St Silouan's dangerous idea

Saving sin...

I’ve cited St. Silouan the Athonite enough times in my posts that my admiration (indeed, reverence) for him should be evident. So, the audacious title of this post – “St. Silouan’s dangerous idea” – might strike readers as indicating a turnaround on my part or else just intended to bait a few clicks. I assure you, neither is the case. My admiration remains undiminished, although I really do think that the “idea” in question carries with it some risk of being misunderstood, particularly by “raw recruits.” Thus, one must be careful when discussing it. And you’re no doubt correct to surmise that I mean to discuss it. The “idea” I’m referring to really isn’t peculiar to St. Silouan. It wasn’t novel with him and can be found in many places throughout the vast Christian ascetic corpus. But St. Silouan expressed it with the simplicity of someone who understood it through experience. I tend to believe that the danger in misinterpreting what he was talking about becomes somewhat riskier for those outside monastic life than for those who are monks or nuns. In the monastery, such a condition of soul, as considered below, is more easily recognized, confessed, and curtailed through spiritual counsel than it is “in the world,” where temptations are multitudinous and guides are few. Undetected, the condition we’ll be looking at will go from bad to worse if left unchecked. If there’s an element of danger in St. Silouan’s idea, the truth of the matter is it’s riskier not to address it at all (both inside and outside the monastery). Incidentally, I’m not referring to the famous saying that was imparted to St. Silouan by the Lord, as he recounted often, “Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not.” (I’ve discussed that elsewhere.) Rather, I’m referring to a somewhat longish passage, which I’ve slightly abridged below (note especially the sentences I have put in bold italics). First, then, the quotation, and then the discussion of it. St. Silouan writes: