Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 3/21

For indeed this has not escaped their notice: that it is not with the mind as it is with sight — which sees the other visible things, but does not see itself — rather, the mind, while it does indeed act also upon the other things that it may need...

...surveying them (which the great Dionysius calls the 'straight' movement of the mind), yet it also returns into itself and acts upon itself when the mind sees itself; and this, again, the same [Dionysius] calls its 'circular' movement.

And this is the higher and most proper energy of the mind, through which, becoming even above itself, it sometimes comes to be united with God.

'For the mind,' he says, 'not being scattered upon external things' — do you see that it does go out? —

...and so, having gone out, it needs to return; wherefore he says: it returns to itself, and through itself ascends to God, as by an unerring path.

For that very Dionysius, the unerring beholder of noetic things, says that this movement of the mind cannot possibly fall into any error.

The father of deception, then, ever desiring to lead man away from this [movement] and to lead him toward that [movement] which gives room to his deceptions, has not yet — even to this day, as far as we know — found any collaborator who, striving through specious speech, might succeed in drawing man toward it.

And rightly so: for if he did not confine the mind within the body, how could he make his own the [mind] that is clothed with the body and, as a natural form, pervades throughout all the shaped matter — the exterior and distinct [part] of which...

...would not manifest the essence of the mind, so long as that [matter] lives, drawing a form of life suited to its conjunction [with the mind]?

Do you see, brother, how, when examined not only spiritually but also from a human/rational point of view, it has become evident that it is most necessary for those who have chosen truly to become monks after the inner man, and to bear that name rightly, to send the mind within the body, or to keep it there?

And to instruct those who are newly introduced [to this way of life] especially to look into themselves, and to send their own mind within by means of the breath, is not without reason.

For no one of sound judgment would dissuade one from gathering, by certain [artificial] means, toward itself, a mind not yet able to contemplate itself.

Since, then, for those who have only just girded themselves for this contest, the mind, even when gathered [within], continually leaps away again, and it is necessary for them continually to lead it back once more; and since, being unpracticed, it escapes their notice, being of all things the most difficult to observe and the most easily moved — for this reason there are some who advise attending to the breath, which is repeatedly drawn out and drawn back in, and holding it a little, so that they might restrain that [mind] as well, keeping watch over it therein, until, advancing with God toward what is better, and having made their own mind inaccessible to and unmixed with the things about it, they are able to gather it precisely into a unified concentration.

And one might say that this [restraint of the breath] also follows spontaneously upon the attention of the mind.

For this breath enters and departs gently even during every intense reflection, but especially in the case of those who are still (hesychazontes) in body and in mind.

For these, keeping a spiritual Sabbath, and resting, as far as possible, from all their own works, remove every transitive, discursive, and variegated activity concerning the cognitions of the soul's powers, and all perceptive apprehensions, and, simply, every energy of the body — both that which is in our power, and, to the extent it is in our power, even that which is not entirely in our power, such as breathing.

All these things follow effortlessly and without anxious care for those who have progressed in stillness; for by the soul's complete entry into itself, all these things must necessarily come to pass of themselves.

But for beginners, you would find not one of the things mentioned coming about without toil.

As, then, endurance follows upon love (for 'love bears all things'; but we are taught to accomplish endurance by effort, until through it we attain to love), so it is also in these matters.

And since, moreover, as one of the great fathers says concerning these matters, the inner man has, since the transgression, come by nature to be conformed to outward postures as well — how would it not contribute something great to one who is eager to turn the mind back upon itself, that it should move not with the straight but with the circular and unerring movement, by not directing the eye this way and that, but fixing it, as upon a kind of support, upon his own breast or navel?

For, in addition to coiling himself outwardly, as far as possible, into a circle, in a manner resembling the movement of the mind that is being cultivated within itself, he will also, through such a bodily posture, send back within, into the heart, the power of the mind that is poured out externally through sight.

And if the power of the noetic beast is at the navel of the belly, since the law of sin holds its dominion there and gives it pasture — why should we not station there the law of the mind, armed through prayer, warring against that [law of sin], lest the evil spirit, driven out through the bath of regeneration, should return with seven other spirits more evil than itself and again take up dwelling there, and the last state become worse than the first?

'Attend to yourself,' says Moses; that is, evidently, to the whole of yourself — not to one part of what is yours, and not to another.

For it is not possible to attend to oneself wholly by any other means.

Station, then, this guard over both soul and body; for through it you will easily be delivered from both bodily and psychic evil afflictions.

Take your stand over yourself, then; take your stand upon yourself; visit yourself — or rather, keep standing over, visiting, and examining [yourself continually]; for thus you will subject the flesh, when it grows unruly, to the spirit, and never shall there be a hidden word in your heart.

'If the spirit of the one who exercises power' — that is, of the evil spirits and passions — 'rises up against you,' says Ecclesiastes, 'do not leave your place' — that is, do not leave any part of the soul, or any member of the body, unwatched.

For thus you will also come to be above the spirits that assail you from below, and, having first examined these things yourself, you will stand before him who searches hearts and reins, unexamined, and with boldness of speech.

For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.

And having experienced that blessed experience of David, you too will say to God: "Darkness will not be dark to you, and night will be illumined for me as day, for you have possessed my reins."

"Not only," he says, "have you made the whole desiring part of my soul wholly yours, but also whatever spark of this desire was in the body, having turned back to her who engendered it, has through her flown up to you, and hangs upon you, and cleaves to you."

For just as, in those who cling to sensible and corruptible pleasures, the whole desiring part of the soul is emptied out toward the flesh, and for this reason they become wholly flesh, and the Spirit...

...of God, according to what is written, cannot remain in them; so, in those who have raised up the mind to God and whose soul is made dependent on the divine longing, the flesh too is transformed and raised up together with it, and shares together in the divine communion, and itself becomes both a possession and a dwelling-place of God, no longer harboring within it enmity toward God, nor desiring against the Spirit.

And what place, shared by both flesh and mind, is more fitting for the spirit that rises up to us from below?

Is it not the flesh, in which also the Apostle says that no good thing dwells, before the law of life is settled within it?

This, then, must all the more never be released from attention.

For how could it be ours, and how could we not abandon it, and how could we beat back the ascent of the evil one against it — especially we who do not yet know how to resist spiritually the spiritual powers of wickedness — unless we also train ourselves, by means of the outward posture, to attend to ourselves?

And why do I speak of those just now beginning, when even among the more perfect there are those who, by using this posture in prayer, found the divine attentive to them — not only among those after Christ, but also among those before his coming to us?

For Elijah himself, most perfect in the vision of God, resting his head upon his knees, and thus more diligently gathering his mind into himself and toward God, put an end to that many-year drought.

But these men, brother, from whom you say you have heard these things, seem to me to suffer the disease of the Pharisees; for this reason they are unwilling to visit and cleanse the inside of the cup — that is, their own heart — and, not conforming to the patristic traditions, they hasten to set themselves up before everyone as universal teachers of the law; and they themselves both disdain the posture of that justified prayer of the publican, and...

...urge the other people who pray not to adopt it either.

For just as the Lord says in the Gospels, that man was unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven; it is this man whom those imitate who, in praying, fix their gaze upon themselves.

...and of truth, but write for the sake of vainglory, not that they might lead others to watchfulness, but that they might bring watchfulness into reproach.

For they hasten, by every means, to hold in contempt this very work itself, and those who have taken it up skillfully, precisely on the basis of the very practice appropriate to it.

Such men would readily call "belly-souled" both him who said, "The law of God is in the midst of my belly," and him who said to God, "My belly shall resound like a harp, and my inward parts like a wall of bronze which you have renewed"; and they would together slander all who, through bodily symbols, figure, name, and track down the noetic, divine, and spiritual realities.

But by this they will do no harm at all to those men; rather, they will even become the occasion of beatitudes for them, and of a greater addition to their crowns in the heavens. They themselves, however, remain outside the sacred veils, and will not even be able to gaze upon the shadows of the truth; and there is great fear lest they also pay an eternal penalty, having not only separated themselves from the saints, but having also proceeded against them with their words.

For you know the life of Symeon the New Theologian, almost the whole of it a wonder, and glorified by God through supernatural miracles; and if one were to call his writings "writings of life," he would not miss the mark. You know also that holy Nikephoros, who, having spent many years in tranquility and stillness, afterward settled in the more remote parts of the Holy Mountain and, devoting himself to the task, gathered together teachings from all the patristic voices, and handed down to us their watchful practice.

These men, then, clearly teach to those who so choose this very thing which you say certain people are trying to overturn.

For men attested and proven a little before our own time, in the power of the Holy Spirit, handed this down to us with their own mouth. In our own day they proclaimed this theologian as truly a theologian and a most reliable eyewitness of the truth of God's mysteries — you hear of that man aptly named Theoleptos, the bishop of Philadelphia, or rather, who from that see, as from a lampstand, illuminated the world; that Athanasios, who for not a few years adorned the patriarchal throne, whose tomb also God honored; that Neilos from Italy, the emulator of the great Neilos; the Seliotes and Elias, who fell short of him in nothing; Gabriel and Athanasios, who were also deemed worthy of the gift of prophecy.

All these you surely hear of, and many others who lived before them, and together with them, and after them, praising and exhorting those who wish to follow it to hold fast to this tradition — a tradition which the new teachers of stillness, who know not even a trace of stillness, admonishing not from experience but from mere wordy chatter, attempt to set aside, teach otherwise, and hold in contempt, to no benefit whatsoever for their hearers.

But we ourselves have, among those holy men, some with whom we conversed face to face...

This shall not be, this shall not be!

You too, then, turn away such men, saying wisely to yourself with David, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name"; and present yourself obedient to the Fathers — listen to how they exhort us always to send the mind within.

...that those who write against the hesychasts are not only lacking in discernment, but are also utterly unacquainted with the words of the Fathers.

Being vainly puffed up, according to the Apostle, and taking their stand on things they have not seen, through the mind of their flesh, they have strayed so far from the straight path that they openly slander those men, while not even agreeing among themselves; wherefore, when they undertake to speak about illumination, they on the one hand forbid, as delusion, every illumination that is perceptible by sense, yet they themselves also say that every divine illumination is perceptible by sense — asserting that those illuminations which occurred among the Jews under the old Law, before the coming of Christ, and among the prophets who came from them, were symbolic, while clearly maintaining that the illumination on Tabor at the Transfiguration of the Savior, and that at the descent of the Holy Spirit, and all such as these, were perceptible by sense.

But what they claim to have heard from certain persons, I shall now relate to you briefly.

But I ask you to bear with me and to consider that, since I myself have never heard such things from any of the hesychasts, I cannot persuade myself that they have heard anything of the kind from any of our men.

...to feign being eager disciples, though not apt learners, and for this reason they earnestly entreated and persuaded their teachers to commit to writing what was said to them by their teachers.

They write, then, that their teachers say the following: that beginners should abandon all sacred Scripture as though it were evil, and attend only to prayer, by which the evil spirits — which are consubstantiated with human beings — are driven away; that these same persons are sensibly set aflame, and leap and rejoice, with the soul undergoing no change; that they see sensible lights; and that they consider the sign of divine lights to be a tinged whiteness, and of evil lights a kind of fiery and yellowish hue.

So they write that their teachers say these things, but they themselves declare all of this to be demonic; and if anyone objects to them on any of the aforesaid points, on the one hand they set this down as a sign of passion, and on the other, again, they set it down as proof of delusion. And in many ways one might observe them falling into the very things they accuse others of, and especially imitating in their own writings the many-coiled and deceitful nature of the serpent, twisting through many turns and unwinding many coils, and at one time explaining their own teachings one way, and at another time in a contrary way.

For, not possessing the steadfastness and simplicity of the truth, they are easily turned to the contrary; and being ashamed by the conviction of their own conscience, they attempt, like Adam, to hide themselves, through the variegated, writerly, and ambiguously-tending character of their words, which incline toward different meanings.

But as for you, father, I ask that you clarify what opinion we hold concerning the things said by them.

This too is a terrible artifice of the evil demon, so skillful in deception.

For, by not setting falsehood far from truth, he has contrived a twofold deception: since the brevity of the difference escapes most people, one will either take falsehood for truth, or else take truth itself — as being close in resemblance to falsehood — for falsehood; and in either case one will assuredly fall away from the truth.

Initiated into this artifice, those who championed the doctrines of Arius put forward the creed made in the city of Nike in place of that of Nicaea, corrupting the word that rightly divides the truth.

Arius himself, having employed this same deception, would almost have gained as fellow-communicants and fellow-ministers those very men who had publicly denounced him in the Church, had not the great Alexander — being able to detect the deceiver, but not to refute him clearly — resorted to God through prayer, and through it justly dispatched that abominable man, so fittingly named a madman, to an abominable death.

...This same deception, brother, seems to me even now to be employed throughout by those who say the things you have related.

For that beginners in stillness should be released from lengthy reading, and should attend to the single-phrase prayer, until they acquire a certain habit of holding to it unceasingly in their thought, even if the body is doing something else — this is what St. Diadochos, and Philemon the Great, and Neilos who is so versed in divine matters, and John of the Ladder, and many of the living Fathers, recommend; but not as though reading were useless and evil. These men, however, by adding the word "evil," have turned good recommendations into evil ones.

We also know that almost all the saints have shown, both in deed and word, that prayer is a driver-away of evil spirits and passions, and everyone of sound mind both holds and teaches this; but no one teaches that these evil spirits are consubstantiated with us. By adding this of their own, those whom you speak of have made what ought to be pursued into something to be fled.

That the heart leaps, as it were bounding with the enthusiasm of love for the Good — this too the great Basil has said, and the great Athanasios sets it down as a sign of grace; and that one comes forth from prayer as it were on fire, when one makes one's intercession to God with an untroubled mind, both experience and the author of the Ladder plainly teach; and, without this, and without the visitation of the light during prayer and the gentleness that arises in the soul from it, he holds prayer to be merely bodily, or even "Jewish." And that a manifestation of delight arises in the mouths of those who pray, not from prayer alone, but also from psalmody performed with understanding — this many others, and especially St. Isaac, clearly show.

But all these things have as their principle the improvement of the rational soul.

But now the slanderers of the...

...saints, whom you speak of — having taken this principle away, have made praiseworthy things blameworthy; and, having cut away all the other reliable proofs of the sacred and divine illumination, and having added only this small part which admits of their slanders, they attempt, alas, to persuade the inexperienced to consider the divine as demonic.

But the greater absurdity is this: that they are persuaded that the one kept under eternal gloom gives light — even if deceptively — while they do not think that God, who is beyond-radiant and the source of light, and who fills every rational nature fittingly disposed for its appropriate reception of light with noetic light, illumines noetically.

But as for the knowledge which you say they call the only noetic illumination — I think it is called "light" for this reason: because it is supplied by that light, just as the great Paul also says: "God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God."

In harmony with this, the great Dionysius too says: "The presence of the noetic light is unitive of those who are illumined, gathering them into one and true knowledge."

Do you see that the light of knowledge is supplied by the presence of the light of grace, and delivers the soul from divisive ignorance?

...he called it thus; for, he says, "you will know from its workings whether the noetic light that has shone in your soul is, by nature, of God or of Satan."

And elsewhere, calling the glory upon the face of Moses "immortality," even though at that time it shone around his mortal face, and showing how it is even now made manifest to the souls of those who have truly loved God, he says: "Just as the eyes of sensible sight see the sensible sun, so those men, through the eyes of the soul, see the noetic light," which, at the...

...time of the resurrection, will come forth and be poured out upon the bodies, and will show these too, adorned, with that everlasting light.

The light of knowledge, then, one could never call "noetic" in the strict sense; but that other light, at times, both operates as noetic, and, as noetic, is seen by the mind through noetic perception, and, arising within rational souls, delivers them from the ignorance that comes from disposition, turning them from their many opinions back to a knowledge of a single form.

For this reason that hymnographer of the Divine Names, undertaking to hymn the light-named appellation of the Good, says: "It must be said that the Good is called noetic light, because it fills every supra-celestial mind with noetic light, and drives out all ignorance and error from every soul in which it comes to be."

Knowledge, then, which comes about when ignorance is driven away, is one thing; the noetic light, which is productive of it, is another.

For this reason the noetic light comes to be present manifestly in the supra-celestial mind, that is, in the mind that has transcended itself.

But how could that supra-celestial and supra-noetic light be called "knowledge," except metaphorically?

But the purification from ignorance according to disposition, which this great author called "ignorance and error," is naturally accomplished only in the rational soul.

It is not only the minds of angels that transcend themselves, but the human mind as well, having become angel-like through dispassion. It will therefore both attain to that light and be deemed worthy of a supernatural theophany, not seeing the essence of God, but seeing God through a God-befitting manifestation proportionate to itself — not according to negation alone (for it does see something), but in a manner better than according to negation, since God is not only above knowledge, but also beyond-unknowable, and truly hidden even in his manifestation...

...having this most divine and most novel of all things — since even the God-formed visions, even if they be symbolic, possess the unknown in a transcendent manner; for they shine forth by another law, apart from both divine and human nature, and, so to speak, are "according to us, yet above us," so that there is no name that properly and strictly signifies them.

And this was shown by the angel who, when Manoah inquired, "What is your name?"...

...replied that it too was "wonderful" — since the vision itself, being no less wonderful, possesses, in addition to being incomprehensible, also the property of being nameless.

Nevertheless, even though the vision itself is better than what can be reached by way of negation, the word that interprets it falls short of the ascent by negation, being advanced in an exemplary manner or by analogy; wherefore also the word "as," bearing a signification of likeness, is for the most part attached to the divine names, since the vision is ineffable and beyond all naming.

But when the sacred men behold within themselves that God-befitting light — and they see it whenever they attain to the theurgic communion of the Spirit, according to the ineffable visitation of the perfecting illuminations — they see the garment of their own adoption as sons, the mind being glorified and filled with the transcendently-beautiful splendor by the grace of the Word, just as the body united to the Word, on the mountain, was glorified with God-befitting light by the divinity of the Word.

For the glory which the Father gave him, he himself gave to those who obey him, according to the word in the Gospels; and he willed that they should be with him and behold his glory.

But how could this happen bodily, since he is no longer bodily present after his ascension into the heavens?

...to God there, and might attain to supernatural and ineffable visions, being filled with a light higher than all immaterial knowledge — not as a beholder of sensible sacred symbols, nor as one who has knowledge of hieroglyphic variety, but as one adorned with the beauty-making and originating Beauty, and made radiant with the radiance of God.

For in the same way the highest orders of the supra-cosmic minds, each according to its own proportion — as the revealer of the heavens and interpreter of the Hierarchy concerning them says — being hierarchically arranged by the highest Triadic Source of Perfection, are filled not only with the first-given knowledge and understanding, but also with the first light; and they become not only participants and beholders of the Triadic glory alone, but also of the light-manifestation of Jesus, which was also revealed to the disciples on Tabor.

For, having been deemed worthy of this contemplation, they are initiated, he himself being theurgic light, truly drawing near to him and coming to be in the first participation of his theurgic lights.

For this reason too the aptly-named Macarius calls this light "the food of the heavenly beings."

And another of the theologians says: "This — the entire noetic order of the supra-cosmic beings, feasting immaterially upon it — is set forth as the clearest proof of the love for mankind shown by the Word toward us."

For this reason too the great Paul, being about to encounter within himself invisible and heavenly visions, was caught up and became one beyond the heavens — not as though the mind needed to ascend locally above the heavens, even though the rapture signifies some other mystery, known only to those who have experienced it, concerning which it is not now necessary to speak, lest we too set forth these things that we have heard from the experienced fathers for the purpose of mischief.

But that there is a noetic illumination, beheld by those purified in heart, wholly other than knowledge — one which is also productive of knowledge itself — we shall very easily demonstrate even from the things already said, to those who are not persuaded.

(For they say — as you yourself have said — that the illuminations in the old Law were symbolic.

Those [illuminations], then, show precisely this: that there is a sacred illumination of which they themselves became a symbol.

And that most of those [illuminations] were symbols of this we have also learned from the holy Neilos, who says: 'When the mind, having stripped off the old man, puts on the one from grace, then it will also see its own state, at the time of prayer, resembling a sapphire or heavenly colour — which the Scripture also calls the place of God, seen by the elders beneath Mount Sinai.'

Likewise we also hear the holy Isaac saying that, at the time of prayer, the mind that has received grace sees its own purity, resembling the heavenly hue, which was called by the council of elders of Israel 'the place of God,' when it appeared to them on the mountain.

Do you see how those [ancient visions] were symbols of the things now accomplished in pure hearts?

And John, golden both in tongue and in thought, expounding that apostolic saying — 'God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, who has shined in our hearts' — says that with an addition it shows the glory of Moses flashing forth in us; for just as it shone into the face of Moses, so it has shone into our hearts. And going on further he says: 'At the beginning of creation He said, and there was light; but now He did not [merely] say, but He Himself has become light for us.'

If, then, the light at the beginning of creation, or that in the face of Moses, was a moderate knowledge, then the illumination in our hearts would be a higher knowledge, as having received an addition.

But since that [light] was not knowledge but a brightness appearing upon the face, so also the illumination in you is not knowledge but a brightness of the soul, appearing upon the purified mind.

That [light on Moses' face], then, being subject to sensible eyes, must necessarily be called sensible, (p.

) just as this [light in us], being subject to noetic eyes and operating within us, must be called noetic.

...which, according to the holy Macarius, the saints receive.

And this same [Macarius] also calls this [light] the glory of Christ, and considers it to be above sense-perception, even though it appeared according to sense [in the case of Moses]; he sets forth that apostolic saying with a small addition: 'But we all, with unveiled face, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord' — that is, His noetic light — 'and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory' — namely, by the abundance of the brightness in us, which, proceeding from the divine light, ever advances toward greater luminosity.

One must not doubt that, when the mind begins to be operated upon frequently by the divine light, it becomes wholly transparent, so that it richly sees its own light; for this happens altogether when the power of the soul gains mastery over the passions.

And what again does the divine Maximus say?

The human mind would not have had strength enough to ascend so far as to lay hold of divine illumination, had not God Himself drawn it up and illumined it with divine rays.

And what again does Neilos, the far-famed pillar of truth, say together with the great Basil?