Gleanings from Orthodox Christian Authors and the Holy Fathers

gossip

5 Entries

...do not take pleasure in listening to gossip or criticisms, or the calumnies, which some people spread about their brethren; but either stop them, if you can, or withdraw, so as not to hear them. Lorenzo Scupoli (Unseen Warfare: Chapter 24)

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Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbors expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. St. Maximos the Confessor (First Century on Love no. 58)

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Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbour's expense or chatter to a person who likes finding fault. St. Maximos the Confessor (The Philokalia Vol. 2 pg 59)

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Give no ear to the slanderer's talk nor let your talk run on in the fault-finder's hearing, by readily speaking and listening to things against your neighbor; otherwise you will fall from divine charity [love] and be found a foreigner to eternal life. St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Centuries on Charity

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We should shun loose speech like an asp's venom...for it can plunge us into total forgetfulness of the inner struggle... St. Hesychios (Philokalia Vol. 1 pgs. 167-168)

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