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Nikitas Stithatos: On Spiritual Knowledge, Love and the Perfection of Living: One Hundred Texts
1. God is dispassionate Intellect, beyond every intellect and beyond every form of dispassion: He is Light and the source of blessed light. He is Wisdom, Intelligence and spiritual Knowledge, and the giver of wisdom, intelligence and spiritual knowledge. If on account of your purity these qualities have been, bestowed on you and are richly present in you, then that Within you which accords with the image of God has been safely preserved and you are now a son of God guided by the Holy Spirit; for 'all who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God' (Rom. 8:14).
2. Those who through ascetic practice cleanse themselves 'from all pollution of the flesh and spirit' (2 Cor. 7:1) receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and so become vessels of immortal reality. Having attained this level they are filled with the light of glory. Their hearts now serene and at peace, they utter blessed words, and God's wisdom - knowledge of things divine and human - flows from their tips, while their intelligence undisturbed interprets the profundities of the Holy Spirits Once they have been united with God and have experienced a blessed transformation, the law is no longer binding on such people (cf Gal. 5:23).
3. He who wholeheartedly and assiduously directs himself towards God attains such virtue of soul and body that he becomes a mirror of the divine image. He is so commixed with God, and God with him, that each reposes in the other. Because of the richness of the gifts of the Spirit that he has received, henceforth he is and appears to be an image of divine blessedness and god by adoption, God being the perfector of his perfection.
4. Only in ignorance would one claim that man is created in the image of God with respect to the organic structure of his body. He is in the image by virtue of the spiritual nature of his intellect, which is not circumscribed by the dead weight of the body. Since the divine nature is outside every created being and all material grossness, it is not circumscribed, but is unlimited and incorporeal, beyond substance and all condition, without qualities, impalpable, unquantifiable, invisible, immortal, incomprehensible and totally beyond our grasp. Similarly, the spiritual nature given to us by God is uncircumscnbed and outside the material grossness of this world, and so is incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, incomprehensible, and an image of His immortal and eternal glory.
5. Since God, as sovereign King of all, is primordial Intellect, He possesses within Himself His Logos and His Spirit, coessential and coetemal with Him. He is never without the Logos and the Spirit because the divine nature is one and indivisible; nor is He to be confused with Them, for the three hypostases in God are distinct and unconfusable. Hence in naturally begetting the Logos from His essence, the Father is not Severed from Him, since He is Himself indivisible. The coetemal Logos, not severed from His Begetter, possesses the Spirit, who proceeds eternally from the Father (cf. John 15:26) and shares with the Logos the same unoriginate nature. For the nature of both Logos and Spirit is one and undivided, even though by virtue of the distinction of hypostases the one God is divided into persons and is glorified as die Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet the persons, since They constitute one nature and one God, are never separated from the co-eternal essence and nature. Observe, then, an image of this trihypostatic and single divine nature in man, who is created by this nature and is the image of it, not according to his visible self but according to his spiritual self, not according to what is mortal and perishable in him but according to what is immortal and ever the same.
6. God is Intellect and transcends the creatures that in His Wisdom He has created; yet He also changelessly begets the Logos as their dwelling-place, and, as Scripture says (cf. John 14:26), sends the Holy Spirit to endow them with power. He is thus both outside everything and within everything. Similarly, man participates in the divine nature, and according to his spiritual self-that is to say, as a spiritual, incorporeal and immortal soul - is an image of God, and possesses an intellect which naturally begets consciousness from its essence; and by virtue of all this he maintains the power of the body.
He is thus both outside matter and visible things and within them. And just as the Father who created man is inseparable from the other two hypostases - that is, from the Logos and the Spirit - so man's soul is indivisible from his intellect and his consciousness, for they are of one nature and essence - an essence uncircumscnbed by the body.
7. Since the Deity is worshipped in the three hypostases of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the image fonned by Him - man, that is - also subsists in a tripartite division, worshipping God, the Creator of all things out of things that are not, with soul, intellect and consciousness. Thus, things by nature coetemal and coessential within God are also intrinsic to and coessential with His image. They constitute the divine image in us and through them I am an image of God, even though I am a composite of clay and divine image.
8. The image of God is one thing, and that which is contemplated in the miage is another. For the image of God is the noetic soul, the intellect and the consciousness, which form one indivisible nature. What is contemplated in the image is that which is sovereign, royal and self-determinative. Thus the glory of the intellect is one thing, its dignity is another, its being in the image of God is another, and its being in His likeness is another (cf. Gen. I :26). The glory of the intellect is its power of ascent, its constant movement upwards, its acuity, purity, understanding, wisdom and immortality. The dignity of the intellect lies in its intelligence, its royal and sovereign nature, and its power of self- determination. Its being in the image of God resides in the self-subsistence of soul, intellect and consciousness and in their coessentiality, indivisibility and inseparability. For intellect and consciousness belong to the incorporeal, immortal, divine and noetic soul; these three are coessential and coetemal, and can never be divided or separated from each other. The intellect's being in the likeness of God resides in its justice, truthfulness, love, sympathy and compassion. When these qualities are energized and guarded in a person, that which is in the image and likeness of God is clearly manifest in him; he acts, that is to say, in accordance with nature and enjoys a higher dignity than others.
9. The tripartite deiform soul possesses two aspects, the one noetic and the' other passible. The noetic aspect, being in the image of the soul's Creator, is not conditioned by the senses, is invisible to them and is not limited by them, since it is both outside them and within them. It is by virtue of this aspect that the soul communicates with spiritual and divine powers and, through the sacred knowledge of created beings, ascends naturally to God as to its archetype, thus entering into the enjoyment of His divine nature. The passible aspect is split up among the senses and is subject to passions and prone to self-indulgence. It is by virtue of this aspect that the soul communicates with the world that is perceptible to the senses and that fosters nutrition and growth; and in this way it breathes the air, experiences cold and heat, and receives sustenance for self-preservation, life, growth and health. Since the passible aspect is modified by what it comes into contact with, it is sometimes incited by impulses contrary to nature and develops disordered desires; at other times it is provoked and carried away by mindless anger, or is subject to hunger and thirst, to sorrow and pain, and finally to physical dissolution; it luxuriates in self-indulgence, but shrinks back from affliction. Thus it is rightly called the passible aspect of the soul, since it is to be found in the company of the passions. When the noetic aspect of the soul holds sway and this mortal aspect is swallowed up by the Logos of life (cf 2 Cor. 5:4), then the life of Jesus is also manifested in our mortal flesh (cf. 2 Cor. 4:11), producing in us the life-quickening deadness of dispassion, and conferring the mcormption of immortality in response to our spiritual aspiration.
10. Prior to His creation of all things out of nothing, the Creator possessed in Himself the knowledge and the intrinsic principles and essences of all that He brought into existence, for He is sovereign over the ages and has foreknowledge of them all. Correspondingly, when in His own image He fashioned man as the sovereign of creation. He endowed him with the knowledge and the intrinsic principles and essences of all created things. Thus through his creation man possesses the dry and cold qualities of the body's gastric fluid from the earth, the warm and moist qualities of blood from air and fire, the moist and cold qualities of phlegm from water, the power of growth from plants, the power of nutrition from zoophytes, his passible aspect from the animals, his spiritual and noetic aspect from the angels, and finally, in order to exist and live, his immaterial breath - his incorporeal and immortal soul, understood as intellect, consciousness and the power of the Holy Spirit - from God.
11. God created us in His image and likeness (cf. Gen. 1:26). We are in His likeness if we possess virtue and understanding; for 'His virtue covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His understanding' (cf. Hab. 3:3). The virtue of God is His justice, holiness and truth: as David says, 'Thou an just, Lord, and Thy truth is round about Thee' (cf. Ps. 89:8. LXX); and again. The Lord is just and holy' (cf. Ps. 145:17). We are also in the likeness of God if we possess uprightness and goodness, for 'good and upright is the Lord' (Ps. 25:8); or if we are conscious of wisdom and spiritual knowledge, for these are within Hun and He is called Wisdom and Logos; or if we possess holiness and perfection, since He Himself said, 'You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Matt. 5:48), and, 'You must be holy, for I am holy' (Lev. I 1 :44; I Pet. 1:16); or if we are humble and gentle, for it is written, 'Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls' (Matt. 11:29).
12. Since our intellect is an image of God, it is true to itself when it remains among- the things that are properly its own and does not divagate from its own dignity and nature. Hence it loves to dwell among things proximate to God, and seeks to unite itself with Him, from whom it had its origin, by whom it is activated, and towards whom it ascends by means of its natural capabilities; and it desires to imitate Him in His compassion and simplicity. Such an intellect even begets the Logos, and it recreates like new heavens the souls akin to it, strengthening them in the patient practice of the virtues; and it bestows life on them through the spiritual power of its counsel, providing them with the strength to resist destructive passions. If, then, it truly imitates God, it becomes itself also a creator both of the noetic world and of the macrocosm, and clearly hears God's words, 'He who extracts what is precious from what is vile will be as My mouth' (cf. Jer. 15:19). 13. He who staunchly adheres to those activities of the intellect which accord with its nature and affirms the dignity of the intelligence, is kept unsullied by material preoccupations, is invested with gentleness, humility, love and compassion, and is illumined by the Holy Spirit. His attention focused on the higher spheres of contemplative activity, he is initiated into the hidden mysteries of God, and through his words of wisdom he lovingly ministers to those who are capable of learning about these things. In this way he does not use his talent solely for his own benefit, but also shares its benediction with his fellow-men.
14. Exalt the One over the dyad - the single over the dual - and free its nobility from all commerce with dualism, and you will consort immaterially with immaterial spirits; for you will yourself have become a noetic spirit, even though you appear to dwell bodily among other men.
15. Once you have brought bondage to the dyad into subjection to the dignity and nature of the One, you will have subjected the whole of creation to God; for you will have brought into unity what was divided and will have reconciled all things.
16. So long as the nature of the powers within us is in a state of inner discord and is dispersed among many contrary things, we do not participate in God's supernatural gifts. And if we do not participate in these gifts, we are also far from the mystical euchanst of the heavenly sanctuary, celebrated by the intellect through its spiritual activity. When through assiduous ascetic labor we have purged ourselves of the crudity of evil and have reconciled our inner discord through the power of the Spirit, we then participate in the ineffable blessings of God, and worthily concelebrate the divine mysteries of the intellect's mystical eucharist with God the Logos in His supracelestial and spiritual sanctuary; for we have become initiates and priests of His immortal mysteries.
17. Our fallen self desires in a way that opposes our spiritual self, our spiritual self in a way that opposes our fallenself(cf Gal. 5:17);
and in this relentless warfare between the two each strives for victory and control over the other. This contrariety within us is also called 'discord', 'turning point', 'balance' and 'twofold struggle'; and if the intellect tips the balance towards an act of human passion the soul is split asunder.
18. So long as we are reft by the turmoil of our thoughts, and so long as we are ruled and constrained by our fallen self, we are self -fragmented and cut off from the divine Monad, since we have not made our own the riches of its unity. But when our mortality is swallowed up by the unifying power of the Monad and acquires a supernatural detachment, when the intellect becomes master of itself, illumined by its wisdom-engendering intellections, then the soul, in sacred embrace with the One, is freed from discord and becomes a unity: enfolded into the divine Monad, it is unified in a godlike simplicity. Such is the nature of the soul's restoration to its original state and such our renewal in a state yet more exalted.
19. Ignorance is terrible and more than terrible, a truly palpable darkness (cf. Exod. 10:21). Souls suckled on ignorance are tenebrous, their thought is fragmented, and they are cut off from union with God. Its upshot is inanity, since it makes the whole person mindless and insensate. Waxing gross, it plunges the soul into the depths of hell, where there is every kind of punishment and pain, distress and anguish. Conversely, divine knowledge is luminous and endlessly illuminating: souls in which it has been engendered because of their purity possess a godlike radiance, for it fills them with peace, serenity, joy, ineffable wisdom and perfect love.
20. Simple and unified, the presence of divine light gathers within itself the souls that participate in it and converts them to itself, uniting them with its own unity, and perfecting them with its own perfection. It leads them to descry the depths of God, so that they contemplate the great mysteries and become initiates and mystagogues. Aspire, then, to be punned utterly through ascetic labor, and you will see these mysteries dear to God - of which I have spoken - actually at work within you.
21. The rays of primordial Light that illumine purified souls with spiritual knowledge not only fill them with benediction and luminosity; they also, by means of the contemplation of the inner essences of created things, lead them up to the noetic heavens. The effects of the divine energy, however, do not stop here; they continue until through wisdom and through knowledge of indescribable things they unite purified souls with the One, bringing them out of a state of multiplicity into a state of oneness in Him.
22. We must first purge ourselves of the vicious materiality prompted in us by the demons - this is the stage of purification; then, through the stage of illumination, we must make our spiritual eyes lucid and ever light-filled, and this is accomplished by means of the mystical wisdom hidden in God. In this way we ascend to the cognition of sacred knowledge, which through the intelligence imparts things new and old to those who have ears to hear. Then we in our turn must pass on to others images and intimations of this knowledge, conveying its hidden meaning to the purified while withholding it from the profane, lest holy things be given to dogs, or the pearl of the Logos be cast before swine-like souls that would defile it (cf. Matt. 7:6).
23. When you become aware of increasing ardency in your inner faith and love for God, then you should know that you are bringing Christ to birth within yourself, and that it is He who exalts your soul above terrestrial and visible things and prepares a dwelling-place for it in heaven. When you perceive that your heart is replete with joy, and poignantly longs for God's unutterable blessings, then you should realize that you are activated by the divine Spirit. And when you sense that your intellect is full of ineffable light and the intellections of supernal Wisdom, then you should recognize that the Paraclete is present in your soul, disclosing the treasures of the kingdom of heaven hidden within you; and you should guard yourself strictly as a palace of God and as a dwelling- place of the Spirit.
24. Guardianship of the hidden treasure of the Spirit consists in that state of detachment from human affairs which is properly termed stillness. When through purity of heart and Joyful compunction this stillness kindles a yet fiercer longing for God's love, it releases the soul from the bonds of the senses and impels it to embrace the life of freedom. Recalled to its natural state, the soul reorientates its powers, restoring them to their original condition. Thus it is evident that none of the evil that afflicts us as a result of our deviation and lapse from the divine image may be imputed to God. who creates only what is good.
25. It is stillness, full of wisdom and benediction, that leads us to this holy and godlike state of perfection - when, that is, it is practiced and pursued genuinely. If an apparent hesychast has not attained this eminence and perfection, his stillness is not yet this noetic and perfect stillness. Indeed, until he has attained this eminence, he will not even have stilled the inner turbulence of the anarchic passions. All he will have is a body consisting of teguments, vents and cavities, and wasted by a disordered and deluded mind.
26. Souls that have attained total purity, and have reached the heights of wisdom and spiritual knowledge, resemble the Cherabim. By virtue of their unmediated cognition they draw close to the source of all beauty and goodness, and in this way they are directly and folly initiated into the vision of secret things. Among the spiritual powers it is said that only the Cherubim are illuminated in this direct manner by the source of divinity itself and thus possess this vision in the highest degree.
27. Among the highest angelic powers, some are more ardent and clear-sighted in their devotion to the divine realities around which they unceasingly circle; others are more contemplative, gnostic and imbued with wisdom, this being the divine state that impels them unceasingly to circle around these realities. Similarly, angel-like souls are ardent and clear-sighted in their devotion to the divine realities, as well as wise, gnostic and exalted in mystical contemplation. Potentially and actually they too unceasingly circle around things divine, firmly rooted in them alone. Immutably receptive of divine illuminations, and thus participating in Him who truly is. they also unstmtmgly communicate His irradiance and grace to others through their teaching.
28. God is Intellect and the activating agent of everything. All intellects have both their permanent abode and their eternal mobility in this primary Intellect. Such is the experience of all whose activity is not adulterated by materiality but is pure and unsullied as a result of sacred ascetic labor. They experience this when, ardent with divine love, they communicate to each other and to themselves the illumination bestowed on them by the Divinity, generously transmitting to others the wisdom of God's mysteries concealed within it; and in this way they unceasingly extol the divine love that inspires them.
29. Souls whose intelligence has been freed from material preoccupation, and in whom the self -warring appetitive and incensive aspects have been restored to harmony and harnessed to their heaven-bound well-reined chariot, both revolve around God and yet stand fixedly. They revolve incessantly around God as the centre and cause of their circular movement. They stand steadfast and unwavering as fixed points on the circumference of the circle, and cannot be diverted from this fixed position by the sense-world and the distraction of human affairs. This is therefore the perfect consummation of stillness, and it is to this; that stillness leads those who truly achieve it, so that while moving they are stationary, and while steadfast and immobile they move around the divine realities. So long as we do not experience this we can only be said to practice an apparent stillness, and our intellect is not free from materiality and distraction.
30. When through great diligence and effort we recover the original beauty of the intelligence, and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit participate in supernal wisdom and knowledge, we can then perceive things as they are by nature and hence can recognize that the source and cause of all things is itself wise and beautiful We see that we cannot hold it in any way responsible for the evil that destroys created things when they deviate towards what is base. When we are so deflected and dragged downwards, we are sundered from the pristine beauty of the Logos and forfeit our deification, while the evil that has invaded us disfigures us mto its own obtuse and witless form.
31. When through the practice of the virtues we attain a spiritual knowledge of created things we have achieved the first stage on the path of deification. We achieve the second stage when - initiated through the contemplation of the spiritual essences of created things -we perceive the hidden mysteries of God. We achieve the third stage when we are united and interfused with the primordial light. It is then that we reach the goal of all ascetic and contemplative activity.
32. By means of these three stages all intellects are brought, in a way that accords with their own nature, into unity with themselves and with Him who truly is. They can then illumine their fellow-intellects, initiating them into divine realities, through celestial wisdom perfecting them as spirits already purified, and uniting them with themselves and with the One.
33. Deification in this present life is the spiritual and truly sacred rite in which the Logos of unutterable wisdom makes Himself a sacred offering and gives Himself, so far as is possible, to those who have prepared themselves. God, as befits His goodness, has bestowed this deification on beings endowed with intelligence so that they may achieve the union of faith. Those who as a resuh of their purity and their knowledge of things divine participate in this dignity are assimilated to God, 'conformed to the image of His Son' (Rom. 8:29) through their exalted and spiritual concentration upon the divine. Thus they become as gods to other men on earth. These others in their turn, perfected in virtue by purification through their divine intelligence and through sacred intercourse with God, participate according to their proficiency and the degree of their purification in the same deification as their brethren and they commune with them in the God of unity. In this way all of them, joined together in the union of love, are unceasingly united with the one God; and God, the source of all holy works and totally free from any indictment because of His work of creation, abides in the midst of gods (cf. Ps. 82:1. LXX), God by nature among gods by adoption.
34. You cannot be assimilated to God and participate in His ineffable blessings - in so far as this is possible - unless you first through fervent tears and through the practice of Christ's sacred commandments strip away the interposing foulness and disfigurement of sin. If you want spiritually to taste the sweetness and delight of things spiritual you must renounce all mundane sense-experience, and in your aspiration for the blessings held in store for the saints you must devote yourself to the contemplation of the inner reality of created beings.
35. Assimilation to God, conferred upon us through intense purification and deep love for God, can be maintained only through an unceasing aspiration towards Him on the part of the contemplative intellect. Such aspiration is born within the soul through the persistent stillness produced by the acquisition of the virtues, by ceaseless and undistracted spiritual prayer, by total self-control, and by intensive reading of the Scriptures.
36. We must strive not only to bring the soul's powers into a state of peace, but also to acquire a longing for spiritual serenity. For through the pacifying of our thoughts every aspiration for what is good is strengthened, while divine heaven-sent dew heals and revives the heart wounded by Spirit-enkindled celestial fire.
37. Once a soul deeply wounded by divine longing has experienced the balm of God's noetic gifts, it cannot remain static or fixed in itself, but will aspire to rise ever further towards heaven. The higher it rises through the Spirit and the farther it penetrates into the depths of God, the more it is consumed by the fire of desire; and it explores in all their immensity the yet deeper mysteries of God, anxious to attain the blessed light where every intellect is rapt out of itself and where - its goal achieved - it reposes in heartfelt joy.
38. When you come to participate in the Holy Spirit and recognize His presence through a certain ineffable energy and fragrance withm yourself - this fragrance even spreading over the surface of your body - you can no longer be content to remain within the bounds of the created world. On the contrary, having experienced the noble conversion wrought by the 'right hand of the Most High' (Ps. 77:10. LXX), you forget food and sleep, transcend bodily needs, ignore physical repose and, after spending the whole day to ascetic toil, are yet unaware of stress or duress, of hunger, thirst, sleep, or of any other physical need. For with unutterable joy God's love is poured out invisibly into your heart (cf. Rom. 5:5). Wrapped the whole night in an illumination of fire, you accomplish spiritual work through the body and feast on the immortal fruits of the noetic paradise. It was into this paradise that St Paul, too, was caught up when he heard the inexpressible words which no one is permitted to hear (cf. 2 Cor. 12:4) if still attached to the sense -world of visible things.
39. Once the body has been fired in the furnace of ascetic practice and tempered by the water of tears, it is no longer dulled by hardship, for it is now exempt from outward labors and ceases from the great toil they demand. Immersed in the silence and serenity of inward peace, it becomes full of a new power, a new vigor, a new spiritual strength. When the soul works hand in hand with such a body - one, that is to say, whose state transcends the need for bodily discipline - it changes its physical labors into spiritual warfare. It promptly begins to perform spiritual work, and guards in itself the immortal fruits of the noetic paradise, where the rivers of godlike intellection have their source, and where stands the tree of divine knowledge (cf. Gen. 2:9-10), bearing the fruits of wisdom, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, long-suffering and ineffable love (cf. Gal. 5:22). Working assiduously in this manner and guarding what it harvests, the soul goes out of the body and enters into the darkness of mystical theology. It leaves everything behind, not held back by anything belonging to the visible world; and, united with God, it ceases from toil and grief.
40. Those engaged in spiritual warfare confront the question of which in us is the more noble: the visible or the intelligible? If it is the visible, there is nothmg in us more to be preferred or desired than what is corruptible, nor is the soul more noble than the body. If it is the intelligible then we must recognize that 'God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in tnith' (John 4:24). Thus once the soul is firmly established in spiritual work, freed from the downward pull of the body and rendered entirely spiritual through union with what is superior to it, then bodily discipline is superfluous.
41. There are three stages on the spiritual path: the purgative, the illuminative and finally the mystical, through which we are perfected. The first pertains to beginners, the second to those in the intermediate stage, and the third to the perfect. It is through these three consecutive stages that we ascend, growing in stature according to Christ and attaining 'mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'(Eph. 4:13).
42. The purgative stage pertains to those newly engaged in spiritual warfare. It is characterized by the rejection of the materialistic self, liberation from material evil, and investiture with the regenerate self, renewed by the Holy Spirit (cf. Col. 3:10). It involves hatred of materiality, the attenuation of the flesh, the avoidance of whatever incites the mind to passion, repentance for sins committed, the dissolving with tears of the bitter sediment left by sin, the regulation of our life according to the generosity of the Spirit, and the cleansing through compunction of the inside of the cup (cf Matt. 23:26) - the intellect - from every defilement of flesh and spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1), so that it can then be filled with the wine of the Logos that gladdens the heart of the purified (cf. Ps. 104:15), and can be brought to the King of the celestial powers for Him to taste. Its final goal is that we should be forged in the fire of ascetic struggle, scouring off the rust of sin, and steeled and tempered in the water of compunction, so that sword-like we may effectively cut off the passions and the demons. Reaching this point through long ascetic struggle, we quench the fire within us, muzzle the brute- like passions, become strong in the Spirit instead of weak (cf. Heb. 11:33-34), and like another Job conquer the tempter through our patient endurance.
43. The illuminative stage pertains to those who as a result of their struggles have attained the first level of dispassion. It is characterized by the spiritual knowledge of created beings, the contemplation of their inner essences and communion in the Holy Spirit. It involves the intellect's purification by divine fire, the noetic opening of the eyes of the heart, and the birth of the Logos accompanied by sublime intellections of spiritual knowledge. Its final goal is the elucidation of the nature of created things by the Logos of Wisdom, insight into divine and human affairs, and the revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (cf. Luke 8 : 10). He who has reached this point through the inner activity of the intellect rides, like another Elijah (cf. 2 Kgs. 2:11), in a chariot of fire drawn by the quatemity of the virtues; and while still living he is raised to the noetic realm and traverses the heavens, since he has risen above the lowliness of the body.
44. The mystical and perfective stage pertains to those who have already passed through all things and have come to 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph. 4:13). It is characterized by the transcending of the sphere of demonic powers and of all sublunar things, by our attaining to the higher celestial ranks, approaching the primordial light and plumbing the depths of God through the Spirit. It involves immersing our contemplative intellect in the inner principles of providence, justice and truth, and also the interpretation of the arcane symbolism, parables and obscure passages in Holy Scripture. Its final goal is our initiation into the hidden mysteries of God and our being filled with ineffable wisdom through union with the Holy Spirit, so that each becomes a wise theologian in the great Church of God, illuminating others with the inner meaning of theology. He who has reached this point through the deepest humility and compunction has, like another Paul, been caught up into the third heaven of theology, and has heard indescribable things which he who is still dominated by the sense-world is not permitted to hear (cf. 2 Cor. 12:4); and he experiences unutterable blessings, such as no eye has seen or ear heard (cf I Cor. 2:9). He becomes a steward of God's mysteries (cf I Cor. 4:1), for he is God's mouthpiece, and through words he communicates these mysteries to other people; and in this he finds blessed repose. For he is now perfected in the perfect God, united in the company of other theologians with the supreme angelic powers of the Cherubim and Seraphim, in whom dwells the principle of wisdom and spiritual knowledge.
45. Human life is divided into two forms, while its goals are subsumed under three categories. One form is social and within the world, the other is solitary and transcends the world. Social life is characterized either by self- restraint or by insatiability; the solitary life is subdivided into three modes: the practice of the virtues, the spiritual cognition of created beings, and the indwelling of supernatural energy. Social life may be characterized by justice, in which case it accords with nature, or by injustice, in which case it is contrary to nature. The solitary life either aspires towards its goal in accordance with monastic precept and rule, and - perfected in a manner that transcends nature - attains the Infinite; or else it is prompted by presumption and so is balked of its purpose, debases the mind, and fails to attain perfection.
46. The Spirit is light, life and peace. If consequently you are illumined by the Spirit your own life is imbued with peace and serenity. Because of this you are filled with the spiritual knowledge of created beings and the wisdom of the Logos; you are granted the intellect of Christ (cf. I Cor. 2:16); and you come to know the mysteries of God's kingdom (cf. Luke 8:10). Thus you penetrate into the depths of the Divine and daily from an untroubled and illumined heart you utter words of life for the benefit of others; for you yourself are full of benediction, since you have within you Goodness itself that utters things new and old (cf. Matt. 13:52).
47. God is Wisdom, and by deifying through the spiritual knowledge of created beings those who live in the Logos and in Wisdom He unites them with Himself through light and makes them gods by adoption. Since God has created all things out of nothing through Wisdom, He directs and administers all that is in the world through Wisdom, and likewise in Wisdom brings about the salvation of all who turn towards Him and draw near to Him. Similarly, whoever as a result of his purity has been enabled to participate in the highest Wisdom always as an image of God acts in Wisdom, and in Wisdom carries out the divine will. Withdrawing himself from what is external and multiple, each day he raises his intelligence anagogically through the knowledge of unutterable things to a life that is truly angelic. Having unified his own life as far as possible, he unites himself with the angelic powers that move in a unified way around God, and under their good guidance is elevated to the first Principle and Cause.
48. Once you have united yourself through the higher Wisdom with the angelic powers and have thereby been united with God, through love of Wisdom you enter into communion with all men, since you have achieved God's likeness. Through divine power you sever those so disposed from their attachment to what is external and multiple, and as an imitator of God you concentrate them in spirit, elevating them as you are elevated to a unified life through wisdom, spiritual knowledge and the illumination of divine mysteries, until they come to contemplate the glory of the unique primordial light. When you have united them with the essences and orders that surround God, you induct them - wholly irradiated by the Spirit - to the unity of God Himself
49. Linked to the four cardinal virtues there is a group of eight natural and general virtues. Each cardinal virtue is accompanied by two virtues from the second category, thus composing a triad. Sound understanding is accompanied by spiritual knowledge and wise contemplation; justice by discrimination and sympathetic understanding; courage by patience and firm resolution; self-restraint by purity and virginity. From the throne of the intellect, in His wisdom God presides like an architect and mystagogue over these twelve virtues divided into triads, and sends out the Logos to create them within us. From their underlying principles the Logos takes the substance of each of the virtues and creates in the soul a numinous noetic world. He places sound understanding in the soul like a star-filled sky from which two great luminaries - divine knowledge and contemplation of spiritual essences - irradiate it with their light. He makes justice its firm foundation, rich like the earth with every kind of sustenance. He puts self-restraint within it as the air, cooling and refreshing it with a life free from all impurity. He sets courage like a sea around the weakness of our nature, enabling us to undermine the strongholds and citadels of the enemy. In thus establishing this world the Logos fills the soul with the power of the Holy Spirit, so as to maintain it in unceasing noetic activity and in indissoluble and enduring unity. As the Psalmist expresses it, 'By the Logos of the Lord are the heavens established, and all their power lies in the Spirit that comes from Him' (Ps. 33:6. LXX).
50. Our spiritual growth corresponds to the different stages in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. While we are infants in need of milk (cf. Heb. 5:12) we are suckled on the milk of the introductory virtues acquired through bodily discipline; yet this is of but limited profit (cf. I Tim. 4:8) to us once we begin to grow in virtue and gradually leave our infancy behind. When we attain adolescence and are nourished by the solid food of the contemplation of the spiritual essences of things - for our soul's organs of perception are now well attuned (cf. Heb. 5:14) - it may be said that we increase in stature and in grace (cf. Luke 2:52), and sit among the elders (cf. Luke 2:46), disclosing to them things hidden in the depths of darkness (cf. Job 12:22). When we have reached 'mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph. 4:13), we proclaim to all the meaning of repentance, teach others about the kingdom of heaven (cf Matt. 4:17) and press on towards the Passion (cf. Luke 12:50). For this is the ultimate goal of everyone who has reached perfection in the practice of the virtues: after passing through all the different ages of Christ he finally undergoes the trials that Christ suffered on the cross.
51. So long as we are learning the basic principles of bodily discipline, watching ourselves carefully when we taste food, or touch things, or gaze at beautiful objects, or listen to music, or smell fragrances, we are under guardians and trustees; for we are still infants, even though we are also heirs and lords of all that belongs to the Father. But when the time of such training is over and we have attained dispassion, the Logos is born within us as a result of our purity of mind, and He submits to the law of the Spirit, so that He may redeem us who are under the law of the will of the flesh and may grant us the status of sonship. When this has taken place, the Spirit cries in our hearts, 'Abba! Father!', making this status known to us and revealing to us our intimate communion with the Father. And He abides in us and converses with us as sons and heirs of God through Christ, free from servitude to the senses (cf. Gal. 4:1-6).
52. For those who like Peter have advanced in faith, and like James have been restored in hope, and like John have achieved perfection in love, the Lord ascends the high mountain of theology and is transfigured (cf. Matt. 17:1). Through the disclosure and expression of His pure teaching He shines upon them as the sun, and with the intellections of His unutterable wisdom He becomes radiant with light. They see the Logos standing between Moses and Elijah - between law and prophecy - promulgating the law and teaching it to them, and at the same time revealing to them through vision and prophecy the depths and the hidden treasures of wisdom. The Holy Spirit overshadows them like a luminous cloud, and from the cloud they hear the voice of mystical theology, initiating them into the mystery of the tri-hypostatic Divinity and saying, 'This is My beloved, the Logos of perfection made manifest, in whom I take delight. Become for Me perfect sons in the perfect Spirit' (cf . Matt. 17:1-5).
53. A soul that disdains everything unspiritual and that is wholly wounded by love for God undergoes a strange divine ecstasy. Having clearly grasped the inner nature and essence of created beings, as well as the upshot of matters human, it cannot bear to be imprisoned or circumscribed by anything. On the contrary, surpassing its own limitations, rebelling against the fetters of the senses and transcending all creatureliness, it penetrates the divine darkness of theology in unutterable silence and - to the degree that grace permits - it perceives in the intellective light of inexpressible wisdom the beauty of Him who truly is. Reverentially entering ever more deeply into intellective contemplation of that beauty, it savors, in loving awe, the fruits of immortality - the visionary intellections of the Divine. Never withdrawing from these back into itself, it is able to express perfectly their magnificence and glory. Activated, as it were, in a strange way by the Spirit, it experiences this admirable passion in unspeakable joy and silence; yet how it is activated, or what it is that impels it, and is seen by it, and secretly communicates to it unutterable mysteries, it cannot explain.
54. If you sow tears of compunction in yourself for the sake of righteousness you will gather a harvest of life - inexpressible joy (cf. Ps. 126:5) If you search out the Lord and patiently wait for Him until the firstlings of His righteousness grow in you, you will reap a rich crop of divine knowledge. The light of wisdom will illuminate you and you will become a lamp of eternal light illuminating all men. You will not be grudging towards yourself or your fellow beings, hiding under the cloak of envy the light of wisdom given to you (cf Matt. 5:15): but in the assembly of the faithful you will utter good words for the edification of many, explaining things hidden since the beginning of the world - all that you have heard from above, prompted by the divine Spirit, all that you have come to understand through the contemplation of the inner nature of created beings, and all that your fathers have told you (cf. Ps. 78:2-3. LXX).
55. The practice of God's commandments will lead the spiritual contestant to such heights that on the day when he becomes perfect in virtue he will be filled with quiet delight and will reign with a pure mind in Zion. The mountains - the spiritual principles of the virtues - will flow with milk, nourishing him as he reposes in the sanctuary of dispassion, and all the stream-beds of Judah - his faith and spiritual knowledge - will flow with water, with doctrines, parables and the arcane symbols of things divine. As from the house of God a fountain of ineffable wisdom will flow from his heart and will water the valley of dry reeds - all those, that is to say, who have been withered by the aridity and heat of the passions (cf. Joel 3:18. LXX). Then he will experience in himself the true fulfillment of the Lord's words, 'Rivers of living water will flow from the heart of him who believes in Me' (John 7:38).
56. For those who fear Me, says God, the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. They will go forth from the prison-house of the passions and, loosed from the bonds of sin, they will leap like calves. On the day when God restores them they will tread the wicked and the demons under their feet like ashes; for they will be exalted by all the virtues and because of their wisdom and spiritual knowledge they will be made perfect through communion in the Spirit (cf Mal. 4:2-3).
57. If on the mountain above the plain of this world and within the Church of Christ you raise the standard of new spiritual knowledge and cry aloud, as the prophet says (cf. Isa. 13:2), with the wisdom given to you by God, exhorting and teaching your brethren - opening their mind to the divine Scriptures so that they understand the wonderful gifts of God, and encouraging them to practice His commandments - do not fear those who envy you the power of your words and distort every text of divine Scripture; for they are people swept empty and ready to be occupied by the demons (cf Matt. 12:44). God will write what you say in the book of the living (cf. Rev. 3:5) and no harm will befall you from such men, just as no harm befell Peter from Simon Magus (cf. Acts 8:9-24). On the contrary, when you see such people trying to put obstacles in your way, you should say with the prophet: 'Behold, my God is my salvation and I will trust in Him; I will be saved by Him and will not be afraid; for the Lord is my glory and my praise, and He has become my salvation; and I shall not cease proclaiming His glorious deeds throughout the world' (cf Isa. 12:2,4. LXX).
58. When you perceive that the passions are no longer active within you, and when because of your humility tears of compunction flow from your eyes, then you must know that the kingdom of God has come upon you and that you have become pregnant with the Holy Spirit. And when you perceive the Spirit moving and speaking in your heart, inciting you to proclaim in the great congregation the saving power and truth of God (cf. Ps. 40:10), do not keep your lips sealed for fear of provoking the envy of bigoted men; but as Isaiah counsels (cf. Isa. 30:8), sit and write on a tablet, what the Spirit says to you, so that it may endure in times to come and for ever. For the envious are a rebellious people, lying sons who cannot be trusted (cf. Isa. 30:9). They do not want to be told that the Gospel is still effective and makes us friends of God and prophets. On the contrary, they say to the prophets and teachers of the Church: 'Do not proclaim God's wisdom to us'; and to the visionaries who perceive the spiritual essences of things, they say, 'Do not tell us about that, but speak and proclaim to us another deceit such as the world loves, and free us from the prophecy of Israel' (cf. Isa. 30: 10). Pay no attention to their malice and their words; for even the deaf will eventually hear your message, divinely inspired as it is for the profit of many, and those blinded by life's opacity and the fog of sin will see the light of your words. The poor in spirit will exult in them, and those in despair will be filled with gladness; through your words those spiritually astray will attain understanding, those who revile you will learn obedience to the utterances of the Spirit, and inarticulate tongues will be taught to speak of peace (cf. Isa. 29:18-19, 24. LXX).
59. Blessed is he, says Isaiah, who sows the seeds of his teaching in Zion - that is, in the Church of God - and who begets spiritual children in the heavenly Jerusalem of the firstborn (cf Isa. 31:9. LXX). For according to Scripture such a man may conceal his words for a while, and may himself be hidden as if by flowing water; but in the end he will be revealed in Zion - in the Church of the faithful - as a glorious river flowing in a land thirsty for the waters of his wisdom. Then those beguiled by the envious will listen to his words, the heart of those spiritually weak will give heed, and no longer will the servants of envy enjoin silence when in his devotion he gives good counsel, instead of declaiming the inanities of the wise fools of this world. For his heart has not been occupied with empty thoughts, with ways of doing evil and telling lies in God's sight, thus misleading hungry souls and leaving the souls of the thirsty unsatisfied (cf. Isa. 32:2-6. LXX). For this reason his words will endure and many will profit from them, even though the spiteful and malicious do not believe this to be so.
60. He who dwells in a cave high up on a great rock will be sated with the bread of spiritual knowledge and made drunk with the cup of wisdom, and hence his counsel will be trustworthy. He will see a king arrayed in glory and he will gaze on a distant land. His soul will meditate on wisdom and he will proclaim to all men the eternal abode that embraces all and everything.
61. The Lord's teaching is heard by all who fear Him; He gives them an ear with which to hear, and an instructed tongue so that they know when they too must speak (cf. Isa. 50:4-5. LXX). Who but He sets at naught the prudent and the wise of this world and shows their wisdom to be folly, yet confirms the words of His servants (cf Isa. 44:25- 26. LXX)? He it is that in His glory does new and astonishing things: He makes a highway of humility and gentleness in the barren and arid heart, and opens rivers of ineffable wisdom in the parched and desiccated mind, giving water to the chosen people that He made His own, so that they may declare His virtues (cf. Isa. 43: 20-21. LXX). He marches at the head of those who love and fear Him, razes the mountains of the passions, shatters the brazen gates of ignorance, and opens the doors of the knowledge of God, revealing to them its obscure, secret and invisible treasures, so that they may know that He is the Lord their God, who calls them by their name, 'Israel' (cf. Isa. 45:1-3. LXX).
62. Who is this that strikes terror into the sea of the passions and quells its waves? It is the Lord of hosts, who delivers those that love Him from the danger of sin and pacifies the turbulence of their thoughts, who puts His words into their mouth (cf. Jer. 1:9) and protects them under the shadow of His hands - the shadow within which He established the heaven and made firm the earth. He it is who gives to those who fear Him an instructed tongue (cf. Isa. 50:4) and an understanding ear, so that they may hear His voice and proclaim His commandments to the house of Jacob, to the Church of the faithful. Those who lack eyes to see the rays of the Sun of righteousness, and ears to hear of God's glory, are sunk in the darkness of total ignorance, of empty hope and vain words. Not one of them speaks justly or judges truly; for they have put their trust in vanities and their words are vacuous. They conceive envy and beget spite and malice (cf. Isa. 59:4. LXX), for their ears are obdurate and deaf. On account of this they revile the word of God's knowledge and refuse to listen to it.
63. What wisdom is there in those filled with pangs of envy against their fellow beings? By what right do the malicious claim, in the words of Jeremiah, that 'we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us' (Jer. 8:8), when they are consumed with jealousy against those who have received the grace of the Spirit in the form of wisdom and divine knowledge? But the false knowledge of the scribes and the wise men of this world - of those who have lost the path of trae knowledge - is altogether valueless. For this reason the worldly-wise, void of the wisdom of the Paraclete, founder in confusion: they see the sons of fishermen rich in the wisdom of God and they quail at the power of their words; but at the same time they are entangled in the nets of their own concepts and reasoning, for they have rejected true wisdom and truly divine knowledge.
64. Why are these creatures of malice consumed with jealousy against those rich in the grace of the Spirit, against those blessed with a tongue of fire hke the pen of a ready scribe (of. Ps. 45: 1)? Have they not spumed the source of divine wisdom? Had they walked in the way of God, they would have dwelt in the peace of dispassion for ever. They would have learnt where they could find sound understanding, strength, clear judgment, spiritual knowledge of created beings, length of days, life, light for the eyes and wisdom yoked with peace. They would have learnt who finds the dwelling-place of Wisdom and who enters into her storehouses (cf Bar. 3:13-15), and how God issues a command through the prophet to those initiated into His teaching, and says, 'Let the prophet to whom things have been revealed in sleep declare his vision, and having heard My teaching let him proclaim it faithfully' (cf. Jer. 23:28); as He also says, 'Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you' (Jer. 37:2. LXX). Had they themselves chosen this path, they would not be consumed with jealousy against those who do choose it.
65. Yet if the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots (cf. Jer. 13:23), these same bantlings of malice can also speak and devise what seems good, well versed as they are in evil. With the heel they trip up their fellow men, their ways being ways of treachery and deception, even with regard to their friends. They lie because lying and quackery are what they are trained in (cf. Jer. 9:4-5. LXX). So if on account of your intelligence and spiritual knowledge you become a butt for their jealousy and deceit, you must be wary: appeal to God in the words of Jeremiah, saying, '0 Lord, remember me and visit me and free me from those who persecute me with their malice. Although it is Thy will to test me for a long time, in Thy forbearance do not reject me. See how those who repudiate Thy sacred knowledge have derided me. Consume them in their jealousy, and Thy teaching will be a joy to me and the delight of my heart. I have not sat in the company of those who spurn Thy knowledge, but have feared the presence of Thy hand, and sat alone because I was filled with bitterness by their envy.' When you say this you will hear the response:' 'This I know well. But if you set him who has gone astray on his right path, I will re-establish you among My friends; you will stand before Me; and if you extract what is precious from what is vile, you will be as My mouth. I will deliver you from these malicious people who plague you', says the Lord God of Israel' (cf. Jer. 15:15-21. LXX).
66. Let these malicious sages hear the conclusion of the whole matter (cf. Eccles. 12:13). By their labors were God's Nazarites cleansed cleaner than snow; their lives were whiter than milk, their wisdom was more lambent than the sapphire (cf. Lam. 4:7. LXX), their words purer than a pearl. Those who delight in worldly knowledge have been utterly destroyed by the departure of the Spirit. Those nourished on profane wisdom are swathed in the dung of ignorance (cf. Lam. 4:5. LXX): they are shackled in fetters, their tongue is pinioned to their larynx and they are mute. For they have rejected the true wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Spirit, not wanting to attain it through ascetic labor.
67. God who fells the lofty tree and raises the lowly tree, who desiccates green wood and make dry wood burgeon (cf. Ezek. 17:24), is also the God who opens the mouth of His servants in the midst of a great assembly (cf. Ezek. 29:21. LXX), and enables them to proclaim the Gospel with full power (cf. Ps. 68:12. LXX). For wisdom, understanding and strength are His; and just as He changes times and seasons, so He gives to souls that seek Him and desire Him sovereignty over the passions; He converts them from one life to another, bestowing wisdom on the wise in spirit and sound understanding on those endowed with intelligence. He reveals deep hidden things to those who explore His depths and initiates them into the meaning concealed in obscure symbolism. For the light of wisdom and spiritual knowledge dwells in Him and He gives it to whom He wishes (cf. Dan. 2:21-22).
68. If you patiently carry out the commandments in accordance with your outer and your inner self, and look only to the glory of God, you will be given the honor of heavenly knowledge, peace of soul and incorruptibility; for you carry out, and do not simply hear, the law of grace (cf. Jas. I :25). God will not condemn your knowledge, since your actions will bear witness to it. On the contrary. He will glorify it through the words of knowledge spoken by those who by virtue of His wisdom shine as beacons in the Church of the faithful; for God is 'impartial' (Rom. 2:11). If on the other hand your endeavors are prompted by selfish ambition and you reject the teachings of those inspired by the Holy Spirit, trusting in your own understanding and in the deceptive words of those clad merely in the outward forms of piety and incited by a vainglorious and hedonistic spirit, then you will be filled with affliction and anguish, with envy, anger and animosity (cf. Rom. 2:8-9). Such will be the immediate reward for your delusion, and such at your death - when God judges the secrets of men and renders to each according to his actions (cf Rom. 2:6) - will be the sentence for your mutually self-accusing, self-defending thoughts.
69. 'He is not a real Jew who is one outwardly,' says St Paul, 'nor is true circumcision something external and physical; he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal' (Rom. 2:28-29). Similarly, you are not perfect in wisdom and spiritual knowledge because you give an outward and voluble appearance of being so; and you are proficient in virtue, not because you adopt extreme forms of bodily and outward ascetic practice, but because you dedicate yourself to hidden spiritual work. You are wise and perfect in knowledge when you speak from a pure unsullied heart through the Spirit of God, not when you repeat things according to the letter. Then 'you will receive praise not from men but from God' (Rom. 2:29), since you will be unknown to men or else envied by them, and beloved and known only by God and those inspired by God's Spirit.
70. If carrying out the law does not make you pure in the sight of God (cf. Gal. 2:16), then neither will ascetic struggle and labor alone perfect you in God's sight. We do indeed receive our grounding in virtue and check the activity of the passions through ascetic practice; but we are not initiated into the fullness of Christ through that alone. What, then, brings us to perfection? An ingrained faith in God, the 'faith that makes real the things for which we hope' (Heb. 11:1), the faith whereby Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain and was commended as righteous (cf. Heb. I 1 :4), and whereby Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out and sojourn in the promised land (cf. Heb. I 1:8). It is such faith that fills those assiduous in the search for truth with great aspiration for the exalted gifts of God, and leads them to the spiritual knowledge of created beings; and it pours into their hearts the inexhaustible treasures of the Spirit, enabling them to bring thence new and old mysteries of God (cf. Matt. 13:52) and to reveal them to the needy. He who is blessed with such faith is initiated by love into the knowledge of God, and has entered into God's rest, having ceased from all his labors as God did from His (cf. Heb. 4:10).
71. If God once swore to non-believers that they would never enter into His rest - and it was on account of their lack of faith that they could not do so (cf. Heb. 3:18-19) - how can mere bodily discipline, in the absence of faith, enable us to enter the rest of dispassion and the perfection of spiritual knowledge? We do in fact see many who because of this are unable to enter and to rest from their labors. We must therefore be wary lest we possess an evil, unbelieving heart (cf. Heb. 3:12), and because of this are thwarted of rest and perfection, in spite of our great: labors. Otherwise we will be ceaselessly involved in the toils of the ascetic life and will always eat the bread of sorrow (cf . Ps. 127 : 2). If a sabbath rest awaits us - the rest of dispassion and of perfect gnosis - let us through faith strive to enter into it, and not fall short of it because of our unbelief in the same way as those mentioned in the Bible (cf Heb. 4:9-11).
72. Since we are endowed with senses, intelligence and intellection, we too ought to offer a tithe from ourselves to God (cf. Heb. 7:2). As beings endowed with senses we ought to perceive sensory things in the right way, through their beauty elevating ourselves to the Creator and referring back to Him our true knowledge of them. As intelligent beings we ought to speak correctly about divine and human matters. As noetic beings we ought unerringly to apprehend what pertains to God and eternal life, to the kingdom of heaven and the mysteries of the Spirit hidden within it. In this way how we perceive, speak and apprehend will conform to God, and will be genuinely trae and divine, constituting a sacred offering to God.
75. The tithe that we offer to God is in the tme sense the soul's Passover - its passing beyond, that is to say, every passion-embroiled state and all mindless sense-perception. In this Passover the Logos is offered up in the contemplation of the spiritual essences of created beings; He is eaten in the bread of spiritual knowledge; and His precious blood is drunk in the chalice of ineffable wisdom. Thus he who has fed upon and celebrated this Passover makes a sacred offering within himself of the Lamb who effaces the world's sin (cf John 1:29); and he will no longer die but, in the Lord's words, 'will live eternally' (John 6:58).
74. If you have been raised above dead actions you are resurrected with Christ. And if you are resurrected with Christ through spiritual knowledge, and Christ no longer dies, then you will not be overcome by the death of ignorance. For the death which you have now died to sin, prompted by an impulse in accordance with nature, you have died once for all; but the life you now live you live in God through the freedom of the Holy Spirit, who has raised you above the dead actions of sin (cf Rom. 6:9-11). Thus you will no longer live according to the flesh, in a fallen worldly state, for you will have died to the mortal members of your body and to worldly matters. On the contrary, Christ will live in you (cf. Gal. 2:20), for you will be guided by the grace of the Holy Spirit, not enslaved to the law of your outer unregenerate self; and your members will be weapons of righteousness consecrated to God theFather(cf Rom. 6:13).
75. He who has freed his members from servitude to the passions, and has consecrated them to the service of righteousness (cf. Rom. 6:19), has risen above the law of his fallen self and has begun to share in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Sin will no longer dominate him, since he is free in the freedom and the law of the Spirit. Serving righteousness has an effect altogether different from that of servitude to sin. The latter inevitably leads to the destruction of the soul's noetic power, while the former leads to the eternal life hidden in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. Col. 3:3).
76. So long as you live according to your fallen impulses you are dominated by your fallen mortal self. But once you die to the world, you are set free from this domination (cf. Rom. 7:2). We cannot die to the world unless we die to the mortal aspects of ourselves. We die to these when we become participants in the Holy Spirit. We know ourselves to be participants in the Holy Spirit when we offer to God fruits worthy of the Spirit: love for God with all our soul and genuine love for our fellow beings; joy of heart issuing from a clear conscience; peace of soul as a result of dispassion and humility; generosity in our thoughts, long-suffering in affliction and times of trial, kindness and restraint in our behavior, deep-rooted unwavering faith in God, gentleness springing from humble-mindedness and compunction, and complete control of the senses. When we bear such truits for God, we escape from the domination of our mortal self; and there is no law condemning and punishing us for the death-purveying fruits we produced while still living in an unregenerate state. Once we have risen with Christ above dead actions the freedom of the Spirit releases us from the law of our fallen self (cf. Rom. 7:4-6).
77. Those who, having passed through the 'washing of regeneration' (Tit. 3:4), possess the firstfruits of the Spirit, and who preserve them unimpaired, are deeply afflicted by the burden of their fallen self; and they long for their adoption as sons through the full gift of the Paraclete, so that their body may be freed from servitude to corruption (cf. Rom. 8:23). Indeed, the Spirit helps them in their natural weaknesses and intercedes for them 'with sighs too deep for words' (Rom. 8:26); for they have conformed their will to God and are filled with the hope of experiencing in their mortal flesh the 'revelation of the sons of God' (Rom. 8:19), the life-quickening death of Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 4:10). In this way they too will be called sons of God, for they will be guided by the Holy Spirit, will be freed from servitude to the fallen self, and will attain 'the glorious liberty of the children of God' (Rom. 8:21), for whom, since they love God, 'all things work together for their good' (Rom. 8:28).
78. Divine Scripture is to be interpreted spiritually and the treasures it contains are revealed only through the Holy Spirit to the spiritual. Hence the unspiritual man cannot receive the revelation of these treasures (cf I Cor. 2:14). The ceaseless flow of his own thoughts makes it impossible for him to understand or listen to anything said by someone else. For he lacks the Spirit of God, that searches the depths of God (cf. I Cor. 2:10) and knows the things of God. He possesses only the material spirit of the world, full of jealousy and envy, of strife and discord; and for this reason he thinks it foolish to enquire into the sense and meaning of the written word. Unable to understand that everything in divine Scripture concerning things divine and human is to be interpreted spiritually, he mocks those who do interpret it in this way. Calling such people not 'spiritual', or 'guided by the Spirit', but 'anagogical', he twists and distorts their words and their divine intellections as much as he can, like the notorious Demas (cf. 2 Tim. 4:10). The spiritual man does not behave in this manner; on the contrary, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he discerns all things, but he himself cannot be called to account by anyone. For he has the intellect of Christ, and that no one can teach (cf I Cor. 2:15-16).
79. Since the day of judgment will be one of fire, what each of us has done, as St Paul says, will be tested by fire (cf . I Cor. 3:13). Thus, if what we have built up is of an incorruptible nature, it will not be destroyed by fire; and not only will it not be consumed, but it will be made radiant, totally purified of whatever small amount of filth may adhere to it. But if the work with which we have burdened ourselves consists of corruptible matter, it will be consumed and burnt up and we will be left destitute in the midst of the fire (cf I Cor. 3:13-15). Incorruptible and imperishable actions are the following: tears of repentance, acts of charity, compassion, prayer, humility, faith, hope, love and whatever else is done in a spirit of devotion. Even while we are still alive such actions help to build us up into a holy temple of God (cf. Eph. 2:21-22), while when we die they accompany us and remain incorruptibly with us for ever. The actions which are consumed by the fire are well known to all: self-indulgence, vainglory, avarice, hatred, envy, theft, drunkenness, abusiveness, censoriousness, and anything else of a base nature to which our appetites or incensive power prompts us to give bodily expression. Such actions pollute us even while we are still living and consumed by the fire of desire; and when we are wrenched away from the body, they accompany us but do not survive. On the contrary, they are destroyed and leave their perpetrator in the midst of the fire, to be punished immortally for all eternity.
80. If through humility and prayer you have been initiated into the spiritual knowledge of God, this means that you are known by God and enriched by Him with an authentic knowledge of His supernatural mysteries. If you are tainted with conceit, you have not been so initiated, but are governed by the spirit of this material world. Thus, even if you imagine that you know something, in fact you know nothing about things divine in the way you ought to (cf I Cor. 8:2). If, however, you love God and regard nothing as more precious than love for God and for your fellow being, you will also know the depths of God and the mysteries of His kingdom in the way that someone inspired by the Holy Spirit must know them. And you are known by God (cf. I Cor. 8:3), for you are a true worker in the paradise of His Church, out of love doing God's will - that is to say, converting others, making the unworthy worthy through the understanding given you by the Holy Spirit, and keeping your actions inviolate through humility and compunction.
81. All of us were baptized into Christ through water and the Holy Spirit, and we all eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink; yet, though this food and drink are Christ Himself, God finds no delight in most of us (cf. I Cor. 10:4-5). For many of those faithful and diligent in ascetic practice and bodily discipline have mortified and emaciated their bodies; but because they lacked the compunction that comes from a contrite and virtuous state of mind, and the compassion that springs from love for their fellow beings as well as for themselves, they have remained bereft of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, remote from the spiritual knowledge of God. Their mind's womb is sterile and their intelligence without salt or illumination.
82. What the Logos seeks from the Nazarites is not simply to ascend Mount Sinai through ascetic practice or to be purified before ascending and to wash their clothes and to abstain from intercourse with a woman (cf. Exod. 19:14- 1 5). It is also to see, not the rearward parts of God (cf. Exod. 33 :23), but God Himself in His glory rejoicing in them, bestowing on them the tables of spiritual knowledge, and sending them out to instruct His people (cf. Exod. 32:1 5).
83. The Logos does not take all His servants and disciples with Him when He reveals His hidden and greater mysteries; He takes only those to whom an ear has been given and whose eye has been opened and in whom a new tongue has been trained to speak clearly. Taking such people with Him and separating them from the others - even though the latter are likewise His disciples - He ascends Mount Tabor, the mountain of contemplation, and is transfigured before them (cf. Matt. 17:2). He does not yet initiate them into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but shows them the glory and resplendence of the Divinity. And through the light that He gives He makes their life and intelligence shine like the sun in the midst of the Church of the faithful. He transforms their intellections into the whiteness and purity of the brightest light, and puts in them His own intellect, and sends them out to proclaim things new and old (cf. Matt. 13:52) for the edification of His Church.
84. Many have cultivated their own fields with great diligence and have sown pure seed in them, cutting away the thorn-bushes and burning the thistles on the fire of repentance; but because God did not water these fields with the compunction-born rain of the Holy Spirit, they did not yield anything. Parched as they were they did not bring forth the rich grain of the knowledge of God. Thus even if they did not perish through a total dearth of the divine Logos, they certainly died poor in the knowledge of God and with hands empty, having provided themselves with but scant nourishment for the divine banquet.
85. When someone says something that edifies his fellow beings, he speaks out of the goodness stored up in his heart, since he himself is good, as the Lord confirms (cf. Luke 6:45). No one can devote himself to theology and speak about what pertains to God unless so empowered by the Holy Spirit; and no one when inspired by the Spirit of God says anything contrary to faith in Christ (cf. ICor. 12:3). But he says only what is edifying, only what leads others to God and His kingdom and restores them to their original nobility, bringing them to salvation and uniting them to God. And if 'the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each to the degree that is profitable' (1 Cor. 12:7), this means that anyone enriched with the wisdom of God and blessed with spiritual knowledge is inspired by the divine Spirit and is a storehouse of the inexhaustible treasures of God.
86. No one baptized into Christ and believing in Him is left without a share in the grace of the Spirit, so long as he has not succumbed to any diabolic influence and defiled his faith with evil actions, or does not live slothfuUy and dissolutely. Provided he has preserved unextmguished the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, which he received from holy baptism, or, if he has extinguished them, has rekindled them through acts of righteousness, he cannot but receive from God the fullness of this grace. He may after worthily engaging in spiritual combat be blessed through the plenitude of the Spirit with the consciousness of God's wisdom and so become a teacher in the Church; or he may through the same Spirit be given knowledge of God's mysteries and so come to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; or from the same Spirit he may acquire deep-rooted faith in God's promises, as Abraham did (cf Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3). He may receive the gift of healing, so that he can cure diseases; or of spiritual power, so that he can expel demons and perform miracles; or of prophecy, so that he can foresee and predict things of the future; or of the ability to distinguish between spirits, so that he can discern who is speaking in the Spirit of God and who is not; or of the interpretation of various tongues, or of helping the weary, or of governing God's flocks and His people, or of love for all men and the gifts of grace that go with it, long-suffering, kindness and the rest (cf. I Cor. 12:8-10, 28). If you are bereft of all these qualities, there is no way in which I can call you a believer or number you among those who have 'clothed themselves in Christ' through divine baptism (cf. Gal. 3:27).
87. If you possess love, you feel no jealousy or envy. You are not boastful, carried away by reckless pride. Nor do you put on airs with anyone. Nor do you act shamefully towards your fellow beings. You seek, not simply what is to your own advantage, but what also benefits your fellow beings. You are not quickly provoked by those who are angry with you. You are not resentful if wrong is done to you, nor do you rejoice if your friends act unjustly, though you do rejoice with them over the truth of their righteousness. You put up with disagreeable eventualities. You believe all things in simplicity and innocence, and hope to receive everything promised to us by God. You patiently endure all trials, never rendering evil for evil. And, laborer of love that you are, you never waver in your love for your fellow beings (cf. I Cor. 13:4-8).
88. Of those granted the grace of the Holy Spirit in the form of various gifts, some are still immature and imperfect with regard to these gifts, while others are mature and perfect, enjoying them in their fullness. The first, by increasing their efforts to practice the divine commandments, augment the spiritual gifts they have received so that they are filled with yet greater gifts, leaving those of immaturity behind. The mature and the perfect, having attained the summit of God's love and knowledge, cease from exercising partial gifts, whether of prophecy, or of distinguishing between spirits, or of helping, or of governing, and so on (cf I Cor. 12:28). Once you have entered the palace of love you no longer know in part the God who is love (cf. I Cor. 13:9) but, conversing with Him face to face, you understand Him fully even as you yourself are fully understood by Him (cf . I Cor. 13:12).
89. If in your aspiration for spiritual gifts you have pursued and laid hold of love, you cannot content yourself with praying and reading solely for your own edification. If when you pray and psalmodize you speak to God in private you edify yourself, as St Paul says. But once you have laid hold of love you feel impelled to prophesy for the edification of God's Church (cf. I Cor. 14:2-4), that is, to teach your fellow men how to practice the commandments of God and how they must endeavor to conform to God's will. For of what benefit can it be to others if, while charged with their guidance, you always converse with yourself and God alone through prayer and psalmody, and do not also speak to those in your charge, whether through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, or out of knowledge of the mysteries of God, or by exercising the prophetic gift of foresight, or by teaching the wisdom of God (cf I Cor. 14:6)? For which of your disciples will prepare for battle against the passions and the demons (cf. I Cor. 14:8) if he does not receive clear instructions from you either in writing or by word of mouth? Truly, if it is not in order to edify his flock that the shepherd seeks to be richly endowed with the grace of teaching and the knowledge of the Spirit, he lacks fervor in his quest for God's gifts. By merely praying and psalmodizing inwardly with your tongue - that is, by praying in the soul - you edify yourself, but your intellect is unproductive (cf. I Cor. 14:14), for you do not prophesy with the language of sacred teaching or edify God's Church. If Paul, who of all men was the most closely united with God through prayer, would have rather spoken from his fertile intellect five words in church for the instruction of others than ten thousand words of psalmody in private (cf . I Cor. 14:19), surely those who have responsibility for others have strayed from the path of love if they limit the shepherd's ministry solely to psalmody and reading.
90. He who has given us being by miraculously uniting and sustaining the two contrary aspects of our nature, material substratum and spiritual essence, has also given us the capacity for well-being, which we can realize by means of His wisdom and spiritual knowledge. Thus through spiritual knowledge we may perceive the hidden treasures of the kingdom of heaven that He discloses to us, and through wisdom we may make known to our fellow- men the riches of His supernal goodness and the blessings of eternal life which He has prepared for the joy of those who love Him (cf. I Cor. 2:9).
91. He who has risen above the threats and promises of the three laws and has entered into the life which is not subject to law has himself become the law of the Church and is not ruled by law. The life that is free is not subject to law, and therefore transcends all physical necessity and change. He who has attained such a life is as if liberated from his fallen unregenerate self, and through his participation in the Spirit he becomes incandescent. Purged of all within him that is imperfect (cf. I Cor. 13:9-10), he is united wholly with Christ, who transcends all nature.
92. If you embrace the knowledge of the primordial Intellect, who is the origin and consummation of all things, infinite in Himself, and existing both within all things and outside them, then you will know how to live as a solitary either by yourself or with other solitaries. For you will suffer no loss of perfection through being on your own, and no loss of solitude through being with others. On the contrary, you will be the same everywhere and alone among all. You will initiate in others their movement towards a life of solitude and will embody the highest perfection of virtue that they set before themselves.
93. The unconfused union and conjunction of soul and body constitutes, when maintained in harmony, a single reality, whether on the visible level or in their inner being. When not harmonious, there is civil war in which each side desires victory. But when the intelligence takes control, it at once puts an end to the jealousy and establishes concord, conforming the entire soul-body reality to its inner being and the Spirit.
94. Of the three main aspects of our being, the first rules the others and is not ruled by them, the second both rules and is ruled, the third does not rule but is ruled. Thus when the ruling aspect falls under the domination of either of those aspects which are ruled, that which is by nature free becomes the servant of what are by nature servants; it loses its rightful pre-eminence and nature, and this provokes great discord among the three leading powers of the soul. So long as there is this discord among them, all things are not yet made subject to the divine Logos (cf. Heb. 2:8). But when the ruling aspect governs the others and brings them under its own direction and control, then the discordant elements, united into one and becoming concordant, are led peacefully to God. And when all is subjected to the Logos, He delivers the kingdom to God the Father (cf I Cor. 15: 24).
95. When the five senses are subject to the four principal virtues and maintain their obedience, they enable the body, composed of the four elements, tranquilly to fulfill the round of life. When the body is thus disposed, the soul's powers are not in a state of discord; the passible aspect of the appetitive and incensive powers is united with the power of the intelligence, and the intellect assumes its natural sovereignty. It makes the four principal virtues its chariot and the five subservient senses its seat. And once it has subdued the imperious and unregenerate self, the intellect is seized and borne heavenward in its four-horsed chariot and, led before the King of the ages, is crowned with the crow n of victory and rests from its long endeavor.
96. For those who with the support of the Spirit have entered the fullness of contemplation, a chalice of wine is made ready, and bread from a royal banquet is set before them. A throne is prepared for their repose and silver for their wealth. Close at hand is a treasure-house of pearls and precious stones, and untold riches are bestowed upon them. Because of the promptness with which they act, their ascetic life renders them visionary and prepares them to be brought into the presence, not of sluggards, but of the King.
97. Is the kingdom of heaven already given in this life to all those advanced on the spiritual way, or is it given to them after the dissolution of the body? If in this life, our victory is unassailable, our joy inexpressible, and our path to paradise unimpeded: we are directly present in the divine East (cf. Gen. 2:8). But if it is given only after death and dissolution, we should ask that our departure from this life may take place without fear; we should learn what the kingdom of heaven is, what the kingdom of God is, and what paradise is, and how the one differs from the other; also what the nature of time is in each of them, and whether we enter all three, and how and when and after how much time. If you enter the first while you are still alive and in the flesh you will not fail to enter the other two. 98. The world above is as yet incomplete, and awaits its fulfillment from the first-born of Israel - from those who see God; for it receives its completion from those who attain the knowledge of God. Once it is complete, and has brought to an end the lower world of believers and unbelievers, it constitutes a single congregation, allocating to each member his appointed place, and separating out what cannot be reconciled. It draws to itself the origins and ends of all other worlds and, itself unlimited, it sets bounds to them. It is not affected or limited by any other principle, as something that is under constraint. For it is ever-active, in such a way that it is never self -confined or extended beyond its own limits. It is the sabbath rest of other worlds and of every other principle and activity.
99. The nine heavenly powers sing hymns of praise that have a threefold structure, as they stand in threefold rank before the Trinity, in awe celebrating their liturgy and glorifying God. Those who come first - immediately below Him who is the Source and Cause of all things and from whom they take their origin - are the initiators of the hymns and are named thrones. Cherubim and Seraphim. They are characterized by a fiery wisdom and a knowledge of heavenly things, and their supreme accomplishment is the godly hymn of El, as the Divinity is called in Hebrew. Those in the middle rank, encircling God between the first triad and the last, are the authorities, dominions and powers. They are characterized by their ordering of great events, their performance of wondrous deeds and working of miracles, and their supreme accomplishment is the Trisagion: Holy, Holy, Holy (cf Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). Those nearest to us, superior to us but below the more exalted ranks, are the principalities, archangels and angels. They are characterized by their ministrative function, and their supreme accomplishment is the sacred hymn Alleluia (cf. Rev. 19:1). When our intelligence is perfected through the practice of the virtues and is elevated through the knowledge and wisdom of the Spirit and by the divine fire, it is assimilated to these heavenly powers through the gifts of God, as by virtue of its purity it draws towards itself the particular characteristic of each of them. We are assimilated to the third rank through the ministration and performance of God's commandments.
We are assimilated to the second rank through our compassion and solidarity with our fellow-men, as well as through our ordering of matters great and divine, and through the activities of the Spirit. We are assimilated to the first rank through the fiery wisdom of the Logos and through knowledge of divine and human affairs. Perfected in this way, and rewarded with the gifts that belong by nature to the heavenly powers, our intelligence is united through them with the God of the Decad, for it offers to Him from its own being the finest of all the offerings that can be made by the tenth rank.
100. God is both Monad and Triad; He begins with the Monad and, as Decad, He completes Himself through a cyclic movement. Thus He contains within Himself the origins and ends of all things. He is outside everything, since He transcends all things. To be within Him you must embrace the inner essences and possess a spiritual knowledge of created beings. Then while standing outside all things you will dwell within all things and know their origins and ends; for you will have attained a spiritual union with the Father through the Logos and will have been perfected in the Spirit. May the sovereignty of this all-perfect, indivisible and coessential Trinity, worshipped in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and glorified in one nature, kingdom and power of Divinity, prevail throughout the ages. Amen.
