Prologue in Sermons: April 4

The Destructive Consequences of Self-Deception

April 4

(A Homily of our Holy Father Cassian, “On Not Being Proud”)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

There have been — and still are — many such people who, having served God with certain special ascetic labors and imagining about themselves that they had become the closest of men to God, began to believe in their own way, to follow self-invented rules concerning the salvation of the soul, to neglect communion with their neighbors, and to despise and judge them. This self-deception, this spiritual pride, brings with it the most destructive consequences.

The monk Herodion spent fifty years in the desert and surpassed all the monks living there by his life equal to that of the angels. But pride destroyed even such an ascetic. He imagined that the monks living near him did not follow the rule that, in his opinion, they ought to follow, and he began to treat them with contempt. He did not even wish to partake of food with them on great feasts, and in order not to see them, he would not go to church even on Bright Pascha. The devil, noticing the self-conceit that had arisen in the elder, did not delay in taking care to destroy him — and succeeded. He appeared to him in the form of a radiant angel, and the self-deluded monk truly took him to be such. Then the devil suggested to the elder that he throw himself into a well, saying that because of his holy life he would suffer no harm from it. The elder obeyed and was pulled out of the well barely alive. On the third day he died.

In one monastery there lived a father and his son. The father greatly exalted himself over his spiritual achievements and fell into self-deception. A demon that repeatedly appeared to him he accepted as an angel of light. When the enemy saw that the monk was in his hands, he suggested that he sacrifice his son to God. “And you,” he said, “will be accounted worthy of the same honor as Abraham.” The deluded father heeded the devil’s suggestion and began to prepare a rope and sharpen a knife. Fortunately, the son noticed this in time and saved himself by fleeing.

There was also another self-deluded monk who believed in dreams and thought that, because of his holy life, the Lord revealed His will to him more than to others through visions in sleep. The devil took advantage of this and once showed him in a dream that on one side were the Holy Apostles, the Martyrs, and all Christians in darkness, in hell, suffering the most terrible torments — while on the other side the Jews were in the light, enjoying blessedness. The poor monk awoke, believed the dream, went to the Jews, and not only accepted the Jewish faith, but even married a Jewish woman. For this the Lord punished him: after three years, while still alive, he began to rot; worms consumed his body, and in such a miserable condition he died (Trinity Leaflets, No. 87).

Therefore, woe — as Isaiah says — to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight (Isaiah 5:21). And indeed, let us add, woe — double woe! For, as you see, spiritual pride destroys even the fruits of former virtues and makes a man a slave of the devil. What could be more terrible than this?

Let us therefore continually remember that “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it” (Luke 18:17). Let us go there by the path of humility and obedience, remembering that those who abandon the path leading to the mansions of the Heavenly Father walk the path of destruction.

“Who,” says Saint Gregory, “despising the steps that lead up the mountain, wishes to ascend it by steep cliffs, seeks his own fall” (in the book Incorruptible Food, p. 287). And indeed he falls; countless examples of those destroyed by self-deception and pride clearly convince us of this. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.