On Temperance and the Passions

A desire for other places, in which the things toward necessity are easily found and a more convenient and advancing craft is attained; and he adds that it is not possible to please the Lord in such a place, for everywhere, he says, the divine is to be worshipped. He connects this with the memory of one's own people and of the former way of life; and he traces out a long duration of life, bringing the labors of the asceticism before the eyes; and all this moves the mechanism so that the monk, having abandoned the cell, flees to the stadium. By this demon, indeed, another demon does not immediately follow; rather, a certain peaceful state and unspeakable joy receives the soul after the struggle.

13 The thought of vainglory is extremely subtle and stands near those who desire to easily publish their struggles and to watch the honors from men, crying out to demons, being flattered and being treated by women and a certain crowd touching his garments; and it predicts to him priesthood as a remainder, and those seeking him stand at the doors; and unless he wishes it, he will be taken captive. And thus, having made him suspended with empty hopes, he falls away, leaving him either to be tested by the demon of pride or by the demon of sorrow, which brings contrary thoughts to him regarding those hopes; and there is also a time when he delivers the one who was a prisoner and a holy priest a moment ago to the demon of fornication.

14 The demon of pride becomes a cause of a most severe fall to the soul; for it persuades it not to confess God as a helper, but to think itself the cause of those who succeed, and to blow itself up against the brothers as if they were senseless, because they do not all know this about her. And anger and sorrow follow this, and the final evil: an ecstasy of wits and madness and seeing a multitude of demons in the air.

15 Regarding the eight thoughts: He causes the mind, wandering in error, to stand in reading and wakefulness and prayer; but he withers the inflamed desire by pain and toil and withdrawal.

A word of advice that settles a swirling passion through psalmody, patience, and mercy, and these things become effective through proper times and measures; for the immeasurable and the untimely are short-lived, and the short-lived are rather harmful and not useful.

Our soul hungers for various foods; let it be satisfied with bread and water so that it may become pleasant, and even upon that dry morsel. For a boy desires various delicacies, but famine thinks the boy's bread to be a blessing.

The lack of water contributes greatly to temperance; and let you be persuaded by those of the Israelites who, after Gideon, three hundred men, having struck down the Midianites (Judges 7:7).

Just as it is possible for life and death to happen at once to the same person, as is the case for those who are not able to resist, so it is possible for love to coexist with money in one of the weak; for love is not only contrary to money, but also to our fleeting life.

He who flees all worldly pleasures is a tower inaccessible to the demon of sorrow; for sorrow is the deprivation of pleasure, whether present or expected. But it is impossible to drive away this enemy while we have something of the earthly things; for there he sets his snare and works sorrow where he sees us most weakened.

Anger and hatred increase passion; but almsgiving and gentleness diminish what is present.

Let the sun not set in our indignation, so that the demons, standing by at night, might not despoil the soul and make it more cowardly toward the coming battle; for fearful phantoms are prone to arise from the agitation of passion; and nothing else works such cowardice in the mind as a troubled passion.

Having grasped a semblance of appearance, our passionate part of the soul is disturbed, and the demons present the withdrawal as something good to us, so that we may not free ourselves from agitation by resolving the causes of sorrow. But when the desiring part becomes heated, then they again work us to be hard and wild, calling us philanthropes, so that of bodies...