書信集 第 1 章 第 14/17 段

For the worldly perception, having suddenly fallen upon my good concern, immediately produced evil desires in my wretched soul; for it points to glory, reminds of wealth, and urges me to draw near to the kings of the earth, calling this a great good fortune.

From these thoughts, then, just as a wineskin is swollen by the wind, and fire is kindled into flame, so that soul, being inflated, swells up and is violently stretched by desire for glory, and for wealth and ease — things dragged down from below — and longs to be glorified together with the glorified, to appear illustrious together with the illustrious, and to acquire wealth together with those who acquire wealth — that very soul which you yourself glorified with your ineffable light, which you yourself clothed with your inexpressible glory, to which you yourself showed forth your divine splendor.

() Perception, having taken its mind captive, points to kings, reminds of glory, and points to the wealth of the present life, and by mere reflection alone stirs it up with desire for these things.

O filthy purpose and senseless disposition, that, having abandoned the ineffable and incorruptible things, I take thought to look at the things upon the earth, and set my mind on these!

Will not wealth be scattered like chaff before the wind?

Will not bodies decay in the tombs, and others become masters of the goods on earth, and after them others, and after those others still?

And tell me, soul, whose has the wealth become, and who in the world has managed to gain even one small thing, so that, as when living, so also when dying, he might take it with him?

Assuredly you will in no way be able to show me anyone — except the merciful, who have possessed nothing, but have given all things into the hands of the poor.

For they alone securely possess what they have given, from the moment they gave it into the hands of the Master; but all the others, as poor men, and worse than all the poor, are those who have hoarded wealth laid up; for they are cast naked, like corpses, into the tombs, wretched with respect to the present, and strangers with respect to the things to come.

What good, then, my soul, do you see in these things, that you take delight in them?

And which of these do you judge worthy to be desired?

Assuredly you have nothing to say; assuredly you do not answer.

Woe to those who have wealth stored up in treasuries; woe to those who wish to receive glory from men; woe to those who insert themselves among the rich, () and do not desire the glory of God, and his wealth, and being with him alone — for the world is vain, and all things in the world will be vanities of vanities; all things are vanity.

Therefore they will pass away, but God alone will be eternal, remaining incorruptible forever; and with him will be those who now seek him, those who have loved him alone above all things.

But woe then to those who now love the world, for they will be condemned in it forever.

Woe, my soul, to those who desire the glory of men, for they are deprived of the glory of God.

Woe, my soul, to those who have wealth gathered together, for there they will long to obtain a single drop.

and then they will be found to have no hope.

Woe, my soul, to those who have rest here, for from thence they will have eternal affliction.

Tell me, my soul, why are you grieved, what do you seek among the things of life? Tell me, and I will teach you the use of each thing; learn, and be instructed in what is good in each.

Hear, then, what honor is, and what dishonor: honor is to honor all men, but God before all, and to acquire his commandments as wealth, and to be insulted for their sake, to be reviled for their sake, and to endure for their sake reproaches of every kind.

For whenever, my soul, you undertake some matter in order to honor God, in order to glorify him, () and for this reason you are insulted and set at naught, then you have attained honor and abiding glory, for the glory of God will surely come upon you.

Then all the angels also will praise you, because you honored God, whom they hymn.

Listen, now I will show you the eternal wealth: weep, repent, despise all things; become poor in spirit, become poor in heart also; become possessionless in goods; become a stranger to the world; become an enemy to your contrary desires, and belong solely to the will of your Master, and follow vigorously in his footsteps.

And then the Master, walking more slowly of his own will, will be overtaken by you, wretched one; and when you have seen him, cry out and shout aloud, and he will turn toward you with a gracious eye, and will look upon you, and will grant you to see him a little, and again he will leave you, hidden from your eyes.

And little by little, through words and thoughts arising from the world, joy will fail you, and grief will come upon you; () and thus again, as before, you will be violently lamenting and crying out in wailing, seeking him again — the giver of gladness, the bestower of joy, the wealth that stands firm and truly abides forever.

Thus, while he is testing your resolve, take heed: do not grow weary, O soul, do not turn back, do not say: How long will he remain thus ungraspable to me?

Do not say: Why, having appeared, does he immediately hide again, and until when will he mercilessly give me toils?

Do not say: How can I labor to the end?

and do not grow slack, O soul, in seeking the Master; but, having once given yourself up as to death, O soul, do not grope after ease, do not seek after glory, nor bodily delight, nor the friendship of kinsfolk; do not look about, neither to the right nor at all to the left, but as you began — rather, running yet more fervently — hasten always to overtake, to lay hold of the Master.

For indeed he will not forsake you, he will not forget you; little by little he will appear yet more, and more frequently, O soul, the Master will be present with you, and once you have been perfectly cleansed by the illumination of the light, he himself will come wholly, he himself will dwell within, he himself, who made the world, will be with you; and you will have true wealth, which the world does not possess, but heaven and those enrolled there.

If this should come to pass for you, tell me, what more do you desire?

Tell me, ungrateful soul, tell me, thankless soul, () tell me, my humble soul, what greater thing than these is there in heaven or on earth, that you should seek it?

Tell me, what other thing is greater than this?

Assuredly you will say nothing to me.

But I say again: Having been counted worthy of such glory, O soul, why do you still gape after the earth? Why are you charmed by the things here? Why do you cling to corruptible things, having received the incorruptible? Why are you attached to things present, having found the things to come?

Strive, O soul, to possess those things continually; cleave yourself wholly to them, my soul, so that even after death you may be found among those eternal goods which you acquired from here, and with them may stand before the Maker and Master, rejoicing together with him unto ages of ages. Amen.

That there are times when, through solicitude and correction directed toward one's neighbor, the teacher is also dragged down together with him into the weakness of the passion that is bound up with that person.

() Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy on me, O only one, who from my infant age, O Savior, sheltered me; who, to me who had offended in so many ways though I was possessed of full knowledge, showed sympathy with all your own goodness; who delivered me from the dreadful and vain world, and from kinsmen and friends and unseemly pleasures, and here made me worthy to sit as it were upon a mountain, and showed me your wondrous glory, my God, and filled me with your Divine Spirit, my Christ, and filled me wholly with spiritual illumination.

Grant me, your servant, my God, your grace irrevocable, wholly, unto the very end.

and you deemed me worthy to be together with angels — or rather, with you, the Creator of all — and to rejoice together with you, and to behold the incomparable glory of your face, and to enjoy to the full the unapproachable light, and to rejoice and be glad with ineffable gladness in communion, Master, with your ineffable splendor.

And delighting in that ineffable light, I leaped for joy, I rejoiced together with you, the Maker and Fashioner, contemplating the inconceivable beauty of your face.

But when I again brought my mind down to earth, though I was illumined in you, I did not see the world, nor the things existing, Master, in the world, but I was above the passions and the cares — and yet, in fact, I was whirled about, and kept reproving the evils.

Formerly I did not share in human wickedness; but as I lingered among them, I set before myself the affairs of others, and, Master, was carried away together with contentious men; in the hope of correction I partook of wickedness and darkness — woe is me! — I thoughtlessly partook of the passions, and, seized by wild beasts, I am in danger.

For, wishing to draw others out from their ruin, I myself became first the food devoured by the beasts.

But hasten and have pity, hasten and deliver him who, for your sake, O lover of mankind, has fallen into these things.

For according to your commandment, O merciful one, I laid down my most wretched soul on behalf of my brothers; if then I have been wounded, you are able to heal me, Savior; if I, the wretched one, have been held captive by enemies, yet you, being powerful and mighty for all things, are able to redeem me by your will alone; even if I have been seized by the mouths and paws of beasts, yet when you appear they will die at once, and I shall live.

() Yes, O you who are abundant in compassions, ineffable in mercy, have mercy, have compassion on me who have fallen.

I went down into the pit to rescue my neighbor, and I too fell down together with him, O righteous-judging Savior; do not leave me lying forever in the pit.

but grant that I may rescue him as well, and myself likewise; and if not that, then that I may remain above and lament for the one who has fallen, and avoid, as far as I am able, falling together with him.

But now also raise me up, lead me up out of the chaos, and set me, O Christ, upon the rock of your commandments, and show me again the light which the world does not contain, but which — outside the world, outside visible light, outside perceptible air, outside heaven and all perceptible things — makes the one who beholds it, my Savior, [transcend all these]; whether apart from the body, or wholly together with it, I do not know, O God, at that hour; but I suppose that, being then like an immaterial luminary, shone upon by the beauty of the noetic sun, one is unable to see one's own light by perception, but sees only that unsetting luminary, contemplating the inconceivable beauty of his glory; and being utterly astounded, one is unable to comprehend, nor to understand the manner of the contemplation — how, or where, he who is everywhere ineffably present is seen, is circumscribed, willing [to be so] among the saints.

But this we all who are initiates of such things know: () that then, in truth, we become and remain outside the world, for as long as we behold it, and then again we find ourselves in the body and in the world.

And remembering that joy and that light and the sweet pleasure, we lament and mourn, just as an infant child, seeing its mother and remembering the sweetness of milk, whimpers and cries, until it seizes hold of her and nurses to the full.

Concerning the contemplation of God and divine things, and the paradoxical activity of the Holy Spirit; and concerning the properties of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity; and that he who has not attained to enter into the kingdom of heaven will be profited nothing, even should he be outside the punishments of Hades.

() What is this that has been wrought in me by you, O God, cause of all things and ruler?

For what indeed shall I say, and what then shall I conceive?

Great indeed to me is the wonder that is seen, yet it is unknown and invisible to all.

Faithfully will I declare it: by darkness and shadow, by sensible things and perception, by material creation, by blood and flesh am I held, am I commingled, Savior, wretched that I am.

Being, unfortunately and wretchedly, amid these things, astonishment holds me fast even as I wish to express it; I see noetically — where, what, or how, I do not know.

For the how is altogether inexpressible, but the where seems to me both known and unknown: known, because it is beheld in me, and yet again shown from afar; unknown, however, in that it also draws me away into a place that is nowhere and in no way whatever, and grants me forgetfulness of sensible things and of all material and visible things, and leads me out, naked, even from the body.

() What, then, is it that works these things in me, which I also said I see?

Yet listen, and you will understand the matter: it is, then, uncontainable by all in every way, and yet it is also apprehensible and shareable by those who are worthy; it is communicative, joined [to them] incomprehensibly, united to the pure without confusion, and commingled with an unmingled commingling, wholly, to those who live blamelessly.

Or rather, first it is seen in the heavens, and immeasurably above the heavens, being seen very dimly and, as it were, invisibly.

But when I earnestly seek and persistently ask for it to shine forth, either it is beheld there more clearly, and separates me from the things below and joins me ineffably to that brightness; or it shows itself within me, all at once, entire — a sphere-shaped light, serene and divine, formless, shapeless in a shapeless shape — being seen, and speaking these things to me: "Who is it that circumscribes me as being in the heavens, and seeks me there, and supposes that I dwell there?"

Why do you suppose that I am upon the earth, and proclaim that I am with all things, and legislate that I exist everywhere?

For 'being upon the earth' implies circumscription; but I am altogether and utterly without circumscription.

() And in saying that I am with all things, you make plain to all your own ignorance of yourself; for you hear that I am with the saints — I, whole, in essence, in perception and in contemplation, but also in participation — together with my Father and the Divine Spirit, and that I clearly rest in these.

If, then, you say that we are with each one individually, you will make us many, divided among the many; but if you say 'one', how is the one also with each one? or rather, how is the one both above and below, and how is the same one with all?

He who fills the all — how shall he dwell in one? He who is in one — how shall he also fill the all?

And in this, God is nothing — I say, nothing of all things, as the Creator of all things, but above the all.

For who could say what God is, so as also to say, 'He is this, perhaps, or that'?

I am wholly ignorant of what sort he is, how great, of what nature, or how large; I, then, who am ignorant of God — of what form, what kind, what magnitude, what beauty he is — how shall I explain his activities? How is he seen, though invisible to all? How is he present with every created nature? How does he dwell within all the saints? () How does he fill the all and yet is nowhere contained? How does he exist above the all and yet everywhere? For these things no one at all will ever be able to tell.

But, O you whom no man has ever wholly seen, O all-sovereign King, alone most compassionate, I give you thanks from my whole heart, that you did not overlook me lying below in darkness, but touched me with your divine hand; and having seen it, I rose at once, rejoicing — for it shone more brightly than the sun.

I hastened to grasp it, wretched that I am, and it vanished at once from my eyes, and again I became wholly [enveloped] in darkness.

I fell to the ground, mourning and weeping, rolling about and groaning with anguish, longing to see your divine hand again.

The Creator gave me his hand to kiss — the hand that holds all things together by its might. O grace! O ineffable gift!

() I died to all kinsmen and friends — yes, truly I died, by my own will — and I sought only the hand of God; and this [hand], seeing that I had done so, touched me secretly, took hold of my hand, and led me while I was in the midst of darkness.

I perceived, then, and followed with joy; I ran vehemently by night and by day; I walked vigorously with eagerness; yet as I walked I was again motionless, and then all the more I made progress forward. O mysteries! O contests! O prizes!

Thus, as I was running in the middle of the stadium, that ineffable hand overtook me, through the intercession of my holy father, and touched my wretched head, and gave me the crown of victory — or rather, this [hand] itself became my crown; and beholding it I had ineffable gladness, ineffable joy, ineffable delight — for how could it be otherwise?

having conquered the whole world, and put to shame the ruler of the world, receiving from the hand of God a divine crown — or rather, receiving that very hand of the Master of all — O wonder!

instead of a crown, a hand — which was seen shining immaterially, unceasingly to me, and without evening.

This [hand] was extended to me as a breast, as it were, and richly supplied me, as a son of God, to nurse on the milk of incorruption. O sweetness! O ineffable pleasure!

Having partaken of this, I was filled with the heavenly food, on which alone the angels are nourished and are kept incorruptible — lights that are second to the First by participation.

not the illumination, not the participation, nor that we were thus begotten — scarcely does one in a thousand, or even one in ten thousand, come to recognize this through mystical contemplation.

But all the others are like miscarried children, not knowing the one who begot them; for just as the dead, if baptized with water or even with fire, do not perceive it at all, so also these — being dead through unbelief, and deficient through negligence of the commandments — do not know what monstrous thing has befallen them: a deluded faith, to suppose oneself a son of God and yet not recognize one's own father.

If, then, you say that you recognize him by faith alone, and suppose that you are a son of God by faith, let the incarnation of God also be by faith, and do not say that he became man in deed, nor that he was born perceptibly.

But if he truly became the Son of man, he surely makes you a son of God in deed; () if the body did not come to be in mere appearance, then neither are we [made spirit] in mere notion; but just as the Word truly existed as flesh, so also he transforms us ineffably, and truly makes us children of God.

And how is he not god by grace and by adoption, by perception and knowledge and contemplation, who has put on the Son of God?

If God the Word became man unawares, it would be fitting to suppose likewise that I too became god unawares.

But one must think rightly, in orthodox fashion, that I become wholly god by communion with God, in perception and knowledge — not in essence, but by participation.

For just as God was born unchangeably as man in a body, and was seen by all, so also, ineffably and spiritually, he begets me, and makes me, while remaining a man, [to be] god; and just as he, though seen in the flesh, was unrecognized by the crowds as being God, so also we — what we have become — [are unrecognized] by all. O wonder!

being seen as men in every way, () that which we have become by divine grace we are not, by nature, seen by the many to be.

But only to those who possess the purified eye of the soul do we appear, as in a mirror; whereas to the impure — as God [is not seen] — so likewise are we neither seen, nor are we at all believed ever to have become such.

For they are unbelievers, even while relying on faith alone, apart from works; but if they are not unbelievers, then at any rate they are altogether dead, just as the divine Paul declared.

Do not disbelieve, but speak to me, and answer wisely.

Which of these two will you prefer: a faith that is dead, deprived of works, or an unbelief regarding faith [expressed] in works?

Surely you will say to me: 'What is the value of works apart from right and perfect faith?'

And I in turn will answer you: 'But what benefit is faith apart from works?'

And from this faith, the body being wholly within the whole — she herself, the incorporeal soul, being wholly within it — your body will shine as your soul, and the soul, in turn, will be radiant, flashing forth like the grace that has shone within it, even as God himself.

But if you shrink from imitating the humility of the Creator, his sufferings and his reproaches, and you do not accept to undergo these — whether noetically, or rather, still more, perceptibly — you have been left behind! O what folly!

in the gloom and the Tartarus of your own flesh, which is corruption — for what else does it amount to, if not death within an immortal vessel?

shut in, indeed, forever, deprived of all the good things that are in the light, and of that light itself.

For I am not yet speaking of being handed over to fire, to the gnashing of teeth, to weeping and to the worm; but of dwelling in the body as in a jar, after the resurrection just as before it, and looking out from nowhere at all, nor receiving any light within whatsoever, but lying thus, deprived of all the pleasant things of this world, and of those to come, as I said before.

Speak, then, you who hear, you who say: 'I do not wish to enter within the incorruptible kingdom, nor to enjoy those good things, but only to be outside the punishment, and not to experience fire at all.'

What benefit would it be to you, having become such as I have said?

() Do you suppose, then, that there is any other punishment greater than this state of affairs simply coming to be?

For even if you should say that the body will then be received back as spiritual, how then will the soul be shut up in it as in a jar?

Listen, be instructed, how this will be!

…and again sprouts up according to its kind, so also the bodies of those who die fall into the earth, such as they happen to be.

The souls, then, that are separated from them in the coming resurrection of the dead — each of these finds, according to its worth, a lodging full either of light or of darkness.

Those that are pure and have partaken of light and have kindled their own lamps will surely be in unevening light; but the impure, whose heart's eyes are blind and who are full of darkness — how then will they behold the divine radiance?

You will say, by no means. Of these, then, tell me — who will hear them begging after their fate, and open the eyes of these, alas, who willingly refused to see and would not kindle the soul's lamp?

Lightless darkness, then, will receive them.

But the bodies, as we said, decay and rot alike, even those of the saints — but they are raised up such as they were sown: pure wheat, sanctified wheat, holy vessels of the Holy Spirit; since they existed as utterly most pure, they are raised up again glorified, shining, flashing, as the divine light.

But the bodies of sinners rise up again such as they were sown in the earth: miry, foul-smelling, full of rottenness, profane vessels, tares of wickedness, utterly murky, as having done the works of darkness and having served as instruments of every kind of evil for the evil sower; yet these too rise up immortal and spiritual, though resembling darkness.

They will become like the devil, as having imitated his works and kept his commands, with whom they will also be consigned to unquenchable fire, delivered to darkness and to Tartarus; or rather, they will be drawn down in proportion to their weight, according to the worth of the sins each one carries, and there each will pass the ages of ages.

(…) But the saints, as we said, each lifted up again on the wings of the virtues, will likewise ascend to meet the Master, each according to his worth; as each has prepared himself beforehand, so he will surely be near to, or far from, the Creator, and will be with him for boundless ages, leaping and rejoicing in unceasing delight. Amen.

That when the Holy Spirit shines within us, all the things of the passions are put to flight, as darkness is by light; but when he draws in his rays, by these very things we are assailed, and by evil thoughts.

How to speak of the workings of your light, I have no words for; yet this I have known by experience, and know, my God: that even if I am held by sickness, Master, even by afflictions, even by griefs, even in bonds, even in famine, even in prison, even if I am gripped by more grievous pains, my Christ, your light, once it shines, drives all these away like darkness, and suddenly makes me come to be, by your Divine Spirit, in ease and in light and in the enjoyment of light.

But since I stumble very greatly, sinning every hour, since I am puffed up, since I provoke you to anger, I beg for your compassionate discipline, my Christ — which I also perceive vehemently as coming upon me, Master, by the withdrawal from me of that unapproachable, all-radiant, and divine (…) light that shelters me.

But when again you are moved with compassion, when you show mercy, when you give ear to my mournful lamentations and listen to my groanings and receive my tears, and are willing to look upon the humiliation of me who have sinned unforgivably, my Christ, you appear from afar like a rising star, and little by little you widen — not that you yourself undergo any change, but opening the mind of your servant to see.

You have restored me there, where there is no grief, no groaning, no tear, no serpent biting the heel, and you have shown me, free of weariness and hardship, the path that is contrary to the ordinary one — the narrow path, hard to travel for men, or, to speak more truly, impassable to all.

For who among men has ever had, or ever will have, the strength to come to be in heaven in the body — or even without the body, on what wings could he fly there?

Elijah was taken up by a chariot of fire, and before him Enoch — but not into the heavens, into another place, and not by himself, of his own power; yet nonetheless he was translated.

But what are these things compared to what happens within us?

How can there be, at all, any comparison of shadow with truth, or, tell me, of a ministering and servile spirit with the spirit that is masterly, all-working, and divine, which strengthens and empowers every created being?

For all other things are things made, but he alone is the maker, being inseparable from the Father, and likewise from the Son.

The three are God; the Trinity is one God, for so indeed it is. This gave being to the whole, this created all things, this created the Word and Son of the Father in the world according to the flesh for our salvation, being inseparable both from the Father and from the Spirit.

He is truly made flesh by the coming of the Spirit, and becomes what he was not — a man like me, yet apart from sin and every lawlessness — seen by all at once as God and man, having his Divine Spirit joined with his nature; with this he gave life to the dead, opened the eyes of the blind, cleansed lepers, and drove out demons.

bound in the flesh alone, but free in spirit — rising up together with Christ into the heavens with ease, and already possessing there their whole citizenship, in contemplation of the good things which eyes have not seen.

What, then, is the chariot of fire that snatched up Elijah, what is the translation of Enoch, compared to these things?

I think that, just as the sea long ago cleft by the rod, and the manna that came down from heaven, were only a figure and symbols of the truth — the sea, of baptism; the manna, of the Savior — so likewise those events are symbols and a figure of these realities, which possess an incomparable excellence and glory, as much as the uncreated surpasses the created in nature.

For the manna, which is called bread, the food of angels, which the people ate then in the wilderness, gave out, perished, and all who ate it died as well; for it had no share in life.

But the flesh of my Master, being deified and full of life, makes all who eat it partakers of life, and makes them immortal; it does not convey them across an expanse of sea, nor, removing them from Egypt, bring them to another land likewise producing perishable fruits for men again; nor does the Redeemer of the world command us to walk forty years so that we might take possession of the land of promise; but, once we are baptized with undoubting faith, having straightway partaken of his blood and of his flesh, he carries us at once from death to life, into light from darkness, from earth to the heavens.

He has shown me to be a new heaven, and the Creator of all things has dwelt in me — a thing of which none of the saints of old was ever deemed worthy.

For formerly he spoke through the Divine Spirit and by his working performed wonders, but in no way was God ever united to anyone in substance before Christ, my God, became man.

(…) For having taken a body, he gave his Divine Spirit, and through him he is united in substance to all the faithful, and this union of theirs becomes inseparable.

For I groan bitterly over the wandering of mankind.