On his journey towards God, in his quest, and throughout his life, man is bound to encounter a multitude of temptations. Generally speaking, we call a temptation anything that entices, anything that deceives man in order to lure him into sin. We also call temptation any obstacle a person encounters in their attempt to do good, any obstacle they face in their attempt to fulfil God’s will. Another meaning of the word ‘temptation’, now somewhat archaic, was that of: investigation, examination, or trial. According to this meaning of the word, the act of testing a young pupil (a schoolchild, a student, etc.)—an act attributed to a teacher and carried out as part of the learning process taking place in any given school— may mean the assessment of the pupil, evaluating the extent to which they have acquired the knowledge taught or the stage they have reached in the learning process.
We shall endeavour to develop our discussion of temptation along two lines: we shall refer to as ‘temptation’ in the strict sense of the word anything that entices, anything that deceives and draws a person towards sin, or anything that stands as an obstacle in the way of doing good; and we shall call a ‘trial’ everything that happens to a person at a given moment in life, on their path towards drawing closer to God, towards strengthening their faith, towards perfection or, at other times, towards a ‘test’ or ‘examination’, towards the revelation of their true inner state, of the true state of affairs (in a moral sense).
As a sort of aside, let us say that this sort of situation, when we are given a trial to reveal our true inner state, may signify a judgement prior to the Last Judgement – a ‘particular judgement’ taking place whilst we are in this life (as distinct from the particular judgement of which the Church teaches us, and which it tells us takes place through the good and evil angels immediately after death, once the soul has left the body), a ‘judgement’ ordained by God for our awakening: the way we react in the face of trial (in accordance with God’s will or, on the contrary, contrary to His will) gives us the opportunity, if we so wish and if we do not justify ourselves, to pass ‘judgement’ on ourselves (in the sense of becoming aware of our inner state—which is all too often disastrous, and otherwise hidden amidst the distraction, confusion and darkness in which we live day to day), whilst having the time and opportunity to change this verdict, when it is unfavourable, through repentance (in contrast, once again, to the particular judgement after death, at which point repentance is no longer possible).
Continuing to unravel the thread of our thoughts regarding temptations and trials, we shall say that, having faith in God, in His providential care for humankind and for the whole of creation, and knowing that humankind was created in the image and likeness of God, as a rational and free being, we can already intuit that behind temptations there always lies either an evil inclination, a sinful impulse within man, or the work of the tempter from the beginning, the deceiver of the first humans—that is, the work of the devil—whilst behind trials we may find, though not always, God.
“…we sense that behind temptations there is always either an evil inclination, a sinful impulse within man, or the work of the tempter from the beginning, the deceiver of the first humans, that is, the work of the devil, and behind trials we may find, though not always, God.”
The Holy Apostle James says: ‘Let no one say, when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away and enticed by their own desire’ (James 1:13–14).
And Saint Peter the Apostle, in his First Epistle, says: ‘Be sober, be vigilant. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
On the other hand, as edifying examples of the trials through which God’s people have always passed, we have those listed by Saint Paul the Apostle in chapter XI of the Epistle to the Hebrews, from which we quote only verse 17, which speaks of the righteous Abraham: “By faith, when Abraham was tested, he offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was offering up his only son!”
A striking example in this regard is that of the righteous Job, of whom Saint James the Apostle speaks as follows: “Behold, we count those blessed who have endured: you have heard of Job’s endurance and have seen the outcome the Lord ordained for him; for the Lord is very merciful and compassionate” (James 5:11).
It may seem, as I have presented things so far, that it is quite easy to distinguish between temptations and trials. But this is not the case! Saint John Climacus says: ‘The teaching concerning God’s judgements and our falls is obscure and incomprehensible to every soul. We do not know which of the falls that befall us are due to carelessness, which to God’s withdrawal from us (for a good purpose), and which to God’s turning away from us’1”. What Saint John Climacus says here about God’s judgements and about falls can be understood as also being true with regard to trials and temptations.
St John Climacus adds, however, that with regard to falls that occur through Divine Providence (that is, through a divine order, a judgement or some act of God’s will), there is a sign by which they may be recognised: ‘But someone has told us that the things which befall us through divine providence bring about a swift return. For God, who has delivered us into their hands, does not allow us to be held captive by them for long’2
Perhaps it would not be out of place to pause for a moment now to consider the words contained in the Lord’s Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer): ‘and lead us not into temptation’ (Matthew 6:13), words which sometimes give rise to confusion: Can our heavenly Father lead us into temptation? In the light of what Saint James the Apostle said, namely that: ‘God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone’ (James 1:13) and in the light of what Saint John Climacus said, namely that He sometimes leaves us prey to our failings in accordance with His own judgements, which are beyond our comprehension, but also in accordance with the interpretations of many Holy Fathers of the Church, we can understand that: ‘He does not lead us into temptation’ is a ‘word’ that teaches us to recognise our weakness, not to throw ourselves out of pride into struggles and trials beyond our strength, but rather to ask God to look with mercy upon our weakness, not to allow trials from which nothing but the meagreness of our faith and the meagreness of our love for Him would be revealed, and not to let us fall when we are tempted. We therefore direct our prayer in this way to our heavenly Father, springing from a humble awareness of our own weakness, that we may not be subjected to trials, or, if this is not possible, that we may not be allowed to fall when we are tested or tempted, knowing full well that this would happen, knowing full well that we would fall if left to our own devices.
…‘Lead us not into temptation’ is a ‘word’ that teaches us to recognise our weakness, not to throw ourselves out of pride into struggles and trials beyond our strength, but to ask God to look with mercy upon our weakness, and not to allow trials from which nothing but the paucity of our faith and the paucity of our love for Him would be revealed…
The causal wording (as if the Heavenly Father were the cause of temptation, as if He were the one who ‘leads into temptation’) must not mislead us: prayer is not like a discourse that claims to be a systematic expression of ideas, with a rigorous and detailed logic and explanation of them. Prayer has its own inner rhythm, its own brevity; it says much without words, implies much without expressing it with the logical rigour of a well-constructed discourse, whilst at the same time possessing its own, inner coherence and logic, arising from the worshipper’s standing in a personal relationship with God, from the state of his soul in God’s presence, Who looks upon him with love and ‘Who fulfils requests even before they are made’3
Returning to the issue of distinction, of discerning between trials and temptations, I believe it is appropriate to say that it is not only the riches beyond the grasp of the human mind and the unfathomable depth of God’s judgements that make it practically impossible for us to fully understand the various situations in life, to understand what exactly is and what is not a temptation or a trial, but also our tendency to make excuses for ourselves and to blame others for our mistakes, a tendency deeply ingrained in us, throws us into confusion. That is why we commit a certain kind of abuse: at every little mistake, in every minor situation or incident that reveals some flaw of ours, we are tempted to exclaim: ‘Temptation!’. Just as Eve did in the Garden of Eden, who blamed the tempter for her mistake, so too do we blame someone or something external for what has happened, and as this becomes a habit, we end up no longer truly understanding where our mistake lies, where there is temptation, or where there is a trial.
And since we have mentioned Eve and her temptation, let us try to look more closely at what happened to our first parents in the Garden of Eden, which will help us to understand more about temptations and trials. Let us call God’s commandment to the first humans a ‘trial’: ‘You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!’ (Genesis 2:17); this might help us to understand something about the ‘nature’ of trials, about their purpose.
It is clear that God took care of the first humans and did not subject them to a trial they could not overcome. From the very narrative of Holy Scripture and from the interpretations of the Fathers of our Church (see, for example, the meditations of Saint Innocent of Odessa on the Fall of Adam 4), we understand first of all that the commandment (the trial) was absolutely necessary, for otherwise man, having only just been created, would not have had the opportunity to be strengthened, to grow, to practise or to put into action the spiritual powers instilled within him; and then we understand that God took all the measures within His power to ensure that no harm would come to him, He protected man from all sides, showing him what would happen if he broke the commandment—that he would face the peril of death, which he would indeed experience—whilst granting him delight through all the other trees of Paradise and in many other ways, the only thing He would have had to do to prevent man from falling was simply to bind his will, to take away his freedom, something He was powerless to do, for that would have been tantamount to killing the man He had created, to annihilating him as a being capable of love and destined for full joy and happiness, precisely by virtue of his reason and freedom.
In trials, of course, God cannot be likened to someone who, out of some sort of whim, tests his friend’s devotion to him, or to someone who looks on with a kind of curiosity at what will befall the one undergoing the trial; but He might rather be likened to a mother who knows that her son, her child, has a perilous path to tread—a path that must inevitably be taken, like a sort of ‘tightrope walk’ over an abyss— and she stands there trembling, with both hands outstretched towards him, wishing to catch him should he stumble, so that he might not be utterly crushed in his fall. These are a few things we can understand about the ‘nature’ of trials, drawing on the experiences of the first humans.
If we were to say something, in this same context, about temptations, about the way they creep into our lives, about the way the tempter acts to draw us into sin, I think it would be fitting to note that evil, temptation and the tempter succeed in deceiving us by always taking on the guise of good. The serpent approached Eve in the Garden of Eden wearing the guise of benevolence, putting on the mask of care and concern for her and Adam’s well-being. To paraphrase, we could describe the tempter’s action or explain the words he addressed to Eve (Genesis 3:1) as follows: ‘How are you? Don’t you feel restricted by God’s prohibition? Why did God say you must not eat from any of the trees in the Garden? Why should anything be forbidden to you? Why should you not enjoy, in complete freedom, all the beauty and all the pleasures that surround you?”
…‘Let us note that evil, temptation and the tempter succeed in deceiving us by always taking the form of good.’
The tempter’s aim, according to the interpretations of the Church Fathers, was to engage in conversation with the first humans, to learn from them something about the mystery of their life in Paradise, about the mystery of their relationship with God, he not actually knowing what commandment Adam and Eve had received from God. Having learnt this from the woman, owing to her naivety but also to her imprudence, and having learnt that they had been advised not to eat only from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tempter now knows where to strike and succeeds in deceiving the first parents by luring them into sin.
And today, just as in the past, the tempter approaches people who live their lives in purity and innocence, putting on the mask of a friend. He does not urge the person living in purity to commit an evil act, an obvious sin; he does not say to them: ‘Go and steal!’ or ‘Go and commit fornication!’ or ‘Kill!’, but approaches him gently and, through cunning, almost imperceptible thoughts, sows in him a longing for a ‘good’ which he does not possess, for something grand (but which exists only in the imagination, in the mind’s eye), it kindles his enthusiasm for something that seems so lofty and worthy of attainment, for something that seems so important that, without it, one cannot live, and for the attainment of which no price is too high to pay. The tempter takes care that, having kindled the enthusiasm and imagination of the person he is deceiving, he ensures that person fails to notice that, in order to achieve his ‘great’ goal, he is compelled by circumstances to resort to means that violate God’s will and break His commandments; and thus man ends up committing a multitude of sins: lies, deceit, disobedience, wickedness, gossip and other such or even greater sins, as it seems to him that these are trifles compared to the great good he is pursuing.
In the end, man will realise that the good towards which he was striving was but a chimera; he will come to realise that he has been deceived and that he has lost paradise (the inner state of peace and joy he once had when his conscience was clear) and that his soul is now, after committing sins that previously seemed to him to be of no consequence, darkened and burdened.
What is described above is, generally speaking, the way in which the tempter attacks people who lead a pure life. But he attacks each person according to, shall we say, their moral state: he attacks differently those who lie in the bondage of sin and do not even think of freeing themselves from it, in a different way those who are aware of their state of bondage and wish to free themselves from the dominion of sin, but take no decisive action in this regard, and in yet another way those who, having been freed from the bondage of sin and having acquired virtues, fall back into sin; and again, those who, having acquired virtues and established themselves in goodness, then, through pride, turn the very goodness they have acquired into an occasion of sin 5.
As for those who lie in the bondage of sin and do not even think of freeing themselves from this bondage, the devil tempts them in such a way that, taking advantage of their inclination towards sin, he arranges and facilitates new and ever-new opportunities for them to sin, whilst at the same time taking care to erase any good thought from their minds, to divert their attention from any situation or event that might inspire in them some good desire, some thought of freeing themselves from sin, thus plunging man from darkness into an even deeper darkness.
As for those who are aware of their state of bondage, of their sinful state of mind, and who wish to free themselves from this condition, but do nothing decisive in this regard, the devil tempts them with procrastination, falsely reassuring them that there is still time, that today they may sin—perhaps for… ‘the last time’, and tomorrow they will get their act together, but it is always ‘tomorrow!’ and never ‘today!’
As for those who have resolutely freed themselves from the bondage of sin and set out on the path of goodness, the devil often tempts them to do good according to their own understanding, to trust in their own discernment, neglecting to seek the advice of someone whocould guide them towards what is good, or even by refusing to submit to the guidance of someone through whom, by God’s grace, they might be able to distinguish true good from an apparent, deceptive good, thus causing them to fall back into sin.
Finally, the devil does not hesitate to attack even those who have climbed the entire ladder of virtues and who seem to have become firmly established in goodness, causing them to attribute the good they have attained to their own worth and skill, and thus to lose everything, and plunging into pride.
‘…elsewhere he attacks those who lie in the bondage of sin and do not even think of freeing themselves from it, or those who are aware of their state of bondage and wish to free themselves from the dominion of sin, but take no decisive action in this regard, or those who, having been freed from the bondage of sin and having acquired virtues, fall back into sin; and still others who, having acquired the virtues and established themselves in goodness, then, through pride, turn the very goodness they have acquired into an occasion of sin”
From all these snares of the deceiver, God’s love seeks to rescue man and ceaselessly sends him people to help him, opportunities and occasions for them to awaken from sin, or influences them through His Holy Angels, through the good thoughts they inspire, so that, by whatever means, they may be saved. It is up to man whether he will open himself to receive these good promptings, whether he will resolve to heed the good counsel.
Caught sometimes, or perhaps often, in the snares of the Deceiver, it is good not to forget the advice of Saint John Climacus, who teaches us: ‘Do not be troubled if you fall every day, nor withdraw from the struggle. But stand firm, and surely your guardian angel will value your patience. Your wound is easy to heal whilst it is still fresh and warm’6
But even if our spiritual wound is no longer ‘fresh and warm’, but has, over time, become hardened and infected due to our procrastination and indifference, let us not lose heart. Indeed, as Saint John Climacus also says: ‘Many things become incurable with the passage of time. But with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). The devils say, before the fall, that God is a lover of mankind, but after the fall they say that He is harsh’7 Let us not listen to them! Rather, whilst we have not yet fallen, let us strive to guard ourselves carefully against sin, and if, having been deceived, we have nevertheless sinned, let us not allow the discouraging thought that God is harsh and merciless to enter our souls, but let us hold fast to our trust in His love for mankind as a shield against despair.
Let us now return to the question of discernment—of distinguishing between temptations and trials. We have already said that it is difficult, and perhaps at times even impossible, to tell them apart. The wisdom of our Fathers, enlightened by God, nevertheless helps us to shed some light on this issue. We shall quote Saint Isaac the Syrian, who says that trials are the lot of God’s friends—those who are humble in mind—whilst temptations are the lot of the proud, whom he calls the enemies of God.
According to Saint Isaac, ‘the trials brought about by the spiritual rod for the advancement and growth of the soul, through which the soul that is being trained is disciplined and tested, are as follows: delay, the burdening of the body, the sluggishness of the limbs, idleness, confusion of thought, the perception of the body’s weakness, the temporary cessation of hope, the darkening of thoughts, the lack of human help, the lack of bodily necessities, and the like. From these temptations, a person acquires a lonely and forsaken soul and a broken and humbled heart. And through these, they are tested to see whether they come to desire the Creator. Therefore, the Provider ordains these things according to the strength and needs of those who receive them. In them are mingled comfort and hardship, light and darkness, struggles and help, and, in short, constriction and spaciousness. They (if used for good) are the sign of man’s growth through God’s help’8”. Father Dumitru Stăniloae, in a note on this passage by Saint Isaac the Syrian 9, observes that, nevertheless, the things he lists here and calls ‘trials’ are ultimately defined by man’s will: if a person uses them to draw nearer to God, we may rightly call them ‘trials’, but if, whilst going through all these things, a person turns away from God through grumbling or impatience, through unbelief, they actually become ‘temptations’.
Speaking then of temptations, Saint Isaac says: ‘And the temptations that come through turning away from God, against the shameless who exalt themselves in their thoughts before God and wrong this goodness through their pride, are these: the manifest temptations of the demons, which are also beyond the limits of the soul’s powers; the deprivation of the powers of wisdom found within them; the fierce sensation of the delusion of fornication, permitted against them to humble their pride; quick-temperedness, the desire to impose their will, to quarrel with words, to scold, contempt in the heart, the utter delusion of the mind, blasphemy against the name of God, foolish thoughts that provoke laughter, or rather, thoughts that bring tears, the fact of making themselves a laughingstock and losing their honour, of bringing shame and disgrace upon themselves through the work of the devils in many ways, both hidden and open, the desire to mingle and revel with the world, to speak and chatter nonsense at all times, in a mad manner, and to constantly invent some novelty through false prophecy, to promise much beyond one’s own power. And these are the spiritual afflictions.
As for the bodily aspects, a man such as this is beset by painful events that are ever intertwined with him and are hard to shake off: encounters with wicked and faithless people; indeed, he may fall into the hands of people who torment him, his heart may be constantly shaken, and suddenly, for no reason, out of fear of God. Such people often suffer great falls from cliffs and from high places and the like, which befall them to the point of crushing their bodies. And, finally, the absence of those who can sustain their hearts through the power of God and the hope of their faith; and, in short, whatever trials beyond their strength are brought upon them, together with those arising from within themselves. All these things which I have listed and enumerated form part of the various kinds of temptations of pride.
And the beginning of these arises in a person when they begin to consider themselves wise in their own eyes. And they are led into all these evils in proportion to the extent to which they harbour such thoughts of pride.
Therefore, recognise from these forms of temptation the ways in which your thinking becomes lax. And if you see any of these trials mingled with the trials mentioned earlier, know that to the extent that you have these, to that same extent has pride taken root within you’10
Finding ourselves, therefore, in our earthly life surrounded by trials and temptations, we seek our salvation. Trials and hardships will sometimes discourage us, and we may find ourselves in danger of doubting God’s care and love for us. It is important to understand their true significance (that of hardships and trials). Through them, the Lord leads us to salvation: ‘Now people have become proud,’ says Saint Silouan the Athonite, ‘and they are saved only through suffering and repentance, but it is very difficult for anyone to attain love’11
Let us gratefully receive, from the loving hand of the Lord, the appropriate remedies for healing this deadly disease of our souls: pride. Saint Silouan laments the fact that, failing to understand the call to humility, and failing to discover the blessing hidden in tribulations and trials ‘many lose heart and perish. Their souls become wild and no longer wish to pray, nor to read, nor even to think of God’12
May we be preserved from all this through God’s help, and may we endure our sufferings as the labour pains of birth into eternal and blissful life.
- 1
SAINT JOHN CLIMACUS, Philokalia, vol. IX, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1980, p. 151.
- 2
Ibid.
- 3
Penticostar, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1999, ‘Prayer I from the Service of Vespers (the Kneeling Prayer)’, p. 329.
- 4
SAINT INOCENT, Archbishop of Odessa, On the Fall of the First Father Adam, Original Sin and the Resurrection, Pelerinul Publishing House, Iași, 2012, pp. 13–23.
- 5
The Unseen War, Edition by Saint Theophan the Recluse, Sihastria Monastery Press, 2013, p. 129.
- 6
SAINT JOHN CLIMACUS, Philokalia, vol. IX, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1980, p. 152.
- 7
ST JOHN CLIMACUS, The Philokalia,… p. 152.
- 8
Philokalia, vol. X, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1981, p. 244.
- 9
The Philokalia, vol. X, … p. 244.
- 10
The Philokalia, vol. X,…, pp. 245–246.
- 11
Archimandrite Sophrony, The Venerable Silouan the Athonite, Accent Print, Suceava, 2013, p. 385.
- 12
Archimandrite Sophrony, The Venerable Silouan the Athonite,… p. 45.