A brother in a monastery was falsely accused of fornication, and he got up and went to Abba Anthony. And the brothers came from the monastery to heal him and take him back, and they started to charge that he did so. But he defended himself that he did no such thing. Now Abba Paphnutius happened to be there, and he said this parable: I have seen a man on the bank of the river stuck in the mud up to his knees, and some men came to give him a hand, plunging him in up to his neck. And Abba Anthony said this to them about Abba Paphnutius, Behold a genuine man, able to heal and save souls. So they were pierced by remorse at the word of the elders, and they offered repentance to the brother. And, encouraged by the elders, they took the brother to the monastery.
Sayings of St. Anthony the Great
St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that love, “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.” But all too often we do not carry out what this verse says. Taken at face value, this verse urges us to neither take an unholy glee when we hear the tale of possible misconduct by a brother or sister nor to automatically assume that the brother or sister who is accused is lying. Rather, we are to hope for a misunderstanding rather than a violation, a misinterpretation rather than a deliberate act.
No, I am not an innocent. Sadly, the vast majority of accusations of sexual misconduct are either provably true or likely to be true. But, these verses from 1 Corinthians remind us of what became a good and solid American principle, that someone ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But, that is not simply an American principle, it is found in the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. Some say it is found in the 14th Amendment. It is clearly found in the Coffin vs. U.S court case in 1894.
What we are to avoid is a rush to judgment. While acknowledging that all the statistics clearly show that accusations of sexual misconduct tend to be true, we are also to hope that these accusations are wrong. The case brought to St. Anthony is such an example. There are those nowadays who would insist that either the monk featured in the story must automatically be found to be guilty or that the person accused must be marked with an unprovable presumption of guilt for the rest of their lives.
But, that is not what we find in St. Anthony’s counsels. There we see a monk accused, and against whom there does not appear to be any evidence. More than that, we see the presence of a bureaucratic superstructure that so presumes guilt that the mere accusation of sexual misconduct is sufficient proof, in an of itself.
The answer by the two monks points out that those who automatically believe in guilt, or who automatically assume that the purported victim is telling the truth, are in danger of dragging an innocent person down into a quicksand-type of death. It is not bad enough that the accused is tarred with the mud on their pants, the very investigators drag them further down into the mud, and unto death, because they come in automatically not believing anything that the accused might say.
And, so, Abba Paphnutius warns the accusers that this is a known good man, a monk of prior sterling character. The abba puts the investigators on the defensive when he warns them that they could be guilty of dragging an innocent to his death. His counsel is heard and the monk is taken home to be cossetted and cared for in full innocence.
Today there is a strong push by a few groups on the far left to find anyone who is accused of sexual misbehavior automatically guilty. This is wrong. But, the push to judgment is very strong. Quite false-to-the-Bible ideas are proposed that claim that the accused are always guilty. This is a dangerous claim. Accusers do lie. Accusers have lied. Accusers have been caught lying. We dare not find one person guilty simply because the majority may be guilty.
The argument is often made that it is inappropriate to require modern standards of proof to prove the guilt of an abuser. But, that is a horribly dangerous argument. That argument throws aside any concept of evidence and proof out the window to be replaced by an unthinking acceptance of guilt. This is not Biblical. In fact, one only needs to read the New Testament in order to realize that at Jesus’ trial they were not able to convict him based on witnesses because none of the witnesses agreed with each other’s testimony. Jesus was convicted only after the high priest asked a leading question and then used that to falsely accuse Jesus.
And, so, today’s St. Anthony story has something to say to us. We are to be cautious in believing an accusation lest we be found guilty of spiritually or emotionally killing a brother or a sister.
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