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1. It was said about Arsenius that whenever he was doing manual work he kept a cloth at his chest because of the tears that streamed from his eyes.
2. A brother asked Ammon, ‘Speak a word to me.’ He said to him, ‘Go and meditate like the criminals in prison. They keep asking, where is the judge, when will he come? and because they are waiting for him they dread their punishment. The monk should always be waiting for his trial, chiding his soul, saying: “Alas, how shall I stand before the judgement seat of Christ? How shall I give an account of my actions?” If you always meditate like this, you will be saved.’
3. Evagrius said, ‘While you sit in your cell, recall your attention, and remember the day of your death and you will see that your body is decaying. Think about the loss, feel the pain. Shrink from the vanity of the world outside. Be retiring, and be careful to keep your vow of quiet, and you will not weaken. Remember the souls in hell. Meditate on their condition, the bitter silence and the moaning, the fear and the strife, the waiting and the pain without relief, the tears that cannot cease to flow. Remember too the day of resurrection, imagine God’s terrible and awful judgement. Bring into your sight the confusion of sinners before God and His Christ, before angels and archangels and powers, and all the human race, punishment, everlasting fire, the worm that never dies, the darkness of Tartarus – and above them all the sound of the gnashing of teeth, dread and torments. Bring before your eyes the good laid up for the righteous, their confidence before God the Father and Christ His Son, before angels and archangels and the powers, and all the people in the kingdom of heaven and its gifts, joy and peace. Remember all this. Weep and lament for the judgement of sinners, keep alert to the grief they suffer; be afraid that you are hurrying towards the same condemnation. Rejoice and exult at the good laid up for the righteous. Aim at enjoying the one, and being far from the other. Do not forget this, whether you are in your cell or outside it. Keep these memories in your mind and so cast out of it the sordid thoughts that harm you.’
4. Elias said, ‘I fear three things: the first, the time before my soul leaves my body: the second, the time before I meet God face to face: the third, the time before he pronounces his sentence upon me.’
5. When Archbishop Theophilus of holy memory was dying, he said, ‘Arsenius, you are blessed of God, because you have always kept this moment before your eyes.’
6. There was a story that once when some brothers were eating together at a love-feast, one of the brothers at the table laughed. When John saw it, he wept, and said, ‘What do you think that brother has in his heart, that he could laugh when he ought to weep because he is dining on charity?’
7. Jacob said, ‘Like a lantern giving light in a dark little room, so the fear of God comes into a man’s heart and enlightens it, and teaches him all that is good and all the commandments of God.’
8. Some of the monks asked Macarius of Egypt, ‘Why is your body dry, whether you eat or fast?’ He said to them, ‘A wooden poker which turns over and over the brushwood in the fire is itself being slowly burnt away. So if a man cleanses his mind in the fear of God, the fear of God also consumes his body.’
9. Once some monks of Mount Nitria sent a message to Scetis, to ask Macarius the Great to come to see them. They said that if he could not come to them, the whole crowd of them would go to him, since they wanted to see him before he passed on to the Lord. When Macarius arrived in Nitria, the whole congregation gathered in his presence. The elders asked him to speak a word to the brothers. But he shed tears and said, ‘Let us pray and weep, my brothers, before we go hence to the place where our tears consume our bodies.’ They all wept; and fell on their faces, saying, ‘Abba, pray for us.’
10. In Egypt once when Poemen was going somewhere he saw a woman sitting by a grave and weeping bitterly. He said, ‘If all the delights of this world should come to her, they would not bring her out of sorrow. Just so should the monk always be weeping in his heart.’
11. Another time, he went with Anub to the country of Diolcos. Walking past the tombs they saw a woman beating her breast and weeping bitterly. They paused to see her. When they had gone a little further, they met a man and Poemen asked him, ‘What is the matter with the woman over there, that she weeps so bitterly?’ He said, ‘Her husband is dead, and her son, and her brother.’ Poemen said to Anub, ‘I tell you that unless a man mortifies all his self-will and has this kind of grief, he cannot be a monk. The whole life and attention of that woman is wrapped up in grief.’
12. Poemen said also, ‘Grief is twofold: it creates good and it keeps away evil.’
13. A brother asked him, ‘What should I do?’ He said, ‘When Abraham entered the land of promise, he built himself a grave, and bought the land as a burying place for his posterity.’ The brother said to him, ‘What is this burying place?’ Poemen said, ‘A place of weeping and sorrowing.’
14. Athanasius of holy memory asked Pambo to come down from the desert to Alexandria. When he arrived, he saw a woman that was an actress, and he wept. The bystanders asked him why he wept. He said, ‘Two things grieved me. The first was her condemnation; the second, that I take less trouble about pleasing God than she takes about pleasing the worst of mankind.’
15. When Silvanus was sitting one day among the brethren, he was taken up into a rapture, and fell on his face. After a while he got up and wept. The brothers asked him, ‘What is the matter, abba?’ But he was silent, weeping. When they pressed him for an answer, he said to them, ‘I was taken before the judgement seat, and I saw many of our kind going down to torment, and many from the world going into the kingdom.’ Silvanus grieved and after that he would not leave his cell: and if he was forced to go out, he covered his face with his shawl and said, ‘Why should I see the light of this world, where nothing is any use to me?’
16. Syncletica said, ‘All must endure great travail and conflict when they are first converted to the Lord but later they have unspeakable joy. They are like people trying to light a fire, the smoke gets in their eyes, their eyes begin to water, but they succeed in what they want. It is written, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29), and so we must kindle divine fire with tears and trouble.’
17. Hyperichius said, ‘The watchful monk works night and day to pray continually: but if his heart is broken and lets tears flow, that calls God down from heaven to have mercy.’
18. The brothers went to Felix, who had with him some secular visitors, and they asked him to give them a word. But he said nothing. When they went on asking, he said to them, ‘Do you want to hear a word?’ They replied, ‘Yes, abba.’ So he said, ‘I have no word for you now. When an elder is asked to speak, and the brothers do what he tells them, God gives the elder something to say. But now there are brothers who ask for a word, but do not obey the word they hear and then God takes away His grace from the elder, and he has nothing to say, for He who gives it is not there.’ When the brothers heard this, they groaned and said, ‘Pray for us, abba.’
19. It was said of Hor and Theodore, that they were once putting a goatskin over a cell: and they said to each other, ‘If God visits us now, what shall we do?’ Much upset, they left the place in a hurry and went back to their own cells.
20. A hermit told this story. A brother wanted to become a monk, and his mother forbade him. But he did not give up his purpose, saying, ‘I want my soul to be saved.’ She opposed him for a long time but when she found that she could not stop him, at last she let him go. He went and became a monk, but he lived that life carelessly. It happened that his mother died, and a short time after he became very ill. He thought he was taken before the judgement seat, and there he found his mother among the people being judged. When she saw him she was horrified and said, ‘Why are you here, my son? Are you condemned like me to this place? What about the words you used to say, “I want my soul to be saved”?’ He was ashamed at her words and, being made stupid by sorrow, he stood there unable to say a word to her. But after this vision, he recovered by God’s mercy from his dangerous illness and was restored to health. He meditated on God’s purpose in visiting him. He went away by himself, cut himself off from all company, considered his own salvation, and lamented his earlier neglect in penitence. His purpose was so fixed that many people asked him to spare himself a little, for he might hurt himself by these immoderate lamentations. But he would not be consoled and said, ‘If I was made ashamed by my mother’s taunts, what sort of shame shall I have when Christ and his holy angels look on me in the day of judgement to condemn me?’
21. A hermit said, ‘If it were possible to die of fear, all the world would perish with terror remembering the coming of God after the resurrection. What will it be like, to see the heavens opened, and God revealed in wrath and fury, and innumerable companies of angels gazing on the whole human race gathered together? Therefore we ought to live our lives as those who must give account of each action to God.’
22. A brother asked a hermit, ‘Why is my heart hard, and why do I not fear God?’ He said to him, ‘I think that if you have reproach in your heart, you will know fear.’ The brother said to him, ‘What is this reproach?’ The hermit said, ‘To reprove your soul in all things, saying to it, “Remember that you have to meet God.” Say also to your soul, “What do I want with people?” I think that if anyone tries to do this, the fear of God will come to him.’
23. A hermit saw someone laughing, and said to him, ‘We have to render an account of our whole life before heaven and earth, and you can laugh?’
24. A hermit said, ‘As the shadow goes everywhere with the body, so we ought to carry penitence and weeping with us everywhere we go.’
25. A brother asked a hermit, ‘Abba, speak a word to me.’ He said to him: ‘When God struck Egypt there was not a house that did not mourn.’
26. A brother asked another hermit, ‘What must I do?’ He said to him, ‘We ought to lament always.’ Once one of the senior monks died, and after several hours recovered consciousness. We asked him, ‘What did you see, abba?’ He told us with sorrow, ‘I heard a voice of sadness saying over and over again, “Woe is me, woe is me.” That is what we should always be saying.’
27. A brother asked a hermit, ‘I hear the hermits weeping, and my soul longs for tears, but they do not come, and I am worried about it.’ He replied, ‘The children of Israel entered the promised land after forty years in the wilderness. Tears are the promised land. When you reach them you will no longer be afraid of the conflict. For it is the will of God that we should be afflicted, so we may always be longing to enter that country.’