Page:Isaac of nineveh mystical treatises.djvu/12

 intercourse with intelligent recitation [of the scriptures], lest, on account of idleness, the sight of foreign things defile thy look.

Do not tempt thy mind, for the sake of examination, by consideration of impure seductive thoughts, thinking that thou shalt not he vanquished, liven wise men have been perturbed in this place and deviated. Do not take fire in thy bosom, as hath been said. Without severe bodily trouble, it is hard for the untrained youth to be bound under the yoke of saintliness.

The sign of the beginning of darkness of mind manifests itself in the soul by dejection, in the first place with regard to service and prayer. For it is not possible that the way in thy soul towards error should be opened if thou hast not fallen in this point first. Then, being bereft of God’s help—which [else] affords a way unto Him—thou wilt easily fall into the hands of the foes. And further, being without care for the matters of excellence, thou wilt be carried towards the contrary things in every manner. Departing, from any side, is the beginning [of approaching] to the opposite one. Let the service of excellence be firm in thy soul; meditate on it and so on.

Show thy weakness before God at all times, lest strangers come to examine thy strength while thou art separated from thy helper.

The service of the cross is a double one. And this is in accordance with its twofold nature which is divided into two parts: patience in face of bodily troubles, which is accomplished through the instrumentality of the anger of the soul ; this is called practice. And: the subtle intellectual service, in intercourse with God, constant prayer and so on, which is performed with the desiring part and called theory. The one purifies the affectable part by the strength of zeal; the other clears the intellectual part by the influence of the love of the soul, which is the natural appetite.

Every one, who, before being trained in the former part, passes to the latter, on account of the pleasures it affords, desiringly—or rather negligently—causes [God’s] anger to blow against him because, before having mortified his members