Monday, February 2, 2015
St Maximus the Confessor: Four Hundred Centuries on Love
The one who does not disdain glory and pleasure and greed which increases them and which is in turn produced by them cannot cut away the occasions of anger. And the one who does not cut them away cannot attain perfect love.
1:75Humility and distress free man from every sin, the former by cutting out the passions of the soul, the latter those of the body. The blessed David shows that he did this in one of his prayers to God, “Look upon my humility and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.” (Psalm 24:18)
1:76Silence the one who is slandering in your hearing lest you commit a double sin with him: by accustoming yourself to this deadly vice and by not restraining him from foolish talk against his neighbour.
1:60Do not lend your ear to the slanderous tongue nor your tongue to the fault-finders ear by readily speaking or listening to anything against your neighbour. Otherwise you will fall away from divine love and be found excluded from eternal life.
1:58St Maximus the Confessor, 7th century
