Saints

"The same Amma Theodora also said: “A devout person was once reviled by somebody and he said to him: ‘I too could have said the same to you but the law of God closes my mouth.’” She used to say this too: “A Christian having a discussion with a Manichaean about the body spoke thus: ‘Impose the law on the body and you shall see that the body [belongs] to the Creator.’”"

"The same elder [Abba Poemen] said of Abba Isidore that when he spoke to the brothers in church, this was the only thing he said: “Brothers, it is written: ‘Forgive your neighbor that you may receive forgiveness.’”"

"They also used to say of him that he once braided cord for two baskets and stitched it together as one basket but didn’t realize it until he approached the wall, for his logismos was occupied in contemplation."

"They also used to say of him that [the wages of] all the labor he expended on the harvest, he would take and bring to Scete saying: “My widows and orphans are at Scete.”"

"He also said: “For my part, when I was younger and staying in my cell, I had no time limit to synaxis; night and day were synaxis for me.”"

"They used to say of Abba John Colobos that, having withdrawn from the world to be with an elder from Thebes at Scete, he was living in the desert. His abba took some dry wood, planted it and said to him: “Irrigate it every day with a bottle of water until it bears fruit.” Water was a long way from them, so one had to go in the evening and return at dawn. After three years [the dry wood] became alive and bore fruit. The elder took its fruit and brought it to the church, saying to the brothers: “Take and eat some fruit of obedience.”"

"Abba John of the Thebaid said, 'First of all the monk must gain humility; for it is the first commandment of the Lord who said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."' (Matt. 5.3)"

"Abba Poemen said to Abba Joseph: “Tell me how I may become a monk.” Said the elder to him: “If you want to find repose both here and there, say in every situation: ‘I, who am I?’ and do not pass judgment on anybody.”"

"Abba Joseph said to Abba Lot: “You cannot become a monk unless you become altogether like a flaming fire.”"

"“Go forth, my soul, why do you hesitate? You have served Christ nearly eighty years; do you still fear death?”"

"Abba Carion said: “A man who stays with a youth comes to grief if he be not strong. If he be strong he does not come to grief; however, he does not progress.”"

"Abba Carion said: “I have performed many physical tasks, more than my son Zachariah, but I have not achieved his stature in his humility and silence.”"

"A brother asked Abba Cronios: “In what way does one arrive at humble-mindedness?” The elder said: “Through fear of God.” The brother said to him: “And through what action does one arrive at fear of God?” The elder said: “In my opinion, let him withdraw himself from every affair and dedicate himself to physical toil, to the best of his ability bearing in mind his departure from the body and the judgment of God.”"

"Abba Hilarion from Palestine visited Abba Antony at the mountain and Abba Antony said to him: “Welcome, star of the morning, rising at dawn.” “Peace be with you, pillar of light supporting the world,” said Abba Hilarion to him."

"Abba Lot visited Abba Joseph and said to him: “Abba, to the best of my ability I do my little synaxis, my little fasting; praying, meditating, and maintaining hesychia; and I purge my logismoi to the best of my ability. What else then can I do?” The elder stood up and stretched out his hands to heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said to him: “If you are willing, become altogether like fire.”"

"There was an elder called Abba Pambo, and of him it was said that for three years he interceded with God saying: “Do not glorify me on earth”— and God so glorified him that nobody could stare him in the face on account of the glory his face possessed."

"Abba Pambo said: “If you have a heart you can be saved.”"

"Abba Longinus said: “Once you become distressed [ill], say: ‘Be distressed then and die; but if you ask me for something to eat other than at mealtime, I will not even provide you with the daily ration.’”"

"If you do your manual labor, do not be negligent, but apply yourself with the fear of God, in order not to sin by ignorance."

"A brother visited Abba Elijah who was living in hesychia at the coenobion of the cave of Abba Zabba and he said to him: “Abba, tell me a saying.” The elder said to the brother: “In the days of our fathers these three virtues were cherished: indifference to possessions, meekness, and continence. Now cupidity, gluttony, and arrogance hold monks in prey. Hold fast to which you will.”"

"A brother asked Abba Joseph: “I want to come out of the coenobion and live alone.” The elder said to him: “Stay wherever you see your soul experiencing repose and not being damaged.” The brother said to him: “I experience repose both in the coenobion and living alone; what do you want me to do?” The elder said to him: “If you experience repose both in the coenobion and living alone, put your two logismoi as though in a balance and do that which is the more likely to be to your benefit and [to which] your logismos prompts you.”"

"Some monks called Euchites once visited Abba Lucius at Enaton and the elder asked them: “What is your handiwork?” “We do not have anything to do with handiwork, they said, “but we ‘pray without ceasing’ [1 Thess 5:17] as the Apostle said.” “Do you not eat?” said the elder. “Yes,” they said, and the elder said: “Who prays for you when you are eating?” Again he said to them: “Do you not sleep?” “Yes,” they said, and the elder said: “Who prays for you when you are asleep?” and at this they did not find him an answer. And he said to them: “Forgive me but, look: you do not do as you say. I will show you that I pray without ceasing while toiling at my handiwork. I soak a few rushes for myself then, sitting down with God, I braid them into a rope, saying: ‘Have mercy upon me O God according to your great goodness: according to the multitude of your mercies blot out mine offences’” [Ps 50:1], and he said to them: “Is that not prayer?” “Yes,” they said, and the elder said: “When I remain working and praying all day long, I make sixteen coins more or less. I put two of them at the door and eat with the rest. He who takes the two coins prays for me while I am eating and when I am sleeping and, by the grace of God, to ‘pray without ceasing is fulfilled for me.’”"

"Abba Isidore of Pelusium used to say: “A life without a word is more advantageous than a word without life; for the first, even in silence, is advantageous, while the second is a trouble-maker when it cries out, whereas if life and word run together they constitute the portrait of all philosophy.”"

"Concerning Spyridon, so great was the sanctity when he was a shepherd that he was deemed worthy to become a shepherd of men too. He was called to be bishop of one of the cities of Cyprus, Trimithus by name. Being a very modest person, he tended his sheep while holding the bishopric. Once in the middle of the night some thieves crept up to the sheepfold intending to steal some of the sheep. But God, who was saving the shepherd, saved the sheep too: the thieves were trussed up near the fold by an unseen force. At first light the shepherd came to the sheep and, finding [the thieves] with their hands [tied] behind their backs, he realized what had happened. He offered a prayer then released the thieves. He admonished and exhorted them at some length to pursue honest work rather than live from evil-doing. He gave them one ram and sent them on their way; calling out laughingly he said: “The ram is so you will not seem to have been up all night for nothing.”"

"Be vigilant in attending to yourself, … that you may set God before you at all times."

"To renounce one’s own will is a sacrifice of blood. It means that one has reached the point of laboring to death and of ignoring one’s own will. The statement ‘Behold, we have left everything and have followed you’ is about perfection; it is not about property and small amounts of money, but about thoughts and desires. You, however, have not yet come to this perfection; when you approach there, you will hear what you have to do. For the time being, simply remain carefree in all matters and concerns. As for your property, keep it for now for your nurture. The Lord Jesus Christ will bring you to that ineffable joy; for he is eternal light. Amen."

"Humility means not reckoning oneself as anything in every situation and cutting off one’s own will in everything and calmly enduring whatever occurs externally."

"And as for the conversation, when you see yourself almost theologizing, remember that silence is more admirable and more glorious than that."

"Qui desitja servir Déu es menester que estiga molt content en tota cosa."

"Whoever resigns himself in love, Lives with greater freedom than anyone. Such a person lives without anxious care, For God cannot lose what is his own."

"No one, therefore, can love God too much, But on the contrary, the more fervently he loves him, The better and the holier he becomes."

"Each one of us must seek God alone, Straining towards him both by reason And by renouncing our own will For the sake of the longed-for union with God."

"As for the rational mind, it, too, should die to itself and live to God; Not looking for its own rights, Nor for promotion, Nor any of the prizes of this world. And let it not be turned back on itself, But totally turned to God."

"God, who is the Prince of Wisdom, Is of himself ever ready To communicate to all created minds The overflowing rays of his supernal Wisdom."

"Let not your flight be in the winter, nor on the sabbath-day. (Translated to Modern English.)"

"(tr.) For the benefit of this purpose, this small book was thought to be made, so that those who know the memory of such a great man may be remembered, while those who do not know, it may be marked as an indicator of a widely paved road."

"The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. And Yahweh tortures and massacres people by the hundreds of thousands for trivial disobedience or for no reason at all. These atrocities are neither isolated nor obscure. They implicate all the major characters of the Old Testament, the ones that Sunday-school children draw with crayons. And they fall into a continuous plotline that stretches for millennia, from Adam and Eve through Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond. According to the biblical scholar Raymund Schwager, the Hebrew Bible “contains over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. . . . Aside from the approximately one thousand verses in which Yahweh himself appears as the direct executioner of violent punishments, and the many texts in which the Lord delivers the criminal to the punisher’s sword, in over one hundred other passages Yahweh expressly gives the command to kill people.” Matthew White, a self-described atrocitologist who keeps a database with the estimated death tolls of history’s major wars, massacres, and genocides, counts about 1.2 million deaths from mass killing that are specifically enumerated in the Bible. (He excludes the half million casualties in the war between Judah and Israel described in 2 Chronicles 13 because he considers the body count historically implausible.) The victims of the Noachian flood would add another 20 million or so to the total. The good news, of course, is that most of it never happened. Not only is there no evidence that Yahweh inundated the planet and incinerated its cities, but the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, and Jewish empire are almost certainly fictions. Historians have found no mention in Egyptian writings of the departure of a million slaves (which could hardly have escaped the Egyptians’ notice); nor have archaeologists found evidence in the ruins of Jericho or neighboring cities of a sacking around 1200 BCE. And if there was a Davidic empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea around the turn of the 1st millennium BCE, no one else at the time seemed to have noticed it."

"A critical event in Isaac's life occurred when God's command came that he should be offered as a sacrifice on a mountain in the land of Moriah (Gen. xxii. 2). Isaac showed himself in this trial to be worthy of his father. Without murmuring he suffered himself to be bound and laid upon the altar. But Abraham was prevented by God from consummating the sacrifice, and a ram that happened to be near was offered instead."

"וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יִצְחָ֜ק אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֤ם אָבִיו֙ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אָבִ֔י וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הִנֶּ֣נִּֽי בְנִ֑י וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הִנֵּ֤ה הָאֵשׁ֙ וְהָ֣עֵצִ֔ים וְאַיֵּ֥ה הַשֶּׂ֖ה לְעֹלָֽה׃ וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם אֱלֹהִ֞ים יִרְאֶה־לּ֥וֹ הַשֶּׂ֛ה לְעֹלָ֖ה בְּנִ֑י"

"The next major figure in the Bible is Abraham, the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Abraham has a nephew, Lot, who settles in Sodom. Because the residents engage in anal sex and comparable sins, God immolates every man, woman, and child in a divine napalm attack. Lot’s wife, for the crime of turning around to look at the inferno, is put to death as well. Abraham undergoes a test of his moral values when God orders him to take his son Isaac to a mountaintop, tie him up, cut his throat, and burn his body as a gift to the Lord. Isaac is spared only because at the last moment an angel stays his father’s hand. For millennia readers have puzzled over why God insisted on this horrifying trial. One interpretation is that God intervened not because Abraham had passed the test but because he had failed it, but that is anachronistic: obedience to divine authority, not reverence for human life, was the cardinal virtue. Isaac’s son Jacob has a daughter, Dinah. Dinah is kidnapped and raped—apparently a customary form of courtship at the time, since the rapist’s family then offers to purchase her from her own family as a wife for the rapist. Dinah’s brothers explain that an important moral principle stands in the way of this transaction: the rapist is uncircumcised. So they make a counteroffer: if all the men in the rapist’s hometown cut off their foreskins, Dinah will be theirs. While the men are incapacitated with bleeding penises, the brothers invade the city, plunder and destroy it, massacre the men, and carry off the women and children. When Jacob worries that neighboring tribes may attack them in revenge, his sons explain that it was worth the risk: “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” Soon afterward they reiterate their commitment to family values by selling their brother Joseph into slavery."

"Trust in God is that the heart lives with Allah Most High without other attachment. He also said Trust in God is the state of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and earning is his Sunnah. So whoever maintains his state will never abandon his Sunnah."

"It is illicit for the heart to smell the scent of certainty while contentment with other-than-God dwells therein."

"The first station of trust in God is that servant be between the hands of God exactly as the dead body is between the hands of the one who washes the dead."

"When God created the world, He placed sin and ignorance within satisfication of the appetite and knowledge and wisdom withing hunger. When Sahl hungered he was powerful, and whenever he ate, he became weak."

"Love consists in embracing acts of obedience and in avoiding acts of disobedience which implies that the devotee of God develops his kinship with God as he merges his will in His will and avoids that which is forbidden by Him."

"I am the Proof of God for the created beings and I am a proof for the saints (awliya) of my time."

"The utmost degree of gnosis is dismay and perplexity."

"Sufism is to eat little and to take rest with God, and to flee from men."

"With the apostles and all the righteous [in heaven], rejoicingly glorifies God, even the Father, and blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the Shepherd of the catholic church throughout the world."

"The centurion then, seeing the strife excited by the Jews, placed the body in the midst of the fire, and consumed it. Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps."