問答疑難 第 1 章 第 8/9 段

Such persons, then, shall not enter into the house of the Lord until the third and fourth and tenth generation, and even forever — that is, whoever does not, through good settled state and practice (for this is the third and fourth generation of the virtues), and through the name and faith of the Lord Jesus, and through the ten commandments of the law, and through the regeneration that is to be in the age to come, make himself akin to God, shall not enter into the house of God, that is, into the heavenly city, in which is the dwelling of all who rejoice.

QUESTION 1. Why in the world is one who is leprous in part unclean according to the law, while one who is wholly leprous is clean? ANSWER: One who is leprous in only a part has, dead, that part in which the leprosy is;

for as the living blood withdraws, the place becomes hollow, and when, at the touch of the priest, the hollowing of the leprosy showed itself, it defiled such a person;

so too, one who has become leprous in a part of his soul, the soul having been hollowed — that is, brought low through the withdrawal of the living power of virtue — becomes unclean.

But the one who is wholly leprous has the color of a leper, yet has the living blood scattered on the surface throughout the whole body.

This, then, signifies that one who has come to the utmost limit of evil, and then, having repented, recovers the living power of virtue, has only his conscience colored by his former preconceptions;

for he cannot reckon the things he has done as though he had not done them;

for this reason, then, the law declares such a person clean.

QUESTION 1. Why in the world did Ham stumble, yet Canaan was cursed? And if one takes the sense of Scripture according to the letter, righteous Noah will appear unjust in this, bringing the curse upon one man when another had sinned;

and moreover, if Canaan was cursed, it would altogether follow that the race descended from him should also be cursed; yet we find that his race, more than the others, ran to the faith of Christ.

We find everywhere that God, and all the saints, contend against evil, and curse it.

Since, then, evil first takes its genesis in man according to settled state, and from this the sin according to operation proceeds, reasonably Canaan, as characterizing the sin according to operation, has met with the curse.

But if you wish to consider this also solely according to the movement of the soul — that which, in the compound of both, I mean of body and soul, is a settled state that has not proceeded to completion, this same thing is an operation in the soul alone.

ANSWER: Providence, then, is the care that comes from God toward existing things;

Providence is the will of God, through which all things that exist receive their fitting administration.

ANSWER: He appeared to Abraham through an angel, to Moses through fire in the bush, to Isaiah through the seraphim, to Ezekiel through the cherubim;

all these have testified that they saw him in different ways.

VARIANT B OF THE QUESTIONS-AND-ANSWERS ⟨A⟩ QUESTION 2. What is the meaning of, 'Behold now, what is good or what is pleasant, but for brothers to dwell together'? ANSWER. According to the plain sense: whenever they are of one faith, behold, that is the good;

and whenever they are also in harmony in their works, behold, that is the pleasant.

But understand 'brothers dwelling together' to mean the three powers of the soul, or the soul and the body, whenever they are in harmony concerning the knowledge of divine things and concerning good deeds;

for whenever they act well, behold, that is the good;

and whenever the knowledge also is in harmony, behold, that is the pleasant.

⟨A⟩ QUESTION 2. What is the meaning of, 'Like ointment upon the head, running down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down upon the hem of his garment'?

ANSWER: The ointment is the Holy Spirit; the head is the mind; and the beard is reason;

for reason encompasses the heart.

And the beard of Aaron is the reason that slays the passions and offers up the virtues to God as a sacred rite.

And the grace of the Spirit descends also upon the hem of the garment, that is, it is imparted through the practical life also unto moral philosophy;

for the hem of the garment is the limit.

QUESTION 2. What is the meaning of, 'Like the dew of Hermon that descends upon the mountains of Zion'?

ANSWER: The mountains of Zion are the saints who gaze upon the lofty things;

upon these descends the dew of Hermon.

And Hermon is interpreted 'turning-away of beasts.' And they say that the river Jordan is born there;

and through these it signifies the grace of holy baptism;

for this always descends upon the saints, and through it comes about the turning-away of the intelligible beasts.

'For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore.'

ANSWER: For the grace given through holy baptism is the pledge both of all good things and of everlasting life, of which may we become partakers by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For it is properly of him that 'non-being' is said, since he is none of the things that exist.

'Is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven?' ANSWER: It is easier, he says, for the crooked nation of the Gentiles — for this is the camel — to enter through the narrow and constricted passage, which is the eye of the needle, into the kingdom of heaven, than for the people of the Jews, who have the law and the prophets;

And just as the needle falls into two slits and produces one opening, so also our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the needle, joined together the two peoples, making, according to the Apostle, both one.

But also he who through self-control has made himself slender and spun thin enters more easily through the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven than the rich man who is forever fattening himself with the table and with human glory.

But the last generation, since it had received knowledge both of the written law and of the spiritual law, for this reason is not held fast by a long span of life.

'According to the image of God and likeness'; and further on it says, 'And God made man; according to the image of God he made him,' and omitted 'according to the likeness.' ANSWER: Since God's first purpose was that man should come to be according to the image of God and likeness, and since 'according to the image' is incorruptibility, immortality, invisibility — which things depict the divine — these he gave the soul to possess, and together with them he gave it also self-mastery and self-determination, all of which are images of the essence of God.

But 'according to the likeness' is dispassion, gentleness, long-suffering, and the rest of the marks of God's goodness, all of which represent the operations of God.

Therefore, the things belonging to his essence, which manifest 'according to the image,' he gave to the soul by nature;

but those that characterize the likeness he left to our self-determining gnomic will, awaiting the outcome of man — whether he would somehow render himself like God through imitation of the God-befitting marks of virtue;

for this reason, then, the divine Scripture omitted 'according to the likeness' in what was said afterward.

⟨A⟩ TO THEOPEMPTOS THE SCHOLASTIKOS, who had asked concerning the unjust judge, and concerning 'if anyone strikes you on the right cheek,' and concerning 'Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.'

For those to whom the Word is the object of worship, for them also a rightly-ordered life is a revealer of the Word;

so that, having received the experience of practice as a seal of true knowledge, they may learn, from what they have rightly undergone, how much greater than knowing what a thing is, is the becoming it;

and more than this, ever more and more, until their unwavering affinity toward the Cause should be brought to perfection in them, circumscribing motion by rest, and desire by the immutability of the gnomic will;

to whom also, deification according to grace is given in return as the prize of the sacred and God-formed conduct of this life.

Directing your own life toward these things most wisely, O God-guarded master, you are eager to seek that which, through divine goodness, lies open before all, yet through its infinity eludes all;

on the one hand, so that it may draw them to itself, goading desire by the ineffable quality of its beauty;

and on the other, so that it may restrain that desire, checking satiety — which is the father of insolence and the offspring of dissipation — by the astonishment at its transcendent, infinite and divine superiority, for those who do not foresee the flaming sword stationed and turning with the Cherubim, aimed at none other than those who turn toward virtue without fear;

whence, extending together moderation with the greatness of your progress toward what is good, by which also you increase your advance the more, with safety;

you have deemed me, unknown and lowly as I am, worthy to come to know that by which nature was furnished with the manner proper to it;

I mean the sense of the written word, which comprehends things absent, and manifests things unseen;

handing over to the understanding, and joining to it, as much of what was formerly unknown to sense-perception, as, through being inscribed by it, it itself is thickened, becoming embodied;

by which you have also led my nothingness to a greater desire of you, in that you have incorporeally stirred a vision of your own self in me;

having shown beforehand that it, the written word, in both these respects, possesses an equal share concerning reason rather more than the advantages which others have concerning you — namely, the grace of speech beyond others;

by which, being adorned throughout your life, ⟨==⟩ how you were ever eager to lead my dim sight to contemplation — and this concerning sacred discourses too — whose approach is beyond what belongs to a man who has not yet perfectly transcended the nature and coming-to-be of unstable and extended things;

much less me, who am willingly mingled with the refuse of these things, and who, like a worm, wallow in the corruption of unclean passions, and take delight in them.

Nevertheless, for the sake of obedience, and in honor of your love, daring to speak things beyond my worth, I shall say those things concerning which you commanded;

conjecturally, but not assertively.

This text is taken from the Patrology of [ ], volume 76 (it was typed by the mother of P[ ]

Arsenios Meskos), collated against the text of the editions 'TO BYZANTION' of the series 'GREGORIOS PALAMAS,' Thessaloniki, PHILOKALIA OF THE WATCHFUL AND ASCETIC FATHERS, volume A.

[I say] that the unjust judge in the Gospel is, and is spoken of parabolically as, our own thought, which from the beginning, as a result of the transgression, has rendered its judgment unjustly;

in that it did not receive the commandment of the Creator;

but chose the counsel of the corrupter;

from which it also preferred, by far, to be earthy, rather than to be in the true sense, and rather than to become god.

And he says the city of this judge is sense-perception, or the visible world;

resting irrationally upon these according to mere attachment, ⟨A⟩ he exchanged true dwelling for a sojourning;

neither fearing God, nor indeed respecting man — the very God who became man for our sake;

and this, on account of contempt;

neither foreseeing the greatness of the judgments, nor being restrained from that torment which, for the present, God's goodness, awaiting a change of heart, holds back;

in which he has willfully scattered himself about, having misused, contrary to what was fitting, the self-determining honor given by the Creator for the accomplishment of his proper duties;

having judged the apparent good, which was not lawful, more choiceworthy than the truly conceived good.

And he says the widow who troubles him is the rational soul, inasmuch as it does not have, for the bearing of fruit in sacred and holy works, the reason that sows what is good according to nature.

the judge being held only by this wholehearted affection and disposition toward her;

but not attending to her because of his turning away, and the self-chosen inclination toward the things here below.

And he says the adversary of this — I mean of the soul — is the material motion and mindset of the wretched flesh, through which the unclean demons are eager to defile the beauty, and to dim the translucence, of the divine image in us and of the dignity that belongs to it, whenever, falling upon us through pleasure, they shall terribly bring in upon us the shames and passions of dishonor;

on account of which things also death was pronounced against nature, since nature had not chosen, from the beginning, to delight fully in the truly good life.

And he says the 'blows' are the exhortatory chastisements from conscience, together with a certain inward voice, by which, when offered from the soul, the sternness of thought — otherwise unyielding toward the good on account of a more long-standing habitus — is accustomed gently to be bent, not enduring the torment lurking within, ⟨==⟩ and, as it were, continually afflicting and harassing it;

until, through self-control and the voluntary ⟨A⟩ mortification of the members of the flesh, the passions that ravage the soul are themselves ravaged.

Then he might also lead us to a kinship with this discourse through piety, and to a more perfect zeal for the better things — comparing, to those powers at work in us by nature, his own paternal gifts — he, our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who is above being and nature: "But God," he says, "will surely execute your vengeance" — through me having been made flesh, and effecting the deposition of the destroyer of nature.

Thus, then, I have gone through the matters concerning this briefly, to the extent that the available measure of understanding sufficed;

even though others, understanding the passage otherwise, [have taken it differently];

while others, on the contrary, have taken it to refer to the Antichrist.

But is the vengeance, then, greater than the Father?

Or is it through another, and altogether different one, apart from the Son?

And how does it say, in a comparative sense, concerning the very same one: "But God," it says, "will not execute your vengeance"?

Or will he altogether be shown to be different, and, together with his nature, unable to do the like?

and for this reason, then, not being ranked together with it;

but only imaging, as one set above it, that which surpasses it.

But as for the objection that it is inadmissible and impossible for the inventor and teacher of evil to do what is good;

for a rotten tree, it says, cannot produce good fruit;

but vengeance is good, as is duly warding off the annoyance of the one who presses in aggressively;

or is the Father — which is not lawful — perhaps to be compared to this one, [the Father] who through the Son, and this the only-begotten Son, equal in nature and goodness, is the provider of all virtue and life?

and being to that which in no way exists at all?

And I do not say these things toward the refutation of those views;

for I hold to, and cling to, life more than to the teaching of those who assert such things;

but rather, on account of extreme timidity, securing what is proper and moderate to myself.

But it is not fitting for me, on account of my inexperience in these matters, to regulate the reading of "buffet [my body]," but rather for those who have been trained and have chosen instruction with zeal;

who say that this word ought to be marked rather with the grave accent than with the circumflex, and say also that none of the verbs takes a circumflex except when it arises from the contraction of a grave-accented form, as in "I understand," and "I make," and "I gild," and however many are of that sort, which keep the same accent on the same syllable even when a preposition is prefixed.

The right cheek — I mean the right action, that is, as much as the life divinely established in us through the commandments displays — being struck by the evil one through the presumptuous preconception born of the good deed being performed;

and, by the blow of the self-conceit that thence results, being somehow inflamed through vainglory, and lifted up in pride against those who have perhaps not acquired an equal portion of these things;

on account of which it is fitting to turn, as it were, another and as-it-were left cheek — namely the life which formerly already defiled us according to the deceit of this age — and to be struck continually by this, through memory;

and to draw ourselves in and be moderate as sinners, rather than to be lifted up as saints, and, through pride, to fall — since we do not have humility as a sacred foundation.

But let it also be honored together with the things received according to contemplation;

or rather, even before these, as these things are accomplished bodily also, for holy preparation and prior purification, on account of the Lord who commanded them;

granting thereby to those who succeed in it a settled state of attachment, and setting a limit to the unbelief of the one who strikes, by restraining, through the readiness of one's acceptance, the eagerness of the blow — the striker perhaps feeling shame, if nothing else, at the surpassing degree of the other's submission;

and that the one who is able to resist in no way resists, but is restrained on account of what is thereby being brought about.

"Touch me not" was said by the Lord to Mary Magdalene, who supposed him to be the gardener;

the mystery making clear and intimating that every intellectual soul, not yet having risen above its connatural tent, is for this reason in no way at all different from garden vegetables that exist only amid generation and corruption;

for equal in both is the flowing and the ebbing, and the circumscription and cycle of time;

supposing the Word to be [only] a craftsman, on account of his procession and condescension concerning, and only as far as, these things;

she has proven unworthy of contact with him according to the Spirit, and this while seeking him among the things that appear;

knowing him only as having become flesh for our sake;

but not fittingly knowing him also as God begotten of God the Father.

For this is what "I have not yet ascended to my Father" plausibly suggests we understand: that the soul so disposed has not been raised up through the utmost theology and faith, by which the nature of visible things is transcended;

but still needing, in a pedagogical manner, for a more complete comprehension of this, to run back up, as it were to a certain Galilee, through contemplation, to the revelatory settled state of divine things;

and, together with the inner principles previously prefigured and set forth by him, to be wholly embraced, as is lawful, and to become as much as he himself, who became what we are, was shown to have become — except for sin alone — even as we too become like him, differing only in nature, whenever we attain to the gift;

which gift, now awaited through hope, and duly adorned with fitting works of the commandments — mayest thou enjoy as much as thou hast believed, and delight in as much as thou hast labored;

or rather, more — infinitely more — by as much as the giver of this gift has, in a manner above being, surpassed both the motion of nature and the compass of every age.

Unto the end: the present psalm is entitled "For those who are to be changed," both because of the change and alteration in gnomic will and choice that came upon human beings at the end of the times, through the sojourn of Christ — from unbelief to faith, and from vice to virtue, and from ignorance to the knowledge of God; and because of the universal, natural change and renewal in grace of the whole human race, which is to come afterward, at the end of the ages, through our Savior God himself — from death and corruption to immortal life and incorruption, through the resurrection that is awaited.

And "for instruction": when he set fire to Mesopotamia and Syria of Zobah.

For he alone, being the true king of Israel and of him who sees God, as the destroyer of all vice and ignorance and the victor over all time and nature — through which vice is naturally constituted in us — set fire to Mesopotamia, having conversed with us through flesh; that is, the settled state of vice belonging to the flesh, which is flooded by passions contrary to nature; and Syria of Zobah, that is, the disposition enslaved to time, or rather deceived by this age;

for Zobah is interpreted as "seven," and this clearly signifies the property belonging to time;

for without the things that are under nature and time, it is altogether unable to make war against human beings.

"And Joab returned, and struck the Valley of Salt, twelve thousand men."

Now the Valley of Salt is the flesh, having become a place of dishonorable passions through disobedience, in which, as in a valley, every pious and God-loving person, through reason and contemplation, strikes down nature and time — that is, the irrational preconception of the soul concerning them — in no way abiding, on account of the height of virtue and knowledge, by the laws of those who are under nature and time.

For the number twelve signifies nature and time. [The text derives from the Patrology of —, collated against the text of the "To Vyzantion" editions in the series "Gregorios ho Palamas," Thessaloniki, Philokalia of the Neptic and Ascetic Fathers, volume A.]

since nature is fivefold on account of the senses, while time is sevenfold, as is evident to all; and by adding five to seven, one would clearly complete the number twelve;

for every power of the soul, when moved contrary to nature, is naturally disposed to become entangled with sensible things.

Whenever, then, reason and spiritedness and desire — being three in number, the generic powers of the soul — are overcome by the sensible things, which are four in number, this produces the number twelve;

for four multiplied by three, and three by four, when combined, fulfill this number, which the one who faithfully adheres to the Lord and nobly excels against every unseen and hostile spirit destroys;

for the inscription upon a pillar signifies the proclamation of right achievements, according to those interpreters skilled in such names.

"O God, you have cast us off, and cast us down; you were angered, and had compassion on us."

God cast us off, when, not having kept the commandment from the beginning, we were shown unworthy of converse with him face to face;

he cast us down, when, because of our wickedness, he estranged us from the height of the glory in Paradise;

he was angered, when, for the punishment and chastisement of our wickedness, he subjected us to the penalty of death;

he had mercy on us, when, through his only-begotten Son, God the Word, who was made flesh and took upon himself the debt owed on behalf of us all, he redeemed us from death and led us back again into his own glory.

"You shook the earth, and troubled it;

heal its breaches, for it has been shaken."

He shook our earth and troubled it, that is, our heart, by giving us the sword of the Spirit, which discerningly distinguishes the worse from the better, and rouses the law of the Spirit against the law of the flesh, and creates in us the praiseworthy warfare against the passions, and shakes together the persistence of the passions in us, and troubles the conscience over its improper preconceived memories;

and he heals the breaches of our heart, which, having been shaken and having slipped through disobedience, it suffered from the beginning, from the transgression in Paradise, through the spiritual regeneration that comes in grace.

"You have shown your people hard things;

you have made us drink the wine of compunction;

you have given to those who fear you a banner, that they might flee from before the bow, so that your beloved might be delivered."

He gives to drink the wine of compunction, that is, granting the knowledge that follows, according to spiritual contemplation, upon the purification through the practical life;

for all spiritual knowledge pierces the heart, bringing it to a perception of the greatness of the divine benefits bestowed upon us;

teaching those who fear him to carry Jesus about in the body, according to which the complete cessation of sin from action is constituted;

for the true banner is the power, which through the cross puts to death the mind-set of the flesh.

Concerning "to flee from before the bow."

That is, from the deceptive surface that appears in the things that exist.

For the face of the bow — I mean, of each demonic passion — is the surface of bodies that irritates the sense-perception, wounding perception like the barb of an arrow, and unfittingly stirring the soul toward the passions.

For the bow of sin, without a face, would perhaps accomplish nothing at all against those who fear the Lord.

Concerning the fact that the beloved of God are delivered.

The beloved of God are the thoughts which, according to contemplation, sustain the divine knowledge — thoughts which the modes of the virtues established according to the practical life deliver from all error and from all the memories that trouble the soul by anticipating sin.

Save with your right hand, and hear me.

God has spoken in his Holy One.

I will exult, and will divide Shechem, and will measure out the valley of the tabernacles.

God saves with his right hand, giving his only-begotten Son; for the Son is the right hand of the Father, a ransom for the salvation of the world.

And he hearkens, giving to the righteous, besides the remission of sins, spiritual gifts as well. For God hears the one who entreats him: first he gives remission of sins through repentance, and then he hearkens by giving, besides the remission of sins, also the operations that come through spiritual grace.

He speaks in his Holy One — that is, in his incarnate Word — his divine purpose, hidden from the ages and from the generations, according to the incarnate economy of Christ himself, crying out, as it were, explicitly through his human-befitting conduct among us, and giving to our life, as a pattern of eternal life, an image louder than any voice: the display of good works.

And he also speaks in each saint who keeps his commandments, showing, as it were, his words to be living through their works, and louder than every voice.

The righteous one exults when, having been perfected by the grace of the Only-begotten, he becomes able to "divide Shechem" — that is, to prescribe to others, each according to his measure, out of experienced knowledge, the manly modes of the virtues in the practical life.

For "Shechem" is interpreted "shouldering," which is the settled state that restrains all the passions and produces all the virtues; for they say the shoulder is a symbol of action.

And he measures out the valley of the Tabernacles, apportioning to each of the beings, according to the contemplation of nature, the principles that are fitting to it.

For the valley of the Tabernacles is the present world, in which, for all, according to each one's differing gnomic will and disposition, the present life is unstable and transient, after the manner of tents.

Or again, the tabernacles of the present valley are the modes of the virtues, which he divides, with understanding, to those being taught, giving to each a training and a safeguarding of what is precious suited to his settled state — he who knows how to apportion to each, through good teaching, the way that is fitting for salvation.

Or the tabernacles of the valley are the Churches of the believing nations, established through Christ our Savior and God throughout the whole inhabited world — which interpretation, I think, is even more evident than the others.

Or again, he "measures out the valley of the Tabernacles" who comprehends, by knowledge, the world of bodies as a valley of tents.

For in many places of Scripture the body has been called a "tent."

Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of my head.

Gilead, according to one of the interpretations of this name, means "revelation"; and Manasseh is interpreted "forgetfulness."

Revelation and forgetfulness fittingly befall the righteous man: revelation, in that he receives through contemplation initiation into the hidden mysteries; and forgetfulness of the labors of virtue, because of the joy of spiritual contemplation that succeeds those labors.

Ephraim is interpreted "enlargement," which is the unfaltering hope, in accordance with faith, for the good things to come — and this is the support of the righteous man's head, that is, of his faith.

For faith is the head of every righteous man, and of every good work, and the sure support of that faith is the unfaltering hope of the good things to come.

By this hope, beholding the things to come as though present, we are enlarged amid our afflictions, remaining unshaken in our trials.

Judah is my king; Moab is the pot of my hope.

Judah is interpreted "confession."

For confession offered through prayers is, among the saints, the beginning of every good thing.

I confess to you, Holy Father.

Moab is interpreted "the father's belly," and is understood to mean our body, through which, according to the practical philosophy, the cleansing of sins naturally takes place, after the manner of a bath — which is clearly signified by the "pot."

For the "pot of hope" is cleansing, that is, the readiness, through a life of purification, for the inheritance of the goods laid up for us according to our hopes.