St. Dorotheos of Gaza On the Fear of the Future Hell, and that the Person who Wants to be Saved must not be Negligent about his own Salvation It is similar for the soul. A person must first cut out every old attachment to passions, and every bad habit that he possesses; because nothing is worse than bad habits. St. Basil himself says: This struggle to overcome the habits within us is not minor. Habits which are retained for a long time, inevitably take on the strength of nature. If one wants to struggle, as I have said, he must do so not only against bad habits and against passions, but also against their cause --- the roots. If the roots are not removed, the thorns inevitably grow up again. There are some passions that are powerless if we cut away their causes. Envy, for example, is nothing in and of itself, but it has certain causes. One of them is ambition: wanting to be glorified, [such an individual] detests the person who is glorified or given preference. In like manner, wrath has many causes; but - in particular - the desire for pleasure. Evagrios mentions this when telling of a certain saint, who said: I strip away the desire for pleasure, because I want to cut off the pretext for anger. All the Fathers say that each passion arises from one of these three causes: ambition, avarice or the desire for pleasure...
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 22:17:38 +0000