I suspect that most people would likely consider St. Antony to be a little crazy selling all that he had, giving it to the poor, and deciding to live by himself in the Egyptian desert, struggling there to find out what it took to live out the teachings of the Gospel in thought, word, and deed. But in fact, St. Antony had decided that righteousness was an end worth pursuing in itself.
When people live righteously, when they put the distorted, disordered elements of their souls and bodies into right relationship once again, the benefit goes far beyond themselves.
What did St. Antony do? Like an apparently crazy person, he lived a life of voluntary homelessness, eating only bread and salt, and that rarely, giving every ounce of strength, every thought, every emotion, over to Jesus Christ, that they might be set right.
In so doing, he literally changed the world. His efforts for righteousness (along with one or two others) started a whole movement in the third and fourth centuries. Christian spirituality, which had always been ascetic, now became, in a sense, scientific. People were experimenting, refining their technique in the way of righteousness, refining their fidelity to the Gospel. What was always a thing of beauty became an art.
These men and women preserved the spirit of the first Christians, of the way of the Gospel, for the sake of generations to come; they sold what they had to give to the poor; they cared for the sick; they learned a higher and deeper love, bearing witness that the commandments have power for amendment of life, and for that matter, that they have the power to save the world. We can see that little things often have big consequences sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. And so here we are, members of the Orthodox Church because it still believes and maintains this approach. Much of our spiritual discipline comes from the desert.
According to Evagrios the Solitary, one of these early Christian hermits of the Egyptian desert, our spiritual struggle can be summarized quite simply: it is because we have first failed to resist little temptations that we eventually fall to greater ones. Following John the Evangelist’s warnings against succumbing to “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16), Evagrios identifies three “frontline demons” in particular: gluttony, avarice, and seeking the esteem of others.
“All the other demons,” he writes, “follow behind and in their turn attack those already wounded by the first three groups.” Sexual promiscuity follows gluttony; anger follows a failed attempt to impress someone; and pride follows greed; since poverty, Solomon tells us, produces its opposite, humility. “In short,” Evagrios concludes, “no one can fall into the power of any demon, unless he has been wounded by those of the frontline.”
In other words, those who have succumbed to big temptations probably fell first to little ones. The sexually promiscuous person is likely someone who could never refrain from snacking every time he walked through the kitchen. The person with violent fits of temper has likely always been concerned to have everything his own way. The one who slanders others has probably dealt poorly with criticism of himself.
Parents can see the nature of this problem in their children. How often do phrases like “I’m starving!” or “Mine!” or “She called me a bad name!” lead to “He hit me!” or “She broke it!” or “I didn’t get any!”
As adults, we often assume that we learned our lessons when we were young, but we may simply have become better at hiding our faults behind an aura of maturity. Well-written or well-spoken pretension is still seeking the esteem of others. Cutting in line at the store is still avarice. Compulsive late-night snacking is still gluttony.
Indeed, many of us have fallen victim to one of the simplest childhood fantasies: that being a grown-up means doing whatever we want. And this is despite the fact that we teach our children that being an adult means precisely the opposite: cheerfully bearing responsibility and doing our duty, whether we want to or not. So what can we do about our tendency to fall into sinful habits?
A good first step toward keeping our little bad habits in check is simply making ourselves aware of what they are, but even when we notice them, we may lack the necessary self-control to break them. And this, according to the ancient Church, is precisely where the spiritual disciplines come in. They are the good leaven in a Christian way of life. Evagrios knows precisely the sort of yeast that is needed and how it works: “the Physician of souls,” he writes, “corrects our incensive power through acts of compassion [i.e., almsgiving], purifies the intellect through prayer, and through fasting withers desire.” He is referring to the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 6, where Jesus instructs his disciples about how to give alms, to pray, and to fast. These things are the leaven that makes all the difference.
Early Christians prayed the Lord’s Prayer several times a day, fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays (and all through Lent and Advent), and gave almsthat is, their time, resources, and energyto help others as often as possible. Evagrios tells us that almsgiving keeps our incensive power from pushing us into anger, bitterness, and dejection by releasing us from the power of material things that we would otherwise selfishly and stubbornly cling to. In fasting we deny our desires, thus keeping them in check. And through prayer we purify our minds, cleansing them from every earthly care by focusing them on God.
Through these disciplines, Christ graciously shapes us into his likeness. With this way of life, this habit, established little by little, we gain ever-greater self-control to resist ever-greater temptations. The leaven of the three spiritual disciplines works its way through our whole lives, so that we may, in turn, be leaven to the world.
St. Moses the Ethiopian, another Egyptian desert father, puts the spiritual disciplines in their proper place: “they are to be rungs of a ladder up which [the heart] may climb to perfect charity.” Christ warns us not to perform acts of compassion to be seen by others; otherwise, we will forfeit our heavenly reward (Matt. 6:1). Thus, we ought not to be upset if someone interrupts us while we are praying, or offers us meat while we are fasting, or declines our helping hand. Instead, we should give others our attention, accept what is given to us, and respect the wishes of others.
“The loss you incur by being irritated,” teaches St. Moses, “outweighs the gain of fasting; dislike of your brother cannot be counterbalanced by reading the Bible. These practices . . . are all subordinate means to your chief aim, which is purity of heart, or charity.”
True love is hard work. But according to the desert fathers, it is an attainable goal worth striving for. As we make a habit of the three spiritual disciplines, hiding them beneath the surface of our lives, practicing them with diligence and patience, these “rungs of the ladder of charity” will act in our hearts as yeast acts to leaven a whole lump of dough.