Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 1/21

FIRST QUESTION. Since I have heard certain people saying that monks too must pursue secular wisdom — on the ground that without it one cannot be freed from ignorance and false opinions, even should one attain to the utmost dispassion, nor yet lay hold of perfection and holiness, unless one gathers knowledge from every quarter, and above all from the learning of the Greeks (for this too, they say, is likewise a gift of God, given just as the gifts granted to the prophets and apostles through revelation; and through it knowledge of the things that are accrues to the soul, and it adorns the cognitive faculty, which is superior to all the powers of the soul, and banishes every other vice from the soul, for every passion is both engendered and strengthened by ignorance; moreover it guides man toward the knowledge of God, since there is no other way to know God except through his creatures) — since, I say, I heard them saying these things, I was in no way persuaded, my slight experience in the monastic way of life having shown me quite the opposite; yet I was unable to make a defense against them, since they also allege a certain loftier argument: that it is not simply for its own sake that we busy ourselves with the mysteries of nature, and measure out the circuit of the heavens, and investigate the opposed motions of the stars, and hunt out their conjunctions, separations, and risings, and what results from these, and take great pride in these matters, but because the principles of these things exist in the divine, primal, and creative Mind, while the images of those principles present in that Mind —

— their images are present in our soul. Of these, therefore, we are eager to attain full knowledge, and by divisive, syllogistic, and analytic methods to free ourselves from the impressions of ignorance, and thus, both in this life and after death, to be, by likeness, of him who made us.

Since, then, I judged myself unable to speak against these arguments, and so kept silence before them at that time, I now ask of you, Father, to be taught the arguments on behalf of the truth, so that, according to the Apostle's word, I might be ready to give an account concerning the hope that is in us.

Brother, it is good, to speak in apostolic terms, that the heart be confirmed by grace; but by mere argument, how could one demonstrate the good that is above argument?

In this respect too, then, you must give thanks to God, who has granted you such grace as does not even come into the minds of those who, through abundance of wisdom, suppose themselves to know all things. Even if you are not able to argue against them, you ought not to be troubled, though you know that they do not hit the mark of truth.

For you, being persuaded by deed, will in every way and altogether be established forever and unshaken, possessing within yourself the abiding foundation of the truth;

...whereas those who rely on mere proofs will certainly be overturned, even if not by you at this time; for every argument wrestles with argument — that is, is wrestled against in turn — and it is impossible ever to find the argument that prevails to the end, so that one cannot even hope to escape one's own defeat. This the sons of the Greeks and the sages who followed them demonstrated, continually overturning one another and being overturned by one another through what seemed a superior display of argument.

So, having said these things to those who attend upon them throughout their lives and hunt after knowledge from secular learning, and who extol it to such a degree — having said this, sufficiently and fittingly, as it seems to me, you may say to them that it is not so much knowledge —

— than ignorance that you procure for yourselves from these pursuits, O most excellent ones.

For just as those who desire glory from men, and do everything for its sake, obtain disgrace rather than glory, since different things please different people, in the same way those who hunt after knowledge from the secular sages reap, according to those very men's own standard, ignorance rather than knowledge; for opinions differ from one another and are at variance with one another, and for each opinion those who oppose it outnumber those who acknowledge it.

As for believing that any of them has been able to utter the very principles that are in the creative Mind — is this not perhaps a very grave error? 'For who has known the mind of the Lord?' says the Apostle. But if it is not possible to know these principles, neither is it possible, through secular wisdom, to discern the images of them in the soul.

The knowledge, then, that hunts after that which is according to the divine image by means of this secular wisdom is false knowledge.

Therefore the soul that possesses it will not, through it, be made like unto Truth itself; nor indeed could it be guided by it toward the truth. And so the boasting of those who, for this reason, pride themselves upon it is vain.

How, then, will the wisdom of the flesh furnish the soul with that which is according to the image?

'Consider,' says the Apostle, 'your calling: not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.'

Just as, then, the nobility and power of the flesh could not strengthen or ennoble the soul, so neither could that of the flesh [namely, its wisdom, furnish the soul with the image] —

Not so — but since, as those men themselves also say, the images of the principles that are in the creative Mind are present within us, what is it that has, from the beginning, rendered these images useless?

Is it not sin, and either ignorance or contempt of what ought to be done?

Why do we not perceive these images without being taught, seeing that they are imprinted within us ourselves?

Is it not because the passible part of the soul, rising up wickedly, has both distorted them and confounded its power of clear vision, and has removed it far from the archetypal beauty?

Therefore, more than anything else, this must be attended to: one must abstain from sin, and read the law of the commandments through practice, and hold fast to every virtue, and through prayer and true contemplation return to God — for the one who wishes to keep that which is according to the image safe, and to possess true knowledge.

For without purity, even should you learn the whole of natural philosophy from Adam to the consummation, you will be no less a fool — indeed all the more so — than wise; but without that natural philosophy, if you are purified and have freed your soul from wicked habits and opinions, you will acquire the wisdom of God that overcomes the world, and shall live forever in rejoicing together with God, who alone is wise.

By 'opinions' I mean, not those concerning the magnitude and motion of the heaven and the heavenly bodies, and whatever comes about through these, nor those concerning the earth and the things upon the earth, and the metals and translucent stones stored up as treasure within it,

— nor those concerning the phenomena that occur in the air as a result of the twofold exhalation.

But now certain people, as you say, having despised as of the least importance the goal set before Christians — the ineffable goods promised us in the age to come — and having exchanged science for that knowledge, are importing it into the Church of those who philosophize according to Christ.

For they declare those who do not know the mathematical sciences to be unclean and imperfect; and from this it follows of necessity that everyone must cling tightly to Greek learning and grow careless of the evangelical teachings (for from them one could never obtain freedom from ignorance of the sciences pertaining to them), and must withdraw, mocking him who says, 'Become perfect,' and, 'If anyone is perfect in Christ,' and, 'We speak among the perfect,' as one utterly without experience of such science.

It is not, then, freedom from this scientific ignorance that I have set forth as necessary — this I have called saving purity (for I know both a blameless ignorance and a culpable knowledge) — not, then, from this ignorance, but having been freed from ignorance concerning God and the divine dogmas, such ignorance as our theologians have forbidden, and every disposition of soul brought according to their beneficial precepts, you shall become full of the wisdom of God, truly an image and likeness of God, made perfect through the keeping of the evangelical commandments alone.

This too Dionysius, the interpreter of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, plainly declared concerning it: 'For assimilation and union with God,' he says, 'as the divine oracles teach, is accomplished only through the love of the most venerable commandments, and through the sacred rites.'

But if this argument is not true, and it is instead by means of secular learning that man can find and behold that which is according to the image — as though it reshaped his characteristics toward what is better and removed the darkness of ignorance from the soul — then the Greek sages would be more godlike and more capable of beholding God than the fathers before the Law and those who prophesied under the Law, most of whom were called to this dignity from a rustic manner of life.

And did not John, the final crown of the prophets, spend his life in the desert from his tenderest youth?

Is it not, then, toward him as an archetype that each of those who renounce the world look, according to the measure of power each possesses?

Where, then, in the desert, were there schools of that vain philosophy which, as they themselves say, brings salvation?

And where are such books to be found as ministers of such lives — of hermits and of virgins — and where is there a recorded contest, raising up to imitation those who read it?

But to leave aside this one who is higher than those born of women — he who, having ascended to so great a height, took no thought at all for that learning which, as they say, leads to God (for he did not even have access to the sacred books) — to leave him aside, then: he who existed before the ages and appeared together with them, and who for this cause came into the world, that he might bear witness to the truth and renew that which is according to the image and lead it back to the archetype — how is it that he did not provide this ascent by means of secular methods?

And why did he not say, 'If you wish to be perfect, take hold of secular learning, hasten to the acquisition of the sciences,'

'and procure for yourself the science of the things that are' — but instead said, 'Sell what you possess, distribute it to the poor, take up the cross, be eager to follow me'?

And why did he not teach also geometrical figures and quantities, and the far-wandering distances and conjunctions of the planets, and resolve the difficulties of natural problems, so as to remove from our soul the darkness of ignorance?

And why did he call together as disciples fishermen — unlettered, rustic men — rather than wise men, and this precisely in order to put to shame the wise of this world, as Paul says?

How, then, does he put to shame those who, as these men say, guide toward him?

And why did he make their wisdom foolish?

Is it not because the world, through wisdom, did not know God?

And what, then, did those you speak of learn?

'He became for us wisdom from God', and the light having arisen — which enlightens every man coming into the world — and day having shone forth, and the morning star having risen in the hearts of us believers, according to the chief of the Apostles, they themselves still need an artificial wick — the knowledge derived from the secular philosophers, which supposedly leads to the knowledge of God — and they counsel the others as well, abandoning the purification of themselves in stillness through the watch over their thoughts and the cleaving to God through unceasing prayer, to grow old in vain sitting beside a smoldering lamp.

Has it, then, never once occurred to their minds that it was by desiring and partaking of the tree of knowledge that we fell from that divine place of delight?

For, unwilling to till it and keep it according to the commandment,

— we yielded to the evil counselor, who stole an entrance and enchanted us with the beauty of the knowledge of good and evil.

Perhaps, then, even now this same evil counselor, to those unwilling to till and keep their own heart according to the guidance of the fathers, promises exact knowledge of the heavenly spheres and of the things pertaining to them, restless and ever-shifting — a knowledge that is in fact of good and evil, in that it does not possess the good in its own nature, but in the intention of those who make use of it, changing along with that toward the one or the other.

But before these things — and perhaps almost on account of these very things — he offers the experience and graces of many-tongued languages, the power of rhetoric, acquaintance with history, the discovery of nature's mysteries, the manifold methods of logical inquiry, the multifarious considerations of the science of computation, and the elaborate measurements of the configuration of immaterial figures — all of which I myself would call both good and bad, not merely because they turn out according to the disposition of those who use them, and are readily transformed to match the purpose of those who possess them, but also because, while devoting leisure to these things is good, insofar as it exercises the eye of the soul toward sharpness of sight, it would be bad to remain attached to this until old age; rather, it would be conducive to good, once one has trained oneself moderately in these things, to redirect one's struggle toward things far better and more abiding — since even the contempt of mere argument brings him a great reward from God.

Wherefore the second Theologian [Gregory of Nazianzus] says of the great Athanasius that this was what he gained from secular learning: to perceive clearly that which he had resolved to look beyond; and he himself, as he —

— himself says again, enjoyed only this benefit from it: to have both perceived and possessed that which he had preferred Christ above.

But the evil one, wickedly always eager to drag us down from better things, engenders bewitching spells in our souls and binds us with beloved fetters almost indissolubly to foolish things, proposing the great length and multitude of these worldly kinds of knowledge, just as he proposes to others wealth, or inglorious glory, or fleshly pleasures — so that, having occupied ourselves for our whole life in the pursuit of these, we may lack the strength to lay firm hold of that education which purifies the soul, whose beginning is the fear of God, from which continual supplication to God in compunction is born, and the keeping of the evangelical precepts; and through these, once reconciliation with God has come about, fear is transformed into love, and the painfulness of prayer, carried over into delight, causes the flower of illumination to arise; and of this, as it were a fragrance spreading toward the one who bears it, is the knowledge of the mysteries of God.

This is true education and knowledge — of which not even the beginning, namely the fear of God, can be received by anyone who is entangled in the love of vain philosophy, and enfolded and entwined in its intricacies and speculations.

For how could it enter the soul at all, and having entered, how could it remain — a soul already forestalled, taking delight, and, as it were, straitened by manifold and various reasonings — unless, bidding farewell to all else, it should become wholly given to leisure for God, so that it might also become wholly given to love of him, according to the commandment?

'Fear,' it declares, 'since I am unable to abide together with other things, having freed the soul from all things' —

It was for this reason, then, that the great Basil too, having set forth Pharaoh's words to Israel, 'You are idle, you are idlers,' when they said, 'Let us pray to the Lord our God,' adds: 'This, then, is the good leisure, and profitable to the one who is at leisure; but evil is the leisure of the Athenians, who found time for nothing else but to say and to hear something newer' — a leisure which even now certain people imitate by their manner of leisured life, a leisure dear to evil spirits.

But lest someone should say that the great Basil directs these words solely against idle rhetorical chatter, we shall add what he himself says again, elsewhere, clarifying that precept of Solomon, 'to know wisdom and instruction, and to understand the words of prudence': 'For already,' he says, 'some, occupying themselves with the geometry that the Egyptians discovered, or with the astrology honored among the Chaldeans, or busying themselves generally with figures and shadows and meteorology, have neglected the instruction of the divine oracles; since, then, many have grown old in the pursuit of such things, wasting their lives in the investigation of vanities, for this reason a right discernment concerning learning is necessary, both for the choice of profitable learning and for the rejection of that which is foolish and harmful.'

Do you see how he calls secular learning — this very learning of the sciences, and the knowledge derived from it — vain, harmful, and unprofitable, that very learning which certain people, as you say, declare to be the goal of contemplation and salvific?

'— having spent nearly the whole of my youth in vain labor, which I devoted to the acquisition of the sciences of that wisdom which has been made foolish by God, since at some point, as though rising from a deep sleep, I perceived the uselessness of the wisdom of the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing, having derived much enjoyment from my pitiable life, I prayed that some guidance might be given to me.'

Wherefore also the lover of true wisdom felt much regret at having lingered over it, and at having found in it no guidance whatsoever toward true wisdom.

But now there are those who — shamelessly, I know not how — say, as you yourself report, that to practice Greek learning throughout one's whole life is no impediment to the perfection of life, without even heeding the words of the Lord spoken directly against them: 'Hypocrites, you know how to discern the signs of the heaven, but how is it that you do not discern the time of the kingdom?'

For, since the time of the eternal kingdom has drawn near, and God who grants it has come to dwell among us, how is it that, if they truly desire the renewal of the mind, they do not approach him through prayer to receive again the ancient dignity of freedom, but instead run to those who were unable even to set themselves free — and this despite the Brother of God [James] plainly proclaiming: 'If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives, and it will be given him'?

And how does the knowledge derived from secular wisdom banish from the soul every vice, as though every vice were born of ignorance,

— when not even the knowledge that comes from the evangelical teaching alone is able to accomplish this?

'For it is not the hearers of the law who will be saved,' says Paul, 'but its doers'; and as for the one who knew the will of God and did not do it, the Lord says he will be beaten with many stripes, more than the one who did not know.

Do you see how knowledge alone benefits no one?

And why do I speak of knowledge concerning things to be done, or of the visible world, or of the invisible?

Not even the knowledge of God himself, who created these things, will be able by itself alone to benefit anyone.

'For what benefit is there in doctrines,' says the golden-tongued theologian John [Chrysostom], 'when a life pleasing to God — the life the Lord came to plant upon the earth — is absent?'

Rather, not only is there no benefit from it, but also the greatest harm — which these very men have also suffered, from whom you heard the words you reported to me.

For consider: he who did not come with excellence of speech, lest the mystery of the cross be emptied of its power; he who did not speak in persuasive words of human wisdom; he who knew nothing except the Lord Jesus, and him crucified — what, then, does this man write to the Corinthians?

Have you seen the culmination of wickedness, the devil's own peculiar condemnation, the conceit that is born of knowledge?

How then does every passion grow from ignorance?

And how does knowledge purify the soul?

"Knowledge," then, as the Apostle says, "puffs up, but love builds up."

Have you seen what knowledge without love is — in no way purifying the soul — love being the summit and the root and the mean of every virtue?

How then shall this knowledge, which builds up no good thing — for that is love's work — how then shall this knowledge furnish that which is according to the image of the Good?

Yet this kind of knowledge which, according to the Apostle's word, "puffs up," belongs not to nature but to faith;

But if this [knowledge of faith] puffs up, how much more that [knowledge] of which our discourse treats? For that one is natural, and belongs to the old man.

For to this natural [knowledge] external learning lends assistance; but it could never become spiritual unless it were joined, together with faith, to the love of God — or rather, unless it were regenerated by love and by the grace that arises from it, and became other than it formerly was: new and God-like, pure, peaceable, gentle, easily persuaded, and full of words that build up those who hear and of good fruits — which indeed is called wisdom from above and the wisdom of God, and, being in some sense spiritual, as subject to the wisdom of the Spirit, both knows and receives the gifts of the Spirit.

Thus the knowledge that comes from external education is not merely other [than the spiritual knowledge], but stands even in opposition to the true and spiritual knowledge — even though some, themselves apparently led astray by it, and attempting to lead astray those who hear them, speak of it as though it were one and the same [knowledge], declaring this [external knowledge] to be the end of contemplation.

But that I may also uncover to you something of the fearful depth of the wickedness of the external philosophers: the evil one has stolen [something], and those wickedly made wise by him—

—one of our most profitable precepts, and put it forward as a bait, evil as it were, by the sameness of the words: "attend to yourself" and "know yourself." But if you should seek what the end of this precept is for them, you will find the Charybdis of false doctrine: for, dogmatizing the transmigration of souls, they then suppose that a person has come to know himself and has adequately attained the precept, when he learns to what body he was formerly joined, and where he once dwelt, and what he was doing, and who used to listen to him. And he learns these things by rendering himself obedient to the wicked spirit that has deceitfully whispered such things to him.

Leading men on toward this [doctrine] by means of "know yourself," they are, to those not sufficiently able to perceive the deceit, thought to be saying things in harmony with our own Fathers.

Therefore Paul and Barnabas, not ignorant of the thoughts of the evil one and of those initiated into his mysteries, by no means accepted the voice that said of them, "These men are servants of the Most High God" — and yet what could one say more pious than this saying?

...feigning to be ministers of righteousness; thus they refuse the true utterance as unbefitting a lying mouth.

For this reason, we too, when we hear words of piety from the Greeks, neither suppose them to be pious, nor do we rank them among teachers; for indeed we know that it is from—

—our own [teachings] that they have secretly appropriated these things (which is why one of them said of Plato, "What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?"). We know, then, that whatever good is found in them has been taken over from there [our tradition] by a kind of pilfering, but we have also understood, upon examination, that it was not taken up with the same meaning.

And even if one of the Fathers utters the same things as those outside [the Church], it is only in the words; but as regards the thoughts, there is a great gulf between them: for these [our Fathers], according to Paul, have the mind of Christ, whereas those [pagans], unless indeed something even worse, speak out of merely human understanding.

"For as far as heaven is from earth, so far is my thought from your thoughts," says the Lord.

Not that it matters: even if, as regards understanding, those men do not share in common with Moses and Solomon and those like them, what benefit would they gain from this, or who, having a sound mind and being numbered among us, would say that they have been taught these things by God — unless one would also call "taught by God" those who fell into heterodoxy after Christ, since, having heard from the Church, they did not overturn the whole of the truth?

"Every perfect gift is from above, [coming down] from the Father of lights" — thus declared the disciple of the light. But if that Father does not accept maimed living creatures as offerings, how could he himself bestow one?

And yet a maimed animal is no less an animal.

But a god who does not create out of things that are not, who did not pre-exist our souls, nor the formless matter posited by them — or rather [a matter] that of itself oscillates, having received form yet remaining without order — how could such a one be God?

"...and the earth they did not make, let them perish" — and along with them, those who theologized about them.

But concerning those who call these [pagan] theologians harmonious with, or even teachers of, our own theologians — supposing that we have received our theological utterances from them — what need is there to say [more], except to entreat the light that enlightens every man coming into the world to deliver them too from this fearful darkness of ignorance, and to illumine them to perceive that, even from serpents, something useful can come to us — but only to those who kill, dissect, prepare, and make use of them with reason against the doctrines of those same [serpents]?

To this end, then, their [the pagans'] things are useful to us — that we may use them, cutting them down against those very men, as it were slaying another Goliath with his own sword, [a Goliath] who rises up and resists and reproaches the battle-line of the living God, [a battle-line] instructed in divine things by fishermen and unlettered men.

For this reason, then, we would not bar those who wish it — among those who have not taken up the solitary [monastic] life — from pursuing external education; but we counsel that no one at all should attend to it to the very end [as his final goal].

But to expect that one will come to know anything of the divine things accurately from it, we utterly forbid; for it is not possible to be taught anything secure about God from it.

For God has made it foolish — not that he himself made it such (for how could light darken?) — but by exposing it as foolish, [it] not being compared to his own [wisdom]; far be it! For if anyone should say this, he will also be saying that the Law given through Moses has been abolished and rendered foolish, once [the Law of] grace was manifested—

—of grace. But if not this one [since the Law too is from God, it is not abolished], then in this very respect the wisdom of the Greeks has certainly been made foolish, precisely because it is not from God; and everything that is not from God does not truly exist. For this reason the wisdom of the Greeks is falsely so named.

For the intellect that has discovered this [wisdom], insofar as it is intellect, is from God; but this [wisdom], having fallen away from the fitting end, namely the knowledge of God, one would more justly call a falling-away of wisdom, and a wisdom deprived of reason — that is to say, made foolish — rather than call it wisdom.

...wishing [to show this]. For having said, "Where is the debater of this age?" he immediately added that "God has made foolish the wisdom of this world" — that is, by his manifestation he revealed it to have fallen from true knowledge and not to be wisdom at all, but only to be called so.

But if it had been [true] wisdom, how could it have become foolishness, and that too by God and by his own wisdom made manifest upon the earth?

For according to the great Dionysius, good is not opposed to good, nor the lesser to the greater; and I myself would say that noetic realities are never blunted by one another; and I would add that each thing receives an increase of its own beauty by the manifestation of that which is superior.

But what could one say when the very beauty-making power itself has been manifested?

For no one would say that the secondary lights — I mean the supra-cosmic natures [the angels] — are rendered useless by the first Light when it shines upon them; nor has that which falls far short of them, yet is nevertheless light — I mean the rational and noetic [light] that is ours — become darkness when the divine Light was manifested, and that too for the purpose of enlightening every man coming into the world.

But he who sets himself in opposition to this [Light]—

—whether angel or man—as one who has willingly deprived himself of the Light, being abandoned, has shown himself to be darkness.

So too, then, that [pagan] wisdom, having set itself in opposition to the wisdom of God, has become folly.

But if it were truly perceptive of, and proclamatory of, the wisdom of God in his creatures — being a manifestation of the unmanifest, an instrument of truth that makes ignorance vanish, [possessing] by participation that very thing which is proclaimed by causation — how could it have been made foolish, and that too by him who implanted this [very] wisdom into creation?

And how would this harm not be referred back to the very wisdom of God that is manifested in the universe?

And how would he who is the sustainer of peace, both the peace of the whole and of each particular, not clearly be at war with himself, if by means of the wisdom implanted in the world he gives wisdom, yet by means of his own presence renders foolish both those who received it and this very wisdom that was given?

Rather, it was necessary that he should have come to this [wisdom] as well, not in order to make it foolish, but in order to fulfill it — just as with the ancient Law, concerning which Paul cries out, "Do we then make void the Law?"

"Far be it! Rather, we establish the Law" — which the Lord also urges us to search, as containing eternal life stored up within it; and again he says, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me."

Do you see the surpassing concord between the Law and grace?