書信集 第 1 章 第 8/17 段

Why do I attempt to explain all these things, and to interpret them?

Unless you grasp it by experience, you are not able to know these things.

Woe is me, how far I fall short of the good things, in ignorance!

And you shall strive to know these things, that you may indeed be called one who knows.

For if you do not know yourself — of what sort you are, what you are like — how will you come to know the Creator? How will you be named faithful? And how will you be called a man, if you are an ox or a beast?

Rather, you will be like some irrational animal, or even worse than these, in your ignorance of him who created you.

Who, not knowing him, will dare, as a rational being, to say that he exists?

For how could he, who has been deprived of reason?

He who is deprived of reason belongs to the order of the irrational; but if he is shepherded by men, he will certainly be saved; but if he is unwilling, and instead draws near to the mountain and the ravines, he will become food for wild beasts, like a lost lamb.

Do these things and meditate on them, lest you slip away, my little child!

Through these things, confessing, he writes in the present discourse, showing the depth of his own humility; and as he proceeds he teaches it — he who has attained to the measure of perfection and been deemed worthy of such revelations in contemplation — in this too imitating the divine Paul, who called himself a sinner and unworthy to be called an apostle.

Grant me, O Word, to see your face, and to enjoy your ineffable beauty, and to understand and delight in the vision of you — a vision unspeakable, a vision of that which cannot be seen, a vision of awe; yet grant me to speak of its energies, not of its essence.

For above nature, above all essence, is he who is himself wholly this — my God and Creator.

But the radiance of your divine glory is seen by us as a simple light — a sweet light beheld, a light revealed, a light wholly united, as I think, with all of us your servants; a light seen spiritually from afar, a light suddenly found within us, a light like welling water, and like a fire burning of the heart, which it will surely take hold of and kindle. By this, my Savior, I have come to know my wretched and lowly soul as one already overtaken, both set aflame and utterly consumed.

For fire, having taken hold of brushwood-like matter, how would it not burn it? How would it not consume it? How would it not produce inescapable pains?

Yet once kindled — grant me, O Savior, to say — it shows an ineffable form of most beautiful beauty, and delights me, and produces an unbearable flame of longing. And how shall I endure it, how shall I bear it, how shall I carry it at all, or how shall I tell forth this great wonder that comes to pass in me, the prodigal?

Beholding him who was formerly prodigal, the uniquely defiled one, who sinned more than all, let no one hesitate, but rather let him desire; let him not be fainthearted, but let him approach rejoicing; let him not be afraid, but let him rather take courage, seeing the sea of your love for mankind, and let him run to it, and fall down, and weep, and he shall receive release from his offenses, saying within himself, truly: 'My God, if the Creator had mercy on this utterly wicked, utterly evil, utterly prodigal man, who sinned beyond all men, how shall he not have mercy on me even more, who sinned but sparingly, in some small measure, and did not transgress all the commandments?'

So that they may also know the multitude of my evils, let me here speak — not all of them, indeed, O Word, for they are innumerable, beyond the stars, beyond the drops of rain and the sand of the sea, beyond the multitude of surging waves — but as many as the book of conscience bears, and the storehouses of memory contain; the rest you alone know how to number.

I have become, woe is me, an adulterer in heart, and a sodomite in deed and in intention.

Yes, believe me — I say these things truly, and not as fiction, nor with sophistic cunning!

Who then, hearing these things, would not be astounded, would not marvel at your patience, O lover of mankind, would not be amazed and say: How did the earth not split apart, fleeing from bearing him, unable to sustain the wretch upon its back, and bring him down alive into Hades?

And how did the heaven not collapse together with it, and the sun and the stars not be extinguished, over one who had so despised him?

Oh, again, of your forbearance — he will say, O Savior — and of your goodness and mercy!

For truly these deeds of this most wretched man are beyond all forgiveness — deeds at which everyone who hears will cry out: Did justice, then, really leave this man living?

And how, being just, did it admit at all that this man should be in the land of the living?

But if someone should suppose that I have perhaps written falsehoods, grant him forgiveness, as one who is compassionate; for, being ignorant of your patience, O Savior, and of the abyss of your love for mankind, and having heard of the monstrous things I have done, he justly rendered this verdict.

For, he says, if justice has left this man unaccountable, then there is no judgment at all.

But you, precisely because you are going to judge, are patient now for this very reason, my God; for you certainly desire the salvation of all, awaiting their repentance shown through works, by your just forbearance.

For it is just not to strike those who are falling, but rather always to extend a hand to them — which, doing this, you, my good Master, have never failed to do, nor will you ever fail.

Life is a wrestling-match for all men, and all men are your servants, O Creator; yet we, both small and great, have implacable enemies — the rulers of darkness.

If, then, you yourself do not rather extend a hand, but instead allow them to prevail over us, where is your justice, where is your love for mankind?

He cannot bear the envy which he holds, but roars against us like a lion, and walking about and gnashing his teeth, cruelly seeks whom he may devour.

Those, then, who are wounded by this savage beast, and who receive blows, and lie there as wounded men, O my Christ — will you not have mercy on them? Will you not rather have compassion, and wait for their healing, but instead rebuke them, and utterly crush them, and put such men entirely to death?

For it is just — yes, I too say this — that these are not held captive against their will, but willingly betray themselves.

Yet this cunning one, a sophist skilled in evil, this savage and many-formed beast, feigns then the manner of a friend; as a friend, seeking wholly to seize and hunt me down, by pointing out to me the visible life, he deprives me of the intelligible life.

By perception he steals me toward the things now present, and covertly robs me of the wealth of the things to come.

One thing appears in outward contemplation, but another is what is hidden, O Savior.

But if men, having learned this, contrive deceits by hypocrisy, what will the inventor of evil not do? How will he not deceive, especially the young? How will he not delude those who are guileless, altogether inexperienced, altogether without cunning — he who by choice is both Satan and cunning, and who ingeniously devises every kind of deceit?

Yet he deceives and wounds all; no one has escaped his hands, nor has anyone passed through untasting and unwounded by his arrows and the poison in them.

We have all sinned and fall short of your glory, O Christ — the ineffable and divine glory — and we entreat you freely to save and justify us by grace and mercy, which you have now poured out upon me richly, concerning which I will not hesitate to speak and to write.

For how could I bear in silence the things that happen hour by hour, O my God, and that are wrought in me, wretched as I am?

For in truth they are inexpressible, incomprehensible, beyond mind, beyond reason; and how shall I tell these things forth, or how shall I express them?

But then, unable to bear silence, I will now speak: O God without beginning, uncreated, you alone exist; in Son and Spirit, Holy Trinity, you are incomprehensible, inaccessible; Creator of creation both visible and intelligible, and you are Lord and Master, far above the heavens and all things in heaven; you alone are the maker of heaven, alone having authority, alone bearing all things, and by your command and will alone sustaining all things.

For how will the creature have strength to behold the Creator wholly, to understand Him wholly?

In no way, I think, is this possible; but the Maker, to the extent that He wills, appears and is seen by whom He wills, and is known and knows the creature, and is beheld and beholds, to the extent that the Maker grants the seeing.

For if they were brought forth by You, my God, they have from You their being, and their seeing, and their ability to minister to You blamelessly.

I do not call "pit" the visible world, but truly the darkness of sin — an evil pit, a pit shrouded in gloom, a pit and tomb terribly in the lowest depth, which the sun by nature does not illumine.

For outside the visible world and the world to come is the night of sin, and it now holds fast those who foolishly fall into it, and likewise, when they have died, it will keep them bound for ages of ages; of whom I, O my Christ, am first — I who was seized and dragged down into it, and having been found in its lowest depth, cried out: Have mercy on me!

Having come to full knowledge of my evils — for I knew whither through them I had been brought down — for which I also wept, and painfully brought down showers of tears from my eyes, I repented with my whole heart, and I cried out with inarticulate cries.

And You heard, from the ineffable height, him who lay in the lowest depth of boundless darkness, having no end even in its ending; and leaving behind the powers around You, passing by all visible things, You came down there, where I lay.

You shone forth at once, You drove away the darkness, You raised me up by Your divine inbreathing, You set me upon the feet of Your commandments, You enchanted me with Your beauty, and with love You wounded me, You transformed me wholly, entirely.

I saw Your face and was afraid, although it appeared to me gracious, approachable; but Your beauty put me out of myself and struck me with astonishment, O Trinity, my God!

For there is one likeness of the Three in each, and the Three are one countenance, my God, who is called Spirit, God of all.

...that I might hide myself from You, the One unbearable to all?

But this I did out of cowardice; yet You, my God, all the more embraced me, all the more kissed me, all the more enfolded me in Your arms, bringing me wholly within the fringe of Your garments and covering me with Your light, and making me forget the things seen, and the terrible things that had formerly held me fast.

O depth of mysteries, O height of glory, O ascent, O deification, O wealth, O ineffable brightness of the things spoken!

Who will have the strength to comprehend from words, or to understand the magnitude of the glory?

For he who has not seen the things which eye has not known, and has not heard the things which ear had not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man — how will he believe the one who writes about them?

And even if he should believe, how will he have the strength through words to see what eye has not seen?

And how will he worthily grasp by hearing what the ear of men has never heard, so that he may also rightly conceive of them and be able to come to full understanding — things whose beauty and form are beyond the power of those who see them to express, being formless and incomprehensible to all to whom it is seen — that I may say it to you once more?

Who, fashioning these things with thought, would not fall far from the truth and be led astray by fabrication and imaginings, depicting and beholding false images of his own reasonings, of his own mind?

For just as each person imagines Hades and the punishments there as he wishes, yet none of all men knows them as they truly are, so think for me concerning those good things in the heavens, incomprehensible to all and unseen; these are known and contemplated only by those to whom God shall reveal them, according to the measure of each one's worth — the measure of faith, hope, and love, the measure of the keeping of the Lord's commandments.

For these things God hates, not unjustly but justly, as being altogether unjust. For that which falls short of the just by a little, through negligence or even contempt, remains — reasonably and justly — without profit; but that which falls short not by a little but greatly, brings its possessor to derangement, and harms all others as well who make use of it.

The just measure of humility is neither to despair entirely of oneself, nor to suppose that there is anyone in the world worse than oneself in shameful deeds, but always to weep and mourn on this account, and to despise all visible things.

For this is the proof of mourning, the mourning according to God that comes from the soul.

But if he clings to any visible thing, he has not yet known himself in conscious perception, nor has he received in his heart the fear of the divine judgment and eternal fire, nor has he acquired perfect humility; and because of this he falls short both of the vision and of the gift of those good things which no eye of man has seen.

Let us all hasten to find humility, the unnamed grace of our souls, which has no name, but through experience becomes, as it were, named to those who possess it.

Christ is meek, humble of heart; he who has acquired Him as an indweller has known that through Him he has humility, or rather, that He Himself is humility.

A soul that seeks glory from men has not known this humility at all; and he who possesses even the slightest self-conceit, how will he have humility within himself?

...my days in the present life!

Who will not weep for me, who will not vehemently mourn, that I fled the world and the things in the world, and yet was not separated from the conscious perception of the world?

I have put on the habit of monks, and yet, as a worldly man, I love the things in the world — glory, wealth, pleasures, and delights.

On my shoulders I carry the cross of Christ, yet I entirely refuse to bear the reproaches of the cross — I do not wish it at all; instead I insert myself among the glorious, and I wish to be glorified together with them.

O the calamity, O the insensibility!

I am worthy of double condemnation; for having sinned much before in this life, I promised to repent well; but now I have shown myself a transgressor, ungrateful for all the good things which God provided me, and I have proven myself a repudiator of my covenants, and unworthy of all loving-kindness.

But, O my God, O only all-compassionate One, hasten, come before me, turn me back again to repentance, to tears, to mourning, that I may be washed and cleansed and see Your glory shining clearly within me — which grant to me now and forever, as I glorify You with unceasing voices, the Maker and Master of the ages.

Concerning the contemplation of the divine light that came to him, and how the divine light is not overtaken by darkness; in which, being also astonished on account of the excess of the revelations, he remembers human weakness and condemns himself.

How shall the sound of a tongue contain Him whom the world does not contain? How shall anyone be able to express Your loving-kindness?

So then, Master, as I was musing on these things, suddenly You appeared from above, far greater than the sun, and You shone from the heavens even unto my heart.

And all other things I saw as if in deep darkness, but in the midst a luminous pillar, cutting through the whole air, extended from the heavens down to me, wretched as I am.

At once I forgot the light of the lamp, I no longer remembered that I was inside a house; it seemed to me that I was sitting in the air of the darkness, yet I also came to a complete forgetting even of the body itself.

I was speaking to You, and now I speak from the depth of my heart: Have mercy on me, Master, have mercy on me, O only One, on me who in no way, never, served You, O Savior, but who provoked You to anger from my youth.

I have gone through every fleshly and psychic evil, and I have committed sins beyond measure and beyond reason, surpassing all men, surpassing every irrational creature — I outdid even every reptile and every beast.

Therefore it is necessary for You to show mercy to me, who have sinned foolishly beyond all.

For You Yourself said that those who are healthy have no need of a physician, O Christ, but those who are sick; therefore, as one who is so sick and so negligent, pour out upon me much mercy, O Word!

But O the exultation of light, O the movements of fire, O the encirclings of flame, being worked in me, wretched as I am, by Your glory!

And I know and call "glory" Your Spirit, the Holy Spirit, co-natural and co-equal in honor, O Word, of one kind, co-glorious, consubstantial, alone with Your Father and with You, O Christ, O God of all.

Worshiping You, I give thanks, because You have counted me worthy, even to some small degree, to come to know the might of Your divinity.

I give thanks, because You Yourself were revealed to me as I sat in darkness, You shone forth, You counted me worthy to see the light of Your face, which is unendurable to all.

Neither did the darkness altogether overtake Your light, nor did the light drive away the visible darkness; but mingled, unconfused, in every way divided far from one another, as is fitting, not mixed at all — yet, I think, together they fill all things at once.

Thus I am in the light, while being in the midst of darkness; thus again I am in darkness, while passing my time in the midst of light; behold, I am in the middle within the light, behold, I am also in the middle of darkness; and I say: who will grant me to find, in the midst of darkness, light which the darkness has no room to receive?

For how will darkness contain light within itself and not flee, but the darkness will remain in the midst of the light?

O awesome wonder, seen doubly by a twofold pair of eyes, of the body and of the soul!

Listen now: I tell you the awesome things of the twofold God, and things that have come to be for me, who have become as it were a twofold man!

He took up my flesh and gave me the Spirit, and I too became god by divine grace, a son by adoption, though not as God is Son by nature — O what worth, O what glory!

As a man, grieving, I count myself wretched, and I consider my weakness and I groan, and I am entirely unworthy to live, as I well know; yet, taking courage in His grace, and considering the beauty which He has given me, I delight in beholding it.

As a man, then, I know that I see nothing of the divine things, and I am entirely separated from things invisible; but, having become god by adoption, I both behold and become a partaker of the things that cannot be touched.

As a man, having none of the lofty and divine things, but as one now shown mercy by the goodness of God, I have Christ, the Lord, the benefactor of all.

I do not say how much, O compassionate One, but graciously, compassionately, with Your propitious eye, as even now You behold me and fill me with Your joy and divine sweetness.

But count me also worthy to walk, by Your light, unswervingly in the way of the commandments unto the end, and, All-compassionate One, in that very light of Yours to commend my spirit into Your hands, redeeming me from enemies, from darkness, from fire, from eternal punishments, O Word!

Yes, O You who are abundant in compassion, ineffable in mercy, count me worthy to deliver my soul into Your hands, just as even now, O Savior, I find myself in Your hand.

Let not sin, then, obstruct my way; let it not cut it short, let it not tear me away from Your hand; but let the dread ruler and destroyer of souls be put to shame, seeing me within the palm of Your hand, Master, just as even now he does not dare come near me, seeing me sheltered by Your grace!

Do not condemn me, O Christ, do not thrust me away into Hades, do not bring my soul down into the depth of death, for I, filthy, defiled, and altogether profane, dare to name Your name; let not the earth open and swallow me, O Word, the transgressor, who am not worthy at all even to live or to speak.

Let not fire fall upon me and suddenly devour me, before I can even say, "Lord, have mercy!"

...having been permitted to say this: may You, who are abundant in compassion, who are by nature loving to mankind, not wish to enter into judgment with me.

For what indeed shall I utter at all, being myself sin? What then might I say at all, I who am condemned, who from my mother's womb have offended You beyond measure, and who up to now have remained insensible to Your long-suffering; who have been brought down myriad times into the depth of Hades and from there drawn up again by Your divine goodness; who have defiled the members and the flesh of my soul and body as no other among those in this life; the mad and shameless lover of pleasures, evil and deceitful in psychic wickedness; who have not kept even a single one of Your commandments at all, O Christ?

If You lay bare my lawless deeds and my acts, O immortal King, do not show them to all, for I shudder even to think of the deeds of my youth, and to speak of them is full of dread, replete with shame.

...my shame will be worse than every punishment.

For who, taking to mind my acts of lewdness, and my acts of profligacy, my profane embraces, my shameful deeds — in which even now I am defiled — who, upon seeing them, will not be astounded? Who, upon seeing, will not utterly shudder? Who, upon seeing, will not cry out and immediately turn away his eyes and say, "Take away, O Master, this utterly profane man"?

Command that the hands and feet of this wretched one be bound, and that he be cast quickly into the murky fire, lest he be seen by us, Your genuine servants.

Truly worthily, Master, truly justly will all those also say this, and You Yourself will do it, and I shall be cast into the fire, I, the profligate and the fornicator.

But, O You who came down to save the profligate and fornicators, do not put me to shame, O Christ, on the day of judgment, when You shall set Your sheep on Your right hand, and me and the goats on Your left; but let the undefiled light, the light of Your face, cover my deeds and the nakedness of my soul, and clothe me radiantly, that in confidence, without shame, I may be numbered among the sheep on the right, and together with them may glorify You unto ages of ages.

That he who still lives in ignorance of God is dead in the midst of those who live in the knowledge of God; and that for those who partake of the mysteries unworthily, the divine body and blood of Christ becomes unattained.

Now among the living I exist as one dead, O Master, and among the dead I am as one living — wretched beyond all men upon the earth, whom you created, my God.

For my being dead among those who live according to you shows me to be altogether worse than those never created; and to live, among the dead, an irrational life like the cattle, is truly like those who do not know you as God.

For how is it not alike, and how is it not equal?

And I sing hymns and prayers which the ancients of old set down in writing, having received your Holy Spirit; and in saying these things and supposing I have accomplished something great, I am without perception and I do not understand — that just as children who are learning do not know the power of the words, so I too, persevering in prayers and psalms and hymns and praising you, the compassionate one alone, do not receive a conscious perception of your glory and of the light. And just as the heretics, who had learned much, supposed that they knew you, supposed that they perceived you, the utterly wretched ones supposed that they even saw you, my God — so I too, speaking many prayers and many psalmodies with my tongue alone, and perhaps also with my heart, suppose from these that I possess the height of faith; from these I imagine that I have grasped all knowledge of the truth and need nothing more; from these also, that I see you, the light of the world, O Savior; from these also I say that I possess you and that you are present with me, and I suppose that I share in your divine nature; and I devise parables against myself, and, searching out words from Scripture, I put them forward and say: 'The Lord said that those who eat his flesh and those who drink his blood abide in him' — but that he himself, the Master, also dwells in them.

Saying this, then, I proclaim the ungraspable as graspable — that within the graspable [element] of the body the ungraspable one exists, and that the one wholly uncontainable is contained and seen.

And I, the unfortunate one, do not understand that in whatever way you wish, you exist as perceptible, containable, and visible — you the Creator, being perceptible and containable and visible.

But in the impure — such as I — and the unworthy, you rather deify your perceptible body and blood, wholly uncontainable and altogether ungraspable, changing it unchangeably; or rather, in truth, you transform it into something spiritual, invisible — just as of old, when the doors were shut, you entered and went out, and became invisible to the eyes of your disciples in the breaking of the bread, so also now you make the bread [your body], and render your body spiritual.

From this, then, I am shown to be entirely without perception; from this it plainly appears that I do not understand what I chant, and what I speak, and what I continually meditate on and sing.

For if I truly understood, I would surely know that you became man without change, my God, in order that you might wholly deify me who was assumed [by you] — and not in order that you, [as] man, should remain in coarseness and be held fast in corruption, you who are wholly uncontainable, incorruptible and ungraspable by nature as God.

Knowing this, believing your divine body and your holy blood to have become ungraspable, and truly a fire unapproachable to me the unworthy one, I would partake of these with awe and fear and trembling, purifying myself beforehand with tears and groanings.

But now I sit in darkness and ignorance, I wander astray, held fast, wretched as I am, by utter absence of perception.

But nevertheless I beseech you, nevertheless I implore you, falling down and entreating and seeking your mercy: Look upon [me], as always, so now too, my all-sovereign King; show your compassion, show your sympathy, show your freedom from remembering wrongs toward me, the tax collector — or rather the utterly prodigal one, who has sinned against you beyond every nature, both of irrational beings and of rational ones.

For even if I have committed every lawless thing in my life, yet I confess you as God, Maker of all things; I venerate you as Son of God, consubstantial with God, begotten of him before all ages, and in the last of times born of the holy Virgin, the Theotokos Mary, as an infant, and become man — for my sake having suffered, and been crucified, and, O Savior, delivered to burial, and risen from the dead after the third day, and ascended in the flesh, whence you never departed.

Since I believe thus, then, and worship you thus, and hope again for you to come and judge all and render to each, O Christ, according to his due — let this faith be reckoned to me in place of works, my God; and do not seek from me works that justify at all, but let this faith of mine suffice in place of all things.

For 'he who believes in me,' you have said, O my Christ, 'shall live, and shall not see death forever.'

If, then, faith in you saves those who have despaired, behold, I believe — save me, causing your divine light to shine forth; and, O Master, appearing, illumine my soul, which is held fast in darkness and in the shadow of death.

What kind of person the monk ought to be, and what is his labor, and what his progress and ascent.

Make the house of your soul into a palace, a dwelling for Christ, the King of all — by the drops of your tears, by wailings and lamentations, by the bending of your knees and a multitude of groanings — if truly, O monk, you wish to be one who is alone [with God].

And at that time you were not alone, for you were together with the King; and you were 'a monk' according to our common understanding, in that you were one of us and had been separated from the whole world — this indeed is what 'monk' means [in that sense].

But having been united to God and King, you are not alone; rather, you have become numbered together with all the saints, a fellow-dweller with the angels, a housemate of the righteous, and truly a fellow-heir of all who are in heaven.

How then is he alone, who has his citizenship there, where is the assembly of martyrs and holy ones, where is the choir of the prophets and the divine apostles, where is the innumerable multitude of the righteous, of hierarchs, of patriarchs, and of the rest of the saints?

And he who has Christ dwelling within himself, how can he be said to be alone — tell me?

For with my Christ are joined the Father and the Spirit; and how can he be alone, who is united to the Three as to One?

As for God the Word — such a one has not become a monk at all, alas, in any way.

Hence this one is indeed alone, separated from God; but each one of us, too, is separated altogether from other men, and we are all orphaned, made solitary — even though we seem to have union through cohabitation, and to mingle with one another in the gathering of the many.

For we are separated in soul and body, which death shows to be true, separating each one from kinsmen and friends, and producing forgetfulness of all those now beloved.

Thus also night, and sleep, and the activities of life dissolve, as is fitting, the union of the many.