Caput XXXV

The Devil's Apparition and Confession

The devil appears to Pachomius in the form of a beautiful woman, confesses her power to tempt mortals, and reveals that Christ's incarnation shields Pachomius and his community from her assaults.

This decline in religious devotion — the devil, though he is the father of lies, foretold it to blessed Pachomius — would soon attack you wretched ones. At one time she appeared to him in the form of a woman surpassing all human beauty — her shape, the composition of her body, and her very appearance could not be described. Seeing that she was a phantom, he poured out prayers to the Lord, so that by the power of his majesty she would vanish. Meanwhile, she drew closer and said to him: 'Why do you toil so needlessly?' 'I have received authority from the Lord to tempt whomever I wish.' And Pachomius said to her: 'What do you want to be?' And she replied: 'I am the power of the devil. I envelop mortals in the darkness of a deadly will. But I cannot approach your people or you, on account of Christ, who became human.' 'But will it always be this way?'

The Prophecy of Monastic Decline

The devil foretells that after Pachomius's death she will rage unchecked among his successors, arguing that every human endeavor inevitably declines from its beginning toward decay, and that the religious profession will follow this pattern.

For a time will come after your death when, just as it pleases them, I will rage unchecked among those whom you now fortify with your prayers. And Pachomius: And how do you know whether those who come after them will be any better? For you are in no way strong enough to know beforehand what belongs to God alone. But she said: Nevertheless, I recognize future things from what has gone before. And the holy man said to her: And how is that? She indeed said: The beginning of every endeavor tends toward growth, but afterward it turns toward decline. So it will happen, I suspect, in this religious profession of yours as well. For it has grown strong, fortified by its own signs of vice and by various virtues; but when it begins to grow old, it will be diminished — either worn down by the daily passage of time, or failing through the lukewarmness of negligence — cut off from its own sources of growth.

Pachomius's Vision of Corruption and His Lament

Troubled by the devil's words, Pachomius prays for revelation and receives a vision confirming that future monasteries will spread widely but that negligent superiors, ambition, and the rejection of good men will bring about grievous decline, prompting his anguished cry to God.

Then, therefore, I will be able to prevail against things of this kind. That this will happen is made clear enough by our own unchecked depravity.¹ Pachomius, troubled by this vision, prayed earnestly afterward that the Lord would reveal to him what state of monks would come after him. Through the vision granted to him, he was shown that monasteries would indeed spread far and wide, and that some would live piously and continently, but that very many would neglect their own salvation and utterly lose it; and that the greatest evils would grow up through negligent superiors, while good things would fall into decline.² When those who hold the first place are in charge, quarrels are bound to arise; ambitious men will fight over who should preside, good men will be rejected, and wicked men will be chosen.³ So there will be no confidence for good men to resist, but nearly everything upheld by divine rules will be changed by human allurements.⁴ Then Pachomius cried out to the Lord and said, "Alas, my God, I have labored in vain!"⁵ For if those who will preside over the brothers are going to be so perverse, what sort of people will their subjects be?

Christ's Consoling Promise

The Lord appears to Pachomius bearing a crown of thorns, bids him take heart, and promises that his descendants will not fail even to the end of the age, and that those who live devoutly will obtain rest.

And when he was praying to the Lord most fervently, just as it is written there, the Lord appeared to him in a wondrous radiance, carrying a crown of thorns, and among other things said to him: Take heart, Pachomius, because your descendants will not fail even to the end of the age.⁶⁷ And whoever among those who are to come shall have lived devoutly and with self-restraint — I tell you nevertheless — will obtain rest.⁸⁹

Read the original Latin

Hunc ergo religionis defectum diabolus, licet pater mendacii sit, vos miseros incursuros beato Pachomio praedixit. Aliquando enim apparuit ei in habitu mulieris, excedens omnem humanam pulchritudinem, ita ut forma ejus ac compositio et visus exponi non possit. Quam esse phantasiam videns, preces fundebat ad Dominum, ut vi majestatis ejus evanesceret. Interim autem illa propius astans ait ei: Quid superflue laboras? Potestatem accepi a Domino tentare quos volo. Et Pachomius ad eam: Quid vis, inquit, esse? et illa: Ego sum, ait, diaboli virtus, et caligine mortiferae voluntatis mortales involvo; sed tuis vel tibi appropinquare propter Christum, qui humanatus est, non possum. Sed nunquid ita erit semper?

veniet etenim tempus post obitum tuum, quando prout libuerit, inter eos quos nunc tuis orationibus munis debacchabor. Et Pachomius: Et quid scis si meliores erunt, qui illos corroborent? nam tu praescire omnino nihil praevales quod est solius Dei. At illa: Plura tamen, ait, futura ex praecedentibus cognosco. Et vir sanctus ad eam: Et quomodo, inquit? Illa vero ait: Omnis rei principium tendit ad augmentum, dehinc ad detrimentum devergit. Sic ergo et in hac vestra professione, ut conjicio, fiet. Nam inter vitia sua signis, et variis virtutibus roborata succrevit; cum autem senescere coeperit, aut temporis diurnitate lacescens, aut negligentia teporis deficiens a propriis incrementis minuetur.

Tunc igitur adversus hujusmodi potero praevalere. Quod ita fieri nostra satis effrenata pravitas ostendit. Pachomius vero post haec de visione sollicitus instanter orabat, ut ei Dominus declararet quis status monachorum post se futurus esset. Qui per visionem ad se factam edoctus est, quod monasteria quidem multipliciter dilatarentur, et nonnulli pie et continenter viverent, sed plurimi negligerent, suamque salutem penitus perderent; maxima vero per negligentes praepositos mala succrescerent, et bona defectum incurrerent. Quibus primatum tenentibus necesse est jurgia generari: et quis praesit ambitiosa lite contendere, et reprobari bonos, ac malos eligi. Unde nec aliqua bonis viris resistendi fiducia suberit, sed omnia pene, quae regulis divinis subnixa sunt, humanis commutabuntur illecebris. Tunc Pachomius exclamans ad Dominum ait: Heu me, quia frustra laboravi! Si enim tam perversi futuri sunt qui fratribus praeerunt, eorum subditi quales erunt?

Et cum affectuosissime, sicut illuc scribitur, Dominum interpellaret, apparuit ei mirabili fulgore portans coronam spineam, eique inter caetera dixit: Confortare, Pachomi, quia posteritas tua usque in finem saeculi non deficiet. Et quisquis inter eos qui futuri sunt pie ac continenter vixerit, tamen dico tibi, requiem sortietur.

Notes

1 ↩effrenata pravitas rendered as 'unbridled depravity' to capture the force of the metaphor (unrestrained, wanton corruption).
2 ↩dilatarentur rendered as 'spread far and wide' to capture the sense of expansion/multiplication. succrescerent rendered as 'grow up' to convey gradual increase of evils.
3 ↩primatum tenentibus rendered as 'those who hold the first place' — i.e., those in positions of leadership. ambitiosa lite rendered as 'ambitious men will fight' to capture the instrumental ablative sense.
4 ↩subnixa rendered as 'upheld/supported' (from subniti). illecebris rendered as 'allurements' to capture the sense of seductive temptations.
5 ↩Heu me rendered as 'Alas, my God' to preserve the emotional weight of the exclamation while keeping it natural in contemporary English.
6 ↩coronam spineam — 'a crown of thorns' — carries obvious Christological resonance; the vision presents Christ's own crown to Pachomius as a sign of endurance through suffering.
7 ↩confortare — 'Take heart' / 'Take courage' — echoes a common biblical imperative (cf. Matt 9:2, 22; Mark 6:50; John 16:33). Candidate allusion held for Moses resolution.
8 ↩requiem sortietur — literally 'will obtain rest by lot / as an inheritance.' sortior can imply both 'to obtain by lot' and 'to receive as one's share.' The rendering 'will obtain rest' preserves the eschatological sense of eternal rest without over-specifying the metaphor.
9 ↩tamen — 'nevertheless' — introduces a concessive-adversative turn: despite the foretold corruption of monastic life, the devout individual will still find rest. The force is preserved but the placement after the parenthetical 'I tell you' creates a slightly awkward English rhythm that mirrors the Latin.

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