Κεφ. ΙΑ'
The Savage Nature of Resentment
Evagrius describes how the initial impulse of anger matures into destructive resentment and the physical and spiritual toll it takes on the soul.
Anger is an extremely fierce passion, for it is said to be a boiling and stirring of wrath against someone who has done wrong—or is thought to have done wrong. It makes the soul savage all day long, but especially during prayer, when it seizes the mind and reflects back the face of the person who caused the hurt. But when anger lingers and turns into resentment, it sometimes brings disturbances in the night, physical wasting and pallor, and attacks by venomous beasts.1 These four effects that follow resentment can also accompany many other troubling thoughts.2
Read the original Latin
Ἡ ὀργὴ πάθος ἐστὶν ὀξύτατον· θυμοῦ γὰρ λέγεται ζέσις καὶ κίνησις κατὰ τοῦ ἠδικηκότος ἢ δοκοῦντος ἠδικηκέναι· ἥτις πανημέριον μὲν ἐξαγριοῖ τὴν ψυχὴν, μάλιστα δὲ ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς συναρπάζει τὸν νοῦν, τὸ τοῦ λελυπηκότος πρόσωπον ἐσοπτρίζουσα. Ἔστι δὲ ὅτε χρονίζουσα καὶ μεταβαλλομένη εἰς μῆνιν, ταραχὰς νύκτωρ παρέχει, τῆξίν τε τοῦ σώματος καὶ ὠχρότητα, καὶ θηρίων ἰοβόλων ἐπιδρομάς. Ταῦτα δὲ τὰ τέσσαρα μετὰ τὴν μῆνιν συμβαίνοντα, εὕροι ἄν τις παρακολουθοῦντα πλείοσι λογισμοῖς.
Notes
The Praktikos companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent