Is Punishment Divine or Demonic?

This section of the Evergetinos exposes slander not as a minor moral failure or social misstep but as a profoundly spiritual violence. The Desert Fathers present it as a force that wounds the heart, fractures the mind, and distorts reality itself, not only for the one who is slandered but especially for the one who speaks the lie and for all who consent to it by listening.

In the lives of the two Gregories and Abba Makarios, slander arises from a familiar source: the refusal of sinners to endure the silent rebuke of holiness. The purity of Gregory the Wonderworker becomes unbearable to those who live dissolutely. Rather than repent, they must obscure the light that judges them simply by existing. Slander becomes their counterfeit leveling of the field. If the saint can be dragged down into accusation, then their own corruption can remain hidden and unchallenged.

What is striking is not merely the cruelty of the accusation but the saintly response. Gregory does not defend himself, does not appeal to his reputation, does not expose the plot, does not demand justice. He refuses to enter the logic of the lie. He acts as though the accusation has no power over his inner world. By paying the woman calmly, he breaks the spell of outrage and self-justification that slander seeks to provoke. His silence is not passivity but clarity. He preserves the integrity of the heart by refusing to let the false word become an interior dialogue.

The consequence is immediate and terrifying. The slander does not remain a neutral utterance. It reveals its true nature as communion with darkness. The demonization of the prostitute is not presented as an arbitrary punishment but as a manifestation of what slander already does invisibly. The lie fragments the person. The mind loses its harmony. Perception collapses. The woman becomes externally what slander makes one internally: disintegrated, driven, no longer master of oneself. Only the prayer of the one she accused restores her, revealing that the saint bears not resentment but intercession.

The same pattern unfolds in the life of Gregory of Akragas. Years of imprisonment and suffocation are endured without bitterness. His patience becomes a slow purification that exposes truth without violence. When vindication finally comes, it is accompanied by healing, not triumph. The slanderer is restored, while the architects of the lie are left speechless and darkened, their inability to speak symbolizing the final sterility of falsehood. Slander ultimately consumes the voice of the one who practices it.

Abba Makarios brings the teaching to its most intimate and terrifying form. He does not merely accept public humiliation. He inwardly consents to the burden placed upon him. He works to support the child he did not father. He rewrites the narrative within himself, not as injustice but as a providential call to greater humility and labor. In doing so, he is purified of even the desire to be seen rightly. When the truth finally emerges, he flees from honor as from fire, knowing that praise can undo what slander, paradoxically, had refined.

Across these accounts, the Fathers reveal a severe mercy at work. God allows slander to touch the righteous not because He delights in injustice but because it becomes a furnace in which self-love is burned away. The saint emerges freer, simpler, more transparent. At the same time, slander unmasks itself. It darkens the intellect. It warps perception. It draws others into a shared unreality where suspicion replaces truth and noise replaces discernment. Left unrepented, it leads not to mastery but to loss of speech, loss of sight, loss of coherence.

The Evergetinos does not leave the reader neutral. These stories are a warning and an invitation. To endure slander without retaliation is to enter the Cross where Christ Himself was accused, mocked, and condemned in silence. To participate in slander, even subtly, is to consent to a fragmentation of the heart that eventually spreads outward, shaping families, communities, and entire cultures.

The Desert Fathers are uncompromising because they are physicians of the soul. They show that words are never merely words. They either heal or deform. And they insist that God, in His mercy, will expose the lie, whether through repentance and healing or through the terrible unveiling of what darkness does when it is allowed to speak unchecked.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:01:05 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 346 Letter B

00:07:13 Anna: Maybe my husband could be considered for sainthood

00:08:16 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Reacted to "Maybe my husband cou..." with 😂

00:08:36 Anna: Actually seriously for my husband

00:09:00 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 346 Letter B

00:10:20 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-things-hung-around-the-neck

00:11:58 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 346 Letter B

00:12:04 Jessica McHale: Did you take the photo on this blog page? It's a great photo! Love it!

00:12:59 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-things-hung-around-the-neck

00:13:13 Jessica McHale: Yes

00:13:42 Angela Bellamy: Reacted to "https://www.philokal..." with ❤️

00:14:01 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 346 B

00:14:38 Forrest: Replying to "Actually seriously f..."

Anna, there is a cause for Ruth Pakulak. Her husband is a well-known catholic essayist. It is just an example. I don't know very much about it.

00:15:51 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: https://www.philokaliaministries.org/post/the-things-hung-around-the-neck

00:30:23 Jessica McHale: I think the hardest part of this story is to learn to remember to call on God when slandered or if lies are told about us. Right in the moment, it's so hard to stop and turn to God.

00:33:26 Joan Chakonas: Giving her the money- how little money matters, the peace of the conversation interrupted matters

00:35:00 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 347 C

00:43:28 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "😂"

00:43:31 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "😂"

00:44:16 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "👍"

00:44:23 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "❤️"

00:44:30 John Burmeister: is God the only one that can put a generation punishment/curse on someone, or can Satan also?

00:44:35 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "🎉"

00:44:38 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "👏"

00:44:44 Anna: Reacted to Maybe my husband cou... with "😎"

00:45:24 Angela Bellamy: I think the difficulty I have is not in seeing the value or virtue of a pious disposition, one who has the workings of God within them contain a great glory; but what is the value to hear of the awful and abusive effects that seem supernatural upon those who have sinned against them by slander, what should we glean from such a response when we see the effects with our own eyes of the people who slander us today. Surely they are so broken already inside that they felt to do such a thing. hurt people hurt people. Does this kind of create an "us" versus "them" atmosphere, when in reality we are all "us", we are all them? I'd guard against hope in vindication with such tales... What are your thoughts, Father?

00:46:56 Maureen Cunningham: I think judgement of another  many times open the door

00:49:37 Anna: Yes

00:52:21 Angela Bellamy: Replying to "I think the difficul..."

It seems by what you share that when we pity the one who slanders us, it is God's strength in us that helps us overcome the immediate offense?

00:55:50 Anna: Reacted to https://www.philokal... with "❤️"

00:59:22 Anna: What do you mean a virtue needs to be purified by God?

01:06:44 Angela Bellamy: When humility is replaced with pride, or vanity, then it also replaces the grace of God. Pride and vanity are very deceitful and must be guard against at all costs. It terrifying in a way.

01:13:41 Joan Chakonas: I am very gullible- extremely.  I just believe what I hear initially.  A moron in many ways

01:14:00 Catherine Opie: Replying to "I am very gullible- ..."

You are not alone in that.

01:15:29 Jonathan Grobler: We often see this in the real world though, a simple a a a accusation, is enough to turn the mob against someone.

Especially when it comes to sexual accusations. 

People are scandalized that scripture demands witnesses before someone can be prosecuted.

01:16:56 Catherine Opie: That is so profound that he would flee from praise and vindication or even a return of his reputation to avoid hubris.

01:20:23 Angela Bellamy: Praise and glory to God, what a wonderful class. Thank you, Father.

01:20:30 Catherine Opie: Reacted to "Praise and glory to ..." with ❤️

01:20:35 Jessica McHale: Amen'

01:20:43 Joan Chakonas: The fastest hour of my day

01:21:12 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "Praise and glory t..." with ❤️

01:21:28 Catherine Opie: Reacted to "The fastest hour of ..." with 😅

01:21:36 Jessica McHale: Reacted to "The fastest hour o..." with 😅

01:21:37 Janine: Thank you Father….

01:21:51 Angela Bellamy: Too accustomed to stillness?

01:21:51 Catherine Opie: Just what I need to hear as usual. Thank you. God bless.

01:22:34 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️

01:22:35 Jessica McHale: thank you!