Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter IX

That Temptation Serves Both to Instruct Ourselves and Others

ANOTHER advantage which even spiritual directors may derive from temptations, is, that those temptations, making them feel in themselves, what they are to see afterwards in others, they learn thereby what course they are to take. For he, we say, is the best surgeon, who has been oftenest hurt; so he who is best exercised in the spiritual warfare, knows by his own experience (which is the best teacher,) all the artifices of the devil, whereby he becomes much more able to instruct his neighbour. ‘They who have been at sea,” says Ecclesiasticus, “‘ know the dangers thereof.”—(Eccl. Ixiii. 26.) And do we not every day see, that they who have been inured to the business of the world, extricate themselves much better than others, from the several emergencies thereof?

Now temptations are as advantageous to us, in reference to what regards our salvation; and this is what the wise man teaches us by these words; “what does he know, who is not tempted? A man who has been tried in many things, makes many reflections. He that has not been tried knows very little.” (Ecclesiasticus 34:10) A man, in fine, who has passed a long apprenticeship in this sort of warfare, will, doubtless, be very proper for the direction of souls; and it is to make us expert in this science, that God is pleased we should have temptations. He will have it so likewise, that they may teach us to be sensible of those, which our neighbour is exposed to; just as the diseases and infirmities of the body, with which we have been afflicted, teach us to compassionate those who are attacked with the like distempers.,

Cassian tells us of a young hermit, who being tormented with continual temptations of the flesh, addressed himself to an ancient anchoret, and laid open unto him the state of his soul, hoping by the counsel and prayers of the old man, to find a comfort and remedy, for what thus perplexed him. But he found himself quite mistaken; for this person, who had neither that prudence nor discretion, which age usually brings along with it, shewed very great surprise, at the recital he made of his temptation; reprimanded him sharply, and devoured him with words, calling him a wicked wretch, and telling him that he was unworthy the name of an hermit, since things of the nature he spoke of, befell him; lastly, he sent him away ao disconsolate, by the roughness of this his reproach, that in the trouble and despair he was in, he thought no more of resisting his temptations, but rather of executing what they suggested to him; and already began to take measures for that purpose. The abbot, called Apollo, who was then in great reputation in the-desert, for sanctity and prudence, met him on the high road to the adjacent town, and judging of his inward trouble, by the gloominess of his countenance, asked him with great mildness what ailed him, and what was the cause of the discomposure and sadness which appeared in his countenance? But the young man was so overwhelmed with his own thoughts, that he answered him nothing; the holy abbot thereby further knowing, the confusion his mind was in, pressed him yet more earnestly, so that in fine he obliged him to declare the trouble of spirit he was in, and how the reproaches of the old man, had so far discouraged him, that despairing of being able to overcome his temptations, and of living like a good hermit, he had resolved to quit the desert, and to return to the world to marry. The holy abbot began then to comfort and encourage him, by telling him that he himself was assaulted every day with the same temptations; and that he was not therefore to lose courage, since for the overcoming of them, we were not to rely so much upon our own strength, as upon the grace and mercy of Almighty God. He, in fine, conjured him to defer, but for one day, his resolution, and to return in the mean time to his cell, to implore there God’s assistance; and since the time was but short, he made him consent thereunto. After this the abbot went to the old man’s cell; and as soon as he was near it, he fell prostrate to thé earth, where lifting his hands to heaven and bursting out into tears, he made this prayer to God: Thou, O Lord, who knowest our strength and our weakness, and who art the sovereign physician of our souls, grant that the temptation which afflicts the young man, may pass into the heart of this old man, that he may, at least at his age, learn to have compassion; and to pity the “pains and weakness of his brethren. Scarce had he concluded his prayer, when he saw the devil, in shape of a hideous negro, shoot a fiery dart into the old man’s cell, who had no sooner felt the sensible stroke thereof, but he falls into so great trouble of mind, as gives him no rest at all; he rises; he goes out; he comes back again: and after having been for some time doing continually the self-same thing over and over again, being at last unable to bear any longer the heat of lust, which had seized upon him; he makes the same resolution the young hermit had made, and betakes himself to the same high road.

The holy abbot, who observed him, and who by the vision he had had, knew the temptation that tormented him, comes up to him, asks him whither he was going, and what was the reason, that forgetting what he owed to the gravity of his age and profession, he walked with such great haste and disquiet? The old man, who believed himself discovered; and whose bad conscience had covered hin with shame and confusion, answered nothing. Then the holy man, taking advantage of the trouble he saw him in, bade him return to his cell. Believe, says he, that if the devil has let thee alone hitherto, it is either because he did not know thee; or made no account of thee. See now thy own weakness; since after having grown old in the desert thou hast not been able to resist one temptation; nay, not so much as the first attacks of it; but hast permitted thyself to be immediately overcome; and without intending to wait one day only, hast thought of nothing else, but the putting thy ill designs in execution. God has thus permitted it, that at least in thy old age, thou mayest learn to sympathize with thy brethren in their maladies and infirmities, and that thou mayest know by thy own experience, that they are to be comforted and encouraged, and not to be disheartened and cast into despair, as the young hermit was, who addressed himself unto thee. The devil did not attack him so violently, whilst he let, thee alone; but because, seeing more piety in him, than in thyself, he was the more touched with jealousy and envy, thinking that so steady virtue, could not be assaulted by too strong and too violent temptations. Learn then, by thyself, to pity others; to stretch out thy hand to him, that is ready to fall; and to support him by words of compassion and comfort, and not to overwhelm him by too rough treatment, and thereby become the occasion of his greater fall. This is what the prophet Isaias teaches us by these words, “the Lord hath given me a learned tongue that I might know how to support with a word him that is weary;” (Isa. 1. 4), and it is what our Saviour himself has practised, to whom St. Matthew applies this passage of the same prophet Isaias, “the bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking flax he will not quench.”—(Isa. xlii. 3.) To conclude, continues the saint, since we cannot, but by the help and grace of God, resist the motions and quench the heats of concupiscence, let us fly to him, and beseech him to deliver us from the temptations which torment us: For he wounds and heals, he strikes and his hands make whole again.” (Job 5:18) ‘He kills and restores to life, he pulls down and sets up again.” (1 Kings 2:7) They then fell to their prayers, and as it was through the prayers of the holy abbot, that this temptation came upon the old man, so God delivered him from it by the same prayers; and thus both the young hermit, and the old one too, met with such a remedy and instruction as they stood in need of.

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