A novice monk came to the famous ascetic, asking him to show him the path of perfection.
“This night,” said the elder, “go to the cemetery and until the morning praise the dead buried there, and then come and tell me how they will accept your praises.”
The next day the monk returns from the cemetery:
- I fulfilled your order, father! All night with a loud voice I praised these dead, calling them saints, blessed fathers, great righteous people and saints of God, lamps of the universe, storehouses of wisdom, the salt of the earth; He attributed to them all the virtues that he had only read about in the Holy Scriptures and in Hellenic books.
- Well, what then? How did they express their pleasure to you?
- No way, father: they remained silent the whole time, I didn’t hear a single word from them.
“This is very surprising,” said the elder, “but this is what you do: this night go there again and scold them until the morning as loudly as you can: then they will probably start talking.”
The next day the monk returned again with a report:
“I reviled and disgraced them in every possible way, calling them unclean dogs, vessels of the devil, apostates; equated them with all the villains from the Old and New Testaments, from Cain the fratricide to Judas the traitor, from the frantic Giveonites to Ananias and Sapphira, the deceivers of God, reproached them for all heresies from Simon's and Valentin's to the newly-minted Monothelite.
- Well then? How did you escape their wrath?
- No way, father! They were silent the whole time. I even put my ear to the graves, but no one moved.
“You see,” said the elder, “you have risen to the first stage of angelic life, which is obedience; You will reach the pinnacle of this life on earth only when you are as indifferent to both praise and insults as these dead people.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru