is partaken of by all, then it no longer exists as three-personed, but as ten-thousand-personed. A
Theoph. Most certainly. For you have drawn that conclusion very well, being possessed of a sharp mind. Furthermore, what is worse and more absurd is that our adversaries, while dividing the essence of God into innumerable persons, also confound the three divine persons into one, just as Sabellius did; for in each one of those who partake, they draw the three persons into one, so that whoever professes that the essence of God is communicable becomes an alter-Sabellius a thousand times over. It was necessary for the devil, not having succeeded in his attack against piety through a single path, to attack again through thousands, or rather, together with many thousands of demented people! Yet not even in this way will he overcome the truth; B rather, he will only make the madness of his followers more evident. For in addition to other impious statements, Acindynus makes himself superior even to Christ himself (oh, the stupidity!), claiming to be united to the whole of God—both to the essence, and to the operations, and to the three divine persons. But if he claims to be united to the whole of God—to the divine essence and to all the divine operations—by means of only one of the persons, then he asserts that he is not unlike Christ himself. But the great Gregory, in his theology, refuting these demented triflers in advance, says: "Christ is anointed through his divinity; for this anointing of his humanity does not sanctify by operation, as it does for other Christs, but by the presence of the whole Anointing One." C This is what the God-bearing Fathers, gathered in council, also taught by divine inspiration, as we have said before, showing that the divinity dwells in those who have been purified as is proper, but not as it exists by nature. Therefore, no one becomes a participant of God either according to his essence or according to any of his persons. For neither of these is divided in the least degree, nor is either communicated to anyone at all. Thus, God is wholly uncontainable according to these, even if he is present everywhere according to them. But the divine power and operation common to the three-personed nature is that which produces external effects, and it is divided into ten thousand parts. For the Divinity is all-powerful. D For this reason, then, many are united to God according to this, partaking of him in various and different ways. For a part of the operation is again divided according to Father Chrysostom. And according to the great Basil, the Holy Spirit is not communicated to the worthy by a single measure, but divides the operation according to the proportion of faith, being simple indeed in essence, but manifold in its powers.
Theot. I admire your sagacity in divine matters, O Theophanes. For your words are most worthy of God, showing the supersubstantial essence to be in every way indivisible, while dividing the divine operation of God indivisibly. And that which communicates, nevertheless remains in it. For this reason the Holy Spirit can indeed be contained according to operation in those whom grace enriches. Nevertheless, they are men by nature; for while he is divided according to operation, according to essence and
A person, he is indivisible; how then could he be contained in any place at all?
Theot. Furthermore, that which participates, O admirable Theotimus, has a part of that which is participated; otherwise, if it did not participate in a part, but in the whole, it would be said to possess this properly, and not to participate in it. Therefore, that which is participated is divisible, since a part of it must necessarily be communicated to the participant. But the essence of God is altogether indivisible: therefore it is also altogether incommunicable. Conversely, Father Chrysostom demonstrates that the divine operation can be divided; for this is what is communicated to men who have been prepared by deifying grace. And, according to the most expert Maximus in theology, it is the nature of divine grace to bestow deification upon creatures as is fitting for them, by illuminating their nature with supernatural light and leading it, by the superabundance of glory, above its own proper limits. Hear again the golden tongue teaching both things, namely, that the operation, but not the essence, is what is participated, and that it is this which is divided indivisibly, the one which is participated, B and not the incommunicable essence from which the divine operation proceeds. For after putting forward that apostolic text, "From his fullness we have all received," he says: "If in the case of fire, whose essence is a divisible body, it is at once divided and not divided, how much more so in the case of operation, and indeed the operation of an incorporeal essence?" Furthermore, he who participates in the essence of another must possess an essence in common with what is participated, and in some way the same. But who has ever heard that the essence of God and our own are in some way the same? Especially when the great Basil says: "The operations of God descend to us, but his essence remains inaccessible." And the divine Maximus: "Whatever God is, this shall the man who is deified by grace be, except for identity of essence." Therefore, the divine essence cannot be participated in, not even by those whom divine grace has deified. But the divine operation can be communicated; for "the dim light of truth in this life leads me to see and receive the illumination of God," says Gregory the Theologian; and "The illumination of our God be upon us," says the Psalmist Prophet; and Maximus, who should be reckoned among them, writes clearly that the operation of God and the saints is one, and that they are living images of Christ, or rather, by grace, become C the same as him or at least most like to him.
Theot. This is most sound and most consonant with the saints, what you have demonstrated about the divine incommunicability, Theophanes. However, there are some who say that the essence of God is incomprehensible and incommunicable, yet that it is comprehended and communicated in itself supernaturally, and they reckon this to be more pious, because the supernatural is appropriate for divine things.
Theoph. But this is not supernatural, nor is it worthy of God—far from it—but rather it is contrary to nature and altogether impossible. For for the same thing, in the same respect, to be at once communicable and incommunicable, comprehensible and inc D
Acomprehensible, is altogether inconsistent and unsustainable, and as far as possible from the truth, due to the extreme contradiction. For even according to the divine Gregory of Nyssa, every one of the things said concerning God is of such a nature that, even if they differ in signification, they have no contradiction with the name employed alongside them. He who speaks in this way, affirming the same thing under the same respect, contradicts God with his own words, confuses in Him things that are above nature and things that are against nature, and by destroying some of his statements with others, he completely abolishes the existence of God and aligns himself with the atheists. Therefore, Gregory, surnamed the Theologian, says that God is to be understood not from the things that are in Him, but from the things that surround Him. And the great Dionysius says: "All things participate in providence flowing from the divinity which is the creator of all." And the divine Maximus says: "The mind, having come to be in God, first seeks the reasons pertaining to His essence, while burning with desire, yet it does not find solace from the things that are in His essence itself. For this is impossible and inaccessible to every created nature alike. But it finds solace from the things that surround Him—I mean the things concerning eternity, immensity, infinity, goodness, wisdom, and the power of creating, providing for, and judging creatures." B Indeed, that incomprehensible, unnameable, and incommunicable reality of the divine supersubstantiality is called not only essence by those who speak of God—even if not strictly, as we have said—but also divinity, goodness, wisdom, and life; and simply all the things that they name as His divine processions and energies. For, he says, the discourse does not propose to express His supersubstantial goodness, essence, life, and wisdom—that which is enthroned in secret above all goodness, divinity, essence, wisdom, and life—but rather it praises that goodness which is revealed as beneficent providence, which is pre-eminently goodness and the source of all good things, as well as the essence, life, and wisdom which bestows essence, life, and wisdom upon those who partake of existence, life, intellect, word, and sensation. Where are those who do not allow that the essence of God is superior to the uncreated C things? For behold, the great Dionysius clearly places it above the divinity, and the cause of good things, and simply all participations, not as things subsisting of themselves, but as energies of His that partake with us. For He Himself is the One who is participated in by all through energy. And that these participations, which God transcends by essence, are uncreated, hear again from the same author, who said a little above, as we have already stated, that the purpose of his discourse is not to manifest the supersubstantial essence, insofar as it is supersubstantial—for that is unmanifestable—but to praise the influx of existence to the creatures. For the term "goodness" when applied to God extends to all beings, yet it is above beings. And that of "life" extends to all living things, yet it is above living things. And that of "wisdom" extends to all that are intelligent, rational, and sensible, and D it transcends all these. You see that those processions are superior to the creatures. Yet they can be predicated, but not the ineffable and impenetrable essence. But
unmanifest nature. But listen again to the same [theologian], clearly theologizing that God is also beyond these participations which are above beings. For he says in the twelfth chapter of the hymn of the divine names: "Inasmuch as the holy or lordly or divine or royal [beings] excel those that are not, and the self-participations excel those that participate in them, by so much is the unparticipated Cause set above all those that participate and the participations." For since the self-participations excel all those that participate, and the angels are also participants, those things that excel even the angels as participants are not created things; but as you have heard, the one who is unparticipated in essence is set above even these participations. B But the goal of our discourse now is this: since that Unnamed One is not only essence, but also deity and goodness and wisdom and life, and everything generally that is called participated, if ever you hear it said concerning God that goodness is His essence, and sanctification His nature (and there is no other holiness in Him), and that the deity is not divided, nor poured out, nor sent forth, and all other things similar to these: do not suppose that each of the operations is said to be the essence; rather, know that this [essence], although it cannot be named, is called by those names because they belong to It naturally by analogy. And again, if you should hear the theologians saying that the goodness and wisdom of our God become known to us, but not His essence, and that we indeed become gods, but that we cannot become of the same nature [as God], and other things similar to these: do not by "goodness and divinity" understand that wholly incomprehensible and inaccessible essence—which they themselves clearly deny—but [understand] His divine operation, the knowledge and fellowship of which for us, the salutary equity distributing it according to the measure of our purity, is shared in many ways and varied. C This is why the divine Maximus, where he said, "God made us so that we might become partakers of the divine nature and partakers of His eternity," added: "Through deification produced by grace, as if an effect of the union with God." Thus, in another place, he denied identity of nature with God according to essence, but affirmed it according to operation and grace. Therefore, how could the goodness and divinity—which is varied, divided, participated, and which, although obscurely, is understood and called by a proper name—not be transcended by that most simple and undivided goodness and divinity, which is above every name, communication, intellect, or, in fact, everything? Rightly therefore did that same theologian Dionysius answer Gaius when he asked: "The God who precedes every principle is above not only those who are gods by grace—for that would be a small thing—but even above the deification and divinity itself, that is, the deifying gift and grace." D And if, according to him, God is the cause not only of the participants, but also of the participations, is He not therefore greater than these caused things, inasmuch as He is the cause? But if it is necessary for us to demonstrate what we have said as if through a dim image of God, is not intellect wisdom, [and yet] is it not intellect? Does it not, like that [image], divide, discriminate, proceed, ratiocinate, become variously united and participated, and move around things intelligible and unintelligible? And does it not assimilate certain things to itself, so that they have according to operation...
A a mind same as its own, yet for those that are sensible and irrational, it does not bring them forth from non-being—for that is not the nature of God—but transforms them and deems them worthy of diligent care, yet it least of all assimilates them, for they are incapable of reason? But in essence it is immutable toward another hypostasis, and is indivisible, simple, and unmingled with those who participate in it. Our mind is not nameless, nor supra-nameless, nor incomprehensible to all, even if we were made in the image of God, since no image is perfectly similar unless it is the most similar image of the Father, namely the only-begotten Son of God. And in the same way, the Spirit of God is all that the Father is; therefore, He also has the same operations without variation. But it is not itself such an operation, as the argument of these evil-minded ones claims, but rather it is according to the same; and this, being participated in proportionally by each of the beings, is in itself unparticipable according to essence. For if the human mind, according to the God-speaking B Gregory of Nyssa, suffers no loss of simplicity through many branches of knowledge and pursuits and the names spoken concerning it, how could anyone think that God, if He is called wise and just and good and eternal and by all names appropriate to God, if a single meaning is not thought to be behind all these names, is becoming manifold or that He gathers the perfection of His nature from a participation in these? The same author, proceeding a little further in his discourse, says: "And all the names, the meaning of which is indicative of a certain assignment and existence, do not have the indication of the divine nature itself, but of those things piously conceived around it." How, then, could we have communion with these evil-minded ones, who think and teach that all things concerning God are created, and that the uncreated and divine operations are not common to the three worshipful persons as being considered around the essence, but are the Son and the Holy Spirit? Although the same God-inspired C theologian, in the same second discourse against Eunomius, says: "Whatever is conceived as being around God, this was before the constitution of the world; but it is said to be named after the coming into being of the one who names it." And indeed, that the Son and the Spirit of God are a gift and grace, and that this is by no means an operation according to essence, is shown by him who invokes the Trinity as the manifestator of all His own most good providences, and who teaches us that we must approach and draw near to it with prayers, as in this we are initiated into the all-good gifts bestowed around it. For who among those now existing would say that His providence is the unparticipable essence of God, or that it is created, because it is not essence? Or who would consider the all-good gifts bestowed around the super-good Trinity to be the Son and the Spirit of the Father? Or who would number these D among creatures, because the Son and the Spirit of the Father transcend them even as the Father does, being above every name and every participation, and the giver and fountain of those supernatural gifts?
A Theot. In this way, then, O wise Theophanes, the divine Scripture declares that the face of God is seen even now by the worthy: "For our angels see the face of our Father who is in heaven." Moses had this same grace; and to us it is promised that we shall see Him face to face; yet now He is entirely invisible to all, and always: "For no one," says the same God again to the same Moses, "shall see my face, and live."
Theoph. That is not at all contradictory. "For no one has ever seen God," and "The pure in heart see God," as the only-begotten Son of God has revealed Him to us—that same One, invisible in His essence, but visible, and especially to those who have become godlike, by His operation and grace; yet He is not some other being instead of Himself, nor is this a creature, as Barlaam and Acindynus most wickedly opine. B For so too the Spirit, who is everywhere present, invisible, indivisible, and inseparable from His own unity, is poured out, and comes, and is sent, and dwells within, yet not to all, and is seen and measured and divided, being received and given. Thus also Chrysostom the Theologian, as we said above, having heard the Baptist speaking concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, that "He did not receive the Spirit by measure," says: "By 'Spirit' he denotes here the operation, for this is what is divided." And the great Basil, saying that God is known from His works, writes: "The works are demonstrations of power, of wisdom, and of art, but not of the essence itself." Thus he says that God is known according to His power, but not according to His essence. But those simpletons, whenever they hear that God or the Holy Spirit is manifested, or communicated, or comes and makes His abode, C either call this a creature, or assert that it is the essence of God. And they accuse those who do not dare to blaspheme like they do of acknowledging two Gods. The wretches do not notice that, with the same Mother and Virgin, the Holy Spirit and the Son were both present, the latter according to His person, the former according to His operation alone; and for this reason the Son alone, and not the Holy Spirit, became man. And therefore, when we say "God" or "Spirit" or "Divinity," we do not always understand the same thing; but we mean either the divine essence, or one of the persons of the most holy Trinity, or their common operations—sometimes all of them, sometimes more, sometimes one only. For when the great Dionysius calls it the "God-generating Divinity" and "fount-like Divinity," do we not understand that he is thus naming only the person of the Father? D
Theot. Therefore, through him we more easily lower the pride of the Latins as well, with whom those who mix everything up in ambiguity—or rather, who collapse everything into one—seem to be in agreement.
Theoph. But when elsewhere the same author says again, "That supreme beatitude, which is nature and divinity, the fountain of...
deification A from which deification flows to those who are deified," does he not designate the essence that is common to the three persons? Theot. Indeed, for the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, deifies those who are deified. Theoph. When, however, he says that this deification itself is the principle from which those who are deified are made divine, and calls it divinity, B and divine principle, and good principle, as a deifying gift, over which he also says God stands, as being above every principle—does he not call the deifying operation and grace "divinity"? Theot. For how could the God worshipped in three persons stand above this, if it were not this alone? Theoph. This also must be understood here. Theot. And that is? Theoph. That while this divinity is neither person nor divine essence, it is nonetheless uncreated and eternal, being a divine power in God C existing before the foundation of the world, inasmuch as it is the fountain and cause of all those things which it has deified, or made better, as being raised above nature; and if the cause is necessarily other than and better than the effect, and that which makes better is better than that which is made better, and that which raises others above nature is itself per se supernatural—since angels themselves are also deified, that which is better than the angels and exceeds their nature and exists per se as supernatural, how could it be a creature? Theot. I myself hold this same view D regarding this. For how could anything created be called a fountain of divinity and an origin of good things and a deifying grace? Yet that great Father is accustomed to call the divine illumination "imitation" and "assimilation" to God, as something making them like unto God, and even a "divine habit," as a union and connection of God with rational, beatified creatures. Theoph. Furthermore, when he says again: "We call divinity, on the one hand, formally, divinely, and causatively, the one supersubstantial principle and cause; but on the other hand, participatively, we call divinity the irradiation of the incommunicable Providence of God"—does he not clearly call both, namely the divine nature and the operation, by the same name? And certainly nothing new would appear to one who understands well. For when you said that our discussion of the day before yesterday had escaped from the soul through a lack of meditation, of which soul were we speaking, if not of the memory? For this cannot retain a fixed thought if it slips away. But when we exhort [people] to fear rather Him who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell, what do we call the soul, if not the essence of the soul itself? Theot. These things must be so interpreted and set forth, not by reason alone, but by the authority of the Spirit-moved theologians. But since the creative power is the natural operation of God (for God by na
nature the power of creating), and by participation in this all things that have been made exist, do all things participate in the natural powers and operations of God?
*Theoph.* In truth, all things participate not only in the creative power of God, but in His providence as well.
*Theot.* For how would they endure without it?
*Theoph.* Therefore, providence is the natural and essential operation of God. For the great Athanasius says: "The Father and the Son do not act by one providence and another, but by one and the same essential operation of the Godhead." All things, therefore, participate in the creative and providential power of God, just as a house participates in the intelligence of the architect and the providence of the master, B if it is to endure. Rational creatures, however, see by reason, from the creatures, the goodness and power inherent in the nature of the Creator; but only the saints, in the proper sense, see and participate in them, having become godlike through the communion of the Spirit, and, having seen and experienced the brightness of God by a godlike power, and being filled with supernatural radiance, they themselves appear ineffably brilliant through Him. For the Holy Spirit, as the great Basil says, fills all things with His power, but is communicated only to the worthy; and He is not contained by the world, but is seen only by the saints through the purity of their heart; and He is present to all, but to those who are free C from passions He manifests His own power, whereas to those whose heart is fouled by the filth of sin, He does not. For just as the image of a face is not expressed in all materials, but only in those endowed with a certain smoothness and transparency, so the operation of the Holy Spirit is not in all souls, but only in those that have nothing crooked or twisted. You see, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is present to all in essence, or if you will, in power and operation, but is communicated and manifested in essence to no one, and in operation only to those who are purged of the filth of evil desires.
*Theot.* Truly, those who hasten to contradict you entangle themselves in fallacious arguments. For since both are clearly affirmed in the books of the sacred scriptures, they now contend for one as if it alone were spoken of, D and now they attack the other, as if both were not distinctly stated. And thus they build up and destroy the same things: for when they contend that the supersubstantial essence is communicated to all, they necessarily admit that the uncreated is communicated to all participants; but when they call grace created, they acknowledge that the uncreated is not communicated even to the heavenly beings themselves.
*Theoph.* They seek the opposition, O friend, as regards the name, not as regards the reality signified by the name. But if they turn their minds to the thing signified, they have not only divided the kinds of the things signified, but have arrived at dividing the very matter which is the subject of the question. In these things, therefore, they contradict themselves against their will, and their thoughts and words are rolled about as if in a game of dice.
A And it seems to me that those who defend Barlaam would no longer dare to do this, since they see clearly promulgated the things which they confirm by word and writing: for they would treat with contempt the synodal decree, which imposes its authority not only on those who write, but also on those who speak; and it pertains to them both—namely, to those who promote and those who accuse—but not to us, whom necessity brings to our defense. Theot. But since you, Theophanes, justly and well defending yourself, have distinguished the name of essence, or rather have shown it to be taken in a twofold sense by Scripture—now for that incommunicable and supersubstantial nature, now for the natural and essential properties which B are strictly communicable to the saints alone, for through these the union of God and men is accomplished—can you show that the saints themselves bear witness to you in this matter, affirming that the very natural properties of God are communicated to them, and that through them they see Him, and not merely through created things, as we do?
Theoph. And who would dare to say this, were it not for those who have learned by experience? For he who has learned by experience, he alone knows the operations of the Spirit.
Theot. Who, then, has revealed it?
Theoph. All those who have departed from this earth—who still C commune with us through their divinely inspired writings—they have not to this day ceased, nor will they ever cease, from clearly declaring it to us.
Theot. Three are sufficient for me for proof, Theophanes; show them, therefore, without further delay.
Theoph. I shall show them. For the divine John of Damascus [says that] the light which shone forth upon the mountain from the Savior—which Peter and the sons of thunder, having seen, were deemed worthy to behold with their eyes as the first-fruits of His future coming, according to the great Basil, and with which all those who are Christ-like will be filled, according to the great Dionysius, and by which they will shine like the sun, according to the same great Basil, who has also spoken of it as the illumination of holy souls in the present life—this, then, D the divine John of Damascus called a natural ray of the Godhead. And the poet Cosmas calls it the essential splendor of the Word of God. And the great Athanasius says that God possesses this by nature: "For," he says, "the Lord who ascended into heaven will come in natural glory and not in grace, namely, in His own divinity, flashing forth from His body taken from Mary an ineffable glory, just as He partially showed on the mountain." You have as many as you thought sufficient for the demonstration; but we shall abundantly increase for you the witnesses of the truth. The divine Maximus says: "Everything that God is, he who is deified by grace will also be, except for identity of essence." And elsewhere again: "The Word prepares us through hope to be vivified by the imprinted archetype of good things, and to become living images of Christ, or rather [the same as] Him, or at least similar to Him." And in his theological chapters he clearly says: The kingdom of God
or rather by grace or by resemblance. In his Theological Chapters, he says clearly: "The kingdom of God is a communication of those good things that naturally belong to God, according to grace." And the holy Cyril, having cited the word of the Lord: "My peace I leave with you," says: "He called this peace his own, as a specific good naturally inherent in him." And in the fourteenth sermon of his *Thesaurus*, likewise citing that text: "He who believes in me has eternal life," he says: "He promises that he will give life to those who believe in him as if it were a nature inherent in him and essentially immanent; for proceeding A from the Father, he possesses all his natural properties, and life is one of the natural properties of God." Do you see that this life is given to the worthy, and that it is naturally inherent in God, yet is not itself the nature? For the divine nature is one, but that life is one of the natural properties of God. And as being inherent in the nature, it itself is uncreated; and he who said that it was one of the natural properties of God, indicated thereby that there are also many natural properties in God, and that they are likewise uncreated. Therefore, according to the same [Cyril], the Son possesses all the natural properties of God. Where then are those who say that the uncreated is one, not calling God or divine things simply—meaning both the divine nature and its persons, and all the natural and personal properties of the most high Trinity—but separating only the essence from creatures? As if they were to affirm that the sun is bright, but that its rays are full of darkness, or that there are many B suns, because the rays are also luminous. Theol. Rightly, O Theophanes, have you not hesitated to speak such things for the truth, valuing nothing the displeasure of the many, but considering the praise that will come to you not from men, but from God, both now and in the age to come, because of such words. Theoph. To God belongs praise, brother Theotimus, now and unto the ages, who has given speech in the opening of our mouths.
PROSOPOPOEIAE OF GREGORY PALAMAS, ARCHBISHOP OF THESSALONICA
ID EST Ex habitis per fictionem personarum orationibus, stylo misto, dialogico et maxime judiciali, confirmatio, quid mens in judicio contra corpus contendens, coram judicibus dicere possit.
PROTHEORIA SEU PRÆMEDITATIO CAUSÆ.
Animi partis utentis ratione discrimen, quo a alii declararunt: quidam equorum ferociam bigis ratione carente et patibili differt, veterum aliter irascentem et concupiscentem animi partem simi-
making them into a chariot, comparing the reasoning part to the charioteer, the desiring part to the horse which he rides, and the irascible to the dog that assists him; A furthermore, by distinguishing the parts of the soul by the differences of their functions, they place reason as the ruler in the brain, as if in a high citadel, protected and defended by the nearby bodyguard of the senses; they place anger in the heart, and desire in the liver. But the Apostle of eminent wisdom, distinguishing more clearly the part of the soul that participates in reason from that which does not, calls the former the spirit and the inner man, and the latter the flesh and the outer man; then, revealing the contrariety between them, he says, "I perceive another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and locking me up under the law of sin." Now the arguments which the body and the mind—or that which uses reason and the suffering part of the soul—held in turn, the Stoic Cleanthes contrived but thinly, making them speak thus: "What, soul, do you wish to happen to you? Tell me. Whatever, O reason, I desire to happen, that is decidedly royal." And a certain writer of iambics among the wise doctors of the Church says elsewhere: "What do you wish to happen to you? I am accustomed to ask my mind; do you desire the things of Gyges, this and that?" But we, in a more youthful... B type of discourse, extend the reasoning in the form of a dialogue, and that the nature of the matter might be more honorable and equitable, we have established sitting judges, while the mind that participates in reason holds the part of the accuser, and the body that of the defender: for such things are permitted when certain fictions are to be described. Nor let anyone bring against this discourse a charge of novelty, well knowing how the meditations of sophists and declaimers have advanced towards the fictions of images and persons. But that it is a status of assumption is not difficult to recognize for one who has been occupied for some time in exercising and pondering civil questions; rather, it is to be understood that, since the argument supplied a grave matter of sentiments (for it often touches upon the contemplation of the movement and nature of things), we have nevertheless, as far as was permitted, by an artificial method and reason, recalled the matter to a more civil style and accommodated it to the guise of judicial orations. But if these orations do not proceed through all the heads of the assumptive genus, it is no wonder; for it is not necessary that all things should happen in all other arguments; these things which it was necessary to premeditate, let them be premeditated in this way.
ASSUMPTIVE DECLARATION
C If I were instituting this present contest among others who would not accurately understand what contumely I suffer from this body wedded to me, I would be bringing trouble upon myself and stirring up contentions for them; truly thinking it to pertain to the matter, if I were to explain one by one those evils with which this roommate calamity burdens me. But since it has been granted by divine Providence that I should do this among you, who are worshippers of all virtues, as many injuries as I have suffered, and since you, by the very fact of your struggling with him, have made trial of the danger, I do not think that such a contest will be very arduous or otherwise troublesome for me, once it has been undertaken before you. For it is enough to have run through it in a brief oration and merely to have recalled to your memory what impressions and occasions of vices he is accustomed to show me, and thereupon to request that you cast your votes. Therefore, having for a little while interrupted your study of contemplating divine things, listen to me, I entreat you, for the sake of your own many and great labors for virtue, and judge as impartial judges whether or not I ought to rebuke my body, so that we may no longer disagree and discord among ourselves; but let us understand which of us inflicts injury upon the other. For—what is more miserable—besides the revilings with which he rages against me most insolently, he is not afraid to make me the author and cause of those things which I suffer undeservedly and shamefully. Now, however, as I progress... D to explaining in discourse the things which he dares against me with contumely, I seem to myself to be doing nothing more inconvenient if I take the beginning a little higher.
I, most blessed men, am divine by nature, and I have derived my origin from that supreme and noble lineage, as I who am the breath of God and the primary image, and the queen of all earthly things; for I will not fear to speak magnificently of myself, provided I do not appear to display my own greatness in an overly boastful manner before you, who truly know and have held in honor and cultivated the amplitude of my dignities. For after that goodness, which is the primary exemplar of our own, fit by its own genius for doing good, created the intelligible world and that which falls under intelligibility, and this whole universe of heaven, and those things which heaven is capable of containing, at length it brought them into a compendium, and into one tempering and configuration, and as if into a certain mixing-bowl, it drew together one thing composed of every kind of thing, and multipotent, that, namely, which both is called and is man. Hence I, intelligent and immortal, was bound to him who is sensible and mortal, and celestial was coupled with terrestrial, and the maidservant with the mistress; by what reasons it so seemed good to God, I know not; perhaps that both together, clinging to the same yoke for performing the duties of virtue and conspiring, we might partake of the nature of one another; the former, that by the conspiracy of the more excellent, being ennobled, and by the communication of the immortal tasted, he might superinduce immortality: this I...
have been considering, to the extent that I am capable of judging my own small self, and checking and restraining my boasting regarding the dignity of the image, and not being puffed up, and failing away from God as the first Lucifer did, but rather humbly and submissively casting myself under His mighty hand, so that I might cleave to God, and my body to me; nor would I be led away from the cause that bestows life, nor would it be led away from me, the soul. Those who ponder these reasons of the Creator do not weave flax with flax, but rather always join what moves itself with what is moved from elsewhere, and join and entwine the simple with the compound; for what among those things that are capable of being connected by them might not be connected? And as for the troubles I have suffered from the very moment of my birth, it is not the time now to stir up tragedies about them; just grant me leave to lament them in few words.
A Verily, these things, though otherwise miserable, are nonetheless tolerable, and of a kind that no one could justly blame, as they are governed by the laws of nature and by the immutable series and connection of origin. But that which is more miserable—which, having its source from the depths of foolishness, and as it begins to be bathed in the light of reason, and as the bodily members proceed to a more perfect state, yet I do not even then depart from pure madness—much like those recovering from drunkenness, or from heavy sleep, or from lethargy, are not immediately purged of the dizziness or the darkness spread over their eyes that was born therefrom. For the rest, may time and the perception of the disciplines scour these evil lots of madness from the mind, and engrave knowledge and prudence there; but the imperious, nourishing faculty, and the perpetual tasks of daily foods and drinks, like tributes, and the adverse faculties that are nourished in me by that—the concupiscent and the irascible—what time or what doctrine can ever remit or overthrow them? Who could boast to have shaken off their servitude? Who, without you, could restrain the voracious and insatiable stomach, and the raging gullet, with the bit of fasting and the bridle of continence, you who are despisers of nature and possessors of unusual prudence? B And you who, by comparison with the angels, though clothed in mortal bodies, and now showing yourselves openly to be superior to the nature of the divine, it is nothing new if you have soared far above the body: so that with this speech, matters concerning you might be taken out of my hands. But of the others, who now live the life of mortals, who, being otherwise a stranger to cupidities, can calm the roaring of the irascible soul? Who is so much wiser than wisdom itself, that he might charm the cupidities less than the asp, which shoots out its deadly venom and renders itself most stubborn in its deafness to the voice of the charmer? Or like that vessel of election, who might shake off the clinging viper? Who, born and educated according to the Gospel, like Azarias and his fellow youths, has not worshipped the wealthy and moneyed follower of bodily pleasures, as they worshipped the image made of gold and silver, brass and iron? Who, to be brief, has torn apart the chain of the gluttony of the belly, of whoredom, of avarice, and is not held, bound and constricted, by these things wrapped together among themselves with a threefold cord? C For these are, I think, the daughters of the leech loved by Solomon: three in number—the bloodthirsty, that is, the flesh, which by sucking, drains whatever is animal, whatever is vital in me. I accuse this body, I charge these things: it is in their name that I make this accusation, demanding satisfaction for the insult and injury: because nature, so that our race might be preserved, contrived to mingle pleasure with nourishment and with the propagation of the race, so that man, enticed by this as by a bait, might be led to the perception of foods and to the legitimate use of the bridal chamber, and, living, might be preserved, and once life is spent, might not perish; of these things, which are accusable to no one, and are as it were unwritten natural laws, but now
Simultaneously with my union with this mortal frame, and before the fetus received life, it was buried in the womb together with the buried one, and as if in a double cave. Abraham buried the corpse of the dead Sarah; so too am I entombed in a double monument; for if, by the judgment of the wise, the body is my sepulcher, and it is buried in the womb, why should I not be buried with a double tomb, by the fetus—which they call an embryo—and by the womb? D By such a bond, it first receives me, having been conceived and embraced, and the friendly body welcomes me with the offices of humanity; with such hospitality and covenants it receives me when captured. And what follows hereafter? A sibling, so they say, and touched with the same color, and from the same potter’s art, or nature molding it. For from there, as if coming out of a tomb, we are buried together, and we finish our life in the uterine sepulcher; yet I still stand and cling to the bodily one. And just as if having made a purchase of the same life among the miserable, we begin a wretched life; we do not rejoice as if we had broken out from darkness into light, and were drawing vital air, and embracing the nourishing sun; nor do we frolic, leaping around our mother, as lambs, calves, or fawns do around their mothers, but that creature, when it suddenly rushes from warm places into cold air, is tormented by the change and struggles with sharper pain: and I, too, am tormented by the consensus of bitter sicknesses. Hence the wailing at birth responds to the songs from the opposite side, and the swaddling clothes and the bonds of the cradle wrap us about on all sides, related to the ligaments of the sepulcher; and the little bed or cradle is an evident image of a monument, so that from this even my troubles are doubled, with these second bonds imposed upon me after the first; for it is not without grace that by the wise it is called by many titles and couplings: a sepulcher, a custody, a garment, a monument—*dema* derived from *dein* (binding)—and a tabernacle, because one lodges in it as in a tavern on a journey: then, thus bound, it is nourished with milk and gradually grows; but I, as if bound to a certain filthy river, am seized by this invalid and weak thing, and by the flow that perpetually flows in and out, just as if I were submerged, and I am carried headlong to the bottom of extreme madness, nor is [one's own...]
A facilitated by easily seizing the occasion? Whose libidinous cravings does it not exceed? Now it demands satiety of foods, now again it is stuffed with most delicious and difficult-to-prepare dishes, and it cannot but be sated, and again it swallows what it has in abundance; it disapproves of the present, desires the absent; nor are the wines produced by one's own land pleasing, but, like water that washes neighboring fields, they are esteemed as naught, and thirst for those from abroad is kindled; nor are clothes that suffice for warding off heat and cold alone sought, but those of barely procurable material, and wrought with superfluous artifice, more curiously and delicately, which it compels me to procure by means of female servants of victuals, delicacies, and textiles, for it satisfies its own B infinite lusts, and as if by paying tributes, it exacts things beyond necessary use; not that it might consume them decorously and for its own benefit, but it is headlong in abusing them for voluptuous cravings.
What life, therefore, do you think I lead, men dedicated to God, when I am thus miserably driven and wander about, subservient to it in its madness? Or at what absurd crimes do I not most basely stumble? Do these things seem trivial to you? Or am I in vain and rashly, for that matter, indignant? For if it demanded daily things, and those without which one could not exist, I would not complain: if it asked for a covering for nakedness at once and a defense against the immense injuries of the air, I would willingly provide it; if it abused only common things, if it judged only a moderate and frugal life to be the right one, I would not consider it an injury to supply such things, nor would I ask for a trial, nor would I designate a day of judgment, as I do indeed rightfully at this time, for it is a fact that it provides for its cravings with violence against the commandment of the Apostle; for once it has gained the most convenient occasion from natural necessity, it does not cease to traverse every nefarious pleasure. For just what divine Paul says concerning sin is plain: "By the written law it brought forth in me all covetousness; for having taken occasion by the commandment, it deceived me, and by it killed": the same also happens to us; for occasion having been found from the natural law, that is, the use of food and ferment, my little flesh has stirred up all covetousness in me, and because of the need for necessary things, it first draws me to their legitimate use, then it draws me from natural use to an alien and unnatural abuse, then from continuous and frequent abuse to a habit of gluttony and daintiness: at length, completely deceiving me, it kills me. For whether it be woman or mind that is ensnared by delights, it is dead while living; for my death is to be forgetful of my own actions, and to be occupied in the beastly pleasures of taking in the body: when, as the other apostle writes, I am drawn away and enticed by the urge of the flesh; but craving conceives and brings forth sin, and sin, when it is complete, brings forth death. For from the very breasts it is established in custom, that when it C is angered at the pleasure of the senses, it is exercised by those passions which are born from pleasure and pain. Hence both anger exercises strength and power in the heart, and pleasure in the liver: which dominant passions are so strengthened by long-standing meditation that they also possess my rational part as a consenting party, and lead it away, being compliant, in a certain fashion; for they draw it either by guile or by violence. O how often has pleasure stolen away my intelligence! How often, though I am not ignorant of evils, does my mind, as if angered, impede my counsel! A whole crowd of disturbances also follows anger and pleasure. I do indeed attempt to claim for myself the rule that is my due; but I am turned away from this popular domination, and the same thing happens to me as if a noble maiden were left orphaned by her parents: being the mistress of many maids, but not yet having learned how to command, she is despised, or even taught to play along: but recognizing more seriously with whom she is corrupted, she takes hold of the empire of the household, and reduces them to a servile order and punishes them; but they, filled with their former license and mistress-like lewdness, blush, and rise up against their mistress; just as certain servants are also said to have succeeded to the household of their masters and to the wives of their men, while the masters were staying abroad; then to have risen up against the returning masters and fought with weapons; just as others afterwards, fugitives in Rome, fought great battles against those who pursued them and against the hunters of fugitives. A certain servile war of this kind does nature excite against me through the servant, the body, or even more sharply, because those others—partly by their arms, although with difficulty, nevertheless perished, and along with servitude also laid down their lives, partly stood firm while fighting, as long as they saw their masters fighting with the sword, and rushing against them in turn; where, however, they judged that arms were to be laid down, and struck unarmed ones with lashes just as they would servants, and thus recalled to memory those against whom they dared to wage war, then at last they returned to themselves, and acknowledged their former dominion. But this servile and hostile evil of mine is indomitable, seditious, and fugitive, which you could by no means bring into servitude. Nor do I hold any reason whereby I might emerge the superior; for I can overcome neither by the right of war nor by the law of just servitude, but in whatever way I engage, I am held bound by all the proverbs, boiling a stone, beating the air, whitening an Ethiopian, striking a flame, writing on water, weaving a rope from sand. O incredible deed! The power of two things deprived of reason has been entrusted to my charge: one joined to me inwardly and from nearby, the other more remotely and outwardly. And yet this exterior one has suffered servitude and has acquiesced to the laws of being subjected; for no animal deprived of reason refuses to provide suitable obedience, but the ox lifts the yoke imposed upon its neck and breaks up the thickness of the earth with the plow, and it accomplishes this while having, as it were, other spears thrust forward on its neck from the sharpness of its horns; nor does the swift-footed horse flee its task, but even from the D
A voice and from its petulancy, nonetheless receives the bridle in its mouth and is willing to bear its rider, whether he be at peace or at war. The ass obeys, though by nature slow, when it is called to carry a burden; and just as I coerced the horse exulting in its ferocity, so too I have made the very slow ass swifter by employing a young boy and a stick. Why do I speak of these tamed and subjugated beasts? Neither the bear nor the leopard, the most untamed of wild beasts, nor the elephant itself, which surpasses mounds of earth in size, nor the lion, the king of wild creatures, refuse our command; but even in cities they are led through the forum and theaters, and provide pleasure to idle spectators, along with astonishment and wonder. Nor has the immense altitude of the air been enough for high-flying birds to escape, nor the deepest bottom of the sea for fish to hide; and this which is devoid of reason, savage and beast-like, we tame and domesticate as the situation requires. Yet the other genus, the domestic one, which it is prescribed to us to have continually dwelling with us, we know not how to moderate, how to soothe, and how to gently bring to obedience; and yet that genus is by nature entirely deaf to reason: this one listens and in a certain way converts to it, and that which is alien to reason follows reason more than that which is marked and led by nature with reason. That [the animal] also provides and by its labor prepares what is beneficial to the body; but the body, given to me for the performance of the most noble duties of virtue, is found to be contrary and more resistant: it forces me by violence to stray from reason with it, rather than to use reason together with me. And the cause explained above is this: that since my origin was honorable, at first I did not understand, namely when I was young, foolishly unwise with a dull lump of flesh, or, to use the words of the Chaldeans, immersed in the filth and trifles of matter, and as if surrounded by an oyster-shell-like garment, reflecting beasts and mindless natures by comparison and likeness; yet, becoming deranged when I understand too late, and beginning to be wise at times in a stupid way, I strive to vindicate for myself a fitting beginning, to command the body and its members with reason, and to recall each to a function that is appropriate. Yet those very things, even anticipating my speech, plainly proclaimed by their deeds what the citizens reported to the noble man, as it is in the evangelical parable, through the messengers whom he had sent: D "We do not wish that you should reign over us"; for they lead more quickly than they are led, and they resist friends and acquaintances rather than accepting what is best; and they draw away more than they are pulled. But consider for me, I pray, first the ears and eyes: the former, to use the words of Ecclesiastes, are not satisfied by hearing, the latter by seeing; since it is not permitted to close the doors while they are always open; although for the latter there is a defensive wall of eyelids, and an aversion, according to the opinion of great Job, that they should be seen with a vain disposition—yet what is this compared to their extremely prompt and quick movement beyond measure, and their insatiable curiosity? And then the tongue, an untameable evil, a world of iniquity, as James the brother of God speaks: which even before A it is allowed to consider what should be said, rushes headlong to report, pouring out what it ought not, even though it is surrounded by so many enclosures of nature. But what of the gullet, a certain channel capable of containing everything? What of the crazed and raging sense of touch? Does it know how to listen to reason, and to set a limit to appetite? But what of the heart, when, seething and incited to vengeance, it is in turmoil? For which reason I wonder why it acts like Homer, barking in a dog-like manner, and not rather roaring in a lion-like manner; finally, to what can the spirited part of desire be rightfully compared? To Scylla, that immortal plague, or to the regenerating hydra? Or to Typhon, endowed with one hundred heads? My dwelling has been fortified on every side more deeply than by so many abysses of instruments and walls of limbs: in which absurd and reasonless faculties, like all-manner of serpents in the wild caves of Libya, lie hidden: those which that dignity of the image promises to tame and make gentle; but if any emerge upward, they are coiled back downward together, for they are more ferocious and often become rage-filled. Which you also perceiving, and guarding against any evil happening to you from them, have judged that you should be led away from all consort of men, occupying lights that are the nurses of wild beasts, fortified by the coverings of caves, and entering the recesses of the earth impervious to the rays of the sun, you wander under the open sky through vast deserts, so that with the senses of the body obstructed to the ingress of evils, that raging part of the soul lacking reason might rest, devoid of food, and the intelligent part, endowed with reason, being free from the disturbances of things falling under the senses, might apply itself to perceiving things to be understood alone. C This is so, indeed; in these few words I have revealed openly how much the servile body in me is youngishly working to its own ends: which, although it is clearly convicted as the author of such injuries, will not, however, refrain from continuing to speak against me, as it often dares to say quite freely, not muttering in the manner of slaves, but more insolently: so, indeed, in all things, as if by nature it resists me, fighting against my deeds and words, and entirely joining in no pact, no treaty. And so, it will say that it will deny carrying out or suffering any of those things for which it is accused, and in the first place those malicious gains of corruptible foods, and their perpetual exaction. For since by nature it is composite and always flowing, requiring replenishment corresponding to its depletion through hidden and visible passages, which it has molded in no other way than through food and drink, it will therefore say that it sins in nothing, as it follows the laws of nature, seeking what may preserve the status; if, at the legitimate time, it [is necessary] to be satisfied, not to be unwell, not to need a physician, not to collapse entirely exhausted, and to suffer the loss of those actions which it has undertaken with labor for the sake of the mind, it wishes to do so. These, indeed, these, I say, blessed judges, are the pretexts for my customary body, if ever, slipping or rushing toward wantonness, I recall it with the bridle of a stricter life. For even as nursing infants weep when removed from the breast, so too does this body, from those by whom...
A it was accustomed to being nourished, lament when torn away, and, indignant, it becomes stupefied, considering the diseases and the dissolution of the bond by which we are linked together, the unjust departure from life, and the cessation of the study of things that must be done. For that this is a manifest irony, dissimulation, tergiversation, and cunning evasion, is not unknown to you who, by experience, have learned and have been taught that the nature of the body, by applying effort and labor to honorable things, hardens into an impassible nature, like iron and adamant; that this contention is not occurring merely before the doors, this too, although it is obvious, I shall make plain and exposed by arguments.
We do not certainly accuse you, O stupid body, because you are nourished, nor because you rejoice in being nourished: we accuse those evils by which we are either affected or become worse. For who, endowed with a mind and having contemplated, even moderately, the reasonings of nature, would attack with curses not only other faculties, but especially those that nourish? We condemn the lawless abuse of food in luxuries and insatiability. But the same is not *trophe* (food) and *truphē* (delicacy); delicacies are not food, but the one differs from the other by longer intervals than the borders of the Mysians and Phrygians differ, although by the proximity of the words they almost coincide; but you, endowed with either stupid or malicious habits, have distorted the accusation of abuse into a calumny against natural use: and you have either not known this, or have cunningly pretended not to know, just as if you were accusing someone of adultery or drunkenness, you were to calumniate us as if we were attacking desired marriages or the sober drinking of wine with reproaches. B Therefore we do not summon you, O my cross, to judgment for the use of necessary things, but because you, having found this fair opportunity, do not cease—to use that apostolic expression again—to produce every desire within me: first indeed using dry and liquid food, then abusing it beyond and against what is fitting, leaning heavily upon it, sliding and rushing into every and all enticements of pleasure, and at once dragging me along and presenting me with troubles. For, tossed by the double breath of gluttony and belly-intemperance, nay rather triple (for in satiety, they say, is Venus, and I pass over the legion of evils that is the companion of these), what difficulties and miseries do you not bring upon me? For while you are empty, you desire to be filled; scarcely are you full, and again you labor with emptiness, and again you seek to be completed; as much as you are harassed by hunger, you delight yourself with food to satiety; when you are saturated, you seek the enticements of pleasure; nay rather, both hungry and full, you know neither the measure of satiety nor the satiety of pleasure; in which affair I am wretched, condemned to the same punishment as those fabled Danaides, so that I may drain for you, into a leaky jar, unto infinity, like them; or even suffering the same things as that divine David, bound in that deep mud, in which you can nowhere stand, perpetually sliding to the bottom and unknowing of the depths—for what is the extreme depth you have invented for your appetites, which might finally stand still and resist/the assault of your further progress? It is nothing else, unless one calls death the tamer of all evils; I am, however, much more wretched, because, imprudent and ignorant, I foster the evil beast in my bosom, and fatten the petulant young one to my own harm. Do you not return bad grace to me for being fed and cherished? Biting, like a serpent, kicking, contumaciously branding me with ignominy, nor any longer tamable: you are not softened by the blandishments of persuasion, nor curbed by force, nor do you reach for labors for the sake of integrity. What do I say, you do not reach for labors? It would go remarkably well for me if you did not struggle against them; if you did not violently rush with yourself toward things pleasing and dear to you, but most ungrateful and hostile to me; if you did not wrap my lovable beauty in mud, as in Solomon that C sow with a golden nose ring. Do not, I pray, blessed assembly, be angry with me if I inveigh so bitterly against this indomitable and evil beast, whose tyrannical rebellion that great Paul also, crucified to the world, no longer living himself, but bearing the Christ living and speaking within him, was observing more circumspectly, and, indignant, was as it were deploring, calling himself a miserable man, and anxiously seeking a deliverer from the body of this death: upon which also, like a generous athlete, and deserving of a crown, rushing more vehemently, he did not cease to strike with his heels and mark with frequent bruises, until he had led it into servitude and made it obedient.
It is true, he says, but it was permitted to you to impose servitude upon me, who am by nature subject, desiring to brand me with marks, following the apostolic form, and that wise precept: Fodder and a staff for an ass, bread and lashes for a servant. O mockery! With what dissimulations he deludes me! Now you admit that you are subject to me by nature: now you flatter me with words that it is permitted to subjugate me, while perpetually acting in opposition to your deeds. I, however, have only now begun to understand that you, like a petulant ass, are to be beaten with clubs, and as a bad servant, to be lacerated with stripes. But come now, answer me as I inquire: when, I pray, and at what age is the power given to me to subjugate you, when you can never, with the Apostle, say that you are subject to the law of God? In childhood and adulthood? But then, being foolish through the impotence of the mind, I myself cannot use and understand how much I am superior to you. Or in youth, or in manliness? But then every evil erupted, and from there the war begins more vehemently, I already recognizing myself, and accepting a suitable beginning, and thinking that a better manner of life and diet ought to be used, and that the law of God D ought to be acquiesced to: this, however, not suffering itself to be torn away from pleasant and coeval custom, since from birth until the twentieth year it has spent its youth in every liberty and license, and has indulged in the gluttony of the belly, and has exercised nothing but pleasure; nor is it easy to say how it resists me, as I attempt, as it were, new things, and how it dominates beyond what is just; and it objects to me long-standing custom and the natural law as a kind of wall; and this most especially, because it lately [thinks] the affection of the belly [to be] a partner and helper.
A With what supplication, with what punishment is not this so fierce B and ungrateful [creature] worthy, and one so contumelious toward me, being so gentle and yet growing together with a wretched [partner], that even a mother who loves her children would not be affected in her own vitals? But so it is: the adolescent, the young man reaching virile age, is not accustomed to listen to me. But is he indeed, in old age, mild, ductile, and tractable to the tools that befit him? Whence? Since, certainly, with the strength of his limbs and their connection dissolved, and his innate heat extinguished, he is wasted away by an immovable torpor, as if shackled; and, similar to the withered trunk of an ancient tree, one might ask, can such a thing undertake serious and honest business, when it needs those who support it and assist it as it grows old? It would indeed be dealt with splendidly by me, were it not that it burns me with its own calamities, and stuffs me full of the senile evils in which it abounds—madness, I say, error, and lethargy. For if it is true that the mind grows old with Tithonus, and that old men become children twice over, then by the turning of ages we return to becoming children again; and although the body sees and grows to hate things more obtusely, I, indeed, am overwhelmed by the dim-sightedness and blindness of the demented old man as if by darkness, and can no longer perceive clearly. And while he is forgetful of other things, he nonetheless remembers food perpetually, and—though his genuine teeth are no longer fixed in their sockets—he chews as best he can with his toothless jaws, which a certain proverb also awards to the old man, just as to Scipio: but I, no longer using discipline and memory, nor indeed recalling the precepts just as I learned them, am swallowed up by the cup of oblivion, and thus little by little I am dragged back from a high C to a childish age. Even if both children and decrepit old men are affected by contrary temperaments—because the former are moist and hot, the latter dry and cold—each age denies me the use of wisdom and prudence. Doubtless, when the childish body carries a watery brain beneath a too-moist forehead, I am wise as an infant who understands nothing; when the true skull appears, protruding with age, it is nothing unlike a raisin, as the proverb goes, and I am again deemed an infant. For affections that exceed and [distort] the nature of bodies can also vehemently shake the reasoning part of me. I omit the rest to recount what follows these ages—I mean the first and the last, the twin sisters—the superfluous excrement, the hairless scalp; to this is added a slobbering and toothless mouth, tearful and moist eyes, mucous nostrils, feet partly not yet and partly no longer able and fit for walking: likewise the tremulous inconstancy of limbs and the shaking of the whole body. But how long shall I continue to recount all the sad evils of the body by which I am affected, which either drag me wretchedly into sympathizing, or more wretchedly seize me into rejoicing together? Therefore, having passed over many things and skipped the examinations of diseases, by which, while it is coddled, it stiffens, and is twisted in its limbs, and, to absolve the matter in a few words, while it fares ill, I am tortured; I shall summarize the more hostile evils by which I am undeservedly afflicted. Like natural faculties
abusum [abuse] to vicious satiety and luxuries, A I have shown; and as for me, when I tried to provide for myself and to recall [my partner] to a more moderate way of life, [the mind] resisted and rose up, pretending that the free habit of living was an immovable law, and like some untamed calf, scorning the yoke of ignominious servitude and breathing injury, and raging in a bull-like manner—what is more grave—transgressing the fixed and certain laws of nature. For since it is established that [the body], which is endowed with reason and is more capable and fit for command, should follow me as its guide, it strives rather to command me, so that whether I will it or not, I might be dragged off to provide for the efficiencies of [its] pleasure, and I might conduct myself indecorously with it, as if armed by hand with a double weapon, treated with most violent captivity and all-attracting imposture. I have also touched by the way upon the tragedy of the troubles which it inflicts upon me, both in childhood and in old age, even if they are by nature blameless, yet multiplying misery. As if the evils of a vigorous and fervent age were not sufficient for the basest things, even those that lie between them also contribute their own calamities here. And I have lightly disclosed how many and how often this soft body pours insulting hardships upon me in all things. Therefore, so that from now on the image of God may not be so dishonorably defiled by this muddy spouse, and subjected to the domination of a bondservant, it is for you, judges, and remains [your duty] to cast your votes, and to determine a punishment for the defendant of the injury, and that I may not hereafter suffer injury, allowing [it to do so]. For if that evangelic judge, neither fearing God nor regarding man, undertook vengeance, how much more shall you avenge me, who are both holy in religion and provident in human affairs? For if one should rightly not be spared, if what is sorrowful and miserable in his nature should be turned to supplication: but rather, abhorring his sedition and manifest tyranny, you should decide that one of two things must justly be done: either that it be given to my discretion to handle it as I will, to be tortured, flogged, suffocated by starvation, and tormented with every kind of torture, so that no account of what was done by me should be demanded, even if I should mutilate and utterly destroy [it]: or that, with apostolic zeal, I should hand it over to the common, dire, and public torturer of Satan. For the vessels which base creatures of the earth inhabit, as it is in the oracle (they inhabit them when disturbances occur), let their punishments also be the suffocation of mortals. Thus beaten, the mad [mind] will regain its senses and will eventually acknowledge itself, and will cease from its wantonness, and from that which was an instrument of injustice, it will be converted into an instrument for the benefit of justice. And so, in the future, we shall not be agitated by seditions, nor shall we press against one another with a yoke; but with concordant conspiracy and consent, we shall employ our united efforts in honest and serious matters, and we shall honor our joiner, and we shall be about to compare that beatitude promised to us ourselves, through you who act as arbiters and legates. B C
SECOND DECLAMATION, WHICH IS ALSO AN ASSUMPTIVE REFUTATION.
Quibus verbis corpus contra mentem in judicio contendens coram judicibus uti possit.In me how many revilings, how many insults, how many mockeries has this grave mind poured forth, as if it were acting a comedy in a theater, not accusing in a forum, you have surely heard, most divine judges; for [my] loose and free tongue, that I may say nothing more, has been used broadly and profusely, not as sparing a fellow-servant, or, as it speaks itself, a yokemate, but attacking as a slave bought with silver, and all but dealing frequent blows. But I, after your equity gives me a place to speak, shall say nothing of light moment or vicious; for it is necessary that good words be spoken, but the crimes which it has brought against me, I shall strive to dissolve as best I can; however, since at this time the capacity of speaking on equal terms has been granted to me, I shall pray and entreat you, that you mitigate my mistress in the meantime as she is angered, since, considering herself worthy to suffer indignities, she hears my speech and interprets it as another insult, because at the beginning I dared to contradict: and that it may come to your mind how neither that divine Job despised the judgment of his own servants regarding himself, as he himself says somewhere; nor does he indeed lie; for besides other good and honest things, he also received the testimony of a truthful man. Nor certainly does God, summoned to judgment by Job himself, rebuke him as a reviler. Why not? Since it is written in divine Isaiah, “Come, he says, and let us dispute with the men who are delinquent;” and in the great David, he is introduced as justified, and winning when he is judged. Therefore, let this [mind], which bears the image of God, also imitate that goodness by his examples, and endowed with a great spirit, let it patiently bear this which one must call either a trial or even a disputation, and let it sustain it with the same reasons of mind with which he, an adamantine and golden statue of fortitude, bore the legal actions of servants against him. Did he not say, that blessed man, “Were they not also in the womb, just as I was?” But if by chance it refuses to reason and speak in the same way as that just Job, grant, that I at least may say the reverse, although comparing dissimilar things: how there the master behaves with an equal mind toward his servants—
A utilizes me in the same way as one who is a participant of the same dignity with a constructive mind, by the example of the image, and as a cause assisting in honest actions. For, resting on and trusting in the reason and description of human nature, I could confirm that man is not said to be only mind nor only body, but both at once, whom God is said to have made after His own image. Assuredly, just as I commune with man, so also do I participate in human dignity. Yet, being of such a nature, the mind—all-excellent—strikes me from the catalogue of such great nobility and rejects me as a bastard, calling me a servant, while calling herself divine inspiration, a queen, and my mistress. And I could indeed have treated this point more laboriously and effectively, and persuaded her not to call me a servant any longer, but rather a fellow-servant and a partner in rule, and a participant in virtue and in life—both the present one and the hoped-for one. Yet those things which I have so far said in your presence may suffice, for whom these noble bodies have been exposed to undergo contests, so that they may not only enjoy spiritual gifts in this age—as allies and partners in labors—but may also reign together with their blessed spirits in the expected regeneration, and shine as the sun. However, I will not contend much about this matter. Let her call it as it has seemed right to her; let her be satisfied with her power, let her bring forward and do whatever she pleases by her own whim; let her use me as she wishes, provided only that she does not attribute to me as a vice what is harmless, nor blame me for what is void of fault. For you have heard of what things she accuses me: that while still remaining an animal, and while governed by animal faculties, and not yet transformed into a spiritual being, I wish to be fed and clothed. For she desires another life and another manner of sustenance, as the proverb goes; but now, being fluid as I am, and unable to consist without appetitive faculties, what, I ask, do I do wrong if I am held by the desire for food and drink according to the instinct of nature? What mark of ignominy does the mind brand upon herself, being the one who provides these very things to me? As if she had not heard the Apostle crying out: “No one hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” For by what means would it have either stood at the beginning or persisted afterward, if it were not sufficiently nourished? For, as soon as I am formed in the womb, like a plant, or some middle thing between plant and animal, I am nourished through the second parts—as they call them—or through the umbilical cord, by menstrual blood; then, from there, I am nourished by the stream of milk through the breast, until the emergence of teeth. But when the craving nature of the animal has furnished my mouth with sharp and broad teeth, so that I might be able both to cut and to process food easily, then at last it has constructed a table with more solid victuals; thus indeed is food innate to the natures of bodies, and such is the kinship of nature—yet even if one is not to believe the words of those who say that some are nourished by stones, one must nevertheless believe in the fact that no living thing lacks food, just as trees and herbs and whatever the earth brings forth, supported by roots, and all-manner of animals. Or does it use the libations and odors and exhalations of the earth? Is it not also created by the hand of God, as I am fashioned? For it will not deny itself to be a creature of God, although perhaps it claims to be a figment, being as it is divine inspiration; nor, being deceived by idle men, will it ever persuade them that it is a defluxion of the divine essence—they who, in as much as they have been eager to magnify and exalt it, by defining it as being of the same nature with God, have just as imprudently afflicted it with insults, debasing it to beasts, shrubs, and cucumbers—and not only inflicting immoderate honor and infamy upon it, but also hurling insults at that supreme nature. For when God had decided to fashion man (for my speech must be recalled to its original beginning), He did not command the earth or the waters to produce this one, just as they produced other kinds of living beings, but having taken dust, He Himself fashioned him; and as the fashioning is more divine, so also is my species more ancient. For He did not make him a quadruped, prone, or with belly and head always stretched out and prostrate to the earth, but erect and entirely sublime, touching the earth lightly with those small and twin traces of the feet, but lifting the head upward, breathing in and catching the purer air, and contemplating the beauties of heaven; and, being naked of native garments and unarmed with defenses to protect itself, it is nevertheless fortified by hands—the instrument proper to a mind endowed with reason, and one for exercising industrious and versatile arts; by the work of which it is clothed more safely against all inconveniences than are animals wrapped in wool and thick hair, and more correctly than all those who are covered with native hides or scales; and more beautifully than birds that are well-winged. Furthermore, it is armed more strongly for defending itself, with bulwarks made by the hand, than those things which fight either with hooves or horns, or teeth and claws. Now, to me, so carefully and artificially fashioned, God breathed the breath of life, and having tempered it from both, named it man and His own image, and commanded that I should rule over the creatures of foot, of water, and of wing; and I, without mind, would be unable to do anything, just as neither can the mind without me. For immediately, if the principal mark of the image is to exercise rule over living beings, how could the mind, destitute of a body, have either been able to do so at the beginning, or persisted in it afterward? By what logic would a horse have been mounted, if my hands had not fashioned the bridles? By what logic would an ox have cut the furrows, if the same had not fashioned the yokes and plows? But if these things were discovered by the cogitation of the mind, that is what I was saying just now: one requires the work of the other; she cogitates, I perform what is cogitated with my industry. She sees and proposes the artificial reasons, my hands, supplying the ductile matter and that which is easy to handle, fashion the form of that which has been devised in the mind; and I no longer provide these things as a servant—although I do provide them as a servant or an instrument—but as a participant in the same dignity with a constructive mind, by the example of the image, and as a cause assisting in honest actions.
A These things, which the Greek and profane poets and philosophers say, I shall not easily assent to. For they imagined the assembly of demons to be corporeal and greedy for matter and pleasure, and they attributed souls to the stars. Therefore, since every living body is alimentary, it is necessary by the law of nature that whatever is living be nourished and live: but that which is neither nourished nor lives is not even living. Wherefore, our Savior did not only command those whom He recalled to life to eat, but He Himself—dead and now reviving—ate and drank, proposing an insoluble argument for the perception of food in a restored life. And nature, the preserver, forming the blood of the body in such a way, nourishes with milk—complete and perfect, and with every kind and variety of food—the fetus not yet possessed of a mouth or teeth, the toothless infants. Nor, while it grows, does it leave the nourished and reared child when it reaches the age of being able to grow, but all the way to old age and decrepit infirmity, like a good nurse tending to the breath, it is present, never departing, neither by night nor by day. For the nourishing faculty of those who sleep does not rest; but, like an unsleeping and vigilant good nurse, it is ready to inspire. Is it not doing good? It surely is, conveying through the mouth into the belly what is ground up, cooking and digesting it, first converting it into juices, then drawing it to the liver and changing it into blood, and from there distributing through the veins to everyone their own portion, and cementing to each that which is congruous and proper. And we owe much gratitude to this Providence by which we are administered, through which that which brings forth at the beginning is embraced with the same affection ever after, and does not permit it to be lost or dissipated, as food has been devised and prepared.
And nature, indeed, as has been said, so forms, conforms, and co-agglutinates. But the mind, possessed of reason and dwelling in the body, establishes laws contrary to nature, as if it were some imperious mistress. And because I seek everyday food, it calls me a glutton and an inexhaustible jar; because I rejoice in nourishment, it calls me luxurious and voluptuous, for it measures nourishment by the boundaries of delicacies, because nature has joined sweetness to what we eat and drink, so that we might be enticed by a certain pleasantness to perceive the food more graciously and greedily, and not suffer sorrow as we bring daily food to ourselves. For it invents new laws and new names, determining some things that are alien and absurd, both by bringing forth laws and imposing names, as if it were a sin to eat with pleasure, that which is such B food—that is, that food and delicacies may be. But I, because I am governed by nature and the laws of nature, believe that it is permitted for me to be nourished with all necessary consequences, both with cheerfulness of soul and with pleasure; nor are delicacies blamable, but rather dear food that is congruent to nature. But if anyone, oppressed by grief, has altogether forgotten to eat bread, or has eaten ash as if it were bread and has mingled his drink with tears, another account is concerned with that, which does not pertain to the controversy we are agitating before you as clearly as possible. But if it defines the natural pleasure that is perceived by nourishing as luxury, it will much sooner call that which is in the procreation of children shameful. But neither nuptial nor even nursing pleasure is given as a crime to any who are endowed with a mind; rather, it is a matter of admiration. For that [pleasure] flows from a genus that passes away, by succession; this [nourishing pleasure] supplies and repairs the emptiness of the body with food; and so the divine mind neither falls from its own dignity, nor is it entirely vexed by insult, granting those things which have been decreed and sanctioned by nature, and conferring labor, and at once supplying those things which are principal and most necessary to the body; although it frets, raised up regarding such things, and by whatsoever crimes it taxes the delicacies of others, it is itself convicted by the same delicacies. For consider, I beseech you, what it boasts of; it thinks it a disgrace and a most ignoble servitude that it takes care of me at the beginning, and prepares things necessary for living; and dissemblingly cavils that it is not capable of adhering to things that are superior, and that it has the care of a lesser thing, and for that reason adopts the appearance of a certain maidservant, a caterer and bread-baker, when it otherwise is a mistress and strives to preserve its own inviolate felicity.
Yet if it were to boast of these things in speeches while sitting among others, perhaps it would impose upon them with these deceptions; but not, indeed, when it dissembles nothing right or sane among you. For you who sit here silent will clearly refute the evasions of this [mind], you who have claimed for yourselves a good part of the nobility of that image, if any have, and have lived your lives in mortal bodies without perturbations and as if without the contagion of matter: yet you also take care in some part of your bodies, preparing and administering suitable things to yourselves by apostolic emulation; nor have you endured such an aversion of the bodies as indignantly as you have the fall of the souls from a better state, nor does the nexus and series of words draw you to commiseration as much as the golden chain of virtues—but as being just in all things, O most blessed judges, you have pursued the rights of the bodies by divine precept, and have not judged yourselves to have become worse on that account, nor to have descended to the condition of cooks and table-setters, as you have now heard from my mind. For indeed, O judges who are friends of God, I do not see what mark of insult is branded upon the mind by my care. Or is a mistress who takes care of her maidservants ignominious for this reason? Or will a helmsman who outfits a cargo ship sail more dangerously on account of this? Or will a soldier who repairs and cleans his arms and feeds his war-horse be condemned on that account for a lack of skill in military affairs, or be enumerated among deserters? Why do you not look to these who have lived their lives in bodies without the contagion of the body, and have not hated their bodies, but rather took care of them as much as they ought—oh, why do you in vain hate the body, and love vain and useless contention? Why do you not remember that great Apostle, who in C D
A truth was snatched up to the third heaven, and heard words which it is not lawful for men to utter; and yet, having progressed that far, he did not consider it a place of disgrace to work with his own hands at the trade of leather-making, and to serve by providing for the needs of himself and his companions? Let us transcend even Paul himself in our discourse, and his third heaven. Does God, always remaining in His own state, reflect upon Himself and sit enthroned above this universe? Is He touched by no care, no providence for the things which lie beneath Him, nor does He even hold guardianship over our own infirm affairs? Or does He indeed, with accurate providence, lose anything of His own dignity and glory because of that? How, then, does the mind, joined to the body, consider care for the congenital body an unworthy endeavor, and reject this diligence of providing for secondary things, lifting itself above you, whose conversation, while you still walk on earth, is already in the heavens? You, who already reach out your bodies to the heaven, like the Apostles; you, who reach out above that example of His own goodness, which grants nourishment to all flesh—the nobility of which you magnificently boast as being in His likeness—do not likewise turn your providence toward the dignity of the inferior; and yet that supreme Good, being more than full and entirely needing nothing, has no need of the work of any of those for whom He provides. But this mind of mine, frequently, does need me, both as a servant-instrument and as an assisting cause and support, and without me, it will achieve nothing noble in the first instance. B
But perhaps, repressed by these arguments, it will say that it does not suffer injury from the replenishment of necessary things for me, but that I, having progressed far beyond necessity and use, partly through insatiable desire and partly through greed for pleasure, carry it along with me and drag it headlong against its will. This, it said, would happen when it was enslaved to absurd pleasures and asserted that it was being deceived by my prestidigitations. But this indeed is easy to refute, and to teach that it is a bold and reckless act, having been incited either by pride or by a spirit of contention, to accuse me of things that it does not know, of which it itself is guilty, when it should have concealed these things. But—I will say nothing ominous—it is truly worthy of admiration how it happens that the imprudent one speaks things contrary to herself. Did she not, turning the argument upside down, O judges who are servants of Christ, pretend a primary dignity, saying that she was the divine image and the queen of the whole irrational nature, and naming me the servant and herself the mistress? How, then, by a sudden change—do fountains flow upward?—does she try to show that I lead and drag her about imperiously, while she is driven and carried like a slave? And whatever crime is committed by both, she throws it back on me as the first author. But if she herself commands, and I obey, how much impudence is it to throw the mark of her own transgression and sin upon another? For answer me, you who burn with the lust for reproaching and accusing: were you not then established by the Lord so that you might provide me with mutual service as a fellow-servant, which is in the evangelical parable, like a faithful C and prudent servant of the household, so that you might give food in due time? How is it, then, that you do not faithfully and prudently administer the assigned office, giving food in due time and manner, and that, as a faithful one, you do not rebuke the unfaithful, and, as a prudent one, castigate and amend the imprudent, and altogether exercise the power freely in the administration entrusted to you, and adorn it most excellently? But you say that you are restrained by the violence of one subject to you, and that you are driven crosswise to the same follies to which you suggest he is driven. Do you think that by such pretexts you will avoid the dismemberment of your members—a punishment with which that one threatens those who perform their office badly? But such an opinion is vain and empty; for from every leadership, punishments are demanded for the things that subjects commit. Whether you speak of an emperor, or a pedagogue, or a parent, or a teacher, even if they are otherwise upright, they are guilty of the same crimes. As if an emperor with his army were to desert the battle line, or a pedagogue were to play with a child, or a father were to act lasciviously with his son, or a master were to indulge in idleness and sloth with his disciple, I believe each of these shall be punished with a double penalty: the first, because he secretly corrupts the one he promised he would rather make better; the second, because he is guilty of the very things for which he is caught. Just as, conversely, subjects ought to be considered worthy of double pardon by those who judge the matter more with justice than with clemency: the first, because of their nature, which always requires a leader and one who promotes them to virtue; the second, because they found that the one they had accepted as a leader toward the good was instead corrupting and provoking them toward the contrary. Indeed, nothing entices one toward virtue or vice so much as a leader who does the things that exhort toward either and draws one toward committing similar things by his own example. Just as my dear mind will give a double penalty, as it has neither corrected what was disordered in the man, and as it has been gathered—and at the same time excited the allurements of pleasure. But if, they say, the waters are suffocating, what is the need to apply them? But perhaps some pardon will be given to me, because I follow my mistress, who teaches me to transgress by this force. For, they say, as is the mistress, so is the dog. But so that it may be demonstrated more clearly that it is not she who is being corrupted by me toward all sorts of disgraceful things, but that she is rather carried off toward pleasures and drags me along with her, I ask you to listen patiently, digressing a little from the course of my speech, and returning to the cause of all tragedies, which my mind blushes to explain.
It is not a sincere, intelligent life, O judges, removed from bodily sense, that our soul has obtained, but it resides in both lives subject to it, both the vegetative and the vital, by which our bodily constitution is governed and preserved. For we are tempered by pain and pleasure as if by a rudder; we are worn down by pain when we are empty, or troubled in another way; by pleasure, when we are filled and are not vexed by any perturbation, through the providence of the Creator of nature, as these types of affections have been generated in us for our salvation. For if, while we waste away and are corrupted, we were not distressed, and while we are sated we did not rejoice, in such a way that neither…
sense nor preservation could be perceived, we would suddenly perish through folly. But as things are, provident nature, using as it were two hands—fatigue and delight, pricking with the former and baiting with the latter—arouses those who flee from the pain of hunger to eat and drink, and to pursue the pleasure of eating, which is nourishment. Yet primarily, so that the grief born of hunger may be removed; secondarily, for the license of satisfying oneself to be granted. Now, the soul endowed with reason knows how to nourish itself differently, by its own power, and to enjoy a certain superior ambrosia. But since, as we have said, it is not affected in an intolerant or implacable way toward the faculties subject to it, by a certain consensus it even sympathizes with them as they suffer, and indeed is distressed when they are distressed, and rejoices with them when they rejoice; or rather, if one prefers to define the matter more accurately, and as those skilled in the medical art say, it is the soul itself that suffers through the consensus of reason, and therefore arises first to remove the pain, on its own account mostly, and then, as has been said, for the sake of helping its subordinates. B In this, therefore, lay the providence of wise nature, that the most principal soul, placed above evils, should not remain impassible and absorb no difficulties whatsoever that intervene for secondary and inferior things; for it would not turn itself toward providing for any of them. For if, when stimulated, sympathizing, and laboring through consensus—you see how it becomes sluggish, engages in pleasures, and, as if lamenting its misfortune in a truly common lot—it would have regarded the body far less, had not the body’s adversities touched it by the decree of nature. But now, if anything else has been established, this too has been established excellently, so that it acts through the consensus of pains, and is simultaneously brought to the point where, as someone would say, it takes upon itself, in turn and in part, the labors and jointly seeks the liberation from troubles. For those who have a fellowship in any inconveniences, for them there is also a common liberation from that care.
Having demonstrated these things, the discourse returns again to the same place: be mindful of the parable set forth above, in which the master appoints a faithful and prudent steward to obey him, giving food at the proper time. Have we not assumed, for the part of the soul that participates in reason, a faithful and prudent steward, that it might be able, with abundant prudence, to govern a life prone to suffering and senseless? A life which, when established in that office, the master pronounces blessed if it administers it prudently and faithfully, and promises that he will entrust more to its fidelity; but if, as though the master were delaying, it begins to forget, and to smite its fellow servants contumeliously, not providentially, and gives itself over to the enjoyment of pleasures by eating and drinking with the drunken—I am speaking of those parts which both nourish and can be nourished, which are always filled by external indulgences—will it not, when the master returns, fabricate the sort of excuse you now hear, and transfer the cause of this insolent contumely to us C as if we were deceiving it, and we were forcibly coercing them? But will it escape the punishments of a perverse servant? Shall it not be dismembered, and its portion be established with the hypocrites, for acting as if in a theater, in this life, having put on the person of some holy and divine matron, and having at first concealed all its negligence and dementedness, yet freely enslaved itself to all nefarious pleasures, and like an intemperate handmaid, behaved indecorously and gotten drunk most shamefully? That is what I think. For the care of all faculties was entrusted to this [soul] as the one in charge, that it might sagaciously provide for those causing distress and apply suitable medicine, as is clear from this: for if ever the mind, in the curation of divine things, is gripped by excessive excess or—I know not—an illness that shakes the untrembling chords of thought, and is mindful of neither hunger nor food nor any other pleasure, then I, too, am touched by no care for these things, by no concern. In what way, therefore, do I hold the primary role, and [why am I blamed for] procuring and giving food, and for snatching away the time and manner of the pleasures that the part allotting them determines? And then, what is more ridiculous, [why am I blamed] for coercing it into them? So soft and delicate is it, while I am robust and violent.
But indeed, lest this defense appear contentious and stubborn by resisting the individual parts, I concede by your grace that I first crave and am filled by pleasures, and moreover that you too are coerced by me to enjoy pleasures. Yet you, as mistress and ruler of our affairs, when it is necessary to restrain by punishment, and to be incensed at gluttony, and to rebuke more vehemently, instead fall prostrate together with it into the same turpitude like a slave, and having prostrated yourself to the ground in that heavy, holy, and rigid dignity of which you boast and think magnificently, you are bound with me as a captive and voluntary slave to pleasure. Nor are you ashamed to suffer, while professing the same things as that fabled serpent, whose tail, they say, complained of the head because, always being the leader of the repeated motion, it was dragged along by the whole body as it coiled itself, the extremities. But when it finally set out to persuade the body so that the principality of that crawling task might be deferred to it, it was then carried with blindness toward precipices and rocks, and the head itself and the rest of the serpent were laid low along with it. But just as there, if the head had been complained of by the tail, accusing it of injustice, it would appear ridiculous and stupid: so too in this case, you, as one lacking the part of the soul that is rational—like the tail dragging [the body] and being blind (for the mind, as someone says, sees)—yield the command to the one who leads, and commit yourself to its faith, though it drags you to destruction. For those who see are not the blind guides of seers; and the ox pulls the chariot, the chariot does not pull the ox; and the stone is set to the plumb line, not the plumb line to the stone. What is more, why do you commit a sword to a boy, contrary to the precept of the proverb? Who, drinking down the poison administered to him, had anything greater to excuse or defend himself with, than the plea for death? Is the first—
A man from the first woman, who tasted of the pernicious tree, granted pardon before God, having eaten of the food received afterward; or does he escape death by being drawn away by force? For desire and anger are subject to the mind that partakes of reason—not so that the former, falling toward the sweetness of pleasure, might pull [the mind] along with itself, or the latter, erupting toward beastly savagery, might lead it away to destruction, but that they might meet and conspire to seek and possess honesty; desire, like a horse well controlled by reins, carrying it to the height and urging it toward what is truly desirable; anger, like a noble dog, waging war and fighting on behalf of these [things] and against those things which it ought; both, of course, tamed and civilized by reason through long custom, so as to obey and submit well. But the mind, otherwise become drunken, and B neglecting its own vigor, is effeminate as if cowardly and perverted, and as much as it departs from the constant and immovable harmony, by so much does it approach the chariot of the perturbations: and as much as it gradually recedes from ruling, by so much is it enslaved to that servitude. Therefore, it is not forced by any violence, nor is it dragged unwillingly to sin and delinquency; but what Greek and profane writers testify that Hercules suffered and did (for they report that he, after being overcame by wild beasts and wicked men, afterward willingly served the Lydian woman named Omphale), the same seems to me to be suffered by the faculty of the mind. For the beastly and malignant perturbations in man, when it could have subjugated them beneath its own power, it instead willingly serves pleasure and the impulses of the soul, or even as another, that great Samson, was deceived by the treacherous little woman, and ridiculously betrays his great strength—and stripped bare, and no longer tossing its hair as it were, it is easily led captive by alien perturbations, and is blinded in its eyes, which are keen-sighted toward honest and good things, and it is bound to the mill, and is rolled around the same cycle of pleasures, the beginning of which is, as it were, the goad of belly-gluttony; and suffering countless miseries, it is as a laughing-stock to lascivious boys, to desire, and to anger. Thus the mind, immersing itself in evils of its own accord, twists a kind of ignominy for itself, and covered on every side with miseries, lasciviously wallows in an unseemly way: then, on account of this voluntary misfortune, having complained about itself and finished its lamentation of its own calamity, it levels a charge against me and attributes to me the cause of its evils, and, as you see, demands penalties; and bespattering me with insults, what does it not quibble about, what does it not mock? It calls me a sepulcher, a chain, the lowest dregs, and from Chaldean trifles, the filth and refuse of C matter, a leaky jar, a cross. And yet, if I truly am a monument, how is it that I do not persuade it to studiously meditate on the death that is shaped to the likeness of God, but, as it says, draw it toward delights? If I am a chain, how is it that I do not restrain it by compressing it from sinning, but rather urge it toward the abominable license of sloth? What chain does not prevent from injury and wrongdoing, but binds the prisoner, even if unwilling, to be compelled? What monument does not mortify the limbs that are upon the earth, and bestow a life for the soul that is blessed in every respect, but rather vivifies and rouses it against the soul? Either therefore I am neither a sepulcher nor a chain, if indeed I am seized toward delights and dragged along with them: [in which case] I am inconsiderately and vainly mocked by such cavils; or if I should truly be a monument and a chain, then the mind itself makes itself guilty of great incontinence, because, bound to me and buried with me, it delights, and while living, it is dead, and is lifted up beyond measure, D even though I am given to it as a cross; for by this name it also gladly calls me, just as it also calls me a leaky jar, concealing how many and how great goods I am a vessel for, so that not long after, tasting a few things from many, I might demonstrate the rest. But if I am also leaky, I am certainly so through the passages of the senses, which are entirely like windows, light-bearing and messengers of the comprehension of things, so that it will also immediately appear that, by draining and refilling itself through these in me, it might pour out, as it were, the vomit of its former drunkenness, and most shamefully run riot. You vex my senses and their faculties with curses, calling them caverns and wild beast lairs, while you are so ungrateful and forgetful in soul toward their works which have been affected by the greatest benefits? Have you not used them as bridges, by the arts of learning, so that you might be carried over to contemplate things that fall only under the understanding? How could you have compared them in the beginning without my senses? Would you have ever possessed the discipline of arithmetic or music, had the ear not existed; or the proportions of numbers, or geometry, or astronomy, had the light of the eyes not shone forth; or the doctrine of pulses and the science of healing, had the sense of touch and taste not opened the way for you? My senses therefore being taken away, your bridges being collapsed, what other thing remains for you, than to grovel on the ground and among sensible things, or not even to touch these at all, nor to enjoy, as much of the world's center as there is, a life capable of sensation, but if the matter should so turn out, only the plants; and then, truly, interred under a monument and a dark prison, submerged in the filth of matter, and bound to the deep mire, [to] drag out the blind life of a mole or some plant, while I alone, as you yourself comically lash out, am surrounded by a garment of rags? Now, however, I made you, who were blind from birth, seeing for the purpose of knowing, and I brought you to philosophy, and with the tasted light, through me you might behold, as in a mirror, the solidification of the earth, the reflux of the sea, the conglobation of the heavens, and all the miracles which are in heaven: and that you might hear the concordant harmony in all parts, which cries out to the craftsman with ineffable sounds, and from the magnitude, beauty, and harmonious motion of created things, I informed that immovable mover, and the primary and very good itself, and I renewed the memory of whose primary image you were made. And yet what more excellent thing could happen to the mind, than to draw out from those things which are gathered by my senses—
A to find God? Nor does it only ascend first to God through me, but even descending from God, it returns thither through me once again. For through me it finds a place for repenting and for obtaining pardon; for if it were separated from me and existed outside the body, it could not have repented of sin in the first place, just as even the angels who fell could not; but now my conjunction has bestowed this good upon it also. For how many turpitudes soever it may have scattered, they are washed away by my labors, and are made brighter than snow; for that which flows from my, as it were, caverns, even as I have said, exceeds any sprinkling of hyssop or any herb that cleanses; I mean the clear fountains, the tears, the fasting, the lying hard upon the ground, the prayer with bended knees, the intent and immovably constant focus in prayers, the beating of the breast, the thick smoke issuing from the heart—the mark of internal inflammation—and other things from which the multi-powerful medicine of repentance is compounded. I know how to store up treasures of such a number of goods, although my mind, by its own intent, is a leaky jar that contains nothing.
B But perhaps it is foolish and unbecoming for me, in your presence to whom such things are trite, to pursue each point specifically: therefore, it must be shown briefly and in a few words that those things which are brought against me by the mind as a fault, were things I suffered rather than did; and those things which I do by nature's guidance, and which I accomplish, are these. For Philosophy, through which we are lifted up to God, is divided into contemplation and action; for if one embraces the contemplative life, through me it discerns the works of nature, and through the bridges of the disciplines is transmitted to those things which are understood by reason, and finally, as they say, it rests by flying to the very threshold of theology: if instead, preferring the bridges of contemplation, it chooses the ladder of action, here again I build it up more by my own labors, and it finds all the steps of action. I will say what is preeminent over all: through me, man, made a little lower than the angels, excels much above the angels (for which of the angels could imitate what God has suffered, and how man can imitate death?)—through me, indeed, C beaten, tortured, lacerated, and finally handed over to death, and fashioned to the divine body of the Savior: in which he also condemned sin, that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled in us. But since the mind also inquires through me, at what age I could be subject to it, I will answer such a simple question without any hesitation: When am I not? At what age am I disobedient, when it — be it good or evil — calls me by leading me? As is clearly evident from the arts. Having obtained a mind studious of letters and a lover of honesty, I follow teachers, I obey masters, I sit in schools and lecture halls, and what is not instilled into me from the liberal arts and doctrines? Am I again to express that the mind has obtained a facility for exercising illiberal arts? I am taught again to build, or to construct with stones, or standing [by] D subject anvils, to fashion things amidst the clamor: or to collect pools from drops exuding from the earth, or to struggle against savage winds and raging waves, sometimes even in the deep, head downward, swimming in a state of confusion, and I stand my ground under all the blows that scatter and rend me, not to mention the vain and empty arts I am forced by necessity to learn; being subjected to detestable conjurers, and taught to climb and walk on a rope with the tips of my feet, to dance upon daggers, to leap with my head bowed down, to swallow stones and particles of iron; and do I not from boyhood perform the exercise of such difficult and miserable and otherwise laborious things? Reaching the prime of life, I show myself persistent and ambitious; exceeding that age, I strive with no less effort, and as I grow strong and age, I do not cease to learn even that which is wiser to devise than what young men work at; and to speak universally, there is nothing that can be prepared by art, nothing that can be passed on by doctrine, to which I am not brought, nothing in deeds, nothing in words, that I do not offer to a willing mind, just as I do all the most obedient of subjugated animals and inanimate instruments. Or am I, also, for performing the duties of virtue—far more pleasant, easy, and congruent to nature than those things—unfit and an adversary, and as if repugnant, seditious, and hostilely disposed? But had you said that to those excellent victors, the martyrs and these judges, the cultivators of virtue, who in the struggles of their bodies surpass the natures of the bodiless, they would not believe you. But it is time that we review the main points of what we have said, and pass through the parts that are more opportune and congruent.
My accuser, the mind, has been convicted of twisting nothing healthy into a fault, but of rising against me in vain, and with a spirit of accusation and calumny, of blaming things that are blameless, and blaming things that are permitted to me by nature. By my defense I have proved that I could not have offered any injury or contumely to my mistress, the servant, obeying the empress, as an instrument to her who uses me at her own will: but that she herself, rather, becoming torpid through her own sloth and softening through imbecility, turns out evil; and when it was fitting to be corrected, she even exacts punishments from this. O calamitous and miserable me! Who will spare, who will have mercy, when even my own kindred and spouse (married to me) does not have mercy, nor is she satisfied, filled with my afflictions? But beyond those things which I now suffer, and which I shall suffer in the future by her contrivance, she thinks up another, more recent thing: inquisitions, lawsuits, and contentions; tribunals, dire torturers, as if the things which I, miserable, suffer from her own sinning were not enough. She has arrogantly coveted the equality of God, and immediately I have been intercepted by mortality, and am to return to the dust of my mother: not to speak of the misfortunes and obscenities that intervene between—nakedness, fig-leaf coverings, and leather garments, and the sharpness of prickly thorns and thistles. Envy again has burned, and my countenance, liquefied by decay, has collapsed: where indeed
g-leaf coverings, and leather garments, and the sharpness of prickly thorns and thistles. Envy again has burned, and my countenance, liquefied by decay, has collapsed: where indeed A a brother, having hated a brother, dared to slaughter him; and I, exposed to inhuman demons, am at once wandering tremulous and complaining, marked with the imposed sign and convicted. My mind stumbled into legislation, or prophecy, or the dignity of the priesthood, and to me who was cursing, punishments were firmly forbidden, and I was immediately made a leper. She herself distrusted the angel who announced auspicious things, and my tongue is shackled by silence; she was deceived by the cunning of an evil woman, and I am blinded and thrust into the mill. To compress much into little: I am either bound to a mind that is lowly and illiberal, and night and day I endure continuous labors—for daily bread, and that meager and thin, or for a woolen garment, or for some tight and short tunic, or a cloak to cover my shoulders—or I am afflicted with a mind embracing a voluptuous life and many B worse evils, while, hour by hour, I fill myself insatiably and expand and burst with immoderate food, drink, and carnal things; and from this, against what armies of diseases I struggle! For I either collapse onto my bed, or wither away like some stunned ruin, or melt with fever, or am twisted by articular diseases of the feet and hands: then also, I am to be treated with medicines by mercenary doctors and to be lacerated, and sometimes also by tormentors, letting that most articulate Apostle act out the tragedy of vices, which, with the mind loosening all reins and bridles, bring upon me heinous whoremongers in sinning, and all those who are incited against natural uses, so that they might mark me with insolent ignominy: and with what evil they most ruinously corrupt, they corrupt me, the temple of God, and make my members, which are the members of Christ, the members of harlots. But the mind, mindful of all evils, is not satisfied with these things, but humbly asks and implores you that you give it license to use me at its own discretion, to torment me, to starve me, and to deliver me to the destruction of Satan. For the wise man does not know that he is falling into what is in the proverb while acting like a fool: "I cannot bear the goat, place the ox upon me." For if, from uncoordinated matter, diseases arise within us, the philosopher, as it becomes him, does not bear them, but is indignant, and judges that he suffers grave things—which he would not have suffered if, with me, he had accepted these calamities brought by divine wrath—and, inflated with pride, he grows haughty. But these things depend upon your arbitration, and whatever shall seem good to you, in that, as if in a divine sentence defining both what should be done and what should not be done, we too shall acquiesce.
JUDGMENT SENTENCE
C Having heard your pleas in turn, one after the other—yours, O mind, endowed with reason, being accused of being intemperate and disobedient toward that which is subject to you; and yours again, O part of the soul lacking in reason, being falsely slandered by the accusing mind as if you were doing nothing wrong—we, however, must reach a decision on both pleas and settle the controversy, lest we have interrupted our life, which is owed to contemplation, in vain. Sitting here, we now say what we have accurately learned from long experience and from the divine Scriptures. Therefore, we pass this sentence: If you, O mind, accuse the sense of the flesh as an adversary to honest things and to virtue, and as incapable of obeying you, you will unwisely slide into the opinion of the Manicheans; for those execrable men thought that the intelligent soul was the creator of good, and the soul lacking reason was the creator of evil, and therefore that it could neither attain virtue nor feel things that are pleasant and convenient for a good creator. But if you do not say this, but instead accuse its unbridled and disobedient intemperance—so that you do not exercise control over yourself as if foolishly, but rather are ever accusing D the servant granted to you by divine gift—you are blaming what is deservedly not to be blamed. For do not the emperor, the doctor, and the master of whomsoever he is, return a reckoning and pay the penalties for the things that those who are led by them commit through the carelessness and negligence of their masters? This did not escape even the wise men among the pagans; for one of the philosophers among them, having spotted a young man who was lascivious and flagitious, did not direct any curse at him, but struck his pedagogue, saying: "Why, then, do you teach such things?" But if you say that the great Paul, in the Epistle which he wrote to the Romans, accuses the flesh, hear what he intends, and to what end the Apostle says these things. For before the Lord's coming, even death was terrible, terrible and having the empire of death: for this reason, they also said in Isaiah: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die." [* Isa. xxii, 13.]
LIFE OF SAINT PETER THE ATHONITE
BY GREGORY OF THESSALONICA
C. JANNINGI: PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
(Acta SS. Bolland. June, vol. II, day 12.)§ 1. Sacred worship. The wrestling-ground. Mount Athos. Time. A His Acts are not approved on all counts. The Roman journey. 1. We have dealt on this very day, the 12th, with Saint Onuphrius, who protracted his life for a very long time, alone and unknown to all, in a certain desert of Egypt, having been found by divine favor shortly before his death by someone, and buried after death, when he had previously recounted to his discoverer the series of things done by him. The *Typikon* of Saint Sabas, printed at Venice in the year 1602, joins Peter to Onuphrius on the same day (I would believe on account of the similarity of their eremitic life), called the Athonite from Mount Athos, where he dwelt for a very long time; it joins both with these words: "On the 12th [of June] of our holy Father Onuphrius, and of our holy Father Peter the Athonite." On the 12th of June, of our holy Father Onuphrius, and of our holy Father Peter the Athonite. The Greek *Horologion* agrees, which reports the same thing in the same words; and Molanus, the only martyrologist among the Latins as far as I know who makes mention of him. But since he sets forth here the same things in Latin in their entirety as the Menæa and the Horologion do in Greek, he has translated his own from one or the other of them. The martyrology of the Muscovites also mentions Onuphrius and Peter together, and on the same day, and presents both in one table, depicted in the exact same manner, that is, standing upright, with hair not very long, with long beards flowing down over the chest to their legs, covered around their private parts with leaves, but otherwise naked: as is to be seen in the Calendar of the Muscovites, before the first volume of May. Add that he was honored by a temple built by the faithful, celebrated with an annual feast and the concourse of the people, and that Peter was famous for miracles in life and after death, as is evident from his B Life, no. 49.
2. Moved by these things, we propose also on this very day Peter, and indeed joined closely to Onuphrius (although he must be much younger than him): because while nothing certain about the time in which he lived is known to us, to whom should we join him more than to one to whose institute of life he is very similar, and for that reason also was joined in the ritual books, as we have seen? From this similarity of life, however, and this conjunction of the Acts, no suspicion should arise for anyone as if the same credit were to be applied to the Acts of both. For the arguments why... we have said, for the most part do not hold here. For the author of the Life of Peter is known, a learned man and an archbishop, who also testifies that he had seen and possessed another Life written long ago: the place of the eremitic life, Mount Athos, is known; nothing in the Life is said or written too boldly or insolently: nothing unusual or unheard of: nothing stitched together from varied sources: nothing contrary to another, unless perhaps some such thing is found in the chronology by mistake. This Life certainly agrees with the Life of Saint Onuphrius, of whom we have just spoken, and of Saint Mary of Egypt, of whom we treated on April 11; because all rely on the authority and account of one person alone. But the Onuphrian Life yields much in credibility to the other two; because these have more certain circumstances and more certain authors than that one: because Mary and Peter were found twice at different times, once living, again dead, and Peter indeed already dead by four witnesses; not so Onuphrius. Because their relics are read to have been translated in ancient times, and to have been honorably reburied in certain places: which is less certain regarding those of Onuphrius.
3. Athos C, the wrestling-ground of the holy man, situated in the borders of Macedonia, where between the Strymonian gulf to the north, and the Singitic to the south, it does not stop at a promontory, as others do, but stands out wholly, and extends far into the sea with a long spine, as Mela speaks, joined to the mainland by an isthmus of a few stadia; which was even once dug through by Xerxes, leading war against the Greeks; Athos was sailed through, as Juvenal sings, and from a peninsula, the mountain was made an island for a while. The same Athos is described in the Menæa on July 5, where it concerns Saint Athanasius: "A mountain high and long, stretching far into the sea, like a narrow neck." A high and very great mountain, extended for a long space into the sea, like a narrow neck, where indeed it is joined to the mainland.
4. D Concerning the same mountain, many things are laudably recorded regarding its inhabitants at the beginning of the 13th century by Pope Innocent III, writing to Saint Athanasius (whose main monastery is there) and to the other abbots and monks of the Holy Mountain or Athos, and [commending] them under the protection of blessed Peter and his own.
A And receiving [them] and confirming their privileges. For thus it says in letter 168 of book 16: "By a report of illustrious and great men, it has been declared to our apostolate that he who is the mountain of the house of the Lord, prepared on the top of the mountains, so that all nations may flow together unto it, namely the Holy of Holies, who has placed the foundations of the Church upon the holy mountains; has chosen your mountain, situated over the sea, for His faithful to dwell in, which, having the effect of His name and divine power in itself, although it is arid and rough, and destitute of the grace of fertility, is yet miraculously fruitful among other mountains of the world with the greatest spiritual abundance. For since it is adorned with three hundred monasteries and a glorious multitude of religious men, leading a strict and poor life; it has flourished until now with such excellence of honesty, it has shone with such clarity of excellent religion, that one could rightly say of it, wondering with Jacob: 'Truly this place is holy, for this is the house of God, and in a way, a gate of heaven,' where the multitude of the celestial army, as an army of camps ordered and ready to stir up Leviathan, fights victoriously forever with the dragon, singing wisely to the Lord. On account of which, the fame of your name, which had been poured out like ointment round about, has long since drawn many peoples to itself in the odor of your ointments, making them run from afar; so that prelates of Churches and Constantinopolitan emperors and many secular princes, by their many privileges, once endowed you with such preeminence of liberty that, after God, to whom they wished you to serve freely, you would never be subject to the jurisdiction of anyone." B Thus the pontiff, continuing afterwards with other things concerning a violent pillager who disturbed the peace of the monks, despoiled the churches, and even cruelly killed some; and not only receiving both the monks and the mountain itself under his protection and that of Saint Peter.
5. Others have appeared in subsequent times, with the number of the monasteries, perhaps as a punishment for schism, incredibly diminished. For Peter Bellonius, who in the previous century traveled through the mountain, accurately observing everything and describing many things, says in his book 1, chap. 10, that it extends for a three-day journey in length, but only half that in breadth: that it is inhabited by Calogers alone (these are celibate monks among the Greeks): that twenty-three or four monasteries, and no more, are counted, situated in various places. He says that the monasteries themselves have sacred relics in temples joined to them, and that there is a frequent concourse to them. That the temples themselves are also beautifully adorned and built, and that the Calogers sing liturgies there every day, pronouncing everything in the Greek language. But regarding the Calogers, who are said to dwell there to the number of six thousand, as well as other things pertaining to this, one should see Bellonius himself, and what Joannes Langus notes in book 11 of Nicephorus, chap. 38, as follows: "Today there are 22 famous monasteries of Greek monks of the order of Saint Basil on Mount Athos, which pay a tax of six thousand obols annually to the Turkish tyrant from their vineyards and olive groves. The mountain is called 'Ayion Oros by Christians, that is, Holy Mountain, and Suvata [Sviata] hour by the Ruthenians."
6. Bellonius thinks that the name 'Ayion Oros became attached to Athos from that assembly of religious men and holy exercises; although it should rather be ascribed to the holiness of Peter, and was conferred upon it by the Mother of God herself, as it is read in no. 11 of the Vita. But when it began to be called this, it will be possible to determine when the time from which Peter was converted is established. C Besides our Peter, there flourished on that mountain a certain Athanasius, known to us for the sanctity of his life, a Trapezeuntine by birth, well-educated in letters at Constantinople, a holy ascetic first of Mount Cyminas in Asia, then of Athos in Macedonia: who at length withdrew into its interior by divine revelation, and then, having been asked by Nicephorus Phocas, famous in the military and equally at home in the emperor's palace, and known to the saint himself already beforehand and joined by a bond of friendship, he built a truly magnificent temple to the Mother of God, and raised from the foundations very many large cells for the use and housing of the brethren, and having finally prepared a laura capable of many, he migrated to the Lord, as the Menaion states on the 5th of July.
7. Moreover, knowing that those who began their reign in the year 963, flourished around the year 950 on Mount Athos; and thus that others had already been leading a solitary life there before, since he himself is read in the Menaion in the cited place to have handed himself over as a disciple to an older Anchorite there. However, that mountain may have become more famous and more frequented from the times of Athanasius, both on account of the holiness of Athanasius himself, and on account of the authority of Nicephorus, a wealthy man, who would then become emperor, and also on account of the monastery and laura built by the help of both. If I say that this laura exists even now, and is the same one that Bellonius describes, lib. 1, cap. 37, perhaps there will be those who, having considered the words of Bellonius, agree with me. "The monastery," he says, "called Agia Laura, easily holds the principate among the other monasteries of the whole mountain, and is situated D at the roots of the highest ridge (which is the true Mount Athos), in that part which looks toward Lemnos." For this monastery, alone among all those enumerated by Bellonius, bears the name Laura: to which perhaps 'Ayia or "holy" was added later, either from the holiness of the founder Athanasius, or from the holiness of the monastery itself, which both in its particular situation is more venerable than the others, and to which perhaps all the others owe their origin and consequently their veneration. Moreover, this monastery is, like that Athanasian one, in the interior and higher part of the mountain than the rest, which are situated almost on the shores or but little removed from them, as Bellonius testifies.
8. But let us return to Peter, who must have inhabited Athos before Athanasius. For in what way could he have been hidden from the eyes of all, during the nearly fifty years which he is said to have spent there, if
such a fountain had been so frequent with inhabitants then, as it began to be after Athanasius? What also is meant by the assertion that Peter was the first athlete to dwell there, as the Prologue states; and that the Mother of God assigned that place to Peter as one chosen for her by her monastic institution, as the Life itself in no. 11 narrates? These things surely teach openly that Peter A inhabited Athos before Athanasius: and would that they also taught the intermediate time! But that is not to be hoped for from here, since the Acts offer no indication from which one might arrive at any knowledge of the century in which Peter flourished. Indeed, even how long he lived on Athos cannot be known with sufficient certainty from the Acts, as they speak now one way, now another. For in no. 41 they assign his reclusion on the mountain to more than fifty years, which in no. 42 are extended to 53 years: but in no. 36, after only 46 years had been spent in the hermitage, it is said that he was found by a hunter, alive; and he died a year later, so that he completed only 47 years there. Truly, since the first two numbers do not disagree badly with each other, it is proper to yield to them the latter single one, and it must be said that either an error has crept into the number, or that a longer space of time (which the Acts however deny) than the year span elapsed between the hunter's exit from the mountain and his return. It might perhaps even be maintained that the Saint lived for exactly 47 years on the mountain: but the six years which are added over and above are to be understood, according to the mind of the first author of the Life, as those years which had elapsed from the beginning of his conversion, during the journey, the stay, and the Roman return, up to the beginning of his mountain habitation; so that the whole span of his better life is to be reckoned as 53 years.
9. Nothing is more certain from the Acts regarding his native place than the century in which he lived. In no. 6 it is read that a war was stirred up in his fatherland against the Arabs; which might indeed be an indication that Peter was born somewhere in their borderlands; but in which? The western ones, or the northern, or others? Palestine is adjacent to Arabia: Syria touches it on a part of itself: Asia Minor also felt the incursions of the Arabs from time to time. We suspect, therefore, that Peter originated from one of these regions, and especially from one of the first two, until perhaps a clearer light may shine forth from somewhere else at some time. When the war was stirred up (as we have said), Peter went into the field with others, and having been captured, he is led away into Arabia and cast into prison. But delivered from there by divine action, he initiated a journey to Rome; and having entered it, he is clothed in the monastic habit by the pontiff and taught the B institute. Would that this author had expressed the name of the pontiff! We would have obtained more certain indications of the time from that, and would have distinguished more accurately whether Peter had set out for the new Rome or the old. Although without that indication I dare to assert that the old Rome is to be understood here, and I show this from the very route of the navigation.
10. Now, where he meditates on his departure from Rome, searching for a place appropriate to the institute he had proposed to himself; he falls in with sailors, already prepared to depart from the city, and to sail not long after from the port, and to set sail for Asia, as the narrator says in no. 10. To understand these words conveniently, the port here must be separated from the city, and some space must be conceived as thrown between the two: which, at the new Rome or Constantinople, where the port is a part of the city, cannot be maintained; but it can be maintained for the old Rome, whose port is set fully twelve thousand paces away from the city, whether one understands by it the Ostia of the Tiber, or the Port of Augustus, also called Roman. Again; for those setting sail from here into Asia, the journey through Crete can be directly instituted; not so for those setting sail from Constantinople, separated from Asia only by the Thracian Bosporus. Finally, in no. 15, when the ship was pursuing its course having left Crete, and suddenly stood immovable, he is ordered to turn to the left toward Mount Athos. Now Athos is on the left-hand side for those sailing from Rome into Asia, whereas for those sailing the same route from Constantinople it must necessarily be left on the right.
§ II. The author of the Life, the inventor, our new version
11. From the fact that he set out for old Rome, as we have seen, and received the monastic habit there, he is exempted from all suspicion of schism which anyone might object: even though he who adorned the Life which we are editing with his own paraphrase was a schismatic and heretic. He is, however, Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, famous in the fourteenth century for his writing which he published against Beccus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who strongly defended with the Latins that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son simultaneously; and not less famous for that by which he was himself later refuted by Cardinal Bessarion, an egregious defender of Beccus and of the Catholic doctrine regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Palamas himself also seems to have inhabited Mount Athos, before he was created archbishop; and there to have written this Life, and to have spoken it as a sermon to the monks dwelling there. This is gathered from the Prologue, where he calls Athos, this mountain, and Peter, our countryman and native, because he lived here on earth, namely on this mountain of Athos, and there first erected a trophy over the conquered demon. But that Peter may be further exempted from the suspicion of schism, it must be noted that he, having set out from Rome, performed miracles in Crete, and had no communication with anyone from there on, except the sailors, until the penultimate year of his life; and thus dealt with no one who could have drawn him into schism. To say nothing of the fact that the monks, the inhabitants of that same mountain, were still united to the Roman Church in the thirteenth century; when they humbly petitioned Innocent III, the Pope, that he might confirm their liberties for them, and deign to receive them under the protection of blessed Peter and of the Pope himself: as was indeed done by the rescript of that same pontiff, inserted in book XVI of his Epistles, epistle 168. But if those monks subsequently became schismatics, as Palamas himself was, what does that do to cause Peter also to be judged a schismatic, who died so much earlier, since there is nothing at all that savors of schism
in this Life be found? Indeed, since there are found even those things which are clearly opposed to schism—such as the Roman journey, reverence toward the supreme and universal pontiff, the monastic habit assumed by him, and the miracles performed—not to mention that Palamas is not the first author of the life, but merely an ornamenter and amplifier of a life written by a Catholic long ago (as the Acts can persuade), as is gathered from no. 4. [12] This Life, which existed in Greek in the library of His Eminence Cardinal Mazarin, was formerly sent in Latin to our predecessors by Father François Combefis, who is very well known for his published books. He then benignly supplied us with the same in Greek, at our request; we have harmonized the text ourselves, intending to publish it soon along with the Greek, after we have presented the title of the Life and the letter of Combefis, written at Paris on the 10th of July to Fathers Bolland and Henschen. The title prefixed to the Life is as follows: *The Discourse of our Holy Father Gregory, Archbishop of Thessalonica, on the admirable and angelic life of our holy and god-bearing Father Peter, who practiced asceticism on the Holy Mountain of Athos.*
Discourse of our Holy Father Gregory, Archbishop of Thessalonica, on the admirable and angelic life of our holy and god-bearing Father Peter, who practiced asceticism on the Holy Mountain of Athos
A B S. P. N. GREGORY, ARCHBISHOP OF THESSALONICA, ORATION ON THE ADMIRABLE AND ANGELIC LIFE OF OUR HOLY AND DIVINE FATHER PETER, WHO LIVED AS AN ANACHORET ON THE HOLY MOUNTAIN OF ATHOS (Translated by Conrad Janning)[/S. P. N. GREGORY...] C PROLOGUE. 1. It is not right, as it seems to me, that those who have accomplished something worthy of memory in other lands should be magnificently praised by us—when we have their writings, edited both accurately and elegantly, which also provide the soul with the greatest zeal to embrace virtue—while that which we have at home, a model of every excellence, namely the life of Peter, yielding to none of the ancients in the praise of his deeds, and celebrated for the fame of his virtues in all past ages, should be neglected. You all know whom I mean, unless perhaps that most famous Athos, and Peter, who derived his surname from it, is unknown to anyone: Peter, I say, that native of ours, that first athlete, who, living here on this earth, [was] an adversary of all the earthA that had been raging against us, having subdued it and first erected there a trophy of the madness of his that was set against us, and having cast, as it were, the seed of good at the right time, since it both sprouted and was nurtured and brought forth fruit, as now it is permitted to every one to behold from what is to be seen.
§ 2. As for the fact that such a leader, and one who guides us towards such things, deserves to obtain the reward that comes from praises, if anyone does, all would agree; but for me, to declare all the things of the man, and to render to each of them what is worthy, is near to all things impossible. For the struggle, it seems, has been for him to produce, as a kind of proportionate exceeding of life, as an offering toward the rewards promised by God to the just, something, indeed, better than both speech and hearing. But one should not, because of this, succumb, I think, nor should I have practiced silence regarding all things. For we do not, indeed, withdraw from the parts B of the earth and the sea in which we can abide and walk, because it is not navigable or passable in every respect; nor, because those who have written histories regarding them were not able to declare everything with precision, is everything passed over; but it seemed fitting to them also to describe as much of these as they could, and as far as it was possible.
§ 3. In the same way, therefore, I too must now attempt this; but it must not be overlooked that the things of the subject are insurmountable by speech, and not only for me, but furthermore for all who have a share in speech; for thus from all perhaps a contribution might be made, befitting the greatness of the subject. And this being so, as many as of the catalogue of the learned reflect upon it, will readily grant me pardon; for they themselves will surely need it, since the task is a common one, and we all alike fall short in each one of these. But I, O sacred assembly, and of anyone whatsoever, have trusted in the help through your prayers. For even if the C proposed struggle is difficult, yet by your entreaties, God, recently looking down upon us with favor from above, who also helped him who is set before us toward the transcendent life, will remove every obstacle from our path, and, having granted a way in difficulties, will provide it for our speech. D
CAPUT
Peter's homeland, military service, captivity, vow, and liberation.
§ 4. As for his parents, then, and his homeland from childhood, of this great and admirable Father, and for whom the heavenly tabernacle was a fitting homeland, time, doing well, has buried them in an abyss of oblivion. For those things which, while he was still alive, the noble man despised as, in fact, unworthy of his own virtue, those same things those who first committed to writing the deeds done by him rightly judged that they need not even be mentioned. But as to the place of habitation to which he himself passed, or rather, unto which he was led by the divine will—
I mean this renowned and venerable place, the hearth of virtues, the dwelling-place of all that is good, the prototype of the heavenly tabernacles and that which was not made by hands, that which is free from every defilement and superior to every base passion, the mountain which is worthily named after holiness; this mountain, I say, he held as his country in the stead of that which was his own. For A there is no mention of him anywhere without the mention of the mountain; no deeds of his are heard of unless the mountain is also understood. From it he is clearly known, and distinguished from others of the same name, being rightly called an Athonite. He accomplished his struggles, and from the place whence he flew up to heaven—if to those who consider the city to be their country, even after a delay of three years, they are rightly enrolled in that city—how does the saint not rightly claim this mountain as his own, having completed there more than fifty B periods of years, and that, too, in such an intense striving for the acquisition of virtue? Furthermore, if that should be considered the country of each man where he leads a happy life (as one of the ancient philosophers pronounced), who, I ask, has ever lived, or will ever live, more happily anywhere than this man has in this very mountain? For there he conversed frequently with God and was deemed worthy of divine vision; or rather (to sum up the whole matter), where, having transcended human nature and having been changed into a truly divine transformation (what power of eloquence could sufficiently express such a miracle!), he acquired an excellence more than natural, with the right hand of the Most High co-operating. Having therefore despised his own country, he ascended this mountain, which is convenient C for acquiring the heavenly country, and there he followed a safe way of life for many years, which remained hidden from human eyes.
6. And consider the incomprehensible nature of divine wisdom, and the excess of God’s providence towards men, and His insatiable desire to promote their salvation. War is stirred up in the country of this wonderful Father against the Arabs. He, not entirely unskilled, as it appears, in the art of war, goes out onto the field with his fellow countrymen; he is captured by the enemy, and is led away as a captive far from his native land. He is forced to enter into the interior of a foreign and hostile country; he is committed to a narrow prison, shackles are cast upon his feet, he is worn down by lack of food, he suffers many intolerable things, he loses heart, he despairs of his life; finally, he flees to God and promises D to live for Him alone in the future, if only it should befall him to see the light of freedom once more, and to escape the evils by which he is oppressed. What then does God, who is both swift to hear and provident in taking counsel for wretched circumstances, do? For a time, He weaves delays, and by tarrying, permits his miseries to be extended somewhat further; and this He does most prudently, so that the freedom of the suppliant might thereby be more secure; since it is the way of men that after they have been freed from the adversities by which they were pressed, they easily neglect the vows they had previously made, unless they have confirmed them thoroughly.
7. What then follows? Through dreams, to him the affairs of
A God are confirmed, and He sends to him the great hierarch and holy Father Nicholas, whom he himself also invoked more fervently, as one who had already experienced his intercession before God, and who, having previously performed many miracles on his behalf, held him in the place of a miracle. And indeed, appearing not once, but already even twice, he greatly rebuked the man’s irresoluteness, seeing that he had often before prayed for flight from the world, yet was still not at all making haste to carry out his vow in actual deed. For this reason, he said, it is just that neither you are heard now, nor can I, who am making intercession before God for the things that will profit you, obtain anything. But if you listen to me, call upon some other one of those who have great power before God as a helper, so that he may contribute his zeal to me, because I am doing the most for you. B 8. When Peter objected: "And who, then, is greater or more powerful than you?" Simeon, said the saint. "Understand that this is Simeon, who once long ago let down his very elderly arms, and held in them for forty days the God who is before mankind." But he, after this suggestion, departed and went away. When Peter had immediately shaken off his sleep, "Simeon" was constantly on his lips; and he did not cease from calling upon him, nor did he give in from imploring him, until he had persuaded him. For on the following day, Nicholas appeared again and commanded him to lift his eyes toward Simeon. He, quickly turning, sees a delightful sight: a man most venerable and gray-haired, arrayed in priestly fashion according to the old custom, leaning decorously upon a golden staff, and looking upon him with a gracious and pleasant countenance, C and announcing the remission, if indeed he were ready to bring to completion his promises to God. When Peter readily agreed, he commands him to go whithersoever he might wish without fear, departing from the prison. When he again showed the bonds around his feet, and insisted that the command was entirely impossible, the God-bearer gently lifted that beautifully radiating base and touched the bonds with the tip of his staff, and cut through the iron with the gold as easily as (as they say) a spider’s web; and Peter immediately finds himself—O the miracle!—not only released from those chains but also outside every enclosure in a moment of time, and he sees only Nicholas accompanying him and persuading him that the given freedom was no longer a dream but a reality; D and he also showed him an opportune path, a garden planted with various kinds of trees, and bearing many fruits suitable for human consumption. Amidst all these things, Peter was not only afraid to pluck any of those fruits, but did not dare to touch them even with the tip of his finger, as they say. Nicholas, however, encouraging him again and bidding him to pluck the fruits with fear cast aside, then brought him to the desired path and, having reminded him of those things that had been promised, vanished from the eyes of the man, and though he left him, he appeared to be with him always, even if invisibly.
CHAPTER II. Journey to Rome, thence to Crete. Miracles performed there.
9. A For when Petrus had thus unexpectedly looked upon the free heaven, he immediately turned his eyes toward the great Paul as toward an archetype, and did not think it right for himself to give way to flesh and blood; rather, doing what is better, he surrenders himself entirely to God, who by a greater providence had directed his affairs, and who had called him so wondrously; and he follows behind Him with wonderful readiness, unable to endure being separated from Him even for a little while, or to deviate from His footsteps. For just as if someone, having fixed his gaze upon the sun, then looks down at the things below, sees everything as darkness in the absolute sense, so he, having fixed the eye of his soul—his intellect, that is—unwaveringly on heaven, easily despised everything else—home, fatherland, parents, those kin by blood, those B joined by any sort of association—and bade farewell to all, or rather, did not even bid them farewell, but applied himself to one thing alone: to order his life according to God, and to esteem that more important than any other occupation, in which he mediates the total execution of the divine will, and thus becomes all things to Christ, and instead of all things possesses Christ, according to the divine pronouncement of that Apostle.
10. C Wounded by this arrow of divine love, Petrus immediately set out on the journey toward Rome, intent on living a more perfect life there, under the monastic habit, even openly bearing it, and thus to fulfill his vows. Meanwhile, the great Nicolaus again led the way for him in an invisible manner; and, having anticipated him and arrived at the city first, he speaks to the Lord Pope in an intelligible voice. For he was sitting—as was the custom at that time—on a high throne, and he himself was a man shining with sublime gifts and not unaccustomed to spiritual visions. To him, therefore, the saint commends Petrus, whom he had not yet seen with his eyes; and, having recounted the series of events concerning him, he commands him, when he arrives, to provide to him whatever is customary to be provided to those who have chosen the celibate life; and he even adds signs by which he might discern the designated man, and mentions his name. While Nicolaus brought this conversation to an end, Petrus had entered the city, knowing nothing of those things which had been done by the holy patron; and he at once thought to go to the metropolis. D When he was already approaching the sacred gates, and, having placed his knees on the ground, was occupied with paying homage to the divine images, the Pope immediately sends for him, initiates him into the monastic way of life, and clothes him in the habit appropriate to the institution. Stunned by the novelty of the event (for what could be more so?), he gave thanks to God, and, having raised his hands on high, he sent forth utterances expressive of his gratitude. Nor was this the end; but he continued to intend his laudable and beautiful eagerness, and, burning with the love of the Holy Spirit, he seeks a place that would favor his holy purpose. Descending, therefore, to the seashore, he encountered sailors—God, of course, having so providently arranged it—who were already prepared to set sail from the city, and to depart from the harbor before long.
He set sail along with them, hoping that perhaps in the course of this long voyage he might meet with some place that satisfied the desires of his soul; yet he placed his trust in this matter even more in God, who alone performs whatever is useful to mankind.
A 11. Having such hope, he saw in a dream the ever-virgin Mother of God, and standing beside her, in the guise of a servant, was Saint Nicholas, his own farsighted guardian. He was speaking to the Theotokos in a gentle voice, saying, "Where, O Lady, shall Peter dwell?" She, answering him with grace and modest decorum, replied: "There is a mountain in Europe, at once most beautiful and vast, which stretches out toward Libya and projects far into the sea. This place I have chosen out of the whole world, and have resolved that it shall be a habitation suitable and becoming for the monastic life; furthermore, I have consecrated it as my own special dwelling, and from henceforward it shall be called the Holy Mountain. To all those who shall undertake the struggle there against the common enemy of mankind, I will defend them as long as they live, and I will show myself entirely an invincible ally to them. I shall be the guide of what must be done, and the interpreter of what must be avoided; I shall be their caretaker, physician, and nurse, providing for them whatever food or healing they may require—whether it pertains to the body, to strengthen and invigorate it, or to the spirit, to rouse and confirm it, and to prevent it from being despoiled of its virtue. Moreover, I shall recommend to my Son and God those to whom it shall befall to end their life there, and I shall entreat from Him the perfect remission of their sins."
B 12. I know that this speech brought joy to everyone, and not without reason, for it promises, without any ambiguity, the salvation of the soul, which is so eagerly sought by us and by all who are of sound mind. For when the Mother of God, who makes even the impossible possible, pledges her assistance—and not only here and in the present age, but in the age to come, and not merely in small things, but by bringing about deliverance from those ineffable judgments and the enjoyment of incorruptible blessings—who, I ask, if he be in his right mind, would not rejoice exceedingly? But we must proceed to what follows. When the Theotokos had spoken thus concerning the mountain, and had added at last that Peter would indeed live there, he awoke from his sleep and betook himself to prayer, happier than he had ever been, his soul completely winged, as one might say, just as is fitting for a man who has been deemed worthy of such visions and has been privileged to hear such words. C
13. A short while later, as the ship was sailing past Crete, the sailors—who were in need of food and drink (for Peter, who from the very beginning had prudently subjected his flesh to his reason, and who passed his days without food while drinking only a little sea water, had no need of them)—judged that they must put into the harbor. Having gone ashore, they were diligently intent on securing a supply of flour and potable water.
A And since this had been decided and done, the helmsman—for someone of the locals who was very close to the helmsman lived somewhere there by the harbor and not far off—went to him and also stepped ashore; and he beheld his companion lying on his bed unexpectedly, with his wife and children not sitting by him or providing as much relief as they could to the sick man, but rather struggling themselves against a long illness and, by lying near him, increasing his distress. Wherefore, recollecting the manner of Peter’s life—for he was, as it seems, someone capable of judging a man’s virtue from a brief acquaintance—the helmsman addressed the invalid: “I have found, my dear friend, a remedy for the malady pressing upon you and your household,” he said; and he immediately bounded out of the house. He was eager to return to the ship, for he was persuaded that Peter, who was most obedient in all things for the sake of Christ, would follow him; and he immediately complied, as God surely moved him in his mind. B 14. He arrives, therefore, at that house crushed by sickness, and faster than a word he raises it up and strengthens it. For as soon as that man, who was gripped by a heavy illness, came to the sight of this wonderful Father, he was immediately eased, and recovered, and rose up; and falling at the feet of the one who had healed him, he found himself restored to health. Then, having risen quickly from there, he brought Peter to his children and his wife; and to them all he restored health most completely, as if he were carrying it in his very hands. For immediately all of them, freed from the sickness and the terrible things that had held them fast, stood up whole, not knowing what they should do or what they should say to Peter by way of sufficiently compensating him for so great a benefit. But he, being most averse to praise for himself, pressed them to return, and, being not at all moved by their applause, he attributed whatever had been done to God as the author. And when they brought money to the saint, who had by now returned to the ship, he accepted nothing at all, C saying that it was not right that they should give thanks to a man for benefits bestowed upon them by God; but rather, they should cling to God Himself with a chaste and temperate life and approved morals, and should order their lives according to God, not despising any of the things that He wills, nor ever yielding to anything that is at all displeasing to Him. “For thus,” he said, “with God helping, you will no longer have need of medicine, as you did a little while ago, nor will you fall into sickness again.”
Chapter 3. Journey to Mount Athos, and the life lived there harshly and holily.
15. When Peter had thus set the inner man of these people aright, he bade them return home; but he himself set sail from the harbor with the rest of the passengers, who attributed their successful voyage to the virtues of the holy man. For during that whole time, day and night, they had sailed with a favorable wind; D and for the future as well...
that they so confidently expected. But as they were thus minded and thinking, lo! by a completely unexpected event, while the wind still continued favorable and was blowing strongly against the stern, the ship ceased to move forward and stood immobile in that place. Although they pulled on every rope, as the saying goes, it gave no way at all to this immobility. The sailors, being at a loss and themselves participating in a similar immobility, were struck partly with amazement and partly because they knew not what course of action to take. A Since matters were in such a poor state, the divine Peter arose from the seat where he was resting, and looking around, asked the name of the mountain that happened to fall under his gaze; and upon learning that it was called Athos, he immediately understood and explained to the others the reason why the ship stood still, unable to move. "On this mountain," he said, "it is God's will that the remainder of my life be spent." And he commanded the one who held the helm to direct the ship straight toward the land to the left; and when he, without any hesitation, carried out what was commanded, the ship was released from its bonds and immediately began to move again with the greatest ease, just as before.
16. Does not astonishment come upon all at these things? How does the navigable element, the fluid property of the sea, at one time yield and provide a passage for the ship driven by the force of the winds, and at another time, having renounced its nature, put on a contrary quality and hold the ship fast in the same place like dry land? B And how was the wind, which is of a most fluid nature, checked in part and did not carry the ship away with its manifest force, when no more solid body was opposing it? For the wind excels the water in ease of movement. And the fact that dry land appeared at the bottom of the sea at this separation, that the fluid surface of the sea became as solid as the mainland, bears a glory no less than the miracles of old; therefore, this should be added to the ancient marvels and recounted no less than they, and God, to whom nothing that He wills is at all impossible, should be praised for this.
17. But thus, when those who sailed with Peter had approached the land, they disembarked the noble man at the foot of the mountain not without tears; C and he, seeing them already dejected through grief, gently raised them up, foretelling that they would travel securely thereafter and arrive happily at their destination. They, therefore, full of good hope, continued their journey; but he, with great labor, yet nonetheless striving through the pathless places, ascended the mountain and entered into the interior, entrusting himself and his affairs to God alone, to whom alone he had eagerly desired and committed himself to live, and had promised that he would live. This, indeed, he zealously carried through to the end, not only abstaining from almost all foods which are accustomed to sustain human nature, becoming in this part a little lower than the angels, but even enduring D cold and heat and frost and snows and rains—naked and under the open sky (O, what endurance!)—in misery. For he was a man, if any other, who was clear-sighted; and he understood how the nature of this earthly composition weighs down the mind and draws it toward the earth.
A This, I say, he understood well, and by other means, as well as by a very moderate use of available herbs, he marvelously macerated his little body, brought remarkable vigor to his mind, and by a diligent zeal for preserving stillness, he fashioned his heart into a truly divine vehicle, and another heaven, or rather a dwelling place for God more dear than heaven. This, to put it briefly, consists in the inclination of the mind and its conversion into itself, or rather—even if it is a wondrous thing to say—in the conversion of all the faculties of the soul into the mind, and in the constant execution of those things which reason and God dictate.
18. B Yet it is impossible to explain exactly what happens from that point on. For when the mind has escaped everything that falls under the senses, and has emerged from the sea of turbulence that such things usually bring, and has examined the inward man—having first considered the ugly mask with which the errors of mortals are accustomed to be covered, and hastening to remove it with the aid of sorrow—and after it has cast off this foul covering, then indeed the soul is no longer distracted in an unseemly manner by various affections; with difficulty it finally attains peace, and arrives at true stillness, and knows God, for whose sake it exists, as far as is possible. C Then it also surpasses its own nature, and by a certain participation it puts on the divine, and always progresses toward better things, provided only that it be well fortified on every side, and offers no opening whatsoever to the ancient craftsman of wickedness, through which he might slip in; and finding the soul swept clean, he might dwell there with his cohorts, and might—alas!—pitch the camp of his own wicked phalanx in it, and it might become those words of the Gospel: "The last state of that man is worse than the first" (Matt. 12:45).
19. C But may this be far from him. When, however, the mind—as the discourse has already begun to explain—has eliminated every indwelling passion, and has brought about the highest tranquility in the soul, and has not only converted itself to itself, but has also entirely converted the other powers of the soul to itself, and has cast aside everything that is false—first indeed whatever is of an inferior mark, then proceeding to that which is more perfect, or rather to that which is most perfect and pertains to the higher part of the soul—not only passing beyond the two material faculties, but even transcending spiritual and illusion-free intelligences, and referring all things simultaneously and religiously to God, and stands before God, as it is written, deaf and dumb: then it restrains the condition of matter, and expresses the heavenly form within itself with the greatest tranquility, inasmuch as it is not struck by any perverse affection, but is wholly changed for the better through infused grace. The mind endowed with such things, therefore, also transmits many proofs of the divine beauty to the joined body.
A and bestows upon it the power to accomplish things which otherwise could not be done.
20. Hence it comes about that a divine and unresisting habit of virtue is born; so that the soul is either in no way at all, or else not easily, inclined toward evil; so that the power to perform miracles is acquired; so that one perceives the present and foresees the future, B and discoursed of matters occurring at far-off places just as if they were taking place before one's eyes; and, what is most important, those blessed ones do not fix their purpose on these things; but just as if one were to turn his gaze toward a sunbeam, he also discerns the air-borne motes, even though this was not the purpose of him who looks; just so do they converse clearly with those divine rays which by nature contain the revelation of all things—not only of things that exist or have happened, but also of those that shall be hereafter—the knowledge of these things coming to them, in truth, as a by-product of the way. C Their purpose, however, is the supreme perfection according to the monastic life, the true hesychia, or rather the fruit of the true hesychia which we have mentioned; a thing difficult to grasp, more difficult to express, and most difficult to attain, even if the excellence of the subject has urged us to set forth now, in a few words, even those things which exceed our own powers.
CAPUT IV.
*Once and again tempted by the demon, he emerges superior through prayer.*21. This truly great-minded Peter, therefore, understanding to what he had been called, leaped to it—as the proverb has it—with hand and foot. D Yet this was not for the sake of an abundance of charisms; far be it! For that great man was never captivated by the greed for these things, since there is no need for our discourse to declare that such things are not to be greatly esteemed by those who have determined to undertake the solitary life; but he hastened so that he might offer place to grace, that he might polish the inner man, and that he might properly fashion into his prototype that ancient and hardly restorable beauty of the soul. Indeed, thus urged on, he disposed of ascents in his heart, according to the saying of the Psalmist (Ps. LXXXIII, 6). But what does the father of envy, the fullness of guile, the voluntary deserter of all that is good, the maker or patron of all evil—or rather, both at once—the first deserter, and he who was the author of the first man’s deserting God—what does he contrive? How does he behave toward the soul of the just man? Maliciously indeed, yet nonetheless using a moderation worthy of himself. For, seeing that the man had been placed outside the range of his missiles, so to speak, through his flight—by which he had abandoned the world and the pleasures that are in the world, with which that malignant one is accustomed to enervate degenerate souls—and from thence was not only deemed worthy of divine visions in sleep through imaginary spirits (which philosophy calls the vehicle of the rational soul), and had progressed toward excellent virtue, but was now even over and above that imagination itself, and was cleanly advancing through the contact of the immaterial, and being wondrously illuminated—as David says from the mountains
A of eternity—that he had likewise imparted the splendor of light to this mountain, having driven away from thence the darkness which he himself had previously been; for the evil demon, looking upon this, could not endure it, deeming it intolerable that Peter, still weighed down by the burden of the body, had been raised from the depths; for which reason he had fallen from the malice of his own plan: that Peter had attained the supernal and better portion, while not even the lowest was permitted to himself.
22. Being thus disposed by envy, he violently attempted to terrify B and oust him with assaults. And the first of the assaults, how ridiculous, or rather, how absurd it was! For against one man—and one who was stripped not only of weapons, but even of the necessary garments, consumed by long-continued fasting, and miserably wasting away in all his limbs through various afflictions—against one man, I say, naked, unarmed, and feeble, he himself put on the guise and habit of a general, and appeared to be drawing a troop of archers with him, and resounding with discordant vociferations and clamors, he made a fierce attack; and he entered the cave where the Saint was living at that time, challenging him to engage in combat. Outside, however, the masked cohort C of his companions filled everything far and wide with noise, colliding with one another the massive rocks that lay around; and some trees they uprooted, others they broke in pieces; and finally, they were devising every manner of assault against the cave.
23. But when that great man, having felt no fear upon such things, turned from his soul in prayer to God, and fixed the eyes of his mind upon Him; that wicked one, being unable to persist there even for a moment, immediately disappeared. Not long after, however, he again transformed himself and his whole army into serpents; and he himself, crawling, D preceded them, acting as their leader, in no way like the others—neither in reality nor in appearance—but immense in size and terrible to behold (for he truly represented a dragon); and he rose, as it were, from the earth, and bearing a neck aloft, he seemed to flash sparks from his eyes; and with inflated cheeks he breathed forth flames everywhere, moving a blood-stained tongue which extended far beyond his chin, and which was, or seemed to be, overflowing with deadly poison. And when he prepared to engage with Peter, he threatened from afar, as if by the sheer force of his spirit, to snatch away and plunder that undaunted man as his prey.
24. But as he did not deign even to turn his gaze at all toward his adversary, but maintained his hands raised unswervingly toward heaven, the spiritual Amalek was again defeated and driven off, retreating more swiftly than he had approached. And repentance soon seized that most wicked head, when everything happened contrary to what he himself had meditated; for always considering the deeds of the noble athlete, and the intense and sublime manner of his praying.
he was rather sharpening his diligence and, though unwillingly, was procuring for him most beautiful crowns. A To me, however, now contemplating the constancy of the man, it is clear that he achieved nothing less than those who underwent the contest of martyrdom. For the latter, in order not to renounce the worship of God, endured all things by necessity; but our man, yielding in constancy nothing to them, endured every assault with a ready and joyful heart, so that he might not separate his mind from God even for the slightest moment. If he believed that great struggles were to be undergone for lesser causes, what would he not have willingly suffered, if circumstances had brought him into danger for matters of the highest moment?
CAPUT V.
He is attacked by a demon, who disguises himself as his servant and urges a return to his homeland.
25. B Yet he did not yield, or scarcely at all, to those indefatigable praisers of God, whether he was leading a quiet life or one infested by temptations. But the tireless adversary of virtue, because he had failed in his wish, was indeed afflicted with severe grief; yet, shaken by the sharper stings of envy (for it is the habit of emulation, when it has not obtained its desire, to increase all the more), he rose up again for vengeance more vehemently. Nevertheless, having been repulsed in open warfare, he thought he should betake himself to guile, and he determined to prepare snares for the noble combatant—the same snares by which he had formerly known that he had harmed the human race most greatly, and by which, having deceived our first parents, he had—alas!—in a way torn up and crushed the entire race by the roots. And since he could not in the first place deceive Eve, because he who was being attacked evaded the sight of every woman entirely, nor did he himself crawl up in the guise of a serpent, feigning a pernicious counsel by soothing and alluring words—but having assumed the persona of one of the servants whom Peter had employed in the world, so that his tale might find some credence—he approached the holy man in a truly mournful state. C Recalling to his memory his parents, his brothers, and the entire assembly of those joined to him by blood, as well as the best of his friends, and all those from the neighbors who were more familiar to him of every age (for he is wonderfully wicked, and most subtle in constructing such things), he feigned that his whole homeland was still mourning on his account, addressing him thus: D
26. "Neither your contemporaries nor all those older than you have forgotten, or will forget, that while you were among them, you were to all the cause of joy and an example of every virtue; but now, through this long absence of yours, you are to them a cause of incessant sadness. The younger ones, not without reason, are afflicted with the greatest grief because they are in no way permitted to enjoy the exercise of your illustrious virtues; and they are afflicted with the greater sorrow because they understand that no one shining with equal virtues will remain among the living after you. What, then, most excellent master, has the love, which you have so ardently held for solitude, brought you in the way of utility? To have shunned men, forbidden to you to return to them,"
A to have retreated to thickets and sought out these sickly caves? To dwell near fissures and roost with venomous creatures; is this what you would call living according to God? And how did Abraham, who was loved by God, spend his life among men? What of those who came from him and after him? And if you wish, what of those before him as well, who chose to live according to God rather than according to pleasure—did life among men corrupt them? Did they not, even then, attract many by the spectacle of themselves toward virtue, and by taking up witnesses of those who had struggled well, did they not remain unconquerable for length of time, instilling in all a desire for the good, and by the emulation of them, remaining youthful throughout the ages; and do they not remain even here, ageless and immortal in daily, immortal successions? But you, you will end your life here without witnesses, and your efforts will conclude with nothing useful for you, benefiting no one among those currently living, nor those who will live hereafter. For whoever does something noble and does not bring this to the light, according to that evangelical saying, "Let your light shine before men," it is as if he had not acted at all; he profits nothing, he stirs no one to emulation, he harms those who are to be better from this, and he will naturally pay the penalty on the day of judgment.
27. B But if you think that you must comply with the laws of the new grace, and perhaps, strengthening yourself in this purpose, you forbid yourself a return, I shall, from this very law, bring forth what is advantageous to you, and I shall demonstrate the utility of the sentiment just now explained; for I have not been recently admitted into your house, but from the times of your ancestors I have served among your most faithful servants, and I love you ardently, and I am concerned for your affairs. Come then, tell me, my master, to whom among all people do you please in this state? How are you not to be judged as scorning that commandment which says, "Let each please his neighbor"? How do you persuade yourself that you are performing an act here that is pleasing to God, when you seek here only what is your own, unmindful of Him who says, "Let no one seek their own, but let each seek the neighbor’s good"? And what excuse could you have, setting aside C not only what you could contribute to others, but also the salvation that would return from them back to you, as if in a cycle, according to what is written: "If you bring forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth"? And, "Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way, shall cover a multitude of sins."
28. D But that wicked one, since he was also experienced in the Scriptures, with such a long discourse, arming himself from every side, still even now seemed to be pointing out the tree of good and evil to the noble fighter, and was maliciously attempting to expel him from the paradise of his quietude. But for the fighter himself, who had detected the guile lurking under his words, and had fully perceived his equipment and malice, a brief word sufficed, and the power from that point...
A has been taken away. For having used a louder voice against the architect of guile, he proclaimed the cause of our return to a better state—I mean the Theotokos—and that one, as soon as he saw that he was not concealed, disappeared, having cast off the mask of hypocrisy and, as was fitting, having slipped into the shame of it. For he who fears to engage in open battle but tries to steal a victory by guile, once detected and defeated at the first encounter, unwillingly and with disgrace retires from the arena and, by his flight, erects a trophy for his opponents, who have easily carried off the victory over him by intelligence alone.
29. Thus Peter, master of his mind and thoughts, compelled the wicked adversary in a short time to learn by experience that he was not ignorant of his wiles; and in one struggle he brought forth a clear specimen of all virtues. For in having discerned the ambush, and in no way being swept away by the fair mask of malice that was proposed, he clearly showed that he, if anyone, was endowed with prudence. And as for the fact that the enticements proposed to the holy man from the pleasures of this age were, as it were, concretely presented, and could have softened the harsh mode of life of the desert and called him back to worldly happiness; from this the saint appeared as an outstanding contemner of those things, but preferred a laborious and wretched life to them; this is an indication that he excelled in temperance and shone with fortitude of soul. And finally, that he rejected that wickedest one, who was wickedly attempting to suggest that lawless opinion, and offered himself as obedient to God, who is by nature Lord and Creator, to Him he not undeservedly attributes the praise of righteousness. B
CAPUT VI. The fourth temptation of the demon, who feigned to be an angel, he overcomes by humility; and is heaped with heavenly gifts.
30. He who pursues whatever is good with implacable hatred, did not even after these things think he ought to cease. O for the madness! Which not even a child, as they say, has learned from misfortune; or rather, O for the arrogance! For this, when it is confuted by its outcomes, is puffed up by empty hopes, dreaming of a future victory. But not so the servant of God, Peter, who, appearing crowned with such great virtues and trophies, referred all his own things to God, and from thence trustfully called upon His help for things to come. And so, sustained by humility, his mind is in no way harmed by the victory that has come to him; but using hope that does not put to shame, he girds himself for the impending trial; and in that, by an abundance of merit, he is shown to be superior, as the discourse will now come to demonstrate. D
31. For that being who is more multiform than Proteus, or a many-headed hydra, who is cunning beyond measure in leading astray, having failed in every other type of assault, and seeing the man's training through every virtue, and his disciplined, C and exceptionally lofty and perfect way of life...
from this he conceived the hope of plundering that inviolable treasure of his. Therefore, he who had long since recoiled, having been driven from the light, and had been miserably changed into darkness, so as to drag Peter into a similar calamity, assumes the appearance of light, feigning to be an angel of light; A and he approaches the saint, seeking to extinguish the lamp that had been lit within him through his participation in the true and primary light, by means of his own deceitful luster. And having approached, he does not dare to address him face to face, fearing that most discerning gaze; but standing outside by the aperture of the cave, he sent his voice through the window, relying on his smooth speech. Therefore, after greeting the saint from there, he spoke out: "Take courage and be strong, Peter." And when he pondered and asked who he might be, and from where he who gave this greeting came, he immediately replied and said: "I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Lord’s army; I have come to you to announce the reward stored up in the heavens for the labors you have endured until today; and at the same time, to instruct you as to what you must do from here on."
B 52. Know, therefore, that you surpass all those who have been before you in training and endurance, and that you will deservedly attain even greater prizes. For Elijah fasted, but only for the space of forty days; you, however, having already spent the seventh year here, remain without the usual food of human life. Daniel dwelt miraculously with wild beasts; but with only a few, and for no long time; you, however, dwell with many, and for a long time. And if anyone should admire the endurance of Job, consider that he did not endure the onslaught of evils by his own choice; but you, C of your own will, dwell in this inhospitable place for such a time, and though agitated by temptations of various kinds and more varied sorts, you have not despaired. One thing is now desired, that you render men better by your company, and, having withdrawn them from earthly things, transfer them into the number of heavenly citizens, looking to the example, which is Christ, from whom I, too, have now been sent and have arrived in swift flight. He, after that athletic sojourn on the mountain, returned and gathered with the multitude of men, and prescribed salutary laws for them. If, however, you suspect that my arrival here did not come from the divine will, I will prove to you by a manifest argument that I was sent by God. For David, the herald of His miracles, thus speaks to God Himself: D "Thou didst dry up the rivers of Ethan," that is to say, those rivers which flowed constantly, not those which burst forth recently like a winter torrent. And in another place in the Psalms: "He turned rivers into a wilderness, and water-springs into thirsty ground, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein." Therefore, as a sign that, because God is no longer propitious, you can no longer dwell here, the water that flows past has, at His command through me, dried up. Now, that fertile inventor of such ploys had seen to it, through another wicked spirit, that the water should be led back beforehand.
A 53. Indeed, even if that sophist of wickedness was an unwilling praiser of virtue, and had brought forth an argument as persuasive as possible—mixing, if I may so speak, much honey with his poison—and had even provided a sign to induce belief by making the fountain appear to have vanished, did it therefore escape the notice of that great man who he was? Not at all. For neither could bronze, overlaid with a flower of gold, escape detection once it was brought to the Lydian touchstone. And the divine Peter possessed the eye of his mind, purified by a straight intention toward God, as his most excellent Lydian stone. Therefore, perceiving the ruse, through his humility he suddenly confounds that proud man and with a few words banishes the impostor far away. "I am unworthy," he says, "of an angelic vision—for how could it be otherwise?—I who have fled and will always flee even the sight of men, knowing myself to be unworthy of their company, B as one viler than the human condition, and, to speak in the words of the Prophet, 'no man.'"
54. Therefore, the one who possesses pride—which, as the Apostle says, is completely opposed to the humility of a holy man—since he could not endure it, at once laid aside his mask and took to flight. But God, who gives grace to the humble, bestowed an abundant measure of it upon Peter, providing it for him as a pledge in this world, not just keeping it in reserve for the age to come. For from that time on, the great man lived his life free from diabolical insults, C justly and perfectly. For just as the peaks of the highest mountains are less exposed to winds—because the air swirling about them is moved in harmony with the rotation of the heavens (and it is manifest that this rotation, reaching in its continuity even to those summits, is stronger than the onslaught of winds arising from below)—in entirely the same way, when Peter had already escaped to the invisible watchtower of all virtues, that is to say, to humility, and had been breathed upon and blown about by the graces of the celestial Spirit, the phalanx of evil spirits was fittingly abandoned and driven off to some lower place, their wings melted by the divine fire like wax, D just as they say the apparatus in the fables of Icarus was melted by the all-too-ardent rays of the sun.
55. For the inspiration of the divine Spirit, having driven away the malicious powers, brings in their place helpful ministers; and it nourished the man, even while he was still dwelling on earth, no less than with the ministers of heaven, by means of bread brought at fixed intervals of days by an angel. For to Elijah, the raven—an animal hostile to its own brood—ministered, which they say is a symbol of its uncompassionate nature toward its kin; but to Peter, a man of angelic life, the minister is an angel, and indeed a manifest angel, who even provides him with manna—food that grew of its own accord and was of varied taste, [index: entries preserved]
always providing a variety of tastes according to the varied appetite of the eater. Thus the great Peter lived as if in paradise, on a piece of land set apart from the earth, bearing only small symbols of his communion with things below and with the earth; he led a life destitute of possessions, free from care, free from business, and—which is the most important thing—free from imagination; daily he found delight and joy in pure movements of the mind and in spiritual visions. A
CAPUT VII.
Found by a hunter, he unfolds the series of his life; and when the hunter wishes to remain there, he sends him home.
36. When he had passed forty-six years in this manner, living for God alone and contemplating Him alone, and in turn being looked upon and nourished by Him alone, finally, at the very sunset of his life, as people say, it happened by divine providence that he was seen by one single person. He was a hunter who, while busy with the hunt, was wandering through the forest; and while he was looking around widely for the sake of tracking his prey more diligently, a deer appeared before his eyes, beautiful to behold, and of such size and fatness that it could charm the desire of the hunter and entice him to pursue it. Such a deer, therefore, leaping forth from the wood somewhere or other, went forward; and moving always very slowly, as if on purpose, it kept fleeing ahead of the hunter who was intent on his prey; it did not come into his hands or within range of a weapon, nor, indeed, did it withdraw so far that it did not seem possible to be caught. In this way, for a great part of the day, the deer fled and the hunter pursued; or, to speak more truly, it led and he followed. For it led the hunter to the saint, while he, hurrying forward with rapid pace, hung on his prey with eyes and mind. B Then, suddenly seeing a man who was very gray, squalid, filthy, shriveled, and devoid of all covering, the deer immediately took to flight in terror. For an unexpected sight, even if it is not very terrifying, is apt to strike and cast down the mind of a brave man in the desert. C
37. When, therefore, he was struck by the goad of fear and was carrying his foot backward, the man of God shouted with a loud voice: "O man, I too am a man," he said; "take heart, therefore, and give up your flight; do not hesitate to return to us. For perhaps God has sent you hither this day so that you might be a listener to the things done by me." The hunter, having heard such a voice, first returned to himself and then to the saint; and inquiring diligently and humbly into his deeds, he learned everything from beginning to end: what cause had stimulated him to undertake a better life, what end had followed, how he had established his life on the mountain, how he had ascended to perfection, what temptations of the demon he had endured, what trophies he had erected after having conquered him, and with how many gifts and graces from God he had been heaped. D When he had heard all these things, and had returned home, he made others also partakers of this saving narrative: which also, as a noble inheritance, was transmitted and descended from parents to children, and at length [has reached] some...
us, renewing the memory of himself, and containing no small store of profitable virtue; he is set forth to all as an example of every good, a primary image of a life innocent in every respect, a model of virtue in every way, and free from every vice.
58. But our discourse hastens toward the end; and I perceive that I have omitted many things which ought to have been said. I shall now mention a few of these, which occurred after the transition of the wonderful man to the world above, and thus place a fitting end to this discourse. Wherefore the narrative must be taken up again from a little higher point. For when that hunter had seen the servant of God, had spoken with him, and had truly recognized that he was a man of God, or rather greater than men, and in truth an angel of God, a heavenly priest, and a beholder of the Deity, he did not offer tithes of his possessions, as Abraham did of old when he met Melchisedek; B nor did he promise to bring the treasures hidden at home, or to give half of his goods to the poor, after the example of Zacchaeus; but he chose to dedicate himself entirely to God and to the man of God, considering his return a penalty, and resolving utterly that he should never be separated from him. "For this reason," he said, "I beseech this favor of you, O most divine head, that you admit me into your society, so that with you as my master, I may spend the remainder of my life, free from cares, for God; that I may avoid the various snares of the evil spirits, and arrive at God, the common rest of all who have ended their lives with a blessed passing; God, I say, who bids all to come to Him, who receives those who come kindly, C and rewards them with greater prizes than they had hoped for. Do you therefore in this also imitate your Lord; and I pray you, do not reject my insignificance; for not yet, O man of God, can I be torn away from your sight. But if you wish me to be torn away altogether, I shall lead a miserable life, not without injury to myself: just as if I had a treasure in my possession, one more precious than all the riches of the world, and I were afterwards to strip myself of its possession of my own accord."
59. "But not so," says this Peter, who also sees what lies far ahead; "do not think so, my good man. For a wife sits at home for you, and kinsfolk are committed to your care; and furthermore, you possess abundant wealth, capable of satisfying the grumbling stomachs of many poor people. Come therefore, beloved son, return and be a helper against want for those who are severely pressed by it; and do not cease to distribute to them what you have, until you have been reduced D to an equal condition with them. For then, perhaps, by doing good, you will be worthy to place your neck under the yoke of Christ. For, as He Himself said, 'The poor have the gospel preached to them.' But take heed to yourself; and as much as you can, renounce earthly pleasures and cares; keep in your soul a perpetual memory of God, meditating upon His name and, as it were, inscribing it in the secret chambers of your heart; and diligently read the sacred pages and divine utterances every day and every hour.
And when you have spent a year in these things, if it should please your mind to return to us, you will more clearly know the will of the Lord concerning you.
CAPUT VIII. The corpse of the dead man expels the demon, and is borne away placed upon a boat.
40. A When the great man had said these things and prayed, he ceased speaking and withdrew from the hunter; who, returning home and when the appointed time had already passed, having a brother possessed by an evil demon, taking along two monks, set out by boat toward the holy man. And having arrived at the part where he remembered he had proceeded toward the mountain by a direct path, and had found the holy man in his interior dwelling, together with the aforementioned companions he disembarked from the boat, and entered upon the path which led along the side of the mountain to the holy man, hastening with a brisker pace than B the others. For the soul that is driven by the goads of love, even if it were equipped with wings, could hardly soon enough attain its desires. Thus, then, he, with fervid impulse, running far ahead of those climbing with him, arrived first at the desired place; and gazing more accurately at everything with his eyes, he beheld the corpse of the holy man, lying very decently, the spirit having departed from it and flown to the Lord of spirits.
41. C Struck, therefore, by that bitter spectacle as if by some arrow, he emitted bitter cries, beat his breast, shed tears, groaned, and lamented: "What," he said, "is to become of me, the wretched one? I have been cut off from my hopes, the treasure has been taken away, I have been deprived of my salvation, and I have utterly and miserably lost the wealth of soul which I expected." So he said, not yet taught by experience that that dead man was by no means a small wealth, and was a treasure which could not a little help its possessors. Shortly afterward, the demoniac also arrived there together with the monks. He immediately began to shout aloud, to be contorted, D and to be agitated throughout his whole body; to stretch out his hands indecorously, and to move his feet in like manner; to distort his eyes in a horrible and inhuman way; and, by gnashing his teeth, to emit an unbecoming noise and an absurd sound; and finally to push out much foam from his mouth, arising from the fact that, being frequently about to breathe out, he could not breathe, both because of the disorderly movement of the organs, and because of the flow of phlegm born from the disturbance of the brain, and because the indwelling spirit also mingled itself therein.
42. In the man so miserably affected, the spirit that dwelt within him gave forth speech through his mouth, by which it addressed the very corpse of the holy man, as if it were still joined to his blessed soul: "Has satiety not yet taken you," it said, "of the trophies erected to my disgrace, O insatiable man? Three and fifty years have passed since you ceased not to cruelly toss, to pursue, and to exterminate me. But against my arrows, which I have hurled at you of various kinds, you were disposed no otherwise than an adamant rock, by the name of your...
A former way of life, and you seem to think that you are still doing this, even now that you have departed from the living, as if you would expel me even from this little place—into which, after I had finished much of the journey before, I had at last barely found a way and crept in to dwell. Nevertheless, I will not obey you, nor will I leave this place; since this is almost the only hospice remaining that is suited to my temper. [43.] O the miracle! B It turned the corpse-like and pale face toward the bystanders, and clothed it with a more radiant color: then immediately the demon departed from the possessed man, rising through his mouth like smoke; so that, if one may be permitted to alter that text of David a little, as the righteous rejoiced (for the change of color was indeed the index of joy), 13 the enemy of God vanished like smoke. What greater miracle than this can be said to have occurred in our memory or that of our ancestors? Some of the ancients have already recalled the dead to life—namely that Elias, and Elisha after him, who even received a double portion of grace through him; but no one, if you except Christ, has restored himself to life. Yet Peter, by the grace of His assistance, merited to draw nearer to Christ, just as in a life superior to disturbances, so also in the glory of miracles. But if anyone should also inquire as to who have experienced his beneficence, let him know that it is much more desirable to be delivered from a demon than to be raised from the dead, by as much as it is more wretched to be vexed by a demon than death itself.
[44.] That hunter, moreover, having been changed from mourning to rejoicing, together with his brother now restored to him, and with two monks as companions on his journey, lifted up the coffin, placed it becomingly on the boat, and began to sail back C toward the northern part of the mountain. And the ship was indeed borne by a fair wind, until, once it had passed opposite a certain monastery—with no other wind blowing in the opposite direction, and with that fair wind neither ceasing nor even diminishing—it stuck as immovable as a rock. The travelers, therefore, were contributing their own efforts to the wind, leaning on their oars with full force. But that dead man who was lying in the ship excelled not only the winds, but even the living men themselves in immense strength; or rather, He excelled who is the Lord of the dead and the living alike, by Whom all things were being wondrously performed, so that this holy mountain should not lose the unheard-of memory of the life of labor of the man of desires—that is, as Daniel says, this divine Peter. All, therefore, despairing of D any further progress, turned the prow back; and having thus secured a boat that was now obedient to them, they landed at that monastery which was situated opposite, and there they unwillingly laid down that beloved corpse. But to enumerate the multitude of miracles performed in that place would be equally as tiresome as it would be impossible.
CAPUT IX
A 48. Those whom our narrative previously indicated had traveled with the hunter, thinking it by no means endurable to be separated from that holy treasure, pretentiously asked to be received and numbered among those who were happily dwelling there, intending to end their own lives in that same place. After remaining for only a short time, however, they took up that wonder-working body and transported it across the sea into Thrace, where, again, they unwillingly laid it down. For as they were making their journey, the hour for their midday meal arrived; and the place B near them at that time seemed to them by chance to be most suitable for preparing it. A spring flowed from it, beautiful to look upon and sweet to drink; all around it grew soft grass, offering a pleasant resting place and shelter; and there were trees, too, planted along the course of the water.46. Therefore, having suspended from the high branches the linen cloth in which that precious corpse—one which possessed more vigor than those who were themselves alive—was wrapped, they positioned themselves beneath its shade. As they sat by the spring, they brought out the food they had with them and began to eat. But suddenly, an innumerable multitude of every age, running together and crying out loudly, came rushing upon them, waving their hands in a horrific manner and lamenting that they were being greatly wronged by Peter and were suffering C torments at his hands. For this was the whole substance of their outcry—that they were being driven away by Peter from many other places, and now from this one as well.
47. For by the spring there lay a village, Photokomi by name, and in its vicinity there had been built of old a portico. A vast multitude of demons dwelt in that place. When they felt the presence of Peter, they could not remain in that location; for how could demons, who are mere darkness, bear the presence of a man filled with heavenly light and the grace flowing from it? Just as that adorable body of Christ, which possessed the same person as the subsisting divine Word, remained inseparable D from the Divinity even when it was separated from the soul for three days; so, likewise, the bodies of those who have attained the Holy Spirit while they lived are not deserted by that same indwelling divine Spirit even after death. This same Spirit, then, also being present there at that time, by his arrival dispersed the obstacles and terrified and put to flight the battalions of enemy spirits that had impudently invaded the entire village of Photokomi and had driven all its inhabitants into a frenzy. Yet they gained nothing at all from this, other than to testify to their own defeat by their open flight.
48. For that maddened crowd of men had suddenly been restored to sanity and decorum even before they could reach and touch the linen of the blessed Peter, which, as we said, was suspended; and those discordant cries
were instantly transformed into seemly chants. Thus restored to their senses, they soon began to fear that they would live a miserable life if it should happen that this common defender of their salvation were taken away from them. Fearing, then, upon their own account, that if he were removed, they might have to endure something even more wretched than their former miseries, they retained that body which averts all evils. Not, indeed, by force, but by persuading the monks who had brought the body, offering them money in addition, they carried off that divine corpse with psalms and spiritual canticles. Conducting it with a public and most magnificent procession, they transferred it to their village, or rather, they dedicated that village to him.
B 49. But what manner of speech would suffice to recount the multitude of miracles that flourished here? For he who had previously had eyes affected by disease now saw more keenly than a lynx; he who had been deaf yesterday and the day before could perceive any sound with his ears; another, formerly almost more mute than a fish, was moving his tongue with ease; others who had lost the use of their limbs immediately recovered and were strengthened. There were some who were so affected in their whole body that they were in danger of death from a grave malady, yet in a moment of time they were restored to health, with all men rejoicing, applauding, and singing paeans. Furthermore, each one contributed no small portion of his goods, they consecrated to him the most cherished part of their land, and, having newly constructed a temple, they erected it, full of beauty and adorned with most precious offerings. C But the holy man himself holds sway not only over that temple, but also over this region in particular, along with not a few others, in which he is praised, shines forth in miracles, and is honored with annual celebrations. For I approve of him who says that for good men, when they are dead, their sepulcher is everywhere on earth, because everywhere the noble deeds they performed are on the tongues of all.
50. For other men, I might almost say for all, excellence dies with their death; but this our great Father Peter, even after death, is immortal and performs miracles through the ages: and what is the head of all, his glory shines forth not only here and throughout the whole world, wherever the grace of the Gospel is directed by its laws and obeys the decrees of the divine oracles, D but, penetrating even to heaven itself, he is held in high esteem by the angelic Powers with whom he now dwells. For that, which to the divine nature alone pertains, to be present everywhere, this Peter merited to obtain by the grace divinely bestowed upon him; seeing that he is present on earth with men, through a clear and unfailing memory of himself, and is reckoned in heaven among the saints who have been from time immemorial, leading without intermission the choir around the throne of God with the angels.
51. Thus, when he lived, he renounced all things, and when he died, he obtained all things; and while he still lived, he fled the world, but when he closed his life with death, he received heaven; or rather, he joined heaven to earth; and he gained that heavenly [realm] along with the earth, and the
A sensation of all, for his life was once hidden, but now that he has finished his life, he delights and benefits the senses of all. For the tongues of almost everyone speak of him with admiration; similarly, his praises reach the hearing of almost all; he is set before the eyes as an adorable spectacle, and most useful to handle. B And not only does he affect the senses, but he also regulates the faculties of the soul toward the better, teaching all through the examples of his own life where, in what manner, and to what extent one must use those faculties. And thus, doing good to all in every way, he has become a common storehouse of all good things, a master of virtue, an expeller of vices, a provider of all kinds of goods, an easy supplier in difficult circumstances; and, to express it in a word, a most ready helper in all necessities. Especially, however, toward every nature endowed with reason, he behaved in conformity to God, being a chaser away of demons, a benefactor of men, and a companion of the angels.
52. Thus he offered himself to us C as a great treasure and a medicine, excellently curing every kind of illness. He also presented himself as an exemplar of Christian philosophy to all who wish to lead a holy life; and to those who excel in the faculty of eloquence, he provided an excellent theme, no less suitable for the commendation of the one praised than for the one praising. But no one of us all could either perfectly imitate him or praise him according to his merits: yet if anyone should possess the ability to imitate and to praise, he would indeed act magnificently, glorifying through him the One in three hypostases according to essence, the God whom we who think rightly believe in, who is wonderful in His saints, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
GREGORII THESSALONICENSIS ET GREGORII SINAITAE ASCETICA
(From the *Philocalia of the Sacred Niptic Fathers*, Venice 1782. Since, after the completion of the printing of this book, all copies were transported to the East, none can now be found in our regions. We used a copy transmitted to us from Athens by that most meritorious man, J. Sgouta. The learned J. Lecomte, parish priest at Balneae in the diocese of Orléans, undertook the task—such a great labor!—of preparing the Latin interpretation.)
A Our Father of holy memory, Gregory of Thessalonica, lived during the reign of Andronicus, the second of the Palaeologus dynasty, around the year of salvation one thousand three hundred and forty. Having forsaken the whole world and all that is in the world, and having migrated from his homeland, Constantinople, to the holy mountain of Athos, he embraced the monastic life. In this life, applying himself to the most ascetic labors, and directing himself alone to the only God, through supreme stillness he became a most divine mirror of the Holy Spirit, having ascended to the pinnacle of both active life and contemplation—if any other has ever done so. B Being illuminated in his mind by its divine brilliances, he left behind most wise and theological writings, as a kind of pillar of orthodoxy for the Church of God. The present book contains fragments of these, which reveal to the readers treasures of true divine knowledge, spiritual wisdom, and perfection. For that god-seeing and heavenly mind did not only collect what was said by the ancient saints, but also added what he himself had learned through long experience and by the instinct of blessed grace; he set these forth as a most beautiful prize before those who are vigilant, so that no person could ever think these are works of human intellect—far from it. Rather, in truth, he had filled his whole hearing and intellect with the mind of Christ and the words of God. Furthermore, by these writings he stoutly defends those who are devoted to sacred stillness and who occupy themselves with mental watchfulness and prayer, while C he most learnedly refutes the contradictory and foolish babblings of his adversaries, using Scripture to prove them contrary to the truth.
* See his Notice prefixed to the writings, below in col. 1205.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER GREGORY, METROPOLITAN OF THESSALONICA, TO THE MOST VENERABLE AMONG NUNS, XENA, ON PASSIONS AND VIRTUES AND ON THE FRUITS BORN FROM MENTAL LEISURE.
A For those truly desiring to live a monastic life, not only is conversation with the multitude unpleasant, but even that with those of the same path. For constant company interrupts the most delightful conversation with God and disturbs the uniqueness of the mind, in which the inner and true monk consists, splitting it into two, and sometimes even into many parts; wherefore also one of the Fathers, being asked for what reason he fled from men, answered: "Because when I am with men, I cannot be with God." Another, explains such things from experience, blames not only conversation, but even the very sight of men, as being able to damage the stability of the quietude of those living in stillness. If anyone examines this with precision, he will see that the memory of past association, and the expectation of a meeting, and of the conversation to be held therein, leaves the thoughts of the soul not at all at rest. He who entrusts his words even to writing involves his own mind in a more troublesome care; and even if he is one of those who have made progress and, by the fortitude of his soul, has attained the love of God, he indeed operates with this (love) while writing, yet not immediately and sincerely. But if he is one of those still falling into many diseases or passions of the soul—such as I truly am—and who need constantly to cry out to God: "Heal me, for I have sinned against thee," it is not fitting for him, before his healing, to cease from prayer or to apply himself intentionally to any other thing. Furthermore, he even converses through letters with those who are not present, and to many times and many people, and sometimes to those whom he does not wish, he transmits his conversation, since writings are apt to remain after the death of the writer. For this reason, many of those who in quietude have
A perfected themselves as the highest Fathers, did not wish to write anything at all, although they were able to set forth great and very useful things. Missing their precision in every respect, I, too, was accustomed to write, but only when urgent necessity pressed upon me. But now, those who look with envious eyes upon some of my writings and seek from them pretexts for malice have made me even more sluggish for this. For they, according to the great Dionysius, busy themselves with elements and senseless letters, and syllables, and unknown words, not passing through to the intellectual part of their soul. And it is truly irrational and perverse, and in no way proper for those who wish to understand divine things, not to attend to the power of the aim, but to the words. I know indeed that I have justly endured criticisms from them; not that I did not write in harmony with the Fathers—for this, by the grace of Christ, has been preserved for me in my writings—but because I wrote about things of which I was not worthy. Another person, a worthy one, perhaps Zunas, attempted to assist the one who had been B overturned, for the sake of the truth of the argument. But besides, because our impulse was not of anger, but of moderate education; wherefore those who attacked us were not able to prevail against us. Perhaps this also happened on account of my unworthiness; for I was not worthy, nor capable, as it seems, to suffer anything for the truth, and thus to share with joy in the sufferings of the saints. For what? Was not Chrysostom the Father, who even while clothed in the body was joined to the Church of the firstborn in heaven, he who, if anyone, wrote safely, and clearly, and sweetly concerning piety—was not this great man, I say, cast out of his Church and condemned to exile as if he held and taught the errors of Origen? And Peter, the chief of the supreme choir of the Lord's disciples, says that there are some things in the epistles of the great Paul that are difficult to understand, which the C unlearned at that time distorted to their own destruction. As for me, because of the bitter malice of those who attacked me, although they had been defeated synodically, I nevertheless intended to abstain from writing entirely. Had it not been that you now, O venerable mother, did not cease entreating, and using encouraging letters and messages, until you persuaded me to undertake this work again. Nor were there many exhortations needed for you; for you are distinguished not only by the hoariness of age, but also by the maturity of prudence, and you have learned well the law of the sacred injunctions through long-standing practice, having apportioned your life at the proper time to obedience and quietude; by which, having polished the tablet of your soul, you have made it fit to receive and preserve the divine characters. For the matter is thus: a soul D wholly seized by a love of spiritual teaching never takes its fill of it. Wherefore also Wisdom says of herself: "Those who eat me shall yet hunger." And the Lord who puts this divine desire into the soul says concerning Mary, who chose this good portion, that "it shall not be taken away from her." Perhaps you have need of such words, both because of the pupils who live under you, and especially because of the brides whom you desire to join from your spiritual family to the guide of incorruption; since
in imitating Him there, just as He truly assumed our form for our sake, so do you yourself now clothe yourself in the person of those who are being introduced and stand in need of instruction. Therefore, I too—even if I am not adept at speeches, and especially at such speeches—will, out of obedience and because of the commandment to give to him who asks, display my intent from what I now possess, and thus fulfill the debt of Christian charity.
Know therefore, reverend mother—or rather, through you, let the young women who have chosen to live according to God learn—that there is also a death of the soul, although it be immortal by nature. For thus speaks the beloved Theologian: "There is a sin unto death, and there is a sin not unto death" (1 John 5:16), A certainly calling the death of the soul the death here. And the great Paul says: "Worldly sorrow produces death" (2 Cor. 7:10), certainly understanding the death of the soul. And again: "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you" (Eph. 5:14). From what dead does He order one to arise? Certainly from those who are put to death by carnal desires, which wage war against the soul (1 Pet. 2:11). For this reason B the Lord also called those living in this vain world dead. For when one of the disciples asked to go and bury his own father, He did not grant it, but commanded him to follow, saying, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (Matt. 8:22). Here the Lord calls those whom He designates as living, dead, inasmuch as they are dead in respect to their soul.
For just as the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. And this is the death C of the soul properly so-called. For He manifested this also through the commandment in Paradise, when God said to Adam: "In whatever day you eat from the forbidden tree, you shall die by death" (Gen. 2:17). For then his soul died, being separated from God by the transgression. For he continued to live in body from that time onward, up to nine hundred and thirty years. But the death that came upon the soul through the transgression not only destroys the soul and makes man accursed, but it also renders the body itself full of toil, subject to suffering, and corruptible, and finally delivers it to death; for then, D after the death of the inner man caused by sin, the earthly Adam heard: "Cursed is the ground in your works; it shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you, and in the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:17-19).
In the future restoration, at the resurrection of the just, the bodies of the unjust and of sinners shall also rise, but only to be delivered to the second death—that is, to eternal torments, to the worm that does not die, to the gnashing of teeth, to the outer and palpable darkness, to the gloomy and inextinguishable fire of Gehenna, according to the prophet who says: "Both shall be kindled together (the unjust and sinners), and there shall be none to quench them" (Isa. 1:31). For this is the second death, as John teaches us in the Apocalypse. Hear also the great Paul saying: "If you live according to the flesh,
you shall die; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live" (Rom. viii, 13). For he speaks here of life and death in the future age: life, truly, as the possession of the eternal kingdom; death, as those everlasting punishments. Therefore, the transgression of the commandments of God brings total death to soul and body, both in the present age and in that future, interminable damnation. B And this is the true death, when the soul is separated from divine grace and joined to sin. This is the death that the wise must truly flee and fear; this is, to those who perceive it well, more horrifying than the punishment of hell. Let us flee this with all our might; let us cast away, let us relinquish, let us renounce all things, habits, acts, and desires that distract and separate us from God and induce this death. For he who has feared and guarded against this will not fear the coming of bodily death, possessing within himself the true life, which cannot be taken away by death. For just as the death of the soul is the true death, so the life of the soul is truly life; and the life of the soul is its union with God, just as the life of the body is its union with the soul. For just as through the transgression of the commandment, being separated from God, the soul is deadened, so through obedience to the commandment, being reunited to God, it is made alive. For this reason the Lord says in the Gospel: "The words that I speak to you are spirit and life" (Joan. vi, 64). And Peter, having learned this by experience, said to Him: "You have the words of eternal life" (Ibid. 69). But the words of eternal life are for those who obey; for the disobedient, this law of life becomes death. Thus also the Apostles, being the sweet fragrance of Christ, were to some the odor of death unto death, but to others the odor of life unto life (II Cor. ii, 15, 16). C But this life is not of the soul only, but also of the body; for it makes it immortal through the resurrection, not only liberated from mortality, but furthermore from everlasting death, or the future punishment of hell; and it bestows upon it life in Christ, eternal, quiet, free from disease and pain, and truly immortal. For as the death of the soul, that is, prevarication and sin, was followed by the death of the body, and its dissolution into dust, and return to the earth, and the death of the body was followed by the damnation of the soul in the netherworld: so the resurrection of the soul, which is its return to God through obedience to the law, will be followed by the resurrection of the body, reunited once again with the soul, and this resurrection will be followed by true incorruption and the eternal glory of those who, having become spiritual instead of carnal, will live in heaven like the angels of God. "For we shall be caught up," says the Apostle, "in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord" (I Thess. iv, 16). D For just as the Son of God, having become man out of love, died in the flesh—the soul being indeed separated from the body, but not separated from His divinity, and therefore He assumed His resurrected body into the heavens in glory—likewise, he who...
has lived in accordance with God here on earth shall, at the time of being separated from the body, not be separated from God; and in the resurrection, he shall also take up his body toward God, entering together with it in ineffable joy, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, and partaking together of the glory that is to be revealed in Christ. For they shall become participants not only of the resurrection, but also of the Lord's ascension and of all divine life. A However, this is not the case for those who have lived according to the flesh on earth and have been found to have no union with God at the hour of their departure. For although, as the Apostle says, all shall rise, it will not be in the same way; he who has here mortified the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit shall live there a divine and truly eternal life with Christ; but he who has here mortified the Spirit through the desires and passions of the flesh will there, alas, be condemned with the inventor and author of evil, and handed over to intolerable and interminable B torment, which is the second and everlasting death.
Where, then, did true death, which creates and brings forth both temporal and eternal death to the soul and body, take its beginning? Was it not in the region of life? For that reason, alas, man was immediately driven from the paradise of God into exile, as one possessing a life that was death-bringing and incongruous with the divine paradise; just as the true life, which brings truly immortal life to the soul and body, will have its beginning in this region of death. Yet, let no one who does not hasten to obtain the life of the soul here deceive himself with vain hopes, imagining that he will obtain it there, nor let him hope to obtain the mercy of God in the future age; for that will be a time C of retribution and condemnation, not of compassion and mercy; a time for the justice of an offended and angry God to be revealed; a time for the strong hand and the high arm to be moved in vengeance against the unbelievers. Woe to him who falls into the hands of the living God! Woe to him who experiences the vengeance of God there, and who has neither recognized the power of His wrath here through the fear of God nor reconciled His mercy to himself through [good] works! For now is the time for this, and for this reason God has gifted us with the present life, providing a place for repentance. If this were not so, man would have been deprived of this life as soon D as he had sinned. For what need would there be of it? Therefore, there is never a place for despair among men, although the wicked spirit may suggest it in many ways, not only to those living negligently, but even to those who are striving. Since the time of repentance is the time of life, even he who lives in sin, if he wishes to turn to God, will accordingly be received by Him. For in the present life, free will always remains; and to free will is subject, as a matter of course, the choice or flight toward the life or death pointed out above; either of which he can choose to take. Where, therefore, will there be a place for despair, when all can always, wherever they wish, attain eternal life? You see the greatness of the mercy of God. He does not immediately use just justice against us who are unfaithful, but patiently grants time for conversion. In this time [Hebr. VI, 20]
A of patience, He gives us the power to become sons of God; what do I say, to become sons? Nay, to be united with Him and to become one spirit with Him. But this is in the time of long-suffering. If we walk sideways and prefer death to true life, He does not take away the power given, but rather calls back, and goes around seeking and leading us back to the works of life, according to the parable of the vineyard, from the morning B until the very evening of life. And who is it who calls and gives the reward? The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and God of all consolation. And what is the vineyard into which He calls us to work? The Son of God, who said: "I am the vine." For no one can come to Christ, as He Himself said in the Gospels, unless the Father draws him. And who then are the branches? We are. For hear Him again saying: "You are the branches, my Father is the husbandman." The Father, therefore, reconciling us to Himself through the Son, not reckoning our transgressions to us, calls us not as those covered in evil works, but as idle, although idleness itself is a sin, since we shall render an account for every idle word. C As I said, God, regarding as small the sins previously committed by each, calls once and again. And for what does He call the workers? To work in His vineyard; that is, to labor for the sake of the branches, namely, for themselves. Then, oh the incomprehensible magnitude of mercy! He promises and gives a reward to us who labor for our own sake. "Come," He says, "receive eternal life, copiously provided by me; and I shall reward the labor of the journey and the will itself to receive this from me, as if I myself were a debtor to pay the reward." Who does not owe the price of redemption to Him by whom he was redeemed from death? Who does not give thanks to the Giver of life? Yet He even promises to pay a reward, and a reward that is ineffable. For "I came," He says, "that they might have D life, and have it abundantly." What is the abundance? That it is not only to be and live with Him, but also to finish as His brothers and co-heirs. This indeed is the abundance, as it seems, the reward given to those who have fled to the life-giving vine, and have become its branches, and have labored for their own sake, and have cultivated themselves. What have they done? First, they have cut away everything that is superfluous and not conducive to, but rather an obstacle to, the bringing forth of fruits worthy of the divine garner. What are these? Riches, pleasure, vain glory, all things flowing and passing, every shameful passion of soul and body, and
every accumulation A of mental distraction, every sound and sight, and every word capable of bringing harm to the soul. For if one does not take the greatest pains to cut away and prune these shoots of the heart, one shall never bring forth fruit unto eternal life. It is possible, therefore, even for those living in wedlock to attain this purity, but with the greatest possible difficulty. For this reason, all who from their youth have obtained the favor of God, and have gazed upon that life with a keener eye of the mind, and have become lovers of the goods of that life, wisely flee marriage, since in the resurrection, as the Lord said, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God. Whosoever, therefore, wishes to be as an angel of God, even here, like those sons of the resurrection, justly establishes himself as superior to the mixing of bodies. Moreover, the excuse for sin had its handle and origin from the wife. Marriage, therefore, is to be avoided by those who wish never to give any handle to the adversary from themselves. But if we carry this body, which is rebellious and difficult to call back to virtue, or rather which stands in our way as a natural adversary, what shall we do, B and to what extent shall we increase our difficulty in doing good, being bound to many and various bodies? How shall she have the liberty to which she is urged to hasten, when the woman is bound by the ties of nature to a husband, to children, and to all her kinsmen? How shall she sit securely at the feet of the Lord, having taken upon herself the care for so many? How shall she be without tumult, entangled in a multitude?
Therefore, she who is truly a virgin, and similar to the Virgin, and [the bride] of the Son of the Virgin, the Bridegroom of souls living decently in virginity, flees not only carnal wedlock, but also worldly intercourse, saying goodbye to all her relatives, so that she may be able to say confidently with Peter to Christ: "We have left all and followed Thee." C What wonder is it if she does this, if, just as a terrestrial bride leaves father and mother to cleave to a mortal bridegroom, as Scripture says, so she too renounces her own for the sake of the celestial bridal chamber and Bridegroom? How can she have kinship on earth, she whose citizenship is in heaven? How shall she who is not a daughter of the flesh, but of the Spirit, have a carnal father, or mother, or kinsmen? How, when she has fled her own body, and always flees it as much as she can, as one putting off life according to the flesh, will she have any regard for bodies not her own? But if, as they say, likeness is friendship, and everything delights in what is like it, the virgin will be assimilated to those she loves and will fall back into the disease of love for the world; and the friendship of the world is enmity toward God, says Paul, D the best man of spiritual nuptials. Therefore she will not only incur divorce, but also the enmity of the celestial Bridegroom. Nor should you marvel or be grieved that in Scripture the care of worldly things is not reckoned as a crime for the married, while for those who have vowed their virginity to God, it is not permitted even to taste of worldly things, nor of any life
A of ease. And yet Paul also addresses those in marriage: "The time is short; it remains that even those who have wives should be as though they had none, and those who use this world, as though they did not use it." I consider this more difficult than guarding virginity. For experience teaches that fasting is easier than temperance in food and drink. Perhaps someone might rightly and truly say: if any man does not wish to be saved, we have no argument for him, but if anyone cares for his own salvation, let him know that this state of virginity is much more useful and easier than the married life.
But let us leave these things behind. B Bear this in mind, O virgin, bride of Christ, you branch of the vine of life, which was mentioned above. For the Lord says: "I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Make this, then, a token of the care shown towards you, of the fruit of your virginity, and of the Bridegroom's love for you. Rejoice all the more, and in return, strive for obedience toward Him. Otherwise, gold that has received a mixture of copper is called counterfeit; but copper, having received a leaf of gold plated over it, appears brighter C and more gleaming than itself. So, for you, O virgin, to desire the things of those who are not virgins is glory for them, but for you it brings disgrace; for desire draws you back again to the world, both because you have regard for those living in the world—living with them, though dead to the world—and because you long for them to have those things which they desire for themselves and their kin: an abundance of all things in life, wealth, prominence, glory, and joy in these; and so it will come to pass that you fall short of the will of your Bridegroom. For He clearly pronounces all these things miserable in the Gospels, saying: "Woe to you who are rich! Woe to D you who laugh! Woe to you who are full! Woe when all men shall speak well of you!" How, then, does He pronounce them miserable? Is it not because they are dead in soul? What communion, then, has the bride of life with the dead? What fellowship have they who walk in opposite ways? For broad and spacious is the way by which they are carried; and if they do not check themselves, and mingle some of your virtues with their own, they will surely fall into destruction. But you enter into life through the narrow and afflicted gate and way. Through the narrow gate and way, no one who is laden with the weight of glory, or the dissipation of pleasure, or the burden of wealth and possessions, can pass. Yet do not consider that way of the world, because it is called broad, to be without trouble; for it is full of many and grave calamities. But it is called broad and spacious because there are many who enter through it, and each of them is burdened with an immense heap of perishable matter. Your way, however, O virgin, is the narrowest: for it does not hold two crossing at the same time.
Hence, many who have been preoccupied by the world, after being widowed from their spouses, through zeal for your super-celestial way of life, have renounced the world and chosen to walk your path, so that they might also be partakers of the crowns; for these, too, Paul commands to be honored, as those who remain instant in supplications and prayers, with hope in God. For if there is any sorrow in such a life, it is also productive of consolation, and a provider of the kingdom of heaven, and a cause of salvation; but of the other [the worldly life], both the pleasure and the sorrow are death-dealing. For, he says, the sorrow that is according to the world produces death; but the sorrow that is according to God is repentance unto salvation not to be repented of. For this reason the Lord also blesses the opposites of the goods in the world, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." B But why, after having said, "Blessed are the poor," did He add, "in spirit"? It was to show that it is the moderation of the soul that is being blessed and commended. And why did He not say, "Blessed are those poor in spirit" (for thus He would have signified the moderation of the mind), but, "Blessed are the poor in spirit"? It was to teach us that even bodily poverty is blessed and leads to the kingdom of heaven, but [only] when it is perfected by the humility of the soul, and is joined to it, and takes its origin from it. For by calling the poor in spirit blessed, He wondrously revealed what is the root and cause of the aforementioned blessedness for the saints, namely, their spirit. For this [spirit], having embraced the grace of the evangelical preaching, sends forth from itself a fountain of poverty, irrigating the entire face of the earth, that is, our outer man, C and making it a paradise of virtues. For such poverty is blessed by God. Giving a shortened word, according to the prophet, upon the earth, the Lord showed and blessed the cause of voluntary and multiform poverty; and although the effects are many, He comprehended them all in a brief sign. For someone can be poor, or even frugal and temperate, and that voluntarily, yet [do so] for the sake of human glory. Such a man, therefore, is not poor in spirit. For hypocrisy is born of pride, which is opposed to spiritual poverty. But he who has a contrite, moderate, and humble spirit cannot help but rejoice in the aforementioned frugality and humility; for he considers himself unworthy of glory, delights, riches, and all such things. And that man is the one blessed by God as poor, who deems himself unworthy of these. And he is the truly poor man, who does not deserve this name by halves. And so the divine Luke said, "Blessed are the poor," D not adding, "in spirit." These are the hearers, and disciples, and those made like the Son of God, who says: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Therefore theirs is the kingdom of heaven; for they are co-heirs with Christ.
A Since the soul is tripartite and considered in three faculties—the rational, the irascible, and the concupiscible—and since it is sick in all of these, Christ, its physician, rightly began the healing from the last, namely, from the concupiscible. For concupiscence feeds anger, and both these two infect the mind with pride; nor could the soul's anger ever be healed unless concupiscence were healed first, nor the intellect unless both of these were cured beforehand.
If you seek the first evil offspring of the concupiscible, you will find it to be the love of riches. Desires that contribute to human life are not vicious, and therefore they are implanted in us from our tenderest years. But the desire for money is born in us a little later, while we are still children; whence it is clear that it does not have its origin from nature, but from the will. The divine Apostle justly called it the root of all evils. For it is of a nature to generate some evils: parsimony, hucksterism, rapacity, theft, and simply every species of greed, which the same Apostle termed a second idolatry. B And as for those [evils] that do not spring from it, it provides the material for the existence of almost all of them. All these things, so many as are born from the love of matter, are passions of a soul that has no fervor for good works. For among the passions that have their origin from nature, those that come from the will are more easily cast off; but the passions born from the love of money are difficult to cast away, because they are wrought by disbelief in God’s providence. For he who does not believe in this trusts in money. And hearing the Lord say, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven," he, holding as nothing the kingdom, and a kingdom that is heavenly and eternal, desires riches—earthly and fleeting riches—which, even if they are not present to those who desire them, injure them most greatly by the very act of desiring. C "For those who desire to be rich fall into temptations and snares of the devil," as Paul says. Indeed, even those who possess riches from home seem to themselves as having nothing, and consequently they thirst for what they do not have, not having become wise even by experience. For this most wretched love does not come from lack, but rather the lack comes from it, while it itself comes from insanity—whence that man who destroys his barns and builds larger ones is most rightly called a fool by our common Master, Christ. For how is he not a fool, who, for the sake of things that can profit nothing (for one’s life is by no means in the abundance of his possessions), gives up the most precious things, and does not imitate the wise merchant who withdraws from his very necessities as much as he can, to add to the principal of a truly fruitful and most profitable commerce—or rather, agriculture? Agriculture, or [a trade] that, even before the time of harvest has arrived, multiplies the seed a hundredfold, as if showing beforehand the future profit and the measure of wheat to be gathered in its time, ineffable and incomprehensible. D
And most paradoxical of all, how much more the seeds might be from narrower storehouses; so, not even for the good of men is any pretext left for the desire to be rich. Rather, they look towards [their] lack—not at all believing in the One who promised that all these things shall be added to those who seek the kingdom of God—and having this alone as a motive, even if they are surrounded by everything, they never recover from the sickly and destructive desire. Instead, always gathering, they lay upon themselves an useless burden, or rather, they place around themselves a tomb while still alive. For while the dead are simply buried in the earth of men, the mind of the living miser is buried in the earth of gold. And this tomb is more foul-smelling than that one to those who possess healthy senses, and by so much the more, the more it adds to the soil. For the sore of those miserable buried ones prevails; and its stench reaches even to heaven, and to the angels of God, and to God. And they become loathsome in this way, and men who are indeed to be turned away from, to speak Davidically, "stinking from the face of their folly." A
But voluntary and chosen poverty—not for the praise of men, that is to say, the spiritual poverty which the Lord pronounced blessed—delivers men from this foul and lethiferous rot. A monk struggling with that vice cannot be subject. But if he persists with the greatest stubbornness, it is much to be feared that he may fall into irremediable physical evils. Gehazi and Judas, from the Old and New Testaments, are apt examples. For upon the one, leprosy blossomed, an image of the incurable soul; and the other, in the field of blood, fell headlong, burst asunder, and his bowels gushed out. B
But if poverty precedes obedience, how will the subsequent come before the antecedent? If, however, this is as it were a certain elementary principle of the monastic life, how could someone well endure any other of the struggles of this life who has not first renounced riches? For what if, even if such a one is rejected for obedience, he might rest alone in his cell, living apart and attending to prayer? But, "Where your treasure is," says the Lord, "there will your heart be also." How then will he look mentally toward the One seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heights, while laying up treasure on earth? Or how will he inherit the kingdom, which the passion does not even allow him to conceive with a pure heart? And indeed because of that: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." C
You see how many passions the Lord cut away through one beatitude. Furthermore, not only those, since we have said that the love of riches is the first offspring of evil desire. For there is also a second, more horrifying than this one, and a third, no less wicked. What then is the second? The love of glory. For as age advances, before the love of the flesh meets D
B this passion, it exists in those who are still young like a prelude to that evil. There is a kind of love of glory—I am speaking now of that which looks to the adornment of bodies and the luxury of garments—which the Fathers also call worldly vain-glory. For the other kind of vain-glory attacks those who have excelled in virtue, carrying with it conceit and hypocrisy, through which the enemy plots to rob and dissipate spiritual riches. He who esteems and desires the heavenly glory will perfectly heal all these things, holding himself unworthy of it and enduring the contempt of men, while at the same time deeming himself worthy of that, and—what is more—preferring the glory of God over his own glory, according to him who says: «Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give glory» (Ps. CXIII, 1). And even if he knows himself to have performed some of his laudable actions, he recognizes God as the cause of this good work, and he knows that to Him, and not to himself, glory should gratefully be returned. For thus he will rejoice, having received virtue as a gift; but he will not be exalted, since he has nothing of his own, and indeed he will be humbled, keeping the eyes of his mind toward God day and night, even as the eyes of a handmaid are, as the Psalmist says, *unto the hand of her mistress* (Ps. CXXI, 2), fearing lest, being separated from the only giver and maintainer of good, he be cast down into the abyss of evil. For this is what happens to one who serves conceit and vain-glory. C
Separation and living in solitude and remaining in a cell contribute especially to the healing of these things, while feeling the infirmity of one's own will and deeming oneself unworthy of the company of men. And what else is this but the poverty in spirit which the Lord called blessed? If anyone also takes into his mind the disgraces that naturally arise from this very passion, he will flee from vain-glory with all his might. For he who seeks the esteem of men, from the very works he does for its sake, meets with ignominy. For he who concerns himself with beauty, and prides himself on the nobility of his ancestors, and on the brightness of his clothing, and boasts of other such things, shows himself to be tainted by a spirit that is still childish. For all these things together are dust; and what is viler than dust? And that person who uses his clothing not for protection or warmth, but flies toward softness and splendor, not only declares to those who see him the barrenness of his own soul, but furthermore puts on the impudence of harlots. Above all, let him hear the One who says: «They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses» (Matt. XI, 8), whereas our conversation is in heaven, as the divine Paul says. Let us not, therefore, because of the slothfulness of our garments, be cast down from heaven into the tents of the ruler of the darkness of this world. This very thing happens also to those who pursue virtue for the sake of the approval of men. For those who had attained to have their conversation in D heaven, lead down, alas, their glory into the dust, drawing upon themselves the Davidic curse. For their prayer does not ascend into heaven, but all their work falls downward, not around
wearing the wings of that divine love which makes our earthly deeds soar; thus they endure labors, but do not reap the rewards. And why do I speak of the worthlessness of the rewards? They do indeed bear fruit, but it is shame, instability of thoughts, captivity of the mind, and perturbation. For the Lord, He says, has scattered the bones of those who please men. They were shamed, because God despised them. B
This passion is the most subtle of all passions. Therefore, the athlete of virtue must not seek for help to flee from consent, but must regard the very provocation as consent, and be on his guard. For it is with difficulty that one can thus forestall the speed of the fall; yet if one acts watchfully in this way, the provocation becomes a stimulus to compunction. If not, a place is prepared for pride. And he who is seized by this is difficult to call back—or rather, he is incurable. For the fall is diabolical; but even before this, the passion of seeking to please men brings such injury to those who possess it that they even suffer shipwreck concerning the faith itself, according to Him who says: "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" What then have you to do, O man, with the glory of men—or rather, with the hollow name of glory, which not only lacks the reality, but deprives one of it, and, besides, generates envy in others? Envy, that mistress of murder, and the cause of the first homicide, and later of the deicide! C
Does it contribute anything to nature, to preserve it, or guard it, or in any way uplift and heal it when it has fallen? No one could possibly say it contributes anything. Indeed, I for my part believe it is also a cause of evil. And if one wishes to investigate diligently, one will find it to be the subtle cause that usually urges the most shameful things and then reproaches the person for them, at one moment shamelessly casting off its mask, and at another suffusing the lustful with shame. And the teachers of ethnic doctrine indeed think that no work can be done in life without it. Oh, the error, which they are not even ashamed to speak of! But we have been taught otherwise, we who are named by the glorious name of Him who mercifully anointed our nature with His own, and we have Him as the spectator of our actions. Looking to Him, and through Him and for Him, we perform every good work, doing all things for the glory of God, and in no way desiring to please men—or rather, not pleasing them, as Paul says, the supreme interpreter of the Lawgiver, our own lawgiver: "For if I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ." D But let us see if the third son of evil desire is also destroyed by blessed poverty.
The third son of the soul suffering from desire is gluttony, from which every carnal
A impurity arises. But why do we call it the third and final one, if it is innate in us from our very birth? For not only it, but also the natural movements toward procreation are manifest even in infants still at the breast. How, then, do we place the malady of carnal desire last? It is because those things pertain to us by nature; and the natural is blameless, having been made by the good God so that we might walk through them in good works. Therefore, they are not proofs of a sick soul. It is those who abuse them for whom such things become a malady. And so, whenever we apply carnal foresight toward our desires, then indeed the passion becomes an evil, and the origin of carnal passions, and the soul’s malady is love of pleasure, such that in such cases the mind is the first to be affected. Wherefore, since the evil passions originate first from the faculty of thought, the Lord says that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, and these are what defile a man. And the Law before the Gospel says: "Take heed to thyself, lest a secret word be in thy heart, an abomination." For even if the mind is the first to be disposed toward evil, it is nevertheless from below, through the senses, having imprinted upon it the imagination of sensible bodies, that it was so disposed toward those things; and this occurs especially through the eyes first, which are able to draw in the suggestion even from afar, and it is raised up toward abuse; and of this fact, our foremother Eve has been rendered a clear witness. For she first saw that it was good to the sight, and pleasant to consider, and then, consenting with her heart, she touched and ate of the forbidden tree. We have well said, therefore, that the defeat by the beauty of bodies precedes and is the prelude to shameful passions. For this reason, there is the patristic commandment: not to gaze upon the beauty of others' bodies, nor to take pleasure in one's own. But before the impassioned thought, even if the passions are naturally observed in children, they do not cooperate toward sin, but toward the constitution of nature; wherefore, they are not evil at that time. But since the carnal passions take their beginning from the impassioned mind, it is from this point that the struggle must also begin. For just as one who wishes to extinguish a fire, if he cuts the flame from above, accomplishes nothing, but if he removes the fuel, the fire is immediately withered; so it is with the pornographic B passions. If you do not dry up the source of the thoughts within through prayer and humility, but arm yourself against them only by fasting and C bodily hardship, you labor in vain; but if you sanctify the root through humility and prayer, as we have said, you will also have the sanctification regarding the exterior. And this also seems to me to be suggested by that apostolic saying which commands us to gird our loins in truth, as has been most excellently philosophized by one of the Fathers, that the contemplative faculty constrains the desiring faculty, and suppresses the passions beneath the loins and belly. There is, however, a need for bodily hardship and for the temperate moderation of food, lest it be unbridled and stronger than reason. For nothing else heals all the passions of the flesh except the mortification of the body and prayer effervescing from a humble heart: which is the spiritual poverty that the Lord called blessed.
A If, then, someone desires to become wealthy in holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord, let him remain in his own cell, suffering hardship and praying in humility. For the cell of the one who is dwelling properly is a harbor of temperance, whereas everything outside, especially that which is in the squares and public gatherings, is full of a corrupting maelstrom, stirred up by unclean sounds and sights, and drowning the wretched soul of the monk who has approached it. But you could even call it a burning fire, the world of wickedness being fueled by those who frequent it, and burning to ashes every form of their virtue. But the fire that does not burn is found in the desert. And you, instead of the desert, remain in your cell, and hide yourself for a little while, just for as long as it takes for the winter of the passions to pass; for once it has flowed away, an outdoor life will not cause harm. Then you will truly be poor in spirit, and as a victor over the passions you will possess the kingdom, and you will be brilliantly called blessed by Him who says: B "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And how would they not be worthily called blessed, those who trust not at all in riches, but in Him; those who desire to please no one other than Him; those who in humility live before Him? Let us, then, also be poor in spirit, humbled, our flesh mortified, and our lives destitute of possessions, so that the kingdom of God may be ours, and we may attain the blessed hopes, inheriting the kingdom of heaven.
For as if setting forth a brief summary and compendium of the Gospel of our salvation, the Lord not only included so many virtues in one word and cast off so many evils in one beatitude, and blessed those who, repenting from evil, wisely cut away the vices of the soul—but He also encompassed many other things, which have no agreement with such cutting away, but rather with cold and frost, with snow and rime, C with the force of winds, and, in a word, with the winter and summer whose savagery the plants must endure, being subject to cold and heat, and without which nothing planted on the earth will ever yield mature fruit. What, then, are these things? D They are the various onsets of temptations, which he who wishes to yield fruit for the husbandman of souls must bear with a grateful heart. For if someone, having pitied the plants of the earth vexed by the inclemency of the season, should surround them with a wall, and cover them with a roof, and allow them to endure nothing harsh—even if he prunes them, or cleanses them, doing everything most diligently—he will gather no fruit from them at all; but he must allow them to suffer everything. For thus, after the harshness of winter, in the time of spring they bud, bloom, are crowned with leaves, and having been adorned with beautiful shoots in this way, they put forth new fruit; which, having been warmed for a little while by the rays of the sun, grow and mature, and become suitable to be gathered and eaten. Thus, he who does not generously endure the heavy weight of temptations, even if he lacks nothing of the other virtues, will never produce fruit worthy of the divine winepresses and the eternal granary. For every earnest person is perfected by enduring both voluntary and involuntary labors—the former imposed from without, the latter accepted from within. For those that are earthly
plants, which come partly from nature and partly from the industry of the husbandman, and from the vicissitudes of the storms, these, for us who are rational A branches of Christ, believing in this husbandman of souls, come from the choice of the free will which we enjoy. But without patience for those things which come upon us contrary to our will, not even those things done voluntarily shall obtain the divine blessing. For the love of God receives its proof especially from the tribulation of temptations. It is necessary, however, to devote the soul to voluntary works, and, having thus become accustomed to despise pleasure and glory, we shall easily endure also the involuntary assaults. B And whoever, through spiritual poverty, scorns those things and deems himself worthy of the effective medicine of repentance, always expects every tribulation, and accepts every temptation as though rightfully due to himself; and falling into it, he rejoices, as having found a purgatory for the soul; and he regards and uses it as an instrument by which he may ascend to God with laborious and most effective prayers, and by which he may obtain and preserve the health of the soul; and he not only dismisses and forgets injuries, but also gives thanks to those who persecute him and prays for them as for benefactors. Therefore, he himself also receives not only the promised remission of sins, but also attains the kingdom of heaven and the divine blessing, having been called blessed by the Lord, as one who in a spirit of humility endures persecution unto the end.
On Mental Quietude
We ourselves, having pointed out in a few words some aspects of spiritual circumcision, let us now speak briefly of its fruits. Having attained by spiritual poverty riches that cannot be lost, the only Blessed One makes those who mourn partakers of his own felicity, saying: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt. v, 5). But why did Christ join mourning to poverty? Because it is always with it. But, according to the Apostle, "the sorrow of poverty which is according to the world worketh the death C of the soul; but the sorrow of poverty which is according to God worketh repentance unto salvation of the soul" (II Cor. vii, 10). And to involuntary poverty there follows an involuntary mourning, just as to voluntary poverty there follows a voluntary one. Since, however, this beatified mourning is here joined to the poverty that is according to God, and necessarily comes to pass on account of it, and depends upon it entirely as from a cause, it is nothing if not, together with this, spiritual and voluntary. But let us see how blessed poverty brings forth blessed mourning. Since, therefore, we have shown in the discourse above the four species of spiritual poverty—namely, that which is in thought, that which is in the body, that which is in the riches of life, and that which is in external temptations—let no one, hearing us propose D them separately, think that their practice is divided. For they are accustomed to be observed as one, and therefore they are comprehended in one beatitude, which wonderfully shows at once what is as it were the root and fountain of the others, namely our spirit.
be observed as one, and therefore they are comprehended in one beatitude, which wonderfully shows at once what is as it were the root and fountain of the others, namely our spirit. For this, having embraced the grace of the evangelical preaching, as has been said, pours forth from itself a fountain of poverty, watering all the face of our earth—that is to say, the outward man—and making him a paradise of virtues.
Since, therefore, there are four kinds of spiritual poverty, from each of these is generated the appropriate mourning, immediately accompanied by the fitting consolation. Thus, by means of voluntary bodily poverty and humility—which consists of hunger, thirst, sleeplessness, and in general the suffering and hardship of the body, and in addition to these, the disciplined restraint of the senses—from these, I say, not only mourning but also tears are born. For just as stupidity, foolishness, and hardness of heart are wont to arise from ease, pleasure, and delights, so from a temperate and abstinent life arise contrition of heart and compunction, which take away all bitterness and bring the joy of sweetness. B For indeed, without a contrite heart, it is impossible, as it is said, to be delivered from wickedness; but threefold temperance—of sleep, of food, and of bodily rest—breaks the heart. The soul, having been delivered by that contrition from wickedness and bitterness, fully attains spiritual sweetness, and this is the consolation for which the Lord calls those who mourn blessed. John, who built up for us the spiritual ladder by his words, also says: "Thirst and sleeplessness break the heart; but from a broken heart, tears flow out." He who has experienced this, he says, will see in these the blessed laughter, which is the consolation promised by the Lord. C Thus, from poverty of the body that is pleasing to God, blessed consolation arises for the mourners.
But how from poverty of the mind and the divine humility of the soul? Contempt of self always accompanies the humility of the soul; this, moreover, from the beginning extends itself greatly into the fear of punishment, setting before one's eyes the horrible gathering of the adversaries for the torment of the individual, and further increasing the dread from the knowledge that that punishment is ineffable and more terrible than can be expressed; and furthermore, how much its eternity adds to its horror! For heat and cold, darkness and fire, movement and stagnation, chains and terrors, and the bites of immortal wild beasts are all collected together into those tortures. And thus, that horrible punishment is not even shadowed forth, since, as it is written*, "It has not ascended into the heart of man what that useless, inconsolable, D and interminable mourning is." For in those who have sinned against God, mourning is excited by the knowledge of their offenses. Therefore, for those reprobates, with sweet hope taken away and salvation despaired of, conscience, gnawing at each one, weighs down the urgent pain with mourning. And here again, and always, the mourning—inasmuch as it is never to cease—becomes the origin of new mourning, and another foul darkness, and heat without cooling, and an infinite abyss of despair. But now, mourning is of the greatest value; for God, who descended to visit us, is propitious and hears us, and thus has promised consolation to those who mourn, namely Himself, who is and is called the Paraclete. You have seen
ἑνὸς κολαστηρίου φρικωδεστάτην συνδρομήν· καὶ ἔτι προσθήκην τοῦ δέους ἐμποιοῦσα, ἐκ τοῦ μανθάνειν ἄῤῥητον ἐκείνην οὖσαν, ὡς καὶ τῶν εἰρημένων δεινοτέραν· τὸ δὲ ἀτελεύτητον ἐκείνης A αὖθις, ὅση προσθήκη τοῖς δεινοῖς! Καύσων γάρ, καὶ ψῦχος, καὶ σκότος, καὶ πῦρ, καὶ φορὰ, καὶ στάσις, δεσμά τε καὶ δείματα, καὶ θηρίων ἀειζώων δήγματα, κατ᾽ ἐκείνην εἰς ἓν συνάγεται τὴν καταδίκην. Καὶ οὐδ᾽ οὕτως οἷον ἐκεῖνο τὸ δεινὸν παρίσταται, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον, ἐπὶ νοῦν οὐκ ἀναβεβηκὸς ἀνθρώπου. Τί δὴ τὸ ἀνόνητον καὶ ἀπαράκλητον καὶ ἄληκτον ἐκεῖ τὸ πένθος; Τοῖς γὰρ εἰς Θεὸν ἁμαρτοῦσιν, ἐκ τῆς τῶν ἑπταισμένων ἐπιγνώσεως κινεῖται πένθος; Ἐκεῖ τοίνυν ἐληλεγμένοις, καὶ τῆς χρηστοτέρας ἐλπίδος ἀνῃρημένης, καὶ τῆς σωτηρίας ἀπεγνωσμένης, ὁ τοῦ συνειδότος τότ᾽ ἀκούσιος ἔλεγχος, ἑκάστῳ πολυπλασιαζέτω τῷ πένθει, τὴν ἐπικειμένην ὀδύνην· καὶ τοῦτ᾽ αὖθις καὶ ἀεὶ τὸ πένθος, ὡς μηκέτι παυσόμενον, ἑτέρου πένθους ἀφορμὴ γίνεται· καὶ σκότος ἄλλο δεινόν, καὶ καύσων ἀψυχαγώγητος, καὶ βυθὸς ἀθυμίας ἀμήχανος. Ἐνταῦθα δὴ τὸ πένθος τοῦτο λυσιτελέστατον. Ἵλεως γὰρ ἐπακούει Θεός· ὡς καὶ μέχρις ἡμῶν κατῆλθεν ἐπισκεψόμενος, καὶ τοῖς οὕτω πενθοῦσιν ἐπηγγείλατο τὴν παράκλησιν· ἥπερ ἐστὶν αὐτὸς Παράκλητός τε ὢν καὶ καλούμενος. Εἶδες καὶ τὸ παρὰ τεταπεινωμένης ψυχῆς πένθος, καὶ τὴν ἐπιγινομένην παράκλησιν; Ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ ἡ αὐτομεμψία μόνη καθ᾽ αὑτήν, ὥσπερ τι βάρος νοητὸν τῷ λογιζομένῳ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐπιτεθεῖσα καὶ χρονίσασα, συντρίβει καὶ πιέζει, καὶ τὸν οἶνον ἐκθλίβει τὸν σωτήριον, τὸν εὐφραίνοντα καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστι τὸν ἐντὸς ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπον. Οἶνος δὲ τοιοῦτός ἐστιν ἡ κατάνυξις· συνεκθλίβει γὰρ τῷ πένθει καὶ τὰ πάθη· καὶ χαρᾶς τὴν ψυχὴν πληροῖ μακαριστῆς, τοῦ κατὰ ταῦτα δεινοῦ βάρους ἀπαλλάξασα. Διὰ τοῦτο ὁ « Μακάριοι οἱ πενθοῦντες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ παρακληθήσονται. »
Παρὰ δὲ τῆς ἀκτημοσύνης, ταὐτὸν δ᾽ εἰπεῖν τῆς κατὰ τὴν περιουσίαν, καὶ τὰ περὶ ἡμᾶς ὑπάρχοντα πτωχείας· συνημμένης μέντοι τῇ πτωχείᾳ τοῦ πνεύματος, ὡς ἀνωτέρω ἔφημεν. Συναλλήλοις γὰρ ταῦθ᾽ ἅπαντα τελούμενα τέλειά τε καὶ εὐάρεστα Θεῷ. Παρὰ τοιαύτης τοιγαροῦν B πτωχείας, ὅπως ἡμῖν ἐγγίνεται τὸ πένθος, καὶ ἡ ἐν αὐτῷ παράκλησις, συνετῶς ἀκούων εἴσῃ. Καὶ γὰρ ἐπειδὰν ὁ ἄνθρωπος πᾶσι χαίρειν εἰπών, τοῖς τε χρήμασι, καὶ τοῖς κτήμασιν ἀποτάξηται, ταῦτα ρίψας ἢ σκορπίσας, κατὰ τὴν ἐντολήν· τῆς περὶ αὐτὰ μερίμνης τὴν ψυχὴν ἀπαναστήσας, ἐπεστράφθαι πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτῆς ἐπισκοπὴν ἐφίησιν, ἐλευθέραν τῶν πραγματικῶς περισπώντων ἔξωθεν αὐτήν. Ὁπηνίκα δ᾽ ἂν ὁ νοῦς αἰσθητοῦ παντὸς ἀπαναστῇ, καὶ τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ τῆς περὶ ταῦτα τύρβης ἀνακύψῃ, καὶ κατοπτεύσῃ τὸν ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπον, πρῶτον μὲν ἐνιδὼν τὸ προσγεγενημένον εἰδεχθὲς προσωπεῖον ἐκ τῆς κάτω περιπλανήσεως, τοῦτο διὰ πένθους ἀπονίψασθαι σπεύδει· ἔπειτ᾽ ἐπειδὰν τὸ δυσειδὲς τοῦτο περιέλῃ κάλυμμα, τότε μὴ ποικίλαις σχέσεσι τῆς ψυχῆς ἀγεννῶς διασπωμένης, εἴσω τῶν ὄντως ταμείων ἀταράχως χωρεῖ, καὶ τῷ ἐν κρυπτῷ Πατρὶ προσεύχεται· ὃς αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ χωρητικὸν τῶν χαρισμάτων δῶρον, τὴν τῶν λογισμῶν εἰρήνην τὰ πρῶτα χορηγεῖ· μεθ᾽ ἧς τὴν C ὄντως ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνθρώπου ταπεινώσεως ἀναφυομένην λύπην, καὶ τὴν ὑποφυομένην αὐτῇ παράκλησιν, ὡς ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ σκοπεῖν δύνασαι. Ἡ γὰρ τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ καταφρόνησις, καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν οὖσα, οἷόν τι ληνὸς πνευματικὴ τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς διανοητικῷ ἐπικειμένη καὶ ἐπιβαρύνουσα, συντρίβει καὶ πιέζει, καὶ ἐκθλίβει τὸ σωτήριον οἶνον, τὸ εὐφραῖνον καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου, τουτέστι τὸν ἔσωθεν ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπόν· οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ τῆς κατανύξεως, ὃς τὰ πάθη τῷ λυπηρῷ πιεζόμενα συντρίβει, καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀπολύσας τοῦ δεινοῦ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν φορτίου, μακαρίας ἐμπίπλησι χαρᾶς. « Μακάριοι γὰρ οἱ πενθοῦντες, ὅτι αὐτοὶ παρακληθήσονται. »
Ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς ἀκτημοσύνης, ἥτις ἐστὶ πενία χρημάτων καὶ ὑπαρχόντων, ἡ συνημμένη οὔσης τῇ πτωχείᾳ τοῦ πνεύματος, ὡς εἰρήκαμεν, καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἐν αὐτῇ Θεῷ εὐαρέστησιν συνεργοῦσα· ἀπὸ ταύτης, λέγω, πῶς ἡμῖν ὁ πένθος καταγίνεται, καὶ ἡ ἀκόλουθος αὐτῷ παράκλησις, προσεκτικῶς ἀκροάσῃ. Ἐπειδὰν γάρ τις πᾶσι τοῖς βιοτικοῖς ἀποταξάμενος, χρήμασί τε καὶ κτήμασιν, ἀπορρίψῃ ταῦτα, κατὰ τὴν ἐντολήν, καὶ τῆς περὶ ταῦτα μερίμνης τὴν ψυχὴν ἀπαλλάξῃ, ἑαυτὸν πρὸς τὴν οἰκείαν ἐπισκοπὴν ἐπιστρέφει, ἐλευθερωθεὶς τῶν ἔξωθεν αὐτὸν περισπώντων. Ὡς δ᾽ ἂν ὁ νοῦς πάσης αἰσθητῆς περισπάσεως ἀναχωρήσῃ, καὶ τοῦ τῆς μερίμνης κατακλυσμοῦ ἀναδύῃ, καὶ τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον κατοπτεύσῃ, πρῶτον μὲν ὁρῶν τὸ ἐκ τῆς ἐν τῷ βίῳ πλάνης προσεπίκτητον αἰσχρὸν προσωπεῖον, τοῦτο διὰ πένθους ἀπονίψασθαι ἐπείγεται· εἶτα ἐπειδὰν τὸ αἰσχρὸν τοῦτο ἀποθέμενος κάλυμμα, οὐκέτι ταῖς ποικίλαις τῆς ψυχῆς σχέσεσιν ἀγεννῶς διασπώμενος, εἰς τὸ ἐντὸς αὐτῆς ταμεῖον ἀταράχως εἰσέρχεται, καὶ τῷ ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ Πατρὶ προσεύχεται. Ἐνταῦθα δὲ αὐτῷ τὴν χωρητικὴν τῶν χαρισμάτων δωρεὰν D τὴν εἰρήνην τῶν λογισμῶν πρῶτον χαρίζεται, δι᾽ ἧς τὴν μητέρα καὶ τροφὸν πάσης ἀρετῆς, τὴν ταπείνωσιν τελειοῖ, οὐ τὴν ἐκ τῶν ῥᾳδίων λόγων καὶ σχημάτων τοῖς βουλομένοις γινομένην, ἀλλ᾽ ἣν ὁ ἀγαθὸς καὶ θεῖος Πνεῦμα μαρτυρεῖ, καὶ ἣν ἐν τοῖς σπλάγχνοις αὐτοῦ καινοποιηθὲν τὸ αὐτὸ Πνεῦμα γεννᾷ. Ἐντὸς δὲ τῶν ἀρετῶν τούτων, ὡς ἐν ἐρυμναῖς τῆς πνευματικῆς παραδεισιακῆς οἰκοδομῆς περιβολαῖς, τῆς ἀληθοῦς τελειότητος ποικίλα ἀνθεῖ δένδρα· ἐν αὐτῷ δὲ μέσῳ ἡ τῆς ἀγάπης ἀνατέλλει βασιλεία, πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν ἧς, οἱονεὶ προμηνύουσα τὸν μέλλοντα αἰῶνα, ἀνεκλάλητος καὶ ἀναφαίρετος χαρά ἐπανθεῖ. Ἡ γὰρ ἀκτημοσύνη μήτηρ ἐστὶ τῆς ἀσφαλείας, ἡ δ᾽ ἀσφάλεια τῆς προσοχῆς καὶ τῆς προσευχῆς· ταῦτα δὲ τὸν πένθος καὶ τὰ δάκρυα· ὅπερ δὴ καὶ τὴν οἴησιν ἀφανίζει· ταύτης δὲ ἀναιρεθείσης, εὐχερεστέρα ἡ τῆς ἀρετῆς ὁδὸς γίνεται, ἐμποδίων ὑπεξαιρεθέντων, καὶ ἡ συνείδησις ἀκατάγνωστος γίνεται· ἣ δὴ καὶ τὴν χαρὰν καὶ τὸν μακάριον τῆς ψυχῆς γέλωτα ἀναβλύζει. Καὶ τότε τὰ δάκρυα τοῦ πένθους εἰς γλυκύτητα μεταβάλλονται, καὶ τὰ λόγια τοῦ Θεοῦ γλυκύτερα ὑπὲρ μέλι τῷ στόματι γίνονται, καὶ ἡ τῆς προσευχῆς ἐπίκλησις εἰς εὐχαριστίαν μεταστρέφεται, καὶ ἡ μελέτη τῶν θείων λογίων εὐφροσύνη τῆς καρδίας ἐστίν, σὺν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἣ οὐ καταισχύνει, καὶ ἣ τοῖς ὡς ἐν προοιμίῳ γευσαμένοις καὶ τῇ τοιαύτῃ πείρᾳ προγευσαμένοις, προσκολλωμένη τὰς ὑπερβαλλούσας τῆς θειότητος πλούτους πὼς ἐκδιδάσκει, καθὼς εἴρηται· « Γεύσασθε καὶ ἴδετε ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ Κύριος, » ἤγουν ἡ εὐφροσύνη τῶν δικαίων, ἡ χαρὰ τῶν εὐθέων, ἡ τρυφὴ τῶν ταπεινῶν, καὶ ἡ παράκλησις τῶν ταπεινῶς πενθούντων.
πενθούντων. A What then? Is the consolation to be found only thus far? Is this the only gift of the sacred marriage? Does the Bridegroom offer no greater bestower of purity to those souls that are perfected through blessed mourning and are adorned as a bride with worldly things and virtues? It is not so. For even now, we are prepared for the denunciation of those who say to us, "Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord; otherwise, we shall cast out your name as something evil," composing and spreading abroad lies and slanders against thee and the prophets.
B Passing these things by for the moment, let us carry our discourse further, believing the sayings of our holy Fathers, speaking them, instructing in them, and persuading others of them. For, as the prophet says: "I believed, therefore I spoke," and we too believe, and therefore we speak. For when every shameful passion has been repelled from within, and the mind—as the discourse has already shown—has turned itself and all the other powers of the soul completely inward, decorating the soul through the cultivation of virtues, it proceeds to what is more perfect. Arranging its practical ascents and further, with the help of God, washing itself, it wipes away not only the filth of wickedness, but also removes from the midst all that is adventitious, even if it be useful to possess or think upon.
C When the mind has climbed above the intelligible, and the thoughts that are not invisible regarding these matters, and layeth aside all things out of love for God and for the sake of the love of God, then, being deaf and dumb according to what is written, it stands before God. Then it is taken as material, and is fashioned by the Supreme Mold in all security, because nothing from without knocks at the door, but the inward grace reforms it for the better, and illuminates the inner man with an ineffable and scarcely credible light, and brings him to perfection. And when the day dawns and the morning star has risen in our hearts, as the prince of the apostles says, the true man goes forth to his true work, as the prophet sings, and using the light, he ascends, and is led forth into the eternal mountains, and in this light—O miraculous thing!—he becomes a spectator of heavenly realities, not divided or separated from matter at the beginning, to which that path leads: for D
A he does not ascend with the imaginative wings of the intellect, nor does he wander about blindly, nor does he grasp things through an accurate and indubitable perception of absent sensible things or of transcendent intelligible things. Rather, he ascends toward the Truth by the ineffable power of the Spirit, and by a spiritual and ineffable perception he listens to ineffable words and sees invisible things. He becomes, and is, a miracle in his entirety from then on, even if he withdraws from that state, and he vies with the tireless hymn-singers, having truly become another angel of God on earth, and bringing before Him every kind of creature through himself; for he himself shares in all things and now participates in the One who is above all things, so that the image may be perfected. Therefore, the divine Nilus says that the state of the mind is an intelligible height, similar to the color of the sky, upon which the light B of the Holy Trinity shines at the time of prayer. And again: "If anyone wishes to see the state of the mind, let him strip himself of all thoughts, and then he will see it, similar to a sapphire or heavenly color." To do this without dispassion is impossible, for it requires God to assist and to breathe into him the kindred light. And the holy Diadochus says: "Holy grace works two things in us through baptism, of which one infinitely excels the other: for it renews us in the water and brightens the image of God in us, washing away every stain of our sin; the other, however, waits to work with us." When, therefore, the mind begins to taste in great perception the goodness C of the all-holy Spirit, then we should know that grace is beginning, as it were, to paint into the 'image' the 'likeness,' so that this perception indicates that we are being formed into the 'likeness,' while we shall know the perfection of the likeness through illumination. And again: "No one can acquire spiritual love unless he be illumined in all fulness by the holy Spirit; for if the mind does not completely receive the 'likeness' through the divine light, it may indeed possess all the other virtues, but it remains deprived of perfect love." Likewise, we hear the holy Isaac saying that, at the time of prayer, the graced mind sees its own purity, similar to the heavenly D color, which was named 'place' by the elders of Israel, when it appeared to them on the mountain. And again: "Purity of mind is that upon which the light of the holy Trinity shines at the time of prayer." But the mind that is counted worthy of that light transmits many tokens of the divine beauty to the conjoined body, acting as a mediator for divine grace amid the density of the flesh, and instilling the power of the impossible. From this, the God-formed and superexcellent habit of God, which is most of all or hardly at all moved toward evil, comes into being; from this comes discourse elucidating the reasons of things, and, revealing the mysteries of nature from interior purity, through which, by analogy, the mind is docily raised up toward the supernatural conception, which the Father of the Word Himself anointed with immaterial allurements; from this come various wonders, such as seeing through and foreseeing, and discussing things that are far away as if they were before one's eyes. And what is greatest of all, those who are most blessed do not propose this as their end, but just as if one, looking at a ray of the sun, were to perceive the particles of air,
even if this is not his goal, so it is for those who commune purely with the divine rays, to which the revelation of all things is naturally present—not only of things that are and have been, but also of things that are to come—such that the knowledge of these things truly comes to them as a byproduct, A in proportion to their purity. Rather, what is of prior importance to them is the turning and inclination of the mind toward itself; or rather, the turning of all the powers of the soul toward the mind—and, if it is strange to say, the activity according to it and God—through which, having been repaired, they are well-disposed toward the prototype, as grace restores that ancient and ineffable beauty. To such a height does blessed mourning elevate those who are humble in heart and poor in spirit.
Since, however, these things exceed us because of the sloth that dwells within us, come, let us return to the foundation of these matters and discuss briefly a few more things concerning mourning. This follows upon all forms of poverty that are involuntary and according to the world. For how would he who is destitute of belongings, who hungers against his will, and who is sated with toil and reproach, not mourn? Yet such a mourner is inconsolable, and the more so the poorer he is, and the further he is from true knowledge. For such a one, not subjecting the pleasures and pains of the senses to reason, but rather abusing the cleverness of reason for them, does not only fail to increase them toward any profit—so that they are of no use—but is even drawn to the greatest detriment. For he presents a clear and manifest argument against himself, that he does not firmly believe in the Gospel of God, nor in the prophets who preceded it, nor in those taught by Him and sent after Him to evangelize, out of poverty, inexhaustible riches; out of ignominy, ineffable glory; and out of patience during encroaching temptations, deliverance from the eternal C anguish and affliction awaiting those who now love a slothful life, and who do not desire to enter into life through the narrow and confined gate and way. Therefore, the Apostle Paul rightly said: “The sorrow of the world works death.” For in the preceding discourse, it was shown that this is sin unto death. If, however, true life is the divine light of the soul, shining forth from the mourning that is according to God—as was said above by the Fathers—then the death of the soul will also be a foul darkness brought into the soul by the sorrow of the world; that darkness, indeed, of which Basil the Great says: “Sin, arising from a lack of good, pours darkness upon the mind out of transgression.” Likewise, the divine Marcus says: “He who revolves wicked thoughts, how shall he see the sin that is veiled and lies beneath these, which is darkness and a cloud that has slipped into the soul from evil thoughts, words, and deeds? And he who has not seen this mortal sin, when will he be cleansed from it by prayers? And he who is not pure, how shall he find the seat of a most pure nature?”
And he who has not found this, how shall he behold the inner house of Christ? A It is necessary, therefore, to knock with persistent prayer and to seek this house, not only to acquire it, but also to guard it; for there are some who, even after receiving it, lose it. For they possess only a bare knowledge of it, or a transient experience, perhaps being slow to learn and young; but the pious and highly experienced among the elders can hardly remain in the perseverance of works. To these agrees Macarius, he who is heavenly in knowledge, and the whole choir of the saints. B But just as this darkness receives its existence from all transgressions, so if you examine sorrow according to the world, you will find it is born and strengthened from all the passions. Therefore, it bears an image, and is as it were a beginning, a prelude, and a pledge of the never-ending sorrow that will come for those who do not choose the sorrow deemed blessed by the Lord; which not only brings the gain of consolation, bearing the fruit of a pledge of eternal joy, but also secures virtue, rendering the soul immutable toward worse things. For if someone has become poor and humbled, and has claimed poverty according to God, unless he progresses for the better and acquires sorrow, he is easily overturned and prone to return in his mind to what he has left behind, desiring again what he had forsaken, and proving himself a transgressor. D If, however, remaining and being attentive to the disposition toward blessed poverty, he brings upon himself sorrow, he becomes unbending toward those things behind, not backsliding wretchedly, but walking away from that which he has fled, doing well. For sorrow according to God, as the Apostle says, works an unregretted repentance in the soul unto salvation. That is why one of the Fathers said that sorrow works and protects. And this is not the only gain from sorrow, that a man becomes almost immovable toward evil and unchangeable toward past sins, but he also disposes of those things as if they had not happened; for since a man mourns for those things in the first place, they are reckoned to him by God as involuntary, and involuntary things are not held liable. Just as he who mourns because of poverty does not testify that this is voluntary for him, and therefore, even if he falls into the snares of the devil with those who desire to be rich or are rich, if he does not hasten to change and flee these snares, he will be sent away with them to eternal punishment; so, he who has sinned against God, if he continues to mourn for his sins, these sins will justly be reckoned to him as not voluntary, and he will walk blamelessly with those who have not sinned in the same way, along the path that leads to life eternal. C The beginning of sorrow, therefore, which is grievous, inasmuch as it contains the fear of God as its companion, is indeed a gain. But as it progresses, by the love of God, it is marvelously joined and [to the] sweet and holy consolation [fruitful-].
in mourning tastes; or, to those who have not experienced it, it is almost unheard of, for it is ineffable. For if no one can announce the sweetness of honey to those who have not tasted it, how then shall anyone recount the pleasure of the holy joy and grace from God to those who have not experienced it? Not, however, that it is so; rather, the beginning of mourning seems to be like a quest for the betrothal of God, which is felt to be almost inaccessible. B Therefore, words as if for a pre-betrothal are uttered by those who mourn out of longing, toward the unmatched Bridegroom, beating their breasts and calling upon Him with lamentations as if He were not present, and perhaps never would be. But the end of mourning is a perfect union in bridal purity. Therefore, Paul, calling the union of married people into one flesh a great mystery, adds: “but I speak regarding Christ and the Church.” For just as they are one flesh, so those who are of God are one spirit with God; just as the same apostle said elsewhere: “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” Where, then, are those who contend that the grace which dwells in the saints of God is created? Let them know that they are blaspheming against the Spirit Himself, of whom those saints are participants.
We, however, shall put forward another, more evident example of the matter at hand. For the beginning of mourning is similar to the conversion of the prodigal son, C and for that reason it suffuses with shame him who mourns in this way, and urges him to say these words: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the end, again, is similar to the meeting with and the kiss of the supreme Father, upon whom the son, having attained the riches of ineffable mercy and being filled with much joy and confidence because of them, was kissed and kissed Him in return; and having entered with Him, he feasted together with the Father, enjoying the heavenly delight.
Come, therefore, and let us also in blessed poverty fall down and weep before the Lord our God, that we may both wash away our past sins and become immovable toward evil, and be made participants of the Paraclete, D while paying glory to Him, with the unbegotten Father and the Only-Begotten Son, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
OF THE SAME: THE DECALOGUE OF THE LAW ACCORDING TO CHRIST
BY THE SAME DECALOGUE OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW
A The Lord your God is one Lord, known in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit: in the Father unbegotten; in the Son begotten, who is without beginning, and eternal, and impassible, as the Word; who by Himself anointed the nature which He assumed from us, and is called Christ; and in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, not by generation, but by procession. This is the only God, and this is the true God, the one Lord in a Trinity of Persons; not divided in nature, and will, and glory, and power, and operation, and in all the properties of the Godhead. You shall love Him alone, and Him alone you shall serve with all your mind, and with all your heart, and with all your strength; and His words and His commandments shall be in your heart, so that you may do them, and meditate on them, sitting and walking, sleeping and rising. And you shall remember always the Lord your God, and you shall fear Him alone; and you shall not forget Him, nor His commandments; for thus He Himself will give you strength to do His will; for He asks nothing else from you than that you fear and love Him, and walk in all His ways. This is your glory, and this is your God. Do not B esteem the impassibility and invisibility of the super-celestial angels—nor the exceeding wickedness of the one who fell from there, clever, sharp, and full of devices for deceit—as worthy of the same honor as God. Do not observe the magnitude of the heavens, and the multiformity of its movement, the brightness of the sun, the splendor of the moon, the light of the other stars, the usefulness of the air for breathing, the fruitfulness of the sea and of the earth, C and deify any of these things. For all are the servants and creatures of the one God, brought into being from nothing by His word. "For He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created." Him alone, therefore, as Lord and Creator of all, shall you worship as God, and you shall cleave to Him through love, and repent to Him day and night for your voluntary and involuntary transgressions; for He is compassionate
A long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy, and an eternal benefactor; and He has promised a heavenly, imperishable kingdom, a painless life, immortal existence, and light for an unsetting enjoyment to those who revere and worship Him, and love Him, and keep His commandments. But He is also a jealous God, and a just judge, and a fearful avenger, bringing upon those who are impious towards Him, and who disobey Him, and set at naught His commandments, eternal punishment, fire unquenchable, ceaseless pain, tribulation without solace, a garment of pitch-dark gloom, a land of shadows and oppression, the pitiable gnashing of teeth, and the restless, poisonous worms, which He prepared for the first wicked apostate, and with him for all those who were led astray by him, and followed him, and set at naught their Creator in deeds, and words, and thoughts.
"You shall not make any likeness, whatever is in heaven above, or whatever is in the earth below, or whatever is in the waters, to worship them or revere them as gods." For all things are creations of the one God, who in the last of B the ages, having taken flesh from a virginal womb, appeared on earth, and dwelt with men, and for the salvation of humanity suffered, and died, and arose, and ascended into heaven with His body, and sat at the right hand of Majesty on high; in which body He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Of Him, therefore, who for our sake became man, you shall make an image for the sake of your love for Him; and through it you shall remember Him, and through it you shall worship Him, raising your mind through it to that worshipful body of the Savior, which sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Likewise also you shall make and revere the figures and representations of the saints—not as gods (for this is forbidden), but for the sake of the relationship and affection toward them, and the exceeding honor, the mind being referred through the images to them; just as Moses also made the images of the Cherubim within the Holy of Holies; and the Holy of Holies itself was C a figure of the supercelestial things, and the Sanctuary, where the people stood, bore the image of the whole world; and Moses called those things "holy," not honoring the creatures, but through them the Creator of the world, God. And you, therefore, shall make images of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the saints, but through them you shall honor Him who first made us according to His own image, and then for His ineffable mercy deigned to assume this His own image, that is, our nature, and to be circumscribed by it. And you shall worship not only the divine image, but also the figure of His cross; for it is a great sign and a trophy of Christ against the devil and the entire cohort of his adversaries; wherefore they shudder and are put to flight, seeing it depicted. This image, even before the prototype existed, was greatly praised in the prophets, and performed the greatest miracles; indeed, at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was suspended upon it, when He comes to judge D the living and the dead, this great and fearful sign of His shall go before Him with great power and majesty. Honor it, therefore, now, that you may look upon it with confidence then,
and be glorified with Him. Moreover, you shall venerate the icons of the saints, as those who have been crucified with the Lord, prefiguring the cross upon your face and coming into the memory of the communion of the sufferings of Christ that wrought itself in them; likewise also their holy tombs, and if there are any relics of their bones; for the grace of God has not departed from these, just as the divinity did not depart from the adorable body of Christ in His life-giving death. By doing this, and by honoring those who honored God, as having appeared perfect through their works in the love of God, you shall also be glorified with God, and with David you shall sing, saying: A “To me, O God, Thy friends have been made exceedingly honorable.”
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” either for any earthly thing, or through fear of men, or for shame, or for your own gain, by swearing falsely. For perjury is a denial of God. On this account, do not swear at all, but flee from oaths entirely, because through an oath comes perjury, which alienates one from God and lists the one who uses the oath falsely among the wicked; but by speaking the truth in all your words, you will provide the firmness of an oath. But if it should ever happen that you subject yourself to an oath, one of the things to be avoided, if it is for something according to divine law, you shall indeed do that which is lawful; but you shall demand an account of yourself because you swore at all, propitiating Christ, who said, “Do not swear,” through almsgiving, and supplication, and mourning, and affliction of the body; but if it is for something that is against the law, see that you do not perform the unlawful act because of the oath, lest you be numbered with Herod the prophet-slayer; but having rescinded that unlawful oath, set a boundary for yourself never again to swear, and propitiate God to yourself, using the aforementioned remedies more laboriously with tears.
One day of the week, which is called the Lord’s Day, because it is dedicated to the Lord, who on it rose from the dead, and pre-demonstrated and gave assurance of the general resurrection, in which every earthly work shall cease—this day, then, you shall sanctify, and you shall perform no worldly work in it, except what is necessary; and you shall grant rest to all those who are under you and with you, that you may together glorify Him who acquired us by His own death, and rising, raised our nature with Himself. D And you shall remember the coming age, and you shall meditate on all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, and you shall examine yourself, whether you have transgressed or neglected anything, and you shall correct yourself in all things; and you shall persevere in it in the temple of God, and you shall remain in the assemblies within it; and you shall partake in sincere faith and an innocent conscience of the holy Body and Blood of Christ; and you shall begin the beginning of a more accurate life; and you shall renew yourself, and prepare yourself
A for the reception of future eternal goods, which you shall not waste upon earthly things, nor on other days. On Sunday, however, you shall abstain from everything—except for the most necessary things, without which it is impossible to live—so that you may sit before God. For having God as a place of refuge in this way, you shall not move; you will not kindle the fire of the passions, nor will you take up the burden of sin; and thus you shall sanctify the day of the Sabbath, keeping the Sabbath from the inaction of evils. On Sunday, you shall join the prescribed great feasts, doing the same things and abstaining from the same. B "Honor your father and your mother," for through them God brought you into life, and they, after God, are the authors of your existence. Therefore, you also, after God, shall both honor them and love them, if their love contributes to the love of God; but if it does not contribute, you shall flee from them immediately. And if they are even a hindrance to you, especially toward the true and saving faith—being of some heterodox persuasion—you shall not only flee, but also hate; and not them alone, but all those related by blood, and all those with whom you have any other friendship and connection; and your very limbs, and their desires, and your whole body, and the disposition of it toward the passions. C For "if any man does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and furthermore also his own soul, and does not take up his cross, and follow after me, he is not worthy of me," said Christ. And regarding those who are parents, friends, and brothers according to the flesh, this is so; but those who are of kindred faith, and who do not hinder you from salvation, you shall honor and love. But if you honor and love parents according to the flesh in this way, how much more shall you honor and love those who have become your parents according to the Spirit? They transformed you from existence to well-being, and distributed to you the light of knowledge, and taught you the manifestation of the truth, and regenerated you through the bath of D rebirth, and placed in you the hope of resurrection, and of immortality, and of the unending kingdom and inheritance; and they made you, from being unworthy, worthy of eternal goods, and heavenly instead of earthly, and eternal instead of temporal; and they made you a son and disciple, no longer of a man, but of the God-man Jesus Christ, who anointed you with the spirit of adoption, who said: "Do not call anyone father upon the earth, nor teacher; for one is your Father, and your Master is Christ." Provide, therefore, all honor and love to your spiritual fathers, as the honor shown to them is referred back to Christ, and to the all-holy Spirit, in whom you received adoption, and to the heavenly Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. You shall strive, therefore, throughout your whole life to have a spiritual father, and to confess to him every sin and every thought, and to receive from him the healing and the forgiveness; for to them has been given the power to loose and to bind souls, and "whatever they bind upon the earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever they loose upon the earth shall be loosed in heaven." This, indeed, is the grace and power they have received from Christ; and so you shall obey them, and not contradict them, lest you bring destruction upon your soul. For if, in contradicting carnal parents, in those matters which
are not forbidden by the divine law, one is put to death according to the law, how shall he who contradicts his spiritual fathers not cast from himself the Spirit of God and destroy his own soul? Therefore, take counsel and listen constantly to your fathers in the Spirit, that your soul may be saved and you may become an heir of eternal and incorruptible goods.
C "You shall not commit adultery," that you may not, instead of being a member of Christ, become a member of a harlot, and be cut off from the divine body, and cast into Gehenna. For if the daughter of a priest, if caught committing adultery, is by law to be burned with fire, as one who has brought shame upon her father, how much more shall he who has inflicted such a stain upon the body of Christ be liable to eternal punishment? D Yet, if you are able, practice virginity, that you may be able to be wholly God's, and to be united to Him by perfect love, waiting upon Him through your life, being solicitous for the things of the Lord without distraction, and tasting beforehand of the life to come, and living on earth as an angel of God; for virginity belongs to them, and he who clings to virginity is, as far as it is possible with a body, like them—or rather, beyond them, he is like the Father, who before all ages begat in virginity, and the Son, who as a virgin from a virgin Father went forth in the beginning by generation, and in the last times was born in the flesh from a Virgin Mother, and the Spirit, who from the Father alone, not by generation but by procession, proceeds inef-fably. To this God is likened, and to His incorruptible marriage is joined, he who has chosen true virginity, remaining a virgin in soul and body, and adorning all his senses, his speech, and his thoughts with the beauties of virginity. But if you do not choose to live in virginity, nor have vowed this to God, it is permitted you to marry one wife lawfully in the Lord, and to dwell with her alone, and to possess her as your own vessel in sanctification, abstaining from others with all your might. And you will be able to abstain from these things perfectly if you avoid untimely meetings with them, and do not delight in lewd words and gossip, and avert your own eyes—of both body and soul—from them as much as in you lies, and accustom yourself not to look with curiosity upon the beauty of countenances. For "whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart," and on this account is unclean before Christ, who looks into the hearts; and from this the wretched man descends even to bodily lewdness. And why do I speak of fornication and adultery, and all the abominations in nature itself? For, by looking curiously upon the beauty of bodies, a man is dragged licentiously even into those acts of lust that are against all nature. Therefore, you, by cutting away the bitter roots from yourself, shall not produce deadly fruits; but you shall bring forth purity, and the holiness thereof, without which no one shall see the Lord.
A • "You shall not murder," 81 so that you may not fall from being a son of Him who makes even the dead live, and be adopted instead through your works by him who was a murderer from the beginning. Since murder proceeds from a blow, and a blow from an insult, and this from anger; and anger rises up in us from the harm, or blow, or insult inflicted upon us by others; therefore, "From him who takes away your garment, do not withhold your tunic either," 82 as Christ said. And do not strike back the one who strikes you, and do not revile back the one who reviles you. For in this way you will deliver both yourself and the one who harms you from the deadly fall, and God will forgive the sins committed against Him: "For forgive," He says, "and you shall be forgiven." 83 But he who speaks evil and does evil, that man will pay the penalty, an eternal punishment. "For he who says to his brother, 'Fool,' shall be liable to the hell of fire," 84 said Christ. If, therefore, you are able to pull out the evil by the root, by securing the blessedness of meekness for your soul, glorify Christ, the teacher and co-worker of the virtues; without whom, as you have been taught, we can do nothing of good. But if you cannot remain free from anger, reproach yourself for being angry, and repent to God, and to the one who has heard evil from you, or suffered at your hands. For he who repents at the beginnings of sin does not reach its end; but he who is insensitive in small matters will fall by means of them into the great ones as well. 85
B • "You shall not steal," 86 so that the knower of hidden things, as one who has despised Him, may not repay upon you the punishment many times over. Rather, therefore, from your own substance you shall give secretly to those in need, so that you may receive back, from God who sees in secret, a hundredfold, and eternal life in the age to come.
• "You shall not bear false witness," 87 so that you may not be made like to him who from the beginning slandered God to Eve, and become accursed like him. Rather, therefore, unless it be a damage to many, you shall cover the fall of your neighbor, so that you may not be made like unto Ham, but unto Shem and Japheth, and obtain the blessing.
C • "You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor's—no property, no money, no fame, nor anything that is your neighbor's." 88 For desire, having been conceived in the soul, brings forth sin, and sin, when it is perfected, gives birth to death. But you, not coveting the things of others, will take care not to be seized by the greed of plunder. Rather, therefore, you shall give from your own to him who asks, and you shall have mercy, as far as your ability allows, on him who is in need of mercy, and you shall not turn away the one who wants to borrow; and if you find anything that has been lost, you shall restore it to the master, even if this man be one of your enemies; for thus you will win him over, and overcome evil with good, just as Christ commands you. Keeping these things with all your strength, and living in them, you shall store up the treasure of piety in your soul, and you will be pleasing to God, and you will be done good by God and by those who live according to God; and you shall become an heir of the eternal goods, which may we all obtain, by the grace and charity of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is due all glory,
may it be granted to us all to attain, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom is due all glory, honor, and adoration, with his beginningless Father, and with the all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
FROM THE SERMONS OF THE SAME HOLY MAN, ON THOSE WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO SACRED QUIETUDE.
B
Question to him.
You have done well, Father, in setting before me the discourses of the saints regarding this question. For as I listened to you resolving my doubts, I marveled at the evidence of the truth; yet a fear had entered my mind, that since one word is always opposed by another—as you yourself have confessed—something might again be said in contradiction to your discourses. But since I recognize that the testimony from works alone is beyond doubt, and I have heard the saints saying the same things as you, I no longer fear anything of the sort. For if one does not believe them, how could he himself be worthy of belief? Does he not despise the God of the saints? For it is His word, spoken to the apostles and through them to the saints who came after them, that C "He who rejects you, rejects me" (Luke x, 16), which is to say the same thing as: he rejects the truth itself. How, then, could one who contradicts the truth be accepted by those who seek the truth? Therefore I entreat you, Father, to hear me as I review each of the other points I have heard from those men who spend their lives in pagan learning, and to tell me what you think of those points, and to add the opinions of the saints concerning them. For they say that we act wrongly in our endeavor to enclose our mind within the body; they say that, on the contrary, one ought by all means to thrust it out of the body. And so they harshly attack some of our number, writing against them as if they were advising beginners to look into themselves and, by means of their breathing, to send their own mind inside, claiming that the mind is not separated from the soul. D If then it is not separated, but is within, how could one send it inside again? They say, also, that we claim divine grace is introduced through the nostrils. But I know that these things are asserted by them calumniously (for I have heard no such thing from any of our number), and consequently they maliciously add these to the others; for it is the same thing to say those things which are not
are to devise against men, and to interpret maliciously those things which are. Do you, however, teach me, Father, why we strive with all care to introduce, and why we do not consider it an evil, to enclose the mind within the body?
A *Response.* For those wishing to apply themselves to stillness, it is not unprofitable to attempt to keep one's own mind within the body.
Brother, do you not hear the Apostle saying: "Our members are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us" (1 Cor. vi, 19)? And again, that "We are the temple of the living God, as God says: I will inhabit in them, and I will walk among them, and I will be their God" (2 Cor. vi, 16)? If, therefore, it has deserved to be the house of God, what wise person would disdain it as a dwelling place for his own mind? And why did God in the beginning enclose the soul within the body? Or did He Himself act badly? Brother, liken such discourses to the heretics, who contend that the body is evil and a work of an evil principle. B We, however, believe that the mind being in corporal thoughts is evil, but that being in the body is not evil, because the body itself is not evil. Therefore, together with David, each one of those dedicating his life to God cries out to God: "My soul has thirsted for Thee; how manifoldly has my flesh, and my heart, and my flesh exulted in the living God" (Ps. lxii, 2)! And together with Isaiah: "My belly shall sound like a harp, and my entrails like a brazen wall which Thou hast established; and, Because of Thy fear, O Lord, we have conceived the spirit of Thy salvation" (Isa. xvi, 11). Trusting in Him, we shall not fall, C but they shall fall who speak from the earth, and who falsely claim that the types of speech and life that are heavenly are of the earth. For although the Apostle calls the body death, saying: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death" (Rom. vii, 24)?—yet he speaks of the material and corporal cogitation, which truly has the form of the body; whence, comparing it with the spiritual and divine, he deservedly called it body, yet not simply body, but the death of the body; and this he reveals more clearly a little above, that he does not blame the flesh, but the sin which entered afterwards from transgression: "I was sold," he says, "under sin" (Rom. vii, 14); and one who is sold is not a slave by nature. And again: "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there does not dwell good" (Rom. vii, 18). You see that he does not call the flesh, but that which dwells in it, evil. This law, therefore, which is in our members and wars against the law of our mind (Rom. vii, 25), to dwell in our body is evil, but not our mind. D For this reason, we, warring against that law of sin, expel it from the body, and we introduce the mind as overseer to this, through which we give the law to every faculty of the soul, and to each of the members of the body suitable to it: and indeed we prescribe to the senses...
what and how much they ought to apprehend; and this work of the law is called temperance. To the A affective part of the soul we introduce the best habit, which is called love; finally, by this law we improve the rational faculty, rejecting whatever hinders the intellect from ascending to God, and this part of the law we call watchfulness.
Furthermore, he who purges his body by temperance, and converts anger and concupiscence into a catalyst for the virtues through divine charity, and presents his intellect, cleansed by prayer, to God, attains and sees in himself the grace promised to the pure in heart; and then he can say with Paul: "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." We have this treasure, he says, in earthen vessels, that is, in our bodies. If, therefore, we shall keep our mind within the body, shall we do anything unworthy of the sublime dignity of the mind? He who would say this would not only be unspiritual, but would hold the soul to be stripped of divine grace, and indeed B of human nature as well.
Since our soul is a single thing, yet endowed with many faculties, and it uses as an instrument the body which it vivifies, what does it employ as organs for the operation of that power which we call the intellect? For no one has ever suspected that intelligence dwells in the fingernails, or in the pupils, or even in the nostrils or in the lips; but all agree that it is within us, though some dispute what internal organ it uses. For some place it, as if in a certain citadel, in the brain; others assign as its seat the middle part of the belly, and that which is pure of animal spirit therein. We, however, know for certain that our mind is not within as in a vessel, because it is spiritual, nor outside, because it is united, but in the heart as in an organ—not taught this by any man, but by the very Creator of man, who says in the Gospel: "Not that which enters into the mouth defiles a man, but that which proceeds out of the mouth; for from the heart," he says, "proceed thoughts." Thus also the great Macarius says: "The heart, he says, governs the whole organ; and when grace occupies the recesses of the heart, it reigns over all thoughts and members; for there is the intellect, and all the thoughts of the soul." The heart, therefore, is our storehouse of reason, and the primary carnal organ of the intellect. C Accordingly, we who are striving to examine and govern our mind with diligent watchfulness, how can we discern it, unless we gather together our intellect, which has been diffused through the senses to the exterior, and lead it back to the interior, and to that very heart which is the storehouse of thoughts? Therefore, the great Macarius, worthy of his name, after the words cited a little above, says: "There, therefore, it is necessary to look, whether grace has inscribed the laws of the Spirit." There, where? In the principal organ, in the
throne of grace, where the mind and all the thoughts of the soul are; in the heart, that is to say. Do you see how it is most necessary for those who have chosen to attend to themselves in stillness to bring back and enclose the mind within the body, and especially within that which is the most inward body in the body, which we call the heart? If, according to the Psalmist [Ps. XLIV, 14], "All the glory of the king's daughter is from within," how should we seek it outside? And if, according to the Apostle [Gal. IV, 6], "God sent His Spirit into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father," why should we not pray in our hearts together with the Spirit? And if, according to the Lord of the prophets and apostles [Luc. XVII, 21], "The kingdom of heaven is within us," would not he who busies himself with zeal to expel his mind from the things within himself be outside the kingdom of heaven? "An upright heart," says Solomon [Prov. XXVII, 21], "seeks perception," which he elsewhere calls nous-perceiving and divine. To this the Fathers urge all, saying: "The mind is entirely perceiving, and is clothed with a perceiving awareness; let us not cease seeking it, since it is in us and is not in us." Do you see that even if one intends to resist sin, or to acquire virtue, or to find the prize of the struggle according to virtue—or rather, the pledge of the prize according to virtue, which is the perceiving awareness—it is necessary to find it within the body B and to lead back one's mind into oneself? But to lead the mind outside, not just from bodily thoughts, but from the body itself, so that it might encounter spiritual visions there, is the very height of Hellenic error, and the root and source of every evil doctrine; an invention and instruction of demons, the mother of ignorance and the daughter of folly. Therefore, those who speak from the instinct of demons are beside themselves, not even understanding what they are saying. We, however, lead the mind back not only within the body and heart, but into itself. Let those who say that it is not distinct, but united to the soul, answer how one can turn the mind back into itself. They are ignorant, it seems, that the essence of the mind is one thing, and its operation is another. Or rather, knowing this, they have willingly joined themselves to the deceivers, drawing out captious arguments from the similarity of words; for those who are spurred by dialectic toward contradictions, according to the great Basil, reject the simplicity of spiritual doctrine and overturn the power of truth by opposing to it a false science C and the quibbles of sophistry. And so it is necessary for those to act who are not spiritual, yet deem themselves worthy to judge and teach spiritual things. For they are not indeed ignorant that the mind is not like the eye, which sees other visible things but does not see itself. But the intellect moves with a straight motion toward other things which it ought to inspect, as the great Dionysius says; but it reverts into itself when the mind looks at itself, which he calls the reflex motion in that place. This operation of the intellect, furthermore, is better and more proper, through which it sometimes [rises] above itself. D
and is joined to God. For, says great Basil, the intellect, when not dispersed toward external things (you see that it goes out; going out, therefore, it has need of a return; wherefore he says), returns to itself; and through itself to God, as though it ascends by an unerring way. A Such B a motion of the intellect, too, that unerring beholder of intelligible things, Dionysius, says it is impossible to fall into any error. The father of error, therefore, always desiring to lead man away from this, and to bring him toward those things that accommodate his deceits, has not yet, even to this day, as far as we know, found a fellow worker who, through specious arguments, struggles to draw him toward this. But now, as it seems, he has found those who join in the work, if, as you yourself have said, there are those who compose arguments leading toward these things; and they attempt to persuade the many that it is better for the mind to be kept outside the body while praying, even by those who have embraced an excellent and quiet life; and they do not fear that definition and demonstration of that John who constructed for us, through his words, the ladder leading to heaven! "Quiet," he says, "is he who strives to shut up the incorporeal within the corporeal." To this, our spiritual fathers have concordantly and deservedly instructed us. For if one does not shut up the intellect within the body, how should we enclose within ourselves the intellect which is clothed in the body, and which, like a natural form, passes through the whole of informed matter? From which, whatever were foreign and separate, the substance of the intellect would not receive, so long as it lives, leading a kind of life conformable to the conjunction. You see, brother, how not only spiritually, but also humanly, it is clearly shown to be most necessary for those who wish to be truly their own and worthy monks according to the inner man, to send or retain C the intellect within the body. To exhort, however, especially the beginners, to look into themselves and send in the intellect through the breathing, is not incongruous. For who, being in his right mind, would turn one who does not yet pay attention to himself away from drawing his mind back to himself by certain arts? Since, then, for those who have just stripped for this contest, the mind frequently leaps away even while being gathered; and it is necessary that they should also constantly lead it back again; and it escapes those who are untrained, being most difficult to perceive and the most mobile of all; for this reason, there are those who advise paying attention to the breath which is frequently dispersed and brought back, and to hold it for a little while, so that they might also hold that [the intellect] within it, until, God willing, advancing toward the better, and having made their own mind one that does not go out toward things around it, and is unmixed, they might be able to bring it precisely into a unitary collection. This, indeed, one would have to do even automatically following the attention of the intellect. For softly does this spirit enter and exit D during all studious meditation, and especially among those enjoying the quiet of body and soul. For they, rejoicing in the spiritual sabbath, and resting as much as they can from all their actions, suspend all the operations of the soul's faculties by which it goes out and knows various things, and all the perceptions of the senses, and the whole operation of the body which is in our power, and indeed that which does not entirely depend on us, as...
A for example breathing, as far as it is in our power. All these things follow for those who have progressed in stillness without labor and without distraction; for by the soul’s perfect entry into itself, it is necessary that all these things should come about automatically. But to beginners, you would see that none of the things mentioned is attained without struggle. Therefore, just as patience follows from love—for love bears all things—yet we are taught to attain patience by force, so that by it we may arrive at love: so it is also in these matters. And what more is there to say on these points? For all who have experience laugh at those who, out of inexperience, lay down the law against them; for it is not speech, but labor and the experience born of labor that is the teacher of such things; it itself produces useful fruit and abhors the sterile discourses of the argumentative and the boastful.
Since, however, as one of the great Doctors says regarding these things, the inner man is wont to be assimilated to external forms after the transgression, why would it not greatly profit one who is striving to convert his soul into itself, and to move it not by a direct, but by a reflex and most certain movement, not to cast his eye hither and thither, but to fix it as if on a fulcrum upon his chest or navel? For as soon as he reflects himself into a circle, so to speak, from without as much as he can, and in the same way strives to move his mind reflexively into himself, he will pour back the power of the intellect—diffused outwardly by sight—into the heart by such a posture of the body. And if the power of the intelligible beast resides in the navel of the belly, because the law of sin, by which it is nourished, is vigorous there, why should we not oppose to it the law of the mind, armed with prayer? Lest the wicked spirit, having been expelled through the laver of regeneration, should return with seven other spirits more wicked than itself, B and dwell there again, and the last state become worse than the first.
“Attend to yourself,” says Moses; attend, that is, to your whole self—not to one part of yours, while not to another. By what means? By the mind, certainly; for by nothing else can anyone attend to his whole self. Therefore, establish this guard for body and soul; for through it you will easily be freed from the wicked passions of the soul and body. Stand, therefore, by yourself; persist, watch, or rather, guard yourself, look within and examine. For thus you will subject the rebellious flesh to the spirit, and the hidden word will never be in your heart. C “If the spirit of him who has power” (that is, of evil spirits and passions) “should rise up against you, do not leave your place,” says Ecclesiastes; do not leave any part of the soul, any member, unguarded. For thus you will become superior to the spirits that hurt from within, and having yourself scrutinized these things, you will stand with confidence before the Scrutineer of hearts and reins, no longer needing to be scrutinized. “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged,” says Paul himself. And having experienced those blessed affections of David, you will say: “Darkness shall not be darkened from you, and night shall be illuminated as the day to me; for you possess[...]* D
[...]* A my reins.” Not only will I make the whole concupiscible part of the soul yours; but even if there is in the body any fuel for such concupiscence, when it is turned back to the source from which it is drawn, it flies to you, and hangs upon you, and is bonded to you. For just as those who embrace sensible and corruptible things pour out the whole appetite of the soul toward the flesh, and therefore become entirely carnal, having in themselves no abiding Spirit of God: so for those who raise their mind to God and bind their soul with divine love, the very flesh is transformed and is raised up together, partaking of divine communion, and it becomes a possession and house of God, no longer having the enmity of God dwelling within, nor lusting against the Spirit.
But which is more suitable for the spirit that attacks us from below? The flesh or the mind? Is it not the flesh, in which the Apostle says nothing good dwells until it has conceived the law of life? It is therefore all the more necessary that this never be left unguarded. For otherwise what should we do? And why would we abandon it? And how can we repel the return of the evil one to it—especially when we do not yet know how to fight spiritually against the spiritual hosts of wickedness—if we do not learn to watch over ourselves through the exterior posture? I do not speak only of those who are recently beginning, since even some of the more perfect, using this posture in prayer, have been heard by God, not only after B Christ, but even before his coming to us. For Elijah, the most perfect in contemplation, placing his face between his knees, and thus more diligently gathering his mind into himself and into God, washed away that long drought of many years.
These men, however, from whom you say you heard these things, brother, seem to me to be ill with the disease of the Pharisees; therefore, they do not wish to look into and cleanse that which is inside the cup, that is, their own heart; and not standing by the traditions of the fathers, they love to sit above all others, as new doctors of the law; and they themselves disdain the posture of the justified publican in prayer, and dissuade others who are praying from adopting it. For just as the Lord says: “He would not even lift up his eyes to heaven,” they furthermore imitate those who in praying turn their gaze into themselves; and those who call them “navel-souled” (omphalopsychos) C not only clearly slander those whom they accuse (for who among them places their soul in their navel?), not only, I say, do they become manifest slanderous impostors, but they also show themselves to be revilers of praiseworthy men, and not by any means correctors of those who are in error, nor do they write for the sake of stillness and truth, but for the sake of vainglory, not to induce vigilance, but to avert others from vigilance. For they strive in every way to despise that very work, and all those who studiously apply themselves to it, because of the act by which it is exercised. And they would easily call those who say: “My belly shall sound like a harp, and my inward parts to the brazen wall which you have established,” D “heaven-souled,” and at the same time treat everyone with [insults].
A That man did not wish even to lift his eyes to heaven; yet those who look to themselves in prayer seek to emulate him, while calling them “belly-souled” in order to slander wisely those whom they accuse—for who among these ever speaks of the soul as being in the navel? Therefore, once they became clear as being slanderous and abusive, they demonstrated that they were opponents of those who are praised, and not correctors of those who go astray; nor were they writing for the sake of stillness and truth, but for the sake of vainglory; nor in order to lead toward sobriety, but in order to lead away from sobriety. Indeed, they hasten in every way to disparage not only this very work, but also those who have appropriately engaged in it, by means of that very suitable practice. Such men would easily call even the person who said: "The law of God is in the midst of my belly," and him who said to God: "My belly shall sound like a harp, and my inward parts to the brazen wall which you have established," B "belly-souled," and would slander in general all those who, by means of bodily symbols, typify, invoke, and trace the intelligible, divine, and spiritual things. But they will bring no harm to those men because of this; rather, they will even be the cause of blessings and an increase of greater crowns in the heavens; while they themselves remain outside the sacred veils and will not even be able to gaze toward the shadows of the truth; and the fear is great, lest they even pay an eternal penalty, not having only separated themselves from the saints, but also having set upon them with their speech. For you know the life of Symeon the New Theologian—a marvel in almost every respect, and glorified by God through supernatural miracles—and anyone who called his writings "writings of life" would not err from the truth. And that venerable Nicephorus, who, having spent many years in solitude and stillness, then choosing the more solitary C parts of the Holy Mount, exercised himself in labor, and having collected these from all the sermons of the Fathers, handed down to us the practice of watchfulness. Therefore, those men clearly persuade the lovers of perfection of that which you say is refuted by some.
And why should I mention the ancient saints? Men only slightly before us, in whom the virtue of the Holy Spirit shone manifest, handed down all these things to us with their own lips, and proclaimed to us that he [Symeon] is most truly a theologian and a most certain contemplator of the truth of the mysteries of God. You hear of that man rightly called Theoleptus, who was the prelate of Philadelphia, or rather, having shone forth from it as if from a lamp, he illuminated the world; and that other Athanasius, who for not a few years adorned the patriarchal throne, and whose sepulcher God made glorious. And that Nilus the Italic, emulator of the Great Nilus, and Siliotes, and Elias, in no way yielding to him, and Gabriel, and Athanasius, endowed with the gift of prophecy. You hear of all those, and many others before them, and contemporary with them, and who came after them, praising and recommending that those who wish should keep this tradition which the new teachers of stillness, D not knowing a single trace of it—and not because of experience, but because of foolishness, blaming it—attempt to abolish and unteach and defile, to no profit for their hearers. But we have seen some of those saints face to face and had them as masters. How, therefore, could we yield to those who, holding as nothing those whom experience and grace have taught, proceed to teach out of pride and verbal contention? This will not be, it will not be. And you, therefore, turn away from them, while saying to yourself with David wisely: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name;” and showing yourself obedient to the Fathers, hear how they exhort one to always send the mind inward.
those who do not know even a trace of stillness, and who do not counsel from experience, but from chatter, they attempt to set at naught, to misteach, and to despise, to no useful purpose for those who hear. But we have in some cases spoken face to face with those holy men, and have used them as teachers. How then should we set these at naught, who have been taught both by experience and by grace, and yield to those who have set out to teach from conceit and word-wrangling? That shall not be, it shall not be. And you, therefore, turn away from such people, conversing wisely with yourself along with David: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His holy name," and holding yourself obedient to the Fathers, heed how they exhort you to send your mind always inward.
OF THE SAME GREGORY ON PRAYER AND PURITY OF HEART THREE CHAPTERS
B 1. Since the Divine is essentially goodness itself, and truly mercy, and an abyss of kindness—or rather, it even encompasses this abyss, as it surpasses every name that is named and every thing that can be conceived—one might attain to mercy only by union with It. And one is united to It by participation, so far as is possible, in the communion of like virtues, and by the communion of prayer and union with God. Now, while the communion through the virtues, by reason of likeness, is by nature apt to prepare the diligent person to receive the divine union, it does not, however, unite him; but the power of prayer performs and perfects the very elevation and union of man toward the Divine, being a bond of rational creatures to their Creator, once prayer has surpassed the passions and evil thoughts through fervent compunction. For it is impossible for the mind that is addicted to passions to be united with God. Thus, the mind does not obtain mercy as long as it is void of such prayer; but in proportion as it is able to reject the passions, to that extent it acquires contrition; and in proportion to the contrition, it receives the solace of mercy, and if it perseveres in these with humility, it transforms the entire passionate faculty of the soul.
C 2. When the unified mind becomes threefold, while remaining unified, then it is joined to the God-ruling Trinitarian Monad, having closed off every entrance to error and established itself above the flesh, the world, and the prince of the world. And thus, fleeing all the occasions of evil that arise from them; in itself and in
B God it remains, drinking in the fountain of spiritual exultation that springs from within, until it becomes such.
The mind becomes one, and at the same time three, as it turns toward itself and ascends through itself toward God. The conversion of the mind toward itself is its own guarding, while its ascent toward God is made effective through prayer—a prayer which is concentrated, though at times it is more expansive, which is more laborious. If someone persists in this turning inward of the mind and in this lifting up toward the divine, by forcefully restraining the multifaceted wanderings of the intellect, he approaches God intellectually and attains to ineffable things; he tastes of the age to come and knows by intellectual perception that the Lord is gracious, just as the Psalmist says: "Taste and see that the Lord is gracious" (Ps. XXXIII, 9).
To find the mind such that it remains and is preserved as three and at the same time one, and to pray in this state of guarding, is not very difficult; but to persist for a long time in this state, which generates ineffable gifts, is most difficult. For every other labor of virtue, when compared to this, is small and easily tolerable. Therefore, many who renounce the virtue of prayer because of its narrowness do not attain to the breadth of its charisms. But those who persevere are met with greater gifts of divine grace; these, bearing heavy things patiently, progress with joy toward more perfect things, making what is difficult easier, and giving our soul an angelic capacity, so to speak—an aptitude for participating in supernatural powers, according to that oracle of the prophet: "They that wait upon the Lord shall change their strength, they shall mount up with wings" (Isa. XL, 31).
3. The mind and its operation in thoughts
The mind is also spoken of as the operation of the mind, consisting in logical reasonings and thoughts; but the mind is also the power that operates these, which is called the heart by Scripture. According to this division of the faculties of our mind, which is most congruent, the rational part is the operation of the mind consisting in reasonings or thoughts, which take place in prayer, especially in solitary prayer.
And indeed, the mind is easily purified; but the power that generates thoughts cannot be purified unless all the other powers of the soul are purified as well. For the soul is a single thing endowed with many faculties: therefore, it is defiled as a whole if evil should arise from any of its powers, and they all coalesce into one because of the unity of the soul. But because each power has a different operation, one may occasionally by diligence purify one or another operation for a time; yet the power itself will not therefore be pure, but rather it is pure or impure insofar as it communicates with the others. Therefore, he who through the zeal of prayer has purified the operation of the mind, and upon whom the light of knowledge or intellectual illumination shines in some measure, if he considers himself pure because of this, he errs and deceives himself, and by his pride he opens a wide door against himself for the one who always attempts to deceive. But if, knowing his own heart's impurity, he is not puffed up by that moderate D purification, this does him good...
to that purity, utilizing it as a helper, and sees the uncleanness of the other powers of the soul more clearly, and progresses toward humility, and adds to his mourning, and finds appropriate remedies for each power of the soul: purifying the practical part by action, the intellectual by knowledge, and the contemplative by prayer; and through these he arrives at the perfect, true, and most stable purity of heart and intellect, which no one ever attains except through the perfection of works, and perpetual contrition, and contemplation, and contemplative prayer. A
OF THE SAME GREGORY OF THESSALONICA, ONE HUNDRED PHYSICAL, THEOLOGICAL, MORAL, AND PRACTICAL CHAPTERS
1. That the world had a beginning, nature itself teaches, and history confirms; and the inventions of the arts, and the establishments of laws, and the uses of governments clearly demonstrate this. For we know the inventors of almost all the arts, and the lawgivers, and the first founders of kingdoms, and the origin of all those who have written about anything whatsoever, and we see that none of them precedes the beginning of the world and of time, which Moses recorded. And Moses himself, who wrote of the beginning of the world's creation, provided such undoubted proofs of his own veracity by so many extraordinary works and words, that he persuaded almost the whole human race to believe him and to laugh at those who argued the contrary. Since the nature of this world is such that everything always requires another cause, and nothing at all can exist without a cause, it is evident from the things themselves that its first cause was one which itself did not have a cause from anything else. B
2. That the world not only had a beginning, but will also have an end, the very nature of the things contained in it demonstrates, which is in a certain way constantly coming to an end in its parts. And the prophecy of the other inspired writers, and of Christ, offers a certain and irrefutable faith in this, C
A which it is necessary for not only the pious to believe as true, but also the impious, seeing as they do that all the other things which they foretold have truly come to pass. Indeed, as can be learned from them, not only will this whole world not return to nothingness, but it will be changed like our own bodies, dissolved and transformed into a more divine form, so that it may be analogous to us, through the power of the divine Spirit.
3. The Heaven, According to Pagan Philosophers, is Moved by the Nature of the World-Soul, and Teaches Justice and Reason.
B The wise men of the Greeks say that the heaven is moved by the nature of the world-soul, and that it teaches justice and reason. What justice? What reason? For if the heaven is moved not by its own nature, but by the nature of that which they call the world-soul—and this world-soul belongs to the whole world—why are the earth, and the water, and the air not also moved? And yet, according to them, the soul is ever-moving; but the earth and water stand by their own nature, having taken up the lower region. Thus, too, the heaven is always moved by its own nature in a circular motion, occupying the upper region. But what sort of thing is this world-soul by whose nature the heaven is moved? Is it rational? If so, it would be free, and the celestial body would not always be moved by the same motions: for free beings move differently at different times. And what trace of a rational soul do we see C in this lowest sphere, namely the earth, or in those things nearest to it, water and air, or even in fire itself? For the world-soul is of these things as well. Why, again, are some things ensouled, and others inanimate? And this, according to them, is the case, and these are not chance things, but every stone, every metal, all earth, water, air, and fire—for they say that fire itself is moved by its own nature, and not by the soul. Since, therefore, the soul is common, why is the heaven alone moved by the nature of this soul, and not by its own? But the soul that moves the celestial body, according to them, is not rational; and why? Since, according to them, it is the fountain of our own souls, even if it is not rational, nor sensitive, nor physical? But we do not see even one of these D moving a body without organs; moreover, we see no organic member in the earth, or in the heaven, or in any other of the elements within them, since every organ is composed of different natures, while each of the elements is of a simple nature, especially the heaven. Furthermore, the soul is the perfection of an organic body having life in potentiality. But the heaven, having no organic member or part, cannot live: how, then, could it have a soul, which it is unable to have life? But those who have become vain in their reasonings, from a foolish heart, have devised a soul that neither is, nor has been, nor will ever be, and this they have made the creator, ruler, and governor of the entire sensible world. They have spoken of it as if it were the root and fountain of our souls, or rather of all souls, having its own origin from an intellect—which intellect they contend is another substance besides the supreme God whom they themselves admit. And this is the doctrine held by their foremost teachers and theologians, who do not
A profess a better cult, but rather a much worse one, than those who deify beasts or stones. For beasts, gold, bronze, and stone are something, though they are the lowest of creatures; but the mundane and starry soul neither exists nor is it anything other than the invention of a miserably wandering mind.
4. Since, they say, the celestial body must move, and there is no further place into which it might proceed, it turns back into itself, and its proceeding is its conversion—bravo! If, however, it had space, it would be carried upward, just as fire is, and even more so than fire, because by nature it is lighter than fire. But this movement does not belong to the nature of the soul, but to the nature of lightness. If, therefore, the progression of the heavens is its conversion, and it has this from its own nature, not from the nature of the soul, then the B celestial body turns not because of the nature of the soul, but by its own nature; consequently, it does not possess a soul. Nor is there any celestial or universal soul, but only the rational human soul is—not celestial, but supercelestial, not in place, but by its own nature, inasmuch as it is an intellectual substance.
5. And the celestial body does not have a soul, either regarding its progression or its extension toward the heights; and it is not because there is no further place (for the sphere of the aether contained within it is after this) that it does not proceed upward; it is not because there is no place into which it might proceed—for the celestial expanse surrounds it—but it does not extend further because what is above it is subtler than it is; hence, it is above it by its own nature. Therefore, it is C not because the heavens do not have a place above themselves that they do not proceed upward, but because no body is subtler or lighter than they are.
6. No body is higher than the celestial body; but it is not because of this that the space above is incapable of a body, but because the heavens have encompassed every body, and there is no other body beyond. If, however, it were possible to pass beyond, just as we the pious believe and maintain, that space above the heavens would not be inadmissible. For God, who fills all things and extends infinitely beyond the heavens, was also filling [that space] before the world, just as now He fills every place in the world; and nothing stood before this, so that a body might be brought into being within it. Therefore, there will be nothing outside the heavens that is an obstacle to there being a place—such as the one around the world or D the one that exists within the world—so that there might be a body in it.
7. How is it, then, since there is no obstacle, that the motion of the celestial body is not carried upward, but instead turns back into itself and moves in a circle? Because, as the finest of all things, it floats like a surface, it is the highest of every body, and also the most kinetic; for just as what is most compressed is the heaviest and the lowest, so the lightest is at once the highest and the most kinetic. Since, therefore, it is its nature to move by floating upward, and what thus floats cannot by its own nature be separated from those things over which it floats—and spherical are those things over which the celestial body floats—it must necessarily run around them incessantly, not as a soul—
A but by a bodily and proper force, since it changes place by place by parts, which is the proper motion of bodies, just as the opposite state is for bodies standing in opposition.
8. One might also see this in the winds near us, which are accustomed to float, not separating and moving around these, but not advancing any further upward, not because there is no space, but because those things above them are lighter than they are. They remain on what they float upon, as they are naturally lighter than these; yet they move around them, not by the nature of a soul, but by their own nature. And I think that Solomon, who was wise in all things, wishing to point out this moderate similarity, compared the celestial body to the winds, writing about this: “The spirit goes circling and moves in a circuit, and the spirit returns to its circles.” Yet the nature of the winds near us differs from the higher bodies and from their swiftest motion, just as it falls short of their lightness.
9. B There are two temperate and habitable zones of the earth, according to the philosophers of the Greeks, and since each is divided into two inhabited parts, they establish that there are four. Thus, they assert that there are four species of men upon the earth, whom it is impossible to pass to one another. For, according to them, there are inhabitants of the temperate part lying obliquely opposite to us, whom the torrid zone of the earth separates from us. Opposite to these, however, are inhabitants who, as it seems to them, dwell under that temperate zone, just as there are those who lie toward us in the same way, whom they call some opposite, others antipodes, and those turned toward us; for they did not know that, except for the tenth part of the spherical earth, the rest is almost entirely surrounded by an abyss C of waters.
10. One might know that, apart from the inhabited world around us, no other part of the earth is habitable, as being surrounded by an abyss, if one were to consider the proportion given among the four elements of which the world is composed. And according to the reason of their own subtlety, each one of these occupies a wider space in the sphere than another, as also seems to Aristotle. For there are five, he says, elements in five spherically arranged regions, with the smaller always being enclosed by the greater: earth by the waters, water by air, air by fire, fire by the aether; and this is the world.
11. D The aether, therefore, is most clearly that which is called fire, or the kindling, and the fire is more extensive than the aery sphere, and again air than water, and water than earth, which, being most of all enclosed, is the least manifest among the four that are beneath heaven. Therefore, the sphere of water, which holds a greater space than the earth, if it encompassed the entire circuit of the earth, so that both spheres—I mean the earth and the water—were turned around one center, would allow no part of it to be inhabited by terrestrial animals, covering its entire
A soil, and extending over its whole surface by a great measure. But since it does not encompass the entire surface of the earth—for the dry land of the inhabited world as we know it is uncovered—the sphere of water is therefore, by absolute necessity, eccentric. We must therefore seek how much it is eccentric and where its center lies; whether it is below us or above us. But it cannot be above us, for we see the surface of the water to be below us in part; therefore, both the center of the earth and the center of the water sphere are below us. It remains, then, to seek how far this center is distant from the center of the earth.
12. Anyone could know how far the center of the water sphere is distant from the center of the earth in the direction that seems downward to us, if he were to consider that the surface of the earth—which is the world we inhabit—coincides almost precisely with the surface we see nearby and beneath us, and which is, as it were, the soil of the earth trodden by us, being the surface of the water. For the habitable part of the earth, as we know it, is about a tenth of the earth’s circumference. For the earth has five zones, and half of one of these five is inhabited by us. If, therefore, anyone wishes to fit a sphere around the earth to this tenth part of the surface, he will find the sphere circumscribed on the outside and encompassing the earth to be nearly double in diameter to the inscribed sphere, and eight times greater in magnitude, and to have its center at the lowest point of the earth relative to us; and this is clearly demonstrated by this geometric figure B.
13. Let the circle of the earth be that within which the letters A, B, C, D are inscribed; and around it, in place of the sphere of water, let there be another circle drawn, coinciding at the surface with the upper tenth of the circle within it, to which are superscript E, F, G, H. For it will be found that the limit of the inner circle, which is downward relative to us, is the center of the outer circle drawn around it. And since this one is double in diameter, it appears by geometric proofs that the sphere whose diameter is double that of the sphere having the half-diameter is eight times larger; it happens, therefore, that an eighth part of this liquid sphere C is contained and intermingled with the earth: wherefore
A many fountains burst forth from it, and most abundant and perennial streams of rivers are given back, and the bays of many seas are poured into it, and multitudes of lake waters flow out. And there is hardly any place on the earth where one digging will not find water welling up beneath.
14. That, besides the regions we inhabit, no other part of the earth is inhabited, both the diagram and reason teach. For just as, if the center of the earth and the water were the same, the earth would be utterly uninhabitable to all; so, and much more so, if the water has as its center the limit of the earth lowest in relation to us, B everything else—save for the region inhabited by us, which corresponds to the upper part of that liquid sphere—being surrounded by many waters, cannot be inhabited. Since, however, it was previously demonstrated that in the only part of the earth inhabited, a rational soul subsistent in a body exists, and that there is only one such part, namely this one of ours, as has just been shown, it follows that only in this region do land animals lacking reason dwell.
15. Sight is formed from colors and shapes disposed in various ways; smell, from vapors; taste, from humors; hearing, from sounds; and touch, from things rough or smooth according to their position. Furthermore, the forms perceived by the senses are indeed from bodies, but they are not bodies, although they are corporeal; C for they are not simply from bodies, but from the species of bodies; nor are they even the species of bodies themselves, but impressions of them, and as it were certain images separated indivisibly from the species of bodies; and this is clearer from sight, and especially from things seen by means of mirrors.
16. Those impressions, therefore, according to the senses, the imaginative faculty of the soul, appropriating them from the senses, draws not the sensations themselves, but the aforementioned images impressed upon them, perfectly away from the bodies and from the species of bodies, and keeps them hidden as in treasuries—now producing one, now another in turn, even when the body is absent—for its own use from within, and representing to itself all things already seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched.
17. This imaginative faculty of the soul, in a rational animal, D becomes the boundary between the intellect and the sense. Therefore, the intellect, viewing and revolving the images received in the imagination from the senses as if they were already separated from bodies and had become incorporeal, elaborates various thoughts, disputing, considering, and computing in many ways—with desire, without desire, indifferently, with error, and without error—from which most virtues and vices, and good and evil doctrines, arise. For since not every thought of the intellect is from these or about these, but sometimes things are thought out which cannot fall under sense—being given to the thought by the intellect itself—for this reason I said that not every truth or error, and virtue or vice in our thoughts, has its origin from the imagination.
A 18. It is highly worthy of wonder and examination how, from temporal and sensible things, there arises in the soul a permanent beauty or deformity, wealth or poverty, glory or ignominy; and, in a word, either an intelligible light providing eternal life, or an intelligible darkness of torments.
19. The intellect, mounting upon the imaginative faculty of the soul, and through this faculty coming into contact with the senses, generates a mixed knowledge. For if anyone, with the senses, were to behold the setting sun, and also the moon following it, situated in the region toward the sun, and then gradually departing in the following days and shining more brightly, until it is observed in opposition, and again gradually approaching the other side, and more and more diminishing and laying aside the light where it first received the beginning of its illumination; noting these sights with the intellect, representing some as present in the imagination, while having others always present to the senses, he conceives, through sensation, imagination, and intellect, that the moon borrows its light from the sun, but that its sphere is closer to the earth and much lower than the solar sphere.
20. Not only regarding the moon, but also regarding the sun, and the eclipses occurring according to it, and the conjunctions which are the causes of these, and the parallaxes, distances, and multiform figures of the other planets in the heavens, and, in a word, whatever we know of celestial things, C and furthermore the reasons of nature, all methods and arts, and, in general, every knowledge of all things gathered from particular perceptions, we collect through the intellect from sensation and imagination; and it can by no means be called spiritual, but rather physical, which does not perceive those things which are of the Spirit.
21. Whence did we learn about God? Whence about the whole universe? Whence about ourselves, anything firm and true? Is it not from the teaching of the Spirit? For the Spirit taught us that God is the only One who truly is, and always is, and is immutable, neither having received existence from non-being, nor departing to non-being; and that He is triply-hypostatic and omnipotent; He who in six days, by His word, brought forth the things that exist from non-being; or rather, He brought them into existence suddenly, as Moses says. For, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" (Gen. 1, 1); we have heard Him saying this; not at all empty, nor wanting of all intermediate things. For the earth was commingled with water, and both were pregnant with air and the forms of animals and plants; and the heaven was filled with the different lights and fires in which the whole universe consists. Thus, therefore, God created in the beginning the heaven and the earth, as a kind of matter capable of receiving all things, and virtually containing all things, rightly casting far away those who foolishly imagine that matter existed of itself beforehand.
22. After this, as if cultivating, and the world
One who brought all things out of nothing, distributing to each the proper and appropriate order of those things that belong to it and that complete His world, distributed them in six days, distinguishing each by command alone, and, as if bringing things out of treasure-houses set aside, bringing them into form, and arranging and composing them harmoniously, optimally, and fittingly—one thing to another, each to all, and all to each—placing round the immobile earth, like a certain center, the most sublime circle, and binding together most wisely by means of those in between the ever-moving heaven, so that the same world might remain both at rest and in motion. For with all bodies constituted to move perpetually and most quickly in a circle, the immobile body necessarily held the middle place, having rest as an opposite to motion, so that the sphere of the entire world might not roll over like a cylinder.
23. B Therefore, the Master Craftsman, having assigned a position to each of the boundaries of the whole, fixed and moved this entire world, so to speak, in an orderly fashion, and distributed to each of those things between these boundaries what is appropriate. And first He orders the things above, and commands them to travel on high and to revolve along with the highest boundary of the whole, wisely and beautifully for all time; these are the light and active bodies that transmute the things beneath for their own utility. These stand so far above the middle, and so wisely, that they are able to sufficiently break and suspend the immoderation of cold in this middle region, and to keep the immoderation of their own heat in its place. C They also serve in a way to check the immoderation of the movement of the highest boundaries; for, by moving uniquely in the opposite direction, they keep those as well in their place through this counter-rotation, and provide us with the very useful changes of the seasons of the year, the measures of temporal intervals, and a knowledge of the God who created, ordered, and adorned [all things] to those who understand. Therefore, He willed that the things in the high and upper regions should dance in this way with a twofold, multi-rotational motion, for the sake of the beauty of the whole and for manifold utility. D He placed others below and around the center—those that have weight and are by nature subject to passion, and are born and pass away, and are by nature prone to be separated and combined, or rather, to be changed for the sake of utility—fittingly disposing both these and their relation to one another, so that the whole may rightly be called a "cosmos" [ordered world].
24. Thus, then, first one of the things that exist was brought forth in creation, and after the first, another, and after that one, again another, and so on, and after all things, man. And he has been deemed worthy of such honor and providence from God, that this entire sensible world was made before him for his sake. And the kingdom of the heavens was prepared for him immediately from the foundation of the world, and there was a plan concerning him beforehand, and he was formed by the hand of God and in the image of God, and did not receive his whole being from this matter and the sensible world, unlike the other animals, but [received] only [his] body, while his soul [came] from the supermundane realms, or rather from God Himself through an ineffable inbreathing and
A a most wonderful thing, one that transcends the universe, searches all things, presides over all, is capable of knowing and receiving God simultaneously, and one that manifests the superb magnificence of the Artificer more than all other works, and is able not only to receive God through virtue and grace, but is even able to be united with Him in one person.
25. These and such things are those in which true wisdom and the saving knowledge that is the source of the blessedness above consist. For who was Euclid? Who was Marinus? Who was Ptolemy that was able to perceive these things? Which Empedocles, or Socrates, or Aristotle, or Plato, by logical methods or mathematical demonstrations—or rather, what sense grasped such things, what intellect penetrated them? But if to those who philosophize according to nature and to their disciples, wisdom according to the Spirit seemed lowly—and from this its excellence, which is supereminent, is made manifest—for they regard us, by the intuition of their own wisdom, almost as animals destitute of reason, or, if you prefer, as little children to whom cakes in their hands seem better than royal diadems or anything else known to them. This is how they stand related to true and supereminent wisdom and the doctrine of the Spirit. B
26. And not only is knowing God in truth as much as one is able, incomparably better than the philosophy of the Greeks, but even simply knowing what place man has before God surpasses all the wisdom of the gentiles. For he alone of all things terrestrial and celestial was created according to the image of his Maker, so that he might look toward Him and love Him, and be the initiate and worshiper of Him alone, and by faith, inclination, and disposition toward Him, guard his own beauty, and consider all other things that this earth and heaven contain to be inferior to himself and altogether destitute of intelligence. C Which the wise men of the Greeks, being wholly unable to perceive, disgraced our nature, acted impiously toward God, and worshiped and venerated the creature rather than the Creator, attributing intelligence to sensible things and inanimate stars, which would hold in each case a virtue and dignity proportional to the magnitude of the body—and miserably revering these things, and calling them greater and lesser gods, they entrusted the lordship of the all to them. Do they not, therefore, from sensible things and from their philosophy concerning them, brand their own souls with disgrace, ignominy, and extreme misery, and truly spiritual and penal darkness? D
27. The fact that we were made according to the image of the Maker does not permit us to deify the intelligible world. For this "according to the image" is not a property of the composition of the body, but is precisely the nature of the intellect, than which nothing among natural things is better. For if there were something better, the image of God would exist in that. But since that which is better in us is the intellect, and this, even if it be according to a divine image, was nevertheless created by God—is it then difficult to perceive, or rather, is it not immediately obvious...
A that He is the Creator of our intellect, and the Creator of every intellectual being? Therefore, every intellectual nature is our fellow servant, made in the image of the Creator; even if they are more honorable than we are, as they exist apart from bodies and are closer to the entirely immaterial and uncreated nature. Or rather, those among them who have kept their own order, and who love that for which they were made, although they are our fellow servants, are nevertheless honorable and far superior to us in dignity. But those who did not keep their own order, but have rebelled and rejected that for which they were created, have withdrawn as far as possible from those who draw near to God and have fallen from their honor. And if they also attempt to drag us with them into the fall, they are not only useless and vile, but also hostile to God and most pernicious and inimical to the human race.
28. B But the physiologists and star-gazers, while boasting of knowing everything, for they were unable to perceive any of the aforementioned points from philosophy, have called the prince of spiritual darkness and all the apostate powers under him not only superiors to themselves, but even gods; and they honored them in temples, and offered sacrifices to them, and subjected themselves to their most destructive oracles, in which they were deservedly and for the most part deluded by unholy priests, and by pollutions that defile and inspire the most wicked arrogance, and by prophets and prophetesses who lead them as far as possible from the truth itself.
29. Not only is the knowing of God, or a man's knowing himself and his own order (which even those called unlearned among Christians know), a higher knowledge than physiology and astronomy and all philosophy concerning them, but also to know the C weakness of our own intellect and to seek to heal it is incomparably far better than to know and investigate the sizes of the stars and the reasons for natures, the origins of things below and the circuits of things above, the turnings and risings, the stations and retrogradations, the departures and conjunctions, and simply every condition of their various and multiform movements arising from constant motion. For the mind that has known its own weakness has found from where it may enter into salvation, and may draw near to the light of knowledge, and may receive true wisdom that is not to be dissolved with this age.
30. Every rational and intellectual nature, whether one calls it angelic or human, has life essentially, through which it remains D immortal in existence, not admitting of corruption. But the intellectual and rational nature that is in us has life essentially not only as substance, but also as operation. For it gives life to the conjoined body, whence it is also called the life of this body. Furthermore, this life is spoken of in relation to another, and it is its operation. For that which is toward another cannot be said to subsist by itself. But the intellectual nature of angels does not have life in such a way as an operation; for it did not receive from God a body conjoined from the earth, so that it might receive a power to give life to this. Yet it is also itself capable of contraries, namely, of vice and of goodness. And
A this is attested by the wicked angels, who fell because of their pride; therefore, the angels themselves are also in a way composite, namely, from their own substance and from one of the contrary qualities—virtue, I say, or wickedness. Whence it is evident that not even they possess goodness as an essence.
31. The soul of each of the irrational animals is the life of the animate body according to it, and it does not have this life as an essence, but as an operation, as being toward something else, and not as being in itself. For it is seen to have nothing else but the things operated through the body, because of which, when this is dissolved, it must needs be dissolved as well; for it is no less mortal than the body, since everything that exists is both and is called relative to what is mortal, and therefore it dies together with the dying [body].
32. The soul of each human being is indeed the life of the animate body according to it, and it has a vivifying operation B relative to another, namely, to the thing vivified by it. But it not only has life as an operation, but also as an essence, as living in itself. For it is seen to have rational and intellectual life, which is evidently other than the life of the body and of those things which occur through the body; which is why, when the body is dissolved, it is not dissolved together with it. And because it is not dissolved, it remains immortal, as not being seen relative to another, but having life as an essence in itself.
33. The rational and intellectual soul C has indeed life as an essence, but it is capable of contraries, namely, of vice and of goodness. Whence it is shown that it does not have goodness as an essence, just as it does not have vice, but as a certain quality, which, according to either one, when it is present, it is disposed. But it is not present locally; rather, when the intellectual soul, having received free will from the Creator, inclines toward it, and wills to live according to it; for this reason the rational and intellectual soul is in a way composite, not from the aforementioned operation—for this, since it is toward another, cannot enter into composition—but from its own essence and from either one of the aforementioned contrary qualities—virtue, I say, or wickedness (*).
34. The supreme intellect, the highest good, the supra-vital and supradivine nature, is D everywhere and in every way utterly incapable of contraries, and is evidently not a quality, but has goodness as an essence; and therefore everything that one might conceive of as good is in it. Or rather, it is that, and is above that. And everything that one might conceive of in it is good, or rather it is goodness, and an exceeding good goodness. And life is in it, or rather it itself is life; for life is good, and the life in it is goodness. And wisdom is in it, or rather it itself is wisdom; for wisdom is good, and the wisdom in it is goodness [in another: essence], and eternity, and beatitude, and in sum everything that one might conceive of as good. And there is no difference in it between life, and wisdom, and goodness, and things of this kind. For that goodness collectively, unitively, and most richly [contains] all things. (*) II Petr. I, 19. Psal. X, 3, 23. Up to here are the physical [chapters]; from here on [are] the theological chapters.
A It contains and encompasses [them] collectively, and unitively, and most simply; and it is known and called from all goods. And it is one and true, whatever anyone might conceive and say about it [as] good. Yet that [Good] is not only this which is truly conceived, and [spoken of] by those who are God-wise in their understanding and who theologize with a Spirit-moved tongue; but as it is ineffable and incomprehensible, it is above these things, and it does not depart from the one and supernatural simplicity; being one, a most good and super-good goodness; for only according to this is it understood and called, and according to this, by those alone who are [engaged] in the works proper to creation, is the Maker and Lord of creation known or made manifest, as being, forsooth, the best and super-excellent goodness, possessing goodness [as its] essence. For which reason it can never admit anything contrary to itself; for no essence suffers anything contrary to itself.
35. B This most good and super-good goodness is also the font of goodness. For that is good, and the highest of goods; and it could not be that the complete goodness should be lacking. Since, then, the Intellect is the super-complete and complete goodness, what else could flow from it as from a font, save the Word? And indeed, not a word similar to the one which we utter—for this is not intellect, but [that] of a body moved by intellect—nor similar to the word which we compose within ourselves—for this becomes, as it were, a voice in us in the form of types—nor yet similar to the word which we think in our mind, even if it be without sounds and excited by altogether incorporeal movements; for this is subsequent to us, and C requires intervals and no small spaces of time, proceeding by way of discourse and advancing from an imperfect beginning to a complete conclusion; but [it is] similar to the Word naturally, according to which the Creator made us in His own image, [the Word] implanted in our intellect, always co-existing with this cognition of it. Which is most especially there in the supreme Intellect of complete and super-complete goodness, with which nothing is in the least imperfect, except that they are from it, but they are indiscriminately whatever It is. Therefore the Son is, and is called by us, the supreme Word; so that we may recognize Him as being perfect, in a perfect and proper person, because He is from the Father, and differs in nothing from the paternal substance, but is the same as Him indiscriminately, though not by hypostasis, yet the fact that He is from Him, being generated in a manner befitting God, demonstrates the Word.
36. D Goodness, which proceeds as from a font of intellectual goodness, [proceeds] generation-wise, since it is Word; and no one possessing intellect could conceive of a word without Spirit; for this reason the Word of God, who is God, has the Holy Spirit proceeding together with Him from the Father. But the Spirit [is] not after the manner of that which accompanies the word on our lips, nor yet after the manner of that which accompanies—even if incorporeally—the word within us and in our mind; for that too is a certain impetus of the intellect, extending along with our word in time, and needing the same intervals, and proceeding from imperfect to perfect. But that Spirit of the supreme Word...
is, as it were, a certain ineffable love of the Genitor towards that Word A ineffably begotten, by which love the lovable Word and Son of the Father loves the Genitor in return, and whom He has as proceeding from the Father with Himself and resting intimately within Himself. Which Word, having conversed with us in the flesh, taught us the name of the other person proceeding from the Father, namely the Spirit, and that this is not only the Father’s, but His own as well. For, He says, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, in order that we might know not only the Word, but also the Spirit who is from the Father, not begotten, but proceeding; and that He is of the Son, since He has this from the Father, as the Spirit of truth, wisdom, and the Word. For the truth and the wisdom is the Word, congruent with the Genitor, who rejoices with the Father, who is rejoicing over Him, according to that spoken by Him through Solomon: “I was, with whom He rejoiced.” He did not say “I rejoiced,” but “I rejoiced with Him”; for this is the eternal joy of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, which they use in common (which is why He is sent by both to the worthy), but who exists by being from the Father alone, and therefore proceeds personally from Him alone.
37. Our intellect, created in the image of God, possesses the image of this highest love, directed toward the knowledge eternally conceived by itself and in itself. It is from it and in it, and proceeds from it together with the inner word. A most clear proof of this, even for those unable to contemplate their own interior depths, is the insatiable appetite of men for knowledge. But in that archetype, in that perfect and most perfect goodness, with which there is nothing imperfect—except for the fact that it is from it—divine love is indiscriminately whatever it itself is. Therefore this holy Spirit is another Paraclete, and is called so by us, as a companion to the Word; B so that we may know that He is perfect and in a perfect and proper person, and that He differs in nothing from the substance of the Father, but is the same indiscriminately as the Father and the Son, though not according to person, which demonstrates to us that He proceeds from the Father; and so that we may worship one true and perfect God, in three true and perfect persons—not triple, God forbid, but simple. For goodness is not something triple, nor a triad of goodnesses, but it is a holy, venerable, and adorable Trinity, the supreme goodness eternally flowing from itself into itself, and subsisting divinely before the ages in itself, infinite and limited only by itself, and limiting all things, extending over all things, and allowing nothing of the things that exist to be outside itself. C
38. The intellectual and rational nature of the angels also possesses mind, and word from the mind, and the love of the mind toward the word; which itself is also from the mind, and always remains with both the word and the mind, and could be called a spirit, as naturally accompanying the word. But this spirit is not vivifying. D
A For the body taken from the earth did not receive from God a vivifying power that would also be a binding power for it. But the intellectual and rational nature of the soul, since it was co-created with the earthly body, did receive a vivifying spirit from God, by which it holds together and vivifies the joined body; from which it is also shown to those who understand that the human spirit, which vivifies the body, is an intellectual love, which is from the mind and is the word, and is in the word and in the mind, and has in itself both the word and the mind. For the soul has such a naturally loving attachment to its own body through this, that it never wishes to leave it, nor to abandon it at all, unless some very great disease or an external wound forcibly compels it.
39. The intellectual and rational nature of the soul, B since it alone possesses intellect, word, and vivifying spirit, in this respect even more than the incorporeal angels has been created by God according to His image; and this it has in a way that cannot be altered, even if it does not recognize its own worth, and does not think and act worthily of Him who created it according to His own image. Thus, even after that ancestral transgression in Paradise through the tree, and even before the death of the body, we have incurred the death of the soul, which is its separation from God; yet, although we have lost the likeness to God, we have not ceased to be in the image of God. Wherefore, if the soul rejects the habit of evil, and clings to the good through love, and subjects itself to this through works and the exercise of virtue, it is illuminated and adorned by Him, and being improved by obeying His counsels and exhortations, it attains to the true and eternal life; and through this it also makes the joined body immortal, a participant in the promised resurrection in due time, and a sharer in eternal glory. But if it does not cast off its evil habits and falls, with which it brands a foul disgrace upon the image of God, it is alienated and repelled from the true and truly blessed life of God, and because it abandoned Him first, it is justly abandoned by the Good.
40. The trinitarian nature after the most high Trinity, D as having been made by Him more than all other things as His image, being intellectual, rational, and spiritual (such is the human soul), ought to maintain its own order, and to be only after God, and to be subjected, subordinate, and obedient to Him alone, and to look only to Him, and to adorn itself with the continuous memory and contemplation of Him, and with a most warm and burning love for Him; by which things it is wondrously attracted to itself—or rather, it used to attract to itself—the mystical and ineffable radiance of that Nature; and then it truly possesses the image and likeness of God, having become graceful, wise, and divine through it. For it is taught by this—whether God is visibly present or invisibly approaching, as is more common now—to love God above itself, and its neighbor as itself, and from thence, by knowing and maintaining its own worth and order, to truly love itself. Nam
A For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul, and by lacerating and scraping away the image of God, he suffers a sickness similar to those who in their madness unwittingly tear apart their own pitiable flesh. For he himself also unwittingly harms and most miserably tears apart the natural beauty implanted within himself, foolishly shattering the Trinity [within him through charity] and the super-mundane world of his own soul. For what is more unjust, what more destructive, than to be unwilling to remember, and to perpetually reject and disregard Him who created and adorned one in His own image, and for this reason granted the power of knowing and loving, and, to those who use these well, grants in addition ineffable gifts and eternal life?
B 41. One of those things which are the worse of our soul, and more—and indeed much more than the others, the worst—is the intelligible and primordial serpent of evil, now an angel of his own malice, having become such through the wicked counsel given to men: who is as much the lowest of all and the worst, as he proudly desired to be equal in power to the Creator, by whom he was as justly abandoned as he had previously abandoned Him. And he abandoned Him so much that he became hostile and opposed to Him, and was openly finished as an adversary. If, therefore, That One is living goodness and the vivifier of the living, this one is dead and death-dealing wickedness. For He, having goodness as His essence, and being by nature incapable of the opposite—that is, of malice—insofar as those who are partakers of any malice whatsoever cannot approach Him; how much more does He repel as far from Himself the artisan and author of malice, and the cause of it for others? But the wicked one, having not malice, but life as his essence, from which he remains immortal according to it, is nevertheless capable of this malice, and was endowed with free will; so that, being subject to and adhering from the beginning to the ever-flowing fountain of goodness, he might be a partaker of true life. But since he voluntarily defected to malice, he is deprived of true life, being justly repelled by That from which he himself first recoiled; and he becomes a dead spirit, not according to essence (for there is no essence of death), but according to the loss of true life. And he, not receiving satisfaction for the impulse toward malice, but increasing it most miserably, makes himself a death-dealing spirit, eager to draw man also into the fellowship of his own death.
B 42. As one with crooked ways and abounding in deceits, the merchant and author of death puts on the crooked serpent in God’s paradise in times past; not having become a serpent himself (for he cannot, except in appearance, which he knew he should not then use, fearing he might be detected), but not daring an open encounter, he prefers a cunning one, and that one in which he trusted more to hide himself, that under the guise of friendship he might stealthily persuade the most hostile things, and by the singularity of the conversation (for the sensible serpent was not rational, nor did it seem able to emit a voice before) might stupefy her, and draw her entirely to himself, and make her easily overcome by his artifices.
A
43. There is nothing superior to man, so that he may deliberate and offer a judgment, and through it know and procure what is beneficial; provided only that he keeps his order, knows himself, and B knows the One alone who is superior to him, and both keeps what he has learned from that superior One, and, in those things which he has not yet learned from Him, takes that One alone as his counselor. For even the angels, although they are superior to us in dignity, are themselves also ministers of His designs concerning us, being sent for the sake of those who will inherit {Heb. 1, 14} salvation; yet not all, but those who are good and have remained in their own order: for they themselves also have from God intellect, word, and spirit—these three connatural—and they must obey the Creator, who is Intellect, Word, and Spirit, just as we must. They indeed excel us in many things, but in certain things they yield to us, as we have already said and shall say, namely in expressing the image of the Creator, because we were made more than they in the image of God.
44. C Although the angels are constituted to minister powerfully to the Creator, and are destined only to be ruled, and are not appointed to rule those below them unless they are sent for this purpose by the Lord of all; Satan, however, arrogantly aspired to rule against the decree of the Creator, and, having transgressed his own order together with the co-apostate angels, was justly cast out from the fountain of true life and light, and put on death and eternal darkness. But since man is appointed not only to be ruled but also to rule over all things that are upon the earth, the author of evil, beholding him with envious eyes, employs every artifice to cast him down from his kingdom; being unable to do so by force, inasmuch as he is hindered by the Lord of all, who created the rational nature free and sovereign, he deceitfully suggests to man counsels that would strip him of his kingdom, and furtively persuades him to neglect, and to account as nothing, and to spurn—or rather, to oppose and attack—the precepts and counsels given by the Superior, so that, having become a partner in his rebellion, he may also become a partner in his eternal darkness and death. D
45. That the rational soul is also as if dead,
though it has life in its existence, the great Paul taught us by writing: “The widow who is living in pleasure is dead” (1 Tim. 5:6). It would A not be poorly said that this refers also to the matter now before us, namely the rational soul: for the soul stripped of its spiritual Bridegroom, if it is not anxious and mourning, and leading a narrow and afflicted life of repentance, but is instead dissolute and indulging itself in pleasures and luxury, though it lives (for in its essence it is immortal), it is dead; for it is capable of the worse death, just as it is capable of the better life. But if he speaks of a widow bereaved of a bodily husband, she is to be understood thus: she who is in pleasures, even if living in body, is altogether dead in soul. For the same writer says elsewhere: “When we were dead in sins, he made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). And what of him who said, “There is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16)? And the Lord himself, in commanding a certain man to let the dead bury their own dead, showed that those buryers, although living in the body, were altogether dead in soul.
46. When the forefathers of our race of their own accord withdrew B from the memory and contemplation of God, and disregarded the commandment from there, and joined in mind with the dead spirit of Satan, and ate of the forbidden tree against the will of the Creator, having been stripped of the luminous and vital garments from the light on high, they became dead, alas! like Satan himself, in spirit. But since Satan is not only a dead spirit but one who also makes dead those who approach him, and since the body—through which the death-dealing counsel was brought to completion and led to action—was present to those who shared in his death, they—alas!—communicated those dead and death-making spirits of death to their own bodies as well. And the human body would have immediately dissolved and returned to the earth from which it was taken, had it not been held together by the providence and power of the better One, awaiting the C sentence of Him who establishes all things by a word alone, without whom nothing of what is done is brought to completion. Yet that [sentence] is always brought forth with justice. “For the Lord is righteous,” to speak according to the divine Psalmist, “and he loved righteousness” (Ps. 10:8).
47. God did not make death, according to what is written; but He even prevented it from coming into being, as far as it was appropriate and permitted by justice to restrain those who were made by Him with free will. For He first brought forward a counsel that confers immortality, and, strongly fortifying this life-giving counsel, He added a specific commandment and clearly predicted and threatened, affirming that death would be the transgression of the life-giving commandment, so that they might guard themselves from the experience of death either through love, or knowledge, or fear. For God loves, and knows, and is able to provide for the advantage of each of His creatures. For if He only knew but did not love, He might perhaps D have prevented it Himself and not let that which is well known come to completion; but if, while loving, He did not know or was not able, perhaps, even against His will, that which He loves and
knows remained incomplete. A Since, however, He both loves and knows our advantage most highly, and is able to accomplish whatever may come to us from Him, even involuntarily, it always comes to us advantageously; but as to that toward which we move of our own accord, since we possess a free nature, there is great fear that it might be disadvantageous. Whenever, by the providence of God, something among all things is clearly forbidden—as it was in Paradise, or in the Gospel of the Lord through Himself, or among the children of Israel through the prophets, or in the law of grace through His apostles and their successors—it is evidently most unprofitable and most destructive to desire and yearn for that thing of our own impulse; and if anyone proposes this to us and urges us to desire it, exhorting with words or charming us with a pleasing appearance, this person is evidently an adversary and enemy to our life. B
48. We ought, therefore, whether by love, desiring to live (for why would He have created us as living beings if He did not love this preeminently?), or by knowledge, knowing that He knows our advantage better than we ourselves do (for how is the Giver of knowledge and Lord of all knowledges not incomparably more knowing than we?), or by fear, fearing His omnipotent power, [to take care] not to be deceived, nor charmed, nor persuaded at that time to violate His command and counsel, just as we should not today [violate] the salutary commands and counsels given to us after that one. For just as now those who choose not to stand against sin C nobly, but esteeming the divine commands as naught, walk the contrary way—which is to say, the way that leads to interior and eternal death, unless they recover their own soul through repentance—in the same way, that pair of our first parents, not resisting those who persuaded them to disobedience, despised the command, and the sentence D of the just Judge, predetermined for them, came forth into effect at once, and according to this, as soon as they ate of the tree, they died; and they understood by experience what it was the command they had forgotten—the [command] of truth, and of love, and of wisdom, and of power—and out of shame they hid themselves, being stripped of the glory which perfectly vivifies even the immortal spirits, and without which the life of spirits is far worse than many deaths and is believed to be so.
49. That it was not yet profitable for the first parents to eat of that tree, he who says the following shows: “For the plant was contemplation, as my contemplation is, to which alone it is safe to ascend for those living more perfectly, but it is inopportune for those still simpler and more greedy in their desire; just as solid food is not useful for those still tender and needing milk.” But even if one does not wish to attribute that tree and its food mystically to contemplation, it is not very difficult, I think, to see that it was not yet profitable for them, being as they were still imperfect. For it seems to me that to see and eat those fruits of Paradise with the senses must have been most delightful. But food most grateful to the senses is not truly and entirely good, nor is it always good, nor for all.
But for those who are able to use it in such a way as not to be overcome by it—both when it is fit, and as much as is fit, and to the glory of Him who made it—it is good; A but to those who are not able to use it thus, it is not good. For this reason, I think, that tree was named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For it is the mark of those perfect in the habit of divine contemplation and virtue to be able to engage with the most delightful things of sense, and not to draw the mind away from the contemplation of God and from prayers and hymns to Him, but to make these things the subject matter and occasion for an ascent to God, and to restrain the pleasure of the senses by an intellectual motion toward the better, up to the end; and even if it be strange, and great, and even more vehement because it is strange, not then to apply the thought of the mind to that which is truly evil, however much it may appear good to him whom it has totally seized and overcome.
B 50. Therefore, it was profitable for the first parents, who lived in that holy place, never to forget God; it was expedient that they should be still further exercised and, as it were, trained as in a gymnasium in pure and true goods, and perfected in the habit of contemplation. But it is not for those as yet imperfect and in the middle state, and easily flexible toward either good or the contrary according to circumstances, to go into experience—especially for those who are accustomed to desire vehemently, and who applaud the senses and direct their whole mind toward them, and give place to base desires, and show themselves amenable to be led by the author of such desires, of which the cause, after him, is the gluttonous eating of the most sweet foods. For if the mere sight of that tree, as the story tells, rendered the serpent pleasing and a worthy counselor, how much more did the taste! And if the taste, how much more the eating to satiety! Is it not therefore clear that it was not yet useful for the first parents to eat from the tree with their senses? Was it not therefore necessary, when they had eaten thereof untimely, that they should be cast out of God’s Paradise, in order that they might not make that divine domain a gathering-place and workshop of wickedness? Was it not fitting that they should have suffered the death of the body even then, as transgressors? C But the Lord acted with patience.
51. The sentence of death for the soul, which the transgression brought upon us by the justice of the Creator—for He abandoned those who had abandoned Him, as He did not coerce those endowed with free will—that sentence, I say, had been mercifully pre-signified by God for the reasons we have stated. But He held back and deferred the sentence of corporal death previously passed, and after He had pronounced it, He postponed its execution to the future, as an excess of the abyss of wisdom and mercy, not saying to Adam, "Return to whence you were taken," but: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." Moreover, those who hear with understanding can see from such words that God made neither the soul’s nor the body’s death. For He did not say beforehand, commanding, "Die on whatever day you eat," but: "On whatever day you eat, you shall die."
A Nor even now did He say, "Return to the earth," but: "You shall return," announcing it beforehand and permitting it, and not preventing by justice that which was to happen.
52. Death was indeed to follow those first parents, just as it is laid up for us who still survive; and our body was created mortal. But this also is a kind of long death, or rather a thousand deaths, succeeding one another in turn, until we fall into the one final and long-lasting one. For we come into being in corruption, and having come into being we slip away, until we cease both to slip away and to come into being; and we are truly never the same, even if we appear so to those who do not pay attention. Just as fire, seizing upon a light straw from the tip, is different elsewhere as it spans the length of the straw; so likewise with us as we change, the measure is the span of life allotted to each.
53. But in order that we may not be completely ignorant of the superabundance of His philanthropy and the depth of His wisdom—for what reason did God, having postponed the end of death, grant man time to live for a little while longer? First, He showed that He chastises with mercy, or rather, that He relaxes the chastisement that belongs to justice, so that we may not despair completely. B He also gave a time for repentance and for a way of life pleasing to Him from the beginning. He mitigated the pain of death through alternate birth. He increased the human race through successors, so that the multitude of those born far exceeds in measure the number of those dying. In place of the one Adam who had become miserable and needy through the beauty of the sensible tree, He showed many who had been happily enriched through sensible things with the knowledge of God, and virtue, and understanding, and divine favor—witness Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, and whosoever, among these, before them and after them, appeared near to them. Since, however, among so many and such great men, no one lived so perfectly sinless that he could struggle against and overcome that defeat of our first parents, and heal the wound branded upon the root of the race, and suffice for all descendants for holiness and blessing and a return of life to all—and knowing this beforehand, He chose at the opportune time the selection of families and tribes, from whence the much-hymned rod might arise, from which the flower, through which He was to accomplish the salvation of the whole race.
54. C O depth of the riches, wisdom, and divine philanthropy! For if there were not death, and before death a mortal nature as from such a root, we would not have been enriched in reality with the firstfruits of immortality, we would not have been called up to the heavens, our nature would not have been enthroned above every principality and power at the right hand of majesty in the heavens. Thus does God know how to transform, philanthropically, for the better, the slips of our free-willed transgression by His own wisdom and power.
55. Perhaps many blame Adam, as to how he so easily, having been persuaded by the wicked counselor, violated the divine commandment, and through such a transgression brought death upon us. But it is not equal, before the experience, to desire to taste of a certain deadly p
poison, and after learning by experience that it is deadly, to long to eat of it. A For he who draws the poison upon himself after the experience, and miserably drags death to himself, is more to be blamed than he who does and suffers this before the experience. Wherefore each of us is more to be blamed and condemned than that Adam. But is not that tree in us? Is not the commandment of God even now upon us, forbidding the tasting of it? That very tree, indeed, may not itself be in us; but the commandment of God is even now present with us, setting free those who obey it and desire to live according to it, both from the liability of all their own sins and from the ancestral curse and condemnation; while it does not fail to bring those who even now set it aside, preferring to it the onset and counsel of the evil one, to fall away from that life and manner of existence in Paradise, and to fall into the impending Gehenna of eternal fire.
B 56. What then is this commandment of God now proposed to us? Repentance, the head of which is no longer to touch the forbidden things. For since we were cast out from the place of divine delight, and were justly excluded from the Paradise of God, and have fallen into this abyss, and have been condemned to dwell and live with the irrational beasts, and have become hopeless regarding any return to Paradise by our own strength—He, after He had exacted the penalty of iniquity, or rather, having permitted it to come upon us, afterward, by an excess of charity and goodness, through the bowels of His mercy, descended even to us for our sake. C And having become man without sin as He willed, that He might teach like by like and save it, He brought to us the saving counsel and commandment of repentance, saying to us: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." For before the incarnation of the Word of God, as far as heaven is distant from the earth, so far was the kingdom of heaven distant from us. But since the King of heaven has dwelt among us and has deigned to be united with us, the kingdom of heaven has drawn near to us all.
57. Since the kingdom of heaven has drawn near to us through the condescension of the Word of God toward us, let us not make ourselves far from it by living without repentance. D Let us rather flee the misery of those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death; let us acquire the works of repentance: a humble mind, compunction, and spiritual mourning, a meek heart full of mercy, loving justice, studious of purity, tranquil, peaceful, patient, rejoicing in persecutions undergone for the sake of truth and justice, in losses, in insults, in slanders, and in sufferings. For the kingdom of heaven, or rather the King of heaven (O ineffable munificence!), is within us; to whom we ought always to cleave through the works of repentance, loving in return as much as we can Him who has loved us so much.
58. The love toward God is established by the absence of passions and the abundance of virtues. For the hatred of evil, whence comes...
A the absence of passions, introduces desire for and the possession of good things. Now, how would the lover and possessor of good things not differently love the Master who is Goodness itself, the sole dispenser and guardian of every good, in whom he himself exists in an exceptional manner, and whom he carries within himself through love, according to Him who said: “He who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him”? One might see that love for God is born not only from virtues, but also virtues from love. Hence the Lord also says in the Gospel, at one time: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me”; and at another: “He who loves me will keep my commandments.” Thus, neither are the works of virtue praiseworthy and profitable to those who perform them without love, nor indeed is love [profitable] without works, as Paul shows with much discourse, writing to the Corinthians: “If I do this and that, but do not have love, I profit nothing.” Again, the disciple whom Christ loved B supremely says the same thing: “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
59. The supreme and adorable Father is the Father of Truth itself, that is to say, of the Only-begotten Son. He also possesses the Spirit of Truth, namely, the Holy Spirit, just as the Word of Truth has set forth before us. Those, therefore, who worship Him in these, and believe in this way, and are energized as if through them—for “The Spirit is,” says the Apostle, “through whom we worship and through whom we pray”—and, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” says the Only-begotten Son of God: those, therefore, who worship the supreme Father thus in spirit and in truth, these are the true worshippers.
60. “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth,” C that is, by contemplating the incorporeal incorporeally. For thus they shall truly and always see Him in His Spirit and Truth. For as God exists as Spirit, He is incorporeal; and that which is incorporeal is not in a place, nor is it circumscribed by local boundaries. Therefore, he who says that God must be worshipped in some determined place among all the places of earth and heaven does not speak truly, nor does he worship truly. For as God is incorporeal, He is nowhere; but as God, He is everywhere. For if there were a boundary or a place or a creature where God is not, He would be found to be circumscribed by something. Everywhere, then, for He is infinite. Is He, then, so everywhere as to be contained not by a part, but by the whole of things? D By no means; for then He would be a body again. Therefore, as the one who sustains and contains the whole, He is in Himself—everywhere and above all—worshipped by the true worshippers in His Spirit and in His Truth.
61. Angels and the soul, being incorporeal, are not in a place, yet they are not everywhere; for they do not sustain the whole, but they themselves have need of the One who sustains them. Therefore, they also are in the One who sustains and contains the whole, and are limited by Him in a manner appropriate to each.
A Anima tamen continens corpus cui concreata est, ubique corporis est, non velut in loco, nec velut comprehensa, sed ut illud continens, comprehendens, et vivificans: et sic etiam ad imaginem Dei est.
B 62. Man was not created to the image of God only because he possesses a preserving and life-giving power within himself, but also because he holds authority. For there is in the nature of our soul one part that is dominant and commanding, and another that is by nature subservient and obedient—the will, appetite, sensation, and, in general, everything that is below the intellect, which were created by God together with the intellect; although we sometimes, led by the love of sin, rebel not only against God the Almighty, but even against the guide naturally implanted in us. Yet, God has entrusted to this authority residing in us the dominion over all the earth. The angels, however, do not possess a body conjoined and subjected to the intellect. The intellectual will in those who have fallen is always evil, and in the good it is always good, and never in need of a charioteer. The earthly dominion the evil one did not have, but seized; from which it is clear that he was not created as the prince of the earth. But the good angels were commanded to watch over earthly things after our fall, and because of it—though, by the mercy of God, not for the total ruin of our dignity. For God fixed the boundaries of the angels, as Moses says in his canticle (Deut. xxxii, 8), when He divided the nations. This division took place after Cain and Seth; since those of Cain were called the sons of men, but those descended from Seth were called the sons of God; for in that name, it seems to me, already then was separated and announced the race C from which the only-begotten Son of God was to assume flesh.
63. Perhaps someone might say, along with many others, that our very cognition, since it is trinal, shows us to be more of the image of God than are the angels, not only because it is trinal, but also because it comprehends every kind of cognition. For we alone among all creatures, besides intellect and reason, also possess sensation—which by nature is joined to the reason, and finds a multiform multitude of arts, sciences, and cognitions; and to till the fields, to build houses, and to make things into what they are not—though not to make things from what is absolutely nothing (for that is of God alone)—is a power that belongs to men. For almost nothing of those things which are made by God begins and perishes, but by being mixed together, those things which are among us present another form. Moreover, God granted to men alone to make the invisible word of the intellect D not only subject to the sense of hearing by being clothed in air, but also to write it down, and to see it with the body and through the body, thereby inducing sufficient faith in the carnal advent and manifestation of the supreme Word. Of which things nothing at all is present in the angels.
A And if we are A even now in the image of God, we are by far inferior to the angels in attaining to the likeness of God, especially now, when compared to the good angels. For to pass over other things, the perfection of being in the likeness of God is accomplished through the divine illumination from God, of which the evil angels have been deprived—which is why they have become subject to darkness—while the divine intellects are enriched by it; wherefore they are also called a second light, and a shedding forth of the first light—a fact that I believe is not unknown to any of those who diligently and with understanding read the divinely inspired oracles. From this, the good angels also possess the knowledge of sensible things; for they do not perceive these through sensory or natural capacity, but know them through a deiform power, from which absolutely nothing present, past, or future can be hidden.
65. B Those who partake of this illumination, having it in a measure B proportionate to that measure, also have knowledge of existing things. That the angels also partake of it, and that it is uncreated, and that it is not the divine essence, is known to all who carefully read the God-inspired apostles and theologians. But those who think the opposite blaspheme against this divine light, contending that it is either a creature or the essence of God. And when they call it a creature, they do not allow it to be the light of the angels. Let the theologian of the Areopagus now come forward, as one who briefly clarifies these three things: "The divine intellects," he says, "moving in a circle, are united to the beginningless and endless illuminations C of the Beautiful and Good." That by divine intellects he means C the good angels, is manifest to all; and by presenting these illuminations in the plural, he distinguished them from the essence of God, for that is one and altogether indivisible. And by calling them beginningless and endless, what else did he present to us but that they are uncreated?
66. D This divine illumination and brightness, having been stripped D from our nature by sin, the Word of God, having compassion on its deformity and having assumed it through the depths of His mercy, showed forth more radiantly upon Tabor to the chosen disciples, demonstrating—as the golden-mouthed John says—what we once were, and what we shall be in the future age through Him, if we choose to live according to His power, as far as is possible here.
67. D Adam was also a participant in this divine illumination and brightness D before the transgression, and being truly clothed in a robe of glory, he was not naked, but far more adorned than can be described than those who now shine with much gold and the glitter of precious stones on their diadems. This divine illumination and grace the great Paul also calls our heavenly habitation, saying: "In this we groan, desiring to be super-clothed with our habitation which is from heaven; if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked." The earnest of this divine illumination and of its garment, the same Paul...
A received from God, when he was going from Jerusalem to Damascus, that I may speak as Gregory the Theologian most fittingly called him, being soon to be cleansed, the persecutor beheld Him whom he was persecuting, or rather, a small spark of the great Light.
68. The divine supersubstantiality is never called plural; but the holy and uncreated grace and operation of God, while divided indivisibly, after the image of a solar ray—which both warms and illuminates, and gives life, and fosters, and sends its own brilliance to those who are illuminated, and appears to the eyes of those who see—according to this, then, as by a faint image, the divine operation of God is called not one only, but also many by the theologians, as Basil the Great also says. "What, then," he says, "are the operations of the Spirit? Ineffable indeed because of their magnitude, and numberless because of their multitude. For how shall we comprehend things that are beyond the ages? What were His operations before the intellectual creation?" For before the intellectual creation and beyond the ages (for the ages themselves are intellectual creatures), no one ever said or conceived anything to be created. Therefore, the powers and operations of the divine Spirit are uncreated; yet because they are numbered as many by the theologians, they are distributed indivisibly from the one and utterly indivisible essence of the Spirit.
69. The uncreated operation of God, being divided indivisibly, is also brought forward in the plural by the theologians, as was shown above by Basil the Great. C Since, therefore, the divine and deifying illumination and grace is not essence, but is the operation of God, for this reason it is brought forward not only temporally, but also in the plural, being bestowed in accordance with those who participate in it, and according to the receptivity of those who receive it, emitting a greater or lesser splendor.
70. These operations were called seven by Isaiah. But among the Hebrews, the number seven signifies many. "For there shall go forth," he says, "a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from it; and seven spirits shall rest upon Him: the spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of piety, of counsel, of strength, of fear." These seven spirits, those who hold the opinions of the heretics foolishly contend are created. Whom we have sufficiently refuted, having added to the broad refutations against them. But furthermore, Gregory the Theologian, making mention of these divine operations of the Spirit, says: "It pleased Isaiah to call the operations of the Spirit, spirits." And he himself, the most sublime of the prophets, not only clearly showed their difference from the divine essence through the number, but also demonstrated that these divine operations are uncreated by the word, "shall rest upon Him." For "to rest upon" is of supreme dignity. How, then, could those things which rest upon that Masterly assumption of human nature for our sake be created?
A 71. Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke, says that He casts out demons by the finger of God; according to Matthew, however, by the Spirit of God. Now the great Basil says that the finger of God is one of the operations of the Spirit. If, therefore, one of these is the Holy Spirit, then all the others certainly are as well; as the same author has taught us, though there are not on that account many gods or many spirits. For these are processions, and manifestations, and natural energies of the one Spirit; and through each one, there is one who works. But the heterodox, saying that these are created things, drag down the Spirit of God sevenfold into the realm of created things. But let them be sevenfold ashamed. For the prophet, speaking of them again, says: "These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which look upon all the earth," and he who writes in the Apocalypse: "Grace to you and peace from God, and from the seven spirits B which are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ," clearly shows to the faithful that these are the Holy Spirit.
72. God and Father, through Micah the prophet, foretelling the birth of the Only-Begotten according to the flesh, and wishing to show also that His divinity is without beginning, says: "And his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity." The divine Fathers have interpreted these "goings forth" to be the energies of the divinity. For these are the powers and energies of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; which those who are eager to profess and defend the doctrine of the heretics proclaim to be created. But let them at last, though late, come to their senses and understand who it is that is from the beginning; who it is to whom David says: "From eternity" (or, which is the same thing, from the days of eternity) "even unto eternity Thou art." And let them carefully consider, if they wish, that God, who said through the prophet that those goings forth are from the beginning, in no place said that they were made, or produced, or created. And Basil, speaking of divine things in the Spirit of God, did not say, "They were made," but, "They were," he said, "the- C -energies of the Spirit before the intelligible creation, and beyond the ages." God alone, therefore, is from eternity working and omnipotent, as one who possesses powers and energies prior to the ages.
73. But those who are openly opposed to the saints and stand for the contrary opinion say: "There is one uncreated thing, namely, the divine essence; and whatever differs from it in any way is created." From this, they make both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit a creature. For there is one and the same energy of the Three. But he whose energy is created is not uncreated. Therefore, it is not the energy of God itself—far be it!—but the work and the effect that is the creature. Therefore, the divinely inspired Damascene taught that the energy, being distinct by nature from the divine nature, is an essential, that is to say, a natural, movement. But since the divine Cyril also said that creation is of the divine energy, how will it itself be created, if it is not produced by another energy, and this in turn by...
another, and so on to infinity? And thus the eternity of the operation is always sought and proclaimed. B
74. The divine essence and the divine operation being everywhere present indivisibly, we are capable of the operation of God, even though we are created, because it is distributed indivisibly, according to the theologians; but according to the same, the divine nature remains incommunicable. Therefore, the father Chrysostom, after saying that the rain of grace filled all things with the knowledge—meaning that by it miracles were performed and sins were washed away—and having shown the rain of grace to be uncreated, then striving to show that it is an operation and not an essence, and furthermore that the divine operation differs from the divine essence and from the person of the Spirit, goes on to write: "I speak of a division of the operation; for the Paraclete is not divided. Each of us, therefore, is capable of divine grace and operation, because it is divided indivisibly. But the essence of God, being altogether indivisible in itself, how could any creature be capable of it?"
75. Since there are three things in God—essence, operation, and the persons of the most holy Trinity—those who are deemed worthy to be united to God, so as to be one spirit with Him, as the great Paul said: "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17); because, as has been shown above, no one is deemed worthy to be united according to essence, and all theologians testify that God is incommunicable according to essence; and because further, hypostatic union belongs to the God-man Word alone; it remains that those who are deemed worthy to be united to God are united according to operation. And the spirit, according to which he who is joined to God is one with God, is and is called the uncreated operation of the Spirit, and not the essence of God, even though the adversaries may be displeased. For God also foretold this, saying through the prophet, not "My Spirit," but "I will pour out from My Spirit upon those who believe" (Joel 2:28, cf. Acts 2:17). C
76. By the Spirit of God, he says, both Moses and David were moved, and all who have become capable of the divine operation by the laying aside of carnal properties, and are as it were living images of Christ, or rather, the same as Him through grace and assimilation; for there is one purity in Christ and in the saints, and the light of our God is upon us, as the most divine psalmist sings (Ps. 89:17). For souls rich in the Spirit, according to the great Basil, having been illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual and reflect the grace to others. Thence comes the foreknowledge of things to come, the understanding of mysteries, the perception of things hidden, the distribution of charisms, the heavenly way of life, the dance with angels, the ceaseless joy, the divinely-inspired gift, the likeness to God, and what is most desirable of all, deification. D
77. According to this grace and light, and the union with God, the angels have the advantage over humans. Therefore, they are secondary lights, ministers of the supreme Light, and secondary illuminations...
A proceeding from the first light, and the intellectual powers and ministering spirits are refulgences; and the first luminous nature, after the first, is illuminated by that which is from thence; and the angel is a second light, an emanation, or participation, of the first light. And moving in a circle, the divine minds are united to the unoriginate and unending illuminations of the Good and the Beautiful. For to the eternal, God Himself is light, and nothing else; and what the sun is to sensible things, that God is to intelligible things; and He is the first and supreme light that illuminates all rational nature. "If you hear the prophet saying," says the father Chrysostom, "'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,' do not suspect that it was His essence that was seen by him, but a divine condescension; and even this, more dimly than it is seen by the supernal powers."
78. Every nature is as far as possible, and B altogether, alien to the divine nature. For if God is nature, other things are not nature; but if each of the other things is a nature, He is not nature; just as He is not being, if the others are beings. If, however, He is Being, the others are not beings. If you hold this view regarding wisdom and goodness, and generally regarding everything that is spoken of around God or about God, you will be theologizing well and in accordance with the saints. God is, and is called, the nature of all beings, because all things participate in Him and exist by this participation; not by participation in His nature—far be it!—but by participation in His operation. For in this way He is the very being of beings, and the form of forms as an archetype, and the wisdom of the wise, and generally all things in all. C And He is not a nature, as being above all nature; and He is not a being, as being above all beings; and He is not a form, nor has He a form, as being above form. How, then, can we become near to God? By approaching His nature? But not even one of the creatures has any communication or affinity with the supreme nature. If, therefore, anyone draws near to God, he approaches Him entirely through His operation. How then? By participating in this naturally? But this is common to all creatures. Therefore, it is not through things naturally inherent, but through things acquired by free choice that one becomes nearer to God or more remote from Him; and only rational beings enjoy freedom. Therefore, among all things, D these alone become either far or near to God, according to whether they approach or recede through virtue or vice. And consequently, these alone are capable of happiness or unhappiness. But let us hasten to attain happiness.
79. Creatures, when compared with one another, are said to be akin to God by nature, or alien. For the intellectual natures, which are perceived by the intellect alone, are called akin to the divinity, and are receptive of Him alone; but those that are under the senses are altogether alien; and those that are entirely inanimate and immobile are still more remote than even these. Creatures, therefore, when compared with one another, are akin to God in
being considered separate, but all by nature are alien to God. Moreover, intellectual nature is removed from God further than can be expressed, just as perception and sensible things are separated from intellectual things. Since, therefore, our nature is so far removed from God, woe indeed to us if we do not, by good intent, through good works and ways, draw near to Him.
B 80. The divine and common language of the inspired theologians, says the God-bearing Damascene in the second of his theological chapters: "Whoever wishes to speak or hear anything about God must clearly know that in God and in Providence not everything is ineffable, nor is everything effable, just as not everything is knowable, nor everything unknowable. But we know that whatever we say about God is above speech; because it superabounds over speech (for they are not outside speech due to deficiency, but outside our speech), which we have as intimate to ourselves, and which we bring forth from ourselves to the hearing of others. For neither can this speech interpret and explain divine things, nor can that one, by much effort, manage to understand them. Therefore, we ought not to permit ourselves to say anything about God, but we ought to entrust ourselves to those who speak of spiritual things in the Spirit, even when adversaries demand a reason."
81. It is said that there was inscribed on the gates of the school of Plato: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter." But entirely ignorant of geometry is he C who is not able to think and discourse about things indivisible as if they were divisible. For to have a limit without the thing limited is one of the impossibilities. Yet geometry treats almost entirely of limits: which sometimes, even without the things limited, are defined and proposed in themselves, the intellect dividing the indivisible. But he who has not yet learned, by the mind, to separate a body from the things that surround it, how will he hear about a nature considered in itself, which indeed can not only not be separated from the natural properties of which it consists, but can never exist without them? How will he understand that the properties of the whole are the same as the properties of the parts, and are distinguished from these only in intellect and speech; and that they are thought of before the plurality, which in true speech never exist without plurality? How will he understand about intelligible and intellectual things, how, I say, will he understand, D when we say that an intellect and thoughts belong to each one of us, and that each one of us is now master of his thoughts? Will he not mock and cry out, rebuking us as though we say that each man has two or more intellects? Furthermore, he who cannot perceive or speak of indivisibles as if they were divisible in such matters, how will he be able to say or learn anything of this kind in God? For in Him there are and are spoken of many unions and divisions, according to the theologians; but the unions are superior to and precede the divisions, neither abolishing them, nor being in any way hindered by them. Therefore, the adversaries, who cannot and are not able to understand in God an indivisible division and a divided union, when they hear us saying in harmony with the saints that in God there is one thing unknowable and another knowable
A and that God is one, being the same—unknowable in essence, but knowable from his works according to his divine operations: namely, his eternal will concerning us, his eternal providence concerning us, and his eternal wisdom concerning us; and, to speak according to the divine Maximus, his infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness. Since we are necessarily saying these things, our adversaries, hearing them, and those who follow after them, accuse us of saying there are many gods, of asserting many uncreated things, and of making God composite. For they are ignorant that God is divided indivisibly and joined dividedly, and that he suffers neither multiplication nor composition from this.
B 82. The great Paul, the mouth of Christ, the chosen vessel, the most clear-sounding herald of the divine name, says: “The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” * Does it follow, then, that the essence of God is seen through being understood by the things that are made? By no means; for this is the madness of the heretics, and before them the insanity of Eunomius. For he, indeed, thinking like them, writes that nothing else is understood through the things that are made than the essence of God. But the divine Apostle is far from teaching such things. For after he said that what is known of God is manifest, and showed that there is something else above that *known* of God which he revealed to all who are endowed with understanding, he then adds: “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” Now you may learn what the *known* of God is in this way: the God-bearing Fathers, interpreting that passage, say: One thing of God is unknowable, namely his essence; but the other is knowable, namely all the things surrounding the essence, that is, the goodness, the wisdom, the power, the divinity or majesty—which Paul calls the invisible things, yet ones understood by the things that are made. But if those things understood from the creatures concerning the essence of God are such, how could they be creatures? Therefore, the operation of God understood from the works is also uncreated, and it is not the essence; because it is brought forth not only singularly, but also plurally.
C 83. The things that are made are indicative of wisdom, and art, and power, but not of the essence, says the great Basil, refuting Eunomius, who claimed that the essence of God is shown from the creatures. Therefore, the operation of God shown from the works is uncreated, and it is not the essence; and those who say that the divine operation does not differ in any way from the divine essence are clearly Eunomians.
84. Rightly, then, does the brother, who is his sibling in flesh and sibling in thought, say in his *Antirrhetics* that we, having considered the beauty and magnitude of the wonders in creation, and having received from these and such things other thoughts concerning the Divine, distinguish each of the thoughts that come to us with proper names. For— * Rom. 1, 20.
A and of the greatness and beauty of created things, the Creator of nature is contemplated. And we call the Maker the Creator; but the Powerful One, to whom the capacity to produce whatever He wills suffices; and the Just One, as an incorruptible judge. But we also understood the voice of God to have been taken from the contemplative operation by which He perceives all things. So that, having been instructed even from this in a certain partial operation of the divine nature, we do not conceive the essence itself through this voice.
85. Dionysius the Areopagite, who, after the inspired apostles, is the most excellent among theologians, after having clarified the distinction concerning the persons of God, says: "But if the divine distinction is also the goodness-befitting procession, since the divine unity supereminently makes itself manifold and plural in goodness." And a little later: "We say that the divine distinction consists of the goodness-befitting processions of the Godhead. For, bestowing upon all beings and overflowing with the participation in all goods, it is distinguished indivisibly, and becomes plural B singularly, and is multiplied without departing from the One." And after some things: "We shall endeavor, as far as possible, to hymn these common and united distinctions of the whole Godhead, or the goodness-befitting processions." This clearly shows that there is another distinction in God, and not only the hypostatic one; which other, besides the hypostatic distinction, he also calls the distinction of the Godhead. For the distinction according to the hypostases is not a distinction of the Godhead. And he says that God is multiplied and made plural according to the divine processions and operations; and he says that this same thing is both a procession and processions here; but there, the Divine is not multiplied, far from it! nor is God distinguished as God. For God is a Trinity to us, but not triplex. And he also demonstrates the uncreated C nature of these processions and operations; for he calls them divine, and says they are distinctions of the whole Godhead; and he says that the Godhead Itself, according to these divine processions and operations, multiplies and makes Itself manifold; not by taking anything from outside, far from it! but he also promises to hymn these processions. And he adds, "as far as possible," showing also that they are worthy of supreme hymns, this most excellent of divine hymn-singers.
86. The same god-speaker, having said above that the goodness-befitting procession is a divine distinction, adds: "They are united according to the divine distinction, the absolute communications." Here he calls all the processions and operations of God "communications" D collectively. He added, however, that they are absolute, so that no one might think these are the effects; such as the essence of each of the beings, or the sensible life in living creatures, or the reason and intellect innate in rational and intellectual beings. For how could these be absolute in God, since they are created? Or how could the absolute processions and communications of God be creatures? For an absolute communication is naturally united to the communicator, just as we see in the case of light.
87. Proceeding, this great man, such processions
A and energies of God he extols with other names appropriate to God, and calls them participations and, indeed, necessary participations, and shows in many places in his discourses that they are above beings, and that they are exemplars of beings pre-existing in God in a supersubstantial union. How, then, could these be creatures? Then, teaching what these exemplars are, he adds: "We say that the exemplars are the creative reasons of things in God and pre-existing in a unified way; which theology calls predeterminations, and divine and good volitions, by which things are defined and brought into effect, and according to which the supersubstantial artificer both foreordained and produced all things." How, then, could the predeterminations and divine and effective volitions of things be created? Do not those who suppose these processions and energies to be created evidently drag down the providence of God to the realm of creatures? For the energy that is productive of existence, life, and wisdom, and generally the energy that is the producer and conserver of created things, is the same as the divine volitions and those divine participations and communications of the goodness which is the cause of all things.
88. The participation of self-existence participates in nothing in any way, as the great Dionysius says; but the other participations, insofar as they are participations and principles of things, do not participate in anything at all; for neither does providence participate in providence, nor life in life. Insofar, however, as they have existence, they are said to participate in self-existence, because without it they do not exist, nor are they participated in, just as neither is foreknowledge without knowledge; wherefore, B as self-participations, they are by no means created. These, therefore, even according to the divine Maximus, never began to be, and are considered essentially in God, and there was no time when they were not. But the adversaries, impiously considering self-subsistent life, and goodness, and other things of this kind to be creatures, because they participate in the common name of beings, do not discern that, even if they are called beings, they are nonetheless above beings, just as the great Dionysius himself says. Those who, on account of that, enumerate self-subsistent participations among creatures would easily have considered the Holy Spirit himself to be created, since the great Basil says that He participates in names appropriate to God.
89. If anyone were to say that self-existence alone is a participation, as the only one that does not participate, but is only participated in (for the others participate in it), let him know that he is not thinking intelligently C about the other participations. For living things, or holy things, or good things are not said to be living, and holy, and good by participation because they simply have existence and participate in self-existence, but because they participate in self-subsistent life, and holiness, and goodness. But self-subsistent life, and other things of this kind, does not become life by participation in another life; therefore, insofar as it is self-life, it is a communicator, not indeed a participant. But how could that which does not participate in life, but itself communicates and transmits life to living things, be a creature? The same holds for the other participations. D
A 4. Let the divine Maximus now agree with us, writing in his *Scholia* that the productive providence of all things is those processions of God: "They are common to the tri-hypostatic, distinct Trinity—the creative providences and goodnesses; that is, the productions of existence, of life, and of wisdom." In that he says these are many and distinct, he showed that they are not the essence of God: for this is one and altogether indivisible. But since he called them common to the tri-hypostatic, distinct Trinity, he indicated to us that they are neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit; for no operation of these belongs to the three in common. And by calling them not only providences and goodnesses, but also creative, he showed them to be uncreated. For if not, the creative power would be something created. Therefore, it would be created by another creative power; and that, in turn, would be created by another; and thus one would arrive at the furthest limits of absurdity, not stopping even by proceeding to infinity. Therefore, the processions and operations of God are uncreated, and they have no essence, just as they have no substance.
A 21. Since the Producer and Adorner of all things brought forth the whole in its multiformity through an ineffable abundance of goodness, willing some things merely to exist, others to enjoy life in addition to existence, others to obtain this intellectual faculty, and others indeed to enjoy only one of the two, while some have obtained a mixture of both; and those that received from Him a rational and intellectual life were enabled, by an act of free will turned toward Him, to attain union with Him, and thus to live divinely and supernaturally, having been deemed worthy of His deifying grace and energy. For His will is the cause of beings, whether producing them from nothing or perfecting them; and this in various ways. Because of this difference in the divine will toward beings, that one providence and goodness (which is to say, the turning of God toward lower things because of His goodness) is and is called by the God-wise theologians many providences and goodnesses, being distributed and diversified without division among those who participate in them. Thus, one is termed God's foreknowledge, another His creative and sustaining power. And these, in turn, according to the great Dionysius, are sub-divided into the producers of existence, of life, and of wisdom. Each of these, however, is common to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And according to each of these divine and good wills toward us, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the operation and power that produces existence, life, and wisdom—which that doctor called necessary and intact communications, at once separating them from all creatures and teaching that they reside naturally in the One who communicates.
B 22. Just as the sun, without diminution, communicates heat and light to those who partake of them, and possesses these as natural and essential operations; so too the divine communications, existing without diminution in the One who communicates, are His natural and essential operations; therefore, they are also uncreated. Just as the light of the sun, furthermore...
leaves a trace when it is beneath the earth and has left those things that are above the earth, nor is it possible for an eye enjoying this splendor not to be mingled with it and through it to be united to the source of light; yet its heat and all that is brought to completion by it, contributing to the generation and growth of sensible things, and to the multiform difference of fluids and qualities, do not abandon these, even though they may not have contact with the sun through the ray: in the same manner, according to this obscure image of sensible things, only those who adhere to the supernatural and most divine light can sincerely participate in the deifying grace and through it be united to God; but all other things are effects of the creative operation, brought forth from non-being by grace, that is to say, freely, but not adorned with that grace A which is the name of God’s splendor.
B 93. This splendor of God and deifying operation, whose participants are deified, is a certain divine grace, but not the nature of God; not that it is absent from those who share in grace, as the adversaries dementedly lie—for the nature of God is everywhere present—but because it is not participable, since there is no created being, as has been shown above, capable of participating in it. And the divine operation and grace of the Spirit, being everywhere present and inseparable from Him, is, toward those who on account of impurity are not fit for communion, incommunicable, just as if it were absent. “For just as,” he says, “the images of faces are not brought forth in all materials, but in those that possess a certain smoothness and transparency; so also C the energy of the Spirit is not in all souls, but in those that have nothing crooked or perverted.” And again: “The Holy Spirit is indeed present to all; but to those who are pure from passions, He manifests His own power; to those, however, who have their governing faculty defiled by the stains of sin, He does not yet show it.”
94. Just as the light of the sun, and the radiance and the heat supplied through it, is inseparable; but to those who have received it but do not possess eyes, the light is unparticipable, while they perceive only the heat from the ray; for it is not possible at all for there to be perception of light for those who lack eyes: so also, and by much more, there shall be no participation in the essence of the Creator for any of those who enjoy the divine radiance. For there is not, there is not anything among created beings D that possesses a power capable of receiving the nature of the Creator.
95. And let there bear witness to us here now, that the participated divine energy is neither created nor the essence of God, both the Baptist of Christ, John, with John the disciple who was loved by Christ more than the others, and John the Chrysostom: one as documenting and writing history, the other as the Forerunner and Baptist of Christ, saying that the Spirit is not given by God the Father to Christ by measure; and finally the golden-mouthed one, interpreting and writing, that the Spirit here refers to the operation. “For we all,” he writes, “receive the operation of the Spirit by measure, but He has the whole operation immense and entire.” If
His operation is immense, much more so is A His essence. For by speaking of the Spirit as an operation—or rather, as the Spirit of God Himself, as the Baptist said—and by the fact that it is immense, he indicated its uncreated nature. By the fact that we receive it by measure, he demonstrated the distinction between the uncreated operation and the uncreated essence; for no one ever receives the essence of God—not even if you were to speak of all men taken together in aggregate, and this, indeed, is received by each person according to the proportion of his own purification. Proceeding further, the Father Chrysostom shows another distinction between the uncreated essence and the uncreated operation, saying: “But if the operation of the Spirit is immense, much more so is the essence.”
B 96. If, according to the ravings of the adversaries and those who think as they do, the divine energy is in no way distinct from the divine essence, then the act of creating, which pertains to energy, will not differ in the least from generation and procession, which pertain to the essence. But if creating does not differ from generation and procession, then created things will not differ from the begotten and the proceeding. If matters stand thus according to them, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit will differ in no way from creatures, and all creatures will be "generated" and "proceeded" from God the Father; creation will be deified, and God will be ranked with creatures. For this reason, the divine Cyril, showing the distinction between the essence of God and His energy, says that generation belongs to the divine nature, but creating belongs to His divine energy, and he concludes clearly, saying: “Nature and energy are not the same.” C
97. If the divine essence does not differ from the divine energy, then neither will generation and procession differ from creation. But God the Father creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, according to the opinion of the adversaries and their followers, He also generates and proceeds through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
98. If the divine essence does not differ from the divine energy, then it does not differ from the will either; and He who is alone begotten from the essence of the Father will be, according to them, as it seems, made by the will as well.
99. If the divine essence does not differ from the divine energy, since the theologians testify that God possesses many energies—and also creative providences and goodnesses, as has been shown above—then D God will also possess many essences; a thing which no one of the Christ-named race has ever said or thought.
100. If the energies of God do not differ from the divine essence, then neither do they have any distinction from one another. Therefore, the will would not differ from the foreknowledge of God; so that either God would not foreknow all things (for He does not will all things that come to pass), or He would be the willer even of evil things, since He foreknows all things. And if He does not foreknow all things, it is the same as saying that He is not God, or that He is not good. Therefore, the distinction...
between the divine foreknowledge and the divine will is established, and so, therefore, is the distinction of each of these from the divine essence.
101. If the divine operations have no distinction between them, then the creative power will not differ from foreknowledge. Since, therefore, God began to create and to foreknow, He began [to exist]. And how is He God, who did not foreknow all things before the ages? B
102. If God's creative operation does not differ from the divine foreknowledge, then the creatures will be co-eternal with God's foreknowledge, created from eternity; for He would be creating from eternity, because He also foreknows from eternity, and the things foreknown are foreknown from eternity. And how would He be God, when His works were not subsequent to Him?
103. If the creative operation does not differ from God's foreknowledge, then creation is not subject to will, since it is foreknowledge itself; nor does God create by will, but by nature alone. And how is He God, who would create without will?
104. God Himself is in Himself, as the three divine persons are consubstantial and co-eternal with one another, and interpenetrate one another without commixture; but God is in everything, and everything is in God—the former as sustaining, the latter as being sustained by Him. Therefore, all things participate in the sustaining operation of God, but not in His essence. Hence, the theologians call this operation of God His presence everywhere. C
105. Furthermore, those who have pleased God also possess that for which they were made, namely, deification, according to the saying of the Father: "For this God made us, that He might make us partakers of His own divinity." Those, therefore, are in God as having been deified by Him, and God is in them as deifying them. Therefore, they also participate in the divine operation, though in a different way, but not in the essence of God. And for this reason, the theologians say that "divinity" is a name for the divine operation.
106. The super-essential nature, which is also super-divine and super-good, and such like, is neither named, nor understood, nor perceived in any way at all, because it is far exalted above all things, and is super-unknown, and is established above the super-celestial spirits by an incomprehensible power, and is always D and in every way incomprehensible and ineffable to all. For there is no name for it in the present age or in the age to come, nor is there a word conceived in the soul or uttered by the tongue, nor any touch or perception, whether sensory or intellectual; indeed, not even any imagination. Therefore, the theologians say that it is more closely approached by the most perfect incomprehensibility through negations, as it transcends and removes all things that are or are spoken of in any way. And so, it is not even permitted to name it essence or nature, by one who knows the truth of the truth which is superior to all truth. But since, on the other hand, it is the cause of all things, and all things are around it,
A and it possesses all things within itself prior to all things, both simply and uncircumscribedly, it must be named from all things, analogically indeed and not properly; and therefore it is to be called essence and nature, but properly it is the creative procession and operation of God; for this, the great Dionysius says, is the theological naming of the essence of the truly existing One.
B ρζ'. One might also find the name of nature applied to those things which are naturally inherent, both in creatures and in God, as the most theological of the Gregories [Nazianzen] says somewhere in his poems: "For the nature of my king knows how to bestow happiness." For giving is not a nature for anyone, but it naturally pertains to the benefactor. And one might also say of fire that its nature is to be upward-tending and to impart light to those who see, but its movement is not its nature, nor is it simply the production of movement, but the principle of movement. Therefore, natural things are also called nature, as the great Dionysius himself says elsewhere, writing: “Nature of the good is to produce and to preserve,” evidently because this naturally belongs to it. Therefore, when you hear the Fathers saying that the essence of God is unshareable, understand this as the unmanifest and inaccessible; but when they say again that it is shareable, understand by this the procession naturally present in God, and the manifestation, and the operation, and by thus embracing both, you will be in agreement with the Fathers.
ρη'. The smallest part of the essence possesses all its powers, just as a spark is C both bright and light-bearing, and is discriminative and burning to those who touch it, self-moving by nature and upward-tending, and simply all things that the fire is, of which it is a particle; and a drop possesses all things that the water does, of which it is a drop; and a lump possesses all things that the metal possesses, of which it is a fragment. Therefore, if we were to share in that unmanifest essence of God, even if one were to share in the whole or in a part of it, one would be omnipotent; and thus each of existing things would be omnipotent; which we do not all possess together, even if you were to speak by encompassing the entire creation. Paul demonstrates this abundantly, even to those who have been blessed with the deifying D gifts of the Spirit, testifying that not all the gifts of the Spirit are present in each person, but, he says, “To one indeed is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another something else by the same Spirit.” And the Father Chrysostom, clearly forestalling the error of his adversaries, says: "No one has all things, so that you might not deem grace to be nature." But no one who is wise would consider the grace thus distinguished from the divine nature to be created; for no one would ever fear that a creature might be taken for the nature of God, and because, although it is distinct from the divine nature, the grace of the Spirit is not torn away from it, but rather attracts those who are worthy to the communion of the divine Spirit.
A 109. The essence, from whomsoever it is participated, possesses as many hypostases. For as many lamps as one might light from a single one, so many hypostases of fire has he made. It follows, therefore, if, as our adversaries contend, the essence of God is participated in, and indeed by everyone, then it no longer has three persons, but innumerable persons. Who, however, nurtured in divine dogmas, does not know that this is the error of the Messalians: that those who have arrived at the peak of what they consider virtue become participants in the essence of God? Our adversaries, desiring to surpass the blasphemy of these people, say that not only those who have excelled in virtue, but absolutely all men in general, are participants in the divine essence, on the groundless pretext that it is present everywhere. But the great Gregory [of Nazianzus], in his theology, refuting the insane doctrines of both these groups from afar, says: "Christ is so called because of the divinity; for this is the anointing B of the humanity, sanctifying not by operation, as in the cases of other christs, but by the presence of the whole anointer." And the divinely-wise Fathers, having gathered together, declared that the divinity indeed dwells in those who have been purified as is fitting, but not insofar as it is nature. Therefore, neither according to essence nor according to any hypostasis does anyone become a participant in God; for neither of these is divided in any way, nor is it communicated to anyone at all. For this reason, God is in these respects altogether incommunicable to all, even though He is present everywhere according to them. But the common operation and power of the tri-hypostatic nature, being distributed diversely and fittingly to the participants, is for that reason communicated to those who are graced. For the Holy Spirit, as the great Basil says, does not give Himself to the worthy by one measure, C but divides the operation according to the proportion of faith, being simple in essence, but manifold in powers.
110. To be said to participate in something implies that one has a part of what is participated; for if one were a sharer not of a part but of the whole, he would be said properly to possess it, not to participate in it. Therefore, that which is participated is divisible, since it must be communicated in part to the participant. But the essence of God is altogether indivisible; therefore, it is altogether unparticipable. That the divine operation, however, is divisible, the Father Chrysostom declares in many places in his discourses; this, therefore, is what is participated by those who have been deemed worthy of the deifying grace. Hear him, then, once again, the golden-tongued one, teaching both things most clearly: namely, that the operation is divided and participated in, but not the essence, and not D the unparticipable essence from which the divine operation proceeds; for having added that evangelical text, "Of his fullness have we all received," he adds: "For if in the case of fire, where the essence and body are what is divided, we both divide and do not divide it, how much more is this the case with the operation—and the operation, indeed, of an incorporeal essence?"
A 117. Further, to participate in something by essence, one must needs have the essence in common with that which is participated in, and the same in some respect. Who, then, has ever heard that the essence of God and our own is in some respect one? And this, while the great Basil says: "The operations of God descend to us, but his essence remains inaccessible"; and the divine Maximus asserts: "Everything that God is, he who is deified by grace will also be, except for the identity of essence." Therefore, it is impossible to participate in the divine essence, not even for those who are deified by divine grace; but it is possible to participate in the divine operation. For the moderate light of truth here leads me to "see and experience the light of God," says the Theologian Gregory; "and the light of God is upon us," according to the psalmist prophet. B And that the operation of God and the saints is one, the incomparable Maximus writes clearly to these men, and that they are living images of Christ, and indeed more the same as him by grace than by mere likeness.
112. God himself is in himself, of the three divine hypostases, naturally, totally, eternally, and inseparably, while at the same time mingling without confusion and remaining interpenetrating one another, so that there is one operation of them. This is something one would find in no created being. (For while it is similar in beings of the same kind, yet each hypostasis acting by itself, the operation is also its own.) C It is not thus with those three divine and adorable hypostases; for in truth one and the same operation is there: for the movement of the divine will is one, starting from the primal principle, the Father, and proceeding through the Son, and manifested in the Holy Spirit. And this is clear from the effects; for from these every natural operation becomes known. Therefore, not as a nest is fashioned by one swallow similar to, yet other than, that of another, nor as a page is written by one scribe compared to another, even if it consists of the same letters—thus also in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a proper effect for each of the hypostases to be seen; but the whole of creation is the one work of the three. And from this we have learned from the Fathers to conceive the divine operation as one and the same for the three adorable persons, and not as one assigned to each or—as some think—merely similar. D
113. Since the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in each other without confusion or commingling, we know one movement and operation of these to be exact, which the Father has in himself as life or power; this is not other in the Son, seeing that he has the same life and power as he, and likewise the Holy Spirit. But those who think that the divine operation does not differ at all from the divine essence, because it is not another, but he himself who is God is our life, and he himself is not relative to another, but exists as eternal life in himself, are impious and ignorant: ignorant, indeed, since they have not yet been taught that the highest Trinity is not another, but is God himself, and nothing prevents
A the oneness from being distinct from the Trinity; the impious, however, because they destroy both essence and operation through one another. For that which is relative to another is not substance, and that which subsists in itself is not relative to another. If, therefore, these things are not distinct from one another, they destroy each other; or rather, they remove those who say that these things do not differ from the list of the pious.
114. But we confess that the Son of God is our life according to causality and operation, and we say that he himself is life in himself, absolutely and simply and altogether, and that he possesses both these things uncreatedly; and the same for the Father and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this life of ours, by which as cause of the living we are vivified, is nothing else than the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For our tri-hypostatic God is called our life; and if he is not called life causatively, nor relative to another, but is declared by the theologians as the divine life subsisting absolutely and of itself, it is nothing other than the Father, and indeed the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These things are in no way an obstacle to those who acknowledge God to be uncreated, not only according to essence and persons, but also according to the common divine operation of the three. For we theologize one God in three persons, having one essence, and power, and operation, and all other things which are contemplated regarding the essence, which are also called the sum and fullness of divinity in Scripture, being equally contemplated and theologized in each of the three holy persons. B
115. Those who abolish this divine operation, now saying that it is created, now that it in no way differs from the divine essence, at other times again inventing another impiety, teaching that the only uncreated operation is the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, and wishing to confirm this opinion, put forward these words of the venerable Cyril: "The life which the Father has in himself is not someone else than the Son, and the life which is in the Son is not someone else than the Father." And he who says, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me," speaks the truth. But we, as in a summary, as far as we are able, shall show the meaning of these holy words, and we shall refute the impiety of those who, covered in the densest darkness, contradict us. For as to those who wickedly spoke of the Son not only as not similar to the Father, but also as inferior to the Father, as if he did not possess existing and life essentially, but adventitiously and by participation and addition, and as if, receiving it, he drew it from the Father, according to what is written: C"As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself" (John v, 26); those, therefore, who interpret this evangelical utterance so impiously, the divine Cyril refutes, saying: "Since God is called life according to operation, as vivifying the living; for he himself is the life of those who are living by nature, as creator of nature, and indeed also of those living divinely, as the giver of grace;
A but he is also said to be life in himself, not relative to another, but absolutely and unrestrictedly in every way. The divine Cyril, wishing to show that in each of these respects the Son is in no way different from the Father, and that the Son receiving something from the Father does not demonstrate that the Son is posterior to the Father in essence in terms of time, says this among many other things: "He does not obtain existence by receiving something; rather, being already existent, he receives something." And concluding, he adds: "Therefore, because he receives something from the Father, it does not necessarily follow that the Son is posterior in time according to essence." Here, he means the life which the Father has, which the Son receives from the Father, not that he is receiving the essence. B
ρις'. Furthermore, the divine Cyril, showing that even if the Son of God is called life by way of operation relative to living beings, as he vivifies them and is termed their life, he is not for this reason dissimilar to the Father, but rather possesses by nature the quality of being their life, and vivifies them just as the Father does, writes as he proceeds: "If the Son is not life by nature, how will he be speaking the truth when he says: 'He who believes in me has eternal life'? And again: 'My sheep hear my voice, and I give them eternal life.'" And after what follows, he promises that he will give to those believing in him the life which exists in him by nature and as a substance. How, therefore, is it possible to conceive that the Son does not have what he has received from the Father? Let them be ashamed, then, those who, bereft of sense, when they hear that life belongs to God by nature, say that this is his very essence; for neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit gives his own essence to us believers. Away with such impiety!
C ριζ'. And in what follows, the great Cyril, refuting no less those who think the opposite, continues and says: "The Son draws forth from the Father all things that are natural to him; now one of the things belonging to the Father is life." By saying "one of the things belonging to the Father," he clearly demonstrated that there are many things natural to him. If, therefore, this life is the essence of God, then according to those who hold such an opinion, God has many essences. Besides impiety, such a claim is not without an excess of ignorance: to say that being and what is incidental are the same, unless perhaps in some particular respect. It is far more senseless to say that what is and what is incidental do not differ in the least, and to say that one and the many are the same for the one; for it is entirely and altogether impossible D and unreasonable that one thing should be many things in the same respect.
ριη'. Now the divine Cyril, even from the saying, "One of the things belonging to the Father is life," showed that he does not term the essence of God "life" in this place. Yet, come, let us also bring him forward in his own words, as he enumerates many such things belonging to God. Proceeding, therefore, with the same subject, he says: "Many excellences," he says, "are said to belong to the Father, but the Son is not destitute of these." How could these many things that are also possessed by God be the divine essence? But wishing to indicate some of those attributes of the Father, he cites Paul saying:
"To the immortal, invisible, only wise God." A Hence it is shown even more that none of the attributes possessed by God is essence. For how could the immortal, and the invisible, and simply all those things said by way of negation, or even affirmation, whether together or each separately, be essence? For no essence is anything unless it is this or that. But to these things, the attributes possessed by God, also being syntactically ordered affirmatively by the theologians, it is shown that none of them signifies the essence of God, even if we use all these names, when there is need, to signify that essence which is above every name, since that super-essentiality is altogether nameless.
B 119. Natural attributes are necessarily sought as to whom they belong, and if they belong to none, then they are not natural attributes; but if the natural attributes belong to some one thing, and this is the essence, and yet this essence, according to the adversaries, is not at all distinct from each and all of the attributes simultaneously, yet the attributes are many, then that one essence will be multiple, and that one thing which is essence will be many things essentially, and consequently it will have many essences. But if it is both one and has many essences, it is necessarily altogether composite. C The divine Cyril, delivering the faithful from such great impiety and ignorance, says in the very *Thesauri*: "If whatever exists solely in God were in every way his essence, then he would be composed of many essences; for there are many things which exist naturally in him alone, and in no other being; for he is King and Lord and immortal and invisible, and in addition to these the divine Scriptures say countless other things about him. If, therefore, each of his natural attributes is ascribed to his essence, will he not be composite and simple?" Which is most absurd to think.
120. Having shown through many arguments, the wise Cyril, D that even if the Son is life and is said to have life according to operation, because he makes us alive and is the life of the living, he is not in this unlike the Father—for He also makes alive—wishing further to demonstrate that even if the Son is said to be life and to have life not relative to something else, but altogether independently and absolutely, not even in this way is he unlike the Father regarding life, because when we speak of God not as our life, as making us alive, but absolutely and independently, then we call his essence by the natural operation belonging to him, just as we also do with wisdom and goodness and all the rest. Wishing, therefore, to demonstrate this, he says: "When we thus say that the Father has life in himself, we then call the Son 'Life,' who is other than the Father in person only, but not in life; wherefore no compositeness and duality is conceived about him. And when we again say that the Son has life in himself—that life, namely, which is understood absolutely—we call the Father 'Life'; for life, as it is, is not relative to another, but the Father is absolutely in himself by himself, and the Father and the Son are in each other; for he himself said: 'I in the Father, and the Father in me.'" Thus
A the divine Cyril shows that the life which is in the Father—namely, the Son—is in a certain way other, yet not other. But those who say that he is in no way other than him, and that the life in him is in every respect the same as that of the Father, so as to be in no way distinct—those who, therefore, maintain such things and assert this to be the Only-Begotten of the Father, they are necessarily and entirely adhering not to the doctrine of the venerable Cyril, but to that of Sabellius.
121. But as for those adversaries who bring forward the divine Cyril against himself, do they not bring the greatest condemnation upon themselves? For to say now one thing, now another, when both are true, is fitting for any pious theologian; but to say things contrary to oneself is for no man of understanding. How then can he who rightly said that the Son naturally possesses the life which he gives to those who believe in him, and from that demonstrated that not only the essence of God—which no one receives—but also his natural operation is called life, which those thus quickened by him have received by grace, so that they might save themselves, or, which is the same thing, make them spiritually immortal who had not previously lived according to the Spirit, and resurrect some of those who were dead in any limb or in their whole body B—how, then, could one who has demonstrated these things rightly and clearly, have afterwards, in order to destroy this divine operation, brought forward the argument that life is called the essence of God? Just as those who now, distorting his words, or rather foolishly slandering him, insist upon it.
122. Not only the Only-Begotten of God, but also the Holy Spirit is called by the saints operation and power; yet so that he has the same powers and operations indiscriminately with the Father, since God himself is also called power according to the great Dionysius, as possessing and transcendently containing every power within himself. Therefore, each of them is understood C and uttered simultaneously when that which is substantial is called power or operation; just as the great Basilius says altogether: "The Holy Spirit is also a sanctifying, essential, inherent, substantial power." By this he demonstrated that not all operations are substantial, by what he says about the Spirit, through which it is also clear that they are distinguished from creatures; for what exists from the Spirit is substantial, as they are creatures; for God created the essences that were made. D
123. Apophatic theology does not oppose or destroy cataphatic theology, but shows that the things stated about God in a cataphatic way are indeed true and piously attributed to God, but that God does not possess these things as we do. For example, God possesses knowledge of beings, and we too have knowledge of certain things; but we know them as existing and as having come to be, whereas God knows them not as existing or as having come to be, for he knew them no less even before they came to be. Therefore, he who says about God that he does not know beings insofar as they are beings does not contradict him who says that God knows beings, and knows them as beings.
A Indeed, there is also an affirmative theology that has the power of apophatic theology; as when someone says: "All knowledge is said in relation to some subject, namely that which is known." And the knowledge of God is said in relation to no subject. For the very thing he says is that God does not know beings as beings; and that He does not have knowledge of beings, as we have it, clearly. For in this way, it is also said that God is not, by way of supereminence. But he who says this, in order to show that those who say that God is are not speaking well, is clearly not using apophatic theology by way of supereminence, but by way of deficiency, as if God were in no way, and in no manner, existing. And this is the height of impiety. Alas! This is what those suffer who, through apophatic theology, attempt to deny that God has both an essence and an uncreated operation. We, however, not destroying one by means of the other, cherish both; being confirmed all the more by each toward a pious understanding.
124. To dissolve all the cavils of the adversaries and to fully expose their folly, I think this brief utterance of the Father is sufficient: "Unoriginate is, he says, and origin, and that which is with the origin. One God; but the origin, because it is an origin, is not for that reason separated from that which is unoriginate. For to be an origin is not a nature to It, just as to be unoriginate is not to this one. For these things are around the nature, but are not the nature." What then? Because they are not the nature, but are around the nature—the being an origin and the being unoriginate—will someone therefore say these are created, unless he be mad? And since these are uncreated, and inhere in the nature of God, is God composite because of this? Not at all; for it does not differ from the divine nature; but if what naturally inheres in God were rather a nature, that the Divine is composite is taught by the great Cyril, along with other Fathers, in many words. But do you peruse with me the writings of the great Basil and of his brother, who thought the same thoughts as him against Eunomius. For there you will clearly find those who are against the adversaries agreeing with Eunomius, and you will have a sufficient refutation of them. B C
125. For the sake of the Eunomians, who think that the essence of the Father and the Son is not the same, since they believe that everything which is said about God is said according to essence, and they strive to prove that because "to beget" and "to be begotten" are different, therefore the essences are also different; and for the sake of those who argue against the idea that the same God is He who has both the divine essence and the divine operation, because they think everything that is said about God is essence, and they strive to prove—because there is some distinction between essence and divine operation—that there are many and diverse gods: it is shown that not everything which is said about God is said according to essence; but it is also said relatively, that is, in relation to something which He Himself is not; for example, the Father is said relatively to the Son, for the Father is not the Son; and Lord is said relatively to the serving creatures, for God is Lord of those in time and in D
A eternity. Now lordship is an uncreated operation of God, distinct from the essence, as being said relative to something else which he is not.
196. The Eunomians say that everything said about God is essence, in order to dogmatize that the ingeneracy is an essence; and from this, they drag down the Son—as one differing from the Father—to the level of a creature, so far as it pertains to them. And their pretext is, they say, so that there may not be two gods: the first who is ingenerate, and a second occurring after him as a generate being. In imitation of these, their opponents also say that everything that is said about God is essence, in order that they may impiously drag down into the category of creature—so far as it pertains to them—the operation of God, which is not separated from the essence but distinct from it, being from God, yet participated in by creatures (“For all,” it is said, “participate in the providence flowing from the all-causal Divinity”). And their pretext is, they say, so that there may not be two divinities: one being the essence B that is above name and cause and participation, and the other the operation of God which proceeds from that essence, is participated in, and is named. For they do not perceive that just as God and Father is called Father in relation to his own Son, and has his being Father uncreatedly (even if the word 'Father' does not signify an essence), so also God possesses his operation uncreatedly, even if the operation differs from the essence. And when we say "one divinity," we mean everything that God is, namely both the essence and the operation. Therefore, those are the ones who impiously bisect the one divinity of God into created and uncreated.
127. An accident is that which comes to be and ceases to be; from which we also discern inseparable accidents. There is also, in a way, an accident which naturally inheres, because it is increased and diminished, such as knowledge in the rational soul. But there is nothing of the sort in God, for he remains altogether immutable; for which reason nothing in him can be called an accident. Yet not everything that is said about God signifies essence; for it is also said in relation to something, which is referential and is a reference toward someone else, but not indicative of essence. C Such is the divine operation in God; for it is neither essence nor accident, even if it is in some way called an accident by certain theologians, who demonstrate this only, namely that it is in God and is not essence.
128. Furthermore, the divine operation, even if it is spoken of in a way as an accident, is nevertheless contemplated in God and does not produce composition. And Gregory, the one eponymous of theology, writing about the Holy Spirit, teaches us: “For the Holy Spirit,” he says, “is either among those things that subsist by themselves, or among those things contemplated in another; of which the former is called substance by those skilled in such things, and the latter an accident. If, therefore, it is an accident, this would be an operation of God; for what else would it be, or whose? For this in a way flees composition.” He says this clearly, namely that if it is among the things contemplated in God, therefore it is not essence, but is an accident, D and is also called Spirit, having no other being than as an operation of God.
A For he showed this by saying: "For what else could it be? or whose?" And as he prepares the way to show how it is that nothing else—no quality, nor quantity, nor anything of this sort—can be contemplated in God, but only an operation, he adds: "For this in some way escapes composition." But how does the operation contemplated in God escape composition? Because He alone has an altogether impassible operation, and according to it He acts only, but does not suffer, nor is He brought into being, nor is He changed.
129. That the Theologian knows this operation is also uncreated, he himself showed a little above, when he distinguished it from the creature. For he says, "Of the wise men among us, some have supposed that the Spirit is an operation, others a creature, others God." By God, he means here the B hypostasis itself. And since he has shown the operation to be distinct from the creature, he has clearly indicated that it is not a creature. But also, proceeding a little further, he called this operation the motion of God. How then is the motion of God not uncreated? Regarding this, the God-bearing Damascene also writes in his fifty-ninth chapter: "An operation is, he says, the active and essential motion of nature; but the activator is the nature from which the operation proceeds; the work is the effect of the operation; the agent, finally, is he who uses the operation, that is, the hypostasis."
130. The adversaries, from the fact that the Theologian says here: "If it is an operation, it will be acted upon and will not act, and at the same time it will cease to be acted upon," have from this supposed and declared this divine operation to be created. For they were C ignorant that the term "to be acted upon" is also applied to uncreated things, as this same Theologian shows, writing elsewhere: "But if the Father were a name of operation, this would have operated the consubstantial." The God-bearing Damascene also says: "Christ sat at the right hand of the Father, divinely operating the providence of all." Nor does the word "rested" stand as an impediment to the operation being uncreated. For God begins and ceases according to the act of creating; as Moses also says, that "God rested from all the works which He had begun to do." Yet that creating which God begins and completes is the natural and uncreated operation of God.
131. The divine Damascene again, after having said that D an operation is the active and essential motion of nature, wishing to show how the Theologian said that such an operation is "acted upon" and "ceases," added: "One must know that the operation is a motion, and is acted upon rather than acts, as the Theologian Gregory says in his discourse on the Holy Spirit: 'But if it is an operation, it will of course be acted upon and will not act, and at the same time it will cease to be acted upon.'" It is manifest, therefore, that those who hold the opinions of the adversaries, by dogmatizing that the operation which Gregory the Theologian has spoken of here is created, are dementedly bringing the very natural and essential operation of God down to the level of creatures: which the holy Damascene [declares to be] not only acted, but also the agent.
A And he has demonstrated her to be uncreated, as to how it is that he does not disagree in this regard with the one named after theology [the Theologian], is proven in my discourses on that subject.
132. Personal idioms are spoken of relatively toward one another. And the persons differ from one another, but not according to essence. Yet there is a sense in which God is also spoken of as relative to the creation. For not in the same way that the most holy Trinity is called eternal, without beginning, great, good, and God, can [each one] be called Father; for it is not each of the persons that is the Father, but one of the three who is the Father, from whom and to whom the rest are referred. However, with respect to the creation, because the one work of the three was brought forward from that which is in no way whatever, and because of the grace common to the three which is granted by the Son for the sake of creation, the Trinity might also be called Father. That, "The Lord your God, the Lord is one"45, and that, "One is our Father, who is in heaven"46, indicate that the holy Trinity is one Lord and our God; and indeed, He is also called our Father, as we have said, because He regenerates us through His grace; and the Father alone is Father toward the consubstantial Son. The same is also called principle toward the Son and the Spirit. But the Father is also called principle toward the creation, but as Creator and Master of all creatures. B When, therefore, these things are said of the Father with respect to the creation, the Son is also principle, and there are not two principles, but one; for the Son is also said to be principle relatively toward created things, just as is Master toward servants. Therefore, the Father and the Son along with the Spirit are, with respect to the creation, one principle and one Master and one Creator and one God and Father, and provider, and overseer, and all other things. And each of such things is not essence; for it would not be called relatively toward another if it were its essence.
133. Situations, and habits, and places, and times, and anything of this sort, are not said properly of God, but metaphorically. But to do and to act might be said most truly of God alone; for God alone does; but He Himself does not become, nor does He suffer, so far as pertains to His essence; and He alone does each thing through all; and He alone makes from that which in no way exists, having an omnipotent operation, C in accordance with which He is also said to have [potency] relatively toward creation, and what He has in potency; for He Himself can in no way suffer anything whatsoever in His own nature. But He is able to add to the things made if He wishes; for to have [the capacity] to suffer in potency, and to receive something in addition according to essence, is a sign of weakness; but to have [the capacity] to act in potency, and to add to the things made whenever He wishes, befits divine and omnipotent power.
134. All beings are summarized into ten: I mean substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, to do, to suffer, to have, to be situated, and of the[...]
A rest which are contemplated as subsequent to substance. God is a supersubstantial substance in whom only relation and action are contemplated, which do not cause in Him any composition or alteration. For God does all things, while He Himself suffers nothing in His substance. He is also Creator relative to the creature, and the beginning and Lord of it, insofar as it has arisen from Him and depends upon Him. He is also our Father, regenerating us by grace; but He is also Father relative to the Son who in no way had a temporal beginning, and Son relative to the Father; and the Spirit is the manifestation of the Father, coeternal with the Father and the Son, being of one and the same substance. But those who say that God is only substance, having nothing B contemplated in Him—neither the power to act and operate, nor the property of relation—are in effect denying God. For if He does not have these, in their opinion, God is neither energy, nor Creator, nor does He have operation, nor is He beginning and Creator and Lord, nor is He our Father by grace. For how could these things be, if the property of relation and the power to act are not contemplated in His substance itself? And the trinity of the persons of the Godhead is also destroyed, if the property of relation is not contemplated in the substance of God. Now, one who is not tri-hypostatic is not the Lord of all, nor is He God. Those who think this way, according to our opponents, are therefore atheists.
135. God also has that which is not substance. Yet it does not follow that because it is not substance, it is an accident; for that which not only does not depart, but also admits of no C increase or decrease of any kind, nor causes them, cannot in any way be numbered among accidents. But because it is neither an accident nor a substance, it does not follow that it is mere nothingness, but it exists and truly exists. It is not an accident, because it is entirely immutable; nor is it a substance, for it is not a self-subsisting entity. Therefore, it is called an accident to some extent by certain theologians, who only wish to show by this that it is not a substance. For what? Because every personal attribute and each of the hypostases is neither substance nor accident in God, is it for that reason mere nothingness? Far from it. Likewise, therefore, the divine energy of God is neither substance nor accident, nor yet is it mere nothingness. And to say what all D theologians agree upon: if God acts by will and not merely by nature, then the will is one thing and the nature another. But if this divine will is other than the divine nature, and yet is not a substance, does it for that reason not exist at all? By no means; but it exists, because God has not only substance, but also a will by which He acts, whether someone perhaps wishes to call this an accident insofar as it is not substance, or not an accident insofar as it produces no composition or alteration. God therefore has what is substance and what is not substance—namely, the divine will and operation—even if it is not called an accident.
136. If substance does not have an operation distinct from itself, it will be completely without hypostasis, and merely a concept of the intellect. For man said in the general sense, [continues to next page]
does not think, does not opine, does not see, does not smell, does not speak, does not hear, does not walk, does not breathe, does not eat, A and in a word, has no operation distinct from its essence which indicates that it exists in a subsistent state; hence, man—taken generally—is completely non-subsistent. But a man who possesses a natural operation distinct from his essence—whether one, or many, or all that we have mentioned—is recognized by these to be in existence, and man is not non-subsistent. Since, however, such operations are observed not in one, or two, or three, but in a multitude of number, it is shown that man exists in myriad subsistences.
137. God, according to the piety of our—I mean His—Church, given through His grace, possesses a natural operation as the index of His subsistence, and therefore distinct from His essence (for He foreknows and provides for the inferior, and makes, preserves, rules, and transforms according to His own will as He knows Himself to be), B and is thus shown to exist in substance, and not as an essence which is not subsistent. Yet God is known to us as having all such operations, not in one, but in three subsistences. But the adversaries, by saying that God does not possess a natural operation as indicative of His subsistence, and therefore distinct from His essence, deny that God is in subsistence, and maintain that the Lord who is in three subsistences is completely non-subsistent, surpassing in their perverted doctrine the Libyan Sabellius by as much as impiety is more wicked than bad piety. C
138. Of the three divine subsistences, the operation is not one in the way that it is similar in our case, but is one in truth and in number. This the followers of the contrary opinion cannot say, because they deny that the uncreated operation is common to the three, and say that the subsistences are the operations of one another, as if, according to them, there were no common divine operation; so that they cannot even speak of one operation of the three, but by destroying one with another, they consequently make the tri-subsistent God non-subsistent.
139. Those who have fallen ill with a heretical delusion regarding the soul, by calling the operation distinct from the essence of God created, imagine that the act of creating in God—or what is the same thing, His creative power—is also created; for it is not possible to operate and create without an operation, just as it is not possible to exist without existence. As, therefore, he who calls the existence of God created cannot imagine that the act of existing in Him is uncreated, so he who says that the operation of God is created cannot imagine that the act of operating and creating in Him is uncreated. D
140. Things created by God both are and are called so by those who think piously—not the operation of God, according to the ravings of our opponents (away with such impiety!), but the effects of the divine operation are creatures. For if creatures were the operation, they would either be uncreated (O absurdity!), such that they existed before they were created, or before the creation (O impiety!) God would not have had an operation, who, by the...
same token, is from eternity operative and omnipotent. Therefore, the operation of God is not the things created, but the things produced—whatever name they may be called by, they are created things. But the operation of God is uncreated and coeternal with God, according to the theologians.
141. A Operation is not known from essence, but essence is known from operation, in that it exists, though not what it is. Hence God is known to exist B not from his essence, but from his providence, according to the theologians. Therefore, the operation is also distinct from the essence, because that which indicates is the operation, while that which is indicated, in truth, is the essence. But the patrons of heretical impiety, seeking to persuade us that the divine operation does not differ in any way from the divine essence, endeavor through this to take away C the indication of God, wanting to lead us into not knowing that God is. But he who does not know this is, above all others, an atheist and a madman.
142. When these people say that God has an operation, but one that does not differ from his essence in any way or respect, they attempt to obscure their own impiety and thus to deceive and cheat their hearers with sophistry. For thus that Libyan Sabellius used to say that the Son and the Father are one God, D not differing from Him in any respect. Just as that man was refuted for speaking of the Father without the Son, denying the personal distinction between them, so these people now, by saying that the divine operation does not differ in any way from the divine essence, are refuted for believing that God has no operation altogether. For if these are not distinct, God cannot act or operate; for according to the theologians, he cannot operate without an operation, just as, according to them, he cannot exist without existence. Furthermore, that the divine operation is distinct from the divine essence is manifest from this also to those who think soundly: the operation produces something else, which the one operating himself is not. For God operates and creates the creatures, but he himself is uncreated. And that which is relative is always spoken of in relation to another: for the Son is spoken of in relation to the Father, but the Father is never the Son of the Father. Just as, therefore, it is impossible for a relation not to be distinct B from the essence, and to be not a mode of substance but substance itself, so it is in no way possible for the operation not to be distinct from the essence, but for it to be the essence, even if the adversaries are displeased.
143. Great Basil, in his syllogistic chapters C reasoning about God, says that operation is neither the operator, nor the work; therefore, the operation is not undifferentiated from the essence. And the divine Cyril, also reasoning about God, teaches this: "To make is of the operation, but to beget is of the nature; yet nature and operation are not the same." The God-bearing Damascene says: "Creation is a work of the divine will." And elsewhere he clearly says again: "Operation is one thing, and the operator is another. For operation is the essential movement of the nature, D while the operator is the nature from which the operation proceeds." Therefore, in many ways the operation differs from the divine essence, according to the God-minded Fathers.
A 144. The essence of God is altogether unnamed, since it is also in every way incomprehensible; it is named, therefore, from all its own operations, without any of the names differing from another in their signification. For upon each and all of them, nothing else is invoked but that hidden thing which is in no way known as to what it is; but in the case of the operations, each of the names has a different signification. For who does not know that creating, ruling, judging, providing, and God’s adopting us through His own grace differ from one another? Those, therefore, who say that these natural divine operations—as being distinct both from each other and from the divine nature—are created, what else are they doing but dragging God down to the level of a creature? For the things created, ruled, and judged, and in general all things of this kind, are creatures; but He is not a creature—the Creator, the Master, and the Judge—nor is the very acting of judging, ruling, and creating, which are naturally contemplated in Him, a creature. B 145. The essence of God is, just as it is altogether without a name, as being above every name according to the theologians, so also it is unparticipated, as existing above participation according to the same. Those, therefore, who disobey the teaching of the Spirit handed down by our holy Fathers, and who slander us who agree with them, say that there are many gods, or that the One is composite, if the divine operation differs from the divine essence, and if anything at all is contemplated in the essence of God. For they are ignorant that it is not acting and the operation, but undergoing and being acted upon, that causes composition. But God acts, while He Himself undergoes nothing, nor is He changed; therefore, He will not be composite because of the operation. And God also bears a relation to the creature, as He is its beginning and Master, but He is not for that reason numbered among the created things. C But again, how will there be many gods because God has an operation, if they belong to one God, or rather, if the divine essence and the divine operation are one God? Therefore, these madmen rave most clearly in this. 146. After the Lord had said to His own disciples, "There are some of those standing here, who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming in power," D after six days, taking Peter, and James, and John, and ascending Mount Tabor, He shone as the sun; and His garments became white as the light; for they were no longer able to see; or rather, not being strong enough to gaze directly at this radiance, they fell face down upon the ground. Nevertheless, they saw, according to the promise of the Savior, the kingdom of God, that divine and ineffable light; for Gregory and Basil, the great ones, call it divinity, saying that the divinity shown forth upon the mountain to the disciples is light, and the beauty of the truly Mighty One, His intelligible and visible divinity. For the great Basil says that that light is the beauty of God, visible to the saints by the power of the divine Spirit. And he adds: "See
A His beauty," Peter and the sons of thunder on the mountain, shining brighter than the radiance of the sun; and they were deemed worthy to perceive with their eyes the firstfruits of His presence. The theologian Damascenus, along with the golden-tongued John, have called that light the natural ray of the Godhead. The former writes: "The Son, begotten from the Father from eternity, possesses the natural and eternal ray of the Godhead; and the glory of the Godhead becomes the glory of the body." And the golden-tongued says: "The Lord appeared on the mountain brighter than Himself, with the Godhead manifesting its rays."
147. This divine and ineffable light, the Godhead and kingdom of God—the beauty and splendor of the divine nature, the vision and enjoyment of the saints in the incomprehensible eternity, the natural ray and glory of the Godhead—the babbling heretics call a phantasm and a creature; and they slanderously proclaim as polytheists those who do not dare to blaspheme against this divine light as they do, but who believe it to be uncreated, whether as God in essence or in operation. B But let them be ashamed. For even though the divine light is uncreated, there is one God for us in one Godhead, because, as has been frequently demonstrated above, both the uncreated essence and the uncreated operation—namely, this divine grace and illumination—are of the one God.
148. Those wicked heretics who, after the synod, boldly dared to say and attempted to maintain that that divine light which shone from the Savior on Tabor was a phantasm and a creature, and who, having been refuted by many, would not change their opinion, were condemned by a written definition and anathema. For they blaspheme against the economy of God in the flesh, and insanely declare the Godhead of God to be created—and as far as it depends on them, they degrade the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit themselves to the level of a creature. For the Godhead of the Three is one and the same. If, however, these men say they worship an uncreated Godhead, they then manifestly acknowledge two Godheads of God—one created and the other uncreated. C Thus they strive to surpass all ancient heretics in impiety.
149. At other times, contriving to veil their own heresy, they claim that the light which shone on Tabor is uncreated and that it is the essence of God, blaspheming in many ways even in this. For since that light was seen by the apostles, they wickedly infer that the essence of God is, consequently, visible. But let them hear Him who says: "No one has ever stood in the subsistence, and seen or described the essence of God and the nature of God." And not only no man, but not even the angels; for the six-winged Seraphim themselves cover their faces with their wings on account of the excess of the coruscation flashing forth from it. D Since, therefore, the supersubstantial essence of God has never been seen by anyone, when this light is...
the superessentiality of God was seen, when the heretics say that this is the light, they testify that this light is altogether invisible. And [they claim] that not even the elect of the apostles attained A to the mountain for the sight of Him, nor that the Lord truly promised this to them, nor that he who says, "We have seen His glory, being with Him on the holy mountain," speaks the truth; and that, having awakened, Peter and those with him saw His glory. Another says that John, who was loved by Christ in a special way, beheld the divinity of the Word Itself revealed on the mountain. They saw, therefore, and truly saw, that uncreated and divine illumination, while God remained invisible according to His superessential and hidden essence, even though the leaders of the heresy and those of like mind with them may burst with rage.
150. But when someone questions these heretics who say that that light is the essence of the divinity, and that consequently the essence of God is seen, they are B compelled to conceal their deceit, saying that it is the essence, since through it the essence of God is seen; for it is through created things that the essence of God is seen; and so, the miserable men make the light of the Lord’s Transfiguration a created thing. But what is seen through created things is not the essence, but the creative operation of God. So that, impiously, they also agree with Eunomius in this, saying that the essence of God is seen through created things; so manifold for them is the grain-field of impiety. It is necessary, therefore, to flee from them and their communion, as from a soul-destroying and many-headed hydra, and as from a multiform plague upon piety. C
HAGIORITICUS TOMUS FOR THE QUIETISTS
Against those who, out of their own lack of experience and disobedience toward the saints, despise the mystical operations of the Spirit, which work in those who live according to the Spirit better than can be expressed, and which are revealed through deeds, but are not disclosed through words.
The dogmas that were recently discussed, and known in common to all, and proclaimed with boldness, were mysteries of the law given through Moses, foreseen by the prophets in the Spirit.
A Only to those in the Spirit are they seen beforehand. And those good things promised to the saints for the age to come are mysteries of the life according to the Gospel, being given and foreseen—albeit in part, as a pledge—to those who have been accounted worthy to see through the Spirit. But just as if someone among the Jews of that time, not hearing with thanksgiving the words of the prophets proclaiming the Word and Spirit of God, both co-eternal and pre-eternal, had stopped their ears, thinking they were hearing voices forbidden to piety and contrary to the voice confessed by the pious—namely the voice that says, "The Lord your God, the Lord is one"—so too, perhaps, might one suffer now if they do not listen with reverence to the mysteries of the Spirit, known only to those who have been purified by virtue. Yet just as the outcome of those prophecies subsequently manifested the mysteries of that time in accordance with what is evident, and we now believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a Godhead that is three-personed, one nature simple, uncompounded, uncreated, invisible, and incomprehensible; so too will the mysteries of the future age, when revealed at the proper times, be shown in accordance with all that is evident through the ineffable manifestation of the one God in three perfect Persons. One must, however, observe this as well: that even if the Trinity of divine Persons was revealed to the ends of the earth only later, it was in no way destroyed by the principle of the Monarchy; rather, it was precisely known even to those prophets before the occurrence of events, and was already then most acceptable to those who believed them. B In the same way, we now know and confess the truths that are proclaimed openly and mystically demonstrated in the Spirit to those who are worthy. Some, indeed, have been instructed by experience—all those who have not only renounced the possession of things, the glory of men, and the foul pleasures of the body in order to embrace the evangelical life, but have also confirmed this renunciation through obedience to those living in the age according to Christ; for by devoting themselves to God and themselves through distraction-free stillness, and by constant prayer rising above themselves, and being joined to God through a mystical and unintelligible union with Him, they have been initiated into things beyond the mind. Others, however, have been initiated through their veneration, C faith, and love toward such persons. Thus, therefore, we too, hearing the great Dionysius saying in his second epistle to Gaius: "The deifying gift of God is the Godhead, and the God-arche, and the Good-arche," believe that God, who grants this grace to the worthy, is above this Godhead. For God does not suffer multiplication, nor does anyone say there are two Godheads. But the divine Maximus, writing concerning Melchizedek, demonstrates that this deifying grace of God is uncreated, and always proceeds from the ever-existing God, and elsewhere he often calls that light "unbegotten and substantial light, manifested to the worthy when they have become worthy, but not then created," and "light of ineffable glory," and "cleanness of the angels." The great Macarius, moreover, calls it "food of incorporeal beings, and glory of the divine nature, and beauty of the future age, divine and super-celestial fire, ineffable and intellectual light, pledge of the Holy Spirit, gladdening oil of holiness." D
A Whosoever, therefore, numbers those who call this deifying grace of God uncreated, unbegotten, and substantial among the Massalians and calls them Ditheists, if indeed there be any such person, let him know that he is opposing himself to the saints of God and, unless he repents, excluding himself from the lot of the saved and falling away from the one and only God by nature. But whosoever, believing, obeying, and speaking in harmony with the saints, and not providing pretexts for sins, does not reject what is clearly spoken out of ignorance, but, being ignorant of the mode of the mystery, does not disdain to inquire and learn from those who know, he shall understand that there is nothing inconsistent in the divine words and matters, even in the most necessary things, without which nothing at all could stand, nor any mystery be entirely worthy of God.
B Whosoever asserts that perfect union with God is accomplished by imitation and habit alone, without the deifying grace of the Spirit—just as it happens among those who are similar in character and love one another—and that the deifying grace of God is a habit of the rational nature acquired by imitation alone, and not an ineffable and supernatural illumination and divine operation, seen invisibly by those deemed worthy and understood incomprehensibly, let him know that he has fallen, though he knows it not, into the heresy of the Massalians. For he who is deified will necessarily be God by nature in every respect, if deification is according to a natural power and is by nature capable of being included within the bounds of nature. Let not such a one, therefore, attempt to imprint his own downfall upon those who stand securely, nor heap reproach upon those who are blameless in faith; but laying aside his own opinion, let him learn from those who are experienced, or from those instructed by them, that the grace of the Divinity is totally absolute and can in no way be grasped by the powers of nature, because otherwise it would no longer be grace, but a manifestation of an operation according to natural power. And nothing wonderful would then come to pass if deification were according to a power C capable of deification: for then deification would be an operation of nature itself and not a gift of God, and the one deified could become God by nature and be properly so called. For the power of each of the things that are according to nature is nothing else than the unchangeable movement of nature toward its operation. And how does deification elevate the one deified above himself, if it is still contained within the bounds of nature? I cannot understand. Therefore, the grace of deification is above nature, above virtue, and above knowledge, and infinitely distant from all such things, according to Saint Maximus. For every virtue and the imitation of God that is within our power makes one who has attained them fit for divine union; but grace itself brings that ineffable union to perfection. For through it, God enters totally into those who are worthy, and the saints, being totally in God, are entirely and wholly penetrated by Him, receiving God Himself into themselves D and, as it were, obtaining God Himself as the prize of their ascent toward Him, who, like a soul to a body, is poured around them as if they were members, and deigns that they should participate in Him.
Whoever asserts that those who say the mind resides in the heart or in the brain are Massalians, let him know that he is attacking the saints wrongly. For the great Athanasius says that the rational part of the soul is in the brain; but Macarius, yielding nothing to him in greatness, places the operation of the mind in the heart. Almost all the saints are in harmony with these. For what the divine Gregory of Nyssa says, that the mind is neither inside nor outside the body, as it is incorporeal, does not contradict those saints; for they say the mind is inside the body as being united to it. Speaking, therefore, in a different sense, they differ from him not in the least. For neither does he who says that the Divine is not in a place, insofar as it is incorporeal, contradict him who says that the Word of God once resided in a virginal and most immaculate womb, as being there united, beyond reason, to the lump of our nature by ineffable mercy. B
Whoever speaks of the light manifested to the disciples on Tabor as a phantom, and says that it was a symbol of some kind which appeared and vanished, but was not truly real, and that it is not above all thought, but an operation lower than thought, clearly speaks against the opinions of the saints. For they, both in their hymns and in their writings, designate it as ineffable, uncreated, eternal, not temporal, inaccessible, immense, infinite, indeterminate, invisible to angels and men, an archetypal beauty and immutable, the glory of God, the glory of Christ, the glory of the Spirit, a ray of divinity, and other things of this kind. For the flesh, they say, is glorified at the same time as the assumption, and the glory of the body becomes the glory of the divinity. But that glory was invisible in the visible body to those who could not grasp things invisible even to the angels. It is transformed, therefore, not by assuming what it did not have, nor by being changed into what it was not, but by manifesting to its own disciples what it was, opening their eyes and making them seeing out of blind. For while remaining the same in identity, it was seen by the disciples differently than it appeared before. For He Himself is the true splendor of glory, and like the sun He shone forth—that is a dim image, but it is impossible for the uncreated not to be shadowed forth imperfectly in a creature. C
Whoever says that only the essence of God is uncreated, but not also His eternal operations, which He surpasses as the one who acts over all things that are acted upon, let him hear the holy Maximus saying: "All things that are immortal, and immortality itself; and all things that are living, and life itself; and all things that are holy, and holiness itself; and all things endowed with virtue, and virtue itself; and all good things, and goodness itself; and all things that have existence, and existence itself, are evidently works of God; but some things began to be in time (for there was a time when they were not), while others did not begin to be in time; for there was no time when virtue, and goodness, and holiness, and immortality were not." D
And again: "Goodness, and whatever is comprised in the definition of goodness; and, in general, every life, and immortality, and simplicity, and immutability, and immensity, and whatsoever is essentially contemplated in relation to God, are works of God, even if they did not begin in time." A For there was never a time when "that which is not" preceded virtue, or any other of the aforementioned qualities, although those things that participate in them began to exist in time. For every virtue is without beginning, not having a time prior to itself, as if having only God as the eternal generator of its existence. But God infinitely and beyond all measure transcends all things that participate and are participated in. Let it be learned, then, from these things, that not all things that exist from God are subject to time. For there are some of these things which are without beginning; nor, by the principle of the one nature without beginning, and the triadic monad, and the supernatural simplicity according to it, is it in the least damaged. For in the same way, the mind, according to the faint image of that transcendent indivisibility, is in no way composite on account of its own innate thoughts. B Whoever does not approve of the spiritual dispositions signified by the body, [which arise] from the charisms of the Spirit bestowed upon the soul of those progressing in God, and calls the mortification of the concupiscible faculty *apatheia* (not, however, the improved operation of this faculty, which entirely turns away from evils and is turned toward good things, as one who has been stripped of evil habits and enriched with good ones)—such a person, consistently with this opinion, denies that we will live with our bodies in the age to come. For if the body is then to participate with the soul in the ineffable goods, it will surely also participate now, insofar as it is possible, in the grace given mystically and ineffably by God to the purified mind; and it will itself undergo divine things, [being] transformed and sanctified in a way appropriate to it, but not mortified according to the habit of the soul's concupiscible faculty. And through itself, being common to both body and soul, it sanctifies the dispositions and operations of the body. For since, for those who have withdrawn from the goods of this life on account of the hope of future goods—according to the holy Diadochus—the mind, moved strongly by its freedom from care, tastes the divine ineffable sweetness itself, it also communicates its own sweetness to the body in proportion to the measure of its own progress. C And such joy born then in the soul and body is an infallible reminder of the incorruptible life.
The mind is naturally suited to perceive one light, and the sense [is suited to perceive] another. For the latter perceives the sensible, and that which represents things as sensible; but the light of the mind is knowledge situated in thoughts. Sight and mind, therefore, are not naturally suited to perceive the same light, but [can only do so] so long as each of them operates according to its own nature in natural things. But when they have been granted spiritual and supernatural grace and power, those who have been deemed worthy see—by sense and by mind—those things that are above all sense and all mind, as, to speak according to the great theologian Gregory, only God knows, and those who are thus affected. D
THE HAGIORITIC TOME OF GREGORY PALAMAS
AThese things we have been taught by the Scriptures; these things we have received from our Fathers; these things we have learned by little experience; these things we have signed for the certainty of the readers, as perfectly conforming to the traditions of the saints, testifying to the work of our most reverend brother among the hieromonks, lord Gregory, who wrote concerning the holy stillness.
I, the first among the venerable monks of the Holy Mountain, the hieromonk Isaac. I, the superior of the venerable, imperial, and holy Laura, the hieromonk Theodosius. There was also the signature of the superior of the monastery of the Iberians in his own language. I, the superior of the venerable and imperial monastery of Vatopedi, the hieromonk Joannicius. There was also the signature of the superior of the monastery of the Serbs in his own language. I, the least hieromonk Philotheus, thinking the same, have signed. I, the least among the hieromonks and spiritual father of the venerable monastery of Esphigmenou, Amphilochius. I, the least among the hieromonks, and spiritual father of Vatopedi, Theodosius. I, the superior of the holy monastery of Koutloumousiou, the hieromonk Theosteriktos.
BI, Gerontius Marulas, a sinner living among the elders of the venerable Laura, thinking the same, have signed. I, the least among the monks, Callistus Muzalon. I, the least among the hieromonks, Gerasimus, after I saw and read what was written so truthfully, I, approving these things, have signed. I, the least elder and least among the monks, Moses, thinking the same, have signed. I, the least and most insignificant of the monks, Gregory Strabolancadites, a hesychast indeed, C thinking and feeling the same, have signed. I, the elder from the skete of Magoula and least among the hieromonks, Isaiah, thinking the same, have signed. I, the least of the monks, Mark the Sinaite. I, the one in the skete of Magoula and among the hieromonks the least, Callistus. There was also the signature of the elder from the Syrians, a hesychast, in his own language. I, the least of the monks, Sophronius. I, the least of the monks, Joasaph.
I, the humble bishop of Hierissos and the Holy Mountain, Jacob, nourished by the traditions of the saints and Fathers, do testify through those who have signed here that all the monks of the Holy Mountain have signed in agreement, D and I myself, agreeing and ratifying this, have signed. Adding this, furthermore, along with all others: that whoever does not agree with the saints as we do, and our Fathers who were a little before us, we shall not accept his communion.
NOTICE CONCERNING GREGORY SINAITES
Our holy Father Gregory, who having taken the monastic tonsure on Mount Sinai was therefore called Sinaites, flourished under the reign of Andronicus Palaeologus, around the year 1330. A Coming to the mountain of Athos, and traversing the monasteries and hermitages there, he found many who were adorned with wisdom and the gravity of their conduct, and who applied themselves only to the practical life, but who were so unacquainted with the guardianship of the mind, the precision of stillness, and contemplation, that they could not even recognize such things by name. He encountered only three—whose names were Isaiah, Cornelius, and Macarius—in the skete of Magula, situated opposite the monastery of Philotheou, who were to some small extent occupied with the contemplative life. B Inflamed, therefore, with divine zeal, he taught not only those who lived as hermits in private, but also all those in coenobitic communities, about vigilance, the guarding of the mind, and mental prayer. Moreover, after building three great lauras on the borders of Macedonia, and traveling through many places and regions, he encouraged all, by his divine teachings, to the common practice of mental and unceasing prayer; and he became the cause for many sinners being converted through this, and, being made worthy instead of unworthy, for them to be accounted worthy of the inheritance of the elect. His life was written at length C by the most holy Patriarch Callistus, who was also his disciple. But indeed, just as during his lifetime the illustrious man was known as a common teacher of the holy vigilance, so too after his death he leads [others] to it by means of these present writings of his. For in them he instructs in the art of mental and interior prayer most elegantly and perfectly, and he discourses concerning moral virtues and vices, and clearly indicates certain signs of deception and certain signs of grace. And indeed, this work is most useful, if anything is, D equally to beginners, those making progress, and the perfect. Whoever reads it not perfunctorily will discover what and how great the spiritual riches hidden within it are; and he will truly rejoice with ineffable joy at their discovery.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER GREGORY OF SINAI CAPITALS VERY USEFUL BY ACROSTIC
Of which the acrostic is this: Sermons various concerning precepts, dogmas, threats and promises; and furthermore concerning thoughts, passions and virtues; and furthermore concerning stillness and prayer.
A 1. To be rational by nature, or to become so, is impossible before purity and incorruption. For the habit of irrational sense-perception has gained mastery over the former, and the state of corruptible flesh over the latter.
2. You shall see that those who are rational by nature are the only ones who have been rendered holy through purity. For no one among the wise in word has possessed a pure reason, since they have corrupted their rational faculty from above through their thoughts. For the material and loquacious spirit of the wisdom of this world, while leading their words towards mystical things but their thoughts towards cruder things, causes the house of the heart to be emptied of substantial wisdom, of contemplation, and of undivided and unified knowledge.
B 3. Consider the sensation of grace to be strictly the knowledge of truth. As for the rest, you must call them merely impressions of thoughts and demonstrations of things.
4. As many as fail to attain grace, suffer this on account of unbelief and neglect; and as many as again find it, do so through faith and diligence. For always through the former they advance toward the things in front, while through the contraries they turn back completely.
5. It is the same to be a corpse unable to feel anything, and to be blind in intellect and not seeing bodily. For the one is deprived of the living and active power; while he who does not see is deprived of the divine light by whose power one can see and be seen.
A 6. Few receive both power and wisdom from God. For the one participates in divine goods; the other reveals them. To participate and to impart, however, is a thing truly divine and above man.
7. That is a true sanctuary, even before the life to come, which is a heart functioning without discursive thoughts by the Spirit. For there all things are fulfilled and spoken spiritually; and he who does not possess this from here on is a stone fit for the building of the divine temple, but not the temple and sanctuary of the Spirit.
B 8. Man was created incorruptible without humors, such as he will also rise again, yet he was not immutable, nor again mutable; having the power of the volitional habit to be changed, or not. For the will does not produce total immutability toward nature; for this is the prize of the future, immutable deification.
9. For corruption is the generation of the flesh. To eat, to excrete, to swell with pride, and to sleep, are natural properties of beasts and cattle; because of which, through disobedience, we have been made like unto cattle, having fallen from our own and God-bestowed goods; having become animal-like from rational, and beast-like from divine.
C 10. Paradise is twofold, sensible and intelligible, that is to say, the one in Eden, and the one of grace. The one in Eden, therefore, is a place very high, so as to be as far as the third heaven, as those who have recorded it assert, planted by God with all kinds of most fragrant trees. It is not, therefore, perfectly incorruptible, nor entirely corruptible. Made as a mean between corruption and incorruptibility, it is always luxuriant with fruits, and blooming with flowers, and having at once unripe and ripe fruit continually. For the trees that decay and the perfectly ripe fruits, even when cast to the ground, become a fragrant dust, and do not emit a stench like the plants of this world. This, however, happens from the great abundance and holiness of the grace that is always overflowing there. Whence the ocean river, commanded to water it continually, passing through the middle, proceeding from it and dividing itself into four heads, carries and delivers the dust and the fallen leaves to the Indians and Ethiopians; and being joined together, the Phison and the Gehon always overflow their fields, until they are again divided, the one irrigating the Libyan region, the other the Egyptian land.
D 11. Creation, they say, was not fashioned as fluid, or in other words, corruptible, at first; but afterward, having been corrupted and subjected to vanity, according to the Scripture, that is, to man; not willingly, but unwillingly, for the sake of Him who subjected it in hope of the renewal of the corrupted Adam. Having renewed and sanctified him, even if he bears a corruptible body for the sake of the temporary life, He also renewed it, not yet having freed it from corruption. But regarding the deliverance of creation from corruption, some say it is the changing for the better, others the total transformation of sensible things. For it is the custom of Scripture simply
but A not subtly, to affirm regarding things that are until now difficult, and without curiosity.
12. Those who receive grace as if conceiving and pregnant from the Holy Spirit, either cast out the divine seed through falls, or become widowed from God through communion with the enemy lurking within them. And the falling away of grace happens through the activity of the passions, while the total deprivation happens through the habit of sins; for a soul that loves the passions and loves sin, being deprived and cast off from grace and widowed, will be a dwelling place for passions—if I should not say for demons—now and in the future.
13. It does not make anger cheerful and gentle as fortitude and mercy do: the one crushing those without, the other those within, as if by siege engines.
14. Many who perform the B commandments seem to be traveling, but they have not yet reached the city; they remain outside. For those who secretly take up the exits of the royal ways—that is, the vices neighboring the virtues—walk foolishly; for the commandments require neither deficiency nor excess, but indeed a goal pleasing to God and a will intent on God alone; otherwise, the labor is in vain, and the ways are not straight, according to Scripture: for in every work the goal of the deed is sought.
15. In the way, that is, through the commandments, seek the Lord in your heart. For when you hear John crying out and commanding everyone to prepare the ways and ordering them to make the paths straight, understand this to mean the C commandments, the hearts, and the actions; for it is impossible to make the way of the commandments straight and the action blameless, unless there is heart-rectitude.
16. When you hear Scripture speaking of a rod and a staff, regarding the prophetic word, understand them to be judgment and providence, but regarding the moral word, psalmodia and prayer. For when we are punished by the Lord with the rod of discipline, we are corrected toward conversion; but we support ourselves while correcting our adversaries with the staff of patient psalmodia and D prayer. Therefore, holding the staff and the rod in the hand of spiritual actions, let us not cease to correct and be corrected until we are entirely under providence, having escaped judgment, both the present and the future.
17. It is proper to the commandments always to prefer the comprehensive commandment, which is the memory of God, saying: "Remember the Lord your God at all times." For through that by which they perished, through this they can also be kept. For forgetfulness destroyed the divine memory from the beginning, obliterating the commandments, and thus it showed man completely naked.
18. In two commandments, the strugglers return again to their ancient dignity, namely through obedience and abstinence; for from these contraries, all evil entered into the race of mortals. And those who by obedience
keep the commandments, A return to God most swiftly; but those who do so by fasting and prayer, more slowly. Indeed, obedience is appropriate for beginners, while fasting is for the intermediate, the gnostic, and the strong. For to preserve obedience through the commandments to God unadulterated is for very few, and is laborious even for the strong themselves.
19. The law of the Spirit of life resides, according to the Apostle, in the one who works and speaks in the heart; just as the law of the letter resides in the one who works in the flesh. For the former liberates the mind from the law of sin and death; but the latter, unawares, acts the Pharisee, performing and understanding the law carnally, and working the commandments only to be seen.
20. B The structure of all the commandments, fitted together and harmonized in the Spirit, is called a perfect man, or one becoming imperfect according to progress; and the commandments are as a body; the virtues, as the habits of qualities, are bones; and grace, as a living soul, moving and working as a body to the energies of the commandments. For negligence or zeal towards the maturity of Christ shows [one to be] a child or a perfect man, both now and in the future.
21. He who wishes to grow the body of the commandments must hasten to desire the rational and pure milk of maternal grace; for thence is suckled and nourished everyone who seeks in Christ and desires to be increased in growth. For wisdom, as milk, gives forth heat from her own breasts for growth; but [she gives] honey as food to the perfect, her own joy for purification. "Honey," he says, "and milk are under thy tongue." Solomon signified the nutritive and augmentative power by milk, and the cleansing power of the Spirit by honey. But the great Apostle, hinting at the diversity of these energies, said: "I have fed you with milk as infants, and not with meat" (I Cor. III, 2).
22. He who seeks the words of the commandments without the commandments themselves, and desires to find them through learning or reading, is like one who imagines a shadow instead of the truth; for the words of the truth are shared by those who are partakers of the truth, whereas those who are devoid of and uninitiated in the truth, by seeking the words, find those of a darkened wisdom, which the Apostle called "soulish," not having the Spirit, even if they boast in the truth.
23. D As the sensible eye looks toward the letter, and from the letter receives sensible thoughts, so the mind, when it is purified and returns to its ancient dignity, looks to God, and from Him receives divine thoughts; and instead of a book, it possesses the Spirit, and instead of a pen, the mind and the tongue—"My tongue," he says, "is a pen" (Ps. XLIV, 2)—and instead of ink, the light. Immersing the mind, therefore, in the light, and making it luminous, it writes spiritual words in the pure hearts of those who listen. Then it recognizes what is said: how the faithful are to be
taught by God, and how God teaches man knowledge, according to the prophecy, in the Spirit.
24. Consider the faith that is effectively produced in the heart to be the immediate rule of the commandments; for through it every commandment springs forth and works the illumination of souls, the fruits of which, through true and effective faith, are temperance, charity, and finally, God-given humility, which is the beginning and strength of charity.
25. To perceive the glory of existing things is true knowledge of visible and invisible things: of the visible, that is, of sensible things; and of the invisible, of intelligible, rational, spiritual, and divine things.
26. The definition of orthodoxy is to behold the two dogmas of the faith with purity and to know from it the Trinity, I say, and the Duality: to behold and know the Trinity in Unity, without confusion and indivisibly; and the Duality of the natures of Christ in one Person—that is to say, one Son, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation, to be confessed and glorified in two natures and two wills, divine and human, without confusion. B
27. It is necessary to confess piously the generation, unbegottenness, and procession, the three immovable and unchangeable properties of the all-holy Trinity: namely, the Father, unbegotten and without beginning; the Son, begotten and co-unoriginate; and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father through the Son (as the Damascene says) and given as co-eternal with both. C
28. Faith informed by grace alone suffices for salvation, provided we keep it through the commandments, and do not prefer a dead and unformed faith to that which is living and formed in Christ. Indeed, for the faithful, the form and life of faith working in Christ suffices. For ignorance now teaches the pious that faith placed in word alone is dead and lifeless, and not the faith that is in grace.
29. Since the Trinity is a simple unity, being without quality and composition: for God is three-personed in unity, having an interpenetration into one another that is completely unconfused.
30. God is known and spoken of in everything in a Trinitarian way; for He is infinite, and the preserver and provider of all things, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit; and there is no one who is named or thought of outside of or apart from the others, wherever He may be named. D
31. Just as in man there is mind, and word, and spirit, and neither is mind without word, nor word without spirit, and they are both in one another and by themselves—for the mind speaks through the word, and the word is manifested through the spirit—according to this pattern, man bears a dim image of the ineffable and archetypal Trinity, revealing that he was originally made according to this image.
32. For the mind is the Father, the word is the Son
A and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit; thus the God-bearing Fathers teach, explaining the supersubstantial and supernatural Trinity, and, delivering to us the one God in three hypostases as the true faith and anchor of hope. For to know one God is, according to Scripture, the root of immortality, and to know the power of the tri-hypostatic unity is complete righteousness. Or, furthermore, one must understand the evangelical saying thus: "This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God in three hypostases, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, in two natures and wills."
33. Punishments are various, just as are the rewards of the good; and they are in the underworld, according to the Scripture which says: "In a dark and gloomy land, in a land of eternal darkness, there the sinners dwell before the judgment," and through the sentence they are led into it. For that which is said, "Let sinners be turned into hell," and, "Death shall feed on them," what else are these but the final sentence and eternal damnation?
34. Fire, and darkness, and the worm, and Tartarus represent the general state of pleasure-seeking B and the universal ignorance of darkness, and the excitement of lust in everything, and the trembling, and the foul stench of sin, which as pledges and first-fruits of punishments are already being worked out from now on in the souls of sinners, and are manifested through their habits.
35. The habits of passions are pledges of the punishments, just as the acts of virtues are the pledges of the kingdom of heaven. Yet one must understand and call the commandments "acts," and the virtues "habits," just as wickedness, when it persists, is called a "habit."
36. The returns of the rewards are equal, even if to many they appear unequal; for the divine justice grants eternal life to some and eternal punishment to others; but both, having passed the present life either well or ill, shall receive the returns due to their works; and they will receive the quantity or quality of the participation according to the habit and act of the passions or virtues.
37. The lakes of fire are the pleasure-seeking souls, C in which, just like a stinking mire, the filth of the passions feeds the sleepless worm of incontinence, the insatiable craving of the flesh, and the snakes and frogs and leeches of evil desires—namely, the foul thoughts and the deadly demons; such a state already from now on presents the pledge of the punishment hereafter.
38. Just as the first-fruits of the punishments are hidden in the souls of sinners, so also the pledges of the good things work and are communicated in the hearts of the righteous through the Spirit; for the kingdom of heaven is a virtuous life, just as damnation is the habit of the passions. D
39. Night is coming, according to the word of the Lord, (John XVII, 3)
A future darkness where no one can work; or, by another interpretation, it is the Antichrist, who is and is called darkness; or further, in a moral sense, it is perpetual negligence, which, like a dark night, kills the soul in the sleep of torpor. For just as night puts everyone to sleep and makes them like the dead, so the night of future darkness makes sinners dead and lifeless through the drunkenness of sorrows.
40. The judgment of this world, of which the Gospel speaks, is the unbelief of the impious, according to the saying: "He who does not believe is already judged" (John III, 18); and it is the judicial trial of Providence for discipline or correction; and the inclination of the will toward good or evil, according to the saying: "The wicked are estranged from the womb" (Ps. LVII, 4). For in unbelief, and discipline, and works, the just judgment of God is then revealed—punishing some, showing mercy to others, and rendering garlands or punishments to others. For the first are altogether unbelievers; the second are indeed believers, but negligent, and therefore they are mercifully chastised; the last, according to whether they have inclined toward good or evil, shall receive their reward. B
41. If nature is not guarded or purified, as is its capacity, through the Spirit, it cannot become one body and one spirit with Christ, both now and in the future restoration. For the omnipotent and unifying power of the Spirit is not accustomed to sew the old patching of vices onto a new garment of grace as a supplement. C
42. He who has received the gift of the renewal of the Spirit and preserved it will thus be ineffably possessed of supernatural deification. But one who is not already a partaker of grace—not having in himself the form of truth and knowledge, according to the Apostle—will not be one with Christ nor a member of Christ.
43. The kingdom of heaven is like a tabernacle made by God through Moses, for it is divided into two parts by the veil of the world to come. And into the first part all who are priests of grace shall enter; but into the second, as being spiritual, only those who even now, in the darkness of theology, perfectly sacrifice the threefold power of the soul and offer Jesus, the Prince of priests and the High Priest, to the Trinity, are entering into the tabernacle where He was crucified, and are illuminated by His more radiant splendors. D
44. The Savior spoke of "many mansions" to indicate the different ascents and advancements of the state there; for while the kingdom is one, it has many differences within it, so that there are, as it were, heavenly and earthly ones, according to the virtue and knowledge and the measure of deification they possess. For "there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, and star from star"
differs in clarity, as the Apostle says, even though they all shine in one divine firmament.
45. B He becomes for a little while like the angels, and incorporeal, as an incorruptible one, having cleansed the mind through tears, and having raised up the soul from this point by the Spirit, and having made the flesh, by the Word, a light-like and fiery image of divine beauty—his naturally clay-like statue; for the incorruption of bodies is a deficiency of humors and density.
46. The body of incorruption will be earthly, without humors and density, transformed ineffably from a psychic to a spiritual body, so as to be both earthly and heavenly by the subtleness of deification; for as it was fashioned from the beginning, such will it rise again, so that it may be conformed to the image of the Son of man, according to the complete participation in deification.
47. The kingdom of heaven is the land of the meek, or the God-man habit of the Son, into which we have stepped or are stepping, having received the birth of adoption by grace, and the renewal through the resurrection; or again, the holy land is the deified nature, or perhaps this land itself, purified for those who dwell in it, having been promoted to such a dignity; or in another sense, the land reserved for those who are truly holy is the incomprehensible security and divine peace, in which the generation of the just will be settled, with nothing among created things disturbing or enticing them. C
48. The land of promise is dispassion, through which honey and milk gush forth: the joy of the Spirit.
49. In the age to come, the saints speak among themselves mystically the inner word, uttered in the Holy Spirit.
50. If we do not know what kind of beings God made us, we shall not recognize what kind sin made us.
51. They are equal according to their age in the Spirit, as many as have received the fullness of the perfection of Christ from this point onward.
52. Where there are labors, there are their rewards; but the quantity or quality, that is, what the measure is, the order, and the status, D shows there by participation.
53. Minds, that is, like the angels, he says, shall the sons of the resurrection of Christ be, the saints in incorruption and deification.
54. In the age to come, the angels and the saints, they say, progressing in the addition of gifts, will never stop or give way, having an eager longing for goods; for that age does not have a slackening or a diminution from virtue into vice.
55. Consider a perfect man now to be one who has received the likeness of the growth of Christ as a pledge, but the power of deification shows one to be perfect in the age to come.
A
57. True glory is said to be knowledge, or spiritual contemplation, or an accurate discernment of dogmas, and the recognition of the true faith.
58. Rapture of the mind is the total elevation of the soul’s powers towards the recognized and unified splendour of the supreme Majesty; or again, it is the pure and perfect stretching out towards the infinite light of glory. Ecstasy, however, is not only the snatching up of the faculties of the soul towards heaven, but also a complete ecstasy (standing out) from the senses themselves; and the double ecstatic love inebriates the spirit and exceeds all desire. B
59. Properly speaking, there are two ecstatic loves in the spirit: the cordial and the ecstatic. The one belongs to those who are still being illuminated, the other to those who have been perfected in love. Both, however, draw the soul in which they work away from the senses; for divine love is the inebriation of the spirit, raising natural thoughts to a better state and taking away the habits of the senses.
60. The principle and cause of thoughts is memory; which, being one and simple, was torn asunder by man’s sin, and having lost the remembrance of God, it became complex from being simple, and divided from being one, and was denuded of its proper powers. C
61. The remedy for this original memory—from the evil, soul-destroying memory of thoughts—is the return to its ancient simplicity. For disobedience, the instrument of wickedness, not only corrupted the soul’s simple memory of the good, but also corrupted all its powers, suppressing its natural movements towards virtue. But the memory is healed primarily by the divine memory, firmly established through prayer, which, from being according to nature, is commingled with the spirit into what is above nature.
62. The causes of passions are the actions according to sin; of thoughts, the passions; of imaginings, the thoughts; and of notions, memory; of memory, forgetfulness; and of forgetfulness, ignorance, the mother of sloth. Sloth gives birth to the appetite of desire; the mother of desires is the movement of inclination; of movement, the activity of action; D and action is an irrational longing for evil, and a disposition towards sensible things and the senses.
63. In the rational part are the thoughts; in the irascible, the beastly passions; in the concupiscible, the memory of beastly appetite; in the spirit, the forms of phantasms; in the intellect, ideas arise and work.
64. A river-like stream is the coming of evil thoughts, in which the assault, and the consent to sin that follows it, becomes like an overflowing flood, covering the heart.
65. By the mire of the abyss, understand either the moist pleasure, or the filth of fornication, or the burden of material things, by which the passionate mind, being weighed down, [is overwhelmed in the abyss].
A
66. The Scripture often calls thoughts the “reasons” (λόγους) of things, just as it calls concepts “reasons,” and reasons “concepts” in turn. This happens because the movement of such things is indeed immaterial in itself, but it is informed and transformed by objects; and thus, what stirs through appearance is recognized and named.
67. B Evil thoughts are the words of demons and the precursors of the passions, just as words and thoughts are of actions. For no one can do a good or evil deed without first having had his own thought stirred, since a thought is an unformed movement excited by any objects whatsoever.
68. The matter of things generates simple thoughts, while diabolical suggestion crafts wicked ones. Therefore, natural reasons and thoughts differ from those that are contrary to nature and those that are above nature, when compared to one another.
69. There is a mutual, indivisible interaction: natural ones are turned toward those that are contrary to nature, and those that are according to nature are turned toward those that are above nature. Moreover, they are converted into each other and are engendered; material ones into demoniacal, and those that are from commotion into those that are from matter. Likewise, natural ones give birth to divine ones, and those according to nature to those that are above nature. For everything has a fourfold cause by which its change into what is related to it is promoted and procreated.
70. C Note that the causes of thoughts are set forth; of phantasms, the thoughts; of the passions, the phantasms; and of the demons, the passions; as a certain chain and order in the disorderly spirits, which are cunningly linked, the one hanging from the other. Yet nothing acts in and of itself, but is acted upon by demons; nor is a phantasm formed, nor does a passion act, without the secret, furtive power of the demons. For even though Satan has fallen, crushed, he is nonetheless stronger, exulting in our sloth against us.
71. D Demons form our mind—or rather, they are formed according to us—and they attack us according to the disposition of the passion that is dominant and active in the soul. For the demons possess the disposition of the passion as a cause for the formation of images. Therefore, they show us various and multiform phantasms while we are awake and while we sleep. For the demons of concupiscence transform themselves: sometimes into swine, sometimes into asses, sometimes into horses, ardent and inflamed for mating, and sometimes into Hebrews, [who are] most luxurious. The demons of wrath [transform themselves] sometimes into heathens, sometimes into lions. Those of fear, into Ishmaelites; those of incontinence, into Idumaeans; those of drunkenness and intemperance, into Saracens; those of greed, sometimes into wolves, sometimes into leopards; those of malice, sometimes into serpents,
A sometimes into vipers, and sometimes into foxes; those of shamelessness, into dogs; those of listlessness, into cats. Sometimes, even those of fornication are transformed by the aerial demons—who are especially prone to such changes—sometimes into serpents, sometimes into crows and rooks, and sometimes into birds. Imagination possesses the cause of this in a threefold manner, altering the forms of the spirits according to the tripartite nature of the soul, so that the imagination itself becomes threefold—taking the form of birds, wild beasts, and cattle—corresponding to the concupiscible, irascible, and rational powers of the soul. For the three leaders of the passions always arm themselves against these three powers, and toward whichever passion the soul inclines, they shape themselves to us and approach us in accordance with that affinity. B
72. The demons of pleasure often invade us like fire and coals; for the spirits of luxury inflame the concupiscible power and, disturbing the discursive power, darken the soul; for pleasure, being the cause of burning, turmoil, and darkness, is properly the source of the passions.
73. The night of the passions is the darkness of ignorance; night is also the dominant state in which passions are born, in which the prince of darkness reigns, and in which the wild beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the reptiles of the earth—the spirits figuratively so called—roar, seeking to snatch us as their prey.
74. At times, thoughts precede the operation of the passions, and at times they follow. Thoughts indeed C precede phantasies, but passions follow the phantasies; and as for the demons, the passions precede them, but the demons follow the passions.
75. The beginning and cause of the passions is misuse; of misuse, [the cause is] turning; of turning, the inclination of the volitional state; the test of the will is temptation; and the authors of temptation are the demons, permitted by Providence to demonstrate what our free will truly is.
76. The venom of the sting of sin towards death is the passionate habit of the soul; for he who willingly becomes imbued with the passions possesses a state of mind that is fixed and unchangeable.
77. Passions are described in many ways, and they are divided into bodily and soul-related. Bodily [passions] are subdivided into painful and sinful; the painful are again distinguished into those that cause sickness and those that are D penal. Soul-related [passions], in turn, are divided into the irascible, the concupiscible, and the rational; the rational are subdivided into those of phantasy and those of the discursive intellect. Of these, some are voluntary, arising from misuse, while others are necessary and involuntary, such as the passions called blameless, which the Fathers have termed concomitants and natural properties.
78. The bodily passions are one thing, and the soul-related another; those of the concupiscible power are different, and those of the irascible are different; those of the rational are different, and those of the intellect and discursive reason are different. Yet they commune with one another, and some work together with others: the bodily [passions] towards the...
A passions of the irascible [part], of the rational and intellect, and those of the intellect and thought and memory.
79. The passions of the irascible power are anger, bitterness, shouting, irascibility, audacity, arrogance, vainglory, and whatever else [there may be]. Of the concupiscible, [they are] covetousness, licentiousness, incontinence, insatiability, desire for pleasure, love of money, and self-love, which is the most grievous of all. The passions of the flesh are fornication, adultery, uncleanness, debauchery, injustice, gluttony, listlessness, frivolity, worldliness, love of life, and whatever else [there may be]. Those of the rational part are unbelief, blasphemy, malice, craftiness, curiosity, double-mindedness, railings, backbiting, condemnation, contempt, buffoonery, hypocrisy, lying, foul language, foolish talk, guile, irony, flattery, man-pleasing, distraction, perjury, idle chatter, and the rest. Those of the intellect are conceit, elation, boastfulness, strife, jealousy, self-satisfaction, gainsaying, disobedience, fantasy, fabrications, vying for display, ambition, pride—which is the first and last of all evils. The passions of the discursive reason are these: wanderings, distractions, captivities, darkening, blindness, B enticements, suggestions, consents, leanings, turnings, tossings, and the like. To state it, then, as a summary definition: all evils contrary to nature have been commingled with the three powers of the soul, just as all things good by nature also coexist within them.
80. O the greatness of the utterance of David to God, spoken with amazement! For he was struck with wonder, saying, "Your knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot attain to it," for it is stronger and inaccessible, superior to my weak knowledge and power. For how is it that this flesh, incomprehensible in the composition of its formation, having in each species a threefold harmony of its own limbs and members, and being honored by the septenary and binary number—which, according to the arithmeticians, signifies time and nature—is itself, to the glory of God, an instrument indicating the august Trinity, physiologically understood according to the effective laws of nature? C
81. Laws of nature are the particular compositions of the participating limbs, which discourse also calls differences, because they are the various parts of their proper attributes. Or again, the law of nature is the operation of each species or limb in potentiality. For just as God moves the entire creation, so the soul moves the limbs of the body and leads each one to its proper operation. One must inquire, then, by what logic the God-bearing men sometimes assert that the irascible and the concupiscible are of the flesh, and at other times that they are powers of the soul. We say that there is no inconsistency in the words of the saints for those who understand them accurately; rather, both are true, and they change the terminology very wisely according to the context, because the body and soul are ineffably fitted for mutual conjunction, so that the soul is already perfect from that starting point, whereas the body is D imperfect, being such as grows through nutrition. For the soul, by itself, possesses
an appetitive power of desire and A a concupiscible force for courage and love, having been created rational and intellectual from its formation. For irrational anger and mindless desire were not created together with it, just as they were not initially in the body; but the created being was incorruptible and without the humors from which desire and the beast-like anger subsequently followed. For when, through disobedience, man became subject to the corruption and density of irrational animals, of necessity anger and desire also sprouted up within him. This is why it also resists the will of the soul regarding anger and desire whenever it dominates. But when mortality is subordinated to the rational, it follows the soul toward the operation of good things. For when the accretions of the flesh were mingled and became confused with the attributes of the soul, then man became like the beasts, having bowed to the law of sin through the necessity of his nature, and having become a brute from a rational being, and a wild beast from a man.
82. B Just as God did not create beast-like anger and desire within the soul—which was created rational through the "breath of life" and intellectual through the life-giving inspiration—but rather a longing appetitive power and, along with it, a courageous power for loving attraction, so too did He not place irrational anger and desire into the body when He fashioned it in the beginning. For it was later, through disobedience, that it took on what is mortal, corruptible, and beast-like, having been changed into the things to which it was assimilated. For the body, the theologians say, was created incorruptible, such as it will also rise again, even though it is capable of receiving corruption, just as the soul is impassible. But since the soul and body are coordinated with each other and interact through a most natural law, both were corrupted and confused: the former having been dyed by the passions, or rather by the demons; C and the latter having been made like irrational beasts through the energy of its condition and the mastery of corruption. And when the powers of both became one, they produced one irrational and mindless beast, shaped by anger and desire; and thus, according to Scripture, man was compared to the beasts and became like them in every way.
83. The beginning and origin of the virtues is a good intention, or rather the longing for the good; just as God is the cause and source of every good thing. The beginning of the good is faith, or rather Christ, the rock of faith, whom we have as the beginning and foundation of all the virtues, upon whom we have stepped and in whom we build every good. He is the cornerstone connecting us to Himself, and the precious pearl; seeking this, the monk who enters into the depths of stillness sells all his own wills and subjects them to the commands, that from them he might acquire it. D
84. The virtues possess equality with one another, and all are gathered into one, and they fulfill one limit and one form of virtue. For there are virtues, and there are virtues that are greater than others, as they are comprehensive and contain the many, or even all of them; such as divine love, and humility, and divine patience. For the Lord says concerning it: "In your patience possess ye your souls" (Luc. XXI, 19); and He did not say: "In
your fasting, or in your vigils." But I am speaking of that patience which is according to God, the queen of virtues, the foundation of noble deeds. For this is it, this is peace in wars, serenity in storm, an unshaken seat for those who possess it; and if anyone has attained it in Christ Jesus, neither weapons and darts, nor the assault of soldiers, nor the very battle line of demons, nor the dark companies of enemies will be able to harm him.
85. Although virtues may generate one another, they have their origin from the three faculties of the soul, apart from the theological [virtues]. For B the cause and beginning of the four general virtues, among those that are natural and divine, from which and in which the rest consist—namely, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice—is the divine, Spirit-moved wisdom of the theologians, which is moved in four ways according to the mind. It does not produce them all at once, but each one separately at its proper time, as it wills: one as light; another as a sharp and unceasingly moving impulse [of power]; another as a sanctifying and purifying power; and another as a dew of purity, gladdening and cooling the burning of the passions. As it has been said, it grants to each person, as he is perfect, a perfection and its operation according to the change of state.
86. The practice of virtues out of one's own zeal does not bestow a perfect soundness of soul unless these come substantially into the state [of the soul] through grace. For C each has its own proper charisma and operation according to itself, so that it may be able, even when [men] are unwilling, to draw those who share in it toward itself by the state and nature of the good. And when it is given to us, it is kept firm and immutable from that time forward. For they possess the grace of the Spirit as a living soul, as it were, in their own members, for the purpose of actuating them. Therefore, the whole band of virtues is naturally dead without it; and in those who seem to have and possess them, they are nothing but mere shadows and images of the good, and not the truth itself which it portrays.
87. There are, then, four general virtues: fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice; and there are eight that follow closely D upon them by way of excess and defect, which are called and reckoned as evils by us, but as goods by those in the world. And to fortitude there follow audacity and timidity; to prudence, craftiness and ignorance; to temperance, profligacy and stupidity; to justice, greed and injustice, or deficiency. For virtues are mean, not only the general and natural ones, which are above every defect and excess, but also the practical ones. And some have the will as a cooperator for their purpose through the rectitude of the mind, while others have [only] inclination and pride. That virtues stand in the mean of rectitude is testified by the Proverb saying: "And thou shalt direct all [thy] good paths" (Prov. IV, 26). All are therefore established in the three faculties of the soul, in which they are generated and constructed, having as the foundation of their construction the four general
qualities of the soul, or rather Christ, so that the natural ones are purified by the practical virtues, while the divine and supernatural ones are infused by the kindness of the Spirit.
88 88. Some of the virtues are practical, others are moral, and others are theological and infused by the Spirit. The practical ones proceed from the will; the moral ones, from constitution; the theological ones, from grace.
89 89. Just as our soul possesses the generation of the virtues, in the same way it possesses that of the passions; but it is accustomed to bring forth some according to nature, and others contrary to nature. For the soul possesses the inclination of the will as the cause and origin for the generation of good or evil, just as a needle is to the lines on a dial, or the tongue of a balance; B wherever it turns, it takes this as its fellow-worker and acts. For the purpose (*prothesis*) is the subject for both kinds of operations, since it carries both the one and the other within itself: the former in their generation, and the latter by the self-willed inclination of the will.
90. Scripture calls the virtues "virgins" because of the consolidating union they form with the soul, and because they are contemplated as one spirit and one flesh with it. For the beauty of a maiden is a symbol of love, and the appearance of these holy virgins is a proof of chastity and purification. For it is the habit of grace to transform divine things into that for which they were made, and it is naturally disposed to conform them, indeed, to their kindred state, insofar as it is possible, in those who are able to receive them.
C 91. There are, then, as it were, eight leaders of the passions: three are the great ones—gluttony, greed, and vainglory—and five are their followers: fornication, anger, sorrow, listlessness (*acedia*), and pride. Thus, there are also the three virtues that encompass the opposites of these: poverty, temperance, and humility; and with them are those that follow these: chastity, meekness, joy, self-contempt, and the whole series of virtues. But to learn and to know the power, strength, and fragrance of each virtue or vice is not for anyone who wishes, but for him who acts and suffers in word and deed, and who has received from the Spirit the gifts of knowledge and discernment.
92. Some virtues act, while others are acted upon. And these act within us, standing by when it is fitting, and when, as much as, and in the manner that they will; whereas we act according to our own prompting and our own moral habit. Furthermore, those are substantial, while we are, as it were, marked by a moral character; inasmuch as the fashioning of all our works compared with those archetypes is merely a figure, because spiritual things are substantially communicated to very few before the incorruptible possession of the future life. For we now perform and receive labors and images, not properly the virtues.
93. According to Paul [Rom. XV, 16], he who participates in the Gospel performs priestly service and is able to communicate to others, by his operation, the light
of Christ. For he casts the Word as a kind of divine seed into the fields of the souls of those who hear. “Let your speech,” it is said [Col. IV, 6], “be seasoned with the grace of divine goodness, that it may give grace to those who hear in faith.” By calling the teachers and those being taught at other times farmers and the farmland, the Apostle clearly shows that some are as it were the tillers and sowers of the divine word, while others are as it were a prosperous, fruitful, and heavy-eared field. For true and proper priestly service is not only the operation of divine things, but also the participation and communication of good things.
94. B The word that comes forth through utterance for the purpose of teaching is varied, and is gathered in diverse ways from many modes, from four kinds: one from learning, another from reading, another from practice, and another from grace. And just as water is one in its nature, but is transformed and altered according to the diverse character of the soil beneath it into a particular quality, so that it is estimated by taste—this one bitter, that one sweet, another salty and acidic—so the word, coming forth and being altered according to the moral disposition of each person, is known by its operation and brings forth benefit.
95. Since the word is given for the enjoyment of every rational nature, just as many different kinds of food, the soul perceives and senses their pleasure in diverse ways. For it has the word of knowledge as a tutor forming it in character; the word of reading as water of rest nourishing it; the word of practice as a meadow of thick grass; the word of grace as a cup inebriating and gladdening it; and its ineffable rejoicing as oil, making the face cheerful and bright.
96. C Truly the soul possesses these not only in itself as life, but it also senses them when it hears them from others who teach, whenever love and faith in both take the lead; and one hears in faith, while the other teaches in love, speaking of the virtues without vanity or vainglory. For it receives the word from learning as a tutor; the word from reading as food; the word from practice as something innate, like a most pleasant groomsman; and the word of the Spirit, the illuminator, as the bridegroom, the word that unites it to Him, the one that gladdens it. For every word proceeding through the mouth is of God D—the words that have come forth through the Spirit from the mouths of the saints, the most sweet-tasting inspiration of the Spirit through operation, which not all enjoy, but only the worthy. And since rational beings have the word as food, here those who are clearly gladdened by the things of the Spirit are very few; the many know and participate in only the types of spiritual words through memory, not having yet participated in the bread of the divine word of the future in sensation. For it alone is set forth there for the sufficient pleasure of all those who are worthy, neither being eaten, nor spent, nor ever consumed.
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97. It is impossible to taste divine delights without spiritual perception. A For just as he who has dulled his senses has rendered them incapable of feeling, so that he neither sees, nor hears, nor smells, being inert or rather half-dead; so too he who has deadened the natural powers of the soul through the passions has made them devoid of perception and incapable of the activity and participation in the mysteries of the Spirit. For he who does not see, hear, and perceive spiritually is dead, because Christ does not live in him, nor does He Himself move and act within him.
98. B Some have the same mode of operation for the senses and the powers of the soul, especially when they are in a healthy state. For by them these both live and act, and the vital Spirit is mingled with both. For a man is truly sick when he incurs the general weakness of the passions, lying forever in the infirmary of sloth. The senses clearly perceive sensible things, while the powers of the soul perceive spiritual things, especially when there is no satanic impulse within them resisting the law of the mind and spirit. But when they are united into one through the Spirit and become of one mind, then they immediately and substantially know the nature of divine and human things, perceive their reasons thoroughly, and contemplate as purely as possible the one cause of all things, the Trinity.
99. C First of all, the hesychast must have as a foundation upon which to build the edifice of his work these five virtues: silence, temperance, vigil, humility, and perseverance. The works by which he honors God are three: psalmody, prayer, and reading, and in addition manual labor, if he is infirm. For the aforementioned virtues not only contain all others but also support one another. From daybreak he should meditate on God with prayer and the recollection of the heart; he must pray continuously at the first hour; at the second, read; at the third, sing psalms; at the fourth, pray; at the fifth, read; at the sixth, sing psalms; at the seventh, pray; at the eighth, read; at the ninth, sing psalms; at the tenth, eat; at the eleventh, sleep, if there be need; at the twelfth, sing the evening office. And thus, having traversed the course of the day well, he is pleasing to God. D It behooves one to gather the most useful things, and thus, by taking a little from all, to make a great accumulation of good works, from which the honey of wisdom is distilled for the exultation of souls.
101. Learn also, if you wish, how to pass the duration of the night. There are three ways of watching at night: for beginners, for the intermediate, and for the perfect. The first way is this: to sleep half the night and watch half, whether from evening until midnight, or from midnight until daybreak. The second way is this: to keep vigil from evening for one or two hours, then to sleep for four hours; then to rise for the struggle, singing psalms and praying for six hours until daybreak; then to sing the first hour of the day
A and to sit in silence, as was said before; and either to regulate ones’s actions by the hours, or to keep the sequence of prayer without ceasing, by which the one who regulates his life is formed. The third rule of life is to spend the whole night without sleep and in a state of watchfulness.
102. Concerning sustenance, we affirm that one pound of bread is sufficient for everyone who strives toward stillness; let him drink two cups of pure wine and three of water. Let him be fed with whatever food is available, not using what nature greedily desires, but what Providence offers. For those, therefore, who wish to live perfectly, the direct and short way is to keep three works by which the virtues are maintained: namely, abstinence, prayer, and watchfulness, which establish everything on a most firm foundation.
103. B Stillness before all things requires faith and endurance, and [love] from the whole heart, and strength, and power, and hope. For he who believes, even if perchance he now misses the mark through negligence or some other cause, it is impossible for him not to bear at the end of life abundant fruit of faith and struggle, and to see his freedom, which is Jesus Christ, the liberator and savior of souls, the God-man Word. But he who does not believe will certainly be condemned at his departure; and he is already judged, says the Lord. For the one who serves pleasures and seeks glory from men, and not that which is from God, is an unbeliever, he says; and even if such a one seems to be a believer in word, he has deceived himself unawares. For he will hear: "Because you did not receive me in your heart, but cast me behind your back, I also will thrust you away." The faithful man must therefore have good hope, and believe the truth of God, which all the Scriptures testify, yet confess his own infirmity, lest he incur a double and inexorable judgment.
104. C For a contrite heart and a humbled soul nothing is as conducive as a life that is interiorly mystical and utterly silent. Nor is there anything else that properly so disturbs the state of stillness and takes from it the divine power, as these six capital vices: excessive liberty, servitude to the belly, talkativeness, busyness, vanity, and the queen of passions, pride. He who has become accustomed to studying these, and has progressed more and more in them, becomes utterly blind and devoid of sense. Yet if he raises himself up again, beginning the work with faith and diligence, he will reach the goal again, especially if he seeks it with humility. D If, however, one of the aforementioned passions reigns in him through negligence, then the whole series of evils, rushing in with deadly unbelief, makes the soul desolate, which, like another city of Babylon, is surrendered to the turmoils and tumults of demons, so that its last state becomes worse than the first, and a hostile and angry enemy becomes a witness against those who live in stillness, and ever sharpens their tongue against them like a sword, and like a two-edged blade.
A Mired and turbulent waves of the passions, like the sea, flooding the soul, can be crossed in no other way than in the light and swift vessel of universal poverty and temperance. For the torrents of the passions, flowing out from intemperance and greed onto the land of the heart, and bringing with them all the rottenness and filth of evil thoughts, perturb the mind, defile the intellect, and weigh down the body; and to such an extent do they drive the soul and heart into negligence, darkness, and torpor that they no longer possess themselves according to nature, nor do they feel.
106. Nothing renders the soul of those who struggle so slothful, listless, and senseless as self-love, which is truly the tinder of the passions. For when one prefers the body’s rest to the labors of virtue, and considers it a salutary knowledge not to labor or to work willingly, especially in the easy and light works of the commandments, this is wont to render the soul listless for traversing the stadium of stillness, and produces a great and unconquerable sloth in one’s works.
107. The excellent and primary medicine for those who are sick—to easily vomit up the muddy darkness they have imbibed from the way of the commandments—is to obey in all things indiscriminately and with faith. For it is a life-giving potion that germinates many virtues in those who drink it, and a scalpel that cleanses the scars of B wounds with a single stroke; if anyone knows how to use it in faith and simplicity, he cuts off all the passions at once, and not only attains stillness, but has already attained it through obedience, because he has found Christ, and becomes, and is called, His imitator and servant.
108. One living without the work of mourning cannot endure the heat of stillness. For he who mourns and meditates upon the terrible preludes and consequences of death before they themselves arrive, will possess constancy and humility, which are the two foundations of stillness. But he who lives a quiet life without these, ever nourishes pride along with negligence, from which temptations and distractions pullulate and drive us to torpor. Hence, the daughter of sloth, intemperance, renders the body listless and weak, and darkens and hardens the mind. Then Jesus hides Himself, because the place of the mind is fouled with turbulent thoughts.
109. To feel the torment C of conscience, whether of the present or of the future, is impossible for all. For it uniquely befalls only those to whom glory or love is lacking, or is about to be lacking. For it is as a dire enemy punishing the guilty in many ways, and it appears as a tyrant, ever drawing a goad and reproach as an unbreakable sword. Therefore, when our conscience pricks us, we are bound to move in a threefold way—against our adversaries, our nature, and our soul—that which is called zeal, and by others is called natural anger; they command us to whet this against our enemies like a sharp sword. And if it conquers, and dualism D
subjects it to unity, the soul then, having attained the pinnacle of fortitude, ascends to God. If, however, the soul is subjected to duality—that is to say, to sin and to the flesh—thence follows for it a cruel torment, so that it is reduced to full subjection to its enemies. Whence, committing most base acts and losing the condition acquired through virtues, it falls away, separated from God.
B 110. Before all other passions, there are two most harsh and profound ones, namely luxury and acedia, which wrap and dissolve the miserable soul; they have such a connection and necessity between them that they can in no way be fought, overcome, or vanquished by us. The former indeed abounds in the concupiscible power, and embraces the whole substance of both natures, I mean of soul and flesh, having its pleasure mixed thoroughly into all the members; the latter, however, mastering the higher rational part, and encircling the whole soul and flesh like ivy, makes the nature sluggish, lazy, and dissolute. But they are removed, although not entirely overcome before blessed impassibility, whenever the soul, having received the power of the Holy Spirit in prayer, finds joy in the relaxation, strength, and deep peace it brings to the heart through stillness. This is the leader, and queen, and mistress, and mother of pleasures—that luxury—and its companion, laziness, is the impregnable chariot conveying the commanders of Pharaoh; for through them the impulses of the passions rush upon our most miserable life.
C 111. The beginning of mental prayer is the energy, or rather the purgative power of the Spirit, and the mystical priestly service of the intellect: just as the beginning of stillness is the recollection of the mind. Its middle, however, is the illuminative power and contemplation; and its end is the ecstasy and rapture of the mind toward God.
112. The mental sanctuary is, before the future enjoyment that is beyond the intellect, the intellectual energy of the mind, mystically sacrificing and participating in the mystical Lamb in the Spirit of God upon the altar of the soul. But to eat the Lamb of God in the mental altar of the soul is not merely to understand or participate in Him, but also to become like the Lamb in form in the future age. For here indeed we hope to grasp the reasons of the mysteries, but there the realities themselves.
D 113. Prayer is, to beginners, as a fire of joy springing up from the heart; but to the perfect, as a light diffusing a fragrant odor. Or again, prayer is the Apostles’ preaching, the energy of faith, or rather, faith unmediated; the substance of things hoped for, formed charity, angelic movement, the power of incorporeal beings, their work and joy, the Gospel of God, the confidence of the heart, the hope of salvation, the sign of purity, the symbol of holiness, the knowledge of God, the baptismal character, the cleansing laver; the pledge of the Holy Spirit, the exultation of Christ, the joy of the soul, the mercy of God, the sign of reconciliation, the seal of Christ, the ray of the spiritual sun,
B the daystar of hearts, the confirmation of Christianity, the manifestation of God's reconciliation; the grace of God, the wisdom of God, or rather the beginning of wisdom itself; the revelation of God, the work of monks, the rule of life for those who live in stillness, the occasion of stillness, the proof of an angelic manner of life. And what need is there to say many things? Prayer is God himself, who works all things in all, because the operation of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one, who works all things in Christ Jesus.
114. If Moses had not received the rod of power from God, he would not have become as God to Pharaoh, so as to strike him and Egypt. In the same way, the mind, if it does not partake of the power of prayer in its hand, is unable to crush sin and the opposing powers.
115. Those who say or do anything without humility are like those building in winter or without mortar. But to find and know this through experience and knowledge is something for very few. For those who discourse about it in words are like those measuring the abyss. We, however, like blind men, imagining a small thing about this great light, say: True humility neither utters humble words, nor assumes a humble manner, nor forces itself to think humbly, nor disparages itself while being humbled. Even though these are occasions and forms of humility, as various patterns of it, yet it is a grace and a gift from above. C There are two kinds of humility, as the Fathers say: to hold oneself beneath everyone, and to ascribe one's successes to God. The former is the beginning, the latter the perfection of humility. He who seeks to know and consider this must have these three things within himself: to be more of a sinner than all men; more shameful than all creatures, in so far as he is against nature; and more miserable than the demons, in that he is a slave to the demons. Thus, therefore, he ought to speak: "For how do I know accurately what and how great are the sins of men? Are they greater than, or equal to, my own sins?" And because of this ignorance, O soul, we are beneath all men, as dust and ashes, and the footstool of their feet. And how should I not hold myself more shameful than all creatures that are according to nature, as they were created, while I, because of my countless iniquities, am against nature? Truly, the wild beasts and the cattle are purer than me, the sinner; and for this reason I am beneath all, as one who has descended into hell even before death, and I lie there. Who does not know and feel in his consciousness that the sinner is worse than the demons, D as he is their servant and chattel, and even now, together with them, is shut up in the darkness? Truly you are worse than the demons, you who serve them, and for this reason have been allotted the abyss with them, O most miserable one! Inhabiting earth, and hell, and the abyss even before death, how do you lie to yourself by calling yourself righteous, having made yourself a sinner, and profane, and a demon through your evil works? Alas for your deception and delusion, O enemy of God, unclean dog, for whom, for these reasons, fire and darkness await!
116. Wisdom is moved by the Spirit, according to those who [behold]
A the theologian, the mental and pure and angelic power of prayer, the sign of which is that, in praying, the mind is seen to be entirely without form, seeing neither itself nor anything else in its swiftness, but having its senses often drawn away by that light. For the mind then becomes immaterial and light-like, ineffably cleaving to God in the unity of the spirit.
117. There are, therefore, seven different ways that prompt and lead to that God-given humility, which contribute to and generate one another: silence, humble sense, humble speech, humble habit, self-reproach, contrition, and the state of being the last of all. Silence, indeed, mystically gives birth to humble sense. And from humble sense arise the three ways of humility: speaking humbly, wearing humble and cheap clothing, and always reproaching oneself. These three ways beget contrition, which comes from the abandonment in temptations, B which they also call providential instruction, and humility from the demons. Contrition, however, easily causes the soul to be and to consider itself beneath all, and the last of all, as though being mastered by all. These two ways bring about the perfect and God-given humility, which they call the power and perfection of all virtues; and this [humility] ascribes all virtuous deeds to God. The first of all, therefore, is silence, from which humble sense is born; this then gives birth to the three ways of humility. The three ways beget the one way of contrition; and that of contrition gives birth to the seventh way, being the lowest of all, the first [kind] of humility, which they also call providential humility. This providential [humility] brings forth the God-given, C perfect, imageless, and true humility. And indeed, the first comes about in this way: if a man is not abandoned and defeated, becoming enslaved and mastered by every passion and thought, and being overcome by the spirit, and finding no help from works, or from God, or from anyone at all, so that he is near to needing [help], and falls into despair, and, being humbled in all things, he cannot be contrite and hold himself beneath all, and as the last and servant of all, and even worse than the demons themselves, as being tyrannized and defeated by them. And this is the providential humility of Providence, through which the second and lofty [humility] is given by God; which is the divine power that works and does all things. Through it, the person sees himself as an instrument of God D always, and through it, the wonders of God are worked.
118. A substantial contemplation of light, spiritual, a mind free from fantasy and [free from] distraction, the true operation of prayer, and that which gushes forth from the midst of the heart, the soul's resurrection and elevation, a divine ecstasy and a soaring of this whole [being], an ecstasy of the intellect in the spirit, total [abstraction] of the senses, a rapture of the mind from its own faculties, an angelic movement of the soul divinely awakened, moving toward the infinite and the upward, is impossible to find in our generation, because the tyranny of the passions reigns in us now, on account of the multitude of temptations. For the mind is naturally inclined especially toward those things that are lighter, such that it imagines them before the time, so that
by losing the small state A given to it by God, it may end up dead in relation to everything. Therefore, it is necessary with much discernment neither to seek the things of the time before the time, nor to cast aside those things in hand and imagine other things; for the mind is naturally inclined to easily represent the aforementioned things and to refashion them and to reach out for what it has not attained. Hence there is no small fear that such a person might also be deprived of what has been given, and often lose his sanity, having become deceived, a dreamer, and not a hesychast.
119. Faith is not only grace, but also prayer in action; for it shows true faith to be that which possesses the life of Jesus made manifest, the one working through love in the Spirit; therefore, he who knows not that it is active in him possesses a faith B that is the opposite, dead, and lifeless. For one could not truly be called faithful who believes only in bare words and does not have it active through the commandments or the Spirit. It is necessary, therefore, to show it manifest through progress in works, or to have it active in works, shining and luminous, as the divine Apostle says: "Show me your faith from your works, and I will show you my works from my faith," demonstrating from this that the faith of grace is made manifest from the works of the commandments, just as the works of the commandments are performed and shine through the faith of grace. For faith is the root of the commandments, or rather the source by which they are watered and grow. And it is divided into two, namely, confession and grace, although it is by nature indivisible.
120. The great and small and short ladder of those who are in subjection possesses five steps leading toward perfection. C The first is renunciation, the second is subjection, the third is obedience, the fourth is humility, the fifth is love, which is God. And renunciation, indeed, raises from Hades him who is lying there, and liberates the one enslaved to matter. Subjection finds Christ and serves Him, as He Himself says: "If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there also will My minister be." But where is Christ? Sitting at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, must not the minister also be there, where the One served is, placing his foot toward the ascent and, before ascending in manner, ascending and progressing with Christ? And obedience, being active in the commandments throughout, fashions the ladder from various virtues and arranges these in the soul like ascents; from which D the height-creating humility, having taken him up and carrying him aloft toward heaven, delivers him to love, the queen of virtues; and having brought him, presents him to Christ. And thus, through the short ladder, he who is truly obedient ascends easily toward heaven.
121. There is no path more direct to the kingdom above, through the small ladder of virtues, than the removal of the five passions opposed to obedience: I mean disobedience, and gainsaying, and self-complacency, and self-will, and the deadly conceit; for these are
limbs and parts of the rebellious demon, who devours the A children of his servants, and reserves them for the Tartarean dragon. Disobedience is the mouth of hell; gainsaying is its tongue, like a sharpened sword; self-complacency is its teeth, sharpened; self-will is its chest; and the breath of its belly is the pride that hauls down to hell. But whoever conquers the former by obedience has cut away the rest in one stroke, and ascends swiftly to the heavens by a single step. It is truly a wonder, and indeed unspeakable and unattainable, that our philanthropic Lord has accomplished this: that by one virtue, or rather by one commandment, one should ascend to the heavens in an instant, just as it was by one act of disobedience that we went down—and still go down—to hell.
122. Just as man is called another, twofold world, and a new one, according to the divine Apostle who said: "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation," B for man truly becomes and is named both heaven and earth, and everything that constitutes the world, in accordance with virtue—and he is the object of every word and every mystery, as the Theologian says. Since, as the Apostle has said, "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places of the prince of the air," it is appropriate that, just as in another great world of the nature of our soul's faculties, our adversaries should fight against us in secret. For three princes C marshal themselves against those who are struggling, and they fight against the three powers of the soul; and wherever there is progress, wherever there is labor, there they join battle. And indeed the dragon, the prince of the abyss, rises up to fight against those who are attentive with their heart, inasmuch as he has power over the lust of the loins and the navel; and through the voluptuous giant of forgetfulness, hurling the burning powers of his fiery darts against them, he enters into the lust like another sea, and like an abyss, and he creeps in, disturbs, and makes it foamy and hot, and D inflames it unto carnal couplings, and floods it with the torrents of pleasures, and, as though he were insatiable, he never fills it. But the prince of this world attacks those who are pursuing the active virtue, since he has the struggle against the irascible part, and through the giant of sloth, as if in another world—or rather a theater and a stadium—he makes the struggle intellectual, whether conquering or being conquered by those who always struggle manfully against him, and procuring for them crowns or shame in the sight of the angels, he continuously arms his battle lines against us, fighting us. But the prince of the air attacks those who are at leisure for contemplation in their mind, acting through fantasies, as he approaches the rational and intellectual part, together with the spirits of the wickedness of the air; and through the giant of ignorance, he disturbs/defiles the upward-striving
A intellect, clouding it like another rational heaven, and bringing in phantom-like and misty formations of the spirits, along with deceitful transformations; for, as if bringing lightning, thunder, storms, and noises, he induces cowardice. It is clear that each one, by struggling against the tripartite nature of the soul, resists and has gained the battle against that which he is warring against.
125. For since they too were once intellects, and having fallen from that immaturity and subtlety, each one possesses a certain material thickness, being embodied according to the order or operation for which he was made to move. For because they too, like man, have been stripped of the angelic riches and deprived of divine pleasure, they suffer earthly pleasure just as we do, having become in a certain way material by the habits of material passions. Nor is it a wonder, since our own soul, created rational and intellectual in the image of God, has become beastly and senseless, and almost bereft of intellect in the enjoyments of material things, having forgotten God. For habit is accustomed to change nature and to convert action toward a settled choice. B And some of the spirits are indeed material, heavy, and burdensome, irascible and vindictive; like wild beasts, they are carnivorous, panting after lust and pleasure, like dogs after blood, showing their love for this by devouring corruption along with spiritual things, having material and thick flesh, pleasure, and a dwelling. Others, however, are lascivious and slippery, like leeches, frogs, and reptiles in a marsh in their lust; and sometimes changing into fish, they slither, as it were tasting the bitter pleasure of incontinence, swimming in the sea of drunkenness; being light and soft by nature and rejoicing in the slipperiness of beastly C pleasures, they stir up in the soul waves of foul thoughts, whirlwinds, and tempests. Others again are light and thin; being aerial spirits, they stir up the contemplative power of the soul, casting in images like violent winds; and sometimes transforming themselves into birds and angels, they deceive the soul, presenting themselves to the imagination as if they were gnostics, and changing and transforming every spiritual contemplation in those who are still struggling much, before purity and spiritual discernment. For there is nothing spiritual whose image they do not simulate in the imagination; for they equip themselves according to the state and measure of progress, introducing delusion instead of truth and imagination D instead of contemplation. The Scripture speaks of these, signifying and indicating the spirits of wickedness through "the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, and the reptiles of the earth."
124. The revolt of the passions and the war raised by the flesh against the soul occurs in us in five ways. For sometimes the flesh abuses [things] for its own purposes; sometimes it wishes to act against nature as if it were according to nature; and sometimes it is armed by the demons against the soul, as if joyfully forming a friendship with them. There are times when it also becomes disorderly on its own, as it has become hardened by the passions. A war also occurs at the very last, from the demons who attack us through the abuse of humility, when they have accomplished nothing by all the aforementioned means.
A 125. The primary causes of the war are three, which come upon us from all things and through all things: habit, the abuse of created things, and the envy and war of the demons which occurs by divine permission. In the rebellion and desire of the flesh against the soul, and of the soul against the flesh, the passions of the flesh against the soul and the virtues of the soul against the flesh behave and operate in the same way. The enemy himself also sometimes fights against us rashly and without cause, as he is shameless, emboldened against us. Do not, therefore, O friend, give your arteries to the leech to suck, since it loves blood and can never vomit it up. Nor give earth as food to the serpent and the dragon, and you will easily trample upon the swelling of the lion and the dragon, until, having cast off your groaning, you put on the dwelling from above and the form of Him who created you in His image, Jesus Christ.
B 126. Those who are truly fleshly in character, and who cling to self-love, are always slaves to pleasure and vainglory; in them envy has taken root. Pining away with jealousy and finding bitterness in the prosperity of their neighbor, they slander good things as if they were evil, and are children of error: they neither embrace nor believe in the things of the Spirit, and because of their little faith, they can neither see nor know God. Such people, because of their blindness and little faith, will justly hear from Him on the day of judgment: "I do not know you." C For the faithful lover of truth ought either to believe what he hears but does not know, or to learn what he believes, or to teach what he has come to know, and to multiply the talent abundantly for those who accept it faithfully. But if he refuses to believe what he does not know, and scorns what he has not learned, and teaches what he has not studied, while envying those who practically teach these things, his portion will certainly be with those who possess the gall of bitterness, being condemned.
D 127. An orator—according to those who are truly wise in discourse—is one who, in summary, encompasses existing things through general knowledge, and, as if it were a single body, both divides and joins them, showing them to have the same power according to both difference and identity; or he is who speaks the truth persuasively. Or, again, a true spiritual orator is he who divides and joins the five general properties of existing things which the Word made flesh assumed, in the encompassing discourse of a single voice—as a mother holding the whole; he does not show these things to others by mere demonstrative speech, as those who are outside [the mystery] do, but is able to illuminate others from those things which he has learned spiritually in his ears or eyes. A true philosopher is one who knows the cause of existing things from the things themselves, or knows the things from the Cause, having attained to an incomprehensible union and immediate faith, having not only learned but also suffered the divine things. Or again, a philosopher is properly the mind [active] in the practical
A state and living as a citizen; but a perfect philosopher is a mind that has attained ethical, physical, and theological philosophy—or rather, the love of God—and has been taught by God the actions of the ethical, the reasons of the physical, and the contemplation and precision of the dogmas of the theological. Or again, a divine rhetorician in divine matters is he who distinguishes the things that properly exist from those that exist or do not exist, and reveals the reasons of the former from the latter, and from these, again, the reasons of the former, seeing them most enthusiastically; and B who compares the intelligible and invisible world from the sensible and seen one, and the sensible and seen world from the invisible and insensible one, as the seen is an image of the invisible, and the invisible an archetype of the seen. It is said that figures of the formless and shapes of the shapeless are set forth, so that through the former, the latter, and through the latter, the former, may be manifested spiritually, and that one may clearly see the other in one another, and make them manifest by the word of truth—not by anagogical or allegorical speeches framing the knowledge of truth shining like the sun, but by knowledge and spiritual power C making plain the reasons of the truth of both, demonstrating them most expressively; so that the one may be our pedagogue, and the other, clearly, the eternal divine home made for our sake. A divine philosopher is he who, through the active and contemplative life, is immediately united to God, and becomes His friend, and is called so, because he has loved the first, creative, and true Wisdom, and cherished it above all other friendship, wisdom, and knowledge. D A *philologos*—and a philosopher in the true sense (even if the vanity that has usurped the name of philosophy, as the great Gregory says, remains hidden)—is one who loves and investigates this wisdom of the creation of God, according to the final echo, and does not practice this philosophy showily for the sake of human praise and glory, so that he studies not for matter, but for the natural wisdom of God. A scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is anyone who, through praxis, ascends to the contemplation of God and perseveres in hesychia; who brings forth from the treasure of his heart new and old things, that is, evangelical and prophetic, or those of the New and Old Testament, or doctrinal and practical, or legal and apostolic. For these are the new and ancient mysteries which the practical scribe brings forth, having been instructed in the state of divine piety. A scribe also is any practical man who is still corporally occupied with good works. Furthermore, a divine orator is one who, being versed in the nature, knowledge, and reasons of things, demonstrates everything spiritually and distinguishes them by the power of his discourse. Finally, a true philosopher is he who has the supernatural union with God knowledgeably and immediately in himself.
128. Those who write and speak without the Spirit, and who wish to build up the Church, are natural men, as the divine Apostle says, not possessing the Spirit. For such men are subject to the curse of Him who says: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent before themselves." For they speak from themselves, and not [Isa. v, 21]
A from the Spirit of God, according to the word of the Lord. For those who speak from their own thoughts before purification have been led astray by a spirit of self-conceit. Concerning this, the Proverb says: "I saw a man who thought himself wise; a fool has more hope than he." B And again: "Do not be wise in your own eyes," as Wisdom commands us. But even the divine Apostle himself, who is full of the Spirit, confesses this, saying: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." And again: "But as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." For the words of such men are unpleasant and unilluminated; for they do not speak having partaken of the living fountain of the Spirit, but they are nourished from the mire-like marsh of the heart—as if from a swamp—which contains leeches and reptiles and frogs of desire, pride, and incontinence; and the water of their knowledge is foul-smelling, muddy, and lukewarm, and those who drink of it fall into cachexia, listlessness, and vomit, becoming altered.
129. "We are the body of Christ," says the divine Apostle, "and members in particular." And again: "There is one body and one spirit, C just as you have been called." For just as the body is dead and insensitive without the spirit, so he who has been deadened by passions through negligence of the commandments after baptism becomes inactive and unilluminated by the Holy Spirit and the grace of Christ; he indeed possesses the Spirit through faith and regeneration, but he is inactive and immovable due to the death of the soul. For although the soul is one while the limbs of the body are many, it nevertheless controls and vivifies all of them and moves those that are capable of life; but limbs that have grown cold through some accidental infirmity, it bears within itself as dead and motionless, yet devoid of life and sensation. Similarly, the Spirit of Christ acts in all of Christ’s members without confusion, moving and vivifying those capable of participating in life, D while also enduring and holding to Himself with philanthropy, as His own, those that are weak and do not partake of it. Therefore, every believer partakes of the Spirit of adoption through faith, yet becomes inactive and unilluminated through negligence and unbelief, being deprived of the light and the life of Jesus; for every believer is indeed a member of Christ and possesses the Spirit of Christ, yet he is inactive, motionless, and incapable of the participation of grace.
130. We say that there are eight general contemplations: first, that concerning God, who is without form, without beginning, uncreated, and the cause of all things, the one triadic and supersubstantial Godhead; second, of the order and station of the intellectual powers; third, of the constitution of things that exist; fourth, of the economy of the Word’s condescension; fifth, of the universal resurrection; sixth, of the fearful and second coming of Christ; seventh, of eternal punishment; eighth, of the kingdom of heaven. And while the four former ones are of things that have passed and have already come to pass; the
four latter are of things which are to come and are not yet manifest. B Those who have attained great purity of mind through grace contemplate these clearly and truly find them. But he who approaches them without the light, let him know that he is forming phantasms and not contemplating, being deceived by a spirit of phantasy and deceiving himself.
131. Here also one must speak, as far as possible, of the error that can occur, since because of its many and varied inconveniences it is difficult to recognize and almost impossible to understand. Error, I say, is manifested in two ways, or rather it attacks and occurs through phantasy and through operation, even though it has its beginning and cause from one, namely, pride. And the first is the cause of the second, and the second is the cause of the third, which is by ecstasy. For the cause of imagining in contemplation is presumption, which imagines God as some kind of form; from this follows the illusion of a deceived imagination, which generates blasphemy; and furthermore, the error of imagination brings forth, both while awake and in sleep, a dread of strange phantasms, which is also called a trembling and disturbance of the soul: for after pride follows error, after error blasphemy, after blasphemy fear, after fear trembling, and after trembling the ecstasy of natural thoughts. And this is the prior mode of error, which comes through imagination.
But the second mode, which is through operation, is this: it derives its origin from the pleasure which is born of natural concupiscence. For from pleasure is born the incontinence of unspeakable uncleanness; this, heating the entire nature and defiling the intellect with the foul company of images, carries the soul into an excess, making it phrenetic with the drunkenness of an ardent operation, so that it utters false prophecies, prophesying as it were the visions and conversations of certain saints as if they were revealed to it—being, as it were, inebriated by the torpor of passion, having its manners changed, and possessed by a demon. C Men of this kind are called by those who are deceived by the error of the world "little hearts," as if they were sitting by and clinging to the oracles of certain saints, and thence having been made "spiritual," and being moved and agitated by them, they preach to men what they have learned from them; whom it is more correct to call truly possessed and serving deceit and error, and not prophets or those preaching future events. D For the demon of luxury itself, darkening their intellect with the smoke of lustful heat, leads them into an ecstasy of mind, exhibiting to them the images, conversations, and visions of certain saints. Sometimes the demons themselves are seen to stir them to terror; for he who has bound them to the yoke of Belial, urges them on to operation, that he may have as captives and slaves until death those whom he reserves for punishments.
152. It must be known that there are three general causes through which error comes upon men: from pride, from the envy of demons, and from penal abandonment. The causes of these are: of pride, levity, envy,
of the disciplinary abandonment, a sinful life. And that which is from envy and pride alone has a speedy cure, especially when one is also humbled; but the delivery unto Satan for sin on account of discipline is something that God often allows even unto death for the sake of remission. There are times, however, when He delivers even the blameless to be chastised, for their salvation. It must be known, moreover, that the very demon of pride A gives warning to those who do not strictly watch over their heart.
133. Priests and kings are anointed in the truth in the renewal for all the pious, just as the ancients were once anointed in a figurative sense. For they were types of our truth, and they prefigured us not in part, but wholly. For neither does our kingship and priesthood have only correspondence and likeness with them, which are signified by the same symbols, nor do we have any difference in nature, or grace, or the calling to anointing, so that the things anointed might be disparate, but we have one and the same calling, and faith, and form. B It shows and makes manifest, according to the word of truth, that to become pure and dispassionate and wholly consecrated is to be with God now and in the future.
134. He speaks wisdom with his mouth at such a time, and understanding in the meditation of his heart, who clearly makes manifest from existing things the God Word, the substantial wisdom of God the Father, having the archetypal reasons in existing things that characterize them, and through the living word according to operation, he speaks wisdom from wisdom with his mouth; and being illuminated in his heart by the power of the transforming understanding, C meditated upon in the Spirit, he is able to act and to illuminate the faithful hearers through this understanding.
135. The great adversary of the truth, and the error which today draws men to destruction (through which the ignorance of darkness has reigned in the souls of the slothful, alienating them from God: who, as if not knowing that there is a God who created and enlightened them, or saying that He is to be believed in and known by reason only and not by works, or that He was manifested to the ancients only, and not to us, attribute the scriptural testimonies concerning God to others, or to those who spoke them, and blaspheme, so to speak, the glory of God, and rejecting the true piety of knowledge, read the Scriptures corporally only, not to say Judaically, denying the resurrection of the soul D that takes place here and now through the resurrection, and desiring to dwell in tombs in ignorance) are these three passions: unbelief, malice, and sloth. And they are generative and supportive of one another; for unbelief is the instructress of malice; and malice is the companion of sloth, the sign of which is idleness, or vice versa; sloth is the generator of malice, as the Lord said: “You wicked and slothful servant” (Matt. xxv, 26). Malice, moreover, is the parent of unbelief; for every wicked man is an unbeliever, and he who does not believe does not even fear God. From which is born sloth, the mother of contempt, through which every good is neglected, and every evil is committed.
136. True glory concerning God, and the knowledge of the
God. From which is born sloth, the mother of contempt, through which every good is neglected, and every evil is committed. 136. True glory concerning God, and the knowledge of the B truth, constitutes the perfect orthodoxy of dogmas: wherefore such a person ought to offer doxology thus: "Glory to you, Christ our God, glory to you, because for us you have become man, you, the Word of God, who are beyond substance. Because of this, great is the mystery of your economy, our Savior, glory to you."
137. Writings which can neither be condemned nor reproved are reduced to three species, according to the great Maximus: first, those for one's own remembrance; second, those for the utility of others; third, those that are written out of obedience: in which category most of the Scriptures are composed for those who humbly seek the Word. But that which is written for pleasure and glory, and to show off the virtues of the authors, has already received, as it is said, its reward, having no utility in the present, nor any reward in the future; rather, it will be condemned as pleasing to men and fraudulently adulterating the Word of God.
OTHER CHAPTERS OF THE SAME
1. Whoever is baptized in Christ ought to traverse all the ages of Christ. For he has received their power, and through the commandments he is able to find and learn them. Conception is the earnest of the holy Spirit; the birth is the energy of rejoicing; baptism is the purgative force of the fire of the Spirit; the transfiguration is the contemplation of the divine light; the C crucifixion is the mortification from all things; the burial is the keeping of divine love in the heart; the resurrection is the life-giving awakening of the soul; the ascension is the ecstasy toward God and the rapture of the mind. But he who has not found nor feels these things is still an infant in body and soul, even if he is considered an elder in virtue by all.
2. The passions of Christ possess a life-giving mortification for those who suffer in all things, if indeed we suffer together that we may also be glorified together; but the passions of pleasures bring a death-dealing mortification to those who serve them. And there is a cross of the cross and a death of death, in the voluntary suffering of the passions of Christ.
3. To suffer for Christ is to endure what is to come; for envy is a benefit to the innocent, and rebuke is for the sake of turning back; the discipline of the Lord comes to us, opening our ears to the guilty; therefore the Lord has promised a crown to those who endure, unto the ages of ages. Glory to you, our God, glory to you, Holy Trinity, for all things, glory to you.