Orthodox Monk

Saturday, June 13, 2009

An Email Orthodox Monk Sent

Subject: Great Schema

Dear Sirs:

Please refer to:

http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/292747/2/Univ%20and%20other%20Studite%20Lavras

If you go to that thread you will see that near the end there is a discussion of the Great Schema which references three postings on our blog, Orthodox Monk. The post which makes the references was made by Fr Anthony at 12:47 PM 12 June 2009. These are the three posts from our blog which are referenced:

http://orthodoxmonk.blogspot.com/2005/10/vows-of-tonsure-to-great-schema.html

We would like to comment. Would you please post the following comment on the thread in question.

The comment begins here>

We see that our blog has been referenced in a discussion of the differences between the Great Schema and other levels of tonsure in the Orthodox Church.

We are pleased that our resources are being used and we would like to add some further remarks to the discussion.

There is a difference in both historical tradition and standard in the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches as regards the Great Schema.

The present practice in the Greek tradition, especially on Mt Athos, is after the novitiate to tonsure to a lesser degree and then after say 10 years to tonsure to the Great Schema. There is considerable variation in practice. Unmarried priests in the world who are tonsured monks are ordinarily tonsured to the Small Schema only. If you come across a Metropolitan in the Greek Church who is a monk of the Great Schema, you will almost certainly find that he was actually a monk in a monastery who became a priest and then was assigned pastoral duties in the world, these pastoral duties culminating in his being raised to episcopal rank.

According to the argument of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, from whom current Athonite practice derives, the Small Schema and the Great Schema confer the same obligations, so why should the monk be deprived all his life of the grace of the Great Schema? (In fact, there is one vow in the Great Schema which is not in the Small Schema: 'Do you renounce the world and those in the world?') St Nikodemos' argument has prevailed on Mt Athos and there the understanding of the Great Schema is that it is the normal state of the Orthodox monk--the lesser degrees are for special purposes or reasons, so to speak.

It was not always that way in the Athonite tradition and this understanding dates from St Nikodemos.

We ourselves do not know the historical details, but as we understand it in the Russian tradition the norm for the monk is the Small Schema. In the Russian tradition, the Great Schema is for very accomplished monks who wish to proceed deeper into asceticism. It is not the case that these monks would necessarily become hermits. St Silouan the Athonite was a monk of the Great Schema but lived in the coenobium all his monastic life. Conversely, St Seraphim of Sarov did not consider himself worthy of being made a monk of the Great Schema and died a monk of the Small Schema. But he lived for many years as a hermit. We have heard at least one story which indicates that in the Slavic traditions on Mt Athos the Confessor will only give the blessing for the monk to be made a monk of the Great Schema if he is persuaded that the monk's previous life has been faultless--i.e. lived to a very high standard. We understand that in the Russian tradition, the Great Schema is conferred near the end of life and we have heard someone joke that in the Russian tradition to be tonsured a monk of the Great Schema you have to be at the level of an Optina starets.

This appears to be the orientation that St Nikodemos was combating. He took the position that the monk of the Great Schema is the fully equipped soldier who is battling with the enemy. The Russian tradition makes the monk of the Small Schema the fully equipped soldier who is battling the enemy and reserves the Great Schema to the hero.

It is characteristic that in present Greek practice, the Great Schema is conferred by a priest (ideally one who is himself a monk of the Great Schema; this would be the Abbot or one of the monastery priests in the presence of the Abbot) whereas in Russian practice, the Great Schema is conferred by a bishop. We have never heard of cases where a Greek Schema-Monk goes to a Russian jurisdiction, so we have no idea what the Russians would do with tonsure by a priest. We imagine that they would let it be and not retonsure.

We have been told by a native member of the Russian Church that the rules of that Church do not allow a (Great) Schema-Monk to be raised to bishop (the vow of renunciation of the world is perhaps what they are looking at). Hence, cases to the contrary would be the exception rather than the rule. But we are not familiar with all of the details of such things.

Thanks very much.

Orthodox Monk

Friday, May 22, 2009

Commentary on the Our Father

Here is a little commentary on the Our Father.

TEXT:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς,

Our Father, you who are in the Heavens,

ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

May your name be sanctified;

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·

May your Kingdom come;

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.

May what you will come to pass, as in the Heavens so upon the earth.

τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·

Give us today our daily bread;

καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,

And forgive us our debts,

ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·

As we also forgive our debtors;

καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,

And do not lead us into temptation,

ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

But deliver us from the Evil One.

COMMENTARY:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς,

Our Father, you who are in the Heavens,

Unusually in the history of religion, the fundamental Christian prayer begins in the plural. One possible explanation is that the text that we have is actually a liturgical text. Such a liturgical text would necessarily be in the plural because it would be part of the practice of group worship. That this might be so is witnessed by the liturgical doxology which follows the prayer. And indeed the Our Father is prayed corporately in the Divine Liturgy.

However, there is no tradition in the Orthodox Church that the Our Father is merely a liturgical prayer; rather the Fathers consider the prayer the fundamental prayer of Christians, a prayer taught by God.

And, indeed, it seems to us that the Our Father contains the Gospel in a nutshell.

Hence, we must take the plural as conveying something deeper than merely an original liturgical setting of the Our Father.

The basic message we take from the plural is that we are not saved as isolated individuals but as members of the Church. The Church is so fundamental a concept in Christianity that it behoves us to pray for all members of the Church even when we are praying just for ourselves.

Next, is the appellation of God, ‘Father’. We are able to call God ‘Father’ because we are baptized. As we have learned, in baptism we have received the Holy Spirit and it has taken up its abode in our nous, our created spirit, restoring in us the image of God. This restored image of God is not a mere resemblance but so close and intimate that we are able to address God as our Father.

This is not metaphor: in Baptism we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God. But as we have learned, with baptism we have not acquired the fullness of adoption as sons and daughters of God, the fullness of the ‘in the likeness’. Rather, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit we struggle in our personal ascetical endeavour to realize our calling.

We can see, however, that it as members of the Church that we engage in this personal ascetical struggle.

Not only is this a matter of social solidarity—say, going to Church on Sundays—but a matter of participation in the mysterial or sacramental life of the Church: we engage in our personal ascetical effort to pass from the ‘in the image’ of the baptized Orthodox Christian to the ‘in the likeness’ of the sanctified Orthodox Christian by participating in the mysteries or sacraments of the Orthodox Church according to the rules and norms (typika) of the Church. We do not cut our own road, being smarter than the Fathers who wrote the rules under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That is foolish. That is not consistent with our praying the Our Father.

Another way to put this is that through entry into the Orthodox Church in baptism having been adopted as sons and daughters of God, we must struggle to become sons and daughters of God in fullness: with the assistance of Grace we must struggle to become sons and daughters of God in the sense that Jesus taught: be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. We must come to be sons and daughters of God who share in the love of God perfectly and who give that love of God perfectly to their neighbours and especially to their brothers and sisters.

‘Neighbour’ includes those who are not in the Church; ‘brother and sister’ refers to those in the Church.

Part of giving that love perfectly to our brothers and sisters is to pray ‘Our Father…’

The next part of this petition is ‘you who are in the Heavens’. It might be more exact to translate the beginning of the prayer ‘Our Father in the Heavens’.

Why would ‘you who are in the Heavens’ have been added by the Word of God made flesh to the Prayer he taught?

To which father are we praying? To our earthly father? To a political leader? To ‘Il Duce’? To a guru?

We are praying to ‘Our Father in the Heavens’, him who made Heaven, him who made the earth; him who made each of us, fashioning each of us in the womb when we were conceived. This it is to whom we are praying.

To invoke something in prayer is to render it present to us charismatically; it is to commune with it. Hence, when we pray ‘Our Father, you who are in the Heavens’ we are invoking the God of Gods, the Lord of Hosts, Him Who Is; we are rendering that God charismatically present in our hearts and minds; we are communing with him.

But if this is so, then immediately after we cannot turn to the Devil and the works of the Devil. That is to say, by invoking God in this way, we are purifying ourselves. We turn away from the profane to the holy, from sin and evil to justice and the good. We are sanctifying ourselves.

Our God is a holy God; our God is a jealous God. Before him there are no other gods. Hence, praying this way we develop an attitude of deep reverence for our Father, him who is in the Heavens.

When we are spiritually infants we might have a childish boldness before our Father in the Heavens, but when we mature, we must develop a profound reverence for the holiness of God, for Our Father, him who is in the Heavens.

This is the ‘idea of the holy’.

St Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews makes the observation that we have not been to the Mountain of Sinai when God descended and even a wild animal that approached the Mountain was to be stoned—stoned because that was the one sure way to put the animal to death without touching it—, and what was seen was so frightful that Moses himself said: ‘I am frightened and trembling.’ Instead, St Paul says, we have been called to myriads of angels and to the festival and assembly of the first-born who have been registered in the Heavens. Even though this is true, however, St Paul would not obliterate the notion that God is holy in the traditional Jewish sense conveyed by his description of the scene on Mt Sinai.

‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.’ The reverence we have for God must include the fear of him: not the slavish fear a demon or sinner might have that knows that it or he is going to suffer eternal punishment, but the fear that is engendered by holiness: we have tasted the holiness of the Lord and know that he is holy, the Fear of Isaac.

Here is what Psalm 118, 120 says:

Nail my flesh with your fear[1]; on account of your judgements I have feared.

ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

May your name be sanctified;

When we speak of something’s name, we are speaking of what conveys that thing’s true inner essence.

There is no sense in this epoch that a name is merely a convention pointing to an object in a language game the rules of which have been arbitrarily set. Such an analysis of ‘God-language’ has nothing to do with Christianity.

No, when we pronounce the name of someone, we mean his nature—who he really is. Recall that Moses asked the voice in the Burning Bush what his name was. ‘Who shall I say has sent me?’ Moses asked. And the answer came: ‘Say that “I am” has sent you.’ (This is the Septuagint rendering.)

That is why icons of Christ Pantocrator (‘The Ruler of All Things’) have Ὁ ὬΝ (‘He Who Is’) written above Christ’s head in the halo: As the Word of God made flesh, Christ is ‘He Who Is’, the ‘I am’ who sent Moses.

That is why Christ himself says in the Eighth Chapter of the Gospel of John that ‘…you will die in your sins if you do not believe that “I am”.’

That is why when the crowd came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked them who it was they wanted. The crowd replied ‘Jesus, the Nazarene’. He replied ‘I am’ and they fell to the ground, before their Creator.

Hence, what is it that we are asking? We are not really asking anything. We are blessing God. We are saying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts’, but in a voice suited to a mortal upon the earth.

We are blessing God.

When we bless God in this way, there is a self-negation that we assert: when we pray that God’s name be sanctified, we are denying our own self-love; we are denying ourselves. We are negating ourselves so that God might be sanctified, so that his name might be made holy.

Moreover, when we bless God’s name in this way, we are denying the evil in us. For us to pray from the heart that God’s name be sanctified is to deny sin. It is to say that we have turned to God and away from the Devil, away from his pomps.

There is a sense in which we are in fact petitioning God that his name be hallowed: we are asking that in a world in which darkness is the norm, in an impure heart such as our own, that the name of God be hallowed: that the name of God be hallowed by the advent of justice both in the world and in our own being.

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·

May your Kingdom come;

This is more clearly a petition. However, it also contains an element similar to the preceding: for us to wish and ask God that his Kingdom come is to deny ourselves and our own petty kingdoms; it is to turn ourselves over to the Kingdom of God; it is to open our hearts to God and to his Kingdom. Recall that the Kingdom of God is within you. There is no sense in the Our Father that we are to engage in a holy war to bring about God’s Kingdom on earth. There is no sense that we are committed to the forcible conversion of the pagans. For recall that entry into the Kingdom of God is something that begins with a voluntary approach to the baptismal font and continues with a fundamental reorientation of all one’s life so as to pass from the ‘according to the image’ received in baptism to the ‘according the likeness’ that we accomplish through the Grace of the Holy Spirit when we are willing co-workers with the Holy Spirit in our ascetical endeavours. All of this is implied in the petition.

This is not to deny that the Church has a missionary role to play in the world. It is to deny that the petition is for the establishment of a worldly kingdom that is to be accomplished by violence. ‘For my Kingdom is not of this world.’

In praying ‘May your Kingdom come,’ we recognize that we ourselves can not bring about the passage from the ‘according to the image’ to the ‘according to the likeness’; this is something that ultimately and fundamentally must be wrought by God. Recall that the culmination of the ascetical ascent is the Divine Illumination by the Holy Spirit that confers a participation in the Divine Love, so much so that we are no longer subject to the eight passions. If the Kingdom of God is within us, then it might be thought that in such a case that the Kingdom of God has come. This is true, but to the extent that this is possible for a person on earth before departure from the body.

Indeed, that is how the Fathers interpret the Transfiguration of Mt Tabor: The Transfiguration occurred a week after Christ said that ‘there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God coming in power.’ The Fathers understand that this reference is to the event of the Transfiguration.

As St Peter said, ‘It is well for us to be here.’ As the icons of the transfiguration portray, the three apostles are struck by the revelation of the Trinity but St John, the author is the Fourth Gospel, is particularly lost in reflection: it is he who will convey the deepest sense of the revelation.

It might be remembered that St Gregory Palamas prayed continually to be enlightened by the Light of God and other saints have prayed similarly: in praying the Our Father we too are praying God to grant us this Divine Illumination that will transform us fully into sons or daughters of God by grace, when the Kingdom of God has come within us and we no longer are subject to the passions but participate in the Love of God that Jesus had and conveyed to his disciples when he washed their feet; when he came to them on the evening of the first day, the doors being barred, and said ‘Peace to you;’ when he asked them after a fruitless night fishing, ‘Children, do you have anything to eat;’ when he himself prepared a meal for them on the beach while they were hauling in the catch.

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.

May what you will come to be, as in the Heavens so upon the earth.

We have translated more literally than is customary. This is so we can discuss the deeper meaning of the petition with greater clarity than might be possible with the customary translation.

The Greek word θέλημα conveys the thing that someone wills, not the faculty of the will that all men have. That is, if it is my will to go to New York, then that is my θέλημα. My faculty of will is called my θέλησις.

So what is it we are asking in this petition? Let us suppose that it is my will to go to New York tomorrow. Well, I can get in my car or boat or airplane or whatever and go to New York. But let us suppose that I pray the Our Father in earnest. Then what I am praying is that what God wants be done. Now some people say that God is most often indifferent if we go to New York or not; it’s how we live when we go to New York that is important.

We look at the matter somewhat differently. Jesus said that he came not to do his own will but the will of his Heavenly Father. When we pray the Our Father we are asking that what Jesus wanted happen to us to: that we no longer seek to do our own will, but the will of our Heavenly Father.

Hence, what this petition requires is a continual struggle of ‘kenosis’ or emptying. This is a big Greek word. What it means is that we empty ourselves of ourselves so that God might fill up the empty space that we have left by getting rid of ourselves. Each time we pray that the will of God be done, we are emptying ourselves, negating ourselves, turning ourselves over to God in trust that what he wants is better than what we want; we are passing from being spiritual children to spiritual adults who no longer have temper tantrums is they do not get their way, but love their Father and revere his name.

τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·

Give us today our daily bread;

We all have needs. One of the deepest messages of the Gospel is to trust in the Providence of God. This is a very deep lesson for the Christian. Early Christians sometimes took it to mean that they didn’t have to work; St Paul in Thessalonians was obliged to combat this false notion. There was a tradition in Syrian and Sinaite monasticism that the monk would not work but wait on the Providence of God; we have discussed this. However, even if we work according to strength, we have to change our orientation. Yes we work, but it is not ‘all about us’ anymore. It is about God’s providence which provides for our needs. It is no longer an ego trip, no longer a matter of my inheritance, my salary, my income, my astuteness as an investor or designer of financial instruments—it is a matter of the love of God for us and what he provides us. It is clear that this orientation has been lost in America, even among Protestants.

Moreover, there is a false doctrine among Calvinists that wealth is a sign of God’s smile upon us, a sign of our election to salvation. There is no such doctrine in Orthodoxy. It is true that sometimes God showers material blessings on a Christian just as he did on Job both before and after his trial; it is also true that sometimes God allows the Christian to be tempted by poverty so that he might see whether he or she really loves God—and not just the material possessions that God has given or allowed the person to gather.

However, a much more fundamental doctrine in Orthodoxy is that personal wealth is no particular indicator of sanctity and value in the eyes of God: it is possible to be wealthy and a friend of God; it is possible to be poor and a friend of God; the opposite in each case is possible. What matters is our spiritual wealth, our virtue. We can’t take our material possessions with us, but we can and do take our virtue—or lack of it—with us when we die. And we all surely must die. In Orthodoxy the wealthy man is the man of love, the man who cares.

Recall that one of the Beatitudes is ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.’ What this means is that the humble inherit the Kingdom of God.

Finally, it should be noted that the petition we have is not for fast cars and women and motorcycles and speed boats—it is for our daily bread. This petition entails humility: we have to humble ourselves and realize that just like anyone else we are in need of our daily bread from God. Not for anything fancy or special—let them eat cake!—but for our daily bread, the food of peasants and the poor of the earth.

So in praying this petition we are humbling ourselves before our Creator and asking him for our basic needs.

In common with the patristic understanding, we take praying for our daily bread as being to pray for our shoes, our heating bill, our rent, our kid’s clothes, and so on and so forth: for our genuine needs. It might be worth reflecting on among those of our readers who are unemployed and with no prospects of employment: Jesus Christ taught us to pray to our Heavenly Father for our daily needs; he taught us that God hears our prayers; he went so far as to speak the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge: the widow never gave up. Hence, we must continually pray to God to provide for our daily needs with the faith and hope that he will be faithful to his word—and he cannot be unfaithful to himself—and provide us our daily needs.

We had the occasion to speak to a priest recently about the burden of his pastoral duties. He remarked that the economic crash has come very heavily and very quickly, so much so that people are out on the streets without a place to live anymore, so much so that people are committing suicide.

For those in despair over their economic situation, trust in the Providence of God is very important, as is prayer for their daily bread.

καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,

And forgive us our debts,

Now we come to the heart of the Gospel. This is a very, very deep petition. Who can say that he is without sin? Who has repented from the depths of his heart so that he no longer needs to repent? Who is so humble that he no longer needs to humble himself to ask forgiveness for his sins? And God will hear us.

Recall that St Silouan wrote that before he went to the monastery he met a convicted murderer who after he had served his time was gaily dancing at a party. Intrigued, St Silouan asked the fellow how, a murderer, he could dance so gaily at the party. The man replied: when I was in prison, I prayed and prayed and prayed for God to forgive me my sin, and he heard me and now I can sing and dance.

So we must be: while we are yet in prison, we must pray and pray and pray for the forgiveness of our sin so that God might hear us and grant us forgiveness. For as the ascetical Fathers teach, in whatever condition God finds us at the hour of our death, in that condition we will go to eternity. Hence, before we die we must pray for God to forgive us our debts. Moreover, the Fathers such as St John of Sinai are clear that without such a sure sense of the forgiveness of our sins and of the concomitant presence of the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are in trouble if we die unless we are distinguished by our humility. It is now that is the time of our prison, now the time that we must implore God to forgive us our sins. And here is that petition.

ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·

As we also forgive our debtors;

This is God’s ‘catch-22’ for us sinners. We want to obtain—if we are serious Christians—the forgiveness of our sins and bold assurance before God. But we can attain to this only if we forgive our own debtors. God is very clear on this. We forgive; he forgives; we don’t forgive; he doesn’t forgive. Nothing in the Gospel could be clearer. That’s the deal. Take it and forgive to receive forgiveness; or don’t take it and enter eternity without bold assurance before the Lord of Hosts, the Creator of your soul.

This is a very deep struggle. For while we are sinners, that does not mean that we can’t be sinned against, wounded, sometimes seriously, sometimes grievously. But there’s no other way: we have to purify our hearts and forgive. This can be a great struggle.

καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,

And do not lead us into temptation,

A humble man who has ‘been around the block’—who has some experience—will pray this petition with feeling. In fact, an index of spiritual maturity is how seriously a man will pray this petition. The more serious he is, the more he will get down on his knees and ask his Heavenly Father not to lead him into temptation. He has learned. There is no longer any time for fooling around.

What are these temptations?

As we have learned, there are eight passions. These passions map into eight types of sin. Hence, there are eight basic types of temptation. We are praying in utter sincerity for God not to lead us into temptation.

Recall that we learned in the petition above to subordinate our own will to the will of God. Perhaps God does not want us to go to New York. More importantly, whether or not we go to New York, the Devil will find a way to meet us on the way. When we pray that God not lead us into temptation, we are praying that he guide our steps so that we not run into the Devil on our way. Those of us who are spiritually blind, and don’t know where to go and where they are going, for those of us who are wandering like lost sheep must pray that God not lead them into temptation. The spiritually mature, those who see their blindness, will pray not only that God’s will be done completely in their lives, but also that God not lead them into temptation.

ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

But deliver us from the Evil One.

This is even more important. This is not only a matter of being delivered from the human condition of bondage to sin so as to attain to the fullness of the ‘in the likeness’ of a son or daughter or God who manifests a likeness to God in all the virtues, especially the virtue of love. It is a matter of being delivered from the Devil. Just as in the previous petition, the sensible Christian and monk will pray to be delivered from the Devil. The Devil, to use a metaphor, has many tentacles and gets mixed up in many things. Sometimes we don’t realize that we have been affected by evil, by the Devil, by our passions, by the demons, put it how you will. But here we pray seriously to our Heavenly Father for him to deliver us from the Evil One.

It is no longer a matter of me, but of the Lord: To pray the Our Father in utter seriousness, I have to convert; I have to be baptized; but above all I have to repent.

And here we can see what repentance is: it is an emptying of ourselves, of our pride and egotism so that God be all things in all.

[1] Thus the Septuagint. A translation based on the Hebrew would more likely read ‘My flesh bristled with the fear of you; on account of your judgements I have feared.’

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 88 - 100

Just as, when one is standing some place in the winter-time at the beginning of day and looking wholly towards the east, all his front parts are warmed by the sun whereas all his back parts have no share in the warmth because the sun is not directly over his head, thus also those who are in the beginning of spiritual activity[1] are partially warmed round in the heart by Divine Grace. Wherefore also the mind of such persons begins at that time to bear as fruit spiritual habits of thought, but obvious parts of the mind remain with habits of thought according to the flesh, since all the parts of the heart have not yet been completely illuminated with the light of Divine Grace in deep [spiritual] perception. (Certain persons, however, not understanding this very thing, have in themselves thought that in the minds of those who are struggling [ascetically] there are two hypostases[2] set over against one another.) Therefore it thus happens that the mind thinks good things and not good things in the same instant, in the same way that the man in the example both shivers and is warmed in the same instant. For from the time that our mind slid away into the duality of [3], from that time it has a need to bear, even if it should not want, both good and bad thoughts[4], and certainly even among those who have come into subtlety of discernment. For as it ever makes an effort to think the good, directly it also recalls evil, because the memory of man is split into a dual conception from the time of Adam’s disobedience. Therefore if we begin with warm zeal to practise the commandments of God, thenceforth Grace, illuminating in a certain deep [spiritual] perception all our [spiritual] organs of sense, burns up as it were all our recollections, and, sweetening our heart in a certain peace of unwavering friendship,[5] prepares us to think certain spiritual things and no longer according to the flesh. This occurs extremely often to those who are approaching perfection, those who unceasingly have in their heart the memory of the Lord Jesus.

This is an important chapter. It continues the notion that because of the Fall of Adam and Eve in Paradise, Man henceforward has a ‘duality of judgement’ that is only overcome in the advanced stages of Orthodox spiritual growth. The chapter itself is conceptually simple, although, as always, the author’s diction can be difficult to construe.

The basic notion that the author here has is that once we have been baptized, we have Grace, the Holy Spirit, in the depths of our nous or created spirit. Despite that, because of the human condition we still think bad thoughts. Again he is adamant to insist that this is not due to the hypostatic (personal) presence of evil in the baptized Orthodox Christian. It is due to the Fall.

Thus, even among those who are so spiritually advanced as to possess the charism of discernment in power, good thoughts and bad thoughts are intermingled in their thought processes. However, among those who have progressed spiritually to the point that they ‘unceasingly have in their heart the memory of the Lord Jesus’—this corresponds to their being in a state of continual contemplation (to use the Roman Catholic term); it corresponds to the biblical statement of David that he had the Lord ever before him at his right hand to guide him—then there is no longer this duality: they have restored, or are very close to having restored, the similarity to God that Adam and Eve lost in the Fall. This is a rather rare condition: one might be an Elder and still be subject to evil thoughts, although certainly not subject to the degree of a beginner.

Holy Grace procures two things for us in our Baptism of Rebirth, of which the one limitlessly exceeds the other. But the lesser[6] is granted immediately: it renews us in the very water and makes bright all the lines of the soul—that is, the ‘according to the image’—, washing away every stain of sin. The greater[7] expects that it work with us, which very thing is the ‘according to the likeness’. When the mind therefore begins to taste the goodness of the Holy Spirit in great [spiritual] perception, then we should know that Grace is beginning as it were to paint the ‘according to the likeness’ on the ‘according to the image’. For in the same way that painters first delineate in one colour the figure of the man, then, adorning tint little by little with tint, thus capture up to the strands of hair the form of the man being portrayed—thus also the Grace of God first regulates the ‘according to the image’ by means of Baptism to whatever it was when Man came to be. But when it sees us desiring from every intention the beauty of the ‘according to the likeness’ and standing naked and unskakeable in its workshop, then, adorning virtue with virtue and bringing the form of the soul back from glory to glory it procures for it the very character[8] of the ‘according to the likeness’. Therefore on the one hand the [spiritual] perception declares that we are being formed in the ‘according to the likeness’; on the other hand we will know the perfection of the likeness from the illumination. For the mind receives all the virtues by means of the [spiritual] sense according to a certain measure and unspeakable rhythm; one cannot acquire spiritual love, however, unless he be illuminated by the Holy Spirit in every [spiritual] assurance.[9] If the mind does not receive the ‘according to the likeness’ by means of the Divine Light, on the one hand it is able to have almost all the other virtues but on the other hand it yet remains without a share in perfect love. For when it becomes like to the virtue of God—as much as a man has room to become like to God, I say—then it also bears the likeness of the divine love. For just as among those who are being portrayed the whole splendid colour of colours[10] added to the image preserves the resemblance of him who is being portrayed right up to the smile, thus also among those who are being painted by Divine Grace wholly to the divine likeness, the illumination of love added to the ‘according to the likeness’ declares the ‘according to the image’ to be a completely good resemblance.[11] For no other virtue except only love is able to procure dispassion for the soul. For the fullness of the Law is love. So, then, our inner man is renewed from day to day in the taste of love; it is completed in love’s perfection.

This chapter is the heart of the treatise. It behoves the reader to study it very carefully.

The argument goes like this. When we are baptized, we receive certain goods. First of all, we receive the Holy Spirit into our nous or created spirit while at the same time all other spirits are expelled from us.

Next, our sins are forgiven.

Finally, most important for the purposes of the argument of this chapter, the image of God is restored in us to the state that Adam and Eve had in Paradise. Note that, as we have remarked earlier, if a person has damaged his nous spiritually through non-Orthodox spiritual practices, this does not mean that that damage is reversed at this stage. That appears to be something that comes later according to the scheme that the author is defining in this chapter. However, Baptism ‘makes bright all the lines of the soul’. There is a fundamental change. This is the restoration of the ‘according to the image’.

But these are the lesser goods of Baptism. What, then, is the greater?

This ‘very thing is the “according to the likeness”’. What is the author getting at?

The author uses the metaphor of portraiture. The ‘according to the image’ is the artist’s preliminary sketch for a portrait. What the author is saying is that before Orthodox Baptism, the sketch is smudged although not unrecognizable. Baptism, however, restores the artist’s sketch to its original beauty. However, it is something lesser because it remains only a sketch. The greater is the full portrait. The full portrait is done after Baptism when the baptized Orthodox takes it upon himself or herself to cooperate with Grace to execute the full portrait—to strive to come into the ‘according to the likeness’. ‘When the mind therefore begins to taste the goodness of the Holy Spirit in great [spiritual] perception, then we should know that Grace is beginning as it were to paint the “according to the likeness” on the “according to the image”. For in the same way that painters first delineate in one colour the figure of the man, then, adorning tint little by little with tint, thus capture up to the strands of hair the form of the man being portrayed—thus also the Grace of God first regulates the “according to the image” by means of Baptism to whatever it was when Man came to be. But when it sees us desiring from every intention the beauty of the “according to the likeness” and standing naked and unskakeable in its workshop, then, adorning virtue with virtue and bringing the form of the soul back from glory to glory it procures for it the very character of the “according to the likeness”.

This is what it’s all about. No more. No less.

The author then asserts that while all the other virtues come to the person through the spiritual sense, the crowning virtue of love comes to him by Divine Illumination. Earlier we remarked that the author’s theology of salvation was a theology of illumination by the Divine Light. Here we can see that he expects the culmination of that illumination to be our ability to love in the way that Jesus loved.

The author has already discussed the fact that we retain up to the last stages of our spiritual growth a duality of thought which allows and indeed causes us to think bad thoughts with the good thoughts. It is clear that he foresees that this duality of thought will cease when the person arrives at the illumination with the Divine Light which confers on him or her the ability to love with the love of Jesus Christ. For this is the fullness of the Law. It is the fullness of the Christian vocation; it is the fullness of the restoration of the ‘according to the likeness’ of God.

This is the Orthodox Christian vocation.

In the beginning of our progress, if indeed we ardently and warmly desire the virtue of God, the Holy Spirit makes the mind taste in every [spiritual] perception and inner spiritual assurance the sweetness of God, so that the mind know in exact knowledge the perfect reward of the God-loving ascetic practices. Thenceforward, however, it hides for much time the extravagance of this vivifying gift so that even if we should work all the other virtues completely we consider ourselves to be wholly nothing because we do not yet have the divine love as it were in habit. Thus, therefore, the demon of hatred thereafter afflicts the soul of those who are struggling [ascetically], so that it slander even those who love them with the goal of inciting hatred, and bears the corrupting activity of hatred almost up to the kiss. Whence, thereafter the soul is pained, bearing on the one hand the memory of spiritual love but on the other hand not being able to acquire it in [spiritual] perception because of the lack of the most perfect ascetic practices. Therefore it is necessary that in the meantime we work this by violence, so that we attain to its taste in every [spiritual] perception and inner spiritual assurance.[12] For no one in this flesh can acquire the perfection of this love except those saints who have come as far as martyrdom and perfect confession.[13] For he whose lot this is, is wholly changed and does not easily desire food. For to him who is nourished by divine love what desire is there for the good things in the world? For this reason, the wisest Paul, the great receptacle of gnosis, announcing to us from his own spiritual experience[14] the good news of the luxuriousness of the first just men[15] which is going to be, speaks thus: ‘For the Kingdom of Heaven is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and grace in the Holy Spirit;’ which things are the fruit of perfect love. So, then, those who are progressing in perfection are here able to taste this continually, but no one is able to acquire this perfectly except when that which is mortal is swallowed up by Life.[16]

What the author is saying here is not always true. It was true in the life of St Silouan the Athonite and in the life of St Symeon the New Theologian, who read St Diadochos when he was a novice. However, there are sometimes other roads that the Orthodox is led on by the Holy Spirit. These are the judgements of God.

However, in the case that the author is addressing what he has in mind is this: God grants us a taste of perfection in the beginning of our ascetical road so that we know where we are going. Then he hides his Grace to let us ‘fight it out’. However, we can never attain by our own efforts to possessing constantly (habitually) what we had tasted at the beginning (this divine love), and this fact works for our humility. It also makes us more zealous for our asceticism. However, paradoxically, even though we have tasted this divine love and wish to attain to its habitual possession and exercise, not only can we not do it but we are tempted to outright hatred ‘almost up to the kiss’. It is not quite clear what the author means here. He could mean that we are tempted right up to Judas’ kiss of betrayal; he could mean that our duality of thought introduces hateful thoughts even right up to the instant that we kiss someone or something such as an icon—or even right up to the moment we receive communion. It should be understood that these involuntary hateful thoughts—even at the moment of communion, say—can be very painful for us to experience when we have tasted the divine love and seek to possess that divine love as our own.

The author states that in this condition we must redouble our ascetic efforts—remember that here he is talking to very advanced Hesychasts.

Moreover, the author makes a very astute and profound remark. It is impossible to completely overcome the flesh and live this divine love unless we arrive at martyrdom. For if we should survive the martyrdom, we are, as St Paul remarks, no longer in the flesh. However, the advanced Hesychast can experience this Divine Love continually, although not perfectly until ‘that which is mortal is swallowed up by Life’.

One of those who love the Lord with a certain insatiable judgement[17] narrated to me as follows: ‘To me who desired to know it with knowledge,[18] the Good One provided the love of God in much [spiritual] perception and inner spiritual assurance[19]; and I was so much clothed with such an activity[20] that my soul hasted with a certain unspeakable joy and love to go out from the body and depart towards the Lord, and to ignore as it were this temporal way of life itself.’ Even if he who in experience [21] this love should be insulted or injured by someone a myriad of times (for it happens that he is yet going to have one of these sorts of things to work on with labour) he does not grow wrathful with him but remains as if glued even to the soul of him who has despised or even injured him. He is kindled only against those who come either against the poor or against God (as Scripture says, ‘They speak evil;’) or who otherwise lead to a certain extent an evil way of life. For he who henceforward loves God beyond himself—or, rather, no longer loves himself but only God—no longer avenges his own honour but wants only the righteousness to be honoured of him who has honoured him in eternal honour.[22] He no longer has this disposition as deriving from some small bit of will but thenceforth on account of the great experience of divine love has this disposition as it were as a habit. It must be known in addition to these things that he who is put by God into the activity of such a love as this comes to be above even faith at the time of such an activity, through the great love holding on in [spiritual] perception in his heart to him who is honoured in faith.[23] The holy Apostle clearly signifies this very thing, saying: ‘Now there remain these three things, faith, hope and love; of these the greatest is love.’ For he who is in the wealth of love holding on to God, as I said, is at that time much greater than his own faith, as being wholly in longing.[24]

It is generally considered that the author is referring to himself, using the third person out of humility.

This chapter, very important as a statement of mystical experience, is quite clear. We only need remark on a few passages.

First, ‘He no longer has this disposition as deriving from some small bit of will but thenceforth on account of the great experience of divine love has this disposition as it were as a habit.’ In the previous chapter, the author discussed the case where the advanced ascetic had a more or less continual experience of the divine love but did not have it habitually. Here he is addressing the case where the ascetic has this divine love habitually.

Second, ‘It must be known in addition to these things that he who is put by God into the activity of such a love as this comes to be above even faith at the time of such an activity, through the great love holding on in [spiritual] perception in his heart to him who is honoured in faith. The holy Apostle clearly signifies this very thing, saying: “Now there remain these three things, faith, hope and love; of these the greatest is love.” For he who is in the wealth of love holding on to God, as I said, is at that time much greater than his own faith, as being wholly in longing.’ Essentially what the author is saying is that in these states of rapture the ascetic is in spiritual union with God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and it is not a matter of faith during the experience: the expression ‘in the wealth of love holding on to God’ is a description of an experience of intense union with God. ‘As being wholly in longing’ is a description of affective ecstasy.

If one meets a person who has had the experiences the author is describing, his whole life can change, although not always—for even in the case of the Word made flesh, not everyone’s life changed when they met Christ in Galilee.

The intermediate state of divine love prepares us to be not a little sorrowed when because of some quarrel we make someone our enemy by insulting him. Wherefore they[25] never cease to prick our conscience until through much rendering of accounts we lead the one who was insulted back to his previous disposition. Even when one of the people leading a worldly life has unjustly grown wroth with us, the most extreme compunction concerning this matter makes us meditate and take much thought since we have wholly become a stumbling block to someone of this Age[26]. Whence the mind even becomes idle in regard to contemplation[27]. For since the word of gnosis is wholly love, it does not allow the intellect to be broadened towards divine contemplations[28] unless we first regain in love even him who without purpose is wrathful with us. If, then, that person does not want this to happen or, again, has departed from our paths, the word of gnosis thenceforth hastes us to add the character of his face to our own soul in a certain unformed humour[29],[30] thus in disposition to fulfil the law of love in the depth of the heart. For he says:[31] ‘Those who wish to have the gnosis of God must in their own intellect look upon, without choleric conception, even the faces of those who are choleric out of season.’ This having come to pass, the mind is not only faultlessly set into motion as regards theology but will also ascend to the love of God with great boldness of spirit[32], hastening unimpededly from the second step to the first.[33]

We need only comment on a few sentences here. Otherwise the chapter should be clear given the preceding.

‘For since the word of gnosis is wholly love, it does not allow the intellect to be broadened towards divine contemplations unless we first regain in love even him who without purpose is wrathful with us.’ This is an important remark. If we have sinned—even slightly and even if the sin isn’t really our fault—we can find it very difficult to engage in our customary activity of prayer until things are sorted out and we are reconciled.

It is worth remarking that the Grace of God may intervene so as to free us from our choleric conception without reconciling us to the other party physically: the situation may be such that Grace finds it necessary to invoke the Gospel: ‘if he does not listen to the Church, let him be to you as a tax-collector and sinner’.

To those who are beginning to desire piety ardently the way of virtue seems extremely rough and very gloomy not because it is that sort of thing but because directly from the womb human nature consorts with the full range of the pleasures. To those who are able to come to middle of it, the way is shown to be wholly approachable and comfortable, for having been subordinated through the activity[34] of the good, the bad is destroyed by the good habit along with the memory of the irrational passions.[35] Whence, thenceforth the soul gladly passes through the all the paths of the virtues. For this reason, the Lord, introducing us to the road of salvations, says: ‘How narrow and strait is the road leading to the Kingdom and few are they that enter in by it.’ To those who with much intention wish to come forth to the keeping of his holy commandments, he says: ‘For my yoke is good and my load is light.’ Therefore, in the beginning of the struggle it is necessary to work the holy commandments of God with a certain violent act of the will, so that seeing our purpose and effort the good Lord send us a certain act of the will very much ready to serve his glorious wishes.[36] For then: ‘The will[37] is prepared by the Lord;’ so that we unceasingly work the good in a certain great joy. For then, really, we will perceive that: ‘God is he who acts in us both to want and to act beyond expectation.’[38]

The only thing to point out here is that the author understands that our being given over to the pleasures of the flesh is something that we have directly from the womb: it is part of the human condition. Of course that is why we are baptized and engage with the assistance of God in the ascetic struggle to attain to the ‘according to the likeness’.

In the same way that wax that has not been heated or softened for a long time is not able to accept the seal which has been placed on it, thus neither is a man, unless he be tried by [ascetic] labours and infirmities[39], able to find place for the seal of divine virtue.[40] For this reason the Lord says to the divine Paul: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in infirmity[41].’ And the Apostle himself boasts, saying: ‘Therefore I would rather boast gladly of my infirmities so that the power of Christ dwell upon me.’ And in Proverbs it has been written: ‘The Lord chastises him who he loves; he whips every son whom he receives.’ And the Apostle calls ‘infirmities’ the rebellions of the enemies of the Cross which continually happened to him and to all the saints of that day so that they not be puffed up, as he himself says, at the abundance of revelations—but they remained, rather, in the characteristic property of perfection, through lowliness devoutly guarding the divine gift by means of the frequent episodes of contempt. But now we call ‘infirmities’ the evil thoughts and the bodily anomalies. For, then, because the bodies of the saints who were struggling against sin were delivered up to deadly tortures and various other afflictions, their bodies were much higher than the passions which have entered into human nature out of sin. Now, however, because the peace of the Churches[42] is multiplied on account of the Lord, it is necessary on account of this that the body of the strugglers of piety be tried by means of continual anomalies, and their soul by means of wicked thoughts—certainly even among those in whom gnosis is active in every [spiritual] perception and inner spiritual assurance—so that they both be able to be beyond every vainglory, or vain imagining even, and by means of the great lowliness be able to find space in their hearts, as I said, for the seal of the beauty of God, according to the saint who said: ‘For the light of your Face has been stamped upon us, O Lord.’ Therefore, giving thanks, we must await the counsel of the Lord.[43] For the continuality of the sicknesses and the battle against the demonic thoughts will be reckoned for us to the account of a second martyrdom. For he who at that time said to the holy martyrs by means of those lawless rulers, ‘Deny Christ; long for the glories of this present life!’ even now stands against them in person, unceasingly saying the very same things. He who at that time pained the bodies of the righteous and insulted to the utmost the teachers of honour through those ministering to those diabolical habits of thought—that very same one even now leads the various passions against the confessors of piety with many insults and acts of contempt, and certainly when for the sake of the glory of the Lord they help the poor who are extremely afflicted. For that reason it is necessary to work with sureness and patience on the martyrdom of our conscience before the Lord. For he says: ‘Waiting patiently, I patiently awaited the Lord and he took heed to me.’

Here is the gist of this chapter and the thought underlying much of what the author has already written about the imperfection of the ascetic: ‘…they remained, rather, in the characteristic property of perfection, through lowliness devoutly guarding the divine gift by means of the frequent episodes of contempt.’ What the author means is that, as St Isaac the Syrian puts it, humility is the garment of the Divinity. Hence, all the imperfections we experience, all the infirmities, all of the weakness—these are all meant to ensure our humility so that God might be glorified in us through his presence, especially as divine love.

The author also explains after a fashion what is meant by the expression ‘the martyrdom of conscience’. This is the state of being afflicted by tempting thoughts—bad thoughts that we do not want. These call us to sins that we do not want. This struggle has the following good results: we are purified; we learn the ruses of the demons; we grow in humility; and we show to God that we are serious in our love for him. In such situations, we must exercise patience, waiting on the Lord as the Psalmist puts it.

The author now proceeds in the next chapter to discuss humility.

Humility is a hard thing to procure. For in the measure of its greatness, that much it is attained with many struggles. It comes to those who participate in holy gnosis in two ways. First, when he is in the intermediate stage of spiritual experience, then either on account of infirmity of the body or on account of those who show enmity to those who take a care for what is right or on account of evil thoughts, the struggler of piety has a somewhat lowlier habit of thought. Second, when the mind is illuminated in much [spiritual] perception and inner spiritual assurance by Divine Grace, then the soul has humility as it were as a natural attribute. For fattened by the divine Goodness, it is no longer able to be puffed up by the pretension of ambition and, even if it unceasingly works the commandments of God, considers itself lower than all men on account of the fellowship of the divine forbearance.[44] The first humility most often has sorrow and discouragement; the second, joy with an all-wise respect for others. Wherefore, as I said, the first humility comes to those who are in the middle of the struggles but the second is sent down to those who are approaching perfection. On account of this, the first is often damaged by the successes of this life,[45] while the second neither perceives the terrible arrows of sin in any way nor is shaken even if someone were to offer it all the Kingdoms of the world—for being wholly spiritual it completely ignores bodily glories. To come into the second humility it is in every respect necessary that the [ascetic] struggler come by means of the first. For unless Grace by means of the first humility first softens our free will in the application of the pedagogic passions—voluntarily and not by necessity[46]—it will not grant us the splendour of the second humility.

This is quite clear and very important. The only thing that might be ambiguous is the notion of the humility that comes to the perfect. This is a god-given humility that St John of Sinai remarks on; this is the humility that is the garment of the Divine. But we can only receive this second humility if we have struggled through the first, which is the humility of the weak man struggling to advance up the hard mountain of love.

Those who are friends of the pleasures of this world come to the actual missteps from the thoughts[47]. For borne by an undiscerning judgement they desire to bring almost all their impassioned conceptions[48] to lawless words and unholy works. Those however who are endeavouring to accomplish the ascetic way of life come from the actual missteps to the evil thoughts and to certain evil and damaging words. For if the demons see such persons gladly tolerating abuse [of others] or speaking certain idle or unseasonable things or laughing as it should not be or angered immoderately or desiring to see empty and vain glory, then in a group they arm themselves against them. Moreover, taking [the ascetic’s] ambition as an excuse for their own evil they jump as it were through a certain dark window and plunder the soul. Therefore it is necessary that those who wish to dwell together with the multitude of virtues not seek glory, nor meet with many people, nor make use of continual departures [from the monastery] or abuse certain persons (even if those who are abused are worthy of the abuse), nor speak much even if they are able to say all things well. For dispersing the mind without measure, garrulity not only makes the mind idle in relation to its spiritual labour but also delivers it to the demon of accidie[49], which weakening it without measure delivers it thenceforth to the demons of sorrow and to the demons of anger. The mind must therefore ever be occupied with the keeping of the holy commandments and with the deep remembrance of the Lord of Glory. For he says: ‘He who keeps the commandment will not know an evil word;’ that is, will not deviate into bad thoughts or words.

This is a very astute psychological analysis. What the author means is this. Worldly people strive to put into practice whatever comes into their head without discriminating where the thought is coming from. The reason for this, of course, is that these thoughts are stimulating the worldly person to act on one of the passions and that person is a slave to his passions.

However, the author says, things are different when it is a matter of an ascetic. The ascetic has reached the stage where he knows something about the thoughts and he is not about to act out any old thought he has. However, he might expose himself to the demons by his actions—by engaging in idle talk, ribaldry, condemnation of others and so on and so forth.

Moreover, if the ascetic has ambition—not impossible; ordinary men and women become ascetics; saints are made not born; we all have our share of all the passions—then the demons have a ‘field day’.

The rest of the chapter should be clear. The discussion of the interrelations of the passions is important, but it would take us too far afield to analyze the discussion in detail. Other ascetic writers discuss the relationships among the passions.

When the heart receives the bows and arrows of the demons with a certain warm pain in such a way that it suspects that he who is at war[50] bears real arrows, the soul hates the passions with pain, as being in the beginning of being purified. For if the soul should not suffer great pain on account of the impudence of sin it would not rejoice richly over the goodness of righteousness. Therefore let him who wants to purify his heart set it on fire with the memory of the Lord Jesus, having only this as a meditation and ceaseless work. For those who volunteer to put off their own rot must not pray[51] at one time and at another time not pray, but ever occupy themselves with the prayer[52] in the keeping of the mind, even if they should have their abode somewhere outside the houses of prayer. In the way that someone who wishes to purify gold, again makes hard the material being purified if he lets the fire go out under the crucible even if for only a short time—in that same way he who at one time remembers God and at another time does not, loses though the idleness whatever he thinks to acquire by the prayer[53]. It is characteristic of the man who loves virtue ever to consume what is earthy in his heart by means of the memory of God so that bit by bit the bad is thus expended by the fire of the memory of the Good and the soul come back completely to its natural brightness, with greater glory.

The only thing that needs to be emphasized here is that the author foresees the continual practice of the Jesus Prayer, its continual practice being something quite necessary.

Dispassion is not the state of not being warred against by the demons, since we would then need to have gone out of the world, according to the Apostle, but the state in which those who are warred against remain not warred against.[54] For the warriors who wear armour have arrows shot at them by their opponents and hear the sound of the archery—and they also see almost all the arrows sent against them—yet they are not wounded because of the hardness of the armour. Being fenced by iron they have the quality of not being warred against when they are in battle; let us, however, by means of all good works armed fully with the panoply of the Holy Light and the helmet of salvation, cut through the dark phalanxes of the demons. For purity is not brought about merely by stopping to do bad things, but by setting aside evil in power through attending assiduously to the good.

This is clear enough. The only important thing to remark on is that the author views ‘dispassion’ as a state of freedom from the passions. As should be clear, he does not make dispassion the end point of the mystical journey, but the reception of divine love in habit through habitual union with the Trinity, this being conferred on the person through an experience of divine illumination.

When the man of God has conquered almost all the passions, two demons remain behind to fight. The first of these annoys the soul so that it come from much love of God to an unseasonable zeal such that it does not want any one else to please God in the way that it does; the second annoys the body, moving it with a certain burning activity to the desire for intercourse. This happens to the body because, first, this pleasure is a property of nature as on account of child-bearing and for that reason easily defeated; and, further, also on account of the permission of God. For when the Lord sees one of the strugglers flourishing in the multitude of virtues, he on occasion permits him to be sullied by this demon so that he suppose himself to be worse than all the men who lead a secular life. Doubtless, annoyance by this passion either follows the attainments or, on occasion, comes before them so that, in the sudden attack of the passion, the soul seem in anticipation somewhat useless whatever its great accomplishments might [come to] be. But let us battle the first passion in great humility and love, and the second passion in temperance and freedom from wrath and the deep conception[55] of death, so that from these things ceaselessly tasting the activity of the Holy Spirit we come in the Lord to be above these very passions.

This chapter is relatively clear. The author by experience knows that those approaching perfection are subject to two special temptations—an envy that doesn’t accept that others might also become saints, and disturbances of the flesh.

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As many of us become participants in divine gnosis will render an account of even our involuntary vain imaginings. For Job says: ‘You have taken note even if I have transgressed involuntarily in something;’—and justly so. For if one were not to cease to remember God and not to neglect his holy commandments, one would not fall into either a voluntary or an involuntary fault. It is therefore necessary to offer firm confession to the Master even in connection with our involuntary faults, that is, in connection with the labour of the customary canon[56] (for there is no one who is a man who has not miss-stepped humanly), up to the time that in tears of love our conscience assure us spiritually concerning the remission of these things. He says: ‘For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just so that he forgive our sins and purify us from every injustice.’ It is necessary to attend unceasingly to the [spiritual] perception of confession so that our conscience certainly not taste itself in the condition of supposing that it has confessed adequately to God, for the judgement of God is mightier than our conscience even if in complete spiritual assurance someone should know of nothing in himself[57], as the wisest Paul teaches us, saying: ‘But I do not interrogate myself; for I know of nothing in myself; but I have not been justified in that; the Lord is he who interrogates me.’[58] For if we do not confess properly concerning these things then at the time of our departure we will find a certain secret cowardice in ourselves. We who love the Lord must pray to be found without fear in that hour for he who is then found in fear will not pass by the Tartarian rulers in a free way, for they have that fear of the soul as an lawyer, as it were, on behalf of their own evil. But in the hour of dissolution the soul which exults in the love of God is borne with the angels above all the dark ranks. It is as it were given wings by the spiritual love, bearing love without lack as the fullness of the Law. Wherefore even in the Second Coming of the Lord those who depart from this life with such boldness will be taken up in rapture with all the saints. But those who are a little cowardly in the time of death will be left behind with the multitude of other men as being under judgement, so that having been tried by the fire of judgement they receive in accordance to their own practices the inheritance owed to them from our good God and King Jesus Christ; for he is the God of Justice and over us who love him his is the wealth of the goodness of his Kingdom to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

This final chapter has some important points. The author is now speaking to the perfect and to the almost-perfect. They are obliged, he is saying, to engage continually in the contemplation of God because they will be held accountable by God even for their involuntary transgressions. He makes the very astute remark, reminiscent of St John of Damascus, who was many centuries after him, that if we were to remain in contemplation of God continually, we would have no falls, either voluntary or involuntary.

Next, the author remarks on the disposition of continual confession of our faults to God. This might be a little dangerous for a not-so-spiritually-advanced reader with temptations to obsessive-compulsive behaviour (scruples), so let us remark that the author is speaking to very advanced Hesychasts, essentially to saints.

Our author and saint then continues with a very subtle discussion of the psychology of dying. If we have the least soil on our conscience, we will have a certain cowardice at the time of our death. That cowardice will prevent us from being borne up to the Lord by the angels at the hour of our death (for an explanation of this see the Sayings of the Desert Fathers) and we will ultimately be left with the multitude of men to be tested by fire in the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory, love and honour now and to the Ages. Amen.

Ascetic homilies of Saint Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in Illyria. 100 Chapters, 2,300 lines.[59]

[1] Greek: energeias. According to the context, this activity is the activity of Holy Spirit on the person, not the efforts of the person himself to lead a pious life.

[2] Greek: upostases. Until now the author has used the more Western word, person (Greek: prosopon). He clearly means the same thing: the supposed co-existence of a personal principle of holiness, the Holy Spirit, and of a personal principal of evil, the Devil or Satan, in the one person. It should be remarked that the author’s see was on the Western side of mainland Greece and that it might very well have had communication with the West. Another possible interpretation is that previously the author was ‘dumbing down’ his terminology but as he goes on thinks he is able to speak more precisely and theologically.

[3] ‘gnomes)>. The text here has ‘knowledge (Greek: gnoseos)’. While the critical apparatus does not show our reading, it seems to be required by the text. As the author has already said, the Fall introduced a duality of the will towards good or evil. However, there is nothing in his doctrine of gnosis that would suggest that the Fall also introduced a duality of intuitive knowledge or illumination, although the author certainly recognizes the possibility of demonic delusion. Judgement (gnome) does bear the sense of a personal judgement leading to a choice made by the free will. See further below in this chapter, where the duality is applied to the memory.

[4] Greek: dianoemata.

[5] This is unclear.

[6] Literally, ‘the latter’.

[7] Literally, ‘the former’.

[8] ‘Very character’: Greek: charakter. This word means ‘engraving’, ‘engraved image’. The word is used by the Apostle Paul of the relation between Jesus Christ and the Father. Hence, here, the ‘very character’.

[9] ‘[Spiritual] assurance’: Greek: plerophoria. Here, the word means ‘consciousness’. I.e. while all the other virtues are received by means of the spiritual sense, the virtue of spiritual love is received only in a conscious illumination of the mind by the Holy Spirit. What is usually called, it seems, the Uncreated Light.

[10] This is unclear.

[11] This sentence is difficult, but it means that once the divine illumination of perfect love is added to the ‘according to the likeness’, then the soul has become a completely good resemblance to God in whose image it was created—as much, the author says, as this is possible to Man.

[12] The author means that since by the deprivation of Grace for the sake of our purification we no longer have any spiritual perception of perfect love, but even rather are tempted to the hatred of others, we must in this condition force ourselves to love so that we ultimately attain to the perfection of love in full consciousness and assurance.

[13] In the sense, evidently of the Confessors of the Faith who had gone to the stadium for martyrdom but who have survived alive.

[14] ‘Spiritual experience’: Greek: plerophoria. This is the second meaning of plerophoria—an actual illumination.

[15] Normally this refers to Adam and Eve before the Fall.

[16] I.e. after death.

[17] Greek: gnome. As we remarked previously, this word has to do with judgement leading to intention. In part it means the ‘intellectual attitude’ or ‘opinion’ on the basis of which one acts.

[18] Greek: gnostos gnonai. Thus the text. The author is emphasizing the desire to know consciously the love of the Lord.

[19] Greek: plerophoria.

[20] Greek: energeia, as elsewhere in this and other chapters.

[21] ‘geuomenos)>’. Reading this on the basis of context and the author’s style instead of the text ‘becoming (genomenos)’.

[22] Thus the text.

[23] The author means that this condition of the experience of divine love unites the ascetic to God in the ascetic’s heart so that for the duration of the experience of being united to God he is beyond faith.

[24] Greek: potho. Here, this seems to mean affective ecstasy. The chapter is describing an advanced stage of mystic union. This chapter is difficult to render so that it reads easily and clearly but we have wanted to tamper as little as possible with such an important description of mystical union.

[25] The text does not have a referent for this verb. Perhaps it is the demons.

[26] I.e. the world.

[27] Greek: theorias.

[28] Greek: theoremata.

[29] Greek: chumati. This is one of the four humours, but as applied to the soul, not a matter of ‘humour’ as jokes or ‘humour’ as disposition.

[30] The text is a little difficult here. What the author means is that if we cannot be reconciled with the other party then, even if we are not at fault at all, we should introduce his face into our soul in a certain vague way so as to have it before us in love when we are praying. This does not seem to be a prescription to engage in visualization exercises but rather to keep the ‘idea’ of the person in our heart while we are praying.

[31] This is not a passage of Scripture, nor do any of the other editors or translators provide a citation. We are not aware of any work containing this passage.

[32] ‘Boldness of spirit’: parrisia. This is the good boldness before God.

[33] I.e. from the intermediate degree of love being discussed in this chapter to the first degree of love discussed in the previous chapter and elsewhere.

[34] Greek: energeia. It should be remarked that energeia is a philosophical concept having to do with the metaphysical nature of action. It doesn’t have the moral contextualization that we might suppose. That is, when the author writes that that something happens through the activity or energeia of the good, he doesn’t mean that it happens because we go to Church on time and so on and so forth—not that we shouldn’t—but that metaphysically something has an ontological activity—here, the good, including good practices—that has an effect, in the way we speak today, in a different metaphysics, of cause and effect. Energeia is an ontological not a moral concept. It means the action of something being what it is essentially; the concept is of course related to entelechy. Entelechy is what something is and does when it is and does what it is supposed to be and do: it is the perfection of the instantiation of an essence. Energeia is the action of something when it is in its entelechy.

[35] The author means that for those who have attained to the middle of the way of virtue, it is shown to be accessible and comfortable because the bad—which the author has already remarked does not exist substantially—is destroyed by the good habit (here he uses the word ‘custom’) together with the memory of the pleasures of procreation.

[36] Greek: thelemasi. This is the same word that we have been translating ‘acts of the will’. The author is fond of this sort of repetition of a word and its cognates.

[37] Greek: thelesis. The author does not use the language of ‘faculties’, which is a much later Western approach, but thelesis is the will as a faculty and thelema something willed by the thelesis.

[38] What the author is saying is that at a certain advanced spiritual stage, God heals the will so that virtue becomes easier and more joyful. We do not, however, think that the author means that the person is no longer capable of sin—that will happen in the Second Coming.

[39] Greek: astheneion.

[40] Elder Paisios (1924 – 1974) is said to have remarked that he received more spiritual benefit from his illnesses than from his (considerable) ascetic labours.

[41] Greek: astheneia.

[42] Greek: ekklesion.

[43] I.e. in our afflictions.

[44] I.e. the ascetic is humbled by his fellowship with God.

[45] Literally: ‘reproached’.

[46] This seems to mean that it is not merely a matter of long-suffering: the ascetic must accept his sufferings.

[47] Greek: logismon.

[48] Greek: ennoias.

[49] I.e. sloth.

[50] I.e. the ascetic. He is in such pain that he begins to suspect that he is being shot at with real arrows.

[51] Greek: euchesthai. This refers to the Jesus Prayer, as should be evident from the context.

[52] Greek: proseuche.

[53] Greek: euche.

[54] Thus the text. The author means that dispassion is a state in which the demons try and try and try—and don’t get anywhere.

[55] Greek: ennoia. Here ennoia means ‘meditation’ or ‘contemplation’ within the mind: a deep consideration of our coming death.

[56] Greek: kanonos. This is the customary rule of private prayer and asceticism of the monk.

[57] I.e. be conscious of no fault in himself, as further on in the quotation from St Paul.

[58] Note the legal language. The conscience is treated with legal concepts both in the text and in St Paul.

[59] This is the closing note in the manuscript. Illyria is present day Albania, somewhat north of Photiki.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 79 - 87

Satan, as I said, is expelled from the soul by means of Baptism, but it is permitted to him for the forementioned reasons to act on the soul by means of the body. For on the one hand the Grace of God dwells in the very depth of the soul, that is, in the mind. For he says: ‘All the glory of the daughter of the King is within,’ not appearing to the demons. For that very reason we feel a divine longing, gushing up as it were out of the depth of our heart, when we are warmly in the remembrance of God. On the other hand the evil spirits thenceforward[1] leap on and lurk in the senses of the body, acting on those who are yet infants in soul by means of the licentiousness of the body. Thus, therefore, on the one hand according to the Apostle our mind ever rejoices at the laws of the Spirit, whereas on the other hand the senses of the body want to be carried off with the softness of the pleasures. Whence, among those who progress in gnosis, Grace gladdens the body into unspeakable exultation by means of the sense of the mind, whereas the demons—and certainly when they find us running the course of piety carelessly—violently capture the soul by means of the senses of the body, the murderers calling it to that which it does not want.

This chapter is not that difficult to understand given the preceding.

The author wishes to explain how it is that after our baptism we are still tempted if indeed the Holy Spirit has now expelled all the demons from our nous or created spirit and become united with us there in the nous. First of all, let us remark on the author’s experiential statement that we feel ‘a divine longing, gushing up as it were out of the depth of our heart, when we are warmly in the remembrance of God’. This might be taken as a characteristic Orthodox experience of the personal presence in the believer of the Holy Spirit. Note that the author positions the place that the ‘divine longing’ comes to consciousness in the heart of the believer.

What the author has in mind in his contrast of this divine gushing out of the depths of the heart and the leaping on and lurking in the senses of the body by the demons is an experiential recognition on the author’s part that after his baptism temptations come to the believer from ‘outside’ his inner world of consciousness whereas the believer’s experience of the Holy Spirit has a different ‘geography’, coming to the believer much more centrally in the core of his inner world of consciousness. In other words, after Baptism, the believer who is making an effort in prayer, above all the Jesus Prayer, actually perceives that Grace comes to him differently from the temptations he experiences, in the way described.

Moreover, the author ties his remark to the statement of the Apostle Paul in Romans that we rejoice in the laws of the Spirit in our innermost man whereas our members are subject to the law of sin.

Note that the author, evidently following St Paul, understands that Grace is a matter of the nous of man (i.e. that is where it appears) whereas temptation is a matter of the body (i.e. that is where it begins). However, as the author develops, Grace can ‘spill over’ from the nous to the body while temptation can reach the nous from the body.

It should also be remarked that there is a category of spiritual temptations that really don’t have all that much to do with the body, as the author himself develops in a further chapter. A temptation to pride is not really a matter of the flesh but of the spirit of man. However, the author is emphasizing the temptations of the flesh that do commence with the body.

Those who say that the two persons of Grace and of sin co-exist in the hearts of the faithful[2] because the Evangelist has said: ‘And the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it;’ wish to recommend their suggestion by saying that the Divine Brightness is not at all dirtied by the sojourn of the Evil One together with it. But they are proved by the very same passage of the Gospel to be of a mindedness outside the Holy Scriptures. For since the Word of God deigned that the True Light should appear in the flesh to his own Creation, in his immeasurable love for Mankind kindling among us his light of gnosis, (although the mindedness of the world did not comprehend the counsel of God, that is, did not know it, since the mindedness of the flesh is hostility to God)—for this reason the Theologian[3] made use of such a phrase as this. Passing over some lines in the middle, the divine [Evangelist] continues: ‘He was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world’ (instead of guides or vivifies); ‘he was in the world and the world came to be through him and the world did not know him; he came to his own places and his own people did not receive him; as many as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.’ And the wisest Paul also says, interpreting the ‘did not comprehend’: ‘Not that I already have received or that I already have been perfected, but I pursue so that perhaps I might comprehend, since I have already been comprehended by Christ.’ So the Evangelist does not say that Satan has not comprehended the True Light (for from the beginning he is foreign to it because it does not shine in him), but he[4] worthily dishonours by means of this word those men who hear the mighty deeds and the wonders of the Son of God but do not wish to approach the light of his gnosis on account of their darkened heart.

This chapter is largely straightforward as a matter of mystical and ascetic theology. However, it does have some interesting ramifications for the sorts of things that Evangelical Protestants discuss. First of all, note that the author thinks that the purpose of the Incarnation was to kindle among us the light of the Word’s gnosis. This is consistent with the statement of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John that eternal life is to know the Father, the only true God, and the Son whom he has sent.

Next, it seems clear from the context that the author understands the ‘coming into the world’ to modify ‘every man’ and not the ‘true Light’.

Net the author construes the ‘comprehended it not’ of the Gospel of John as meaning not the Devil, since the Devil has always been alien to the Light of God, but those men who hear the Gospel but do not accept to approach the spiritual knowledge given by the True Light. In this author’s world, salvation is a matter of being illuminated by the Light of Christ, and not in a superficial sort of way.

The word of gnosis teaches us that there are as it were two genera of evil spirits. The first ones of these are as it were finer, the second more material. For the finer ones war against the soul, while the others have the custom to take the body captive with certain greasy[5] consolations. Wherefore the demons that wrestle with the soul and those that wrestle with the body are opposed to each other even if they have the same intent of damaging men. Therefore when Grace does not have its abode in man,[6] the demons lurk in the depths of the heart after the manner, really, of serpents, not at all permitting the soul clearly to see the desire of the good. When Grace is hidden in the mind,[7] however, the demons thenceforward run about the parts of the heart like certain gloomy clouds, being formed into the passions of sin and into various distractions, so that lifting up into the air the remembrance of the mind they tear it away from its conversation with Grace. Therefore, when we are inflamed towards the passions of the soul by the demons which afflict the soul, and moreover towards conceit, which is itself the mother of all evils, by considering the dissolution of the body we certainly bring to shame the pretension of ambition. One must also do the same when the demons that wrestle with the body prepare the heart to boil up in shameful desires. For even this simple recollection[8] is able to abolish in the [practice of the] memory of God all the varieties of evil spirits. If on account of this remembrance, however, the demons of the soul suggest limitless contempt for the nature of man, on the ground that there is no value to it for any reason at all on account of the flesh (for they like to do this when one wishes to torture them with a thought[9] of this sort), we henceforward recall the honour and glory of the heavenly kingdom without overlooking the bitter and gloomy aspect of the Judgement, so that in the former we console our despondency while in the latter we toughen the softness of our heart.

This chapter is also quite straightforward. As we ourselves have already remarked, there are demons which affect the soul and demons which affect the body. Moreover, these demons war against each other even though they are united in their hatred of man and their desire for his destruction. Nowadays, one might even hear an Elder say that the demons don’t get along at all with each other whatever their particular characteristics. To understand these remarks, the reader should that in Orthodox demonology; each of the demons has a fixed ‘mission’ or operation. A demon of fornication is always a demon of fornication. A demon of pride is always a demon of pride. A demon of pride doesn’t moonlight as a demon of vainglory. Moreover, there are greater and lesser demons, and, as the author here states, demons which focus on temptations of the body and demons which focus on temptations of the soul.

In the author’s view, before Baptism, because of the Fall, the demons lurk in the depths of man trying to impede his progress towards the Good—i.e. ultimately towards the Light of Christ. Obviously God never allows them to be completely successful. There is no doctrine here, or anywhere else in the Orthodox Church, that a man is completely depraved by the Fall and subject to an eternal election to salvation or to damnation, as Calvin taught. The demons are there, the author is saying, but they do not have a 100% success in persuading the man or woman to live in sin rebelling against God. This of course does not argue against ‘prevenient grace’ as the Roman Catholics put it—the grace from God that a man needs to come to Christ. However, the Orthodox position places a much greater emphasis on the intrinsic free will of Man and on his innate ability to choose. Yes, the demons are there, and yes we need the grace of God to come to God, but no we aren’t robots run by Grace or sin: we are free persons who can choose what to do. Of course, it is clear that our freedom increases after our baptism as we progress spiritually.

After Baptism, the author says, the demons are no longer in the depths of the nous but from outside the person form in the inner world of consciousness of the believer what other authors describe as fantasies.

The author then makes a very astute observation based on his spiritual practice, his spiritual development and his observation of others: the demons make an effort ‘so that lifting up into the air the remembrance of the mind they tear it away from its conversation with Grace’. What the author has in mind is the situation in which the believer—most likely an ascetic given the level at which the author’s discourse is proceeding—has a ‘conversation with Grace’. This could be described as a state of continual prayer. Remember that the author is going to discuss how the Holy Spirit teaches the soul to pray the Jesus Prayer 24 hours a day, even in sleep. The demons, however, attempt to lift the focused conscious inner experience of the believer or ascetic ‘into the air’. What the author means by this is a sort of ‘ballooning’ of the consciousness of the believer or ascetic away from the sober and continuous repetition of the Jesus Prayer into a kind of ‘exaltation’ that breaks the believer’s conscious focus away from the repetition of the Jesus Prayer so that the believer pay attention to an ‘exalted’ fantasy manufactured by the demon. But be aware that this is not merely a matter of breaking a person off from a mere habit: as long as the person is ‘connected’ to the Jesus Prayer he is really praying. He is conversing with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus Christ, with God. What the demon is trying to do is to break off the prayer, not the habit. And he does it by trying to lift the consciousness of the person praying into another realm connected to the passions of the person, either of the soul or body.

An example is implicit in what the author continues to write: conceit. While we are soberly praying the Jesus Prayer, we are soberly conversing with Grace—with God. However, the demon of ambition or conceit tries to lift our mind into a fantasy world based on this passion of the soul of conceit. Our response, the author says, should be to reflect on the dissolution of the body after death—for we will all die—thus putting to shame the ruse of the demon. This example is a model for how to handle temptations of this sort: reflect on the truth that shows the lie in the temptation. However, the author himself goes on to recommend this particular meditation—which is classically known in Orthodoxy as the ‘memory of death’—even for temptations of the flesh. In the author’s experience, the reflection on the dissolution of the body, for reasons which should be obvious, negates the pleasure proffered by the demon of fornication.

However, the author continues, there is a danger in employing this reflection on the dissolution of the body after death that the demons will suggest to us contempt for the nature of Man, who is composed of body and soul. The author proceeds to explain what to do in terms that are easy to understand.

The Lord teaches us in the Gospels that when Satan returns and finds his own house (that is, the heart that does not bear fruit) swept and put in order, he then takes seven more spirits and enters into that house and lurks there making the last things of the man worse than the first. Whence it must be understood that as long as the Holy Spirit is in us, it is not possible for Satan, entering, to reside in the depth of the soul. But the divine Paul also teaches us clearly the mind[10] of this contemplation, seeing the shape[11] of the matter from the point of view of ascetic gnosis and saying: ‘I rejoice at the Law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members mobilized against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin, the law which exists in my members;’ but from the point of view of perfection: ‘Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the Spirit of Life has freed me from the law of sin and death.’ Again, so that he teach us that from the body Satan wars against the soul which partakes of the Holy Spirit, he also says elsewhere: ‘Stand, therefore, having girded your loins in truth and having clothed yourself with the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet in preparation of the Gospel of Peace, taking up over all the shield of faith, in which you are able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the Evil One; and receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’ ‘Captivity’ is one thing, ‘battle’ another, since the former is significant of violent seizure whereas the second is declarative of a certain equipollent[12] struggle. Wherefore the Apostle says that the Devil is always coming against the Christ-bearing souls[13] with flaming arrows. For he who is not in control of his own opponent at all events makes use of arrows against him, so that he be able to destroy with the feather of the arrows him who is battling from a distance. Thus also, because Satan is not able on account of the presence of Grace to lurk as previously[14] in the mind of those who are struggling [ascetically], he thenceforward lays hand on the moistness[15] and lurks in the body so that he entice the soul on account of the body’s licentiousness. Wherefore it is necessary to melt the body away moderately so that the mind not slip into the softness of pleasures by means of the body’s moistness. For it is proper to be persuaded by that Apostolic saying that the mind of those who struggle [ascetically][16] is set into activity by the divine light and that their mind therefore also serves and rejoices in the divine Law. The flesh, however, gladly admits the evil spirits on account of its own licentiousness, wherefore it is sometimes drawn out to serve their evil. Whence it certainly appears that the mind is not some common dwelling place of God and the Devil. For how is it that ‘I serve the Law of God in my mind, but in the flesh the law of sin;’ unless my mind stands in every freedom towards battle with the demons, willingly subjecting itself to the goodness of Grace, while the body gladly admits the odour of the irrational passions (because, as I said, among those who are struggling [ascetically] it is permitted to the evil spirits of deceit to lurk in the body)? For he says: ‘For I know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh;’—thus among those who in the middle of some struggle are resisting. For the Apostle does not say this from himself: the demons battle against the mind but they endeavour by means of greasy consolations to loosen the body towards the softness of the pleasures. For because the free will of the human habit of thought[17] is ever under test, according to a just judgement the demons have once and for all been allowed to sojourn around the depths of the body even among those who are earnestly struggling against sin. If one is able, then, to die while still alive by means of ascetic practices, then he completely becomes the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, for before such a person has died he has been resurrected, just as the Blessed Paul was, and as many as have struggled perfectly, and struggle, against sin.

This very long chapter is very important.

For the most part it should be quite clear.

First, let us note that the author believes, following the Gospel, that one can lose the Holy Spirit. He does not say how, but nowadays in the Orthodox Church it is taught that one only loses the Holy Spirit received in Orthodox Baptism through renunciation of Christ—through joining another religion, even another Christian religion, or even joining an atheist movement such as Communism. Orthodox confessors find themselves in very complex situations in these cases. What the author understands is that assuming that we have not lost the Holy Spirit, then after our baptism we are being tempted by Satan and his demons standing outside us. In the case that we do lose the Holy Spirit, we are in a very wretched state, since the Gospel tells us that in such a case the demon that we had before our baptism returns with ‘seven’ other demons—a host of demons—worse than himself, making our last state worse than our first (i.e. our state before our baptism).

Next, the author uses a method of biblical interpretation that depends on viewing the words of St Paul in terms of St Paul’s intellectual context. The author interprets one saying of St Paul as referring to gnosis attained through ascetic struggle while the struggle is still in progress, but a second saying of St Paul as applying to the perfect. This is important for the Evangelical Protestant because the second quotation is used by the Evangelical Protestants to support the doctrine of ‘imputed justification by faith’. It is clear that that concept is quite foreign to this author. He treats the first statement as referring to those who are struggling ascetically and who have made some progress, and the second statement as referring to those who have come to perfection. Implicit is the author’s notion that after baptism our life is a voluntary struggle to come to perfection and that this is possible, but if we only begin the struggle and then stick to it.

The author then remarks on the difference between ‘captivity’ and ‘struggle’ in terms of what St Paul means about what the demons do to the believer, and how. Interesting is his insistence that the demons use flaming arrows against the believer. Of course, here the author is following St Paul and both are using metaphors based on the military technology of their time. What is important is that the demon is outside the believer ‘looking in’ and trying to tempt the believer, mostly through the believer’s body.

For the most part the rest of the chapter is clear. We would like to comment, however, on this statement: ‘For because the free will of the human habit of thought is ever under test, according to a just judgement the demons have once and for all been allowed to sojourn around the depths of the body even among those who are earnestly struggling against sin’. First of all, the author uses an expression we have translated ‘human habit of thought’. The ascetic authors view our personality in part in terms of habits of thought. In other words, it is not just a matter of our immediate state of consciousness, but of the paths our conscious mind has the habit to travel in. Moreover, here we see the role in Orthodox ascetic theology of the free will. Since we habitually think and respond in various ways, and this is part of the fabric of our person, God has allowed, once and for all, the demons to tempt us even after our baptism, so that our free will might be tested in regard to our habits of thought and our responses which form the fabric of our mind and personality. Do we really want to come to God rejecting the passions of body and soul excited by the demons?

It is possible, however, the author then closes by saying, to come to a state of perfection where we have died to all these passions, especially of the body, so that we are henceforward a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. For Elders in this state, the demons might be an object of pity, as they were for St Isaac the Syrian.

Out of itself also[18] the heart bears thoughts[19] both good and not good, not by nature bearing as fruit the conceptions[20] which are not good but having the remembrance of that which is not good in habit, as it were, on account of the very first deceit (but the heart conceives most evil thoughts out of the bitterness of the demons). However, we sense all of the thoughts as having proceeded from our own heart and for this reason certain persons have suggested that with Grace sin is also in the mind. Wherefore they also say that the Lord said: ‘Those things which come out of the mouth come out of the heart and these things pollute a man; for out of the heart come out evil thoughts, adulteries;’ and the rest. They do not know that the mind, having the activity of a certain most subtle [spiritual] sense, makes its own, as it were by means of the flesh, the activity of the thoughts[21] suggested to it by the evil spirits, the licentiousness of the body bearing the soul to this in addition through the commixture[22] in a manner that we do not know.[23] Because the flesh ever cherishes[24] being flattered without measure by deceit, for this reason the thoughts[25] sown in the soul by the demons also seem to come out of the heart. For we make these thoughts[26] our own, really, when we wish to rejoice in them. Censuring this very thing the Lord made use of the forementioned quotation, since the divine saying declares this. For he who rejoices in the thoughts[27] suggested from the wickedness of Satan and as it were engraves the memory of them in his own heart—it is not unclear that he bears as fruit these thoughts from his own conception[28].

Following Evagrius and possibly the whole Egyptian ascetic tradition, the author now observes that the heart itself can produce thoughts both good and bad. What is meant by this is that we can think good and bad thoughts without the particular impetus of Grace or the demons respectively. This creates a theoretical problem for the author, who responds.

The theoretical problem is the origin of bad thoughts in us that our heart produces after our baptism without the assistance of the demons. For the author has said that after our baptism the demons are no longer in our created spirit. But if we think bad thoughts, then, it would appear, we must be evil by nature—something that flies in the face of our having been created good by God, and having been baptized.

No, the author says, the reason we think bad thoughts by ourselves after our Orthodox baptism is that we have a habit of evil remembrance that derives ultimately from the Fall of Adam. That is, because of the Fall of Adam we have an intimate experience of sin and have that intimate experience of sin in remembrance by force of mental habit. But, the author remarks as an aside, most bad thoughts we think are due to the temptations sown by the demons.

The author continues that since we sense—i.e. experience in our inner thought world—all our thoughts as proceeding from ourselves, some people have thought that we must have sin dwelling in our hearts, in our innermost being, despite our having been baptized. The author wants to refute this.

There are two points we need to clarify. The first is that the demons sow thoughts in our mind, but the mind takes them through ‘certain most subtle [spiritual] sense’ to be its own.

Second, the demons use the body, but again our mind takes these impulses of the body to be its own through the nature of the joining of body and soul. Here one must understand that in common with the whole Orthodox ascetical tradition the author has a Platonic conception of the relation between soul and body that treats the nature of their union (we might say interaction) as a mystery. Someone steeped in a more Aristotelian conception of the soul as the form of the body will have difficulty understanding the author here. The point the author is making is this: ultimately these thoughts have an external source usually using the body, in the case of temptations, or an internal source depending on our habitual remembrance of sin due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. However, ‘he who rejoices in the thoughts suggested from the wickedness of Satan and as it were engraves the memory of them in his own heart—it is not unclear that he bears as fruit these thoughts from his own conception.’ In other words, ultimately our consent to these evil thoughts is what makes them our own.

The Lord says in the Gospel that it is not possible to expel the strong one from his house unless someone who is stronger, having bound and despoiled him, expels him. How is it therefore possible that he who has been expelled with so much shame should enter again and sojourn with the true householder who is reposing however he wishes in his own house? For not even a king who at some time has struggled greatly against the tyrant who has rebelled against him will countenance having this person in the palace. Rather, he will slaughter him immediately or, having bound him, hand him over to his own troops for a long punishment and most miserable death.

This is simply another argument against the assertion that after our baptism the Holy Spirit and the demons dwell together in our nous or created spirit.

If someone supposes, because we think good things together with bad, that the Holy Spirit and the Devil together inhabit the mind, let him learn that this happens because we have not yet tasted and seen that the Lord is good. For, first, as I said above, Grace hides its presence among the baptized, awaiting the intention of the soul; when, however, a man turns his intention wholly towards the Lord, then at that time Grace manifests its presence in the heart with a certain unspeakable [spiritual] perception; and it again awaits the movement of the soul, allowing, indeed, the demonic arrows to reach right up to its deep [spiritual] sense so that it seek out the Lord with warmer intention and humble disposition. If therefore a man henceforth begin to proceed in the keeping of the commandments and unceasingly invoke the Lord Jesus, then the fire of Holy Grace is distributed even on the more external organs of sense of the heart, with inner spiritual assurance[29] burning up the weeds of the human earth.[30] Whence even [31] arrive somewhat further away from those places, tranquilly pricking the impassioned part of the soul.[32] When the man of the struggle further binds all the virtues to himself,[33] and certainly poverty, then in a certain deeper [spiritual] sense Grace illuminates his whole nature towards a great love of God which henceforth warms him round. Wherefore the bows and arrows[34] are then extinguished more externally to the sense of the body.[35] For, moving the heart towards winds of peace, the breeze of the Holy Spirit completely extinguishes the arrows of the fire-bearing demon while the arrows are still borne in the air. However, on occasion God surrenders to the evil of the demons even the one who has attained this very measure, at that time abandoning his mind without light so that in everything our free will not be bound with the bond of Grace[36]—and not only so that sin be defeated out of struggles but also because the man is yet obliged to progress in spiritual experience. For [to esteem that] that which is thought to be the perfection of him who is being trained is still imperfect as regards the wealth of God who is training us exists in the love of a sense of honour, even if one should be able to ascend the whole ladder which was shown to Jacob by progress in ascetic practices.[37]

This is an important chapter which is easy to understand in its fundamental conception. The key image that the author is employing is one that derives from his personal experience and observation: The temptations arrive either closer to or further away from the centre of the inner world of consciousness of the ascetic. Because of the practice of the Jesus Prayer this inner world has certain characteristics. Moreover, although the author does not explicitly discuss praying the Jesus Prayer in the heart, he treats the centre of the ascetic’s inner world of consciousness as being the ascetic’s heart. This indeed might be an argument that the author did pray the Jesus Prayer in the heart, as St John of Sinai will indicate about the middle of the 7^th Century. The author has already asserted that Grace gushes like a fountain out of the heart. What he is now saying is that depending on the spiritual progress of the ascetic and the intensity of the gush of Grace from the heart (this depends on the sovereign will of God at any time), then the temptations of the demons, again treated as flaming arrows, can arrive closer or further away from the heart as the centre of the ascetic’s inner world. When we have made progress and Grace is flowing strongly, then the arrows of the demons land ‘tranquilly’ far away. When God wills or we have not made progress, then these flaming arrows of temptation land much closer to the centre of our conscious world, the heart.

The author observes that God on occasion withdraws his Grace so that the ascetic might fight and so that God might see practically that the ascetic in his free will wants God truly, not just when things are going well and easily.

He also points out that this abandonment to the struggle is sometimes necessary so that the ascetic attain to greater spiritual experience—greater understanding of how the demons do their business.

The author closes with a syntactically difficult sentence. It means that he who has a sense of honour towards God treats his own perfection attained through ascetical effort with the assistance of Grace as nothing in comparison with the perfection that pertains to God by nature.

The Lord himself says that Satan has fallen like lightning from Heaven, so that the disfigured one not even gaze on the habitations of the holy angels. How, therefore, is he able, he who has not been found worthy of the fellowship of the good servants, to have the human mind a common home with God? Let them say nothing more. For the pedagogic surrender[38] in no way deprives the soul of divine light. For the most part Grace only hides its own presence from the mind, as I have already said, so that it propel, as it were, the soul into the bitterness of the demons with the goal that, knowing a little of the evil of the demons, with all fear and great humility it seek out the very help from God—in the same way that a mother, seeing her own infant act disorderly in regard to the established customs of breastfeeding, thrusts it away from her embrace for a little, so that terrified by certain repulsive persons standing there or by any beast whatsoever, with great fear and tears it go back to the motherly bosom. On the other hand, the surrender according to aversion[39] hands the soul that does not want to have God over to the demons like a prisoner. We are not bastards[40], however—may it not be so!—but we believe that we are genuine children of the Grace of God, breast-fed by it with small surrenders and dense consolations, so that by means of its goodness we attain to come into the measure of stature.[41]

In the context of the preceding, this chapter is clear. The author continues to discuss the two types of abandonment in the next chapter.

The pedagogic surrender brings much sorrow and humbleness and moderate despair to the soul, so that the part of it which is ambitious and liable to fall come appropriately into humility. It immediately brings to the heart the fear of God and tears of confession and great desire for most beautiful silence. On the other hand, the surrender which is according to the aversion of God allows the soul to be filled with despair together with disbelief and wrath and delusion[42]. We must, knowing the experience of both types of surrender, approach God according to the manner of each. In the first case, we should bring forth thanksgiving with a rendering of accounts to him as to one who is chastising the profligate character of our judgement by the suspension of consolation so that he teach us as a good father the difference between good and evil. In the second case, however, ceaseless confession of our sinful practices, weeping without pause and greater solitude, so that with the addition of ascetic practices we might thus be able to beseech God to look at some time upon our hearts as before.[43] However, it must be known that when the battle occurs according to the essential[44] engagement of the soul and the Devil—I am speaking of the case of pedagogic surrender—Grace conceals itself, as I have already said, but it works together with a help that is unknown to the soul so as to demonstrate to the soul’s enemies that the victory is of the soul only.

The only thing to be clear on here is that the surrender due to aversion is due to our sins. Hence the prescription. The reader might refer to the Prison the Ladder of Divine Ascent for a very good treatment of the nature of the abandonment due to sin, and the measures taken to try to persuade God to restore Grace to the sinner. One might also consider David in sackcloth and ashes imploring God not to allow the son to die that he had conceived with Uriah’s wife through sin. In the next chapter, the author turns to other topics.

[1] I.e. after our baptism.

[2] I.e. the baptized.

[3] I.e. St John the Evangelist.

[4] I.e. the Evangelist.

[5] Greek: liparon. It is not entirely clear what this means in context.

[6] I.e. before Baptism.

[7] I.e. after Baptism.

[8] I.e. of the dissolution of the body. This is usually called the Memory of Death.

[9] Greek: ennoia.

[10] Greek: nous. I.e. meaning or sense.

[11] Greek: schema.

[12] I.e. equal in power. Both sides in the struggle have the same strength.

[13] I.e. souls which have the Holy Spirit indwelling through Baptism.

[14] I.e. before Baptism.

[15] Greek: ugroteti. The editor of the critical edition renders this as the humours of the body, which is probably what the author has in the back of his mind.

[16] Here the author seems to mean all Christians, however.

[17] ‘Habit of thought’. This might be rendered ‘way of thinking’. In Greek: phronematos.

[18] I.e. not only does the person have bad thoughts on account of the demons, or even good thoughts on account of the Holy Spirit, but also out of his own nature. The issue then becomes, well where does the person get bad thoughts if they arise out of his own nature given that God made everything good?

[19] Greek: logismous.

[20] Greek: ennoias.

[21] Greek: logismon.

[22] I.e. through the mixing together of the soul and body.

[23] This very difficult sentence means that the mind has a certain subtle sense which appropriates as it were by means of the flesh the thought suggested by the demons, while, in addition, the body itself through its own natural licentiousness brings the soul to this because of the body and soul’s commixture in a way that we do not know.

[24] Greek: philei.

[25] Greek: logismoi.

[26] Greek: logismous.

[27] Greek: logismois.

[28] Greek: ennoias.

[29] I.e. The person is conscious of this and spiritually assured.

[30] The author appears to view the interior world of the ascetic as having levels of depth so that he can speak of inner and outer spiritual senses. What he is saying is that when the Holy Spirit tries the ascetic, it allows the demonic arrows to reach to the depths of the ascetic’s inner world but when ascetic makes progress in keeping the commandments and unceasingly remembers the Lord Jesus via the Jesus Prayer, then the fire of Grace touches not only the most interior part of the ascetic’s inner world but expands outward to the more external spiritual organs of sense of the heart. This is evidently based on the author’s own experience both in the Jesus Prayer and as a guide of souls.

[31] Greek: <ta demonika bele>. The text has ‘the demonic counsels (Greek: ai demonikai boulai), which the other translators have rendered as ‘the demonic attacks (Greek: ai demonikai epiboulai)’. Surely, however, given that ‘the demonic arrows’ is a consistent element here and elsewhere in St Diadochos’ text and given that he immediately goes on to speak of these things ‘pricking or piercing’, the text is faulty and to be emended in the manner given.

[32] Evidently the author means that the arrows reach only to the more external parts of the heart, not to the centre as before, thus pricking more gently the impassioned parts of the soul. The text is corrupt it seems.

[33] This seems to be an image of the warrior binding armour to himself.

[34] Greek: toxa.

[35] Note that the author has a sort of set of concentric circles: the innermost circle or bull’s-eye is Grace itself united to the mind. Close to this is the innermost spiritual sense. Then further out are the more external spiritual senses of the heart. Finally there are the senses of the body. The author is saying that when Grace recedes, then the arrows of the demons reach to the innermost spiritual sense, but as Grace grows stronger because of the ascetic’s application to the ascetic struggle, the arrows reach only to the more external spiritual senses because of the more pervasive conscious presence of Grace. Finally, when the ascetic has reached to the stage of binding all the virtues to himself, then the arrows of the demons are extinguished beyond even the physical senses of the body, the outermost circle. But see later in the text, Chapters 89 ff., how the author treats the stage of perfection.

[36] I.e. when we experience great Grace, our will is at it were bound to God by our experience of that Grace. But when we experience abandonment, our free commitment to God is tested in the darkness of abandonment. The author continues, saying that this is actually for two reasons: so that sin be defeated in struggle and so that the man progress in practical spiritual experience (so that he understand the nature of spiritual warfare experientially).

[37] What the author means is that when the Christian has a proper sense of honour—which is really love for the God who has created us—then, instead of boasting of his attainments, he considers that what he has accomplished is nothing in the wealth of God whom he has loved.

[38] I.e. the surrender by God of the soul for pedagogic reasons to the temptations of the Devil, like Job. This is usually called ‘pedagogic abandonment’.

[39] This is the second type of abandonment that the author is analyzing. Here it is a matter of an aversion of God for someone who doesn’t want God: the soul is handed over for punishment to the demons as a prisoner.

[40] Literally, ‘children of concealment’. The interpretation depends on the polarity between this and the ‘genuine children’ following.

[41] Two points here. First, it is clear that the author is catechizing his disciples and that he is frightened here of the effect on them if he emphasizes the surrender according to aversion, so he immediately moderates his words. The second point is that the author is alluding to Paul in the contrast ‘bastard – genuine child’ and in the phrase ‘to come into the measure of stature’: Hebrews 10, 39 and Ephesians 4, 13. Indeed, the fact that this is a catechism of someone’s disciples helps us to assess why the author is spending so much time on the notion that Satan might dwell in the mind (the created spirit of man) along with God: it was a pastoral problem among his disciples.

[42] Greek: tuphos. This is not the same word as plane (plani), which describes a state of demonic delusion, or false gnosis given by the demons. Here it is a matter of a subjective psychological condition of psychosis where the person is in the medical sense deluded and perhaps hallucinating: he is out of his mind.

[43] This is very similar to the ‘Prison’ in the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John of Sinai.

[44] Greek: ousiode. The sense is that in the case under discussion the soul and the Devil actually join battle in hand-to-hand combat. It is no longer a matter of bad thoughts. See the Life of St Silouan of Athos.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 76 - 78

Certain men[1] have supposed that among the baptized Grace and sin, that is, the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of deception, are hidden in the mind at one and the same time. Whence, they say, the one person[2] calls the mind to the good things whereas the other directly calls the mind to the opposite things. From the Holy Scriptures and from the actual [spiritual] sense[3] of the mind, however, I have comprehended that before Holy Baptism, Grace urges the soul towards the good things from the outside, whereas Satan lurks in the depths of the soul attempting to block all the exits of the mind that tend to the right[4]. But from the very hour that we are reborn[5] the demon comes to be outside and Grace inside. Whence we find that as deception reigned over the soul before [Baptism], so Truth reigns over it after Baptism. Nevertheless, after this, Satan is also active in the soul just as before (and worse, most often) yet not as present together with Grace—may it not be so!—but as it were rather fumigating the mind with the sweetness of the irrational pleasures by means of the moisture of the body.[6] God allows this to occur so that through the storm and fire of trial the soul come to be, if it wishes, in the enjoyment of the Good. For he says: ‘For we have passed through fire and water and you have led us out into refreshment.’

This chapter begins a very important discussion of both the nature of Orthodox Baptism and the relation between that Baptism and the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The author commences by stating that some people—we are not aware of the source of this teaching that the author is at great pains to combat; perhaps it was the Messalians—believe that after Orthodox Baptism, the Holy Spirit and the spirit(s) of deception co-exist in the nous—the mind, the created spirit of man—of the person baptized. No, the author says, what happens is that before Orthodox Baptism, the Holy Spirit urges the person from outside of him or her to orient his or her actions towards the Good, ultimately towards the Gospel. However, when the person is still unbaptized, then the unclean spirit(s) lurk in the depth of the person’s soul trying to block all such movements of the person’s created spirit or mind towards the Good. Implicit in what the author is saying is that these unclean spirit(s) are unable to block the person’s free will completely. Moreover, although the author does not say so, it is a teaching of the Gospel, that the Grace of God assists the person to come to the Good not only from the outside but from the inside too.

However, the author states, once we come to be baptized, the positions of the Holy Spirit and the spirit(s) of deception with regard to their presence in us are reversed: the Holy Spirit comes to be inside us and the spirit(s) of deception come to be outside.

The author continues that the spirit(s) of deception continue to influence the person ‘fumigating the mind with the sweetness of the irrational pleasures by means of the moisture of the body’. What he means is that the spirit(s) of deception ‘colour’ the consciousness of the person by the anticipation of the pleasure to come from the satisfaction of the bodily desires, which have their origin in the physiology of the man or woman. The reason God allows this to be so, the author says, is that God wants to test our free will, so that after Baptism we might earn, through our conscious choice of Good over Evil, the ‘enjoyment of the Good’—the states of Grace that he has already referred to and will continue to discuss further on in his treatise.

There is now the question of the status of non-Christians such as Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims in regard to the practice of the Jesus Prayer. It should be obvious to our readers that members of these three religions have practices which morphologically correspond to the Jesus Prayer. Buddhists have various mantra meditations; Hindus have their mantra meditations; and Sufis have their dhikr, their repetition of the Shahada (the Muslim confession of faith). Implicit in what the author is saying is that while these members of non-Christian religions have practices which resemble the Jesus Prayer, they do not have the Holy Spirit, which comes to them only through Orthodox Baptism. So while these persons might practise the Jesus Prayer as an interesting mantra, or recommend the practice of the Jesus Prayer to Westerners as a more culturally accessible mantra meditation, the issue arises of what spirit they and their Western adherents have in their nous or mind or created spirit when they are practising the Jesus Prayer. For if they had the Holy Spirit, then they would be Christians, for the Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What these persons might have is a spirit that is willing to accept Jesus Christ as a bodhisattva, as one avatar among many, or as a prophet—or even as an ‘ascended master’ or member of the ‘Great White Brotherhood’. In other words, in the absence of Orthodox Baptism (and, it must be said, correct faith), something else is going on with the practice of the Jesus Prayer than is going on with the Orthodox Christian’s practice of the Jesus Prayer. Recall that the Jesus Prayer is an appeal to Jesus Christ, not just the repetition of an interesting formula.

Another way to look at the issue is this. Let us suppose that the Buddhist has a spirit—for it is evident that the Buddhist texts refer to the grace of the Guru as assisting the person in his spiritual journey to the proper levels of Samadhi, or Buddhist contemplation and altered states of consciousness. Since this spirit is not the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, it is going to lead the person in other directions from the directions that the Holy Spirit would lead the person, even if the person is reciting an invocation to Jesus Christ.

That this is so can be seen from the fact that Orthodox Christians with the Holy Spirit have Orthodox Christian spiritual experiences while Buddhists tend to have Buddhist spiritual experiences: this is not merely culturally determined, but also due to the activity of the particular spirit that the person has. And similarly for practitioners of other religions. So it is not just a matter of reciting a Christian formula, but of being assisted by the Holy Spirit or by another spirit.

Moreover, this is why the particular formula is not of the essence in the Orthodox practice of the Jesus Prayer: The formula should be tailored spiritually to the particular person; this is something that ideally an Elder with the charism of clairvoyance passes judgement on in each individual case. It is ultimately the assistance of the Holy Spirit that causes the person to make progress, as the author himself will develop later on in his treatise. Hence, what is important is to have the Holy Spirit, not to spend too much time on the exact wording of the formula which one should use.

What the author is saying is that we receive the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Baptism and that the act of Baptism not only brings the Holy Spirit into our nous or mind or created spirit but also removes all other spirits. So if a Buddhist, say, who was practising the Jesus Prayer with a Buddhist spirit were to come to Orthodox Baptism, then the Buddhist spirit would leave that person’s nous to be replaced by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ (assuming that the Buddhist came to Orthodox Baptism in good faith and properly catechized). Thenceforward, the former Buddhist would be ‘on a different wavelength’ when he practised the Jesus Prayer. However, the old spirit, the Buddhist spirit, would be outside that person and still able to suggest to the person Buddhist ideas and ideals and aspirations, and so on and so forth. It is because of this fact that as a pastoral matter, when a person practising the Jesus Prayer as an element of a non-Orthodox-Christian religious commitment comes to be baptized, then some care has to be taken if the person continues to practise the Jesus Prayer, since he will have the previous religion’s spirit making suggestions to him, in addition to his memories of his old practice of the Jesus Prayer, as influenced by the old spirit. In such cases there is a need for purification that may require the temporary discontinuance of the practice of the Jesus Prayer until the person becomes properly equilibrated through attendance at the Orthodox Mysteries (Holy Communion, Confession, Euchelaio and so on) and so that when he practises the Jesus Prayer he no longer is in serious danger of being tempted by the old spirit.

There are some related issues here. When a baptized member of the Orthodox Church joins another religion then he loses the Holy Spirit: he has denied Christ. That is why the practice of the Orthodox Church has always been to receive such persons back into the Orthodox Church, if they desire to return to the Church, by means of Chrismation: this Mystery is ordinarily given once only, immediately after Baptism, for the reception of the Holy Spirit. Although this mystery is given for the reception of the Holy Spirit as on the Day of Pentecost, that does not negate what the author and the Church teaches about the reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism.

It should also be noted that members of the Orthodox Church who convert to another religion and then return to Orthodoxy are normally forbidden from the priesthood and indeed normally denied communion in the Mysteries of Christ until they are on their deathbed. That is why it is usually recorded in the life of the New Martyrs—those who converted to Islam and then returned to Orthodoxy, subsequently being martyred for their confession of Christ—that someone assured their communion just prior to their martyrdom.

Now, let us consider the matter of the effects of non-Orthodox religious experience. These experiences have an effect on the nous of the person. The nous is the centre and source of consciousness of the person, so that if he has a religious experience, then his nous is affected. If the experience is demonic, such as with black magic, then the nous can be seriously damaged. Although the author teaches that the image of God is restored to the nous in Orthodox Baptism that does not necessarily mean that all the damage that the person has caused to his own nous through his non-Orthodox religious practices has immediately been healed.

It is similar to having broken your leg through your own negligence prior to Orthodox Baptism. It does not follow immediately that your leg will be completely and immediately healed just because you have been baptized. So it is with the nous: if you have damaged your nous, it is not automatic that Orthodox Baptism will heal it completely the moment you are baptized.

So there are two issues: the first is the condition of the person who has passed through a number of non-Orthodox religions and come to Orthodoxy. In these cases, there may well be a problem after Baptism not only with temptations from the spirits associated with the previous religious commitments, but also with damage to the nous. It may take decades for this damage to the nous to be completely healed: since this damage is to the spiritual centre of the person, it will take considerable spiritual progress for the person’s spiritual identity to be completely equilibrated, until all the ‘pleats’ have been removed from the fabric of the person’s consciousness.

Secondly, if the person is Orthodox and enters another religion, there may well be damage, even after the person has returned to Orthodoxy and made a complete confession and been received by Chrismation. In the lives of many of the New Martyrs there is evident mental instability after their return to Orthodoxy. It appears to us that this is an example not of an underlying condition that pre-existed before the person converted to Islam, but of the effect of the spirit of Islam on the Orthodox person’s nous. In simple language, the conversion of a baptized Orthodox to Islam and then the return to Orthodoxy is too much for the nous.

It is because of the above considerations that some Orthodox consider that Christians who have previously received a non-Orthodox Baptism should be received into the Orthodox Church by means of a full Orthodox Baptism, and not by other means such as chrismation. They consider that because it is a dogma of the Orthodox Church that the Orthodox Church is the one true Church and the Ark of Salvation, and because the canons of the Church (considered inspired by the Holy Spirit) state that with certain few exceptions, non-Orthodox Christians are to be received by Baptism, then this is the proper way to receive non-Orthodox Christians. Some Orthodox further believe that it is in only this way that the person entering the Orthodox Church can ensure that he receives the full transformation that the author of this treatise has begun to discuss, and will continue to discuss in subsequent chapters.

Grace, as I said, is hidden in the depth of the mind from the very instant in which we are baptized, hiding, however, the actual [spiritual] perception of its presence. However, whenever one should begin ardently to desire God from his whole intention, then by means of the sense of the mind, Grace, using a certain unspeakable word, begins to speak to the soul a certain part of its goods.[7] Whence, thenceforward he who wholly wishes to hold on to this discovery securely comes to a desire of divesting himself with great joy of all present goods, so that, really, he acquire the field in which he has found the hidden treasure of life. For when one divests himself of all the wealth of this worldly life then he finds the place[8] where the Grace of God is hidden. For the Divine Gift[9] also shows its own goodness to the mind in accordance with the progress of the soul. Nonetheless, the Lord then allows the soul to be afflicted thereafter by the demons, so that he teach it the discernment of good from evil and make it more humble on account of the great shame that occurs to it, when it is being purified, from the filthiness of the demonic thoughts.[10]

The author now begins to speak about the felt presence or absence of Grace. It should be understood here that he is not committing some theological sleight-of-hand to explain away why some people have no felt experience of Grace. He is someone that has had personal experience of the Holy Spirit. He sees what happens with others by means of the charisms he has. What he is saying is that, yes, the Holy Spirit is in the depths of the person’s nous or mind or created spirit from the instant of Orthodox Baptism but however it hides from the person the felt experience of its presence. St John Chrysostom remarks somewhere that we feel the presence of the Holy Spirit for three days after Baptism and then we lose that feeling because of our sins. Here, St Diadochos is being less rhetorical and more precise: the Holy Spirit hides its presence, because it wants to see what we will do with our free will.

When the person—whether baptized three days or three decades ago—begins to show zeal for God from his whole being, then the Holy Spirit begins to speak to his or her soul not in words but in a certain ineffable manner that conveys to the person a conscious experience of the presence of Grace. The result is that the person becomes ever more zealous to divest himself of all his possessions to follow Christ—because he has found the Pearl of Great Price of the Gospel, here understood to be the conscious experience of the Holy Spirit. In this one might consider the teaching of St Seraphim of Sarov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. However, from what the author has already said it is clear that this is a beginner’s Grace, that the beginner needs this Grace in order to commence the road, but that the road is very long.

We are in the image of God in the mental[11] movement of the soul; the body as it were is the house of the soul. Therefore, since not only were the lines of the portrait[12] soiled through the transgression of Adam but also our body fell under corruption, for this reason the Holy Word of God was incarnated, as God granting to us by means of his own Baptism the water of salvation for the sake of our rebirth. For we are reborn by means of the water[13] in the activity of the Holy and Vivifying Spirit, whence we are purified directly both in soul and in body (if someone should come forth to God out of his whole disposition), the Holy Spirit sojourning in us and sin being driven away by it.[14] For it is not possible, the nature[15] of the soul being one and simple, for two persons[16] to be present in it as some have thought. For when in a certain limitless affection the Holy Spirit attaches itself closely to the lines of the ‘according to the image’,[17] in a pledge[18] of the likeness,[19] where is it possible that the person of the Evil One might find place, there certainly being no communion at all between light and darkness? We believe, therefore, we the runners in the sacred games,[20] that the multiform serpent is expelled from the treasure-rooms of the mind by means of the bath of incorruption. And let us not wonder for what reason after Baptism we again think bad things with the good. For on the one hand the bath of holiness completely removes the stain of sin from us but on the other hand it does not now change the duality of our will,[21] nor certainly does it impede the demons from warring against us or speaking to us words of deceit. This is so that those very things that we did not observe when we were ‘psychic’[22], we [henceforth] guard taking up the weapons of righteousness in the power of God.

The author now turns to an explanation of the necessity of Baptism. First of all, he indicates that the image of God in Man is the nous, the mind or created spirit. Here it should be understood that this nous is not merely our ability to reason, but, fundamentally, our ability to know God. The author asserts that the body is merely the house of the soul. However, he continues, the nous was disturbed by the sin of Adam. He is using a visual metaphor of the portrait of God that the nous was in Adam and Eve before the Fall. This ultimately depends on the Scriptural notion that Man is created in the image of God.

The author uses a much extended metaphor throughout his treatise as to the relation between image and likeness, and as to how we restore the image in Baptism and then commence to attain to the likeness to God. Here, however, he is saying that the image of God was disturbed by the transgression of Adam. Note that he has no notion that Man’s nous was completely corrupted by the transgression of Adam. That is a Western notion, particularly Calvinist. The Orthodox have a more moderate view of what happened in the Fall.

The author goes on, following St Paul, that our body also fell under corruption because of the transgression of Adam.

Because of these things, the author says, the Word of God was incarnated. He now proceeds to an Orthodox statement that doesn’t fit into Western arguments about the nature of justification: the water for our Baptism was provided by Jesus in his own baptism by John in the Jordan. That act of Jesus sanctified the water of our own baptism. Moreover, it should be understood that the prayers for the Great Blessing of the Waters on the Theophany (the commemoration of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John) are virtually identical to the prayers for the sanctification of the water for a person’s actual baptism.

The author continues to explain what happens in Baptism. By means of the water that Jesus ultimately sanctified with his baptism by John in the Jordan, we are reborn in the activity of the Holy Spirit so that we are purified in both soul and body (if we come to our baptism with the proper disposition), the Holy Spirit taking up its abode in us and sin being driven away from us, as the author has already discussed.

The author now begins to introduce his terminology of the image and likeness. What he is saying is that the image of God is restored in Baptism, the Holy Spirit granting us at the same time the pledge—the surety, the down payment—of the likeness. He will explain the difference between image and likeness as he goes, again using his extended metaphor from portraiture.

The rest of the chapter should now be quite clear.

[1] I.e. the Messalians.

[2] Greek: prosopon. This would be the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of deception.

[3] Greek: aistheseos. This would be the spiritual sense that the author has discussed.

[4] Greek: dexias. I.e. to the good.

[5] I.e. in Baptism.

[6] The author seems to have in mind the image of the vapour bath.

[7] It is important to understand that this is not a matter of hearing words spoken either out loud or silently in the mind. Rather it is a matter of a non-verbal illumination by the Holy Spirit of the mind (the created spirit of man). It should also be apparent that this word spoken to the soul by the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with emotional states, especially states of enthusiasm or elation. What the author is describing is ordinarily called a plerophoria—an inner spiritual assurance conveyed non-verbally to the mind by the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of the charism of discernment for an Elder to discern whether an experience of this type is indeed from the Holy Spirit or not.

[8] As should be evident this is the place in the mind where Grace has hidden since Baptism.

[9] I.e. the Holy Spirit received in Baptism but hidden since then.

[10] ‘Demonic thoughts’: daimonikon logismon.

[11] Greek: noero. This could well be translated ‘spiritual’.

[12] Greek: charakter.

[13] I.e. of Baptism.

[14] It should be evident that for St Diadochos this ‘sin’ is the spirit of sin, not just a juridical notion of original sin and personal sins committed.

[15] Greek: charakter.

[16] I.e. the Holy Spirit and the spirit of sin.

[17] I.e. to the soul or, more precisely in this school of mysticism, to the mind, the created spirit of man.

[18] Greek: arraboni. This is the engagement pledge of two who are betrothed to be married.

[19] As the author will discuss, by this act of the Holy Spirit Baptism restores the ‘according to the image’ but the baptized person then has to work, with the assistance of the now-indwelling Grace, on restoring the ‘according to the likeness’. However, the author is saying that this ‘according to the likeness’ is already present in potential (‘pledge’) through the act of the Holy Spirit in Baptism.

[20] The author and his kind are being compared to runners competing in the sacred games.

[21] I.e. we still have free will. The ‘now’ indicates that after the General Resurrection we will not be able to sin any more, this duality having been abolished.

[22] Greek: psychikoi. The author provides an interpretation of this mysterious usage of St Paul: he treats the ‘psychic’ person that Paul refers to as the person before Baptism, and the spiritual person that Paul refers to as the person after Baptism. An interesting interpretation.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 68 - 75

Our mind is for the most part vexed in regard to the prayer[1] because of the very straitened and secretive character[2] of the virtue of prayer;[3] however it rejoices to give itself over to theology because of the diffuse and released nature of the divine contemplations.[4] Therefore, so that we do not give a road to the mind to want to speak much, or even allow it in its great joy to take wing beyond its measure, let us for the most part spend our time in prayer and psalmody and the reading of Holy Scripture, not overlooking the contemplations[5] of learned men whose faith is recognized through their words.[6] For doing this very thing, neither will we prepare the mind’s own words[7] to be mixed with the words[8] of Grace nor will we allow the mind to be dragged under by vainglory, the mind having been dissipated through the great joy and much speech; but we will guard the mind free of fantasy in the time of contemplation[9], and we will take care of it so that almost all its thoughts be full of tears[10]. For reposing in the times of stillness[11] and deeply sweetened by the sweetness of the prayer[12], the mind does not only come to be outside of the aforementioned faults but is more and more renewed in applying itself to the divine contemplations[13] and in progressing in much humility in the contemplation[14] of discernment. However, it must be known that there is a prayer[15] which is above every diffuseness. This is only of those who are filled with divine Grace in every [spiritual] sense and inner spiritual assurance.

The first clause of the first sentence makes a very important observation about the Hesychast practice of the Jesus Prayer: ‘Our mind is for the most part vexed in regard to the prayer because of the very straitened and secretive character of the virtue of prayer.’ What the author means is that one must constrain one’s mind to pray the Jesus Prayer. One must focus; one must keep one’s mind inside one’s heart; one must ‘hide’ the prayer from others (beware of ‘Hesychasts’ who parade their Jesus Prayer). This can be quite tiring. It ultimately has a payoff, but here we are far beyond the consolations of the beginner: the payoff might come after death; it might come tomorrow; it might come years from now. But still we must constrain our mind to the words of the Prayer in the middle of our heart without expectation of ‘reward’. ‘However it rejoices to give itself over to theology because of the diffuse and released nature of the divine contemplations.’ Here ‘theology’ must be understood as a somewhat speculative ‘rambling’ of the mind over the data of faith. One might read Scripture; one might read the Fathers. The mind is released from the onerous constraint imposed on it by the Jesus Prayer. What the author says, however, is that giving our mind over to these diffuse contemplations of theology has dangers: ‘so that we do not give a road to the mind to want to speak much, or even allow it in its great joy to take wing beyond its measure…’ The mind will want to take flight into speculation, some of it holy (recall that the author treats ‘theology’ as a charism). However, we must tether the mind and not allow it to go far: ‘let us for the most part spend our time in prayer and psalmody and the reading of Holy Scripture, not overlooking the contemplations of learned men whose faith is recognized through their words.’ This will keep us on the Hesychast track. It should be understood that these are the sorts of instructions that would be given to a monk on Mt Athos who was practising the Jesus Prayer seriously. The ‘contemplations of learned men’ are of course the writings of the Fathers of the Church, including and especially the Ascetical Fathers. The author qualifies these Fathers thus: ‘whose faith is recognized through their words’. What the author means is that the Hesychast is to read works of Fathers, including Ascetical Fathers, whose soundness he can discern spiritually in their actual writings using the spiritual sense that the Saint has spoken of: the ascetic is not to read at random whatever he comes across in the monastery, skete or university. Those who are not so advanced as the author is expecting here would read what their Elder directed them to read. At the level the author here presumes the ascetic to be, either the ascetic would have the spiritual sense and be able to make the discernment, or he would be under the direct guidance of an Elder who would make the recommendation what he should be reading.

The author then lists the benefits in a very good and useful, but very compressed, sentence. First, the ascetic will in this way avoid mixing his own words with the words of Grace. What does the Saint mean? He means, just as Elder Sophrony writes concerning St Silouan’s discussion with the Elder from the Caucasus who spoke sometimes from Grace and sometimes from himself, that in this way the ascetic will speak only when Grace gives him utterance: he will not mix human reasoning with the words of Grace that are revealed to him for the sake of the other. Next, the author asserts that thus the ascetic will avoid vainglory: obviously, for the ascetic to speak or preach to others without an immediate revelation from Grace what to say is to expose himself to the operation of the passion (and demon) of vainglory. The author indicates that a presupposition of this exposure to vainglory is that the ascetic’s mind has been dissipated through much joy (it is not clear whether the author understands this to be a holy joy) and much speaking. What the author means is that by releasing his mind from the constrained activity of the Jesus Prayer through much speaking, preaching and theologizing, the ascetic dissipates his mind with the excessive mental activity and also with the very joy that the activity gives him.

The author then goes on to say that if we follow his advice, then two benefits will accrue to us: First, ‘we will guard the mind free of fantasy in the time of contemplation.’ What this means is that once we have returned to the Jesus Prayer from this excessive theologizing, then we will find it rather confused and full of images—fantasies in other words. Exercising restraint in the practice of theology protects us from this. Next, ‘we will take care of [the mind] so that almost all its thoughts be full of tears.’ Here it is clear that the author believes that a Hesychast who is following his prescriptions, and who is at the level he is describing, will be shedding tears. It should be understand that these tears are themselves a charism of the Holy Spirit and that an Elder can turn them on and turn them off at will. However, if the Hesychast’s mind has been dispersed in the way indicated, not only will he be subject to fantasies, but he will not be able the exercise his gift of tears properly: the diffusion will prevent him from having tears accompany his thoughts. This is both in the sense that the charism of tears will be rather more difficult to set into motion because of the mental confusion, and in the sense that the ascetic’s thoughts are no longer so pious and contrite (recall that he has subjected himself to a temptation to vainglory).

The author then goes on to assert that if the Hesychast avoids excessive theologizing then he will be sweetened by the practice, remain outside the faults mentioned previously by the author and also make progress in the ‘contemplation of discernment’. This ‘contemplation of discernment’ is a little difficult to understand. It appears to be the ability to size things up spiritually: the spiritual sense will become more subtle.

The author then goes on to say that in those who are perfect and who have experienced divine illumination, there is a prayer which above every diffuseness. But this is only for those who have the Holy Spirit and know it—without having been deceived, of course; that is why Hesychasts always verify their mystical experiences with the Church in the form of a confessor or Elder or even the Orthodox carpenter fixing the roof.

In the beginning Grace has the custom to illuminate the mind with it’s[16] own light in much [spiritual] perception, but when the [ascetic] battles progress it for the most part sets its own mysteries into action in an unknown manner in the theological soul[17], so that in the first case it loose us rejoicing on the trace of the divine contemplations[18],[19] whereas in the middle of the [ascetic] struggles it preserve our gnosis free from vainglory. We must therefore be sorrowed moderately as having been abandoned (so that we be humbled more and submit more to the glory of the Lord), yet occasionally rejoice having been given wing in the good hope.[20] For just as much sorrow envelops the soul in despair and lack of faith, so much joy provokes it to conceit—I am speaking of those who are still in a state of [spiritual] infancy—, for the mean of illumination and abandonment is experience whereas the mean of sorrow and joy is hope.[21] For he says: ‘Waiting patiently, I patiently awaited the Lord and he took heed to me;’ and: ‘In accordance with the multitude of the pains in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul.’

The author is here addressing the issue of the beginner's joy followed by a lack of obvious consolation as he progresses. The points that the author makes are that the beginner’s joy is necessary for us so that we be motivated to start on the way, whereas the ‘silent’ aspect of grace as we progress is necessary so that we not succumb to vainglory but instead promote in ourselves humility. However, he says, we must occasionally experience joy so as to be able to continue our road.

The author defines two means of virtue that he wants the more mature Hesychast, before his final illumination, to maintain. (Of course the virtuous mean between two extremes is basic in Greek ethics.) The first is experience as a mean between illumination and abandonment. This abandonment is the feeling that God has forsaken us. Other ascetical authors analyze it in detail, providing a number of possible causes; let us simply remark here that there is the abandonment that is real and due to our sin and there is the apparent abandonment that, much as the author writes in the chapter, is intended to help us progress spiritually. The illumination that is meant here is the conscious experience of the Holy Spirit—perhaps as light, as the author later develops. What the author is saying is that the mean proper to the Hesychast who is neither a beginner nor perfect is the experience that lies between abandonment and illumination.

The second mean is that between sorrow and joy. It is hope. Sorrow is associated with despair and abandonment and can become quite serious if it abides: too much sorrow can kill. However, the introductory consolatory joy is now a thing of the past because the Hesychast must mature. Hence, he must place his hope in hope, if we might be permitted a play on words.

It should be noted that the author takes it for granted that the beginning Hesychast has a personal experience of Grace. The author does not think that he is writing fairy tales about subjective emotional states: he himself really has experienced the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ and really has something to say about how the Holy Spirit acts in both beginners and the more advanced.

Just as when they are open the doors of the baths quickly propel the inner warmth towards the outside, thus also the soul disperses its own remembrance through the gate of the voice when it wishes to speak much, even if it should say all things well. Whence the soul is thenceforth deprived of seasonable thoughts[22] and speaks the clashing of its thoughts[23] more or less in a mob[24] to those who happen to be there, because thenceforward it does not have the Holy Spirit preserving it so that it have an intellect free of fantasy. For the Good, being foreign to agitation and every fantasy, ever flees garrulousness. Therefore silence is good in its proper time, being nothing other than the mother of the wisest thoughts[25].

This chapter should now be clear. In the case that the ascetic practising in a serious way the Jesus Prayer gives himself over to much talking, he will lose the recollection of his thoughts, even—the author emphasizes—if he should say all things well. The result is that the ascetic has great personal confusion because he has lost the unifying and integrating presence of the Holy Spirit. Then he speaks his thoughts in a jumble to whoever is standing by. The author’s image is a little difficult to parse but he means that the ascetic’s thoughts become like a disorderly mob in the ascetic’s head, and the ascetic pours these thoughts out to whoever is standing by. The author closes by emphasizing the value of silence in its proper time. He does not mean that the ascetic is to keep a ‘vow of silence’ and that is why he adds the phrase ‘in its proper time’: when it’s time to speak, the ascetic will speak.

The word of gnosis teaches us that in the beginning many passions annoy the theological soul, most of all anger and hatred. Such a soul suffers this not so much on account of the demons that bring these things into activity as on account of its own progress. For as long as the soul is carried off with the mindedness of the world, even if it should see its right trampled upon by certain people it remains unmoved and undisturbed. For taking a care to satisfy its own desires, it does not keep in view the right of God. But when it starts to be above its own passions, then because of the contempt for present things and because of the love of God it does not bear even in dreams to see the right set aside but becomes choleric with the wrong-doers and agitated until such a time as it sees those who are insolent against righteousness to have become defendants with pious attitude[26] before the dignity of righteousness. For this very reason, therefore, it hates the unrighteous and has an exceedingly great love for the righteous. For the eye of the soul[27] becomes completely undespoiled when the curtain, the body I mean, is woven into great fineness by means of temperance. However, it is much better to weep for the insensibleness of the unrighteous than to hate them. For even if they should be worthy of hatred the word [of gnosis] does not want the God-loving soul to annoyed by hatred, because whenever there is hatred in the soul, gnosis is not active.[28]

The ‘word of gnosis’ is the intuitive knowledge that the author has received from the Holy Spirit about the spiritual path, which intuitive knowledge forms the basis for what he wants to say in this chapter.

The author says that once a soul has progressed enough that it can practise the charism of theology as he has defined it, then that soul is subject to various passions, above all anger and hatred not so much because the demons are standing by to tempt that soul but for other reasons the author wishes to discuss.

His basic message is that as long as we are still worldly, we really don’t bother about the higher things. However, when our soul has made some progress and begins to stand above its passions—while the author seems to suggest that this is not really very far on the spiritual road, it is really quite far—then our soul becomes much more zealous for the higher things such as the justice and right of God.

What the author is referring to is this. While the soul is still worldly, it really doesn’t care, and in its dreams consorts with the demons without ‘giving it much thought’. However, once the soul has been somewhat purified and is approaching the realms of dispassion, then in its dreams it starts to take issue with the demons that present themselves to it in the dreams, while at the same time having a great love for the righteous. The soul develops a sort of zeal that expresses itself in its dreams. Evagrius discusses the situation that the author is discussing. The author appears to be following Evagrius.

The author then jumps to the observation that when we have refined the material body through much fasting, then the ‘eye of the soul’—the ability of our soul to see spiritual realities—becomes much more seeing. The point he is making is that, especially in dreams, the soul begins to see things as they really are; that is why the soul waxes wroth with the demons in its dreams while at the same time loving the righteous.

The author then remarks that it is much better to pity the unrighteous than to hate them. Recall that St Isaac the Syrian writes of arriving at a spiritual summit from which he looked even at the demons with pity. One of the reasons the author gives for this preference for pity over hatred—apart from the fact that it is more Christ-like—is that the presence of hatred in the soul interferes with the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is foreign to hatred.

On the one hand the theologian, deeply sweetened and enflamed by the very sayings of God, after certain seasons sends his soul towards the breadths of dispassion[29]. For he says: ‘The sayings of God are pure sayings, fired silver tried in the earth.’ On the other hand the gnostic, established from his active experience, comes to be above the passions. The theologian, if indeed he disposes himself to be more humble, also tastes the experience of the gnostic; and the gnostic, if indeed he has the discerning part of the soul faultless, tastes for a little time the virtue of contemplation.[30] For it does not happen that the two charisms are given in their entirety to each, so that, both of them being in wonder at what each has in excess of the other, humility be multiplied in them together with a zeal for righteousness. For this reason the Apostle says: ‘To one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit; to another is given the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit.’

The author is making a parallel construction contrasting the roads of the theologian and the gnostic. The theologian could here be considered to be an academic theologian with an intense experience of prayer, whereas the gnostic the author is referring to is the Hesychast in his cave.

What the author says is basically this. The theologian deals with words and meanings; however, because his is a true charism of the Holy Spirit and because he has an intense spiritual life, then at some point he will enter into the dispassion (freedom from emotional tendencies to sin coupled with the fullness of virtue) that is the road and main accomplishment of the Hesychast.

Correspondingly, the Hesychast will—if he has the eye of his soul faultless—occasionally enter into theological contemplation. It should be understood that the Hesychast will have entered into more non-verbal contemplations, including of the Uncreated Light of the Holy Spirit. Here the author means, ‘into the contemplative verbal realms normally reserved for the pious academic theologian’.

The author insists, following Evagrius, that the two charisms are rarely given together.

When the soul should be in the abundance of its natural fruits,[31] it both makes the psalmody in a louder voice and wishes to pray[32] vocally. When, however, it is put into activity[33] by the Holy Spirit, with every comfort and sweetness it chants and prays[34] only in its heart. There follows on the former disposition a joy which has been suffused with fantasy; there follows on the latter, spiritual weeping and, after that, a certain rejoicing of heart that loves stillness. For by means of the moderation of voice that has been maintained, the warm remembrance at all events prepares the heart to bear certain tearful and mild thoughts[35].[36] Whence it is possible, really, to see the seeds of the prayer[37] sown with tears in the ground of the heart in the hope of the harvest of joy. When, however, we are weighted with great despondency, we must for a little make the psalmody in a louder voice, striking the strings of the soul in the joy of hope up to the time that that heavy cloud is dispersed by the winds of melody.

This is a very interesting observation about the nature of natural (bodily) charisms and charisms from the Holy Spirit. The natural charisms of the soul—those we were born with—move us to chant the psalms in Church in a loud voice and to pray out loud. However, the activity of the Holy Spirit is quite different: when we are moved by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, we want both to chant and to pray quietly in our heart. This seems to be a long way from rock Pentecostalism.

The author then makes the following further observations. The loud chanting and vocal prayer lead to a joy suffused with fantasy. This joy is not a pure state, although, as the author has made clear, the necessary beginner’s joy always has this admixture of fantasy. Fantasy is a bad thing in Orthodox asceticism; it is tolerated in the beginner only because the beginner is a beginner. We could observe here that given that rock Pentecostalism is more extreme that the chanting of the psalms moved by our natural gifts that the author is speaking of, the resulting emotional ‘high’ that the Pentecostalist experiences in his rock worship should be even more suffused with fantasy than what the author has in mind here. Rock Pentecostalism would seem to be the wrong road for what the author is promoting in this treatise. What the author expects from the actual presence of the Holy Spirit is a tendency to chant and pray silently in the heart followed by spiritual tears and then a love of silence.

The author now makes a very interesting point. If we maintain moderation in our chanting of the psalms—in our execution of the Church services—then our ‘warm remembrance’ (our warm spiritual attention to the invisible God) will dispose properly us to have certain spiritually tearful and mild thoughts. How far this is from the practice of arena-rock Pentecostalism! We must never lose self-control. If we do, then we will find that we at the very least have damaged the composure of our minds, and perhaps even have damaged ourselves psychologically by engaging in an extreme. Recall that underlying Greek thought is the maxim that moderation is the best in all things.

However, the author says, when we have been afflicted by despondency—what we would today call depression—then we must chant the psalms out loud with more vigour until the music disperses our despondency. It might be thought that this is a justification for arena-rock Pentecostalism, but again, the Greek would never go to an extreme. The author himself now makes reference to pagan Greek thought, in the next chapter.

Whenever the soul comes to be in deep knowledge of itself,[38] it brings out of itself a certain God-loving warmth. For not being confused by the cares of worldly life, it acquires a certain Eros moderately seeking the God of Peace. But this is rapidly dissipated either because the remembrance is betrayed by the senses[39] or because nature quickly consumes its own good on account of indigence.[40] Whence the wise men of the pagans did not have as it should have been whatever they thought they had attained by means of temperance, because their mind was not set into activity by the eternal and completely true Wisdom. However, the warmth which is brought to the heart by the Holy Spirit is, first, completely peaceful and unwavering. It invites all the parts of the soul to a longing for God, not being fanned outside the heart;[41] and by means of it[42] the whole man is brought rather into deep rejoicing for the sake of a certain limitless love and joy.[43] Therefore one must know the former warmth and arrive at the latter. When through temperance nature[44] is more or less healthy, there exists as a characteristic sign, natural love; but this natural love[45] is never able to make the mind good[46] up to the level of dispassion the way that spiritual love can.

The author is here essentially dealing with non-Christian forms of meditation. He says that if a non-Christian were to lead a tranquil life of stillness in the mountains, like a Zen poet, say, then he would acquire a certain ardent love for God (or, let us say, for the Dharma). But, the author says, this is quickly dissipated for either of two reasons: either the data of sense interfere—watching the sunrise, listening to the nightingale and so on—or the person exhausts his or her store—the acquired peace is finite and can only produce a finite warmth for the Good.

The author then goes on to say that the wise men of the pagans—note that he recognizes that they were not all brutes—did not have correctly whatever they thought they had acquired through their asceticism. In other words, yes, they got somewhere, but they really didn’t have in the right way whatever they thought they had acquired through their temperance. The reason? Their mind—their human spirit, their highest part of their soul, their nous—was not set into motion by the Holy Spirit. This argument holds even today. Since human beings are the same the world over, there is a natural ability to engage in asceticism and, the author says, certain results will come of this asceticism. But if you don’t have the Holy Spirit, then things don’t go the way they should—and certainly, not the way they go with Orthodox Christians. In those who have the Holy Spirit, the author says, the warmth brought into the heart by the Holy Spirit is completely stable and serene—unwavering. It is not a ‘here-today-gone-tomorrow’ phenomenon (although there are certainly movements of the Holy Spirit to hide itself in accordance with the motifs of the Song of Songs). Moreover, the author says, making an extremely important point, the warmth given by the Holy Spirit is not fanned from outside the heart but arises from within the heart. He will begin to explain what he has in mind in the next chapter. Moreover, this God-given warmth progresses to a deep and limitless rejoicing that begets love and joy.

However, the author says, we must through our residence in the mountain forest and valley cultivate the first, natural warmth of soul so that we can attain through the Grace of the Holy Spirit to the second spiritual warmth of soul.

The author then makes a rather compassionate remark: when through asceticism we have attained a natural health of soul, then we have as a result a natural love for the Good and for our fellow man. However, he says, this natural goodness of our mind can never engender dispassion—complete virtue and a corresponding freedom from our emotional tendencies to sin—the way that the spiritual love can that we ultimately attain to through the Holy Spirit. The author speaks the truth to the non-Christian: yes, you have something, but it can never attain to the heights that the Holy Spirit gives.

This air around us remains clear when the north wind is blowing in creation because of the certain subtle nature of that wind which brings a clear sky, but when the south wind is blowing the whole air is as it were made thick and overcast by the mist-producing nature of that wind, which from a certain relatedness bears out of its own parts clouds over the whole inhabited world. Thus also, when the soul is set into activity by the inspiration of the True and Holy Spirit it finds itself to be wholly outside the demonic mist, but when it is greatly inspired by the spirit of deception[47] it is wholly covered over by the clouds of sin. Therefore, with all our strength we must ever return our intention to the vivifying and purifying breeze of the Holy Spirit—that is, towards the Spirit[48] coming from the north that the Prophet Ezekiel saw in the light of gnosis. Then, if we do that the contemplative part of our soul will certainly ever remain clear[49] in order that we may then attend to the divine contemplations[50] without deception, seeing in an air of light those things that belong to the light. For this is the light of true gnosis.

The author wishes in this chapter to describe the problem of the ascetic who at one time is suffused with the light of the Holy Spirit and at another time has his spiritual world overcast by the mists of the demons. The author is addressing real issues that the Hesychast will face: it is not always Sunday, but sometimes a day of trial. His solution is for us ever to force ourselves to turn to God, away from the oppressive and tempting mists of the demons. This requires an act of will in the face of the demonic oppression.

The author now proceeds to a very important and very complex discussion of the connection between Baptism and the ascetical life. The connecting link? The Holy Spirit given in Baptism.

[1] This would be the Jesus Prayer. The author is saying that to concentrate the mind on the words of the Jesus Prayer, and especially so with the mind and the words of the Prayer focused in the heart, is actually quite vexing to the mind.

[2] The author is referring to the very concentrated, secret, private and silent practice of the Prayer of Jesus in the heat. Everything is focused there. It is terribly hard.

[3] Greek: euktikes aretes. This should not be understood in a vague sort of way as the moral virtue of praying often (not that that is not a virtue) but more specifically to the practice of the Hesychast form of the Jesus Prayer.

[4] Greek: theoremata. This normally refers to a speculative contemplation in the nature of ‘thinking about with words’, not an intuitive rapture of the mind into God. The author is contrasting the very difficult focused nature of the Prayer of Jesus as practised by the Hesychast he is addressing, and the release of the built-up mental tension of the Prayer in the practice of the speculative contemplations of theology. Again, however, this theology is already defined by the author as a charism. It is not academic theology.

[5] Greek: theoremata. I.e. speculative theology.

[6] I.e. we will know that the speculative theologian is sound if what he says is sound.

[7] Greek: remata.

[8] Greek: logois.

[9] Greek: theoria. This is direct intuitive sight of spiritual things.

[10] This is the Hesychast’s charism of tears.

[11] Geek: hesychias.

[12] Greek: euche. This would again be the Prayer of Jesus repeated constantly.

[13] Greek: theoremata. These would be speculative contemplations again.

[14] Greek: theoria. This would be intuitive knowledge again.

[15] Greek: euche. The author is referring to a certain high stage in the practice of the Jesus Prayer in Hesychasm.

[16] ‘It’s’. This refers to Grace not to the mind.

[17] ‘Theological soul’. This would refer to the stage of the Hesychast who now enjoys the charism of theology that the author discusses in the previous chapters.

[18] Greek: theoremata. These are the discursive contemplations of theology.

[19] The image here seems to be of the dogs let loose with joyous barking on the trail of the quarry.

[20] This sentence is a capsule description of the spiritual state of an advanced Hesychast.

[21] The author is using the schema of traditional Greek philosophy: a virtue is a mean between two extremes.

[22] Greek: ennoion.

[23] Greek: logismon.

[24] ‘More or less in a mob’. This is somewhat difficult to convey. The author is portraying a psychological state of a person who, lacking Grace, no longer can control his thoughts but speaks in a jumble whatever comes into his mind to whoever happens to be there. The phrase noted modifies the clashing of the thoughts: the thoughts tumble out more or less in a mob.

[25] Greek: ennoion.

[26] Greek: logismo.

[27] On the one hand the ‘eye of the soul’ is usually considered, especially in St John of Damascus (admittedly many centuries later), to be the mind or nous. Here however, it is a matter of the faculty of the soul that the author has referred to as the spiritual or mental sense. Hence what the author has in mind here is that in the present spiritual condition, the ascetic actually sees quite clearly ‘what is going on spiritually’ so as to be able to discern the good spirits from the bad even in dreams—and to be enraged by the behaviour of the bad spirits in those dreams. Of course, this also might also apply to actual persons that the ascetic might meet or hear of.

[28] The author gives a practical reason not to be enraged by evil. Such a condition is incompatible with contemplation.

[29] Greek: apatheia. It is not clear here precisely what the author wishes to say. Ordinarily, dispassion is the virtue of the gnostic not of the theologian. That would suggest that the text means that the theologian passes for a time from theology to dispassion. However, the parallel structures that the author is using would then want something more for the gnostic than merely that he comes to be above the passions. This is quite true, certainly, but we would expect the author to continue with something about the gnostic and theology, as he does further on. Although the author is erudite there are a number of such ‘defects’ in the text as we have it—weaknesses in style. We do not of course know why.

[30] ‘Virtue of contemplation’: Greek: theoretikes aretes. Here, given the context, the author must mean the charism of speculative theology.

[31] Recall that the author contrasts the fruits which belong naturally to the soul with the charisms that accrue to it from the Holy Spirit.

[32] Greek: proseuchesthai. This word is ordinarily used for discursive intercessory prayer.

[33] Greek: energeitai.

[34] Greek: euchetai. This word ordinarily applies to the Jesus Prayer.

[35] Greek: ennoias. This might also be translated ‘ideas’ or ‘meanings’ or ‘conceptions’. Implicitly, the ennoias are spiritual. The word is to be contrasted with logismous, which is also translated ‘thoughts’ but which is used for more vulgar thoughts, even thoughts sown by the demons.

[36] In more Western terms, the voice having been kept moderate, the activity of the Holy Spirit brings the soul to a state of still, quiet and tearful compunction.

[37] Greek: euche. I.e. the Prayer of Jesus as prayed in this context.

[38] As the author develops, this is a natural activity of the soul, not something arising from the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

[39] I.e. the bodily senses.

[40] I.e. this being a natural charism, it is quickly consumed.

[41] This means that the warmth of the Holy Spirit does not spread to the other parts of the body to excite them. This is an important principle of discernment.

[42] I.e. the warmth brought to the heart by the Holy Spirit.

[43] This sentence seems to be corrupt. We have construed it as we could.

[44] I.e. the soul in its natural attributes.

[45] The text has ‘it’ here. It is not entirely clear what the referent for this ‘it’ is. In general, the syntax of this chapter seems somewhat confused.

[46] Greek: agathon. This word is used for moral goodness.

[47] Greek: pneumatos tes planes.

[48] Greek: pneuma. This could also mean wind, although the word used previously in this chapter for wind was anemos.

[49] Greek: aithrion. I.e. clear just as the sky is clear.

[50] Greek: theoremata. While this word is usually used for discursive contemplations, here the author seems to mean intuitive contemplations of God and the things of God.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 65 -67

Once we have come to know the road of piety it is most appropriate, and beneficial in every respect, immediately to sell all our goods and to distribute the proceeds from them in accordance with the commandment of the Lord, and not to disobey the salvific order with the excuse that we want always to keep the commandments.[1] For from this there will be for us first that good freedom from care and, further on account of that, an uncrafty poverty minded above every injustice and every law-suit, since we no longer have the fire kindled of those that covet matter. Then, more than the other virtues, humility warms us round and gives us repose in its bosom because we are naked, like a mother who takes up and completely warms her own child in her arms when in its childish simplicity it has taken off and thrown somewhere far away its own clothing, on account of great guilelessness enjoying nakedness rather than the diverse colours of the clothing. For he says: ‘The Lord guards the infants; I humbled myself and he saved me.’

The underlying meaning of this chapter is quite straightforward. When we have elected to become monks or nuns, then we should give all our goods to the poor, not keeping anything back. Not only are we keeping the Gospel commandment in so doing but we have a freedom from care and no further excuse to get mixed up with lawsuits.

The result of course is that we are now poor. Who is going to take care of us? Here, St Diadochos follows a point of view that is usually associated with Syrian monasticism: God will take care of us. He does not spend any time talking about how the monk or nun will have a money-making activity such as weaving mats or baskets.

It must be said that this advice was easier to apply in the 5^th Century than in the 21^st Century. The way people live today is completely different. Then, people lived a much simpler life that was much closer to nature, so that giving everything up did not induce such a great difference with the way people nearby lived. Today however in the United States? Often the only way to go anywhere is by freeway. But that demands an automobile. And that demands gasoline and oil. We live in a much more technological society that requires much more money to subsist in than was the case in a 5^th Century economy.

If we live in a part of the world that has severe winters—or even severe summers—then we are going to need heating or air-conditioning. But again that means that we need money. It’s just not practical for us to live in an igloo. Is it practical for us to live in an adobe house in the desert?

It should be understood that while it technically might be feasible for us to live in an adobe house in the desert, we do not have infinite psychological plasticity. Just as St Arsenios the Great needed a bit of relaxation from the austerity of the Egyptian desert because of his background in the Royal Palace, we might not find it psychologically easy to adapt to the adobe house in the desert having grown up in a middle-class suburb in Maryland. Perhaps that was one of the reasons the ’60’s communes failed: the attempt was quixotic from the point of view of the ability of the hippies to make a permanent psychological adaptation to a way of life so radically different from what they knew when they were growing up. Of course there were other reasons the communes failed, some of them very important; we are merely pointing out this aspect of the matter to help the reader understand what the issue is in making a radical break with the way one grew up: in the beginning it might seem a good thing to do romantically but over the long term it might turn out to be very difficult psychologically.

Nowadays, it is assumed that the postulant entering a cœnobion will give his property to the cœnobion. However, this requires discernment on the part of the abbot, for as St Benedict remarks in his Rule the matter often ends up in court: what happens if the postulant gets tired of things and leaves the monastery, demanding his property back?

The Lord will at all events demand of us an account of our almsgiving according to what we have, not according to what we have not. If therefore because of fear of the Lord I scatter in a little time in a goodly way whatever I had to give over many years, concerning what will I who have nothing still be arraigned? But someone will say: ‘Whence then will those poor be shown mercy who were customarily managed bit by bit from our own mediocre means?’ Let such a person learn not to upbraid God in the pretext of his own love of money. For God will not lack the means to manage his own creature as from the beginning. For neither before this or that person rose up in charity did the poor lack for food or clothing. It is good, therefore, in accordance with this very knowledge[2] to cast off with a good ministry the irrational boast that arises from wealth, hating our own desires, (which very thing is to hate one’s own soul), so that we no longer hold our soul in great contempt as working nothing of the good things because we rejoice over the scattering of money. For as long as we are somewhat well-provided with goods, we rejoice greatly over their scattering (if indeed there is in us an activity of the good), as cheerfully ministering to the divine commandment; but when we have exhausted our goods, then limitless sorrow and lowliness secretly enter in to us as practising nothing worthy of righteousness. Whence thereafter the soul returns to itself in great humility so that what it is not able to acquire every day by means of almsgiving it take a care to in itself with the assiduous prayer[3] and the patient endurance and the humility. For he says: ‘The poor and the indigent will praise your name, Lord.’ For the charism of theology[4] is not made ready by God for someone if he does not prepare himself, divesting himself of all the things that belong to him for the sake of the glory of the Gospel of God, so that he preach the wealth of the Kingdom of God in a God-loving indigence. For he who said, ‘You have prepared for the poor man in your goodness, O Lord;’ and added, ‘God will give speech in great power to those who preach the Gospel;’ clearly means this very thing.

Again the basic meaning of this chapter is clear. The author evidently foresees prosperous postulants, arguing that we should not argue that we need to keep our wealth so as to have something to give to the poor whom we previously helped. The author thinks this argument is specious.

The author makes the important point that God judges our fulfilment of the Gospel commandment to give alms—note that in the Antique Age almsgiving was taken quite seriously by Christians—according to what we have and not according to what we have not. God judges the almsgiving of the poor man differently from the almsgiving of the wealthy man, not demanding of the poor man what he does not have. It is out of our abundance that we give alms. In any event, the author makes the point that God took care of the poor man before the particular Christian who wishes to give alms arose and will take care of him after that alms-giving Christian is gone—so the Christian should not worry about what is going to happen to the poor man if he gives all this goods away to become a monk, not keeping anything to provide for the poor man.

The author then proceeds with a very shrewd analysis of the psychology of wealth and almsgiving. When we are wealthy, almsgiving makes us rejoice; when we become poor having given our goods away, then we get depressed that we are not doing anything pious. Although the author does not really address the issue, it seems clear that the joy when we give alms and the depression when we have nothing more to give is not entirely holy: it is to a certain extent egotistical. This is a self-aggrandizing almsgiving.

The author goes on that when the soul has become depressed over its inability to give alms then it must turn to the practices of monasticism: ‘the assiduous prayer and the patient endurance and the humility’. This is monasticism that has ceased to be a game: The poor monk must start to pray. He must exercise patient endurance, especially in regard to his deprivation. He must learn humility. This can be quite difficult. The monk might get discouraged at the trial.

The author then goes on to discuss the charism of theology, which he understands to be the charism of being able to discuss theological issues with the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Here, he says, it must be understood that theology is prepared for the poor man, so that he preaches with the charism of the Holy Spirit, not with the prosperity that he once had.

Monastic poverty properly addressed centres the monk or nun in God. That is what the author is trying to convey. When you have to depend on the providence of God for your next meal, you have to be centred in God.

The author then turns in the next chapter to discuss the charism of theology.

On the one hand all the charisms of our God are exceedingly good[5] and provide every goodness, but on the other hand nothing kindles and moves our heart to the love of his goodness so much as theology. For being the early offspring of the Grace of God it even grants to the soul gifts that are in every way first. First it prepares us to despise with joy all the friendships of this life since we have instead of corruptible desires the unspeakable wealth of the sayings of God. Next it illuminates our mind with the fire of change[6], whence it even makes the mind a companion of the ministering spirits.[7] Therefore, beloved, let us who have been prepared for it genuinely desire this virtue, this comely virtue, this virtue which sees all, this virtue which provides every freedom from care, this virtue which nourishes the mind in the words of God in a dawn of light and, not to go on at length, this virtue which harmonizes the rational soul by means of the holy Prophets towards an inseparable communion with the Word of God, so that even among men—Oh the wonder!—the divine leader of the bride[8] harmonize the godly[9] voices singing clearly the mighty deeds of God.[10]

This chapter is quite clear. The final image is a little difficult. What the author seems to have in mind is an image of the soul of the ascetic joining, while still on earth, into the celestial choir of angels and saints in the praise of the mighty deeds of God. The way the ascetic comes to this is through reading Scripture—particularly the Prophets—so as to enter into a communion with the Word of God. We have taken this to refer to Christ, but the author might just as easily be referring to the word of God in Scripture. The saint treats the Holy Spirit as leading the bride, the soul, to marriage with God in the way that a certain functionary led the bride in an ancient wedding. What the author means with this metaphor is that the Holy Spirit integrates the soul into spiritual participation in the celestial choir of angels and saints while it is still on earth.

The author goes on in the next chapter to discuss the difference between theology and the lived experience of Hesychast prayer.

[1] I.e. the author is counselling us to sell our goods and give the money away immediately, not to keep the money ‘for a rainy day’ with the excuse that we want to be able always to fulfil the commandment to help the poor.

[2] Cf. the beginning of Chapter 63.

[3] I.e. through the assiduous practice of the Jesus Prayer.

[4] In this chapter the charism of theology seems to be the preaching of the Gospel.

[5] Greek: kala lian, in an allusion to the Genesis account of Creation (Septuagint).

[6] Greek: allage. The use of this word might seem a little imprecise for someone of St Diadochos’ literary stature, but there is probably a reference here to a phrase from the Psalms in the Septuagint: ‘This change is of the right hand of the Most High.’

[7] I.e. the angels.

[8] I.e. the soul is here treated as the bride of God being led to marriage with God.

[9] Greek: theodous.

[10] The text is a little ambiguous. The author seems to mean that the Holy Spirit, as the leader to God of the soul as bride, harmonizes here on earth the spiritual voice of the soul with that of the angels and Prophets singing the praises of God in Heaven.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 63 -64

He who partakes of holy gnosis and tastes the sweetness of God ought neither to sit in judgement[1] nor bring a law-suit against anyone even should someone take those very things in which he is clothed. For the righteousness of the rulers of this world is at all events defeated in the righteousness of God or, rather, is nothing compared to God’s right. For what difference would there be between those who are nourished by God and those who are nourished by this Age[2] if not that the right of the latter would seem imperfect compared to the righteousness of the former, so that the one be called human right and the other divine righteousness? Thus our Lord Jesus neither upbraided in return when he was upbraided, nor threatened when he was suffering, but endured in silence even the removal of his clothes and, to say the great thing, asked the Father for the salvation of the wrongdoers. However, the men of this world do not cease to go to law, unless, occasionally, they recover [beforehand] with something extra the things for which they are going to law,[3] and certainly when the interest is received before the principal[4]—so that their right often becomes the beginning of a great injustice.

The advanced practitioner of the Jesus Prayer, he who has had a genuine spiritual experience of the spiritual knowledge of God through the spiritual sense should neither sit in judgement nor bring a law-suit. When the author says ‘sit in judgement’ he really means ‘act formally as a judge in a court’. Since he was a Bishop, he might have had experience of such a thing. Recall that St Isaac the Syrian was the Bishop of Nineveh and that he resigned his bishopric when he was obliged to judge a dispute between two Christians and found that one of them at least was indifferent to the demands of the Gospel in the matter. He got fed up and went to a cave to save his soul.

The next point that the author makes depends on a contrast between human justice and the justice of God. The justice of God in incomparable to human justice.

The rest of the chapter should be clear.

One must not, I have heard certain pious persons say, allow just anyone at all to seize those very things which we have for our own administration or for the repose of the poor, and certainly if we suffer this from Christians—so that we not become occasions of sin to those who are doing us an injustice by means of those things towards which we are showing long-suffering.[5] This is nothing more than to want our goods rather than ourselves coupled with an illogical excuse. For if abandoning prayer and attention to my own heart I begin to file law-suits against those who wish to use me badly, and to sit in the corridors outside the law-courts, it is obvious that I consider the things that are being sought greater than my own salvation, not to say greater than that salvific command. For how will I follow the evangelical command which orders me, ‘And do not demand your things from him who takes them;’ unless in accordance with the Apostolic saying I endure with joy the seizure of those things which belong to me, whereas once one had gone to law and recovered as much as he wanted, he still would not have freed the avaricious person from his sin?[6] The corruptible courts are not able to delimit the incorruptible court of God for at all events the accused satisfies fully only those laws before which he happens to defend himself concerning the accusation.[7] So it is good for us to bear the violence of those who wish to commit an injustice against us and to pray for them, so that through repentance, and not through the restitution of our things which they have seized, they be freed from the crime of avarice. For this is what the righteousness of the Lord wishes, that we at some time render free of sin through repentance not the person against whom was committed the act of avarice but the person who was avaricious.

This chapter continues the thought of the previous one. The problem that the author wishes to address is the argument made by some Christians that it is better to go to law against someone who is doing them wrong than it is to let him be because they are letting the person continue in sin if they let him be. The author thinks that this argument is specious. It puts the goods lost by the person above the person himself, since spending all his time with lawyers and in the courthouse the person is not following the Gospel commandment to endure injustice, thus losing his salvation while regaining his goods. Moreover, the author says, even if you regain your goods, you still haven’t freed the avaricious fellow from his sin. Moreover, the author goes on, a human court is not able express the justice of God in its fullness. The way the author expresses himself so as to give the reason is a little difficult to understand: a human court applies only certain specific human laws and calls the accused to answer only to those laws whereas the justice of God is universal, seeing everything and judging the person globally. If we consider that in today’s legal system, the accused fellow might plea-bargain, pleading guilty to a lesser crime because he’s worried he might be convicted of a more serious crime entailing what he considers to be an unacceptable punishment, we can see what the author is driving at: human justice is an imperfect human social system that comes up with a human arrangement concerning the crime or tort, whereas the justice of God is infallible and takes everything into account. The justice of God might be even more severe than human justice. It might just as well be more lenient. Who is capable of prying into the judgements of God and weighing whether God is judging another person correctly?

[1] Thus the text.

[2] I.e. by the world.

[3] I.e. they settle out of court advantageously.

[4] I.e. the payments are first applied to interest owed and then to principal.

[5] I.e. We are now showing long-suffering in the seizure by others, especially Christians, of our goods rather than preventing it or prosecuting them but supposedly we would prevent these persons from sinning if we were to take them to court (through the fear of the gendarme).

[6] This abrupt change from the first to the third person is in the text here and elsewhere.

[7] I.e. the court narrowly considers only the specific laws which apply to the matter at hand whereas the justice of God considers the whole situation, including the whole person involved.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 56 - 62

That sight and taste and the remaining senses disperse the remembrance of the heart when we make use of them beyond measure—Eve first speaks to us of such a thing. For as long she did not look with pleasure on the tree of the commandment, she kept in careful remembrance the commandment of God. For which very reason she was as it were still covered by the wings of divine Eros[1] and, because of this, ignorant of her own nakedness. But because she looked at the tree with pleasure and touched it with great desire and, further, tasted the fruit of it with a certain active pleasure, she was immediately allured to bodily intertwining, since, naked, she had been joined to the passion. She then gave her whole desire over to the enjoyment of present things and through the sweet-appearing fruit mixed Adam with her own transgression, for which very reason thenceforward the human mind is only with difficulty able to keep God and his commandments in remembrance. Therefore let us who ever look into the depths of our heart with the ceaseless remembrance of God pass this deceitful life with eyes that are as it were blind.[2] For it really is the property of spiritual philosophy ever to keep unwinged the Eros for things seen.[3]

To understand this chapter, which is really aimed at the advanced Hesychast, the reader has to understand the problem that St Diadochos is addressing. Let us suppose that we are praying the Jesus Prayer continually, as the author has already indicated he foresees. Our mind, our consciousness, is, let us suppose, in our heart and focussed on the recitation of the words of the formula. Although, as the Saint has pointed out, we do not have images and visions of God, the angels and the saints to keep us company—for these are clearly deceptions of the Devil—we do have to some degree a consciousness of the presence of the Holy Spirit through the spiritual sense. Now the beginner might think that all is well. However, things are not so simple. We are going to get tired because this is an activity that we must exercise our will to continue. That is, we must make an effort to keep this practice up over the course of the day, over the course of the several hours each night that we practice the Jesus Prayer in this intensive way, all depending on our level of spiritual development and our actual program.

Now it can be understood what the author is driving at. Since keeping consciously focussed on the automatic repetition of the formula requires an act of will, it is quite possible that we will allow our mind, which is ceaselessly active, to move on to other things. Those things include the data of sense. So what we might do is give ourselves over to the pleasure of sense experience. Rather than keeping our mind in our heart focussed on the words of the formula, we might turn to looking at the trees in the forest outside our cave—or worse. The rest of the chapter should now make sense.

He who ever sojourns in his own heart is in every way abroad from the fine things of life. For walking in the Spirit he is unable to know the desires of the flesh. Since such a person henceforward takes his walks in the fortress of the virtues, having those very virtues as sorts of door-keepers of the city of his purity, then henceforward the war-machines of the demons become unable to accomplish anything even should the arrows of vulgar Eros to a certain extent reach right up to the windows of nature.[4]

This chapter continues the thought of the previous chapter. The ascetic, by focussing his mind in his heart on the recitation of the formula, is walking in the Spirit: this is the communion with the Holy Spirit by means of the spiritual sense that the author has discussed. Moreover, the author now introduces the concept of walking in the fortress of the virtues. Recall that contrary to the virtues are our passions, our emotional tendencies to sin, of which there are eight. The virtues, while we must make an act of the will to practise them, are infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Hence, these virtues, as energies of the Holy Spirit, protect the ascetic, acting as door-keepers of his purity. To understand the imagery, one must consider that the ascetic has his mind in his heart, so that he is consciously centred in his heart, and that the material world outside him can be understood by him to be the world outside the fortress or city of his purity. Moreover, the demons themselves, the author insists, are outside the person and therefore outside this city. He sees their demonic energies of temptation as arrows shot from outside the city—i.e. from outside the body—toward the centre of the city, the heart. It is the infused virtue of the Holy Spirit, which the ascetic senses with his spiritual sense, that preserves the ascetic from the arrows of the demons. This infused virtue acts as a watchman or door-keeper of the inner spiritual world of the ascetic. As we have already pointed out, this inner world is centred on the recitation of the Jesus Prayer in the heart of the ascetic, the citadel of the inner city of the ascetic’s being.

When our soul begins no longer to desire the fine things of the earth then a certain mind of accidie[5] usually enters into it, neither allowing it to minister willingly in the service of the word nor leaving to it the intense desire of future things; but even devaluing exceedingly this temporal life as not having a work worthy of virtue; and despising this very gnosis, either as having already been granted to many others or as promising to signify to us nothing perfect. We will escape from this tepid passion which makes us sluggish if we set up very narrow limits to our intellect, gazing only towards the remembrance of God. For only thus would the mind, running back to its own warmth, be able to depart from that irrational dispersion.[6]

The author now turns to another temptation of the Hesychast who is practising the Jesus Prayer at the level discussed in the commentary on the previous chapter. Here, he says, when the ascetic has begun to break away from his attachment to the material things of this earth, then he is subject to the accidie or sloth described in this chapter. The solution that the author presents is important for an intellectual understanding of Hesychasm: we must focus ever more restrictedly on the words of the formula as they are automatically repeated in our heart. Needless to say this is difficult in the face of a serious accidie. It takes a real man to do this.

When we have blocked all its exits with the memory of God, our mind at all events demands of us a work that must give assurance to its aptitude. It is therefore necessary to give it the ‘Lord Jesus’ in complete occupation towards the goal.[7] For he says: ‘No one says Lord Jesus except in the Holy Spirit.’ But let this saying always be considered narrowly in the treasure-rooms of the self so that one not be turned aside into certain fantasies. For those who meditate unceasingly in the depth of their heart on this holy and glorious name are able to see at some time the light of their own mind. For when this name is kept with narrow care by the intellect it burns up with sufficient [spiritual] perception all the filth that floats in the soul, for also: ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’ Whence, henceforward the Lord calls the soul to much love of his own glory. For when that glorious and much-longed-for name becomes chronic[8] through remembrance by the mind in the warmth of the heart, it at all events creates in us the habit of loving his goodness, henceforward there being nothing which impedes this. For this is the valuable pearl which, selling all his property, one can acquire so as to have unspeakable joy over his find.

The author here discusses the relation between the Jesus Prayer and what he has just been saying about the very intense and narrow focus of the Hesychast on the ‘memory of God’ in the heart. The most important point is that the mind must be doing something worthy of its nature. It cannot be idle. That something is the repetition of the words of the formula. But, the author says, when one refers to giving one’s mind the ‘Lord Jesus’ as an occupation, this is to be construed narrowly: there is the danger that we will engage in fantasies about the Lord Jesus, which will be destructive. No, he says, what we must do is narrowly focus on the repetition of the formula in our heart. It is this practise which will l