Step 21 On unmanly and puerile cowardice. 1. If you pursue virtue in a monastery or community, you are not likely to be attacked much by fear. But the man who spends his time in more solitary places should make every effort to avoid being overcome by that offspring of vainglory, that daughter of unbelief, cowardice. 2. Cowardice is a

Step 2 On the many forms of vainglory. 1. Some like to distinguish vainglory from pride and to give it a special place and chapter. And so they say that there are eight capital and deadly sins3. But Gregory the Theologian and other teachers have given out that there are seven; and I am strongly inclined to agree with them.

Step 2 On mad pride, and, in the same Step, on unclean blasphemous thoughts. 1. Pride is denial of God, an invention of the devil, the despising of men, the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of sterility, flight from divine assistance, the precursor of madness, the herald of falls, a foothold for satanic possession, source of

Step 24 On meekness, simplicity, guilelessness which come not from nature but from habit, and about malice. 1. The morning light precedes the sun, and the precursor of all humility is meekness. Therefore let us hear in what order the Light arranges these virtues, for He says: Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble in heart. So then

Step 25 On the destroyer of the passions, most sublime humility, which is rooted in spiritual feeling. 1. He who thinks that it is possible to use the visible word in order to describe the sensation and effect of the love of the Lord exactly, holy humility gracefully, blessed purity truly, divine enlightenment clearly, the fear of God honestly, assurance

Step 26 | part 1 On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues 1. Discernment in beginners is true knowledge of themselves; in intermediate souls it is a spiritual sense that faultlessly distinguishes what is truly good from what is of nature and opposed to it; and in the perfect it is the knowledge which they possess by divine illumination, and

Step 26 | part 2 On expert discernment 110. As the hart parched by the heat longs for the streams, so monks long for grasp of the good and divine will, and not only that, but also for what is not the pure will of God, and even for what is opposed to it. This is a subject that is

Step 27 On holy solitude of body and soul. 1. We are like bought serfs under contract to unholy passions; we therefore know to some extent the whims, ways, will and wiles of the spirits that rule over our poor souls. But there are others who through the action of the Holy Spirit, and by reason of their liberation from

Step 28 On holy and blessed prayer, mother of virtues, and on the attitude of mind and body in prayer. 1. Prayer by reason of its nature is the converse and union of man with God, and by reason of its action upholds the world and brings about reconciliation with God; it is the mother and also the daughter of