Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 19/21

Do not, however, when you hear the great Dionysius saying to Timothy, 'Leave behind the senses and the noetic energies, and be uplifted toward that which truly is,' reckon that man is then unable to think or to see (for he does not suffer the loss of these faculties, except by way of astonishment); but rather learn that the noetic energies are altogether left behind by the light that comes with union, and by the energy that accompanies it.

And this the chief and foundation of the Church, Peter, shows clearly.

For at that hour of the sacred Pentecost, when he was being accounted worthy of the ineffable and divine union, he both knew those who had been illumined together with him and saw those who were assembled, and heard what was being said by those before them, and perceived the passage of the day — "for it is," he says, "the third hour of the day."

For that those who are acted upon by the energy of the Holy Spirit should become beside themselves, the human mind being overshadowed, is contrary to the promise of the divine visitation.

For the one possessed by God does not become out of his mind; and in general, what sense does it make that from the Spirit of wisdom one should become like a madman?

For this light is the wisdom of God, coming to be present in the one who is deified and not being separated from God; for through it, he says, all knowledge is revealed, and God is truly known by the soul that loves him — and so too are righteousness and holiness and freedom.

Hear Paul: "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom"; and again: "he became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and..."

Hear the great Basil: "that which was moved by the Holy Spirit with an eternal motion became a holy living being; and man, once the Spirit had come to dwell in him, attained the dignity of prophet, apostle, angel, of God — he who before was earth and ashes."

Hear John of the golden tongue: "the mouth through which God speaks is the mouth of God; for just as this is the mouth of our soul, though the soul has no mouth, so too the mouth of the prophets is the mouth of God."

Hear the Lord himself setting his seal upon these things; for after saying, "I will give you a mouth and a wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to gainsay or withstand," he added: "for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you."

This wisdom, then, cannot possibly be used badly.

For indeed it is not possible even to acquire it in the first place without first having been purified through ascetic practice; and this is what is meant by the wise Solomon's saying, that wisdom will not enter a soul devised for evil, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin; for even if it should come at the outset to dwell in us who have made good use of the introductory virtues, when we turn toward the worse it flies away.

For, according to the same Solomon, the holy Spirit of instruction will withdraw itself from thoughts devoid of understanding.

But the wisdom that comes from nature and from learning even a man of wicked character could acquire, and could use in a manner corresponding to his character, just as also to his nature.

So far, then, does this natural wisdom fall short of spiritual wisdom, as far as nature itself falls short of the nature of the Spirit.

Where, then, are those who say that we acquire the wisdom of the prophets and apostles through learning?

...unable to endure its brightness, the eyes of the flesh were blinded — that light through which all knowledge is revealed, and God is truly known by the soul that is worthy and beloved.

This light is also eternal life, being infused into the one who is deified and not being separated from God.

Thus Paul said: "I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me."

Thus concerning Paul Maximus says, that he lived the divine and eternal life of him who dwelt within him.

Thus Basil the great said: the life which the Spirit sends forth into the hypostasis of another is not thereby separated from himself; but just as with fire, one part is the heat inherent in it, and another part is what it imparts to water or to some other such thing, so too the Spirit both possesses life in himself, and those who partake of him live in a manner befitting God, having acquired a divine and heavenly life.

This is the life which he elsewhere called a spiritual and eternal motion, and said makes holy the one who partakes of it, though he was formerly earth and clay.

Where are those who say that the deifying grace of God is created, and that nothing besides his supra-essentiality is eternal?

But someone will say: does this man call this life eternal, but not light?

But those who speak of an eternal illumination and an eternal visible glory surely mean thereby an eternal light, participable by the saints alone.

And that the great Basil, too, knows a light participable by such men, noetic, pre-cosmic and supra-cosmic, you will clearly learn if you take his Hexaemeron in hand; for, he says, "we reckon that if anything existed before the constitution of this sensible and corruptible..."

...[before the constitution] of this and corruptible world, it would surely have been in light; for neither the ranks of angels, nor all the heavenly hosts, nor at all — whatever there is, named or unnamed, among the rational natures and the ministering spirits — passed its existence in darkness.

Wherefore he himself also prays there on our behalf, saying: "Father of the true light, who has adorned the day with heavenly light, who has brightened the night with the rays of fire, who has prepared the rest of the age to come with the noetic and unceasing light — may he illumine our hearts in the full knowledge of the truth."

That this noetic, pre-cosmic and unceasing light is God himself, Gregory, surnamed of theology, plainly declared; for he says: "God, having willed to constitute this world, is himself light to the eternal beings, and no other; for what need had those who possess the greatest light of any other?"

This, then, is a light and a fire that is divine and immaterial, by nature apt to illumine souls.

For this, again according to the great Basil, operated also in the apostles, when they spoke with tongues of fire — which, also shining about Paul, dimmed the perception of his sight but illumined the eyes of his heart; for the vision of the flesh cannot contain the power of that light.

This fire appeared to Moses in the bush; this, in the form of a chariot, caught Elijah up from the earth; seeking the energy of this fire, the blessed David said: "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my inward parts and my heart."

This fire warmed the heart of Cleopas and of the one with him, as the Savior spoke with them after his resurrection from the dead.

This fire, destroying the beam in the eye, restores the mind to purity, so that, having recovered its natural power of clear sight, it may not see the speck in the brother's eye, but may continually contemplate the wonders of God, according to him who says: "Uncover my eyes, and I shall contemplate the wonders of your law."

...may it reach even us, that walking always in the light, we may never stumble even for a moment.

Chrysostom the theologian, teaching what is the light that shall break forth early for the merciful, says: this is not the perceptible light, but another far better, which shows us heaven and the angels and the royal courts; for if you are deemed worthy of this light, you shall see these things too, and shall be delivered from Gehenna, and shall depart to where pain and grief have fled away, where there is great joy and peace and love, where there is eternal life and ineffable glory and indescribable beauty; let us then bear all things readily, that we may obtain the garment of the kingdom of heaven and that ineffable glory.

But let us bring our discourse back to another starting point, and return to the words of the great Macarius; setting forth alongside them, in the midst, the starting-points and premises of the vain-minded man's arguments — that is, Barlaam's — from which he supposes he can draw some conclusion against us and against the truth, we shall refute them.

Symeon then, the most dexterous and abounding in both, a sweet and God-inspired interpreter, speaking as it were in the person of the great Macarius, says to the one who had asked: "Grace is never absent once it is present, and it comes to be in the man in whom it is present as something natural and fixed; and being one, it dispenses itself in many ways, as it wills, for man's benefit; and the light at times shines forth more, and at times is drawn in, although the lamp burns unquenched; but when it is made to shine more brightly, then, as it were in a greater intoxication with the love of God, the man too is put to the test."

And again, in the seventy-fourth chapter, he says: "The soul that has recovered its own pure nature beholds the glory of the true light with clear and unhindered eyes; and such men, though they still wear about them the burden of the flesh, yet on account of the pledge of the Spirit their hopes stand secure, and that they shall reign together with Christ, and shall be in the abundance and overflow of the Spirit — of this nothing is in doubt for them; for even from this present life they are already caught up to that age, and behold the beauties and wonders there; for just as the bodily eye, being free from passion and in health, gazes confidently upon the rays of the sun, so too these men, employing a luminous and thoroughly purified mind, continually behold the unsetting rays of the Lord."

And again: "such," he says, "is the illumination of the Spirit — it is not merely a revelation of thoughts..."

"...Lord" — this exhibits the same sequence of the same purpose.

And: "to the blessed Paul," he says, "the light that shone upon him on the road, by which he was also caught up to the third heaven and became a hearer of unutterable mysteries, was not an illumination of thoughts and knowledge, but an illumination, according to hypostasis, of the power of the good Spirit in his soul — the excess of whose brightness the eyes of the flesh could not endure and so were blinded — through which indeed all knowledge is revealed, and God is truly known by the soul that is worthy and beloved."

The divine and faithful interpreter Symeon, however, initiated by one who through experience knew well the mystical and consummating energies of the Spirit, again speaks as from that one: "when we hear the word of the kingdom and are brought to tears, let us not remain in these tears of ours, nor in our hearing, as though we had heard well, nor in our eyes, as though we had seen well, and let us not reckon ourselves to be thereby sufficient; for there are..."

"...other ears and other eyes and other weepings, just as there is also another mind and another soul — which is the very divine and heavenly Spirit itself: that which hears and weeps, and prays and knows, and does the will of God in truth. Yet to those who are at the summit of virtue, and in whose hearts the noetic light has actively shone, these things become plain and manifest; for solid food, says the blessed Paul, is for the perfect, for those who through habit have had their senses trained to discern good and evil; and the divine Peter too says: 'and you have the prophetic word, to which you do well to give heed, as to a lamp shining in a squalid place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.'"

But Barlaam, holding all such things as nothing, and moreover setting them forth as belonging to the doctrine of the Massalians, lumps them all together as the teaching of the champion of these men, the man of Blachernae; and having himself openly declared impious those who say that there is something else eternal besides the essence of God, he graciously bestows on this man of Blachernae the credit of seeing the eternal glory of God.

For where is that man found saying that it is not the essence of God that is visible, but the eternal glory?

For if he said this, as one who had come to a better understanding of piety, we would absolve him of all blame — since even Stephen saw the supra-heavenly glory of God.

For what need was there for the heavens to be opened, if the one who beheld it were not to see the glory that is above them?

But he also saw it with his eyes; for, it says, having gazed intently, he saw.

But he also beheld it beyond sense-perception; for what power of sight could possibly reach as far as the things themselves above the heavens?

But Gregory, surnamed of theology, who says that the angels are beholders of the eternal glory — was he too, then, a companion of the man of Blachernae's table?

You would easily, I think, say that even the angels in the heavens have been caught by delusion...

...you, who have dared to reckon among the wicked-minded those men on earth who have chosen to live according to them, the angels, and those indeed who extol the most sovereign Trinity as putting forth a natural, co-eternal glory, and who long to see that unutterable radiance — or shall we number these too among the Massalians?

But those who pray to be illumined by the essential radiance of God, and thus to obtain the light-giving radiance — of what radiance and light shall we say that they are enamored?

For the knowledge which you alone call the divine light is not the essential radiance of God.

But those who saw the lightning hidden beneath the flesh of Christ's essential comeliness — what lightning do you suppose they saw?

For surely the perceptible light is not the essential comeliness of God.

And how, moreover, can the essential light of the Trinity that is above all be created?

Are we then to declare the Massalians orthodox, or the orthodox Massalians and abominable?

For indeed either conclusion could follow from your own words.

In which company, then, shall we place you?

"Those of the Blachernite's doctrine," he says, "are, in sum, of this sort; and it happens that these are opposed to nearly the most evident doctrines of the Church. For, in the first place, it being firmly acknowledged that there is one thing alone, without beginning and without end — the essence of God who has made all things — and that everything besides this is of created nature, and that there is no other entity whatsoever between the essence of God and the things created, this man dared to posit something in between."

O what ignorance, if he thinks this to be a doctrine of the Church firmly acknowledged! O what folly, if he hoped to deceive by such words any man possessed of understanding...

...and this despite the great Dionysius expressly declaring certain things to be without beginning and without end — namely, the illuminations that come to be from God in the supra-mundane powers — with whom Gregory the theologian also concurs, having called the glory of God visible to angels eternal.

But this novel theologian, initiated I know not whence, says: "one thing alone is without beginning and without end — the essence of God; but everything besides this is of created nature" — that is, they are created, and had a beginning, and there was a time when they were not.

Therefore, by your own account, nothing that pertains to it is without beginning, but absolutely all such things, without exception, once were not; for according to you, only the essence is without beginning.

Therefore there was a time when God was not Father; for this is not the essence, but is beside the essence, being around the essence.

But if the Father is from eternity, and the unbegotten is without beginning for him, while according to you only the essence of God is without beginning, then this very unbegottenness is identical with the essence of God — which is the very sum of the wicked doctrines of Eunomius.

But also the begotten Son: either he does not possess his begottenness without beginning, and there was a time when the Son, considered as begotten, was not, and there will be a time when he is not — as even Sabellius would have said; or, if his being begotten is without beginning for him, this very thing is his essence, since only the essence is without beginning — and thus the Son would not be of the same essence as the Father, but rather of the opposite one.

One might say the same arguments also concerning the Holy Spirit; and just as there you will be shown standing together with those who deny the divinity of the Son, so here too you will be shown standing with the Pneumatomachians.

Is this, then, a manifest and universally acknowledged doctrine of the Church, from which every heresy has been let loose, as from some evil spring?

It is not, then, the case that one thing alone is without beginning, the essence of God; for indeed all the things distinguished around it are also without beginning — such as the hypostases, the relations, ...

(...) the distinctions, and, simply, all the manifestations of the supra-essential divine generation — this is the accepted teaching, but not that other one.

And this is so far agreed upon that, since the divine manifestation in the flesh, no one has yet dared to declare — not even those who fell into wicked heresies — what this man has just now introduced by saying that only one thing is without beginning, the essence of God: namely, that all the hypostases and all the hypostatic properties of the Most High Trinity are created.

And indeed I would gladly ask him who says that only one thing is without beginning — the essence of God — while what is besides it is of a generated nature: does he hold this [essence] to be almighty, or not?

For if it does not [have omnipotence], then this sole unoriginate essence is no longer even God.

But if it does have [omnipotence]: if it acquired these powers only at some later time, then there was a time when it was imperfect — which is to say, again, that it was not God; but if it possessed these powers from eternity, then it is not the essence of God alone that is unoriginate, but each of these powers of it as well.

— yet not the essence of God itself; for none of the powers of this kind within it is essence. But all of them of necessity are always present within the essence of God — to speak by way of a faint image — just as the powers of the senses are present in what is called, with respect to the soul, the common sense.

And this is the manifest, secure, and universally confessed doctrine of the Church — but not that other one, far be it!

For just as there is one unoriginate essence — the essence of God — while the essences besides it are of a generated nature, having come to be from the sole unoriginate and sole essence-making essence, in the same way there is also one unoriginate providential power — that of God — while the providential powers besides it exist as of a generated nature; and likewise with (p. [break]

...all the other natural powers of God likewise.

Therefore it is not the case that the essence of God alone is unoriginate, while everything besides it is of a generated nature.

My argument, guided by that self-complete nature which has from infinity anticipated all things, wishes to make clear not only [that there are such] powers — which you will find frequently called by the holy fathers 'natural energies' — but also that the works of God are unoriginate, and, in order to show this briefly to those who disbelieve, [wishes to make clear] that the fathers have spoken most excellently on this matter.

Was not the work of providence necessary even before creation, so that each of the things that exist as created might come forth from non-being at its own [proper] time?

And was not a knowledge befitting God necessary, so that, having known beforehand, He might then choose — even if not temporally?

And as for that immediate contemplation [by direct vision], could anyone conceive a beginning of it — that there was a time when God began to be moved by His own contemplation?

There is, then, one unoriginate providence — that of God — being a work of God, while the providences besides it are of a generated nature; but providence is not the essence of God. Therefore it is not the case that the essence of God alone is the unoriginate thing.

And there is one foreknowledge, both unoriginate and uncreated — that of God; while the [powers of] foreknowledge besides it, which naturally exist within us, all had a beginning and are created.

And there is one unoriginate will — that of God — while the wills besides it all had a beginning; but not even those who called the Word of God 'the Son of [His] will' dared to say that the will is the essence of God.

And the predestinations, even from their very name, indicate their existence prior to created things; and should anyone wish to deny that these too are pre-eternal, he will be refuted by Paul, who says: 'as God predestined before the ages.'

But these, clearly, are unoriginate works of God, and pre-eternal — namely, foreknowledge, will, providence, (p. [break]

...) direct vision, and whatever else is of a similar kind. And if contemplation, providence, and foreknowledge, predestinations, and will are unoriginate works of God, then virtue too [is such a work] — for each of these is indeed a virtue — but so also is beingness, since beingness precedes not essence alone but every being whatsoever, for it is first; only thereafter is there virtue, or will, or predestination.

Rightly, then, does the great Maximus, so versed in divine things, say that beingness, life, holiness, and virtue are works of God that have not begun in time. And lest anyone should suppose these to exist within an age [merely], even if not begun temporally, he adds: 'For never was there a time when the "was not" was older than virtue and goodness and holiness and immortality.' And again, lest anyone should suppose that he means by this the corresponding realities within us to be unoriginate, he adds that the things which have begun both exist and are so called through participation in those which have not begun; for God is the creator of all life and immortality, of holiness and virtue — namely, of that which naturally exists within us.

These things, then, he has stated in the fiftieth chapter of the First Century; and in the forty-eighth [chapter] of the same [Century] he says that these are contemplated essentially around God, and that they themselves are the participable things, in which the beings that participate — works that have begun in time — partake, those [participable] works being themselves unoriginate. 'For never,' he says, 'was the "was not" older than virtue, nor than any of the other things mentioned,' inasmuch as God alone is eternally their sole begetter of being.

...God is infinitely, and infinitely-many-times-over, exalted above the participable things — that is, above that unoriginate, or, to say the same thing, uncreated, goodness, holiness, and virtue.

Therefore these — the uncreated goodness, the eternal glory or life, and the like — are not simply the supra-essential essence of God.

(...) God, as cause, is exalted above [them].

But we call Him life and goodness and such things, naming Him from the representative energies and powers of that supra-essentiality, since, according to the great Basil, the confirmation of every essence is its natural energy, which leads the mind up to the nature; and according to the divine Gregory of Nyssa and all the other fathers, natural energy is the power that manifests every essence, of which only non-being is deprived; for that which is [i.e., every being], by participating in some essence, will certainly also participate, by that very fact, in the power that naturally manifests it.

But also, since He is wholly present in each of the God-befitting energies, we name Him from each one — whereby it is likewise shown that He is exalted above all of them.

For how, given that there are many God-befitting energies, could He be present wholly and altogether indivisibly in each, and be seen and named wholly from each, on account of the transcendent nature of His undivided simplicity, unless He stood above all of these?

And indeed, among the energies of God, there are some that had both a beginning and a cessation, as all the saints will likewise attest.

For even though this man, who seems to know all things with precision, holds that everything which has a beginning is also created — and it is for this reason that, having said that only one thing is without beginning, the essence of God, he added, as its opposing division, that the things besides it are of a generated nature — nevertheless, even if that man supposes that all things which have received a beginning are created, we, for our part, know that all the energies of God are uncreated, though not all of them are without beginning.

For if there came to be a beginning and an end — not of the creative power itself, but of the exercise thereof, that is, of the energy [directed] toward the things created — and Moses showed this when he said, 'God rested from all the works which He began to make,' then how would that supra-essentiality not be other than its own energies?

But will he say that the unoriginate energies are identical with that [essence]?

(...) But there are, among these, some that had an end, even if not a beginning — as the great Basil also said concerning the foreknowledge of God.

Therefore the supra-essential essence of God is identical not even with the unoriginate energies — by which it is shown not only that it is exalted above every energy whatsoever, but exalted infinitely, and infinitely-many-times-over, according to the great Maximus, so versed in divine things.

But the blessed Cyril says: 'It is a God-befitting energy and power to be everywhere, and for God to pervade all things, yet be contained by none.'

This, then — being everywhere — is not the nature of God, if indeed for us too our nature does not consist in this alone, namely, being somewhere.

For that which is in no way essence — how could it be our essence?

Therefore essence and energy are not altogether identical in the case of God, even though He is shown to be wholly present in each energy on account of the indivisibility of His essence.

And John, the Golden-mouthed [Chrysostom], says that it is an essential energy of God to be nowhere — not by not existing, but by being above place, time, and nature.

You, then, will perhaps say that 'being nowhere' too is not [an energy] of the essence, but is itself the essence of God — you, who recognize no difference between essence and energy.

But the divine Maximus says: 'Goodness, and everything comprehended within the concept of goodness, and simply all life and immortality, and whatever is contemplated essentially around God, are works of God and have not begun in time; for the "was not" was never older than virtue, nor than any other of the things mentioned' — even though the things that participate in them have, with respect to those things, begun to be in time.

...is not the essence of God, nor is uncreated goodness [the essence of God], nor the unoriginate and eternal life; for all such things exist not from what belongs to Him in Himself, but from what is around Him.

(...) Moreover, all the holy fathers say in common concerning the uncreated Trinity that it is not possible to find a name signifying the nature, but the names belong to the energies.

For indeed 'divinity/Godhead' [theotes] itself signifies an energy, denoting either 'to run,' or 'to behold,' or 'to burn,' or self-deification.

But that which is above all naming is not identical with that which is named. Therefore essence and energy are not identical in God.

But if the divinity of God properly signifies the energy of God, and these [energies] are, according to you, created, then, according to you, the divinity of God is also created.

But it is not only uncreated but also unoriginate; for He who knows all things before their coming-to-be never began to behold the things that are. Nevertheless, the essence of God, which is above all naming, transcends even this energy, inasmuch as that which so acts [transcends] that which is acted upon, and that which is above naming [transcends] that which is named in this manner.

But such things in no way stand in the way of worshipping one God and one Godhead — just as it does not prevent us from believing in one sun and one light of it, the fact that even the ray is called 'sun.'

You see how precisely we are in agreement with the saints.

But you, who say that the participable things are created — and not only all the works, but also all the powers and energies of God — have a beginning in time and an end: oh, what derangement, and what reckless presumption that dares all things unafraid! You pronounce impious, and subject to excommunication and anathema, those saints who glorify God, in respect of essence, as beyond even the uncreated energies — since, in respect of essence, He transcends every affirmation and every negation. You, then, who speak and think such things, have no way to show that you are not to be numbered among the ill-believers of every age — and this while declaring created not only all the energies and all the works of God, but even the powers of that self-supra-essential nature itself!

And yet this very name, 'essence,' when applied to God, is significative of but one of such powers.

For Dionysius the Areopagite says, (p. [break]

...) 'if we name the supra-essential hiddenness "God," or "life," or "essence," or "light," or "reason [Logos]," we understand nothing other than the deifying, or essence-making, or life-generating, or wisdom-giving powers which are brought forth from it unto us.'

When, therefore, you yourself say that only one thing is unoriginate — the essence of God — you allow us to conceive of only one unoriginate power of God, the essence-making power, while [placing] those besides it under time.

How, then, is the essence-making power of God without beginning, while the life-giving power will have a temporal beginning, as well as the life-generating and wisdom-giving powers?

For either every divine power is unoriginate, or none is.