Theological and Ethical Discourses 1 part 16/27

On the love of God and faith, and how one becomes pregnant with the love of God.

If it please, then, let us hear our Savior God crying out plainly and saying to us:

'I did not come to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through me.'

'God sent his Son into the world, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.'

He, then, who believes these things from the heart and is fully assured that Christ did not come to judge him but to save him, and that not by works or labors and sweat, but through faith in him alone — how, tell me, could he fail to love him with his whole soul and with his whole mind?

...the conception, and how he who is above all the heavens, equal in honor and consubstantial with the Father, and who holds all creation in the hand of his power, became man without change — he who is above with the Father and yet condescended to become a babe below, according to the sequence of our nature.

And along with these things, when he takes to mind the rest of the mysteries of his economy — and not only that, but also the sufferings which he who is by nature impassible endured for his sake: his ineffable birth, the swaddling-clothes, the very cave, the manger of the irrational animals upon which the King of all was laid in poverty, the flight into Egypt, the return from Egypt, the reception by Simeon, and how, as one of the common run of men, he was blessed by him and brought into the temple; the submission to his parents, the baptism by John in the Jordan, the temptation by the devil, his wonder-workings — and how, for these very things, he was not admired but rather envied, and reviled, and mocked by all (by whom, then?

by wicked and godless men — though openly and secretly he could have stopped their unbridled mouths, and dried up their tongues, and extinguished the very voice within them) — the betrayal by his disciple, the bond he endured at the hands of the murderers, and how he was led away by them as an evildoer, and was handed over to Pilate as one condemned, and received a blow from a servant, and, keeping silence, received the sentence of death (for he says, 'Do you not speak to me?'

'Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and have power to release you?') — then the scourging, the mockeries, the insults, the purple robe, the reed with which he received blows upon his immaculate head from the God-slayers, the crown of thorns, the cross which he who bears up all things by his word carried himself.

And, simply put, when he considers how he was led outside the city to the Place of the Skull, surrounded by executioners and soldiers, together with countless crowds following after to watch the spectacle, and, in addition to these things, the angels above shuddering, while God and the Father beheld his consubstantial Son, co-enthroned and co-equal in honor, suffering these things at the hands of the impious Jews, and hanging naked upon the cross, and being nailed through the hands and feet, and being wounded in the side by a spear, and being given gall to drink mixed with vinegar, and enduring all things not only with long-suffering, but even praying for those who were crucifying him — how shall he not love him with his whole soul?

For when he reflects that he who is God without beginning, from a Father without beginning, of one nature and consubstantial with the all-holy and worshipful Spirit, invisible and inscrutable, came down and was incarnate, and became man, and suffered all the things aforesaid and many others for his sake, in order to deliver him from death and corruption and to make him a son of God and a god like unto himself — will he not, even if he be harder than stone and colder than crystal, be softened in soul and warmed in heart toward the love of God?

I say this, and it is admittedly the truth, that if anyone believes all these things from the heart and from the depths of the soul, he will immediately have the love of God also in his heart.

For just as they say that the pearl in the oyster-shell, when it is opened, is conceived within it from the dew of heaven and from the lightning, so too consider that the love of God is sown in us.

For the soul, hearing of his aforementioned sufferings and believing little by little, is opened up in proportion to its faith, having previously been sealed shut by unbelief.

'...he went away and sold all that he had, and bought that one pearl.'

So too, one who has been deemed worthy to believe in this way, as we have said, and to find within himself the intelligible pearl of the love of God, cannot bear not to despise all things and to distribute all his possessions to the poor, and to let those who wish take them by force, that he may preserve the love of God inviolate and altogether undiminished.

For this love, growing daily in the heart of him who prefers it above all things, becomes in him a wonder of wonders, wholly ineffable and utterly indescribable, comprehensible neither by the mind nor expressible in speech.

And being astonished at the indescribable and incomprehensible nature of this thing, and having his mind occupied in constant meditation upon it, he becomes wholly outside the world — not in body, but in all his senses.

For these senses too go along with the mind toward that which is beheld within him.

So then, he who is in such a state directs his attention to see, and he sees, and behold, light!

And the light seems to him to have its origin from above.

Seeking, then, he finds this light to have neither a beginning of an end, nor to possess a middle.

But as he is utterly perplexed about these things, behold, there appear in it three: 'that through whom,' 'that in whom,' and 'that unto whom.'

And having seen these things, he asks to learn, and hears clearly:

'Behold, I am the Spirit, through whom and in whom is the Son'; and, 'Behold, I am the Son, unto whom is the Father.'

But as he was perplexed still further, again it says: 'Behold, again, you see — the Father.'

'And I,' it says, 'am the Son, in the Father.'

'For through me, he who sees, sees the Father and the Son; and seeing, he stands outside of the things seen.'

'And in this no one has knowledge — neither men nor angels — save only that single unity which is mine, the very oneness that transcends the essence of essence and of nature.'

'For I am wholly inseparable and undivided, possessing the one nature even in the hypostases.'

'If, then, you exist in me somehow, or in some place, you would say that no one at all knows it.'

'Insofar as I am man and one who is circumscribed, I exist in circumscription and in place, for even he who is one of us became circumscribed when he became mortal flesh.'

'But according to the nature inherent in me, I am wholly invisible, uncircumscribed, formless, untouchable, impalpable, immovable, ever-moving, filling all things and yet being nowhere at all in totality — not in you, nor in any other of the angels or prophets, whether of old or now drawing near, to whom I was never at all seen, nor am I ever seen.'

He, then, who mystically beholds these things and is initiated into what is above the angels, what is beyond human comprehension — will such a one be at all able to be among men in sense-perception or in mind?

For if one who is deemed worthy to converse with a mortal king and to stand before him ever forgets all other things and hangs wholly upon the king's words, how much more shall he who has been deemed worthy to behold — as far as is attainable for a man — that very Maker and Master and Lord of all, whom no man has seen nor is able to see, and to converse with him, and to hear the voice of him who is to judge the living and the dead, not be beside himself and become wholly outside the world and the flesh in very truth, and long to be with him forever — rather than, having turned away from one so great and so exalted, one who is above every such greatness, come to worldly cares, and take thought for things wholly corruptible, or passing away, and fleeting?

I do not think that anyone of sound mind would at all consent to come to this.

For the good things in this present life admittedly have grief and despondency and pain allotted to them as their companions, but life spent with God, and converse with him, and the contemplation of his ineffable goods, surpasses every blessedness, and is set above all glory and good fortune and joy and ease, rising above every honor and delight and enjoyment of every supposed good of the present life.

By so much does the joy and exultation that comes to be in the soul from communion and converse with God surpass every gladness and enjoyment of life.

For this reason, too, one who has often, through ignorance or negligence, fallen away from these better things and turned to the cares of the world, as soon as he perceives the bitterness and unbearable harm in them, hastens back to the things from which he had departed, blaming himself greatly for having been utterly dragged down and having come to be in the midst of the thorns of life and the fire that scorches the souls of men — yet he flees and runs back up to his own Master.

And if he were not loving toward mankind, receiving us when we return, and not bearing a grudge or being angry, but rather welcoming our return to him all the more, no soul of any saint would ever have been saved, whether one who was in a middling state or otherwise.

For this reason, all who have been perfected in holiness and virtue were saved as a gift, and not by works of righteousness.

And not these alone, but also those who are perfected after them — all will be saved in this same way.

Since, then, according to the divine Apostle, salvation comes to us who believe not from works of the law, lest anyone should boast, we ought not to place our confidence at all in works — I mean fastings and vigils, or sleeping on the ground, and hunger and thirst — nor to pierce the body with iron, nor to afflict it with garments of haircloth.

For these things are nothing at all in themselves, since many even among evildoers and the destitute, having endured these same things, have remained just as they were, in no way relaxing their wickedness, nor becoming any better in their evil.

But it is not this alone that God seeks; rather, he longs for a broken spirit and a broken and humbled heart, and for our heart always to speak to him in a lowly disposition, saying:

'Who am I, my Lord and Master and God, that you came down and were incarnate and died for me, that you might deliver me from death and corruption, and make me a partaker and sharer together of your glory and your divinity?'

For whenever you are so disposed in the hidden movements of your heart, you will immediately find him mystically embracing you and kissing you tenderly, and granting you an upright spirit within your inmost parts, a spirit of freedom and of the forgiveness of your sins; and not only this, but also crowning you with his gifts of grace and making you glorious through wisdom and knowledge.

For in such a condition of soul, God himself dwells and rests, and every device of the devil remains altogether ineffective, and all the corrupting passions of sin are utterly obliterated, and there abounds in it alone the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faith, gentleness, humility, and all-embracing self-control; and following these, in fitting order, comes divine knowledge, the wisdom of the Word, and the abyss of the hidden thoughts and mysteries of Christ.

In these things, he who has arrived at attaining them, and has been so fashioned, is transformed by the good transformation, and becomes, from a man, an angel — here indeed conversing bodily with men, but in the heavens roaming in spirit, and dwelling together with the angels, and being enlarged by ineffable joy unto the love of God.

to which no man could ever draw near, unless he first cleanse his own heart through repentance and many tears, and drive himself into the depths of humility, and become pregnant with the all-holy Spirit, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, be glory, honor, and dominion, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages.

On true knowledge, and that the knowledge of God comes to the diligent not from learning, but from purity and grace from above;

and a refutation of those who suppose they know the things of the Spirit without the Spirit;

in which also concerning the holiness of the Father;

and what a good thing faith is, and what its fruit is, and how it grows;

and that those who have the treasure of the Spirit within themselves also recognize it when it is present in others;

and what the signs of the saints are, and how and by whom they are recognized;

and that he who has not been born from above cannot see the God who begot him, nor recognize, through the Spirit, one who has attained to this.

Now it is fitting and good to speak with David, and thus to cry out more loudly:

'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is anyone who understands or seeks after God'; and then:

'They have all turned aside, together they have become worthless;

there is none who does good, no, not even one.'

For where — that I may join to what has been said also the words of the Apostle — is the wise man?

Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world, because by it no one is able to come to know the true wisdom, God who truly is?

For if, brothers, the knowledge of true wisdom and of the knowledge of God were to be given to us through letters and learning, what need then would there have been of faith, or of divine baptism, or of partaking of the sacred mysteries themselves?

But since the world did not come to know God through wisdom, God was pleased, it is said, through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

These, then, are the words of the herald and bridal escort of the Church of Christ.

But I shall rightly lament and weep over the shattering of my own members, of my own race, of my brothers according to flesh and spirit, because we who have put on Christ through baptism, counting the mysteries of Christ as nothing, imagine that we receive the knowledge of the truth of God through the wisdom of the world, and think that merely reading the God-inspired writings of the saints is the attainment of orthodoxy, and suppose this to be an exact and sure knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

And not only that, but even the more devout among the rest of us foolishly suppose that the contemplation which comes about in the worthy solely through the Spirit is merely a figment of thoughts fashioned in their own minds.

O foolishness! O hardness of heart!

But those who wish, without due reverence, to plunge into the depths of God, and are eager to theologize, when they hear it said concerning God that, just as in three suns there is one blending of light, so also in the Trinity there is a single shining forth of one Godhead, immediately fashion in their minds three suns, united in light — that is, in essence — but distinguished in their hypostases, and foolishly imagine that they are actually seeing that very Godhead, and that the holy, consubstantial, and undivided Trinity is thus like the illustration.

But it is not so, it is not so.

For no one can rightly understand and speak of the things concerning the Holy Trinity from the mere reading of the Scriptures alone; but one who receives these things by faith alone abides in what is written and inquires into nothing further, whereas to those who are curious and who boldly dare to meddle inquisitively with divine matters, it is altogether impossible to say anything beyond what is written and what has been taught.

And that this is true, hear what Christ says:

By these and such words, then, he shuts the shameless and ungated mouths of those who say and suppose that through outward wisdom and the learning of letters they come to know the very truth, God himself, and that they acquire the knowledge of the mysteries hidden in the Spirit of God.

For if no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son wills to reveal his depths and mysteries — 'for my mystery is for me and for my own' — who then among the wise men, orators, or mathematicians on earth, other than those whose minds have been purified through the utmost philosophy and ascesis and who truly carry senses of the soul that have been exercised, could, apart from the revelation from above through the Lord, come to know from human wisdom alone the hidden mysteries of God, which are uncovered through intellectual contemplation, wrought by the divine Spirit, to those to whom it has been given, and is ever given, to know these things through the grace from above?

The knowledge of these things belongs to those whose mind is daily illumined by the Holy Spirit because of the purity of their soul, whose eyes have been clearly opened by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, whose word of knowledge and word of wisdom come through the Spirit alone, whose understanding and fear of God have been preserved, through love and peace, in goodness and in the uprightness of character, with self-control and with faith.

Theirs is the knowledge of divine things; and to them it is said, just as it was said to the apostles by Christ, since they imitate them:

'To you it has been given to know the mysteries of God, but to the rest, in parables.'

These, then, moved by the divine Spirit, know the equal honor and union of the Son with the Father.

For in the Father they behold the Son, and in the Son the Father, through the Spirit, as it is written:

'I am in the Father, and the Father in me' — the Spirit, of course, being present together with the Father;

for if he proceeds from the Father, and the Father is wholly in the whole Son, then the Holy Spirit also is wholly in them.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, worshiped by every breath.

And how could you manage to call three suns one?

For if you unite them, they will be united, and the three will become one;

but if not, then you have missed the mark of unity.

But you will nowhere find the Father apart from the Son and the Spirit, nor the Son apart from the Father and the Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit estranged from union with him from whom he proceeds.

For believe that in the Spirit are the Father and the Son, and in the Son are the Father together with the Spirit, and in the Father is the Son, ever existing and abiding co-eternally, and having the Holy Spirit shining forth together with him.

These things are one God and not three, existing in three hypostases, ever existing, and existing in the same way, hymned by countless powers in one connatural being, kingdom, and Godhead.

For even though in each of these the connatural properties of the divine peculiarity are beheld, yet the three are one, and each one is the three — which is impossible to occur in the case of suns.

Now, I wished also to give some image dimly presenting the force of what has been said, to those who boldly presume to know the depths and mysteries of God through falsely-named knowledge alone, and without the Spirit who searches all things; but I am wary of God who said not to give holy things to the shameless and the presumptuous, nor to cast pearls before those who reckon divine things as common, and who, as it were, by their base thoughts and insatiable souls, dishonor and trample them underfoot;

whose mind God has blinded, as the prophet says, and has hardened their heart, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand;

'I sent them away according to the devices of their own hearts;'

'they will walk in their own devices.'

For those who have so many examples of the fulfillment of God's commandments, which our fathers, having accomplished them by their deeds, set before us the faithful for the imitation of virtue, and who have not been willing to understand, nor willed to imitate them, but on the contrary even revile them and slander the lives of those who struggled according to God as though they were not according to God — how are they not only unworthy of divine knowledge, as sons of disobedience and destruction, but also liable to every punishment and condemnation, since, as though forgetting to examine themselves as to whether they are indeed in the faith, they judge the affairs of others and senselessly search into and scrutinize matters beyond them, in no way being abashed before the God who speaks thus:

'But indeed, O man, who are you to judge another's servant?'

'To his own master he stands or falls,' and, 'Do not judge one another, and do not speak evil of one another.'

How, then, will such people be recognized as faithful and Christian, when they set aside the words of Christ and of his apostles, and do not keep what he and his disciples have ordained, nor follow and walk in the footsteps of the Teacher?

How will those who openly transgress the divine commandments ever behold the light of the commandments at all?

'Let no one deceive you,' he says, 'with empty words, O brothers.'

Paul calls us brothers on account of the spiritual regeneration and kinship that comes from divine baptism, although, as I see it, in our deeds we have become altogether strangers to the brotherhood of the saints.

And this I shall try to demonstrate from the very facts themselves, or rather our own deeds and words will convict us:

Therefore, addressing my discourse as though to one person, I shall speak from this point on:

Have you renounced the world and the things in the world, O brother?

Have you attained to the utmost degree of fasting, prayer, and vigil?

Have you acquired complete love toward God, and do you love your neighbor as yourself?

Do you, with tears, intercede for those who hate you and wrong you and are hostile toward you, and, having first yourself felt compassion from the soul, do you ask that they be forgiven — or have you not yet been raised up to this height of the virtues?

But if you are ashamed to say 'no,' or again, out of humility, are unwilling to say 'yes,' I will add for you, brother, what is fitting, and will show from it by what deeds and accomplishments everyone who truly strives, with much genuine understanding and holiness, arrives at this height.

Namely, that you have become passionless through your struggles, that you have acquired a heart pure from passions, and that in it and through it you have beheld the passionless God.

For it is otherwise impossible to pray for one's enemies out of love with a compassionate heart, unless, through union, communion, and vision of God, by the cooperation of the good Spirit, we make ourselves pure from every defilement of flesh and spirit.

If, then, brother, you have attained to this by the grace of the God who saved you, with goodness and much humility, why do you distrust your fellow ascetics and those gathered together for these same purposes, and envy them, and slander them with reproaches, striving to tear down their good reputation?

Is it for this reason that they have been cast into the outer fire?

And how do you, who do and say the same things and even worse against the saints — whose life, virtue, and understanding shine like the sun — suppose that you will not be subjected to the same punishment, or even a worse one, in retribution?

Or do you not know that there is no envy at all among the saints toward the saints, as it is written:

'Where envy is, there also the father of envy, the devil, dwells' — and not the God of love?

You, then, who travail in birth with envy, how can you suppose yourself to be holy at all, when you are not even recognized as faithful or Christian by your love for God and for your neighbor?

That this is indeed the sequence of these matters, and that he who travails with envy has the devil within him, and cannot belong to Christ because he does not have love toward his neighbor, is surely clear to anyone who gives heed to the divine Scriptures.

But if you have not yet been deemed worthy of such gifts, nor have arrived at so great a height of divinizing virtues, how then do you dare at all to open your mouth and speak?

How is it that, being still a catechumen, you wish to teach, and attempt to meddle inquisitively in matters you neither know nor have heard, and, as though you knew divine things, are so bold as to discourse about such matters?

Do you not know that you stand outside the porch of the church, like a catechumen, even though by self-willed presumption you claim for yourself a standing among all who pray faithfully and purely, not following the apostolic canons?

For not only the unbeliever is now called a catechumen, but also he who does not, with unveiled face of mind, behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.

But I greatly lament your folly, that as to there being anyone holy such as existed of old, you utterly and entirely disbelieve it can be so now, yet numbering yourself among all as one common man among common men, you still speak as though by the Holy Spirit, like some holy and God-bearing man - though, pricked by conscience, you have confessed that you know these things not at all, and though you said that you were not even deemed worthy to see or hear them, nor to receive them in your heart, you are not at all ashamed to interpret and expound these very things as if you knew them, nor do you blush at the laughter of men.

For if, as we said, you have not become free from passions, nor been deemed worthy to have the Holy Spirit, nor are you holy, how do you claim to know, as though you were holy, the things of the Spirit - which, as it is written, eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of earthly man, the good things which God has prepared for those who love him?

But to us - that I may speak as one beside himself, being compelled by you - through his own Spirit, though we are the least of all and yet have been shown mercy, according to his ineffable goodness toward us, he has revealed, through the supplications of our blessed and holy father Symeon, that we might know, as the Apostle says, the things freely given to us by God:

For the Spirit searches even the depths of God.

But we, he says, have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God.

And through him there was revealed and made known to us, sinners and lowly as we are, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Savior, the great God, in Christ himself who is also God - he whom no man has seen, nor is able to see.

For he who said that light should shine out of darkness is the very one who has shone in our hearts - we who are worthless and useless - being contained, as it were, like a treasure, in the earthen vessels of our tabernacles: he who is in every way incomprehensible and uncircumscribed, formed small within us though himself formless and without shape, yet filling all things without circumscription, as one exceedingly great and exceedingly full.

But what is it for the truly existing God to be formed in us, if not entirely to transform and refashion us, and to transfigure us into the image of his divinity?

Such, then, we know the holy Symeon the Pious (Eulabes) to have become, who practiced asceticism in the monastery of Studios, having been confirmed as to these things by experience itself.

For by the revelation of the Spirit within him, having sealed our faith toward him, we keep it unshakeable;

we preserve it unquenched, guarded by his prayers and intercessions, by which, being watered, our faith toward him grows and will grow still more - I say this trusting in God - bearing a hundredfold fruit in that same divine light.

For the fruit of faith is the holy and unsetting light, and the holy light is in turn the increase and growth of faith;

for insofar as the light springs forth, faith increases and rises to a height.

And in proportion to faith, the fruit of the Spirit manifestly abounds;