Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1 part 2/21

For this reason, when the true Light was manifested, the Law became better than itself, its hidden beauty having been made clear; but not so the wisdom of the Greeks. For, having a folly lying concealed beneath a certain elegance and eloquence and persuasiveness of speech, once its shamefulness was uncovered it became yet more shameful, and was justly named "folly" — not folly in the sense of surpassing [understanding], as being beyond comprehension (for that would be the ineffable name proper to the wisdom of God), but folly in the sense of falling short of the truth—

—of knowledge — [folly] which, though it fell short of the end befitting human wisdom, did not thereby fall short of clinging to falsehood as though it were truth, and of attempting to slander the truth as though it were falsehood, and of raising up creation against the Creator — whose work it is even now to raise up the Scriptures of the Spirit against the Spirit himself and against spiritual works and men. Therefore the foolish philosophy of those wise men outside [the Church] is not perceptive of, nor proclamatory of, the wisdom of God.

For how could it, seeing that through it the world did not come to know God?

But if Paul says elsewhere that, "having known God, they did not glorify him as God," the disciple of peace does not contradict himself — he who is the heir of that supra-cosmic peace given within us by Christ alone.

"But they came," he says, "to a certain notion of God — yet not the notion befitting God; for they did not glorify him as all-wise, nor as almighty, nor as all-seeing, nor even simply as without beginning and uncreated."

But not merely so — they also enacted laws and composed treatises (alas for the passion, alas for the deceit!) that are confederates with demons and advocates for the passions.

Do you see that the philosophy of the worldly philosophers has its folly from the very beginning and of itself, and did not receive it merely by comparison [with something higher]?

He, then, who rejected it from heaven at that time, as having fallen from the truth, and who has now come to the earth, has justly made it foolish, insofar as it sets itself against the simplicity of the evangelical proclamation. Wherefore, if anyone again applies his mind to it—

—as one about to be guided by it toward the knowledge of God, or to obtain purification of soul, this very thing happens to him, and he is made foolish while [thinking himself] wise.

And a clear proof of undergoing this is, first of all, the failure to accept in faith the traditions which we have received in simplicity from the holy Fathers, knowing them to be better and wiser than human examination and invention could produce, and manifested through works rather than demonstrated through arguments; and this all those know and will bear witness to together, who have not merely accepted them but have also reaped by experience the benefit derived from them, and have known for themselves, in deed, that the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

But this, then, is one and the first sufficient proof concerning those wise men who have been made foolish.

The second and greater [proof] is that the power of foolish and despised reasoning marshals itself against those who receive those [traditions] with simplicity of heart, and — following those who overlooked [the truth] and raised up creation against the Creator — [this power] likewise disregards the sayings of the Spirit, and sets itself against the mystical energies of the Spirit that are worked through them, beyond what reason [can grasp], in those who live according to the Spirit.

"And whoever," says Plato, "arrives at poetic composition without the inspiration of demons, is himself imperfect, and so is his poetry; and the poetry of the sane man is eclipsed by that of the mad."

And he himself [Plato], through the mouth of Timaeus, about to philosophize concerning the nature of the cosmos, prays that he may say nothing that is not pleasing to the gods.

But the philosophy that is dear to demons — how could it be [a philosophy] of God?

And Socrates had a demon as his companion, into whose mysteries he was, no doubt, initiated; and it was perhaps by this demon that he was attested as most excellent in wisdom.

And Homer urges a god to sing through him the man-slaying wrath of Achilles, offering himself for the demon to use as an instrument, and referring the cause of his own wisdom and eloquence back to it.

But for Hesiod it was not enough to be energized by a single demon, since he was [regarded as] a poet of theology; wherefore he draws to himself nine at once — now from Pieria, now from Helicon — and quite fittingly so; for, when a laurel of Helicon was given to him by them as he tended his sheep upon the mountain, having eaten of it, he was filled with wisdom of every kind.

"To one man one god, to another a different god, granted a share of his own might."

And another becomes a witness to himself, saying, "I have learned all things by the god-declaring Muse."

And another, concerning his own soul, prays — alas! — that the whole choir of the Muses might dance through it: so that perhaps by Heptapora, daughter of Pierus, he might learn the seven zones and the seven wandering stars and all that pertains to them; and by Urania, daughter of Zeus, all the rest of astrology; and by the remaining [Muses], who likewise oversee the things below, all that is upon the earth.

What then do you say — shall we affirm that those who speak so plainly of themselves in such terms possess the wisdom of God?

No — not so long as we remain ourselves, and servants of true wisdom, which does not enter a soul that is given to evil arts and beloved of demons; and even if it should have already entered, once the soul has changed for the worse, it flies away.

"For the holy Spirit of discipline will withdraw itself from thoughts without understanding" — according to Solomon, who was blessed with a share of God's wisdom, and—

—who also wrote concerning it.

For we are not now speaking simply about philosophy in whatever we say, but about the philosophy of such men.

For if, according to Paul, no one can drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, how could anyone possess the wisdom of God and be inspired by demons?

This is not so, it is not so.

For even though Paul does say somewhere that the world did not know God through the wisdom of God, he did not thereby call "the wisdom of God" the wisdom that had arisen in those unwise men reputed to be wise — far from it! — but rather the wisdom implanted by the Creator in His creatures, which whoever recognizes as a messenger of God comes to know the God who is proclaimed through it, and has true knowledge of the things that are, and knows the wisdom of God in another way, having become one who recognizes the wisdom of God.

For, says the great Dionysius, true philosophers ought, through the knowledge of beings, to be led up to the cause of beings.

If then the true philosopher is led up to the cause, one who is not so led is not true, nor does he possess wisdom, but as it were a deceptive image of true wisdom, and a privation of wisdom, but not wisdom.

How then could one rightly call the privation of wisdom "the wisdom of God"?

Moreover, the demonic mind, insofar as it is mind, is good, but insofar as it misuses itself, is evil; and though it knows the measures of the world, the courses and conjunctions and determinations of the moving heavenly bodies, better than we do, yet since it does not use its knowledge in a manner pleasing to God, it is a mind that has become mindless and darkened.

In the same manner, then, the wisdom of the Greeks too, through the wisdom of God present in the creatures —

— according to which He made the corruption of one thing the generation of another — this Greek wisdom, attempting to show that God is not the Lord of all things nor the Creator of the universe, because it does not perceive that nothing whatsoever comes to be out of that which in no way at all exists, and thus having cast off the reverence due to the truly existing God, and having, according to the great Dionysius himself, made unholy use of things divine, and having on this account become foolish and unwise — how could this be the wisdom of God?

Therefore Paul also, showing us here a twofold kind of wisdom, says: "In the wisdom of God, through wisdom the world did not know God."

Do you see that he called the one "the wisdom of God," but the other "mere wisdom" and the cause of not knowing God?

And this latter is the wisdom devised by the Greeks, other than that of God — made manifest by the doubling of the name "wisdom."

But we speak the wisdom of God; are they, then, in agreement with him, or is he in agreement with them?

By no means; wherefore he himself, forbidding this, says: "We speak wisdom of God among the mature, wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away, which none of the rulers of this age has known."

And this wisdom is in us, in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.

But that other wisdom was not in them, but in the creatures investigated by them, the reasons of which they sought throughout their lives, and by which they came, in a certain way, to some notion of God — nature and creation furnishing no small occasions for this, while the demons, in their demonic way, did not prevent it; for how could they have been thought to be gods, if the notion of God had in no way entered the human mind?

Therefore they did indeed come to a notion of God by examining the nature of sensible things, but not a notion that was worthy and fitting to the

blessed nature; for their senseless heart was darkened by the evil demons who initiate men through evil devices; for how could these have been thought gods, and how would they have been believed as they taught polytheism, if a worthy notion of God had appeared to their understanding?

— capable of receiving the human soul, and holding the demons to be greater than us and to be creators — oh, our impiety! — and co-eternal with God, uncreated and without beginning — not only matter and, as they themselves say, the soul of the whole cosmos, and the souls of noetic beings not bound up with the density of body, but even our own souls as well.

Shall we say that those who have philosophized thus possess the wisdom of God?

Or wisdom at all — human wisdom, that is?

May none of us ever go so mad as to say this.

For, reasoning within myself, I do not think it right even to call that wisdom "human," since it is so inconsistent with itself as to call the same things both animate and inanimate, both rational and irrational, and to say that things which by nature have no capacity whatsoever for perception, nor possess any organ at all for such a power, are capable of receiving our souls.

But if Paul somewhere calls this "human wisdom" (for he says, "my preaching was not in persuasive words of human wisdom," and again, "we speak not in words taught by" —

But I also hear the father who says: "Woe to the body, when it does not take in the food from without; and woe to the soul, when it does not receive the grace from above."

For the one, if it passes over into inanimate things, will perish; but the other, if it turns aside from what is fitting, will be carried away together with demonic lives and mindsets.

But if someone says that this philosophy, because it is natural, was given by God, he speaks truly and does not contradict us; nor does he thereby exempt from blame those who have used it badly and brought it to an end contrary to nature; rather, let him know that he even increases their condemnation, since they did not make godly use of what came from God.

Moreover, the demonic mind, being made by God, has thinking by nature; but we will not say that its operation is from God, even though it has from God the capacity to operate; wherefore this operation would rightly be called derangement rather than intelligence.

Thus, then, the mind of the pagan philosophers too, being a divine gift, possessing innate rational wisdom, but having been turned aside by the suggestions of the evil one, transformed it into a foolish, wicked, and mindless wisdom, as one that upholds such doctrines.

But if someone should say again that even the desire and knowledge of demons is not altogether evil — for they desire to be, and to live, and to think — first indeed —

— he will justly hear this in reply from us again: it is not just to be displeased with us for calling, together with the Brother of God, the wisdom among the Greeks "demonic," as being full of strife and containing almost every base doctrine — since indeed it has fallen away from its own proper end, namely the knowledge of God; for even so it has a share in the good only by the faintest and most remote echo.

Furthermore, we require this man also to consider that nothing is evil insofar as it exists in itself, but rather it has fallen away from its fitting and proper operation and from the end of that operation.

What then is the work and end of those who seek the wisdom of God in creatures?

Is it not the acquisition of truth, and the giving of glory to the Creator?

But the knowledge of the pagan philosophers has failed in both respects.

But is there perhaps also something useful for us in it?

If you examine it, you would see that all, or most, of the terrible heresies have taken their origins from here — including these "icon-knowers," who say that man receives the "according to the image" from knowledge, and that through it the soul is formed according to God.

— spoken concerning Cain, you would not rightly apply it, if you do not rightly divide it.

But to divide rightly belongs, reasonably, to few — and only to those who have the senses of the soul trained for the discernment of good and evil.

What need is there, then, to risk oneself in vain, especially when it is possible to behold the wisdom of God in creatures not only without danger, but even profitably?

For a life free of care, on account of hope in God, naturally moves the soul toward the contemplation of God's creatures; and the soul is struck with wonder as it attends to and penetrates deeply into this, and it remains glorifying the Creator, and through this wonder it is led by the hand toward greater things. For, according to St Isaac, it encounters treasures that cannot be expressed by the tongue, and, using prayer as a kind of key, it slips through by means of it into those mysteries which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man — mysteries manifested to the worthy through the Spirit alone, as Paul says.

Do you see the shortest, most profitable, and safest path, leading to those very transcendent and heavenly treasures?

But with regard to secular wisdom, one must first kill the serpent, casting down the pride that has accrued to you from it (how great a difficulty this is! for, as they say, the arrogance of philosophy is a monstrous thing to humble); yet having cast it down, one must next divide it and throw away both head and tail, as extreme and unmixed evils — namely, the clearly erroneous opinion concerning noetic and divine things and first principles, and the mythologizing concerning created things.

But the middle part — that is, the discourses concerning nature — just as pharmacists purify the flesh of serpents by fire and water, boiling it, so too must one purify these by the examining and contemplative faculty of the soul, separating them from the harmful

Nevertheless, even if you do all this, and make good use of what has been well discerned (and how great a task this is, and how much discernment it requires!), still, even if you make good use of the part of secular wisdom that has been well taken hold of, this would not be an evil — for it is naturally suited to become an instrument toward some good — but even so it could not properly be called a gift of God, that is, a spiritual gift, since it is natural and not sent down from above.

Therefore Paul, wise indeed in divine things if anyone was, calls it "fleshly," saying: "Consider your calling, that not many are wise according to the flesh."

And yet who could make better use of this wisdom than those whom Paul calls "the wise ones from outside"?

Yet nevertheless, insofar as it pertains to this wisdom, he names them wise "according to the flesh" — and rightly so.

For just as the pleasure attending child-bearing in lawful marriage would by no means be called a divine gift of God — since it is fleshly and a gift of nature, not of grace, even though God made nature — so too the knowledge that comes from secular education, even if one makes good use of it, belongs to nature, but the gift is not of grace, being given by God through nature commonly to all, and being brought to increase through diligent effort; and this too is clear proof that it is a natural and not a spiritual gift: that it comes to no one at all without zeal and diligent effort.

And this natural wisdom is said to have belonged also to Adam, if to any of those after him, even though he was the very first of all not to have preserved the "according to the image."

And, again, the secular philosophy that assists this natural wisdom is found to have existed before the descent of Him who, through Himself, recalled the soul back to its original beauty.

How then were we not renewed by it before Christ, but both they and all men had need — not of one teaching philosophy, an art that is dissolved together with this age (wherefore it is also called "of this age") — but of Him who takes away the sin of the world and provides a wisdom that is true and everlasting — even though it is folly to those who are wise for a time and perishing, not merely seeming so, but actually making foolish, by its own absence, those who do not attend their mind to it?

Do you see clearly that it is not the learning of secular education that saves, purifies the cognitive faculty of the soul, and assimilates it to the divine archetype?

Therefore I shall bring a fitting conclusion to the discourse concerning it.

If anyone turns back to the legal observances, thinking he will be set right by them, Christ will profit him nothing — even though those observances were indeed once given by God as law, which cannot be said of the adoption of secular learning; how much more, then, if anyone turns back again to the philosophy of the outside world that has been condemned, thinking that by it his soul will be purified, Christ will profit him nothing.

It is Paul, the mouth of Christ, who says this there and bears witness together with us here.

Say these things, brother, to those who exalt secular wisdom more than is fitting.

And besides this, show them, through the chapters written below, how it was considered vain and worthy of contempt by our holy fathers, especially by those who had come to have experience of it.

For as I listened to you resolving my difficulties, I marveled at the manifest clarity of the truth; yet this thought crept into my mind: since, as you yourself have said, every argument contends against another argument, might there not again be some counter-argument to what has been said by you?

But since I have come to know that the testimony given through deeds alone is beyond dispute, and since I have heard the saints saying the same things as you, I no longer fear anything of the kind.

For he who does not believe these, how could he himself be trustworthy?

And how would he not be rejecting the God of the saints?

For it is His own word, spoken to the apostles and, through them, to the saints who came after them: "He who rejects you rejects Me" — which is to say, the very Truth itself.

How then could one who is opposed to the truth be accepted by those who seek the truth?

Therefore I beg you, father, to listen to me as I recount, one by one, the other objections that I have heard from those men who have pursued Greek learning throughout their lives, and to tell me your own opinions concerning these things, and also to add the views of the saints on these matters.

For they say that we do wrong in striving to enclose our mind within the body; for they say that, on the contrary, it must by every means be driven out, away from the body.

Wherefore they also greatly deride certain of our own brethren, writing against them, as men who counsel beginners to look upon themselves and, by means of the breath, to send their own mind inward,

— saying that the mind is not separate from the soul.

How then could one send inward again that which is not separate, but already indwelling?

I have suspected that he maliciously attacks others as well; for it belongs to the same men both to fabricate against men things that are not true, and to twist maliciously the things that are true.

Brother, do you not hear the Apostle saying that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, and again that we are the house of God, as God himself also says: 'I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and will be their God'?

That which by nature is fitted to become a dwelling-place of God — how could anyone possessed of mind think it unworthy to settle his own mind therein?

And how did God himself, in the beginning, settle the mind in the body?

Did he too, then, act badly?

Such words, brother, would befit heretics to utter, who say that the body is evil and the fashioning of the Evil One.

But we hold that the mind is evil when it dwells in bodily mindsets, but not evil when it is in the body, since the body itself is not evil either.

Wherefore, together with David, each of those who cling to God throughout their life cries out to God: 'My soul thirsted for you; how greatly my flesh longed for you'; and, 'my heart and my flesh exulted in the living God'; and together with Isaiah: 'my belly shall sound like a harp, and my inward parts as a wall of bronze which you renewed; and because of fear of you, O Lord, we conceived in the womb the Spirit of your salvation, in whom trusting we shall not fall, but they shall fall who speak out of the earth and falsely accuse the heavenly words and ways of being earthly.'

For even if the Apostle calls the body 'death' — as when he says, 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' — this is because the material and bodily mindset is, in truth, thoroughly body-like; and so, comparing this to the spiritual and divine, he rightly called it 'body,' and not simply 'body,' but 'the death of the body.' And this he shows more clearly a little above, namely that he blames not the flesh, but the sinful impulse that entered in through transgression: 'I am sold,' he says, 'under sin'; but he who is sold is not by nature a slave.

And again: 'I know that in me' — that is, in my flesh — 'dwells nothing good.'

Do you see that he says it is not the flesh, but that which dwells within it, that is evil?

This, then — the law that is present in our members and wages war against the law of the mind — [this it is that] dwells in the body as evil, and not the mind.

For this reason we, arraying ourselves against this law of sin, expel it from the body and install therein the oversight of the mind; and through this oversight we legislate for each faculty of the soul, and for each of the body's members, what is fitting: for the senses, what and to what extent must be perceived — and this work of the law is called self-control (enkrateia); for the passible part of the soul we produce the best disposition — and this has received the name of love; and through this same oversight we also improve the rational faculty, sending away everything that opposes the intellect's turning back toward God — and this portion of the law we call watchfulness (nepsis).

And one who, through self-control, has purified his own body, and through divine love has made incensive power and desire an occasion for the virtues, and through prayer has presented to God a mind made utterly pure, acquires and beholds within himself the grace promised to those who are pure in heart.

And then he would also be able to say, together with Paul, that 'God, who said that light should shine out of darkness...'

'...has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and we have,' he says, 'this treasure in earthen vessels.'

If, then, we possess the paternal light, in the face of Jesus Christ, for knowing the glory of the Holy Spirit — as it were in earthen vessels, namely our bodies — shall we, in keeping our own mind within the body, act unworthily of the mind's greatness of nature?

And who would say this — not to speak of a spiritual man, but even one whose mind, though still a human mind, is stripped bare of divine grace?

Since, moreover, our soul is a thing possessed of many powers, and it employs as an instrument the body that is naturally fitted to live in accordance with it, by what [organs], used as instruments, does this power of the soul which we call mind operate?

But indeed no one has ever supposed that the intellect dwells in the fingernails, or in the eyelids, nor indeed in the nostrils or the lips; rather, all agree that it is within us; but some have disputed as to which of our internal [organs] it employs first as its instrument.

For some establish it, as upon a citadel, in the brain; while others assign to it the innermost part of the heart, and the purest vehicle of the psychic spirit that resides there.

But we ourselves know precisely — though [we know] that it is neither within, as in a vessel (for it is incorporeal), nor outside (for it is joined to the body) — that our rational faculty is in the heart, as in an instrument; having been taught this not by man, but by him who formed man himself, who, showing that it is not the things that enter but the things that go out through the mouth that defile a man, says: 'for out of the heart come forth thoughts.'

This, then, is also what the great Macarius [says]...

'The heart,' he says, 'governs the whole organism; and when grace has taken possession of the pastures of the heart, it reigns over all the thoughts and members; for there the mind is, and all the thoughts of the soul.'

Our heart, therefore, is the storehouse of the rational faculty, and the first bodily organ of reasoning.

If, then, we are eager to inspect and correct our rational faculty with exact watchfulness, by what means could we inspect it, unless we gather our mind — which has been poured out through the senses to the outside — and lead it back within, to that very heart, the storehouse of the thoughts?

For this reason the well-named Macarius, following shortly after what was said by him above, says: 'There, then, one must look, to see whether grace has inscribed the laws of the Spirit.'

In the governing organ, in the throne of grace, where the mind and all the thoughts of the soul are — that is, in the heart.

Do you see how most necessary it is for those who have chosen to attend to themselves in stillness to lead the mind back and enclose it within the body, and especially within that innermost body within the body which we call the heart?

And if, according to the Psalmist, 'all the glory of the King's daughter is within,' how shall we seek it somewhere outside?

And if, according to the Apostle, God has given his Spirit crying in our hearts, 'Abba, Father,' how shall we not pray together with the Spirit within them?

And if, according to the Lord of the prophets and apostles, the kingdom of heaven is within us, how could he who makes it his earnest business to lead his mind out of the things within himself not also find himself outside the kingdom of heaven?

'An upright heart,' says Solomon, 'seeks perception' — which he elsewhere calls noetic and divine — toward which the fathers exhort all...

...exhorting: 'The mind,' they say, 'is altogether noetic, and it is clothed about with noetic perception' — which, being both in us and not in us, let us not cease to seek.

Do you see that, whether one is eager to withstand sin, or to acquire virtue, or to find the prize of the contest of virtue — or rather, the pledge of the prize of virtue, namely noetic perception — it is necessary to lead the mind back within both the body and oneself?

But to place the mind outside — not outside the bodily mindset, but outside the body itself — so that it might there meet with noetic visions, is the very stronghold of the Hellenic delusion, and the root and source of every false opinion, an invention and teaching of demons, generative of folly and offspring of madness.

Wherefore also those who speak under the inspiration of demons are beside themselves, not even understanding this very thing that they say.

But we send the mind not only within the body and the heart, but even, once more, within its very self.

Let those, then, bring their accusation who say: since [the mind] is not separated but present within the soul, how could one again send the mind within?

For they do not know, it seems, that the essence of the mind is one thing, and its energy another; or rather, knowing it well enough, they have willingly ranged themselves with the deceivers, sophistically exploiting the ambiguity of the term.

For, not accepting the simplicity of spiritual teaching, those sharpened by dialectic for disputations — according to the great Basil — overturn the strength of truth by the plausible arguments of sophisms, arising from the oppositions of the falsely-named knowledge.