Nicetas Pectoratus

cast aside the observances of the Sabbaths to the miserable Jews; likewise also things strangled to the barbarous nations, that we may become pure in right and immaculate faith, and one flock of one shepherd, Christ. Inebriated by whose divine blood upon the cross, we purely and piously praise the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, abandoning the whole Mosaic law and the observances within it to those godless Jews, who, like blind men 59 groping along a wall, have lost the light and remain in the shadow, as fools forever and without understanding 40.

These things, O man of God, having read many times with your own people, and having taught them and corrected yourself accordingly, order to be changed 41 in many copies, so that 42 you may have salvation for your own soul; and send them to the high priests of the episcopal sees in Italy 43, and adjure them all to reform themselves, that you may have a very great reward in these things, just as you have in your other good works 44; and if you do this, I propose to write to you even greater and more perfect things through a second letter, for a true demonstration of the faith and a strengthening of the souls for whom Christ laid down His own life. ^{C D}

NICETAS PECTORATUS.

NOTITIA.

Nicetas Pectoratus, or Sternos, a presbyter and monk of the Studite monastery which was at Constantinople, a fierce adversary of the Latins and Armenians around the year of Christ 1053, concerning whose writings one should consult the observations of Cave. From his book [On the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone], on unleavened bread, the fasting of the Sabbaths, and the marriages of priests against the Latins, a passage is also produced in Greek by Allatius in his book On Purgatory, p. 870 1. This Nicetas, having obtained from the apocrisiarii of the Pope a complete [agreement to] his propositions.

[NOTITIA]

^A solution, and that he had again voluntarily anathematized all words and deeds that had been spoken or attempted against the Roman See, and thus, having been received by them into communion, he became their intimate friend; so writes Wibert, in the *Life of St. Leo*, II, 5. He further relates that the invective *Responsio* of the Roman chancellor Frederick, which had been directed against Nicetas, was translated from Latin into Greek and recited before the emperor; and that Nicetas was forced ^B to condemn and burn his writings, after a disputation held at the monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople. (Fabr.) See also concerning him: Guil. Cave, *Hist. litt. SS. Eccl.*, vol. II, p. 136; Hamberg. Z. N. III, p. 759; and Saxius, *Onom.* II, p. 181; Schroeckh, *Hist. eccl.* XXIV, p. 219 sq.

The *Libellus* of Nicetas Pectoratus against the Latins, issued and found at Constantinople by the *apocrisiarii* of the Apostolic See, [is extant] in Latin together with the *Refutatio* of Humbert, the cardinal Father (concerning whom see Saxius, *Onom.* II, p. 180, and those whom he cites), in H. Canisius, *Lect. antiq.*, vol. III, p. 308, ed. Basnage. His iambic poem on Symeon the Younger [is found], in Greek and Latin, in L. Allatius, *Diatribe de Symeonibus*, p. 168.

Various [works] are preserved in the manuscript codices of the Laurentian Medicean and the Imperial Viennese libraries: in Med. cod. 19, n. 3, and Viennese cod. 240, n. 6, an unpublished work entitled *Three Centuries of Ascetic Chapters*. See Bandini, *Codd. Gr. bibl. Laurent.* I, p. 262, and Lambecius, *Comm. de bibl. Cæsar.* V, p. 216. In the Medicean cod. 46, n. 25, plut. 9, and also the Imperial cod. 247, n. 21, and cod. 233, n. 7, [are works] against the Latins *On Unleavened Bread, the Fast of the Sabbath, and the Marriage of Priests*. (Bandini, ibid. p. 415; and Lambecius V, p. 263 sq. and p. 476.)

In cod. 30, plut. 10, there is an *Ecloge of Chapters from the holy Fathers*. The preface, which precedes it, is attributed by Montfaucon in his *Catalogus* to Nicetas. This collection, however, was fashioned from Nicetas and other ecclesiastical writers whose names are added in the margin, as is attested by Bandini, *l.c.*, p. 494 sq.

In the Imperial Viennese cod. 283, n. 9, is his *First Invective Oration against the blasphemous heresy of the Armenians*, as Lambecius writes, V, p. 477. In cod. 256, n. 18, [are] *Excerpts from the works of Photius, Nicetas Stethatos, and other Greeks against the Latins, concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, unleavened bread, etc.* (Lambecius IV, p. 339.) In cod. 45, n. 56, [is] the *Third Century of Epistles of Nicetas Stethatos* and *Three Epistles concerning ecclesiastical canons*. (Lambecius VIII, p. 941 sq.)

In the Baroccian cod. 69 in the Bodleian library, the *Second Century of Nicetas Pectoratus*. Also his *On the image*. Among the Norfolk Greek codices (*Cat. codd. Angliæ*, vol. II, p. 84) n. 5434, [is] *Nicetas Pectoratus on the Celestial Hierarchy*, and *Nicetas the deacon to Nicetas Pectoratus*. In the Royal library at Turin, cod. 180, [are] the *Three Centuries of Ascetic Chapters*. Cod. 200, n. 43, and 288, fol. 134, *On Unleavened bread, the fast of the Sabbath, and the marriage of priests*. Cod. 332, *On the Soul and on Paradise*; the third, mentioned in the *Proemium*, is the work *On the Angelic and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*. It is wanting in that codex. See *Catal. codd. Gr. Taur.* p. 269, 298, 384, 415.

In the Venetian Marcian cod. 575, [are] the *Works of Nicetas Stethatos on the Hexaemeron*. It is divided into 15 chapters, the first of which is inscribed: *Discourse concerning the soul and first concerning the angels*. [Then] 5 chapters *On the terrestrial paradise*. Another work distributed into 8 chapters, the first of which is inscribed: *Exhortatory discourse to repentance*, etc. See Car. *codd. Gr. Venet.* p. 301, where the author of the *Catalogus* says: "These works of Nicetas are not listed by the bibliographers whom we have seen." But perhaps they are partly portions of minor works, and partly the very same minor works which are named both in the Paris codex soon to be mentioned and others, and which we saw above in *Nicetas the monk* as being extant in the Escorial library and ascribed to the monk Nicetas.

At Paris in the public library, cod. 362, n. 13, *Ascetic chapters divided into three centuries*. In cod. 2747, n. 2, the book *On Intellectual Paradise, On Liberty, On the nature of actions, On the faculties of the soul and prayer*. The *Life of Symeon the Theologian*, written by Nicetas Stethatos. See Fabr., *B. Gr.* vol. VII, *On the eulogies and lives of the Saints*, p. 142, old ed.; and vol. VIII, p. 136, among the Greek melodists, concerning the hymn-book of Symeon, ms. in the Bodleian library, Barocc. cod. 5. (HARL.)

by Cardinal Humbert and the other legates of the Apostolic See. See Baronius, *Ann. eccles.* vol. XI, a. 1054, n. 20, 21. (HARL.)

SECOND NOTITIA

Possevinus writes that in the Sforza library there is a codex of the monk Nicetas, 106, [containing] a book *On the Soul*; a contemplation *On Paradise*; *Several Epistles*; *On Hierarchies*. Furthermore, I gather from the manuscript Greek index of the Escorial library that this Nicetas is the monk and priest of Stoudios, by surname Stethatos, in which [index], among other things of Stethatos, these are listed: *Concerning the soul; Concerning paradise; On the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchy*. Therefore, concerning this Stethatos, let us produce what we have written in book II, *On the agreement of both churches*: "By this wicked example of Cerularius, others also in Greece, who until then had kept themselves restrained and reverent, cast off all shame and began to bark openly, not by word but by published writings, against the Roman Church; and in that very age of Cerularius, a certain Nicetas from the monastery of Stoudios, by surname Stethatus, whom the Latins have called Pectoratus, accused the Latins of many things, and especially concerning the Holy Spirit, unleavened bread, the Sabbath, and the marriage of priests."

^A Its beginning is: "Good is love toward one's neighbor, O Romans, wisest and most noble of all nations." The writing, condemned in the same city, burned in flames with the emperor’s approval. Yet it seems that, through the zeal of Cerularius or the author himself, it was reborn and still survives in libraries; so that at one and the same time, having pondered the author’s evil intent and the futility of his arguments and reasons, we may detest it, resolve the things proposed, and simultaneously lament the folly of those who set such store by these things. I do not think this person is anyone other than the one whom the anonymous writer, too rashly, calls Basil of the schism of the Greeks and Latins. "Peter, Patriarch of Antioch, Nicholas of Methone, and Basil, the hieromonk from the Studium Monastery, who was also called Latinelenctes (I read *Latinelenctes* [Latin-refuter]) because he had accurately and clearly, at length, refuted and demonstrated to them by many examples and testimonies that these customs which they hold—namely, unleavened bread, the observance of the Sabbath, the indifference toward strangled things, the purifications and divinations, the breaking of the Wednesday and Friday fasts and of the holy and great Lent, and the other things which they write about in detail hereafter—all these things, having refuted them, he demonstrated to them that they are ^B outside and foreign to the orthodox faith, and outside the teaching and tradition of the holy apostles, and so forth." Peter, Patriarch of Antioch, Nicholas of Methone, and Basil, the hieromonk from the Studium Monastery, who had the name *Latinelenctes* from refuting and criticizing the Latins. For he indeed clearly, accurately, and in fairly long writings refuted, and by many arguments and testimonies proved, that the rites which they observe—to wit, unleavened bread, the fast of the Sabbaths, the indifference regarding strangled things, the purifications and sprinklings, the breaking of the fasts on the fourth and sixth days, and the holy and great Lenten fast, and the rest which are listed separately thereafter—are extraneous and foreign to the orthodox faith, and to the doctrine and tradition of the holy apostles. Thus, I say, I think, until manuscript codices suggest to me something about this Basil, if such a person existed. Cardinal Humbert, Bishop of Silva Candida, responded to Nicetas, just as he did to Michael of Constantinople and to Leo the archdeacon; his response exists at the end of volume XI of Baronius, and in volume VI of Canisius’s *Antiquae Lectiones*, who extracted these monuments of Humbert from the Bavarian library and published them. The treatise, which burned in Greece, is preserved in most Italian libraries: the Milanese, the Cryptoferratensian, and the Barberini. Possevinus reports that Sigebert mentions it, and that he placed it in his *Apparatus*, not so that it might be read, but so that it might be banned, since it deals with the marriage of priests and other such things, on which the Greeks and Latins differ. Although, because it attacks the errors of the Armenians, it might perhaps have said something relevant. But, I confess, that treatise is so thin and feeble and is established by such unrefined reasoning that it can be handled by everyone without offense to souls, and it was especially convulsed and refuted by the learned and accurate response of Humbert of Silva Candida. The monk Hilario refuted his treatise on unleavened bread with an oration on the mystical bread of the Greeks and the unleavened bread of the Latins, edited by me in Greek and Latin in the first volume of *Graecia Orthodoxa*, which begins: "Ἐν τῷ μὲν διαλέγεσθαι..." [When I was discoursing on the mystical bread of the Greeks and the Latin unleavened bread, there was shown to me an oration, or exposition, of a certain Nicetas, a Father most wise among the Greeks, in which he recounts to the Latins many things concerning the unleavened bread at Christ's supper], but this runs against the Latins. And below, he calls him *ἄνδρα πεπαιδευμένον*, a man educated and learned. ^C He also wrote, as Possevinus notes, against the errors of the Armenians, namely a *logon steliteutikon* against the heresy of the Armenians. An oration refuting the heresy of the Armenians. P. *Tēn synchytikēn tōn dyo physeōn* [On the confusion of the two natures]. In the Vatican, cod. 1205. *Perì toû dià cheirōn aspasmoû*. On greeting by hands. P. *Ἀλλ' οὐδὲ ὁ διὰ χειρῶν ἀσπασμός* (a). *Adversus Latinorum blasphemias in Spiritum sanctum, asserentium ex Filio illum procedere*. [Against the blasphemies of the Latins against the Holy Spirit, asserting that He proceeds from the Son]. P. *Tò perì toû hagíou Pneúmatos légein, perì Theoû légein estín*. [To speak about the Holy Spirit is to speak about God]. And from here seem to be taken the syllogisms against the Latins, which are said to exist in the Bavarian library, under the name of Nicetas the Byzantine, cod. 120. Hugo Etherianus also makes mention of him in his work against the Greeks in favor of the Latins, unless it be another. And it is likely that there were, in that city, many of the same name as Nicetas, and with such great impudence and abundance of those who prattle, who now lie hidden under the dust, obscure and unpraised. I saw, moreover, when I was in Chios: *Nikēta monachoû kaì presbytérou toû Stoudíou, toû epíklēn Stēthátou* (I do not recall the manner well) *katà peûsin kaì apókrisin*. Nicetas, monk and presbyter of the Studium, surnamed Stethatus, according to interrogation and response. The Escorial manuscript index explains: *Kaì álloi lógoi katà peûsin kaì apókrisin*. ^D And other sermons according to interrogation and response. Also attributed to Stethatus are *Gnostikōn kephalaíōn hekatontàs a'; praktikōn hekatontàs b'; physikōn hekatontàs g'; kaì hétera kephálaia i'.* [First century of Gnostic chapters, second century of practical chapters, third century of physical chapters, and ten other chapters]. Which are also preserved at the Escorial. So says its manuscript Index. He also composed a preface to the book of divine praises of Symeon, abbot of Xerocercus. P. *Tò lían anastatikón te kaì diērménon, autó te tò hypèr aísthēsin*. Furthermore, by a written oration, he attempted to wash away the crimes opposed to that same Symeon. Referring to the attackers by no other name than *hagiocategororum* (slanderers of saints), as if

(a. We published this writing of Nicetas Stethatus, brief enough but curious, with the works of St. Theodore the Studite in the *Bibl. nov. PP.*, vol. V, part ii, p. 118. A. M.)

who might attack Symeon, would be criminating holiness itself. In the same Prologue: Let envy, which always hates the good, depart. Let Symeon be praised and extolled with sufficiently auspicious voices, for he is worthy of praises and every kind of encomium, just as we have explained more fully in the discourse against the Hagiocategoroi [Calumniators of the Saints], having adduced the authorities of the saints. In the Palatine library there is: Nicetas Stethatos’s canon on the great hierarch Nicholas. The acrostich is: I crown you, Nicholas, Nicetas with hymns. R. Today the lamp.

ADMONITION TO THE THREE CENTURIES OF PRACTICAL CHAPTERS OF NICETAS

^A Nicetas, the most holy presbyter of the Studite monastery, also called Pectoratus [Stethatos], lived in the year one thousand and thirty after Christ, claiming for himself the title of most faithful disciple of Symeon the New Theologian. From him he learned many of the mysterious lessons of spiritual philosophy, and he so imitated his virtues that he truly seemed another *parelion* [mock sun] of his master, reflecting in his own mind all, so to speak, the lucid rays of his graces and teachings. Moreover, by his own continuous labors, having been wisely taught in the sacred Scriptures, he collected many excellent sayings. There are also things which he not only learned by experience and happy trial, but also felt, and by all these things he made his mind, as it were, pregnant with divine and supernatural thoughts. He conceived high and most wise works, as anyone can judge from the three centuries that follow. ^B Whosoever shall call them a sure rule of practice, a guide to infallible doctrine, a perfection of the most divine life, and, to sum it up, a most rich storehouse of moral and allegorical ideas, will be asserting the whole truth. For they are at once lofty in their meanings and excellent in the elegance of their style, so that you might doubt whether it is the thought contained within them, or the elegance of the words, that pours such great delight into the souls of the readers.

NICETAS THE STUDITE MONK AND PRIEST OF THE MOST HOLY MONASTERY OF THE STUDION, SURNAMED PECTORATUS, DISCIPLE OF SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN CENTURY ONE OF PRACTICAL CHAPTERS

^A 1. There are, I think, four causes that move one who has recently advanced from the beginning to the midpoint, and is proceeding toward the trinity of mystical theology, to write things useful. The first is liberty, that is to say, the impassibility of the soul, which has progressed from laborious practice to the natural contemplation of creation, and from there has entered into the darkness of theology. The second is the purity of the intellect, arising from tears and prayer; from this the word of grace is born, and the streams of spiritual insights gush forth. The third is the indwelling of the holy Trinity within us, from which come the illuminations of the Spirit, ^B which occur in each of those being purified for their profit, for the manifestation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and the revealing of the treasures of God hidden in the soul. The fourth is the necessity, incumbent upon everyone who has received the talent of the word of knowledge, of the threat of God saying, "You wicked and slothful servant, you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back what is mine with interest." Because of this necessity, David, struck with fear, said, "Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, you have known. I have not hid your righteousness in my heart: your truth and your salvation

I have declared; I have not hidden your mercy and your truth from the great congregation." ^A

Of Practical Chapters: First Century

2. The beginning of life according to God is the complete flight from the world. This is the act of the soul renouncing its own will and the transformation of the earthly disposition, through which, hastening toward the divine mind, we become spiritual from being carnal, dying to the flesh and to the world, but living to the soul, in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

3. Truthful glory of the soul concerning God, and faith deposited in the contempt of visible things, and the practice of virtue segregated from all self-love—this is the triple cord praised by Solomon, which is difficult for evil spirits ^B to break.

4. By faith we hope to receive the rewards of our labors, and therefore we easily endure the toils of virtues. Being filled with the divine Spirit, we fly toward God with love.

5. We do not immediately share in the portion of those who perform evil works when we are troubled by unclean thoughts; but when the soul has relaxed its own tension, and the mind, from a negligent and licentious way of life, has murky and shadowy images, and the toils of virtue cease in the lethargy of meditation ^C and prayer. Then, even though we do not perform evil deeds, we are ranked in the number of those who willingly wallow in pleasures.

6. But when the reins of the more sovereign senses are loosened, at once there is an uprising of passions, and the activity of the more slavish senses is stirred. For the folly of these, once the bonds of self-control are loosed, is accustomed to leap toward the causes of the passions, and to feed as if on deadly pastures, and to do so the more, the longer the relaxation is extended. For once the reins are loosed, it cannot bear to cast away the things toward which it has a natural inclination.

7. Of the senses, some are rational: sight, hearing, and the others, which are more philosophical and sovereign; ^D others are irrational and brutish: taste, smell, and touch, meant for the service of the rational ones. For we see first and hear, and thus, moved by reason, we touch the object before us, and smelling it, we give it over to the taste. Therefore, of the two types of senses, the three latter are the most brutish and completely slavish; for they are those which beasts and cattle especially exercise, indulging most in the belly and in venery; for day and night they either stuff their bellies insatiably with food, or rush into intercourse.

8. He who turns the activities of the external senses toward the internal senses, and sight toward the intellect...

mind that sees the light of life, extends ^A hearing toward the understanding of the soul, taste toward the discrimination of the Word, smell toward the discernment of the mind, and touch toward the alertness of the heart, leads an angelic life on earth; he is a man among men, and so he is seen, but he is an angel among angels, and so he is understood.

9. Through the seeing mind, we receive the knowledge of the hidden mysteries of God; through the understanding of the soul, we arrange the ascents of thoughts in the heart with knowledge, distinguishing the worse from the better; through the discrimination of the Word, we taste the forms of concepts. And those that arise from a bitter root we either transform into sweet food to be distributed to the soul, or cast away entirely; but we accept those that come from a good and green plant, taking every thought captive ^B into the obedience of Christ. Through the discernment of the mind, we smell the intelligible odors of the grace of the Spirit, filled with joy and exultation of heart. Finally, through the alertness of the heart, we perfectly perceive the Spirit who bedews us from above with the flame of good desires, or who warms our powers, which are become cold through the chill of the passions.

10. Just as there are five senses in our body—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—so also there are five senses in the soul in the same number: intellect, reason, intellectual sense, knowledge, and science. These, however, are gathered into three faculties of the soul, namely, intellect, reason, and sensibility. Through the intellect we receive thoughts, through reason the interpretations, and through sensibility the images of divine knowledge and science.

11. He who has an intellect that discerns the thoughts of the mind well and purely admits divine concepts, and a reason that is an interpreter of the physical motions of the whole visible creation—that is, penetrating the principles of beings—and an intellectual sensibility that receives the knowledge of heavenly Wisdom and science, having passed through all sensation by the illuminations of the Sun of justice, is raised above sensible objects and abounds in the delights of invisible things.

12. The general powers of the mind are four: conception, perspicacity, comprehension, and activity. He, therefore, who unites these general faculties of the soul, and joins temperance of soul to the conception of the intellect, prudence to perspicacity, justice to comprehension, and fortitude to activity, has harnessed for himself a fiery, heaven-coursing chariot ^C against the three most general leaders and armies of the war of the passions, namely, [the love of] wealth, pleasure, and glory.

13. He who [subdues] the love of wealth through comprehension...

^A of legal justice, which is merciful compassion toward those of the same nature; and who has conquered the love of pleasure through intelligent temperance, which is continence in all things; and who has trampled upon the love of glory—as being weaker—through keenness of mind and prudence, which is the clear discernment of divine and human things, and has trampled it down with his feet like earthly and worthless mud—he has overcome the earthen frame of mind of the flesh, and so much so that he has turned it into the law of the Spirit of life and has rendered it free from the law of the flesh that tyrannizes over it, and is able to say: "I thank God, because the law of the Spirit of life has freed me from the law of the bondage of death." [Rom. VIII, 2.]

14. He who seeks the glory of men—which is nothing—as if it were something, and embraces the love of pleasure on account of the insatiable lust of the soul, and clings to the love of money through greed, is made ^B demonic through conceit and pride, becomes beast-like through the pleasures of the belly and the lower appetites, or becomes a monster to his neighbor through avarice and an inhuman hunger for silver. He falls away from faith in God, because he receives glory from men, according to the scripture; he is turned away from temperance and purity, because his belly burns with insatiable greed and he yields to disordered impulses; he is banished from love, because he cares only for himself and does not give his goods to his needy neighbor. And thus, such a man, being a multiform beast composed of many things that are contrary to one another, is regarded by God, by men, and by beasts as an implacable enemy. ^C

15. The irascible, the concupiscible, and the rational faculties of the soul, if they stand and move of their own accord according to nature, make the whole man an image and likeness of God, clearly being moved healthily and not swerving at all from their natural foundation. But if they were to be turned aside from what is natural and move away from their own nature, they show him, as has been said, to be a multiform monster, composed of many things that are contrary to one another within them.

16. The irascible faculty is the borderland ^D of the concupiscible and rational faculties of the soul, serving as a weapon for each in movements contrary to nature or even according to nature. For when the concupiscible and rational faculties are moved according to nature toward divine things, the irascible faculty is a weapon of justice for each against the serpent alone, who hisses and suggests to them [to indulge] in the enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh and the enjoyment of the glory of men. But when they are turned away from their natural movement and change their power into what is contrary to nature, and are transferred from the contemplation of divine things to human things, it is a weapon of iniquity unto sin, through which they fight and attack those who restrain their impulses and desires; so that from this, the man of practice and contemplation, and especially the theologian, may be shown to be in the midst of the Church of the faithful, if

^A he is moved according to nature, or turns aside into what is contrary to nature, becoming like a beast, a wild animal, or a demon.

17. Unless a person first, through laborious penitence and strenuous exercise, transforms and renders his soul's faculties such as God granted them to us at the beginning when He fashioned Adam and breathed into him the breath of life, he will never be able to know himself. Nor will he be able to possess the sovereign intellect—unaffected by passions, not curious, not malicious, simple, humble, free from envy and detraction, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Yet neither will he find his soul burning and set aflame with the love of God, nor exceeding the limits of temperance, content with what is offered, and desiring the rest of the saints. But if he does not possess all these things, he will never be able to possess his heart as meek, peaceful, free from anger, kindly, gentle, and full of mercy and joy; because, in this way, the soul is divided against itself, and on account of the disturbance of its faculties, it will remain deprived of the light of the Holy Spirit.

18. ^B He who does not thus recover the beauty of his ancient nobility, and who is not always re-forming the characters of the image of Him who from above fashioned him according to His own likeness, how can he ever be united to Him from whom he has separated himself by the dissimilarity of these characters? And to Him who is light, by being extinguished, having drawn into himself darkness, as the opposite of light? But having not been united to Him from whom he had the beginning of his substance, and from whom he stood forth having been brought out of nothing, and obtained existence, will he not be cast off, segregated as unlike his Creator? It is clear to those who see, even if I should keep silence.

19. As long as we have within us the matter of the passions ^C and willingly nurture their causes, and do not desire to shake them off, their power prevails against us, drawing its strength, that is to say, from us. But when we cast them from us and cleanse the heart with the tears of repentance, hating also the deception of the things that are seen, then we become partakers in the presence of the Paraclete, seeing God in invisible light and being seen by Him.

20. ^D Those who have broken the bonds of worldly sensation live in the freedom of every servitude to the senses, living according to the Spirit alone, and conversing with Him, being moved by Him, through whom they are accustomed to be united in some way to the consubstantial Father and the Word, and to become one Spirit, according to blessed Paul. Indeed, they are not only unassailable by demons, but even formidable, as they have become partakers of divine fire and have truly become fire themselves.

21. Touch is not some partial thing in the body, exercising its power in one part of it, like the other senses, but rather...

^A something universal extending to the whole body. Thus, when it touches something without necessity, while still longing for softness, it disturbs the mind with impassioned thoughts. But when it touches for a necessary purpose, having bid farewell to softness for the sake of bodily needs, and having risen above sensation, it is not accustomed to corrupt the sense-faculties of the soul.

22. When the intellect has moved on to things beyond nature, the senses, maintaining their natural order, engage with their causes impassibly, investigating only the principles and natures of these things, and infallibly discerning their powers and qualities at the same time, without being moved toward them by greed or affection.

23. ^B Spiritual struggles and labors generate joy in the soul, peace having clearly preceded the passions. Therefore, that which is difficult for those under the senses is easy and even most pleasant for the soul that labors, has acquired a desire for God from its holy sweats, and has been wounded by the love of divine knowledge. For to those who are devoted to the comforts of the body and the enjoyment of pleasures, the struggles and labors of virtue are disagreeable and seem overly harsh, since they do not consider that the salt of pleasures is washed away by the torrents of tears; but to this soul, they are desirable and beloved, for it finds pleasures—the provocations of pain—disgusting; it rejects delight ^C along with the love of its own body; and consequently, one thing is displeasing to it: the rest from labors and the cessation of struggles. What, therefore, brings bodily joy to the former is a cause of sorrow to the soul that has transferred its longings to divine things; and that which gives spiritual joy to the latter brings forth groaning and pain to the former.

24. Labors seem at first to be productive of pain to all who are initiated into spiritual sweats and struggles; but for those training for the increase of virtue and extending themselves toward their goal, they appear to bring a certain pleasure and marvelous rest. Yet when this mortal mind of the flesh is swallowed up ^D by the immortal life that supervenes from the visitation of the Spirit, those who truly extend themselves through labors toward the ends of virtue are filled with ineffable joy and gladness, the fountain of tears having been opened to them and the sweet stream of compunction poured upon them from on high.

25. If you wish to ascend to the heights of virtue and find the path that leads to God without error, give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, nor rest to your temples, until, through many labors and tears, you find a place of impassibility for your exhausted soul; and enter into the sanctuary of the knowledge of God; and through His subsistent Wisdom, contemplate with prudence the ultimate end of human affairs; and, despising things below, run with the greatest, most deer-like thirst to the high mountains of theory.

^A 26. A short path for those beginning to acquire virtue is silence of the lips, blindness of the eyes, and deafness of the ears. For the mind, becoming accustomed from this to neglect those things, and having closed the external entrances to itself, begins to know itself and its own movements. And it immediately investigates what are the thoughts swimming in the intelligible sea of its mind; what are those cast into the furnace of its intellect; whether, that is, they are pure and without admixture of bitter seed, and sent by the angel of light, or whether they are cockle, mixed and chaff-like, and from the enemies of light. And thus, like some sovereign leader standing in the midst of thoughts, judging and separating the better thoughts from the worse, those that are cast in—receiving them with its own friction and movement—it deposits into rational storehouses, scorched by the fire of the Spirit and filled with divine water, from which, being nourished, it is strengthened and filled with light; but the others it casts away into the abyss of oblivion, having shaken off their bitterness. This, however, is solely the work of him who has spiritually attained the path leading straight to God and the heavens, and has stripped off the mournful cloak of dark passions. ^{B C}

27. The soul that has once stripped off wickedness and the curious disposition of most base pride, and, through the visitation of the Paraclete, has enriched its heart to be simple and guileless, immediately belongs to God and to itself. And whatever it sees and hears, it considers trustworthy and true without doubt, as it has surpassed the dangerous chasms of unbelief and rises above the hell of envy.

28. Preceding all virtues is heartfelt faith, when the soul does not bring an opinion of doubt, but altogether casts away self-love. For nothing else knows how to restrain an athlete recently stripped for the struggle from the observance of the commandments as much as most wicked self-love. This stands in the way of the progress of the zealous. This suggests to them feigned diseases and pains of the body that are difficult to heal, by which it cools the fervor of the soul, and persuades them to abstain from suffering for the sake of virtue, as if it were an impediment to a pleasant life. But self-love is an irrational love of the body, which, by making the monk a lover of self—that is, a lover of his own soul and a lover of his own body—removes him from God and His kingdom, according to this sacred oracle: “He who loves his soul shall lose it.” ^D

29. He who has laboriously begun the practice of the commandments of God, and with fervent love has taken upon his neck the light yoke of asceticism, does not spare the health of his body, nor does he turn his eyes to the roughness of the works of virtue, nor does he look with anxiety at his labors, nor does he attend to any other person struggling negligently; but with burning desire he furrows the path of virtue in all hardship, looking only at himself and at the precepts of God, and daily with tears he casts his seeds in the field of the living,

until the herb of impassibility arises for him, and grows into the stalk of divine knowledge, and bears the dense grain laid upon the reason, and goes forth bearing the fruits of his righteousness. ^A

30. I do not consider the progress of the soul to be swift and short from any other source than from faith alone; faith, indeed, not only in God and in his Only-Begotten Son, but also that sincere faith with which we believe the promises of Christ to be true, which he has promised and prepared for those who love him, as well as the threats and punishments of hell, which are prepared for the devil and his workers. This same faith persuades the soul, while struggling in the contest, to hope that it will attain the restoration of the saints, their blessed impassibility, and to strive toward the height of their holiness, and to become a co-heir with them of the kingdom of God. ^B Being thus assured, it zealously extends itself toward the performance of the commandments, not doubting within itself, but imitating the labors of those others, and through similar struggles pursuing their same perfection.

31. It is the nature of the outward state of the face to change along with the state within the soul. For whatever operation the intellectual movement of the soul exercises, the face exhibits it to the eyes, expressed through its own state. For, conforming itself to the changing affections of the mind, at one time the face is seen to be radiant, as the heart rejoices in the pious ascents of its thoughts and the contemplation of God; at other times, it is downcast and dark, as it suffers from thoughts of perversity. ^C From this it is impossible for the one who has the senses of his soul well-trained to be hidden in his workings. For whether it is a transformation of the right hand of the Most High, it is clear to such people as being familiar and friendly, through which, having been regenerated from above by the Spirit, they have become light and salt to their neighbors; or whether it is a matter of the state of the powers and the disturbance of thoughts, it is clearly evident to such people, as they cast it aside and display the character of the image of the Son of God most brilliantly in divine gifts. ^D

32. The internal operation becomes the cause for the soul of either crowns or of penalties and punishments. For if it is occupied with divine things and loves the fields of humility, it possesses the irrigation from above of tears, and it cultivates faith and love toward God, and compassion toward one’s neighbor; through these, the soul, recovering the likeness and beauty of the image of Christ, becomes a light to men, and by the rays of its virtues draws their eyes to itself, and impels all to glorify God. If, however, it disturbs and agitates itself concerning lower and human things and subterranean places of sin,

it generates hatred and a turning away from the good; and through this, becoming transformed into the muddy and formless image of the old man, it becomes sheer darkness to those near it, and by the practice and discourse of base things, it corrupts simple and unstable souls, and stirs up blasphemy against God; and thus, in whatever state the soul is overtaken by death, it finds its recompenses accordingly.

53. Whoever cultivates evil thoughts makes his face ^A gloomy and sorrowful, and has a tongue silent regarding divine hymns, and is ungrateful and inaccessible to all he encounters. He, on the contrary, who cultivates the good and immortal plants of the heart, has a pleasant and radiant face, a tongue tuneful for prayers, and is altogether most agreeable in conduct: so that it is clearly manifest to the eyes of those who see him from this, who is still serving impure thoughts and remains subject to the tyrannical law of the earthly mind, and who, liberated from such servitude, lives under the law of the Spirit, according to the wise Solomon: “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance; but by sorrow of spirit, the heart is broken” (Prov. xv, 13).

54. The passions ^B practiced in action are also healed in action. For just as intemperance, pleasure, gluttony, and a soft and dissolute life produce the habit of desire in the soul and lead it to base actions, so too distress, labors, and spiritual struggles procure impassibility for it, and transfer it from passion to impassibility.

55. When someone, through laborious and intense asceticism, is deemed worthy of great gifts from God through humility, but then, being dragged down from there, becomes delivered over to the passions and to demons as his instructors, let him know that he has been puffed up, and has presumed great things ^C about himself, and has despised others. Therefore, such a one will find healing and liberation from the passions and demons that grip his life in no other way than by returning through repentance to his former state, and by using as excellent mediators humility and the recognition of his own littleness, through which everyone who is well established in the foundation of the virtues considers himself inferior to every creature.

56. It is an equal evil before God and men who live according to Christ, both to be passionate in one’s actions through a licentious will, and to be puffed up in the virtues by the spirit of presumption. For just as the things which the former does and performs in secret are shameful even to mention, so too are the exaltations of the heart ^D of the latter abominations in the sight of God. And just as the former is an abomination to God for his rest, because he is flesh, according to the proverb, so too is the latter impure before the Lord, because he is proud.

7 37. Not that cupiditas is one thing and sin another; rather, the one is different from the other. Cupiditas is a movement of the soul; a sinful act concerns the body. Thus, wantonness, avarice, and ambition are corrupt cupiditates of the soul; but fornication, the usurpation of another’s good, and injustice are sinful acts of the flesh. Concupiscence, anger, and pride are cupiditates of the soul moving its faculties against nature; but adultery, murder, theft, drunkenness, and anything else performed by the body are sinful and corrupt acts of the flesh. ^A

38. There are three most general leaders of all the passions, and three battle lines against them, and three who fight and overthrow them: the beginner, the one making progress, and the perfect one, who subdue and prostrate the three-headed dragon of the love of pleasure, of money, and of honor. ^B

39. The struggle against the three leaders and powers of the dominating spirit is not one and the same for these three, but one is different from another. It is fought in one way against one, and in another way against another of the leaders who serve under the individual commanders who lead them into battle, naturally armed with righteous fortitude.

40. He who has just stripped himself for the struggles of piety, and is a beginner in the battle array against the passions, directs his whole fight against the spirit of the love of pleasure, and with all his might struggles against it through every hardship, macerating the flesh with fasts, with sleeping on the ground, with vigils, and with all-night prayers; but ^C crushing his soul with the remembrance of the punishments of hell and the meditation on death, and wiping his heart clean of the filth of combinations and consents through the tears of repentance.

41. He who has shifted his approach to the midpoint of the path, and has wiped away with the sponge of primary dispassion the sweat produced in the struggle against the spirit of the love of pleasure, and who has just had his eyes uncovered and has begun to see the natures of existing things, takes up the weapons of faith against the spirit of faithless avarice, lifting up his own mind by the meditation on divine works, sharpening his reason to explain the causes and natures of created things, ^D leading his soul by faith from visible things to the heights of the invisible, and believing in the providence of that God who brought all things from non-being into being by His own operation, and placing his whole hope in the divine life.

42. He who has passed the midpoint through contemplation and dispassion, and has surmounted the deception of worldly perception, and just now—with the help of the Word of knowledge and the personal Wisdom of God—has entered into the darkness of theology, takes up weapons against the spirit of pride, fortified by humility, wounding his soul in divine revelations and drawing forth tears without pain; yet his mind

^A by the remembrance of human weakness, casts it down, while elevating it with the thoughts of divine knowledge.

43. For by fasts, and vigils, and prayers, and lying on the ground, and bodily labors, and by the cutting off of the will in the humility of the soul, we render the spirit of lust inactive; we vanquish it by the tears of repentance, and leading it into the prison of temperance, we make it motionless and inert, while we fight in the line of those who are zealous and struggling.

44. By the weapons of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, having vanquished and slain the spirit of avarice, we run at once to the contemplation of beings with the word of wisdom; and having passed by the worthlessness of visible things through the word of knowledge, we hasten toward the palaces of charity, with the richest treasures of hope in God.

45. Swimming in the air of mystical theology on the wings of passionlessness and humility, and entering into the upper abyss of the knowledge of the mysteries of God with the Holy Spirit, we burn up the spirit of vainglory with the lightning of divine dogmas and thoughts; while with showers of tears and rivers of compunction, looking toward the end of human affairs, we drown its three demons—presumption, vainglory, and pride—which had marched against us. ^B

46. He who with all his heart detests and combats the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life—this world, these vanities of iniquity, through which we are alienated from the love of God—has crucified the world to himself, and he himself has been crucified to the world, resolving the enmity between God and the soul in his own flesh, and making both one. For he who has died to these things through the stripping away of the carnal mind, has reconciled himself to God, slaying the enmity of the world in the mortification of pleasures through a life crucified to the world, and has embraced friendship with Jesus. Therefore, such a man is no longer an enemy of God (as one who is an enemy of God), but is established as a friend of God, inasmuch as he is crucified to the world, and is able to say: "The world is crucified to me, and I to the world." ^C

47. Every abandonment of those who are struggling happens by nature for these reasons: on account of vainglory, on account of the condemnation of one's neighbor, and on account of being puffed up over virtues. If, therefore, any of these things shall be judged to have approached the souls of those who are struggling, it brings upon them an abandonment from God; and they will not be able to escape the just judgment for their falls, until, having shaken off the underlying cause of the abandonment, they take refuge in the height of humility. ^D

48 For not only is he defiled who is soiled by impure thoughts, but also he who is exalted by good works and puffed up by virtues, who presumes great things about his own wisdom and knowledge of God, and who blames his brothers for being slack and negligent. And this is clear from the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.

49 Do not think that you have been freed from passions and have escaped the defilement of the impure thoughts that arise from them, so long as you still carry a haughty mind puffed up with virtues; for you will never see the courtyard of peace in the goodness of your thoughts, nor will you enter the temple of charity with joy, in all goodness and tranquility of heart, as long as you trust in yourself and your own works.

50 If your soul desires the beauty of bodies, and is tyrannized by the impure thoughts supposedly born from them, do not suppose that these are the causes of the turbulence and most passionate commotion within you; but know that the cause lies hidden inside your soul, like a magnet drawing iron to itself by the power of a passionate habit and wicked custom, [drawing] the corruption from faces, as iron, since all things are creations of God and are very good in their own logic, having nothing in their nature that accuses the workmanship of God.

51 Just as those crossing the sea who feel seasick do not suffer this on account of the nature of the sea, but on account of an internal cause—namely, the rotting humor—so too the soul does not suffer this internal, most passionate turbulence and agitation on account of the cause of the faces [of others], but on account of the habit of evil that is still stored up within it.

52 According to the internal disposition of the soul, even the nature of things is naturally transformed. When, therefore, its intellectual senses are established according to nature, and the mind wanders without error around the reasons for what has happened, possessing the reason that understands their natures and movements, then both things and persons, and every nature of material bodies, are seen by it according to nature, having no hidden cause of corruption or harm. But when its faculties are moved against its nature, warring against one another, then these things are also seen by it against nature; they do not lead it through their natural beauty to the understanding of the Creator, but lead it down into the abyss of destruction through its own most passionate habit.

53 If you have fallen, abandoned into a fall of the flesh, or of the tongue, or of the mind, dragging out a laborious and most harsh life, do not let this appear strange and paradoxical to you; for the fall is yours, and has you as its author. For if you had not first thought of yourself some new, primeval thing, full of pride—as you ought not to have—or if you had not been puffed up with an arrogant mind toward another, or if you had not judged someone in the weakness of human nature,

it was that you might learn from this not to judge, not to think more highly than one ought, and not to exalt yourself against anyone.

54. ^B If you have fallen into the depths of evils, do not in any way despair of salvation, even if you have been brought down to the lowest bench of the wickedness of Hades. For if you have the foundation of piety firmly laid within you by practical virtues, even if the building erected by you from the various stones of virtue has collapsed and fallen to the very floor of the earth, which is most prone to the passions and to evils, God will nonetheless not forget your former labors and sweats, if you possess a heart contrite for your sins, and mindful of the ancient days, calling back to mind your own fall with groanings before his face. For he who looks upon you will look quickly upon you as you tremble at his words, and he will touch the eyes of your sorrowful heart invisibly; and he will guard the foundation of virtue laboriously laid by you, and he will give you strength greater and more perfect than the former, in the heat of a fervent spirit, so that you may, through patience, recover the works of virtue lost by the envy of the evil one, and restore, in a spirit of humility, the house of your soul [to be] more splendid than the former, unto his eternal rest, as it is written.

55. ^C All things that happen to us unto disgrace, whether from men or from demons, come to pass by the just judgment of God and by his dispensation for the humbling of the vain pride of our souls. For the purpose of God, the pilot of our life, is that we always be humble and not think more than one ought to think, but think unto sobriety; and not to imagine great things about ourselves, but to look toward him and to imitate, as far as is possible, his blessed humility, since he was meek and humble in heart. And he who suffered an unjust and ignominious death for our sake desires that we should become such; for nothing else is so dear to him, and so truly immanent in every virtue, and able to raise up from the dung of the passions, as are meekness, humility, and love toward one's neighbor. If these are ^D missing from us as we labor in the virtues, all our work is vain, and every toil of the ascetic life is useless and unacceptable to God.

56. For those who are beginners in the life according to virtue, the fear of punishments assists in the performance of the commandments and the avoidance of evils; but for those who have advanced in virtue to the contemplation of the glory of God, another fear follows accordingly, which is much more fearsome to them—the pure fear [which comes] from love—which also assists them to remain unshakably in the love of God, as they fear the terrible slip [that might arise] from this. For as for those who have fallen from their intended goal, when they repent and rise again, the former fear receives them; but for these, if, from the

^A the Lord of Hosts had not shortened those days of this unbearable pain, no one falling from there would have been saved.

57. When the soul is freed from the persistent harassment of passionate thoughts, and the tyrannical flame of the flesh is extinguished, then know that the Holy Spirit is descending upon us, announcing the remission of past sins and granting us impassibility. But as long as it senses the stench of those thoughts through constant disturbance, and the impure flame of the flesh burns, know that the sweet fragrance of the Spirit is far from it, and that it is held fast by the indissoluble chains of passions and the senses.

58. "I saw under the sun," says the Wise Man, "a man who thinks himself wise," whom I myself have seen in the life of mortals, confident in his works, and magnifying himself on account of human, earthly, and animal wisdom. And not only does he exalt himself on this account above the simple, but he also mocks and insults the divine heritage of the ^B disciples of Christ because of their unique manner of expression, and because they do not affect chosen and circuitous phrases of worldly wisdom, nor do they seek after the rhythmic arrangement of such things in their writings. To him, as one who is ignorant that before God it is not the circumlocutions of words nor the sonority of voices, but the clarity of thoughts, that is more esteemed and loved, I will sing this proverb: "A living dog is better than a dead lion," and, "Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king, who no longer knows how to restrain himself." ^C

59. Terrible and difficult to overcome is the passion of blasphemy; it has its causes from the proud mind of Satan, who troubles all who live for God according to virtue, but more so those who have progressed to prayer and the contemplation of divine things. Wherefore it is necessary to guard the senses with every care, and to be circumspect in scrutinizing all the fearful mysteries of God—and the sacred types and words—and to be watchful regarding the approach of this spirit. For he sits by us as we pray and chant, and sometimes he ^D belches forth, through our lips, if we are unguarded, curses against us and strange blasphemies against God the Most High, inserting them into the verses of the psalms and the words of prayer. But we must turn the words of Christ against him whenever he brings something of this sort to our lips or insinuates it into our thoughts, and we must say to him: "Get behind me, Satan, full of every stench and condemned to fire.

may your blasphemy fall upon your own head." And instantly let us turn our captive mind to some other divine or human matter then occurring, or lift it up with tears to the heavens and to God, and thus, with God helping us, we shall be delivered from the burden of blasphemy. ^A

60. Sadness is a passion that corrupts the soul and body, touching even their marrow. But there is the sadness of the world, which suddenly invades men and often causes death; and there is sadness according to God, which is at once saving and highly useful, and works perseverance in labors and tribulations, opening the fountain of compunction to him who is struggling and hungering for the justice of God, and feeding his heart with tears, so that the Davidic saying concerning this is fulfilled: "You shall feed us," he says, "with the bread of tears, and you shall give us to drink in tears with the measure of the wine of compunction." ^B

61. Sadness according to God greatly restores the parts of the soul that have fallen due to the working of evils, and recalls them to their natural state; for it so diminishes the winter of desires and the clouds of sin with tears, and drives them from the spiritual air of the soul, that a clear sky of thoughts at once comes to our mind, and stillness in the sea of the intellect, and joy in our hearts, and an alteration in the appearance of our face, upon which those who see rightly, as if resting their eyes and affections ^C upon it, cry out with David: "This is the change of the right hand of the Most High."

62. Do not accept the thoughts sown against your neighbor from suspicions, for they are false, pernicious, and altogether deceitful. Know, therefore, that by this aim the demons try to push into the pit of perdition the souls of those who have already made progress in virtues; for in no other way can they cast down into the whirlpool of condemnation and wicked action any of the athletes, unless they persuade them to conceive evil suspicions; for by thus leading him into judgment and the fall of sin, they entangle him in the condemnation of the world, ^D according to the sacred oracle: "For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged; but when we are judged, we are corrected by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world."

63. When through negligence we give room to the demons to whisper suspicions against our brothers into our ears, because we do not keep watch over the movements of our eyes, then we are led by them to condemn even those who are perfect in virtue. For if a man who looks with a bright, smiling face, and is easy of access to all for conversation, seems to you prone to desires and pleasures; therefore let whoever sees someone dejected and sad, let him also be held by you

^A to be full of anger and pride. But one should not dwell on human characteristics, since judgment in such matters is dangerous for everyone. For there are in reality many differences in men ^B regarding natures, habits, and physical dispositions, which can be appropriately examined and judged only by those who have cleansed the spiritual eye of the soul through much compunction, who possess within themselves the infinite light of the divine life, and to whom it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

64. By becoming workers of the evil deeds of the flesh, we serve the soul’s desire and anger against nature, defiling the flesh with the foul flows of sin, and darkening the soul with the bitterness of anger, and becoming alienated from the Son of God. It is necessary, therefore, to wash away the defilement of the substantial flow from the body by pouring out substantial tears, so that what pleasure defiled the body through a natural flow, this the pain of sorrow may cleanse through a flow of tears again; and to dispel the darkness of the soul, which comes from the bitterness of anger, by the light of compunction and the sweetness of the love that is according to God, and to be united again to Him from whom we were formerly alienated by those things.

65. Just as the defilement from pleasure has the preceding satanic love for the fulfillment of wickedness, so the purification from sorrowing pain has the fervor of the heart for the fulfillment of mourning and tears. ^C This is by the economy of the goodness of God towards us, so that through the labors of pain we may reject and cleanse the labor of pleasure, and through the flows of tears we may reject and cleanse the foulest flow of the flesh, and may banish from the mind the types of evil things and from the soul the shapeless images, and may show it to be more brilliant through its natural beauty.

66. Just as the fornicator, acting under the evil spirit, reaps as his reward the pleasure of the flesh, and the end for him of evil deeds is defilement, so he who is acted upon from above by the Holy Spirit reaps as his reward the joy of the soul, and the end for him of good things is the purification of tears, and regeneration, and union and communion with God.

67. Since there are in us two natural flows from the same substance, semen and tears—by the one we defile the garment of the soul, and by the other we cleanse it again—it is necessary ^D to wash away the defilement contracted from our substance by tears moved from the same substance; for otherwise it is impossible to cleanse the filth proceeding from nature.

68. Every disposition of a sinning soul, moved in an evil way, dissolves labor into fleeting pleasure; but every soul being cleansed of evil habit and disposition extends its labors to long-lasting pleasure of joy, and it is a marvel how pleasure, by restraining pleasure, sweetens the pain born of pleasure.

tual perception of the heart through the shedding of tears, [and] sometimes [with] joy and exultation. When, therefore, we are purged by repentance from the poison and filth of sin, pouring forth the tears of repentance like the heat of fire—and as if striking the mind with heavy hammers, sending forth from the depth of the heart groanings—we perceive bitterness and labors with both [the] mind and the senses. But when we have been sufficiently purged by such tears and have become free from [our] passions, then, with the Holy Spirit consoling us and infusing serenity and purity into our hearts, delightful tears of compunction fill us with ineffable pleasure and sweetness. ^B

70. Tears from repentance and those that flow from divine compunction are different. For the former are like a river flooding and sweeping away all the strongholds of sin; but the latter are to the soul as rain is to grass and snow to herb, nourishing the blade of knowledge and making it manifold and fruitful.

71. For not every tear is compunction, but there is a great difference between tears and compunction. For tears arise from a conversion of life and the memory of old lapses of the soul, as if from fire and boiling water, for the purification of the heart; but compunction flows from the supernal dew of the divine Spirit for the consolation and refreshing of the soul, which has recently entered fervently into the depth of humility and received the contemplation of the inaccessible light, and thus cries out to God in the manner of David with exultation: "We have passed through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a place of refreshment." ^C

72. I have heard some saying that no one can come to the habit of virtue unless he withdraws far off and flees into solitude, and I have wondered how they thought an infinite thing could be circumscribed by a place. For the habit of virtue is the restoration of the powers of the soul to its pristine dignity, and the gathering together of the general virtues into one operation according to nature. Furthermore, these do not come upon us from without as things added, but they grow up within us, according to the intellectual and divine sense, through which and with which, moving according to nature, we are led into the kingdom of heaven; and it is within us, according to the word of the Lord, and therefore it is an excellent solitude into which we enter and from which we depart through repentance and the entire fulfilling of God's commandments, which indeed can happen in every place of His dominion, as the divine David says: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, in every place of His dominion." ^D

73. He who, fighting and warring in the midst of a royal battle line under commanders and captains, has not been able to show vigor and strength against adversaries in the encounter with the enemy, and has not even been able to rout one of them, how shall he duel and conquer in the midst of many myri-

myriads of enemies, and show himself a strategist, being inexperienced in warfare? If this is impossible in human affairs, much more so is it in divine things. For who, having fled into the wilderness, will know the incursions of demons and the attacks of the passions, whether invisible or manifest, or will make a sortie against them, if he has not first been well trained in the cutting off of his own will, in the midst of a congregation of brothers, under an experienced leader of such warfare, who is invisible and spiritual? If this is impossible, then it is entirely out of the question for such a person to fight on behalf of others, and to teach others the trophies of victory against invisible enemies. ^A

74. Remove from yourself the reproach of negligence and the contemptuous disregard for the commandments of God; cast off self-love, and rush fearlessly against the flesh; seek the ordinances of the Lord and His testimonies; despise glory and ignominy; hate the voluptuous appetites of the body; flee from gluttony, by which the belly is inflamed; embrace poverty and hardship; stand against the passions; turn your senses toward the interior of your soul; incline yourself toward the practice of that which is better; be deaf to human affairs; exhaust all your strength in the performance of the commandments; lament, sleep on the ground, fast, suffer hardship, be quiet; know, finally, not the things that are around you, but yourself. Rise above the vileness of visible things; cast your spiritual eye toward the contemplation of God, and see the sweetness of the Lord in the beauty of created things; and descending thence, recount to your brothers the wonders of eternal life and the mysteries of the kingdom of God. And this is the work of him who flees from men through exalted asceticism, and this is the end of life spent within the wilderness. ^{B C}

75. If you wish to see the good things which God has prepared for those who love Him, go into the wilderness of the renunciation of your own will, and flee the world. What world is this? It is the lust of the eyes, the pride of the flesh, the arrogance of thoughts, and the deception of visible things. For if you flee this world, the morning light will dawn for you, with the vision of the divine life, and the remedies of your soul, that is to say, tears, will quickly rise, and you will be changed by the change of the right hand of the Most High; and the scourge of the passions will no longer draw near to your tent, and thus, living in the midst of the world and the people, you will spend your time as if you were in the wilderness, seeing no man. But if you do not flee the world in this way, the mere flight from the visible world will profit you nothing for the perfection of virtues and union with God. ^D

76. To become a monk is not to depart from men and the world, but to leave oneself behind, to be outside the promptings of the flesh, and to depart into the wilderness of the passions. For if it was said even to that great man, "Flee men, and you shall be saved," yet it was said in this way; for even after he had fled, he nevertheless lived in the midst of men, and dwelt on inhabited land,

^A and associated with his disciples; but by having earnestly fled in his intellect from the sensible world, he suffered no harm from human association. Another great man also cried out this, upon leaving the assembly: "Flee, brothers," yet he would point to his mouth when asked the reason.

77. ^B Dwelling together in communities is safer than solitude. For concerning the necessity of dwelling together, the holy word of Jesus and God is witness: "For where two or three are gathered," he says, "in my name, there am I in the midst of them." And concerning the peril of solitude, Solomon says: "Woe to him who is alone, because when he falls, there is none to raise him up." For indeed, David also calls blessed those who in love and concord praise God, crying out: "Blessed is the people that knows jubilation." And he praises dwelling together, saying: "Behold, how good or how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together!" And concerning the disciples of the Lord it is said: "Their heart and soul was one." Furthermore, the descent of God to us did not occur in a wilderness, ^C but on inhabited land, and in the midst of sinful men. Therefore, concord of communal life is necessary, while solitude is slippery and dangerous.

78. "It is necessary that scandals come," says the Lord, "but woe to him by whom the scandal comes." He, therefore, who has lost piety, and who in contempt and fearlessness of God moves about in the midst of a congregation of brothers, brings scandal to many of the simpler sort—this by his works, and behavior, and most base habits, and that by words and corrupt speech, and he corrupts souls, and good and honest characters.

79. He who keeps the commandments of God does not become a stone of scandal to men, because there is no scandal in him. "For great peace have those who love your law, and there is no scandal to them"; but he is light, and salt, and life, according to the voice of the Lord: "You are the light of the world, ^D and the salt of the earth." Light, then, as having a virtuous life, and being radiant in speech, and wise in understanding; and salt, as being abundant in divine knowledge and powerful in the wisdom of God; and life, in that by his words of discourse he gives life to those deadened by passions, and raises them from the hell of despair. And indeed, shining before men with the light of his works of righteousness, he enlightens them; by his pleasant yet sharp words he restrains those who are bound from dissolution and frees them from the putrefaction of passions; and finally, by his life-giving words, he restores life to souls deadened by sin.

80. The passion of vainglory is a three-pronged spear, through vainglory, presumption, and pride, being fired and forged by the demons. But in

those who dwell under the protection of the God of heaven ^A it becomes easily captured, and its spikes are blunted, because they fly over these things with the wings of humility, and rest in the tree of life.

81. When this unclean and crafty demon approaches you when you are making progress in virtue, and promises you the height of thrones, bringing to mind and extolling your works as if they were more excellent than others, and even suggesting to you that you are capable of leading souls; then, holding him fast intellectually, do not let him escape, if indeed you have received power from on high to do so. And having taken hold ^B of him, go in your mind to whatever evil thing you once committed, and laying this bare before him, say to him: "Are those who do such things worthy to ascend to such a height of preeminence, or do they seem to you capable of guiding souls and bringing them saved to Christ?" If you say "I am silent," he, having nothing to answer you, will vanish like smoke in shame, and will no longer trouble you with force. But if you have not done or said anything evil in your truly heavenly life, nonetheless compare yourself to the commandments and the sufferings of the Lord, and you will find yourself as lacking in perfection as a pool of water is from the sea: for the justice of men ^C is as far from the justice of God as earth differs from heaven in size, and a gnat from a lion.

82. He who is deeply wounded by the love of God has less physical strength than his will. For there is no satiety for his will in the labors and sweats of asceticism; for, like those who are suffering from intense thirst, he is not sated by the burning heat of it, but day and night he thirsts to labor, and fails through the strength of his body. I think indeed that this supernatural passion possessed Christ's martyrs, when they did not feel the tortures, nor could they be sated while enduring them; but they overcame themselves with burning love for God, and always found themselves unequal to their will in their fiery determination to suffer.

83. Whoever measures himself in any way against any of his brothers who live with him or lead an ascetic life ^D deceives himself unwittingly, and walks a path foreign to God. For such a man either does not know himself, or has turned aside from the way leading to heaven, which the zealous run with a humble mind, and through which, flying over the snares of the enemy, they pass into the spiritual air on the wings of lack of passion, and flourish in luminous places, adorned with modesty.

84. He who is puffed up and deceives his mind with presumption will never attain the grace of compunction in the light of humility, through which the light of God's wisdom is granted to those who are contrite in heart, according to what is written: "In thy light we shall see light."

^A but the night of passions shall overshadow him, in which all the beasts of the forest of human nature go forth; and the whelps of presumption—I mean the demon of vainglory and of fornication—roaring, seek whom they may devour and send down into the bellies of despair.

85. For him who lives according to human ways and is moved by the spirit of presumption, the present life becomes a sea of evils, flooding his soul with the brine of pleasures and the violent waves of desires; that is to say, it strikes his tripartite nature furiously with the malignant spirits. A terrible danger of utter despair hangs over him, when his vessel and the rudder of his soul are broken by the pleasures of the flesh, and the ship’s captain, the mind, comes near the abyss of sin and spiritual death; until the sea of evils subsides into the depth of humility and calms its waves for him, and the brine of pleasures is converted into showers of tears, and changes them into the sweetness of luminous compunction.

86. Whoever has indulged to satiety in the pleasures of the body and its deeds, let him likewise apply himself to satiety in the labors of asceticism and the sweat of hardship, so that satiety may be driven out by satiety, pleasure by pain, and sloth by the labors of the body, and so that you may find the satiety of joy and exultation for your rest. For thus you will take delight in the sweet fragrance of chastity and purity, and you will taste the ineffable pleasure and immortal fruits of the Spirit; since we are accustomed to apply cleaning agents to clothes in proportion to the stain, for their cleansing, whenever they have become entirely useless on account of filth. ^C

87. Diseases are beneficial to those who are still beginners in the life according to virtue, assisting them in the maceration and humiliation of the fevered flesh. For they weaken the strength of the flesh and diminish the earthly inclination of the soul, while rendering the vitality of the soul itself more vigorous and powerful, according to the divine Apostle who says: "For when I am weak, then I am strong." But as much as these things are beneficial to them, so much do they harm those who have already progressed in the labors of virtue, and who have recently risen above the senses to the contemplation of heavenly things. For they hinder them from being free for divine matters, they dull the keenness of the mind with pains and distressing necessities, and they obscure it with a cloud of ^D despair, and dry up compunction with the drought of sickness. Seeing this, and rightly fortifying himself by the law of judgment, Paul said: "I discipline my body (with the exercises of labors) and bring it into subjection (with constant cares), lest, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."

88. Diseases often arise in many people from irregular and imbalanced living, when someone applies himself without measure and discernment either to extreme fasting and the labors of virtue, or to gluttony and

^A saturating it, the body naturally inclines towards enmity against us. Temperance is therefore necessary, both for those who are beginning the path of virtue and for those who have passed the middle of the course and are straining toward the highest pinnacle of contemplation. For it is the mother of health, the friend of purity, and a good companion to humility.

^B 89. Know that impassibility is twofold and that it arises in the zealous in two ways. First, the primary impassibility arises for the zealous from the culmination of practical philosophy; having progressed through lawful struggle and many labors, it knows how to put the passions to death immediately, to render the impulses of the flesh inactive, to cause the faculties of the soul to move according to nature, and to restore the mind to the meditation of divine things with understanding. Then, from the beginning of natural contemplation, the second and more perfect impassibility arrives for them most opportunely; when raised from the spiritual stillness of thoughts to a peaceful state of mind, it knows how to render the mind most discerning and most prescient: most discerning in divine matters, in visions of the higher, and in revelations of the mysteries of God; and most prescient in human affairs that come from afar and are about to happen. In these two impassibilities, one and the same Spirit works, which in the first moderates and restrains, but in the second gives free rein and the liberty of eternal life, as Paul says.

^C 90. He who has approached the boundaries of impassibility, directing his eyes straight toward God and the natures of things, rising from the beauty of created things according to the measure of his own purity toward the Creator, receives the illuminations of the Spirit; and having good thoughts about everyone, he always thinks well of all; he sees everyone as holy and pure, and passes sound judgment regarding divine and human affairs; he loves nothing of the things concerning the material world which men pursue with zeal; and having divested his mind of worldly sensation, he runs to the heavens and to God, clean from all mire and free from all slavery, and becomes wholly possessed by the spiritual goods of God in the spirit alone. He beholds the divine beauty and dwells divinely in divine places, where the blessed glory of God resides in ineffable silence and joy, and with all senses transformed, he converses among men as an angel in a material body, ^D immaterial.

91. Reason knows five senses of asceticism: wakefulness, meditation, prayer, temperance, and stillness. He who attaches his own senses to these—attaching sight to wakefulness, hearing to meditation, smell to prayer, taste to temperance, and touch to stillness—quickly cleanses the mind of his own soul, and by refining it through these things, renders it impassible and discerning.

^A

92. He is impassible who has become victor over his own passions and superior to both grief and joy; who is neither dejected by the sorrows arising from sudden shocks, nor made drunk by the joy perceived from the soul’s tranquility, but in tribulations rejoices, bearing his soul in a state of temperance, and in prosperous times remains temperate, not being carried beyond the mark.

93. Great is the fury of the demons against those who make progress toward theory. For they lie in wait for them night and day; and sometimes they stir up grievous temptations against them through their associates, at other times they raise up noises of their own to terrify them. They even beset them while sleeping, envying them their rest, and torment them in various ways, although they cannot successfully harm those who have consecrated themselves to God. And if the angel of the Lord Almighty did not guard them, they would not escape their snares and the bonds of death. ^B

94. Since you have an anxious concern for the practical philosophy of virtue, watch carefully against the deadly snares of the demons. For as much as you arrange your ascent of progress into high virtues, and the divine light increases for you in prayers, and you arrive at revelations and ineffable visions with the help of the Spirit, by so much do they, seeing you rising toward heaven, gnash their teeth and diligently spread the complex nets of their wickedness in the intelligible air. For not only will the carnal and bestial demons of desire and anger breathe against you, but also the demons of blasphemy will rise up against you with bitter envy. Moreover, visibly and invisibly, those flying about in the air, and the principalities and powers, will rise up to harm you as much as lies in their power, appearing in mere guise under strange and horrific forms; but if you are occupied with the mental exercise of prayer, keeping the eye of the mind vigilant, and applying your soul ^C to the contemplation of nature by meditating on the works of God, you will not fear from the arrow of theirs that flies by day; for they will not have the power to approach your tabernacle, being repelled like darkness by the light implanted in you, and burned by the divine fire.

95. The spirits of wickedness are greatly terrified by the grace of the Holy Spirit, especially when it is poured out abundantly upon us who are purified by meditation and pure prayer. For not daring to approach the tabernacle of those who are illuminated from on high, they attempt to terrify and disturb them only with fantasies, horrific noises, and indistinct voices, and to lead them away from the work of vigil and prayer; furthermore, they do not refrain even from those sleeping on the ground. Envying them even the shortest rest from their labors, they lie in wait, and by certain convulsions take sleep away from their eyes, in order to make their life more laborious and full of pain through such artifices. ^D

96. Clothed in a subtle body, the spirits of darkness seem...

^A to present either mere appearances to the deluded senses, or to have been condemned to this state because of the ancient fall. Whatever the case may be, when they endeavor to engage in battle with the soul, while its servant—the body—is turned toward sleep, this seems to me a trial for the soul, recently raised above the lowliness of the body, so that its fortitude and courage against such enemies may be revealed. They threaten it with horrible things, with great anger and fury; yet the soul, wounded by the love of God and fortified by the general virtues, not only fights against them with a fitting spirit but even strikes them, if there is any sense within them—for the merciless severity of the fall has repelled them from the primal and divine light.

97. Before the conflict and the defeat, the demons ^B often disturb the perception of the soul and snatch sleep from its eyelids. But the soul that is filled with confidence and courage from the Holy Spirit disregards the onset and bitter fury of these beings, and, by the life-giving sign alone and the invocation of the Lord Jesus, it dissipates their phantasms and at the same time puts them to flight.

98. If you have departed from practical philosophy to plunder the spoils of the hostile spirits, look and take heed, now that you have girded yourself entirely with the weapons of the Holy Spirit. For you know whose vessels you desire to plunder: for you are fighting against enemies who are indeed spiritual and incorporeal, while you are still clothed in a body and serve under the King of spirits and God. Know ^C that they will fight against you more fiercely than before and will devise various stratagems against you, until, either by recovering the spoils, they snatch you away while you are unaware, along with these, as a captive, and fill your soul with much bitterness, or they cast you down with evil and painful temptations in order to scourge your flesh and cause you harm.

99. A good fountain cannot send forth muddy and foul-smelling streams that breathe of worldly filth; nor can a mind that is an exile from the kingdom of heaven gush forth streams of divine life, emitting the sweet fragrance of spiritual odors to those who long for them. For, as it is said, "Does a fountain send forth from the same opening sweet and bitter water?" Or "Can a fig tree produce olives, or a vine figs?" Thus, a single fountain of the heart cannot produce ^D both good and evil thoughts at the same time; but "a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things," according to the word of the Lord.

100. Just as it is impossible for oil and fire to burn without a lamp, and to shine upon those who are in the house, so it is impossible for the soul, without the divine Spirit and fire, to explain the divine things more clearly and to enlighten men. For every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father

of the Father of lights, awarded to every soul that loves God; in whom there is no, according to the oracle, variation or shadow of change.

BY THE SAME: ONE HUNDRED PRACTICAL CHAPTERS ON THE PURIFICATION OF THE INTELLECT

1. The beginning of the love of God is the contempt of things visible and human; the middle is the purification of the heart and mind, from which proceed the spiritual opening of the intellectual eyes and the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven hidden within us; the end, finally, is the insatiable longing for the supernatural gifts of God, and the natural desire for communion with God, which is itself the rest in Him. ^B

2. Where there is the love of God, and the practice of things intelligible, and the participation in the inaccessible light, there is the peace of the powers of the soul, the purification of the mind, and the indwelling of the holy Trinity. For, "He that loves me," Christ says, "will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make an abode with him."

3. The word identifies three states of life: the carnal, the psychic, and the spiritual. Each of these has its own disposition of life, distinct in itself and unlike the others. ^C

4. The carnal state of life is wholly given over to the pleasures and enjoyments of the present life, having nothing of the psychic or spiritual state in itself, nor wishing in any way to acquire them. The psychic state, being a kind of boundary between vice and virtue, looks to the care and living of the body and to the praise of men; likewise, it shakes off the labors of virtue while at the same time fleeing the deeds of the flesh; it is not attached to vice or to virtue because of the opposing reasons found in them. To virtue, it is not attached because of its harshness and difficulty; to vice, it is not attached so as not to forfeit the praises of men. The spiritual state of life ^D

^A neither chooses to possess these things, nor does it concern itself with such evils; rather, it is in its entirety free from both, soaring above them on the wings of love and dispassion, doing nothing that is forbidden, and avoiding the idleness of vices.

5. Those who live carnally, and keep the carnal mindset within them, being truly flesh, cannot please God; for they are darkened in their thoughts and altogether deprived of the rays of divine light. For having the clouds of passions, like high walls, obstructing the brilliancies of the Spirit, they remain unillumined. Being blind in the senses of their own souls, they cannot look up toward the intelligible beauties of God, nor see the light of the true Life, nor rise above the things seen in humility. ^B But, having become like beasts and having become sense-perceptions of the world, they make the dignity of reason captive to sensible and human things. They hold the entire struggle toward visible and corruptible things, fighting with one another for these, and sometimes even laying down their own souls for such things, clinging to riches, glory, and the pleasures of the flesh, and accounting the failure to obtain such things a great loss. To these, the prophetic utterance is fittingly spoken as if from the person of God: “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh.” ^C

6. Those who live a psychic life—and are therefore called psychic—are like half-witted people and, as it were, weak in limb. They are never willing to toil for the sake of virtue and the commandment of God, and they avoid blameworthy actions only for the sake of the glory of men; but being held fast by self-love, which is the nurse of destructive passions, they devote every care to the health and enjoyment of the flesh. They reject every tribulation, every toil, and every suffering for the sake of virtue, cherishing the enemy body more than is fitting. Having such a life and manner of conduct, they weigh down the mind, which has been thickened by passions, and they are incapable of receiving intelligible and divine things, ^D by which the soul is snatched from matter and dwells wholly in the intelligible heavens. This they suffer because they are still held by a material spirit, inasmuch as they love their own souls and choose to do their own wills; for being void of the Holy Spirit, they are also bereft of His gifts. Whence it is not possible to see in them divine fruits—love for God and neighbor, or joy in poverty and tribulations, or the peace of the soul, or sincere faith, or comprehensive self-control; nay, not even compunction, or tears, or humility, and compassion. Everything is full of swelling and pride; and hence they lack the power of themselves to plunge into the depths of the Spirit. For there is no light in them.

nor one to guide them and open their mind to the understanding of the Scriptures. Indeed, they do not even allow themselves to hear these things when explained by others. Appropriately, therefore, the Apostle judged regarding such people: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him" (1 Cor. ii, 14), and he does not know that the law is spiritual and is spiritually examined.

7. ^B Those who follow the Spirit, and have embraced the spiritual life in its entirety, are pleasing to God, being consecrated to Him like Nazirites; for they always purify their souls with labors and keep the commandments of the Lord. Shedding their own blood for the sake of His love, they cleanse the flesh with fasts and vigils, with tears they thin the fat of the heart, with hardships they mortify their limbs, and by the aid of prayer and meditation they fill the mind with light and make it radiant. Through the renunciation of their own wills, they separate their souls from the passion of the body and become wholly the property of the Spirit alone; wherefore they are not only known, but are also fittingly called "spiritual" by everyone. These, arriving at dispassion and love, take wing toward the contemplation of creation. And from there they receive the knowledge of existing things through the wisdom that is hidden in God, which is given only to those who have risen above the baseness of the body. Having thus passed beyond all sensory perception of the world, and being elevated with an illumined intellect to those things that surpass the senses, they clarify their reasoning, and in the midst of the Church of God and a great assembly of the faithful, they bring forth good words from a pure heart; and they become salt and light to men, according to the word by which the Lord addresses them: "Ye are the light of the world, and the salt of the earth" (Matth. v, 13, 14).

8. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. xlv, 11). This is the voice of the divine Word, and it is known practically by those who so desire. It is therefore beneficial for one who has once and for all bade farewell to the tumultuous worries, dangers, and vanities of life, to examine his inward acts diligently through much attentiveness and quiet, and to seek to know God within himself, since the kingdom of God is within us. For it is with difficulty that someone acting in this way, over a long period of time, could manage to scrape away the impressions of evil from the soul and preserve intact the ancient beauty for the One who gave it.

9. ^D The poison of evil previously stored within us, being great, also requires much of the fire which purifies through the tears of repentance and the voluntary labors of asceticism. For we are purified of the defilements of sin either through voluntary labors or through involuntary afflictions. For if voluntary ones precede, the involuntary ones do not follow; but if the former do not cleanse what is inside the cup and the platter, the latter restore us more effectively to our former state, according to a special economy of the Creator.

10 They play with piety and are played with by external things, those who have not renounced themselves according to reason, nor have they wished to use a master or guide from the beginning, but have followed their own understanding and have appeared wise in their own eyes.

11 No one can accurately know the disease-causing causes of bodily passions and their cures without much experience in medical science, nor those of the soul without much exercise in these matters. For just as the diagnosis of the diseases of the body—with which the science of physicians is concerned—seems slippery and is understood accurately by very few, so the diagnosis of the diseases of the soul is much more slippery and difficult. For by as much as the soul is superior to the body, by so much the passions of the former are greater and more difficult to comprehend than those of this body, which is perceptible to all.

12 By nature, the general and ruling virtues were implanted in humans; from these, as if from four sources, the rivers of all the other virtues are filled with water and irrigate the city of God, which is the heart being purified and comforted by tears. Whoever keeps these unshaken by the spirits of wickedness, or whoever, having fallen, rises again through the many labors of repentance, builds for himself a royal house and palace in which the Ruler of everything makes His abode, and He abundantly distributes and grants His high gifts to those who have thus prepared themselves.

13 Short is life, the coming age is long, and the interval of the present life is small. But man is that great and small animal, to whom short time is given, and he is weak; the time is short, and the man is weak; but the prize offered for the reward of the athletes is great, having ten thousand torments, and is exposed to the dangers of a very short life.

14 God does not wish the work of those who are zealous to be without testing, but rather to be highly proved. Therefore, He sends the fire of temptations and for a time withdraws the grace given to them from above, and He allows the tranquility of their thoughts to be stirred up by the spirits of wickedness in due season, so that He may see the inclination of the soul, in what it takes most pleasure: whether in its Creator and benefactor, or in the sensation of the world and the sweetness of pleasure. Then, indeed, He either doubles His grace to them, if they make progress in love for Him, or He scourges them with torments and tribulations if they labor with the desire for things, until they come to hate the unstable vicissitudes of visible things and wash away the bitterness of earthly pleasures with tears.

15 When the peace of the thoughts has been disturbed by the spirits of wickedness, immediately the ignited arrows of desire are continuously cast by the hunting and carnally-minded demons against him who runs swiftly toward the heights of the mind.

And if the Lord ^A of Sabaoth had not shortened those days, and granted the power of endurance to his servants, no flesh would have been saved.

16. The demon of fornication, experienced and manifold in his stratagems, becomes to some a stumbling block and a pit of mire; to others, a scourge and a just rod; to others, a trial and a torment of the soul. The first of these regards those who are beginners and who still draw the yoke of asceticism ^B lazily and carelessly; the second regards those who hold the middle path of progress toward virtue, but tend toward it more slowly; the third, finally, regards those who, having spread the wings of the mind for contemplation, have recently hastened toward a more perfect impassibility: and thus each one is disposed from above according to his advantage.

17. A stumbling block and a pit of mire is what the demon ^C of fornication becomes to those who live a solitary life in total indifference, scorching their members with the flames and desires of fornication, and providing them methods for fulfilling the will of the flesh, even without the involvement of another’s flesh. Concerning whom it is shameful even to speak or to think. These, as someone has said, defile the flesh and eat the fruits of bitter pleasure, and have their eyes full of darkness, and justly turn aside from the good, for whom, if they wish, the remedy shall be the fervor of repentance, and from this the compunction of tears; which both puts the evil to flight, and purges the soul from filth, and makes it a partaker of the mercy of God; which the wise Solomon also aptly hints at, saying: "Healing shall make great sins to cease."

18. A scourge and a rod, this spirit rightly becomes to those who are accomplished in the first ^D impassibility through practical philosophy, and who are recently making further progress toward better and more perfect things. For when they slacken the intensity of their ensuing asceticism through sloth, and incline slightly toward an unguarded contemplation of the perception of the world, and come to be in desire of human things, then that flagellating spirit is launched against them, out of the extreme goodness of God toward them, and begins to strike the one who is thinking with thoughts of carnal desire: so that, not being able to bear it, they may swiftly run back again to their own fortress of diligent labor and attention, and more zealously perform the works that save them through a more laborious manner of action. For God, being good, does not wish that the soul which has reached this point should be turned back entirely to the perception of the world, but always to progress and with more perfect works to dili

diligently apply itself, so that ^A the scourge of wickedness may not approach its tabernacle.

19. Proof, and thorn, and trial, by divine dispensation, this spirit becomes to those whom the first impassibility has raised to the second: that, being troubled by this temptation, they may remember their natural infirmity, and not be exalted by the greatness of the revelations and visions, according to the holy saying, but seeing him who wars against the law of their mind, may shake off even the slight memory of sin, fearing lest from this recollection they suffer detriment, and lest they relax the eye of their mind from high contemplation.

20. They alone have been able to keep their mind undisturbed by even the slight memory of sin, who have been deemed worthy to receive from above, through the Spirit, the life-giving mortification of the Lord in their own members and thoughts, and who bear their flesh dead to sin, while they have been enriched with life through the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus. And to as many as the mind of Christ has been given in the word of wisdom, to them ^B also this undisturbed, life-giving mortification has been found in the knowledge of God.

21. To souls that are newly cleansed, the spirit of concupiscence and of anger is wont in some way to descend. In what manner? So that it may shake down the fruits of the Holy Spirit hanging over them. But since the joy of liberty also produces a certain diffusion in such souls, Wisdom, which disposes all things for our benefit, wishing always to draw their minds to itself through its own gifts, and that they may remain unshaken in humility—so that they may not, because of the great liberty and the abundance of gifts, exalt themselves above others, or even imagine that they have possessed this great palace of peace by their own power and understanding—permits these spirits to leap upon them ^C, while it withdraws this peace, so that, being struck with the fear of a fall, they may be vigilant in preserving for themselves their blessed humility, and that, knowing themselves to be bound to flesh and blood, they may naturally seek their proper fortress, in which they can be preserved unharmed by the power of the Spirit.

22. According to the prevailing infirmity of the passions and the rot of sin lying within us, the onslaught of temptations occurs; and the cup of the wormwood of the judgments of God is mixed for us more bitterly or more compassionately. For if the matter of sin lying within us be remediable and curable—arising, that is, from voluptuous or worldly-minded thoughts—the cup of temptations is mixed and given by the physician of our souls with compassion, as if for those examined in human thoughts and still suffering human things. But if it be hard to cure and lying in the depths, and if the matter of sin produces a rot that is close to death, arising from thoughts of arrogance and extreme pride, then the cup is given to us unmixed, in the bitterness ^D of the heart, so that by the fire of the impending temptations it may be diminished and consumed.

^A Let this disease be melted away and thinned by humility, so that it may depart from our souls, and let us wash away the bitter thoughts with tears, and appear pure in the light of the humility by which our souls are healed.

23. Those who are struggling cannot escape from the successive temptations ^B unless they acknowledge their own weakness, and consider themselves strangers to all righteousness, and unworthy of every consolation, every honor, and every rest. For God, the physician of our souls, wills that we should always be humble and modest, separated from all men, and imitators of the sufferings which He Himself endured. For He was meek and humble of heart, and in gentleness and humility of heart He wills that we run the course of His commandments.

24. Humility does not consist in the bowing of the neck, or in unkempt hair, or in a neglected, very rough, and dirty garment—things in which many limit the entirety of virtue—but in a contrite heart and in a spirit of humility, as David says: "A broken spirit, a heart that is broken and humbled, God will not despise."

25. One thing is humility of speech, another is humility of deed, and another is humility of mind. For humility of speech and humility of deed are attained by those struggling through every hardship and the external labors of virtue, focusing their energies solely on bodily work and exercise. And therefore, because the soul is often not firmly established, when temptation occurs, it is disturbed. But humility of mind, being something divine and sublime, is found only in those who have passed over the middle way by the visitation of the Comforter, having travelled, that is, through all humility along the shortest path of virtue.

26. Humility of mind enters into the depths of the soul, and falling upon it like a heavy stone, presses and crushes it with such force that it empties all its strength in an inexhaustible flow of tears, and the mind is ^C purified from every stain of thought, and it comes to the vision of God, according to Isaiah, and acts in such a way that it says: "Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart, for being a man, and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips, and I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts, with my eyes."

27. When humility of speech is presented to you in depth, then haughty speech will be taken away from you. But when humility is rooted in the depths of your heart, then even the superficial or deep humility of speech will be cast away by you. But when you have become enriched from above with humility of mind, then that very external humility...

will be perfected and cast aside, according to what Paul says: "But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away with." ^B

28. As far as the east is from the west, so far does the true humility of words differ from the true humility of deeds; and just as the heaven is greater than the earth, and the soul than the body, so the humility of thoughts given to the perfect by the Holy Spirit is more perfect and superior to the true humility of deeds.

29. Neither should you easily assume that a man who speaks humbly and carries himself in a humble manner and dress is humble of heart, nor that one who speaks in high and lofty words is full of vanity and pride, unless you have verified this; rather, you shall know them by their fruits.

30. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, goodness, long-suffering, kindness, faith, gentleness, self-control. The fruits of the contrary spirit, however, are hatred, worldly sorrow, confusion of soul, perturbation of heart, malice, meddlesomeness, carelessness, anger, unbelief, envy, gluttony, drunkenness, reviling, condemnation, the lust of the eyes, and the inflation and pride of the soul. Therefore, by such fruits as these, let the tree be known to you, and in this way you will certainly know of what spirit any man who encounters you may be. For you have the signs of these even more clearly from the voice of the Lord, who says: "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings ^C forth evil things"; for as the tree is, so is its fruit.

31. Therefore, in those in whom the fruits of the Holy Spirit are present and observed, in them God dwells, and from them flows a clear fountain of speech, wisdom, and knowledge, whether they are heard speaking humbly or speaking of lofty things. But in those in whom these fruits and gifts of His are not seen, but rather those of the contrary spirit, in them there is darkness and ignorance of God, a swarm of passions, and the habitation of hostile spirits, whether they appear to speak and bear themselves humbly, or high-mindedly with outlandish garments and a show of dignity.

32. Truth is not characterized by outward appearance, habit, or speech, nor does God rest in these, but in contrite hearts, spirits of humility, and souls illuminated by the knowledge of God. For there are times when we see someone who externally abases himself in speech and always uses humble words to capture the praise of men, while internally he is full of presumption, craftiness, envy, and a mind that bears irascibility against his neighbor. At other times, on the contrary, we see someone externally contending for justice with lofty-sounding words of wisdom, standing against falsehood or the transgression of divine laws, and seeing only the truth. ^D

^A and being within all modesty, humility, and love toward one's neighbor; there are times when he also glories in the Lord, according to Paul who says thus and glories in the Lord: “I will glory in my infirmities” (II Cor. XII, 9).

33. God does not look at the external appearance of those things which we say or do, but at the dispositions of souls ^B and the intention for which we do any of the things that are seen, or say any of the things that are thought. And just as those who excel others in understanding pay attention to the force of words and the purpose of deeds, and bring forth sound judgments concerning them, so man indeed looks at the face, but God looks at the heart (I Reg. XVI, 7).

34. It was decreed by God that not generation after generation should His prophets and friends cease to be prepared by the Holy Spirit for the restoration of His Church. For if the ancient dragon has not ceased to pour the venom of sin into the ears of men, through which the destruction of the soul occurs, how shall He who fashioned their hearts one by one (Ps. XXXII, 15) not raise up a poor man from the earth of humility, and lift up the needy from the dungheap of passions, bearing the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephes. VI, 17), for the aid of His inheritance? Rightly, therefore, do those who begin from humility and deny themselves hasten to the summit of knowledge, and there is given to them from above the word of wisdom, by the power of God, as they evangelize salvation to His Church.

35. “Know yourself”; this is the true and real humility, which teaches the humility of thoughts, crushing the heart, and knowing how to produce and preserve this same humility. But if you have not yet known yourself, you neither know what humility is, nor have you reached its true operation and preservation; for to know oneself is the perfection of the operation of the virtues.

36. He who through purity has attained to the knowledge of beings ^C has known himself, according to the saying: “Know yourself.” But he who has not yet reached the knowledge of the very reasons of creation, and of divine and human things, knows indeed the things which are about him and the things which are outside him, but himself not at all.

37. It is not the case that if I am something, then all things according to me are also that; nor if they are things according to me, are they also things about me; nor if they are things about me, are they also things outside me. But these are one thing, those are another, and the others are yet another. For I indeed am an image of God, looked upon in an intellectual, immortal, and rational soul, since I have an intellect that is the father of the word, and as it is indivisible from the soul and consubstantial to it. The things, however, that are within me are royal dignity, sovereignty, reason, and free will. The things that are about me are whatever can be chosen by the elective faculty—such as being a farmer, a merchant, a mathematician, or a philosopher. The things, finally, outside me are whatever pertains to the love of secular honors and base nobility, wealth, glory, honor, and prosperity

or conversely, poverty, obscurity, ignominy, and adversity. ^A

38. Whoever has known himself has ceased from all his works which were according to God, and has already entered into the sanctuary of God, that is, the intellectual sacrifice of the Spirit, and into the divine harbor of impassibility and humility. But he who has not yet known himself through humility and knowledge still runs his life in labor and sweat. This was what David meant when he said: "This labor is before me, until I enter into the sanctuary of God."

39. When someone knows himself—and this requires much guarding from outside things, and leisure from worldly affairs, and the searching of one's own conscience—immediately a certain divine humility in an ineffable way occupies the soul, bringing with it contrition of heart and fervent tears of compunction, so that he who is driven by its influence then considers himself as clay, ash, a worm, and not a human, and indeed an animal unworthy of this life; so greatly surpassing is that gift of God, that he who has been deemed worthy to retain it, is filled with another unspeakable drunkenness of compunction, and is submerged into the depth of humility; and being then beside himself, he disregards all extrinsic foods, drinks, and bodily coverings, not exceeding necessity, as if changed by the beautiful change of the right hand of the Most High. ^B

40. Humility is the greatest treasure among the virtues; for in those in whom it has been implanted through sincere repentance, and who join prayer with temperance, it immediately makes them free from the servitude of the passions, provides peace to their faculties, and purifies the heart through tears, and fills it with tranquility through the visitation of the Spirit. ^C When they are so disposed, the discourse of the knowledge of God is made plain to them, and they arrive at the contemplation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and of the very reasons of creation; but in proportion as they penetrate the deep things of the Spirit, by so much do they sink into the depth of humility. From this, the knowledge of their own measures increases in them, the weakness of human nature is acknowledged, and the love of God and of their neighbor is increased, so that they deem that they draw sanctification from the mere embrace and presence of those with whom they live. ^D

41. Nothing else so wings the soul toward the love of God and love for men as humility, compunction, and pure prayer. For the one breaks the spirit, opens fountains of tears, and, keeping human lowliness before the eyes, teaches one to know the weakness of his own powers; the other purifies the mind from corruption, and enlightens the eyes of the heart,

and makes the soul altogether luminous; and prayer joins the whole man to God, and makes him a fellow-guest of the angels, and gives him to taste the delights of the eternal goods of God, and opens to him the treasures of high mysteries, and, inflamed by love, persuades him to dare to lay down his own soul for his friends, as one having gone beyond the limits of bodily lowliness.

^B 42. Keep for me the good deposit of wealth-making humility, in which the hidden treasures of love are stored up, in which the pearls of compunction are guarded; and the King Christ God rests as on a gilded throne, distributing the gifts of His Holy Spirit to her foster-children; and bestowing upon them His great honors, the word of His knowledge, His hidden wisdom, the insight into divine things, the foresight of human things, the life-giving mortification through the aid of impassibility, and the conjunction with Him, in order to reign with Him in the kingdom of the Father and of God, as He Himself makes the petition for us, saying: "Father, those whom Thou hast given me, I will that where I am, they also may be."

43. When anyone, laboring in the practice of the commandments, suddenly finds himself in ineffable and unspeakable joy, so that he is transformed in a strange and inexpressible way, and lays aside the weight of the body, and forgets food, sleep, and the other necessities of life, let him know this to be the visitation of God to him, which produces in those who strive the life-giving mortification, and gives them from that time forth the state of incorporeal beings. The cause of this blessed life is humility; the nurse and mother is holy compunction; the friend and sister is the vision of the divine light; the throne is impassibility; and the perfection is the holy and divine Trinity.

^C 44. He who has attained this citadel cannot be held by the bonds of the perception of all things; he despises all the delights of life, he does not distinguish between the pious and the impious, but just as God equally rains and makes His sun rise upon the just and the unjust, and upon the good and the bad, so he likewise makes the rays of love rise and spread out over all, and his bowels are not restricted, pouring out love upon all, but he suffers distress and violence if he does not benefit [them] as much as he wishes. Out of him, as if from another Eden, a certain spring of compunction flows, divided into four heads, namely: into humility, into chastity, ^D into impassibility, and into the height of distraction-less prayer, and it waters the face of every intellectual creature of God.

45. Those who have not tasted the sweetness of the tears of compunction, nor know what its grace and power is, think that these tears in no way differ from those shed over the dead, contriving for themselves many other kinds of empty pretexts, and in

^A tricate arguments. In truth, these are implanted in us by nature; and when the haughtiness of the mind begins to bend toward humility, and the soul closes its eyes so as not to see the fallacy of visible things, directing them only toward the vision of the immaterial and primary light, rejecting all sense of the world, and receiving the supernal consolation of the Spirit, immediately tears flow from its eyes like the waters of a fountain, and soothe its senses, filling its intellect with all joy and divine light; nay, more, they crush the heart and render the mind humble in the vision of the better—things which those who mourn and lament in other ways cannot possess.

46. It is impossible for anyone to open the fountain of tears without the most profound humility, and conversely, for one to be humble without the compunction produced by the grace of the Spirit; for humility generates compunction, and compunction generates humility; and as if they were a chain linked together and joined in one charity, they are bound by the ineffable bond of the Spirit.

47. The light that is generated in the soul by the divine Spirit is accustomed to be gradually expelled by softness, negligence, and indifference in words and food; for the lack of restraint in food and softness of life, as well as the impotence of the tongue and the incontinence of the eyes, expel that light from the soul and cast darkness upon us. But when we are covered with darkness, all the beasts of the field—that is, of our heart—and the whelps of lions—that is, the thoughts of the passions—roaring, run about in it immediately, seeking to satisfy their cupidity and to plunder the treasure deposited in us by the Spirit. But temperance, the friend of God, and prayer, which begets angels, not only allow none of these to invade the soul, but even preserve the inexstinguishable light of the Spirit in the mind, make the heart tranquil, pour forth divine compunction like a limpid fountain, increase the love of God in the soul, and join it, whole to the Whole, to Christ through joy and virginity.

48. Nothing is so akin to the Word as the chastity and continence of the soul. But the mother and friend of these is universal temperance; and their father is fear. This, when turned into desire and joined to the appetite for divine things, renders the soul fearless and full of the love of God, and a mother of the divine Word.

49. Fear, when first joined to the soul, renders it pregnant with the word of judgment through repentance, by which the pangs of the hell of punishments immediately surround it, and sighs and labors in the anguish of the heart exhaust it, as it reflects on the future retribution for evils. Then, with many tears and sorrows, having fashioned in the womb of the intellect the fetus it has conceived, it brings forth the spirit of salvation on the earth of its heart, and...

^A freed from the pains of hell and the groans of judgment, it receives the joy and the appetite for future goods. Chastity, the companion of continence, comes to meet it and unites it with love to God. The soul, having been united to Him, perceives an ineffable pleasure, so that from then on it pours forth tears of compunction with pleasure and sweetness; and it becomes outside of global sense-perception, as if beside itself, and runs after the Bridegroom, and thus cries out with ineffable voices: "I will run after you in the fragrance of your ointments. Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you graze, where you lie down at midday of pure contemplation, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of the righteous." Illuminations of sublime mysteries are with you. And the Bridegroom, having introduced it into the cellars of his hidden mysteries, renders it contemplative of the reasons of creation with wisdom.

50. Do not say in your heart: "I can no longer attain the purity of virginity, having fallen so many times into corruption and the insane love of the body." For where the labors of repentance shall have been cast into the torture and heat of the soul, and torrents of tears shall have flowed from compunction, there all the fortifications are torn down, all the fires of desires are extinguished, the heavenly regeneration is performed by the grace of the Spirit; and the soul again becomes a palace of chastity and virginity, into which God, who is above nature, descending through light and ineffable joy, and as if sitting on a throne of glory on the height of its mind, gives peace to its powers, saying: "Peace to you ^B from the hostile passions; I give my peace to you so that you may move according to nature; I leave my peace to you so that you may be perfected above nature." By the threefold gift of peace, therefore, healing the threefold part of it, and leading it to the trinitarian perfection, and uniting it to himself, he makes it already entirely a virgin, and beautiful, and lovely, refining it in the fragrance of the ointments of chastity, and says to it: "Arise, come to me, my beautiful dove, through practical philosophy; for behold the winter of passions has passed, the rain of lascivious thoughts has gone and departed; the flowers of virtues have appeared with the sweet fragrance of thoughts in the earth of your heart; arise, come to me in the knowledge of physical contemplation, and come, my dove, by yourself into the shelter and darkness of mystical theology, and of faith in me, God, the immovable rock."

51. Happy, to me, is the transformation and ^C ascension of him who, through practical philosophy, has overcome the wall of passionate habit, and thence with silvered wings of impassibility, with knowledge as his guide, has ascended into the spiritual air of the contemplation of things, and from there has penetrated into the darkness of theology, and has rested from all his works in God, in the blessed life, because he is an angel ^D

^A terrene and celestial man having been made, he has glorified God in himself, and is glorified by Him.

52. Great peace have they who love the law of God, and there is no stumbling block for them; for things which please men do not also please God; but those things which indeed seem not good, are by nature very good before Him who knows the reasons of all things that exist and have come to pass.

53. It is good to die to the world, and to live to Christ; for otherwise no one can be born from above, according to the word of the Lord: *Unless one is born from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God*. ^B And this regeneration naturally arises from obedience to spiritual Fathers. For unless we first conceive the seed of the word through the teaching of the Fathers, and be made sons of God by them, we cannot be born from above: thus the twelve were born from the one, Christ, and the seventy were born from the twelve, and were made sons of God the Father, according to what was said by the Lord: *You are sons of my Father who is in heaven*. Hence also Paul says to us: *For if you have ten thousand tutors, yet not many fathers: I have begotten you, become my imitators*.

54. Not to be obedient to a spiritual Father, in imitation of the Son who was obedient to the Father even unto death, and the death of the cross, is not to be born from above. ^C And if one has not become a beloved son of a good father, how then, not being born from above by the Word and Spirit, can he himself become a good father of good sons, and procreate good offspring, conformable to the goodness of their father? But if not so, then according to the tree, so will its fruit entirely be.

55. Unbelief is an evil thing, the most wicked offspring of base avarice and envy; and if she herself is an evil thing, how much more so is her mother! Especially because she works the love of gold to be preferred to the love of Christ among the sons of men, and sets the Creator of matter as inferior to matter itself, and persuades those who attribute worship to the creature rather than to the Creator, and exchange the truth of God for a lie, to worship it more than God. ^D And if this disease is so great an evil, that it has inherited the name of a second idolatry, what abundance of wickedness does the soul that suffers voluntarily from this disease not surpass!

56. If you love to be a friend of Christ, you will therefore hate gold, and its gluttonous love, as it turns the mind toward itself from the one who loves it, and draws it away from the most sweet love of Jesus—which to me seems not to appear in the form of words, but in the form of the practice of His commandments. But if you desire gold, alas! you will indeed gain it by digging for that metal now existing, if indeed you have gain and not extreme loss in the love of it, preferring

^A Christ to it; but know that you will lose Him, and you will perish in your loss, and you will also forfeit the capital you possess, God, without whom there is no life of salvation for men.

57. If you love gold, you do not love Christ. But if you do not love Christ, and you love gold, see to whom the tyrant prepares you to be likened: to that disciple who seemed to be a disciple, but was perfidious, and a friend, but appeared a plotter, and who basely insulted the common Master, and miserably fell away from the faith and at the same time from His glory, and precipitated himself into the abyss of despair. Fearing his example, believe me, flee gold and the love of it, so that you may be able to gain Christ, while loving yourself. If not, you know the place reserved for the fallen one.

58. Never hasten to obtain offices through gold, or through the crowds of men, and entreaty, and if you do not see yourself able to benefit souls—without the calling from above—since these three things will meet you, and one of these will result. For either the indignation and wrath of God shall come upon you through various calamities and circumstances—for not only men, but almost all creation shall become your enemy, and your life shall be full of miseries; or you shall be removed from there with great dishonor, when your enemies prevail over you; or you shall die before your time, cut off from the present life.

59. It is not possible to despise glory and dishonor, and to be above pain and pleasure, unless one is deemed worthy to look toward the ends of things. ^C For when you see the ends of all glory, and pleasure, and luxury, and wealth, and prosperity coming to nothing—death succeeding and corrupting these—then, recognizing the manifest vanity of all human things, one turns his senses toward the ends of divine things. And he clings to those things which are and can in no way be corrupted, and seeking these, he becomes superior to pain and pleasure: to pain, as one struggling against the soul’s desire for pleasure, and love of glory, and love of money; to pleasure, as one rejecting all sense of the world. Therefore, being honored and dishonored, he remains the same, ^D tossed by the pains and reliefs of the body, yet in all things he gives thanks to God, and does not draw down his intellect.

60. Even from dreams, the zealous man can divine the movements and dispositions of his own soul, and provide for his own state. For according to the disposition of the inner man, and his cares, such also are the movements of the body and the visions of the mind. If, therefore, anyone has a soul that loves matter and pleasure, he imagines possessions and an abundance of wealth, and forms of women, and passionate unions, from which his garment is defiled and his flesh becomes foul. But if he has a soul that is covetous and fond of money, he sees gold in everything,

^A and is always depositing new things in his treasuries, and is judged as an unmerciful man. But if it is wrathful and envious, he is pursued by wild beasts and poisonous reptiles, and is cast down by terrors and fear; if it is puffed up by vainglory, he imagines the praises and greetings of people, and thrones of rule and sovereignty, and he acts as if the things not yet present to him were present, or certainly about to be, even while he is awake. And if it is proud and full of arrogance, he sees himself as being carried on most brilliant chariots, and sometimes flying through the air on wings, and sees all men trembling at the greatness of his authority. In this same way, then, the man who loves God, eager for the practice of virtue, and just in the struggles of piety, and keeping his soul pure from matter, sees the outcomes of future things ^B during sleep, and the revelations of fearful visions, and when he wakes he finds himself always praying in compunction and a state of peace of both soul and body, such that tears are suffused upon his cheeks, and words about God are upon his lips.

61. Of the things imagined in sleep, some are dreams, others are visions, and others are revelations. Dreams are those that do not remain immutable in the imaginative part of the mind, but carry the imagination to and fro in a confused, successive, and frequently shifting manner from one thing to another; from these no profit is derived, and the imagination itself perishes after awakening. The fervent ought, therefore, to treat these with contempt. Visions are those that are immutable, and do not change from this to that, but remain imprinted on the mind, indelible by oblivion for many long periods of years; and these show forth the outcomes of future events, ^C and procure profit for the soul through compunction and fearful spectacles, and make the one who sees them meditative and trembling from this immutable contemplation of things that cause horror. Such visions are indeed to be held in high regard by the fervent. Revelations, finally, are contemplations above the senses of a most pure and enlightened soul, which bring an extraordinary and divine power of thinking and acting, initiate us into the hidden mysteries of God, suggest to us sublime thoughts, and completely change our senses regarding worldly and human affairs.

62. Of the things mentioned, some are for men of material and power-loving disposition, whose god is their belly and the shame ^D of gluttony; whose mind is darkened by a life neglected and worn down by the passions, and whom demons deceive with images and illusions. Others are for those who are studious and pure in the senses of the soul, and who through what is seen make progress toward the understanding of divine things and the increase of their ascent. Others, finally, are for the perfect, who are moved by the divine Spirit, and whose soul is made a theologian, being united to God.

63. Not all visions in sleep are true, nor are they imprinted on the rational part of the mind of all men

are impressed, but only [on the souls] of those who have cleansed their mind and made the senses of their soul clear, and have ascended to physical theory; [men] who have no care for matters pertaining to life, nor any concern for the present life; whom long fasts have led to a universal temperance, and for whom the sweat and labors endured for the sake of God ^B have prepared a dwelling in the sanctuary of God—that is, in the knowledge of things along with superior wisdom—whose life is angelic and hidden in God, and who, having progressed from sacred peace, have ascended to the likeness of the prophets of the Church of God, concerning whom God also spoke in Moses: "If there be a prophet among you, I will appear to him in a sleep, and will speak to him in a vision." And in Joel: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions."

64. Tranquillity is a state of the mind that is undisturbed, the calm of a free and exultant soul, a heart established in God without whirlwinds or storms, the knowledge of the mysteries of God, a word of wisdom from a pure mind, an abyss of the thoughts of God, an ecstasy of the mind, familiarity with God, a watchful eye, mental prayer, a rest from great labors despite the labor, and finally, union and communion with God.

65. As long as the soul is at variance with itself, with its faculties moving in disorder, and has not yet become capable of the divine rays, nor has it been deemed worthy of freedom from the slavery of the disposition of the flesh, nor does it enjoy peace, because the war of the unbridled passions has only recently ceased within it, it has great need of the silence of labors, so that it too may say with David: "But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth." It is necessary, however, that it should be sad and walk sorrowfully along the path of the commandments of God, while being tribulated by the enemy, and await the visitation of the Paraclete, through whom, being pricked by compunction and washed by tears, it attains true freedom.

66. Whenever the man who, in stillness, practices the honey of the virtues has become superior to the humility of the flesh through the struggles of philosophy, and has restored the faculties of his soul to their natural state from their fallen disposition, and has received the rays of the Spirit, having purified his heart with tears and put on the incorruption of the life-giving mortification of Christ, and—sitting in the upper room of stillness—has himself received the Paraclete with a tongue of fire, then he is obliged to speak with boldness of the great works of God, and to proclaim His righteousness in the great Church, as though he had received the law of the Spirit in the midst of his bowels; so that he may not, like that wicked servant who hid his master’s talent, be cast into the eternal fire. For thus also David, having been washed from sin by repentance, and having recovered the gift of prophecy, as though unable to conceal such a gift, said to God:

"Behold, I will not restrain my lips: O Lord, you have known; I have not hidden your righteousness in my heart; I have declared your truth and your salvation; I have not hidden your mercy and your truth from the great congregation." ^A

67. ^B The intellect, having been cleansed of all filth, becomes a starry heaven to the soul, in bright and most luminous thoughts, having the Sun of righteousness shining within itself, and sending forth the radiant beams of theology into the world. But reason, having become pure in this man from the abyss of wisdom, brings simple and unmixed ideas of things from there to him, and makes manifest the revelations of hidden things, for the knowing of what is the depth, and height, and breadth of the knowledge of God. And the mind, having naturally embraced these things, declares the depths of the Spirit through the Word to all who possess the divine Spirit in their inward parts, and it makes public the wiles of the demons, and narrates the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

68. Temperance, fasting, and spiritual struggles stifle the bodily desires and the stirrings of the flesh. But the reading of the divine Scriptures cools the heat of the soul and the swellings of the heart, and unceasing prayer humbles them, and compunction gladdens them as almsgiving does.

69. Nothing else makes a man familiar to God like pure and immaterial prayer, and unites him to Him whose words in prayer harmonize with the spirit without distraction, whose soul is washed by tears, and softened by the sweetness of compunction, and illuminated by the light of the Spirit. ^C

70. Quantity in the psalmodies of prayers is best when perseverance and attention precede it. But quality is that which vivifies the soul, and which brings forth fruit. The quality of psalmody and prayer consists in praying with the spirit and with the mind. Now one prays with the mind when, while praying and chanting, he contemplates the intellect infused into the divine Scripture; and receiving from thence ascents of thoughts in his heart from god-befitting concepts, by which the soul is caught up intellectually into an air of light, it shines clearly, and is further purified, and is wholly lifted up toward the heavens, and beholds the beauties of the good things stored up for the saints: ^D being inflamed with the desire for which, it immediately sends forth the fruit of prayer from the eyes, and gushes the stream of tears, from the illuminating power of the Spirit. The taste of which is so sweet that he who has become a participant in them sometimes forgets even bodily food. And this is the fruit of prayer, which is born in the souls of those who pray from the quality of the psalmody.

^A For where the fruit of the Spirit is observed, there too is the quality of prayer. And where the quality is, there also is the best quantity of psalmody. But if the fruit does not appear, the quality is also without moisture. And if this is dry, the quantity is superfluous; which, even if it brings exercise to the body, is nevertheless altogether fruitless for most people.

72. ^B Watch out for the trickery [of the enemy], you who are praying and singing psalms to the Lord. For the demons, by stealing away the perception of the soul, suggest to us other things instead of others, deceiving us, turning the verses of the psalms into blasphemies, so that we utter unspeakable things with our mouths; or, when we are beginning the psalms, they move our words to the end, tearing away what is in the middle from the mind; or they always repeat one and the same verse, not allowing us, because of forgetfulness, to find what the psalm contains; or even while we are reciting the middle of a psalm, they suddenly take away from the mind the entire memory of the verses that followed, so that we cannot remember what verses of the psalmody we had on our lips, nor can we find them again and restore them to our tongue. They do this so as to cast us into torpor and acedia, ^C and so that they may empty out the fruits of our prayer by suggesting a delay of time. But apply your mind firmly, and recite the psalm more slowly, so that you may reap the fruit of prayer from the verses through contemplation, and be enriched by the light of the Holy Spirit shining upon the souls of those who pray.

73. When something of this sort happens to you while you are chanting intelligently, do not grow weary and fall into acedia, nor prefer the rest of the body to the benefit of your soul, worrying about the delay of time. But where your mind has been taken captive, there stand still; and if you have already arrived at the end of the psalm, do you zealously return to the beginning; and, having seized it, take up the psalm again and follow the path, even if the distraction should occur many times in one hour. ^D For if you do this, the demons, not bearing the perseverance of your constancy and the vigor of your zeal, will be filled with shame and depart from you.

74. Know for certain that that prayer is continuous which does not depart from the soul throughout the entire day and night; which is not seen by those who look on as an extension of the hands, or a posture of the body, or a sound of the tongue, but is understood by those who know how to understand through the intellectual exercise of the operations of the mind and the remembrance of God through assiduous compunction.

75. Anyone can always attend to prayer when he has his thoughts gathered around the lordship of the mind, in great peace and circumspection, searching the depths of God, and seeking from there to taste the sweetest stream of contemplation. But if such peace is absent, he cannot. For to whom the faculties of the soul are joined in a covenant through knowledge, to him continuous prayer is successfully attained.

76 If you are singing a psalm of prayer to God, and a brother stands at the door knocking at your cell, do not prefer the work of prayer over the work of charity, nor despise your brother who is knocking; for this is not pleasing to God. For He desires the oil of charity, not the sacrifice of prayer. But leaving the gift of prayer, give words of charity to your brother, having tended to him. And then, having returned, offer your gift to the Father of spirits with tears and a contrite heart, and a right spirit will be renewed in your inmost parts.

77 The mystery of prayer is not accomplished at a set time and place. For if you define the matters of prayer by hours, and times, and places, then the time outside these is spent in other activities of vanity. For the aim of prayer is this: for the mind to stand unmoved in God; the work, however, is for the soul to be turned toward divine things; and the end is for the intellect to be fastened to God, and to become one spirit with Him, according to the definition and word of the Apostle.

78 Even if you have been dead to the members of the flesh, and have been made alive in soul through the Spirit, and have been deemed worthy of supernatural gifts from God, nevertheless, do not let your rational soul be relaxed; but accustom it to be turned always toward the memory of the things you have formerly done amiss, and of the punishments in Hades, and consider yourself mentally as one condemned. By thus turning your mind toward these things, and by thus considering yourself, you will keep your spirit contrite, and you will have a source gushing forth of compunction—the streams of divine grace—and God will look upon you and give you the Spirit for the strengthening of your heart.

79 Fasting that is measured, having taken vigil along with meditation and prayer as a companion, quickly causes its worker to arrive at the boundaries of impassibility, when it finds his soul, because of an excess of humility, to be moist with tears and kindled by the love of God. And having arrived at this, it leads him to the peace of the Spirit which surpasses every mind, as he is set free and united to God through love.

80 A king does not pride himself so greatly upon glory and kingship, nor does he rejoice in exulting in power, as a monk does in the impassibility of his soul and in the tears of compunction. For the former holds a glory that atrophies along with his kingship, while the latter holds a blessed impassibility, begun from these lands and destined to remain with joy into infinite ages. For such a man rolls like a wheel among men during this present life: touching the earth and the things in it a little, because of the necessity of nature, but being wholly carried in a spherical way toward the intelligible air, he carries the beginning turned toward the end within himself, with the forms of the gifts engraved upon the crown of humility. For him, the table is filled with the contemplation of beings; his drink is the cup of wisdom; and his rest is God.

81 He who voluntarily gives himself to the labors of the virtues, and follows the course of asceticism more fervently, is deemed worthy of great gifts from God. Hence, progressing toward the midpoint, he comes to divine revelations and visions; and he becomes as entirely luminous and wise as the labor of his struggles is increased for him. But as much as he ascends to the height of contemplation, so much does he arouse the great envy of the destructive demons against himself; for they cannot endure to see a man transformed into the nature of an angel, for which reason they secretly sharpen the keen dart of pride against him. And if, perceiving their guile, he flees to the fortress of humility and, condemning himself, escapes the abyss of pride, he is conducted into the harbor of salvation. But if not, he is, on the contrary, reproved by God and handed over to vengeful spirits for involuntary chastisement, since he did not prove himself in voluntary discipline; for those spirits are lustful and carnal, wicked and irascible, and they humble him through sharp assaults until he recognizes his own weakness and, through lamentation, dispels the torment; and he himself may say with David: "It is good for me that You have humbled me, that I may learn Your statutes." ^B

82 God does not wish us to be always humbled by passions, and pursued by them like hares, and to have Him only as a rock of refuge—for then He would not have said: "I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High"—but rather that we should run like harts upon the high mountains of His commandments, and become exceedingly thirsty for the life-giving waters of the Spirit. For just as they, naturally consuming reptiles, by the heat generated from a long run miraculously convert, as they say, the poisonous nature of those serpents into flesh, suffering no harm therefrom; so too, we, receiving every thought of passion into the womb of the intellect, through the fiery course of God's commandments and the power of the Spirit, should transform it by way of captivity into a fragrant and salutary practice of virtue, so that we might appear to be "bringing every thought into captivity, to the obedience of Christ." For the world above must be filled not by earthly and imperfect men, but by spiritual and perfect ones, and those who have reached the "perfect man" of the "fullness of Christ."

83 He who is always turning about the same point, and does not wish to move further, is like a mule that moves in a circle about the same mill. For he who is always fighting against the flesh, and occupies himself with the exercise of the body alone, inadvertently brings upon himself great loss through every hardship, because he does not attain the goal of the divine will. For "bodily exercise is profitable for a little," according to divine Paul, until the muddy sense of the flesh is washed away by the streams of penitence, and the life-giving mortification of the spirit is added to the mortification of the body, and the law of the spirit reigns in our mortal flesh: but the piety of the soul, which knowledge...

of beings and immortal plants—by which I mean divine thoughts—beholds as the tree of life, is, in the intellectual operation of the mind, useful everywhere and in all things, as it produces the purity of the heart, the peace of its faculties, the illumination of the mind, the chastity of the body, prudence, universal temperance, compunction, charity, holiness, heavenly knowledge, the wisdom of the Word, and the vision of God. Whoever, ^A therefore, has ascended through many exercises to such a perfection of piety, having crossed the Red Sea of passions, has entered into the land of promise, from which flows the milk and the honey of the knowledge of God, the inexhaustible food of the saints.

84. He who does not choose to rise from things that are partial and useful for a short time, and to ascend to things that are universally beneficial, still eats the bran-bread in the sweat of his brow, according to the primordial sentence of God; and therefore his soul does not desire the spiritual manna, nor even the honey flowing from the riven rock to the people of Israel. But he who has heard, “Arise, let us go hence,” and has risen at the voice of the Master from laborious work, and has ceased to eat the bread of sorrow, has cast off his sensuality and tasted of the cup of God’s wisdom. He knows that Christ is the Lord, because he has fulfilled the law of the commandments in the ministry of the Word, and has ascended into the upper room and awaits the coming of the Paraclete. ^C

85. According to the orders and degrees of the philosophical life, we must always journey onward and diligently ascend to what is above, as being those who are unceasingly in motion toward God, and knowing no stopping in what is good. Hence, from practical asceticism we must proceed to the physical contemplation of creation. From this, we must ascend to the mystical theology of the Word, and rest in it from all the works of bodily exercise, as those who have become ^D superior to the vileness of the body and have obtained the healthy knowledge of true judgment. If, however, we have not yet received the knowledge of this judgment, nor know how to proceed further and strive for what is more perfect, we are worse than worldly men, who know not how to cease from worthy progress and desist from ascending, until they have attained to the dignity superior to others, and their desire for this has ceased in their enjoyment of it.

86. The soul that is autonomously purified in the heat of the labors of asceticism is illuminated by the divine light, and begins by degrees to see naturally the beauty given to it from the beginning by God, and to expand in the love of Him who made it. And in proportion as the rays of the sun of justice are made clear to it through purification, and its natural beauty

^A is laid bare and recognized, the soul itself increases its labors of exercise for the sake of a greater purification of itself, so that it may clearly learn the glory toward which it has been deemed worthy, and may recover its ancient nobility, and may restore to the Creator its image, pure and unmixed with matter. And it in no way desists from adding to its labors, until it has cleansed itself from every impurity and stain, and made itself worthy of the vision and conversation of God.

87. "Open my eyes, and I will consider wondrous things out of thy law," cries to God he who is still covered by the mist ^B of earthly judgment. For the ignorance of the earthly mind, being a mist and a deep darkness, covering the eyes of the soul, renders it dark and gloomy regarding the understanding of things both divine and human, not being able to look toward the rays of divine light, or to come to the enjoyment of those good things "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man." But these things, the eyes being opened through repentance, it clearly sees, hears in knowledge, and understands with intelligence. Moreover, it ordains within its heart ^C ascents regarding these thoughts. Whence, having tasted their sweetness, it acquires a clearer knowledge, and by the word of the wisdom of God narrates to all the wondrous good things of God, which God has prepared for those who love Him, and urges all to come to the participation of such things through many struggles and tears.

88. There being seven gifts of the Spirit, the word, beginning from above, enumerates them from wisdom, and leads down to the end, to the holy fear of the Spirit, saying: "Spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, spirit of counsel, spirit of strength, spirit of knowledge, spirit of piety, spirit of fear of God." But we must begin from the fear that cleanses, which is that of punishments, so that through this, having first rightly performed the abstention from evil, and having been ^D cleansed through repentance from the stains of sin, we may arrive at that pure fear of the Spirit, coming toward it by the way, and making in it all the work of virtue to cease.

89. He who has begun from the fear of judgment, and advances toward purity of heart through the tears of repentance, is filled first with wisdom, since also the beginning of this is fear, as it is written; then with understanding, and subsequently with counsel, through which he embraces for himself useful counsels. Having progressed to this through the observance of the commandments, he arrives at the knowledge of existing things, and receives the most accurate acquaintance with divine and human matters. Thence, having become an entire dwelling-place of piety, he ascends to the citadel of love and is perfected; and immediately the pure fear of the Spirit takes him to guard the treasure deposited in him of the kingdom of heaven. This fear, being very salutary, causes him who is in the tower

has been lifted up to the height of love to tremble and be anxious, fearing lest he fall from such a height of the love of God and be cast back into the terrible fear of punishment.

90. The reading of the Scriptures is one thing for those who are beginning the life of piety, another for those who have advanced to the middle, and yet another for those who are hastening toward perfection. For it becomes bread of the table of God for some, strengthening their hearts for the sacred struggles of virtue; this also provides them with the power of strength for the grappling with the spirits that excite the passions, and makes them brave athletes against the demons, so that they may say: “You have prepared a table before me against those who trouble me.” ^B For others it becomes the wine of the divine chalice, gladdening their hearts and making them beside themselves with the power of the thoughts, lifting their mind up from the letter that kills and leading it quietly into the depths of the Spirit, making it altogether generative and inventive of thoughts, so that they too may fittingly say: “And your cup, which inebriates, how excellent it is!” For others it becomes the oil of the divine Spirit, making their soul fat and soothing and humbling it by the superabundance of divine illuminations, and lifting it entirely above the baseness of the body, so that it too may boast and cry out: “You anointed my head with oil, and your mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

91. As long as we labor through practical philosophy in the sweat of our face to proceed toward God, reducing the passions of the flesh, and the supersubstantial bread that is cultivated from the tillage of the virtues and strengthens the hearts of men, God feeds with us at the table of His gifts. But when through dispassion ^C His name is hallowed among us, and He Himself reigns in all our soul's faculties, having subdued and made peace between those which were divided—I mean the worse by the better reasoning—and His will is done as in heaven so also in us, then the new wine beyond the word of the wisdom of the Word, mixed in compunction and the knowledge of great mysteries, He drinks with us in His kingdom, which comes into us; and when we become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have been changed by a beautiful transformation in the renewal of our mind, then God, being God, will be joined to us as gods, making immortal that which He has assumed.

92. When the unrestrained water of the soul’s passionate ^D thoughts is checked by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, and the bitter abyss of improper thoughts and ponderings is bridled through self-control and the meditation on death, then the divine Spirit of repentance breathes, and the waters of compunction descend, which God the Lord

^A casts into the basin of repentance, washes our spiritual feet, and makes them worthy to tread the courts of His kingdom.

§93. The Word of God, having become flesh, and having established our nature in Himself, and having become perfect man without sin, as perfect God refashioned it and deified it. Being the Word of the primordial Intellect and God, He was united to its rational faculty and raised it to the height of being able to think and reason about divine things. But also, being Fire, He tempered its irascible part with the essential and divine Fire, to be sharp and keen against hostile passions and demons. And since He is the One whom every rational nature desires and in whom every appetite finds rest, He enlarged its concupiscible part with sincere love, rendering it more ardent for participation in the blessings of eternal life. And thus, bringing all mankind to integrity within Himself, He made the new out of the old, leaving in that refashioned state nothing that could reproach the creative Word for the restoration.

§94. The Word, having performed the priestly service ^B in Himself for our restoration, He Himself for our sake offered Himself as a sacrifice through the cross and death, and He gives His immaculate body to be offered daily, and places it before us as a food that nourishes the soul, so that by eating this and drinking His precious blood, we might, through participation, become better in the senses of the soul than we are, being mingled with them, transformed from the worse to the better, and united in a twofold manner to the twofold nature of the Word—namely, by body and rational soul—as being joined to God who is incarnate and consubstantial with us according to the flesh, so that we are no longer our own, but belong to Him ^C who united us to Himself through the immortal table, and made us such by grace as He Himself is by nature.

§95. If, therefore, those who are tried in the labors of the virtues and purified by tears draw near and eat of this bread and drink of this cup, the twofold Word, in His mercy, is mingled with our twofold nature according to our dual faculties, transforming our whole selves into Himself, as one who is incarnate and consubstantial with us according to His humanity, and deifying our whole selves by the word of knowledge, and adopting us to Himself as conformable and brothers, as God and consubstantial with the Father. But if we, defiled by the dregs of passions and stained with the filth of sin, approach Christ, ^D He who approaches us as the natural fire that consumes iniquity, sets us ablaze and burns us utterly, and cuts off our life, not by the will of His goodness, but compelled by the contempt of our own insensibility.

§96. To all who have begun to walk the way of the practical philosophy of the commandments of Christ, the Lord invisibly draws near and accompanies them, as they still possess an imperfect sense and a soul wavering regarding the word of virtue; whose eyes of the soul are, therefore, justly restrained from recognizing their own progress, while the Lord accompanies them and assists them so that they may be freed from the passions, and works with them

^A for the acquisition of every virtue. But with regard to those who are making progress in the struggles of piety and arrive at impassibility through humility, the Word does not wish them to remain there, exhausted by the labors of the virtues, but to proceed further and ascend to contemplation. Whence, having fed them in measure with the bread of tears, which is more than sufficient, He blesses them through the light of compunction and opens their understanding to penetrate the deep things of the divine Scriptures, and from there to discern the natures and the reasons of existing things. And immediately He withdraws Himself from them, so that they may rise up and seek more diligently to learn what is the knowledge of things that are, and what is the elevation arising from this. Those who have diligently sought this, ascend to the higher ministry of the Word and preach to all the resurrection of the Word, which comes from practice and theory.

97. The Word justly reproaches ^B those who linger in the labors of practical exercise and do not wish to depart from there and ascend to the higher level of theory, saying to them: "O foolish and slow of heart, to believe in Him who is able to reveal the words of physical theory to those who walk in the spirit through the depths of the Spirit." For to be unwilling to pass from the more elementary struggles to the more perfect ones, and to progress from the bodily letter of Holy Scripture to the mind and sense of the words, is a sign of a sluggish soul, one that has not tasted the spiritual fruits and that envies its own progress; to such a one, as to someone carrying an extinguished lamp, it will be said not only, "Go and buy oil from those who sell," but because the door of the Bridegroom is shut to them: "Depart, I do not know where you are from."

98. When the Word of God arrives ^C in the fallen soul as if in the city of Bethany, to raise up its mind, which is dead to sin and buried under the corruption of the passions, then prudence and justice, flooded with grief and, as it were, mourning the death of the spirit, come to meet Him and say: "If You had been here, preserved and guarded among us, our brother, the mind, would not have died to sin." Hence, justice hurries to nourish the Word with much care and practical toil of the virtues, and strives to set before Him a varied table of many kinds of asceticism; but prudence, ^D disregarding all other cares and the laborious toil, has chosen to sit and listen to the intellectual work, the intellectual movements of the Word, and the contemplation of His thoughts. And so the Word welcomes the former, who struggles well, feeding Him zealously at the table of multifaceted and practical philosophy; but He reproves the one who is anxious about many kinds of asceticism and always distracted by things of little use, since one thing is required for necessity and ministry.

It is a benefit, then, to subject the worse [thoughts] to the better reasoning, and to transform the earthy disposition of the soul into a spiritual one through the labors of virtue. He praises the latter and naturally identifies her with Himself, because she has chosen the good portion of the knowledge of the Spirit, by which, soaring over human affairs, she reaches toward the divine depths of God; and from there she wisely procures the pearl of the Word, gazes upon the hidden treasures of the Spirit, and exults with an ineffable joy which shall not be taken away from her. ^B

99. The mind, put to death by the passions and quickened by the visit of the Word of God, having cast off the stone of the hardness of heart, is released from the chains of sin and the corrupting thoughts by the disciples of the Word—I mean, by fear of punishment and the labors of virtue—and enjoying the light of the future life, is allowed to enter into impassibility. And sitting then upon the throne of the senses, having made a pure offering in the most secret and hidden mystery, it lives with Christ, and ascending with Him from earth into the heavens, reigns with Christ in the kingdom of God the Father, where all its desires are fulfilled.

100. The restoration that takes place after the dissolution of the body is, for every athlete struggling lawfully and progressing to the middle ground and being perfected to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ^C, made clear and manifest through the confidence and instinct of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the eternal exultation in everlasting light is the felicity of that inheritance, and an ineffable joy encompasses the hearts of those who struggle lawfully here on earth; and the joy of the Holy Spirit embraces them, which, according to the word of the Lord, shall not be taken away from them. He, therefore, whom the Paraclete has deigned to favor with His grace here, and who has perceived His abundant fruits through the cultivation of virtues, and who has been enriched with His divine gifts, being filled with joy and perfect love—for indeed perfect love ^D casts out all fear—is released with joy from the bonds of the body, and with exultation departs from visible things, to which his senses had bound him while he lived. And with ineffable joy he rests in the light, where the dwelling place of all who rejoice is found, even though often many, in the very dissolution of the bond and the severing of the link, suffer bodily pains, like women in difficult labor.

THE SAME: THIRD CENTURY OF GNOSTIC CHAPTERS ON CHARITY AND THE PERFECTION OF LIFE

^A 1. God is an impassible Spirit, above all mind and every impassibility; He is light and the fountain of good light; wisdom, reason, and knowledge, and the guide of wisdom, of reason, and of knowledge. To those, therefore, to whom these things have been given on account of purity, and in whom they are found to reside abundantly, the likeness of the image is preserved from heaven, so that they are henceforth sons of God, led, according to the saying, by the Spirit: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

^B 2. As many as have, by the labors of asceticism, rendered themselves pure from every defilement of flesh and spirit, have become vessels of the immortal nature through the gifts of the Spirit. Those who have reached this point are full of sacred light, from which their heart, filled with serenity and peace, pours forth good words, and the wisdom of God flows from their lips, in the knowledge of divine and human things, and their tongue purely recounts the depths of the Spirit. Against such as these there is no law, since they have once been united to God and transformed by a beautiful transformation.

^C 3. He who with fervent zeal directs himself laboriously toward the Divine becomes an effigy of that image through the virtues of soul and body; he himself remains in God, and God rests in him through a mode of commingling, so that he is and is seen to be henceforth an image of the divine blessedness, rich in the gifts of the Spirit, and God by position, while God is the author of his perfection.

4. It is not through the organic constitution of the body—as someone led by ignorance might say—that man is the image of God, but through the intellectual nature of the mind, which is not circumscribed by the body that weighs it down toward the things below. For just as the divine nature, which is outside of every creation

and mass, is not circumscribed, since it is infinite and ^A incorporeal, above every substance and reason, without quality and quantity, intangible, invisible, immortal, incomprehensible, and in one word, not at all understood by us: so the intellectual nature given to us by Him, since it is not circumscribed and is outside the mass of this world, is incorporeal, invisible, intangible, incomprehensible, and an image of that immortal and eternal glory.

5. Since God is the primary Intelligence, in that He is King of all, He has within Himself the Word, consubstantial to Him and coeternal with the Holy Spirit; He is never separated from the Word and the Spirit, because the nature is indivisible, nor is He confused with them, because the persons in Him are at once distinct and unconfused. Whence, naturally begetting the Word from His own substance, He does not go out from Himself, since He cannot be separated from Himself; and the Word has the Spirit, which is connatural and coeternal to Him, proceeding from the Father before the ages, and He is not separated from the Begetter; for the nature of both is one and indivisible: although, however, due to the distinction of the hypostases, it is divided into persons, and is celebrated by the name of Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who indeed, in that they are one nature and one God, never depart from the coeternal substance and nature. See, therefore, that man, created by Him, is an image of this God of three persons and one nature, in his intelligible part, not in his visible part, and in what is immortal and permanent, not in what is mortal and dissoluble. ^B

6. Just as God, who is Spirit and exalted above the creatures made by Him in wisdom, actually begetting the Word for their perseverance and sending toward their virtue, as it is written, His most holy Spirit, is outside and inside all things: so also man, a participant in the divine nature, being an image of Him in his intelligible part—that is, his intellectual, incorporeal, and immortal soul—and having an intellect that naturally generates reason from its own substance (for by intellect and reason every strength of the body is conserved), is outside and inside matter and all visible things. And just as His Creator cannot be separated from His own hypostases—that is, from the Word and the Spirit—so also he, in that he is soul, cannot be divided from his intellect and reason, having one nature and substance not circumscribed by the body. ^C

7. Just as the Divine, worshipped in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is seen to coalesce in three parts, so also man, made to His image, worshipping with soul, intellect, and reason that God who made all things from nothing. What, therefore, are by nature coeternal and consubstantial to God, these are also by nature connatural and consubstantial to His image, from which the likeness of the image in us is discerned, and through which I am an image of God, although I am mingled with clay and with the image.

8. It is one thing to be an image of God, and another to be what is contemplated

^A For the image of God is the intellectual soul, the intellect, and the reason: one and indivisible nature. But those things that are contemplated in the image are principality, royal majesty, and free will. In this way, the glory of the intellect is one thing, its dignity is another, and that which is "according to the image of God" is one thing, while that which is "according to the likeness" is another. The glory of the intellect is its upward inclination, its continuous movement towards the heights, its sharpness, its purity, its prudence, its wisdom, and its immortality. Its dignity, however, is its capacity for reason, its royal majesty, its principality, and its free will.

That which is "according to the image of God" is to have an intellect, a soul, and a reason that are self-subsistent, consubstantial, indivisible, and inseparable; for the intellect and the reason belong to an incorporeal, immortal, divine, and intellectual soul—things which are consubstantial and coeternal, never to be separated from themselves nor capable of being divided. That which is "according to the likeness" is justice, truth, compassion, sympathy, and love for mankind; therefore, in those in whom these things are active and kept, what is "according to the image and according to the likeness" is clearly seen, since they are moved according to nature and surpass others in dignity.

9. The rational soul is divided into three parts and contemplated in two. For one part of it is rational, and the other is passional. Its rational part, since it is according to the image of its Creator, is independent, invisible, and indefinable by the senses, inasmuch as it exists both outside and within them. By this part, the soul enters into communion with the intellectual and divine powers, and according to nature, it returns to God as to its prototype through a sacred knowledge of existing things, becoming a participant in His divine nature.

Its passional part, however, is fragmented by the senses, being subject to passions, appetites, and pleasures. By this part, the soul holds communion with the nature capable of sense-perception, nutrition, and growth, receiving air, cold, heat, and food for the sake of conservation, life, increase, and health. And because it is changed along with these things, it sometimes desires irrational desires, being turned aside from its natural movement; at other times, it is exasperated and carried away by irrational anger, and it produces hunger and thirst, sorrow, pain, and, in turn, is poured out, as it takes pleasure in comforts and is contracted by tribulations. ^B This is why its passional part is rightly so called, as it is tested in the passions. When, therefore, this mortal part is swallowed up by the life of the Word, the better part having prevailed, then the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh, producing within us the life-giving mortification of impassibility, and bestowing upon us the incorruption of immortality through the arrival of the Spirit. ^{C D}

10. Just as the Creator of the universe and all things, having made all things from nothing, already possessed the knowledge, the natures, and the reasons of all existing things, as King of the ages and foreknower within Himself; so too did He will that man, who was fashioned in His own image to be king of creation, should have within himself

the definitions, the natures, and the knowledge of things. Thus, in his fashioning, he has the dry and cold of the humor from the earth, the hot and humid of the blood from the air and fire, the humid and cold of the phlegm from the water; from plants, the ability to grow; from plant-like animals, the capacity for nutrition; from irrational animals, the capacity for passion; from the angels, the intellectual and rational faculty; and from God, that very breath—the immaterial, incorporeal, and immortal soul—regarded by intellect and reason, and subsisting and living in the power of the Holy Spirit. ^B

11. We are according to the likeness of God, who crafted us in His own image and likeness, by virtue and intelligence; for "His virtue has covered the heavens, and the earth is full of His intelligence." The virtue of God is justice, holiness, and truth, as David says: "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and Thy truth is round about Thee." Also: "Righteous and holy is the Lord," by reason of uprightness and sweetness; for "Sweet and righteous is the Lord," by reason of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge, for these reside in Him, and He is called both Wisdom and Word; by reason of holiness and perfection, as He Himself says: "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect; be holy, for I am holy"; by reason of humility and meekness: "Learn from me," He says, "for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

12. The mind of man—that which is his own—possesses its own nature when it remains within its proper limits and does not move far from its own dignity and nature. Therefore, it loves to dwell, as it were, in things that pertain to God, and it seeks to be united to Him from whom it had its origin, through whom it is moved, to whom it tends by its natural properties, and whom it desires to imitate in mercy and simplicity. Hence it is that he himself, generating the Word within, fashions the souls of his fellow men as new heavens, strengthens them through the constant practice of virtues, and quickens them by the spirit of his mouth, providing them with strength against pernicious desires. And thus he himself is seen to be a creator of intellectual creatures, and he rightly imitates God—both his own and that of the vast world—and clearly hears from above: "He who brings forth the worthy from the unworthy shall be as my mouth."

13. He who persists in the natural movements of the intellect and the dignity of the Word is kept pure from matter, is adorned with meekness, humility, love, and compassion, and is illuminated by the rays of the Holy Spirit. Intent upon sublime contemplations, he arrives at the knowledge of the hidden mysteries of God, and with the word of wisdom he kindly ministers these things to those capable of hearing, not multiplying the talent for himself alone, but making his neighbor a participant in this enjoyment.

^A 14. He who has lightened his soul from the duality and made its nobility free from it, has found a city in immaterial spirits, having himself become an intellectual spirit, even if he is seen moving among other men in the body.

15. He who, by the worthiness of the Monad, has subjected the slavery of the dyad, has subjected all creation to God, uniting into one things that were divided and pacifying all things.

16. So long as the nature of the powers in us is in disorder and is scattered into many diversities, we are not participants in the supernatural gifts of God; and being not participants in these, we stand far from the mystical liturgy of the heavenly altar, which is performed according to the intellectual operation of the mind. But whenever, through much diligence ^B in holy struggles, we are cleansed from the wickedness of the flesh, and gather our diversities into one through the power of the Spirit, then we become participants in the secret good things of God, and we offer the divine mysteries of the mystical liturgy of the mind unto the supercelestial and intellectual altar of God, worthily as regards the Word and God, as initiates and priests of his immortal mysteries.

17. The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and there is an unproclaimed war between both, that one might have the victory over the other and draw the sovereignty under itself. This is called in us ^C diversity, and sedition, and inclination, and a yoke, and a lifelong struggle, by which the soul is divided wherever the mind gives its inclination, according to some human passion.

18. So long as we are divided by the instability of our thoughts, and the law of the flesh prevails and is kept within us, we are scattered into many parts, and we are cast far from the divine Monad, as not having been enriched by its unity. But when this mortal part is swallowed up by the unifying power and supernatural tranquility, and the mind becomes master of itself, illuminated by the ^D wisdom-making brilliancies and thoughts, the soul, folded into unity in a godlike manner, no longer coalesces with many discrepancies, but is one thing, and being gathered into the divine monad, it is united in simplicity, imitating God. And this is the restoration of the soul to its original state, and our renewal for the better.

19. Ignorance is a terrible thing, and beyond all terrible things, being truly a palpable darkness, making the souls in which it is born gloomy, dividing the reasoning faculty into many parts, and cutting the soul off from the union with God. Everything that this gathers is madness; for it renders the whole man mindless and insensible. And just as ignorance, when thickened into a mass, becomes a deep abyss of Hades to the soul bent down by it, in which every punishment and pain, grief and groaning exists, so too divine knowledge...

^A is, as it were, brilliant and infinite in its outpouring of light; it renders the souls—in whom it exists through purity—light-like, in a manner worthy of God, and fills them with peace, serenity, joy, ineffable wisdom, and perfect love.

20. The presence of divine light, being simple and single, gathers to itself the souls that share in it, and turns them toward itself, and there unites them to its own unity, and perfects them with its own perfection, and leads the visionary power of their understanding into the depths of God, rendering them beholders of great mysteries, mystics, and mystagogues. Strive, therefore, through labors to acquire the highest purity, and you will clearly see in yourself the accomplishment of what we have said, which is pleasing to God. ^B

21. The illuminations of the first light that come through knowledge to the purified souls not only render them good and light-like, but also lead them through physical contemplation into the intellectual heavens. And not even there does the divine operation rest for them, but it reaches as far as this, until they be united to the One through wisdom and the knowledge of things ineffable, and ceasing to be many, they become one in Him.

22. First, it is necessary for us to become unmixed and unclouded through the purgative order, away from the base wickedness of the intellects, then to have the eyes of the mind enlightened and ever-shining through another order, the illuminative, which is accomplished through the mystic wisdom hidden in God, and thus to ascend to the science of sacred knowledge, which ministers, through the Word, to those who have ears to hear both the new and the old, and to become sharers of its hidden, mystic thoughts with others, conveying them ^C precisely into pious ears, and removing them from the less perfect, so that holy things may not be given to dogs, nor the pearl of the Word be cast before souls like swine, which would render it useless.

23. When someone sees the fervor of his soul regarding the inward faith expanding, and the love of God, let him know that Christ is then being borne in him, He who effects the uplifting of his soul from the earth and visible things, and prepares its dwelling in the heavens. When he perceives his heart being filled with joy, and in compunction of the good things of God he desires the ineffable, then let him know that he is being moved by the divine Spirit. But when he senses his mind being filled with ineffable light and with thoughts of ^D higher wisdom, then let him know that the coming of the Paraclete is taking place in his soul, for the manifestation of the treasures of the kingdom of heaven hidden in him; and let him diligently guard himself as a palace of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

24. The guarding of the hidden treasures of the Spirit is the leisure from human affairs, which reason properly calls stillness. But this stillness, more vehemently kindling the love of the charity of God from the purity of the heart and the sweetness of compunction, looses

^A the soul from the bonds of the senses, and persuades it to embrace the liberty of the ways. Having turned its faculties back, it recalls them towards what is according to nature, and restores them to their ancient state, so that nothing of evil may be reproached to the Creator of good things from that which is deteriorated in the image and declined in movement.

25. ^A To this sacred and divine perfection, reasonable and learned stillness leads one, exercised, that is to say, and lawfully occupied. But if he who appears quiet has not yet arrived at such elevation and perfection, then he has not yet attained spiritual and perfect stillness; indeed, he will not rest from the internal tempest of unbridled passions until he has ascended to this height; for the body alone, hemmed in by walls, caverns, and dens, he will have afflicted, while his mind wanders without order. ^B

26. Souls that have reached the height of purity, and have run up to a great height of wisdom and knowledge, are in a way immediately like the Cherubim, drawing near to the fountain of good things through their own knowledge. And from thence, purely receiving the manifestation of the straight contemplation of the highest mysteries, of which alone among the Cherubim the powers are immediately illuminated by the Godhead Itself, they receive for the most part, as someone said, the divine visions in the highest intensity.

27. ^C Just as of the first of the higher powers, some are most ardent and most vehement in divine things, and possess an unceasing and perpetual impetus toward them; while others rejoice in the contemplation of God and in knowledge and wisdom in the highest degree, and in them there is a divine habit of desiring divine things; so also the aforementioned souls are most ardent and most vehement in divine things, and are endued with wisdom and knowledge, and are most intent upon mystical contemplations, and to them belongs, according to their power and divine habit, the unceasing motion toward the Divine and a steady establishment and dwelling. And in addition to these, there is a habit receptive of illuminations, ^D with which they participate in the Being and plentifully transmit to others, through the word, the light-rays and graces of Him.

28. God is Mind, and the cause of the unceasing motion of the whole, and all minds in Him, the primary Mind, have their station permanent and their motion unceasing. And this is experienced by those who have not had a motion that is material and mixed, but unmixed and unclouded through holy labors. And they experience this, according to divine love, communicating to one another and to themselves the illuminations sent forth by the Godhead in goodness, and the wisdom of the mysteries of God hidden in them; and they share it in a brotherly way with others, toward an unceasing hymn of the charity of God.

29. Souls that have made their rational part void of matter, and have yoked together the flesh and spirit—which are in all things fighting against each other—as a chariot easily reined to run into the heavens, stand and move in a circle around God. And they move unceasingly in a circle around God as a center, and of the motion of the circle

^A their own principle. They stand firmly and without any inclination, just as the radii of a circle converge into one point, from which they cannot be thrust down into the senses and the deception of human affairs. This, therefore, is the consummate perfection of stillness, leading those who are truly still to this state, that they may stand while moving themselves, and firmly standing, move themselves around divine things. As long, however, as we have not reached this point, even if we appear to be at rest, it is impossible for our mind to be freed from matter and perturbation.

30. When we have recovered the former beauty of reason through much care and labor, and have obtained the wisdom and knowledge given to us from above by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then, being able to perceive things in their own nature, we recognize the first source and author of the existence of all things to be wise and good, and in no way to be accused by us because of the evil inflicted upon the creature, from which it has fallen into a worse state: at which time the creature was indeed torn away and collapsed, and thrust down from its ancient beauty, fell away from deification; but evil, bursting into it, infused into it the form of an irrational beast.

31. The first step for those progressing toward advancement is the knowledge of beings ^B derived from practical philosophy. The second is the understanding of the hidden mysteries of God, initiated for them by physical theory. And the third is union and intermingling with the first light, in which is the resting place of all philosophical and theoretical progress.

32. All intellects, both in themselves, and toward themselves, and toward Him who is truly one in three persons, are borne in a circular motion; but they also enlighten those nearby, initiate them into divine mysteries, and render them like pure spirits through heavenly wisdom, and unite them both to themselves and to the unity.

33. Deification in this life is the intellectual and divine liturgy, ^C in which the word of unutterable wisdom is offered, and is imparted to those who have prepared themselves as much as is possible. This, God benevolently bestowed from above upon the rational nature for the unity of faith, so that some, who through the purity of their worth have become partakers through the knowledge of divine things, are made like to God, becoming conformed to the image of His Son, by their lofty and intellectual movements around divine things; and thus they shall be gods by adoption to men upon the earth. Others, however, being purified by their divine discourses and pious conversation, are perfected in virtue, and in proportion to their own progress and purification, they become partakers of this deification and companions of their union with God, so that all, being joined into one and bound together ^D by the bond of charity, may be united unceasingly to the one God; and God will be in the midst of the gods, the author of good works, He who is God by nature among those who are gods by adoption, bringing no basis for accusation against Himself from the creation.

34. Concerning the assimilation to God, as far as it is possible for us,

^A no good man can attain this without first shaking off the deformity of the filth of evils with hot tears, and adhering to the pious observance of Christ’s holy commandments. For otherwise it is impossible for such a person to share in God’s ineffable goods. For he who desires to taste intellectually of the sweetness and pleasure of divine things, departs entirely from all worldly sense; and, longing for the goods that remain for the saints, he considers his soul to be occupied with the contemplation of true realities.

35. To keep the God-like assimilation unchangeable in oneself—that which arises from the highest purification and from the great love for God—belongs only to the continuous renewal towards God, and to the stretching forth of the most contemplative mind, which is naturally produced in the soul by the persistent stillness of the virtues, by immaterial and undistracted and continuous prayer, by total temperance, and by the intense reading of the Scriptures.

36. One must not hasten only to come to the peace of the powers within us, but also to reach the desire for the intellectual rest; which knows how to quiet every longing for good things through the peace of the thoughts, and, through the divine dew descending from heaven, to heal the wounded heart ^B and refresh it from the fire cast from above and kindled by the Spirit.

37. A soul wounded to its depths by the love of God cannot, after tasting those intelligible fruits of His sweetness, stand absolutely still upon itself, or remain in the same state, and not strain forward towards the ascents into the heavens. For in as much as it changes its own ascents through the Spirit, and advances into the depths of God, by so much is it kindled by the fire of longing, and searches into the magnitude of His still deeper mysteries, and hastens to draw near to the blessed light, where every ecstasy of mind comes to a halt, so that it may receive the rest of its own course in the joy of the heart.

38. When someone becomes a participant of the Holy Spirit, ^D and knows His visitation through some ineffable energy and fragrance within himself, so that this fragrance runs through even the appearance of the body, then that man can no longer bear to remain within the limits of nature. But, having been changed by the beautiful change of the right hand of the Most High, he forgets food and sleep, thinks little of bodily things, and neglects bodily rest. And being the whole day in labors and ascetic sweats, he does not feel any toil or necessity of nature—neither hunger, nor thirst, nor sleep, nor anything else that nature demands; for the love of God is invisibly poured out with ineffable joy in his heart. And passing the whole night in the illumination of fire, he performs intellectual labor within bodily exercise and feasts on the immortal banquet of the immortal trees of the spiritual paradise, which Paul, having been caught up, heard as unspoken words which he spoke

to the sense of those things seen.

^A 39. Once the body has been inflamed by the fire of asceticism and bathed in the water of tears, it is no longer weakened by labors, having put an end to many sweats, inasmuch as it has become superior to practical striving; rather, having received within itself the calmness and silence of peace, it becomes filled with another power, another vigor, another strength of the Spirit. When the soul has become rich in such a body cooperating with it, and finds it so established that it transcends bodily exercise, then it turns the motions of its nature toward spiritual struggles, and, diligently performing spiritual works, preserves for itself the fruits of the immortal trees in the spiritual paradise. Hence the fountain of God-befitting thoughts gushes forth like rivers, and where the tree of the knowledge of God stands, bearing fruits of wisdom, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, longsuffering, and ineffable love. Working thus diligently, and thus preserving the fruits, it departs from the body and enters into the ^B mysteries of theology. It stands outside of everything, as if held by none of the things perceived, and being joined to God, it ceases from sweat and from longing (in other copies: from mourning).

40. Which part of us, the argument asks, is higher for us who are students of virtue—the seen or the understood? If it is the seen, then nothing of the perishable things will be for us to desire or to love, nor will the soul be better than the body. But if it is the understood: "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." And thus, bodily exercise is superfluous when the intellectual work of the soul is vigorous, lifting up that which presses down and rendering the whole of it spiritual, in union with the higher nature.

41. There are three orders in those who are making progress in the perfections of the ascent: the purgative, the illuminative, and the mystical, which is the ^C apex of perfection. The first is for beginners, the second for the intermediate, the third for the perfect. For the diligent man, passing through these three paths in order, grows in stature according to Christ, and becomes "a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

42. The purgative is for those who are already entering upon holy struggles. Its peculiar characteristic is the stripping off of the form of the earthly man, the redemption from every filthy wickedness, and the putting on of the new man, renewed by the Holy Spirit. Its works are: hatred of matter, the maceration of the flesh, flight from every occasion that excites the reason toward desire, repentance for one's deeds; furthermore, to wash away the bitterness of sin with tears; to regulate one's manners by the goodness of ^D the Spirit; and to cleanse the inside of the cup, that is, the mind, from every stain of flesh and spirit, and thence to cast into it

^A the wine of the Word, which gladdens the heart of man, as he is purified, and to bring him to the King of spirits to taste. The end, however, is to be set ablaze with the fire of the ascetic life, and by the toils of the contests, to pay back all the poison of sin, to be well-tempered and steeped in the water of compunction, and to be fashioned into a sharp sword, so as to fight bravely against passions and demons, unto power. He who reaches this through many ascetic contests has extinguished the force of innate fire; he has stopped the mouths of lions, that is, of wild desires; he has been strengthened in the spirit from weakness; he has become strong; and like another Job, he has set up a trophy of endurance, having conquered the tempter.

43. ^B The Illuminative Way belongs to those who have advanced from holy contests to the first impassibility. Its characteristic is the knowledge of beings, the contemplation of the reasons of creation, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. Its work, however, is the purification of the intellect, effected by the divine fire, the spiritual revelation of the eyes of the heart, the generation of the Word with the lofty thoughts of knowledge; and finally, the word of wisdom making clear the natures of beings, the full knowledge of divine and human things, and the revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. He who attains to this through the intellectual labor of the mind is carried, like a chariot of fire, by the four-horse team of the virtues, just as if he were another Thesbite, Elijah, and while still living, is carried into the spiritual breezes ^C and traverses the heavens, having become superior to the vileness of the body.

44. The Mystical and Perfecting order belongs to those who have already traversed everything and have arrived at the measure of the stature of Christ. Its characteristic for them is to cleave through the air, to have transcended everything, to mingle with the hosts of heaven, to draw near to the first light, and to search the depths of God through the Spirit. Its work consists in filling the intellect of the beholder of such things with discourses on providence, on justice and truth, on the resolution of enigmas, parables, and dark sayings of the divine Scripture; and finally, in that a man so perfected reveals ^D the hidden mysteries of God, fills himself with ineffable wisdom through the participation of the Spirit, and shows himself to be a wise theologian in the midst of the great Church of God, enlightening men with the word of theology. He who attains to this through deepest humility and compunction has been caught up into the third heaven of theology, as if he were another Paul, and has heard ineffable words, which it is not permitted for a man subservient to the senses to hear; and he has tasted of the secret goods, which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has become a minister of the mysteries of God, having become His mouth, ministering these things to men through the Word, and abiding in the blessed rest in this, perfect in the perfect God, together with the theologian

^A united with the exalted hosts of the Cherubim and Seraphim, whose discourse is one of wisdom and knowledge.

45. The life of men, the state of which is reduced to three orders, is divided into two kinds: one is common and worldly, the other is not common and is superior to the world. And the common kind is divided into temperance and insatiable desire; the non-common, however, into philosophy, natural science, and supernatural operation. The former either adheres to justice, if it moves according to nature ^B or falls into injustice and iniquity if it deviates from natural movement; the latter, if indeed it pursues its purpose by observing the rules, arrives at an infinite nature, perfected above nature; but if, through pride, it grows idle ^C in its exercises and turns aside from its purpose, it falls into a reprobate mind and is deservedly rejected from perfection as something imperfect.

46. The Spirit is light, and life, and peace. Therefore, he who is illuminated by the divine Spirit passes a tranquil life in peace. From thence arises in him the knowledge of things and the wisdom of the Word, and the mind of Christ comes to be; he knows the mysteries of the kingdom of God, penetrates the deep things ^D of the Spirit, and day by day utters from a serene and illuminated heart the words of life, good to men, because he is good, and from his good treasure brings forth things new and old.

47. God is wisdom, and those who walk in the Word and wisdom, being deified by the knowledge of celestial things, He unites to Himself through light and makes them gods by grace. And just as He Himself, having created all things from nothing by wisdom, through wisdom governs and directs the things of the world, and likewise always works in wisdom the salvation of all who turn to Him and draw near, so also he who has been deemed worthy to become a partaker of the highest wisdom, from purity, always, as an image of God, himself also performs and fulfills the divine will in wisdom; gathering himself from the external things that are divided into many parts, and leading up and raising every day his reasoning through the knowledge of hidden things to the truly angelic and solitary life; and, as far as is attainable, making his own life like the upper powers, he unites himself to them, to the powers that move in unity around God; and through them, as through excellent guides, he is led up to the first principle and cause.

48. He who through the superior wisdom has united himself to the celestial powers, and for this reason has been united to God, being in the likeness of God, wisely conversing with all through word and communion, by divine power draws the affections of the good will of men away from external and divisible things, and leads them—as he himself is, being an imitator of God—into a solitary life, even drawing them in spirit, through wisdom and knowledge and the revelation of mysteries, toward the contemplation of the glory.

^A of the one and primary light; and having united them to the substances and hosts surrounding God, He elevates them to the unity of God, they having become all-luminous from the illumination of the Spirit.

49. To the tetrad of the virtues, eight natural and general virtues accompany it, two of them springing forth from each part for every one of these, so that each one itself becomes a Trinity. Thus, for prudence, knowledge and wise contemplation spring forth; for justice, discernment and a compassionate mind; for fortitude, patience and steadfast endurance; for temperance, purity and virginity. Above this triadic dodecad, as a kind of creator and mystagogue, God in wisdom sits enthroned upon the seat of the mind, sending forth the Word ^B for the creation of the virtues; and He, taking from each of the powers subject to Him the material of the virtues mentioned, creates for the soul the intelligible world of piety. And as a heaven He extends to it prudence, which is all star-strewn for the illumination of life, in which He places as two great luminaries divine knowledge and natural contemplation, causing it to shine and beam with light; as an earth He founds for it justice, for an inexhaustible banquet; as air He spreads out temperance, for the refreshment and dew of a most pure life; as a sea He limits fortitude within the weaknesses of nature, for the destruction of the towers and fortresses of the enemy. This world, therefore, the Word building in this way, infuses into it the Spirit for ^C intelligible and perpetual motion, and for a bond that is inseparable and lasting, according to what was said by David: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth.” (Ps. XXXII, 6).

50. With the spiritual advancements of the diligent, our Lord Jesus Christ is also accustomed to grow. And when they are infants in need of milk, He is said to suckle them with the milk of the introductory virtues of the body’s exercise, which is of little use to those growing in virtue and little by little shedding their infancy. But when they elevate themselves to youth and are nourished by the solid food of the contemplation of beings, as those practiced in the senses of the soul, He is said to grow in age and grace, and to sit in the midst of the elders, and to ^D uncover for them the depths of the darkness. When, however, they arrive at a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ (Eph. IV, 13), He is said to preach to all the word of repentance, and to teach the peoples the things concerning the kingdom of heaven, and to hasten toward suffering. For this is the end of everyone perfected in virtues, that after having traversed all the ages of Christ, he may arrive at the passion of temptations, according to His cross.

51. As long as we are under the elements of exercise,

^A desiring to taste food, or to touch tangible things, or to gaze upon beauty, or to listen to melodies, or to smell fragrances, we are under tutors and stewards, as if we were still infants, even though we are heirs and lords of all the Father’s goods. But when the fullness of that time has come, and it is fulfilled through dispassion, then the Word is born within us from a pure heart, and He comes to be under the law of the Spirit, that He might redeem us who are under the law of carnal reasoning, and might render unto us the adoption of sons. And this having been done, then the Spirit cries out in our hearts: “Abba, Father,” ^B showing and manifesting to us the sonship, and our confidence toward God the Father. And He dwells with us and speaks with us, as with sons and heirs of God, not subject to the servitude of the senses.

52. To those who have progressed in faith according to Peter, and who have returned to hope according to James, and who have been perfected in love according to John, the Lord is transfigured, having ascended to the high mountain of theology; and He shines forth to them with the appearance and character of the pure Word, like the sun; but by the thoughts of ineffable wisdom He becomes ^C as bright as the light; and the Word is seen in them, standing in the midst of law and prophecy, partly legislating and teaching, and partly revealing from the deep and hidden treasures of wisdom—sometimes even foreseeing and predicting. The Spirit, like a bright cloud, overshadows them, and behold, a voice of mystical theology comes from the cloud to them, teaching them the mystery of God in three persons, and thus saying: “This is my beloved, ^D the end of the word of perfection, in whom I am well pleased,” for me to become perfect sons, in a perfect spirit.

53. A soul that has despised all lowly things, and has been wounded entirely by the love of God, undergoes a certain strange and divine ecstasy. For after having clearly perceived the natures of beings and their reasons, and having comprehended the ends of human affairs, it can no longer endure to remain within the world and be circumscribed by surrounding things; but, having crossed its own boundaries, and having broken the chains of the senses and passed over the natures of all things, it enters into the darkness of theology in ineffable silence, and considers the beauty of the Being in the light of the thoughts of ineffable wisdom, as much as may be granted to it from thence by grace. Being deeply immersed in the contemplation of Him in a divine manner, it tastes with filial fear the fruits of the immortal trees, that is, the thoughts of a pious mind; the magnificence and sublimity of which it can by no means perfectly express when it returns to itself, but, as if moved by an extraordinary influx of the Spirit, it knows the praiseworthy affection it experiences in ineffable joy and silence; but how it feels that impulse, or what that is by which it is moved, what it sees, and what speaks the secrets to it, it is wholly unable to explain.

54. He who sows for himself tears in righteousness

reaps the fruit of life, an ineffable ^A joy. But he who seeks and waits for the Lord until the fruits of his righteousness come, he shall reap a manifold ear of the knowledge of God; and the light of wisdom shall illuminate him, and he shall become a lamp of eternal light for the illumination of all men; and he shall not envy himself and his neighbors by hiding under the bushel of envy the light of wisdom given to him, but in the Church of the faithful he shall pour forth good words for the benefit of many, and shall utter problems from the beginning, as many as he heard from above, being prompted by the divine Spirit, and as many as he learned while at leisure in the contemplation of existing things, and those which his fathers recounted to him.

55. For every zealous man, on the day of his ^B perfection according to virtue, the mountains of the observance of God's commandments shall distill for him the sweetness of gladness, while he reigns in Zion with a pure mind; and the hills, which are the words of the virtues, shall flow with milk, offering it as food to him who rests upon the bed of dispassion; and all the desires of Judah—I mean, of his faith and knowledge—shall pour forth waters, that is to say, dogmas, parables, and enigmas of divine things. And a fountain of hidden wisdom shall go forth from his heart as if from the house of the Lord, and it shall water the wadi of the reeds, namely those men who are withered by the drought and scorching heat of the passions. And then he will know that these words of the Lord are fulfilled in himself, who says: "He who believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly." ^C

56. The Sun of righteousness, says the Lord, shall rise upon those who fear me, and there shall be healing in his actions; and they shall go forth from the prison of the passions, and shall skip like calves set free from the bonds of sin; and they shall trample under their feet wicked men and demons as if they were ash, in the day of their restoration which I make, says the Lord Almighty, when they have been exalted through all the virtues, that is, and have been perfected through wisdom and knowledge in the participation of the Spirit.

57. If upon the mountains of the plain of this world, and of the Church of Christ, you raise a sign of new knowledge from above, and lift up your voice to yourself, according to him who spoke, regarding the wisdom given to you by God, exhorting by your word and teaching your brethren, opening to them the mind of the divine Scripture, for the ^D understanding of the wondrous gifts of God, and leading them forward to the practice of His commandments, do not be afraid of those who envy the power of your words and twist every divine Scripture, being empty and swept clean and ready as a habitation for the devil. For God writes the words of your lips in the book of the living, and there shall be no harm to you from such men, just as Simon Magus did not harm Peter. Rather, you yourself will say with the prophet on that day when you see them preparing the way against you

^A “Behold my God, my Savior, the Lord; I will trust in Him and will be saved by Him, and I will not be afraid. For the Lord is my glory and my praise, and He has become my salvation; and I shall not cease to proclaim His glorious works in all the earth.”

58. If you recognize that the impact of the activity of the passions in you ^B is ineffective, and that tears of compunction flow from your eyes out of humility, know that the kingdom of God has come to you, and that you have become pregnant with the Holy Spirit. If, however, you also perceive the Spirit acting, moving, and speaking within your inner being, and inciting you to proclaim the salvation and truth of God in the great Church, do not restrain your lips because of the envy of men who are like the Jews; but sit and write on a tablet, as Isaiah says, what the Spirit dictates to you, for that will be for the latter day and even forever, as the prophet says. For those who give birth to envy are an unbelieving people, lying children, in whom there is no faith, who do not wish to hear that the Gospel is still working and preparing friends and prophets for God; but they say to the prophets and teachers of the Church: ^C “Do not proclaim to us the wisdom of God, nor speak to us in this way, we who see the spectacles of nature, but preach and announce to us another way that the world loves, and take away from us the oracle of Israel.” Do not pay attention to envy and their words: for eventually your words, which resonate for the benefit of many, will be heard by those who were spiritually deaf, and the eyes of the blind, obscured by the darkness of life and the mist of sin, will see the light of your words; in these the poor in spirit will exult, men broken in hope will be filled with joy, and those wandering in spirit will be gathered together in your words. Those who murmur against you will learn to obey the words of the Holy Spirit, and stammering tongues will learn to speak peace. ^D

59. Blessed is he who has in Sion, the Church of God, the seed of the teaching of His words, as Isaiah says, and sons of his own for himself and for the Holy Spirit in the heavenly Jerusalem of the firstborn; for that man, he says, will be one who hides his words for a time, and will be hidden like running water; and at last, he will appear in Sion, in the Church of the faithful, like a glorious river flowing with the streams of his wisdom for the thirsty land; and those who are led astray by the envious will no longer trust in them, but will offer their ears to listen to the words of that man, and the heart of those who are weak in soul will open to listen; and no longer shall the servants of envy say, “Be silent,” since he, being pious, has embraced wisdom, and neither has he spoken foolish things after the fashion of the pseudo-wise of the world, nor with a mind

he took evil counsel, and did not, like the foolish ones of the world, speak foolishly; nor did his heart conceive vain things to commit lawless deeds and to speak falsehood against God, so as to scatter hungry souls and make thirsty souls empty. For this reason his words remain for the benefit of many, even if they do not seem so to the envious. ^A

60. To him who dwells in the high cave of a strong rock, bread shall be given for the satiety of knowledge, and the cup of wisdom for intoxication; and thus his water shall be drinkable; he shall see the King in his majesty, and his eyes shall behold the land from afar; his soul shall meditate on wisdom, and shall declare to all the place of eternity, outside of whose bounds there is nothing. ^B

61. If, therefore, the discipline of the Lord opens the ears of everyone who fears Him, and provides him with an ear to hear, and gives a tongue of discipline to know when it is necessary to speak a word, who else is it who turns back the prudent and wise of the world, and makes their wisdom foolish, but only He who establishes the steps of His servants? Rather, He is the One who does new and paradoxical things for His glory, who makes in the desert and dry heart a path of humility and gentleness, and in the dry and waterless mind, rivers of ineffable wisdom, to give drink to His elect race, the people whom He claimed for Himself, to declare His virtues? For He goes before those who love and fear Him, and levels the mountains of the passions, ^C and shatters the bronze gates of ignorance, and opens the doors of His knowledge. And He reveals to them its dark, hidden, and invisible treasures, so that they may know that He is the Lord God, who calls their name Israel. ^D

62. Who is it who agitates the sea of the passions, and stills its waves? It is the Lord Sabaoth, who rescues those who love Him from the danger of sin and turns the storm of thoughts into a calm; who places His words in their mouth, and covers them under the shade of His hands, with which He established the heaven and founded the earth. He Himself gives to those who fear Him a tongue of discipline and an ear of understanding to hear His voice from above, and to proclaim His commandments to the house of Jacob, that is, the Church of the faithful. But for those who have no eye to see the rays of the Sun of righteousness, and no ear to hear the glorious things of God, the privation of knowledge is darkness, and their hope, along with their words, is vain. None of these speaks what is just, nor is there any judgment of truth in them; for they have put their trust in vain things and spoken empty words; they conceive envy and bring forth malice, because their ears are uncircumcised and they cannot hear, and for this reason the word of the knowledge of God has become a reproach to them, and they have not wished to hear it.

63. What wisdom is there in those who are in travail with envy against their neighbor? For how, says Jeremiah, will the envious say: We are wise, and

^A the law of the Lord is with us? When they waste away with zeal against those who have received the grace of the Spirit through the wisdom and knowledge of God. But in vain did the scribes and the wise of this world acquire false knowledge, inasmuch as they have not acquired true knowledge. Therefore, “the wise are put to shame,” having fallen away from the true wisdom, which they saw multiplied in the sons of fishermen, and they were struck with terror at the power of their words, “and they were caught” in the nets of their own thoughts, because they rejected the true wisdom and knowledge of the Lord.

64. Why do the envious waste away with zeal against those who have been enriched by the grace of the Spirit? Against those who have received a tongue of fire like the pen of a scribe writing swiftly, having forsaken the fountain of the wisdom of God? ^B For if they had walked in the way of God, they would have remained forever in the peace of impassibility; they would have known where prudence is, where strength is, where understanding is, and the knowledge of things that are, where long life and life are, where the light of the eyes and peace with wisdom are; they would have learned who finds its place, and who enters into its treasures, and how God commands the mystics of the Word through the prophet, saying: “The prophet who has a dream of revelation, let him tell the dream of his vision; and he who has my word, let him speak my word truly”; and again: “Write for yourself all the words which I spoke to you in a book”; and they would never have wasted away with envy against such men.

65. “If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots,” the envious also will be able to speak well and take counsel, having meditated on evil. For they will trample their neighbor underfoot, because they walk deceitfully, and they mock their friends, not speaking the truth, because their tongue has learned to speak vain and lying words. ^C Understand, therefore, O you who are envied and mocked by them on account of the knowledge of God and the Word, and persist in prayer, saying with Jeremiah: “O Lord, remember me, and visit me, and defend me from those who persecute me, do not reject me in Thy patience, wishing to test me for a long time. Know that I have endured reproach from those who make Thy knowledge of no effect; finish them in their zeal, and Thy word of knowledge shall be for me a joy and gladness of my heart. For I did not sit in the council of those who mock Thy knowledge, but I feared from the face of Thy hand, and I sat alone, because their envy filled me with bitterness: and Thou shalt hear, I know well, if Thou shalt convert him who wanders from his way.” —“I will establish you among my friends, ^D you shall stand before my face, and if you shall separate the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth; I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked,” says the Lord God of Israel.

66. To sum up the end of the matter, the envious wise men hear

^A of these things: the Nazarites of God, chosen by their labors, have become whiter than snow; they shine in their life more than milk; their wisdom is more beautiful than the sapphire, and the character of their words more splendid than pearls. But those who are fed on the delicacies of worldly knowledge have vanished in the goings-forth of the Spirit; those nourished on the purple of the wisdom of the Greeks have been wrapped in the dung of ignorance, and bonds have been given to them, and they have been bound in them. For their tongue has been bound to their throat, and they have become mute, since they rejected the true wisdom and knowledge of the divine Spirit, not wishing to obtain it through labors.

67. It is God who ^B humbles the high tree and exalts the low tree, and makes the dry wood to leaf out like the green wood; He is the one who gives an open mouth in the midst of a great congregation to His servants, and a word to those who evangelize with great power; for wisdom, and understanding, and strength proceed from Him. And even as He changes seasons and times, so He makes souls that seek and desire Him queens over the passions, and transfers them from life to life, giving wisdom to the wise in spirit and prudence to those who know how to understand. He Himself reveals the deep and hidden things to those who search the depths of God, and grants them to know the things set in ^C the darkness of riddles, because the light of wisdom and knowledge is with Him, and He imparts it to whom He wills.

68. To everyone who works the commandments with patience according to the inner and outer man, and looks only to the glory of God, the gift of heavenly knowledge is given, as well as the peace of the soul and incorruption; for he is not a hearer, but a doer of the law of grace. God does not dishonor ^D the knowledge of such a man, which is proven by works, but He glorifies it together with the discourses of knowledge of those who have shone in the Church of the faithful, because there is no respect of persons with Him. But to those who strive out of contentiousness, and do not obey the words of those who are led by the Spirit, but trust in their own understanding and the deceitful words of those who wear only the mask of piety and are led by a spirit of pride and pleasure, tribulation and anguish are given, envy, and anger, and wrath—now indeed as a reward for their error, but at the last for the accusing of their thoughts as they accuse or defend one another, in the day when God will judge the secret things of men and will render to each according to his work.

69. Just as a man is not a Jew in what is manifest, according to him who spoke, nor is circumcision that which is manifest in the flesh, but the Jew is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart in spirit, not in the letter; so neither is a man perfect in knowledge and wisdom who is only manifest and eloquent in babbling speech, nor is he supremely fervent who is in the bodily and manifest exercise of labors, but he who is in the secret and intellectual work...

and who speaks from a pure and good heart through the Spirit of God, and not through literature; he is wise in knowledge and perfect, whose praise is not from men, but from God, since he is unknown and envied by men, but loved and known by God alone, and by those who are moved by His Spirit.

^A 70. If from the works of the law no flesh shall be justified in the sight of God (Rom. III, 20), according to him who said it, who shall be perfected in the sight of God by struggles and labors of asceticism alone? For by practice we are schooled into the habit of virtue, and we restrain the operation of the passions, yet we are not perfected by this alone in the fullness of Christ. What, then, is it that leads us to perfection? Sincere faith in God, which is the substance of things hoped for (Hebr. XI, 1), by which Abel offered a greater sacrifice to God than Cain, and was testified to be righteous, and Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out and dwell in the land of promise. This leads those who study in truth into the great hopes of the exalted gifts of God, and from there into the knowledge of beings; and it pours into their hearts the inexhaustible treasures of the Spirit, for the pouring forth from there of the new and old mysteries of God, and for bestowing them upon those in need. He, therefore, who has obtained this, has ascended and is perfected through charity into the knowledge of God, and has entered into the rest of God, resting himself from all his works, just as God did from His own.

^B 71. If God swore of old that those who disobeyed should not enter into His rest, whence they could not even enter because of unbelief, how could some, merely by bodily exercise, without faith, be able to enter into the rest of impassibility and the perfection of knowledge, when we see many who have not been able to enter in this way and rest from all their labors? Everyone, therefore, ought to take heed lest he ever have a wicked heart of unbelief, and so, laboring much, be frustrated of his rest and perfection, to attain which he labors with the works of practice and eats the bread of sorrow; and if a sabbath rest remains for him, he must hasten to enter through faith into the rest of impassibility and the perfection of knowledge, lest he fall into the same example of unbelief and suffer the same things as the ancient disobedient ones.

^C 72. Being sensible, rational, and intellectual, we also owe a certain tithe of ourselves to offer to God. And as sensible [beings], to perceive well the sensible things, and through the beauty of such things to run back and lead up the unerring knowledge of these to the Creator; as rational [beings], to speak rightly concerning divine and human things; and as intellectual [beings], to think unerringly concerning God, concerning eternal life, concerning the kingdom of heaven, and concerning the mysteries of the Holy Spirit hidden therein, so that perceiving, speaking, and

thinking soundly and irreprohensibly according to God we may be found, which is the most true and divine measure and a holy offering to God. ^A

73. The tenth is properly toward God, the psychic Pascha, that is, the passage of every vicious habit and every irrational sense, in which the Word is sacrificed through the contemplation of things, and the same is eaten in the bread of knowledge, and his precious blood is drunk in the chalice of ineffable wisdom. Whoever, therefore, eats and celebrates that Pascha has sacrificed for himself the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, and he shall no longer die, but according to the voice of the Lord, he shall live forever.

74. He who has risen from dead works has risen with Christ. But if he has risen with Christ—and Christ no longer dies—then neither shall the death of ignorance hold sway over him. For that he died once to sin, being moved from the movement according to nature, he died once for all; but what he now lives, he lives to God through the freedom of the Holy Spirit, who raised him from the dead works of sin. So that he no longer lives to the flesh and to the world, having been deadened in the members of his body and in the affairs of life, but Christ lives in him, as one who has come to be under the grace of the Holy Spirit and is not under the law of the flesh, manifesting his members as weapons of righteousness which he has offered to God the Father. ^B

75. He who has liberated his members from the slavery of the passions and has placed them in the slavery of righteousness has approached unto the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, having become above the law of the flesh. And sin shall no longer have lordship over him, as he is dwelling in the freedom and the law of the Spirit; for the ends of the slavery of the passions are not like the ends of the slavery of righteousness; for those are naturally inclined to end in the intelligible ruin of the soul, while these end in eternal life, which is hidden in Christ Jesus our Lord. ^C

76. The law of the flesh, for as long as a man lives carnally, rules over him; but if he dies and is put to death to the world, he is rendered void of its law; but to be deadened to the world is not possible unless we be deadened to the members of the body. We are deadened to these when we are made partakers of the Holy Spirit. And we are known to be partakers of the Holy Spirit when we offer fruits worthy of the Spirit to God: love toward God from the whole soul and toward one's neighbor from sincerity of heart, joy of heart from a pure conscience, peace of soul from dispassion and humility, goodness of the thoughts of the mind, patience in tribulations and temptations, kindness in the moderation of morals, faith in God that is heartfelt and not wavering toward anything, gentleness from humility and compunction, and comprehensive continence of the senses. When in this way we bear fruit to God, we finish our course outside the law of the flesh, and there is no law against us punishing us for the fruits which, while still living in the flesh, we bring forth at the moment of death; for we have been made void of...

the law of it as having risen from dead works with Christ, through the liberty of the Spirit. ^A

77. Those who have had the first fruits of the Spirit through the laver of regeneration, and have kept them inviolate, though they are oppressed by the weight of the flesh, they groan within themselves, awaiting the adoption through the fullness of the Paraclete, that they may behold the redemption of their own body from the slavery of corruption. For the Spirit assists their natural infirmities, and intercedes for them with unutterable groanings, ^B because they think according to God and expect in their hope until they see in their mortal flesh the revelation of the sons of God, which is the life-giving mortification of Jesus; that they may be sons of God, as being led by the Holy Spirit, and may be named as such, and be delivered from the slavery of the flesh and arrive at the liberty of the glory of the children of God, to whom, as they love God, all things work together for good. ^C

78. When holy Scripture is understood spiritually, and its treasures are revealed spiritually through the Holy Spirit, the animal man cannot grasp their revelation. Beyond the sequence of his own thoughts, he does not deign to understand or hear anything said by another; for he does not have the Spirit of God in himself, which searches the depths of God, and knows the things of God, but the spirit of the world, which is material, full of zeal and envy, and full of strife and discord, for which reason it is folly to him to search the mind and trace out the sense of the letter. For not being able to know that all things of holy Scripture are judged spiritually, contrary to divine and human things, he mocks those who interpret them spiritually, and calling such ones not spiritual nor led by the Spirit of God, but allegorists, as much as in him lies, he twists and perverts, like that Demas, their words and divine meanings; but not so the spiritual man, rather he judges all things, being moved by the divine Spirit, but he himself ^D can be judged by no one, inasmuch as he has the mind of Christ, which no one is able to instruct.

79. In the fire revealed on the last day, and by fire then tested in the action of each one, says blessed Paul, if anyone's work is of incorruptible substance, which he has stored up for himself for edification, it shall remain in the midst of the fire incorrupt, and not only will it not be burned, but it will even shine, having been perfectly purified from small stains. But if anyone's work is of corruptible material, the burden which he bound upon himself will be consumed by flames and leave him empty in the midst of the fire. An incorrupt and permanent work is tears of repentance, almsgiving, sympathy, prayer, humility, faith, hope, charity, and whatever other act is intended for piety: which

also is built up together with the living man into a holy temple of God, and departs with him when he dies, and remains incorrupt throughout the ages. But the work destroyed by that fire is manifest to all: luxury, ambition, avarice, hatred, envy, theft, drunkenness, abuse, evil judgment, and whatever evil is wrought by the body through concupiscence or anger. These things perish together with the living man whom the fire of concupiscence consumes, and when he is torn from the body they accompany him—not, indeed, enduring, but as corrupted things they leave their author in the midst of the fire to be punished with eternal torment for ever and ever.

80. ^B The knowledge of God, being known by God, signifies the one who has been built up into this through humility and prayer, and enriched by God with the knowledge of His supernatural mysteries; but if pride is seen in him, he has not been built up in it through those virtues, but is driven by the spirit of this material world. For this reason such a one thinks he knows something, while knowing nothing of divine things as he ought to know. But he who loves God, and considers nothing more precious than the love of God and his neighbor, he has known both the depths of God and the mysteries of His kingdom, as it behooves one moved by the divine Spirit to know; and he is known by God, as a true laborer of the paradise of His Church, who will do the will of God through charity, namely, by converting souls and making the worthy out of the unworthy through the word given to him by the Holy Spirit, and he will keep his work inviolate through humility and compunction.

81. We have all been baptized into Christ in water and the Holy Spirit, and we all eat the same spiritual food, and we all drink the same spiritual drink; but these are Christ, yet God is not well-pleased with the majority of us. For many believers and studious people have macerated and emaciated their own bodies with many labors of asceticism and physical exercise; but because they do not have compunction from a contrite and benevolent heart, and mercy from love for neighbor and self, they have been left empty of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and were far removed from the knowledge of God, having a barren womb of understanding, and a word without sun and light. ^C

82. It is not the ascending of Mount Sinai through practice that the Nazirites seek from the Word, nor to be purified before ascending, and to wash their garments, and not to come near a woman; but even to see, not the back parts of God, but God Himself in His glory, well-pleased in them, and giving them the tables of knowledge, and sending them for the building up of His people. ^D

83. Not all of His servants and disciples does the Word [admit] to the hidden and greater mysteries

^A of His revelation, but only some, to whom an ear has been given, whose eye of vision has been opened, and whose tongue has been made a new instrument of utterance. Taking these up and separating them from the others—though they are likewise His disciples—He ascends the Tabor of contemplation, the mountain, and is transfigured before them. He no longer teaches them the things of the kingdom of heaven, but instead shows them the glory and splendor of His divinity; He permits the pattern of their life and discourse to shine forth from His own radiance, like the sun, in the midst of the Church of the faithful. Their very thoughts He transforms into whiteness and into the purity of a super-brilliant light; He implants His own mind within them, and allows them to bring forth from their mouths new things and old, for the building up of His Church. 84. Many with great ^B diligence have cultivated their own lands and have sown pure seed within them, having first cut away the thorns and burned the brambles with the fire of repentance; but because the rain-bearing Spirit of God did not rain upon them out of compunction, they reaped nothing from them. They were withered by the drought and brought forth no manifold fruit of the knowledge of God for themselves. Therefore, even if they did not die of famine for the word of God, they perished as paupers in the knowledge of God, with empty hands, having provided themselves with only a few scraps of sustenance from alms. 85. Whoever utters words of profit for the edification ^C of his neighbor, he brings them forth from the good treasure of his heart, being himself good, according to the word of the Lord. No one, however, can be moved to speak about God and to say what is of God unless it be in the Holy Spirit; and no one speaking in the Spirit of God says things contrary to the faith which is in Christ, but rather, as much as he edifies, so much does he raise [men] to God and His kingdom, restores the primordial nobility, and joins some of those who are being saved to God. But if the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each man for what is profitable, then he who has been enriched with the word of the wisdom of God and has received the word of knowledge, is empowered by the divine Spirit and is a temple of the infinite treasures of God. 86. Whoever has been baptized into Christ ^D and has believed is not left devoid of the grace of the Spirit, unless he has handed himself over to every operation of the opposing spirit and has defiled his faith with wicked works. Or if he lives tepidly and negligently, provided that he who has kept the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, which he received in holy baptism, inextinguishable, rekindles the extinguished faith through works of righteousness, it is impossible for him not to recover its fullness. For either, struggling in the good fight, he merits to receive the word of the wisdom of God through the fullness of the Spirit for the instruction of the Church; or the word of the knowledge of the mysteries of God, according to the same Spirit, for knowing the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; or a sincere faith in the same Spirit, for believing the promises of God

^A instar Abraham; or the gift of healings in the same Spirit, for the curing of diseases; or the working of miracles, for the casting out of demons and the performance of signs; or the gift of prophecy, for foreseeing and predicting things to come; or the discerning of spirits, for distinguishing who speaks in the Spirit of God and who does not; or the interpretation of various tongues; or the giving of aid to the afflicted; or the governing of the sheep and people of God; or love toward all, and its charisms, longsuffering, kindness, and all things together. ^B If any man be found lacking in all these things, I cannot say that such a one is a believer, or that he belongs to the number of those who have put on Christ through divine baptism.

87. He who has love does not know how to be envious out of zeal; he does not act perversely, as if puffed up and rash; he is not inflated against anyone; he does not behave in an unseemly or indecent manner toward his neighbor; he does not seek his own interests, but those of his neighbor; he is not easily provoked against those who grieve him; he does not harbor thoughts of evil if he should ever suffer anything bad; he does not rejoice in the iniquity of his friends, but shares in the joy of the truth of their justice; he bears all painful things that come upon him; he believes all things out of simplicity and innocence; he hopes to receive all things promised to us by God; he endures all temptations, not rendering evil for evil; and the laborer of love never falls from the love of his neighbor.

88. ^C Among those who are counted worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit from above in various spiritual gifts, some are still infants and imperfect in divine charisms, others are men and perfect in the fullness of these. The former, intent upon the observance of divine commandments, grow in them, and being filled with greater gifts of the Spirit, they strip off the charisms that belonged to infancy. The latter, however, having been raised to the pinnacle of love and of the knowledge of God, cease to have charisms merely in part, whether they be prophecies, according to the word of Paul, or discernings of spirits, or aids, or governances, and the rest: for he who has entered into the tower of love no longer knows God, who is love, in part, but conversing face to face with Him, knows Him as he himself is known by Him. ^D

89. He who, out of zeal for spiritual gifts, has sought and attained love, is not satisfied to speak to himself alone through prayer and reading for his own edification (for he who speaks in a tongue only to God through prayer and psalms builds up himself, as Paul says), but he also hastens to prophesy, according to the same Apostle, for the edification of the Church of God—that is, to teach his neighbors the practice of the commandments of God and how one must strive to please God. For what profit can a superior be to others, who speaks only to himself and to God through prayer and psalms, unless he also speaks to those under his charge,

^A or in the revelation of the Holy Spirit, or in the knowledge of the mysteries of God, or in the prophetic gift of prophecy, or in the teaching of the word of the wisdom of God? For who among the subjects shall gird himself to fight against passions and demons, unless he gives a clear word of doctrine, either in writing or even by living voice? In truth, unless a pastor seeks to abound in the word of doctrine and the knowledge of the Spirit for the edification of his flock, he is not an earnest seeker of the gifts of God. For by merely praying and singing psalms with the tongue to the Spirit—that is, praying with the soul—he edifies himself, but his mind remains fruitless, not prophesying to the word of teaching, nor edifying the Church of God. But if Paul, who more than all men was joined to God through prayer, desired to speak in the Church five words with his most fruitful mind ^B so as to instruct others, rather than ten thousand words of psalmody in a tongue, therefore those superiors of others who commit the dignity of a pastor to men skilled only in psalmody and prayer have strayed from charity.

90. He who fashioned us from material substance and from an intellectual essence, and who in an incredible manner conjoined and subsisted in one essence and person things that are by nature opposite to one another, also provided us well through the word of his wisdom and through the word of his knowledge, so that we might both see through the knowledge of the Spirit the treasures of the kingdom of heaven hidden by Him and given to us, and also make these known to our neighbors through the word of the wisdom of His goodness—the riches and delights of eternal life, which He prepared for those who love Him.

91. He who rises above the threats and the promises of the three laws has entered into a life not subject to law, having become a law himself for the Church, and not being subject to the law. But the life that is not subject to law is free; therefore, it is above all natural necessity and deviation; and he who has entered into this life, having been liberated and as it were stripped of the flesh, and having become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, is entirely united to Christ himself, who surpasses all nature, when he has set aside all that is in part.

92. Whoever is capable of the knowledge of the Primal Intellect, who is the beginning and the end of all things, and infinite in Himself, and moves within and without all things, he knows how to live both alone with himself alone, and alone among those who are alone; so that neither does he suffer any loss of perfection from solitude, nor, while living with many, does he cease to be solitary; but he is the same everywhere and alone in all, as the principle by which others are moved toward solitude, and the end proposed as the highest perfection of virtue. ^D

93. The unconfused union and conjunction of the soul and the body, if both are in agreement, make one

opus, ^A whether of matter or of nature; but if they disagree, it arises as a civil war where each side seeks the victory. But reason, supervening and taking hold of authority, immediately dissolves the zeal, and acting as an envoy for concord, restores its own honor to the whole, and grants all works to nature and to the Spirit.

94. Of the three most important parts within us, one rules and is not ruled, another both rules and is ruled, and the third does not rule but is ruled. When, therefore, the ruling part is placed under another of the ruled, that which is by nature free is seen to serve those who are by nature slaves; it falls away from its own authority and nature, and there is great sedition in these things. But since such sedition exists among them, we do not yet see all things subject to reason. But when the part that rules the others prevails, and brings ^B them under its own authority and dominion, then the diverse parts, having run together into one and having come into harmony, lead all things toward God in peace; and when all things have been subjected to reason, the kingdom is delivered by it to God and the Father.

95. To the four principles of the general virtues, the pentad of the senses having been subjected, and itself having kept obedience, it causes the nature of the body, fashioned from the four elements, to move tranquilly around the cycle of life. And as it moves in this way, its faculties do not dissent among themselves; ^C but the passions of concupiscence and irascibility having been joined to the rational part, the intellect, recovering its natural power, disposes the four principles of virtue into a chariot, and the subservient pentad into a throne; and having warred down the tyranny of the flesh, it is snatched up in a four-horse chariot into the heavens and is raised, and having stood before the King of ages, it is crowned with the crown of victory, and in Him it brings its entire course to rest.

96. To those who are perfected in time by contemplation, and who lean upon the pillars of the Spirit, a cup is mixed, and bread is offered from the royal banquet, a throne is set for rest, and for wealth, silver, and a treasure of pearls and precious stones is found at the gates, and countless wealth is delivered into their hands. This praxis, having made them ^D swift to act, renders these men insightful, and gives them royal gravity, not indeed the sluggishness of children.

97. Is the kingdom of heaven given to all the zealous already from here, or after the dissolution of the body? If it is from here, then the victory is impregnable, the joy is ineffable, and our ascent toward paradise is free; for it stands according to the divine, sun-like rays, immediately. But if it is after death and dissolution, we must inquire whether the exit from life occurs without fear, and we must learn what the kingdom of heaven is, and the kingdom of God, and what paradise is; and in what the one differs from the other, and what the time of each of these is, and if we are in both, and how, and when, and after what time. For he who has entered within while still living and clothed in flesh, will not be deprived of the other.

^A 98. The superior world, while it is still incomplete, awaits until it is completed and renewed by the first-born of Israel who see God. For it is completed and perfected by those who run toward the knowledge of God, and being perfected by the inferior world, determining the limits of the faithful and the unfaithful, it makes for itself one congregation, distributing its own specific rank to each, and separating from one another those things that do not harmonize among themselves; and it brings back to itself the principles and ends of other things derived from itself, and limits them as an unlimited boundary; yet it itself is neither led nor limited by another principle, as if it were mere motion. For it possesses its own perpetual movement, so that it is neither restricted within itself nor does it transgress its own bounds, but is a sabbatism to others and a rest for every principle and motion.

^B 99. The nine supernal Powers, as singers and leaders of hymns, form a triple chorus, and standing about the Trinity in a triple order, they offer the sacrifices of hymns with trembling. Of these, some are spread out with wings, surrounding the Principle and Cause of all from whom they originate; all are attentive and begin the hymns—they are called Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, to whom is peculiar the fiery wisdom and knowledge of heavenly things, and finally the hymn worthy of God, *Guel*, according to the Hebrew tongue. Others, however, are the middle ones between the preceding and the following order, standing around God, namely Powers, Dominions, and Virtues; to these pertain the management of great things, the workings of miracles, signs, and prodigies, and finally the sacred Trisagion: holy, holy, holy. Others, finally, ending toward us—superior to us indeed, but inferior to the supernal ones—stand around God, namely Principalities, Archangels, and Angels; to these belong divine ministries, and finally the sacred hymn *Alleluia*. The rational nature of men, being brought to perfection by all virtue, and exalted by all knowledge and wisdom of the Spirit and the holy Fire, is conformed to them by divine gifts, in a way appropriating to itself that which is peculiar to each. For to some it is conformed in ministry and the observance of the commandments of God; to others, in mercy and protection toward its brothers, and further in the management of great divine things and the operations of the Spirit; to others, finally, it participates in the fiery wisdom of the Word and the knowledge of divine and human things. ^C Thus, perfected and exchanging the gifts of nature, it is joined to God through them by the power of the decad, as if offering to Him the tenth of its first fruits from itself.

100. God is the Monad and Trinity, beginning from the monad and circling back into Himself like a decad. He has within Himself the principles and ends of all things. Yet He is outside of all things, in that He is superior to all. He who is within Him penetrates the reasons and knowledge of things, and standing outside all things, He dwells within all, knowing the principles and ends of these, as being spiritually united with the Father through the Word, and perfect ^D

having attained [it], and having been perfected in the Holy Spirit; to this same perfect and indivisible and consubstantial Trinity, which in Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit is adored, and in one nature and majesty and power of divinity is glorified, be dominion unto the ages. Amen.

NOTICE REGARDING THE FOLLOWING SCHOLIUM

OF NICETAS PECTORATUS, MONK OF STUDIUM, ON THE SALUTATION PERFORMED WITH THE HANDS

^A But neither does the salutation performed with the hands rest its own rationale solely upon the act being performed; but it has also, in a way, something more mystical to manifest to those who examine our things, as if it were enclosed for the beloved. These three things, then, appear to those who see with the eyes of the soul as more mystical: the mutual reconciliation, the driving away of the phantasms of the mind, and the overshadowing by the Holy Spirit. For since by the sign of the cross we prefigure our fingers, and array ourselves in the garment of innocence, while we extend our palms ^B to and fro, and stretch them out directly toward one another—the priests, and those who have taken up the whole form of the crucified life—by the cross-like bond of the fingers we signify the temperance and the givenness of the boldness which, for the sake of which as a weapon, we clothe ourselves with reverence; and through the spreading out of the hands, the disposition of love, which we have been commanded by Christ to have toward one another; and how we show that each is hastening the friendship of the other toward himself. By the touching of the fingers, moreover, as giving ^C right hands to one another according to the ancient tradition, and putting hand to hand, we join together, and signify the unity and the oneness of mind toward one another, and the indissoluble nature of love. And by the salutation of the fingers bound in the form of a cross, we signify the love of His crucified life, so that we may greet Him with zeal; and not only this, but also the mortification of the members, and the crucifixion of the deeds of the flesh; and furthermore, the humility toward one another, so that, being bound by the bond of the Spirit, ^D receiving the touching of the neighbor as sanctification, we may greet him. And these things, indeed, according to the first order, the priests do toward one another, as has been said; and those who are fortified in the matter by the great habit, and being reconciled by the joining, are united in love. But such is not the case also for him who bears the earnest [money] of the habit

and so they absolve them. To all these, however, it is proper to say—to the former: "Bless, I pray"; to the latter: "May God save you!"

HERE BEGINS THE BOOKLET OF NICETAS, PRESBYTER AND MONK OF THE STUDION MONASTERY, PUBLISHED AGAINST THE LATINS

And discovered by the apocrisiaries of the Apostolic See at Constantinople.

I. Nicetas, presbyter and monk of the Studion monastery, who am surnamed Pectoratus: to the Romans, regarding unleavened bread, the fasts of the Sabbaths, and the marriages of priests. Good is love toward one's neighbor, O most wise and most noble of all nations, Romans. For from the habit of love toward one's neighbor, humility also abounds in him who possesses it. And this love, abounding, makes one a participant in loving all things and enduring all things, as the divine Apostle says, and not to be puffed up against one's neighbor at any time, nor to seek the things that are only one's own, nor to have zeal against him, or altercation and emulation. For all these things pursue love and humility and cause a man to walk not according to God, but according to the will of men. This is what Paul also rebukes, saying: "For whereas there is among you envying and contention and dissensions, are you not carnal, and walk according to man?" (1 Cor. 3:3). For which reason I beseech your charity to be humbled for the sake of God's commandment, and to hear us, unworthy and insignificant men.

II. For as for those inquiring from the various provinces of the Romans who travel here about unleavened bread, what shall we say to you in the love of Christ? You who still participate in unleavened bread are under the shadow of the Law, and you eat the table of the Hebrews, but not the rational and living table of God, and that which we who have believed call "supersubstantial," just as we have been taught above to seek the supersubstantial bread. For what is "supersubstantial," if not the bread that is consubstantial with us? But none other is consubstantial with us as bread, save the body of Christ, which is similar to us according to the flesh of his humanity. But if the substance of our mass which the Word put on is ensouled, then you are not eating a bread that is substantial for us, because you are partakers of unleavened bread. For ^B unleavened loaves are inanimate, as the very nature of things declares and teaches more clearly. For a little leaven mixed into flour and combined with it makes the whole thing one through the leaven, by a certain vivifying virtue; it warms it and makes it as mobile as it is living. This is the leaven of the Pharisees in the unleavened bread, which the discourse warns us to avoid, and which has never been nor will it ever be effective. For we have been made partakers of the divine nature, of which we also partake daily, we who have communion with Christ, as Peter the summit also says: "Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord" (1 Pet. 1:2). And after a few things: "That by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4), and not by the leavened unleavened bread of those who killed God. ^C But will anyone who is master of his reason ever call the divine nature the unleavened and dead leaven of the Jews, which you offer to God in sacrifice, which you eat in the figure of the true and living flesh of the Lord? How will you have unity with Christ, the living God, if you eat the dead and unleavened leaven, as it has been said—of the Law and the shadow, not of the New Testament? For even if you were to say this, yet it does not stand so—

^A nor are we incorporated into the sacrificed Christ, and [as it were] flesh of his flesh, as it is written. But if you assume this of the uncreated and incorporeal nature of the holy Trinity, you err, falling into the heresy of those who claim that God suffered, who say that the Word suffered along with the flesh, and that the same divinity endured the passion. For the Trinity is not incarnate in equal measure—Father and Son and Holy Spirit—so that these three might be seen in it, as it is said, "water, flour, and fire," and that you might make an unleavened bread in its image and perform a sacrifice; but one of the Trinity, the Son and Word of God, was incarnate, having been made man from the most chaste flesh of the holy Virgin; and, perfecting all things of his ordination, he was crucified in the flesh, his divinity not suffering. Having therefore been crucified in the flesh, he handed over to us his flesh to eat through bread, which we say is alive in the Holy Spirit: "Take and eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, for the remission of sins" (Matt. xxvi, 26-28).

V. What then have you, O brothers of ours in Christ, to do with the Law, which is cursed in Christ? Since you still eat its leavened unleavened bread? We are a new creature in Christ; old things have passed away. Listen to Paul saying: "Behold, all things have become new" (II Cor. v, 17). ^B But if you decide that it is just to eat these things, why are you not also circumcised? Christ was circumcised. Why are you not also purified? Paul also did this, and likewise [did] everything else to observe the ways of those of old, just as these men also do those things which are of the Law, through whom the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, as it is written: "Your boasting is not good" (I Cor. v, 6). And that I, too, may speak to you what are Paul’s words: "Do you not know," he says, "that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (Ibid.) And the bread, finally, is rendered not unleavened. But what does the aforementioned Apostle write here to the Corinthians? Is it, as you suppose, about the celebration which you celebrate in [the form of] unleavened bread? By no means. But because they were despising the fact that someone had taken his step-mother, ^C and were boasting in the ancient customs of their false knowledge; and Paul, wishing for them to be converted and to remove the old malice, came through this likeness—of leaven, I say, and the lump—and showed them that one evil, as a slight contempt, will cause great harm in the whole body of the Church. Therefore he says, adding: "And you have not mourned, that he who has done this work might be taken away from among you?" (I Cor. v, 2) For he says that this iniquity can pass to all your cities, and just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump, so can all be seized and leavened, and one lump of greater iniquity be brought about: "Cleanse out," he says, "the old leaven" (Ibid., 7), of sin. "Remove this from among you, so that you may be a new mixing for Christ, just as you have been baptized," that is, as either unleavened or pure, dead to the world and to the desires of the flesh. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed, so that he might snatch us from iniquity and death. On which account he says thus: "Let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of ^D malice.

and iniquity, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (Ibid. 8), that is, of pure life and faith, by which we believe in God, and become his true orators. Thus the Great Gregory the Theologian accepted this word. O most wise men, understand what things are of the apostolic mind, and not as you have accepted this concerning the feast and participation of unleavened bread. For if Paul had commanded the Corinthians concerning unleavened bread and the celebration of it, and commanded them to feast on unleavened bread, he would not have promulgated with the eleven, and reducing the whole Church of the faithful into order, in the seventieth canon, have commanded with excommunication to all that the cause of this kind is in no way to be accepted from the Jews: "If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or at all from the number of the clergy, shall have fasted with the Hebrews, or have feasted with them, and have accepted the gifts of their feasts, as are unleavened breads or anything of this kind, let him be deposed: if he be a layman, let him be sequestered."

VI. But if you say: "Because we do not accept from the Hebrews, but are accustomed to make them at home"; why this? Whether you accept from them or make them at home, they are unleavened breads. And according to this you shall have a heavier punishment, since you abandon doing what has been commanded to you by Christ and his Apostles, acting just like those who are under the servitude of the law, such things as the Jews do, sitting in the shadow and darkness of the law, in no way believing Paul who says: "Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide" (I Cor. vii, 20 and 24). For you will not find at all in divine Scripture that unleavened bread was spoken of by Christ or his apostles, when the mystery of the New Testament was being administered by him. For Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread" (I Cor. x, 16). "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread," and not unleavened bread, "and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me" (I Cor. xi, 23-25). Not here alone did he say it, but also the others of the apostles, and Matthew indeed says: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread" (Matt. xxvi, 26). Do you see, he says bread here too, and giving thanks he brake it, and gave it to his disciples and said: "Take, eat; this is my body" (ibid.). In like manner also Mark says this, and the others: and in no way is unleavened bread mentioned by them.

VII. Since indeed it was necessary for Christ to suffer according to the day of the legal passover, in which also the lamb was sacrificed by the Hebrews. For it behooved the passover to be made by the killers of God on the sixth day, in which at length also the fourteenth moon was according to the first month, ^A in which it happens to occur in 1534 years: for the cycle of the sun was 18 and 5, so that it had not yet arrived as traditions had handed down to deliver his own passover to the disciples, reclining at supper according to the evening of the fifth day; after he supped, he took bread, broke it, and delivered to the apostles the mystery of the New Testament in the fifth night in which he was betrayed by Judas: as it is written. But what does the apostle Luke say? "He took bread, and blessing, he brake it" (Luke xxiv, 30). Behold, Luke also said that Christ took bread, and not unleavened bread. For it was not yet the day of the sixth. The moon was the thirteenth on that fifth day, and there was no unleavened bread, nor even the offering of leaven.

VIII. For unleavened breads were promulgated on the fifteenth moon in the law, so that in the fourteenth day at evening the lamb might be sacrificed, and the law called the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month the Passover, and the fifteenth day the first of unleavened bread and the Sabbath. Fie on the ignorance of the unlearned! And there was no unleavened bread on the fifth day, when it was the thirteenth moon, and not the fourteenth. According to the fifteenth moon it had been instituted that unleavened bread be made, just as the lamb was commanded to be sacrificed at evening of the fourteenth day, according to which was sacrificed Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. But if Christ was sacrificed and crucified on the fourteenth day of the moon, on the day of the sixth, but on the Sabbath was the feast of unleavened bread, when did he eat unleavened bread? Did he deliver to the apostles to do so in the New Testament? How do you say that you have accepted from the apostles to make unleavened bread now after the resurrection from the dead? ^B Do you not see that you are manifestly argued by the facts, that there was no unleavened bread then, when Christ was delivering the mysteries of the New Testament to the apostles?

IX. I will show you this from the legislation of Moses. For he speaks: "These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the first month on the fifteenth day of the month is the feast of unleavened bread of the Lord; and in the fourteenth day of the month at even is the Lord's passover; and on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord. Seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread" (Levit. xxiii, 4-6). Behold for you have learned from the legislation of Moses, that there was no unleavened bread then, when after the supper according to the day of the fifth day Christ delivered by the breaking of bread the mystery of the New Testament. Before the feast of unleavened bread, however, he did this, when it was the thirteenth day of the month. ^C For on the fifteenth day of the month, as the legislation of Moses, was the feast of unleavened bread. And Christ was crucified on the sixth day, according to the fourteenth day of the month, when the Jews had to sacrifice the lamb; but on the Sabbath, according to the fifteenth day of the month, when it was the feast of unleavened bread, he lay buried in the sepulcher. Therefore, since there was no unleavened bread before the feast of unleavened bread in the year itself: for the Jews ate unleavened bread for seven days, as Moses instituted: in the fifteenth day of the first month beginning the feast of them, where were unleavened breads found, when with his disciples he sup-

supped, having received the unleavened bread from the Lord, and they in turn delivered these to you in the figure of the body of Christ in the mystery of the New Testament, when neither was the offering of bread made according to the constitution of Moses, nor was there unleavened bread then, where were they found? How do we forget the laws of Moses? For He handed down to you to keep it for seven days only. But you trample upon the institutes of Moses throughout the whole year. And Christ did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. v, 17).

X. For you mightily resist the truth, brethren. For if it was handed down to you by the apostles to eat unleavened bread, how is it that Agatho, your most holy Pope, who was a predecessor during the sixth synod under the Emperor Constantine, and the divine Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum, did not abstain from it; since, as the divine Fathers of this synod had established a law against unleavened bread that it should be done by none of the faithful? And, that I may show you their legislation against unleavened bread, I add to my reasoning their canon, which in the eleventh chapter reads thus: "No one constituted in the priestly order, or layman, shall eat the unleavened bread that belongs to the Jews, or live with them, or invite them during illness, or receive medicine from them, or bathe with them in public baths. If anyone attempts to do this, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be excommunicated." Whoever makes and eats unleavened bread, even if he did not receive it from the Jews but imitated them in this, the Jew understands it, and he is outside the law, just as if one were to circumcise himself, or be circumcised by the Jews, both are in knowledge of these things, and he is violating the canons and institutes of the apostles and the holy Fathers, and makes everything void, as our reasoning has demonstrated. But we have sufficiently demonstrated to you from all divine Scripture that the use of unleavened bread is prohibited. ^A

XI. Come now, you to whom we have demonstrated the rest, and to whom it has suddenly occurred to bring up the matter of the Saturday fast, since you insult us: from which holy Scripture did you receive that we should fast on Saturdays? From the apostles? By no means. The heads of the apostles, in the fifth book of the Ordinances, which is inscribed *concerning the martyrs*, according to Clement: "The Lord commanded us to fast on the fourth and sixth days of the week. The one for the sake of tradition, the other for the sake of the passion. But He did not hand down to us the Saturday fast, since it is not fitting to do so, because of that one day on which the Creator of all was beneath the earth." Whence, according to the end of the same book, he speaks again thus: "We say that every Saturday and every Sunday is to be celebrated. For it is fitting to rejoice on these, and not to mourn." In the seventh book of these same constitutions, according to the twenty-fourth chapter, they say thus: "For we celebrate the Saturday and the Sunday, because the former is the memory of the divine work; the latter, of the resurrection. But only one Saturday is to be kept in the whole year, the day of the burial of the Lord, on which it is fitting to fast. For when Christ lay in the sepulcher, the disciples were then ^B filled with grief, having more sorrow than joy from the memory of the divine work." However, these things did not stand as a rule here, through Pope Clement who established them, but knowing that it is a great condemnation to fast on Saturdays, they bind the Church by valid excommunication for this. For he says in the sixty-fourth canon: "If anyone be found fasting on the Lord's day, or on a Saturday, apart from one only, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be excommunicated."

XII. But those who were at the sixth synod, the Fathers, fulfilling this, appropriately promulgate it holily, with Pope Agatho of Rome presiding over the synod, and Gregory, Bishop of the Agrigentine, present with them: "Since we have learned that those who are in the city of the Romans, in the fasts of holy Lent, fast on the same Saturdays contrary to the ecclesiastical practice handed down to them: it pleased the holy synod to observe the unmovable canon of the Church of the Romans stating: If any cleric is found..." and the rest that he writes thereafter. These things, therefore, as you see, bind the Church of the faithful with Pope Agatho of Rome by apostolic constitutions and canons. From where and from whom did you otherwise receive to fast on Saturdays? Furthermore, to offer the oblation of the perfect mass every day during the sacred days of the fasts, whether on a Saturday or on the Lord’s day: from where did you become accustomed to this? From what teacher did you receive it? From the apostles? Not in the least. For the apostles from this very fact have set down a canon speaking thus: "If any bishop or presbyter, or deacon or reader or cantor, has not fasted through the holy Forty Days, and the fourth and sixth day of the week, let him be deposed, unless he is hindered by bodily infirmity." Therefore, those who minister and complete the ministration of the holy mass beside the third hour of the day, in which it is also proclaimed that the sacrifice is to be offered, how do you observe the fast until the ninth hour of the day? Breaking these at the time of the ministration of the mass? Not at all. But if this is impossible, you shall be struck with a curse.

XIII. The Fathers who were in the Council of Gangra in the 19th chapter speak such things: "If anyone, out of a proud sense of superiority, without bodily necessity, should dissolve the common fasts and those observed by the Church, presuming for himself a perfect reasoning, let him be anathema." Similarly, the Fathers who were in the Council of Laodicea, according to the fiftieth canon, have spoken thus: "That it is not fitting to celebrate the birthdays of the martyrs during Lent, but to make a commemoration of the saints on Saturdays and the Lord's days." And according to the forty-eighth canon, they likewise say: "That it is not proper to offer bread during Lent, except on the Saturday and the Lord's day alone."

XIV. And the Fathers who gathered in the sixth ecumenical council likewise, according to the fifty-second canon, decree with the most holy Pope Agatho, speaking thus: "In all the holy days of the Lenten fasts, except on Saturday and the Lord’s day, and on the holy day of the Annunciation, let the mass be held from offered gifts that were previously sanctified." Thus, therefore, receiving us on the Saturday and the Lord's day, beside the third hour of the day

^A after the hour in which the Holy Spirit also descended upon the disciples, we offer the sacrifice, and in it we sanctify the gifts, from which we preserve a sufficiency for the whole week. On the other days of the week, however, concluding every service toward the time of the ninth hour of the day in the consummation of compline, we priests perform the entrance with the deacons, carrying only the censer. And after the reading of the prophets, we perform the appointed prayers of the great Basil, and transferring the gifts of preparation to the altar, we pray along with them. Moreover, saying the prayer delivered to us by the Lord, we exalt the pre-sanctified bread, and we give the pre-sanctified holy things to the holy, and are united in the communion of the bread and the cup of the mysteries of Christ. And thus giving thanks to God, we dismiss them and send them out from the congregation, we ourselves taking a common meal of leaves and legumes, and warm water, if anyone wishes. There are also others who persevere through the whole week with only communion and a blessing. But you, while you refer to every single day a perfect service in Lent, which it is appropriate to offer according to the third hour of the day, transgress the established canons of the Church. And in this you lie under the curse of the Fathers, as it is said.

XV. Who is he that delivered to you to forbid and cut off the marriages of priests? Who among the teachers of the Church delivered this wickedness to you? For unless he has married, he shall receive the laying on of hands. And thus he who was ordained unmarried proceeds to marriage lawfully. Do you do this also in accordance with the canons, by prohibiting such marriages? But if he who is ordained a priest had a wife beforehand, and has persevered in chastity and a great life, and you dissolve his marriage, you transgress, as I will show you from the precept of the apostolic canons. For in the sixth book of the ordinations of Clement, which were written by him, according to the seventeenth chapter, the Apostles say this: "We say that the bishop and presbyter and deacon who have one wife are to be ordained, although their spouses are living; although they have passed away, it is not permitted for them to be unmarried after the laying on of hands, nor furthermore to go to marriage, or if they have married, to embrace others, but let those which they have when they came to ordination suffice." In the fifth chapter of the holy canons it is said thus in chapter 2: "A bishop or presbyter or deacon shall not cast out his wife under pretext of religion; but if he shall cast her out, let him be suspended. If he persists, let him be deposed." And in the fortieth canon, they say openly: "The property of the bishop belongs to him." And after a few words: "Lest a bishop, on the occasion of ecclesiastical affairs, fall from the things that are the bishop's, into wife and children and relatives, lest on their account he subtract those things which are the Church's." And then: "If indeed there are those who prohibit priests from legitimate marriages, the pillars of the apostles did not set forth ecclesiastical canons in this way. But if you say that by 'wife' the apostles meant the Church, then your speech will appear faithless and empty, ^B since they [the apostles] ordered not to cast out their own wives, who were mentioned by us, on the occasion of religion, and that the property of the bishops should fall from their powers because of their children and wives."

XVI. But if someone says of the holy and universal synod that it had as its president the most holy Agatho, Pope of Rome, as we have very often said, that very synod of one hundred and seventy Fathers, under the Emperor Constantine, grandson of Heraclius and father of Justinian: how did divine Agatho not resist the holy synod decreeing against these impious ones whom you have even now? But if you held these traditions from the apostles, perhaps he would have resisted, and would not have accepted those things which were promulgated by it among us. When he was your Pope, because he knew these traditions themselves to be adulterous and foreign to the doctrine of the apostles: on account of this, together with the Fathers of the holy sixth synod, just as he did concerning unleavened bread and the fasts of the Sabbaths and the mysteries of the holy mass, so also concerning the marriages of priests he promulgated, saying in the thirteenth chapter: "Because we have known that in the Roman Church, in the order of the canon, it is handed down that present deacons or presbyters should confess to be worthy of the laying on of hands, so that they might no longer be disjoined from their own wives. We, following the ancient canon of apostolic diligence and ordination, wish the unions of holy men to be valid according to the law and from this point onward, in no way dissolving the union of spouses or depriving them from one another, according to the convenient time of their situation. But because, if anyone is found worthy of the laying on of hands as a deacon or subdeacon or presbyter, this man is in no way to be prohibited from ascending to such a grade, while he is to cohabit with his wife lawfully; nor at the time of ordination is he to be required to confess to the law of his own situation on account of his own wife." And after a few words: "If anyone, therefore, shall presume to deprive any of the ordained sacred presbyters and deacons of the union of their legitimate wives outside of the apostolic orders, let him be suspended from communion. Similarly, if any presbyter or deacon shall cast out his nursing companion on the occasion of religion, let him be separated; if he persists, however, let him be deposed."

XVII. Whence, therefore, and from whom have these horrible infirmities come upon you, O men of the Romans, wisest and noblest of all other nations? I estimate that some of those from the Jews believed in the time of the apostles, who were found desiring vain gains and lovers of money, wanting to draw away many of the faithful from the Gospel, that is, from the preaching of the faith, and when they had corrupted them, in this both Christianity and Judaism have been corrupted. Concerning whom John said: "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us" (I Joan. II, 19), ^C including those who were around Simon and Deman, Nicolaus and Cleobius. The rest of the pillars in the seventh book of the Constitutions, according to the sixteenth chapter, said more clearly: "For we know, he says, because these ^D...

who, concerning Simon and Cleobius and Judas, wrote books in the name of Christ and his disciples, carry them about for the seduction of you, and of those who love Christ, and of us his servants. And among the ancients, some wrote apocryphal books of Moses and Enoch and Adam, of Isaiah and David, and of Elias, and of the three patriarchs, making corruptions and books hostile to the truth. But even Paul, the apostle of the Lord, foreseeing these things, as I suppose, that such seducers would rise up against you, weaving deceit for you, writes to the Philippians: "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" (Philipp. III, 2). And again to Timothy: "In the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, and to abstain from meats which God hath created" (I Tim. IV, 1-3). And the things which follow. On account of which he also commanded Titus: "Rebuke them," he says, "sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth" (Tit. I, 14).

XVIII. Wherefore we have most diligently inquired further concerning these things, O brothers, lest at any time you should receive from these lies which have been spoken and refuted—I say now, unleavened bread, the fasts of the Sabbaths, the marriages of priests, and oblations in fasts; but ^A knowing what is first of all these, from all that is inspired by God, Scripture; flee those things which are of such a kind to be practiced, since you are the Church of God and the ever-brilliant eye of the whole world, so that, united with us your confreres—whom you have split by the things already said—since you are the body of Christ; let us, with open face, behold the glory of the Lord in harmony and unity with the orthodox faith, and transform his image in us, by a living demonstration, and unto his eternal glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord, since he himself is the head of the body of our Church; and in him, as in one body, are we all joined together.

XIX. These things to you, Romans. If, therefore, we can, since you are men, reduce you to belief with us through those things which we have said, and by teaching you we refute you from divine Scripture; by the grace of God, and with you knowing well how to believe in the Holy Spirit, ^B and to pursue the reasoning already stated from the Scriptures. If, however, you hold otherwise, give us testimonies from divine Scripture that are consistent: in which I wish you to be well-disposed, that you may rest upon the seats of understanding, and we, knowing how to obey the ineffable reason of the spirit, may teach all things which we have written to you. We salute you in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory and power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for ever and ever. Amen.

End of the book of Nicetas, presbyter and monk of the monastery of Studius, against the Latins.

HE BEGINS THE RESPONSE OR CONTRADICTION TO THE SAME BOOK BY BROTHER HUMBERT, BISHOP OF SILVA CANDIDA

I. If you had diligently considered the fourth chapter of the synod of Chalcedon, ^C content with monastic quiet and fasts and prayers in your monastery, you would by no means have communicated in ecclesiastical matters, nor would you have brought forward such importunity. Wherefore by the concordant decree of the six hundred and thirty Fathers you are suspended from communion, lest through you the name of the Lord be blasphemed. For it behooves every profession to restrain itself within the measure of its own habit and rank, lest it disturb the whole order of ecclesiastical dogma, while, not content with its own office, it seeks to snatch away another’s. But woe to you, Sarabaita, who, examined by no cenobitic discipline, led by your own will and pleasure, have horribly bayed against the holy and Roman and apostolic Church and the councils of all the holy Fathers, more foolish than an ass, having attempted to break down the forehead of a lion and an adamant wall! In which attempt, verily, you are not the victor of error, but vanquished by error; nor a presbyter, but an inveterate of evil days, and a cursed ^D child of a hundred years; rather to be called an Epicurean than a monk. Nor are you to be believed to be abiding in the monastery of Studius, but in an amphitheater or a brothel. You who are also truly surnamed Pectoratus, since with the ancient serpent you walk upon your chest. Which, as one of the Fathers said: "Whoever wills, enters and looses the ass": for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matt. XII, 34). Then, more detestable than any poison, imbuing the lips of a deadly cup with the honey of charity and the good odor of humility, you have exhibited a delectable proem from the aforesaid virtues, that the tasted sweetness might make the venom of dragons and the rest be swallowed without delay.

^A But woe to him who gives his friend drink from a turbulent draught! We have therefore deemed it necessary to pass it through a finer cloth, so that the manner of its concoction and its power might be detected to some degree, and henceforth avoided; for it enters smoothly, but in the end it will bite like a serpent, and like a basilisk it will spread its poison.

II. Behold, in the very vestibule of your malice you have posited three things: concerning unleavened bread, that is, concerning the Sabbath, and concerning the marriage of priests. From which you have vomited forth so many and such great things that, in perverting divine meanings, you would seem no inferior to those perverse and rabid dogs, Julian and Porphyry. Finally, you have turned the ladder of divine eloquence back toward hell, as much as in you lay, that you might not ascend with the angels to the catholics, but descend with the apostates to the heretics. Hence it is that, detracting from the sacrifice of the holy Roman and apostolic see, you have most falsely defined that we eat the table of the Jews. This is sufficiently shown in our previous narrative, where we wished to counter the inventions of your accomplices, namely, Michael of Constantinople and Leo of Achrida. Nor is it necessary for us to repeat the same things so often. For a single flame can suffice for gathered tow, gathered chaff, and gathered darnel. Whence we have decided only to set light briefly to those things which you alone appear to have piled up more than they did.

III. Therefore, what you said, that consubstantial and supersubstantial are the same, is altogether futile. For although the Lord Jesus is consubstantial with us in humanity; and so the breads of the human table, even if they are consubstantial to themselves, are yet the supersubstantial bread to the divine table. And, O you who lie to God, and are an open attacker of the holy Gospel, where and when did the Truth, the Son of the truthful Father, say: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Mark VIII, 15)? Can unleavened bread in any way be called leavened, when it is called unleavened for the very reason that it is without leaven? And wherever there is leaven, is it not necessary that it either makes leaven or remains leaven? Since, therefore, leavened bread is not without leaven, nor can leaven ever exist without it, how have you dared even to dream of leavened unleavened bread? But although by saying such things you have spun spider webs, you may be able to entangle in them flies and gnats or wandering worms; but not simple pillars and sheep who recognize the voice of their shepherd.

IV. Next, O subverted subverter, you have attempted to subvert the opinion of the apostle John, saying: “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not perform the truth” (I John 1, 6), and you have used this testimony of his more wickedly than an adulterer uses his eye or a thief his steel, which are surely good things. For they attempt to harm some, but you, to ruin all. Whence you also conclude thus: “He therefore who eats unleavened bread, walks in the darkness of the law.” But the same John, explaining your intention, demonstrates more clearly than light, saying, adding: “He who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness” (I John II, 9). ^B Here it is clearly evident that you accepted this not from the holy apostle, but from an apostate angel, so that you would say: “He therefore who eats unleavened bread walks in the darkness of the law,” because that whole epistle mentions neither leavened nor unleavened bread, but only charity.

V. After these things, with no less sacrilege, you have abused another testimony of the same apostle saying: “There are three that give testimony on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one” (I John V, 7); you perversely attempt to transfer it to the bread of the table of Christ, which he wished to intimate concerning His baptism. For in baptism these three things exist, and make one baptism. And the Spirit indeed sanctifies, the water cleanses, the blood redeems. If any of these should be lacking, there will not be baptism, as the venerable father Augustine says: “Remove the water, it is not baptism; remove the word, it is not baptism. But the word is added to the element, and it becomes a sacrament.” But you, of wicked heart, wickedly interpreting and depraving the sentiment of him who reclined upon the breast of Jesus, said: “And these three are in one, namely, in the body of Christ,” which His beloved neither felt nor wrote, but, “these three are one” (I John V, 8), according to the previous meaning regarding baptism.

VI. These things are small and almost nothing in comparison to the following blasphemy, by which you labor to assert that at the time of the Lord's passion and crucifixion, when blood and water flowed from His side, the holy and life-giving spirit remained in His deified flesh. Which if it were the case, He did not die. If He did not die, neither did He rise again. If He did not rise again, vain is our faith and our preaching, because we shall not rise either. And as the Apostle says: “If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me, if the dead rise not?” (1 Cor. XV, 32). For why do we suffer such things daily? Let us eat and drink: nay, let us live like beasts, for tomorrow we shall die like beasts. If in this life only we are hoping in Christ, we are more miserable than all men; but far be this from all humankind! ^C For the same illustrious evangelist, who saw this very thing present, attests that the flesh of Christ was truly deprived of life upon the cross, saying: “And bowing His head, He gave up the spirit” (John XIX, 30). Moreover, Mark and Luke say that He expired (Mark XV, 39; Luke XXIII, 46). Whence also in the symbol we confess Him dead and buried. Otherwise, He who did not die ought not to have been buried. Be silent, dog: bite with your tongue, wicked dog; for Christ truly died for our offenses, and rose again for our justification (Rom. IV, 25), the first fruits of them that sleep (1 Cor. XV, 20).

VII. Behold a pestiferous doctrine, behold a diabolical suggestion, you whose standard-bearer you have become, attempting to defend the opinions and inventions of your people against apostolic tradition and against manifest truth, by saying: “That warm water and blood flowed from the living and ^D warm body of Christ, and therefore the Greeks…

^A duly mix warmth with His blood.” But the whole matter is far otherwise. For the truthful Evangelists narrate with one accord that our Lord died on the cross at the ninth hour, and in the evening was taken down from the wood by Joseph and buried. For at the moment He gave up the spirit, the veil of the temple was rent, the rocks were cleft, the earth shook, the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints arose. In such great disturbance and, as it were, shipwreck of the whole of creation, not only was the side of the Lord not opened by a lance, but even those who had previously insulted Him and had gathered for that spectacle, seeing the earthquake and the things that were being done, beating their breasts, were turning back. So much so that the centurion himself, to whom He had been delivered for punishment, said: “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. xxvii, 54). But when the tumult of the world had quieted, and some security ^B returned, as it was already evening, the Pharisees asked Pilate that, because of the solemn day of the Sabbath, the legs of the crucified should be broken and they should be taken down. Then also Joseph asked Pilate that he might take the body of Jesus. But Pilate marveled if He were already dead. And having summoned the centurion, when he learned that Jesus was already dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Moreover, the soldiers at the command of Pilate broke the legs of the former and of the other thief. But when they came to Jesus, as they saw Him already dead, they did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers opened His side with a lance, and immediately there flowed out blood and water, by which the Church might be formed, just as Eve was formed from the rib of Adam while he slept. Behold, if He died at the ninth hour, and in the evening, when He was about to be taken down from the cross, He was pierced with a lance; that blood was there, and it was naturally not warm, with the whole body already dead and cold. But if it was warm in any ^C way: why did the Gospel keep silent about such a great miracle and sacrament? Whence we, your new fellow-mystics, wish you to say whether it was only the blood, or only the water, or both together that were warm? If only the blood, why do you warm the water; if only the water, why do you warm the blood of Christ with it? If both together, why are they not both warmed together? But by whose sight or touch could it be discerned that either of these two gushing forth at once from the one wound was warm or cold? Furthermore, if that water was warm, why is the water of baptism not warmed, since it especially prefigured baptism, just as the blood prefigured redemption? Moreover, we wish to know with what intention you called the rib of Christ immaculate? If for holiness and innocence: excellent; but if for the reason that it was impenetrable to iron: very bad; because for us He shed blood from a real wound, not a phantasm. And not from the rib, as you write, but from the side, because a bone is not accustomed to emit blood, nor was a bone broken from the Lord’s body.

VIII. Furthermore, that bread is also called unleavened, and that we do not err with the Theopaschites in the holy oblation, and that we do not eat of the unleavened bread of the old law, but of sincerity and truth, and that old things have passed away and all things have become new, is sufficiently shown in our other epistle. ^D

IX. But you, cursed man and foul-mouthed in your speech, have called the holy law “cursed,” like Severianus. And it is no wonder, since even in your desire to praise your bread beyond measure, you have vituperated it excessively, saying: “A little leaven corrupts the whole mass, and the bread in the end is made not unleavened, but leavened.” Thanks be to God that unleavened bread is not made from a mass corrupted by leaven, as is your bread. For corruption is never and nowhere taken for good; for wherever there is corruption, there also is a deterioration of substance. Furthermore, when you were expounding the opinion of blessed Paul—which, after so many orthodox Fathers, we do not wish to be expounded by heretics—you praised unleavened bread, albeit unwillingly, saying: “As you are baptized, that is, unleavened and pure.” If, therefore, according to your confession, those who are baptized are unleavened, what are the unbaptized, if not leavened, that is, corrupted?

X. But what are those canons which you object to us with excommunication, concerning the apostles, being utterly ignorant of what you speak? “If any,” it says, “bishop or presbyter or deacon, or at all from the number of the clergy, shall fast with the Hebrews, or feast with them, and shall receive the gifts of their festivities, such as unleavened breads or anything of the like, let him be deposed; but if a layman, let him be excommunicated.” Even if this chapter were brought forth from authentic books, it would by no means touch us, because we neither fast with the Hebrews, nor feast with them, nor do we accept any of their festive gifts. But what you madly subjoin: “Whether you receive from them, or make them at home, they are unleavened,” that dart we hurl back at you, saying: Whether you feast with the Hebrews on the Sabbath, or at home, it is a feasting. Indeed, this would be more worthily directed against you, because you celebrate nothing else on the Sabbath but the solemnity of the Jews, whereas we retain and embrace a far different sacrament in the unleavened bread. For if we ask the Jews what they celebrate on the Sabbath, they will answer: The rest of the Lord. If we ask the Greeks, they will say the same and nothing else. Therefore they are under the servitude of the law; in whose shadow and darkness they have sat down.

XI. Then, after empty barkings about the term bread, you have brought back to us the years from the beginning of the world until the passion of Christ, when according to you the solar cycle was the sixteenth and the lunar the fifth; so that by this fiction at least you might be able to escape with your leaven, as if according to this calculation of yours, the eleventh moon should occur on the day of the Lord’s Supper, in which the Jewish people had not yet cast out the leaven. But leaving such things to chronographers and calculators, especially since there are diverse accounts of times among the Greeks, Latins, and Hebrews: this alone we say, that Christ did not dissolve one iota or tittle of the old law. Whence, on the fourteenth moon at the evening of the fifth day of the Sabbath He celebrated the Passover, and immediately in the same night was captured, and was crucified on the fifteenth moon, that is, on the sixth day of the Sabbath, which was specifically called the first day of the unleavened bread. Although even in the entire preceding day, it

^A was the fourteenth day of the moon, leavened bread did not appear in all the borders of Israel. For the lamb was eaten with unleavened bread. But if, according to your assertion, Christ performed the Passover on the thirteenth day of the moon with leavened bread, He was twice guilty; He was justly to be punished according to the Law, both because He celebrated the Passover at a time not His own, and because He did so with leavened bread. Therefore, His death would confer nothing upon us, He who perished not for our sins but for His own, that is, because He was a transgressor of the holy Law. But we have discoursed at length on these matters elsewhere.

XII. Furthermore, if, except for seven days, the Jews eat leavened bread the whole year through, as you assert, who ought more conveniently to be rebuked: he who imitates them in unleavened bread for a minimal time, or he who imitates them in leavened bread the whole year through? God forbid, however, that we should imitate their carnal rite in anything!

XIII. But since you are led by a labyrinthine error, so that you enter where you were leaving, and leave where you were entering, you tread the same path again, saying: “If it was handed down to you by the apostles to eat unleavened bread, why did your Pope Agatho, the predecessor of the holy sixth council, together with Gregory, the bishop of the Agrigentines, and other Fathers, establish a law against unleavened bread?” Listen, you foolish, vain man: it was handed down to us not so much ^B by the apostles as by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, not to eat unleavened bread from the Jewish Passover, but to partake of the Christian Passover.

XIV. Nor are we held liable for that which you objected from chapter 11 of the sixth council, saying: “Let no one placed in the priestly order, nor any layman, eat the unleavened bread that is among the Jews, nor live with them, nor invite them in infirmities, nor receive medicine from them, nor bathe with them in baths. If anyone does these things, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed: but if a layman, let him be excommunicated.” Who among us, I ask, eats the unleavened bread that is among the Jews? For although we observe the rest of this chapter, we observe that which concerns unleavened bread above all else.

XV. But what will you say? Did not the great Basil often receive medicine from Joseph the Jew? You, however, like the devil with the psalm, have added a chapter by interpreting it thus: “Whoever therefore prepares and eats unleavened bread, even though he has not received it from the Jews, is nevertheless an imitator of the Jews, just as he who is circumcised.” “You shall destroy, O Lord, all who speak a lie!” (Ps. v, 3). Is it forbidden to all Christians everywhere to ever eat unleavened bread, just as it is forbidden to ever be circumcised? Why this? Because in these things they are imitating the Jews? We concede, however, that circumcision was ^D strictly for the Jews; nevertheless, unleavened bread belongs to all nations, which you maliciously repel not only from the divine table, but from the human table entirely. But what will you do, O fermented one? The Jews, as you asserted above, ate leavened bread throughout the whole year, except for seven days, and sometimes offered it. Will you also take this away from men?

XVI. Hence let us see if you are not Sabbatarians, whom the Fathers of the holy fifth council commemorate. For rebuking us as to why we fast on the Sabbath, you say: “On the fourth and sixth day of the week one must always fast: one for the sake of tradition, the other for the sake of the Lord's passion, but on the Sabbath never, except for one.” And this you attempt to assert from apocryphal books and canons rejected by the equal judgment of the holy Fathers. For the book of Clement—that is, the itinerary of Peter the apostle—and the canons of the apostles are numbered among the apocrypha, except for the fifty chapters which they decreed should be added to the orthodox rules. Hence we also, rejecting every apocryphon, disdain to hear ^B their fabulous traditions, because they are not like the law of the Lord. Therefore, these things being omitted, look in another epistle to see what the blessed and ancient Roman pontiffs, Sylvester and Innocent, thought about the Sabbath, whose judgment is by no means preferred to the judgment of Agatho, however holy he may be. But God forbid that Agatho should ever have thought anything contrary to them! And yet, in this, as in other things, you are mistaken, in that you say he was the leader of that council, when only his legates presided over the same council. Whose deeds it has pleased us to insert here briefly.

XVII. In the time of Constantine, son of the Emperor Constantine, in the seventeenth year of his reign, Pope Agatho, at the request of Constantine and the most pious princes Heraclius and Tiberius, sent his legates to the royal city. Among whom was John, then a deacon of the Roman Church, and long afterward bishop, for the purpose of making an union of the holy Churches of God. Being received most kindly by Constantine, the most reverend defender of the catholic faith, they were ordered, having set aside philosophical disputes, to inquire about the true faith in a peaceful conversation, being given from the Constantinopolitan library all the books of the ancient Fathers which they requested. Moreover, 150 bishops were present, with Gregory, the prelate of the royal city, and Macharius of Antioch presiding. And those who asserted one will and operation in Christ were convicted of having falsified the sayings of the catholic Fathers in many places. When the conflict was finished, however, at that very hour so many spider webs fell into the midst of the people that everyone marveled. And by this it was signified that the filth of heretical depravity had been driven away. And Gregory indeed was corrected, but Macharius with his followers together with his predecessors, Cyrus, Sergius, Honorius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, were anathematized, and in his place Theophanius, abbot from Cilicia, was made bishop. And such grace accompanied the legates of catholic peace that John, Bishop of Porto, who was one of them, celebrated public mass in Latin on the octave day of Easter in the church of Saint Sophia before the prince and the bishop of that city. At that time Damianus, bishop of the Ticinensian Church, under the name of Mansuetus, bishop of the Church of Saint Michael, composed a sufficiently useful epistle of the right faith, which brought no small support in the aforementioned council.

XVIII. But this is the right and true faith: That in

^A our Lord Jesus Christ, just as there are two natures, that is, of God and of man, so also two wills or operations should be believed to exist. Do you wish to hear what belongs to the deity? "I," he says, "and the Father are one" (John x, 30). Do you wish to hear what belongs to the humanity? "The Father is greater than I" (John xiv, 28). Behold him in his humanity sleeping in the boat. Behold his divinity, as the evangelist says: "Then rising, he commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm" (Matt. viii, 26).

XIX. This is the sixth universal council, celebrated at Constantinople and written in the Greek language, in the times of Pope Agatho, carried out and presided over by the most pious prince Constantine within his palace, and at the same time by the legates of the apostolic see and 150 bishops residing there, all of whom indeed condemned the heresy. Then the most pious prince Constantine asked them how the Roman Church held the order regarding the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? They answered: "In the Lord's cup, not only wine should be offered, but mixed with water. For if only wine is offered, the blood of Christ begins to be without us. And if pure water is offered, the people alone begin to be without Christ. When both are mixed, that is, wine and water, then the spiritual sacrament is perfected. But the offering which is brought in the sacrifice of the altar must have no commixture or corruption of leaven, just as the blessed Virgin Mary conceived and brought forth Christ without any corruption. Hence the custom has prevailed in the Church that the sacrifice of the altar is celebrated not in silk or dyed cloth, but in terrestrial linen, just as the Lord's body was buried in a clean shroud. So also the offering must be clean from leaven, according to what we read in the pontifical acts was established by blessed Sylvester." Then this tradition of the apostolic see pleased the most pious prince Constantine. Behold, the faith and tradition of the apostolic see was pleasing to all the holy Fathers and orthodox emperors of this and the six other councils. And who are you, to whom it is displeasing? But we would like you to tell us: Does it seem appropriate to you to fast every Wednesday and Friday on account of the tradition and passion of Christ, and on account of the burial on no Sabbath, except one? Since, therefore, you celebrate the resurrection every Sunday, and fast every Wednesday and Friday on account of the tradition and the cross; why not also every Sabbath on account of the burial, since you hold no reason for celebrating the Sabbath, except that which the Jews hold, namely, because God rested on it? Who, indeed, was not fatigued, creating by his word whatever he willed, but in this he prefigured our rest. For if one Sabbath in the whole year must be fasted, on account of the burial of Christ, then also one Wednesday on account of the tradition, and one Friday on account of the passion, must be fasted in the whole year. And one Sunday, too, must be celebrated on account of the resurrection.

XX. Nor is it a wonder if you impute the ^B fictions of the sixth council to Pope Agatho and the holy Fathers, when you also impute fictions to the Lord himself and his apostles. Therefore, knowing that the sixth council was gathered for the destruction of the heresy of the Greek Monothelites, but not for handing down new institutions to the Romans, we utterly reject the chapters you oppose to us under its authority, because the first and apostolic see has neither received them at any time, nor observes them even now; and because they are either null, or, as you have pleased, depraved. You have depraved the sayings of John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian and other orthodox Fathers, and exhibited them in that same sixth council. Indeed, from the first Nicene council up to this sixth, three hundred or more years are said to have elapsed. And how is it that in the Nicene and the remaining four universal councils no mention is made of such necessary things? Did the Greeks and Latins remain ignorant of the order of the mass and the fasts until the sixth council, and for six hundred or more years since the passion of Christ did they err in such matters? Or perhaps the Greeks knew these things, and the Romans were ignorant? But from the Missal books of the Romans, accepted of old by the whole Western Church, it is evidently known what order of fast and mass they held under the most reverend pontiffs—namely, Sylvester, the author of the Nicene council, Gelasius, the condemner of your Acacius, and especially Gregory the Dialogist, the godfather of the Emperor Maurice. In whose Missal books every day of Lent has a plenary office of a special mass, and, except for Sunday, no day of it suspends the undertaken fast; which tradition, if Pope Agatho had attempted in any measure to remove from the Romans, he would not have been heard by them. For although he himself was great, he was nevertheless lesser than the aforementioned predecessors of his in time, as well as in knowledge and authority. Wherefore, as to the chapter by which ^C you assert that he promulgated that if any cleric were to fast on the Sabbath, except one, he should be deposed, it should rather be said that it belongs to the Nazarenes than to the apostles, to Cerinthus and Ebion than to the sixth council and Pope Agatho. To which chapter, indeed, the epistle of Paul openly contradicts, where he says: "Let no one judge you in food or in drink or in part of a feast day, and of the new moon and of Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come" (Col. ii, 16-17). Whence the Romans, obedient in faith and truth to their own author and teacher of the gentiles, bestow no feast or rest upon any Sabbath, just as neither upon the new moon, because they are indeed Jewish, and in any case a shadow of things to come.

XXI. But as to where we have received to perform the perfect mass every day of the fasts, we have taken care to show above, nor do we fear the head which you say is of the apostles, concerning those who have not fasted in Lent, and on the fourth and sixth day, on which, except for very serious infirmity, all of us carefully fast on the days of Lent, so much so that we sometimes make ten-year-old boys fast with us, nor do we break the Lenten abstinence on the Sabbaths, which our Lord did not break during the forty days of his fast. Nor would we break it even on Sunday, just as he did not, except that we interrupt this ^D on account of the joy of his resurrection.

[Humberti S. R. E. Cardinalis] ^A Since this was said from the beginning by the sentiment of all Catholic Fathers, even with anathema. The holy Fathers of the Council of Gangra, following them, said: "If anyone, not discerning the Lord's day, shall have fasted as if in contempt of it, let him be anathema." Where certainly, just as all authentic books attest to them, they do not contradict the fast of the Sabbath, but of the Lord’s day.

XXII. But, O perfidious Stercorianist, you who think that the Lenten and ecclesiastical fasts are dissolved by a faithful participation of the body and blood of the Lord, believing entirely that heavenly food, just like earthly food, is sent down into the sewer through the foul and sordid excretion of the belly, you clearly think like Arius. Who, because of other blasphemies against the Son of God, and also for this one, having fallen into the dark pit, with his bowels poured out, remained empty even in his belly. And where is the Savior, who, giving to his disciples the bread blessed and broken by himself, said: "Take and eat, this is my body" (Matt. 26:26)? And elsewhere, when he was about to hand it over, he says: "The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (John 6:52): and, "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:56). How is it true? Because "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" (John 6:55). And what is eternal life? Indeed, Christ Jesus himself, as he says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). He who eats the bread of God, therefore, eats the flesh of God, Christ. But he who eats his flesh eats Christ; he who eats Christ, without doubt eats eternal life. Therefore, O pestiferous pimp of the ancient serpent, who attempt with your cunning to corrupt the senses of the bride of Christ, which is the Church, in order that it may be cut off from the love of such a great and such a spouse, do you believe that we, eating incorruptible life, corrupt the integrity of our fasts, as if by some corruptible food?

XXIII. We shudder even to say it, but we are compelled by your impudent wickedness. You attempt to send Christ, nay, life itself, through digestion like foul dung into the latrine. And where is that which he said: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him?" (John 6:57). Since without this refreshment life is not had, Life itself, which is Christ, protests as if by a kind of oath, saying: "Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you" (Ibid., 54). Did he say here: If you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you dissolve the fast? And would that we were refreshed by this sacrament alone, not to our judgment, at every hour! But because we are burdened by a corruptible body and the extreme misery of our conscience, we are not able to bear even our own good; thus, set times for perceiving such a sacrament have been fixed by the holy Fathers. ^B That it may not grow vile to carnal men, and that some appetite of the flesh might murmur while perceiving the food of the spirit, we taste it beforehand with the greatest parsimony; wishing only to see how sweet the Lord is, whose bread does not desire, just as the manna did not, to be fed to the faithful for their whole life, that is, Christ, but to the unfaithful it is death, that is, their own judgment, in that they are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Furthermore, daily, whether at the third hour, or the ninth, or at whatever hour the Mass is performed by us, it is not performed except perfectly. Nor is a part of his oblation reserved, so that a partial Mass may be celebrated for five days. For the holy apostles are not read to have reserved anything from that first mystery of the body and blood of Christ distributed at the Supper itself, nor do their actions indicate that they ever did or commanded such a thing. On the contrary, as Luke narrates: "The faithful were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the communication of the breaking of bread" (Acts 2:42). Which communication, how and on which days it was done, he demonstrates after a few words, saying: "Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they took their meat" (Ibid., 46). Behold, the truthful evangelist testifies that under the apostles the faithful prayed daily and broke bread. And you, who are you, who say that the perfect Mass ought to be performed on only two days of the week, but an imperfect one on the remaining five? Indeed, in this breaking of bread and communication, we must accept nothing other than the perfect action of the Mass, just as we read that the Lord himself did not hand down an imperfect, but a perfect commemoration to his disciples, in the bread blessed and immediately broken and distributed by him. ^C For he did not merely bless and save it to be broken until the next day, nor did he merely break it and put it aside, but he distributed it immediately after breaking it. Whence the blessed martyr Alexander, and Pope V from the apostle Peter, inserting the passion of the Lord into the canon of the Mass, does not say: "As often as you shall do this," but "As often as you shall do these things, that is, bless, break, and distribute, you shall do them in my memory," because any one of these three, if it is done without the others, namely, blessing without distribution, or breaking without blessing and distribution, do not represent the perfect memory of Christ, just as there is no distribution without blessing and breaking. That we celebrate a perfect Mass daily and at whatever hour of the day, and not only at the third hour, we hold authority from the words of the Lord himself according to the blessed Paul, who says: "Do this, as often as you receive it, in commemoration of me" (I Cor. 11:25). ^D Whence the same Apostle immediately added: "As often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord" (Ibid., 26). And how long? "Until he comes" (Ibid.): that is, to judge the living and the dead. Do you think he said anywhere: Do this at the third hour in my commemoration? Not certainly, but omitting any hour or time, he said: As often. Nor did Paul himself, attending to any fasts or any certain evolution of years, say: As often as for so many years you shall eat this bread at the ninth hour, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord; but indifferently: As often; and: Until he comes.

XXIV. Nor are we unaware that the holy Fathers of the Lord...

^A were accustomed to celebrate the Masses of the Lord’s Day and of the principal solemnities at the third hour, on account of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples at the third hour, and that they commanded this to their successors so that this one action of the Mass might be distinguished by a twofold privilege: namely, the Resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Paraclete, and that on account of the joy of the feast the restraints of fasting might be relaxed for all. Nevertheless, there is one cause for the Lord’s Day and solemnities, and another for days of fasting; if therefore the Mass is performed perfectly at the ninth hour or at vespers on days of fasting, no harm is, without a doubt, contracted from this, because the Lord, at the Supper towards evening, instituted the first and perfect administration of such a great sacrament for the disciples, and at the ninth hour, handing over His spirit, He completed the evening sacrifice with hands stretched out on the Cross, and with a prayer offered up to the Father. Therefore, although the third and ninth hours are more suitable for the action of the Masses for the aforementioned reasons, as often as they are nonetheless performed at other hours due to the occupation of a journey or for the sake of any necessary thing, they are done in memory of Christ; nor is the integrity of the fast violated thereby. Regarding this, blessed Pope Thelesphorus, the seventh from Peter, thinking likewise, instituted that Masses should also be celebrated on the night of the Lord’s Nativity, nor did he fear, as you perversely think, that any dissolution of the fast would be made before the third hour and the daytime Mass. Tell me, however, if you are able, why the Sabbath and other weekdays outside of the Lord’s Day ought to have the Mass at the third hour, when the Holy Spirit is not read to have descended upon them. Therefore, we, as shown above, supported by divine authority, neither dissolve fasts by the celebration of the Mass at whatever hour of the day it is done; nor on any birthday of the martyrs, nor even on the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. And therefore, we are struck by the anathema of no universal synod. The rest of the gatherings of holy Fathers, however, even if they were able to deal with the utility and conduct of their own churches, nonetheless [established] no traditions for the universal Church. Regarding Pope Agatho also, we know entirely that he neither presided over the Sixth Synod by himself, nor subscribed to any of its chapters, except those which were promulgated against the heresy of the Monothelites. You yourselves see from where you might have these things that you propose, because the Roman Church has been ignorant of such things until now. Nor can it be believed that after so many years the Roman Pontiff promulgated any observances concerning the Mass to the Greeks. Furthermore, we do not care to learn your rite, because we recognize that the least caution and the greatest negligence reside in it, while you break the holy bread and, taking it, do not care about the crumbs falling here and there. Which also usually happens while you scrub the holy patens dishonestly with palm leaves and hog bristles. Many of you also replace the body of Christ so irreverently that pyxides are heaped up with it, and, lest it fall or overflow, you cram it in with your hand. You also consume the remains of the oblation, like common bread, sometimes even to the point of loathing. And if you have not enough to consume, you bury it, or throw it into a pit. If, however, as you say, you exalt the bread already offered and sanctified on another day, ^B you seem to offer one oblation twice. And why did you not attend to the letter of Pope Clement, whose traditions, as you think, you defend against us, which is thought to have been promulgated there? "Certainly," he says, "let them offer as many holocausts on the altar as suffice for the people. But if any should remain, let them not be reserved until the morrow, but let them be consumed with the fear and trembling of the clergy." To this, which you assert, that you pass from the holy communion itself immediately to common foods, the same Clement is found not to have thought so in the aforementioned letter, where, concerning those who consume the remains of the sacrifice, he added: "But those," he says, "who consume the remains of the body of the Lord which have been left in the sanctuary, let them not gather immediately to take common foods, lest they think that the foods which are poured into the sewer through the natural passage must be mixed with the holy portion." If therefore in the morning on the Lord’s Day the portion is eaten in the sanctuary, the ministers who have consumed these are to fast until the sixth hour. And if it is the third or fourth [hour], let them fast until vespers. In which words it is indeed clear that not only is it permitted to celebrate Masses at the third hour, but also early at the fourth hour, and that the fast is not broken by the sacrifice, while it is said there that those who have consumed it [should wait] until the sixth hour or vespers: otherwise, how were they fasting if they broke the fast from the sacrifice? Next, preaching to us the abstinence of a very few, you are silent about the gluttony of the many, who from the early morning until evening do not fear nor blush to carouse. Some even ^C bringing legumes and other victuals to the church eat them there, nor do they attend to Paul saying: "He who is hungry, let him eat at home (1 Cor. XI, 34)"; and: "Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the Church of God, and confuse those who have not?" (Ibid. 22.) But we, not knowing the Lent of one week, which you call [the Lent] of Saint Theodorus, contend to observe diligently the Lenten season of our Lord Jesus Christ for forty days, which we cannot suffer that anyone, except by reason of grave infirmity, should infringe in any way. Nor is it permitted to anyone among us, as it is among you, to take any fruit or herbs after one meal on the days of fasting. ^D XXV. Hence, perceiving from you that adultery is defended so perversely rather than the marriages of priests, we think that the leader of this heresy, the nefarious deacon Nicolaüs, has risen from the lower world. Concerning whom your Epiphanius wrote thus: "The fourth heresy of the Nicolaitans was invented by Nicolaüs, one of the seven deacons ordained by the apostles. This man, since he was blamed for the zeal of his very beautiful wife, began to teach that one should use wives indifferently, not only the laity, but even those who performed the office of the priesthood." The holy evangelist and apostle John condemned these men, and commanded that whoever might have mixed words of conversation with them, they were to be deprived of communion for this very reason. Teaching reasonably that from the beginning of the world chastity has pleased God most of all. At that time also in himself Christ of God

gave of the glory of chastity, when, remaining a virgin while possessing a virgin mother, he did not permit any of his disciples even to use the lawful bond of marriage, saying: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself; and let him take up his cross and follow me" (Matt. xvI, 24). Hence the same Lord Jesus in the Apocalypse, commanding the Apostle John to write to the angel of Ephesus, says among other things: "This you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate" (Apoc. II, 6). Hence also he says to the angel of Pergamum: "I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balaam to cast a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat and to commit fornication: so also you have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans" (Ibid., 14, 15).

XXVI. These things ought indeed to have sufficed, O Nicolaitan Nicetas, to convict you of error; but because you seem to press us with canons published under the name of the apostles, we have decided to expound your chapters to you, even though we have until now calculated them to be in great part apocryphal, so that it may be openly known that you can defend your absurdities neither by apocryphal nor by authentic texts. But before all else, we prove you to have lied against the Truth itself, in that you said our clergy are first ordained and then take wives. For among us, no one is admitted even to the grade of subdeacon unless he professes perpetual continence even from his own wife. Nor is it granted to anyone after this grade to marry a wife. But you, wishing to make the Church of God a synagogue of Satan and a brothel of Balaam and Jezebel, say with Nicolaus: "We say that a bishop, presbyter, or deacon who has one wife should be ordained, even if their wives are living, or if they are deceased. And it is not permitted for them after the laying on of hands to be unmarried, nor moreover to go to weddings, or, if they are married, to embrace others, but those whom they had when they came to ordination should suffice for them." O abominable Cynic, how were you not ashamed to vomit forth such wickedness? Therefore, is it not permitted for anyone after the laying on of hands to be without a wife? If it is so, the Apostle John himself, and Paul, and Barnabas, and everyone who lives in continence in the ecclesiastical state are without doubt in error. Whence it is necessary that the future bishop, presbyter, deacon, and subdeacon should first take a wife, who must suffice him for carnal embraces? Does one not suffice for the laity? Unless perhaps [you follow] the disciples of the malignant Muhammad, of whose flour you are made. You also, because you are a presbyter, should not be without a wife, according to your own assertions.

XXVII. But now let us see the chapters by which you think the adulteries of priests—not their marriages—can be defended. ^A "A bishop, I say, a presbyter or deacon should not cast off his own wife on the pretext of religion. But if he has cast her off, let him be sequestered; if he persists, let him be deposed." We entirely confess that it is not permitted for a bishop, a presbyter, a deacon, or a subdeacon to cast off his own wife from his care on account of religion, namely, by not providing her with food and clothing, but not that he should live with her carnally as is the custom. Thus we read that the holy ^B apostles acted, as the blessed Paul says: "Do we not have the power to lead about a woman, a sister, as the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" (1 Cor. Ix, 5). See, foolish man, that he did not say: "Do we not have the power to embrace a sister, a woman," but to lead [her] about, so that she might be supported by them from the wages of preaching, nor yet would there be carnal marriage between them thereafter. Besides, why would any married layman hesitate to ascend to ecclesiastical grades, when the one wife, without whom he ought not to be, can suffice him for carnal embraces? And why do you, who so strongly propose the chapters of Clement, not heed his epistle of which we spoke above? For it is said there: ^C "To three grades the mysteries of divine secrets are committed, that is, to presbyters, deacons, and subdeacons." And after a few words: "Ministers of the altar are to be chosen for such offices who were known to have wives before ordination, if they wish to remain continent forever. But if it happens after ordination that a minister invades the bed of his own wife, let him not traverse the thresholds of the sacristy, nor become a bearer of the sacrifice, nor touch the altar, nor receive holocausts or offerings from those who offer, nor approach the portion of the Lord's body. Let him offer water to the priests with his hands, let him close the doors from the outside; let him fulfill only lesser offices, but let him certainly not offer the vessel at the altar."

XXVIII. Furthermore, the Nicene synod, entirely venerable and authentic, has this in its acts, or rather introductions: ^D "The holy synod absolutely forbids, and permits no bishop, nor presbyter, nor deacon, nor indeed any of the clergy at all, to keep a strange woman with him, unless perhaps she be his mother, sister, or aunt. For in these persons and those similar to them, every suspicion is avoided. But he who acts otherwise shall be in peril of his order."

XXIX. The blessed Pope Innocent, writing more extensively on this to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, says: "You proposed what ought to be observed concerning those who, having been placed in the ministry of the diaconate or in office, are proven to have had children born of incontinence. Concerning these, the discipline of divine laws and clear admonitions of men of blessed memory, such as Pope Siricius, have come down to us, so that those who are incontinent and placed in such offices should be deprived of all ecclesiastical honor, nor should they be permitted to approach the ministry which ought to be fulfilled by continence alone." The same bishop, to Victricius: "Furthermore, that which the Church must hold in every way as worthy, modest, and honest, is that priests and levites should not have intercourse with their wives, because they are occupied with the necessities of the daily ministry. For it is written: 'Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord your God' (Lev. XI, 44). For in ancient times, they did not depart from the temple of God during the year of their turn, as we read of Zachariah, nor did they touch their own house at all, for whom, indeed, on account of the succession of offspring, marital use had been relaxed; because there was no one permitted to approach the priesthood from another tribe, and because of the seed of Aaron.

^A How much more then must these priests or Levites observe purity from the day of their ordination, for whom the priesthood or ministry is without succession, and for whom no day passes in which they are not occupied with divine sacrifices or the office of baptism? For if Paul writes to the Corinthians, saying: *Abstain for a time, that you may be free for prayer* (1 Cor. 7:5); and this he certainly commanded even to the laity, much more shall priests, whose perpetual office it is both to pray and to sacrifice, be required to abstain always from such intercourse: since, if he has been defiled by carnal concupiscence, can he believe that he can be heard? Whereas it is said: *All things are clean to the clean; but to them that are defiled and to unbelievers nothing is clean* (Tit. 1:15). But perhaps he believes this is permitted, because it is written: *Of one wife a husband* (1 Tim. 3:2). He did not say this on account of a persistence in the concupiscence of procreation, but on account of future continence. For he did not reject those who are whole in body, he who says: *But I would that all men were even as myself* (1 Cor. 7:7). And he declares it more openly, saying: *They who are in the flesh, cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit* (Rom. 8:8-9). And he said "having a son," not "begetting one."

XXX. And the venerable Pope Siricius says: "We do not allow other women in the houses of clerics, except only those whom the Nicene synod permitted to dwell with them for the sole reason of ties of kinship."

XXXI. Then the holy Pope Leo, a wonderful teacher and the author of the holy Council of Chalcedon, cutting off every ambiguity of this matter, says: "The law of continence is the same for the ministers of the altar as it is for bishops and presbyters. When they were laymen, or lectors, they were permitted to take wives and beget children. But when they reached the aforementioned degrees, it began to be illicit for them to do what had been permitted. Whence, so that the carnal may become a spiritual marriage, it is required that they neither dismiss their wives, nor have them as if they did not have them, whereby the charity of marriage is preserved, and the works of the nuptials cease." Behold, these men, having been made keepers of the keys of the kingdom of heaven with Peter and through Peter, so break open all the keys of the gates of hell that no heresy of the Nicolaitans may remain.

XXXII. But lest you say that anything has been left undone, we shall follow up order- ^C ly and openly how the Roman Church acts regarding the degrees of clerics. Only those clerics who are doorkeepers, lectors, exorcists, and acolytes, if they are found outside of a vow and the habit of a monk and do not wish to profess continence, are permitted to marry a virgin with ^D priestly blessing; but not a widow or a divorced woman; because for this reason alone they will not be able to be promoted thereafter to the subdiaconate, nor can a layman who has taken a non-virgin as his wife, or a bigamist, be admitted to the clergy. But if any of those in the aforementioned orders desires to ascend to the subdiaconate, he cannot do this without the consent of his wife, so that the carnal marriage may henceforth become a spiritual one, with no one forcing them to this. Nor is the wife permitted afterwards to be joined to her same husband carnally, nor to marry anyone else during his life or after his death; otherwise she is to be anathematized: just as the deacon, and subdeacon, and presbyter or bishop is to be deposed for seeking his own [wife] again, or taking a stranger, according to what the orthodox Fathers decreed in the Council of Neocaesarea.

XXXIII. By such traditions, therefore, up to this time, the holy Roman Church and Apostolic See has shone forth to the whole world, nor has it ever acquiesced to Jewish fables and apocryphal scriptures, but founded by the first of the apostles upon the chief cornerstone itself, Christ Jesus, it has yielded to no heresies, nor has it forbidden marriage to the laity, but to the ministers of the sacred altar and to the monks who have professed apostolic perfection.

XXXIV. Yet that Church which Arius corrupted, Macedonius prostituted, and which brought forth the viperous brood, that is, Nestorius, Eutyches, the Monothelites and Theopaschites, and the rest of the plagues of the heretics, has not yet been able to be drawn away from the embraces of the arch-heretic Nicolaus, to the point that when those are to be ordained to the ministry of the sacred altar, it asks whether they have wives. And they, answering that they do not have them, are forced to take them first, and thus to receive the laying on of hands: so that as new husbands, and completely relaxed and withered by the recent pleasure of the flesh, and thinking amidst the holy sacrifices how they might please their wives, they handle the immaculate body of Christ and distribute it to the people, and thence straightway return their sanctified hands to the handling of female members, and it is "as is the people, so is the priest," and finally "the people as the priests," evil.

XXXV. Wherefore spare yourselves now, and do not attend to spirits of error and doctrines of demons, that you may rejoice with us in the true peace, which is Christ, here and in the future. But you, most wretched Nicetas, until you return to your senses, be anathema from the entire Church of Christ, with all who agree with you in such a perverse doctrine. For wishing to be a teacher of the divine law, you do not understand what you say, nor of what you affirm, and though a fool yourself, you seem wiser to yourself than seven men who speak parables. But at least learn to be silent at some time, you who have never learned to speak.

Explicit the reply of brother Bishop Humbert against the blasphemies of Nicetas.