Letter to George, Prefect of Africa 1 part 3/14

and you have understood, and you have inquired after the eternal paths of the Lord;

and you have seen where the good way is, and you have walked in it, and you have found sanctification for your soul.

I am the Lord your God;

I have shown you how to find the way of righteousness, in which you shall walk, and you have heard my commandments.

And I too, exceedingly rejoicing in your good deeds, will make bold to speak in company with God, taking my words from the great Jeremiah:

Blessed are you, because you have put off the garment of the mourning of your affliction;

I mean the old man, who is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit;

and you have put on the comeliness of the glory that comes from God forever — I mean the new man, who in the spirit is being created according to Christ, in the image of the One who created him;

and you have clothed yourself with the double robe of the righteousness that comes from God;

and you have set upon your head the miter of eternal glory;

adorned both with the accessible manner of the virtues, and with the unstumbling word of wisdom.

Of these words I possess nothing more for the demonstration of the invisible disposition of my soul;

for I have nothing worthy of your good deeds to offer to God and to you, except to admire you according to my power, and to accept you as you act rightly, and to rejoice together with you who propitiate God through good works;

and through you to praise virtue;

and through virtue to hymn God, that virtue which joins you to God.

so that it seems to me to be one and the same thing, and equal, to praise you and to praise virtue, and to hymn God, who has granted to you the splendor of virtue;

that virtue which, by the taking on—insofar as attainable to man—of the divine properties, deifies you by grace unto God.

That love is given in place of the law and the prophets;

and that from it all the precepts of the commandments are issued, and by it they are comprehended in a single form.

Observe the motion according to reason and nature, from which man was turned away from the beginning by the counsel of the evil one.

The works of blessed love join into one, by an ineffable word, God and all mortals, around him who possesses it.

Having received the precious letters of your beloved self in the Lord, together with the blessing sent to the most devout monks of the pious monastery of the holy and glorious martyr George, I gave thanks to God for such readiness of yours toward what is good;

because through your zeal you loosed the bonds of those held fast by poverty, and thereby freed yourselves from the bonds of sin;

and, having set out to nourish bodies, you nourished your own soul with divine grace, and you have given to me also occasion to reap the fruit of true contemplation.

For, having come to myself, I understood the reason for which God simply legislated that all human beings must show mercy to, and be shown mercy by, one another;

namely, that, wishing to unite you to one another both in nature and in intention, and truly impelling the whole of humankind toward this, he inscribed for us in loving-kindness the saving commandments;

but the self-love and cleverness of men, having either rejected or sophistically evaded one another and the law, cut up the one nature into many parts;

and, having introduced the insensibility now prevailing over it, armed nature against itself by means of intention.

and having drawn near to God in intention on account of nature;

and having shown in his own person what the mode of the principle "according to the image" is;

and how God, fittingly, from the beginning, having created our nature like unto himself, and made it a most manifest image of his own goodness, established it;

that nature being in all respects the same with itself;

unwarlike, peaceable, free from faction, bound tight through love both to God and to itself;

according to which we hold fast to God with desire, and to one another with compassion.

And he showed mercy also to those who ought to be shown mercy;

not only providing for them, but also teaching how God, though hidden, is manifested through those who are worthy;

so that those in need too, henceforth, in reverence for the kindness shown toward them by their neighbor, may readily claim this grace also as being of God.

But if anyone, though able to do this from what he has, disregards those in need, he will rightly be shown to have severed those men from himself, and himself from God;

as one who, on account of his intention, has failed to recognize nature — or rather, has, on account of his intention, corrupted the good things belonging to his own nature.

These things, then, [befall] as many as have deliberately chosen harshness rather than loving-kindness, and, judging kinship and their own kin to be of less worth than a few coins, and by their longing for gold have walled off from themselves the entrances of God — they themselves piteously suffering, at their own hands, the fall from what is better;

—identity, despising all things upon the earth, as true advocates of God through their works.

Doing which, you, both now and formerly, have been shown to be, O beloved ones;

in every word and manner, and by a generous scattering of your possessions, eagerly apportioning yourselves, in soul and body, to all, and showing that, in your own case, intention is the same as nature, being surpassed by nature in one respect alone, namely that it has received from nature the seeds of what has come to be;

or rather, [surpassed] by God, from whom the powers of good things have also been laid down beforehand in nature.

propping up the weakness that was already tottering from the destitution of nature, and healing, as far as was possible, the ill fortune worn upon them by poverty;

Do not cease, then, doing good to those in need, so that through your emptying yourselves you may keep your fullness undiminished.

And with cheerfulness of soul, confirming your faith and hope and love toward God;

Restrain the bond and the grudging extending of the hand, and the word of murmuring, just as the divine oracle somewhere says;

which concerns the necessity of giving, and not deliberating over it.

to which regret altogether attaches itself;

a thing which is more burdensome than not doing it at all.

For we all know that, concerning the unworthiness of doing good or receiving it, no one has yet known with any exactness whom one ought to blame;

whether those who are able to do good, or those who are in need of receiving good;

but that this belongs to the time that is yet to come;

according to which it will be known what sort and how many your [deeds] are, and in what condition they happen to be.

Thus has God, in his wisdom, been pleased that for the present the abyss of his judgments should remain concealed.

And knowing this, the wise author of Proverbs exhorted us to cast our bread even upon the water without calculation;

as something that would not be swept away nor lost;

but that it would afterward meet [them] again with greater increase — for those who, for the sake of the good, have possessed the giving of it in simplicity of heart — from God and our Savior Christ, who receives unto himself all things done by us to one another, whatever they may happen to be.

For if, as one who loves mankind, he willingly accepted to suffer on our behalf, what would he not willingly do for those who imitate his love of mankind toward us?

By the same [author], to the same [recipient]: On grief according to God

knowing that grief according to God works an unregretted repentance unto salvation, for those who have been strengthened by divine fear with the whole of their power;

not allowing the soul, once it has turned away from the divine tribunals, to be disposed toward the things that are by nature corruptible;

on account of which, for those who run the course of the present life negligently, the evil confusion of the passions, taking up residence [within them], prepares the wretched mind to be captured by the snares of the devil, and fittingly establishes it as teacher of every wickedness;

inasmuch as it has, contrary to nature, subjected the operation that is according to nature to the disorderly impulses of anger and desire. For the soul which has once, through deception, bound its intellective power to material things is most resourceful and swift only in the discovery of base things.

so that, guarded by her, he might strike out the evil sting of sin;

he is captured once for all by the arrows of the devil.

No one who invisibly cherishes her within the soul fears the manifold onslaughts of the demons;

No one who has chosen to live together with her is ever attached to visible things.

No one who has her characterizing his life is defiled by the filth of corruptible things.

No one who has bound her indissolubly to his thoughts allows his senses to be carried disorderly toward what they ought not.

No one whose soul has been given her quality can at all consider himself greater than another;

but rather, on the contrary, he would believe himself to be, and be reckoned, less than everyone.

No one who has girded her about his mind slips away from the contemplation of divine things.

No one who has wholly fitted her to himself will be ignorant of the signs of the pious way of life.

Her the Holy Spirit creates, coming to dwell upon the hearts of the worthy.

This alone I know to be generative of the joy that is in the kingdom of heaven.

For grief according to God is clearly a divine seed;

yielding as its ripe fruit the gladness of the eternal goods.

Her the exact recollection in the mind of things once lived renews.

Her the book of conscience concerning our transgressions, diligently read, nourishes.

Her the remembrance of death procures, together with the most piercing pain that arises in the soul at the departure on account of it, ever being anticipated.

Her the fearsome and rigorous scrutiny of the spirits of wickedness, waged in the air against the soul, continually taking shape in the mind, preserves altogether unquenched.

For who, beloved, being stained, as I am, with the defilements of sins, does not fear the oversight of the holy angels—

by whom, receiving the end of the present life according to the divine decree, [the soul] is forcibly and wrathfully thrust out of the body, even against its will?

Who, carrying with himself a defiled conscience, does not dread the most savage and barbarous onslaught of the evil demons, as each of them, in this air after the soul's departure, by means of the passion that stands between [them], mercilessly drags the wretched soul toward himself, shames it by the exposure of the things it has done, and produces in it utter despair of all hope for the goods to come?

This grief the exact mental representation of the condition of the souls in Hades — [formed] after the scrutiny that takes place in the air against the spiritual powers of wickedness — nourishes unto salvation;

[describing] how they pass their time in deep darkness and heaviest silence, having as their food the most piercing groans and tears, and the dejection that follows upon these;

awaiting continually nothing else at all, but only the just condemnation [to come] at the divine verdict.

This grief the hope of the resurrection sustains;

[as does] the majesty of the fearsome and all-glorious coming of Christ;

[and] the most awe-inspiring day of judgment, continually meditated upon in the mind;

on which day heaven and earth, and the whole order of visible things, shall rush past and pass away;

the elements being burned up and dissolved by the boundless fire, which purifies beforehand, for the coming of the Pure One, the creation defiled by us;

on which day thrones are set forth, and the Ancient of Days sits down before [them], and the innumerable ranks of holy angels and archangels stand by in ministerial service with fear and trembling;

and the whole nature of mankind is brought unto examination;

and books are opened, of our deeds and words and thoughts, containing their records with all exactness;

so that all will know one another's sins to the same degree that each knows his own, reading unerringly the book of his own conscience;

on which day some, having been stationed at the right hand of the Judge, will receive the promises of the ineffable goods;

while [others,] taking their place [at the left], will receive the eternal fire, and the outer darkness, and the sleepless worm, and the gnashing of teeth, and the unceasing tears, and the unending shame — at which everyone condemned to the endless, age-long torment will be pained more than by all the other kinds of punishment together.

Of these truly fearsome things and names, he who has grief according to God in no way at all forgets;

but he will be disposed as one who is always seeing the Judge and being seen [by him];

and he will conduct the present life piously and justly, neither doing nor saying nor thinking anything that is alien to the divine grace and calling.

An offspring of this praiseworthy grief happens to be that exceptional good among men, humility;

through which the pious and God-loving man will, in truth, consider himself the very least of all;

even if he be a king in rank, making the weakness common to nature the standard of his self-knowledge;

under which all who share in the same nature stand equally;

in no way carrying his reasoning away from the principle according to nature on account of his rank.

A projection of this [humility] is constituted by meekness, being a disposition that repels the movements, contrary to nature, of both anger and desire;

through which man receives likeness to the angels, among whom there is no raging anger barking indecently against its kin;

nor indeed desire, dissolving the intellective powers and dragging the longing down toward matter;

but reason alone, having dominion over the whole [of man], and fervently leading in the mind toward the Logos who is beyond cause and nature.

The fruit of this [meekness] is love, according to which, being united to God and to one another, we willingly care for one another, as far as attainable, to the same degree that God, as compassionate, holds fast to all.

The end of this [love] is the kingdom of heaven, and the enjoyment of the divine goods that are there.

For to this end grief according to God leads those who cherish and guard her.

And the marks of this grief are: to have accustomed the eyes to see creation only unto the glory of the Creator;

and to look upon the affairs of one's neighbor without envy and malice;

[and] to have the ears opened readily for the reception only of the words of God, and of the supplication of those who beseech us;

but [to have them] earnestly stopped up against all reviling and the foulness of shameful words;

[and to have] the tongue consecrated by the good report of others, in no way defiled by insults and reviling against others.

And simply, to sum it up in a word: let us reshape all the members, both of the body and of the soul, according to what seems good to the Spirit.

and our whole aim, according to piety, may be set aright.

Examining ourselves with all exactness concerning these things, O blessed one, if we find that we possess them, let us diligently preserve them;

but if we find that we have acquired none of these, let us labour zealously to acquire them, humbling ourselves before all men, as men, for the sake of God and our common nature;

remaining gentle and mild toward whatever occurs contrary to our own intention;

generous in giving to the poor, and hospitable toward strangers;

ready, as far as possible, to give aid to those in need of protection;

toward friends, of one soul and one mind;

toward acquaintances, adroit in all things;

accessible to those of lower estate;

compassionate and humane toward the weak;

long-suffering toward those who provoke us to anger;

forgiving toward those who err;

becoming a consolation to those who grieve.

And, simply put, let us become all things to all men, both because of the fear of God and because of the anticipated threat of the judgments to come.

For without these enumerated things, there is absolutely no hope of salvation for anyone at all.

It is my longing for you that compels me to say these things, and more than these—

compelling me to converse with you in spirit, and, though absent, to be constrained to meet with you through letters.

But let us not receive the force of what is said carelessly;

since, along with other things, we shall assuredly have such words as either our advocates or our accusers;

both I who speak them, and those who hear them, on the fearsome day of discernment — whichever of the two it shall be, according to how we shall have been disposed toward them.

May it come to pass that all of us — both those who speak something of what is fitting, and those who hear it — be shown to be doers of all the divine words;

and not merely hearers or speakers;

by the grace of Christ our God and Saviour, who called us unto his own glory and kingdom.

By the same, to Constantine.

If, as he has written, my blessed lord truly rejoices through my letters as though meeting with me in person, it is clear that in receiving my words he assuredly rejoices altogether.

Now the acceptance of words is the disposition of the one who accepts the words, [conformed] to those words.

And the exact proof of this disposition is the deed [that manifests] the power inherent in the words.

and I will never restrain my lips, according to what is written, from saying to him the things that can profit both him and me and others;

insofar as I am able to receive the grace concerning understanding wisely and speaking piously the things understood — [a grace] bestowed by God, who gives to all simply, and without reproach.

Let us therefore become, beloved, eager doers of the works commanded [by God];

and let us flee the deceit of this age, and let us not bind our soul to any of the things reputed pleasant within it.

For the world passes away, and all things in it wither, being by nature but the wastage consumed by corruption.

This eagerness for divine things, on the part of those who aspire to salvation, is evidenced not only by hatred of sin and a quiet, unmeddling way of life;

but also by estrangement from wicked men, and by the soul's aversion toward all things that are perishing;

and by contempt of the flesh for virtue's sake, and by a firm and unyielding self-mastery against all things that deceitfully fawn upon the soul through the senses;

through which we wither away all unbridled desires;

and we lull to rest the disorderly movements of anger, not allowing the reasoning faculty, once enslaved, to be swept away together with them, and, like a charioteer seized by unruly horses, to be carried down into chasms;

there being no one to command and to restrain the irrational impulse of the beasts yoked to the chariot.

But also by endurance and steadfastness toward all involuntary trials;

by which, even while suffering bodily, we remain unmoved in soul, and unconquered;

being cast down by none of the things that assail us.

For instance, discerning prudence, [arrayed] against both ignorance and superstition;

courage, against both cowardice and rash recklessness;

temperance, against licentiousness and folly;

justice, against injustice;

I mean, against taking more than one's due, and taking less than one's due;

arming ourselves with humility against pride;

putting forward condescension against haughtiness;

moderation, against conceit;

long-suffering, against faintheartedness;

cleaving to cheerful giving toward those in need;

diligently attending to hospitality, brotherly love, and love of mankind;

pursuing peace and love;

in which, as in a certain foundation of all good things, all the goods bestowed upon men from God are gathered and kept safe.

These things, my blessed lord, everyone who loves the kingdom of heaven, and hastens to flee the experience of the eternal punishments threatened against sinners, assuredly strives, according to his power, both to do and to keep;

having as a helper toward the keeping of these things the unforgetting remembrance of death, and of the uncertainty attending it;

and of the desolation that follows the soul's departure, bringing with it nothing else but the conscience branded on account of the evil deeds it has done;

and the thought of the fearsome scrutiny of it by the evil spirits that will take place against it in this air;

and the reflection on the bitter and lightless confinement of souls now in Hades;

These things, and more than these, I have already written to the best of my ability, and I shall not cease writing, so far as I am able, since I hold this desire for my beloved lord, that he become one who carries such words into effect.

But let us be sober, and let us keep watch over our own guard, O blessed one;

lest we be condemned all the more, for merely speaking and hearing divine things in vain and to no purpose.

Since indeed we shall render an account to God for these very words on the day of judgment;

both I who speak them, and those who hear them —

if we leave them entirely idle and unfruitful.

but may it rather come to pass that all of us exult in all the words of God, and be shown to be doers of the divine and saving wills contained in them.

By the same, to the most holy and most blessed Archbishop John, concerning the fact that the soul is incorporeal.

Having received the honourable letter of your Perfection in virtue, adorned with every kind of magnanimous modesty, I was at once filled with admiration and astonishment;

and how, being of the same mind in both respects, you remain consistent with yourself;

neither made unapproachable by the loftiness, nor rendered contemptible by the lowliness.

For, having wisely blended for yourself one form of virtue out of both, you paradoxically make the other to be seen within each.

in the humble, the lofty;

and in the lofty, conversely, humility.

Trusting again in the showers of your teaching, with which you refreshed me who was variously being scorched by ignorance,

who then are these who assert that there is no incorporeal creature,

and with what do they, opposing the truth of your words with baseless fabrications, contend against it?

And how is it that they, being more contentious than is fitting, were not put to shame by our argument, which is so utterly far removed from any extremely contentious reasoning?

I shall make this wise argument, an unconquerable ally of the truth, the firstfruits of my own [words];

priding myself, as it were, on your own methodical approaches.

If the body is, by its own nature, immovable;

and the soul too is a body—even if, as they say, the most fine-textured [body]—then, insofar as it is a body, it will not be moved.

And if these things are so, whence comes motion to us?

And this [regress would continue] to infinity, until we arrive at an incorporeal creature.

But if they should say that we are moved by God according to a first principle;

since I know that most of our motions are absurd and shameful, they will of necessity be forced to declare that the divine is by all means the cause of these too.

And again, if every bodily existence whatsoever, according to the true account, being distinguished by quantity and quality, in bulk and form, and surface and shape, bounds the contemplation concerning itself, as being marked out by necessary limits;

for one who investigates it could not imagine anything outside these;

and if the soul is a body, it is by all means circumscribed either out of these, or [is] these, or some [of these], or something of these, or by these, or by some [of these], or by something of these;

but [the soul] is neither out of these, nor is it these, nor some [of these], nor anything of these, nor is it circumscribed by these, nor by some [of these], nor by anything of these;

If, then, that the soul exists is not disputed by them;

yet it exists as none of the things which the concept comprehends—[none of] those out of which, or of which, bodies consist;

not color, not shape, not solidity, not weight, not magnitude, not extension into three [dimensions];

and, simply put, being none whatsoever of the things comprehended concerning bodily nature;

being none of these—as our argument has shown—it will certainly be incorporeal, if indeed it exists.

Furthermore, if every contraction and expansion and division belongs to bodies;

and that which is free from every contraction and expansion and any division whatsoever is certainly incorporeal, then the soul is therefore incorporeal, as being wholly incapable of receiving all these things.

If all bodily substance is divided into the ensouled and the unensouled;

and the soul is a body, it will certainly be either ensouled or unensouled.

But if it is ensouled, it will certainly be ensouled through something that ensouls it—either a substance, or a power, or an accident.

But to say that the soul itself is ensouled [by another], just as [one might say] that light is illumined, or that fire is heated, is altogether ridiculous.

And if we should say that it is a substance that ensouls the soul, we shall again have to say that this [substance] is either a body or incorporeal.

And if it is a body, the same absurd approaches of reasoning, [proceeding] from absurdity to absurdity, will be met by the argument stated before this, until it is agreed together that the soul is incorporeal.

But if we should say that it is a power, or rather a quality, that ensouls the soul—[a power] that gives life to, and is motive of, the substance—it will be involuntary and without real subsistence.

[This is] in addition to [the fact that] the distinction according to ruling and being ruled would thereby be both reversed and contrary to nature;

since indeed the soul—created by nature to rule the body, as an incorporeal substance—will, according to them, being a body, be ruled by that which does not exist according to substance;

I mean, it will be ruled by the power that exists according to quality—

[the soul,] which itself exists and subsists according to substance—contrary to the common preconception held by all.

But if we should say the soul is an unensouled body, it will be without sensation and without imagination, irrational and without understanding.

But indeed all these [faculties] both exist and are seen concerning the soul, and in the soul;

for we do not refuse to say—knowing well how to speak—that it has this, a body of a different substance [from its own];

but to declare that it itself is a body—as being most rash and at the same time most uneducated—we utterly avoid;

not being ignorant that 'to be' differs greatly from 'to have'.

But if it is because they call the Divine incorporeal, fearing a fear that does not exist, that they do not admit to calling the soul incorporeal, lest they should bring it to equality with God;

then let them also excise the rest of our [attributes], so that their contest of folly may be complete for them—as many [attributes] as we, by participating, [receive] from God;

[God] imparting [them], we were named [by them]; or God was named by us [with them].

'Being', 'living', 'being illumined', 'being made good', 'reasoning', 'understanding';

but these other [names are given] on account of motion, that is, intention and disposition.

For we are called 'beings', and 'living', and 'lights', and 'good', and 'intelligent', and 'rational';

and likewise we name God 'being' and 'living', and 'light', and 'good', and 'mind' and 'word';

whether as being, and being called, these things from [Him as] cause;

or as being actualized [by Him], calling the Divine by these names on the basis of our own [attributes].

What reason, then, do they have [to say] that the soul both is, and is named, all these things, in addition to many others;

yet no longer [named] 'incorporeal', which is precisely what the Divine is called?

As if it were necessary either that we not be called these things, because the Divine [is so called], or that God not be named these things which we too [are named].

But indeed we are also these things;

not as being identical with God on account of these things;

but as an effect stands to its cause, or a participant to that which is participated in, or existence to [its] cause.

Nor comparatively or synonymously, as in the case of things of the same substance;

but homonymously, and, so to speak, by way of participation;

the realities being infinitely separated from one another in nature;

unless one is pleased truly to say that the Divine is also above nature and above reality itself.

Where, then, again according to them, if it should be granted that the soul is a body, will the doctrine of 'according to the image' be preserved for us, unless we say that the soul has, in every respect, likeness to the archetype?

For just as we call the image, which is discerned in these respects, the [image] 'intelligent' of the intelligent [archetype], and [image] of the immortal, incorruptible, and invisible [archetype];

so likewise, [we call it the image] of the incorporeal, calling it 'incorporeal', as likewise escaping all bulk and every dimensional measurement;

yet again we say that it is, according to the property of [its] nature, something other than that [archetype].

Since otherwise it would no longer be an image, but an unvarying identity.

And in whatever respects that [attribute] is beheld in the uncreated, unchangeable, and beginningless nature, in those very same respects [we believe] the created rational nature [is beheld] too;

not, however, in the same manner, but—just as in the farthest echoes of a voice a disclosure of the word is shown—we clearly believe it is displayed [in that fashion].