Not Every Battle in the Same Order

But you must know that our battles are not all fought in the same order. As we said, the attacks are not always made on us in the same way, so each of us ought to begin the battle with an eye to the kind of attack that is made on him in particular. One man will have to fight his first battle against the fault that stands third on the list, another against the one that is fourth or fifth. As the faults hold sway over us, and as the character of their attack demands, so we too ought to arrange the order of our conflict, so that the happy outcome of the victory and triumph that follow may secure for us purity of heart and complete perfection.

So far Abbot Serapion spoke to us about the nature of the eight principal faults. He set out so clearly the different kinds of passions hidden within us, whose origin and connection we had never been able to understand and see thoroughly before, though we were tormented by them every day, that we seemed almost to see them spread out before our eyes as in a mirror.