Gleanings from Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy Fathers

temptation

2 Entries

First there is provocation;then a coupling with the provocation; then assent to it;then captivity to it;then passion,grown habitual and continuous. This is how the holy fathers describe the stages through which the devil gets the better of us. Forty Texts on Watchfulness #34

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Then we say: "And lead us not into temptation." These words, brothers, are warning enough that we should be on our guard. We must therefore beg the Lord with many sighs, striking our hearts as well as our breasts, never to leave us His servants without His help, lest we be open to the power and access of our enemy the devil, who is constantly prowling around us like a lion, looking for someone of us to eat, and who seeks to poison our hearts with his evil suggestion that he deign, by the protection of his assistance, to surround us with the wall of his grace and by his defense ward off the incursion of temptation in us, so as not to permit the work of his hands to be taken captive and subjected to slavery by the enemy -- provided we do not on our part give our consent to the temptations of this same enemy and do not, so to speak, make ourselves his captives, inclined to desire our enemy rather than flee him. REF:St Benedict of Nursia, from "The Rule of the Master" - (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1977), pp. 95 - 101

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