January
21, 2001
"Directions
on the Spiritual Life - Part III"
Abba Dorotheus of Gaza
In this issue we will continue our 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 continue our 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. Today's study focuses on the conscience.
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DIRECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE -- ST. ABBA DOROTHEUS
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BEGIN:
17. In creating man God implanted in him
something Divine -- a certain thought, like a spark, having both light
and warmth, a thought which illumines the mind and shows what is good
and what bad. This is called conscience and it is a natural law. By
following this law -- conscience -- the patriarchs and all the saints
pleased God, even before the law was written. But when, through the
fall, men covered up and trampled down conscience, there arose the need
of written law, of the holy Prophets, of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, to uncover and raise it up, to rekindle this buried
spark by the keeping of His holy commandments.
18. So not it is in our power either to bury it
again or to let it shine in us and illumine us, if we obey. When our
conscience tells us to do something and we disregard it, and when it
tells us again but we continue to trample on it and not act on it, we
bury it. Then it can no longer speak to us clearly for the weight which
presses upon it, but like a lamp shining behind a curtain it begins to
show us things more and more dimly. Just as no one can recognize their
face in water muddied with slime, so we, after transgression, fail to
apprehend the voice of conscience, so that it seems to us not to exist
in us at all.
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THE CONSCIENCE AS THE "ADVERSARY"
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19. Conscience is called the adversary, because
it always opposes our evil will; it reminds us of what we ought to do
but do not, and condemns us if we do something we ought not. That was
why the Lord called it adversary and commanded us: "Agree with
thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him"
(Matthew 5:25), that is, while you are in this world, as Basil the Great
says.
20. So let us guard our conscience, while we are
in this world; let us not allow it to accuse us in something, nor
disregard it in anything however small. For you must realize that from
disregarding this small and insignificant thing we pass to neglect of
big things. If someone begins to say "What does it matter if I eat
this scrap? What of it if I look at this or that?", then from this
"What matters this, what matters that?" he will fall into a
bad habit and will begin to neglect big and important things and trample
down his conscience. Thus becoming hardened in evil, he will be in
danger of falling into complete insensitivity.
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GUARDING THE CONSCIENCE
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21. Conscience should be guarded towards God,
towards one's neighbor and towards things. In relation to God, he guards
his conscience who does not neglect God's commandments and who, even in
things not seen by men and that no one demands of us, guards his
conscience towards God in secret. Guarding conscience towards our
neighbor demands that we should never do anything which, to our
knowledge, would offend or tempt him, whether by word or deed, look or
expression. Guarding conscience towards things means not to misuse a
thing, nor let it be spoiled nor throw it away needlessly. In all these
respects conscience should be kept pure and unblemished, lest one should
fall into the calamity against which the Lord warns us (Matthew 5:26).
END
from E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, "Early
Fathers from the Philokalia," (London: Faber and Faber, 1981),
pp. 157 - 158
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