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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR * Volume 14 1 MYSTAGOGY: CHAPTERS ON LOVE; ASCETIC DISCOURSE; CHAPTERS (200) ON THEOLOGY; Volume 6 MYSTAGOGY* On what the things accomplished in the holy Church at the assembly are symbols of.

PROLOGUE: How the wise man becomes wiser by taking an occasion, and the righteous man, having understood, will add to receive, according to the divine proverb, you yourself have clearly shown me, most honored of all, by experience itself, teaching by deed what the divine word wisely hints at. For once you heard me, as I recounted in summary form by way of a rapid survey, as far as was possible, the things that had been rightly and mystically contemplated by another great elder, and truly wise in divine matters, concerning the holy Church and the holy assembly accomplished in it, and as far as possible in a teaching manner, you kept pressing and demanding that I make for you from it a written account of these things, wishing the writing to be a drug against forgetfulness and a aid to memory, saying that time, by its nature, subdues, and is able imperceptibly through forgetfulness to plunder and utterly destroy the types and images of the things laid up, and for this reason it altogether needs the renewing manner by which the power of the word, ever flourishing, is naturally able to preserve the memory impassible and undiminished. But as much as of the simple *

The work of Saint Maximus was divided into volumes, and the pages are recorded according to the order of "GREGORY PALAMAS" of the editions "TO BYZANTION," Thessaloniki 1992, PHILOKALIA OF THE NEPTIC AND ASCETIC FATHERS, so that the reader can easily consult the translation. The text comes from three sources: 1) from the electronic library of Greek texts, ( :// ), 2) texts not included in the Patrologia of , volume 91 and 91 (typed by the mother of Fr. Arsenios Meskos), and 3) the scholia on the works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite from the BYZANTIO editions; the text was passed through a scanner, followed by optical character recognition and checking. Volume and page for the BYZANTIO editions are recorded in the following way:, that is, the tenth page of volume B follows. There is also an indication of the page of the Patrologia when the text comes from there.

* The text comes from the Patrologia of , in comparison with the text of the editions "TO BYZANTION" of the series "GREGORY PALAMAS," Thessaloniki 1992, PHILOKALIA OF THE NEPTIC AND ASCETIC FATHERS, volume 14.

To hear, and to seek also the undestroyed permanence of what has been heard, is wiser—everyone knows this, surely, who takes even a little care for rational nobility and is not entirely a stranger to kinship with the Word. And I for my own part was hesitant at the beginning—for the truth must be told—declining the task; not because I did not wish, beloved ones, to give you in every way according to my ability what is desired, but because I had neither partaken of the grace that urges those who are worthy to this, nor had experience of the power and practice for speaking, having been raised in private station and being wholly uninitiated in the technical arts of words—those that have their grace only in the offering, in which most people especially delight, circumscribing their pleasure by hearing, even if they often hold nothing of what is precious in depth; and, to speak more properly and truly, because I feared lest by the cheapness of our discourse I should insult that blessed man's lofty speech and thought concerning divine things. Nevertheless, later, yielding to the force of love, which is stronger than all things, I willingly accepted the command, choosing rather to be laughed at for presumption and lack of education, on account of obedience, by the fault-finders, than to be thought to wish not to join you eagerly in every good thing through delay, having cast the care of how to speak upon God, who alone works wonders and teaches man knowledge, who makes clear the tongue of the slow of speech, and devises a way for those at a loss, and raises the poor from the earth and lifts the needy from the dunghill—I mean from the fleshly mind and the foul mire of the passions.

the poor in spirit, or the one who is poor in vice and destitute of the corresponding condition, or, on the contrary, the one who is still held fast by the law of the flesh and by the passions, and who for this reason is poor in virtue and knowledge and destitute of grace. But since by the all-holy and truly God-inspired Dionysius the Areopagite, in his treatise On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, the symbols pertaining to the sacred rite of the holy synaxis have been contemplated worthily of his great mind, it must be known that the present discourse does not now go through the same things, nor does it proceed by the same means as he. For it is bold and presumptuous and near to folly to attempt to handle his works when one is able neither to contain nor to understand him, and to bring forward as one's own the mysteries that were revealed by the Spirit to him alone in a God-inspired manner—but only as much as was left, by God's benevolent will, to others also as receivable from him, for the exposition and exercise of their own disposition toward divine things according to their desire, and through which the all-radiant beam of the things being perfected, contemplated in measure with them, becomes known and draws to itself those who have embraced it with longing, so that those after him may not be entirely idle through the whole day of the time of this present life, not having the word that is hired for that divine vine-dressing, the word for the spiritual labor of the spiritual vineyard—the vineyard that was plundered in the beginning by the evil one through deceit in the transgression of the commandment—paying back the spiritual denarius of the divine and most royal image. But I do not promise to set forth in order all the things that were mystically contemplated by the blessed elder.

Nor indeed the things themselves that are spoken, as they were understood and spoken by him. For that man, inasmuch as he was a philosopher and a teacher of all learning, through an abundance of virtue and through a more prolonged and more scientific practice and diligence in things divine, having set himself free from the bonds of matter and from the phantasies that arise from it, reasonably kept his mind illumined by the divine rays, and for this reason able to see directly the things that are not seen by the many, and his reason a most exact interpreter of the things understood; and, like a mirror hindered by no stain of the passions, [able] purely to bear and to speak the things that others are unable even to understand, so that the hearers are able to see the whole mind, as it were, riding upon the word, and to receive the things understood shining clearly, whole in the whole mind, and conveyed to them through the mediation of the word. But [I have set down] as many things as I carry through memory, and as I am able dimly to understand and more dimly to speak, yet piously, by the grace of God who illumines the darkened things. For I do not suppose that you ought to think, you who know how to judge rightly, that I am able to understand or speak otherwise than as I am able to understand and speak, and as the grace from above grants, providentially measuring out in due proportion the power that corresponds to me, even if the one who handed these things down and taught them is most exalted. Since to seek equal things from those who are not equal in virtue and knowledge seems to me to be not far from those who try to show the moon shining equally with the sun; and who force these things, which are not in every way able to correspond to one another in all respects, [to do so]—which is impracticable and impossible.

Let God be the guide of what is spoken and thought, the only Mind of those who think and of things thought, and the Word of those who speak and of things spoken, and the Life of the living and of things given life, and being and becoming all things to all, through the things themselves that exist and come to be; but through himself nothing in no way and by no manner, neither being nor becoming, of the things that are and come to be—since he is naturally coordinated with nothing at all of existing things, and for this reason accepts rather the "not to be," because of his super-being, as being more properly said of him.

For it is necessary, if indeed the knowledge of the difference between God and created things is truly necessary for us, that the positing of the transcendent be the removal of existing things, and the positing of existing things be the removal of the transcendent, and that both terms be contemplated properly of the same one, and that neither be properly able—I mean "to be" and "not to be." Both properly, since the one is the positing of God's being as cause of existing things, and the other is the removal, by way of super-eminence, of the cause of being of all existing things; and again neither properly, since neither presents the positing of the very essence and nature of what the sought one is. For that to which nothing at all is naturally joined as cause, whether being or not being, to that nothing of existing and spoken things, nor of non-existing and unspoken things, is reasonably near. For it has its existence simple and unknown and inaccessible to all and wholly uninterpretable, and beyond all affirmation and negation. And these things concerning these matters; but let us come to the proposed hypothesis of the discourse. A.

In what way and in what manner the holy Church is an image and type of God. That blessed elder, then, said that the holy Church, at the first glance of contemplation, bears the type and image of God, as having the same activity as he does by imitation and type.

For just as God, having made all things by his infinite power and brought them into being, holds them together and gathers them and encompasses them, and providentially binds together both intelligible and sensible things with one another and with himself, and, as cause and beginning and end, holds all things around himself—those things that are by nature separated from one another—and makes them converge upon one another by the single power of their relation to him as their beginning, by which he leads all things to an identity of movement and existence, incorruptible and unconfused, with none of the things that exist primarily rebelling or being divided from another by difference of nature or movement, since all things have grown together with all things without confusion through the single indissoluble relation to and guard of the one beginning and cause, the

and all the specific relations, and those beyond all, contemplated according to the nature of each of existing things, abolishing and covering over—not by destroying them and removing them and making them not to be, but by conquering and shining forth above them, as wholeness does over parts, or rather as the very cause of wholeness itself shining forth, according to which both the wholeness itself and the parts of the wholeness are naturally both to appear and to be, as having their own cause shining forth above them, and as the sun, appearing above the stars, covers both their nature and their power, so also the cause of them as caused things covers their existence. For as the parts naturally come from the wholeness, so also the caused things both truly are and are known from the cause, and they have their own proper character at rest whenever, encompassed by their reference to the cause, they are wholly qualified by it, according to the one power, as has been said, of their relation to it. For God, being all in all, who beyond all in infinite measures, will be seen by those pure in mind alone; when the mind, having gathered up the principles of existing things in contemplation, comes to rest in God himself, as the cause and beginning and end of the production and generation of all things, and the unfathomable depth of the encompassment of all things.

In the same way, the holy Church of God will be shown to act in the same manner as God toward us, as an image acts like its archetype. For though those who come to her and are reborn and recreated by the Spirit are many and nearly countless in number—men and women and children, differing from one another by race and kind, by nations and languages, by ways of life and ages, by opinions and arts, by manners and customs and pursuits, and again by knowledges and dignities, by fortunes and characters and states—she gives and grants to all equally one divine form and name: to be and to be called from Christ. And she grants one simple, undivided, and indivisible relation in faith, which does not even allow the many and unspeakable differences that exist in each person to be known, because of the universal reference and gathering of all into her, in which no one at all is separated from the common good for himself, since all are grown together with one another and united by the one simple and indivisible grace and power of faith. "For the heart and soul of all," it says, "was one," so that out of different members there is one body, both to be and to be seen, and truly worthy of Christ himself, our true head.

In whom," says the divine Apostle, "there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither barbarian nor Scythian, neither slave nor free; but all things and in all things he himself," who encompasses all things in himself according to one simple, infinitely wise power of goodness, like the center of certain straight lines drawn from it, and by one simple and unified cause and power does not allow the principles of beings to coexist with their limits, but circumscribes their extensions in a circle and draws to himself the distinctions of beings and of things made by him; so that the creatures and works of the one God may not be altogether alien and hostile to one another, having no ground or direction in which to show what is dear and peaceful and the same toward one another, and so that their very being may not risk falling into non-being by being separated from God. The holy Church is therefore an image of God, as has been said, in that it works the same union with respect to the faithful as God does, even if those who are united in it through faith happen to be different in their particular characteristics and to come from different places and manners, which union he himself, in respect of the essences of beings, is naturally disposed to work without confusion, the

God, as has been shown, reconciling their difference by referring and uniting them to Himself as cause and principle and end, and making them the same. B. On how and in what manner the holy Church of God is an image of the world constituted of visible and invisible essences...

B. On how and in what manner the holy Church of God is an image of the world constituted of visible and invisible essences. By a second view of contemplation, he said that the holy Church of God is a type and image of the whole world constituted of visible and invisible essences, as admitting the same union and distinction as it. For just as she, being one house in her construction, receives difference according to the particular quality of the position of her form, being divided into the place set apart for priests and ministers alone, which we call the sanctuary, and the place accessible for the entrance of all the faithful peoples, which we call the nave, she is again one in hypostasis, not being divided along with her own parts because of the difference of the parts from one another, but by their reference to her one, she releases the parts from the difference in their calling and shows both to be the same as each other, and by interchange reveals each to be what the other is in itself: the nave as sanctuary in power, being consecrated by reference to the end of the mystic rite, and again the sanctuary as nave in the energy of its own mystic rite having him as its beginning, she remains one and the same through both.

Thus also the whole world of beings brought forth by God through generation, divided into the intelligible world—which is filled up from intelligible and incorporeal essences—and this sensible and bodily world, which is magnificently woven together from many forms and natures, being in another way a Church not made with hands, is wisely shown forth through this Church made with hands; and it has, as it were, a sanctuary—the world above, assigned to the powers above—and a nave—the world below, allotted to those who have been granted to live by sense. Again, it is one world, not divided along with its own parts; on the contrary, it circumscribes even the difference of the parts themselves, which comes from their natural particularity, by their reference to its own unity and indivisibility, and shows itself and them to be the same, while they are interchangeably each other's without confusion, and shows each to be wholly present in the other wholly, and both together as parts fulfilling it as one, and as a whole fulfilled by its parts in a unified and whole manner. For the whole intelligible world appears mystically stamped in symbolic forms upon the whole sensible world to those able to see; and the whole sensible world, known in the mind through its principles, exists present in the whole intelligible world. For the latter is in the former by its principles, and the former is in the latter by its types; and their work is one, just as a wheel within a wheel, says the wondrous Ezekiel, the beholder of great things, speaking, I think, about the two worlds. And again: "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," says the divine Apostle.

And if the things that are not seen are beheld through the things that appear, as it is written, much more, surely, will the things that appear be understood by those who devote themselves to spiritual contemplation through the things that do not appear. For the symbolic contemplation of intelligible things through visible things is the spiritual knowledge and understanding of visible things through invisible things. For things that are declarative of one another must by all means possess true and manifest impressions of one another and an unimpaired relation to them.

3. That the holy Church of God is an image of the sensible world alone... And again he said that the holy Church of God is a symbol of the sensible world alone, in itself, as having the divine priesthood as heaven and possessing the comeliness of the temple as earth. Likewise also that the world is a Church: having heaven like a priesthood, and the order upon earth like a temple.

4. How and in what manner the holy Church of God symbolically images man, and is itself imaged by him as a man. And again, according to another mode of contemplation, he said that the holy Church of God is a man, having the priesthood as a soul;

And the divine altar as mind, and the temple as body, as being an image and likeness of the man who became according to the image and likeness of God; and through the temple, as through a body, moral philosophy being set forth, and through the priestly place, as through a soul, natural contemplation being spiritually expounded, and as through a mind, through the divine altar, mystical theology entering in.

And conversely, the mystical Church as man, as through the temple of the body virtuously cleansing the practical faculty of the soul by the activities of the commandments according to moral philosophy; and as through the priestly place of the soul, offering to God in a pure way in the Spirit the rational principles pertaining to sense perception, cut off from matter according to natural contemplation through reason; and as through the altar of the mind, summoning the much-hymned silence in the innermost sanctuaries of the invisible and unknown God, of His great-voiced utterance, through another silence that is both talkative and many-toned, and, as far as is attainable for man, coming into union with Him according to mystical theology, and becoming such as it is fitting that the one who has been deemed worthy of the visitation of God should be, and who has been marked with His all-radiant beams.

E. How and in what manner again the holy Church of God is an image and type of the soul considered in itself. And he taught that the holy Church can be an image not only of the whole man—I mean of him constituted by soul and body in composition—but also of the soul itself considered in itself by reason. For he said that the soul is universally constituted of an intellectual and a vital power; and the intellectual power is moved by authority according to will, while the vital power remains according to nature without choice, as it is. And again, that of the intellectual power there is both the contemplative and the practical; and the contemplative is called mind, he said, while the practical is called reason; and that the mind is the motive principle of the intellectual power, while reason is the providential principle of the vital power; and that the one is and is called wisdom—I mean the mind—when it wholly, with its own unchangeable

...preserves the movements toward God; and that the word (logos) likewise is and is called prudence, whenever, having joined in a sober-minded way the vital power administered by it through providence to the activities, it shows it to the intellect as undifferentiated, bearing the same and like impression of the divine through virtue, which he said is naturally distributed to both the intellect and the word; so that the soul is shown to be, and to be constituted primarily, from the intellect and the word, as being intellectual and rational; the vital power being contemplated equally in both, I mean in the intellect and the word; for it is not lawful to conceive that either of these is without a share in life, and it is comprehended by both, through which the intellect—which we said is also called wisdom—being unfolded by the contemplative habit in ineffable silence and knowledge toward the truth, is led through unfailing and unceasing knowledge, while the word—which we called prudence—by the practical habit, bodily according to virtue, reaches the good through faith; from both of which has been constituted the true knowledge of things divine and human, the truly faultless knowledge and the end of the whole most divine philosophy according to the Christians.

And, to speak more clearly about these things, he said that one part of the soul is contemplative, as has been said, and the other practical; and he called the contemplative part mind (nous), and the practical part reason (logos), as being, that is, the primary powers of the soul; and again the mind, wisdom, and the reason, prudence, as being the primary activities. And again, going through it in detail, he said that the soul is, according to the noetic element, mind, wisdom, contemplation, knowledge, unfailing knowledge, and the end of these is truth; and according to the rational element, reason, prudence, action, virtue, faith, and the end of these is the good.

And he said that truth and the good signify God, but truth, when the divine seems to be signified from the essence; for truth is a simple, and single, and one, and same, and indivisible, and immutable, and impassible, and unerring thing, and wholly without extension; and the good, when from the activity. For the good is beneficent, and provident of all things that come from it, and protective, from "exceedingly" or "to be placed" or "to run," according to the opinion of those who etymologize, granting to all things that exist to be and to remain and to be moved.

The five pairs conceived in relation to the soul, he said, are occupied with the one pair that signifies God. By "pair" I now mean mind and reason, wisdom and prudence, contemplation and action, knowledge and virtue, unfailing knowledge and faith. And the pair that signifies the divine is truth and goodness; moving by procession through these, the soul is united to the God of all things, imitating the immutability and beneficence of his essence and his activity, through its firm and unchangeable disposition in the good according to its choice. And, to mix in a fitting contemplation concerning these things, perhaps this is the divine decade of the strings of the spiritual psaltery that is according to the soul, which has the Word sounding in harmony with the Spirit through the other blessed decade of the commandments, and produces spiritually the perfect, harmonious, and melodious notes through which God is hymned; so that I may learn what is the meaning of the decade that sings and the decade that is sung, and how a decade mystically united and joined to a decade brings back to himself Jesus, my God and Savior, who is completed through me as I am saved—he who is always most full and can never depart from himself—and wondrously restores me, the human being, to himself, or rather to God, from whom I have received and possess being, and toward whom I hasten, longing to receive well-being from afar.

Whoever has been able to know this will assuredly learn from experience what is said, having already come to know clearly by experience his own dignity: how the "according to the image" is rendered to the image, how the archetype is honored, what is the power of the mystery of our salvation, and for whose sake Christ died; and again, how we can remain in him, and he in us, as he said, and how "the word of the Lord is immediate, and all his works are in faith." But let us return to the sequence of the discourse, having been satisfied with these things concerning these matters. For he said that the mind, moved through wisdom, proceeds to contemplation; through contemplation, to knowledge; through knowledge, to unfailing knowledge; through unfailing knowledge, to the truth, at which the mind receives the limit of its movement, being circumscribed in its essence and power and habit and activity.

For he said that wisdom is the power of the mind, and that the mind itself is wisdom in potentiality; contemplation is habit; knowledge is activity; and unfailing knowledge is the unceasing and habitual motion, concerning the knowable that is beyond all knowledge, of wisdom and contemplation and knowledge—that is, of power and habit and activity—whose limit, as an unerring knowable, is the truth. And this too is worthy of wonder: how the unfailing comes to an end by being circumscribed, or evidently as being terminated by God, the truth. For God is the truth, in relation to whom the mind, moving unceasingly and unfailingly, can never cease from its movement, finding no limit where there is no interval.

For the wondrous magnitude of the divine infinity is in some way without quantity and without parts and altogether without extension, and it possesses no comprehension whatsoever that reaches it for the purpose of being known—what it is in essence. But that which has no extension or comprehension in any respect is not limited by anything. Likewise, the rational principle (logos), moved by prudence, proceeds to action, and through action to virtue, and through virtue to faith—the truly firm and unerring assurance of divine things. Having this first in potentiality according to prudence, the rational principle later demonstrates it in actuality according to virtue, because of its manifestation in works. For "faith without works is dead," as it is written; and everything dead and inactive, no one who thinks rightly would ever dare to call among the good. And through faith it comes to the good, in which it receives its end, ceasing from its own activities, since its power and its state and its activity are all circumscribed.

For he said that prudence is the power of the word, and that the word itself is in potentiality prudence; and that habit is action, and that activity is virtue; and that faith is the settled and unalterable fixation in the soul of prudence and action and virtue—that is, of power, habit, and activity—whose final limit is the good, at which the word, coming to rest as its motion ends, ceases. For God is the good, to which every power and every word is naturally bounded. But how and in what manner each of these is accomplished and brought into activity, and which of them is opposed or akin to each, and to what extent, to distinguish and to state is not the business of the present undertaking. Except insofar as to know this, that every soul, whenever through the grace of the Holy Spirit and its own diligence and zeal it has been able to join and weave these together for one another—I mean the word to the intellect, and prudence to wisdom, and action to contemplation, and virtue to knowledge, and faith to unerring knowledge—with none being diminished or increased in relation to the other, all excess and deficiency having been cut away from them, and, to speak concisely, its own decade into a monad—

to do, then she herself will be united to the true and good and one and only God, being beautiful and magnificent and made like him so far as is attainable, by the completion of the four generic virtues, which are indicative of the divine decade according to the soul, and which contain the other blessed decade of the commandments.

For the tetrad is a decade in potentiality, being composed from the monad by a chain in procession. And again the same monad, in its gathering together, contains the good in a monadic way, and shows the simple and indivisible nature of the divine activity, undividedly divided in itself; by these the soul has kept its own possessions vigorously and without failing, and has manfully cast off what is alien as evil, since it has a rational mind and a prudent wisdom and a practical contemplation, and a virtuous knowledge, and the un-forgetful knowledge of these things, most faithful and unchangeable together, and since it has brought to God, with self-control, the effects joined to their causes and the activities to their powers, and has received in return the creative deification of simplicity. For the word is the activity and manifestation of the mind, as an effect of a cause; and prudence of wisdom, and action of contemplation, and virtue of knowledge, and faith of the un-forgetful knowledge; from these is created the interior disposition toward truth and the good—I mean toward God—which he said is divine knowledge and unerring understanding and love and peace, in which and through which is deification.

Knowledge, as the completion of all the knowledge of God and divine things attainable by humans and as the unerring encompassment of the virtues; understanding, as having genuinely set foot upon the truth and furnishing a lasting experience of the divine; love, as partaking wholly, in disposition, of the whole delight of God; and peace, as suffering the same things as God and disposing those deemed worthy of it to suffer the same.

For if the divine is wholly immovable, as having nothing that disturbs it in any way—for that which overtakes it is also within its scope—and peace is an unshaken and immovable stability, and besides, an undisturbed cheerfulness, do not divine things suffer, and every soul deemed worthy to receive the divine peace? So that it no longer has anything of the things naturally inclined to disturb it, having surpassed, if it is permitted to say so, not only the bounds of vice and ignorance, falsehood and wickedness, and of the vices opposed to virtue and knowledge, to truth and goodness—vices which arise alongside the soul's movements contrary to nature—but now also the bounds of virtue and knowledge, of truth and goodness as we have discerned them, and having lulled itself ineffably and unknowably to rest in the most truly real and most good couch of God, according to his most unerring promise, so that nothing of the things naturally inclined to disturb it any longer overtakes its hiddenness in God; in which blessed and all-holy couch that awesome mystery of the union beyond mind and reason is accomplished, through which God and the soul—and the soul and God—shall become one flesh and one spirit.

O how shall I marvel at you, Christ, for your goodness—for I will not dare to call it defenselessness—I who do not possess a power sufficient even to marvel worthily? "For the two shall become one flesh; but this mystery is great; and I speak concerning Christ and the Church," says the divine Apostle. And again: "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." So then, a soul that has become one-formed and has been gathered both to itself and to God will no longer be divided into many by the rational principle that divides it according to conceptual analysis, since its head has been crowned with the first and only and one Logos and God, in whom all the rational principles of beings, in one incomprehensible simplicity, both are and subsist in a one-formed way, as the Creator and Maker of beings; gazing upon him, since he is not outside itself but wholly in the whole, it will itself know, by a simple contact, the rational principles and causes of beings, through which perhaps before it was betrothed to the Logos and God it was subject to the divisive methods, being carried savingly and harmoniously through them toward him, the one who encompasses and makes every rational principle and every cause. Since these things, then, belong to the soul, as we said—having wisdom in potential according to the intellect, and from wisdom contemplation, and from this knowledge, and from knowledge unerring knowledge, through which it is led to the truth as the limit and end of the goods according to the intellect; and according to the rational principle having prudence, and from this action, and from action virtue, and from virtue faith, by which it comes to rest in the good as the blessed end of rational activities—

Through these things the knowledge of divine matters is gathered together in a union of their mutual conjunction. To all these things the holy Church of God is clearly fitted, being likened in contemplation to the soul. For it signifies all things that are according to the mind and that come from the mind by procession through the priesthood, and it makes clear the things that are according to the word and that come from the word by distinction through the temple, and it gathers all things together to the mystery accomplished upon the divine altar—which mystery, whoever has been able to be initiated into intelligently and wisely through the things accomplished in the Church, has truly made his own soul a Church of God, and a divine one; for the sake of which, and of which, the handmade Church, wisely being through the variety of divine things in it a symbol, was handed down to us as an example for the guidance of the better. HOW AND IN WHAT MANNER MAN IS SAID TO BE, AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURE How and in what manner man is said to be, and the holy Scripture. And just as in the contemplation according to anagogy he said the Church to be a spiritual man, and the man a mystical Church, so indeed he also said all the holy Scripture, by way of summary, to be a man, having the Old Testament as a body, and the New as soul and spirit and mind. And again, of all the holy Scripture, both the Old I mean and the New, the letter according to history is the body; and the mind of the things written and the purpose toward which the mind is directed is the soul. Having heard this, I especially admired the precision of the likeness, and I hymned worthily, according to my power, the one who distributes gifts to each according to worth.

For just as our human being is mortal in appearance but immortal in what does not appear, so too the holy Scripture, having the visible letter that passes away but the spirit hidden in the letter that never ceases to be, establishes the true account of its contemplation. And just as this human being of ours, mastering by philosophy the passionate desire and impulse, withers the flesh, so too the holy Scripture, understood spiritually, circumcises its own letter. For the divine Apostle says: "To the extent that our outer human being is corrupted, to that extent the inner one is renewed day by day." Let this be understood and said also of the holy Scripture, which is understood figuratively as a human being. For to the extent that its letter recedes, to that extent the spirit prevails; and to the extent that the shadows of temporary worship pass by, to that extent the truth of faith, all-radiant and wholly luminous and without shadow, enters in—the truth according to which and through which it primarily both is and has been written and is called Scripture, being inscribed on the mind through spiritual grace, just as our human being, on account of the rational and intelligent soul, primarily both is and is called a human being most of all; according to which and through which he is an image and likeness of God, the

having made him, he is by nature separated from the remaining living beings, having no trace whatsoever of a relational power toward them. Z. How the world is called man, and in what way man is also a world. Z. How the world is called man, and in what way man is also a world. According to this image, again, in a way that is well imitated, he suggested that the whole world, composed of things visible and invisible, is a man; and again that the world composed of soul and body is a man. For he said that the intelligible things hold the place of the soul, just as the soul holds the place of the intelligible things; and that the sensible things hold the form of the body, just as the body holds the place of the sensible things. And that the intelligible things are a soul to the sensible things, and the sensible things a body to the intelligible things. And that the intelligible world is present to the sensible world as a soul united to a body, and the sensible world to the intelligible world as a body compacted together with a soul.

and that there is one world made of both, just as there is one man made of soul and body, neither of these two—which have grown together with each other in unity—rejecting or sending away the other, because of the law of the one who bound them, according to which the principle of the unifying power has been sown in them, not permitting the identity of these in respect of substance in the unity to be ignored, because of their natural otherness, nor allowing the peculiarity that circumscribes each of them for itself to be declared more powerful toward separation and division than the friendly kinship mystically implanted in them in unity, according to which the single and universal mode of the invisible and unknown presence of the cause that holds together all things, being variously present in all things, constitutes all things both in themselves and in one another, unconfused and undivided; and it presents them as belonging rather to one another than to themselves according to the unifying relation, until it seems good to the one who bound them to loose it for the sake of a greater and more mystical dispensation, at the time of the hoped-for universal consummation, according to which the world too, as a man, will die to things visible and will rise again new from old, according to the resurrection that is now expected;

when also the man according to us, as a part to the whole and a small thing to a great one, will rise together with the world, having received the power to be no longer able to be corrupted, when the body becomes like the soul and the sensible things like the intelligible things in comeliness and glory, one divine power shining forth upon all things in a manifest and active presence, proportionately to each, and through itself preserving the indissoluble bond of unity into the boundless ages.

If anyone, then, wishes to have a life and a word both God-loving and God-pleasing, let him hold the better and more honorable things of these three men—I mean of the world, and of the holy Scripture, and of the man according to us—in great account. Let him, with all the strength of his soul, take care of the immortal and divine soul that is to be deified from virtues, and let him despise the flesh that is subject to corruption and death and that is able to defile the dignity of the soul when it is neglected. "For a corruptible body," it says, "weighs down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle burdens the much-caring mind." And again: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." And again: "He who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh." But against the incorporeal and intelligible powers, let him stir up the contest in mind through thought, leaving behind the present things and the things that are seen; "for the things that are seen," it says, "are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal"; in which, because of the abundance of his peaceful disposition, God takes his rest. And toward the Holy Spirit, through prudent meditation of the holy Scripture, having soberly transcended the letter

Let it be referred there, where the fullness of good things exists and "the treasures of knowledge and of wisdom are hidden," and if anyone appears worthy to be within them, he will find God himself inscribed on the tablets of the heart through the grace in the Spirit, beholding as in a mirror "with unveiled face the glory of God" by the removal of the veil that is according to the letter.

H. OF WHAT ARE THE FIRST ENTRANCE OF THE HOLY ASSEMBLY AND THE THINGS PERFORMED AFTER IT SYMBOLS? The account now comes to us, according to the brief exposition of the contemplations concerning the holy Church spoken by the blessed elder, to make also the narration concerning the holy assembly of the Church as brief as possible.

The first entrance of the high priest into the holy Church at the sacred assembly taught that it bears the type and image of the first coming of the Son of God and our Savior Christ in the flesh into this world, through which, having set free and redeemed the nature of men that had been enslaved to corruption and had suffered of itself death through sin and was ruled tyrannically by the devil, he who was guiltless and without sin, having paid as one liable the whole debt on its behalf, brought it back again to the grace of the kingdom from the beginning, giving himself as a ransom and an exchange for us, and giving in return his life-giving passion for our destructive passions, a healing remedy and salvation for the whole world; after which coming, his ascent and restoration into heaven and to the throne above the heavens is typified symbolically through the entrance of the high priest into the sanctuary and his ascent to the priestly throne.

Question: What does the entrance of the people into the holy Church of God signify? The blessed elder used to say that the entrance of the people together with the hierarch into the Church signifies the conversion of the unbelievers from ignorance and error to the knowledge of God, and the translation of the faithful from vice and ignorance to virtue and knowledge. For the entrance into the Church does not only indicate the conversion of the unbelievers to the true God, but also the correction through repentance of each of us who believe yet set aside the commandments of the Lord through an unrestrained and shameful manner of life. For every man, whether murderer, or adulterer, or thief, or proud, or boastful, or insolent, or covetous, or avaricious, or slanderous, or resentful, or easily led to rage and anger, or abusive, or a false accuser, or a whisperer, or easily overcome by envy, or a drunkard—and simply, so that I may not prolong the discourse by enumerating every kind of vice—whoever is held fast by any vice whatsoever, when he ceases from being willingly held fast by it through habit and from acting according to his purpose, and changes his life for the better, choosing virtue in place of vice, such a one should be understood and said to enter together with Christ God and High Priest into virtue, which is figuratively understood as the Church.

I. Of what are the divine readings a symbol? The teacher used to say that the readings of the all-holy books signify the divine and blessed wills and counsels of the all-holy God, through which each of us receives the precepts of what must be done in proportion to the power that lies within him, and learns the laws of the divine and blessed struggles, by which, contending lawfully, we are deemed worthy of the victory-deserving crowns of the kingdom of Christ.

XI. Of what are the divine songs symbols? He used to say that the spiritual delight of the divine songs declares the delight of divine goods that is expressive, the delight that stirs souls to the undefiled and blessed love of God, and rouses them the more to hatred of sin.

XII. What do the greetings of peace signify? XII.

What do the proclamations of peace signify? The wise man defined that by the responses of peace made from within the sanctuary at the high priest's command after each reading, the divine acceptances conveyed through the holy angels are indicated—through which God ordains the contests of those who lawfully strive for the truth against the opposing powers, dissolving their invisible entanglements and giving peace in the abolition of the body of sin, and in return granting to the saints the grace of dispassion as the reward for their labors for virtue, so that, ceasing from war, they may redirect the powers of the soul toward spiritual cultivation, that is, the working of virtues, through which they have broken up the troops of evil spirits, with God the Word commanding them, who also scatters the bitter and hard-to-escape machinations of the devil. 13. Of what specifically, in the case of each symbol, is the reading...

13. Of what specifically, in the case of each symbol, is the reading of the holy Gospel and the mystical [rites] after it? Hence immediately after these, the sacred ordinance of the holy Church legislated that the divine reading of the holy Gospel take place—specifically introducing, for the zealous, the hardship endured for the sake of the Word, after which the Word, coming from heaven as it were a high priest of gnostic contemplation, contracts for them the mindset of the flesh as though some perceptible world.

Rejecting the thoughts that still nod toward the earth, and leading them from there to the contemplation of intelligible things through the closing of the doors and the entrance of the holy mysteries, and having now closed the senses to words and deeds and become outside flesh and world, he teaches them the ineffable things; having now been gathered through the kiss of peace to themselves and to him, and bringing in to him in place of the great beneficence shown toward them only the grateful confession of thanksgiving for their own salvation, which the divine Symbol of the faith hints at.

Then, having set them among the angels through the Trisagion and granted them the same knowledge of the sanctifying theology as those, he brings them to God and the Father, having been adopted as sons by the Spirit through the prayer, by which they were deemed worthy to call God Father. And from there again, as those who have now knowingly passed through all the principles of existing things, he leads them to the unknown Unity, unknowably, through the "One is Holy" and what follows, having been united by grace and made like to it by participation in undivided identity according to their capacity. XIV. Of what is it a symbol... The divine reading of the holy Gospel. XIV. Of what is it a symbol, in the general sense, the divine reading of the holy Gospel? But generally it signifies the consummation of this world.

For after the divine reading of the holy Gospel, the high priest descends from the throne, and the dismissal and expulsion of the catechumens and of the others who are unworthy of the divine contemplation of the mysteries that are about to be shown takes place through the ministers, signifying and prefiguring by itself the truth, of which it is the image and type, and as it were crying out in these things, that after “the Gospel has been proclaimed,” as it is written, “of the kingdom in the whole inhabited world as a testimony to all the nations, then the end will come,” when he comes at his second coming, that is, from heaven, “with great glory, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,” says the divine Apostle; and when he makes vengeance among the adversaries and separates through the holy angels the faithful from the unbelievers, and the unjust from the righteous, and the defiled from the saints, and, to speak briefly and sum it up, those who walked after the flesh from those who were ordered by the Spirit of God, and renders to each, for ages infinite and endless, as the truth of the divine oracles says, the recompense that is just according to the worth of each one’s life. 15. OF WHAT IS THE CLOSING OF THE DOORS A SYMBOL... 15.

Of what is the closing of the doors of the holy Church, which takes place after the holy Gospel, a symbol? The closing of the doors of the holy Church of God, which takes place after the sacred reading of the holy Gospel and the expulsion of the catechumens, signifies both the passage of material things and, after that fearful separation, the more fearful verdict—namely, the entrance of the worthy into the intelligible world, that is, the bridal chamber of Christ—and the complete rejection, in the senses, of the activity of deception.

I. WHAT THE ENTRANCE OF THE HOLY MYSTERIES SIGNIFIES. What does the entrance of the holy Mysteries signify? The entrance of the holy and venerable Mysteries is, as that great elder used to say, the beginning and prelude of the new teaching that will come to be in the heavens concerning God's dispensation toward us, and a revelation of the mystery of our salvation that lies in the hidden places of the divine secrecy. "For I shall not drink," says God the Word to his own disciples, "from now on of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father."

XVII. OF WHAT IS THE DIVINE GREETING A SYMBOL. Of what is the divine greeting a symbol? The spiritual greeting addressed to all prefigures and sketches beforehand the concord that will be of all with one another in the time of the revelation of the ineffable good things to come, in faith and love, and their like-mindedness and unanimity and rational identity, through which the worthy receive their kinship with the Word and God.

For the mouth is a symbol of the Word, according to which most of all all who have partaken of reason, as rational beings, are united with the first and only Word and the cause of every word.

18. What does the divine Symbol of the faith mean? The confession of the divine Symbol of the faith made by all prefigures the mystical thanksgiving that will come to pass in the age to come for the paradoxical words and ways of the all-wise providence of God toward us, by which the worthy present themselves as grateful for the divine beneficence, although they have nothing else whatsoever to offer in return for the infinite divine goods bestowed upon them.

19. What does the doxology of the Trisagion mean? The threefold utterance of sanctification in the divine hymnody made by all the faithful people indicates the union and equality with the incorporeal and intelligible powers that will appear in the future, according to which, in harmony with the powers above, through the sameness of their unswerving ceaseless motion toward God, the nature of men will be taught to hymn and sanctify the one Godhead in three persons with three sanctifications.

K. Of what is the holy prayer of "Our Father" a symbol? K. Of what is the holy prayer of "Our Father who art in the heavens" a symbol?

The all-holy and venerable invocation of the great and blessed God and Father is a symbol of the sonship that will be given by gift and grace of the Holy Spirit, subsistent and indwelling, according to which, when every human particularity is overcome and covered by the visitation of grace, all the saints will be called and will be sons of God—as many as from here already have brightly and gloriously illumined themselves by virtues with the divine beauty of goodness.

KA. What does the end of the mystical liturgy of the hymns proclaimed aloud signify, that is, "One is holy, one is Lord," and what follows? The confession of "One is holy" and what follows, made at the end of the mystical liturgy by all the people, signifies the gathering and union—beyond reason and mind—of those who have been mystically and wisely perfected according to God, which will come to pass toward the one hiddenness of the divine simplicity, in the incorruptible noetic age, in which, beholding the light of the unseen and ineffable glory, they too become receptive of blessed purity together with the powers above; after which, as the end of all things, comes the partaking of the mystery, which transforms those who partake worthily toward itself and makes them like the good that is the cause, by grace and participation, leaving them lacking in nothing of it, so far as is attainable and possible for humans.

So that they themselves can both be and be called gods by position according to grace, through him who wholly filled them with his whole God and left nothing of them empty of his own presence.

KB. How and in what manner also the soul's state, considered in itself in the case of each individual, is seen through the things said to be deifying and perfecting. Come then, let us proceed again by the same way and order, and consider the same things also concerning the knowing soul, and, as far as we are able, ascend a little with the discourse, with reverence, toward a higher contemplation, and observe and understand how the divine institutions of the holy Church lead the soul to its own perfection through true and active knowledge, the mind longing and willing, God guiding the way—if it seems good, let us not hinder it.

KG. That the first entrance of the holy assembly is a symbol of the virtues of the soul. Consider, then, whoever you are who have become a genuine lover of the blessed wisdom of Christ, with the eyes of the mind, at the first entrance of the holy assembly from the outward wandering and confusion of material things, according to what is written, "Women coming from the spectacle," come, I mean, from the wandering among sensible things in species and shape, that is, in their outward appearance.

For it is not true to call it contemplation, in the manner of the unwise among those called wise by the Greeks—for they would never be called wise by us, since they were unable or unwilling to know God through his own works, I mean the appearance of sensible things, in which the ceaseless war of sensible things against one another has been established, working destruction through one another in all things, with all things destroying one another and being destroyed in one another; and having this alone as firm, namely, to be unstable and to be destroyed and never to be able to come together with one another in unbroken and unconflicted permanence—and the soul comes and flees headlong, and as into a church and inviolable sanctuary of peace, it enters the natural contemplation in the Spirit, which is unconflicted and free from all disturbance, with the Word and under the Word, our great and true God and high priest, and as through symbols of the divine readings that take place, it is taught the principles of beings and the wonderful and great mystery of the divine providence made clear in the Law and the Prophets, and having received for itself, for the sake of the noble discipleship in these things, from God through the holy powers, which converse with it intelligibly in its mind, the peace-giving impressions together with the strengthening and preserving delight of the divine and fervent longing according to God, through the pleasure of the divine songs mystically sung to it in a noetic manner.

Again, passing from these and being gathered together onto the one and only summit which in a unified way comprehends these principles, I mean the holy Gospel, in which all the principles both of providence and of existing things pre-exist in a unified form according to the single power of comprehension. After this, it is again lawful for the lovers of God to see him with divine perception, with the fearless eyes of the mind, when the Word and God himself comes from heaven, as the descent of the high priest from the priestly throne signifies, and distinguishes it perfectly, like catechumens, from the thoughts that still imagine perception and the divisibility that accords with it. And from there again, having come to be outside perceptible things, as the closing of the doors of the holy Church of God suggests to be understood, it leads to the immaterial and simple and unchangeable and God-like knowledge of intelligible things, free from every form and shape, which is indicated by the entrance of the ineffable mysteries, according to which, having gathered its own powers to itself and arrived at the Word himself, having united through the intellectual embrace the ineffable principles and modes of salvation that are around it, it teaches one to confess gratefully through the Symbol of the faith.

After these things, again, since it has already, as far as possible, by a simple and undivided knowledge through discipleship grasped both the principles of things perceptible and of things intelligible, it leads it on to the knowledge of manifest theology after the passage through all things, and grants it understanding equal to the angels so far as is attainable, and teaches it soberly just this: to know God as one, one essence, three hypostases; a monad of essence in three hypostases and a triad of consubstantial hypostases, a monad in a triad and a triad in a monad; not one and another, nor one beside another, nor one through another, nor one in another, nor one from another; but the same in itself, and by itself upon itself, the same to itself both monad and triad, having its union without confusion and its distinction undivided and unpartitioned; a monad according to the principle of essence, that is, of being, but not according to composition or combination or any confusion whatsoever; and a triad according to the principle of how it exists and subsists, but not according to division or alienation or any partition whatsoever. For the monad is not divided among the hypostases, nor is it present to them or contemplated in them relationally, nor are the hypostases compounded into a monad or fulfilling it by combination; but the same is the same to itself, yet in one way and in another way. For the holy Trinity of hypostases is a monad without confusion in essence and in the simple principle according to it, and the holy Monad is a triad in its hypostases and in the mode of existence. The same whole is both this and that, understood in different ways, according to one principle and another, as has been said.

one and only, undivided and unconfused, simple and undiminished and unalterable Godhead; being a monad in its whole essence, and the same whole triad in its hypostases, and one ray of one threefold-shining light shining forth in a single form.

Wherefore also the soul, having received in equal honor with the holy angels the manifest and attainable by creation words concerning the Godhead, and having learned to hymn unceasingly in harmony with them the one Godhead in a threefold manner, is led on to the adoption as sons according to grace through manifest likeness,

through which, after prayers, having the God the Father mystically and by grace and alone, it shall be gathered in ecstasy from all things to the one of his hiddenness, and shall suffer rather than know divine things to the extent that it does not wish to be its own, nor to be able to be known from itself by itself or by any other, but by the whole God alone who has taken it up wholly in a manner befitting goodness, and who imparts himself wholly to it wholly in a manner befitting God and without passion, and has made it wholly divine; so that it is, as the all-holy Dionysius the Areopagite says, an image and manifestation of the unseen light, a pure mirror, most translucent, undamaged, undefiled, unstained, receiving whole, if it is lawful to say so, the beauty of the good-formed one, shining in itself in a Godlike and undiminished manner, as far as is possible, the goodness of the silence in the innermost sanctuaries.

Of what things is the grace of the Holy Spirit that abides effective and perfective of the mysteries, through the rites performed in the holy synaxis among the faithful and those gathered faithfully? Accordingly, the blessed elder thought it necessary, and he did not cease to exhort every Christian to devote himself to the holy Church of God and never to forsake the holy synaxis performed in it, both because of the holy angels who abide in it, and because of those who enter and are enrolled each time and present themselves to God and make supplications on their behalf, and because of the grace of the Holy Spirit that is always invisibly present, but especially in a peculiar manner at the time of the holy synaxis, transforming and reshaping each of those found there, and truly remolding him to the more divine in proportion to himself, and leading him to what is signified through the mysteries performed—even if he himself does not perceive it, if indeed he is still one of the infants in Christ and is unable to see the depth of what takes place, and the grace of salvation signified through each of the divine symbols performed, working in him, journeying in order and sequence from things at hand to the end of all things.

At the first entrance: the casting off of unbelief, the increase of faith, the diminution of evil, the advancement of virtue, the obliteration of ignorance, the addition of knowledge. Through the hearing of the divine oracles: the firm and unchangeable states and dispositions of these things just mentioned—I mean faith, virtue, and knowledge. Through the divine chants that follow these: the soul's voluntary assent to the virtues and the noetic pleasure and delight that arises in it on account of them. Through the sacred reading of the Holy Gospel: the consummation of the earthly mindset, as of the perceptible world. Through the closing of the doors after this: the soul's transition and translation, in disposition, from this corruptible world to the intelligible world, by which, shutting its senses like doors, it renders itself pure from the idols of sin. Through the entrance of the holy mysteries: the more perfect and more mystical and new teaching and knowledge concerning God's economy toward us. Through the divine kiss: the identity of concord and like-mindedness and love of all toward all, and of each first toward himself and toward God. Through the confession of the Symbol of the Faith: the fitting thanksgiving for the paradoxical ways of our salvation. Through the Trisagion: the union and equal honor with the holy angels and the unceasing, harmonious intensity of the sanctifying glorification of God. Through the prayer, by which the Father

we are deemed worthy to call upon God, the truest adoption as sons in the grace of the Holy Spirit. And through the "One is holy" and what follows, the unifying grace and intimacy with God himself. And through the holy partaking of the immaculate and life-giving mysteries, the communion and identity with him that is possible through participation by likeness, through which man is deemed worthy to become God from man.

For the gifts of the Holy Spirit which we believe we have here partaken of in the present life through the grace that is in faith, these in the age to come we believe we shall attain in truth, not merely in shadow but in the very reality itself, according to the unfailing hope of our faith and the firm and unbreakable promise of the one who promised, having kept the commandments to the best of our ability, passing over from the grace that is in faith to the grace that is according to sight, God our Savior Jesus Christ evidently transforming us toward himself by the removal of the marks of corruption within us, and granting us as archetypes the mysteries that were shown beforehand through the sensible symbols here.

RECAPITULATION. But for the sake of easy remembrance, if it seems good, let us run briefly through the power of what has been said, and so sum it up. The holy Church, then, is a type, as has been said, and an image of God, because through it he works, according to his infinite power and wisdom, an unconfused union among the various essences of beings, as Creator holding them together supremely to himself, and uniting the faithful to one another in a unity of form according to one faith and grace and calling; and those who are practical and virtuous according to one identity of purpose; and those who are contemplative and gnostic, in addition, according to unbroken and undivided concord. And it is a type of the world, both the intelligible and the sensible, having the sanctuary as a symbol of the intelligible world, and the nave of the sensible. And again it is an image of man, imitating the soul through the sanctuary, and setting forth the body through the nave. And of the soul itself, considered by itself, it is a type and image, bearing the glory of the contemplative through the sanctuary, and possessing the order of the practical through the nave. And of the holy assembly that is celebrated in it, the first entrance declares in a general way the first coming of our God, and in a particular way the turning of those who are brought from unbelief to faith, and from vice to virtue, and from ignorance to knowledge, through him and with him.

The readings that follow after it signify, in a general sense, the divine wills and counsels, according to which all must be instructed and conduct their lives; but in a specific sense, they signify the teaching in the faith and the progress of those who have believed, and, for those engaged in the practical life, the firm disposition in virtue, according to which, following the divine law, they stand manfully and unshakably against the wiles of the devil and escape his opposing energies; and, for those engaged in the contemplative life, the habitual state of contemplation, according to which, gathering up as far as they are able the spiritual reasons of sensible things and of the providence over them, they are borne without error toward the truth.

The divine melodies of the songs signify the divine pleasure and delight that arises in the souls of all, by which they are mystically strengthened, so that they forget the labors of past virtue and renew a vigorous desire for the remaining divine and undefiled good things.

The holy Gospel is, in a general sense, a symbol of the consummation of this age; but in a specific sense it makes clear, for those who have believed, the complete destruction of the ancient error; for those engaged in the practical life, the mortification and consummation of the law and mind according to the flesh; and for those engaged in the contemplative life, the gathering up and reference of the many and various reasons to the most comprehensive reason, when the more discursive and varied natural contemplation has been consummated and brought to its end for them.

The high priest's descent from the throne and the expulsion of the catechumens signify, in a general sense, the second coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ from heaven, and the separation of sinners from the saints, and the just recompense according to each one's worth; but in a specific sense, they signify the perfect assurance in faith of those who have believed, which God the Word brings about by coming invisibly, through which every thought that still limps in any way regarding the faith, in the manner of a catechumen, is driven out from them; and for those engaged in the practical life, the perfect dispassion, through which every passionate and unenlightened thought departs from the soul; and for those engaged in the contemplative life, the comprehensive knowledge of things known, through which all the images of material things are driven out of the soul.

The closing of the doors, and the entrance of the holy Mysteries, and the divine kiss, and the recitation of the Symbol of Faith, declare in a general sense the passing away of sensible things and the manifestation of intelligible things, and the new teaching of the divine mystery concerning us, and the identity of concord and like-mindedness and necessity that will come about for all, both toward one another and toward God, and the thanksgiving for the ways in which we were saved; but in a specific sense, the progress of the faithful from the faith of error to the teaching and initiation in doctrines and unanimity and piety. For first the closing of the doors signifies this, second the entrance of the holy things, third the kiss, and fourth the recitation of the Symbol.

Of the practical, it signifies the change from practice to contemplation—those who have initiated their senses and have come to be outside the flesh and the world through the removal of the activities that pertain to them—and the ascent from the manner of the commandments to their inner principle, and the kinship and union of the commandments themselves, according to their proper principles, with the powers of the soul, and the disposition suited to theological thanksgiving. Of the contemplative, it signifies the transition from natural contemplation to the simple comprehension of intelligible things, according to which they no longer pursue the divine and ineffable principle through sense perception or any of the things that appear, and the union of the soul with its own powers, and the simplicity that, in a unified manner according to the intellect, grasps the principle of providence.

The unceasing, sanctifying doxology of the holy angels of the Trisagion signifies, in a general sense, the equal and shared manner of life and conduct and the concord of divine doxology of the heavenly and earthly powers that will come to be at one and the same time in the age to come, when the body of humans has been made immortal through the resurrection and no longer weighs down the soul by corruption nor is weighed down, but through its change into incorruption has received both power and fitness for the reception of God's presence. In a specific sense, it signifies the theological striving of the faithful, in accordance with faith, toward the angels; and of the practical, the angel-like—as far as is attainable by humans—brightness of life and the vigor of theological

...of hymnody, and for those who are gnostic, the understandings and hymns and ceaseless motions concerning the Godhead, equal to the angels as far as is possible for humans. And the blessed invocation of the great God and Father, and the proclamation of "One is holy" and what follows, and the partaking of the holy and life-giving mysteries, signifies the adoption as sons—yours—which will come to pass over all and upon all who are worthy, through the goodness of God, and union and intimacy and divine likeness and deification; through which God himself will be all in all to those who are saved, similarly, as the archetypal beauty, being displayed by cause in those who are displayed together with him similarly through virtue and knowledge according to grace.

He called faithful and virtuous and gnostic those who are being introduced and those who are advancing and those who are perfect, that is, slaves and hired servants and sons, the three orders of those who are saved. For slaves are the faithful, who out of fear of the threats fulfill the master's commandments and work favorably at what has been entrusted to them; and hired servants are those who, out of longing for the promised good things, bear with endurance the burden of the day and the scorching heat, that is, the affliction innate and yoked to the present life from the ancestral condemnation, and the temptations that come upon it for the sake of virtue, and who wisely exchange life for life by their own free choice—the present life for the life to come.

But sons are those who are separated from God never by fear of threats, nor by longing for promises, but by the manner and state of the soul's inclination and disposition toward the good according to its own judgment, after the pattern of that son to whom it was said, "Child, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours," being this by position in grace, insofar as it is possible, which God is and is believed to be by nature and cause. Let us not, then, be left behind by the holy Church of God, since it contains so many mysteries of our salvation according to the holy order of the divine symbols that are accomplished, through which, as each of us lives rightly and in a manner most fitting, she, fashioning him in Christ in proportion to himself, brings to manifestation the gift of adoption given through holy baptism in the Holy Spirit, as he lives in Christ. But with all power and zeal let us present ourselves worthy of the divine gifts, pleasing God through good works, not conducting ourselves "according to the Gentiles who do not know God in the passion of desire," but, as the holy Apostle says, "having put to death the members that are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, because of which the wrath comes upon the sons of disobedience, and all wrath and anger and foul language and lying," and, to speak briefly, "having put off the whole old man, who is corrupted by the desires of deceit, together with his deeds and desires, let us walk worthily of God, who called us into his own kingdom and glory.

having put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love, and forgiving each other if anyone has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord also forgave us, and above all the bond of perfection, love and peace, into which we were also called in one body, and, to sum it up in a word, the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. For by living in this way we would be able to come to the fulfillment of the divine promises with good hope, and to be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of the Lord, being strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for a share of the inheritance of the saints in the light. And a clear proof of this grace is the voluntary disposition toward one's kindred through goodwill, whose work is, as God does, to make one's own, according to one's power, every human being who needs our help in any respect, and not to leave him uncared for and unprovided for, but by the diligence that is fitting to demonstrate in action the living disposition within us toward both God and neighbor. For action is the proof of disposition. For nothing is so easy with regard to righteousness, nor so suited to deification, if I may so put it, to nearness to God, as mercy offered from the soul to those in need with pleasure and joy. For if the Word showed God to be the one who needs to be well treated—

For insofar as you did it to one of these least, he says, you did it to me." And God, who spoke this, will much more show that the one who is able to do good and does it is truly God by grace and participation, since he has taken up in a manner that imitates well His own beneficence, both His activity and His property. And if the poor man is God, because of the condescension of the God who became poor for our sake, and if He compassionately receives into Himself the sufferings of each one and, until the consummation of the age, in proportion to the suffering in each one, always suffers mystically through His goodness, then clearly, by the fitting account, he will be God in greater measure—the one who, in imitation of God, through love for humanity, piously heals the sufferings of the suffering through himself, and is shown to have the same power as God, in proportion to His saving providence, by disposition.

Who, then, is so slow and hard to move toward virtue as not to desire divinity, when the acquisition is so cheap and easy and readily available? And the guard of these things is secure and inviolable, and the road to salvation is easy—without which, I think, in truth none of the good things will be preserved unharmed for the one who has them: namely, self-activity, or rather, doing one's own things, through which, learning to look at and examine only our own affairs, we are freed from having harm from others to no purpose. For if we should learn to see and examine only ourselves, we will never set ourselves upon the affairs of others, whatever condition they happen to be in.

Knowing that God alone is the wise and just judge, who judges all things that come to be wisely and justly according to the principle by which they came to be, and not according to the manner in which they have been manifested—which perhaps even humans could judge, looking dimly at what appears, in which the truth is not altogether present, nor the principle of things that come to be. But God, seeing the hidden movement of the soul, and the invisible impulse, and the principle itself according to which the soul has moved, and the aim of the principle, that is, the end preconceived in every matter, judges justly, as I said, all things done by humans. If we strive to set this right, and confine ourselves to ourselves, not encroaching on external things, we shall not let the eye, or the ear, or the tongue observe, or hear, or speak the things of others—if possible, entirely; but if not, at least with sympathy rather than with passion, permitting ourselves to see and hear and speak for our own profit, and only to the extent that the divine principle, which governs these things, approves. For none of these instruments is more slippery toward sin when not guided by the principle; and again, none is more ready for salvation when the principle arranges them and regulates them and leads them to what it ought and wills.

Let us not, then, neglect, as far as we are able, to obey God, who calls us to eternal life and a blessed end through the working of his divine and saving commandments, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help. "For grace," says the divine Apostle, "is with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility," that is, with those who love the Lord in the incorruptibility that comes through virtue and in the pure and unfeigned dignity of their manner of life, by doing his will and corrupting nothing of his divine ordinances. These things I have set forth concerning these matters, as far as I was able, as I was taught, for the sake of the reward of obedience, not daring to touch the more mystical and more lofty things. If any of those who love learning desires to know these things, let him take up the works divinely composed on these subjects by the holy Dionysius the Areopagite, and he will find in truth a revelation of ineffable mysteries, granted to the human race through his divine mind and tongue, "for the sake of those who are about to inherit salvation." And if this has not fallen far short of your desire, thanks be to Christ, the provider of good things, and to you who have compelled these things to be said. But if it falls somewhere far and greatly short of your hope, what shall I suffer or what shall I do, having grown weak in speaking? For weakness is worthy of pardon, not of punishment; and what is possible and feasible is more acceptable, not blameworthy, and especially to you who have set before yourselves to love for the sake of God. And to God it is dear, whatever is offered genuinely from the soul according to one's ability, even if it appears small in comparison with great things.

He did not reject the widow who brought the two small coins—whoever this widow was, and whatever the two small coins were. Whether it is a soul widowed from evil, having cast off the old law as a husband but not yet worthy of the highest union with the Word and God, yet nonetheless bringing to him, as it were, small coins as a pledge: the measure of reason and life that is for the time being proportionate, or faith and a good conscience, or the habit and activity of good things, or the contemplation and practice suited to these, or knowledge and virtue in due proportion; or those slightly above these—I mean the principles in the natural and the written law—which the soul possesses and, wishing in ecstasy and release from these as from a whole life and existence to be united to the Word and God alone, brings to him, and accepts being widowed from the natural and legal constraints, customs, and habits as from husbands; or whatever else is more spiritual than these, and visible only to those pure in mind, the passage hints at through the letter fulfilled according to history. For all things, when compared with the contemplative principle of theology, that seem great among men in virtue are found to be small. Yet even if they are small, and from cheap and not very precious material, nevertheless they bear the royal stamp equally with the gold coins of more precious material that the wealthier offer, and perhaps even have more, because of the disposition of the one who offers them from a whole heart.

Imitating this widow myself, I have brought to God and to you, beloved, these small and worthless thoughts and words, as it were two small coins, brought forth from a worthless and poor mind and tongue, concerning the matters you commanded—entreating your blessed and holy soul: first, no longer to seek a written record of anything I say, for two reasons. First, because I have not yet acquired the pure fear of God that abides, nor a firm habit of virtue and a stable and unshaken foundation of true righteousness—things that above all bear witness to the firmness of words. Second, because, still tossed about by a great surge of passions like a wild sea, and far from the divine harbor of dispassion, and having the end of my life uncertain, I do not wish, in addition to my deeds, to have the word in writing as an accuser. Then, for the sake of obedience, if it is necessary, having accepted them, commend me through your prayers to Christ, the great and only God and Savior of our souls.

To whom be glory and power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.

CHAPTERS ON LOVE* PROLOGUE TO ELPIDIOS Behold, in addition to the discourse on the ascetic life, I have also sent to your holiness the discourse on love, father Elpidios, in four hundreds of chapters, equal in number to the four Gospels—perhaps nothing worthy of your expectation, yet not less than our own ability. However, let your holiness know that not even these are the produce of my own mind; but having gone through the words of the holy fathers and having gathered from there the thought that contributes to the subject, and having brought many things together in few chapters in a more summary form, so that they might be easily surveyed because easily remembered, I have sent them to your holiness, exhorting you to read them with goodwill and to hunt only for the benefit in them; and to overlook the inelegance of the wording and to pray for my lowliness, which is destitute of every spiritual benefit. I also ask this, that you not consider what has been said a burden. For I have fulfilled a command—and I say this because those who trouble others with words are many today, while those who instruct or are instructed by deeds are very few. But rather, attend diligently to each of the chapters. For not all things are, as I think, easily grasped by all; but most things require much careful examination by most people, even if they seem to have been spoken rather simply. For perhaps something useful might appear, revealed to the soul from them. And it will certainly become manifest, by the grace of God, to the one who reads with unmeddlesome thoughts and with the fear of God and love.

But for the one who approaches either this work or any other whatsoever, not for the sake of spiritual benefit, but to hunt for words in order to censure the author, so that he may present himself as supposedly wiser than that man, in his own conceit, nothing beneficial will ever appear from anywhere.

HUNDRED FIRST (1) Love is a good disposition of the soul, by which nothing of existing things is preferred to the knowledge of God; but it is impossible for one who has an attachment to any of earthly things to come to the state of this love.

(2) Love is born of dispassion; dispassion, of hope in God; hope, of endurance and patience; these, of comprehensive self-control; self-control, of the fear of God; and fear, of faith in the Lord. (3) He who believes in the Lord fears punishment; he who fears punishment refrains from the passions; he who refrains from the passions

He endures afflictions; and the one who endures afflictions will have hope in God; and hope in God separates from every earthly attachment; and the mind, having been separated from this, will have love toward God.

(4) The one who loves God prefers the knowledge of Him to all things that have come to be by Him, and through longing he continually cleaves to this. (5) If all existing things have come to be through God and for the sake of God, and God is better than the things that have come to be through Him, then the one who abandons the better and occupies himself with the worse shows that he prefers the things that have come to be through Him to God.

(6) The one who has his mind fastened to the love of God despises all visible things and even his own body as something alien. (7) If the soul is better than the body, and God who created the world is incomparably better than the world, then the one who prefers the body to the soul, and the world created by Him to God, differs in nothing from idolaters. (8) The one who has separated his mind from the love of and devotion to God and has it bound to any of the sensible things—this is the one who prefers the body to the soul and the things that have come to be by Him to God who created them. (9) If the life of the mind is the illumination of knowledge, and the love of God gives birth to this, then rightly nothing has been said to be greater than divine love. (10) When the mind, by the longing of love toward God, departs from itself, then it has no perception at all either of itself or of any of the things that exist.

For, illuminated by the divine and infinite light, he becomes insensible toward all things that have come to be by it, just as the perceptible eye becomes insensible toward the stars when the sun rises. (11) All the virtues cooperate with the mind toward divine love, but more than all of them, pure prayer; for through this, being winged toward God, he comes to be outside all things that exist.

(12) When the mind, through love, is seized by divine knowledge and, having come to be outside all things that exist, perceives the divine infinity, then, according to the divine Isaiah, coming through amazement to a perception of his own lowliness, with a disposition he speaks the words of the prophet: Woe is me, for I am pierced to the heart; for being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of Sabaoth.

(13) The one who loves God cannot but also love every human being as himself, even if he is displeased at the passions of those not yet purified. Therefore, seeing their turning and their correction, he rejoices with immeasurable and inexpressible joy.

(14) An impassioned soul is impure, filled with thoughts of desire and hatred.

(15) He who sees a trace of hatred in his own heart because of any fault whatsoever toward any man whatsoever is entirely alien to the love of God; for the love of God does not at all tolerate hatred of man.

(16) "He who loves me," says the Lord, "will keep my commandments; and this is my commandment, that you love one another." He, then, who does not love his neighbor does not keep the commandment; and he who does not keep the commandment cannot love the Lord either. (17) Blessed is the man who has been able to love every man equally.

(18) Blessed is the man who is attached to no corruptible or temporary thing.

(19) Blessed is the mind that has passed beyond all things that exist and ceaselessly delights in the divine beauty.

(20) He who makes provision for the flesh unto desires and harbors resentment against his neighbor because of temporary things—such a man serves the creature rather than the Creator.

(21) He who keeps his body free from pleasure and free from disease has it as a fellow servant for the service of things that are better.

(22) He who flees all worldly desires sets himself above all worldly grief.

(23) He who loves God certainly loves his neighbor too. And such a man cannot keep money, but administers it in a manner worthy of God, giving to each of those in need.

(24) He who practices almsgiving in imitation of God knows no distinction of evil and good, or of just and unjust, in the necessities of the body; but distributes to all equally according to need, even if, because of good disposition, he prefers the virtuous man to the wicked. (25) Just as God, being good and impassible by nature, loves all equally as his own works, but glorifies the virtuous man, as one who is also made his own by disposition, while he has mercy on the wicked because of his goodness and, disciplining him in this age, turns him back; so too the man who is good and impassible in disposition loves all men equally, the virtuous man both because of nature and because of his good disposition, and the wicked man both because of nature and because of compassion, having mercy on him as foolish and walking in darkness.

(26) The disposition of love is made known not only through the sharing of money, but much more through the sharing of the word of God and bodily service.

(27) He who has genuinely renounced the things of the world and serves his neighbor through love without hypocrisy is quickly set free from every passion and is made a partaker of divine love and knowledge. (28) He who has acquired divine love in himself does not grow weary in following after the Lord his God, according to the divine Jeremiah; but he bears every toil, reproach, and insult nobly, reckoning no evil at all against anyone. (29) When you are insulted by someone or treated with contempt in something, then be on guard against the thoughts of anger, lest through grief they separate you from love and set you in the land of hatred.

(30) When you have been greatly distressed by insult or dishonor, know that you have been greatly benefited, since vainglory has been providentially expelled from you through the dishonor. (31) Just as the memory of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not work the illumination of knowledge in the soul. (32) Just as the light of the sun draws the healthy eye to itself, so also the knowledge of God naturally draws the pure mind to itself through love.

(33) A pure mind is one separated from ignorance and illumined by the divine light.

(34) A pure soul is one freed from the passions and ceaselessly gladdened by divine love.

(35) A blameworthy passion is a movement of the soul contrary to nature. (36) Apatheia is a peaceful state of the soul, in which it becomes hard to move toward evil.

(37) He who has earnestly acquired the fruits of love does not turn away from it, even if he suffers countless evils. And let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, persuade you—both those with him and he himself praying for his murderers and asking forgiveness from the Father for them as those who do not know what they do.

(38) If it belongs to love to be patient and kind, then the one who is wrathful and malicious is clearly shown to be a stranger to love; and the one who is a stranger to love is a stranger to God, since God is love. (39) Do not say, says the divine Jeremiah, that this is the temple of the Lord. And do not say that bare faith in our Lord Jesus Christ can save you. For this is impossible, unless you also acquire love for him through works. For even the demons believe in a bare way, and they shudder. (40) The work of love is beneficence toward one's neighbor from a disposition of the heart, and patience, and endurance, and the right use of all things according to right reason.

(41) One who loves God neither grieves anyone nor is grieved by anyone over temporal things; but there is one saving grief, with which he both grieves and is grieved—the one with which the blessed Paul both grieved and grieved the Corinthians.

(42) One who loves God lives an angelic life on earth, fasting and keeping vigil and singing psalms and praying, and always thinking good things about every human being.

(43) If someone desires something, he strives also to obtain it; but of all good and desirable things, the divine is better and incomparably more desirable; how much zeal, then, ought we to show, in order that we may obtain this good that is by nature good and desirable.

(44) Do not defile your flesh with shameful deeds, and do not stain your soul with evil thoughts; and the peace of God will come upon you, bringing love.

(45) Chastise your flesh with fasting and vigil, and devote yourself without hesitation to psalmody and prayer; and the sanctification of chastity will come upon you, bringing love.

(46) One who has been deemed worthy of divine knowledge and has acquired its illumination through love will never be tossed about by the spirit of vainglory; but one who has not yet been deemed worthy of it is easily carried about by it. If, then, such a person, in all that he does, looks to God, as doing all things for his sake, he will, with God's help, easily escape it.

(47) One who has not yet obtained the divine knowledge that is wrought through love thinks great things of the deeds he performs according to God. But one who has been deemed worthy to obtain it says with deep disposition the words of the patriarch Abraham, which he spoke when he was deemed worthy of the divine appearance: "I am earth and ashes." (48) One who fears the Lord always has humility as his companion, and through its reflections he comes to divine love and thanksgiving. For he remembers his former manner of life in the world, his various transgressions, and the temptations that befell him from his youth, and how the Lord delivered him from all those things and transferred him from the passionate life to the life according to God. And along with fear he also receives love, always giving thanks with great humility to the benefactor and pilot of our life.

(49) Do not defile your mind by entertaining thoughts of desire and anger, lest, having fallen away from pure prayer, you fall into the spirit of acedia. (50) At that time the mind falls away from boldness toward God, whenever it becomes a companion of evil or filthy thoughts. (51) The foolish man, led by the passions, when he is stirred and disturbed by anger, hastens irrationally to flee from his brothers; but when he is again inflamed by desire, repenting he runs back and meets them. The prudent man does the opposite in both cases: in the case of anger, by cutting off the causes of the disturbance, he frees himself from grief toward his brothers; and in the case of desire, he exercises self-control over the irrational impulse and encounter.

(52) In the time of temptations do not abandon your monastery, but bear courageously the waves of thoughts, especially those of grief and despondency. For thus, having been tested in a providential way through afflictions, you will have a firm hope in God. But if you abandon it, you will be found untested, cowardly, and unstable.

(53) If you wish not to fall away from the love that is according to God, neither let your brother go to sleep grieving against you, nor sleep yourself grieving against him; but go, be reconciled with your brother, and coming with a clean conscience offer to Christ through earnest prayer the gift of love. (54) If one who has all the gifts of the Spirit but does not have love profits nothing, according to the divine Apostle, then we ought to show all diligence in order to acquire it.

(55) If love does no evil to one's neighbor, how does the one who envies his brother and grieves at his good repute, and defiles his reputation with mockeries, or plots against him with some malice—how does he not make himself a stranger to love and guilty of eternal judgment? (56) If love is the fulfillment of the law, how is the one who bears a grudge against his brother and devises deceits against him and curses him and rejoices at his fall not lawless and worthy of eternal punishment? (57) If the one who speaks against a brother and judges a brother speaks against the law and judges the law, and the law is the love of Christ, how does the slanderer not fall away from the love of Christ and become to himself the cause of eternal punishment?

(53) Do not give your hearing to the tongue of the slanderer, nor your tongue to the hearing of the fault-finder, by speaking or listening with pleasure against your neighbor, lest you fall away from divine love and be found a stranger to eternal life. (54) Do not accept slander against your Father, nor encourage the one who dishonors him, lest the Lord be angered at your works and destroy you from the land of the living. (55) Curb the slanderer in your hearing, lest you sin a double sin with him, accustoming yourself to a destructive passion and not restraining him from babbling against his neighbor.

(61) But I say to you, says the Lord: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who mistreat you. Why did he command these things? That he might free you from hatred and grief and anger and remembrance of wrongs, and make you worthy of the greatest possession, perfect love—which it is impossible to have for the one who does not love all people equally in imitation of God, who loves all people equally and wills that they be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. (62) But I say to you, do not resist the evil one; but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and to the one who wishes to judge you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak also; and to the one who compels you for one mile, go with him two. Why? That he might keep you free from anger and grief, and discipline that one through your forbearance, and lead both, as one who is good, under the yoke of love.

(63) We carry around with us the passionate fantasies of the very things we once suffered. So the one who conquers the passionate fantasies will certainly also despise the things of which they are the fantasies, since the war against memories is as much harder than the war against things as sinning in thought is easier than sinning in action.

(64) Of the passions, some are bodily and some are of the soul. The bodily ones have their starting points from the body, while the soul's have them from external things. Love and self-control cut off both: the one, the passions of the soul; the other, the bodily ones.

(65) Some of the passions belong to the irascible part of the soul, others to the appetitive part. Both are stirred through the senses, and they are stirred whenever the soul is found outside of love and self-control.

(66) The passions of the irascible part of the soul are harder to struggle against than those of the appetitive part; therefore the Lord gave the commandment of love as a greater remedy against it.

(67) All the other passions touch either only the irascible part of the soul or only the appetitive part, or also the rational part, as forgetfulness and ignorance do; but acedia, laying hold of all the powers of the soul, stirs up nearly all the passions with one accord; and therefore it is also the heaviest of all the other passions. Well, then, has the Lord given the remedy against it: In your patience, he says, possess your souls.

(68) Never strike one of the brethren, and especially not without reason, lest, unable to bear the distress, he depart, and you will never escape the accusation of conscience, which always brings you grief in the time of prayer and drives the mind away from divine boldness.

(69) Do not tolerate suspicions that bring you scandals, or people [speaking] against certain persons; for those who welcome scandals in whatever way, whether in things that happen according to choice or apart from choice, do not know the way of peace, which leads through love to the knowledge of God those who are lovers of it.

(70) He does not yet have perfect love who still disposes himself according to the opinions of men, loving one and hating another for this or that reason; or even loving the same person at one time and hating him at another for the same reasons.

(71) Perfect love does not split the one nature of men by their differing opinions, but always looking to that nature, it loves all men equally; it loves the zealous as friends, and the wicked as enemies, doing good and being long-suffering and enduring the things brought on by them.

not reckoning evil at all, but even suffering on their behalf, if the occasion calls for it, so as to make them friends too, if possible; but if not, she does not fall away from her own disposition, always showing the fruits of love equally toward all men. Therefore also our Lord and God Jesus Christ, showing

his love toward us, suffered for all humanity and granted to all equally the hope of the resurrection, even if each one makes himself worthy either of glory or of punishment.

(72) He who does not despise glory and dishonor, wealth and poverty, pleasure and pain, has not yet acquired perfect love; for perfect love despises not only these things, but also this temporary life and death itself. (73) Hear what those who have been deemed worthy of perfect love say: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we were reckoned as sheep for slaughter. But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord; and all the saints both say and do these things concerning the love of God.

(74) Concerning love for one's neighbor, hear again what they say. I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience also bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit: that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart. For I was praying that I myself might be accursed from Christ on behalf of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites; and so on. Likewise also Moses and the rest of the saints. (75) He who does not despise glory and pleasure, and the love of money that increases these and is established on their account, cannot cut off the occasions of anger; and he who does not cut these off cannot attain perfect love. (76) Humility and hardship free a man from every sin: the one cutting off the passions of the soul, the other those of the body. This is what blessed David also appears to do, in that he prays to God, saying: See my humility and my toil, and forgive all my sins. (77) Through the commandments the Lord makes those who practice them free from passion; and through the divine doctrines he grants them the illumination of knowledge. (78) All doctrines are either concerning God, or concerning things visible and invisible, or concerning his providence and judgment in them.

(79) Almsgiving heals the irascible part of the soul; fasting withers desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for the contemplation of beings. For the Lord has granted us the commandments in accordance with the powers of the soul.

(80) Learn from me, he says, that I am gentle and humble in heart, and so on. Gentleness keeps the irascible part undisturbed; humility frees the intellect from pride and vainglory. (81) The fear of God is twofold: the one implanted in us by threats of punishment, through which self-control, endurance, hope in God, and dispassion—from which comes love—enter into us in order; the other is yoked together with love itself, always producing reverence in the soul, lest through the boldness of love it come to contempt of God.

(82) Perfect love casts out the first fear from the soul that possesses it, since it no longer fears punishment; but the second it always keeps yoked to itself, as has been said. To the first fear belongs: By the fear of the Lord everyone departs from evil, and: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. To the second belongs: The

The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever and ever; and: There is no want to those who fear him.

(83) Therefore put to death your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, and so on. He called the mind of the flesh "earth"; he called sin in act "fornication"; he called consent "uncleanness"; he named the passionate thought "passion"; he named the bare acceptance of the thought of desire "evil desire"; and he named the material that generates and increases passion "covetousness." All these, then, as being members of the mind of the flesh, the divine Apostle commanded to put to death.

(84) First, memory brings the bare thought before the intellect; and when it lingers, it stirs passion; and if this is not destroyed, it bends the intellect toward consent; and when this has occurred, it comes at last to sin in act. The all-wise Apostle, therefore, writing to those from among the nations, commands first to destroy the effect of sin; then, retracing in order, to arrive at the cause. And the cause is, as has been said, covetousness, which generates and increases passion. I think that here he means gluttony, as being the mother and nurse of fornication. For covetousness is evil not only in relation to money but also in relation to foods; just as self-control is good not only in relation to foods but also in relation to money. (85) Just as a sparrow, with its foot tied, when it begins to fly, is dragged down to the earth, pulled by the cord;

Thus also the mind, not yet having acquired dispassion and flying toward the knowledge of heavenly things, is dragged down to the earth by the passions.

(86) When the mind has been completely freed from the passions, then it journeys toward the contemplation of beings without turning back, making its way toward the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

(87) When the mind is pure, taking up the thoughts of things, it is moved to their spiritual contemplation; but when it has become impure through sloth, it imagines the mere thoughts of other things, and receiving human thoughts, it is turned into shameful or evil reasonings. (88) When at the time of prayer nothing of the thoughts of the world ever disturbs the mind, then know that you are not outside the bounds of dispassion.

(89) When the soul begins to perceive its own health, then it also begins to see the fantasies in sleep as mere and untroubled. Just as the beauty of visible things draws the perceptive eye to itself, so also the knowledge of invisible things draws the pure mind to itself; and by invisible I mean the incorporeal.

(1) It is a great thing not to be affected by things, but far greater to remain dispassionate toward their images. For the war of the demons against us through thoughts is harder than the war through things. (2) He who has set the virtues aright and grown rich in knowledge, so as thereafter to see through things naturally, does and speaks all things according to right reason, turning aside in nothing at all. For it is from using things reasonably or unreasonably that we become virtuous or base. (3) A sign of the utmost dispassion is that the bare concepts of things always rise up in the heart both while the body is awake and during sleep.

(4) Through the practice of the commandments the mind puts off the passions; through the spiritual contemplation of things visible, the passionate concepts of things; through the knowledge of things invisible, the contemplation of things visible; and this, through the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

(5) As the sun, rising and illuminating the world, shows both itself and the things illuminated by it, so also the Sun of righteousness, rising in the pure mind, shows both itself and the principles of all things that have come to be and will come to be by it. (6) We do not know God from his essence, but from his mighty works and his providence over things that exist; for through these, as through mirrors, we perceive his infinite goodness and wisdom and power. (7) The pure mind is found either in the bare concepts of human things, or in the natural contemplation of things visible, or in that of things invisible, or in the light of the Holy Trinity.

(17) When the mind comes to the contemplation of visible things, it either investigates their natural principles, or the things signified through them, or seeks the cause itself. (18) But when it dwells among things invisible, it seeks both their natural principles and the cause of their coming into being, and the things that follow upon these, and what the providence and judgment concerning them is.

(19) But when it comes to be in God, it first seeks the principles concerning his essence, inflamed by longing, yet it does not find consolation from the things that pertain to him; for this is impossible and inadmissible to every created nature equally. But it is consoled from the things that pertain to him—I mean those concerning eternity, infinity, and boundlessness, and goodness, and wisdom, and creative, providential, and judgmental power over beings. And this alone is wholly comprehensible of him: his infinity; and this very thing—to know nothing—is to know beyond mind, as the theologians Gregory and Dionysius have somewhere said.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWO (1) He who genuinely loves God, this man also prays altogether without distraction; and he who prays altogether without distraction, this man also genuinely loves God. But he does not pray without distraction whose mind is nailed to any of earthly things; therefore he does not love God whose mind is bound to any of earthly things.

(2) When the mind lingers over a sensory object, it has a passion toward it, such as desire or grief or anger or resentment; and unless it despises that object, it cannot be freed from that passion. (3) The passions that dominate the mind bind it to material things; separating it from God, they make it occupied with them. But the love of God, having taken hold, looses it from those bonds, persuading it to disdain not only sensory things but even this our temporary life itself. (4) It is the work of the commandments to make the thoughts of things bare; and of reading and contemplation, to render the mind immaterial and formless; and from this it comes about that one prays without distraction. (5) The practical method is not sufficient for the mind to be perfectly freed from the passions, so that it can pray without distraction, unless various spiritual contemplations also succeed one another in it. For the one frees the mind only from incontinence and hatred, while the others also deliver it from forgetfulness and ignorance; and thus it will be able to pray as it ought.

(82) There are two highest states of pure prayer: one befalls those engaged in the practical life, the other those engaged in contemplation. The one arises in the soul from the fear of God and good hope; the other from divine love and the highest purification. The marks of the first measure are: to gather the mind within itself from all the thoughts of the world, and, as God himself stands present to it—as indeed he does stand present—to make one's prayers without distraction and without disturbance. The marks of the second are: that in the very impulse of prayer the mind is caught up by the divine and infinite light, and is aware neither of itself nor of any other created thing at all, but only of the one who through love works such illumination in it. Then, too, when it is moved concerning the words about God, it receives pure and clear impressions concerning him.

(83) Whatever a person loves, that he also certainly clings to, and he despises all things that hinder him from it, lest he be deprived of it; and he who loves God takes care for pure prayer and casts away from himself every passion that hinders him from it.

(83) The one who has cast off self-love, the mother of the passions, will with God easily set aside the rest as well—anger, grief, resentment, and the like. But the one who is mastered by the former is wounded by the latter even against his will. And self-love is the passion for the body. (84) For these five reasons people love one another, whether praiseworthily or blameworthily: either for God's sake, as the virtuous man loves all, and as he loves the virtuous man even if he is not yet virtuous himself; or for nature's sake, as parents love their children and the reverse; or for vainglory, as the one who is glorified loves the one who glorifies him; or for love of money, as one loves the rich man for what he receives; or for love of pleasure, as the one who serves his belly and his lower parts. And the first is praiseworthy, the second is intermediate, and the rest are passionate. (85) If you hate some, and others you neither love nor hate, and others you love but in moderation, and others you love exceedingly—from this inequality recognize that you are far from perfect love, which requires loving every human being equally.

(11) Turn away from evil and do good. That is: fight against the enemies, so that you may diminish the passions; then be watchful, so that they may not increase. And again: fight, so that you may acquire the virtues, and afterwards be watchful, so that you may preserve them. And this would be to work and to keep. (12) Those who, by God's permission, tempt us either inflame the desiring part of the soul, or disturb the irascible part, or darken the rational part, or surround the body with pains, or plunder our bodily possessions. (13) The demons either tempt us by themselves, or they arm against us those who do not fear the Lord; by themselves, when we are apart from men, as also the Lord in the wilderness; through men, when we spend our time with them, as also the Lord through the Pharisees. But let us, looking to our own pattern, repel them from both sides. (14) When the mind begins to make progress in the love of God, then the demon of blasphemy also begins to tempt it and to suggest to it such thoughts as no man, but only the devil, their father, invents. And he does this out of envy toward the God-loving one, so that, having come to despair as

Having thought such things, let him no longer dare to fly up to him through his customary prayer. Nor is the avenger helped at all from this toward his own purpose, but he even makes us more steadfast. For being warred upon and warring back, we are found more approved and more genuine in the love of God; and may his sword enter into his heart and may his bows be broken.

(15) The intellect, applying itself to things visible, understands things according to nature through the mediation of sense perception; and neither is the intellect evil, nor the understanding according to nature, nor the things themselves, nor the sense perception; for these are the works of God. What then is evil? Clearly it is the passion of the thought according to nature, which is able not to exist in the use of thoughts, if the intellect is watchful.

(16) Passion is a movement of the soul contrary to nature, either toward irrational friendship or toward indiscriminate hatred, either of something or because of something among things perceived by the senses. For example, toward irrational friendship for foods or a woman or money or passing glory or some other of the things perceived by the senses, or because of these; and toward indiscriminate hatred, for example, either of something of the things previously mentioned, as has been said, or against someone because of these.

(17) Or again, evil is the mistaken use of thoughts, which is followed by the misuse of things. For example, in the case of a woman, the right use of intercourse is the purpose of procreation. So the one who fixes his gaze on pleasure has erred concerning its use, having regarded what is not good as good; such a person misuses a woman when he has intercourse. And it is the same with other things and thoughts.

(18) When the demons, having driven chastity from the mind, encircle it with thoughts of fornication, then say to the Master with tears: Those who drove me out have now encircled me; my joy, deliver me from those who have encircled me; and you are saved.

(19) The demon of fornication is heavy and fiercely attacks those who struggle against the passion, especially in neglect of diet and in encounters with women. For secretly, by the smoothness of pleasure, stealing upon the mind, he afterwards assails it through memory when it is at rest; and setting the body on fire and presenting various forms to the mind, he calls it forth to consent to sin. If you wish these not to linger in you, take up fasting and toil and vigil and good stillness with earnest prayer.

(20) Those who always seek our soul seek it through impassioned thoughts, in order to cast it into sin in thought or in action. When therefore they find the mind not accepting them, then they will be ashamed and put to shame; but when they find it occupied with spiritual contemplation, then they will turn away and be put to shame exceedingly, quickly.

(21) The one who anoints the mind for the sacred contests and drives the passionate thoughts away from it holds the rank of deacon; the one who enlightens it into the knowledge of beings and destroys the falsely named knowledge holds that of presbyter; and the one who perfects it with holy myron into the knowledge of the worshipful and holy Trinity holds that of bishop. (22) The demons grow weak when, through the commandments, the passions within us are diminished; and they are destroyed when, through the soul's dispassion, they are utterly abolished, no longer finding the means by which they were found in it and warred against it. And this would be the meaning of: They shall grow weak and shall perish from before your face.

(23) Some men abstain from the passions through human fear; others through vainglory; others through self-control; and others are freed from the passions through divine judgments.

(24) All the words of the Lord contain these four things: the commandments, the doctrines, the threats, the promises. And it is for these that we endure every hardship—fastings, vigils, sleeping on the ground, labors and toils in ministries, insults, dishonors, tortures, deaths, and the like; for, he says, Because of the words of your lips I kept hard ways. (25) The reward of self-control is dispassion; of faith, knowledge; and dispassion gives birth to discernment, while knowledge gives birth to love toward God. (26) The mind, succeeding in the practical life, advances into prudence; and in the contemplative life, into knowledge. For the one belongs to it—to lead the contender to the discernment of virtue and vice; and the other—to lead the participant to the accounts concerning incorporeals and bodies.

He is deemed worthy of the theological grace at that time when, having passed through all the things previously mentioned on the wings of love and having come to be in God, he will examine the account concerning him through the Spirit, as far as is possible for a human mind. (27) When about to theologize, do not seek the accounts that are according to him—for a human mind will not find them, nor indeed will any other of those after God—but examine, as far as possible, the accounts concerning him, such as those concerning eternity, infinity, and indefinability, and goodness, wisdom, and power, both creative and providential and judgmental of beings. For this man is a great theologian among humans, the one who discovers the accounts of these things even to some degree.

(28) A powerful man is he who has yoked knowledge to action; for by the one he quenches desire and tames anger, and by the other he gives wings to the mind and departs to God.

(29) When the Lord says, "I and the Father are one," he signifies the sameness of essence. But when he again says, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me," he reveals the inseparability of the hypostases. Therefore the Tritheists, separating the Son from the Father, fall into a double precipice. For either, saying that the Son is coeternal with the Father but separating him from him, they are compelled to say that he was not begotten from him and to fall into saying three gods and three principles; or, saying that he was begotten from him but separating him, they are compelled to say that he is not coeternal with the Father and to place the Lord of times under time. For one must both preserve the one God and confess the three hypostases, according to the great Gregory, and each one with its own peculiarity.

For it is "divided," but "indivisibly," according to the same one, and it is "united," but "dividedly." And for this reason both the division and the union are paradoxical; for what is paradoxical about it, if as man is united to and separated from man, so also the Son is to the Father and nothing more? (30) He who is perfect in love and has come to the utmost of dispassion does not know the difference between his own and another's, or his own and another's, or faithful and unfaithful, or slave and free, or generally male and female; but having become superior to the tyranny of the passions and looking to the one nature of human beings, he views all equally and is disposed equally toward all. For there is not in him Greek and Jew, nor male and female, nor slave and free, but all things and in all things Christ.

(31) From the passions lying in the soul the demons take their occasions for stirring up in us the passionate thoughts; then, warring against the mind through these, they force it to come to agreement with sin.

When he has been defeated, they lead him into sin in the mind; and when this has been accomplished, they then bring him captive into action. And after this, those who have laid the soul waste through their thoughts withdraw along with them. Only the image of sin remains in the mind, concerning which the Lord says: "When you see the abomination of desolation standing in a holy place, let the reader understand." The holy place and temple of God is the mind of man, in which the demons, having laid the soul waste through impassioned thoughts, have set up the image of sin. That these things have already happened historically as well, no one of those who have read the writings of Josephus doubts, as I think; except that some say these things will also happen in the time of the Antichrist.

(32) There are three things that move us toward good: natural seeds, the holy powers, and good choice. Natural seeds, as when we wish that men should do to us as we also do to them; or as when we see someone in distress or necessity and naturally have compassion. The holy powers, as when, being moved toward a good deed, we find good cooperation and are prospered. Good choice, as when, distinguishing good from evil, we choose the good.

(33) Again, there are three things that move us toward evil: the passions, the demons, and the evil choice. The passions, as when we desire a thing contrary to reason, for instance food contrary to the proper time or contrary to need, or a woman contrary to the purpose of childbearing and contrary to what is lawful; and again when we become angry or grieved contrary to what is fitting, for instance against one who has dishonored or harmed us. The demons, as when they watch for opportunities in our negligence and attack us suddenly with great vehemence, stirring up the aforementioned passions and the like. The evil choice, as when, in knowledge of the good, we choose the evil instead. (34) The wages of the labors of virtue are dispassion and knowledge; for these become the causes of the kingdom of heaven, just as the passions and ignorance are of eternal punishment. Therefore, he who seeks these things for the glory of men and not for the good itself hears from the Scripture: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly. (35) There are many things that are by nature good which are done by men, but are again not good for some reason; for instance, fasting and vigil, prayer and psalmody, almsgiving and hospitality are by nature good works, but when they are done for vainglory, they are no longer good.

(33) God seeks the purpose of all things we do, whether we do them for his sake or for some other reason. (37) When you hear the Scripture saying, "You will repay each one according to his works," God does not repay as good the things done contrary to the right purpose, even if they seem to be good, but clearly those done according to it. For the judgment of God looks not at the things that are done, but at the purpose of the things that are done. (38) The demon of pride has a twofold wickedness: for either he persuades the monk to ascribe his achievements to himself and not to God, who both supplies the good things and helps toward achievement, or, if he does not persuade him of this, he prompts him to despise the still more imperfect of the brethren. And in this way too the one who is acted upon does not know that he is persuading him to deny the help of God. For if he despises those who were unable to achieve, he is clearly presenting himself as having achieved by his own power—which is impossible, since the Lord said, "Without me you can do nothing," because our weakness, when moved toward good things without the supplier of good things, cannot bring them to completion.

(39) The one who has come to know the weakness of human nature has had experience of divine power, and such a person, having through it accomplished some things and hastening to accomplish others, never despises any human being. For he knows that just as God helped him and freed him from many passions and hardships, so he is able to help all when he wills, and especially those who struggle for his sake; even if by certain judgments he does not deliver all alike from their passions, but at their own proper times, as a good and humane physician, he heals each one of those who are striving. (40) Pride follows upon the inactivity of the passions, either when their causes are cut off or when the demons craftily withdraw. (41) Nearly every sin comes about through pleasure, and the removal of this comes about through hardship and grief, either voluntary or involuntary, through repentance or through a providential visitation brought on by providence. For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged; but being judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

(42) When a temptation comes upon you unexpectedly, do not blame the one through whom it comes, but seek the reason why, and you will find the remedy; for whether through that person or through another, you were bound to drink the wormwood of God's judgments. (43) However bad your character, do not refuse to suffer hardship, so that through it you may be humbled and vomit out your pride.

(44) Some temptations bring pleasures to people, others griefs, others bodily pains. For in accordance with the cause of the passions lying in the soul, the physician of souls applies the medicine through his judgments.

(45) The onsets of temptations are brought upon some for the removal of sins already committed, upon others for sins now being committed, upon others for the prevention of sins about to be committed; apart from those that occur for the sake of testing, as in the case of Job.

(46) The sensible person, reflecting on the healing purpose of the divine judgments, bears with thanksgiving the misfortunes that come upon him through them, reckoning no other cause of these than his own sins. But the foolish person, ignorant of God's most wise providence, when he sins and is disciplined, reckons either God or other people to be the cause of his own evils. (47) There are certain things that halt the passions in their movement and do not allow them to advance to increase, and there are others that diminish them and bring them to decrease; for example, fasting and toil and vigil do not allow desire to grow; while withdrawal and contemplation and prayer and love toward God diminish it and bring it to extinction. And likewise with anger;

For instance, long-suffering and freedom from remembrance of wrongs and gentleness hold it back and do not allow it to grow; but love and almsgiving and kindness and love of humanity lead it to diminution.

(47) Whose mind is continually toward God, his desire also has grown exceedingly into divine love, and his whole anger has been transformed into divine love. For by the long-continued participation in the divine illumination he has become wholly luminous and, gathering his passible part to himself, he has turned it, as has been said, into ineffable divine love and ceaseless love, wholly transferring it from earthly things to the divine.

(49) Not everyone who does not envy nor grow angry nor remember wrongs against the one who has grieved him already also has love toward him. For it is possible, even while not yet loving, not to return evil for evil because of the commandment, but not altogether to return good for evil without constraint; for to do good to those who hate from a disposition is characteristic of perfect spiritual love alone. (50) Not everyone who does not love someone already altogether also hates him, nor again does everyone who does not hate already altogether also love him; but it is possible to be, as it were, in a middle state toward him, that is, neither to love nor to hate. For the five modes spoken of in the ninth chapter of this century alone are naturally able to produce the loving disposition—the praiseworthy, the middle, and the blameworthy.

(51) When you see your mind pleasurably occupied with material things and lingering over the thoughts of them, know that you love these things more than God. For where your treasure is, says the Lord, there will your heart be also.

(52) A mind joined to God and abiding in him through prayer and love becomes wise and good and powerful and loving toward humanity and merciful and long-suffering; and to speak simply, it carries within itself nearly all the divine attributes. But withdrawing from this and attaching itself to material things, it becomes either beast-like, having become pleasure-loving, or wild-beast-like, fighting against human beings because of these things. (53) Scripture calls material things the world, and worldly are those who occupy their mind with them, to whom it also says more reproachfully: Do not love the world nor the things in the world; the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance of life are not from God, but are from the world, and so on.

(54) A monk is one who has separated his mind from material things and perseveres in God through self-control and love and psalmody and prayer. (55) The practical man is, in a spiritual sense, a keeper of livestock; for moral achievements have the rank of livestock, which is why Jacob also said: Your servants are keepers of livestock. And the contemplative man is a shepherd of sheep; for thoughts have the rank of sheep, pastured by the mind on the mountains of contemplations, which is why it is also said: Every shepherd of sheep is an abomination to the Egyptians, that is, to the opposing powers.

(52) The base mind, when the body is stirred through the senses toward its own desires and pleasures, follows along and consents to its fantasies and impulses; but the virtuous mind restrains itself and holds itself back from the passionate fantasies and impulses, and rather strives to make such movements of its own better.

(53) Of the virtues, some are bodily and some are of the soul. Bodily virtues are, for example, fasting, vigil, sleeping on the ground, service, manual work so as not to burden anyone or for the sake of giving, and the like. Virtues of the soul are, for example, love, longsuffering, gentleness, self-control, prayer, and the like. If, then, through some necessity or bodily circumstance—such as illness or some such thing—it happens that we are unable to fulfill the aforementioned bodily virtues, we have forgiveness from the One who knows the causes as well. But if we fail to fulfill the virtues of the soul, we will have no defense; for they are not under compulsion.

(54) Love toward God persuades the one who shares in it to despise every passing pleasure and every pain and grief. And let all the saints persuade you, who suffered so much for Christ with joy. (55) Take heed to yourself against self-love, the mother of evils, which is the irrational affection for the body. For from this are plausibly born the first three passionate and most general thoughts—I mean those of gluttony, love of money, and vainglory—taking their occasions, as it were, from the body's necessities.

(52) ...of need; from these is born the whole catalogue of evils. It is necessary, then, as has been said, to pay attention and to war against this with great sobriety; for when this is destroyed, all the things that come from it are destroyed together with it.

(65) The passion of self-love suggests to the monk to take pity on the body and to indulge beyond what is fitting in foods, ostensibly for the sake of management and governance, so that being gradually dragged along he may fall into the pit of the love of pleasure. But to the worldly man it suggests from this point on to make provision for himself with a view to desire.

(61) They say that this is the highest state of prayer: for the mind to become outside of flesh and world, and wholly immaterial and formless in praying. He, then, who keeps this state undamaged, this man truly prays without ceasing.

(62) Just as the body, when it dies, is separated from all the things of the world, so too the mind, when it dies in the highest degree of prayer, is separated from all the thoughts of the world. For unless it dies this kind of death, it cannot be found with God and live. (63) Let no one deceive you, monk, that it is possible for you to be saved while serving pleasure and vainglory.

(64) Just as the body sins through material things and has the bodily virtues for its discipline, so that it may be temperate, so too the mind sins through impassioned thoughts and likewise has the virtues of the soul for its discipline, so that, seeing things purely and dispassionately, it may be temperate. (65) Just as nights succeed days and winters succeed summers, so pains and griefs succeed vainglory and pleasure, whether in the present or in the future.

(66) It is not possible for one who has sinned to escape the coming judgment without voluntary labors here or involuntary afflictions. (67) They say that for five reasons we are permitted by God to be warred against by demons; and they say the first is that, being warred against and warring back, we may come to the discernment of virtue and vice; the second, that, acquiring virtue through war and labor, we may possess it firmly and immutably; the third, that, progressing in virtue, we may not be high-minded, but may learn to be humble-minded; the fourth, that, having experienced evil, we may hate it with a perfect hatred; and the fifth, beyond all, that, having become dispassionate, we may not forget our own weakness nor the power of the one who helped us. (68) Just as the mind of the hungry imagines bread and that of the thirsty water, so too that of the glutton imagines varieties of foods; and that of the pleasure-lover, the forms of women; and that of the vainglorious, honors from men; and that of the money-lover, profits; and that of the resentful, the revenge of the one who grieved him; and that of the envious, the harm of the one envied, and likewise in the case of the other passions.

For when the mind is troubled by the passions, it receives the impassioned thoughts, both while the body is awake and during sleep.

(69) When desire increases, the mind in sleep imagines the materials that produce pleasures; but when anger increases, it sees things that produce fears. The impure demons indeed increase the passions, taking our negligence as their collaborator and stirring them up; but the holy angels diminish them, moving us to the practice of the virtues.

(70) The desiring faculty of the soul, when stirred more frequently, implants in the soul a disposition to pleasure that is hard to move; and anger, when continually disturbed, renders the mind cowardly and unmanly. The former is healed by intense ascetic practice of fasting, vigil, and prayer; the latter by kindness, love of humanity, love, and mercy.

(71) The demons wage war either through things or through the impassioned thoughts that are in things; and through things they attack those who are occupied with things, but through thoughts those who are separated from things. (72) By as much as it is easier to sin in thought than in action, by so much is the war waged through thoughts heavier than that waged through things.