Авва Евстафий

Abba Eustathius said: “Having lived in the world, I never ate food before sunset. When I sat in the shop, the book did not leave my hands: my slaves sold and received goods, and I constantly practiced reading. On Wednesdays and Fridays I gave alms to the poor. When the ringing began, I hurried to church, and no one had come there before me. When I left the church, I invited the poor people who were here to my house with me, and they shared my meal with me. When I stood in church at the all-night vigil, I never took a nap, and I recognized myself as a great ascetic. Everyone praised and revered me. My son died: the nobles of the city came to me to console me; but I could not console myself. From great sorrow I fell into illness and was close to death. After seven months, he barely recovered. I spent four more years in my house after that, struggled according to my strength and did not touch my wife: I lived with her as with a spiritual sister. Whenever I happened to see a monk from Skete, I invited him to my house to eat bread with me. I asked these monks about the miracles performed by the holy elders, and little by little the desire to become a monk came to me. I brought my wife into the nunnery, and I myself went to the Skete, to Abba John, whom I knew. He tonsured me as a monk. The blessed one had two more disciples besides me. Everyone, seeing me especially zealous for the church, paid me respect. I spent about five months in the Skete, and the prodigal demon began to bother me very much, bringing me memories not only of my wife, but also of the slaves whom I had in my house. I didn’t have a break from fighting for even an hour. I looked at the holy elder as if he were a devil, and his holy words seemed to me like arrows stinging me. When I stood in church at the vigil, I could not open my eyes from the sleep that took possession of me, so that not once, but several times I fell into despair. The demon of gluttony also fought me, to the point that I often stole the remains of bread, ate and drank secretly. What to say a lot! My thoughts disposed me to leave and flee from Skete, head east, settle in a city where no one knows me, there to indulge in fornication or get married. The elder, seeing the change in my face, admonished me daily, saying: “My son! evil thoughts attack you and confuse your soul, but you do not confess them to me.” But I answered: “Father! I have no thoughts, but I reflect on my sins and grieve over them.” Having spent fifteen months overwhelmed by such nasty and evil thoughts, one day, before the onset of Sunday, I saw in a dream that I was in Alexandria, coming to worship the holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. Here! Suddenly I was met by many Ethiopians. They grabbed me and surrounded me, splitting into two faces. They brought a black snake, tied my hands with it, and rolled another snake into a ring and placed it on my neck; They put other snakes on my shoulders, and they clung to my ears, and they also girded me with a snake around my loins. Then they brought the Ethiopian women whom I once had in my house, and they began to kiss me and spit in my face. Their stench was unbearable for me! The snakes began to eat my feet, face and eyes, and the Ethiopians standing around me opened my mouth and put something into them with a fiery spoon, saying: “Eat and be satisfied.” They also brought a cup, saying: “Give him some wine and water and give him something to drink.” And they gave me burning tar mixed with sulfur to drink. After that, they began to beat me with fiery rods, saying: “We will take him to the city of Edes, and we will scold him there also.” While in such distress, I saw two luminous men of inscrutable beauty: they were leaving the church of St. Mark. The Ethiopians, seeing them, ran away, and I began to cry out to them: “Have mercy on me!” They asked me: “What happened to you?” - I answered: “I went to church to worship, and fell into the hands of robbers: look, you see what they did to me.” One of the luminous people said to me: “And they did well; You should be treated even worse. But no one can free you from these bonds except Abba John, with whom you live, and from whom you are separated by your unbelief.” Then these luminous men left me and went away, and I began to cry out to them: “I conjure you by the consubstantial Trinity! have mercy on me!” When I shouted in this way, the brothers came and woke me up. I was drenched in tears. Getting up, I hurried to the reverend elder, fell at his holy feet and told him in order everything I had seen. The elder said to me: “Ethiopians are demons, snakes are evil thoughts, which you do not confess to me; fiery snake - the scolding of the prodigal demon; The Ethiopian women are evil thoughts, deceiving and destroying you together; the snake that eats you is slander; the fiery liar that opened your mouth are demons of condemnation; the cup with which they gave you to drink is your spiritual disposition, which came from accepting evil thoughts, and the aversion that you felt towards me and the brethren; pitch and brimstone signify that bread and that water that you ate and drank stealthily and secretly. Know, my son, that the virtues that you performed in the world were mixed with exaltation and pride. Your vigils, your fasting, your constant going to church, the alms that you gave out, all this was done under the influence of human praise. For this reason, the devil did not want to attack you then. Now, seeing that you have armed yourself against him, he also rebelled against you. For the future, I bequeath to you, my son, when you see confusion and a storm in yourself from evil thoughts, tell me, your father, or the brothers who live with you, and I trust in God that I will help you, as I have helped many.” Having given me this instruction, the elder released me to my cell. From that time on, I began to open my thoughts, and was already in all peace” 284. The virtues of monks and their exploits differ in a decisive way from the exploits and virtues of the laity. Saint John of Carpathia says to the monk: “Do not allow yourself to recognize a layman as more blessed than a monk, a layman who has a wife and children, who is consoled by the fact that he does good to many and gives abundant alms, without being subjected to any temptations from demons. Do not recognize yourself, monk, as less than such a layman in pleasing God. I say this not because you live immaculately, bearing the labor of monastic feat, but if you are very sinful 285. The sorrow of your soul, your suffering is far more honest before God than the most sublime virtues of a layman. Your great sadness, your repentance, your sighs, lamentation, tears, torment of conscience, bewilderment of thought, self-condemnation, sobs, crying of the mind, the lamentable cry of the heart, contrition, confusion, reproach and humiliation of oneself - all this and so on, the like, befalling those who are plunged into the iron furnace of temptations, is far more honest and favorable to God than pleasing God. layman" 286. The monastic feat is based on true humility, naturally combined with the rejection of one’s self, in which God is exalted before man, and all hope of salvation is placed on God; On the contrary, the feat of a layman, consisting of external deeds, naturally grows his “I” and diminishes God before man. For this reason, we see that many great sinners, having entered monasticism, became great saints, and the famous ascetics of the world, having entered monasticism, showed the most moderate success, and some became upset. “We must investigate,” says St. John Climacus, - why do lay people who spend their lives in vigils, in fasting, in asceticism, having transferred to the monastic life, into this field of spiritual experiences, removed from people, leave their former asceticism corrupted and feigned. I saw many and various kinds of trees of virtues, planted by the laity, watered with vanity, as if with pus from a cesspool, when caring for them, appearing (doing deeds for show or openly before people), when the earth around them was fattened with praises: these trees, being transplanted into desert land, not visited by the worldly, not having the stinking water of vanity, immediately withered. It is unusual for trees brought up in bliss to grow and bear fruit on the hard soil of monasticism" 287 . Two brothers lived in Constantinople. They were very pious and fasted a lot. One of them went to Raifa, renounced the world and became a monk. After some time, his brother, a layman, wanted to visit the monk. He came to Raifa and stayed with the monk for some time. Noticing that the monk was eating at the ninth hour (third in the afternoon), he was tempted and said to him: “Brother! when you lived in the world, you did not allow yourself to eat before sunset.” The monk answered: “When I lived in the world, I fed on vanity, hearing praise from people: they eased the burden of fasting for me.”288 What is meant here is not an arbitrary sinful life, but recognition of oneself as a sinner due to the inclinations of one’s weakness and the cunning of the enemy. Alphabetical Patericon, letter E, addition to the story of Abba Eustathius. You might be interested in: