Isaac of Stella, Sermons

Coming to Wisdom — abstinent, humble, poor — the prince of this world found nothing of his own in Him, and could seize nothing that was not his own. Having hurled all the darts of his cunning, he departed from Him for a time, that is, until the hour of the passion, where the lion attacks the Lamb; but cruelty is conquered by meekness. Virtue is tempted by savagery, as here wisdom by cunning. But He conquers the lion by the virtue of patience who conquered the dragon by the circumspection of foresight. For patience is the greatest virtue of all: in it is the possession of souls, even when the loss of bodies is suffered at the hands of persecutors; in it, the Truth testifies, the good ground bears all its fruit. Of it the Apostle says: You have need of patience, that, doing the will of God, you may receive the promise (Heb. 10:36). It is that which, as blessed James says, has a perfect work. It is divided, then, in two ways, that is, into temperance and fortitude; and the mind which it possesses, in prosperity and in adversity, it makes sober and strong, both against the alluring itchings of the flesh and the welling springs of inward vices, and against the outward luxuries and savageries of the world. May He deign to grant us this, that we may suffer with Him, for Him who in it suffered for us, Christ Jesus, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

SERMON XXXI. ON THE SAME FEAST, II.

Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1). This Lent, most beloved, of our Lord and Saviour — prophesied by the forty-day fasts of Moses and Elijah, or even by the wandering of the fathers for as many years in the desert — must in no way be believed empty and barren of mystery and of some saving sacrament. But, brethren, it is difficult, and exceeds the understanding of our littleness, to distinguish by so many degrees the progress of a reasonable abstinence, and to assign to one ascending out of Egypt to the land of promise, that is out of this world to the Father, so many mansions of the virtues in the desert of his own spirit — a desert once, while this climber was inhabiting the flesh — by which he may be withdrawn from the flesh, that he may draw near to God, as it is written: He has disposed ascents in his heart, in the valley of tears, in the place which he has set (Ps. 83:6–7). Yet in the number forty, since the four is multiplied tenfold, or the ten fourfold, it is intimated to us, in a manner, out of those [numbers]: that so long as we are here in time, and are weighed down in a body which is corrupted and weighs down the soul, [and] are pilgrims away from the table and the delightful refreshment of the Lord, we should chastise our bodies and subject them to the servitude of the law of God; and that we should in no way lose by negligence the times of respite granted for amendment, nor abuse them in pride; but that we should spend the time, and exercise the body in the observance and obedience of the commandments of God, meditating in heart upon His law day and night. But where [the law] itself is set against our concupiscences, let us agree with it while we are still in the way, lest after

the way it deliver us, as rebels, to the Judge, and the Judge to the torturer (Matt. 5). Let us therefore torment our own selves, most beloved, in the law, lest we be tormented by the law. Let us abstain from those things which are set against the law, and let us fast, lest we feel the law an adversary, above all when it shall judge, the law which we now set ourselves against while it counsels. For this is the fast which the Lord has chosen: to abstain from every evil, not only outwardly from the deed, but inwardly from the perverse will. Outwardly indeed another is harmed, inwardly oneself. For there is no one who does not harm himself before another. Through another's tunic you pierce your own body. Cupidity the mother harms you more than her daughter born of her, rapine or theft, harms another; envy brings you more of evil than your disparagement takes away of good from him whom out of envy you detract. For a perfect fast, and such as God has chosen, is not for a man to afflict his own soul for a day, and to wring his head about like a hoop, and greedily to demand back from all his debtors, and to fast unto quarrel and contention; but to abstain from every evil, and to press on in every good; not to do to another the evil which he would not have done to himself, and to do that good which he desires for himself — as it were, to multiply the ten of the law fourfold by the Gospel, and the four of the Gospel tenfold by the law. For in the law the perfection of the Gospel once lay hidden, as now the imperfection of the law lies open in the Gospel. But the law enjoins a fast of the deed, the Gospel a fast of the evil will; it punishes the taste. Hence our Preacher in the Gospel: You have heard, He says, that it was said to them of old: You shall not kill. But I say to you, not to be angry — and the rest after this manner (Matt. 5). There follows: And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights. For He was not fasting openly and in the light and eating secretly in the dark; but such as He was in the open, such in the hidden; such in the face, such in the heart. There follows:

Afterwards He was hungry. As much as He willed, God fasted; and when He willed, the man hungered: and then the tempter came to Him. Why not before? Because he did not dare, or it was not fitting. Cunningly he feared the strong; opportunely he fell upon the weak. For every human temptation has a threefold origin; sometimes wholly within, and out of what is ours; sometimes wholly within, and out of what is another's; but sometimes within and without, and out of what is ours and what is another's. For not every temptation is from the devil, nor is it by his suggestion alone that sin is committed. We are tempted also, drawn off and enticed by our own concupiscences, with the devil persuading nothing, or perhaps not even knowing. Now concupiscence is twofold; the one, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit; the other, by which the spirit lusts against God. And both of these are evil. Besides, there is also a concupiscence by which the spirit lusts against the flesh, that it may rein it in from vices and subject it to reason; and another, which lusts towards God, that it may lay hold of Him and enjoy Him. For hence it is written: My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord (Ps. 83). And both of these are good. The concupiscence, therefore, which is evil sometimes without the devil

arises; but once it has arisen he gladly gives it help, that it may grow. But every good [concupiscence] is both prevented by the grace of God unto its rising, and helped unto its progress, and consummated unto its perfection. Wherefore the concupiscence which is good, even if it can be carried on wholly within, cannot be wholly out of what is ours. The temptation, therefore, which is wholly within and out of what is ours arises either out of the necessity of the animal body, or out of the infirmity of an itching corruption, or out of the recurrence of a depraved habit, or out of the insolence bred of grace and virtue. When, therefore, the crafty tempter and malignant lier-in-wait at any time detects by any sign the tinder of a spark, with the greatest haste and the utmost diligence he drives together straw from every side, such as he finds apt for concupiscence, so that, if he prevails, he may strike a flame out of the spark, and burn down the house of our breast, from what is ours and what is his, as it is written: They have burned Thy sanctuary with fire upon the earth (Ps. 73). But the Lord Jesus, confirmed in God against sin from the womb, as it is written: In Thee I was confirmed from the womb (Ps. 70) — yet in flesh still animal, as man before sin; but weak, as the son of man, on account of the father's sin — was capable, when He willed and as much as He willed, only of that passion which comes down from the necessity or the infirmity of the animal body. For since there are three states of human mutability, before sin, near sin, after sin, of each one the true teacher and physician willed to exhibit something in Himself: that what we were, what we are, the teacher might warn us of; what we shall be, the physician might exhibit.

And so, as animal, out of the first He could desire food and drink; as weak, out of the second, undergo sadness, weariness, fear and death; as confirmed, out of the third, admit no titillation even in thought out of what is His own, nor evil suggestion out of another's. Whence the whole of that temptation on the pinnacle and on the mountain was outward, and out of another's; the first seems to have something of what is His own, where like a serpent he lay in wait for the heel. Nevertheless, since that suggestion, as it did not create the natural and therefore blameless hunger, so neither increased [it] nor was in any way able to move it, the whole of that diabolical temptation, as blessed Gregory says, was outside; yet a human one within went before it. When therefore, after the long and astonishing fasts, he caught the hunger by some outward sign, long kept in suspense and astonished, having at last gained his opportunity, the tempter presumed to approach Him. See therefore, most beloved, how worth our while it is to be sober, and watchful, as the blessed prince of the apostles admonishes (1 Pet. 5), against our adversary the devil, who goes about with such diligence, who scrutinizes with such vigilance our whole manner of life, the measure of our living, our necessities, the infirmities of our bodies and of our characters, the sudden and various falls of events, and the very complexions of our nature: [to see] whether anywhere he will be able to find from us an entrance against us, and matter and occasion of tempting. Wherefore are we the less solicitous

brethren, to seek occasions of salvation towards one another, so that where we shall have seen it more needful, we should the more come to one another's aid, and bear one another's brotherly burdens? For admonishing this, the blessed Apostle says: Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). And elsewhere: Supporting, he says, one another in charity (Eph. 4:2). This assuredly is the law of Christ: What I discern in my brother to be incorrigible, whether out of necessity or out of infirmity of body or of character, why do I not bear it patiently, console it gladly, as it is written: Their children shall be carried upon the shoulders, and upon the knees they shall be consoled? (Isa. 66:12) Or is it because I lack that [charity] which suffers all things, which is patient, that it may carry; kind, that it may love? This indeed is the law of Christ, Who truly bore our weaknesses by His passion, and carried our sorrows by His compassion, loving those He carried, carrying those He loved. But he who attacks his brother in his necessity, who lies in ambush for his infirmity of whatever kind, beyond doubt subjects himself to the law of the devil, and fulfils it. Let us therefore be compassionate towards one another, and lovers of brotherhood, bearers of infirmities, assailants of vices — most of all we, the few, who for the discipline of a harder purpose have escaped into this hidden solitude, this island set apart from the common world. For every discipline which more sincerely follows after the charity of God, and for His sake the charity of neighbour, by whatever observances or habit it lives, is the more accepted by God. For charity herself is that for whose sake all things ought to be done or not done, changed or not changed. For she is both the beginning, the wherefore, and the end towards which it is fitting that all things be directed. For nothing is done blameably which is truly done for her and according to her. Which may He Himself deign to grant us, without Whom we cannot please, and without her we altogether cannot: Who lives and reigns, God, through immortal ages. Amen.

SERMON XXXII. ON THE SAME FEAST, III.

Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, etc. (Matt. 4:1). While we were in the flesh, brethren, where no one can please God, we savoured the things that were of the flesh, and took delight in carnal things, speaking of and handling carnal things: and so we dwelt wholly — that is, in thought, in delight, in speech and in act — in the flesh, with the spirit and the rational mind deserted. But when, led on by the guidance of a stronger spirit, we pierced into our inward parts and entered into our very spirit, once neglected and deserted by God, by the angels, by our very selves, restraining ourselves and proclaiming a fast to the concupiscences and carnal desires, at once we roused the ill will of the evil that dwells in us, that is, in our flesh. For you know with the Apostle that in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwells no good (Rom. 7:18). We have stirred up Leviathan against ourselves, from whom we, new hermits, have suffered ambushes; hoping to be solitaries, and secure in our quiet, we have given offence to the crafty tempter and malignant lier-in-wait (Job 3). Hence we have been compelled to call often to mind that saying of the Wise Man:

Son, coming to the service of God, stand in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation (Ecclus. 2:1). And the tempter came and said to Him: Command that these stones become bread. What fault would there be either in making bread from a stone or in a hungry man eating? But it is dangerous to believe an enemy, even when he says true things, or urges useful ones; for he puts forward true things in order to bring in false ones; he counsels what is advantageous in order to draw one on to what is harmful; he puts on the dress of a counsellor so as to creep in more secretly; he transforms himself into an angel of light so as to deceive more easily. Besides, spiritual men, who have gone out from the kindred of flesh and blood, forgetting their people and the house of the flesh, and have entered the solitude of the spirit, by no means give way at once to every necessity of flesh and blood: for such it is too little to cut away all superfluity unless they also circumcise necessity. And what they dare not deny outright to the animal and infirm body, they nonetheless grant at last, late and sparingly, not without pride and grumbling. Whoever refreshes himself as soon as he is hungry does not know at all what fasting is; its virtue and merit begin only with hunger. For not eating is not fasting: just as eating after one is full is superfluous, so before hunger it is idle, but with hunger it is lawful; after hunger it is strenuous, and the more strenuous the longer it lasts. And likewise with this as regards sleep and the other necessities of the animal and infirm body: against which a certain spiritual man, a hermit in the cities, poor upon a royal throne, cries to the Lord. From my necessities, he says, deliver me (Ps. 24:17).

There is also another, holier and higher fast, which those who have entered the solitude of their own spirit must not only observe cautiously and diligently, but prolong through forty unbroken days and nights, that is, the whole time of this life, in prosperity as in adversity, in office as in subjection, in contemplation as in action: that is, to abstain from every consolation and delight of this unclean world, in which are curiosity and pleasure and the pride of life; but within, where the evil spirit cannot see, let them be refreshed with spiritual meditation, lest, fasting altogether, they faint, and with the delight which is in God alone, and with the pleasure of good work done for His sake. For it is impossible, at least in this shadow of death or image of life — before one comes to that life utterly dark and covered with the gloom of death, where there is no order, but everlasting horror dwells — that the soul should be cherished by no consolation and held by no delight, even though the soul by no means holds it. For as all bodies are borne by their own weights, so spirits are placed by their own delights. For in the body of the whole creation of God, where individual things are like the members of a certain body, the rational spirit alone, as the eye of the whole body, can perceive the light of the Creator and share in it with delight, and enjoy it; and in His light can judge of all the members, as dim, and in comparison with it, dark. For as the light of the sensible world is fire, and the light of the body

the human eye, so of the greatest, most beautiful and well-ordered body of the universe the rational spirit, as we have said, is the bright part, namely the eye. Yet just as the eye, though created as an instrument fit for seeing, a lesser lamp, as it were in the image and likeness of the greater, that is, of the light of the world, is by no means able to see through itself as from itself, unless it is first reached and flooded by that whose image it bears: so neither would the rational spirit, the greatest created light, have seen at all beyond the other members of its body, had it not been made in the image of its higher and uncreated and supreme light. But neither of itself nor through itself is it able to see what it wishes, except when its superior, whose image it bears and in whose light it can see light, is present to it, and so far as that superior illumines it. In Thy light, he says, we shall see light (Ps. 35:10).

So, while the other members of the universe share in the Creator according to the capacity of their differing nature, without some share in whom they could not be at all (some only as to being and form, some as to some kind of life, some as to sense, some as to imagination), the rational spirit alone, by a prerogative of nature chosen above all, can share in Him through reason and affection, unto knowledge of Him and delight in Him; and it was created by Him to enjoy Him through these two, alone capable of the divinity that can be received, and that by its natural bounty can be communicated, given and enjoyed. For the supreme light, ever shining and therefore illuminating as far as lies in it, at length, when it willed, created in its own image something that could be illuminated by it, namely the rational spirit alone, whose sole business ought to be that for which it is known to have been created; its wish, that which is known to be God's purpose for it; its only pasture, its only refreshment, delight in Him and in all things from Him. But from every delight of the flesh, and curiosity of the senses, and the ambition of the world, one must always abstain for His sake: these are the heads of the dragon broken by the Lord Jesus in this desert, given as food to those who will not fast with Christ, namely to the black peoples, who like the Ethiopian cannot change their skin. Thou, he says, hast broken the heads of the dragon, Thou hast given him as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians (Ps. 73:14). Moreover, just as God made two great lights for this world, that is, for the great living creature, and the two orbs of the eyes for the lesser world, that is, for the small living creature: so indeed He paired the eye of the greatest body, the universe, establishing the angel and the human mind, of one nature indeed, but of a different condition and lot. For no hunger for a foreign delight ever touched those who are always shining in the splendour of truth and glad in the sweetness of delight; no tempter approached them: there the hundred and ninety-nine sheep feed in their wilderness and lie down among ever-green grasses, in fat pastures on the mountains of Israel, and there is none to make them afraid.

But we wretched ones, wanderers and fugitives, who have gone astray like that sheep which was lost, which the good shepherd came to seek and, having found it, laid on His sacred shoulders, to carry it back to the flock of the angels, so that as there is one shepherd there may be one fold: we fail within, through our own weakness, into an evil hunger, and are invited from without, by another's suggestion, to a worse refreshment. Forgetting to eat our own bread, we hunger for another's.

So when he who always envies, who always lies in wait, sees us slothful and lukewarm, he approaches, as if gathering a sign of inward failing, and shows us where to be refreshed. What he could by no means put into us, he hastens to cherish and increase once it is inborn; he who dares not come near the strong, the constant, the fervent, but watches from afar, approaches the slothful man who is at leisure within for idle tales, that is, for thoughts that are without understanding, from such as these the Holy Spirit withdraws, and the evil one approaches; he does not rush in, he does not break in, but lightly, and as if modestly so as not to frighten, he approaches in the guise of a counsellor. So he says: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. Not that the Son of God was such, but because that hunger of His could figure such men. O malice worthy to be stoned! you who urge the Son of God to be refreshed with a stone. Men, though they are evil, know how to give good gifts to their children; and would the heavenly Father give a stone to His Son when He asks for bread? or a scorpion when He asks for a fish, or a serpent instead of an egg? The spirit grown sluggish in desire and meditation of heavenly things he invites, as from the bread of angels to a cold, dry and hard stone, that is, to love of and delight in earthly things, so that, if it has lost that consolation, it may be received by this one and deceived by the devil, it having been shown to have failed first in itself. For, as we said above, the soul cannot subsist at all without any consolation. And consolation is its refreshment and bread. But if it comes from the world and the flesh, it is surely from a stone. To this, then, the tempter invites the mind which he sees languishing from the delight of God. Hence in the order of the vices avarice follows sloth, because this world flatters one falling from heaven. The truly spiritual mind of blessed David, detesting its consolation, says: From the world and from all things that are in the world, that is, the concupiscence of the flesh and of the eyes and the ambition of the world, my soul refused to be comforted. What then? Can you exist without the consolation of delight? By no means. But I remembered God and was delighted: and because idleness is the enemy of the soul, I was exercised in meditating on Him, and my spirit fainted, not from Him into the world or into myself, but from myself and the whole world into Him alone (Ps. 76:3–4). So indeed my Lord Jesus too in the desert, neither idle nor intent on vain things, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night, met every temptation from the Holy Scriptures. For though that evil one is called the thousand-crafted on account of the countless kinds of temptation he puts forth, yet I say with confidence that every contrivance of his can easily and fittingly be shut out from Holy Scripture. For far be it that malice should conquer wisdom,