, when he ought rather to weep because he is eating up charity?”

Abba Jacob said: “Like a lantern lighting a dark little room, the fear of God comes into a man’s heart and lightens it, and teaches him all goodness and the commandments of God.”

Some of the fathers asked Abba Macarius of Egypt: “Why is your body dry, whether you eat or fast?” And the old man said to them: “A wooden poker in a man’s hand which turns over and over the brushwood on the fire, is itself being slowly burnt away. So if a man cleanses his mind in the fear of God, the fear of God also consumes his bones.”

Once some old men of Mount Nitria sent to Scete, to ask Abba Macarius the Great to come to them. They sent a message that if he would not come to them, the whole crowd of them would go to him, since they wanted to see him before he passed on to the Lord. When Macarius came to Nitria, the whole congregation assembled in his presence. The elders asked him to speak a word to the brothers. But he shed tears and said: “Let us pray and weep, my brothers, before we go hence to the place where our tears consume our bodies.” And they all wept, and fell on their faces, saying: “Father, pray for us.”

In Egypt once Abba Poemen passed by and saw a woman sitting on a grave and weeping bitterly. And he said: “If all the delights of this world should come, they would not bring her soul out of sorrow. Even so the monk should ever be sorrowful within his heart.”

Another time, he went with Abba Anub to the country of Diolcos. Coming among the tombs they saw a woman striking herself much and weeping bitterly. They stopped and went to her. And when they walked a little further, they met a man and Abba Poemen asked him: “What is the matter with the woman yonder, that she weeps so bitterly?” He said: “Her husband is dead, and her son, and her brother.” And Abba Poemen said to Abba Anub: “I tell you that unless a man mortifies all his self-will and possesses this grief, he cannot be a monk. The whole life and mind of that woman is wrapt up in grief.”

Abba Poemen said also: “Grief is twofold: it works good, and it keeps out evil.”

A brother asked him: “What shall I do?” And he said: “When Abraham entered the land of promise, he built for himself a grave, and bought the land as a burying-place for his posterity.” And the brother said to him: “What burying-place is meant?” And the old man said: “A place of weeping and sorrowing.”

Athanasius of holy memory asked Abba Pambo to come down from the desert to Alexandria. When he arrived, he saw a woman that was an actress, and wept. And the bystanders asked him why he wept. And he said: “Two things grieved me. The first was her damnation: the second, that I take less trouble about pleasing God than she takes about pleasing the dregs of mankind.”

Abba Silvanus was sitting one day among the brethren, and was seized into a rapture of mind, and fell upon his face. And after a while he rose up and lamented. And the brothers asked him: “What is the matter, Father?” But he was silent and wept. When they pressed him for an answer, he said to them: “I was taken before the judgement seat, and I saw many of our cloth going down to torment, and many of the world going into the kingdom.” And the old man grieved and would not thereafter leave his cell: and if he was forced to go out, he covered his face with his shawl and said: “Why should I have to see the light of this world, wherein nothing is profitable?”

Syncletice of holy memory said: “Men endure sore travail and conflict when they are first converted to the Lord, but later they have joy unspeakable. They are like men trying to light a fire, the smoke gets into their eyes, their eyes begin to drop tears—but they succeed in what they want. It is written: ‘Our God is a consuming fire’¹: and so we must kindle the fire of God with tears and trouble.”

Said Abba Hyperichius: “The wakeful monk toils night and day to pray continually: but if he pierces his heart, and lets tears drop, that calls God down from heaven to have mercy.”

The brothers went to Abba Felix, who had with him, some men of the world, and asked him to give them a word. But the old man said nothing. When they went on asking, he said to them: “Do you want to hear a word?” They replied: “Yes, Father.” So the old man said: “I have no word for you now. When an elder is asked to speak, and the brothers do what he tells them, God gives the elder something to say. But now there are brothers who ask for a word, but do not obey the word they hear: and then God takes away his grace from the elder, and he has nothing to say: for he who gives it is not there.” When the brothers heard this, they sighed, and said: “Pray for us, Father.”

It was said of Abba Hor and Abba Theodore, that they were once putting a goatskin over a cell: and then they said to each other: “If God visits us now, what shall we do?” And sadly they left the place in a hurry and went away to their own cells.

An old man told this story. A brother wanted to become a monk, and his mother forbade him. But he did not rest from his purpose, and said: “I want my soul to be saved.” She opposed him for a long time. But when she found that she could not stop him, she at last let him go. He went away and became a monk but spent his life carelessly.

It happened that his mother died: and a short time after he fell sick of a grievous illness. And in an ecstasy of mind, he found himself taken before the judgement seat, and there he found his mother among the people being judged. When she saw him she was aghast, and said: “How is this, my son? Are you condemned like me to this place? What about the words you used to say: ‘I want my soul to be saved’?”

He was confused at her words and made stupid by his sorrow, and stood without being able to say a word to her in reply. But after this vision, he was recovered by God’s mercy from his dangerous illness and restored to health. He meditated on God’s purpose in visiting him. He retired into himself, cut himself off from all company, considered his own salvation, and lamented his earlier neglect in penitence. His purpose was so fixed that many people asked him to spare himself a little, for he might hurt himself by these immoderate lamentations. But he would not be consoled and said: “If I was ashamed by my mother’s taunts, what sort of shame shall I have when Christ and his holy angels look upon me in the day of judgement to condemn me?”

An old man said: “If the souls of men could die of fear at the coming of God after the resurrection, all the world would perish of terror. What shall it be to see the heavens opened, and God revealed in wrath and fury, and the innumerable companies of angels, gazing upon the whole human race gathered together? Therefore we ought to live our lives as men who must render an account of each action to God.”

A brother asked an old man: “Why is my heart hard, and I do not fear God?” The old man said to him: “I think that if a man has reproach in his heart, he will possess fear.” The brother said to him: “What is reproach?” The old man said: “To reprove your soul in all things, saying to it—‘Remember that you have to meet God.’ Say also to your soul, ‘What do I want with man?’ I think that if anyone abides in these, the fear

An old man saw a man laughing, and said to him: “We have to render an account of our whole life before heaven and earth—and you laugh?”

An old man said: “As the shadow goes everywhere with the body, so we ought to carry penitence and lamentation with us wherever we go.”

A brother asked an old man: “Abba, speak to me a word.” The old man said to him: “When God struck Egypt, there was not a house that did not mourn.”

A brother asked another old man: “What must I do?” The old man said to him: “We ought ever to lament.”

Once one of the elders died, and after several hours recovered consciousness. We asked him: “What did you see there, Abba?” And he told us with sorrow: “I heard there a voice of sadness saying over and over again, ‘Woe is me, woe is me.’ That is what we should ever be saying.”

A brother asked an old man: “I hear the old men weeping, and my soul longs for tears: but they do not come, and my soul is troubled.” And the elder said: “The children of Israel entered the promised land after forty years in the wilderness. Tears are like the promised land. If you have reached them already you will no longer be afraid of the conflict. For thus God wills that the soul be afflicted, that it may ever long to enter that country.”

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