After which, when the scribes did not believe that he could remit the sins of men, to confound their unbelief, by the word of his power he restrained the members even of that man loosened by the enfeeblement of the palsy, saying: 'Why do you think evil in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, then he said to the paralytic: Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.' In like manner also in that man who, lying vainly for thirty-eight years beside the edge of the pool, had hoped for a medicine from the moving of that water, he showed the munificence of his spontaneous bounty.
For when, wishing to provoke him to the remedies of salvation, he had said to him: 'Will you be made whole?' and when the man complained of the lack of human help and said: 'I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled,' granting pardon to his unbelief and ignorance, he restored him to his former health, not by that way in which he had hoped, but by that which the Lord willed, by his mercy, saying: 'Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.' And what wonder if these things are related to have been wrought by the power of the Lord, when the like was wrought by the divine grace even through his servants?
For when Peter and John were entering the temple, and that man lame from his mother's womb, who was utterly ignorant of walking, asked an alms, they bestowed on him, not the paltry coins which the infirm man was begging, but the offices of walking, and enriched him who hoped for the solace of a very small dole with the rewards of an unlooked-for salvation, Peter saying: 'Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, this I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk.' By these examples, therefore, which we have brought forth from the Gospel;
and by these most evident records, we shall be able to observe that in divers and innumerable modes and by unsearchable ways God procures the salvation of the human race, and that of some indeed who are willing and thirsting he incites the course to a greater ardor, but some even unwilling and reluctant he compels; and now indeed aids that those things may be fulfilled which he has perceived to be usefully desired by us, but now even inspires the very beginnings of holy desire, and grants either the beginning of a good work or its perseverance. Hence it is that in our prayers we proclaim the Lord not only as protector and savior, but also as helper and receiver.
For in that he first calls us and, ignorant and unwilling, draws us to salvation, he is protector and savior; but in that he is wont to bring aid to us when we strive, and to receive and fortify those who take refuge in him, he is named receiver and refuge. Finally, the blessed Apostle, pondering in his mind this manifold bounty of God's dispensation, and perceiving that he had fallen into a certain immense and boundless sea of God's tenderness, exclaimed: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?'
Whoever shall believe that he can measure by human reason the depth of that immeasurable abyss will be attempting to do away with the wonder of this knowledge, at which even that great and mighty teacher of the nations stood in awe. For he who is confident that he can either conceive in his mind or expound in full the dispensations of God, by which He works salvation among men, will beyond doubt, assailing the truth of the Apostle's saying, declare with profane audacity that the judgements of God are searchable and His ways traceable.
Willing therefore to express by a movement of human affection this dispensation and this love of His, which the Lord in His unwearied tenderness deigns to bestow upon us, and finding in this creation no such affection of charity to which He might more worthily compare it, He compared it to the most tender bowels of a devoted mother; and He uses this example indeed because nothing dearer can be found in the nature of men, saying: 'Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?' But not content with this comparison, He at once transcends it and adds, saying: 'And if she should forget, yet will I not forget thee.'
By this it is gathered with clear reason, by those who measure the greatness of grace and the limits of human free will not by wordy talk but with experience as their guide, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the prudent, nor grace to the knowing, but that one and the same Spirit works all these things, dividing to each one as He wills. And therefore it is proved by a faith that does not waver and, so to speak, by palpable experience, that the God of all, like a most loving Father and most kindly physician, works, according to the Apostle, all things indifferently in all; and at one time inspires the beginnings of salvation and implants in each an ardour of good will, at another grants the very effect of the working and the consummation of the virtues:
And now He recalls from ruin those who are already near and headed for a headlong fall, even against their will and without their knowing; now He brings to bear occasions and opportunities of salvation, and holds back rash and violent efforts from deadly designs; and some indeed, willing and running, He receives, while others, unwilling and resisting, He draws along and compels toward a good will. That the whole, however, is granted to us by the Divinity not always when we resist, nor absolutely against our will, and that the sum of our salvation is to be ascribed not to the merit of our own works but to heavenly grace, we are thus taught by the very words of the Lord: 'And you shall remember your ways, and all your wicked deeds, wherewith you were defiled in them:'
'and you shall be displeased with yourselves in your own sight for all your wickednesses which you have done. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have done well unto you for My name's sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your very wicked deeds, O house of Israel.' And therefore this is defined by all the catholic Fathers, who learned perfection of heart not by empty disputation of words but by their very deeds and works, that it belongs first to the divine gift that each one be kindled to desire all that is good, yet so that the choice of free will remains entire in either direction; likewise also that it is of divine grace that the aforesaid exercises of the virtues can be accomplished, yet so that the possibility of free will is not extinguished;
and thirdly, that it also pertains to the gifts of God that the perseverance of acquired virtue be maintained, yet so that the liberty thus bound down does not feel captivity. For the God of all is thus to be believed to work all things in all, so that He incites, protects, and confirms, but not so that He takes away the freedom of the will which He once granted. If indeed anything gathered by human argumentation and reasoning too subtly seems to oppose this understanding, it is rather to be avoided than brought forward to the destruction of faith (for we do not earn faith from understanding, but understanding from faith, as it is written: 'Unless you believe, you shall not understand'), since how both God works all things in us and the whole is to be ascribed to free will,
cannot be fully comprehended by human sense and reason. Having strengthened us with this food, the blessed Chaeremon made us not feel the toil of so pathless a journey. ON SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. THE CHAPTERS. The words of Abba Nesteros on the knowledge of the religious. On grasping the knowledge of spiritual things. That practical perfection subsists by a twofold method. That the practical life branches out into many professions and pursuits. On perseverance in the profession one has taken up. On the instability of the weak. An example of chastity by which it is taught that not all things are to be emulated by all. On spiritual knowledge. That from practical knowledge one advances to the spiritual. On grasping the discipline of true knowledge. On the manifold understanding of the divine Scriptures.
A question: how one may come to the forgetting of worldly songs. An answer: by what means we may wash away the stain of memory. That an unclean soul can neither impart nor perceive spiritual knowledge. An objection concerning the fact that many unclean persons have knowledge and holy ones do not. An answer: that the evil cannot have true knowledge. To whom the account of perfection ought to be opened. For what causes spiritual teaching is unfruitful. That very often even the unworthy receive the grace of the saving word. The order of our promise and of our journey compels that the instruction of Abba Nesteros, a man in all respects illustrious and of the highest knowledge, should follow.
When he had perceived that we had committed some portions of the sacred Scriptures to memory and were desiring an understanding of them, he addressed us with words such as these: 'There are indeed many kinds of knowledge in this world, for their variety is as great as that of the arts and disciplines. But although all of them are either wholly useless or profitable only for the conveniences of the present life, there is nevertheless none which does not have its own proper order and method of teaching, by which it can be attained by those who seek it.
If then those arts are directed toward their own communication by fixed and proper lines, how much more does the discipline and profession of our religion, which tends toward the contemplation of the hidden mysteries of invisible things and seeks not present gains but the recompense of eternal rewards, subsist by a fixed order and method. Its knowledge, indeed, is twofold: the first is πρακτική, that is, practical, which is perfected by the amendment of morals and the purging of vices; the other is θεωρητική, which consists in the contemplation of divine things and the cognition of the most sacred meanings. Whoever therefore desires to arrive at the θεωρητική must of necessity, with all zeal and virtue, first attain the practical knowledge.
For this πρακτική can be possessed without the theoretical, but the theoretical can by no means be grasped without the practical. For there are certain stages so ordered and distinguished that human lowliness may ascend to the height; and if they succeed one another in the manner we have said, one can arrive at the summit, to which, if the first step be removed, one cannot fly across. In vain, therefore, does he tend toward the sight of God who does not shun the contagions of vice; for the Spirit of God hates deceit, and dwells not in a body subject to sins. Now this practical perfection subsists by a twofold method. For its first mode is that the nature of all vices and the method of their cure be known.
The second, that the order of the virtues be so discerned and our mind be so formed by their perfection that it may serve them no longer as though coerced and subjected by a violent command, but may delight in them and be fed as by a natural good, and may ascend that steep and narrow way with delight. For in what manner will he be able to reach either the account of the virtues, which is the second stage in the practical discipline, or the mysteries of spiritual and heavenly things, which stand in the higher stage of contemplation, who has neither been able to understand the nature of his own vices nor striven to extirpate them?
For it will consequently be declared that he cannot advance to loftier things who has not overcome the more level ones, and much less will he grasp those things which are outside him who has not been able to understand those things which are implanted within him. It must be known, however, that we must sweat with a twofold intention of labour, more in expelling vices than in acquiring virtues. And this we take not by our own conjecture, but are fully taught by the saying of Him who alone knows the powers and method of His own workmanship: 'Behold,' He says, 'I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant.' For in the expulsion of harmful things He designated four things to be necessary.
That is, to root out, to pull down, to waste, to destroy; but in the perfecting of virtues and the acquiring of those things which pertain to righteousness, only to build and to plant. Hence it is clearly evident that it is harder to tear up and eradicate the ingrained passions of body and soul than to raise up and plant the spiritual virtues. This πρακτική, therefore, which as has been said subsists by two modes, is divided among many professions and pursuits. For some place the sum of their intention upon the secret places of the desert and upon purity of heart, as in past ages we know Elijah and Elisha, and in our times the blessed Antony and other followers of the same purpose, to have clung most intimately to God through the silence of solitude.
Some have devoted all the care of their zeal to the instruction of the brethren and the vigilant oversight of the monasteries, as we recall Abba John, who lately presided over a great monastery in the vicinity of the city called Thmuis, and not a few men of the same merit, to have shone even with apostolic signs. Some are pleased by the devout service of the guest-house and of hospitality, through which in past ages the patriarch Abraham and Lot pleased the Lord, and lately the blessed Macarius, a man of singular gentleness and patience, who so presided over a guest-house at Alexandria that he is to be believed inferior to none of those who followed the secret places of solitude.
Some, choosing the care of the sick; others, discharging that intercession which is expended on behalf of the wretched and the oppressed; or being intent upon teaching, or bestowing alms upon the poor, have flourished among great and eminent men according to their affection and piety.
Wherefore it is useful and fitting for each one that, according to the purpose which he has chosen or the grace which he has received, he should hasten with the utmost zeal and diligence to attain the perfection of the work he has undertaken, and, while praising and admiring the virtues of others, should by no means depart from the profession he has once chosen, knowing, according to the Apostle, that the body of the Church is indeed one, but the members are many, and that it has different gifts according to the grace that is given to us: whether prophecy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry in ministering, or he that teacheth in teaching, or he that exhorteth in exhortation, he that giveth in simplicity, he that ruleth in solicitude, he that showeth mercy in cheerfulness.
For no members can claim to themselves the ministries of other members, since neither do the eyes use the office of the hands nor the nostrils that of the ears. And therefore, not all are apostles, not all prophets, not all teachers; not all have the grace of healings, not all speak with tongues, not all interpret. For those who are not yet grounded in that profession which they have taken up are wont, when they have heard certain things praised in diverse pursuits and virtues, to be so kindled by their praise that they at once desire to imitate their discipline; in which human frailty of necessity expends fruitless efforts. For it is impossible for one and the same man to shine at once in all the virtues which have been enumerated above.
If anyone should wish to strive after them all alike, it is necessary that he fall into this, that while he follows them all he attains none entirely, and that from this changing and variety he reaps loss rather than profit. For by many ways one tends toward God, and therefore let each one accomplish that which he has once taken up with an unwavering intention of his course, so that he may be perfect in whatever profession. For besides that loss by which we said the monk is struck who out of instability of mind desires to pass over to diverse pursuits, even from this a danger of death is incurred, that not seldom certain things rightly done by some are presumed upon by others as a bad example, and things that had turned out well for some are found ruinous by others.
For, to bring forward something by way of example, as if someone should wish to imitate that virtue of that man which Abba John is accustomed to bring forward not as a pattern for imitation, but only for admiration: for a certain man, coming to the aforesaid elder in secular attire, when he had brought him some first-fruits of his produce, found there a man seized by a most ferocious demon.
When this demon, despising the adjurations and commands of Abba John, testified that it would never depart at his bidding from the body which it had possessed, terrified at the coming of this man it withdrew with a most reverent outcry of that man's name. The elder, marvelling not a little at so evident a grace, and being all the more astonished because he beheld him in secular attire, began carefully to inquire of him the order of his life and profession. And when the man had said that he was a layman and bound by the tie of marriage, the blessed John, pondering in his mind the excellence of his virtue and grace, more attentively explored what manner of conduct might be his.
He testified that he was a countryman and sought his livelihood by daily manual labour, and that he was conscious of no good in himself, except that he never went out in the morning to the labours of the field, nor returned home in the evening, without first having rendered thanks in the church to God, the bestower of it, for the sustenance of his daily life; nor had he ever taken anything of his fruits for his own use without first offering to God the first-fruits and tithes of them; and that he had never led his oxen across the boundary of another's harvest without first having closed their mouths, lest through his carelessness his neighbour should suffer even a little loss.
And when even these things seemed to Abba John not yet adequate to the comparison of so great a grace, by which he perceived the man to be preferred above himself, and when, inquiring, he searched out what that might be which could be conferred with the merits of so great a grace, the man, constrained by the reverence of so anxious an inquiry, confessed that, when he had wished to profess himself a monk, he had, twelve years before, taken a wife compelled by the force and command of his parents; and that, with no one even now aware of it, he had kept her in the place of a sister, as a virgin.
When the elder heard that this had been done, he was moved by such great admiration that he publicly proclaimed before the man himself that not without cause had the demon, which had despised him, been unable to endure the presence of one whose virtue he himself would not dare to attempt—not only in the ardour of youth, but not even now without peril to his chastity. And although Abba John set forth this deed with the highest admiration, yet he exhorted none of the monks to try it, knowing that many things rightly done by some have brought great ruin upon others who imitate them, and that what the Lord had conferred upon a few by a special gift cannot be usurped by all. But let us return to the exposition of that knowledge from which the beginning of our discourse was taken.
And so, as we said above, the πρακτική branches out into many professions and pursuits, but the θεωρητική is divided into two parts, that is, into historical interpretation and spiritual understanding. Whence also Solomon, when he had enumerated the manifold grace of the Church, added: 'For all who are with her are clothed doubly.' Now of spiritual knowledge there are three kinds: tropology, allegory, anagoge, concerning which it is thus said in Proverbs: 'But do thou describe them for thyself in a threefold manner upon the breadth of thy heart.' And so history embraces the acknowledgement of past and visible things, which is thus recapitulated by the Apostle:
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and the other by the free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the free woman, by promise. Now to allegory pertain the things that follow, since the things that were done in truth are said to have prefigured the form of another mystery. 'For these,' he says, 'are the two testaments, the one indeed from Mount Sinai, engendering unto bondage, which is Agar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is compared to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.' But anagoge, ascending from spiritual mysteries to certain loftier and more sacred secrets of the heavens, is thus subjoined by the Apostle:
But that Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written: 'Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband.' Tropology is the moral explanation pertaining to the amendment of life and to practical instruction, as if we should understand these same two testaments to be the πρακτική and the theoretical discipline; or if indeed we should wish to take Jerusalem or Sion as the soul of man, according to that: 'Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Sion.' Thus the aforesaid four figures flow together into one, if we wish, so that one and the same Jerusalem can be understood in four ways:
according to history, the city of the Jews; according to allegory, the Church of Christ; according to anagoge, that heavenly city of God which is the mother of us all; according to tropology, the soul of man, which under this name is frequently either rebuked or praised by the Lord. Concerning these four kinds of interpretation the blessed Apostle thus speaks: 'But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either in revelation, or in knowledge, or in prophecy, or in doctrine?' For revelation pertains to allegory, through which the things that the historical narrative covers over are unlocked by a spiritual sense and exposition:
as, for example, if we should attempt to open up that passage, how our fathers were all under the cloud, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and how all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink from the following rock, and the rock was Christ. This exposition, compared to the prefiguration of the body and blood of Christ which we daily receive, contains the account of allegory. But knowledge, which is likewise mentioned by the Apostle, is tropology, by which, in prudent examination, we discern all things that pertain to practical discretion, whether they be useful or honourable:
as is that, when we are commanded to judge among ourselves whether it be becoming for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled. This account, as has been said, contains a moral understanding. Likewise prophecy, which the Apostle set in the third place, sounds of anagoge, through which the discourse is transferred to invisible and future things, as is that: 'But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them who have slept through Jesus will God bring with Him.'
'For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive at the coming of the Lord shall not go before them who have slept in Christ; for the Lord Himself, at the command, at the voice of an archangel and at the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first.' Under which kind of exhortation the figure of anagoge is set forth. But doctrine unfolds the simple order of historical exposition, in which no more hidden meaning is contained than what resounds in the words, as is that: 'For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, and that He was seen of Cephas, and:'
'God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them who were under the law'; or that: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord.' Wherefore, if it is your care to arrive at the light of spiritual knowledge not by the vice of empty boasting but for the sake of purification, be first inflamed with the desire of that beatitude of which it is said: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' that you may also be able to arrive at that of which the angel says to Daniel: 'But they that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that instruct many unto righteousness, as stars for perpetual eternities'; and in another prophet: 'Enlighten for yourselves the light of knowledge while there is time.'
Holding therefore that diligence of reading which I perceive you to have, hasten with all zeal to grasp completely, as soon as possible, the practical, that is, the ethical discipline. For without this, that theoretical purity of which we have spoken cannot be grasped, which only those who are made perfect not by the words of others teaching them, but by the virtue of their own deeds, obtain as though for a reward after many rewards of works and labours. For gaining understanding not from the meditation of the law but from the fruit of work, they sing with the psalmist: 'From Thy commandments I have understood'; and, having boiled away all their passions, they say confidently: 'I will sing, and I will understand in the undefiled way.'
For he shall understand what is sung, singing, who leans upon the undefiled way with the step of a pure heart. And therefore, if you wish to prepare in your heart a sacred tabernacle of spiritual knowledge, purge yourselves from the contagion of all vices and strip yourselves of the cares of the present world. For it is impossible for a soul which is occupied even lightly by worldly distractions to earn the gift of knowledge, or to become a bearer of spiritual meanings or a retainer of the sacred readings. Observe therefore first of all, and especially thou, John, whom your still more youthful age favours for the keeping of these things which I am about to say, that the zeal of reading and the labour of your desire be not made void by empty pride, so that you impose the highest silence upon your mouth.