January
7, 2001
"Directions
on the Spiritual Life - Part I"
Abba Dorotheus of Gaza
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CHRIST IS BORN! GLORIFY HIM!
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To all our subscribers who celebrate Christmas on
the Julian Calendar, Inner Light Productions wishes each and every one
of you a joyous Feast of the Nativity! May the peace and joy of our
Savior's Birth remain with you throughout the year!
In this issue we will start off the new year with
a study on the teachings of Abba Dorotheus of Gaza, one of my own
personal favorites among the Desert Fathers. Abba Dorotheus lived at the
end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh centuries. As a wealthy
young man, he was an ardent student of the secular sciences and was
quite well educated by the standards of his day. After completing his
secular education, Abba Dorotheus lived for a while near his birthplace,
not far from the monastery of Abba Serid, located in either Ashkalon or
Gaza. He soon made contact with Abbas Barsanuphius and John and became a
ardent student of their teachings. He soon became convinced to renounce
everything and take monastic vows in Abaa Serid's monastery. Abba
Dorotheus soon completed his monastic education under Barsanuphius and
John and served in the monastery's hospice and infirmary. After Abba
Serid and Abba John died, and the great Barsanuphius shut himself up
completely in his cell, renouncing all contact with the outside world,
Abba Dorotheus left the monastery and became the abbot of another
monastery. It was at this point in his life that Abba Dorotheus began to
deliver homilies to his disciples -- 21 in all -- which were preserved
and passed on to us by his followers. The date of his death is not
known.
We will begin a multi-part study today of these
teachings, and will follow these with a multi-part series from St. Isaac
of Syria. Together, the teachings of these two great spiritual fathers
of the Early Church will provide us with the guidance we need to start
the new year with a commitment to growing spiritually in the weeks and
months ahead.
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DIRECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE -- ST. ABBA DOROTHEUS
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BEGIN:
1. In His loving-kindness God has given us
purifying commandments so that, if we wish, we can by their observance
be cleansed not only of sins but also of passions themselves. For
passions are one thing and sins another. Passions are: anger, vanity,
love of pleasures, hatred, evil lust and the like. Sins are the actual
operations of passions, when a man puts them into practice, that is,
performs with the body the actions to which his passions urge him. For
it is possible to have passions and yet not to act from them.
2. The (old) law had as its purpose to teach us
not to do what we did not want done to us; consequently it forbade only
the actual doing of evil. Now however (in the New Testament) we are
required to banish the passion itself, which urges us to do evil --
hatred itself, love of pleasures, love of fame, and other passions.
3. Listen to what the Lord says: "Learn of
me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your
souls" (Matthew 11:29). He shows here the root and cause of all
ills and their cure, the cause of all good, namely, that self-exaltation
has brought us down and that pardon cannot be obtained except through
its opposite, humility. What has brought all our afflictions upon us?
Was it not pride? Man was created for every kind of enjoyment and was in
the Garden of Eden. But one thing he was forbidden to do, yet he did it.
You see the pride? You see the disobedience (the daughter of pride)?
4. Thereupon God said: man does not know how to
delight in joy alone. If he does not experience afflictions he will go
still further and will perish completely. If he does not learn what are
sorrow and labor he will not know what are joy and peace; and so God
banished him from he Garden of Eden. Here he was surrendered to his own
self-love and his own will, that they might break his bones and thereby
teach him to follow not himself but God's commandments, and that the
very sufferings of disobedience should teach him the blessings of
obedience, as the Prophet says: "Thine apostasy shall correct
thee" (Jeremiah 2:19). So now God's mercy calls: "Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest" (Matthew 11:28). He says, as it were: you have labored and
suffered enough and have experienced the evil results of disobedience,
come now and be converted: restore yourselves to life by humility, in
place of the arrogance by which you put yourselves to death. "Learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto
your souls" (Matthew 11:29).
5. Some God-loving men, having cut off the
actions of passions after their holy baptism, desired to vanquish
passions themselves and become passionless. Such were St. Anthony, St.
Pachomius and other holy fathers. They conceived the good intention to
cleanse themselves "from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit" (II Corinthians 7:1). But realizing that this is hard to
achieve while living in the world, they devised for themselves a special
form of life, a special form of activity, that is, a solitary life
withdrawn from the world; and they began to flee the world and to live
in the wilderness, practiced fasting and vigil, slept on bare earth, and
endured various other privations, having completely renounced their kith
and kin, their goods and possessions.
6. Thus they not only kept the commandments, but
also brought gifts to God. Commandments are given to all Christians and
it is the duty of every Christian to obey them. It is the same as the
tribute that in the world is due to the king. But as in the world there
are great and distinguished people, who not only pay tribute to the king
but also bring gifts to him for which they are granted special honors,
reward and rank, so too the fathers not only paid tribute to God by
obeying the commandments, but also brought Him gifts, such as virginity
and poverty, which are not commandments but acts of their own will. For
it is said of the first: "He that is able to receive it, let him
receive it" (Matthew 19:12), and of the second: "If thou wilt
be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor"
(Matthew 19:21).
7. They crucified the world unto themselves, and
thereupon strove to crucify themselves unto the world, imitating the
Apostle who says, "The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world" (Galatians 6:14). For when a man renounces the world and
becomes a monk, leaves his parents, possessions and all worldly affairs
and cares, he crucified the world unto himself. And when, being made
free from external things, he fights also against the very enjoyment or
the very desire of things, when he struggles against his own wishes, and
mortifies the passions themselves, he crucifies himself unto the world
and can boldly say with the Apostle, "The world is crucified unto
me, and I unto the world."
8. Our fathers, having crucified the world unto
themselves, have also crucified themselves unto the world by their
efforts. But though, by renouncing the world and retiring into a
monastery, we have seemingly crucified the world unto ourselves, we do
not want to crucify ourselves unto the world, since we still love its
pleasures, are still attached to it, are moved by its glory, have kept
in ourselves a fondness for foods, clothes and other vanities. Yet we
should not do so, since just as we have renounced the world and its
things, so too should we renounce our very attachment to those things.
END
from E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, "Early
Fathers from the Philokalia," (London: Faber and Faber, 1981),
pp. 152 - 154
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Philokalia in
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