“It is shameful for the gnostic to be involved in a lawsuit, whether as plaintiff or defendant: if as plaintiff, [it is shameful] because he will not have endured patiently; if as defendant, because he will have acted unjustly.”
—Evagrius Ponticus
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When those who have acquired moral stability and contemplative knowledge employ these for the sake of human glory, merely conveying an outward impression of the virtues, and uttering words of wisdom and knowledge without performing the corresponding actions; and when in addition they display to others their vanity because of this supposed virtue and knowledge, then they are rightly handed over to commensurate hardships, in order to learn through suffering that humility which was unknown to them before because of their empty conceit.
—St Maximos the Confessor -
This exceedingly simple outer life reflected a far more severe inner life. It was well known that Kyrillos slept little. But just how little is for the most part unknown. Each day he would awake at three in the morning for psalmody and Liturgy that would finish some five hours later. The entire day, until late, would be spent in meetings and visits, only to be interrupted by “his work” of Vespers at six in the evening. Most nights he would retire to his patriarchal cell just before midnight. This would allow for three to four hours of sleep at most. Yet even this is called into question. An examination of his letters (unpublished and thus unknown until now) reveals that if a time of writing as specific, then it was consistently between the hours of one to two in the morning. Even the few hours of sleep, it appears, would be regularly sacrificed.
A Silent Patriarch: Kyrillos VI (1902 -1971), Life and Legacy
Fr. Daniel Fanous -
As tribulation then came of rest, so also after tribulation, rest must be expected. For neither is it always winter, nor always summer; neither are there always waves, nor always a calm; neither always night, nor always day. Thus tribulation is not perpetual, but there will be also repose; only in our tribulation, let us give thanks to God always.
—St. John Chrysostom
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Be severe in your judgment concerning your proportions, and let no occasion make you enlarge far beyond your ordinary. For a man is surprised by parts; and while he thinks one glass more will not make him drunk, that one glass hath disabled him from well discerning his present condition and neighbour danger.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, On Christian Sobriety -Rules for obtaining temperance., The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying
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