The Aim of the Coenobite and of the Hermit

I would flatly maintain that one and the same man cannot reach perfection in both lives, were I not held back by the example of a few. Since it is no small thing to find a man who is perfect in either of them, it is clear how much harder, and I had almost said impossible, it is for a man to be fully accomplished in both. And if this has ever happened, it cannot come under any general rule. For a general rule must be based, not on exceptional cases, that is, on the experience of a very few, but on what lies within the power of many, or rather of all. What is reached here and there by only one or two, and is beyond the reach of ordinary goodness, must be kept out of general rules, as something granted outside the condition and nature of human weakness, and should be held up as a miracle rather than as an example. [a]

So, as far as my slender ability allows, I will briefly set out what you want to know. The aim of the coenobite is to put to death and crucify all his desires and, according to that saving command of the gospel’s perfection, to take no thought for tomorrow. And it is perfectly clear that no one but a coenobite can attain this perfection: the kind of man the prophet Isaiah describes, blesses and praises in these words: “If you turn your foot away from the Sabbath, from doing your own will on my holy day, and glorify him, while you do not go your own ways, and your own will is not found, to speak a word: then you will delight in the Lord, and I will lift you up above the high places of the earth, and will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

The perfection of the hermit, on the other hand, is to have his mind set free from all earthly things and to unite it with Christ, as far as human frailty allows. Such a man the prophet Jeremiah describes when he says: “Blessed is the man who has borne the yoke from his youth. He will sit alone and keep silent, because he has taken it upon himself.” So also does the psalmist: “I have become like a pelican in the desert. I kept watch, and became like a sparrow alone on the housetop.” Unless each of them reaches this aim, which we have described as belonging to either life, it is useless for the one to take up the way of the coenobium and the other that of the hermitage, for neither of them will gain the good of his way of life.