Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 20/21

For falsehood is of such a nature that it is both inconsistent with itself and self-subverting — fittingly so, that it may be false and injurious even toward itself, turning against itself and, through itself, giving the lie to itself.

But will he say that by 'essence' he means that which possesses all these powers within itself in a single and unitive manner?

But, first of all, he ought to have named this 'God' — for it is this very term that we have received from the Church for that [reality].

Moreover, when God spoke to Moses, He did not say, 'I am the essence,' but 'I am He who is'; for it is not that 'He who is' [derives] from 'essence,' but 'essence' from 'He who is'; for He who is has comprehended the whole of being within Himself.

Furthermore, even if he had used the word 'God' instead of 'essence,' he ought to have added the qualifier 'by nature' — especially since the subject of the discourse concerned grace, and those who are gods by grace, whom the saints also call, by grace, unoriginate and uncreated.

He ought, therefore, to have said: 'One is God, who is by nature without beginning.'

(...) preeminent. For if he had said this, how could he have been so intent on showing that the natural powers within Him are created?

That this man indeed holds the powers of God to be created — hear him say this openly.

For, having cited the great Dionysius, who says that 'Being-itself,' and 'Life-itself,' and 'Godhead-itself' — by way of participation — are the providential powers issuing forth from the imparticipable God, in which the beings that participate, each fittingly to itself, both exist and are called living and God-imbued (whence He is also said to be, in the primary sense, their ground), this man, reasoning from these premises in what follows, says: 'Therefore this "Godhead-itself" here, and the other things which the great [Dionysius] plainly named "powers," do not exist eternally, but the Good is the ground of these as well.' And again: 'someone has said that there is a certain divine principle and a Godhead, from which the source of all things is set apart, yet he nowhere said that it is eternal; for the cause of all things is the ground of this too.' And again: 'the imparticipable glory of God is indeed eternal, yet is not other than the essence; while the participable glory is other than the essence of God, yet is not eternal — for the cause of all things is the ground of this too.'

Now, that it is false [to say] that the eternal glory of God is the imparticipable essence of God, he who called the angels 'beholders of eternal glory' has shown — as I too said above — whereby it is likewise demonstrated that the eternal glory of God is participable; for whatever of God is visible is, in some manner, also participable.

But the great Dionysius also says: 'The divine minds move in a circular manner, being united to the unoriginate and endless illuminations of the beautiful and the good.'

How, then, are these unoriginate and endless illuminations not other than the imparticipable essence of God, possessing a distinction with respect to it, even though they are inseparable from it?

For, in the first place, that [essence] is one, whereas these illuminations are many, being sent forth proportionately and fittingly to those who participate, according to the differing receptive [capacity] of these... (p. [break]

...) Furthermore, that [essence] is a supra-essential essence, while these illuminations, I think no one will dispute, are energies or an energy of it; nor [will anyone dispute] that they are participable, even though that [essence] is imparticipable.

And indeed every union comes about through contact — sensible contact in the case of sensible things, and noetic contact in the case of noetic things; but since there is a union with those illuminations, there is accordingly also a contact — evidently a noetic one, or rather a spiritual one.

But the essence of God is in itself untouchable.

Further, the union with those illuminations — what else is it but vision?

Those illuminations, then, are visible to those who have been deemed worthy; but the essence of God is altogether invisible; and indeed the beginningless and endless illuminations are a beginningless and endless light.

There exists, then, an eternal light other than the essence of God — not itself being essence, God forbid, but an energy of that super-essentiality.

Since this light is beginningless and endless, it is properly neither sensible nor intelligible, but spiritual and divine, transcendently set apart from all created things; and that which is neither sensible nor intelligible falls under neither sensation as sensation, nor under the noetic faculty by itself.

Therefore not only that which is seen, but also the power that sees that spiritual light, is neither sensation nor intellection, but a certain spiritual power, coming to be by grace in the pure rational natures among created beings.

For this reason Gregory the great Theologian said that the good angels are not only beholders of eternal glory, but beholders eternally, showing that the angels behold the eternal glory of God not by a created, natural, and noetic power, but by an eternal power, spiritual and divine — 'not that God might be glorified,' he says, 'for there is nothing that could be added to him who is full and'

'— the dispenser of good things to others — nothing could be added, but rather so that the being-benefited might not be lacking even to those natures that are first after God.'

Do you see, then, that they do not possess from nature the capacity to behold the eternal glory eternally, but rather, being benefited by the eternal nature, they receive this power and this contemplation as an addition — just as the saints also do?

...in him — the dignity of a prophet, of an apostle, of an angel, of God — though he was formerly earth and ashes.

Those minds that share in such a power are themselves said to see; thus that light is both according to intellect and above intellect. But they are also said to see themselves, for that light is self-revealing, since, though ungraspable by any created cognitive power, it is visible to those who are worthy.

For this reason the great Dionysius said that minds move in a circular manner, being united to the beginningless and endless illuminations.

One must also pay attention to this: that this man, who in all things has been exact beyond all others, did not simply say that the minds move in a circular manner, being united to the beginningless illuminations, but that they are 'said' to move — indicating, as I suppose, that such a union is not natural to them, even though, because they have never had experience of defilement, they happen from the beginning to have been allotted this by grace.

And that such a light and the power that sees it are not present naturally in the angels who are above the world, there is also, from that which is most hostile to them, a more trustworthy testimony, which they say is to be found. For the tribe that fell from them, the demonic tribe, has been deprived of the light and of the power that sees it, though deprived of none of the natural attributes; therefore neither the light nor that vision is natural.

And indeed the demonic tribe has not been deprived of intellection either, for they are minds and have not cast off their being; and, 'I know who you are,' they say —

— 'the Holy One of God' — he who also would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ.

Wherefore the Theologian also said: 'Do you disbelieve the divinity?'

But if they know the divinity, they must also know this: that it is nothing among created things.

That light, then, is not knowledge — neither that which comes about through affirmations nor that which comes through negation.

And indeed each of the evil angels is a mind — but, to speak prophetically, an 'Assyrian,' using knowledge wickedly; but it is not possible for anyone to use that light wickedly, for as soon as one inclines toward the worse, it immediately flies away, leaving the one who has made an evil assent deserted by God.

Therefore that light and that illumination is not intellection, unless it be so called equivocally, chiefly on account of the mind that partakes of it — just as it is also called 'divinity' on account of the one who is working the ineffable grace; for it is a deifying energy, in no way separated from the operating Spirit, though it has a beginning as regards the one who has been illumined through purity and as regards the very fact of having been illumined (for which reason this is also called 'purity' by the Fathers), whereas the light and the illumination itself are beginningless.

And this is shown even more clearly in the case of men — that is, those who, having been illumined in an angelic manner, have attained deification, who, according to Maximus, so learned in divine things, beholding the light of that hidden and utterly ineffable glory, themselves also become receptive, together with the powers above, of that blessed purity.

But if we also examine the cause for which this novelty-monger has contrived that the deifying gift of the Spirit — or rather all the powers of God — are created, then, apart from that wicked fountainhead of heresies which we refuted above, we shall find no other cause than this: that the great Dionysius said God 'gives subsistence' to these; but this indicates existence only, not the manner of that existence; hence this applies both to things that exist in a created manner and to things that exist in an uncreated manner.

For the great Basil used this very word also concerning the Son, saying: 'For he who has begotten drops of dew — did he give subsistence to the drops and to the Son in the same manner?'; and likewise concerning the Holy Spirit: 'For it is the Spirit,' he says, 'of the mouth of God, lest you judge it to be something external and among the creatures, but rather glorify it as having its subsistence from God'; and again: 'This has the mark of its property according to hypostasis, that it is made known through the Son and subsists from the Father.'

And in many places Gregory the Theologian also calls the pre-eternal begetting of the Son a 'hypostasis' (subsistence).

...declaring either this, or that the cause of all things is also that which gives subsistence to these.

Nor have you even noticed this: that there the great Dionysius showed these powers not to exist merely by way of eminence. For having said, 'the providential powers issuing forth from God the imparticipable,' he went on to add: 'by participation in which the beings are also called beings' — entirely as though those powers really exist above the beings.

Do you, then, suppose that the deifying, or essence-making, or wisdom-giving powers that proceed from the super-essential hiddenness belong to the class of the participants, or to the class of the participated?

But if they belong to the class of the participants, it will be necessary to seek other similar powers, of which they will partake.

Do you see, then, that the powers of necessity belong to the class of the participated, and not to the class of the participants?

Furthermore, if the deifying power should need another deifying power — for in that case it would be a participant, not something participated — then that second power too will need yet another, and this one again

— yet another, and so on to infinity.

The deifying power, then, is something participated, and not something participating.

Further, since there are things that participate in God, they will participate either in his essence, or in his power, or in his energy.

But they will not participate in the power and energy, for according to your wisdom these too are participants and created; therefore they will participate in the essence of God — which is absurd.

Moreover, if these powers should belong not to the class of the participated but to the class of the participants, what else will they participate in but the super-essential essence of God?

For surely not of other similar powers again.

Two absurdities, then, will result: that the essence of God is something participated, and that the powers have become essences — and not simply essences, but essences of God. For the power proceeds forth into energy, and from the energy the result comes to be; but the essence, precisely by being participated, is this very thing, and makes those that participate to be, by participation, of that same essence.

Do you see how great is the absurdity, and how the one who says, as this man does, that the powers belong to the participants and are created, is in truth a polytheist, showing the essence of God to be not one, but many and diverse?

We, then, who worship one almighty God, know the powers of God to belong to the class of the participated, in agreement with the saints, and to be all without beginning — not as regards their operating, but as regards their existing, even though not by themselves. For the great Dionysius said that they are participated as pre-existing in God; and the participated things, according to the divine Maximus, never began to be, nor is there anything prior to them that 'was not,' but they always exist from the ever-existing God, being always inseparably about him and existing within him co-eternally.

For indeed we shall not be frightened by your sophistries of vain artifice, and your charges of ditheism and polytheism and composite gods, which you hold up against us and the saints like so many bogeymen — frightening, be well assured, not those who have reached maturity, but infants — and by which...

— you falsely accuse us of the very things you yourself suffer, as is often shown when your own arguments turn back upon you, and you attempt — alas! — to drag others down together with yourself, so that you might deceitfully lead them away from the orthodox doctrines, ensnaring them with the artifices of your arguments.

'For inasmuch as,' he says, 'you affirm that there are many eternal and uncreated things — the subordinate ones and that which is set above them — you speak of many gods; but inasmuch as these things do not subsist under God in a divided manner, and you say of the same God that the one, glory, is visible, and the other, essence, is invisible, as though he possessed both eternally, you gather the two gods together into one composite God.'

Against whom are such arguments, and this unrestrained onslaught, and these forbidden accusations — or rather, absurdities — directed?

Or is it not evident to everyone, even if we do not say so?

For you have heard the saints saying that the things participated are many, and all without beginning, and God infinitely and beyond infinity exempted from them; and you have heard those who said that the glory of God contemplated is eternal and co-eternal with him.

Nevertheless, let us briefly give an account of how these things are said; for we too are in harmony with them.

We, my good sir, say that God possesses all these things — or rather, to speak with the great Dionysius, that he pre-possesses and surpassingly possesses them, unrelatedly, comprehensively, and unitarily, just as the soul possesses within itself, in a single form, all the providential powers of the body.

As, then, the soul, even when the eyes have been put out or the ears made deaf, still possesses within itself, no less than before, the providential powers of the body, so also, while the world did not yet exist, God possessed the providential powers of the world. And as the soul is not simply identical with the providential powers, but possesses powers, so likewise also God. And as the soul is one and simple and without composition, being in no way multiplied on account of the powers within it and proceeding from it,

— nor composite — so also God, being not only possessed of many powers but omnipotent, does not, on account of the powers within him, depart from his unity and simplicity.

Nevertheless, when the great Dionysius calls 'life-itself,' and 'deification-itself,' and such things, the principles and paradigms of beings, he does not say that God pre-possesses these.

How then can the things that God pre-possesses have a beginning?

But if these are also put forward as gifts, he himself says how he bestows these very things — how then are the predeterminations and the divine wills not beginningless and uncreated?

How then is it commonly agreed that only one thing is without beginning — the essence of God — while everything besides this belongs to a generated nature and has had a temporal beginning?

Which of the saints ever said this?

But if no one has, how is it commonly agreed upon?

Connected with this is also another thing likewise supposed to be agreed upon: that there is no other entity whatsoever between the essence of God and the things generated.

If, then, by 'essence' here he means the participated, essence-making power of God, which the great Dionysius also calls 'self-essentification,' he ought not to have said that there is nothing whatever between the essence of God and all the generated things simply, but only between it and generated essences; since, as regards the living, insofar as they are living — whether by sensation, or by reason, or by intellect — it is not the essence-making power of God that is productive of them, but the life-giving power; and of those made wise, the wisdom-giving power; and of those deified, the deifying power — from which we both conceive and name that super-essential and unitary hiddenness not only 'essence,' but also 'God' and 'wisdom' and 'life.'

But if he means precisely that super-essential — and here also imparticipable — hiddenness, that which is enthroned above all things in what is hidden (which above he also asserted to be alone without beginning, wrongly stripping from it its co-eternal

— powers and energies, or rather those most God-befitting works, which never began) — if, then, he means this hiddenness, and says that there is no other entity between this and the generated things, then he is saying that the very super-essential essence of God itself exists as the participated entity of the generated things. And this very point he has made evident precisely by saying 'no other'; for if not another, then this one of necessity.

All generated things, then, will participate in the imparticipable essence of God.

For how will each of the generated things not participate in that entity?

And how will there be either eternity, or time, or place, and the things within them, unless they partake of being — which is the same as saying, of entity?

Each of these, then, if it is to exist — whether they are essences or not — will participate in the essence of God; for according to you, this alone, and no other, is the entity of generated things. And the most absurd thing of all is that things which participate in essence will not even be essences — and this, essences of a divine essence!

But if entity is also the principle of all things that exist in whatever manner, how is it not the case that he who is above every principle is also above it?

And if a principle necessarily surpasses the things that come from it, how is entity not above beings?

But if this entity is above the things that participate, while he who is above every principle is above it, how is the participated entity not something existing between the participants and the imparticipable super-essentiality?

...existing within and pre-existing in the demiurgic mind, according to which all things came to be.

How then are these not between the imparticipable and the participants?

Nevertheless, since there are things that participate in God, while the supra-essential essence of God is altogether imparticipable, there is therefore something between the imparticipable essence and the things that participate, through which these things participate in God.

But if you do away with that which lies between the imparticipable and those who participate, oh, what a loss! — you have separated us from God, having removed from our midst that which binds us together, and made instead a chasm and…

We must then seek God as being not merely self-complete, self-operating, and beholding himself through himself alone, but also good; for thus he will not be content to be moved only by contemplation of himself. Nor must we seek him as merely without need, but as most superabundantly full; for thus, willing as good to do well, he will not lack the power. Nor must we seek him as merely unmoved but also as moving; for thus he will be present to all the creative and providential processions and energies.

And in short, we must seek God as being in some way participable, by participating in whom each of us, according to our own proper measure, in proportion to our participation, shall be, and live, and be divinely indwelt.

There is, therefore, something between created things and that imparticipable supra-essentiality — not one thing only, but many, and indeed as many as the things that participate.

These intermediaries, that is, do not subsist by themselves; for they are powers of that supra-essentiality, which has singly and unitively pre-comprehended and comprehended together the whole multitude of participable things; on account of which, being multiplied according to its processions and participated in by all, it is held without departure to the imparticipable and the one.

For if the center of a circle, though it has in itself the power of sending forth from itself all the lines of the circle, is not two points or many, much more does God reject all duplicity, holding forth in himself the powers and the paradigms of created things.

Such powers and paradigms, then, exist and pre-exist, but not as essences nor as self-subsistent things, nor do they contribute anything toward God's being; for he is the one who gives them subsistence, but he himself does not subsist by means of them. For the things around God are not the essence of God, but he himself is the essence of the things around him.

In one respect he himself is supra-essential essence, ineffable and inconceivable, unrelated and…

…imparticipable; but in another respect he is the essence of beings, and the life of the living, and the wisdom of those made wise, and, in short, the beingness of all things that in any way exist, and a beauty-making power, and is thought and spoken and participated in by created things.

For if, according to the great Dionysius, God is known not only through unknowing but also through knowledge, and there is of him both intellection and reason and knowledge and contact and perception and opinion and imagination and name and all the rest, then there is also participation in him — in one respect because there is intellection of him, and perception, and contact; in another respect because of the most all-embracing term subsequently applied to him.

The same God, therefore, is both imparticipable and participable — the former inasmuch as he is supra-essential, the latter inasmuch as he possesses an essence-making power and an energy that is paradigmatic and final of all things.

But such paradigms, Pythagoras and Plato and Socrates, basely and in a manner unworthy of God, held to be self-subsistent principles, co-causes together with God.

These men, then, are to be blamed as polytheists, who, between that supra-essentiality and created things, improvised out of themselves and gave subsistence to other divine essences, principial of beings, which — according to the saying — neither they themselves knew, nor their fathers.

But we and our fathers hold none of these to be self-subsistent, nor uncaused, nor a co-cause with God; wherefore we call these things predeterminations and foreknowledges and wills of God, existing before created things, in him — for how could it be otherwise?

…while created things were afterward brought forth in accordance with them.

For, as it is said: 'He spoke' — and it did not merely happen, but the thought itself was a deed — 'and all that he willed, he made.'

…supra-essentially the originative and creative cause of the essences of things that have come into being — yet as one, rejecting all duplicity, and bringing forth the manifold and particular things according to a single, uniform, and super-united simplicity; but this we know as all-powerful and all-sustaining, as containing in himself…

…having all things even before creation. For if the sun, to use the words of the great Dionysius, has in itself in a uniform manner pre-comprehended the causes of the many participations, much more must it be granted that, in the cause of himself and of all things, the paradigms of all beings pre-subsist according to a single supra-essential union.

Predetermination, therefore, and foreknowledge and providence and such things exist, and always exist, and exist properly; and they are united to God without division, and they are other than that supra-essentiality, and that supra-essentiality is above them — for how could it be otherwise?

Since these things exist eternally according to a certain mode of existence, and God also is eternal, will there therefore be two or many gods?

And because these are united to him without division, will God thereby become composite for us?

And again, because we have come to be in accordance with these, are we then the works not of God, but of other things?

Will you, then, likewise make the king who has been raised up over us on earth by God into two kings, and prove his kingdom to be composite out of two kingdoms, and say that someone other than himself, and not he, is the president of the offices of rank — because by his own decree and will he creates the ranks, and his decree becomes for each of those in authority a revered name and dignity?

For here too, between the one who commands and those who obey, the command necessarily lies in between.

But no one could say that the king does not possess power beforehand over us; and there is also, in some measure, foreknowledge on his part, even if not with respect to all things and at all times.

Shall we, then, also class the decree itself with the senate, on the ground that the decree is not the kingship itself — just as you there class the participable things as created, on the ground that these are not the essence of God?

From such principles, thus agreed upon, you have shown the Orthodox to be ditheists and polytheists.

CATALOGUE OF THE ABSURDITIES RESULTING FROM THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHER BARLAAM. The things, then, which offend against the truth and against the God of truth, by means of the principles and propositions that seemed to him agreed upon, which he set forth against truth itself, are as many and as such, and have arrived at this pitch of false doctrine.

As for the things from which he thinks he draws his conclusions — unwillingly, indeed, yet he happens again to bear witness against himself (for it is not by his own will that his writings have come into our hands, and, as it were, they have foretold their author to be a wicked one); the things, then, in which he again appears, from the writings of his now in our hands, to think wrongly, are in no way discordant with what has been said of him before.

For, to put it briefly, it contains such an excess of ill-will that it shows the prophets to be operated upon by demons, ranks the saints who lived according to the Gospel of God together with the heretics, and declares the virtue of the prophets and apostles and those like them to be vice and not virtue.

Will there then be any portion with the saints for one who cherishes such writings and accuses those who do not cherish them?

For what does it matter if these things are not openly what he says, but are merely inferred from what he says?

Such are the depths of Satan, the mysteries of the evil one, which he whispers into the ears of those who lend them to him…

…not through open speech, but concealing the harmfulness of the thought.

But we will here briefly make clear how he attempts to establish each of the things that have been said; and first, by what means his argument shows — alas! — the divinely-inspired prophets to be demonic.

He constructs the argument that their visions are inferior to intellection, and declares them to be mere imaginings, even if sensible ones, so as to show knowledge to be superior to these; then, proceeding further, he himself says again that the mind is passionate or demonic, whichever mind operates according to an operation inferior to intellection.

Since, then, the prophets saw with the mind (for the vision of the prophets, says the great Basil, is not something sensible, but is understood by the mind, God illuminating it; and again, the prophets foresaw future things, their governing faculty being impressed by the Spirit) — if, then, the prophets saw with the mind in the Spirit, but by an operation inferior to intellection, as he said, and this operation is demonic whenever it does not operate concerning money and the lower pleasures and glories, is not, then, according to the one who says such things, that divine vision itself demonic?

And what then of the divine Spirit, and that light which produces this vision?

How, then, did he fall into so great a pit?

Because he investigated by reason and natural philosophy things that are above reason and nature, disobeying the fathers who say that the manner of prophetic vision cannot be explained by reason, but only he knows it clearly who has learned it by experience; for if no one could often set forth by reason even the works and processes of nature…

…much more is this true of the energy of the Spirit — which one might see attested in many places among the saints after Christ.

This, then, being said by these fathers, he himself declares that those who say such things must be known by experience, or who have come to know them by experience, are Messalians.

Therefore it becomes evident, as if from a geometrical corollary, that he himself has taken no experience whatsoever of the divine mystery or of the energy of the Holy Spirit; for otherwise he would not have proclaimed himself a Messalian.

If, then, only he who has learned by experience knows the energies of the Spirit, and he himself has not known by experience and by no means accepts those who have known by experience, who will still doubt that all his loquacity concerning the deifying energy of the Spirit is falsehood — and this uttered by him against those who have had experience of it, while he himself knows neither what he says nor concerning what he is asserting?

'For will he proclaim the sweetness of honey to those who have not tasted it?' says the proverb; but how will those who have not tasted proclaim it?

Tell me this: and if they should even contradict those who have tasted, will they not, besides being manifestly shown to be lying, also incur the utmost ridicule?

Far more, then, would he be a liar and an object of ridicule who tells such fabulous tales about the supernatural energies of the Spirit, and, according to the Apostle, 'intrudes into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.'