He was full of wisdom, advanced in age; and we know that silence is the trait of the wise. After three years had passed, through which he persisted in asking God to help him that he may be saved, he heard a voice saying to him, “Flee, keep silence, and be still.”37 And these three words are suitable, as an approach, for all. For when you are surrounded by troubles, when you feel unsure toward something, when you need to take a critical decision, or when you are approaching a new stage [in your life], do this: “Flee, keep silence, and be still.”
Abba Arsenius The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons
book by Bishop Macarius
Category: KNOWLEDGE
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If you would wish to know the sure signs, which will secure you the real model, it is not hard to take a sketch from life. If you see a man so standing between death and life, as to select from each helps for the contemplative course, never letting death’s stupor paralyze his zeal to keep all the commandments, nor yet placing both feet in the world of the living, since he has weaned himself from secular ambitions—a man who remains more insensate than the dead themselves to everything that is found on examination to be living for the flesh, but instinct with life and energy and strength in the achievements of virtue, which are the sure marks of the spiritual life-then look to that man for the rule of your life; let him be the leading light of your course of devotion, as the constellations that never set are to the pilot; imitate his youth and his gray hairs: or, rather, imitate the old man and the stripling who are joined in him; for even now in his declining years, time has not blunted the keen activity of his soul, nor was his youth active in the sphere of youth’s well-known employments; in both seasons of life he has shown a wonderful combination of opposites, or rather an exchange of the peculiar qualities of each; for in age he shows, in the direction of the good, a young man’s energy, while, in the hours of youth, in the direction of evil, his passions were powerless.
If you wish to know what were the passions of that glorious youth of his, you will have for your imitation the intensity and glow of his godlike love of wisdom, which grew with him from his childhood, and has continued with him into his old age. But if you cannot gaze upon him, as the weak-sighted cannot gaze upon the sun, at all events watch that band of holy men who are ranged beneath him, and who by the illumination of their lives are a model for this age. God has placed them as a beacon for us who live around; many among them have been young men there in their prime, and have grown gray in the unbroken practice of continence and temperance; they were old in reasonableness before their time, and in character outstripped their years.
—Saint Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity
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Our first intuitions are the true ones. What I thought of so many things in my first youth seems to me increasingly right, and after so many detours and distractions, I now come back to it, aggrieved that I could have erected my existence on the ruin of those revelations.
—Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born
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The Scripture explained this matter in a verse which was repeated twice, within close proximity in the same Book, and this is: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”, A person may cling to this way which appears right, yet in it—and in his clinging [to it] — there is utmost harm to him. And perhaps this way which appears right to him is of the deception of the demons. On this point specifically, Abba Isaac and St. Evagrius have copious explanations, in that the one who clings to his thought, who directs himself according to his own will, may persuade himself that this thought is from God and that the Spirit is the One who inspired this thought in him!
11. How dangerous is the state of those who say that they receive their knowledge from God directly, and that they are discipled unto Christ directly. And therefore they refuse to be discipled unto people. At the same time, they cannot be sure whether the thought, which came to them, is from God or not! What is marvelous is that those who say such words are neither prophets nor one of the twelve. Nor can they say as Paul the Apostle said,
“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you.”
17. There are perhaps many sources of the thought which you think is from God. It may be your own thought or your own inclination. It may be a thought settled in your subconscious from things you previously read and heard. And it may be a deception of the devil. You need to tarry and deliberate, to read the Scriptures, and to ask and seek guidance.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Come, Follow Me
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You mustn’t wage your Christian struggle with sermons and arguments, but with true secret love. When we argue, others react. When we love people, they are moved and we win them over. When we love, we think that we offer something to others, but in reality we are the first to benefit.
— St Porphyrios
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God waits for the right moment to come and illumine your intellect. What you’ve been craving for one, two, three, five, twenty, or fifty years, you’ll be given in a moment.
—Elder Aimilianos Simonopetritis -
He talks about healing a wound, and does not stop irritating it. He complains of sickness, and does not stop eating what is harmful. He prays against it, and immediately goes and does it. And when he has done it, he is angry with himself; and the wretched man is not ashamed of his own words. “I am doing wrong,” he cries, and eagerly continues to do so. His mouth prays against his passion, and his body struggles for it. He philosophizes about death, but he behaves as if he were immortal. He groans over the separation of soul and body, but drowses along as if he were eternal. He talks of temperance and self-control, but he lives for gluttony. He reads about the judgment and begins to smile. He reads about vainglory, and is vainglorious while actually reading. He repeats what he has learned about vigil, and drops asleep on the spot. He praises prayer, but runs from it as from the plague. He blesses obedience, but he is the first to disobey. He praises detachment, but he is not ashamed to be spiteful and to fight for a rag. When angered he gets bitter, and he is angered again at his bitterness; and he does not feel that after one defeat he is suffering another. Having overeaten he repents, and a little later again gives way to it. He blesses silence, and praises it with a spate of words. He teaches meekness, and during the actual teaching frequently gets angry. Having woken from passion he sighs, and shaking his head, he again yields to passion. He condemns laughter, and lectures on mourning with a smile on his face. Before others he blames himself for being vainglorious, and in blaming himself is only angling for glory for himself. He looks people in the face with passion, and talks about chastity. While frequenting the world, he praises the solitary life, without realizing that he shames himself. He extols almsgivers, and reviles beggars. All the time he is his own accuser, and he does not want to come to his senses—I will not say cannot.
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
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“He alone knows himself in the best way possible who thinks of himself as being nothing.”
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… the same saint may say one thing about a certain matter today, and another tomorrow; and yet there is no contradiction, provided the hearer has knowledge and experience of the matter under discussion. Again, one saint may say one thing and another something different about the same passage of the Holy Scriptures, since divine grace often gives varying interpretations suited to the particular person or moment in question. The only thing required is that everything said or done should be said or done in accordance with God’s intention, and that it should be attested by the words of Scripture. For should anyone preach anything contrary to God’s intention or contrary to the nature of things, then even if he is an angel St. Paul’s words, ‘Let him be accursed’ (Gal. 1:8), will apply to him.
—St. Peter of Damaskos (The Philokalia Vol. 3; Faber and Faber pg. 207)
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There was this that set him above many [others]: if he were asked about a phrase in Scripture or some spiritual matter, he did not answer immediately, but would say he did not know the answer. And if he were pressed further, he would not give an answer.
—Abba Pambo
Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
SO GOOD QUOTES 