Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 11/21

‘For all of them,’ he says, ‘prepare the soul to incline downward, and all the motions that occur, as many as are common to soul and body, come about for evil and to the harm of the soul.’

This will not exempt him from culpability — that he did not specifically call this particular energy harmful — but rather because he ranked it together with the evil ones, he will justly be held responsible for it, and especially because he has attempted, by such a device, to steal the assent of his hearers; since this is precisely what God, through the prophet, calls the transgression of the condemned priests among the Jews — that they did not distinguish the holy things from the profane.

And this man too, then, along with many other good common energies of soul and body, has failed to distinguish blessed mourning from profane operations.

‘But I,’ he says, ‘do not consider this mourning to be passionless and blessed; for how could that be passionless which is accomplished by the energy of the passible part of the soul?’

But how could a man be dispassionate who has this passible part active, rather than one who has wrought in it, as a settled state, its complete mortification?

…just as also the misuse of the knowledge of beings produces a foolish wisdom; but if one should use these well, then through the knowledge of beings, understood spiritually, he will procure the knowledge of God, and through the passible part of the soul — moved for the very purpose for which it was made by God — he will work the corresponding virtues, embracing love with the desiring part, and acquiring patient endurance with the incensive part.

It is not, then, the man who has mortified [the passible part] — since with respect to divine states, relations, and dispositions he will then be motionless and inoperative — but the man who has subjected it, so that, through obedience to the mind, which by nature has received the governing role, it, being led by God as is fitting, stretches itself toward God through unceasing remembrance of God, and through this arrives at a settled state of divine disposition, and advances this disposition to its best state, which is love toward God — on account of which, according to the saying, one fulfills the commandments of the Beloved, from which one is taught, and works, and acquires the sincere and perfect love toward one’s neighbor — it is with these that dispassion cannot fail to be present; [its absence] is among the impossibilities.

This, then, is the way toward perfect love through dispassion — a way set apart and ascending, and one that will especially suit those who have withdrawn from the world; for having leisure for God, and having persevered in communion with Him with an unclouded mind, through this converse they easily lay aside the rabble of evil passions and store up love as a treasure within themselves.

But for those who move about in the world, it is theirs to constrain themselves, in accordance with the commandments of God, in their use of the affairs of the world.

Therefore the passible part of the soul too, sharing in this constraint, will operate in accordance with those commandments.

And this constraint, becoming prolonged through habit, produces a pleasant relation toward the commandments of God, and transforms the disposition into a settled state; and this state bestows a most abiding hatred toward evil states and relations, and such hatred toward evil things bears the fruit of dispassion, from which comes the [love] toward (page

The passible part of the soul, then, must be presented to God living and active, so that it may be a living sacrifice — which the apostle also said concerning our body: ‘I beseech you,’ he says, ‘through the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God.’

How, then, would our body, being alive, be presented as a sacrifice well-pleasing to God?

When our eyes look upon what is right, according to what is written, ‘he who looks with a kindly eye shall obtain mercy,’ and thereby draw down mercy from above and procure it for us; and our ears are made subject to the divine teachings, not merely so as to hear them, but, according to the saying of David, so as to remember the commandments of God in order to do them — not becoming a forgetful hearer, as it is said of the brother of the Lord among the apostles, but stooping to look into the perfect law of liberty, and abiding by it, and being blessed in the doing of it; and let tongue, hands, and feet be servants to the divine wills.

What, then, are these energies belonging to the commandments of God?

Are they not common energies of soul and body?

How then do all the common energies of soul and body fill the soul with darkness and blind it?

But the apostle says, ‘Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I do not burn?’ Is this, then, not a common energy of both the body and the passible part of the soul?

Shall we then deem it to be for evil and to the harm of the soul?

And indeed this is an exact proof of loving one's neighbor as oneself, which is the second commandment of God, but, according to the God-given saying, like unto the first and great commandment.

Wherefore the same apostle, writing to the Romans, says: ‘I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.’

Do you see the passible faculty alive and active in that dispassionate and God-formed soul?

But if he prayed unceasingly with it (p.

...not only coexisting but also cooperating, the same [apostle] showed by the construction of his words there; for, he says, ‘I myself was praying to be accursed from Christ for the sake of my brethren’; and elsewhere: ‘the good pleasure of my heart and my supplication to God on behalf of Israel is for salvation’ — entirely on account of that great sorrow and unceasing anguish of soul for them.

How then shall we regard as dispassion the mortification of the passible faculty as a fixed habitual state?

But, as it seems, the philosopher has heard of and formed a notion of dispassion, but has not heard that insensibility is reckoned among evils and is censured by the fathers.

There is, then, a good pain, opposed to this insensibility, and there are common energies of soul and body that are beneficial — rather, that perfect the soul — since perfection comes to it through the keeping of the divine commandments.

But if such works belong to the body, how much more do they belong to the passible faculty of the soul, which is joined immediately to the intellect; for the body has its connection to the intellect through the mediation of this [passible faculty].

The philosopher does something similar — as if someone, having heard God commanding, ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ should then, on seeing those who have become still toward divine things working divine and spiritual works, blame them, saying: ‘God said, “Be still,” but you, hastening to act, are going astray.’

Do you hear which of the bodily energies must be put to death?

The evil — but not the energies of the Spirit accomplished through the body, nor the divine and blessed passions, nor the faculties of the soul that are by nature suited to these; for, he says, ‘let all your desiring faculty be stretched out (p.

...toward God, and let your irascible faculty be directed against the serpent alone.’

How then are these faculties of the soul dead, if one of them should be moved toward divine uplifting in prayers to God, or be roused against the serpent in unseemly assaults?

And how will the philosopher be able to speak securely?

Shall we dishonor sense-perception and imagination when we pray, and yet admit that the passible faculty of the soul is operating according to one of its own powers?

Or much rather, not even this?

For its energies, above all others, blind and bury the divine eye.

For these too are energies of the passible faculty; for by this power of the soul we love and turn away, we become familiar and estranged, just as also by the reasoning [part] of the soul, according to the wise Synesius, we praise and blame.

Is it, then, a mortification of the reasoning faculty to be occupied with divine contemplations, and to send up hymn and thanksgiving to God, and to cling to Him through unceasing remembrance?

Or is this rather the true life and the real energy of the intellect?

In the same way, then, those who love what is beautiful do not put the passible faculty to death, shutting it up idle and immovable within themselves; for otherwise they would have nothing by which to love the good and hate the evil, nor anything by which they might be estranged from the one and made familiar with God.

Clearly, it is [the faculty] of the passible [part]; for this is the loving [part] of the soul.

This [passible faculty], then, being so disposed, also imparts to the other [faculties] of the soul (p.

...to those who suffer for the sake of the truly desirable object; for through it, having been utterly seized by that love, and as it were risen up above the flesh, through communion with the divine Spirit in prayer and love, they pass their lives, perceiving these sufferings of the flesh only in the manner of judging [them].

For it is clear to all — even if it has not become clear to this wise man too — that we have been commanded to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, not that we should do violence to ourselves by mortifying every energy of the body and every faculty of the soul, but so that we might abstain from base desires and deeds and display an irreversible flight from them, and become men of the desires of the Spirit, according to Daniel, living and moving among them with perfect understanding, and always advancing manfully forward, after the manner of Lot who went forth from Sodom — who, ever going forward and remaining unmoved toward what lay behind, preserved himself alive, while his wife, who turned back, was put to death.

That, then, those who are dispassionate keep the passible faculty of the soul alive and working the better things, and do not put it to death, has, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated.

Now let us see how this philosopher, though he has directed the whole of his great ingenuity against the introductory teachings on prayer of the venerable Nicephorus, has nevertheless accomplished nothing more by slandering, distorting, and calumniating, having by these calumnies injured himself and his own arguments, but not that holy man.

First of all, then, at the very outset, he falsely accuses the man of this: that he was the first (p.

) to have handed down and taught such introductory instructions, which he, in his insolence, called ‘inbreathings’; for many years before, other spiritual men had already taught these same things beforehand, in almost the very same words and concepts, and one could find, in the writings of all the fathers, many statements bearing witness to them — such as that of the one who fashioned for us in words the spiritual Ladder: ‘Let the remembrance of Jesus,’ he says, ‘be joined to your breathing, and then you will know the benefit of stillness.’

After this — that holy man saying: ‘Constrain your mind to enter into the heart together with the inhaled breath’ (that is, to be joined to it and to observe the things within the heart, according to the great Macarius; for, he says, the heart governs the whole instrument, and whenever grace takes possession of the pastures of the heart, it governs all the members and all the thoughts; there, then, one must observe whether grace has inscribed the laws of the Spirit) — that man, then, speaking wholly in harmony with these great [fathers], this one [the philosopher] again does violence through calumny, and, separating ‘constrain’ from ‘the mind,’ links it instead with ‘the inhaled’ breath, and having thus falsified, along with the words, the sense as well, then himself blows hard against the ‘violent inbreathings,’ proving them to be most absurd.

But also, when that man speaks of ‘the mind,’ meaning the energies of the intellect, and [says] that those who devote themselves to prayer must lead these energies — which pour outward through the senses — back again, and prepare [the mind] to incline inward, the philosopher again slanders him as though by ‘mind’ he meant the essence of the intellect; for in this way he supposed he would find an abundance of grounds against the words of the holy man.

But when we, in turn, clarified the truth, he, having nothing to answer, said: ‘Let our words be a teaching for those who might be led astray by the apparent absurdity.’

‘And you, then, who teach what you did not understand,’ someone might say to such a teacher, ‘were you deceived, or not?’

For if you were deceived, how do you claim, on that very ground, to be a teacher — you who yourself needed one to teach you, and learned the truth from us? But if you were not deceived, how do you insult, on the basis of what merely appears so to you, a man who intended nothing absurd — and that not because he expressed himself badly, but as though he had thought badly?

For if that man erred in both respects, how could you, as his accuser, having passed over what was intended, have proceeded against the mere appearance alone?

...you, who yourself charged others also to guard against the deception arising from mere words, ought to hold both the sense and the father of that sense in esteem, and to make yourself not an accuser of those words, but their expositor.

For if someone, on this consideration — that he is answering the mere appearance — should indict the one who commands the mortification of the body, as though he were teaching men to become their own murderers, would you yourself acquit him, unless he should change his mind about condemning him along with those opposed to God?

But what of when Basil the Great (that I may use an example similar to those texts you have accused) — what, then, when he said that the mind pours outward and is again led back, shall we speak ill of him as saying that the immovable essence of the mind is poured out, and that this [essence], which never abandons itself, is led back — or shall we understand him to mean by ‘mind’ its transitive energies, whatever these may be?

But the philosopher, restrained from accusing on the basis of mere appearance by my refuting arguments, and having been eager to proceed wholly against what was intended, having thus reshaped the contest for himself in opposition to what we had written on behalf of that venerable man, had not forgotten his slanderous art even here — or rather, was somehow unable to forget it.

For how could he have contradicted words that, by reason of the truth inherent in them, are irrefutable, and have fastened a charge of impiety upon the pious, without weaving calumny into them?

When we, then, first called the heart the fleshly organ of reasoning (p.

) according to the great Macarius, whose statements declaring this we also set forth there — this man, having erased the word ‘fleshly,’ and having adduced the divine Gregory of Nyssa, who says that the noetic essence is blended with the fine, light-like [element] of the sensory nature, consistently infers from this that the saint too says [the mind] uses this as its first instrument — yet inconsistently attacks what we ourselves have said, alleging that this is contrary to the words of the saint [Macarius], who declared the heart — not that light-like [element] — to be the first organ of reasoning.

But if you were to add the word ‘fleshly,’ O sophist, just as we ourselves have said, you would banish the alleged contradiction far away, and you would see the saints in harmony with one another, and us taught by them in accordance with them; for that light-like [element] of human sense-perception is not flesh.

But he also devised another contradiction between our words and those of [Gregory] of Nyssa: [arguing] that, since we say that the heart is the organ of organs in the body, and that the mind uses this organ through it, we thereby show the union of mind and body to be knowable — whereas by that man [Gregory] it is called incomprehensible.

What then does that man mean when he says that the sensory [faculty] is joined to the vegetative [faculty], which occupies a middle position between the noetic and the more material essence, and that then, in relation to the finer part of the sensory [faculty], the blending of the mind takes place, and [the mind] uses this as its first instrument, and through it, the body?

Has he not, rather than we, and far more than we, made the manner of the mind's connection with the body known and expressible?

How then does he say that this [union] is inconceivable and inexpressible?

So then, in your wisdom, does he too seem to contradict himself?

And how is this not equally true of you yourself, if indeed you know how to be consistent with yourself?

But I think that, as regards the contact (p.

) and use, and blending in such matters, [these may be spoken of]; but what this [union] is, and how a noetic nature could accomplish it with what is body-like, or with body, to conceive and to express — this is beyond the power of all men alike.

Thus the fathers agree both with themselves and with one another, and we [agree] with them.

But you, who delight in contradictions, as it seems, are eager to make even them appear to be at odds with one another, and therefore you are also opposed to us, who show them to be in harmony with one another.

...bringing these two seemingly divergent things into one, and showing them not to be opposed: ‘Even if [the mind] is not within,’ we say, following Gregory of Nyssa, inasmuch as the mind is incorporeal, yet it is also within — and not outside the body — as being bound to it, and, according to the great Macarius, ineffably using the heart as its first fleshly organ.

Since, then, the one [Gregory] says [the mind] is not within in one respect, and the other [Macarius says it is] within in another respect, they differ least of all from one another; for indeed, not even the one who says that the divine is not in a place, inasmuch as it is incorporeal, is opposed to the one who says that the Word of God once came to be within the virginal and all-immaculate womb, as having there been united, beyond reason, with our lump [of clay] through ineffable love for mankind.

But you, [instead of acknowledging] that we, who are eager to show that they do not differ, are hastening to show us to be at variance with them — even though, concerning such matters as how the mind holds its connection with the body, and where the imaginative and the opinion-forming [faculties] are located, and what seat the memory has obtained, and in the body, what (p.

) part is the most vital, and as it were guiding the others, and whence the blood has the beginning of its origin, and whether each of the humors is unmixed, and which of the internal organs it uses as its vessel — concerning such matters, then, it is permitted to anyone to say what seems [right] to him, since everyone, in such matters, states what is probable, just as also concerning the immobility of the fixed stars and the motion of the planets, the magnitude and nature of each, and other such things — whatever the Spirit has not clearly revealed to us, [the Spirit] alone knowing with precision the truth that penetrates through all things. So that, even if in this respect you have caught us contradicting the divine and wise Gregory of Nyssa, you ought not, on this account, to have proceeded against us; for how many, do you suppose, are there who call the heaven a sphere, and [say it has] poles equal in number to the wandering stars, though the great Basil does not say this? And how many hold it to be ever-moving, though some maintain it stands still? And to how many does the sun seem to travel round in a circle, though the holy Isaac does not think so?

All these, then, on this reasoning, you would, it seems, declare to be contradicting the fathers, just as you declare us [to be]; but you yourself will be shown not to know that truth according to which it is necessary for all of us to follow them, and you seem to me never even to have considered it, or to have distinguished it from what is not necessary; wherefore, while opposing them in matters that bear upon the blessed life, you demand of others an exact confession in matters that do not bear upon that blessedness.

On this account, then, let us too pass over the calumnies of his that follow those already mentioned against us, and turn our discourse to the more necessary matters.

CONCERNING THE SACRED LIGHT. He, then, being such a guide with respect to noetic prayer against those who devote their whole life to it, also presumes to teach, concerning the sacred light, those who see it — and this while being blind himself, as even he cannot deny — insisting that they are in error because they call ‘light’ that which he, being blind, does not see. And this he asserts not of this or that individual among those of our own time, or of those a little before us renowned for purity of life and for the height of the vision of God, but declares it of the very saints venerated by us from ancient times, as the discourse will show as it proceeds.

...[which] roused him more than anything else to write. Since, then, he had heard such men saying to him: ‘Being uninitiated, and altogether blind with respect to such matters, whatever has come over you that you undertake to speak about mystical, sacred visions — things which you could not readily even grasp by hearing from those who have experienced them?’ — being unable to deny his ignorance and inexperience in these things, which lies plainly evident to all, he says: ‘It is not to be wondered at,’ he says, ‘if I, being blind myself, should hold on to someone who sees, and thus, with the other blind men holding on to me, I should be established as their unerring leader,’ by the (p.

) an abundance of skill in speaking, and the persuasiveness of dialectical sophisms, he supposes he has found a means by which he might even get the better of the evangelical voice, which plainly says the opposite of this: for, ‘if a blind man leads a blind man,’ it says, ‘both will fall into a pit.’

‘But I,’ says this blind man and guide of the blind, ‘am able, by holding on, to follow those who see.’

And which of the blind is there who cannot do this?

For a man lame in both feet and both hands, and utterly paralyzed, would neither hold on to you, nor follow you, nor need a guide at all, being bedridden; but as for one sound in hands and feet, why, O best of the blind, would he not, holding on, follow the one who sees, rather than you?

You seem, then, stealthily to bestow upon yourself a faint semblance of recovered sight — or rather, you seem yourself not to perceive your own total blindness in such matters, even though you say this, being unable to gainsay those who see that you are blind.

For how, were this not so, would you have thought yourself fit to be a guide of the other blind men?

Know, then, that you are like the blind man in the Gospels who, through a deficiency of faith, had not yet fully recovered his sight, and who said he saw men walking about like trees.

If, then, being such a man — not [wholly] without sight, yet not fully deprived of it either — you should then gaze fixedly upon the disk of the sun, as though about to teach others what that is, would they not hear from you that the great luminary, the all-radiant one, the eye of day, is simply darkness?

For if [the sun], exceeding the due measure of eyes that see purely, seems to pour forth its rays not unmixed with darkness even upon those who gaze at it with sound sight, how would he not see darkness unmixed with light who undertakes to look upon it through a dim glimmer?

Thus it is not only ridiculous, but even laughable, for a blind man to attempt to teach about light.

But let us uncover the depth of the philosopher's thought, which, by wrapping it up in this illustration, he concealed no more than he revealed.

The philosopher, then, says that we are all of us entirely blind -- that is, unintelligent -- together with those of the saints whom, as he proceeds, he openly contradicts, but that he himself differs from these blind men, that is, the unintelligent, in this, that he is a philosopher -- that is to say, that all of us entirely, together with those of the saints whom, as he proceeds, he openly contradicts, are unintelligent, but that he himself differs from these blind men, that is, the unintelligent, in this, that he is a philosopher -- and that for this reason he alone is able to discern together both the inner principles of the things that are and the sense of the sacred oracles, and to follow these, and thus also to guide those who cling to him.

But such a one, O philosopher, is no longer blind; for he has followed those who led him toward the recovery of sight -- that is, true knowledge, as you say -- therefore he has recovered his sight.

But if, having followed, he did not recover his sight, how does he guarantee to others recovery of sight through following?

Thus you contradict yourself, testifying that you yourself are both blind and seeing.

For if, according to you, knowledge alone is the noetic light, for the sake of which you have undertaken such great struggles, and you possess the knowledge of the sacred sayings, as you yourself testify, how is it that you too are blind and unilluminated?

But if there is no other way to be illumined except as you yourself were illumined and illumine [others] -- as you yourself likewise say in many places -- then neither did the great Dionysius, whom you suppose you know how to follow, become illumined and illumine [others] in any other way; therefore he too, according to you, knows only this: to follow those who know. But then those [hesychasts], having a manner like his, would be in a case similar to yours as well.

And you will find that many others also claimed this -- that they were following the sacred Scriptures -- who, having lied falsely both about themselves and about the Scriptures, were refuted by those who followed them in accordance with the truth.

But if someone were to examine you, as to how you yourself follow the [saints --]

-- saints, he would call you not only blind but even deaf. For whereas the great Dionysius, as we set forth beforehand in the discourse On Saving Knowledge, says quite plainly that assimilation to and union with God is accomplished from the divine commandments alone, you yourself, equally plainly, say it is not from these alone; for you grant that keeping them purifies the one who keeps them only by half, and even that with difficulty -- such is the way you follow in his footsteps!

And [as for] Gregory of Nyssa: while he teaches that secular wisdom is barren and imperfect, and holds that we ought not to reject the kinship of this falsely-named mother -- only until we see in ourselves the immaturity of our [spiritual] age -- but that afterward it should be reckoned a shame to be called children of this mother who is by nature barren, you yourself teach that we ought to devote ourselves to her throughout our whole life as something most useful and most necessary, and to pride ourselves upon this, and you do not hesitate to falsify other statements of his, only so that, by putting them forward, you may persuade [us] that these studies produce a perfect and saving purification; thus you alone, above all the saints, hold yourself secure.

And whereas the great Basil said clearly that not knowing the truth that extends through heaven and earth and the elements between them is no impediment to the blessedness [promised] in the [divine] promises, you declare this [knowledge] to be salvific, and [maintain] that without it there is no perfection for one who has fitted his own mind to the truth in all things; and would that it were indeed to the truth -- if indeed one must pray even for things unattainable! For the knowledge of all things belongs to God alone, who says to Job: Tell me, if you have understanding, where are the pillars of the earth fixed, and what are the springs of the sea, and what is the breadth of that which is under heaven?

But you, seeking to fit your mind not to this truth, suppose that you alone know and possess perfection -- but rather [seek to fit it] to Aristotle and Plato,

...and Euclid and Ptolemy, and all who follow them; wherefore you also consider astronomers and natural philosophers to be seers of God rather more than those who are not such, on the ground that they possess a reasoning faculty that moves soundly concerning the truth of the things that are -- and by the compassing of this you deem them worthy even of angel-equal understandings; and in saying these things you suppose that you follow the God-revealing Dionysius safely, unto salvation, and for this reason you boldly claim to be our unerring guide.

But let not the crooked man boast as though he were straight; for he will not persuade or deceive those who see him, even if he deceives himself; nor let him falsely accuse those who think rightly and safely follow the God-speaking [Fathers] -- and this concerning matters in which no one anywhere on earth, not even among those who do not conform to the gospel of grace, could at present be convicted of being altogether and utterly mistaken.

For who -- not to speak of those called by the name of Christ, but even if he be a Scythian or a Persian or an Indian -- does not now know that God is none of the created or sensible things?

For just as, at the future coming of Christ, the grace of resurrection and immortality is not confined to those alone who have believed in him, but according to the sacred sayings all will rise together, even if not all together will obtain what was promised after the resurrection -- so also now, at his former coming upon earth, even though not all obeyed the gospel of Christ, yet all together, transformed unknowingly by the abundance of the grace of him who came, confess one uncreated God, the Creator of all. And should you ask the Parthian, the Persian, the Sarmatian, you would at once hear from him that Abrahamic word, I worship the God of heaven -- a thing which Ptolemy would never have said, nor Hipparchus, nor Marinus of Tyre, those wise men according to you, who, through the courses of the heavenly circles...