Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 17/21

instability of soul; for he says: "Consign to utter oblivion such arguments, O Pre-eternal One, if indeed your Spirit is also from you — bringing with it the implication that you and your Father are one cause and one principle — so that I may become to no one the cause of so great an evil through them; and free me from such false doctrine before the end."

But then, by what reasoning, immediately upon his return from those regions, did he elaborately compose writings that, as has been demonstrated, advocate for the Italians — and this while, as he himself writes in the preface, he had been moved, precisely from his time in Italy, to write his work Against the Messalians — unless this too is the very hypocrisy which he himself also insists others are guilty of?

Therefore his every discourse is mere stage-play, mocking and toying with what belongs to us; and the assembly which there he calls "the Church" and "a sacred and holy synod" would seem to mean that of the Latins.

For that he holds, in fact, in nearly everything, opinions rather in agreement with that communion, one might demonstrate also from the fact that he has scarcely accepted any sanctification whatsoever from our Church, wiping off from himself the stains derived from it; and, to pass over other things, for so long a time now, ever since he came to dwell among us, no one has seen him partake in communion of the most holy Eucharist; what need is there to speak of prayer, or the sacred invocation, or the cruciform seal in the hair, and all the other symbols of monastic perfection, without which no one is reckoned among us to be a monk, at least by those who submit to the ordinances of the holy fathers?

For this man did not even seek at least the sacred prayer for the introduction into the monastic mystery, but is a self-fashioned monk — and it would not be too much to say, also a counterfeit one; for, as it is said, "the tree is known from its fruits."

But I, from these things and such things, conclude that it is not out of ignorance,

but out of malice, that he declares the deifying grace of the Spirit to be created — this I have suspected; but if it is indeed out of ignorance, since he enrolls himself among those who know, joining insolence to ignorance in such matters, the charge, as I reckon, is worse; for every monstrous doctrine has broken forth from such a source, from which this man too has now shown himself to be a champion of many wicked heresies, as the discourse will show as it proceeds.

For Maximus, wise in divine things, in harmony with the great Macarius and with all the other saints, as we have already set forth above in the discourses On the Divine Light which we have brought forth, says that the pledge of the promise to come, the grace of adoption, the deifying gift of the Spirit, is light — beheld by the saints as of ineffable glory, a light hypostatic, uncreated, ever-existing from the Ever-Existing One, and inconceivably so, now indeed only in part, but in the age to come manifested more perfectly to the worthy, and manifesting God to them through itself.

But this philosopher, perceiving himself to be a stranger to such light, as one who has not even for a little while laid hold of the way that leads to it, being in no way able to bear it, has not added practice to faith, so that through it he might arrive at that contemplation; but rather, having denied the faith itself, and having, through his arguments, treated with contempt those who have not denied it but have, through it, been raised up — so much so as to seem, to the many, superior to the rest — he rejects the grace, blasphemes against the Lord of the grace, and dishonors, in common, all the saints to whom it has been granted, through experience, both to learn and to teach concerning the light of grace.

But since he has determined that it is necessary to dare such things — not dwelling among the Scythians, nor conversing among the Hagarenes, but in the very midst of the Church of Christ, and this now, if ever, rightly dividing the word of truth — he makes use of much guile and

exceedingly great concealment, and, with a very high degree of dissimulation, sets forth his arguments against the saints, acting as one who, in overturning these things, is contending on behalf of the very Church of Christ and the pious doctrines pertaining to it.

...the appellation of "saint," he brought forward into the midst a certain Theodore of Trebizond, who presides over the Blachernites, but who has been detected as suffering from the maladies of the Messalians; this man, then, he put forward as though defending himself, and saying plainly that he does not now, as before, glorify the super-essential hiddenness of God as visible, but affirming that the glory of God is a hypostatic and uncreated light, called "divinity" and "divine principality" — and, simply, whatever the saints have written concerning the deifying gift of the Spirit.

For this — "divine principality," and "principality of goodness," and "divinity," as being the principle of those who are deified — the great Dionysius, in many places in his writings, has so named; beyond which, he says, God himself is, since he is above-divine and above-principial.

And the divine Maximus called this divinity "deification"; and, defining deification, he called it a hypostatic illumination, having no coming-into-being, but an inconceivable manifestation in those who are worthy — adding also all the other things that we have already set forth a little above.

And we have heard the great Basil say that what is poured out upon us through the Son is uncreated.

And John, golden of tongue, joined to the power of Basil's words, will put the Latins to shame and will demolish the deceitful contrivances of this empty-minded man, saying that it is not God himself but the grace that is poured out; and, before this Golden-mouthed Father, the prophet Joel — or rather, God, speaking through the prophet — said: "I will not pour out my Spirit, but I will pour out from my Spirit."

If, then, the Spirit is not divided into parts, what is that which, from the

Spirit of God, is poured out upon us by God according to the promise — what is this "Spirit"?

Is it not the grace and energy of the Spirit, being an energy of the essence of the Spirit?

But the Spirit that is poured out upon us by God has not been created, according to the great Basil.

The grace, then, is uncreated, and this is what is given, and sent, and granted by the Son to the disciples, and not the Spirit itself; and this is the deifying gift, being an energy not only uncreated but also inseparable from the all-holy Spirit.

Hear again the great Basil: for the life, he says, which the Spirit sends forth into the hypostasis of another is not separated from it. And lest anyone suppose he means by this our natural life -- though he speaks of it as ‘sent forth,’ not ‘created,’ but rather ‘sent forth,’ a term which, together with ‘uncreated’ and ‘without beginning,’ is in some way the more expressive -- nevertheless, lest he seem to be speaking of something merely natural, he added: ‘and those who partake of it live in a manner befitting God, having acquired a divine and heavenly life.’

And so this divine and heavenly life of those who live in a manner befitting God consists in partaking of the inseparable life of the Spirit (just as Paul too, according to the divine Maximus, lived the divine and eternal life of Him who dwelt within him) -- this life, then, always exists, subsisting naturally in the Spirit, who by nature has from eternity been disposed to deify; and it is rightly called by the saints both ‘Spirit’ and ‘Godhead,’ inasmuch as it is a deifying gift in no way separated from the Spirit who gives it; and it is light, bestowed through ineffable illumination and known only to those who have been deemed worthy; and it is indeed hypostatic -- not as being itself a hypostasis, but because the Spirit sends it forth into the hypostasis of another, in which it is also contemplated. For such is properly what is ‘hypostatic’: not something contemplated by itself, nor in the essence, but contemplated in the hypostasis.

But if there is also yet another way in which it is called ‘hypostatic’ (p.

) is so called by the saints, we shall explain as we proceed.

The Holy Spirit transcends the deifying life that is in Him and from Him, as transcending His own innate energy -- a life which is indeed like Him, though not exactly so; for, he says, we see no deification or life that is exactly like the Cause that surpasses all things in every excellence; so it is like, but not exactly.

inasmuch as the recipient has only limited capacity to contain it.

In this manifold way God exists beyond such light and such uncreated illumination and life and the like.

These, then, are the words of the great Basil.

Symeon the God-inspired Metaphrastes, having composed the Kephalaia (Chapters) from the first book of the great Macarius, expounds concerning this light and this glory both harmoniously and vividly, and at greater length.

There is nothing better than to set forth here, as concisely and briefly as possible, some of these chapters, both to contribute something great to the argument now before us, and no less to profit those who read this.

In the sixty-second chapter, then, he says: ‘Moses the blessed showed forth a type, through the glory of the Spirit shining upon his face, which no man was able to gaze upon, of how in the resurrection of the just the bodies of the saints shall be glorified -- that glory which, from now, the faithful souls of the saints are deemed worthy to possess in the inner man. For we, he says, with unveiled face, that is, in the inner man, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.’

And in the sixty-third: ‘The glory which, as has been said, the souls of the saints are enriched with from this present life, (p.

) that glory will cover and clothe the naked bodies in the resurrection, and will make them caught up into the heavens, clothed with the glory of good works and of the Spirit, which, as I said, the souls of the saints have been allotted to possess from this present life; and thus the saints, having been glorified with divine light, will be with the Lord forever.’

This, then, is that same light, according to the great Dionysius, which shone round about the chosen ones of the apostles upon the mountain. For, he says, when we become incorruptible and immortal, and attain to the Christlike and most blessed lot, we shall be, according to the oracle, ‘always with the Lord,’ being filled, in all-pure contemplations, with his visible theophany, which shines round about us with most radiant splendors, as it shone upon the disciples in that most divine Transfiguration.

This light, then, is divine, as John also said in the Apocalypse, and as seems good to all the saints.

Gregory, surnamed ‘the Theologian,’ says: ‘He will come, as my discourse holds, with a body, but such a one as he was seen by the disciples on the mountain, or rather as was shown forth, the Godhead overcoming the flesh.’

But that light, he says, was perceptible to the senses and visible through the air, having come into being then for the sake of astonishment and immediately ceasing to be; and it is called ‘Godhead’ as a symbol of the Godhead.

Has one ever heard such a novel expression as ‘a Godhead of a single day’ -- sensible and generated, coming into being for a day and perishing in a day, like what are called the ‘ephemeral’ creatures among animals -- or rather, even shorter-lived than these, coming into being and dissolving in an instant -- or rather, having come into being at some point, but never truly existing at all?

Did such a ‘Godhead,’ then -- one that never existed at all as Godhead -- overcome that adorable flesh which is one in Godhead with the Word?

Or rather, it did not overcome it at some point in the past, but overcomes it continually; for he did not say ‘having overcome,’ but ‘overcoming,’ and not only in the present, but also in the age to come.

) will the Lord, then, being united to it, be one continually surpassed unto infinite ages?

And there, according to the words of the apostles and the fathers, God will be all in all for us -- but for Christ will there be, instead of Godhead, a sensible light?

And, according to the same words, we shall have no need there of air and place and such things -- yet shall we behold the Godhead through the air?

And how, moreover, could such symbols exist there?

Again mirrors, again riddles, again the sight face to face existing only in hopes?

And how could such a symbol -- if indeed it was such a thing -- be called ‘Godhead’?

For neither is a painted man ‘humanity,’ nor is the symbol that appears of an angel ‘angelic nature.’

Which of the saints ever called that light a created symbol?

Gregory the Theologian says: ‘Light was the Godhead shown forth on the mountain to the disciples.’

If, then, it were not true -- that is, truly Godhead -- but rather a created symbol of it, he ought not to have said, ‘Light was the Godhead shown-forth-in-part,’ but ‘Light was that which showed-forth-in-part the Godhead’; nor even ‘that which showed-forth-in-part,’ but ‘that which showed’; since the prefix para- attached to the verb clearly indicates a dim manifestation of the hidden reality of the Godhead.

Thus, then, speaks he who acquired ‘theology’ as his own surname.

But Chrysostom the theologian says: ‘The Lord appeared more radiant than himself, the Godhead having shown forth in part its rays.’

See here too the prefix para- attached, clearly showing forth the manifestation of the hidden reality; but do not pass over the addition of the article either: for he did not say ‘of Godhead’ without article, but ‘of the Godhead’ with article, (p.

) how, moreover, could that which exists as a symbol of Godhead out of an alien nature -- light -- be the rays of the Godhead?

The great Basil, showing that God, worshipped in three hypostases, is one light, says: ‘God dwells in unapproachable light’; for what is unapproachable is altogether also true, and what is true is unapproachable; whence also the apostles fell down, unable to gaze upon the glory of the light of the Son, because he is unapproachable light.

And the Spirit too is light: ‘He,’ it says, ‘has shone in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.’

If, then, what is unapproachable is true -- and that light was unapproachable -- that light was not a pretense of Godhead, but truly the light of the true Godhead, not of the Son alone, but also of the Spirit and of the Father.

Therefore we all together sing to the Lord, celebrating the annual feast: ‘In your light which appeared today on Tabor, we saw the Father as light, and the Spirit too as light; for you disclosed in part the dim manifestation of your Godhead.’

Here, then, it is not the preposition alone that is attached, but the very meaning of the word itself that expresses the manifestation of the Hidden reality.

Since, then, all the saints in common call that light ‘true Godhead,’ how have you presumed to estrange it from the Godhead, calling it a created and sensible symbol of Godhead of such a kind, and declaring it inferior to our own understanding?

Maximus, however, who is wise in divine things, being accustomed to call one thing a symbol of another by way of analogy in his allegories, does not always make the lesser a symbol of the greater, as you yourself supposed -- you who are wise in all things! -- but sometimes also the greater a symbol of the lesser, (p.

) just as he says that the Lord’s own body, suspended on the cross, became a symbol of our body which is nailed to the passions, while Joseph, interpreted as meaning ‘addition,’ became a symbol of virtue and faith.

For these, he says, being added to the passions that had formerly grown strong, take them down from their power, just as Joseph took the Lord down from the cross.

This same Maximus, then, allegorizing, called that light a symbol of cataphatic and apophatic theology, as being the greater reality symbolizing the lesser things, and as containing in itself the knowledge of theology and being productive of it.

Did he not also call Moses a symbol of providence, and Elijah a symbol of judgment?

Were these two, then, not really present either, but were all those things phantoms and a pretense?

And yet almost the whole choir of God-inspired theologians, for this very reason, avoided simply calling the grace of that light a ‘symbol,’ lest anyone, misled by such a term because of the ambiguity, should suppose that most divine light to be a created thing, alien to the Godhead. There, when ‘symbol’ is used and understood with wisdom and soundness, you would find it in nothing opposed to the truth.

Neither in this way, be well assured, will you capture us or draw us away from that blessed hope; for every symbol either belongs to the nature of that of which it is a symbol, or else is altogether of another nature.

For, indeed, when the sun is about to rise, the dawn is a natural symbol of its light, and heat is a natural symbol of fire’s power to burn.

But that which is not natural, or does not by nature subsist of itself, sometimes becomes, by the choice of those who use it, a symbol -- as the beacon-fire becomes a symbol of enemies approaching -- or else it does not subsist according to its own proper nature at all, but becomes, as it were, (p.

) a phantom-appearance according to the need of providence, and this itself alone is the symbol.

Such are the things shown to the prophets in a sensible manner and in a form -- as, for instance, the sickle of Zechariah, and the axes of Ezekiel, and whatever else is similar to these.

The natural symbol, then, always coexists with the nature from which it has its being -- for it is natural. But that which is of another nature, subsisting in itself, to be always coexistent with what it signifies, is altogether among things impossible. Nothing prevents that which is by itself, whatever it may be, from existing either earlier or later; but that which does not subsist by itself does not exist either earlier or later -- for this is impossible -- but having appeared for a short while, it then immediately passes into non-being and vanishes altogether.

Since, then, the light on Tabor is a symbol, it is either natural or not natural; and if not natural, it is either something subsisting by itself, or a mere insubstantial phantom. But if it is a mere insubstantial phantom, then Christ neither was, nor is, nor will be forever such as that light showed him to be.

But that Christ will forever be such, both Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory the Theologian, and all who await his coming from heaven with glory, actually affirm, as has also been shown a little above; that light, therefore, was not a mere insubstantial phantom.

And indeed, not only will Christ be such unto infinity in the age to come, but he already existed as such even before the ascent onto the mountain.

Hear the God-wise Damascene: ‘Christ is transfigured, not taking on what he was not, nor being changed into what he was not, but showing forth to his own disciples what he already was, opening their eyes and making them, from blind, to see. For remaining himself in the same identity as before, he was seen appearing to the disciples; for he himself is the true light, the beauty of glory.’

) This the great Basil also shows: ‘For,’ he says, ‘his divine power shone through, as it were a certain light through glass membranes’ -- that is, through the flesh of the Lord taken from us -- ‘radiating for those who have the eyes of their heart purified.’

But even the hymns sung yearly in the Church make this plain: for when they say that what is now shown forth in part was hidden under the flesh, and that the archetypal and supra-luminous beauty now disclosed in part, what else do they present than that it pre-existed?

And what, moreover, of the transelementation of our lump, and the divine working accomplished in it, and the divine reformation?

Was it not accomplished immediately, from the very beginning, together with the assumption of our nature?

Therefore he himself was such even before, but by then instilling divine power into the eyes of the apostles, he made them to regain their sight and to see.

That light, then, was not a phantom; for it will be forever, and it was from the beginning.

But if it was and will be forever, then he is now also such.

...age -- not that in the intervening time he was changed, having put aside this glory.

But that even now he sits thus, shining, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, all must follow and be persuaded by him who says: ‘Come, let us ascend the holy, the heavenly mountain, and we shall behold the immaterial Godhead of the Father and the Spirit flashing forth in the only-begotten Son.’

But if anyone thinks he need not yield to one witness, let him submit to the two, or rather to all the saints.

For the blessed Andrew, who served Crete as a lampstand -- being himself, as it were, a rational and sacred lamp -- in extolling the light that shone on Tabor, says: ‘This the noetic order of angels, feasting immaterially upon it, sets forth as evidence of the Word’s love for mankind toward us.’

This same thing, almost, also (p.

) the great Dionysius also says, extolling the highest ranks of the supra-cosmic minds: ‘For they become,’ he says, ‘partakers and beholders not of the triadic glory alone, but also of the light-manifestation of Jesus; for, having been deemed worthy of this contemplation, they are initiated, he himself being also a deifying light, as they truly draw near to him, and come to be the first partakers of the knowledge of his deifying lights.’

The great Macarius, as it were using the tongue of the wise Symeon — or rather using it together with his own, so that by two tongues he might proclaim the truth more clearly — says: 'The mass of human nature, which the Lord assumed, has sat down at the right hand of majesty in the heavens, full of glory, no longer in the face alone, as Moses did, but in the whole body.'

Therefore Christ possesses that light unchangeably — or rather, he always had it, always has it, and always will have it with himself.

But if it was, and is, and will be, then the light by which the Lord shone upon the mountain was not a phantasm, nor merely this — an unsubstantial symbol.

But if someone should say that it belongs to the class of things that subsist in themselves, separated from the nature of what it signifies, and that it became a symbol of that nature merely by [conventional] use, let him show where and of what sort this thing is — and that too, a thing shown by experience itself to be inaccessible, and not simply inaccessible to the eyes (for, it says, the disciples fell face-down upon the ground), and indeed from nowhere else than from the venerable face and body alone did it flash forth radiantly. Moreover, if it belonged to the class of things subsisting in themselves, and were to be with Christ perpetually in the ages to come, then Christ would there be composed of three natures and essences: the human, the divine, and that of that light.

It has therefore become clear, and has been demonstrated brilliantly, that that light is neither among the things subsisting in themselves, nor is it alien to the Godhead.

Yet now, having arrived at this point in the argument, we must say how the saints call this deifying grace — that is, this divine light — enhypostatic.

That, then, by such an appellation they do not attest to it as self-subsistent is clear also from the fact that they never say it exists 'in its own hypostasis' — just as also appeared from the division set forth above.

But since 'without hypostasis' is said not only of that which does not exist, nor only of a phantasm, but also of that which quickly falls away and flows past, coming into being in the very act of perishing and having ceased as soon as it has come to be — such as the nature of lightning and thunder, and indeed also our own speech and thought — therefore they, showing that light to be abiding and constant, have rightly called it 'enhypostatic,' as something that remains, and does not, like lightning or speech or thought, run past those who behold it.

But this most wise fellow, before even knowing the meaning of this term 'enhypostatic,' attacks those who used it, as though they had committed impiety.

And yet, had he kept away from misusing what those who spoke well [i.e. the fathers] had said, and had he not interpreted their own words against themselves by his own private fabrications — if, that is, he had chosen to say that this thing is called 'enhypostatic' for no other reason than its not having its own separate hypostasis, or if he had made an accusation but not as against heretics — none of us would have thought it worth answering him.

But now we must return to what follows in the demonstration set before us.

If, then, that light which shone from the Savior upon the mountain is a natural symbol, it is not a natural symbol of both his natures at once; for the natural properties of each of these two natures are different from each other.

It is impossible, then, for it to belong to the human nature; for our nature is not light, especially not light of the kind that that was. And indeed, the Lord did not then go up onto Tabor bringing the chosen disciples with him...

...in order to show that he existed as a man (for he had already been seen for three years living together with them, sharing their common life, and, to use the scriptural phrase, 'eating together' with them), but in order to show, as the hymn sings, that he himself is the radiance of the Father.

Moreover, not even you yourself — nor anyone bolder than you who might appear — would say that this is a symbol of his humanity, but rather of his divinity.

If, then, it is a natural symbol, and yet it is not of the human nature, then that light exists as the natural symbol of the only-begotten Godhead, just as the divine John of Damascus also taught us with great clarity; for, he says, the Son, having been begotten of the Father without beginning, possesses the natural ray of Godhead without beginning; and the glory of the Godhead becomes also the glory of the body.

Therefore it did not come into being, it did not begin, nor did it end; for natural symbols always coexist with the nature of which they are symbols — not being always symbols as such, but always coexisting with it — since indeed the great Maximus, so learned in divine things, says that all things contemplated essentially around God are without beginning and without end.

And since, according to him, there are many things contemplated essentially around God which in no way harm the principle of simplicity, much more will that light-like symbol, being one of them, bring no harm at all.

That this light too belongs among the things contemplated essentially around God, we are taught from many other sources, but especially from what is sung yearly in the Church, of which one instance will suffice for demonstration.

"The lightning hidden beneath the flesh of your essential and divine comeliness, O Christ, you showed forth on the holy mountain, O Benefactor, shining out to the disciples who were present with you."

Moreover, the wise Maximus, learned in divine things, having said there that Christ became a symbol of his very own self out of love for mankind, thereby showed

this light to be a natural symbol.

For in the case of what is not natural, one thing is a symbol of another, but not of itself; but when the symbol happens to be [derived] naturally from that very thing of which it is a symbol, then we say it becomes a symbol of itself.

For the burning power of fire, putting forth heat — which is participable by sense-perception — as a symbol of itself, thereby indeed becomes a symbol of itself, always possessing this heat with itself; yet remaining one, and undergoing no duplication whatsoever on account of it, but using this heat naturally as a symbol whenever what is receptive of it is present.

In the same way also, when the sun is about to rise, the far-shining light of dawn which it puts forth as a symbol becomes a symbol of itself.

We know also the light of the sun; for that too is perceptible to sight, by which we are naturally able to apprehend also the light of dawn; but the disk of the sun does not allow anyone to gaze upon it at all, and its brilliance stands almost unseeable.

And touch, which apprehends the heat of fire, has no knowledge whatsoever of the burning power itself — of which we said the heat is a symbol — except only to know that it exists, but not of what sort it is, nor how great; for touch, attempting to learn through itself what the burning power is that puts forth the heat, would come to be wholly fire and would lose its very existence as touch; wherefore, having once dared to make direct contact, it immediately retreats and flees headlong, having taken a sharp regret for its impulse to learn.

Heat, then, is the power of fire participable by touch, but the burning itself is altogether imparticipable.

If, then, this is so in these cases, how could anyone say that the Godhead, enthroned far above in hidden places, becomes known, merely because its natural symbol has been known?

If the dawn-symbol of daylight were inaccessible to sight no less than the sun itself — or rather, even more than the sun — would it then have been possible

for the eyes to behold that day at all, or indeed to behold anything else during it?

How, then, would they have been able to know what sort of light the sun proportionately corresponding to that day is?

So too, and much more, the divine things are known only through participation, but what they are in themselves, according to their own foundation and first principle, no one knows — not even among the highest intelligences in the supra-cosmic realms — at least, not so far as we know.