On Stability and the Order of Senses

Not an abandonment, but the substantiation of better things in the hope of endurance and the love of life. When you renounce all external matters, pay attention to the dark thoughts reproaching you for poverty, lack, insufficiency, and ignominy, bringing these to you, so that the murderers may treacherously work repentance of such bright virtue.

If, therefore, you attend to the discernment of the struggle, you will rather find that through the things by which they reproach you, the crown is being woven for you; for indeed, in renouncing, you renounce for their sake through the struggles by which you are reproached. Do not, therefore, give in to the wrestling of the inner thoughts, because the end is not praised at the beginning of renunciation, but in the perfection of endurance the beginnings are crowned; nor are the contests composed in bodily gymnastics alone, but in the wrestling of the thoughts the crown is also sought.

Chapter 12. Judge the thoughts at the tribunal of the heart, so that when the robbers are being destroyed, the chief robber may be terrified; for he who is a precise examiner of thoughts is also a true lover of the commandments. Therefore, when a hard-to-find thought comes upon your heart, then kindle more intense labors upon it; for either it will flee, not bearing the heat as an opposite, or it will remain, as being at home on the straight path.

And it happens when the demons, having suggested a seemingly good thought to the heart, and immediately transforming, pretend to oppose it, so that from the opposition you may think that they know even the impulses of your heart; and not only that, but so that, judging, they may judge your conscience, as if by the opposition the evil had been defeated by the good; and it happens again when they flatter your own craftiness to you, so that you may seem wise to yourself. When thoughts transfer you to the place which they suggested we love, then they make us repent again, so that they may make us unstable from every side, and unfruitful.

Therefore let us not fling ourselves from place to place, but rather let us bend toward stillness and labors, because from our idleness the thoughts take their power against us. But he who knows the experience of the thought in the place where he was called, let him remain in that place before God; but he who does not know still walks in struggle. Let the changing of places be toward more spiritual things, and not toward more restful things; for endurance, patience, and love give thanks in tribulations; but acedia, lightness, and self-love rejoice in rests. The unstill one is warred upon as to the soul through the senses concerned with appearances, but the lover of stillness, guarding the senses, wars against the thoughts.

Chapter 13. Therefore, by the command of the law, let your ruler gather together the order of the senses, so that you may not disturb your soul with the lashes of evils through sight and hearing; existing in two substances, guard each to distribute the order, so that the one may excel and the other not resist, and do not give the commands to the tyrant, because, once this is given to the fire, you will pay the last quadrans. When you turn the causes of the passions to counter-war, let no evil thought magnify you, lest, believing a spirit of error, you be struck out of your wits; but seek to reason about the excesses on which you labor, so that you may not be robbed of the ends of your accomplishments through the inner thoughts. Some, having been praised for accomplishments, in time grew acedic toward their labors, and the praise passed through, but the labors were loosened. Some, being hardened by the weight of good things, were thought to be great, and the conscience of the soul was wounded, and the disease of praise was enlarged, while the thoughts, leading the soul astray from the wounds, carried away the labors in the praises. Whenever the most wicked grow rich by the honors of men, then the demons, having prepared dishonors, bring them, so that, being from the honors, they may not bear the dishonors.