True Humility, and How Abbot Serapion Exposed a False One

So, since I see that you have learned the first principles of this life from the best kind of monks, that is, that starting from the excellent school of the coenobium you are aiming at the lofty heights of the anchorite’s rule, you should pursue with genuine feeling of heart the virtue of humility and patience, which I do not doubt you learned there. Do not pretend to it, as some do, by a false humility in words, or by an artificial and needless eagerness for certain bodily duties. [a]

Abbot Serapion once laughed this sham humility to scorn in a masterly way. A man had come to him making a great show of his lowliness in his dress and his words. When the old man urged him, as was his custom, to “collect the prayer,” he would not do what was asked. Instead he debased himself, declaring that he was guilty of such crimes that he did not deserve even to breathe the air common to all, and he refused even the use of a mat and preferred to sit on the bare ground. He showed still less willingness to have his feet washed. Then, when supper was over and the usual conference gave him an opportunity, Abbot Serapion began kindly and gently to urge him not to roam the whole world with shifting lightmindedness, idly and aimlessly, especially since he was young and strong. He should stay in his cell according to the rule of the elders, and choose to be supported by his own efforts rather than by the generosity of others. Even the apostle Paul would not allow himself this. Though this provision might easily have been made for him while he was laboring in the cause of the gospel, he preferred to work night and day to provide daily food for himself and for those who served him and could not do the work with their own hands. At this the other was filled with such vexation and disgust that he could not hide from his face the annoyance he felt in his heart.

The old man said to him: Until now, my son, you have loaded yourself with the weight of every kind of crime, and were not afraid that by confessing such awful sins you would bring disgrace on your reputation. How is it, then, I ask you, that now, at our simple advice, which held no rebuke but only showed our concern for your building up and our love for you, I see you so disgusted that you cannot hide it in your face or cover it with a show of calm? Perhaps while you were humbling yourself you were hoping to hear from our lips this saying: “The righteous man is the accuser of himself at the opening of his speech”?

Further, true humility of heart must be kept. It does not come from a put-on humbling of body and word, but from an inward humbling of the soul. And it will shine out with clear evidence of patience only when a man does not boast of sins that nobody will believe, but thinks nothing of it when another insolently accuses him of them, and bears the wrongs done to him with a gentle and even spirit.