Institutes & Conferences 1 part 26/44

For this is the first entrance of the practical discipline: that you receive the instructions and maxims of all the elders with an intent heart and, as it were, a mute mouth, and diligently storing them in your breast, hasten rather to fulfil them than to teach them. For from the former the pernicious presumption of vainglory springs up, but from the latter the fruits of spiritual knowledge will sprout forth. And so dare to bring forward nothing in the conference of the elders, except what either harmful ignorance or the account of necessary knowledge shall impel you to inquire, since some, distended by love of vainglory, feign to inquire, for the sake of display of their learning, those things which they know perfectly well.

For it is impossible for him who, with the aim of acquiring human praise, applies himself to the zeal of reading, to earn the gift of true knowledge. For he who is bound by this passion must needs be entangled also in other vices, and especially in those of pride; and thus, laid low in the practical and ethical contest, he will by no means attain the spiritual knowledge which is born from it. Be therefore in all things swift to hear, but slow to speak, lest that fall upon you which is noted by Solomon: 'If thou see a man swift in words, know that a fool hath more hope than he'; nor presume to teach anyone by words what you have not first done by work.

For our Lord instructed us that we ought to hold this order even by His own examples, of whom it is thus said: 'the things which Jesus began to do and to teach.' Beware therefore lest, springing forward to teach before the deed, you be reckoned in the number of those concerning whom the Lord speaks to His disciples in the Gospel: 'What they say to you, observe and do; but according to their works do not; for they say, and do not. And they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them upon men's shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with their finger.'

For if he who, loosing one least commandment, shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, then he who, neglecting many and greater things, presumes to teach, it consequently follows that he should be held not now least in the kingdom of heaven, but greatest in the torment of Gehenna. And therefore you must beware lest you be incited to teach by the examples of those who, having attained skill in disputing and abundance of speech, because they can discourse elegantly and copiously on what they will, are believed to possess spiritual knowledge by those who do not know how to discern its force and quality.

For it is one thing to have fluency of mouth and elegance of speech, and another to enter into the veins and marrow of the heavenly sayings and to contemplate the deep and hidden mysteries with the purest eye of the heart—which no human teaching nor worldly erudition, but only purity of mind through the illumination of the Spirit, shall possess. You must therefore hasten, if you would arrive at the true knowledge of the Scriptures, first to attain an immovable humility of heart, which may lead you not to that knowledge which puffs up, but to that which enlightens, by the consummation of charity. For it is impossible for an unclean mind to obtain the gift of spiritual knowledge.

And therefore avoid with all caution, lest through the zeal of reading there be born in you not the light of knowledge nor that perpetual glory which is promised through the illumination of doctrine, but rather instruments of perdition out of the vanity of arrogance. Then you must strive in every way that, having expelled all solicitude and earthly thought, you may present yourself assiduously, or rather continually, to sacred reading, until continual meditation imbue your mind and form it as it were into its own likeness, making of it in a manner an ark of the testament, having namely within it two stone tablets, that is, the perpetual firmness of the twofold Testament:

Also the golden urn, that is, a pure and sincere memory, which preserves within itself with perpetual tenacity the hidden manna, namely the everlasting and heavenly sweetness of spiritual understandings and of that angelic bread; and likewise the rod of Aaron, that is, the saving standard of our supreme and true High Priest Jesus Christ, ever putting forth leaves in the greenness of immortal memory. For this is the rod which, after it was cut from the root of Jesse and put to death, grows green again. Now all these things are protected by two Cherubim, that is, by the fullness of historical and of spiritual knowledge; for Cherubim is interpreted as a multitude of knowledge:

which will continually protect the mercy-seat of God, that is, the tranquillity of your breast, and will overshadow it from all the assaults of spiritual wickednesses. And thus your mind, advanced not only into the ark of the divine covenant but even into a priestly kingdom through an indissoluble love of purity, and as it were absorbed by spiritual disciplines, will fulfil that priestly command which is enjoined by the Lawgiver in these words: «And he shall not go out from the holy things, lest he defile the sanctuary of God» — that is, his heart, in which the Lord promises that He will dwell continually, saying: «I will dwell in them and walk among them.» Wherefore the series of the sacred Scriptures must be diligently committed to memory and unceasingly gone over again.

For this constancy of meditation will confer on us a twofold fruit: first, that while the mind's attention is occupied in reading and preparing lessons, it necessarily cannot be taken captive by any snares of harmful thoughts; and second, that those things which, run through by very frequent repetition, we were unable — with our minds bound at the time — to understand while we labored to commit them to memory, we afterward, freed from all the enticements of deeds and sights, and especially in the silent meditation of the night, turning them over, behold more clearly, so that to us at rest, and as it were plunged into the stupor of sleep, the understanding of the most hidden meanings is revealed — meanings which, while awake, we did not grasp even by the faintest surmise.

But as the renewal of our mind increases through this pursuit, the very face of the Scriptures also begins to be renewed, and the beauty of a more sacred understanding somehow advances together with the one who advances. For according to the capacity of human perceptions their appearance also is fitted, and will appear either earthly to the carnal or divine to the spiritual, so that those to whom it before seemed wrapped in certain thick mists can neither grasp its subtlety nor endure its brilliance. But that this very thing which we strive to assert may be unfolded more clearly by some example, let it suffice to have brought forward a single testimony of the Law, through which we may prove that all the heavenly precepts also are extended to the whole race of men according to the measure of our condition.

It is written in the Law: «Thou shalt not commit fornication.» By the man still bound by the passions of carnal obscenities this is wholesomely kept according to the simple sound of the letter. But by him who has already departed from this filthy action and impure affection it must needs be observed in the same way spiritually — namely, that he depart not only from the ceremonies of idols, but also from all superstition of the heathen and of auguries and omens, and from the observation of all signs and of days and seasons, and that at any rate he not be entangled by the conjectures of certain words or names which pollute the sincerity of our faith.

For by this fornication Jerusalem too is said to have been defiled, she «who committed fornication on every high hill and under every leafy tree,» and whom the Lord again rebuking through the prophet says: «Let the astrologers of heaven stand and save thee, who gazed at the stars and counted the months, that from them they might announce the things to come upon thee.» Concerning this fornication the Lord elsewhere accusing them says: «The spirit of fornication has deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.» But whoever has departed from this twofold fornication will have a third to avoid, which is contained in the superstitions of the Law and of Judaism. Of these the Apostle says: «Ye observe days and months and seasons and years»; and again:

«Touch not, taste not, handle not.» That these things were said of the superstitions of the Law there is no doubt, into which if anyone should fall, having beyond doubt committed adultery, he does not deserve to hear from the Apostle concerning Christ: «For I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ»; but rather that will be directed to him which follows in the voice of the same Apostle: «But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus.» But if he has escaped the uncleanness of this fornication also, he will have a fourth, which is perpetrated by the adultery of heretical doctrine. Concerning this the same blessed Apostle says:

«I know that after my departure grievous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.» And whoever has been able to shun this too, let him beware lest by a subtler sin he fall into the vice of fornication, which consists namely in the wandering of thoughts; for every thought that is not only shameful but even idle, and that departs from God in however small a degree, is reckoned to the perfect man as most impure fornication. At these words I, moved first by a hidden compunction and then groaning heavily, said: All these things which you have most abundantly set forth have brought upon me greater heaps of despair than I have hitherto borne:

for besides those general captivities of the soul by which I do not doubt that all the weak are assailed from without, a special hindrance to salvation comes to me through that acquaintance with letters which I seem lightly to have touched, in which the diligence of my teacher or the constant application of reading has so steeped me that now my mind, as if infected by those poetic songs, even at the time of prayer meditates upon those trifles of fables and stories of wars with which it was imbued from a little child in the first rudiments of study; and while I am singing psalms or supplicating for pardon of my sins, either the shameless memory of poems suggests itself, or the image as of battling heroes plays before my eyes, and the imagination of such phantasms, forever deluding me, does not allow my mind so to aspire to supernal contemplations that it cannot be driven off by daily weeping.

NESTEROS: From this very thing, whence the greatest despair of your cleansing arises, an ample and effective remedy will be able to spring up, if you are willing to transfer that same diligence and application which you say you had in those worldly studies to the reading and meditation of the spiritual Scriptures. For your mind must needs be occupied with those songs only so long as it does not seek for itself with like zeal and assiduity other things which it may ponder within itself, and bring forth spiritual and divine things in place of those unfruitful and earthly ones. When it has deeply and profoundly conceived these and been nourished in them, the former can either be gradually expelled or utterly abolished.

For the human mind cannot be empty of all thoughts, and therefore, so long as it is not occupied with spiritual pursuits, it necessarily is entangled in those things which it learned long ago. For as long as it has nothing to which it may resort and wherein it may exercise its tireless movements, it necessarily sinks back to those things with which it was imbued from infancy, and forever turns over what it conceived by long use and meditation. Therefore, that this spiritual knowledge may be strengthened in you with perpetual solidity, and that you may not enjoy it merely for a time like those who possess it not by their own study,

but by another's report attain it, and, so to speak, perceive it as by a mere airy scent — but that it may be stored up, engrafted as it were into your very senses, and beheld and handled, this you must guard with all diligence: that even if you should chance to hear things you know very well brought forward in a conference, you do not receive them disdainfully and fastidiously on the ground that they are already known to you, but commend them to your heart with that eagerness with which the desirable words of salvation ought either to be poured unceasingly into our ears or continually brought forth from our mouth.

For although the frequent narration of holy things be applied, yet satiety will never breed loathing in a soul that endures the thirst for true knowledge; but receiving them daily as if new and desired, the more frequently it drinks them in, the more eagerly it will either hear or speak, and it will take from their repetition rather a confirmation of the knowledge received than any disgust from frequent conference. For it is an evident sign of a lukewarm and proud mind if it receives the medicine of the words of salvation fastidiously and negligently, though administered with the zeal of very great assiduity; for «the soul that is in satiety mocks at honeycombs, but to the hungry soul even bitter things seem sweet.»

If therefore these things be diligently received and stored up in the recess of the mind and sealed by unbroken silence, afterward, like certain sweet-smelling wines that gladden the heart of man, when they have been matured by the hoariness of the senses and mellowed by the age of patience, they will be brought forth from the vessel of your breast with great fragrance of themselves, and like a perennial fountain will overflow from the veins of experience and the wide channels of the virtues, and will pour forth continual streams as from a certain abyss of your heart. For there will come to pass in you that which is said in the Proverbs to him who has fulfilled these things in his work: «Drink water from thine own vessels, and from the fountain of thine own wells.»

«Let thy waters overflow from thy fountain, and let thy waters pass abroad into thy streets»; and according to the prophet Isaiah, «Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a fountain of waters whose waters shall not fail. And the deserts of ages shall be built up in thee: thou shalt raise up the foundations of generation and generation; and thou shalt be called a builder of the hedges, turning the paths into rest.» For that blessedness will come to you which the same prophet promises: «And the Lord will not cause thy teacher to fly away from thee any more; and thine eyes shall see thy instructor. And thine ears shall hear the word of one admonishing behind thy back: This is the way, walk ye in it, neither to the right hand nor to the left.»

And thus it will come to pass that not only every direction and meditation of your heart, but even all the wanderings and rovings of your thoughts, shall become for you a holy and unceasing rumination of the divine law. But it is impossible, as we said before, for anyone inexperienced either to recognize these things or to teach them. For he who is not even capable of receiving them, how shall he be fit to hand them on?

Yet even if he should presume to teach anything of these matters, his word, ineffectual and useless beyond doubt, will reach only as far as the ears of his hearers, but cannot penetrate their heart, betrayed by the sloth of his works and the unfruitfulness of his own emptiness, because it is not brought forth from the treasure of a good conscience, but from the empty presumption of boastfulness. For it is impossible for an unclean soul, however much it sweats with the assiduity of reading, to attain spiritual knowledge. For no one pours some noble ointment, or the best honey, or anything of precious liquid, into a foul and corrupt vessel.

For a pot once steeped in horrid stenches more easily contaminates even the most fragrant myrrh than it conceives from it any sweetness or grace, because clean things are corrupted far more quickly than corrupt things are cleansed. So therefore also the vessel of our breast, unless it be first purged from every most foul contagion of vices, will not deserve to receive that ointment of blessing of which it is said through the prophet: «Like the ointment upon the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the fringe of his garment»; nor will it keep unpolluted that spiritual knowledge and the eloquences of the Scriptures, which are «sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.» For «what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity?»

«Or what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial?» GERMANUS: This definition does not seem to us to be supported by truth at all, nor to rest upon any probable reasoning. For since it is manifest that all who either by no means receive the faith of Christ or corrupt it by the impious perversity of dogmas are of an unclean heart, how is it that many of the Jews and heretics, and even of catholics who are involved in various vices, having attained a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, glory in the greatness of spiritual doctrine, while on the contrary an innumerable multitude of holy men, whose heart is purged from all contagion of sins, content with the simple piety of faith, are ignorant of the mysteries of a deeper knowledge?

How therefore will that opinion stand which attributes spiritual knowledge to purity of heart alone? NESTEROS: He does not rightly examine the force of a definition who does not weigh diligently all the words of the sentence propounded. For we said beforehand that men of this kind have only the skill of disputing and the ornament of eloquence, but cannot enter the veins of the Scriptures and the secrets of spiritual meanings. For true knowledge is possessed only by the true worshippers of God, which that people assuredly does not have to whom it is said: «Hear, O foolish people, that hast no heart; who having eyes see not, and ears, and hear not»; and again: «Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I also will reject thee, that thou mayest not fulfil for me the office of the priesthood.»

For since in Christ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are said to be hidden, how is he to be believed to have attained true knowledge who has scorned to find Christ, or who blasphemes with sacrilegious mouth Him whom he has found, or who at any rate pollutes the catholic faith with unclean works? For «the spirit of God will flee from what is feigned, nor does it dwell in a body subject to sins.» There is therefore no other way to come to spiritual knowledge except this order, which one of the prophets elegantly expressed: «Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, reap the hope of life, kindle for yourselves the light of knowledge.»

First, then, we must sow unto righteousness, that is, that we may propagate actual perfection by works of righteousness; next, we must reap the hope of life, that is, the fruits of spiritual virtues to be gathered by the expulsion of carnal vices; and thus we shall be able to kindle for ourselves the light of knowledge. This order the psalmist also decrees must be kept, saying: «Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that search his testimonies.» For he did not first say, «Blessed are they that search his testimonies,» and afterward add, «Blessed are the undefiled in the way,» but first he said:

«Blessed are the undefiled in the way,» thereby evidently showing that no one can rightly come to search out the testimonies of God unless he first walk undefiled in the way of Christ by an actual manner of life. Those, therefore, whom you mentioned possess not that knowledge which the unclean cannot have, but a pseudonymos — that is, a falsely-named — knowledge, concerning which the blessed Apostle says: «O Timothy, keep the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words and the oppositions of falsely-named knowledge,» which in Greek is called «tas antitheseis tes pseudonymou gnoseos.»

Concerning those, therefore, who seem to acquire a certain image of knowledge, or concerning those who, though they diligently apply themselves to the reading of the sacred volumes and to the memory of the Scriptures, yet do not forsake carnal vices, it is elegantly expressed in the Proverbs: «As a golden ring in a swine's snout, so is the beauty of an ill-mannered woman.» For what does it profit anyone to obtain the ornament of the heavenly eloquences and that most precious beauty of the Scriptures, if by cleaving to filthy deeds or perceptions he shatters it, as it were, by subjugating it like the most unclean earth, or pollutes it in the miry wallowings of his own lusts?

For it will come to pass that what is wont to be an adornment to those who use it rightly cannot only fail to adorn such men, but even becomes soiled with the filth of a greater mire. For «out of the mouth of a sinner praise is not comely,» to whom it is said through the prophet: «Why dost thou declare my justifications, and take my covenant into thy mouth?» Concerning souls of this kind, which by no means steadfastly possessing the fear of the Lord (of which it is said: «The fear of the Lord is discipline and wisdom») yet strive to acquire the sense of the Scriptures by their constant meditation, it is quite fittingly recorded in the Proverbs: «What good were riches to the fool? For a senseless man cannot possess wisdom.»

But so far is this true and spiritual knowledge removed from that secular erudition which is polluted by the filth of carnal vices, that we know it has sometimes flourished admirably in certain men who lack eloquence and are almost unlettered. This is most evidently proved in the apostles and in many holy men also, who were not swollen with the empty luxuriance of leaves, but bowed down with the true fruits of spiritual knowledge; concerning whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: «But seeing the constancy of Peter and John, and having ascertained that they were men without letters and unlearned, they marvelled.»

And therefore, if it is your care to attain to its unfading fragrance, labor first with all your efforts to obtain from the Lord the purity of chastity. For no one in whom the affection of carnal passions, and especially of fornication, still holds dominion will be able to possess spiritual knowledge. For «wisdom shall rest in a good heart,» and «he that fears the Lord shall find knowledge with righteousness.» But that spiritual knowledge is reached in the order which we have described, the blessed Apostle also teaches. For when he wished not only to weave a catalogue of all his virtues, but also to set forth their order, so as to express which followed which, or which gave birth to which, after some words he added, saying:

«in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned.» By which conjoining of virtues he most evidently wished to instruct us that we come from watchings and fastings to chastity, from chastity to knowledge, from knowledge to long-suffering, from long-suffering to sweetness, from sweetness to the Holy Spirit, and from the Holy Spirit to the rewards of unfeigned love.

When therefore by this discipline and this order you too shall have come to spiritual knowledge, you will have beyond doubt, as we have said, a doctrine not barren nor inert, but living and fruitful; and the seed of the saving word which shall have been commended by you to the hearts of your hearers, the ensuing most abundant shower of the Holy Spirit will make fertile; and according to that which the prophet promised, «rain shall be given to thy seed, wheresoever thou shalt sow in the land; and the bread of the fruits of thy land shall be for thee most plentiful and rich.»

Beware also lest, when a riper age has advanced you to teaching, seduced by love of vainglory you thrust these things — which you have learned not so much by reading as by the sweat of experience — indiscriminately upon unclean men, and incur that which the most wise Solomon forbade: «Apply not thy poverty to the pastures of the righteous, neither be seduced by the fullness of thy belly. For delights profit not a fool, nor is there need of wisdom where sense is lacking. For he is the more led into folly, because the hard servant will not be corrected by words; for even if he understand, he will not obey.» And: «Speak nothing in the ears of the imprudent, lest perchance he mock at thy wise words.» And:

«Give not what is holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest perchance they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.» It behoves you therefore effectively to sing to men of this kind the sacraments of spiritual meanings while concealing them: «In my heart have I hidden thy words, that I may not sin against thee.» But perhaps you will say: And to whom are the sacraments of the divine Scriptures to be dispensed? The most wise Solomon teaches you:

«Give,» he says, «strong drink to them that are in sorrow, and wine to drink to them that are in griefs, that they may forget their poverty, and remember their sorrows no more» — that is, to those who are weighed down with mourning and sadness for repentance of former deeds, pour abundantly the joy of spiritual knowledge like wine, «which gladdens the heart of man,» and refresh them with the intoxication of the saving word, lest perchance those who are such, plunged by the constancy of mourning and by deadly despair, be swallowed up by too abundant sadness. But concerning those who, established in lukewarmness and negligence, are stung by no grief of their own heart, it is thus said: «For he who is smooth and without grief shall be in want.»

With all the caution you can, therefore, avoid, lest, puffed up with love of vainglory, you be unable to be a partaker of him whom the prophet praises, «who hath not given his money to usury.» For everyone who dispenses the eloquences of God (of which it is said: «The eloquences of the Lord are chaste eloquences: silver tried by the fire, proved for the earth, purified seven times») out of love of human praise, lends his money to usury, deserving for this not only no praise, but even punishments. For on this account he preferred to squander the Lord's money, that from it he himself might obtain a temporal reward, and not that the Lord, as it is written, coming might receive back what is his own with usury. Now it is agreed that the doctrine of spiritual things is ineffectual from two causes.

For either he who teaches, commending things he has not experienced, strives to instruct his hearer with an empty sound of words; or else the wicked hearer, filled with vices, does not receive with his hardened heart the salutary and holy doctrine of the spiritual man: concerning whom it is said through the prophet: «For the heart of this people is blinded, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.»