Monday, 23 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 16 - 29

Update March 1, 2012: Please see this post.

No one is able to love God in [spiritual] perception of heart not having first feared him in all his heart; for being purified and as it were softened through the activity of fear, the soul comes to a love that is set into activity.[1] A person would not be able to come wholly to the fear of God in the way spoken of if he did not come to be outside all the cares of this life. For when the mind comes to be in much stillness and freedom from care, then does the fear of God trouble it, purifying it from every earthly grossness in much [spiritual] perception, so that this fear thus leads it to much love of the goodness of God. So the fear of those who are yet being purified is with a middle degree of love; but perfect love is of those who have been completely purified, in whom there is no fear. For he says: ‘Perfect love casts out fear.’ Both degrees are of the righteous only, those who assiduously work the virtues in the activity of the Holy Spirit. And for this reason, in one place Scripture says: ‘Fear you the Lord, all his saints;’ in another place: ‘Love you the Lord, all his holy ones;’—so that we learn clearly that the fear of the righteous who are still being purified is with a middle degree of love, as was said; whereas perfect love is of those who have been purified, in whom there is no longer a thought of fear of any kind, but ceaseless burning and adhesion of the soul towards God through the activity of the Holy Spirit, according to him who says: ‘My soul has adhered behind you; your right hand has helped me.’

This is a very important chapter on the nature of Christian experience of God and on the nature of the Christian road to perfection. The issue is the relation between the fear of God and the love of God, and here the Saint parts company with much of the charismatic movement in the West today. The road to a conscious experience of the love of God is through the full fear of God in our heart. What does the Saint mean? We in the West look for the quick fix, the easy experience, of the love of God. However, the Saints of the Orthodox Church recognized that the road to God is difficult: we have to pass through the conscious experience of the fear of God. This is not merely a transitory experience of the awesomeness of God for an hour on Saturday night at a prayer meeting. The Saint is clear that we cannot attain to this fear of God unless we spend much time in stillness, free from all the cares of this life. There is a purification involved that requires stillness and freedom from care. This purification is achieved through the fear of God, by which we recognize that we are sinners and that God is not only loving but just.

The Saint explains, better than we could, just how the love of God is engendered by the fear of God. He goes on to discuss the relationship between the fear of God and the love of God that the person experiences who is being purified. He makes distinctions in the love of God that the person experiences during his mystical ascent. The important thing to understand is that it is possible to attain to a love of God that is with fear—this is the middle stage—and to a love of God which is without fear—this is the final stage of perfection. The Saint is clear that we cannot attain to perfection without going through the middle stage.

The fear of God as it were circumcises the heart of the ascetic. It cleanses him from his passions, preparing his heart to be a fit receptacle of the love of God—or, if you wish, the Holy Spirit.

Just as, when they are unirrigated land[2] as it were, or even neglected, the wounds which occur to the body do not perceive[3] the medicine brought forth to them by the physician, but, having been cleansed, they then perceive the activity of the medicine and come to rapid healing on account of it, thus also, as long as it is neglected and wholly covered with the leprosy of the love of pleasure, the soul is not able to perceive [spiritually] the fear of God even if someone should unceasingly announce to it the frightful and powerful court of judgement of God. But whenever the mind begins to be purified through great attention, then it perceives [spiritually] the divine fear as a certain medicine of life burning it, as it were, in the activity of reproaches in the fire of dispassion[4].[5] Whence, henceforward being purified part by part, it arrives at the perfection of purification, having been so much increased in love as it is decreased in fear, so that it should finally arrive at perfect love, in which is no fear, as has been said, but complete dispassion set into activity by means of the glory of God. Therefore first let the fear of God be for us as the boast of ceaseless boasts, then, however, love, the fullness of the law of perfection in Christ.

The Saint now proceeds to explain how it is that the fear of God in great stillness purifies the person. He uses a metaphor: the medicines that are brought to a bodily wound. We have translated this sentence as best we can but it seems slightly corrupt because the sense is difficult. What the Saint is saying is that when we are in the world engaged in worldly affairs, we are immersed in the love of pleasure—this is another way of saying ‘our passions’, which we know are eight—and are of necessity largely indifferent to the reality of the Justice of God. This is the common condition of man. But when we enter into stillness—the Saint clearly has in mind Hesychast stillness but he could also mean a good cœnobion—then the soul is purified as in a fire by the action of the fear of God, so that it tends towards dispassion. Note that the author foresees that this is a gradual purification: there is nothing here of being purified in a single experience: the purification takes time.

The soul which has not been freed from worldly cares will neither love God genuinely nor loathe the Devil duly; for it has once and for all an oppressive veil, the care of worldly affairs. Whence, among these sorts of people the mind is unable to know the judgement of itself so that by itself it might without deception try the votes of the judgement.[6] Therefore solitude is always useful.

Here the author explains more about the condition of the person in the world: that person is incapable of loving God truly or hating the Devil truly. The sense is that the person is still enslaved to his passions: to be free of one’s passions is what it means to hate the Devil truly; it means not being attracted to sin any more. The reason is that the care of worldly affairs veils the soul and prevents it from ‘understanding what’s going on’. The Saint now makes a very shrewd remark. Among such people, the person’s conscience is incapable of judging the person’s own condition properly: the conscience simply does not have the clearness to see the person’s own condition properly. This is the beam that Christ says is in our own eye. It is not a matter of seeing another person’s condition; that is the mote that is in the other’s eye: this is the person’s very own condition: in persons who are immersed in worldly affairs, the conscience renders a faulty judgement about the person himself. However, if the person enters into solitude and begins to experience the fear of God he or she can travel the road of purification, at the end of which, he or she will have a conscience which can judge properly his or her spiritual condition, as the author explains in the next chapter. This is what it means top take the beam out of your own eye, so that you will then see clearly to take the mote out of your neighbour’s eye.

The property of a pure soul: abundant word, guileless zeal, unceasing Eros for the Lord of Glory. Then, indeed, the mind sets its own scales exactly, appearing in its own intellect as in a most pure tribunal.[7]

The Saint sketches a portrait of the pure soul: the spiritual beauty of the ability to speak on spiritual matters, of a zeal for God which is free from guile and of an ardent love for the Lord. When a person has arrived at this condition then his or her conscience is able to assess exactly what the person’s own condition is. Here, something should be explained. One might think that the conscience will always bear witness to a person in such a condition that everything is fine, in much the same way that St Paul remarks that his conscience does not condemn him, even though that is not a final justification since only the Lord’s own judgement is final. However, although the person might be in such a condition of spiritual purity, still he might sin. An example might be the Apostle Peter in Acts who after eating with the non-Jews, drew back from eating with them when persons from the Apostle James arrived, so that the Apostle Paul rebuked him publicly for hypocrisy. Another example, more difficult, is the case of an Elder who accepts a vision which is not from God. In such a case, he may lose his clarity of conscience. St Silouan the Athonite testifies to such an experience in his own life. He described the vision to various confessors, who really didn’t tell him anything that he understood as a judgement that he had accepted a delusive vision. However, eventually his conscience bore witness to him that something was wrong—his behaviour was not at all appropriate to his having had a proper vision—and he repented on his own. We never lose free will; we never lose the possibility of sinning. However, what the Saint is saying is that when the person has been properly purified, the conscience will bear witness ‘infallibly’ as to the condition of the person: the person will have a reliable guide in his conscience as to whether he has sinned or not. This is true in most cases but there may be a problem if it is not a matter of morality but an issue of false gnosis (false spiritual knowledge).

Faith without works and works without faith are rejected in the same way. For the faithful must offer to the Lord faith that demonstrates realities. For neither was faith reckoned for righteousness to Abraham our father until he had brought forth its fruit, his son.

The Saint is weighing in on a hoary topic in Protestant apologetics. His position is that we need both faith and works: ‘the faithful must offer to the Lord faith that demonstrates realities’. That is, as St James says in his epistle we should demonstrate our faith in our works. The Saint continues to explain in the next chapter.

He who loves God both believes genuinely and accomplishes the works of faith in a holy manner. He who only believes and does not abide in love does not even have the faith he thinks he has. For he believes with a certain lightness of mind not set into activity by the weight of the glory of love. Faith set into activity by love is the greatest of the virtues.

The first part of this chapter is quite clear. In the case of a person who believes without works, the Saint says that the person believes with a certain superficiality, with a faith that is not set into action by the presence of the Holy Spirit, the presence of spiritual love in the person’s heart. For if the person had such an experience of the love of God, he would not have a dead faith that did not show itself forth in works; he would have a faith that was put into motion by the love present in him, and that is the greatest of the virtues.

Note that what the Saint is saying is not just for the Hesychast in the cave; it is also for the Orthodox in Starbucks drinking his latte.

Investigated, the depth of the sea of faith is turbulent; viewed with a simple disposition it becomes serene. Being the water of Lethe (forgetfulness) of evils, the depth of faith does not bear to be seen by curious thoughts. Therefore let us be filled with its waters in simplicity of intellect so that we thus arrive at the harbour of the will of God.

This is an important chapter. One might consider the episode where Jesus bids Peter come to him on the water. Peter does okay until he doubts. If he had proceeded in simplicity of faith, he would have been able to walk on the water. What the Saint is saying is that when we attempt to penetrate into the depths of our faith, then the only thing we accomplish is to disturb our conscience (in the sense of our conscious experience of ourselves, not in the sense of having moral issues of right and wrong). If however, we have the simple disposition of Peter trusting in God and walking on the water, then our consciousness becomes serene. This is an important indicator for how we should maintain serenity in our own lives as we are walking from our home to Starbucks—or how we should be living in our cave far from Starbucks. The next sentence seems to be something of a non sequitur, but here is what the author means as he continues his metaphor in a somewhat forced way: It is in the nature of faith for us to turn away from the evils in our consciousness so as to turn to God. But because of this tendency, our faith does not bear to be investigated with curiosity. This curiosity is something different from a mature scholarly reflection on the ‘data of faith’. It might be described as ‘idle curiosity’ or ‘meddling’. It is a spiritual condition universally condemned by ascetical writers. Faith does not bear to be meddled with. What it wants is simplicity of consciousness which trusts in God. Here it might be well to remark that St John Chrysostom remarks somewhere that the one great work that God demands of man is faith. This meddling with faith is contrary to this one great work. The difference with mature scholarly reflection is that the sound Orthodox scholar proceeds from faith and does not meddle with his faith while studying the data of Revelation. Note that along this axis, in the Saint’s opinion the goal is the will of God: it is the accomplishment of the will of God which is connected to our faith from the point of view of experiential spiritual psychology.

To summarize, Saint is saying that if we make a movement to meddle with the depths of our conscience so as better to understand, supposedly, the spiritual data of faith—what faith really is as a lived experience in our consciousness—then we will only succeed in agitating our consciousness. However, if we proceed in simplicity then we will arrive at the harbour of God, which is God’s will. The Gospel passage of Peter walking on the water is the key to understanding this.

No one is able either to love or to believe genuinely except if he does not have himself as an accuser of himself. For when our conscience agitates itself in reproaches, the mind is not yet allowed to perceive [spiritually] the odour of the goods above this world but is immediately divided in doubt, on the one hand with a warm movement having an appetite for faith on account of the experience it has already received, on the other hand not yet being able to attain it in [spiritual] perception of heart by means of love on account of, as I said, the prickings of the reproaching conscience. Still, when we purify ourselves with a warmer attention and have had greater experience in God, we will gain what is desired.

The first sentence might be a little difficult for the reader to construe. The saint is saying that if we have a guilty conscience because of something we have done, we are neither able to love genuinely nor able to believe genuinely. The reason the Saint gives is that when our conscience reproaches us continually because of some fault we have committed, then our mind is agitated with doubts. (The mind is not our capacity for reason but the part of us which is capable of perceiving spiritual realities.) On the one hand, our spiritual part has an aspiration for spiritual things on account of the spiritual experience it has already received; on the other hand it cannot attain to those spiritual things on account of the bad conscience. Here it must be remarked that all spiritual writers in the West in the Roman Catholic Church recognize the condition where the person has ‘scruples’: his conscience is agitated by trivial things. In modern psychiatric parlance, the person is obsessive. In such a condition the person is agitated over whether he has put the pencil on his desk in right position or not, whether he has combed his hair properly, whether his tie is perfectly straight and so on. Such persons normally cannot spend much time in solitude because they will not be able to withstand it given their psychological weakness for this sort of thing. However, what the Saint means is that if a person who has been leading a spiritual life and has had spiritual experience commits a serious sin, then he will be in the condition the Saint is describing.

Upon rereading the chapter, we would like to add the following. While what we are saying above seems true, the Saint seems to be pointing more to the situation where the person has begun the spiritual life but has memories of sins committed before he commenced the spiritual life. These memories agitate his conscience. As the Saint points our later, at the beginning of the spiritual life the Holy Spirit normally gives the person some spiritual experience of Grace so that he is motivated to struggle. However, the Saint is saying, although the person has had such introductory experiences and because of them aspires to spiritual things, still he is unable to attain to a spiritual knowledge of spiritual things because of the prickings of his conscience due to his old sins. However, the Saint says, if the person continues—presumably through experiencing the fear of God which purifies his conscience—then he will eventually arrive at the spiritual knowledge that he knows awaits him. Note that in common with all the other saints of the Church, the Saint does not assert that some are born saints and others are born sinners: in this school of thought sinners become saints through travelling a journey of spiritual purification helped by the Holy Spirit. Of course, it should be understood that the Saint, a Bishop, takes for granted a normal attendance on the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church and guidance by an Elder: he is not only a Bishop but also an Elder discoursing to his disciples on how they are to conduct themselves.

Just as the senses of the body impel us somewhat violently towards those things which appear good, thus once it has tasted the divine goodness the sense of the mind has the custom to guide us towards the invisible goods. For at all costs each has an appetite for its familiar relatives: the soul, as bodiless, the heavenly goods; but the body, as dust, earthly food. We will come without deception into experience of the immaterial sense if with ascetic efforts we indeed refine the material[8].

This chapter is straightforward. If God grants to the ascetic a spiritual experience then the mind, the spiritual part of man, wants to attain to the invisible spiritual goods. If the person has arrived at such a level of spiritual development that he has acquired the spiritual sense, then he himself can rely on this spiritual sense—which is today often called discernment—to guide him to the spiritual goods. This is for the fairly advanced Hesychast, who has had such experience of God that he has acquired the discernment to discriminate the spiritual gold from the spiritual dross. However, it must be understood that even if such a person justly proceeds to trust his own discernment in spiritual matters, he is not infallible. That is why somewhere Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) emphasizes that after the Annunciation the Virgin Mary went immediately to her kinswoman Elizabeth: Elder Sophrony takes it that the Theotokos wished to verify her experience in the discernment of another: the Fathers and spiritual writers consider it best to test important and serious things with others and not to rely on our own discernment. How this works in practice is that an Elder will be guiding souls using his own discernment, but he will guide himself only in ‘routine’ matters, consulting another Elder on important matters concerning himself. He will even consult another Elder if with one of the souls he is guiding he comes across something that he is not sure how to handle: he will send the soul he is guiding to see the other Elder for a ‘second opinion’. This requires humility on the part of the Elder. The soul being guided will rejoice to visit a second Elder.

We might mention a caution here. Elder Paisios (Eznipedes) once remarked to someone that if he went to a whole slew of Elders to ask their opinion, he would end up doing not what they said—for the Elders would not necessarily have the same opinion—but whatever came into his own head. While we should consult others, we should not on the one hand be indiscriminate, consulting just anyone; rather we should only consult sound persons whose opinion we can trust. Moreover, we should not go to a slew of others for their opinion because we will end up not believing any of them but doing what we ourselves want, which is to negate the reason for consulting another person.

To continue with the point the Saint is making in this chapter, when the Apostles are not able to keep watch while he is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus says in the Gospel that the ‘spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’. The Saint is discussing the tendency of the spirit (which he calls the mind, following Evagrius) to tend to spiritual things whereas the flesh tends to material things such as material food. The solution is for us to refine the flesh through asceticism. The Saint points out that this is how we will arrive at the spiritual sense. The Saint then continues in the next chapter to develop this theme.

The activity of holy gnosis teaches us that the natural sense of the soul is one, but that on account of the disobedience of Adam it thenceforward has been divided in two activities. One activity is simple, coming to occur in the soul from the Holy Spirit, which activity no one is able to know except those who have voluntarily freed themselves from the good things of this life for the sake of the future goods and who have dried up all the appetite of the bodily senses through temperance. Only among these persons can the mind, set into motion on account of the freedom from care, sense healthily in an unspeakable way the divine goodness, whence they then transfer their own joy to the body according to the measure of their own progress, exulting in the confession of love with a certain limitless word. For he says: ‘For my heart has hoped on him and I was helped and my flesh has been made to flourish and I will willingly confess to him.’ For the joy which then actually occurs to the soul and to the body is a reminder of the incorruptible life of the spirit.[9]

The Saint begins by discussing the origin of the spiritual sense. He asserts that the spiritual sense was the endowment of Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall. This is the undivided spiritual sense that the Saint speaks of. Because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience—Original Sin—the sense has been divided into two. What are these two? These are the ‘spirit and flesh’ that the Saint has been discussing. The spirit is to be identified with the spiritual sense and the flesh with the passions which call us to the fulfilment of fleshly desires (gluttony, fornication, avarice, sorrow, anger, accidie (sloth), vainglory and pride). The best way to understand what the Saint goes on to say is that in Paradise Adam and Eve were united to the Holy Spirit, that this presence of the Holy Spirit in them conferred on Adam and Eve the simple spiritual sense, and that the Holy Spirit was lost through their disobedience. Hence, now in man’s post-Fall condition, we can only regain the spiritual sense through acquiring the operation of the Holy Spirit in us. This requires the purification through the fear of God that the author has been discussing. Here in this chapter the author adds that to regain this spiritual sense, we must make a voluntary decision to free ourselves from the good things of this life and through asceticism to dry up the desires of the flesh—the eight passions that we have just listed—for the sake of future spiritual goods. In the next chapter, the Saint proceeds to discuss how this ascetical work is done.

Those who are engaged in ascetic struggles must keep the intellect unwashed by waves so that, discerning the thoughts which run to and fro, the mind put those that are good and sent from God into the treasury of the memory but cast somewhere outside of the store-rooms of nature those that are ill-omened and demonic. For when it is serene, even the sea is seen by those who catch fish up to the very movement of its deep, almost nothing eluding them of the paths of the animals which go through there; but when the sea is agitated by the winds, it hides in the gloominess of the agitation those very things that in the laughter of serenity it has the honour to let be seen. Whence, we then see to be idle the skill of those who contrive the devices for fishing; and it also undoubtedly happens that the contemplative mind suffers this very same thing, and certainly when the depth of the soul is agitated by an unjust anger.

In the first sentence, the author returns to the theme of the necessity of stillness for the ascetic. He takes a position that is not accepted by all Hesychast authors: that the Hesychast is to make a discernment which thoughts to retain and which thoughts to refuse. The School of Sinai takes a somewhat more strict position: that we are to reject all thoughts, since sometimes the demons present an ostensibly good thought as bait so to catch us with the subsequent bad thoughts they proffer. Certainly rejecting all thoughts is suitable to the beginner who has not acquired the discernment, the spiritual sense, that will allow him to discriminate between the spiritual gold and the spiritual dross. In the case of the advanced ascetic who has the spiritual sense, it is certainly true that the School of Sinai would be more relaxed about his accepting thoughts that were 24 karat gold. It should be noted that when we are in a condition of stillness, thoughts present themselves to us and we can accept or reject them. There is a part of us which can assess the thought and accept it or reject it. This is somewhat different from the normal condition of agitation of a soul in the world, where there is no serene contemplating part of the soul that can accept or reject thoughts. This is what the Saint is driving at in his very charming metaphor of fishing. He is saying that when the sea is calm, the fisherman can see to the depths of the sea and discern the fish that are swimming—which ones are worth catching and which are not. But when the sea is agitated by a strong wind, then the fisherman whose art it is to contrive fishing traps must be content to wait for good weather before going fishing. Hence, again the author emphasizes that calmness and stillness are necessary for this sort of asceticism. He then remarks that the agitation that anger brings is going to disturb the conscience and make it much harder to discern the thoughts that pass, especially if the anger is unjust. Here the author, continuing a theme that he has touched on in Chapter 6, departs from other ascetical writers in accepting justified anger on certain occasions—although without rage. Generally other ascetical writers want to avoid anger completely. Perhaps the fact that the author was a Bishop with general pastoral responsibilities brought him round to see things the way he does.

It is of the extremely few to know their own faults precisely, and of those whose mind is never snatched away from the memory of God. For in the same way that when our bodily eyes are healthy they are able to see everything up to the gnats and insects[10] flying through the air but when they are covered by turbidity or certain humours they see only dimly some great thing they encounter and do not perceive with the sense of sight the small things—thus also the soul if by attention it refines the blindness which occurs to it from love of the world and in great thanksgiving unceasingly brings tear upon tear, treating its most trivial faults as the most serious. For he says: ‘The just will confess in your name.’ If, however, the soul persists in the disposition of the world, then if it commits something murderous or worthy of great punishment it senses this tranquilly, not being at all able to take note of the other faults but often considering them to be achievements of a sort, the wretched soul not being ashamed as it warmly recounts them.

The Saint is an excellent psychologist. Here he is discussing in greater detail the spiritual sense and its relation to the conscience of right and wrong. Only the very few know their own faults precisely, those few who have made such spiritual progress that they have not only acquired the spiritual sense but have it ever fixed on the memory of God. Again, the memory of God is not a matter of having ‘good thoughts’ about God in the pious sense, but of having an ability to contemplate God. Recall that the spiritual sense is the ‘eye of the soul’ or ‘eye of the mind’ which allows the ascetic to perceive spiritual things, that it is acquired by engaging in ascetical purification and then through the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that it confers discrimination between the spiritual gold and the spiritual dross. Hence, in the advanced ascetic, the spiritual sense is always fixed on God: the ascetic ever spiritually perceives God. As the Psalmist David says, ‘I saw the Lord ever before me; he is at my right hand to guide me.’

The Saint goes on to compare the spiritual sense to the vision of the bodily eyes. When our eyesight is healthy then we see everything, even up to the smallest insects. This corresponds to the condition of being able to discern infallibly the spiritual gold from the spiritual dross. But when our eyesight is unhealthy, then we don’t even see the large objects in front of us. In such a spiritual condition, we don’t even understand our major sins for what they are. The Saint repeats that it is through the ascetical program he is describing that one passes from spiritual blindness to the spiritual sense, adding that tears over even the most trivial faults are necessary (this is an aspect of living the fear of God spiritually—of repenting in the depths of our soul). However, the Saint continues, if the person—even the monk or nun or priest or whatever—persists in a worldly disposition without the interior purification he is describing then not only does that person not regret having committed very serious sins, but he or she even boasts of them as achievements of a sort. One is reminded of rock musicians. The Saint then continues in the next chapter to discuss the nature of the purification that is required.

It is of the Holy Spirit alone to purify the mind. For if the strong man does not enter in and despoil the robber, by no means will the booty be freed. It is therefore obligatory by every means to give repose to the Holy Spirit, especially in the peace of the soul, so that we always have the lamp of gnosis shining in us. For when the Holy Spirit unceasingly flashes like lightning in the treasure-rooms of the soul, not only do all those bitter and dark assaults of the demons become most obvious to the mind but they are extremely weakened, reproached as they are by that holy and glorious light. For this reason the Apostle says: ‘Do not extinguish the Spirit;’ in the sense of: ‘Do not sorrow the goodness of the Holy Spirit by doing evil works or speaking evil, so that you not be deprived of that defending lamp.’ For that which is eternal and vivifying is not extinguished, but its sorrow, that is to say, its aversion, leaves the mind gloomy and without the light of gnosis.

Much of what the author states has dogmatic significance for the understanding of the relation of Orthodox asceticism to non-Orthodox asceticism, including non-Christian asceticism. It is only of the Holy Spirit to purify the mind. Hence the asceticism that the author is describing is only possible to those who have received the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Moreover, we must give repose to the Holy Spirit in every possible way so that we have the Holy Spirit as a lamp of spiritual knowledge shining in us. Recall that this spiritual gnosis is not a matter of propositions about God but of the light of God that shines in the darkness and which the darkness has not overcome. It is with the spiritual sense that we see by the light of this lamp of spiritual gnosis. Western readers might turn to the writings of St Augustine to find a similar discussion, based on neo-Platonism, of the light of God which illuminates the mind and by which the mind sees spiritual realities. This is not a matter of Scholastic logical system building. Hence, the author explains that one aspect of healing our spiritual sight so as to discern with an infallible discernment the spiritual gold from the spiritual dross is to have the spiritual light of the Holy Spirit shining in us, so that we might see all the actions of the demons and so that the demons might even be weakened by the presence of the divine light. Note that the author does not state that the demons will be completely destroyed by the light: that is a matter of the Last Judgement and also a matter of our own free will: we never lose free will; we never lose the capacity to sin; the correlative is that the demons are never completely absent from tempting us. Note also that the operation of the spiritual sight is such that when we discern the operations of the demons and of God in us, we do not have ‘pictures’ in our mind of demons and pictures of angels; we discern the operations of God and the demons in us with a spiritual perception. An Elder once remarked concerning how he received a private revelation: ‘It’s very hard to explain; God illuminates my mind.’ Seeing images of angels and saints and demons is not what the spiritual sense is all about, and persons who begin to see demons and angels and saints thinking that they have attained the spiritual sense should stop immediately. They will go mad if they continue; that is not what it’s all about; what they are doing is extremely dangerous.

The Holy Spirit of God which loves Mankind teaches us that there is one, as I said, natural [spiritual] sense of the soul, since, once and for all, the five [bodily senses] differ according to the needs of our body. On account of the Fall which occurred from disobedience, however, this natural [spiritual] sense of the soul is in the mind divided, in the movements of the very soul. For one part of this natural [spiritual] sense is carried off with the impassioned part of the soul while the other part rejoices at the rational and spiritual[11] movement of the soul, for which reason our mind, when we are sober, has the desire to run towards the heavenly beauties. If we therefore come into the habit of despising the good things in the world we will be able to join the earthly appetite of the soul together with the soul’s rational disposition, the communion of the Holy Spirit dispensing this to us. For if its divinity should not actively illuminate the treasure-rooms of our heart, we would not be able to taste the Good in the undivided [spiritual] sense, that is to say, in an integral disposition.[12]

The author now explains the relation between the original undivided sense that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the Fall, and the duality of our being after the Fall. Because of the Fall, one part of us tends to the spiritual: this is the spiritual part of man, what is called the nous or mind in Greek. In the West, it is known as the created spirit of man. This part aspires to spiritual things. In his condition before the Fall, man had this part dominant and in charge of the bodily senses, which are really one but divided according to the bodily sense organs. In the pre-Fall condition, there were no passions, so there was no desire of the flesh (for any of the eight passions: there was not only no gluttony and fornication, there was no pride). After the Fall, however, part of the soul of man is carried off with the eight passions while there still remains a part of the soul—the mind in the sense given—which aspires to spiritual realities. The author then explains that the rationale for the ascetical program is to free the soul from its enslavement to the eight passions so that the part of the soul that aspires to satisfy the eight passions is joined to the mind, the spiritual part of the soul that is the basis of the spiritual sense. The author, very importantly, asserts that the Holy Spirit dispenses this re-union of the part of the soul which aspires after the eight passions with the part of the soul which aspires after God. For it is only through the illumination of the treasure-rooms of our heart by the Holy Spirit that we can taste God with a now-undivided spiritual sense, in a return to the condition of Adam and Eve in Paradise. In a strikingly modern view, the author holds out the possibility of reintegration of the person into wholeness. The road is the road he is describing, with the final agency given to the action of the Holy Spirit. The author then proceeds in the next chapters to discuss the spiritual sense and the temptations associated with it.

[1] Greek: energoumenen. There is a danger that this might be understood to be ‘active’ as opposed to ‘infused’ love in the Western sense, but within that terminology it is actually ‘infused’. What the author means is an active love that is given to the person by the Holy Spirit once that person has been purified completely through the fear of God.

[2] The Greek isn’t very clear.

[3] Thus the text. We would say, medically, ‘respond to’.

[4] Dispassion: Greek: apatheia.

[5] The Greek text of this part of the sentence is not clear.

[6] I.e. so that by itself the conscience might provide a true judgement of the person’s condition.

[7] I.e. having been completely purified, the conscience gives a true witness to the soul’s condition.

[8] Greek: ulen. I.e. the material body.

[9] I.e. after death.

[10] The Greek word is unclear.

[11] Greek: noeran. Literally, ‘mental, pertaining to the mind or nous’.

[12] The author means that in the post-Fall condition of life, part of the spiritual sense runs after the movements of the impassioned part of the soul while the other part desires the heavenly goods. It is only through the illumination of the innermost chambers of our heart by the divinity of the Holy Spirit that we can return to the pre-Fall condition of tasting the Good with an undivided spiritual sense, that is to say, in a condition of complete personal integration where we no longer are divided between the movements of the impassioned part of the soul and our desire for the heavenly goods. Moreover, we then have the ability with this undivided spiritual sense to discern the good from the bad in spiritual phenomena.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 10 - 15

Update March 1, 2012: Please see this post.

When the temper is set in motion against the passions, it must be known that it is the hour of silence. When one sees that confusion coming to serenity either through the prayer or through almsgiving let him set the wing of the mind in motion in the love of the sayings of God, being secured with the bond of humility. For if one does not humiliate oneself greatly, one is not able to speak concerning the grandeur of God.

The situation being described here is the active war that the ascetic is waging against a passion that is strongly tempting him or her to sin. We might say today, a carnal temptation. So, here, the author foresees is that the ascetic has set his temper in motion against a carnal temptation, let us say. It is characteristic of this school of mysticism that the temper is considered to be given by God to man for him to use against temptation. It is important to understand how this is to be done: a man or woman who flies into a blind rage against a temptation is headed for the mental hospital. The temper must be used coolly, with measure.

As we have discussed elsewhere in the blog, there are eight passions, and the temper can be used against a temptation by any of them. Hence it doesn’t really have to be a matter of a carnal temptation, but that is the most common example we can give. It does matter if the tempted person has learned how to use the temper against the temptation in a way which will defeat the temptation without disturbing his spiritual and psychological equilibrium.

The eight passions are: gluttony, fornication, avarice, sorrow, anger, accidie (sloth), vainglory and pride.

What the author is saying is that in such a case, it is not the time for the ascetic to be spending time on speaking, writing or teaching. It is the time for silence.

The author continues: ‘When one sees that confusion coming to serenity either through the prayer or through almsgiving…’ What he means is that there are two possible roads that the ascetic might follow to overcome this temptation—apart from the use of the temper. This is the Jesus Prayer or almsgiving. We would take this reference to ‘the prayer’ with the definite article as a reference to the Jesus Prayer. Hence what the author foresees is the practice of the Jesus Prayer joined to the temper in order to defeat the demon that is tempting the ascetic. This is advanced stuff. It is possible, but you have to be trained.

Almsgiving seems a little difficult for an ascetic in the desert. On the one hand, however, the author clearly foresees in this text an urban monasticism (within the context of his age, surely). On the other hand, ‘almsgiving’ might be taken in the broad sense of acts of charity. Perhaps caring for the sick in the skete or monastery—or in the case of a person living in the world, in the neighbourhood.

The next thing that the author foresees is that there will be a victorious end to the battle and that the person will be restored to serenity. In that case, he says, it is possible to set the mind in motion in the love of the words of God—note the emphasis on love as a motivation—for the sake of teaching others. He emphasizes that this must be done in great humility. So he foresees a situation where the person emerges victorious from the battle and with great love and humility proceeds to teach others the word of God. The author then emphasizes the necessity for the person to humble him- or herself in order to be able to speak of the grandeur of God. In other words, God gives grace to the humble and sets his face in opposition to the proud-hearted, especially when it is a matter of discoursing or writing on the grandeur of God.

Spiritual discourse ever preserves the soul free from vainglory; for benefiting all the parts of the soul in a [spiritual] perception[1] of light it makes the soul not to have need of honour from men. And for that very reason spiritual discourse ever preserves the intellect free from fantasy, transforming it wholly into the love of God. The discourse of the wisdom of the world, however, ever provokes a man to ambition. Because it is not able to benefit through experience of the [spiritual] sense,[2] this discourse grants to its familiars the love of praises, as being itself the creature of vainglorious men. Therefore, we will know without deception the disposition of divine discourse if in a silence without care we consume the hours of not speaking in the warm remembrance of God.

The heart of this chapter is how to discern between spiritual discourse which is of God and spiritual discourse which is of the flesh. When we discourse from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the author is saying, we are free from any trace of vainglory. The reason he gives is that the Holy Spirit illuminates all the parts of the soul in a spiritual perception of light that makes the soul free from any need for honour from men. This is a very important criterion to allow us to assess when we are speaking with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and when we are not. If we are completely free of vainglory in all its forms in the hour we speak, instead being illuminated (perhaps without any sensible experience) in all the parts of our soul with the light of the Holy Spirit, then we are speaking from God. Moreover, in such a case, the spiritual discourse preserves the person’s mind free from fantasy—daydreaming of various kinds prompted by one or another of our passions. In the case of wisdom of this world, or wisdom of the flesh, the characteristic is our ambition. We want to make a name for ourselves. The reason the author gives is that worldly wisdom, being bereft of divine illumination, encourages vainglory in its practitioners, since it is the offspring of vainglory. Hence, the author says, if when we are not speaking we proceed in the warm remembrance of God, then we know that we are speaking from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

It is important to understand what the author means by the remembrance of God here. This is not a matter of remembering benefits that God has granted to us; it is not a matter of fantasizing scenes from Jesus’ life; it is a matter of paying attention to God. In beginners, this is a matter of paying attention to our religious obligations and affairs when we are not discoursing on God; in the more advanced, it is a matter of a spiritual turning to God, that attentiveness that Jesus counsels in the Gospel:

‘You do not know the hour in which the Master is coming. What I say to you I say to all: be attentive.’

He who loves himself is not able to love God. He who does not love himself on account of the surpassing wealth of the love of God, this one loves God. He who loves God loves the glory of him who made him. The characteristic[3] of the soul which has the spiritual sense[4] and which is loving of God is to seek the glory of God in all the commandments which it fulfils, yet to delight in its own humility, because glory for the sake of grandeur is proper to God whereas humility is proper to man, so that through it we become intimate with God. Whatever we might do, as we rejoice unceasingly in the glory of the Lord let us also begin to say according to St John the Baptist: ‘He must be increased but we must be decreased.’

The author now provides a criterion for the discernment of the love of God that excludes everyone in the world except the occasional saint. The proper love of God is a love which forgets itself on account of the love of God. This ‘love of God’ should be understood as the love which proceeds from God, not the love the person has for God. So the one who forgets himself on account of the great love which is in God, this one loves God. This person loves the glory of his Creator with a love that makes him forget himself. Moreover, if a person has the spiritual sense—here it might be taken to be the conscious presence in himself of the Holy Spirit—and loves God, then in fulfilling the commandments of God, that person seeks only the glory of God, delighting only in his own humility. For glory is proper to God but humility is proper to man, so that through humility man might be intimate with God. This is quite true, but who is at this stage?

I know someone who loves God so much, and who still mourns that he does not love as he wants, that unceasingly his soul is in a certain warm desire such that God be glorified in him and his own self be as not existing. This man does not know just what he is, not even in the midst of the actual praises that come from words. In the great desire for humility he does not think himself worthy but on the one hand serves[5] God according to the law for priests, and on the other hand in a certain great disposition of love for God steals his own memory of his rank, in a spirit of humility hiding the boast that comes from this rank somewhere in the depth of love for God, so that estranged from his own rank in the desire for humility, in his intellect he always seem to himself an unworthy servant. And we, doing the very same thing, must avoid every honour and glory for the sake of the surpassing wealth of the love of the Lord who loves us thus.

This is with reason taken as referring to the author himself, St Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki. The man loves God so much that he wants to empty himself not so that he be filled with God for his own sake or for the sake of a religious experience, but so that God might be glorified in him. The author then goes on to describe how the person in question, himself, has an ecclesiastical rank which is quite high but which the person manages to ‘forget’ so as to remain in the humility of the ‘unworthy servant’. This is a person who loves God.

It should be noted here that St Diadochos knows what he’s doing in practising humility and indeed knows who he is. While he says that the man he knows does not know who he is, since he is referring to himself, he knows quite well who he is, since he realizes that the man in question is practising humility in hiding his rank from himself. That is, it is mistaken to think that such a saint doesn’t understand ‘what’s going on around him’. The Saint understands himself quite well, so well that he can speak about how he practises his humility. This is an example of a saint exercising the Gospel adage to not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. In one sense we know what our right hand is doing—we’re doing it, and not unconsciously, but in full consciousness with charismatic discernment. In another sense, we don’t know what our right hand is doing: we have buried our rank in our humility and as it were pretend to ourselves that we are nothing.

He who loves the Lord in [spiritual] perception of heart[6] is known by him. As much as someone accepts the love of God in [spiritual] perception of heart, that much he comes to be in the love of God. Therefore, henceforward such a person exists in a certain intense Eros[7] for the illumination of gnosis until he might perceive the very sense of his bones,[8] no longer knowing himself but wholly transformed by the love of God. Such a person is both present in this life and not present; still sojourning in his own body, in the movement of the soul he departs unceasingly towards God through love. For, unwavering, he henceforward adheres to God, burning the heart through the fire of love with a certain necessity of desire, once and for all having stood outside of friendship for himself in the love of God. For he says: ‘Whether we are beside ourselves, for God; whether we are of sound mind, for you.’

The Saint first asserts that he who has reached the stage of loving God in spiritual perception is known by God. He is attempting to express the condition of a union with God. What the Saint is saying is that in this condition, the person wishes to empty himself more and more in a spiritual kenosis so that he might be filled more and more with the love of God—or if you wish with God himself. That is what it means to ‘perceive the very sense of his bones’: it means that the person is emptying himself more and more so that he might experience God more and more in an insatiable longing for his Beloved. Such a person has one foot in Heaven and is not really on earth like the rest of us.

When a person begins richly to perceive [spiritually] the love of God then he begins to love his neighbour in [spiritual] perception of spirit.[9] This is the love concerning which all the Scriptures speak. For friendship according to the flesh is dissolved quite easily, there having been found some slight cause; it is not bound by the [spiritual] perception of the spirit. For this reason, therefore, even if there should occur some irritation to a soul set into activity by God, the bond of love is not loosed by it. For again setting fire to itself by the warmth of the love of God, it is recalled to the good and quickly seeks the love of the neighbour with great joy even if it should be greatly insulted or damaged by him. For in the sweetness of God it completely consumes the bitterness of the quarrel.

The Saint now proceeds to discuss the effect of this condition on relations with other people. The main point is that the Gospel love is not the same as a carnal love (a love from the flesh which may or may not be explicitly sexual). This is a love which is noble; a love which is not humiliated by the scorn of the other; a love which cherishes the other despite the other’s actions. The Saint then proceeds to discuss how we reach this stage, in the next chapter.

[1] This would be with the spiritual sense.

[2] What St Diadochos means is that the wisdom of the world is not able to benefit through real spiritual experience consciously experienced with the spiritual sense.

[3] Greek: idion. This is a philosophical term. It means the characteristic that belongs to something as part of its nature.

[4] The author treats attainment to the spiritual sense as a certain level of spiritual attainment. Given that the author is considered to be of the school of Evagrius, we would treat this as dispassion. See Kephalaia Gnostica I, 37.

[5] Greek: leitourgei. I.e. serves as a priest. It appears that the author is speaking of himself, so, here, ‘serves as a bishop’.

[6] See our remarks on the spiritual sense. The same thing is intended.

[7] Greek: eros. This is the word used of marital love. What the author is saying is that the person who has reached this stage henceforth has a burning, ardent desire for the illumination of gnosis.

[8] The author means that this burning, ardent desire for gnosis is such that the person wishes, if he could, to know God consciously even in his bones.

[9] This would be yet another phase of the spiritual sense. What is important is that St Diadochos means that these things happen as conscious spiritual phenomena and not with the bodily senses.

Friday, 13 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos, 1 - 9

Update March 1, 2012: Please see this post.

We will be posting over the next while, as the Spirit moves us, the long-promised commentary on Diadochos of Photiki. The text we are using is our revised translation, somewhat different from the one that we previously posted but not grievously so. Our comments are in blue; we hope that it shows well enough on everyone’s browser for the commentary to be read while at the same time making it clear what is text and what is commentary.

Our purpose is to make clear just what (we think) the Saint is trying to say—that is, to reveal the underlying meaning of the text for those of our readers who practise the Jesus Prayer. The text is one of the fundamental texts on the practice of the Jesus Prayer in the tradition of the Philokalia.

We have left the footnotes that we put into the final form of the translation ‘as is’, so there might be a bit of repetition. However, the footnotes are narrowly intended to explain our rendition of the text. The commentary is more intended to explain what the text in our view really means.

While we are using a critical edition, as shown below, it is clear that there are places where the text is corrupt.

Text:

Diadoque de Photicé, Œuvres Spirituelles

Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes de

Édouard des Places, s.j.

Source chrétiennes 5 bis

Les Éditions du Cerf, Paris, France, 1955.

Gnostic Chapters

Diadochos of Photiki

Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in Epirus, 100 Gnostic Chapters

Definition 1: Faith. Dispassionate[1] thought of God.

Definition 2: Hope. Departure of the mind in love towards those things which are hoped for.

Definition 3: Patience. To persevere in seeing unceasingly with the eyes of the intellect the invisible as visible.

Definition 4: Freedom from avarice. To want not to have just as someone wants to have.

Definition 5: Knowledge. To ignore oneself in ecstasy in God.

Definition 6: Humility. Forgetfulness of those things accomplished with care.

Definition 7: Lack of Anger. Great desire not to get angry.

Definition 8: Purity. [Spiritual] perception ever glued to God.

Definition 9: Love[2]. Increase of friendship towards those who are insulting.

Definition 10: Perfect transformation. In the pleasure of God, to consider the sourness of death as joy.

It is not clear to us that the above definitions are really by St Diadochos, in part because their style does not seem to be his and in part because they appear before the extended title of his work, below.

Words of judgement and discernment of Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in

Epirus

. Through what quality of gnosis to arrive at the previously declared perfection, the Lord guiding us, so that each of us bring to fruition the seed of the word in accordance with the sense of the liberating parable.

It is also not clear to us that the extended title is from St Diadochos.

Brothers, let faith, hope and love guide every spiritual contemplation, above all love. The first two teach us to despise those goods which are visible; love, however, joins the soul to the virtues of God in tracking out with a spiritual sense[3] that which is invisible.

St Diadochos starts by orienting his contemplative system to the three cardinal virtues of faith, hope and love, and indeed he strongly emphasizes love. He retains the basic dichotomy of Evagrian mysticism between those things which are visible—the material world—and those spiritual things which are invisible. Note that while faith and hope teach us to go beyond the material world to the spiritual, it is love that joins us to the virtues of God. This is a spiritual love, a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

St Diadochos introduces his concept of the ‘spiritual sense’. It is not easy to understand what the Saint means by the spiritual sense. It is a spiritual perception of spiritual realities given by the Holy Spirit. It is not sentimental. It is here that we see the fundamental divergence between Orthodox spirituality and Protestant pietism.

Only God is by nature good. A man also becomes good through him who is in reality good, changed into that which he is not, by the care he bestows on his ways when, through that care bestowed on the good, the soul becomes as much in God as the power of that care wishes. For he says: ‘Become good and merciful as your Father who is in the Heavens.’

The first sentence is an allusion to the word of our Saviour in the Gospel. The second sentence emphasizes that it is up to us to make our own efforts to become good. As will become evident, this statement does not suppose a ‘do-it-yourself’ Pelagianism whereby our own efforts are sufficient in the way that many people understand that yoga teaches. St Diadochos is clear on the importance of the Holy Spirit given in Christian Baptism in the ascetical ascent to God. However, in common with the whole Orthodox Tradition, he emphasizes that we ourselves must make an effort. There is nothing here of being saved by imputed justification: The Gospel of John states that Jesus gave those who believed in his name the authority to become children of God. This means that the door was opened to us. St Diadochos is saying that it is for us to walk through that door. This is consistent with the word of our Saviour that from now the Kingdom of God is assaulted and those who assault it seize it.

Neither does evil exist in nature nor is anyone evil by nature. For God did not make an evil thing. But when in the desire of the heart someone brings into appearance[4] that which does not exist in essence, then there begins to exist just that thing that the person making it might want. It is therefore obligatory to neglect the habit of evil through the care bestowed on the memory of God; for the nature of the good is stronger than the habit of evil because the former exists while the latter does not exist except by being practised.

This is an important statement of the Christian understanding of the nature of evil. By itself evil has no existence as a thing in nature; it’s not something ‘out there’ existing on its own; and there is no one, not even the Devil, which is evil by nature. The reason? God did not make anything that was evil: ‘And God saw what he had made and it was good.’ St Diadochos proceeds to explain this in terms of human psychology, using a bit of philosophy.

I think that it would be nice to write a commentary on Diadochos. That commentary doesn’t exist. I haven’t written it. However, I sit down and begin to write what I would like to say. I am bringing the commentary into existence according to the thought I have in my mind. This is what the Saint is discussing. In the desire of my heart I bring something into existence that did not formerly exist. The Saint then goes on that I have to be careful not to bring evil things into existence—let us say, I have to be careful not to write pornography.

Note that the Saint says that I have to ‘neglect the habit of evil’. What he is driving at is that evil is a matter of an evil intention exercised in practice: I choose to do something bad, for example to write pornography. Not only that, but I choose to write pornography every day. It becomes a habit. What the saint is saying is that evil does not exist by nature, but I bring it into existence by exercising my intention in practice and making of it a habit. What I should be doing is exercising my intention to maintain the memory of God—let us say, by writing a commentary on Diadochos. Good does exist by nature but evil does not. Evil is brought into existence by the exercise of the intention, especially repeatedly.

How does our intention get assessed as evil? In its simplest formulation, it is because what we want to do is against the law of God. In the deeper formulation, it is because rather than fulfil the commandments to love God and love our neighbour, we want to satisfy our passions, which are our emotional tendencies toward sin.

We are all men in the image of God. To be in the likeness[5] of God, however, is only of those who through much love enslave their freedom to God. When we are not of ourselves then we are of him who reconciled us to himself through love, which very thing one will not attain unless he has convinced his soul not to be shaken by the easy glory of this life.

This is a fundamental distinction in Orthodox spiritual theology, although it is not made by all Orthodox writers. It is the distinction between being in the image of God (kat’ eikona) and being in the likeness of God (kath’ homoiosin). Contrary to the Calvinist point of view, we are not born depraved. The Orthodox understanding is that the image of God—the fundamental resemblance of man to God; what makes him different from the animals; what allies him to the angels; why it was not preposterous for the Word of God to become man—is distorted by sin both original and personal but is never completely erased in any man. However, the resemblance to God in virtue—one has to have met a Spirit-bearing Elder to understand this—is something that we have to work on. The Saint emphasizes in very strong language that to attain to the likeness to God in virtue we must enslave our freedom to God. We always have free will. God does not want robots. He wants loving children. However, we must enslave ourselves to God. By this practice of self-abnegation, we pass from being isolated individuals, the grain of wheat, to being united to Jesus who reconciled us to himself through love, so that no longer alone, we bear much fruit of love. However, the Saint says, this is impossible unless the person has convinced his soul not to be shaken by the ‘easy glory of this life’. We have to turn away from the tinsel of this life to the true silver of the love of God.

Free will is the will of a rational soul readily moved to whatever it might wish. Let us persuade that soul to be readily disposed only towards the good, so that in good thoughts we ever consume the memory of evil.

This is a somewhat awkward definition of free will. What the Saint is getting at is this. He has just emphasized that evil is a matter of practising evil intentions, that evil is not something that exists in and of itself in nature but is an act of the will. What he must do now is explain what free will is, and how it gives rise to evil. What he emphasizes is the freedom of the will. We can choose to follow God or to follow our passions. We must make an effort, he says, to persuade ourselves to be disposed only towards the good, so that in practising good works— here this has a broader meaning than ‘acts of virtue’—we consume the memory of evil. By the ‘memory of evil’ the Saint means two things: the memory of things we have actually done; and the thoughts which arise in our mind on account of our passions. What he has in mind is that by training ourselves to practise the good, we obliterate our memories related to the sins we have committed—and who has not committed sins?—; and we conquer the thoughts which arise in our mind on account of our passions calling us to new sins.

The light of true gnosis[6] is faultlessly to discern good from evil. For then the road of justice leading the mind[7] to the Sun of Justice introduces the mind into the infinite light of gnosis, the mind with boldness thenceforth seeking love. It is therefore obligatory to seize with wrathless anger that which is just[8] from those who dare to insult it; for the piety’s zeal, not hating but rebuking, shows the victory.

The Saint here explains a little about how he understands the spiritual sense. He says that the light of true gnosis—this is true spiritual knowledge of God given by the Holy Spirit—is faultlessly to discern good from evil. Here we can see that although evil in its essence is a free act contrary to the law of God, it is possible to have our conscience discern faultlessly between good and evil not by a reasoning process but by the light given by the true knowledge of God. This is the basis of the charism of ‘Eldership’ in the Orthodox Church: the Elder is the person who has the ability to discern good from evil based on the light of true gnosis. It is why St Seraphim of Sarov remarked that when he spoke from himself he often made errors but when he spoke from the Holy Spirit, he didn’t. This is not so much a matter of native intelligence but of a charism of the Holy Spirit. It should also be pointed out that no one is infallible and that this charism of discernment is relative to the spiritual attainment and charism of the Holy Spirit. That is why Elder Paisios Eznipedes (1924 – 1974) could say of Elder Porphyrios Baïraktares (1906 – 1991): ‘I have black and white television, but Elder Porphyrios has colour television.’

However, what here interests the Saint is the role this discernment plays in the personal spiritual life of the ascetic. This discernment guides the ascetic to Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, introducing the ascetic’s mind into the boundless light of gnosis. This boundless light corresponds well to the Uncreated Light of later Orthodox Hesychasm. The Saint emphasizes that the result of this illumination is that the ascetic henceforth seeks love. Does this make his mysticism an ‘affective mysticism’? Yes and no. St Diadochos strongly emphasizes love throughout his work, but this is a spiritual love, not a sentimental affection for man or God. Moreover, the attainment to this love is given in a mystical experience of illumination of the mind by the Holy Spirit. Hence, it would be wrong to see here an emphasis on the cultivation of affective states.

Spiritual discourse gives inner spiritual assurance to the spiritual[9] sense for it is borne from God by the activity of love, for which very reason our mind also sojourns uninjured in the movements of theology[10]. For the mind does not then suffer hunger, which brings care, being broadened in contemplations as much as the activity of love wishes. Therefore it is good ever to await with faith acting through love the illumination of what to say; for there is nothing poorer than an intellect[11] outside of God philosophizing the things of God.

By ‘spiritual discourse’ the Saint means speaking on spiritual things, or perhaps writing on spiritual matters. What he is saying is that whenever we proceed according to God in speaking of spiritual things, then our conscience, discernment or spiritual sense receives an assurance that we are proceeding in ways pleasing to God. The Saint goes on that for this reason we can also occupy ourselves with theology, by which he means meditating on the Word of God in Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. He points out that in these cases, the ascetic can proceed for much time without experiencing hunger, according to the capacity of his love. This is an extraordinarily broad and open approach: assured by his God-given discernment, the ascetic broadens out into the study of the Word of God as much as his original impulse of spiritual love gives him impetus. The Saint then points out that it is better to wait on God for illumination what to say because there is nothing worse than a mind speaking of God without the assistance of God. Here one might recall an episode in the life of St Silouan as recounted by Elder Sophrony. A great ascetic comes from the Caucasus. He speaks, sometimes from himself and sometimes from the Holy Spirit. St Silouan teaches him to speak only as the Holy Spirit gives him utterance, to wait for the birth of the word in his heart.

Neither should one throw oneself unilluminated into spiritual speculations[12] nor should he come to speak when richly shone upon by the goodness of the Holy Spirit. For wherever poverty is, it brings ignorance; but wherever wealth is, it does not permit speech. For then the soul, drunk with the love of God, wishes to enjoy with silent voice the glory of God. It is therefore necessary to come to divine words in guarding the mean of this activity.[13] For this measure grants a certain form of glorious words. The wealth of enlightenment, however, nourishes the faith of him who speaks in faith, so that he who teaches first tastes the fruits of gnosis through love. For he says: ‘The farmer who toils should first partake of the fruit.’

The Saint continues in the same vein. One should not try to pry into things which are beyond one’s spiritual attainments and beyond what the Holy Spirit is willing to reveal to one. Moreover, neither should one try to speak when one is immersed in the illumination of the Holy Spirit. If we have nothing, then we should admit our poverty and forbear speaking, since we have nothing authentic to say. However, when we experience a wealth of illuminative Grace, then we cannot speak. The reason? For then the soul, drunk with the love of God, wishes to enjoy with silent voice the glory of God. This is an image of the contemplation of God. The implication, the Saint says, is that we should approach the study and teaching of the Word of God when we are in a middle state—neither impoverished by a lack of illumination nor in the midst of divine illumination. The Saint ends by remarking that a wealth of illumination first nourishes the faith of him who speaks, so that the teacher before he teaches is himself nourished by the fruits of gnosis. So not only is it a matter of being unable to speak but of first being nourished before given nourishment to others.

The charisms are of the one Holy Spirit; however, wisdom and gnosis, just as all the divine charisms, each have their proper activity. For the Apostle bears witness that to one is given wisdom and to another gnosis according to the same Spirit. For gnosis joins a man to God by experience, not moving the soul to speech about these things. Therefore some of those who lead a life of monastic asceticism are sensibly illuminated by gnosis yet do not come to speak divine words. Wisdom, if in fear it is given with gnosis to someone (this is rare), manifests the very activities[14] of gnosis, since the latter is accustomed to illuminate in activity, the former in word. But the prayer[15] and much stillness in complete freedom from care bring gnosis, whereas meditation free of vainglory on the sayings of God and, first of all, the Grace of God who gives, bring wisdom.

The Saint wishes to explain the difference between the charism of wisdom and gnosis (i.e. knowledge). First he remarks that there is one Holy Spirit which is the source of all the charisms. As we know from Scripture, the charisms are given by the Holy Spirit in its sovereign authority for the benefit of the Church and for the benefit of the persons to whom they are given. The charisms are given in love and wisdom by the Holy Spirit, according to the capacity and wisdom and humility of the recipient. They are not given for the destruction of the person or the Church.

To return to the Saint, he defines the charism of gnosis as the mystical knowledge of God pure and simple. There is no impulse to speak in this charism. The recipient may by experience know many things of God and say nothing. Not only that, he may be unable to communicate what he has experienced, even beyond the fact that the things of God are very often by their nature incommunicable: he just may not have the ability to communicate what he has experienced.

The saint goes on that if along with the charism of gnosis, the charism of wisdom is given with fear—with a holy fear—to someone (something the Saint acknowledges is rare), then that person is able to communicate his experiences of mystical gnosis to others either orally or through the written word. The reason is that the nature of the charism of gnosis is to provide experiential knowledge of God whereas the nature of the charism of wisdom is to illuminate the recipient with words to say to others.

Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit give the two charisms together more often? That is the judgement of the Holy Spirit. Who are we to question his judgements?

The saint goes on that the road to gnosis is the Jesus Prayer whereas the road to wisdom is meditation without vainglory on the Word of God, and above all the Grace of God.

It might be wondered if the Saint really means the Jesus Prayer, or just any old prayer. By the time we have finished this commentary it should be clear that he means the Jesus Prayer. This is the first text in the history of Christianity (c. 450 ad) to refer unambiguously to the Jesus Prayer and its practice. However, the Saint never gives a formula to be repeated.

[1] Greek: apathes.

[2] Greek: agape.

[3] Greek: aisthesei noera. This could be translated ‘mental sense’. The ‘spiritual sense’ or ‘mental sense’ is a faculty of the mind or nous by means of which one perceives spiritual things.

[4] Greek: eidos. This is an indication, if one is needed, of Diadochos’ education. He is contrasting ousia, essence, with eidos, form, appearance. Eidos applies to the multiplicity of actual objects that exist in the world. Hence, what Diadochos is saying is that the object that the technician wishes to make does not exist in essence, but the technician conceives it in his heart and then brings it into being through his art as eidos, one of the manifold objects existing in the world. Similarly evil has no essential existence, since all that God made is good. Evil exists only as the consequence of the exercise of free will; that is the significance of ‘habit (Greek: exis)’ and ‘practised’. Habit is a pattern of acts of the free will; ‘practised’ means ‘done by the will’.

[5] Greek: homoiosin.

[6] The Greek word gnosis means knowledge. In this work there is a clear distinction between intuitive knowledge and knowledge arrived at through reasoning or books. In this and similar passages, the author is referring to intuitive spiritual knowledge.

[7] Greek: nous. This is the created spirit of man, his innermost being.

[8] I.e. it is necessary to be zealous for what is true and just.

[9] Greek: noeran.

[10] Greek: theologia. In this epoch (mid-5^th Century), theologia is used to refer not to academic theology but to words spoken about God based on experience of God. It is also used in this school of mysticism for mystical union with God.

[11] Greek: dianoia. This is the conscious aspect of the human mind, including its ability to reason.

[12] The Greek word literally means ‘contemplations’, but in the sense of words spoken in academic theology, not in the sense of visions of God.

[13] I.e. neither in ignorance of God nor when full of divine illumination. In Greek philosophy virtue is a mean between two extremes.

[14] Greek: energeies. Similarly for the singular.

[15] Greek: euche. It will be clear that St Diadochos means the Prayer of Jesus, which he will proceed to discuss.

Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Repentance 6

Let us suppose that we have made some progress, it being Lent and all, in repentance. Now the bottom line is that we want God to forgive us.

…forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors…

The hardest part of forgiveness is to forgive those who have wronged us. It might be thought that it would be easy but it’s not. It takes a great deal of humility and work in the heart to arrive at a moment of forgiveness for the other—never mind the heart; consider that the head has known this for ages and we still have not forgiven as we ought.

The heart is where we must forgive whatever our mind tells us. Without the heart, we have got nowhere. We have to learn to love. We have to learn to see ourselves as we should be, and to turn in that direction.

With best wishes for a blessed Pascha—

Orthodox Monk

The Light of Christ

One of the very interesting parts of the Liturgy of the Presanctified derives from the ancient Vespers service, where the priest lit the first evening candle. With that candle he blessed the congregation. That is the source of the blessing with the candle in the Presanctified, where the priest says: ‘The light of Christ shines on all.’ This is an almost sacramental (or mysterial moment). In contrast with other occasions of Grace, there is no obvious joy, but a deep attentive sobriety. We have always been struck by this moment, how solemn it is.

Patience Please, Part Three

We just wanted to add the following to our remarks in ‘Patience Please’ about saying something new. Recently we assembled the complete blog for a friend who wanted to send it around for publication. Without comments the blog was a little shy of 200,000 words. Since we don’t copy and paste other peoples’ work—although we do quote our readers when we want to discuss what they say—that means that we have already written about 200,000 words on this blog. Since a devotional work for publication is around 60 – 65,000 words, that means that we have already written the equivalent of 3 books. Perhaps there are others who can say something new every day for a lifetime, but we’re not one of them. (‘Part Three’ because we used the title Patience Please once in 2007.)

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Patience Please

BlackIncense wrote us a very nice little note asking us to come back and post something. We haven't abandoned our blog--although after several years of posting our attitude has necessarily changed. We will be posting as we can over the next while. One of the problems is always ‘saying something new’. There's no point to saying the same thing over and over again, even though dedicated readers might enjoy it, just as we might enjoy hearing a piece of music again and again.

Repentance 5

Today we had the first Orthros of Great Lent—in the monastic typikon, the services of Great Lent are anticipated on Wednesday and Friday of Cheese-fare Week. While we were attending the service we encountered the difficulty that we always encounter with the services of Great Lent: how to characterize the services’ atmosphere.

The services of Great Lent are characterized by a sobriety and restraint. Properly executed, the Orthodox Services of Great Lent are not lugubrious, doleful, mournful or given to weeping or other emotional exaggeration. Emotional exaggeration is not the way of the monk.

In their greatest expression, during Holy Week, the sobriety and restraint of the services of Great Lent bloom into great and very deep ecclesiastical poetry. In the Greek tradition at least, this poetry is accompanied by some of the greatest ecclesiastical music, music which gives the cantor the means to express the depth of our own love for Christ. As great as Bach, say, is, the music of the Orthodox Church moves in another dimension—a spiritual dimension of peace and sobriety which raises our minds (nous) to Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit, not through the play of the musical composition on our raw emotions. This is not to say that Bach was not a believing Christian.

It is through being raised to Christ by the Holy Spirit in our spirits and not in our emotions that we relive the Passion of Christ during Holy Week.

In common with all the services of the Orthodox Church, the services of Holy Week are a spiritual re-enactment. In Holy Week, the services are a re-enactment of the Passion of Christ. Through our spiritual participation in this re-enactment we enter more deeply and more fully into the spiritual relationship with Christ that was conferred on us by our reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism so as to participate more fully in Our Saviour’s life of the Resurrection.

Hence, the whole of Great Lent is a purification from our passions through a sober attention to the word of God in the services. Our goal is that through this purification we might be joined more closely to Christ, first in his Passion in all its gravity and then in his Resurrection. This is repentance: sober attention, purification and an effort to change, so that we may live in fullness the gifts of the Holy Spirit given in the love of Our Saviour to us for our salvation and eternal joy: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God and the Son whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.”

Repentance 4

After a certain age, the memory of death becomes a companion for life. It is impossible to tell a young man going off to the wars about the memory of death. It is impossible to explain to a young bride the vanity of life. After a certain age, however, the man, now a veteran of many wars, knows that one day he will die. The woman, by now the mother of a number of children, knows that she is growing old.

At that time the memory of death comes into play. It is not the same as repentance. However, once a person has recognized that the greater part of his life is behind him, then unless he blocks that recognition by giving himself over to his passions, in some cases also alcohol and drugs (some legal perhaps, some illegal), repentance is a natural consequence of the memory of death.

Of course, if you have a chronic illness, then the words are written on the wall with much greater clarity.

And if one day the doctor says to you, “I’m sorry …” then it’s a matter of calling the priest.

The memory of death is not morbid. It is a spiritual charism that allows the person the moral certainty that there is ‘no exit’ to his life: only the grave is the final resting place of the tired tabernacle.

The memory of death is not depression: it is the serene realization that we are destined first for the dread judgement seat of Christ and then for eternal life according to our works. In the face of such a prospect the sincere Christian will realize that the only thing is to cultivate repentance.

The memory of death is not anti-Christian: it is the Christian united to God who realizes that like the hair on his head his days are numbered, that as the Psalmist puts it his days are as the ‘herb of the field’.

But it is only after a certain age that God grants this realization to the monk or to the layman.

Best wishes for Great Lent

–Orthodox Monk

Orthodox Monk

Monday, 23 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 16 - 29

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos 10 - 15

Friday, 13 March 2009

Commentary on Diadochos, 1 - 9

Gnostic Chapters

Diadochos of Photiki

Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in Epirus, 100 Gnostic Chapters

Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Repentance 6

The Light of Christ

Patience Please, Part Three

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Patience Please

Repentance 5

Repentance 4

About Me

Topics

Blog Archive