Answers to some questions proposed by the brethren

The brethren asked the once great Abba Anthony: how can a person please God? Abba answered: “Fulfilling the law and deeds of love are the most godly objects. The one who fulfills the law is the one who constantly glorifies God in pure thoughts, awakening the memory of God and the blessings that He promised us and has already given us in reality, as well as bringing to memory and the greatness of these blessings. For from this memory a constant love for God is born in a person’s soul, according to the commandment of Scripture: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength (Deut. 6:5). The Scripture also says: just as the trees desire the springs of water, so does my soul desire You, O God (Ps. 41:2). So, we must certainly commit and fulfill this law in relation to God, so that this saying of the Apostle may be justified over us: who will separate us from the love of God; Is it tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or trouble, or a sword? (Rom. 8:35).” Once again the brethren asked Saint Anthony: if someone says: “I will not accept anything from the brethren and I will not give anything to them either, for me my own is enough,” then how can we, our father, accept such thoughts? The great Abba answered them: “My children! The kind of person you are talking about is hard-hearted and has a brutal soul. For how in the present world does he want to spend his whole life without works of mercy? No! Such a person should be thought to have no benefits.” Question: How should everyone serve his brothers? The holy elder replied: “Brothers who want to serve their brothers must serve them in the same way as slaves serve their masters and as the Lord served the Apostle Peter. Although He was his Lord and Creator, he did not disdain to serve him. In this case, the Lord showed that those who refuse the service offered to them and do not allow anyone, like the Apostle Peter, to serve themselves are just as unmerciful as those who themselves are ashamed to serve their brothers; why they will not have a part with the Lord, as He told Peter (John 13:8). For the Lord Himself taught us to serve each other mutually.” Question from the brethren: what does joy mean to God and what do we need to do to achieve eternal life? Anthony said in response: “Every commandment, actually fulfilled willingly and for the glory of God, produces joy in our soul for God. Therefore, by fulfilling and putting into action the commandments of God, we must certainly rejoice and, on the contrary, if we do not fulfill them, we must grieve. We must fulfill these commandments with joy, so that God may rejoice in us. However, one must be careful not to indulge in pride while indulging in joy; but we must always place our hope in God in everything.” Once upon a time the brethren asked their spiritual father, Anthony: can we ever laugh at someone? Anthony answered this: “Our Lord condemns those who laugh when he says: you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice (John 16:20). Therefore, a faithful monk should not laugh. We must mourn those who spew blasphemy against God, breaking His holy law, and who spend their entire lives in sins. So, let us cry and mourn for these people and constantly pray to God so that they do not remain forever in sins and so that death does not befall them before repentance.” One day, some of the disciples, seeing in the deserts countless numbers of monks, adorned with all the virtues and caring with all zeal for holy and godly deeds, asked their great Abba Anthony: Our Father! How long will this fiery love and zeal for solitude, poverty, humility, mercy, abstinence and all other virtues, which countless monks now so diligently care for and try so hard, will last? To this question, with heavy sighs and a copious flow of tears, the man of God answered the following: “The time will come, O my beloved children, the time will come when the monks will leave solitude and instead begin to look for the richest cities; instead of these deserted caves and cells, they will zealously begin to erect huge buildings like royal chambers; instead of love of poverty and lack of covetousness, a desire will be born in them to accumulate as much wealth for themselves as possible; their humility will turn into arrogance of heart; a thirst for knowledge of many things will open, but this knowledge will be fruitless and will rarely be accompanied by good deeds; love will become scarce; the place of abstinence will be taken by voluptuousness and carnality. Many of them will take care of the most delicious foods, like the laity, from whom these ascetics will differ only in their robe and hood; and, although they will live among the world, they will not be ashamed to adorn themselves with the false name of monks and hermits. Moreover, they will begin to boast, saying: I am Pavlov, and I am Apollos (1 Cor. 5:4), as if the whole point of their piety lies in the importance of their predecessors - that is, they will boast in the same way about their fathers, as the Jews boast about their father Abraham. However, even among these monks, many at that time will be much better and more perfect than us. For, according to the words of the Wise One, more blessed is he who could transgress and do not transgress, and do evil and do not do it (Sir. 31:11), than he who is encouraged to do good by many good examples. Therefore, with all justice, Noah, Abraham and Lot are praised in Scripture, who constantly led an immaculate life among the most depraved people.” Once upon a time, many fathers gathered to Saint Abba Anthony in order to investigate and determine which of the virtues was the most perfect, which would deliver the monk from all the snares of the enemy. Each of them in this case said what he recognized in his own judgment as fair. Thus, some praised fasting and vigil in prayer, because these virtues give the proper direction to our thoughts, make the mind subtle and insightful, and make the path to God easier for a person. Others approved of poverty and contempt for earthly goods, for through this the mind becomes calmer, purer and freer from worldly worries, which also makes it easier for it to access God. Others wanted to exalt mercy above all virtues, because God spoke these joyful promises to merciful people: come, blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). Some tried to praise other Christian virtues more than others. Finally, Saint Abba Anthony said: “All the virtues you have counted are, without a doubt, very useful and necessary for those people who seek God and have a fiery and strong desire to get closer to Him. But we saw that many exhausted their bodies with extreme fasting, vigils, going into the desert, indulged in very many and exhausting labors, endured poverty, harbored contempt in their hearts for all worldly goods, so that they did not care about acquiring even daily food for themselves and distributed everything they had to the poor; however, after all this, these people bowed to evil and fell and, having lost all these virtues, became indecent. The reason for such a pitiful state of theirs was nothing other than the fact that they did not have the virtues of self-examination and prudence and did not use the benefits of these virtues in their exploits. For truly these virtues teach and encourage a person to walk the right path and at the same time deviate from the path of destruction. So, if we follow this royal path, then evil slanderers, on the one hand, will not be able to entice and seduce us through excessive abstinence, and on the other hand, they will not be able to seduce us to the wrong side through carelessness, laziness and relaxation. Self-examination and prudence are the eye and lamp for the soul, just as the eye is a lamp for the body. And if the eye is light, then the whole body will be light; if the eye is dark, then the whole body will be dark, as the Lord Himself said in the Gospel (Matthew 6:22–23). That is, through self-examination, a person examines and distinguishes all his desires, words and actions and avoids everything that can remove us from God. With the help of this prudent discrimination, a person reflects and completely destroys all the tricks of the enemy and clearly distinguishes good from evil. The truth of this is obvious from the Holy Scriptures. Saul, the king of Israel, since he did not have this lamp, his mind was so darkened that he did not even understand how to fulfill what God commanded him through Samuel the prophet, and that fulfilling this command would be better than making a sacrifice, and therefore he irritated God by the very thing that he thought to please Him, for which he was deprived of the kingdom (1 Sam. 13: 7-15). The Apostle calls this discernment a test (1 Cor. 11:28), and it is considered the ruler and source of our life, according to this saying of Scripture: without control, like leaves fall, but salvation is in much counsel (Proverbs 11:14). That is, Scripture calls self-examination advice and instructs us not to do anything without advice, it does not even allow us to drink spiritual wine without advice, which gladdens the heart of a person, for it says: without advice do nothing (Sir. 32:21), with advice do everything, with advice drink wine (Prov. 31:4). The same Scripture inspires us: just as a city is destroyed by walls and not fenced, into which, that is, anyone who wants can enter and plunder its treasures, so a man does what without advice (Prov. 25:28).”