Mystagogy 1 part 13/13

For we converse by letter, and not by spirit, in the first approach unto piety.

But advancing little by little toward the spirit, scraping away the coarseness of the words by the finer contemplations, we come to be purely in Christ in purity, as far as is possible for men;

so as to be able to say, according to the Apostle:

"Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer";

namely, through the simple approach of the mind to the Word, without the veils upon Him;

having advanced from knowing the Word as flesh, to His glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father.

(62) He who has lived the life in Christ has transcended both the righteousness of the law and of nature;

which the divine Apostle, showing this, says:

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision";

and by uncircumcision hinting at the equity of nature.

(63) Some are regenerated through water and Spirit;

while others receive baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire.

And these four, I mean the water, the spirit, the fire, and the Holy Spirit, I understand to be the one and the same Spirit of God.

For to some the Holy Spirit is water, as cleansing the outward defilements about the body;

to others, spirit only, as effecting the good things according to virtue;

to others, fire, as purging the inward stains deep within the soul;

For from the different activity about the subject, the one and the same Spirit receives the different appellations.

(64) The law gave the Sabbath, "so that," He says, "your beast of burden and your servant may rest."

For the body is the beast of burden of the practical mind, being forced to bear loads by means of the modes of the virtues in practice.

And the servant of the contemplative mind, as already reasoned by contemplations, and rationally serving the gnostic commands of the mind.

And to both there is a Sabbath, which is the consummation of the good things wrought by them in both practice and contemplation, providing to each the rest befitting it.

(65) He who accomplishes virtue with the fitting knowledge has the body as a beast of burden, driving it by reason toward the activity of duties;

and as a servant, the mode upon virtue according to practice;

that is, the very mode according to which virtue is wont to come into being;

as though bought with silver, by the discerning reasonings.

And the Sabbath is the dispassionate and peaceful state of both soul and body according to virtue, that is, the unalterable habit.

(66) The word of God becomes chaff and grass for those who still have the greater part of their concern about the bodily forms of virtue;

nourishing the passible part of their soul, for the service of the virtues;

but for those raised up to the contemplation of the true understanding of divine things, it is bread, nourishing the intellectual part of their soul unto godlike perfection.

And the Levite in the book of Judges says to the old man who lodged him in Gibeah:

"We have both bread, and straw for our donkeys;

and there is no lack of anything for your servants."

(67) The Word of God is called dew, and is so;

and water and fountain and river, as it is written;

namely, according to the receptive capacity of those who receive, being and becoming these things.

For to some He is dew, as quenching the burning and activity of the passions that lie upon them from without about the body.

But to those whose depth is parched by the rust of evil, He is water;

not only as destructive of the adversary by way of contrariety, but also as imparting a life-giving power unto well-being.

And a fountain to those who have the habit of contemplation ever welling up, as a supplier of wisdom.

And a river to those who pour forth, river-like, the godly and right and saving teaching, abundantly watering as it were men, and cattle, and beasts, and plants;

so that men may be deified, being exalted by the conceptions of the things spoken;

and those who have become brutish through the passions, being made human again through the exact demonstration of the modes according to virtue, may recover their natural rationality;

and those who have become beastlike through evil habits and misdeeds, being tamed through the gentle and tender exhortation, may return to the gentleness of nature;

and those who, plant-like, are insensible to good things, being softened by the deep penetration of the word, may receive perception unto fruit-bearing, and the power which nourishes them, the quality of the word.

(68) The Word of God is a way to those who run well according to practice, and vigorously, the stadium of virtue;

and to those who turn neither to the right through vainglory, nor to the left through inclination toward the passions, directing their steps according to God;

which Asa the king of Judah, not having kept to the end, is said in his old age to have become diseased in his feet;

as having grown weak concerning the course of the life according to God.

(69) The Word of God is called a door, as leading to knowledge those who have well accomplished the whole way of the virtues in the blameless course of practice;

and as light, showing the many-shining treasures of wisdom.

For the same is both way and door and key and kingdom;

and a key, as opening to the worthy the things of the divine and being opened;

and a kingdom, as being inherited, and becoming in all things by participation.

(70) The Lord is called light, and life, and resurrection, and truth.

Light, both as the radiance of souls, and as the pursuer of the darkness of ignorance;

and as illumining the mind unto the understanding of ineffable things;

and showing the mysteries beheld by the pure alone;

and life, as supplying to souls that love the Lord the fitting movement in divine things;

and resurrection, as raising the mind from the dead attachment to material things, pure from all corruption and deadness;

and truth, as bestowing upon the worthy the unalterable habit of good things.

(71) God the Word of God and Father is mystically present in each of His own commandments;

and God the Father is wholly inseparable, present by nature in the whole of His own Word.

He therefore who receives a divine commandment and does it receives the Word of God who is in it.

And he who has received the Word through the commandments has thereby together received the Father who is by nature in Him, and together received the Spirit who is by nature in Him.

"For amen," He says, "I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me;

and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me."

He, then, who has received a commandment and has done it, has received and mystically possesses the Holy Trinity.

and he is glorified in return by God, with the glory that is in God, receiving as it were the prize of virtue, by participation the grace of dispassion.

For everyone who glorifies God in himself through the sufferings for virtue's sake according to practice, is himself also glorified in God, through the dispassionate illumination of divine things according to contemplation.

For the Lord says, coming to His passion:

"Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.

If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself."

So that from this it is clear that the divine gifts follow upon the sufferings for virtue's sake.

(73) So long as we behold the Word of God variously embodied through the enigmas in the letter of holy Scripture, we have not yet beheld noetically the Father in the incorporeal and simple and unitary and sole Son, as in an incorporeal and simple and unitary and sole Word, the bodiless and simple and unitary and sole One, according to the saying: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."

"I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me."

There is need, therefore, of much knowledge, so that, having first slipped through the veils of the words about the Word, we may thus with a naked mind behold the Word pure, standing by Himself in Himself, who clearly, as far as attainable for men, shows the Father in Himself.

that is, he who, instead of the Word, perilously cleaves to the letters of Scripture, while the Word has escaped his mind, thinks to hold from the wrappings the bodiless Word;

like the Egyptian woman, who laid hold not of Joseph, but of his garments;

and like the men of old, who, abiding only in the comeliness of visible things, unwittingly worshiped the creation rather than the Creator.

(74) The word of holy Scripture, in part stripping off, by the loftier conceptions, the composition of the sayings bodily fashioned upon them, is shown to the more discerning mind as existing in the voice of a thin breeze;

to the mind which, through the utmost relinquishment of the activities according to nature, has been able to take perception of the simplicity alone which somewhat indicates the Word, like the great Elijah who was counted worthy of this vision in the cave of Horeb.

For Horeb is interpreted as "newly-tilled land," which is the habit of the virtues in the new Spirit of grace.

And the cave is the hiddenness of wisdom according to the mind;

in which whoever comes will mystically perceive the knowledge that is above sense, in which God is said to be found.

that is, as a practical man in the habit of the virtues;

but also in the cave that is in Horeb;

that is, as a contemplative man in the hiddenness of wisdom which is found in the habit of the virtues alone.

(75) When the mind shakes off the many opinions about beings that lie upon it, then the clear word of truth shines forth to it, giving it the pledges of true knowledge, and thrusting off the former preconceptions upon it like scales from the visual powers, according to the inspired and great Apostle Paul.

For there are indeed scales, in truth, lying upon the discerning faculty of the soul, and barring the passage to the unalloyed word of truth, both the suppositions about the letter only of Scripture, and the passionate contemplations of visible things according to sense.

(76) The divine Apostle Paul said that he knew the knowledge of the Word in part.

But the great evangelist John says that he beheld His glory.

"For we beheld," he says, "His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

And perhaps holy Paul said that he knew in part the knowledge as of God the Word.

For from His activities He is known only somewhat.

For the knowledge of Him according to essence and hypostasis remains alike inaccessible to all angels and men, in no way known by anyone.

But holy John, having been initiated, as far as is possible among men, into the perfect word of the incarnation of the Word, said that he beheld the glory of the Word as flesh;

that is, he beheld the principle, or rather the purpose, according to which God became man, full of grace and truth.

For not insofar as He is God by essence and consubstantial with God the Father has the Only-begotten been given grace, but insofar as by nature according to the economy He became man and consubstantial with us, He was given grace for our sake who need grace;

and from His fullness we continually receive, according to all our advancement, the grace that is proportionate.

So that he who has kept in himself the word perfect and undefiled, of God the Word who was incarnate for us, shall receive the glory full of grace and truth, of Him who for our sake glorified and sanctified Himself in our likeness at His coming.

"For when He," he says, "shall be manifested, we shall be like Him."

(77) So long as the soul makes its passage from power to power, and from glory to glory;

that is, the advancement from virtue to greater virtue, and the ascent from knowledge to higher knowledge, it has not ceased to be a sojourner, according to the saying:

"My soul has long been a sojourner."

For great is the distance, and the multitude of the kinds of knowledge that must be traversed by it, until it shall pass into the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God;

with the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of one keeping festival;

ever adding voice to voice, the noetic to the noetic, to the advancement of the divine contemplations, with the exultation according to the mind in the things contemplated, that is, joy, and the proportionate thanksgiving.

For all who have received the Spirit of grace keep such festivals, crying out in their hearts.

(78) The place of the wondrous tabernacle is the dispassionate and unharmed habit of the virtues;

according to which the Word of God, coming into being, adorns the soul like a tabernacle with the various beauties of the virtues.

And the house of God is the knowledge composed of many and various contemplations;

according to which God, dwelling in the soul, fills it from the bowl of wisdom.

And the voice of exultation is the leaping of the soul over the riches of the virtues.

And that of confession is the thanksgiving over the glory of the feasting according to wisdom.

And the sound is the continual mystical doxology that comes from both, I mean exultation and confession, blended together.

(79) He who has nobly wrestled down the passions of the body, and sufficiently fought against the unclean spirits, and driven out their conceptions from his own region according to the soul;

let him pray that a clean heart be given to him, and that a right spirit be renewed in his inward parts;

that is, to be completely emptied of base thoughts, and to be filled with divine conceptions through grace;

so that he may become a noetically bright and great world of God, composed of ethical and natural and theological contemplations.

(80) He who has wrought a clean heart will know not only the principles of things inferior and after God, but also somewhat beholds Him after the passage beyond all things;

which is the utmost end of good things;

in which God, coming into being, deigns to inscribe His own writings through the Spirit, as upon certain Mosaic tablets;

as much as the heart has given itself through practice and contemplation, according to the commandment that mystically bids "Increase."

(81) Perhaps that heart is called clean which has no natural movement whatsoever, in any way, toward anything;

in which, as upon a tablet well smoothed by reason of utmost simplicity, God coming into being inscribes His own laws.

(82) A clean heart is that which has presented to God a memory altogether formless and shapeless;

and ready to be stamped by His types alone, by which He is wont to become manifest.

(83) The mind of Christ, which the saints receive, according to him who said:

"But we have the mind of Christ," does not come upon us by deprivation of the intellectual power in us;

nor as completing our mind, nor as passing over essentially and hypostatically into our mind;

but as illumining the power of our mind by His own quality, and bringing it to the same activity as Himself.

For I myself say that to have the mind of Christ is to think according to Him, and to think Him through all things.

(84) We are said to be the body of Christ, according to the saying, "But we are the body of Christ, and members in particular";

not by deprivation of our own bodies, becoming His body;

nor again by His passing over hypostatically into us, or being cut up member by member;

but by the shaking off of the corruption of sin, in the likeness of the Lord's flesh.

For as Christ, by nature in flesh and soul, insofar as He is conceived as man, was sinless, so also we who have believed in Him, and have put Him on through the Spirit, are able by choice to be in Him without sin.

(85) There are in Scripture both temporal ages, and ages containing the consummation of other ages, according to the saying: "But now once at the consummation of the ages," and what follows.

And again others, ages free of temporal nature, after this present time, this age which is at the consummation of the ages, according to the saying: "That He might show in the ages to come the surpassing riches," and what follows.

And we find in Scripture also a multitude of ages, past and present and to come;

and that there are certain ages of ages, and an age of an age, and eternal times, and generations conjoined with ages.

And lest now, saying what the word means to indicate by the temporal ages, and what by the eternal times and generations;

and again what the ages of ages are simply, and what the simple age is, and the age of the age, we extend the discourse beyond the subject, let us leave these matters for the diligent to examine, and return to the purpose for which we brought these things forward.

(86) We know that there is something supra-eternal according to Scripture;

which Scripture has signified that it is;

There is therefore something beyond the ages, the unalloyed kingdom of God.

For it is not lawful to say that the kingdom of God has been begun, or is preceded by ages or times.

And this we believe to be the inheritance, and dwelling, and place of those who are saved, according as the true word delivers;

as the end of those who are moved by longing toward the ultimate object of desire;

in which, coming into being, they receive the cessation of all whatsoever movement;

as there being no longer any time or age that must be traversed by them, since they have arrived, after all things, in God;

who is before all the ages, and whom the nature of the ages is not able to attain.

(87) For as long a time as anyone is in this life, even if he is perfect in respect of the present condition, both in practice and contemplation, he has knowledge and prophecy and the pledge of the Holy Spirit in part;

being destined one day, after the passing of the ages, to come unto the perfect lot, which shows face to face to the worthy the truth itself standing by itself;

so that he no longer has a part from the fullness, but receives the very fullness of grace whole by participation.

"For all," the Apostle says (that is, those who are saved), "shall come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ";

in whom are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden;

which appearing, that which is in part shall be done away.

(88) Some inquire how shall be the condition of those counted worthy of the perfection in the kingdom of God;

whether according to advancement and transition, or according to identity in rest;

and how one ought to suppose the bodies and souls to be.

To this one might say conjecturally that, just as in the bodily life there is a twofold principle of nourishment;

the one for growth, the other for the maintenance of those that are nourished;

until we attain the perfection of bodily stature, we are nourished for growth;

but when the body has ceased from its increase unto greatness, it is no longer nourished for growth, but for maintenance;

so also in the case of the soul the principle of nourishment is twofold.

For it is nourished while advancing in the virtues and contemplations, until, having passed beyond all beings, it attains the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

in which coming into being, it ceases from all advancement unto increase and growth through intermediate things;

being nourished immediately by that which is above understanding;

and on this account perhaps beyond growth;

the kind of incorruptible nourishment, for the maintenance of the godlike perfection given to it, and the manifestation of the boundless splendors of that nourishment, according to which, receiving the ever well-being in like manner come to dwell in it, it becomes god by participation in the divine grace, all the activities of mind and sense having ceased, both it itself ceasing, and having brought to rest together with itself the natural activities of the body, the body having been deified together with it according to the measure of participation in deification proportionate to it.

So that God alone is manifested through both soul and body, the natural marks having been overcome by the excess of glory.

Some of the studious inquire in what manner the difference of the eternal mansions and promises shall be;

whether according to local hypostasis, or according to the conception of the spiritual quality and quantity peculiar to each form.

And to some the first seems true;

but he who has understood what is meant by "The kingdom of God is within you," and what by "There are many mansions with the Father," will rather come to the second.

(90) Some inquire what difference the kingdom of the heavens has with respect to the kingdom of God;

whether they differ from one another according to hypostasis, or according to conception.

To those who raise this question one must reply that they do indeed differ.

For both are one in hypostasis.

But the Kingdom of God is the imparting by grace of the good things that belong to God by nature.

And the one is according to the end of beings, while the other is in conception beyond the end of beings.

The saying, 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand,' does not refer, as I think, to any contraction of time.

For it does not come with observation.

Rather, it consists in the relation, according to disposition, of those who are worthy of it toward it.

For 'the Kingdom of God,' He says, 'is within you.'

The Kingdom of God and the Father is present in potentiality in all who believe.

But it is present in actuality in those who have utterly put off from their disposition all the natural life of soul and body, and have acquired only the life of the Spirit, and are able to say:

'Yet I live; no longer I, but Christ lives in me.'

Some say that the Kingdom of heaven is the mode of life of the worthy in the heavens.

Others say it is the state of the saved that is like that of the angels.

Still others say it is the very form of the divine beauty belonging to those who have borne the image of the Heavenly One.

And all three opinions on this matter, as it seems to me, accord with the truth.

For to all is the grace to come given according to the proportion of the righteousness that is in them in quality and in quantity.

As long as one manfully runs through the divine contests according to practical philosophy,

he keeps with himself the Word who through the commandments went forth from the Father into the world.

But when, released from the wrestlings of practice against the passions, having been declared victor over passions and demons, he passes over to the gnostic philosophy that is through contemplation, he allows the Word mystically to leave the world again and to go to the Father.

'I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world;

again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.'

By 'world' He perhaps meant the laborious working out of the virtues according to practice;

and by 'Father,' the state according to mind that is above the world and free from all material thinking;

according to which the Word of God comes to be in us, ceasing from the battle against the passions and the demons.

He who has been able through practice to put to death the members that are upon the earth, and through the Word of the commandments to conquer the world of the passions within him, will henceforth have no affliction;

having now left the world, and having come to be in Christ, who conquered the world of the passions and is the bestower of all peace.

For he who has not forsaken his attachment to material things will have affliction continually,

his disposition changing along with things that change by nature.

But he who has come to be in Christ will in no way perceive any material vicissitude whatsoever.

'These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation;

but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.'

That is to say: In me, the Word of virtue, you have peace,

being delivered from the whirling and turmoil of the material passions and affairs;

but in the world—that is, in attachment to material things—you have tribulation, because of their constant succession of changes.

For both have tribulation: both he who practices virtue, because of the toil joined to it,

and he who loves the world, because of the loss of material things;

but the one has a saving tribulation,

while the other has a destructive and ruinous one.

But the Lord is the relief of both:

of the one, by causing to rest in Himself, through contemplation in dispassion, the toils of the virtues;

of the other, by removing through repentance his relational attachment to perishable things.

The inscription written in the title concerning the cause of the Savior plainly showed that He who was crucified is King and Lord of practical, natural, and theological philosophy.

I understand by the Latin inscription the practical philosophy;

for the proper mark of the practical life, if anything is, is courage.

By the Greek I understand natural philosophy, inasmuch as the Greek nation, more than other peoples, devoted itself to natural philosophy.

And by the Hebrew, theological philosophy, inasmuch as this nation was manifestly from of old, in its fathers, dedicated to God.

'In the mornings I slew all the sinners of the land,

to cut off from the city of the Lord all that work iniquity;'

that is, the passions of the body and the lawless reasonings of the soul.

He who has kept the way of the virtues unblemished, without inclination to either side, with reverent and right knowledge, will know the coming of God to him through dispassion.

'For I will sing, and I will understand in a blameless way: when wilt thou come unto me?'

For the singing signifies virtuous practice;

and the understanding, the gnostic knowledge that rests upon virtue,

according to which he who through vigilance in the virtues awaits his Lord perceives the divine presence.

He who is being introduced to piety ought not to be led to the practice of the commandments by kindness alone, but rather also, by the remembrance of the divine ordinances, to contend the more frequently through severity;

so that he may not only love divine things out of longing, but also abstain from evil out of fear.

'For mercy and judgment will I sing unto thee, O Lord;'

so that he may both cry out to God, delighted according to longing, and be vigorous for the song, being tempered by fear.

He who through virtue and knowledge has attuned the body to the soul has become a harp and a flute and a temple of God.

A harp, in that he has well guarded the harmony of the virtues;

a flute, in that through the divine contemplations he receives the inbreathing of the Spirit;

and a temple, in that through purity of mind he has become a dwelling-place of the Word.