SO GOOD QUOTES

John Cassian, Institutes

BOOK X. OF THE SPIRIT OF ACCIDIE.

CHAPTER VII: Testimonies from the Apostle concerning the spirit of acciie.

For no one can be restless or anxious about other people’s affairs, but one who is not satisfied to apply himself to the work of his own hands

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 “And that you should not covet another man’s goods.” He is sure to look with envious eyes on another’s gifts and boons, who does not care to secure sufficient for his daily food by the dutiful and peaceful labour of his hands.

CHAPTER VIII: That he is sure to be restless who will not be content with the work of his own hands. “BECAUSE we were not restless among you.” When he wants to prove by the practice of work that he was not restless among them, he fully shows that those who will not work are always restless, owing to the fault of idleness.

CHAPTER XII: Of his saying: “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.”

With that power, I say, he declares, “If a man will not work, neither let him eat.” Not punishing them with a carnal sword, but with the power of the Holy Ghost forbidding them the goods of this life, that if by chance, thinking but little of the punishment of future death, they still should remain obstinate through love of ease, they may at last, forced by the requirements of nature and the fear of immediate death, be compelled to obey his salutary charge.

CHAPTER XIV: How manual labour prevents many faults.

The cause of all these ulcers, which spring from the root of idleness, he heals like some well-skilled physician by a single salutary charge to work; as he knows that all the other bad symptoms, which spring as it were from the same clump, will at once diappear when the cause of the chief malady has been removed.

CHAPTER XVI: How we ought to admonish those who go wrong, not out of hatred, but out of love.

For he commands them to note that man who scorns to obey his commands, and not to keep company with him; and yet he does not bid them do this from a wrong feeling of dislike, but from brotherly affection and out of consideration for their amendment. “Do not keep company,” he says, “with him that he may be ashamed;” so that, even if he is not made better by my mild charges, he may at last be brought to shame by being publicly separated from all of you, and so may some day begin to be restored to the way of salvation.

CHAPTER XVIII: That the Apostle wrought what he thought would be sufficient for him and for others who were with him.

I have showed you all things, how that so labouring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.” He left us a weighty example in his manner of life, as he testifies that he not only wrought what would supply his own bodily wants alone, but also what would be sufficient for the needs of those who were with him: those, I mean, who, being taken up with necessary duties, had no chance of procuring food for themselves with their own hands. And as he tells the Thessalonians that he had worked to give them an example that they might imitate him, so here too he implies something of the same sort when he says: “I have showed you all things, how that so labouring you ought to support the weak,” viz., whether in mind or body; i.e., that we should be diligent in supplying their needs, not from the store of our abundance, or money laid by, or from another’s generosity and substance, but rather by securing the necessary sum by our own labour and toil.

CHAPTER XXI: Different passages from the writings of Solomon against accidie.

AND Solomon, the wisest of men, clearly points to this fault of idleness in many passages, as he says: “He that followeth idleness shall be filled with poverty,” either visible or invisible, in which an idle person and one entangled with different faults is sure to be involved, and he will always be a stranger to the contemplation of God, and to spiritual riches, of which the blessed Apostle says: “For in all things ye were enriched in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge.” But concerning this poverty of the idler elsewhere he also writes thus: “Every sluggard shall be clothed in torn garments and rags.” 

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For those, who are affected by this laziness, and do not like to support themselves by the labour of their own hands, as the Apostle continually did and charged us to do, are wont to make use of certain Scripture proofs by which they try to cloak their idleness, saying that it is written, “Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which remains to life eternal;” and “My meat is to do the will of my Father.” But these proofs are (as it were) rags, from the solid piece of the gospel, which are adopted for this purpose, viz., to cover the disgrace of our idleness and shame rather than to keep us warm, and adorn us with that costly and splendid garment of virtue which that wise woman in the Proverbs, who was clothed with strength and beauty, is said to have made either for herself or for her husband; of which presently it is said: “Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she rejoices in the latter days.”