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Nikitas Stithatos: On the Inner Nature of Things and the Purification of the Intellect: One Hundred Texts
1. Love for God begins with detachment from things human and visible. Purification of heart and intellect marks the intermediate stage, for through such purification the eye of the intellect is spiritually unveiled and we attain knowledge of the kingdom of heaven hidden within us (cf. Luke 17:21). The final stage is consummated in an irrepressible longing for the supernatural gifts of God and in a natural desire for union with God and for finding one's abode in Him.
2. Where there is intense longing for God, noetic labor, and participation in the unapproachable light, there too the soul's powers will be at peace, the intellect will be purified, and the Holy Trinity will dwell within us; for it is written, 'He who loves Me will fulfill My teaching, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and take up Our abode in him' (John 14:23).
3. Our teaching recognizes three modes of living: the carnal, the psychic and the spiritual. Each of these is characterized by its own particular attitude to life, distinctive to itself and dissimilar to that of the others.
4. The carnal mode of life is one wholly devoted to the pleasures and enjoyments of this present life, and has nothing to do with the psychic and spiritual modes of life, and does not even have any wish to acquire them. The psychic mode, which is situated on the borderline between evil and virtue, is preoccupied with the care and strengthening of the body and with men's praise; it not only repudiates the labors required for virtue, but also rejects carnal indulgence. It avoids both virtue and vice but for opposite reasons: virtue because this requires toil and discipline; vice because that would entail forfeiting men's praise. The spiritual mode of life, on the other hand, has nothing in common with these two other modes, and on this account is not implicated in the evil that pertains to either: it is entirely free in every way from both the one and the other. Invested with the wings of love and dispassion, it soars above them both, doing nothing that is forbidden and not being hamstrung by evil.
5. Those who pursue the carnal mode of life and in whom the will of the flesh is imperious - who are, quite simply, carnal - are not able to conform to God's will (cf Rom. 8:8). Their judgment is eclipsed and they are totally impervious to the rays of divine light: the engulfing clouds of the passions are like high walls that shut out the resplendence of the Spirit and leave them without illumination. Their soul's senses maimed, they cannot aspire to God's spiritual beauty and see the light of the true life and so transcend the lowliness of visible things. It is as if they had become beasts conscious only of this world, with the dignity of their intelligence fettered to things sensory and human. They strive only for what is visible and corruptible, on this account fighting among themselves and even sacrificing their lives for such things, avid for wealth, glory and the pleasures of the flesh, and regarding the lack of any of these things as a disaster. To such people applies the prophetic statement that comes from God's own mouth: 'My Spirit shall not remain in these men, for they are flesh' (Gen. 6:3. LXX).
6. Those who pursue the psychic mode of life and are therefore called 'psychic' are like the mentally defective whose limbs do not function properly. They never exert themselves on behalf of virtue or in the practice of God's commandments, and they refrain from acting reprehensibly simply in order to gain the esteem of other people. They are completely under the sway of self-love, nurse of the destructive passions, and they seek out whatever fosters physical health and pleasure. They repudiate all tribulation, effort and hardship embraced for the sake of virtue, and they cosset our enemy the body more than they should. Through such life and behavior their passion-imbued intellect grows cloddish and becomes impervious to the divine and spiritual realities whereby the soul is plucked from the world of matter and soars into the noetic heaven. This happens to them because they are still possessed by the spirit of matter, love themselves, and choose to do what they themselves want. Void of the Holy Spirit, they have no share in His gifts. As a result they exhibit no godly fruit - love for God and for their fellow men - no joy in the midst of poverty and tribulation, no peace of soul, no deeply-rooted faith, no all-embracing self-control. Neither do they experience compunction, tears, humility or compassion, but they are altogether filled with conceit and arrogance. Hence they are totally incapable of plumbing the depths of the Spirit, for there is no guiding light in diem to open their intellect to the understanding of the Scriptures (cf Luke 24:45); indeed, they cannot endure even to hear other people talking about such things. St Paul was quite right when he said that 'the psychic man cannot grasp spiritual things: they are folly to him; he is unaware that the law is spiritual and must be discerned spiritually' (cf. I Cor. 2: 14).
7. Those who 'cleave to the Spirit' (Gal. 5:25) and are totally committed to the spiritual life live in accordance with God's will, dedicated to Him as were the Nazirites (cf. Num. 6:2-8; Judg. 13:5). At all times they labor to purify their soul and to keep the Lord's commandments, expending their blood in their love for Him. They purify the flesh through fasts and vigils; they refine the heart's dross with tears; they mortify their materialistic tendencies through ascetic hardship; they fill the intellect with light through prayer and meditation, making it translucid; and by renouncing their own wills they sunder themselves from passionate attachment to the body and adhere solely to the Spirit. As a result everyone recognizes them as spiritual, and rightly refers to them as such. As they approach the state of dispassion and love, they ascend to the contemplation of the inner essences of created things; and from this they acquire the knowledge of created being that is bestowed by the hidden wisdom of God (cf. I Cor. 2:7) and given only to those who have risen above the body's low estate. Thus it is that when they have passed beyond all sensory experience of this world and have entered with an illumined mind into the realms that are above sense- perception, their intelligence is enlightened and they utter righteous words from a pure heart in the midst of the Church of God and the great congregation of the faithful (cf. Ps. 40 : 9-10). For other people they are salt and light, as the Lord says of them: 'You are the light of the world and the salt of (he earth' (cf. Matt. 5: 13-14).
8. 'Devote yourselves to stillness and know that I am God' (Ps. 46:10). This is the voice of the divine Logos and is experienced as such by those who put the words into practice. Thus once you have renounced the turmoil and frightening vanity of life you should in stillness scnitinize yourself and the inner reality of things with the utmost attentiveness and should seek to blow more fully the God within yourself, for His kingdom is within us (cf. Luke 17 : 21). Yet even if you do this over a long period of time it will be difficult for you to erase the imprint of evil from your soul and to restore it wholly to its Creator in all its primal beauty.
9. Since we are so greatly imbued with the poison of evil we are in a correspondingly great need of the cleansing fire of repentant tears and voluntary ascetic labor. For we are purged of the stains of sin either through embracing such labor willingly or through afflictions that come unsought. If we first engage in voluntary ascetic labor, we will be spared the unsought afflictions; but if we fail to cleanse 'the inside of the cup and the dish' (cf. Matt. 23:26) through ascetic labor, the afflictions will restore us to our original state with a greater harshness. So the Creator has ordained.
10. If you do not enter the way of renunciation in the right spirit -if, that is to say, from the start you refuse to accept a teacher and guide but, regarding yourself as an adept, rely on your own judgment - you will make a mockery of the religious life and in turn will be mocked by what happens to you.
11. Just as you cannot know exactly the causes and cures of bodily afflictions without great medical experience and skill, so you cannot know those of psychic afflictions without great spiritual training and practice. The diagnosis of bodily illnesses is a tricky business and only a few are truly versed in it; but the diagnosis of psychic illnesses is far more tricky. The soul is superior to the body, and correspondingly its afflictions are greater and harder to understand than those of the body, which is visible to all.
12. The principal and primary virtues were co-created with man as part of his nature. From them the rivers of all the other virtues are filled as from four well-heads, and they water the city of God, which is the heart cleansed and refreshed by tears. If you keep these four principal virtues impregnable to the spirits of malice, or if they fall but you raise them up again through the travails of repentance, you will build yourself a royal palace in which the King of All may make His abode (cf. John 14:2]), lavishly bestowing His lofty gifts on those who have thus prepared the ground.
13. Life is short, the age to come is long, and little the length of our present existence. Man, this great but petty being, to whom the scant present has been allotted, is weak. Time is scant, man weak, but the contest set before him, with its prize, is great, even if it is full of thorns and puts our trivial life at risk.
14. God does not wish the labors of those well advanced on the spiritual path to go untested, but wants them to be well tried. Consequently He casts upon them the fire of temptation and withdraws for a short time the grace given them, allowing the tranquility of their thoughts to be perturbed for a while by the spirits of malice. In this manner He sees which way the soul will turn, and whether it will favor its own Creator and Benefactor or the senses of this world and the lure of pleasure. Depending on their proclivity He will either augment His grace in them as they advance in love of Him, or lash them with temptation and tribulation if they indulge in worldly thoughts and actions, continuing this until they come to hate the unstable whirl of visible things and with tears wash away the bitterness of its pleasures.
15. When the peace of your thoughts is disturbed by the spirits of malice, then those huntsmen - the flesh-loving demons - will at once assault your swiftly -mounting intellect with the fiery arrows of desire (cf Eph. 6:16). As a result its upward motion is thwarted and it succumbs to unseemly, corrupt impulses; the flesh licentiously begins to revolt against the spirit, through titivation and incitement seeking to drag the intellect down into the pit of pleasure. And if the Lord of hosts did not curtail those days and grant His servants the strength to endure, 'no flesh would be saved' (cf Matt. 24:22).
16. The highly experienced and wily demon of unchastity is for some a pitfall, for others a well-merited scourge, for others a test or trial of soul. He is a pitfall for those newly engaged in spiritual warfare, who still bear the ascetic yoke slackly and negligently; a scourge for those who have advanced midway along the path of virtue but then relax in their efforts; a test or trial for those who on the wings of the intellect have already entered the sphere of contemplation and who now aspire to the more perfect form of dispassion. Each category is thus divinely guided in the way that suits it best.
17. The demon of unchastity is a pitfall for those who live the ascetic life perfunctorily. It kindles their limbs with sensual desire and suggests ways of carrying out the will of me flesh even without intercourse with other flesh, something of which it is shameful even to speak or think (cf. Eph. 5:12). Such people defile the flesh (cf. Jude 8) and devour the fruits of bitter pleasure, blinding themselves and deservedly slipping from the higher realms. If they wish for healing, they will find it in the fervor of repentance and the tearful compunction' that flows from it. This will make them flee from evil and will cleanse their soul from its impurity, making it an heir of God's mercy. In his wisdom Solomon referred to this cryptically when he said, 'Healing puts an end to great offences' (cf. Eccles. 10:4. LXX).
18. This demon is a well-merited scourge for those who through the practice of the virtues have attained the first degree of dispassion and are now progressing to what lies beyond this and is more perfect. For when out of sluggishness they slacken the tension of their ascetic practice and deviate, albeit slightly, towards unguarded preoccupation with the sensible world, longing to involve themselves in human affairs, then, as a result of God's great goodness towards them, this demon acts as scourge: it begins to assail those who deviate in this way with thoughts tainted by carnal desire. Unable to bear this, they swiftly revert to their stronghold of intense ascetic practice and attentiveness, performing with ever greater eagerness and even more strenuously the tasks that will save them. In His bounteousness, God does not wish the soul that has reached this stage to turn completely to the world of the senses; on the contrary. He wants it to progress continuously and to embrace zealously ever more perfect works, so that no plague will come near its dwelling (cf. Ps. 91:10. LXX).
19. Through God's economy, this same demon is a test, a thorn and a trial for those who, having attained the first, aspire to the second degree of dispassion. So long as the demon troubles them, they recall the weakness of their nature and do not become conceited because of the 'abundance of the revelations' (2 Cor. 12:7) that they have received through contemplation. Rather, keenly aware, of the law that wars against the law of the intellect (cf . Rom. 7:23), they repudiate even the passion-free recollection of sin, lest by recalling it they re -experience the defilement it engenders and thereby let the eye of the intellect lapse from the heights of contemplation.
20. Only those who through the Spirit have been privileged to receive the life-quickening deadness of the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 4:10) in their limbs and thoughts can keep their intellect untroubled even by the passion-free memory of sin. Their flesh is dead to sin, while through the righteousness that is in Christ Jesus they have enriched their spirit with life (cf. Rom. 8:10). Those who through their consciousness of wisdom have received the intellect of Christ will also
21. The spirit of desire and anger is liable to invade souls but recently purified. To do what? To shake down the fruits of the Holy Spirit burgeoning within them. For the joy of freedom produces a certain confusion in such souls; they tend to exalt themselves over others because of their great freedom and the richness of their gifts, and also to think that they have attained this great palace of peace through their own strength and understanding. Hence the Wisdom that orders all things for good, and seeks always to attract these souls to itself by means of its gifts and to keep them unshaken in their humility, withdraws from them slightly and so permits this spirit of desire and anger to attack them. Plunged as a result into the fear of falling, they once more keep guard over blessed humility; and, recognizing that they are bound to flesh and blood, they search in accordance with their true nature for the inner stronghold where by the power of the Holy Spirit they can sustain themselves unharmed.
22. The vehemence of our trials and temptations depends upon the degree to which we are debilitated by the passions and infected by sin; and the bitter cup of God's judgment varies accordingly. If the nature of the sin within us is such that it is easily treated and cured - if, that is to say, it consists of thoughts that are self-indulgent or worldly - then the Healer of our souls in His compassion adds but a mild dose of wormwood to the cup of trial and temptation He administers, since these are merely human ailments by which we are afflicted. But if the sin is deep- seated and hard to cure - a lethal infection of pretentious arrogant thoughts - then in the keenness of His wrath He gives us the cup undiluted, so that, dissolved and refined in the fire of successive trials and the humility they induce, the sickness may be removed from our soul and we may wash away our brackish thoughts with tears, thus presenting ourselves pure in the light of humility to our Healer.
23. Those engaged in spiritual warfare can escape from the cycle of trial and temptation only by recognizing their weakness, and regarding themselves as strangers to righteousness and unworthy of any solace, honor, or repose. God, the doctor of our souls, wishes us to be always humble and modest, detached from our fellow-men and imitators of His sufferings. For He was 'gentle and humble in heart' (Matt. I 1 :29), and wants us to pursue the path of His commandments with a similar gentleness and humility of heart. One Hundred Texts
24. Humility is not achieved by means of a scraggy neck, squalid hair, or filthy, ragged and unkempt clothing, to which the generality of men ascribe the sum total of this virtue. It comes from a contrite heart and a spirit of self- abasement. As David said, 'God will not scorn a contrite spirit, and a contrite and humble heart' (cf. Ps. 51:19. LXX).
25. To speak humbly is one thing, to act humbly is another, and to be inwardly humble is something else again. Through all manner of hardship and through the outward labors of virtue those engaged in spiritual warfare can attain the qualities of speaking and acting humbly, for these qualities require-no more than bodily effort and discipline. But because the soul of such people often lacks inner stability, when temptation confronts them they are easily shaken. Inward humility, on the other hand, is something exalted and divine, bestowed through the indwelling of the Paraclete only on those who have passed the midpoint of the spiritual way - who have, that is to say, through acting in all humility traversed the rigorous path of virtue.
26. The soul is so distressed and oppressed when inner humility like a weighty stone has penetrated its depths, that it loses all its strength because of the tears which it uncontrollably sheds; while the intellect, cleansed of every defiling thought, attains like Isaiah to the vision of God. Under that divine mfluence it too confesses, 'How abject I am - I am pierced to the heart; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips; and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts' (Isa. 6:5).
27. When the ability to speak humbly is firmly established within you, then you will no longer indulge in boastful talk; when you act spontaneously in humbleness of heart, then you will cease from humble speech, whether superficial or profound; and when you are enriched by God with inner humility then both humility of outward action and humility of the tongue will no longer have any place in you. It is as St Paul said: 'But when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial is done away with' (1 Cor. 13:10).
28. Genuine humility of speech is as remote from genuine humility of action as East is from West. And as heaven surpasses earth, or the soul the body, so the inner humility given to the saints through the Holy Spirit excels genuine humility of action.
29. Do not readily assume that someone who in outward appearance and dress, and in manner of speech, seems to be humble is actually humble at heart; and do not assume - unless you have put it to the test - that someone who speaks exaltedly of high things is full of boastfulness and vanity. For 'you shall' know them by their fruits' (Matt. 7:16).
30. The fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, goodness, long-suffering, kindness, faith, gentleness, self- control (cf. Gal. 5:22-23). The fruits of the spirit of evil are hatred, worldly despondency, restlessness of soul, a troubled heart, guile, inquisitive -ness, negligence, anger, lack of faith, envy, gluttony, drunkenness, abusiveness, censoriousness, the lust of the eyes (cf. I John 2:16), vanity and pretentiousness of soul. By these fruits you may know the tree (cf. Matt. 12:33), and in this way you will certainly recognize what kind of spirit you have to deal with. An even clearer indication of these things is given by the Lord Himself when He says, 'A good man out of the good treasury of his heart brings forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasury of his heart brings forth evil things' (Matt. 12:35). For as the tree, so is the fruit.
31. God dwells in those in whom the fruits of the Holy Spirit are evident and, whether they speak of lowly or exalted things, from them flows, full of wisdom and knowledge, the unsullied spring of the Logos. Those who display the fruits and gifts not of the Holy Spirit but of the spirit of evil are on the other hand benighted with ignorance of God and swarm with the passions and hostile spirits; and this is so whether they speak and dress humbly, or whether they speak exaltedly, wear fine clothes, and bear themselves with an outward show of pomp.
32. Truth is not evinced by looks, gestures or words, and God reposes not in these things but in a contrite heart, a humble spirit and a soul illumined by the knowledge of God. Sometimes we see someone speaking to all comers in an outwardly obsequious and humble manner, while inwardly he pursues the praise of men and is filled with self- conceit, guile, malice and rancor. And there are times when we see someone fighting for righteousness outwardly with lofty words of wisdom, taking a stand against falsehood or the transgression of God's laws, and looking only to the truth, while within he is all modesty, humility, and love for his fellow-men. Sometimes also we see such a person glorying in the Lord after the manner of St Paul, who when he gloried in the Lord said, 'I will glory in my infirmities' (2 Cor. 12:9).
33. God looks not at the outward form of what we say or do, but at the disposition of our soul and the purpose for which we perform a visible action or express a thought. In the same way those of greater understanding than others look rather to the inward meaning of words and the intention of actions, and unfalteringly assess them accordingly. Man looks at the outward form, but God looks on the heart (cf. I Sam. 16:7).
34. God has judged it right that from generation to generation His prophets and friends should be equipped by the Spirit for the building up of His Church (cf. Eph. 4:11-13). For since the old serpent still devastates men's souls by spewing the poison of sin into their ears, how could He who fashioned our hearts one by one (cf. Ps. 33: 15) not raise the needy from the earth of humility and lift them from the dunghill of the passions (cf. Ps. 113:7), assisting His inheritance with 'the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God' (Eph. 6:17)? Rightly, then, do those who begin with humility, and deny themselves, rise to the heights of spiritual knowledge, receiving from on high the teachings of wisdom through the power of God, so that they may proclaim the Gospel of salvation to His Church.
35. 'Know thyself: this is true humility, the humility that teaches us to be inwardly humble and makes our heart contrite. Such humility you must cultivate and guard. For if you do not yet know yourself you cannot know what humility is, and have not yet embarked truly on the task of cultivating and guarding. To know oneself is the goal of the practice of the virtues.
36. If having achieved a state of purity you advance to the knowledge of the essences of created beings, you will have fulfilled the injunction, 'Know thyself If on the other hand you have not yet attained a knowledge of the inner essences of creation and of things both divine and human, you may know what is outside and around you, but you will still be totally ignorant of your own self.
37. What I am is not at all the same as that which characterizes me; nor is what characterizes me the same as that which relates to my situation; nor is what relates to my situation the same as that which is external to me. In each case the one is distinct from the other. What I am is an image of God manifest in a spiritual, immortal and intelligent soul, having an intellect that is the father of my consciousness and that is consubstantial with the soul and inseparable from it That which characterizes me, and is regal and sovereign, is the power of intelligence and free will. That which relates to my situation is what I may choose in exercising my free will, such as whether to be a farmer, a merchant, a mathematician or a philosopher. That which is external to me is whatever relates to my ambitions in this present life, to my class status and worldly wealth, to glory, honor, prosperity and exalted rank, or to their opposites, poverty, ignominy, dishonor and misfortune.
38. When you know yourself you cease from all outward tasks undertaken with a view to serving God and enter into the very sanctuary of God, into the noetic liturgy of the Spirit, the divine haven of dispassion and humility. But until you come to know yourself through humility and spiritual knowledge your life is one of toil and sweat. It was of this that David cryptically spoke when he said, 'Toil lies before me until I enter the sanctuary of God' (Ps. 73:16- 17. LXX).
39. To know yourself means that you must guard yourself diligently from everything external to you; it means respite from worldly concerns and cross-examination of the conscience. Once you come to know yourself a kind of super rational divine humility suddenly descends upon the soul, bringing contrition and tears of fervent compunction to the heart. Acted upon in this way you regard yourself as earth and ashes (cf Gen. 18:27), and as a worm and no man (cf. Ps. 22:6). Indeed, because of this overwhelming gift of God, you think you are unworthy of even this wormlike form of life. If you are privileged to remain in this state for some time you will be filled with a strange. unspeakable intoxication - the intoxication of compunction - and will enter into the depths of humility. Rapt out of yourself, you take no account of food, drink or clothing beyond the minimum needed; for you are as one who has experienced the blessed change that comes from 'the right hand of the Most High' (Ps. 77: 10. LXX).
40. Humility is the greatest of the virtues. If as a result of sincere repentance it is implanted in you, you will also be given the gift of prayer and self-control, and will be freed from servitude to the passions. Peace will suffuse your powers, tears will cleanse your heart, and through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit you will be filled with tranquility. When you have attained this state, your consciousness of me knowledge of God will grow lucid and you will begin to contemplate the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and the inner essences of created things. The more you descend into the depths of the Spirit, the more you plumb the abyss of humility. Correspondingly you gain greater knowledge of your own limitations and recognize the weakness of human nature; at the same time your love for God and your fellow beings waxes until you think that sanctification flows simply from a greeting or from the proximity of those with whom you live.
41. Nothing so inspires the soul with longing for God and love for one's fellow beings as humility, compunction and pure prayer. Humility shatters the spirit and engenders tears, while by making us aware of the shortness of human life it teaches us to know the frailty of our limitations. Compunction purifies the intellect of materiality, illumines the eye of the heart, and makes the soul completely radiant. Pure prayer binds the whole person to God, making us share the life of the angels, allowing us to taste the sweetness of the immortal blessings of God, and bestowing on us the treasures of the great mysteries. Enkindling us with love, it gives us the courage to lay down our life for our friends (cf John 15:13), for we have transcended the body's low estate.
42. Protect the pledge of enriching humility that has been entrusted to you, for in it are stored the hidden treasures of love and the pearls of compunction. In it, too, the King, Christ our God, reposes as on a golden throne, bestowing the gifts of the Holy Spirit on those it nourishes and giving them His great glories: consciousness of His divine knowledge. His ineffable wisdom, the vision of supernal realities, the prevision of human realities, the life- quickening deadness induced by dispassion, and union with Himself, so that we co-reign with Him in the kingdom of God the Father. For this accords with the petition He made to the Father, when He said on our behalf, 'Father, I desire that those whom Thou hast given Me should be with Me wherever I am' (John 17:24).
43. If while striving to practice the commandments you suddenly feel an inexpressible secret joy that strangely and unaccountably transforms you, alleviates the body's weight and puts from your mind all thought of food, sleep and the other necessities of nature, then you must know that all this is because God has come to dwell within you, inducing in you a life -quickening deadness and here and now raising you to the angelic state. The operative power behind this blessed life is humility; its mother and nurse, holy compunction; its friend and sister, the contemplation of the divine light; its throne, dispassion; its consummation. God the Holy Trinity.
44. Once you have achieved this lofty state you cannot be constrained by sensory attachment to things. You are not distracted by any of the delectations of this life, nor do you regard some people as holy and others as unholy; but just as God makes the rain fall and the sun shine equally on the just and on the unjust, on the evil and on the good (cf. Matt 5:45), so you irradiate love and diffuse its rays to all men. Pregnant though you are with love for everything, yet your heart feels no distress or, rather, you are distressed and straitened because you cannot help others as much as you would wish. As from Eden, from you flows another spring of compunction, divided into the four streams of humility, chastity, dispassion and undistracted prayer; and it waters the face of God's entire spiritual creation (cf Gen. 2:10).
45. Those who have not tasted the sweetness of the tears of compunction and are ignorant of its grace and of how it operates, think that such tears differ in no way from those shed for the dead; and they invent all manner of specious reasons and pretexts for thinking this, such as might naturally occur to us. But when what was haughty in our intellect inclines towards humility, and when me soul has closed its eyes to the deceitfulness of visible things and aspires solely to the contemplation of the immaterial, primal light, repudiating all that derives from sense perception and receiving the grace bestowed by the Spirit, then as water from a spring tears at once gush from it and sweeten its senses, filling the mind with all manner of joy and divine light. More than this, they shatter the heart and make the intellect humble in its contemplation of the higher world. These things cannot happen to those who lament and mourn in another way.
46. Without the deepest humility you cannot release the spring of tears within you, nor can you be humble without the compunction that is quickened through the abiding presence of the Spirit. For humility engenders compunction and compunction engenders humility through the Holy Spirit. It is as if these were strung together by a single grace, linked by the unbreakable bond of the Spirit.
47. The light that enters the soul through the agency of the divine Spirit is liable to withdraw as a result of our laxity, negligence or perfunctormess in matters of food or speech. Carelessness over what we eat and an unstable diet, as well as an uncontrolled tongue and unguarded eyes, will naturally drive the light from the soul and plunge us info darkness. And once we are filled with darkness all the beasts in the wild places of our heart and our whelp-like passion-imbued thoughts rove raucously through it, seeking to feed on our impassioned prochvities and to despoil the treasure garnered in us by the Spirit (cf Ps. 104 : 20-21). But the self-control that is truly dear to us and the prayer that makes us angels not only prevent such things from ranging through the soul; they also preserve unquenched the light of the Spirit that encircles the intellect, pacify the heart and liberate the pure spring of divine compunction, opening the soul to the love of God and binding it through joy and virginity entirely to Christ.
48. There is nothing so kindred to the divine Logos as the soul's purity and chasteness. Their mother is a devout all-embracing self-control; and the father of this is fear. For once fear has changed to longing and is imbued with desire for things divine, it makes the soul not only fearless and full of love for God, but also the very mother of the divine Logos.
49. Once impregnated by fear, the soul becomes through repentance pregnant with the Logos of divine judgment; the birth-pangs of hell encompass it, heartfelt anguish and travail afflict it as it reflects on the retribution due for the evil it has done. Then, having through copious tears and labors gestated in the mind's womb the Spirit of salvation it has conceived, it brings it forth into the world of the heart. Thus liberated from the pangs of hell and the anguish of judgment, the soul is joyously filled with longing for the blessings in store for it; purity and chasteness attend on it and, spurred by intense desire, unite it with God. Through this union it experiences an ineffable delight and sheds the sweet pleasureful tears of compunction. Exempt from the ordinary forms of perception and as though in ecstasy following the Bridegroom, it cries voicelessly, 'I pursue Thee in the fragrance of Thy myrrh; tell me, Thou whom my soul loves, where Thou feedest Thy flock, where Thou givest it rest. In the noon-day of pure contemplation? Let me not be rejected from the flock of the righteous. With Thee are the illuminations of the great mysteries' (cf. Song of Songs 1:4-7). Once the Bridegroom has led the soul into the sanctuary of His hidden mysteries. He will initiate it with wisdom into the contemplation of the inner essences of created things.
50. Do not say in your heart, it is now impossible for me to acquire a virginal purity, for I have succumbed in so many ways to the seduction and delirium of the body. For once the soul engages fervently and strenuously in the labors of repentance and we shed tears of compunction, then the prison-house is razed to the ground, the fire of the passions is extinguished, we are spiritually reborn through the abiding presence of the Paraclete, and once again the soul becomes a palace of purity and virginity. God, who is above nature, descends with light and ineffable joy into the soul and sits on the heights of its intellect as upon a throne of glory, bestowing peace on all its inner powers and saying: 'Peace be with you, peace from hostile passions. I give you My peace, so that you may act according to your true nature. I leave My peace with you, so that you may be perfected into what is beyond nature' (cf. John 14:27). Through His threefold gift of peace He heals the soul's three powers, brings it into triadic perfection and unites it with Himself. Thus He refashions it and makes it at one stroke wholly virginal, good and beautiful through the fragrance of the myrrh of purity. Then he says to it, 'Arise. Come near to me, dove of loveliness, through the practice of the virtues; for behold, the storm of the passions has passed. The downpour of sensual pleasure-laden droughts is over, it has gone its way. The flowers of the virtues, redolent with intellections, have appeared in the soil of your heart (of Song of Songs, 2:10-12). Arise, come near to Me in the knowledge gleaned from the contemplation of the essences of created beings. Come, my dove, on your own wing into the over- canopying darkness of mystical theology, to the faith rooted rock-like in Me, your God.'
51. Blessed in my eyes is the man who, changed through the practice of the virtues, transcends the encompassing walls of the passion-embroiled state and rises on the wings of dispassion - wings silver-toned with divine knowledge (cf. Ps. 68:13) - to the spiritual sphere in which he contemplates the essences of created things, and who from there enters the divine darkness of theology where in the life of blessedness he ceases from all outward labors and reposes in God. For he has become a terrestrial angel and a celestial man; he has glorified God in himself, and God will glorify him (cf. John 13:31-32).
52. 'Great peace have they who love God's law, and for them there is no stumbling-block' (cf Ps. 119:165). For not all things congenial to men accord with God; and some things that do not appear good are seen, by those who know the inner essences of things and events, to be by nature most excellent.
53. It behooves us to die to the world and live in Christ. Otherwise we cannot be spiritually born anew - and, as the Lord says, 'Unless you are born anew, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven' (cf John 3:3). Such a rebirth comes through obedience to a spiritual father, for if we do not first become pregnant with the seed of the Logos through the teaching of such a father and through him become children of God, we cannot be spiritually reborn. For in this way the twelve were born of one, that is, of Christ; and the seventy were born of the twelve and were made children of God the Father, according to our Lord's words, 'You are the children of My heavenly Father' (cf. Matt. 5:45). Thus St Paul, too, says to us, 'For though you have ten thousand instructors, you have not many fathers; I have begotten you; be imitators of me'(cf ICor. 4:15-16).
54. If you are not obedient to a spiritual father in imitation of the Son who was obedient to the Father even unto death and the cross (cf. Phil. 2:8), you cannot be spiritually born anew. If you do not become the beloved son of a holy father, and if you have not been born anew in the Logos and the Spirit, how will you yourself become a holy father and give birth to holy children who conform to the holiness of their father? And if this does not happen - well, 'the tree is known by its fruit' (cf. Matt. 12:33).
55. Lack of faith is evil, the most diabolic issue of diabolic avarice and envy. And if it is evil, how much the more so is the avarice that gives birth to it. For avarice impels men to love money more than they love Christ, to esteem what is material more highly than God, to worship creation rather than the Creator, and to pervert God's truth into a lie (cf. Rom. 1:25). If this disease is so evil that it can be called a second idolatry (cf. Col. 3:5). what exorbitance of evil will the soul willingly sick with such a disease not surpass?
56. If you aspire to friendship with Christ, you will hate money and the gluttonous love of money; for money lures towards itself the mind of whoever loves it and diverts it from love for Jesus, a love which, I think, is expressed not in words but in action, in the carrying out of His commandments (cf. John 14:15). If, alas, what you want is money, you will hoard away as much of it as you can, setting this desire for money above love for Christ, and regarding wealth as a gain and not as the greatest disaster that can befall you. You should realize, however, that money is in fact disastrous to you, and the disaster will be all the greater because you will also lose your true wealth, God, without whom the life of salvation is impossible.
57. If you love money you do not love Christ; if you do not love Christ, but love money, think to whose likeness that tyrant will reduce you: it will make you like the disciple who was unfaithful, who appeared to be a friend but was a traitor, who acted viciously towards the Master of All, and who fell miserably from both faith and love, plunging into the depths of despair. Fear his example and listen to my counsel: spurn money and love for money, so that you may gain the love of Christ. If not, well, you know the place prepared for those who have fallen.
58. If you are not called by God to a high status, never try to attain it through money or human support or by demanding it, even if you know you can help others. For if you do, three things lie in wait for you, and of them one will surely happen: either God's anger and wrath will fall upon you in the form of diverse assaults and misfortunes - for not only men but virtually the whole of creation will turn on you, and your life will be full of anguish; or your enemies will gain the upper hand and expel you from your position in deep disgrace; or you will die before your time, cut off from this present life.
59. You cannot be indifferent to both fame and disgrace, or rise above pleasure and pain, unless you are enabled by grace to perceive the upshot of all worldly preoccupations. For when you realize that the resultant of fame, pleasure, indulgence, wealth and prosperity is naught, since death and decay await them, then you will recognize the blatant vanity of all things worldly and will turn your eyes to the consummation of things divine. You will cleave to the realities that truly exist and cannot perish; and, making these things your own, you will rise above pain and pleasure: above pain in that you have defeated that which in your soul loves pleasure, fame and money; above pleasure, in that you have become impervious to worldly sensations. Thus you are the same whether you are honored or scorned, attacked by bodily pain or endued with bodily ease. In all things you will give thanks to God and you will not be cast down.
60. Those who have attained spiritual maturity can also analyze, the impulsions and proclivities of the soul, and can guide and guard their inner state, on the basis of dreams. For bodily impulsions and the images in our intellect depend upon our inner disposition and preoccupations. If your soul hankers after pleasure and material things, you will dream about acquiring possessions and having money, about the female figure and sexual intercourse - all of which leads to the soiling and defilement of soul and body. If you are haunted by images of greed and avarice, you will see money everywhere, will get hold of it, and will make more money by lending it out at interest and storing the proceeds in the bank, and you will be condemned for your callousness. If you are hot- tempered and vicious, images of poisonous snakes and wild beasts will plague you and overwhelm you with terror. If you are fall of self-esteem, you will dream of popular acclaim and mass-meetings, government posts and high office; and even when awake you will imagine that these things, which as yet you lack, are already yours, or soon will be. If you are proud and pretentious, you will see yourself being carried along in a splendid coach and even sometimes airborne, while everyone trembles at your great power. Similarly, if you are devoted to God, diligent in the practice of the virtues, scrupulous in the struggle for holiness and with a soul purged of material preoccupations, you will see in sleep the outcome of events and awe-inspiring visions will be disclosed to you. When you wake from sleep you will always find yourself praying with compunction and in a peaceful state of soul and body, and there will be tears on your cheeks, and on your lips words addressed to God.
61. The images that visit us during sleep are either dreams, or visions, or revelations. To the category of dreams belongs everything in the image -forming faculty of the intellect that is mutable - all that makes it confused and subject to constantly altering states. We have nothing to gain from such images and if we are sensible we should ignore them - indeed, they disappear of their own accord as soon as we awake. Visions on the other hand are constant; the one does not change into another, but they remain imprinted upon the intellect unforgettably for many years. Those that disclose the upshot of things to come, and assist the soul by inspiring it with compunction and the sight of fearful wonders, make the beholder reflective and strike him with awe on account of their constancy and their fearsome nature. Hence they are treated with great seriousness by those skilled in spiritual matters. Revelations occur when the purified and illumined soul is able to contemplate in a way that transcends normal sense-perception. They have the force of things and thoughts miraculous and divine, initiating us into the hidden mysteries of God, showing us the outcome of our most important problems and the universal transformation of things worldly and human.
62. The first category - that of dreams - pertains to materialistic sensually -minded people who worship their belly (cf Phil. 3:19) and are brash in their over-indulgence. Their dissolute, passion-polluted mode of life darkens their intellect, and they are mocked and spellbound by the demons. The second category - that of visions -pertains to those well advanced on the spiritual path, who have cleansed the soul's organs of perception. Beneficially assisted by things visible they ascend to the ever-increasing apprehension of things divine. The third category - that of revelations - pertains to those who are perfect, who are energized by the Holy Spirit, and whose soul through mystical prayer is united to God.
63. Things seen in sleep are true and imprinted on the spiritual intellect in the case, not of everyone, but only of those whose intellect is purified, who have cleansed the soul's organs of perception and who are advancing toward the contemplation of the inner essences of created things. Such people do not worry about day-to-day matters, nor are they troubled about this present life. Through long fasts they have acquired an all-embracing self-control and through exertion and hardship they' have attained the sanctuary of God, the spiritual knowledge of created being and the wisdom of the higher world. Their life is the life of angels and is hidden in God (cf Col. 5:3), their progress is based upon holy stillness and on the prophets of God's Church. It is of them that God has spoken through Moses, when He said, 'If there be a prophet among you, I will appear to him in his sleep and will speak to him in a vision' (cf. Num. 12:6); and through Joel, when He said, 'And it will come to pass after these things that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions' (Joel 2:28).
64. Stillness is an undisturbed state of the intellect, the calm of a free and joyful soul, the tranquil unwavering stability of the heart in God, the contemplation of light, the knowledge of the mysteries of God, consciousness of wisdom by virtue of a pure mind, the abyss of divine intellections, the rapture of the intellect, intercourse with God, an unsleeping watchfulness, spiritual prayer, untroubled repose in the midst of great hardship and, finally, solidarity and union with God.
65. If the soul, its powers disordered, is still at war with itself and has not yet become receptive to the divine rays, if it is still enslaved to the will of the flesh and without peace; and if its battle with the rebellious passions has but recently come to an end, it needs to preserve strict silence, so that with David it too can say: 'But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man who does not open his mouth' (Ps. 38: 13). It should always be full of grief and should walk son'owfully along the road of Christ's commandments; for it is still afflicted by the enemy and awaits the coming of the Paraclete, through whom it will receive the prize of true freedom for its compunction and cleansing tears.
66. If you generate the honey of the virtues in stillness, you will through struggle and self -discipline transcend the lowly estate of man's fallen condition and by overcoming your presumption you will restore the soul's powers to their natural state. Your heart purified by tears, you will now become receptive to the rays of the Spirit, will clothe yourself in the incomiption of the life-quickenmg deadness of Christ (cf I Cor. 15:53; I Cor. 4:10), and will receive the Paraclete in tongues of fire in the upper room of your stillness (cf. Acts 2:3). You will then be under an obligation to speak unreservedly of the wonderful works of God (cf. Acts 2:11) and to 'declare His righteousness in the great congregation' (cf. Ps. 40:10), for you will have received inwardly the law of the Spirit (cf. John 7:38; Rom. 8:2); otherwise, like the wicked servant who hid the talent of his own master, you will be cast into eternal fire (cf. Matt. 25:30). Thus it was with David, when he washed away his sin through repentance and received once more the gift of prophecy; unable to conceal the blessings that he had received, he said to God, 'Behold, I will not seal my lips, as Thou, Lord, knowest. I have not hidden Thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared Thy truth and Thy salvation; I have not concealed Thy mercy and Thy truth from the great congregation' (Ps. 40:9-10).
67. An intellect totally purged of impurities is like a star-filled sky that illumines the soul with lucid intellections; and the Sun of righteousness (cf. MaL 4:2) shines within it, enlightening the world with divine knowledge. Cleansed in this way, the consciousness brings forth from the depths of wisdom the creative principles of things and the transparent revelations of what is hidden, and in their pure and unalloyed state it sets them before the intellect, so that it knows the depth, height and breadth of the knowledge of God (cf. Eph. 3:18). When the intellect has interiorized these principles and revelations and made them part of its own nature, then it will elucidate the profundities of the Spirit to all who possess God's Spirit within themselves, exposing the guile of the demons and expounding the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
68. Bodily desires and the impulses of the flesh are checked by self-control, fasting and spiritual struggle. Psychic ferments and the overweeningness of the heart are allayed by the reading of the Divine Scriptures and humbled by constant prayer, while compunction like oil assuages them altogether.
69. Nothing so puts you in communion with God and unites you with the divine Logos as pure noetic prayer, when you pray undistractedly in the Spirit, your soul cleansed by tears, mellowed by compunction and illumined by the light of the Spirit.
70. Quantity is very important in the prayerful recitation of psalms, provided that it is accompanied by perseverance and attentiveness; but the quality of our recitation is what gives life to the soul and makes it fruitful. Quality in psalmody and prayer consists in praying with the Spirit and with the intellect (cf I Cor. 14:15). We pray with the intellect when, as we say prayers and recite psalms, we perceive the meaning hidden in the Holy Scriptures and thence gamer in the heart a harvest of ever more exalted divine thoughts. Rapt spiritually by these thoughts into the regions of light, the soul shines with a clear radiance, is further purified, rises wholly to the heavens, and beholds the beauty of the blessings held in store for the saints. Out of ardent longing for these blessings, tears - the fruit of prayer - at once flow from our eyes, induced by the light-creating energy of the Spirit, their taste so sweet that in experiencing them one may even forget to eat. This is the fruit of prayer, begotten through the quality of their psalmody in the soul of those who pray.
71. Where the fruit of the Spirit is present in a person, prayer is of a like quality; and where there is such quality, quantity in the recitation of psalms is excellent. Where there is no spiritual fruit, the quality is sapless. If the quality is arid, quantity is useless: even if it disciplines the body, for most people there is no gain to be got from it.
72. As you pray and sing psalms to the Lord, watch out for the guile of the demons. Either they deceive us into saying one thing instead of another, snatching the soul's attention and turning the verses of the psalms into blasphemies, so that we say things that we should not say; or, when we have started with a psalm, they cause us to skip to the end of it, distracting the intellect from what lies between; or else they make us return time and again to the same verse, through absent-mindedness preventing us from going on to what comes next; or, when we are in the middle of a psalm, they suddenly blank out the intellect's memory of the sequence of the verses, so that we cannot even remember what verse of the psalm it was that we were saying, and thus we repeat it once more. This they do to make us neglectful and listless, and to deprive us of the fruits of our prayer by persuading us that we cannot go on because of the lateness of the hour. We should persevere strongly, however, and continue the psalm more slowly, so that through contemplation we may reap the profit of prayer from the verses and become rich with the light of the Holy Spirit that fills the souls of those who pray.
73. If something like this happens to you when you are 'singing with understanding' (cf Ps. 47:7), do not become cursory or listless. Do not opt for bodily rest rather than the soul's profit, justifying this on the grounds that the hour is late. But when you realize that your intellect has become distracted, stop the recitation; and although you may be near the end of the psalm, bravely go back to the beginning, diligently resume it, and recite it over again, even if, because of distraction, you have to repeat this process several times in a single hour. If you do this the demons, unable to bear your patient perseverance and your ardor, will be put to shame and will leave you.
74. Unceasing prayer is prayer that does not leave the soul day or night. It consists not in what is outwardly perceived - outstretched hands, bodily stance, or verbal utterance - but in our inner concentration on the intellect's activity and on mindfulness of God born of unwavering compunction; and it can be perceived noetically by those capable of such perception.
75. You can devote yourself constantly to prayer only when your thoughts are mustered under the command of the intellect, delving in profound peace and reverence into the depths of God and seeking therein to taste the sweet waters of contemplation. When this peace is not present, such prayer is impossible. Only when your soul's powers are pacified through spiritual knowledge can you attain constant prayer.
76. If while you are singing a song of prayer to God, one of your brethren knocks at the door of your cell, do not opt for the work of prayer rather than that of love and ignore your brother, for so to act would be alien to God. God desires love's mercy, not the sacrifice of prayer (cf. Hos. 6:6). Rather, put aside the gift of prayer and speak with healing love to your brother. Then with tears and a contrite heart once more offer your gift of prayer to the father of the spiritual powers, and a righteous spirit will be renewed within you (cf. Matt. 5:23-24: Ps. 51:10, 17).
77. The mystery of prayer is not consummated at a certain specific time or place. For if you restrict prayer to particular times or places, you will waste the rest of the time in vain pursuits. Prayer may be defined as the intellect's unceasing intercourse with God. Its task is to engage the soul totally in things divine, its fulfillment - to adapt the words of St Paul (cf. I Cor. 6:17) - lies in so wedding the mind to God that it becomes one spirit with Him.
78. Even though you have died to your worldly self, and even though life has been generated in your soul by the Holy Spirit and God has granted you supernal gifts, you should still not leave your mind unoccupied. Accustom it to think continually on your past sins and the torments of hell, and regard yourself as one condemned. If you concern yourself with these things and look on yourself in this way, you will preserve a contrite spirit and within you a spring of compunction will flow with divine grace. God will have regard for your heart and will support it with His Spirit.
79. Controlled fasting, accompanied by vigils, meditation and prayer, quickly brings you to the frontiers of dispassion. At this point your great humility releases the spring of tears within you and you bum with love for God. When you have reached this state, you enter the peace of the Spirit that transcends every dauntless intellect (cf . Phil. 4:7) and through love you are united to God.
80. No king so rejoices over his glory and kingdom, or so exults in his power, as does a monk over the dispassion of his soul and over his tears of compunction. For the king's jubilation will wither with his kingdom, while the monk will be accompanied for limitless ages by the blessed dispassion and the joy he has attained. He moves like a wheel among men during this present life, touching only lightly the earth and the things upon it - and then simply because his bodily needs demand it; his intellect ascending through this circling movement entirely into the celestial sphere, in his beginning is his end: and, crowned with humility, he bears in himself the fruits of grace. His table is replete with the contemplation of the essences of created things, his drink is from the cup of Wisdom and his repose is in God.
81. If you willingly engage in the labors of virtue and zealously pursue the ascetic path, you will be granted great gifts by God. As you approach the halfway mark, you will receive divine revelations and visions, and the greater your struggles the more full of tight and wisdom you will become. At the same time, the greater the heights of contemplation you reach, the more you will provoke the destructive envy of the demons, for they cannot bear to see a human being attain an angelic nature. Hence they will deceitfully attack you with thoughts of presumption. But if you perceive their wiliness and, admonishing yourself, take refuge in the stronghold of humility, you will escape the havoc of pride and enter the haven of salvation. Failing this, and abandoned by God, you will be given over to punitive spirits; and because you did not willingly put yourself to the test, they will chastise you against your will. Carnal and pleasure-loving, full of guile and rage, these spirits will cruelly humiliate you with their attacks until you recognize your own weakness and, stricken with grief, free yourself from the rack, saying with David: 'It is good for me that Thou hast humiliated me, so that I may learn Thy commandments' (Ps. 119:71. LXX).
82. God does not want us always to be humiliated by the passions and to be hunted down by them like hares, making Him alone our rock and refuge (cf Ps. 104: 18); otherwise He would not have affirmed, 'I have said, you are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High' (Ps. 82:6). But He wants us to run as deer on the high mountains of His commandments (cf. Ps. 104:18. LXX), thirsting for the life-creating waters of the Spirit (cf. Ps. 42:1). For, they say, it is the deer's nature to eat snakes; but by virtue of the heat they generate through being always on the move, they strangely transform the snakes' poison into musk and it does them no harm. In a similar manner, when passion-imbued thoughts invade our mind we should bring them into subjection through our ardent pursuit of God's commandments and the power of the Spirit, and so transform them into the fragrant and salutary practice of virtue. In this way we can take every thought captive and make it obey Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). For the celestial world must be filled, not with people who are materialistic and imperfect, but with those who are spiritual and perfect - those who have advanced to the stature of perfect manhood in the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:13).
83. A person who keeps turning round and round on the same spot and does not want to make any spiritual progress is like a mule that walks round and round a well-head operating a water-wheel. Always to be battling with your carnal proclivities and to be concerned only with disciplining the body through various forms of ascetic labor is to mistake God's purpose and unwittingly to inflict great damage on yourself. 'The gain to be derived from bodily discipline is but limited', says St Paul (1 Tim. 4:8) - at any rate as long as the earth-bound will of the flesh has not been swallowed up in tears of repentance, as long as the life-quickening deadness of the Spirit has not supervened in our body, and the law of the Spirit does not reign in our mortal flesh. But trae devotion of soul attained through the spiritual knowledge of created things and of their immortal essences is as a tree of life within the spiritual activity of the intellect: it is 'profitable in all things' (cf. I Tim. 4:8) and everywhere, bestowing purity of heart, pacifying the soul's powers, giving light to the intellect and chastity to the body, and conferring restraint, all-embracing self-control, humility, compunction, love, holiness, heavenly knowledge, divine wisdom, and the contemplation of God. If, then, as a result of great spiritual discipline you have attained such perfection of true devotion you will have crossed the Red Sea of the passions and will have entered the promised land, from which flow the milk and the honey of divine knowledge (cf. Exod. 3:8), the inexhaustible delight of the saints.
84. If you persist in acting in a manner that is one-sided and of but limited profit and do not choose to do what is beneficial in every way, you still - in conformity to God's high decree - eat coarse bread in the sweat of your brow (cf. Gen. 3:19). Your soul feels no appetite for the spiritual manna and the honey that flows for Israel from the cloven rock (cf. Deut. 32:13; Ps. 81:16). If, however, you have heard the words, 'Arise, let us go hence' (John 14:31); if, in answer to the Master's call, you lay aside assiduous labor and stop eating the bread of pain, repudiating merely material perception and tasting the bowl of God's wisdom, then you will know that Christ is the Lord; for, having fulfilled the law of the commandments through ministering to the divine Logos, you will have ascended into the upper chamber and will be awaiting the coming of the Paraclete (cf. Acts 2:1-4).
85. We must ever progress according to the ranks and nmgs of a life dedicated to wisdom and rise assiduously towards the higher world, always advancing towards God and never static in our aspiration towards supernal beauty. We must advance from ascetic practice to the contemplation of the essences of created beings, and thence to the mystical knowledge of the divine Logos. There we may relinquish all external forms of bodily discipline, since we will have risen above the body's lowly state and will have been granted the lucidity of true discrimination. If we have not yet been granted that lucidity we will not know how to take the next step and pursue what is more perfect. We will be in an even worse condition than those 'in the world'; for many of them do not set any limit to their ambitions, and do not halt in their ascent, until they have reached the highest rank of all; and only then do they rest satisfied.
86. Cleansed through fervent ascetic labor, the soul is illumined by divine light and begins little by little to perceive the natural beauty which God originally bestowed on it and to expand in love for its Creator. And as through its purification the rays of the Sun of righteousness grow more lucid in it, and as its natural beauty is increasingly revealed to it and recognized, so in order to become yet more pure it extends its ascetic practice. In this way it acquires a clear vision of the glory of the gift it has received, regains its former nobility and restores to its Creator His own image pure and unalloyed. And it continues to add to its labors until it has cleansed itself of every stain and impurity and is privileged to contemplate and commune with God.
87. 'Open my eyes and I will perceive the wonders of Thy law' (Ps. 119:18). So he who is still bedarkened by his earth-bound will cries out to God. For the ignorance of the worldly mind, all murk and obscurity, blots out the soul's vision, so that it cannot grasp things either divine or human; it cannot perceive the rays of divine light or enjoy the blessings that 'the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and man's heart has not grasped' (1 Cor. 2:9). But when through repentance its vision has been restored, it sees these things clearly, hears them with understanding and intuits them intellectually. Not only this, but it also assimilates more exalted things which, prompted by these intellections, arise in its heart; and, having tasted their sweetness, its knowledge grows more lurid. It can then, in the light of God's wisdom, explain to all the nature of the divine blessings 'that God has prepared for those who love Him' (1 Cor. 2:9); and it exhorts all to follow the path of struggle and tears in order to share in them.
88. Scripture enumerates seven gifts of the Spirit, beginning with wisdom and ending with the divine fear of the Spirit; for it speaks of 'the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counseling, the spirit of strength, the spirit of divine knowledge, the spirit of reverence, the spirit of the fear of God' (cf. Isa. I 1 :2). But we for our part should begin with the fear that purifies - that is to say, with the fear of punishment; in this way, first repudiating evil and through repentance expunging the squalor of sin, we may attain the pure fear of the Spirit. Having once attained it, we may lay aside all our struggles for virtue.
89. If you begin with fear of judgment and through tears of repentance advance towards purity of heart, you will first be filled with wisdom, since, as it is written, fear is 'the beginning of wisdom' (Prov. 1:7). You will then be filled simultaneously with the spirit of understanding and of counseling, and this will enable you to resolve matters in the way that is best for yourself. Having reached this stage through the practice of the commandments, you then advance to the spiritual apperception of created being and receive the most exact comprehension of things divine and human. Thereafter, entirely transformed into a tabernacle of holiness, you ascend to the citadel of love and are made perfect. At once the pure fear of the Spirit lays hold of you, so that you may guard the treasure of the kingdom of heaven of which you have become the repository. Such tear possesses great saving power; for when you have been exalted to the pinnacle of God's love it makes you fearful and full of disquiet lest you lapse from this love and are cast once more into the terrible fear of punishment.
90. The reading of the Scriptures means one thing for those who have but recently embraced the life of holiness, another for those who have attained the middle state, and another for those who are moving rapidly towards perfection. For the first, the Scriptures are bread from God's table, strengthening their hearts (cf. Ps. 104:15) in the holy struggle for virtue and filling them with forcefulness, power and courage in their battle against the spirits that activate the passions, so that they can say, 'For me Thou hast prepared a table with food against my enemies' (Ps. 23:5). For the second, the Scriptures are wine from God's chalice, gladdening their hearts (cf. Ps. 104:15) and transforming them through the power of the inner meaning, so that their intellect is raised above the letter that kills and led searchingly into the depths of the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 3:6; I Cor. 2:10), In this way they are enabled to discover and give birth to the inner meaning, so that fittingly they can exclaim, 'Thy chalice makes me drunk as with the strongest wine' (Ps. 23:5. LXX). Finally, for those approaching perfection the Scriptures are the oil of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ps. 104: 15), anointing the soul, making it gentle and humble through the excess of the divine illumination they bestow, and raising it wholly above the lowliness of the body, so that in its glory it may cry, 'Thou hast anointed my head with oil' (Ps. 23:5) and 'Thy mercy shall follow me all the days of my life' (Ps. 23:6).
91. So long as we dedicate ourselves to God through keeping the commandments in the sweat of our brow, and in this way diminish the passions of the flesh, the Lord sups with us at the table of His gifts on the heart-strengthening daily bread that is cultivated through the practice of the virtues. But when by attaining dispassion we hallow His name (cf. Matt. 6:9), and He Himself reigns in all the faculties of our soul, having brought under control and pacified what was in a state of schism - having, that is to say, subjected our lower consciousness to our higher consciousness - and when in this way His will is done in us as it is in heaven (cf. Matt. 6: 10), then He drinks with us in His kingdom - which is now actively present within us - an inconceivable new drink (cf Mark 14:25), the drink of the wisdom of the Logos mingled with compunction and the knowledge of the great mysteries. And once we have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, transformed through the renewing of our intellect (cf. Rom. 12:2), then as God He will dine with us as gods: for He renders immortal what He has made His own.
92. When the unbridled water of the intellect's passion-charged thoughts has been bridled through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, and the brine-bitter abyss of indecent images and desires has been brought into subjection through self-control and meditation on death, then the divine spirit of repentance begins to blow and the waters of compunction pour forth; and our God and Master, channeling them into the basin of repentance, washes our spiritual feet, making them worthy to walk in the courts of His kingdom.
93. The Logos of God, having taken flesh and given our nature subsistence in Himself, becoming perfect man, entirely free from sin, has as perfect God refashioned our nature and made it divine. As Logos of the primal Intellect and God, He has united Himself to our intelligence, giving it wings so that it may conceive divine, exalted thoughts. Because He is fire. He has with true divine fire steeled the incensive power of the soul against hostile passions and demons.
Aspiration of all intelligent being and slaker of all desire. He has in His deep-seated love dilated the appetitive aspect of the soul so that it can partake of the blessings of eternal life. Having thus renewed the whole man in Himself, He restores it in an act of re-creation that leaves no grounds for any reproach against the Creator-Logos.
94. Performing in Himself the sacred mystery of our re-creation, the Logos offered Himself up on our behalf through His death on the cross, and He continually offers Himself up, giving His immaculate body to us daily as a soul-nourishing banquet, so that by eating it and by drinking His precious blood we may through this participation consciously grow in spiritual stature. Communicating in His body and blood and refashioned in a purer form, we are united to the twofold divine -human Logos in two ways, in our body and in our deiform soul; for He is God incarnate whose flesh is the same in essence as our own. Thus we do not belong to ourselves, but to Him who has united us to Himself through this immortal meal and has made us by adoption what He Himself is by nature.
95. If, then, tested in the labors of virtue and purified by tears, we come forward and eat of this bread and drink of this cup, the divine-human Logos in His gentleness is commixed with our two natural faculties, with our soul and body; and as God incarnate, one with us in essence as regards our human nature. He totally refashions us in Himself, wholly deifying us through divine knowledge and uniting us with Himself as His brothers, conformed to Him who is God coessential with the Father. If, however, we are denied with the materiality of the passions and soiled with sin. He visits us with His natural sin-devouring fire, igniting and consuming us entirely, and cutting us off from life, not because in His goodness He wishes to do this, but because He is constrained to do it by our indifference and lack of spiritual perception.
96. Invisibly the Lord draws near to all who by practicing the virtues have begun to travel the path of His commandments, and He keeps them company even though they are as yet imperfect in understanding and still unsure as to the true nature of virtue. Rightly are the eyes of their soul impeded, so that they do not recognize their own progress even though the Lord accompanies them, co-operates with them in their efforts to be liberated from the passions, and assists them in the attainment of every form of virtue. For although they advance in the struggle for holiness, and through humility approach the state of dispassion, the Logos does not want them to come to a hah, exhausted by their labors; rather He wishes them to advance still further and to rise to the state of contemplation. Thus, having nourished them in moderation on the bread of tears. He blesses them with the light of compunction and opens their intellect so that they can understand the profundities of Holy Scripture and thus perceive the nature and inner essence of everything that exists. At this point He abruptly withdraws from them so that they will be put on their mettle and will seek more zealously to learn what is meant by the spiritual knowledge of things and what is the exaltation that it brings. Prompted thus to pursue this knowledge more diligently, they become ministers of the Logos in a yet higher way and proclaim to all the resurrection consummated through the practice of the virtues and the contemplation of the Logos (cf Luke 24: 13-35).
97. The Logos justifiably rebukes the tardiness of those who drag out their time in the practice of the virtues and do not wish to advance beyond this and rise to the higher state of contemplation. 'Fools and slow of heart,' He calls them (Luke 24:25) - slow to place their trust in Him who can reveal the meaning of the contemplation of the inner principles of the created world to all who spiritually explore the depths of the Spirit. For not to wish to progress from the initial struggles to those that are more advanced, and to pass from the 'exterior' or literal meaning of Holy Scripture to its inner or spiritual meaning, is a sign of the sluggish soul, one with no taste for spiritual profit and extremely resentful about its own advancement. Such a soul, since its lamp has gone out, will not only be told to go and buy oil from those that sell it; but, finding the bridal chamber closed to it, it will also hear the words, 'Go away, I do not know you or whence you come' (cf. Matt. 25: 9,12).
98. When the Logos of God enters a fallen soul - as He entered the city of Bethany (cf. John I 1 : 17) - in order to resurrect its intellect, sin-slain and buried under the corruption of the passions, then sound understanding and justice, plunged into grief by the intellect's death, come as mourners to meet Him, and they say, 'Hadst Thou been here with us, guarding and keeping watch, our brother intellect would not have died because of sin' (cf. John 11:32). Then justice will anxiously tend the Logos through the practice of the virtues and will want to prepare a menu of various kinds of hardship; but sound understanding, laying aside all other concerns and ascetic endeavors, will devote itself solely to spiritual labor, cleaving to the spiritual discourse of the Logos and attentive to the intellections arising from its contemplation of Him. Thus although the Logos acknowledges justice and its efforts to nourish Him generously through various forms of practical activity. He still rebukes it for always being anxious about so many outward labors and for engaging in what is of but limited profit (cf I Tim. 4:8). One thing only is needed in order to serve the Logos, and that is the subjection, through the labors of virtue, of the lower consciousness to the higher consciousness, and the transformation of the soul's earth-bound propensity into spiritual aspiration. Sound understanding, however, the Logos praises, and unites with Himself in a manner that accords with His nature, for it has chosen 'the better portion' - the knowledge of the Spirit whereby, transcending things human, it penetrates into the depths of the Divine. Here to its great profit it procures the pearl of the Logos (cf. Matt. 13:45- 46), beholds the hidden treasures of the Spirit (cf. Matt. 13:44), and is filled with an inexpressible joy that will not be taken away from it (cf. Luke 10:38-42).
99. The intellect that has been slain by the passions and again brought to life by the indwelling presence of the divine Logos has thrown off the grave-stone of torpid insensibility and has been freed from the shroud of sin and from corrupting thoughts by the servants of the Logos, fear of punishment and ascetic labor. Having tasted the light of eternal life, it is released into dispassion (cf. John 11:38-43). Henceforward it enthrones itself over the senses and, having in purity celebrated the mystery of initiation, consorts with Christ the Logos, rising with Him from the earth to heaven, and reigning with Him in the kingdom of God the Father, all its desires quenched.
100. The restitution that will be consummated in the age to come after the dissolution of the body becomes clearly evident even now, through the inspiration and inner activity of the Spirit, in those who have truly striven, have traversed the midpoint of the spiritual path, and been made perfect according to 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph. 4:13). Their joy is eternal, in eternal light and their blessedness is of that final state. For ceaseless joy possesses the hearts of those who in this present life are rightly fighting the spiritual fight, and the gladness of the Holy Spirit embraces them - a gladness which, according to our Lord's words, will not be taken away from them (cf. Luke 10:42). Thus he who in this present life is privileged to experience the abiding presence of the Paraclete, and through the cultivation of the virtues delights in His fruits and is enriched by His divine gilts, is filled with joy and with all love, for fear has entirely left him. Joyously is he released from the bonds of the body and joyously he transcends the world of visible things, being already freed from his sensory attachment to them. He reposes in the inexpressible joy of the light in which dwell all who rejoice (cf. Ps. 87:7. LXX), even if his body often experiences pain at its dissolution and at the severing of its union with the soul, and suffers in various ways, as a woman does during a difficult childbirth.
