Gleanings from Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy Fathers

gossip

5 Entries

...do not take pleasure in listening to gossip or criticisms, or the calumnies, which some people spread about their brethren; but either stop them, if you can, or withdraw, so as not to hear them. Lorenzo Scupoli (Unseen Warfare: Chapter 24)



Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbors expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. St. Maximos the Confessor (First Century on Love no. 58)

Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbour's expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. St. Maximos the Confessor (The Philokalia Vol. 2 pg 59)

Give no ear to the slanderer's talk nor let your talk run on in the fault-finder's hearing, by readily speaking and listening to things against your neighbor; otherwise you will fall from divine charity [love] and be found a foreigner to eternal life. St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Centuries on Charity

We should shun loose speech like an asp's venom...for it can plunge us into total forgetfulness of the inner struggle... St. Hesychios (Philokalia Vol. 1 pgs. 167-168)




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