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A Study Of “On The Character of Men And the Virtuous Life”: Part VI

A Study Of “On The Character of Men And the Virtuous Life”: Part VI

Last updated on: March 5, 2011 at 4:05 pm by Henry Karlson

A Study Of “On The Character of Men And the Virtuous Life”: Part VI 2011-03-05T16:05:09-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Introduction and Part II

Next, we have a few paragraphs reiterating what has already been said: intelligent people take into consideration the consequences of their way of life, and will act in ways which benefit their soul.[1] They use what is necessary for life, nothing more; indeed, they will be so satisfied with less that the twist and turns of fortune will not harm them.[2] We must die to self-desire in order to find our true selves. “But because of our self-willed desire we cultivate death and remain wandering in the darkness of a life of sin, not recognizing our true self.”[3] Virtue is difficult but not impossible to attain, and once attained, one must struggle to keep it. A love of God helps us attain such virtue, to fight against temptations, while ordinary people, without such a love of God, unintelligently move back and forth between virtue and vice, changing their ways to meet the changes of their worldly affairs. Material goods, not God, becomes the source of their moral character, allowing them to be good sometimes, bad at other times.[4]

Then we have a paragraph, while filled with the kind of wisdom we would expect from Anthony, which is difficult to attribute to him because it begins with a statement which sounds rather unlike him. “The uneducated and the foolish regard instruction as ridiculous and do not want to receive it, because it would show up their uncouthness, and they want everyone to be like themselves.”[5] After pointing out that people, having become accustomed to their own habits, seek to justify themselves by suggesting others are worse than they, the text then explains the problems of the lax soul:

The lax soul is turbid and perishes through wickedness, since it contains within itself profligacy, pride, insatiate desire, anger, impetuosity, frenzy, murderousness, querulousness, jealousy, greed, rapacity, self-pity, lying, sensual pleasure, sloth, rejection, cowardice, morbidity, hatred, censoriousness, debility, delusion, ignorance, deceit, and forgetfulness of God. Through these and suchlike evils the wretched soul is punished when it is separated from God.[6]

Separation from God, subjectively if not objectively speaking, is hell. Since God is everywhere present and fills all things, we cannot be objectively separated from God. This is seen especially true when we remember how God is not only the creator of all things, but their sustainer. He is, in himself, the source of existence, and all that exists, exists in and through him and his will. There can be no objective separation from God. Such a separation would limit God, making for a dualistic understanding of creation, where there is something which objectively resists God, something which is outside of God’s power and authority, and so something which can be seen as an ontological rival to God. God can create a space for us to exercise our freedom from within himself, but to have a space outside of God would make God not God.

Interestingly, we are told we will be punished through our sins, not because of them. That is, our sins cause our own harm. Our subjective separation from God, willed by us through our sin, becomes the means by which we also suffer our own punishment. Not only do sins, left unchecked, form the habits which keep us away from God, they form the means by which we experience existence, and so experience existence as a realm of suffering. The constant thirst for pleasure through sin leads to perpetual suffering; the sin reinforces itself by making us assume the sinful way of life is a part of who we are, of being the sin itself. This creates a false self, which does not really exist, yet strives to exist; and the only way it can exist is as a parasite on the true self, sucking away at that self, keeping it in check, keeping it imprisoned. Trapped, the real self becomes lax, letting the false self take control. It doesn’t know itself and its abilities. It loses its energy, giving it all to the false-self which lives off it what is given to it. We all seek love, we all seek happiness through that love, but the false perception of the self becomes the means by which we perceive the world and how we are to get that love, and so we strive and act through that false self, constantly getting less than what we want. What we lack, we lack because of our sin. What we lack makes us suffer. Our sin, therefore, is the source of our punishment: it is a self-inflicted wound which we do not let heal.[7]

The list of sins here is interesting. Do we have here a foundation for the eight deadly sins? Obviously, we have more than eight here. But the notion of the eight deadly sins is that they are the root sins which we need to get a hold of if we want to overcome temptation. Here, we see most of them showing up, but also we see more, similar sins, and more importantly, those factors which might even lead one to such sins: delusion, ignorance, and forgetfulness of God. Once again, the perennial spirituality is entertained here but it is brought forward in a theistic context: forgetfulness of God could be offered as the foundation for delusion, and delusion, left unchecked, turns into ignorance of the world. Forgetfulness of God, indeed, is the foundation for one’s subjective separation from God. For it is when one turns their mind away from God’s perpetual presence in one’s life that one finds oneself moving further and further away from God and into oneself, creating the false-self which then acts as one’s God.

There is, as we said, a difficulty with this text. In many different texts, Anthony is shown as one who represents a path of wisdom which transcends education and training. Evagrius presents a story about Anthony which relates to this theme in The Praktikos:

A certain member of what was then considered the circle of the wise once approached the just Anthony and asked him: ‘How do you ever manage to carry on, Father, deprived as you are of the consolation of books?’ He reply: ‘My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God.’[8]

Now, unlike Athanasius, Evagrius does not say Anthony is unlearned, but rather, he does not have books to console him, that is, books to read. If one explores it further, this saying seems to indicate he had some sort of education, because Anthony employs a rather learned approach to the world and uses it to justify his transcendence of books. Notice, he did not say that he had never read or studied; he doesn’t say he was uneducated in the past. Indeed, as we can see from his letters, he certainly had some sort of education.[9] It might not have been formal, and he might not have read much, but this does not mean that he had no elementary level of education, nor that he didn’t appreciate those whose learning surpassed his own. After all, among those who looked up to him were some of the most famous Christians whose learning were without question, Athanasius and Didymus the Blind, and Anthony supported them in their endeavors. He could, therefore, encourage those whose path in the world includes education to be educated, but he would also appreciate the limits of such education and how it really should serve as a training tool for the disciplined life of a Christian.

But, we don’t have to look at the text in this fashion. If we explore it further, there seems to be something deeper going on here. We should wonder what is meant by the term “uneducated” here. It is easy to read it in the modern context, but this text is not modern. Certainly one who would have read it (instead of having it read to them) would have needed some training in order to know how to read, but the text itself does not indicate education is with reading and literary knowledge; it points out that education is connected to instruction – and the kind of instruction which would lift someone up so they are no longer “uncouth.” Read in context with the rest of the paragraph, such an uncouth nature seems to be tied to vices, to one who is undisciplined, and lets the soul remain in the lethargy of sin. Instruction would be spiritual instruction, however it is given, including the instruction of a spiritual elder. St Athanasius, for example, pointed out that Anthony was interested in this kind of instruction:

For he was not ashamed to bow his head to bishops and presbyters, and if ever a deacon came to him for help he discoursed with him on what was profitable, but gave place to him in prayer, not being ashamed to learn himself. For often he would ask questions, and desired to listen to those who were present, and if any one said anything that was useful he confessed that he was profited.[10]

Education therefore, can be the knowledge one gains from others, where one incorporates their wisdom into one’s own life. It can include knowledge gained from study, but it would not require such study. And, if we explore further, Anthony encourages his audience to come to know the Scriptures, which for many, would require study. He also points out other kinds of instruction can be and are for the soul:

The Scriptures are enough for instruction but it is a good thing to encourage one another in the faith, and to stir up with words. Wherefore you, as children, carry that which you know to your father; and I as the elder share my knowledge and what experience has taught me with you.[11]

Anthony encourages his audience to know Scripture. They could learn it from hearing it, which was quite common, but it is also true that many of them would come to know it from their own reading of the text. But, was said above, Anthony, accepts and encourages other forms of instruction, such as that of an elder (such as himself) teaching what knowledge they have. It is clear that for Anthony there is but one reason to acquire such knowledge — it is meant to help one in this world, to live the life of faith:

Let this especially be the common aim of all, neither to give way having once begun, nor to faint in trouble, nor to say: We have lived in the discipline a long time: but rather as though making a beginning daily let us increase our earnestness. For the whole life of man is very short, measured by the ages to come, wherefore all our time is nothing compared with eternal life. And in the world everything is sold at its price, and a man exchanges one equivalent for another; but the promise of eternal life is bought for a trifle. For it is written, “The days of our life in them are threescore years and ten, but if they are in strength, fourscore years, and what is more than these is labour and sorrow.” Whenever, therefore, we live full fourscore years, or even a hundred in the discipline, not for a hundred years only shall we reign, but instead of a hundred we shall reign for ever and ever.[12]

This goes back to the passage at hand, and whether or not it can be attributed to Anthony. When we see what it means by education in it, it is quite clear, it is the kind of instruction and education we find Anthony suggesting elsewhere. Education is for personal discipline, to help make sure one practices the virtues and avoids the vices which lead us way from God. What is important is to keep near to God. Those who are educated are those who have learned how to do so, however they have learned it; those who are uneducated are those who have not learned how to keep virtuous. Education, therefore, is different here than what we mean of it; and indeed, the educated here can be “unlettered” while the “lettered” could be seen as uneducated. It goes with Anthony’s understanding of the intellectual, of the one who is wise and knows themselves – true education is for a purpose, for one’s spiritual journey, and not merely for idle curiosity.[13] While, to be sure, we have to interpret this passage, there is enough basis within the text to interpret it in such a way that fits with Anthony’ general beliefs and practices, and so, should not, of itself, detour us from accepting it as being by Anthony or one of his immediate disciples.

[1] “On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life,” 330 (#5).

[2] Ibid., 330 (#6).

[3] Ibid., 330(#6).

[4] Ibid,., 330 (#7). This might be difficult to understand; how could attachment to material goods cause one to do good? But if we think this through, we can see that some people will be motivated to do good, thinking they will get some sort of material reward for what they have done. However, because many do not get such rewards for doing good, it is also easy to see how one will be tempted to do evil to get what one desires, and many, if not most, find excuses to justify their moral decay.

[5] Ibid., 330 (#8).

[6] Ibid., 330 (#8).

[7] Saint Isaac the Syrian extends this further, saying that the pains of hell is the pain of remorse one feels for ones unforgiven sins. Once again, our sins are the means by which we suffer, not because they are being punished, but because of the effect they have on the sinner. See Hilarion Alfeyev and Kallistos Ware, The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publishers, 2009).

[8] Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer. Trans. John Eudes Bamberger OCSO (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981), 39.

[9] See David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995), 253- 65. Brakke suggests that Athanasius emphasized the unlearned nature of Anthony to make a theological and political point. I suggest it is probable, as I argued earlier, that Anthony had some education, some elementary training in reading and writing (after all, he seemed to have written letters, some with learned opinions in them), and that he was further trained through oral guidance, either memorizing or writing down what he heard, and what we have here is a collection based upon these experiences, perhaps even put down early in his career. But it is also probable that his education level was basic, and he would use what he learned to understand the nature of secular education, to undermine it, and point out how his own spiritual practice exceeded such a standard. When he was confronted by philosophers, therefore, he was “uneducated” in relation to them, and he relied upon that to make his point, a point which Athanasius picked up on and emphasized in his biography of Anthony.

[10] Athanasius, Life of Antony, 214.

[11] Ibid., 200.

[12] Ibid., 200.

[13] Of course, things which are trivial for one person might be necessary for another.

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