Endurance and the Demons of Acedia and Vainglory

Desiring, we encounter bodies. Whom we must not obey; but rather do the opposite.

Do not give yourself to the thought of anger, fighting in your mind against the one who caused grief; nor again imagine more pleasure for the thought of fornication; for the one darkens the soul, while the other calls the soul toward the burning of passion; both make your mind dirty. And imagining images even at the time of prayer and not offering a pure prayer to God, you immediately fall to the demon of acedia, who most especially leaps upon such states and tears the soul like a prey, like a dog.

It is the nature of thumos to fight with demons and to contend for any pleasure. Therefore the angels, suggesting to us spiritual pleasure and the blessedness from it, urge us to turn our thumos against the demons; but those others, dragging us toward worldly desires, force thumos to fight against humans contrary to nature, so that the mind, being darkened and falling away from knowledge, becomes a traitor to the virtues.

Take care of yourself lest you provoke any of the brothers to flee in anger, and you may not escape in your life the demon of sorrow, which always becomes a stumbling block to you at the time of prayer.

Gifts extinguish grudges; and let Jacob persuade you, who with gifts approached Esau, who had come out to meet him with four hundred. But we, being poor, let us satisfy the need at the table.

When we fall to the demon of acedia, then dividing the soul with tears, let us make the one part entreating and the other part being entreated, sowing good hopes for ourselves and chanting the holy David: Why are you so sorrowful, my soul, and why do you disquiet me? Hope in God, for I shall still praise him; the salvation of my face and my God.

It is not necessary during the time of trials to leave the cell, fashioning seemingly reasonable pretexts, but to remain within.

To stand firm, to endure, and to receive bravely all things that come, but to exclude entirely the demon of acedia, which being the heaviest above all, most especially makes the soul well-tested. For fleeing such struggles and being surrounded unskillfully teaches the mind to be cowardly and a deserter.

And our holy and most practical teacher said: Thus the monk must always prepare himself as if he were to die tomorrow, and again to use the body as if he were to live in it for many years. For the former, he says, cuts off the thoughts of acedia and prepares the monk more urgently; the latter preserves the body safe and always maintains its temperance equally.

It is difficult to escape the thought of vainglory; for what you do toward its destruction, this becomes for you a beginning of another vainglory. And not against every right thought of ours do the demons oppose, but these evils also occur according to the ways we have been qualified.

I recognized the demon of vainglory to be pursued by almost all among the demons, and shamelessly standing over the falls of those pursuing virtue, displaying to the monk a greatness of virtues. He who has touched knowledge and reaps the pleasure from it will no longer be persuaded by the demon of vainglory, even when bringing to him all the pleasures of the world; for what could he promise greater than spiritual contemplation? Insofar as we are without taste of knowledge, we eagerly work out the practical life, showing our purpose to God that we do all things for the sake of his knowledge.

Remember your former life and the ancient failings, and how, being passionate, by Christ's mercy you crossed over to dispassion, and how again you came out of the world which humbled you many times and often. And consider this for me too: who is the one guarding you in the desert, and who is the one driving away the demons gnashing their teeth against you? For such thoughts indeed produce humility, but they do not admit the demon of pride.