Orthodox Church Fathers: Patristic Christian Theology Classics Search Engine
Thalassios the Libyan: On Love, Self-control and Life in Accordance with the Intellect
First Century
1. An all-embracing and intense longing for God binds those who experience it both to God and to one another.
2. An intellect that has acquired spiritual love does not have thoughts unworthy of this love about anyone.
3. He who conceals his hypocrisy beneath feigned love blesses with his mouth but curses inwardly.
4. He who has acquired love endures calmly and patiently the injuries and sufferings that his enemies inflict on him.
5. Love alone harmoniously joins all created things with God and with each other.
6. A person who does not tolerate suspicion or disparagement of others possesses true love.
7. He who does nothing to dispel love is precious in the sight of God and among men.
8. True words from a pure conscience betoken unfeigned love.
9. If you tell your brother how someone else denigrates him you conceal your own envy in the guise of goodwill.
10. Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.
11. Love and self-control purify the soul, while pure prayer illumines the intellect.
12. A strong man is one who repels evil through the practice of the virtues and with spiritual knowledge.
St Thalassios the Libyan
On Love, Self-control and Life in Accordance with the Intellect
First Century
13. He who has acquired dispassion and spiritual knowledge has been granted God's grace.
14. If you wish to overcome impassioned thoughts, acquire self-control and love for your neighbor.
15. Guard yourself from hatred and dissipation, and you will not be impeded at the time of prayer.
16. Perfume is not to be found in mud, nor the fragrance of love in the soul of a rancorous man.
17. Firmly control anger and desire, and you will speedily rid yourself of evil thoughts.
18. Inner work destroys self-esteem, and if you despise no one you will repel pride.
19. The signs of self-esteem are hypocrisy and falsehood; those of pride are presumption and jealousy.
20. The true ruler is he who rales over himself and has subjected soul and body to the intelligence.
21. The genuineness of a friend is shown at a time of trial, if he shares the distress you suffer.
22. Seal your senses with stillness and sit in judgment upon the thoughts that attack your heart.
23. Respond without rancor to thoughts of dejection, but oppose thoughts of self-indulgence with enmity.
24. Stillness, prayer, love and self-control are a four-horsed chariot bearing the intellect to heaven.
25. Waste your body with fasting and vigils, and you will repulse the lethal thoughts of pleasure.
26. As wax melts before fire, so does an impure thought before the fear of God.
27. The intelligent soul is greatly harmed when it dallies with an ignoble passion.
28. Patiently endure the distressing and painful things that befall you, for through them God in His providence is purifying you.
29. Now that you have renounced toe world and material things, renounce evil thoughts as well.
30. The proper activity of the intellect is to be attentive at every moment to the words of God.
31. It is God's task to administer the world and the soul's task to guide the body.
32. With what hope will we meet Christ if we are still enslaved to the pleasures of the flesh?
33. Hardship and distress, whether of our own choosing or providential, destroy sensual pleasure.
34. The amassing of money fuels the passions, for it leads to increasing indulgence in all kinds of sensual pleasure.
35. The failure to secure sensual pleasure breeds dejection, while sensual pleasure itself is linked with all the passions.
36. How God treats you depends upon how you treat your body.
37. God's justice is a fair requital for what we have done through our bodies.
38. Virtue and spiritual knowledge lead to immortality, their absence is the mother of death.
39. Distress that accords with God's will puts an end to sensual pleasure, and the destruction of such pleasure is the soul's resurrection.
40. Dispassion is a state in which the soul does not yield to any evil impulse, and it can be realized only through Christ's mercy.
41. Christ is the savior of both soul and body, and the person who follows in His footsteps is freed from evil.
42. If you wish to attain salvation, renounce sensual pleasure and learn self-control, love and how to pray with concentration.
43. The mark of dispassion is true discrimination: for one who has attained the state of dispassion does all things with discrimination and according to measure and rule.
44. Our Lord and God is Jesus Christ, and the intellect that follows Him will not remain in darkness (cf John 12;46).
45. Concentrate your intellect, keep watch over your thoughts, and fight with any of them that are impassioned.
46. There are three ways through which thoughts arise in you: through the senses, through the memory, and through the body's temperament. Of these the most irksome are those that come through the memory.
47. The man to whom wisdom has been given knows the inward essences of immaterial things and what is the origin and consummation of the world.
48. Do not neglect the practice of the virtues and your intellect will be illumined; for it is written, 'I will open for you invisible secret treasures' (Isa. 45:3. LXX).
49. The man freed from his passions has been granted God's grace, and if: he has been found worthy of spiritual knowledge he has received great mercy.
50. The intellect freed from the passions becomes like light, unceasingly illumined by the contemplation of created beings.
51. Holy knowledge is the light of the soul; bereft of it, 'the fool walks in darkness' (Eccles. 2:14).
52. The man who lives in darkness is a fool, and the murk of ignorance awaits him.
53. The lover of Jesus will be freed from evil; the disciples of Jesus will behold true knowledge.
54. The intellect freed from the passions forms conceptual images that are also passion-free, whether the body is asleep or awake.
55. The completely purified intellect is cramped by created beings and longs to go beyond them.
56. Blessed is he who has attained boundless infinity, transcending all that is transitory.
57. He who stands in awe of God searches for the divine principles that God has implanted in creation: the lover of truth finds them.
58 Rightly motivated, the intellect will find the truth; but motivated by passion it will miss the mark.
59. As God is unknowable in His essence, so is He infinite in His majesty.
60. God, whose essence is without origin or consummation, is also impenetrable in His wisdom.
61. The sublime providence of the Creator preserves everything that is.
62. In his mercy the Lord supports all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down' (Ps. 145: 14).
63. Christ in His justice rewards the living, the dead, and every single action.
64. If you wish to be in control of your soul and body, forestall the passions by rooting out their causes.
65. Yoke the powers of the soul to the virtues and they will be freed from the tyranny of the passions.
66. Curb the impulses of desire by means of self-control and those of anger with spiritual love.
67. Stillness and prayer are the greatest weapons of virtue, for they purify the intellect and confer on it spiritual insight.
68. Only spiritual .conversation is beneficial; it is better to preserve stillness than to indulge in any other kind.
69. Of the five kinds of conversation choose the first three, be sparing of the fourth, and avoid the fifth.
70. The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.
71. The conscience is a true teacher, and whoever listens to it will not stumble.
72. Only those who have reached the extremes of virtue or of evil are not judged by their consciences.
73. Total dispassion renders our conceptual images passion-free: perfect spiritual knowledge brings us into the presence of Him who is utterly beyond knowledge.
74. Failure to obtain pleasure induces a culpable kind of distress he who scorns pleasure is free from distress.
75. In general, distress arises from the privation of pleasure, whether it be of a worldly kind or relate to God.
76. Kingship, goodness and wisdom belong to God; he who attains them dwells in heaven.
77. The person who in his actions shows that he prefers his body to his soul, and the world to God, is a pathetic creature.
78. He who does not envy the spiritually mature and is merciful to the wicked has attained an equal love for all.
79. The person who applies the laws of virtue to soul and body is truly fit to rule.
80. Spiritual commerce consists in being detached equally from the pleasures and the pains of this life for the sake of the blessings held in store.
81. Love and self-control strengthen the soul: pure prayer and contemplation, the intellect.
82. When you hear something to your benefit, do not condemn the speaker; for if you do you will nullify his helpful admonition.
83. A depraved mind thinks evil thoughts and regards as defects the achievements of a neighbor.
84. Do not trust a thought that would judge your neighbor: for it is the man who is a storehouse of evil that thinks evil thoughts (cf Matt. 12:35).
85. A good heart produces good thoughts: its thoughts correspond to what it stores up in itself.
86. Keep watch over your thoughts and shun evil. Then your intellect will not be darkened but, on the contrary, will see.
87. Bear in mind the Jews and watch yourself carefully; for the Jews were blinded with jealousy and took Beelzebub for their Lord and God (cf Matt. 12:24).
88. An evil suspicion darkens the mind (cf. Ecclus. 3:24) and diverts attention from the path to what lies beside it.
89. To each virtue there is an opposing vice; hence the wicked take vices for virtues.
90. If the mtellect dallies with pleasure or dejection, it rapidly succumbs to the passion of listlessness.
91. A pure conscience rouses the soul, but an impure thought debases it.
92. When the passions are active they cast out self-esteem; when they are expelled, they remtroduce it.
93. If you want to be free of all the passions, practice self-control, love and prayer.
94. An intellect that gives itself over to God in prayer frees the soul's passible aspect from the passions.
95. God, who gave being to all that is, at the same time united all things together in His providence.
96. Being Master, He became a servant, and so revealed to the world the depths of His providence.
97. God the Logos, in becoming incarnate while remaining unchanged, was united through His flesh with the whole of creation.
98. There is a new wonder in heaven and on earth: God is on earth and man is in heaven.
99. He united men and angels so as to bestow deification on all creation.
100. The knowledge of the holy and coessential Trinity is the sanctification and deification of men and angels.
101. Forgiveness of sins is betokened by freedom from the passions; he who has not yet been granted freedom from the passions has not yet received forgiveness.
Second Century
1. If you want to be freed from all the vices simultaneously, renounce self-love, the mother of evils.
2. The soul's health consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge: no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.
3. Patient self-control and long-suffering love dry up the pleasures of soul and body.
4. Self-love - that is, friendship for the body - is the source of evil in the soul.
5. The intelligence by nature submits to the Logos and disciplines and subjugates the body.
6. It is an insult to the intelligence to be subject to what lacks intelligence and to concern itself with shameful desires.
7. For the deiform soul to abandon the Creator and worship the body is an act of depravity.
8. You were commanded to keep the body as a servant, not to be unnaturally enslaved to its pleasures.
9. Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.
10. Enclose your senses in the citadel of stillness so that they do not involve the intellect in then' desires.
11. The greatest weapons of someone striving to lead a life of inward stillness are self-control, love, prayer and spiritual reading.
12. The intellect will go on looking for sensual pleasure until you subjugate the flesh and devote yourself to contemplation.
13. Let us strive to fulfill the commandments so that we may be freed from the passions; and let us struggle to grasp divine doctrine so that we may be found worthy of spiritual knowledge.
14. The soul's immortality resides in dispassion and spiritual knowledge; no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.
15. Subjugate your body, strip it of sensual pleasures, and free it from base servitude.
16. Created free and called to freedom (cf Gal. 5:13), do not be enslaved by impure passions.
17. The demons bind the intellect to sensible things by means of desire and fear, distress and sensual pleasure.
18. Fear of the Lord conquers desire, and distress that accords with God's will repulses sensual pleasure.
19. Desire for wisdom scorns fear, and the delight of spiritual knowledge expels distress.
20. The Scriptures contain four things: commandments, doctrines, threats and promises.
21. Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.
22. Do not goad your brother with obscure words; you would not put up with similar treatment at his hands.
23. Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.
24. If you have been given spiritual knowledge, you have been given noetic light; should you dishonor that light, you will see darkness.
25. The keeping of God's commandments generates dispassion; the soul's dispassion preserves spiritual knowledge.
26. Contemplate sensible objects noetically and you will raise your sense-perception above the realm of such objects.
27. Woman symbolizes the soul engaged in ascetic practice; through union with it the Intellect begets the virtues.
28. The study of divine principles teaches knowledge of God to the person who lives in truth, longing and reverence.
29. What light is to those who see and to what is seen, God is to intellective beings and to what is intelligible.
30. The sensible firmament symbolizes the firmament of faith in which all the saints shine like stars.
31. Jerusalem is the celestial knowledge of immaterial beings; within it the vision of peace can be contemplated.
32. Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (cf Gen. 41 :57; 46:6).
33. Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ's mercy you cannot attain it.
34. The promised land is the kingdom of heaven whose ambassadors are dispassion and spiritual knowledge.
35. The Egypt of the spirit is the darkness of the passions; no one goes down to Egypt unless he is overtaken by famine.
36. If you make a habit of listening to spiritual teaching, your intellect will escape from impure thoughts.
37. God alone is good and wise by nature; but if you exert yourself your intellect also becomes good and wise through participation.
38. Control your stomach, sleep, anger and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against .a stoneXPs. 91 : 12).
39. Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.
40. The contemplation of sensible thmgs is shared by the intellect and the senses; but the knowledge of intelligible realities pertains to the intellect alone.
41. The intellect cannot devote itself to intelligible realities unless you sunder its attachment to the senses and to sensible things.
42. The senses have a natural attachment to sensible things, and when distracted by them distract the intellect.
43. Devote your senses to the service of the intellect and give them no time to be diverted from it.
44. When the intellect gives its attention to sensible objects, withdraw your senses from them, bringing the objects into direct contact with the intellect.
45. A sign that the intellect is devoted to the contemplation of intelligible realities is its disdain for all that agitates the senses.
46. When the intellect is engaged in the contemplation of intelligible realities, its delight in them is such that it can hardly be dragged away.
47. When the intellect is rich in the knowledge of the One, the senses will be completely under control.
48. Prevent your intellect from pursuing sensible things, so that it does not reap the fruits of pleasure and pain which they produce.
49. When the intellect devotes itself continually to divine realities, the soul's passible aspect becomes a godlike weapon.
50. The intellect cannot be transformed by spiritual knowledge unless it first detaches itself from the soul's passible aspect by means of its own virtues.
51. The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.
52. The proper function of the soul's intelligent aspect is devotion to the knowledge of God, while that of its passible aspect is the pursuit of self-control and love.
53. The intellect cannot dally with any sensible object unless it entertains at least some kind of passionate feeling for it.
54. The intellect is perfect when transformed by spiritual knowledge; the soul is perfect when permeated by the virtues.
55. The intellect's attachment to the senses enslaves it to bodily pleasure.
56. The intellect falls from the realm of spiritual knowledge when the soul's passible aspect abandons its own virtues.
57. Although we have received the power to become the children of God (cf John 1:12), we do not actually attain this sonship unless we strip ourselves of the passions.
58. Let no one think that he has actually become a child of God if he has not yet acquired divine qualities.
59. We are sons of God or of Satan according to whether we conform to goodness or to evil.
60. A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.
61. An obdurate soul does not notice when it is whipped and so is unaware of its benefactor.
62. A soiled garment excludes one from the divine wedding feast and makes one a communicant of outer darkness (cf Matt. 22:12-13).
63. He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.
64. If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions you cannot reap God's mercy.
65. Even if we do not wish to believe Him, it was Jesus who said that no one can serve two masters (cf. Matt. 6:24).
66. A soul defiled by the passions becomes obdurate: it has to undergo knife and cautery before it recovers its faith.
67. Fearful afflictions await the hard of heart, for without great sufferings they cannot become pliable and responsive.
68. A wise man pays careful attention to himself, and by freely choosing to suffer escapes the suffering that comes unsought.
69. Concern for one's soul means hardship and humility, for through these God forgives us all our sins.
70. Just as desire and rage-multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.
71. Distress that accords with God's will shatters the heart, it is produced by the fear of punishment.
72. Such distress purifies the heart, expelling from it the defilements of sensual pleasure.
73. Patient endurance is the soul's struggle for virtue; where there is struggle for virtue, self-indulgence is banished.
74. All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.
75. If you are not willing to repent through freely choosing to suffer, unsought sufferings will providentially be imposed on you.
76. Christ is the Savior of the whole world, and has conferred on men the gift of repentance so that they may be saved.
77. Repentance engenders the keeping of the commandments, and this in its turn purifies the soul.
78. The purification of the soul is release from the passions, and release from the passions gives birth to love.
79. A pure soul is one that loves God, and a pure intellect is one divorced from ignorance.
80. Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.
81. Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.
82. The flesh revolts when prayer, frugality and blessed stillness are neglected.
83. Blessed stillness gives birth to blessed children: self-control, love and pure prayer.
84. Spiritual reading and prayer purify the intellect, while love and self-control purify the soul's passible aspect.
85. Always keep the same measure of self-control; otherwise through irregularity you will go from one extreme to another.
86. If you lay down mles for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self -deluded.
87. The soul filled with passion lies in noetic darkness, for in such a soul the sun of righteousness has set.
88. A son of God is a person who through wisdom, power and righteousness has become like God.
89. The soul's disease is an evil disposition'^ while its death is sin put into action.
90. Spiritual poverty is complete dispassion; when the intellect has reached this state it abandons all worldly things.
91. Preserve the harmony of the soul's virtues, and it will bring forth the fruit of righteousness.
92. The contemplation of noetic realities is said to be bodiless because it is completely free of matter and form.
93. Just as the four elements are a combination of matter and form, so the bodies that derive from them are likewise made up of matter and form.
94. When in His compassion for man the Logos became flesh. He changed neither what He was nor what He became.
95. Just as we speak of the one Christ as being 'from Godhead' and 'from manhood' and 'in Godhead' and 'in manhood', so we speak of Him as being 'from two natures' and 'in two natures'.
96. We confess that in Christ there is a single hypostasis, or subject, in two indivisibly united natures.
97. We glorify the one indivisible hypostasis of Christ and confess the union without confusion of the two natures.
98. We venerate the one essence of the Divinity in three Persons, or hypostases, and confess the coessential Trinity.
99. Particular to the three Persons are fatherhood, sonship and procession. Common to them are essence, nature, divinity and goodness.
Third Century
1. Think good thoughts about what is good by nature, and think well of every man.
2. On the day of judgment we shall be asked by God to answer for our words, acts and thoughts.
3. Whether we think, speak or act in a good or an evil manner depends upon whether we cleave inwardly to virtue or to vice.
4. An intellect dominated by the passions thinks base thoughts; words and actions bring these thoughts into the open.
5. An evil thought is preceded by passion. The passion is caused by the senses, but the misuse of the senses is clearly the fault of the intellect.
6. Shut out the senses, fight against prepossession and, with the commandments as your weapons, destroy the passions.
7. Inveterate wickedness requires long practice of the virtues; for an engrained habit is not easily uprooted.
8. The forceful practice of self-control and love, patience and stillness, will destroy the passions hidden within us.
9. Impel your intellect continually to prayer and you will destroy the evil thoughts that beset your heart.
10. Ascetic practice requires long and patient endurance: assiduous struggle will slowly root out self-indulgence.
11. You will not find the rigors of the ascetic life hard to bear if you do all things with measure and by rule.
12. Maintain a regular level of ascetic practice and do not break your rule unless forced to do so.
13. Just as love and self-control destroy evil thought so contemplation and prayer destroy all self-exaltation.
14. Ascetic struggle - fasting, vigils, patience, forbearance -produces a clear conscience.
15. He who patiently endures unsought trials becomes humble, full of hope and spiritually mature.
16. Patient endurance is a continuous effort for the soul; it is born of suffering freely chosen and of trials that come unsought.
17. Perseverance in the face of adversity dissolves evil, while unremitting patience destroys it utterly.
18. The experience of suffering afflicts the senses: distress annuls sensual pleasure.
19. There are four prevalent passions which God in His wisdom sets one against the other.
20. Distress checks sensual pleasure; the fear of punishment withers desire.
21. The wise intellect tests the soul and trains the body with all kinds of ascetic practice.
22. Prove yourself a monk, not outwardly, but inwardly, by freeing yourself from the passions.
23. The first renunciation is that of material things, the second that of the passions, the third that of ignorance.
24. It is not difficult to get rid of material things if you so desire; but only with great effort will you be able to get rid of thoughts about them.
25. Control desire and you will dominate anger; for desire gives rise to anger.
26. We may have freed ourselves from impassioned thoughts; but have we yet been granted pure and immaterial prayer?
27. Great is the intellect that is freed from the passions, has separated itself from created beings, and lives in God.
28. The person advancing in the spiritual life studies three things: the commandments, doctrine, and faith in the Holy Trinity.
29. An intellect stripped of the passions has its attention focused on three things: passion-free conceptual images. the contemplation of created beings, and its own light.
30. The foulest passions ore bidden within our souls; they are brought to light only when we scrutinize our actions.
31. Sometimes the intellect that has attained a partial dispassion will remain undisturbed; but this is because, in the absence of the things that provoke it, it is not put to the test.
32. As has been said, our passions are roused through these three things: the memory, the body's temperament, and the senses.
33. The intellect that has shut out the senses, and has achieved a balance in the body's temperament, has to fight only against its memories.
34. It is when self-control and spiritual love are missing that the passions are roused by the senses.
35. Moderate fasting, vigils and psalmody are natural means for achieving a balance in the body's temperament.
36. Three things upset the balance of the body's temperament: lack of restraint in our diet, a change in the weather, and the touch of the demonic powers.
37. Our memories can be stripped of passion through prayer, spiritual reading, self-control and love.
38. First shut out the senses through the practice of stillness and then fight against your memories by cultivating the virtues. 39. Mental evil resides in the misuse of conceptual images; active sin consists in the misuse of material things.
40. To misuse conceptual images and material things is to use them in a profane and improper manner.
41. Reprehensible passions chain the intellect, binding it to sensible objects.
42. The person who is not affected either by material things, or by his memories of them, has attained perfect dispassion.
43. A saint-like soul helps its neighbor and when ill-treated by him is patient, enduring what it suffers at his hands.
44. Malicious thoughts are a fully existent form of evil: if you do not get rid of them you will not become a disciple of spiritual knowledge.
45. The person who listens to Christ fills himself with light; and if he imitates Christ, he reclaims himself.
46. Rancor is the soul's leprosy. The soul contracts it as the result of disgrace or punishment, or because of suspicious thoughts.
47. The Lord blinds the intellect that is jealous and resentful of its neighbor's blessings.
48. The tongue of a back-biting soul is three -pronged: it injures the speaker, the listener and sometimes the person being maligned.
49. He who prays for those who offend him is without rancor; and the unstinting giver is set free from it.
50. Hatred-for one's neighbor soul's death; the back-biting soul both suffers and inflicts such death.
51. Listlessness is an apathy of soul: and a soul becomes apathetic when sick with self-indulgence.
52. He who loves Jesus trains himself in suffering: perseverance in suffering dispels listlessness.
53. The soul is strengthened through ascetic suffering, and dispels listlessness by doing all things according to measure.
54. Control of the belly withers desire and keeps the intellect free from lecherous thoughts.
55. An intellect in control of itself is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but that of a glutton is like a nest of crows.
56. A surfeit of foods breeds desire; a deficiency sweetens even plain bread.
57. If you share secretly in the joy of someone you envy, you will be freed from your jealousy ; and you will also be freed from your jealousy if you keep silent about the person you envy.
58. Shun whoever lives dissolutely, even if many hold him in high esteem.
59. Make a friend of the man who works hard and you will find protection.
60. The dissolute man is sold to many masters and lives his life in whatever way they lead him.
61. Such a man will treat you as a friend in the time of peace, but in the time of trial he will fight you as an enemy.
62. When his passions are quiescent, he will lay down his life for you; when they are roused, he will take it back again.
63. A dissolute soul is as full of impure passions as waste land is full of thistles.
64. A wise intellect restrains the soul, keeps the body in subjection, and makes the passions its servants.
65. Our actions disclose what goes on within us, just as its fruit makes known a tree otherwise unknown to us.
66. The hypocrite, like the false prophet, is betrayed by his words and actions.
67. An intellect that does not use its intelligence fails to chastise the soul, and so prevents it from acquiring love and self-control.
68. The cause of depraved thoughts is an evil disposition made up of pride and boastfulness.
69. Pride and boastfulness are characterized by hypocrisy, guile, trickery, pretence and, worst of all, falsity.
70. These characteristics are aided and abetted by envy, strife, anger, resentment and rancor.
71. Such is the state of those who live dissolutely, and such are the treasures hidden in my heart (cf Matt. 12:35).
72. Hardship and humility save the soul and free it from all the passions.
73. A helpful word indicates an understanding mind; a good action reveals a saint-like soul.
74. An illumined intellect brings forth words of wisdom; a pure soul cultivates godlike thoughts.
75. The thoughts of a wise man are devoted to wisdom, and his words enlighten those who hear them.
76. A virtuous soul cultivates good thoughts; a soul full of evil breeds thoughts of depravity.
77. An impassioned soul produces evil thoughts: it is a fund of evil.
78. The virtues possess a fund of goodness from which the holy intellect brings forth blessings.
79. The intellect energized by divine love cultivates good thoughts about God; but when impelled by self-love it produces diabolic thoughts.
80. When the intellect is moved by love for its neighbor, it always thinks well of him: but when it is under diabolic influence it entertains evil thoughts about him.
81. The virtues generate good thoughts; the commandments lead us to the virtues; the practice of the virtues depends on our own will and resolution.
82. As virtue and evil come and go, they dispose the soul either to goodness or to malice, prompting in it the corresponding thoughts.
83. Evil begets evil thoughts; disobedience begets evil; the deceit of the senses gives, rise to disobedience; and this deceit derives from the intellect's neglect of its own salvation.
84. In the case of those advancing on the spiritual way, their attitude to good and evil is easily changed; but in those who have achieved perfection it is hard to shift.
85. The soul's strength is its firm state of virtue; on reaching such a state one may say with the invincible apostle Paul; 'What can separate us from the love of Christ?' (Rom. 8:35).
86. Self-love precedes all the passions, while last of all comes pride,
87. The three most common forms of desire have their origin in the passion of self-love.
88. These three forms are gluttony, self-esteem and avarice. All other impassioned thoughts follow in their wake. though they do not all follow each of them.
89. The thought of unchastity follows that of gluttony; of pride, that of self-esteem. The others all follow the three most common forms.
90. Thus thoughts of resentment, anger, rancor, envy, listless-ness and the rest all follow these three most common forms. A Prayer
91. Christ, Master of all, free us from all these destructive passions and the thoughts born of them.
92. For Thy sake we came into being, so that we might delight in the paradise which Thou hast planted and in which Thou hast placed us.
93. We brought our present disgrace upon ourselves, preferring destruction to the delights of blessedness.
94. We have paid for this, for we have exchanged eternal life for death.
95. Master, as once Thou hast looked on us, look on us now; as Thou becamest man, save all of us.
96. For Thou camest to save us who were lost. Do not exclude us from the company of those who are being saved.
97. Raise up our souls and save our bodies, cleansing us from all impurity.
98. Break the fetters of the passions that constrain us, as once Thou hast broken the ranks of the impure demons.
99. Free us from their tyranny, so that we may worship Thee alone, the eternal light.
1OO. Having risen from the dead and dancing with the angels in the blessed, eternal and indissoluble dance. Amen.
Third Century
1. The person who has broken the bonds of his intellect's fawning friendship for the flesh has slain the body's evil acts through the life-giving Spirit.
2. Do not think that the intellect is free from its attachment to the flesh so long as it is still troubled by the activities that pertain to the flesh.
3. Just as the senses and sensible objects pertain to the flesh, so the intellect and intelligible realities pertain to the soul.
4. Withdraw your soul from the perception of sense objects, and the intellect will find itself in God and in the realm of intelligible realities.
5. Intelligible natures that can be grasped only by the intellect belong to the realm of divinity, while the senses and sense objects have been created for the service of the intellect.
6. Use the senses and sense objects as a means to spiritual contemplation but, on the contrary, do not use what provokes the desire of the flesh as food for the senses.
7. You have been commanded to mortify the acts of the body (cf. Col. 3:5) so that when the soul has been made dead to pleasure you may bring it back to life through your ascetic labors.
8. Be ruled by God and rule over your senses; and, being on a higher level, do not give authority to what is inferior to you.
9. God, who is eternal, limitless and infinite, has promised eternal, limitless and inexpressible blessings to those who obey him.
10. The intellect's role is to live in God and to meditate on Him, His providence and His awesome Judgments.
11. You have the power to inchne either upwards or downwards: choose what is superior and you will bring what is inferior into subjection.
12. Because they are the works of God, who is Himself good, the senses and sensible objects are good; but they cannot in any way be compared with the intellect and with intelligible realities.
13. The Lord has created intelligent and noetic beings with a capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into existence the senses and sense objects to serve such beings.
14. Just as it is absurd to subject a good master to a worthless servant, so it is absurd to subject the deifomi intellect to the corruptible body.
15. An intellect that does not control the senses will fall into evil because of them: deceived by the pleasure of sense objects, it depraves itself.
16. While controlling your senses, control your memory as well; for when its prepossessions are roused through the senses they stir up the passions.
17. Keep your body under control, and pray constantly; in this way you will soon be free from the thoughts that arise from your prepossessions.
18. Devote yourself ceaselessly to the words of God: application to them destroys the passions.
19. Spiritual reading, vigils, prayer and psalmody prevent the intellect from being deluded by the passions.
20. Just as spring stimulates the growth of plants, so dispassion stimulates the intellect to attains spiritual knowledge of created beings.
21. Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.
22. You have been sentenced to eat the bread of spiritual knowledge with toil, struggle and the sweat of your face (cf Gen. 3:19).
23. Negligence led our first forefather to transgress, and instead of enjoying paradise he was condemned to die (cf. Gen. 3:22).
24. You, too, should keep control of Eve; and you should watch out for the serpent, lest she is deceived by it and gives you the fruit of the tree (cf . Gen. 3:1-5).
25. As by nature the soul gives life to the body, so virtue and spiritual knowledge give life to the soul.
26. A conceited intellect is a waterless cloud (cf. Jude, verse 12) carried along by the winds of self-esteem and pride.
27. In controlling your self-esteem, beware of unchastity, so that you do not shun acclaim only to fall into dishonor.
28. Eschewing self-esteem, look to God, and beware lest you become presumptuous or unchaste.
29. A sign of self-esteem is an ostentatious manner; of pride, anger and scorn of others.
30. In cutting out gluttony, beware lest you seek the esteem of others, making a display of the pallor of your face.
31. To fast well is to enjoy simple food in small amounts and to shun other people's esteem.
32. After fasting until late in the day, do not eat your fill, lest in so doing you build up again what you have pulled down(cf Gal. 2:18).
33. If you do not drink wine, do not glut yourself with water either; for if you do you will be providing yourself with the same fuel for unchastity.
34. Pride deprives us of God's help, making us over-reliant on ourselves and arrogant towards other people.
35. There are two remedies against pride; and if you do not avail yourself of them you will find yourself given a third, far more painful to bear.
36. Prayer with tears, and having no scorn for anyone, destroy pride; but so do chastisements inflicted against our will.
37. Chastisement through the trials imposed on us is a spiritual rod, teaching us humility when in our foolishness we think too much of ourselves.
38. The intellect's task is to reject any thought that secretly vilifies a fellow being.
39. Just as the gardener who does not weed his garden chokes his vegetables, so the intellect that does not purify its thoughts is wasting its efforts.
40. A wise man is one who accepts advice, especially that of a spiritual father counseling him in accordance with the will of God.
41. A man deadened by the passions is impervious to advice and will not accept any spiritual correction.
42. He who does not accept advice will never go by the straight path, but will always find himself among cliffs and gorges.
43. The truly monk-like intellect is one that has renounced the senses and cannot stand even the thought of sensual pleasure.
44. The truly physician-like intellect is one that first heals itself and then heals others of the diseases of which it has been cured.
45. Search after virtue and do not be deprived of it, lest you live sordidly and die a wretched death.
46. Our Lord Jesus has given light to all men, but those who do not trust in Him bring darkness upon themselves.
47. Do not think that the loss of virtue is a minor matter, for it was through such a loss that death came into the world.
48. Obedience to the commandments is the resurrection of the dead, for by nature life follows upon virtue.
49. When the intellect was deadened by the breaking of the commandment, the death of the body was a necessary consequence.
50. Just as Adam through transgressing became subject to death, so the Savior through obedience put death to death.
51. Put evil to death so that you will not rise up dead and thus pass from a minor to a major death.
52. Because of Adam's transgression the Savior became man, so that by nullifying the sentence passed on us He might resurrect all of us.
53. He who has put his passions to death and overcome ignorance goes from life to life.
54. Search the Scriptures and you will find the commandments: do what they say and you will be freed from your passions.
55. Obedience to a commandment purifies the soul, and purification of the soul leads to its participation in light
56. The tree of life is the knowledge of God; when, being purified, you share in that knowledge you attain immortality.
57. The first step in the practice of the virtues is faith in Christ; its consummation, the love of Christ.
58. Jesus is the Christ, our Lord and our God, who grants us faith in Him so that we may live.
59. He manifested Himself to us in soul, body and divinity so that, as God, He could deliver soul and body from death.
60. Let us acquire faith so that we may attain love; for love gives birth to the illumination of spiritual knowledge.
61. The acquisition of faith leads successively to fear of God, restraint from sensual pleasure, the patient endurance of suffering, hope in God, dispassion and love.
62. Genuine love gives birth to the spiritual knowledge of the created world. This is succeed by the desire of all desires: the grace of theology.
63. When (he intellect controls the passions it is doubtless, out of fear that it does so, for it believes is God's threats and promises.
64. When you have been given faith, self-control is demanded from you; when self-control has become habitual, it gives birth to patient endurance, a disposition that gladly accepts suffering.
65. The sign of patient endurance is delight in suffering; and the intellect, trusting in this patient endurance, hopes to attain what is promised and to escape what is threatened.
66. The expectation of the blessings held in store links the intellect with what it expects. When it continually meditates on these blessings, it forgets the things of this world.
67. He who has tasted the things for which he hopes will spurn the things of this world: all his longing will be spent on what he hopes for.
68. It is God who has promised the blessings held in store; and the self-disciplined person who has faith in God longs for what is held in store as though it were present.
69. The sign that the intellect dwells among the blessings for which it hopes is its total oblivion to worldly things and the growth in its knowledge of what is held in store.
70. The dispassion taught by the God of truth is a noble quality; through it He fulfils the aspirations of the devout soul.
71. The blessings that lie in store for the inheritors of the promise are beyond eternity, before all ages, and transcend both intellect and thought.
72. Let us regulate our lives according to the rules of true faith, so that we do not deviate into the passions and thus fail to attain what we hope for.
73. Jesus is the Christ, one of the Holy Trinity. You are destined to be His heir.
74. If God has taught you a spiritual knowledge of created beings, you will not doubt the words of Scripture concerning the blessings held in store.
75. According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.
76. The more the intellect is purified, the more the soul is granted spiritual knowledge of divine principles.
77. He who has disciplined his body and dwells in a state of spiritual knowledge finds that through this knowledge he is purified still further.
78. The intellect that begins to pursue divine wisdom starts with faith; it then passes through the intermediate stages until it arrives once more at faith, though this time of the highest type.
79. Initially our search for wisdom is prompted by fear; but as we attain our goal we are led forward by love.
80. The intellect that begins its search for divine wisdom with simple faith will eventually attain a theology that transcends the intellect and that is characterized by unremitting faith of the highest type and the contemplation of the invisible.
81. The divine principles contemplated by the saints do not reveal God's essence, but the qualities that appertain to Him.
82. Of the principles that appertain to God, some are to be understood affirmatively and others negatively.
83. For example, being, divinity, goodness and whatever else we attribute to God in a positive manner, or cataphatically, are to be understood affirmatively. Unongmateness, infinity, indefinable -ness and so on are to be understood in a negative manner, or apophatically.
84. Since the inmost divinity of the Holy Trinity is a single essence transcending intellect and thought, what has just been said, and other similar statements, refer to the qualities that appertain to the essence, and not to the essence itself.
85. Just as we speak of the single Godhead of the Holy Trinity, so we glorify the three Persons, or hypostases, of the one Godhead.
86. The affirmative and negative qualities mentioned above are to be understood as common to the holy and coessential Trinity, and not as indicating the individual characteristics of the three Persons. Most of these individual characteristics are to be understood affirmatively, although some are to be understood negatively.
87. The individual characteristics of the divine Persons are fatherhood, sonship, procession, and whatever else can be said of them individually.
88. A person may be defined as an essence with individual characteristics. Thus each person possesses both what is common to the essence and what belongs individually to the person.
89. Of the qualities common to the Holy Trinity, those predicated of it negatively apply more aptly than those ascribed to it positively. But this is not the case with the individual characteristics. As we noted, some of these are expressed affirmatively and others negatively; 'begottenness' and 'unbegottenness' respectively are examples of both. Thus unbegottenness' differs from 'begot-tenness' only as regards its meaning, not as regards its aptness: the first term expresses the fact that the Father was not begotten and the second that the Son was begotten.
90. Verbs and nouns are used, as we said, to indicate the principles that in contemplation we apprehend as appertaining to the essence of the Holy Trinity, but do not refer to the essence itself. For the principles of the essence cannot be known by the intellect or expressed in words: they are known only to the Holy Trinity.
91. Just as the single essence of the Godhead is said to exist in three Persons, so the Holy Trinity is confessed to have one essence.
92. We regard the Father as unoriginate and as the source: as unoriginate because He is unbegotten, and as the source because He is the begetter of the Son and the sender forth of the Holy Spirit, both of whom are by essence from Him and in Him from all eternity.
93. Paradoxically, the One moves from itself into the Three and yet remains One, while the Three return to the One and yet remain Three.
94. Again, the Son and the Spirit are regarded as not unoriginate, and yet as from all eternity. They are not unoriginate because the Father is their origm and source: but They are eternal in that They coexist with the Father, the one begotten by Him and the other proceeding from Him from all eternity.
90. The single divinity of the Trinity is undivided and the three Persons of the one divinity are unconfused.
96. The individual characteristics of the Father are described as unoriginateness and unbegottenness: of the Son, as co-presence in the source and as being begotten by it; and of the Holy Spirit, as co-presence in the source and as proceeding from it. The origin of the Son and Holy Spirit is not to be regarded as temporal: how could it be? On the contrary, the term 'origin' indicates the source from which Their existence is eternally derived, as light from the sun For They originate from that source according to Their essence, although They are in no sense inferior or subsequent to it.
97. Each Person preserves His individual characteristics im-mutably and irremovably; and the common nature of Their essence, that is to say. Their divinity, is indivisible.
98. We confess Units- in Trinits' and Trinity in Unity, divided but without division and united but with distmctions.
99. The Father is the sole origm of all things. He is the origin of the Son and the Spirit as Their begetter and source. coetemal, co-infinite, limitless, coessential and undivided. He is the origin of created things, as the one who produces, provides for, and judges them through the Son in the Holy Spirit. 'For all things are from Him and through Him, and have Him as their goal. To Him be glory throughout the ages. Amen' (Rom. I 1 :36).
100. Again, the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to be coetemal with the Father, but not co-unoriginate with Him. They are coetemal in that They coexist with the Father from eternity; but They are not co-unoriginate in that They are not without source: as has already been said. They are derived from Him as the light from the sun, even though They are not inferior or subsequent to Him. They are also said to be unoriginate in the sense that They do not have an origin in time. If this were not the case. They would be thought of as subject to time, whereas it is from Them that time itself derives. Thus They are unoriginate not with regard to Their source, but with regard to time. For They exist prior to, and transcend, all time and all the ages; and it is from Them that all time and all the ages are derived, together with everything that is in time and in the ages. This is because They are, as we said, coetemal with the Father; to Him, with Them, be glory and power through all the ages. Amen.
