What really stopped me in my tracks while reading this chapter (see yesterday’s post) was this that he wrote:

For the person who has begun to tread the spiritual path, nothing is more important than the Gospel command: ‘Do not judge.’ Greed and vanity are passions that belong to those who are novices on the way or who have only just begun to advance along it.  But for the more advanced, the breakdown always comes from judgment pronounced on others. . . . according to spiritual teachers, the whole of virtue is comprised in the refusal to despise. (p. 281)

I guess, in reading this, I felt it was kind of a back-handed compliment.  I struggle with judgmental thinking so much.  Somehow that means I’m further along on the spiritual path?

Then he goes on to quote from John Climacus and a desert father:

John Climacus: : “The failures of beginners result almost always from greed. In those who are making progress the failures come also from too high an opinion of themselves.  In those nearing perfection they come solely from judging their neighbor.”

Abba Theodore of Pherme said, “There is no other virtue than that of not despising anyone.”

And back to Clement: “To justify ourselves by condemning others is our permanent tendency, in private as in public life.”

So is there hope for us who struggle with this?  Of course, but more on all of this tomorrow.