The Nature of Sorrow and Endurance

In peace, then, as being united by the commandment of the Divine Trinity, you hear: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God' (Matt 5:9). For if you bring the flesh, which is contrary to the desire of the spirit, into peace through labors, you shall gain glory among the beatitudes beyond this age, having conquered the war in your body that fights against the law of your mind and captures you by the law of sin in your members.

Great is the bond of peace, in which also the joy that enlightens the eye of the intellect for the contemplation of the higher powers is united; if, therefore, we might acquire the peaceful joy in the midst of labors, we would graciously repel the difficult things that come upon us through it, and we would not admit the demon of sorrow who, especially by mutilating in tribulations, falls upon the soul, and prepares a space of acedia so that it may darken the soul and at the same time stir up pains. Let the joy of peace, therefore, be a written law of our heart, subduing sorrow, driving out hatred, destroying anger, dissolving acedia, and compensating for grief. For it is a sea of virtues, being immersed in peaceful patience, in thanksgiving, and in endurance, subduing the opposition of the devil by the cross.

But consider for me a disturbed joy standing near, lest you be deceived into grasping one kind instead of another, being shadowed by it. For the demons also fashion themselves after spiritual gifts in order to wander the mind by overshadowing it and to turn it away from the faculties. For a spiritual joy stands near the heart when nothing is present, because it finds the leader of Godly sorrow suspended, but later, it delivers the soul to the Spirit of sorrow, because it has made this spiritual joy a captive.

say this, as the experience of those seeking has revealed to one of the brothers, that instead of rejoicing in the Lord (Phil 4:4), the deceiver opposes a domestic joy. And instead of Godly sorrow, he entices the mind toward the opposite, so that the soul may be darkened by anxieties concerning the shifting changes of the higher rays. Sorrows are twofold, being yoked to every work of evil, and...

One sorrow stands at the heart from an unseen cause, while another is born from being pushed by different causes; the sorrow according to God calls the soul back through tears, not accepting either joy or sorrow in opposition, and worrying about the approaching death and judgment; and I have experienced this somewhat while awaiting it.

Failed desires plant sorrows; but thanksgivings and gratitudes wither these; in the midst of anger, a middle sorrow trembles. Therefore, the first one having been overcome, if he rises from the passion and gives his hand to the other, he banishes the bitter sorrow through defense. Sorrow is a disease of the soul and happens to the flesh; it seizes the captive one and withers the one upon the place. From opposites sorrow is born, and from sorrow anger, and from these is born a small madness, reproach. If you wish to suffer sorrow and anger together, embrace the long-suffering of love and clothe yourself in the joy of acedia; let your own joy not be sorrow to another; he who rejoices in injustice will mourn in prosperity, and he who endures suffering unjustly will shine with exultation; for the things that are coming are contrary to the things present.

Chapter 8. In tribulations you will be most thankful, because through them you will more clearly perceive the grace of the taking hold. For thus, by cheerfully casting off the coming tribulations, you will not dim the most brilliant beauty of patience, even if a demon lashes you according to the flesh, so that you may be found worthy of a greatest reward, if you receive the wound under the hypothesis of thanksgiving. For thus he too will flee from you. And so that your reward may increase through endurance, let your endurance act as a general through the pursuit of courageous labors; for through every evil, and acedia counter-attacks you and spies upon all your labors, it weighs down and bends low him whom it does not find seized by endurance; but if the demon of acedia grows weak against the endurance of labors, the beast bites its own achievement again; if therefore you understand this, you will diminish it, and you will diminish the empty-glory spirit in him at the time of gathering. If the spirit of acedia falls upon you, as if it were a heavy weight, it makes the soul's psalmody heavy, it places sloth as an opponent to zeal, so that having tasted haste, it might relax the flesh by...