Mystagogy 1 part 4/13

(50) The mind falls from its boldness toward God at the very moment when it becomes a companion of evil or filthy thoughts.

(51) The foolish man, led by the passions, when he is moved and disturbed by anger, hastens to flee his brethren without reflection;

but when again he is inflamed by desire, repenting, he runs back to meet them.

But the prudent man does the opposite in both cases:

in the case of anger, having cut off the causes of disturbance, he frees himself from grief toward his brethren;

and in the case of desire, he restrains himself from irrational impulse and intercourse.

(52) In the time of temptations do not leave your monastery, but bear nobly the waves of thoughts, and especially those of grief and listlessness.

For being thus providentially proved through afflictions, you will have firm hope in God.

But if you abandon it, you will be found unproved, unmanly, and unstable.

(53) If you wish not to fall from love according to God, neither allow your brother to go to sleep grieved against you, nor go to sleep yourself grieved against him;

but go, be reconciled to your brother, and coming with a pure conscience offer to Christ, through fervent prayer, the gift of love.

(54) If he who has all the gifts of the Spirit but has not love profits nothing, according to the divine Apostle,

we ought to show all diligence that we may acquire it.

(55) If love does no evil to one's neighbor, then he who envies his brother and is grieved at his good repute, who stains his reputation with mockery or plots against him with any malice—how does he not estrange himself from love and become liable to eternal judgment? (56) If love is the fulfilment of the law, then he who bears rancor against his brother, devises snares against him, curses him, and rejoices at his fall—how is he not a transgressor and worthy of eternal punishment? (57) If he who speaks against his brother and judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law;

and the law of Christ is love;

how does the slanderer not fall from the love of Christ and become to himself the cause of eternal punishment? (58) Do not lend your ear to the tongue of the slanderer, nor your tongue to the ear of the fault-finder, speaking or hearing with pleasure against your neighbor, lest you fall from divine love and be found a stranger to eternal life.

(59) Do not accept abuse against your father, nor encourage the one who dishonors him, lest the Lord be angered at your works and destroy you from the land of the living.

(60) Silence the slanderer in your hearing, lest you commit a double sin along with him—accustoming yourself to a deadly passion, and failing to restrain him from prattling against his neighbor.

(61) "But I say to you," says the Lord:

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you;"

[He commands this] so that you may love all men equally in imitation of God, who loves all men equally and wills that they be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

(62) "But I say to you, do not resist the evil one;

but whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;

and to him who wishes to sue you and take your tunic, leave him your cloak also;

and whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two."

(63) The impassioned images we carry about pertain to the very things we have at some time experienced.

He, then, who overcomes the impassioned images altogether despises also the things of which they are images;

since the war against memories is the more difficult than the war against things, in proportion as sinning in thought is easier than sinning in deed.

(64) Of the passions, some are bodily and some pertain to the soul.

And the bodily ones have their occasions from the body;

the soul's passions, from external things.

But both are cut off by love and self-control;

(65) Of the passions, some belong to the incensive [part];

and others to the desiring part of the soul.

Both are set in motion through the senses;

and they are set in motion when the soul is found to be without love and self-control.

Therefore the greater remedy against it, the commandment of love, was given by the Lord.

(67) All the other passions attach themselves either to the incensive part of the soul, or to the desiring part alone, or also to the rational part, as do forgetfulness and ignorance;

but listlessness, laying hold of all the powers of the soul, sets in motion almost all the passions together at once;

wherefore it is the heaviest of all the other passions.

Well, then, did the Lord give the remedy against it:

"In your patience," He says, "possess your souls."

(68) Never strike any of the brethren, especially without reason, lest, being unable to bear the affliction, he depart; and you will never escape the rebuke of conscience, which will always bring you grief in the time of prayer and drive your mind away from divine boldness.

(69) Do not endure suspicions or persons that bring you offences against any one;

for those who admit offences in whatever manner, whether of things happening by choice or against choice, do not know the way of peace, which leads its lovers through love to the knowledge of God.

(70) He does not yet have perfect love who still conforms himself to the opinions of men, loving this one and hating that one for this or that reason;

or even loving the same person at one time and hating him at another for the same reasons.

(71) Perfect love does not divide up the one nature of men according to their differing dispositions, but, ever looking to it, loves all men equally;

loving the zealous as friends, and the wicked as enemies, doing them good, being long-suffering, and enduring what they bring upon it;

in no way reckoning the evil, but even suffering on their behalf, should the occasion call for it, that it may make even them friends, if it be possible;

but if not, it does not fall away from its own disposition, ever showing the fruits of love equally toward all men.

Showing His love toward us, He suffered for the whole of mankind and granted to all equally the hope of the resurrection;

even though each one makes himself worthy either of glory or of punishment.

(72) He who does not despise glory and dishonor, wealth and poverty, pleasure and grief, has not yet acquired perfect love;

for perfect love despises not only these, but even this transient life itself and death.

(73) Hear what those who have been counted worthy of perfect love say:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are killed all the day long;

we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter."

"But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And concerning love toward God, all the saints are such, both in word and in deed.

(74) And concerning love toward one's neighbor, hear again what they say.

"I tell the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,

that I have great grief and continual sorrow in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites."

Likewise also Moses and the rest of the saints.

(75) He who does not despise glory and pleasure, and the love of money which fosters these and is constituted on their account, cannot cut off the occasions of anger;

and he who does not cut these off cannot attain to perfect love.

(76) Humility and hardship free a man from all sin;

the latter cutting off the passions of the body, [the former those of the soul].

"Look upon my humiliation and my toil, and forgive all my sins."

and through the divine doctrines He grants them the illumination of knowledge.

(78) All doctrines concern either God, or visible and invisible things, or the providence and judgment in them.

(79) Almsgiving heals the incensive part of the soul;

fasting withers the desiring part;

and prayer purifies the mind and prepares it for the contemplation of the things that are.

For the Lord has bestowed the commandments on us in accordance with the powers of the soul.

(80) "Learn from Me," He says, "that I am meek and lowly in heart," and what follows.

Meekness keeps the incensive part undisturbed;

and humility frees the mind from conceit and vainglory.

the one [fear] which is engendered in us from the threats of punishment, on account of which self-control, patience, hope in God, and dispassion (from which comes love) arise in us in due order;

and the other [fear] which is conjoined with love itself, ever producing reverence in the soul, lest through the boldness of love it come to contempt of God.

(82) The first fear perfect love casts out of the soul that has acquired it, so that it no longer fears punishment;

but the second it ever keeps conjoined with itself, as has been said.

And to the first fear belong the words:

"By the fear of the Lord everyone turns away from evil," and:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

"The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever and ever," and:

"There is no want to those who fear Him."

(83) "Therefore put to death your members which are upon the earth:

fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness," and what follows.

By "earth" he named the mind of the flesh;

by "fornication" he meant sin in act;

by "uncleanness" he called assent [to sin];

by "passion" he named the impassioned thought;

by "evil desire" he meant the mere acceptance of the thought of desire;

and by "covetousness" he named the matter that begets and fosters the passion.

All these, then, as being members of the mind of the flesh, the divine Apostle commanded to be put to death.

(84) First the memory brings the bare thought to the mind;

and this, lingering, sets the passion in motion;

and this, not being done away with, bends the mind to assent;

and this having come to pass, it proceeds at last to sin in act.

Therefore the all-wise Apostle, writing to those from among the Gentiles, commands first to do away with the effect of sin;

then, retracing the order step by step, to come back to the cause.

And the cause is the begetting and fostering covetousness of the passion, as was said before.

And here I think he signifies gluttony, as being the mother and nurse of fornication.

For covetousness is evil not only in money, but also in food;

just as self-control is good not only in food, but also in money.

(85) Just as a small bird, bound by the foot, when it begins to fly is dragged back to the earth, pulled down by the cord;

so also the mind, not yet having acquired dispassion, when it flies up toward the knowledge of heavenly things, is dragged down to the earth, pulled back by the passions.

(86) When the mind is perfectly freed from the passions, then it journeys without turning back toward the contemplation of the things that are, making its way toward the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

(87) Being pure, the mind, taking up the concepts of things, is moved to their spiritual contemplation;

but having become impure through negligence, it imagines the concepts of other things as bare, while as for human matters, receiving them, it is turned to shameful or evil thoughts.

(88) When in the time of prayer no concept of the things of the world ever disturbs the mind, then know that you are not outside the bounds of dispassion.

(89) When the soul begins to perceive its own health, then it begins also to see the images in sleep as bare and untroubled.

(90) Just as the beauty of visible things draws the sensible eye to itself, so also the knowledge of invisible things draws the pure mind to itself;

and by "invisible" I mean the incorporeal.

(91) It is a great thing not to be affected by things;

but it is far greater to remain dispassionate toward their images.

(92) He who has set the virtues aright and grown rich in knowledge, as one who henceforth sees things according to nature, does and speaks all things according to right reason, in no way being turned aside.

For according as we use things reasonably or unreasonably, we become either virtuous or wicked.

(93) It is a sign of utmost dispassion that the bare concepts of things ever rise up to the heart, both when the body is awake and during sleep.

and through the spiritual contemplation of visible things, [it frees the mind from] the impassioned concepts of things;

and through the knowledge of invisible things, [it frees it from] the contemplation of visible things;

and this, through the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

(95) Just as the sun, rising and illumining the world, shows both itself and the things illumined by it;

so also the Sun of righteousness, rising upon the pure mind, shows both Himself and the principles of all things made and to be made by Him.

(96) We do not know God from His essence, but from the magnificence of His works and His providence over the things that are;

for through these, as through mirrors, we perceive His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.

(97) The pure mind is found either in the bare concepts of human affairs, or in the natural contemplation of visible things, or in that of invisible things, or in the light of the Holy Trinity.

(98) Coming to be in the contemplation of visible things, the mind either searches out their natural principles, or those signified through them, or seeks the cause itself.

(99) Dwelling in the contemplation of invisible things, it seeks both their natural principles and the cause of their coming into being, and the things following upon these, and what is the providence and judgment concerning them.

(100) Coming to be in God, it seeks first the principles concerning His essence, being inflamed by longing; yet it finds no consolation from the things pertaining to Him;

for this is impossible and inadmissible alike to every created nature.

But it is consoled by the things pertaining to Him—I mean those concerning His eternity, infinity, and boundlessness, His goodness, wisdom, and power which creates, provides for, and judges the things that are.

And this alone of Him is wholly comprehensible: His infinity.

and he who prays utterly without distraction, this one also genuinely loves God.

But he does not pray without distraction who has his mind fixed upon any earthly thing;

therefore he does not love God who has his mind bound to any earthly thing.

(2) The mind that lingers over some sensible thing assuredly has a passion toward it, such as desire, or grief, or anger, or rancor;

and unless it despises that thing, it cannot be freed from that passion.

(3) The passions, gaining mastery over the mind, bind it to material things;

and separating it from God, they make it occupy itself with these.

But the love of God, gaining mastery, looses it from the bonds, persuading it to despise not only sensible things, but even this transient life of ours.

(4) It is the work of the commandments to make bare the concepts of things;

and of reading and contemplation, to render the mind immaterial and formless;

and from this it comes about that one prays without distraction.

lest also various spiritual contemplations succeed one another in it.

For the former frees the mind only from intemperance and hatred, but the latter deliver it also from forgetfulness and ignorance;

and thus one will be able to pray as one ought.

(6) Of pure prayer there are two highest states:

the one befalling those given to the active life, the other those given to contemplation.

And the one arises in the soul from the fear of God and good hope;

the other from divine eros and the highest purification.

The marks of the first measure are: to gather the mind inwardly from all the concepts of the world, and to make one's prayers without distraction or disturbance, as though God Himself were present beside it—as indeed He is;

and of the second: that in the very impulse of prayer the mind is caught up by the divine and infinite light, and perceives utterly nothing either of itself or of anything else that exists, except only Him who through love works such illumination in it.

Then also, being moved concerning the principles pertaining to God, it receives pure and clear impressions concerning Him.

(7) Whatever one loves, that he assuredly also clings to, and despises all that hinders him from it, lest he be deprived of it;

and he who loves God takes care for pure prayer, and casts out from himself every passion that hinders him from it.

(8) He who has cast out self-love, the mother of the passions, easily, with God's help, lays aside the rest also, such as anger, grief, rancor, and the rest;

but he who is mastered by the former is wounded by the latter, even against his will.

And self-love is the passion toward the body.

such as either for God's sake, as the virtuous man [loves] all, and as one loves the virtuous man even if he is not yet virtuous;

or by reason of nature, as parents love their children and the reverse;

or by reason of vainglory, as the one who is praised loves the one who praises him;

or by reason of avarice, as one loves the rich man for the sake of gain;

or by reason of love of pleasure, as one who serves the belly and the parts below it.

And the first is praiseworthy;

(10) If you hate some, and others you neither love nor hate,

and others you love, but moderately, while still others you love exceedingly;

from this inequality know that you are far from perfect love, which lays down that one should love every man equally.

(11) "Turn away from evil, and do good."

Make war on the enemies, that you may lessen the passions;

and afterward be watchful, lest they increase.

Make war, that you may acquire the virtues, and afterward be watchful, that you may keep them safe.

And this would be what is meant by "to work and to keep."

(12) Those who, by God's permission, tempt us either inflame the desiring part of the soul, or disturb the incensive part, or darken the rational part, or surround the body with pains, or plunder our bodily goods.

(13) The demons either tempt us by themselves, or arm against us those who do not fear the Lord;

by themselves, when we withdraw from men, as they tempted the Lord in the wilderness;

through men, when we dwell together with them, as they tempted the Lord through the Pharisees.

But let us, looking to our pattern, repel them from both directions.

(14) When the mind begins to make progress in the love of God, then the demon of blasphemy also begins to tempt it, and suggests to it such thoughts as no man, but only their father the devil, devises.

Having entertained such things, let him no longer dare to fly up to Him through his accustomed prayer.

But the destroyer gains nothing thereby toward his own aim, but rather makes us more steadfast.

For being warred against and warring back, we are found more proven and more genuine in the love of God;

"and may his sword enter into his own heart, and his bows be broken."

(15) The mind, applying itself to visible things, perceives things according to nature through the medium of the senses; and neither is the mind evil, nor the perceiving according to nature, nor are the things themselves, nor the sense-perception;

for these are the works of God.

(16) A passion is a movement of the soul contrary to nature, either toward irrational affection or toward indiscriminate hatred—of someone or of something sensible, or on account of something.

Such as toward irrational affection: of foods, or a woman, or money, or passing glory, or some other sensible thing, or on account of these;

and toward indiscriminate hatred: such as of any of the aforementioned, as has been said, or toward someone on account of these.

(17) Or again, vice is the mistaken use of concepts, upon which follows the abuse of things.

For example, as in the case of a woman, the right use of intercourse is the aim of procreation.

He, then, who looks to the pleasure has erred concerning the use, reckoning what is not good as good;

such a one, then, abuses the woman in having intercourse with her.

And it is likewise in the case of other things and concepts.

"Casting me out, now they have surrounded me;"

"O my joy, deliver me from those who have surrounded me!"

(19) Grievous is the demon of fornication, and he vehemently assails those who struggle against the passion, especially in carelessness of diet and in encounters with women.

For stealthily, by the smoothness of pleasure, robbing the mind, he afterward sets upon it through the memory when it is at rest;

and inflaming the body and presenting various forms to the mind, he calls it forth to assent to sin;

if you wish that these should not linger in you, take up fasting, and toil, and vigil, and that good stillness with fervent prayer.

(20) Those who ever seek out our soul do so through impassioned thoughts, that they may cast it into sin either in thought or in deed.

When, then, they find the mind not receiving [them], then they will be ashamed and put to confusion;

but when [they find it] occupied with spiritual contemplation, then they will be turned back and put to utter shame very speedily.

and [the rank] of a presbyter, he who illumines unto the knowledge of the things that are and does away with the falsely-named knowledge;

and [the rank] of a bishop, he who perfects with the holy chrism unto the knowledge of the worshipful and Holy Trinity.

(22) The demons grow weak when the passions within us are lessened through the commandments;

but they perish when, in the end, they are utterly done away with through the dispassion of the soul, no longer finding the things by which they were present in it and warred against it.

"They shall be weak and shall perish at Your presence."

(23) Some men abstain from the passions out of human fear;

while others are freed from the passions through the divine judgments.

(24) All the words of the Lord contain these four things:

the commandments, the doctrines, the threats, and the promises.

And for their sake we endure every hardship, such as fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, toils and labours in service, insults, dishonour, tortures, deaths, and the like.

(25) The reward of self-control is dispassion;

and that of faith is knowledge.

And dispassion gives birth to discernment,

while knowledge gives birth to love for God.

(26) The intellect that succeeds in the practical philosophy advances toward prudence;

and the one that succeeds in the contemplative life advances toward knowledge.

For it belongs to the former to lead the one who strives toward discernment between virtue and vice;

and to the latter to lead the one who partakes of it toward the principles concerning incorporeal and corporeal beings.

He is then deemed worthy of the grace of theology, when, having passed through all that has been mentioned by the wings of love and come to be in God, he will contemplate the principle concerning Him through the Spirit, as far as is possible for the human mind.

(27) When you are about to do theology, do not seek to grasp the principles that concern God in Himself,

for the human mind will not find them—indeed, neither those of any other being that comes after God—but examine, as far as you can, the principles concerning Him: such as those concerning His eternity, infinity and indeterminacy, His goodness, wisdom, and power as Creator, Provider, and Judge of all that exists.

For he is a great theologian among men who, even to some small degree, discovers the principles of these things.

For by the one he withers desire and tames the incensive power,

and by the other he gives wings to the intellect and journeys forth to God.

(29) When the Lord says:

"I and the Father are one," He signifies the identity of essence.

"I am in the Father and the Father is in Me" makes clear the inseparability of the hypostases.

The Tritheists, therefore, by separating the Son from the Father, fall into a double precipice.

For either, while calling the Son co-eternal with the Father but separating Him from Him, they are forced to say that He was not begotten of Him, and so fall into asserting three gods and three principles;

or, while saying that He was begotten of Him but separating Him, they are forced to say that He is not co-eternal with the Father, and so to place the Lord of times under time.

For it is necessary, according to the great Gregory, both to preserve the one God and to confess the three hypostases, each with its own distinctive property.

For He is divided, yet indivisibly, according to the same Father, and is united, yet in a divided manner.

And for this reason both the division and the union are paradoxical;

for what is paradoxical about it, if the Son were united to and separated from the Father merely as one man is united to and separated from another, and nothing more? (30) He who is perfect in love and has come to the summit of dispassion knows no distinction between his own and another's, nor between one's own woman and another's, nor between believer and unbeliever, nor between slave and free, nor in general between male and female;

but having risen above the tyranny of the passions and looking to the one nature of mankind, he regards all alike and is disposed equally toward all.

For in him there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

(31) From the passions lying hidden in the soul, the demons take their occasions for stirring up impassioned thoughts within us;

then, warring against the intellect by means of these, they force it to come to consent to sin.

And when it has been overcome, they lead it into sin in the mind;

and when this has been accomplished, they finally carry it off captive to the act.

After this, those who had laid the soul waste by means of the thoughts then withdraw together with them.

There remains only in the intellect the idol of sin, concerning which the Lord says:

"When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, let the reader understand."

The holy place and temple of God is the intellect of man, in which the demons, having laid the soul waste through impassioned thoughts, have set up the idol of sin.

That these things have already come to pass also in a historical sense, no one who has read the works of Josephus, I think, doubts;

nevertheless some say that these things will also come to pass in the time of the Antichrist.

(32) There are three things that move us toward the good:

the natural seeds, the holy powers, and good resolve.

The natural seeds, as when whatever we wish men to do for us we likewise do for them;

or as when we see someone in straits or in necessity and naturally show mercy.

The holy powers, as when, being moved toward a good deed, we find good co-operation and are brought to success.

And good resolve, as when, discerning the good from the evil, we choose the good.

(33) And again there are three things that move us toward the evil:

the passions, the demons, and evil resolve.

The passions, as when we desire a thing contrary to reason, such as food out of season or beyond need, or a woman apart from the purpose of procreation, or one not lawful;

and again, when we grow angry or grieved beyond what is fitting, such as against one who has dishonoured or harmed us.