Some of the brothers came to the desert cave of Abba Poemen and asked him to speak to them about the virtue of silence. Abba said, “One man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others, he is babbling ceaselessly. There may be another who talks from morning till night and yet his heart is truly silent, for he speaks of others only to say what is good; the words of his mouth give birth to the virtue of silence.”—from The Lives of the Desert Fathers
In the tradition of desert monasticism, the monk shuts his mouth to open his ears. By not speaking to man, he hopes to hear God. But Abba Poemen cautions that sometimes the unspoken word hides the cankered heart.
The first monk Abba describes keeps the outward form of silent piety, but inwardly he twists himself into knots, judging and condemning those around him. No doubt some of his condemnations are for those who don’t keep the perfect silence he so scrupulously observes.
The second man speaks, but seasons every word with charity. “The words of his mouth,” Abba says, “give birth to the virtue,” the power, “of silence.”
Yesterday I called to mind the Lord Jesus’ words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” His command wasn’t nuanced; He didn’t suggest, “You know, you might want to cut people some lack now and then. Until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes you don’t really know what’s going on with them.” He said to those who would be is disciples, “Judge not, for the yardstick you measure others by will someday be used to measure you.”
Like so many things the Lord Christ said, the words aren’t hard to understand; they just seem impossible to follow.
That this is so is a conundrum I leave you with till another time. For now I want to focus on the real-life results from either following His command or laying it aside, as shown by the two monks Abba Poemen points out.
The first sees his neighbor—to keep the Abba’s topic let’s say he sees him talking—and he condemns him. What’s the yardstick he uses? Himself. “I don’t talk; I’m silent. Thank God I’m not like that blabbermouth.” He sets himself up as the yardstick of virtue, the arbiter of piety. Judging others by the man he imagines himself to be, everyone else falls short. When he turns to God he sees only a reflection of himself.
The second monk sees his neighbor, too. He sees the imperfections of his neighbor, perhaps noting the same imperfections the first monk saw. In his heart and with his lips, however, “he speaks of others only to say what is good.”
He’s not blind to the imperfections of others, but he doesn’t dwell on them. Why? Because he uses a different yardstick. The first monk measures everybody against his own virtuous self. The second measures himself, and everybody else, against God. He doesn’t condemn his neighbor for falling short of God’s goodness and glory, because he knows he, too, falls just as short.
The Lord Jesus commands us not to judge each other, not just because we aren’t competent judges—only He fits that bill—but more because of the spiritual damage we do to ourselves when we judge. When I fall into the trap of judging you, I’ve fallen into the same trap the old serpent sprung on Adam and Eve. “You’ll be like God,” the devil promised them. When I judge, I’m being like God, fulfilling His task, taking His place.
The “virtue of silence” about which Abba Poemen spoke is charity—love. As we love God more, we condemn others less. They, like us, are sinners in need of mercy.
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