Syntagma ad quendam politicum

Of our father among the saints Athanasius, to a certain politician, a very useful treatise, and most beneficial. Since for you, with the dexterity and great ambition of your nature, along with experience and learning in tactics, and also with accurate participation in political affairs, you have not even neglected the teachings of the priests without study, but you have labored over these things to such an extent that, while often nourishing the body with food, you do not deprive the soul of nourishment from words; but, as if with some divine salt, you season the sayings of the Fathers and your table-talk with conversations. Behold, I myself, having summarized some small useful and profitable things, and reading them to every Christian, but especially to those who have risen above in life, word, nobility, and dignity, having improvised a gift most fitting for a man who is a lover of words and especially a lover of God, O best of friends, I have brought you this present treatise, culled from various Fathers and discourses of hearers, which imparts knowledge not to be despised to those who pursue it. For it contains both discernment and division of the tripartite soul within us, as we all humans are moved, and how we are impelled toward salvation or destruction. It defines the reasonings through which every sin is accomplished. It also divides the passions within us, which are of the soul and which of the body. Next, it sets forth the modes of the providence of God. Then it discusses the free will of man and our misuse of things. And it summarizes the faith in the holy and blessed Trinity.

Furthermore, it teaches how one must believe concerning the Lord's incarnation, concerning the distinction of virtue, and the discernment of the nature of things. And in general, it is a kind of compendium of knowledge about us and them, and of our nature and faith. Carrying this about in your hands, pursuing it more diligently, and reaping the benefit from it, you will not, I well know, forget the one who wrote and gave it with his own hand. Discrimination of the tripartite nature of the soul. That every rational soul possesses three parts: reason, spirit, and desire. If in the spirit there is love and philanthropy, and in the desire purity and temperance, the reason is enlightened; but if in the spirit there is misanthropy, and in the desire licentiousness, the reason is darkened. Now reason is then healthy and temperate when it has the passions subordinated, and contemplates the principles of God's creatures spiritually, and dwells with the holy and blessed Trinity. And again, it is then moved according to nature when it loves all men, and harbors no grief or resentment against any of them. And desire, when by means of self-control, humility, and poverty it mortifies the passions—that is, when it is not a slave of the flesh, nor formed by the pursuit of vainglory, and is turned toward divine and immortal love. For desire has its movement toward three things: either toward carnal pleasure, or toward vainglory, or toward the deceit of wealth; and through this irrational longing it despises God and divine things, forgets its own nobility, and toward the neighbor

it becomes bestial, darkens reason, and does not allow one to look up toward the truth. Those who have acquired the higher understanding from this point enjoy the kingdom of heaven and live a blessed life, awaiting the blessedness reserved for those who love the Lord. A detailed division and subdivision of the soul. The soul is divided into the rational, the irascible, and the appetitive. The sins of the rational part are these: unbelief, heresy, folly, lack of discernment, blasphemy, and the assents to sins from the passionate part. The cure and treatment of these is unwavering faith in God and true doctrines, constant study of the sayings of the Spirit, pure prayer, and uninterrupted thanksgiving to God. The sins of the irascible part are pitilessness, hatred, lack of compassion, rancor, envy, murder, and constant preoccupation with such things. The cure and treatment of these is philanthropy, love, brotherly affection, compassion, forbearance, and kindness. The sins of the appetitive part are gluttony, fornication, impurity, licentiousness, love of money, and desire for glory. The cure and treatment of these is self-control, fasting, ascetic discipline, poverty, scattering of wealth to the poor, desire for those immortal things, longing for the kingdom of God, and desire for adoption. Discrimination of the thoughts through which all sin is accomplished. There are eight encompassing thoughts. First, that of gluttony; second, that of fornication; third, that of love of money; fourth, that of anger;

The fifth is of grief; the sixth is of acedia; the seventh is of vainglory; the eighth is of pride. That all these reasonings either trouble us or do not trouble us is not within our power; but to persist in them, or to stir up passions, or not to stir them up, is likewise within our power. Now, an assault is one thing, and a coupling is another, and a passion is another, and a struggle is another, and an assent is another, and an actualization is another. And an assault is the simple reminder made by the enemy; for example, "Do this or that," as in the case of our Christ and God: "Say that these stones become loaves." This, as has been said, is not within our power. A coupling is the reception of the reasoning suggested by the enemy; for example, meditation and conversation with it, which is subject to our choice. A passion is the state arising from the coupling of the passion suggested by the enemy; and it is, as it were, the holding fast, meditation, and fantasy. A struggle is the resistance, either toward the removal of the reasoning of the passion or toward assent, as the Apostle says: "The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are opposed to each other." Assent is the nod toward the passion of the reasoning. Actualization is the deed itself. Now, gluttony is destroyed by temperance; fornication, by divine desire and the aspiration for future things; love of money, by compassion toward the poor; anger, by goodness and love toward all; worldly grief, by spiritual joy; acedia, by patience, endurance, and thanksgiving toward God.

not persist in them, is within our power. Vainglory is overcome by the hidden practice of the virtues and by continuous prayer; pride is overcome by not judging or despising anyone, like the boastful Pharisee, but by considering oneself the last of all. Therefore, when the mind is freed from these said passions and raised up to God, it lives the blessed life from this point onward, receiving the pledge of the Spirit; and having departed from here with dispassion and true knowledge, it stands before the light of the holy and blessed Trinity for endless ages, illumined together with the holy angels. Disposition of the passions. Some passions are bodily, others are psychic. Bodily passions we call gluttony, fornication, drunkenness, licentiousness; psychic passions are hatred toward one's neighbor, envy, strife, vainglory, pride. These act upon our soul when love and self-control are absent; but when love and self-control are present, all these are obliterated, some by spiritual love, others by fasting and self-control. For then the mind recovers its own light and sees God without hindrance. On the providence of God. All things are from God, both the good and the painful and the unworthy; but some by approval, some by economy, some by permission. Those by approval are when we live according to virtue; for God wishes us to pass our lives without sin, and to live with piety and virtue. By economy is when we are disciplined while stumbling and sinning. By permission is when, though disciplined, we do not turn back.

For God has willed that man be saved, just as the angels cried out, saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will." And again, in a providential manner, He disciplines us when we sin, "so that we may not be condemned together with the world," as the Apostle says: "Being judged by the Lord, we are disciplined. There is no evil in a city that the Lord has not made;" that is, plagues, famines, diseases, and the slaughters of wars. For all these things are destructive of sin. And He also allows and completely abandons those who are unwilling either to live without sin or, when disciplined, to turn back, but instead persist in evil, as it is written: "God has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart;" and: "He has delivered them over to a reprobate mind to do what is not fitting;" that is, He let them be because of free will; and "I will harden, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh;" that is, I will allow it to be hardened because of his insensibility. Concerning our free will. God created man with free will, honored with reason and wisdom, setting before his eyes life and death; so that, if he will choose to apply himself to life by his free will, he may live forever; but if, from an evil choice, he applies himself to the path of death, he may be punished eternally. For things of nature, being immutable, are worthy neither of punishments nor of honors. For no one has ever been blamed for being white or black, or for being tall or short; for these are not of our choice. For punishments and honors belong to matters of choice.

Therefore, there is need of both: our own purpose and will, and God’s cooperation and assistance; for if one is lacking, the other is idle. For God foreknew, and predetermined, and called, but those who are called according to intention, as the Apostle says, that is, according to will and purpose; for those who did not will, He allowed to go according to their own will. For He does not compel, nor does He violate our self-determination; for we received self-determination for the inclination toward both, I mean toward virtue and vice. None of the things given to us by God for use is evil; for all things that are from God are good, and very good; misuse alone is evil; for this belongs to our self-determination. Therefore, foods are not evil, but gluttony; nor is procreation, but fornication; nor is partaking of wine, but drunkenness; nor are riches, but avarice; nor is glory, but vainglory. It is necessary, then, to do everything so as to flee misuse, and to use rightly the things given by God; for by doing so, we shall become superior to vice, and find ourselves within virtue. A clear and concise custom, and discernment of our faith.

We must believe as we were baptized; we were baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—that is, into one essence and divinity, and one kingdom, and one principle, and one power—and three hypostases, or persons, and characters, and, if you wish to call them, also properties. For hypostasis is one thing, and essence another. For we call essence that which is common to the three hypostases; for the three persons are of one nature and essence. And we call hypostasis a nature with characteristic properties; for the Father is one, and the Son is another, and the Holy Spirit is another—which distinguishes only the properties, that is, the hypostases, but not the nature. They are not other and other, which would distinguish the natures, but of the same nature and the same essence. For Father and Son and Holy Spirit are together; but the Father is unbegotten, and the Son is a begotten of the Father, as light from the sun and word from mind; and the Holy Spirit is an emanation of the Father. Therefore, the property of the Father is unbegottenness and being called Father; the property of the Son is being called Son and being begotten from the Father; the property of the Spirit is being called Holy Spirit and emanating from the Father. And of the three persons, or hypostases, there is one nature, one will, one energy, one goodness, one power, one volition. For this reason we confess one God. For they are not separated from one another, as men are, nor are their opinions different; but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are together, interpenetrating one another without confusion and without division.

Each person, as has been said, preserves its own property: the Father his fatherhood, the Son his sonship, and the Spirit his procession. If, then, someone should ask you, "What is the Father?" answer him: "That which the Son and the Holy Spirit are, while remaining Father." And if he should say, "What is the Son?" answer: "That which the Father and the Spirit are, while remaining Son." Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit: for this is what the Father and the Son are, while remaining Spirit. The property is incommunicable, as the great among theologians and divine Gregory says. For how, he says, could a property remain if it were moved and changed? The divinity, then, to speak concisely, is undivided in divided things: on the one hand by nature, on the other by hypostases—like in three suns holding to one another, a single blending of light. Therefore, when we look toward the divinity in one nature, and the first cause, and the monarchy, one thing appears to us; but when we look toward the properties and the persons in which the divinity resides, three are venerated. Let examples be added that reveal some faint image of so great a matter—I mean of the divine nature—according to the theologian Gregory: conceive for me the sight of an eye, and the source of water, and a spring, and a river; for these are neither separated by time nor broken off from one another in their mutual connection, even if they seem to be divided by their properties. Also consider a sun, and light, and a ray; a mind, and a word, and a spirit going out together with the word. Yet, according to the one who said:

Let faith lead, not demonstration; and every person must, by a pure and God-illumined action, using the Spirit as guide, so that light may be apprehended by light, believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one divinity and power known and worshipped in three hypostases. How one must believe concerning the Lord's incarnation. That the very Word of God, the uncircumscribed, the bodiless, the only-begotten Son of the Father, the light from light, the source of life and immortality, the radiance of glory, the character of the hypostasis, by the will of his pre-eternal and coeternal Father, and by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, from the virginal blood of the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, in his own hypostasis built for himself ensouled and rational flesh, and this formed from her over the nine-month period; he was born God in human form, that is, God and man in one hypostasis, bearing two natures, indivisibly and without confusion, and two wills and energies, both divine and human; for he willed as God and acted, and he willed as man and acted—but a natural will and energy, not a sinful one. For the human nature was assumed without sin; and from the union itself they were united in will. What the divine will willed, that also did the will of the assumption. But we call will and energy the natural ones: for example, he willed to eat, he willed to drink, he willed to walk; and these he acted, and he willed.

But these things He did by the permission of the divine nature, not under compulsion, as we do; but both the labor, and the struggle, and the petition to the Father to pass over the cup, this also belongs to the natural will. But also after the resurrection and the session at the right hand of the Father, we confess two natures in Christ, volitional and energetic. For where there is a rational nature, there also are will and energy. And there are two natural wills, but one intention; for the divinity directs, while the humanity follows, and permits it to effect both. Concerning the distinction of virtues. We received commandments from our Christ and God, which from that point deify, and make us live without sin, and conduct ourselves as angels among men: such as repentance, humility and perpetual mourning, love for Him arising from the whole heart, and disposition toward one's neighbor, pure prayer, and self-denial, and keeping before one's eyes at all times death for His sake, and walking unceasingly in His light, and holding oneself beneath all creation, and beseeching Him continually. For he who works these divine commandments with faith becomes a son of God, and a son of light and an heir of God, and a co-heir of Christ, and conformed to His image and co-natural, and, to speak briefly and simply, God by adoption through grace. There are other commandments of Christ, which indeed procure remission, but do not render one worthy of perfection.

such as confessing and declaring one's own sins, not judging, not meddling in the affairs of others, showing mercy from one's possessions, bearing with nobility and gratitude the sorrows that come upon one, confessing that one is saved by gift and grace. If, then, one practices the first and divinely working commandments, from that point he receives the pledge of the Holy Spirit; but if not, let him at least practice the second with diligence, so that he may obtain forgiveness for his transgressions. But if he falls short of both, this man is useless, and wretched, and miserable; and let him expect the punishment reserved for the devil and his angels. Distinction of the nature of things. Of things, some are properly good, some properly evil, and some intermediate. And properly good are: prudence, courage, temperance, justice; properly evil are: folly, cowardice, intemperance, injustice; intermediate are: wealth, poverty, fame, obscurity, health, sickness, great learning, ignorance. They are called intermediate because in themselves they are neither properly good nor properly evil, but become either this or that by the use of those who employ them; for example, wealth is good when given for almsgiving, but evil when spent on pleasures. Likewise, poverty is good when it teaches us endurance, gratitude, and freedom, but evil when it leads to blasphemy and illiberality from our failure to endure.

produces it. Glory is also good when it teaches us humility and desire for future glory; but it is bad when it persuades us to servility and to do everything out of human fear. Likewise, health is good when we use it for pleasing God and working at his commandments; but it is bad when used for licentiousness and injustice. Similarly, sickness is good when we are grateful and use it as a collaborator; but it is bad when it drives us to ingratitude, blasphemy, and anger. Great learning is good when we use it for teaching and helping those who are wronged; but it is bad when used for vainglory and advocacy of injustice. Ignorance is good when it prepares us to submit to those who know and to obtain benefit from them; but it is bad when it persuades us to abide by our own ignorance and not to follow those who are better. Likewise, all other things, such as noble birth and low birth, beauty and ugliness, fine voice and harsh voice, strength and weakness, swiftness and slowness, skill and lack of skill, and aptitude and inaptitude for service. All these, as has been said, belong to the class of intermediate things; and he who uses them well will suffer no harm from them, as the blessed Job did. For having been tested in both respects, he appeared honorable and unconquered, and in all things he pleased God. So one must not blame the things themselves.

Nothing given by God is evil, but it is due to our mistaken and self-willed choice, and to the self-willed discernment of our soul regarding these things, which freely slips into misuse of them out of its own love of pleasure, and by thinking ill of God and of his kingdom.