Archive, Readings
Desert Fathers 21
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Another time [Abba Cassian] said that Abba Moses told us that Abba Serapion had said: ‘When I was a young man and lived with Abba Theonas, at mealtime, I would be moved to filch a rusk after I had stood up at the end of the meal; and I would eat it without letting my elder know. I kept doing this for a while. Dominated [by the urge] I was unable to check myself. My conscience condemned me, but I was ashamed to speak to the elder. Through the disposition of God, who loves mankind, it happened, though, that some visitors came to the elder for their edification. They asked him about their own thoughts. The elder answered that nothing so much damages a monk and rejoices the devil as the practice of hiding thoughts from spiritual fathers. He also spoke to them about self-control. While he was saying these things I thought God had instructed the elder about me. Cut to the quick I began to weep. From close to my chest I produced the rusk that, according to my bad habit, I had stolen. Throwing myself on the ground I begged pardon for the things that had happened and implored steadfastness for things to come. Then the elder said: “Oh, my child, even without a word from me your confession has freed you from this imprisonment. By speaking out about yourself, you have slain the demon that wounded you through [your] silence. Even if, till now, you let him dominate you without contradicting or resisting him, he will have no place in you henceforth, having been expelled from your heart.” The elder had not yet finished speaking when, behold!, this [spiritual] movement appeared as a lamp of fire coming out of my chest. It filled the house with such a stink that those present thought there was a pile of sulphur on fire. Then the elder said: “See how the Lord, by this sign, gives proof of my words and of your liberation.”’
There are bad, angry words we should keep from speaking, fighting against them with all our might. Abba John Kolobos was once on his way up from Scetis with a cargo of rope he had made, the means by which he earned his subsistence. On the way the camel-driver talked and talked and incited him to anger. John ran away, abandoning his ropes. He would rather leave the produce of many weeks’ hard work than speak an irascible, unconsidered word. There are other words, however, that call out to be spoken. If we keep them shut up in our heart they will poison us.
This story, which the editors of the Sayings have drawn from the Conferences of St John Cassian, set out the stakes with clarity. It is quite elaborate, considerably longer than the majority of the Fathers’ apophthegmata. I think this is a deliberate measure intended to help us recognise ourselves in certain details of the drama.
Objectively speaking, two vices coincide here: kleptomania and gluttony. The desired object is hardly a fantastic indulgence. We are not talking about profiteroles. What Serapion used to pinch was a paxama, named after Paxamos, the first-century author of one of the world’s earliest cookery book. The term refers to bread baked twice: first the loaf, then slices at a low temperature for a long time until all moisture is out and the slices harden into durable, dry, rough, tasteless biscuits. This provides food for thought. For is it not often the case that our little secret vices do not in fact mobilise our appetite all that much? What ties us to them is rather a progressively obsessive, thorny mixture of subterfuge, excitement, and shame. It is the behavioural pattern that arrests us, not a consuming lust for rusks — or their equivalent.
To be caught in this rut made Serapion miserable, yet he could not bring himself to talk to Abba Theonas. It embarrassed him that he, an aspirant to a life of perfection, should be hampered by such trifles. The longer he kept quiet, the more ingrained his filching became. The Fathers, fine psychologists, remind us that a habit nurtured over time comes to seem second nature. We think we can’t live without it.
The arrival of visitors enabled the cutting of this knot. In retrospect Serapion saw them as providential agents sent, as he says, by a ‘philanthropic God’. The certainty that God loves humankind and seeks our flourishing underpins the Fathers’ spiritual doctrine at all times. Hearing Theonas address the strangers’ query, Serapion was seized by compunction. The moment he had so long dreaded — the revelation of his fault — now came naturally, producing nothing but relief. No word of reproach is uttered. On the contrary, the elder addresses him gently.
Serapion realises that the trial in whose clutches he had been was other than he had assumed. He had thought it was about a disordered craving and a predisposition for theft; but no, the basic temptation was relational, seeking to drive a wedge between him and his spiritual father, isolating him from a source of grace and forgiveness, shutting him up in despair. Theonas speaks of his ‘imprisonment’. The mere fact of choosing to be free, of putting into words what had been a mental obsession, caused the power of evil to burst, revealing it for what it is: a hellishly stinking trap. Beware, then, if you find yourself developing clandestine habits, if you start doing thing, in the real or virtual world, you would rather not have anyone catch you at; if you start telling half-truths to your spouse, your best friend, your confessor. You may be giving the Hater-of-Good an opportunity he does not deserve. 
Will you risk your peace of mind, and purity of soul, for this?