Letter 825

To Peter the Monk. For what does the malicious demon not contrive in order to cast the noble contestants into despondency? For there are times when, seeming to terrify them with bugbears, he attempts through suggestion to turn their good petitions into their opposite. For when the one who is praying cries out, "Have mercy on me, O God, and save me," the enemy mutters to the soul, saying: "Be angry with me, O God, and destroy me." And again, often when a person is confessing with his whole heart and singing the praise of the Greater One [God], at once the hostile dragon transforms the hymn and the doxology into blasphemy. But we must not cower before the audacity of the malevolent one; rather we must take all the more courage, and by the increase of our prayers and by the multiplication of the divine confession we must subdue the sinews and the might of the opposing power.

Τί γὰρ οὐ μηχανᾶται ὁ κακότροπος δαίμων πρὸς τὸ εἰς ἀθυμίαν ἐμβαλεῖν τοὺς καλοὺς ἀγωνιστάς; Ἔσθ᾽ ὅτε γὰρ δοκῶν μορμολύττεσθαι τούτοις, τὰς ἀγαθὰς αἰτήσεις διὰ τῆς ἐνθυμήσεως μεταστρέφειν πειρᾶται πρὸς τοὐναντίον. Τοῦ γὰρ προσευχομένου βοῶντος· «Ἐλέησόν με, ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ σῶσόν με·» ὁ ἐχθρὸς ὑποφθέγγεται τῇ ψυχῇ λέγων· Ὀργισθήσῃ α μοι, ὁ Θεός, καὶ ἀπόλεσόν με. Καὶ πάλιν, πολλάκις τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁλοκαρδίως ἐξομολογοῦντος καὶ ἀνυμνοῦντος τὸ Κρεῖττον, εὐθὺς ὁ πολέμιος δράκων τὸν ὕμνον καὶ τὴν δοξολογίαν εἰς βλασφημίαν μεθίστησιν. Ἀλλ’ οὐ πτηκτέον ἡμῖν τὴν τόλμαν τοῦ δυσμενοῦς, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον θαρρητέον, καὶ τῇ προσθήκῃ τῶν εὐχῶν καὶ τῷ πολλαπλασιασμῷ τῆς θείας ὁμολογίας, ὑποπτητέον τὰ νεῦρα καὶ τὸ κράτος τῆς ἐναντίας δυνάμεως.