Thy Will

“He who esteems himself as nothing, where so ever he goes, or wherever he dwells, he shall find rest.” Abba Paphnutius

"Regarding true interior perfection, Paphnutius said that in the same way we pursue worldly things (riches and pleasures of the world) we should pursue the things of God in the interior life: “…we may also inwardly with the heart forsake all these things and never be drawn back by any desires to those things which we have forsaken.” He goes on to compare those who return to those worldly things to the Israelites and their sojourn in the wilderness: “…though they did not literally go back, (they) are yet said to have returned in heart to Egypt…by forsaking God who had led them forth with such mighty signs…as Scripture says: “And in their hearts they turned back into Egypt, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before us.” The turning back to worldly comfort began by turning away from God in the heart.

He acknowledged that the “old man” that Paul spoke of (Col. 3:9, Eph. 4:22) had to be dealt with: “We ought then to take the utmost care that our inner man as well may cast off and make away with all those possessions of its sins, which it acquired in its former life: which as they continually cling to body and soul are our very own…”  The nature of the old man tends to cling to us, we should spend as much effort in putting off the old self as we did in acquiring it.

He believed that the actions we took today had eternal consequences, and spoke of taking on colour based upon the fruit of lifestyle: “For the beauty or ugliness of the soul is the product of its virtues or its vices, the colour it takes from which either makes it so glorious, that it may well hear from the prophet ‘And the king shall have pleasure in thy beauty, (Psalm 45:11)‘ or so black, and foul, and ugly, that it must surely acknowledge the stench of its shame, and say ‘My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness… (Psalm 38:5)‘” The actions an individual takes part in colour the state of their interior life, as Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22‭-‬23)”

Another time, he was asked how free will fit within the will of God.  He answered in quite a meticulous way, but the basic structure of his dialogue is that God initiates everything relating to a man, man responds, and then God, in His grace, perfects mankind.  “And so as we know that God creates opportunities of salvation in various ways, it is in our power to make use of the opportunities granted to us by heaven more or less earnestly.”  Man’s free will is seen in his response to what God initiates.

He carries on with the example of Abraham: “For just as the offer came from God Who called him, ‘get thee out of thy country,’ so the obedience was on the part of Abraham who went forth; and as the fact that the saying ‘Come into the land’ was carried into action, was the work of him who obeyed, so the addition of the words ‘which I will show thee’ came from the grace of God Who commanded or promised it.” God initiated by calling Abraham, it was Abraham’s choice to respond, and God sustained the outcome. The will of God carries man to his own free choice, and then the grace of God works the outcome.

Abba Paphnutius admonished that the monk was to pursue spiritual growth with all his energy and effort but to realize, “…with all our exertions and zeal we can never arrive at perfection, nor is mere human diligence and toil of itself sufficient to deserve to reach the splendid reward of bliss, unless we have secured it by means of the co-operation of the Lord, and His directing our heart to what is right.”  Our perfection comes about by the hand of God.
His encouragement is that we must pray as David prayed: “…we ought every moment to pray and say with David ‘Order my steps in thy paths that my footsteps slip not,’ and ‘He hath set my feet upon a rock and ordered my goings.'” In so doing, God, “the unseen ruler of the human heart” would transform the desire of our heart, that our will would mimic His will.

One example he pulls upon is the nation of Israel coming into the promised land.  God promises to destroy many nations before them, but then tells them not to enter into covenant with them: “…Scripture declares that it is the free gift of God that they (the Israelites) are brought into the land of promise, that many nations are destroyed before them, that nations more numerous and mightier than the people of Israel are given up into their hands. But whether Israel utterly destroys them, or whether it preserves them alive and spares them, and whether or no it makes a league with them, and makes marriages with them or not, it declares lies in their own power.” God’s sovereign will and Israel’s free choice are seen in the narrative.

He goes on to say that God brings blessing, but that we are required to pursue that blessing: “And by this testimony we can clearly see what we ought to ascribe to free will, and what to the design and daily assistance of the Lord, and that it belongs to divine grace to give us opportunities of salvation and prosperous undertakings and victory: but that it is ours to follow up the blessings which God gives us with earnestness or indifference.”
He explained the will of God as that which God approves and that which God allows: “All things that happen are divided into two, what God approves and what He allows. As many things then as happen in accordance with virtue for the glory of God, these happen with His approval. But as many, on the contrary, as are fraught with loss and danger and are due to external crises or fallings away, these happen with God’s permission.” Those things that bring glory to God are those that he approves, those that bring crises happen with God’s permission.

The natural question then arises, why does God allow crises or falling away to happen?  Paphnutius goes on to explain that it is all within God’s divine logic: “…it is impossible that a man who thinks rightly and lives rightly should succumb to snares of shame or the deceit of demons.” But regarding the man who does not live righteously: “…God deserts them for their benefit, in order that through their desertion they may perceive the difference that results from their change and correct either their intention or their conduct.”  Why does God allow certain difficulty and calamity to arise?  According to Paphnutius, it is to correct mankind.  If God removes his hand, man ought to perceive the absence of God’s presence and correct his actions.

He gives an example of this principle: “For when the man who is puffed up with pride, pluming himself on the natural charm of his discourse, does not ascribe to God the natural charm or even the supply of knowledge, but to his own application or natural gifts, God withdraws from him the angel of foreknowledge.” The man who gives himself the credit for the gifts God has bestowed is filled with pride.  As such, when he attributes what God has done to his own power, God withdraws from the man his source of revelation.   As James 4:6 states, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

God’s resistance serves two purposes, to show man the errors of his ways, and to convince man that he cannot operate on his own power.  If God were to forego this withdrawal of his presence, the man would be ever more convinced that what he was doing was right.

When a man humbles himself in this process, Paphnutius declares the outcome to be: “…if such a man corrects himself, putting away the cause of his abandonment, that is, pride, and recovers humility and recognizes his own measure, not exalting himself against anyone, and thanking God, then knowledge attested by proof returns to him. For spiritual words which do not have as an escort a sober and disciplined life are like ears of corn blasted by the wind; they have the outward appearance (of corn) but have been robbed of their nutritive value.” God will restore the witness of his Spirit.  Spiritual words without humility are like a piece of food without nutrition.  The effect of humility is that the Lord adds his power to the words shared by the spiritual man for the benefit of others.

At the end of his life, Paphnutius was no longer able to live in the disciplined way that he had practiced during all his days.  A few days before he passed, an angel appeared to him and delivered this message, “Come now, you blessed one; enter yourself into the eternal tabernacle: of God. For the prophets have come to welcome you into their choirs. I did not reveal this to you earlier, for fear that you would become proud and forfeit your reward.” Paphnutius spent his days longing for union with God, and teaching people not so much how to reach that place, but about who God is.  This is his legacy, that he came to know the lover of his soul.”

“St. Paphnutius prayed to God to reveal to him, who it is that he [Paphnutius] resembled. He heard a voice which spoke to him, “You are similar to a merchant who seeks good pearls; arise and do not be idle!” But why would not God say to everyone of us that we are similar to a merchant who seeks good pearls? Because many of us do not seek pearls, rather we gorge ourselves with heavy layers of cheap dust. Not everything which the net raises up from the bottom of the sea is a pearl; sometimes, it is only mud and sand. The ignorant vie for that mud and sand as though it were a pearl. Only the merchant who recognizes a true pearl casts the net into the sea untold number of times. He hauls it up, sifts it of mud and sand, until he finds one seed of pearl! Why does God compare Paphnutius to a merchant? Because Paphnutius gave away all of his possessions, invested all of his effort and all of his time, in order to find that one seed of the true pearl. That true pearl is the heart cleansed of all passions and of evil thoughts and warmed by the flame of love toward God. Arise also, you man, and do not be lazy! Your marketing day is approaching its twilight.”

“A brother in a monastery was falsely accused of fornication and he arose and went to Abba Anthony. The brethren also came  from the monastery to correct him and bring him back. They set about proving that he had done this thing, but he defended himself and denied that he had done anything of the kind. Now Abba Paphnutius, who is called Cephalus, happened to be there, and he told them this parable: ‘I have seen a man on the bank of the river buried up to his knees in mud and some men came to give him a  hand to help him out, but they pushed him further in up to his neck.’

Then Abba Anthony said this about Abba Paphnutius: ‘Here is a real man, who can care for souls and save them.’ All those present were pierced to the heart by the words of the old man and they asked forgiveness of the brother. So, admonished by the Fathers, they took the brother back to the monastery.”

~ Saint Paphnutius the Ascetic, also known as Paphnutius the Hermit, was an Egyptian anchorite of the fourth century. He is most famous for his accounts of the lives of many hermits of the Egyptian desert, such as Saint Onuphrius. Saint Paphnutius was the disciple of Saint Macarius the Great who was an anchorite in the Egyptian desert.”

“The most celebrated personage of this name was bishop of a city in the Upper Thebaid in the early fourth century, and one of the most interesting members of the Council of Nicæa (325). He suffered mutilation of the left knee and the loss of his right eye for the Faith under the Emperor Maximinus (308-13), and was subsequently condemned to the mines. At Nicæa he was greatly honoured by Constantine the Great, who, according to Socrates (H. E., I, 11), used often to send for the good old confessor and kiss the place whence the eye had been torn out. He took a prominent, perhaps a decisive, part in the debate at the First Œcumenical Council on the subject of the celibacy of the clergy. It seems that most of the bishops present were disposed to follow the precedent of the Council of Elvira (can. xxxiii) prohibiting conjugal relations to those bishops, priests, deacons, and, according to Sozomen, sub-deacons, who were married before ordination. Paphnutius earnestly entreated his fellow-bishops not to impose this obligation on the orders of the clergy concerned.

He proposed, in accordance "with the ancient tradition of the Church", that only those who were celibates at the time of ordination should continue to observe continence, but, on the other hand, that "none should be separated from her, to whom, while yet unordained, he had been united". The great veneration in which he was held, and the well known fact that he had himself observed the strictest chastity all his life, gave weight to his proposal, which was unanimously adopted. The council left it to the discretion of the married clergy to continue or discontinue their marital relations.” ~ Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

Image ~ Abba Paphnutius Forced to Drink Wine, Italian (Tuscan) School, Christ Church, University of Oxford