According to the Conferences, to cultivate purity of heart means to live a life of Christian virtue. For the fathers, speaking about virtues is like placing the white light of purity of heart through a mental prism. Virtues are like the colors that make up the light, combining indivisibly into a single whole, but capable of being discussed on their own.
Many of the fathers in the Conferences talk at length about virtues, their nature, and how to cultivate them. The Conferences lack a systematic list of the virtues, and one gets the sense in reading St John’s works that they are too great in number to ever compile them exhaustively. Moreover, the fathers of the Conferences will often talk about specific kinds of practices or spiritual skills using the term “virtue.” They seem not to have been influenced by later approaches to virtue that focus only on specific internal qualities within a human being. As such, their approach to the concept of virtues is rather fluid, and in our discussion here, we will follow the Conferences in this regard.
Here we will identify five key virtues that are important to the fathers of the desert. We have chosen…five…for three reasons. First, they are some of the most foundational in the Conferences. Second, these five virtues, in particular, will be important to understand from the start so that we may refer to them [later]. Third, each of these virtues is cultivated within an individual human being—they are personal virtues. Many other important virtues, in contrast, can only become manifest in interactions between two or more people, and so can be thought of as relational virtues. Such relational virtues will be easier to examine…later. The five virtues that we will address here are: detachment, discernment, discretion, humility, and balance.
The first virtue on our list is detachment. In essence, the state of detachment is that in which the Christian ceases to be concerned by earthly or material things-or even necessities-and is instead mentally occupied only with godly things. This is not to say that the Christian neglects basic needs, but rather that her mental and spiritual focus is never primarily upon these needs or the things that feed them. Detachment is the state in which the Christian entirely conforms to Christ’s injunction in the Gospel of Matthew.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.23
Attachment to worldly things is a great temptation for all people, even monks, according to Abba Moses. For, while desert monks have very few possessions, if they do not attain detachment, then what little they own can become just as great a spiritual burden as vast wealth.
For hence it arises that in the case of some who have despised the greatest possessions of this world-and not only large sums of gold and silver, but also large properties-we have seen them afterwards disturbed and excited over a pencil, or pin, or pen, or knife. However, if they kept their gaze steady out of a pure heart, they would certainly never allow such a thing to happen for trifles …. For often, too, some guard their books so jealously that they will not allow them to be even slightly moved or touched by anyone else, and from this fact they meet with occasions of impatience and death deriving from the very things that were meant to help them acquire patience and love.24
The fathers of the Conferences are abundantly clear in teaching that worldly and physical things are absolutely not spiritually evil in themselves, a point that we will discuss in further detail in chapter four. The problem with worldly things comes if the Christian becomes attached to them, and thus loses sight of the importance of purity of heart, as Abba Moses teaches here.
Detachment is critical to attaining purity of heart for fairly obvious reasons. If one prefers worldly concerns to divine ones, whether these concerns center on material objects and possessions, or things like money, power, and sex, then one is by definition not seeking God. To build on Abba Moses’ analogy of the archer, focusing on the things of the world while still hoping for purity of heart is like trying to hit a target while keeping one’s eyes and mind fixed on a bystander with whom one is having a deep conversation.
If what we seek are things divine, then to concern ourselves with things of the world cannot but guide as away from them.
~Daniel G. Opperwall, A Layman in the Desert
23 Mt 6.19-21.
24 Conf. I.VI.I. Translation adapted from Gibson.
