The Desires of the World, Lulling Man to Sleep, Drown Him Like the Sirens
The Wise Man: You have indeed learned the subtle art, unknown to many men, of the sirens (whom the Moldavians call „the daughters of the sea”), who, maddening poor sailors with their beautiful, pleasing, lilting songs, lull them to sleep, and then — so the story goes — leaping into the ship, embrace them, plunge them down, and carry them into the depths of the sea, and drown them at once. But you are more wicked than the sirens, for they drown the body, while you drown the soul. What, then, does the wise traveler do? He stops up his ears well, lest, hearing the sirens’ voice, he fall asleep; and so he passes through their songs as though he did not hear them, and, escaping by cunning from that snare which endangered his life, he gets away unhindered. Therefore I too must do as that wise and well-considered traveler, and, like him, I must guard myself firmly, so that, dwelling in you, I may reckon myself as though I were not in you, and in this way prove myself master of myself against your various temptations.
All the Comforts of the Children of This Age Are Vain and Ridiculous
The World: Since you go about with such reckoning, know for certain that you are naive, for I do not strive to do harm to anyone, nor do I labor for anyone’s endangerment or ruin; rather, on the contrary, I labor and strive that all may have encouragement and ease in all things and in every good. As all my wise men attest, I favor no one, deceive no one, cast no one out of me, but wish good to all, and, embracing all as my children — the great as the small, the young as the old — I hold them with great love. Nor do I entice them like the sirens, as you say out of envy, nor do I drown them, as you slander unjustly, but like a good, provident father, who strives to raise his firstborn son and labors just as much for the last, that he too may see him grow to manhood — so do I also care for all my children, that nothing they might desire should be lacking to any of them; and if for this you count me deceitful and ill-willed, let everyone know that you have little sense.
Clement of Alexandria uses this same image of the sirens in his Exhortation to the Greeks, but turns the pagan story’s very cunning toward Christian teaching: where Odysseus binds himself with ropes to the mast so he cannot leap into the sea, the Christian has a stronger mast — the wood of the Cross — to which his mind is bound by faith, so that he may pass unharmed through the song of the passions. It is not ears stopped with wax that keep a man alive, but a mind bound to Christ; for the sirens of the world never fall silent, but the one bound to the Cross no longer obeys them, however sweetly they sing.
The formula the Wise Man chooses as his defense — „dwelling in you, to reckon myself as though I were not in you” — is no human strategy, but follows exactly the Apostle’s word: „they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:31). It is not a matter of fleeing the ship, but of sailing it without falling asleep on deck; not of failing to hear the world, but of not letting it steal one’s watchfulness. As the Lord prays for His disciples: „I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (Jn 17:15), remaining in the world is not itself the danger — the sleep that comes from it is.
The World’s defense — that she deceives no one, entices no one, but cares for all alike, like a good father — repeats exactly the strategy Saint Isaac the Syrian describes as the most cunning of all: evil, once caught, declares itself good. The more persistently it defends itself against ill names, the more clearly its true nature shows; for true goodness has no need to praise itself, just as Christ did not defend Himself against the accusations, but held His peace (Mt 26:63). Saint Mark the Ascetic teaches that the very insistence with which a passion calls itself care and love is the sign by which it may be uncovered, for true love is proven by its fruits, not by its declarations.
What remains, then, is the simplest and hardest counsel: not to stop your ears out of fear of the song, but to bind your mind to a mast stronger than the wave. Saint John Climacus calls this state „being dead to the world while still alive in the body” — not contempt for created things, but non-submission to their sweetness. Just as the siren cannot touch the ship whose crew keeps watch, so too the world cannot drown the soul that recognizes itself, at every step, a temporary dweller in it and not its prisoner.
