Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 8/21

For this same Gregory, who does not even deem the wise men among the Greeks worthy to be called 'men,' and who doubts whether it is even possible for them to become such 'according to man,' and this for no other reason than that they, throughout their lives, devoted themselves to this philosophy and to the disciplines pertaining to philosophy — this same Gregory, then, when discoursing concerning one who partook extensively of this present life, saying that he saw, heard, and was instructed in geometry and astronomy and every method, and, before these, in the philosophy of the God-inspired Scripture — attesting, by means of the singular form, that it is to the God-inspired Scripture alone that he ascribes the bringing of perfect purification to the soul — this man, having himself split apart the wording of him who came before him, and having changed the singular case into a plural verb, and having said 'they bring about' instead of 'bringing about'...

...and having added the word 'these,' and having, with a twisted intent, transposed the accusative cases mentioned above into the nominative, he presents the saint as though he had said that the knowledge of geometry and astronomy is the perfect purification of the soul.

'Hear, then,' he says, 'also what the divine Gregory of Nyssa says concerning the disciplines: for geometry and astronomy, and the understanding attained through number, and, before these, the philosophy of the God-inspired Scripture — these bring about a perfect purification for souls.'

O all-daring hand, and tongue, and mind! And yet that Theologian called only the philosophy of the divine Scripture 'God-inspired,' so that he might show the former disciplines as classed together with sense-perception and with the contributions arising from it toward piety, while showing that sacred Scripture differs from the other disciplines by as much as things divine differ from things human; but he was not able — or rather, was not willing — to understand even this, but, doing what he himself had done at the beginning of his own treatise, having deceitfully joined together the Hellenic disciplines and the divine Scripture, and having declared these to have one and the same end, he now slanders the saint as having said this — although that Father, here, does not speak of the knowledge of beings as purification, but of the apprehension, arising from the knowledge of beings, of the Being who is such by way of transcendence.

If then someone, without having rotted away among books nor grown old in researching them, has come to know God to such a degree that, desiring all things, he purely draws near to Him, how much purer is he than the man who sifts everything and seems to possess knowledge of all things, yet is infatuated with this world and pours out toward it the whole, or the greater part, of his soul's power of love, and has not loved with his whole soul and heart the God who is above all things?

Besides, if the Greeks have found the truth in the things that are, then you too, following them through their branches of learning, rightly claim to find it; but since they, in attempting to raise up towers of knowledge against God, (p.

) were divided in tongues more than those building the tower at Chalane, so that they not only disagreed among themselves but even spoke against one another — to which then of these mutually contradicting voices will you yourself give the edifice of truth, so that, following him, we might through this truth find the wellspring of the truth that runs through all things?

We know only him to be the discoverer and spokesman of truth who speaks from God, who says, 'But we have the mind of Christ'; and again, 'But we speak the wisdom of God.'

Following him, then, and those like him, with fitting faith, we are led by the hand toward the acquisition of divine and saving wisdom; but he did not know it necessary to proclaim to us the accounts of created things, nor to instruct and advance us by division and analysis and syllogism and definitions.

For even if we do not know the truth in such matters, it will in no way hinder us from the blessedness that is in the promises, according to the great Basil.

Against him you, having been caught openly contradicting him, declaring those who do not know the truth in such matters to be darkened, impure, and imperfect — do you then not feel shame, nor cover yourself, nor sink from view, but rather contend further for the lie and add to your wickedness, saying that the commandments of God are unable to purify and perfect a man without secular learning?

But for us, even if the learning of the Greeks were beyond dispute an exact truth, not even so would it happen to be exceptionally worth pursuing; for even when this portion of truth is absent, true blessedness is still attainable.

Since, moreover, the learning of the Greeks holds even this truth as disputable, how could we accept you saying that it bears the same form and end as the wisdom given by God — the wisdom truly true, truly saving, that is not dissolved together with this age?

) After this grandiose speech, having taken us as culpable, on the grounds that we contradict the sayings falsified by him, he proclaims his charge against the very rational heavens — I mean the apostles.

For while the Brother of God clearly speaks of two wisdoms, the one from above, the other from below, and the one pure and gentle, the other soulish and demonic; and while Paul indicates two wisdoms by saying, 'since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom' — he himself openly fights against those who speak of two or even more wisdoms, and the reason he gives is that, he says, no one has yet defined the knowledge of such-and-such a man as wisdom.

But surely, O philosopher, the Brother of God defined the knowledge of him who shows his works by good conduct as pure and heavenly wisdom, while he defined the knowledge of him who does not live in good conduct as soulish, demonic, and earthly wisdom.

And rightly so; for knowledge, being the same in itself, changing along with the character of those who possess it, has produced opposite wisdoms in souls. Besides, if philosophy is knowledge of nothing in particular, then no one anywhere is a philosopher, and you have destroyed yourself by your own arguments, O philosopher — or I know not how to name you — since, according to you, philosophy has its foundation in no soul, and none of all men bears its name.

And what of him who says that 'the first wisdom' looks down upon the wisdom that lies in argumentation and in spurious and superfluous counter-arguments — which very wisdom he also says he praises and embraces, as having overcome the wisdom that is being nullified?

Does he not thereby show that there are different wisdoms?

For the one he says he praises and embraces, as being both first and as conquering the other, while the other he considers despicable, nullified, and defeated, inasmuch as it has superfluous and therefore spurious counter-arguments — which wisdom we too (p.

) would by no means deem worthy to call the wisdom of God; but the other, since it clings even to false doctrine, we would not refuse also to call wicked — such as is the wisdom of Plato, together with uncreated matter and self-subsistent Forms and the demiurges, the later-born demons — thus persuading men that the very same thing is both good and not good, both holy and not holy, and, simply, vainly contradicting itself on account of its own superfluity; and while attempting to speak concerning everything proposed, it accomplishes almost nothing intelligible — such also are the things venerated by them, which, according to the holy Samuel, holy from childhood, 'shall accomplish nothing.'

But if you, wishing to make war on those who live in peace and have renounced superfluous counter-arguments, 'make excuses in sins,' innovating doctrines and terms that conspire with you toward contentiousness and love of strife — shall we readily follow you, having disregarded the thoughts and words that were nurtured together with us and are commonly held to be the best?

This shall not be, it shall not be.

For who indeed, of all the other men and of all who have ever come to be from men, if they were still alive, would lend you a compliant ear as you argue and maintain that the perfect man, philosopher, and purified one is he who knows all things — so that from this you might conclude that one must seek and learn, if anyone professes to know something, whether he be godly or not — and so that you might declare imperfect and impure him who has not learned geometry from Euclid, arithmetic from another, the art of calculation from you, music and astronomy by having studied Ptolemy through his books, and dialectic and natural philosophy by having mastered the Aristotelian treatises?

For who among those now living, or among any who have ever had understanding, does not know that God alone is He who knows all things?

And, that I may now leave aside his other novel teachings and bring the argument back to the matter at hand — who does not know that philosophy too is one thing when it is in words, and another when it is in (p.

'But I,' he says, 'praise Wisdom-itself, the Form of true knowledge, which is one.'

But, my good man, this might perhaps rightly be called 'Wisdom-itself' alone, yet it is not the only wisdom or philosophy.

Yet when, beginning your discourse on behalf of philosophy, you tell us, in God's name, of both the oracles of the God-inspired and the disciplines of philosophy, you certainly do not classify the oracles of the God-inspired under that philosophy.

For how could you speak of 'these' and 'the things under it,' unless you had distinguished those oracles from it?

What, then, do you call philosophy there?

Is it that of the Greeks, or the Form which you spoke of here?

But if it is that of the Greeks, then you happen to be extolling that too — yet you also stand opposed to yourself, since here you say, on the contrary, that it is not these things which, bearing the name of philosophy, we extol — whatever such-and-such a man held as opinion, or wrote, or taught — that these are not philosophy for us, but rather the Form of knowledge itself; and further, because here you insist that only one thing is to be called philosophy, namely this Form itself, while there you yourself speak of another, namely that of the Greeks.

But if you mean not this, but there too call 'philosophy' the Form of knowledge — that is, the Form generically comprehending all knowledge — then the God-inspired oracles, which are there by you clearly distinguished from it, would be deprived of all knowledge and would provide no knowledge whatsoever, being, according to you, entirely set apart from knowledge, and added there to philosophy only for the sake of deception.

...and of energy, is the end, (p.

) as you yourself declare in many places as your discourse proceeds?

For the wisdom of certain men is not Wisdom-itself.

But let us also see here what kind of Wisdom-itself you clearly advocate.

Is it the one that has its being in those called philosophers and in their writings?

And yet you yourself say that the knowledge of the philosophers is neither philosophy nor is it so called, nor are the writings of such-and-such a man; rather, some of these things are not philosophy itself, but the product of philosophy.

You were compelled by necessity to say this, in order to show that there is only one Form of knowledge, as you claim, and not the many things called philosophies.

Therefore, if none of those things is philosophy, then, according to you, this Wisdom-itself which you speak of does not have its being in them either.

For in those things in which it has its being, those things would be named after it, just as we are all called men from the universal Form, which has its being in us.

If, then, this Wisdom-itself of yours is not in those things, where will it have its being?

And yet again, as you proceed, you yourself say that this thing you exalt as philosophy is foolishness before God; therefore it is not that Wisdom which is present in Him in an ineffable manner, which you yourself call Wisdom-itself — nor indeed is it present in the things brought into being by Him, since that could never be called philosophy; yet your discourse is on behalf of philosophy.

If, then, this Wisdom has its being neither in God nor in men, yet nonetheless exists as a Form, then it subsists by itself; and Plato will rise again for us, together with the warblings of his false doctrine.

Therefore, in this way, one might state the truth about philosophy derived from secular disciplines simply and concisely: that the 'philosophy' of each philosopher would be called the philosophical undertaking found in the writings or discourses of each, while the philosophy common to all would be (p.

But that wisdom which has not suffered this has not been made foolish either; for how could it be, since it attains the end that comes about by nature, and turns toward God, the giver of nature?

Such is the philosophy of the pious and learned men among us, who have truly, in manly fashion, shaken off what is harmful, and have chosen out what is profitable, and have commended it to the Church of God, and have fittingly harmonized it with the wisdom of the Spirit.

I, then, think that the truth stands thus.

But this champion of external and foolish philosophy, upon hearing Paul say, 'God has made foolish the wisdom of this world,' says that it is made foolish only as compared to the wisdom of God — just as, likewise, is every human virtue and understanding.

And although I do not accept this, but clearly demonstrate the truth through many arguments, he, having nothing to say in reply, condemns me for sophistry.

Let those statements of mine, then, concerning profitable philosophy stand as they were set forth earlier in my discourse; for indeed they remain still unassailed and unrefuted.

And now I would ask him, who by comparison makes foolish the very wisdom he himself champions, why it is nowhere written that God defiled every human virtue and made foolish every understanding, in the way that He made foolish the wisdom of this world.

For where, in these apostolic words, does any form of comparison appear?

But just as God 'hardened the hearts of the Jews' and 'hardened Pharaoh's heart' and 'gave over the wise men of the Greeks to a debased mind' — this is not a matter of comparison but of abandonment — in the very same way, then, is also 'He made foolish'; for otherwise, what would it mean that 'God put those wise men to shame,' and that 'He nullified them,' and that 'He rejected them,' and this very thing, that 'He gave them over to a debased mind'?

Did the apostle say these things too by way of comparison?

And who, having any sense, would accept this?

) Or rather, who, knowing how to follow the apostolic sayings, having let those words be understood without comparison, as he himself taught, would be persuaded by you, who insist on comparing?

'God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame the wise.'

Or is it that whatever statements you wish, you take comparatively, but whatever you do not wish — because they do not serve the preparation of your own arguments — you leave without comparison?

And who would be persuaded by you — unless deceived by your own arguments — to consider secular learning salvific?

As for what he says next, in what follows — since it carries in itself the refutation of its own falsehood — I think I may pass over it.

But as though he judged it insufficient for himself merely to lie, but made it his chief concern also to lie against others, he has again let himself down into slander: for when I say that of the gifts of God some are natural, given in common to all before the Law, in the Law, and after the Law, while others are supernatural and spiritual and especially ineffable, and I set these above those, and say that those deemed worthy of the wisdom of the Spirit surpass every Greek school; and when I say that one of the things given naturally by God is philosophy, and that the disciplines are discoveries of human understanding — he says, as though reporting from me, that only those things ought to be thought given by God to which human reasoning cannot attain, while none of the other things deserves such honor.

But neither of these things was said by me there.

For I know that human thought does not attain to many even of the things that come about by nature; but I deem each thing worthy of its proper honor — the spiritual graces, as supernatural, and as coming immediately through the Spirit only to those who excel in virtue, (p.

) while affirming that natural things fall far short of the spiritual graces, yet are given by God to all in common through nature.

Having grounded his argument on this slander, he preens himself and grows expansive and exalts himself over those who do not call the wisdom of the Greeks a spiritual gift of God, and he adduces many sayings of the divine Basil, to the effect that every art has been granted to men by God — which no one disputes.

Then, through much argument, he arrived at his own opinion, and having constructed his case, he concluded and declared this, saying: 'Both the first principles of the disciplines and prophecy and any revelation whatsoever are of such a kind that, if not given, they surpass human reasoning, but once given, the soul attains to them.'

So that either nothing, or all things alike, are gifts of God and given by God.

One might therefore say to him: 'So you too, who suppose yourself especially favored with Greek grace, honored by means of the disciplines, exist as one equally graced by God with him who possesses the surpassing abundance of revelations; and the Egyptians, who first discovered the disciplines, are of equal honor with the prophets and apostles?'

For how are they not of equal honor, those who have come to partake of gifts given in like manner and known in like manner?

'But God,' he says, 'having just now created the soul, has filled it with the common notions and with the defining, dividing, and syllogistic faculties out of which the disciplines are composed; therefore the disciplines are gifts of God.'

But what, then, does this establish as a justification for those who misuse or abuse these faculties, and for those who treat the Gospel of Christ as imperfect, seeking to perfect it by means of secular learning?

For no one could clear fornicators and the incontinent of blame, on the ground that God, in the beginning, having fashioned the body and ensouled it, implanted in it the generative and nutritive power,

...affording reverence for secular learning; and you too, if you are willing to listen to them with understanding, will know this and confess it, and will give up growing old in such pursuits, and will no longer call these teachings saving, perfecting, purifying, and illuminating for the soul — persuaded, as you will be, by these words and by those of the great Basil.

Nevertheless, if from the beginning these things you speak of were given to the soul by God, they are surely common to all men, innate and natural, transmitted in succession from our first forefathers.

How then were they given in like manner to those gifts that are above nature, granted in the Spirit of God only to the pious, and among the pious to the utmost and elect?

You have truly shown yourself plainly to have had no experience whatever of the spiritual gift, refuting and exposing yourself; and what is worse than this, that you do not even believe those who have spoken from experience; and worst of all, that you even argue rhetorically against them, being, as it seems, wholly a natural man.

For the elect vessel of the spiritual gifts, Paul, says: 'We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, that we might know the things freely given us by God; which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them' — while he goes treading, by the approaches of reasonings, upon things incomprehensible, supposing that all truth is to be found and grasped by divisions and syllogisms and analyses —

The things, then, that have been granted us by God we know not through reasonings, but through his Spirit within us — things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man; but God has revealed them to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches even the depths of God.

One might indeed confirm the truth of what has been said even from your own counter-argument, O philosopher.

For you, hearing — and hearing often — from those who pursue these things by experience, in words, in writings, in testimonies, in examples, concerning a light that is not one of sense-perception only, but altogether higher than discursive thought as well, which the intellect attains and which comes to be when the intellect, in a superior manner, goes out of itself, transcends itself, and comes to be together with God — you, hearing these things, at one time, being unable to raise your understanding above material light, accuse them as though they were speaking of a light perceptible to sense; and at another time, swerving out of this deficiency, not toward the mean and the true, but toward excess and falsehood, you hurl yourself down the opposite precipice, insisting that they say this light is the essence of God, and that this essence is an object of contemplation — a thing you would not have suffered, had you held that the things of God are unattainable by human reasonings, and had brought forward faith with reverence as the only faculty receptive of such things, and had sought through works the more perfect knowledge, and had built experience upon faith, as the roof of grace, which the love found in true contemplation of God roofs over; for thus, even after they have been given, the gifts of the Spirit surpass human reasoning.

You, then, who have attained exact comprehension of secular learning, being — as you yourself would admit — almost wholly untaught in the workings of the Spirit, would not, even if taught, understand them so much as moderately; and rightly so, for the word of the Lord is true and abides for ever and ever, which word to John

...revealed that to him who lives in a manner pleasing to God is given a white stone, which no one can know except the one who receives it; and how even he is able to know it, we have been taught by Paul.

Now after thus equating the gifts according to nature with those above nature, he goes on at greater length to attack the apostolic commandment concerning prayer, saying that it is impossible to pray without ceasing, unless we accept it as he himself interprets it. He interprets the apostle, in this passage, to be speaking of prayer not as the actual exercise of prayer, but as having the habitual disposition of it. 'The habitual disposition of prayer,' he says, 'is to think oneself able to do nothing and bring nothing to completion, if God is not willing.' 'He, then,' he says, 'who has this habitual disposition prays without ceasing.'

This is what the apostle says elsewhere: 'praying always in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.'

Does he, then, even here introduce this habitual disposition of which you speak, or rather the actual exercise — even though to say 'without ceasing' and 'at every season' amounts to the very same thing?

And by further enjoining wakefulness in prayer, he plainly commands that we hold without ceasing to the actual exercise of it.

The Lord too, according to the evangelist Luke, spoke a parable to his disciples, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart.

Did he, then, here too lead them toward the habitual disposition?

But it is not this that the parable shows, but persistent petitioning; and 'not to lose heart' — that is, not to abandon steadfast attendance upon prayer through slothfulness — shows that the exhortation is not toward the habitual disposition, and this even in the sense that this wise man speaks of it, but toward the very actual exercise of prayer itself, namely supplication, as the concluding word of the Lord in the parable also makes plain;

'for God,' he says, 'will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him day and night' — that is, to those who thus pray without ceasing.

We offer this unceasing supplication not so as to persuade God — for he is self-exhorted and needs no persuading — nor as though to draw him toward us — for he is everywhere — but so that, by our invocation of him, we may lead and turn ourselves back toward him, that we may thus come to participate in the gifts befitting his goodness that are round about him.

For then, according to the great Dionysius, are we together with God, when with all-pure prayers and with an untroubled mind we call upon him.

For this reason, then, we call upon him without ceasing, so that we may be without ceasing together with him.

But of this unceasing prayer and habitual disposition — which this philosopher was but now the first to conceive of — even the devil does not appear to be without a share, though he never prays; for he knew that he would be able to do nothing even against the swine unless the Lord of all yielded permission, nor even so much as attempt anything against Peter, and, before these, that he would accomplish nothing against Job by his manifold schemes. So far, then, is being persuaded that the Lord is the God of all things from being prayer — not only unceasing prayer, but even prayer offered at intervals. For among the bodiless rational beings, all indeed know this, but not all pray; for whoever is opposed to God is opposed also to prayer, and whoever is a fugitive from the good is a fugitive also from prayer to God.

But those who are clothed with a body all know the God of the universe, and all pray, each according to his own opinion of God.

But to those who truly know the one God, there enters together with this opinion also the conviction that without him they can do nothing; and of those persuaded of this, as many as divine longing has seized to be united in the fullest sense with the Lord of all, these, coming to be in prayer without food and even without breath, according to the teaching of the

...fathers, these persons turn their intellect back into themselves, and thus, through fitness for divine union, are made worthy of the mystical and ineffable spiritual gift of prayer, which also abides with them without ceasing — at one time itself drawing, of its own accord, the intellect that has been made worthy toward the most ineffable union, and welling up sacred joy; at another time, secretly resounding and praying together with the intellect as it is stretched out through prayer toward God, just as music does for the one who composes a song to accompany it.

For thus, having come to be in participation of the ever-moving and untiring grace, they have prayer rooted in their soul and operating without ceasing, according to him who said: 'I sleep, but my heart is awake.'

For by deeds and by words and by thoughts we must, for the present, practice such unceasing prayer as is possible for us, until we obtain the gift; for, as it is said, 'if you have not received the glorious gift of prayer, persevere, and you shall receive it'; for it is the Spirit through whom we worship and through whom we pray, and God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

But after that man had taught concerning prayer and the habitual disposition pertaining to it, although he had previously heard the sayings of the Theologian that I had cited, in which he says

...that he preferred to reap from learning this benefit alone, namely, what serves for Christ's sake, he brings forward in rebuttal those other sayings of the Theologian, in which he says: 'I have given up all things to the commandment; yet to reason alone do I hold fast, and never would I willingly neglect it' — and thus he makes the Theologian out to be altogether inconsistent with himself.

What, then, shall we say to this, standing with the wise Theologian?

What else, but that by the learning which he says he abandoned for Christ's sake, he means the wisdom of the Greeks, while the reasoning which he says he holds fast to is that which has been selected out from it and blended together with the sacred and divine disciplines — as we ourselves propose, against whom you, O philosopher, contend without restraint.

And the very effects of this reasoning lead me on to this conclusion as well; for, he says, 'this persuades me to be weak with the weak, and to rejoice together with the strong' (and this is plainly an apostolic precept), 'this divides the two worlds for me, and leads me away from the one, while adding me to the other.' Where in Greek education would one find such things as these?

This reasoning leads me forth through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand, and philosophizes together with me even amid those on the left, yoking beside me the hope that does not put to shame, and lightening the present by the future.

These words, moreover, hold fast even verbatim to the apostolic sayings.

But if anyone does not assent to these words, let him give some other reasonable account in confirmation, and I shall be persuaded; for I am not persuaded that the Theologian contradicts himself.

But then, after these sayings which the philosopher supposes to contradict us, having called us boorish and uneducated, he does not shrink even from ranking us with Julian, and says that it is just for us to be hated, as those who deprive others of the