The Deception of Demons and the Vulnerability of the Soul

While praying, one must separate oneself from all things that affect the mind. And just as desires, if they are directed toward bodies and their thoughts, act in such a way, so too they act toward the incorporeal and their logoi; for will the mind be impressed differently when seeing a mind, and differently when seeing its logos? From this we know how spiritual knowledge separates the mind from the noetic things that impress it, and presents it to God as unimpressionable, because the thought of God is not in those things that impress; for God is not a body, but rather is in those who do not impress.

Again, regarding the contemplations of those who do not impress the mind, the former signify the essence of the incorporeal, and the latter their logoi; And just as it does not happen regarding bodies, so it does not happen regarding the incorporeal; for among bodies, some affect the mind and some do not; but here, neither kind of thought affects the mind.

Chapter 44. When the demon of gluttony, having struggled much and often, is unable to corrupt the established self-control, he then plunges the mind into a superficial desire for asceticism, from which he also brings into the middle the things concerning Daniel (Dan 1:12), that meager life, and the seeds, and remembers of others who withdrew and lived thus always, or began and were compelled to become imitators of these; in order that, pursuing an immeasurable self-control, he might fail even in the proportion of the body, because of its own weakness, truly blessing the body and cursing the heart; which I believe is not proper for them to follow, nor to abstain from bread, and oil, and water. For the brothers have tested this most excellent way, and not for pleasure, and not just for a single day. For I wonder if anyone, being satisfied by bread and water, will be able to receive the crown of apatheia. But I say apatheia, not the destruction of sin in its activity—for this is called self-control—but the destruction of sin according to the intellect, those...

It is cutting off the passionate thoughts, which the holy Paul named the spiritual circumcision of the hidden Jew (Rom 2:29). If anyone is discouraged by these things, let him remember the vessel of election, the Apostle, having completed his course in hunger and thirst (2 Tim 4:7). The opponent of truth, the demon of acedia, imitates this demon, suggesting an extreme retreat to the patient one, calling him to the zeal of John the Baptist, and to the first of the recluses, Anthony, so that, not being able to bear the time and an unsocial retreat, he might flee in shame, leaving the place, and himself remaining boasting, saying, 'I was strong toward him.'

The impure thoughts enter for the increase of matter, and are assisted in many things; for they traverse great distances according to the mind, and do not decline from traveling long roads because of the great heat of passion; but those who are purified in sight are rather narrower than these, being unable to be assisted in things because of the weakness of passion, whence also they move more contrary to nature, and, according to the wise Solomon, wandering for a time outside, they gather reeds into an unlawful brick-making (Eccl 10:18), so that they might be saved like doves from the thickets, and like an eagle from the snare (Ps 124:7). For it is easy to call back an impure soul, or a purified soul that has been wounded again, to health once more, if the demon of sorrow does not forgive, but always presents to the maidens at the time of prayer the idol of sin.

The demons do not know our hearts, as some men think; for alone is the Knower of Hearts, who knows the mind of men, and having formed their hearts alone; but from the spoken word, and such movements of the body, they know many of those things moving in the heart. Which I now wished to declare clearly, but I am held back by...