為神聖靜修者辯護 第 1 章 第 4/21 段

'Basil the Cappadocian,' he says, 'strengthens human knowledge by study and exercise, but the knowledge that comes into being from the grace of God, by righteousness and mercy; and while the former can be received even by those who are subject to passions, of the latter only the passionless are capable of receiving, who also, at the time of prayer, behold the mind's own radiance shining around them.'

Do you understand clearly, brother, that the mind, freed from the passions, during prayer sees itself as light and is illumined round about by divine light?

Now, then, lending an obedient ear once more, listen also (p.

) to [the words of] Macarius, so aptly named, whom Neilos, greatly versed in divine things, called a 'vessel of election,' who says in the Chapters translated by the Metaphrast: 'The perfect illumination of the Spirit is not merely a revelation of concepts, but a stable and continuous illumination in the souls of a hypostatic light; for the saying, "God who said that light should shine out of darkness, who has shined in our hearts," and "Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death," and "Send forth Your light and Your truth; let them lead me to Your holy mountain," and "The light of Your countenance has been signed upon us," and all things similar to these, establish the same thing.'

He said 'hypostatic' in order to stop the mouths of those who think that knowledge alone is illumination, and who pervert the understanding of the many — and before all others their own — misinterpreting, by transferring into 'knowledge,' whatever anyone might say concerning that light.

But I know that knowledge too is called 'light,' derivatively, from that [true Light], as being supplied by it — which I also said above.

For this reason, no one has ever called the perception that comes from the senses 'light,' even though it is knowledge, and in some cases the most certain [knowledge], but only that which comes from the mind and is rational.

For we see nothing possessing the power of reason that is not a noetic light.

For the angels too are, as it were, immaterial and incorporeal fire; and what else is this but noetic light?

And the mind, seeing itself, sees itself as light; what, then, is it too, if not that it sees itself as a noetic light?

And God Himself, who is beyond every noetic light and who has transcended all essence in a supra-essential manner, being called 'fire' by the sacred theologians, has — corresponding to the dim image of fire among sensible things — that which is hidden and unbeheld in Himself, when there is no matter set before [Him] (p.

) capable of receiving the divine manifestation; but whenever He takes hold of suitable matter that possesses [this capacity] unveiled — and such is every purified noetic nature, not bearing the covering of evil — then He too is seen as noetic light, as we have shown, and shall show, through the very saints who both experienced and saw the brightness of God.

Just as fire, if it is covered by non-transparent matter, can heat it but does not illumine it, so too the mind, when it has lying upon it the murky covering of evil passions, may be able to provide knowledge, but not also light.

But since the mind is not only a light contemplated by mind — even though it is the last of those things seen in this manner — but is also contemplative, being, as it were, an eye of the soul (for, he says, the mind that is connatural to the soul is its 'sight'); just as the sense-faculty of sight would not come into actuality unless light shone upon it from without, so too the mind, though possessing noetic perception, would not see, and would not come of itself into actuality, unless the divine light had shone around it.

And just as sight, when it is in operation, itself becomes light and comes to be together with the light, and this very thing it sees first, poured around all visible things, in the same way the mind too, whenever it arrives at the full actuality of noetic perception, becomes itself wholly, as it were, light, and is with the light, and together with the light it knowingly sees the light — not only beyond the bodily senses, but beyond everything that is known to us, and simply beyond all beings whatsoever.

For those purified in heart see God, according to the Lord's own truthful beatitude, who, being light, according to the most theological utterance of John, the son of thunder, dwells in and manifests Himself to those who love Him and are loved by Him, according to His promise to them; and He manifests Himself as in a mirror to the purified mind, while remaining in Himself invisible.

) the form in the mirror: the appearing [form] is not itself directly seen, and it is nearly impossible both to see [the reflection] in the mirror and, at the same time, to see that which is producing the mirror's image.

Now, in this way, God is seen by those purified in love; but then, he says, [it will be seen] face to face.

Those who, because they have not experienced the divine things nor seen them, do not at all believe that God is seen as a light beyond light, but [think that] He is contemplated only rationally, are like the blind, who, perceiving only the sun's heat, disbelieve those who see that the sun is also bright.

And if the blind even attempt to teach otherwise those who do see — [insisting] that the sun, the brightest of all sensible things, is not light — these [blind ones] will be laughable to those who see with the senses.

But those who suffer similarly with regard to the sun of righteousness enthroned above the whole universe will be lamented not only by those who truly see in a noetic manner, but also by those who believe those who see — not only because, while God, through the excess of His goodness toward us, condescends invisibly (exalted above all, ungraspable and ineffable as He is) to become participable and contemplable by the mind, according to His supra-essential and inalienable power, they themselves remain without love toward that self-evident and self-known love, but also because, unwilling to follow the saints who, out of love for mankind, lead men by their words toward that light, they hurl themselves down over precipices and attempt to drag down with them those who are persuaded by them — so that, presumably, they may have companions when, according to Gregory the Theologian, they see as fire Him whom they did not recognize, nor believe to be, light.

But indeed that fire is also dark, or rather it is identical with the threatened darkness.

'These things [have been prepared] for the devil and his angels' (p.

) Therefore this darkness is neither simply something sensible — for it has been prepared for the evil angels, who are devoid of sense-perception — nor simply ignorance; for those who are now persuaded [to become] heirs of that darkness will not then be more ignorant of God than they are now — rather, they will know [Him] even more, and better; for, it is said, 'every flesh shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ [is] to the glory of God the Father. Amen.'

Therefore that [uncreated] light is not, properly speaking, sensible either, nor is it knowledge, given that the darkness set in contrast to it is not [mere] ignorance either.

For this reason the great Macarius says — having Symeon, most delightful to hear among interpreters, bearing joint witness and speaking in concert with him: 'The divine apostle Paul has more precisely and more luminously declared to every soul the complete mystery of Christianity, which is the illumination of the heavenly light in revelation and power of the Spirit, so that no one, thinking that the illumination [that comes] through knowledge of concepts is the only [illumination] of the Spirit, might run the risk, through ignorance and negligence, of failing to attain the perfect mystery of grace.'

) having said that [that glory] was being done away on account of its being placed around the mortal body of Moses; but he [Paul] showed that that immortal glory of the Spirit, in revelation, now shines without being abolished upon the immortal face of the inner man, for those who are worthy.

He says, then: 'But we all' — that is, those who have been born of the Spirit according to perfect faith — 'with unveiled face behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit' — 'with unveiled face,' namely, that of the soul; for indeed, whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil, he says, is taken away; and the Lord is the Spirit.

Clearly, then, through these words he showed that a veil of darkness had been cast over the soul, which, from the transgression of Adam, found occasion to steal in upon humanity, but that now, from the illumination of the Spirit, this [veil] is being removed from the souls of those who are truly faithful and worthy — for which reason also the coming of Christ took place.

Do you see, brother, how those sensible illuminations of the old [covenant] prefigured the illumination of the Spirit in the souls of those who believe in Christ in deed and in truth?

But these men strive, by every means, to call even the believers — or rather, if possible, even those who have manifestly been graced with grace and have gained unforgettable knowledge of it — to unbelief, boldly and senselessly attempting to teach otherwise those who have been taught by God and by His mystical manifestation and energy the ineffable things, not even respecting the great Paul, who says that the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one, for he has the mind of Christ; and 'who has known the mind of the Lord,' (p.

) For indeed, the one who trusts in his own reasonings and in the disputations [conducted] through them, thinking that all truth is discovered by divisions and syllogisms and analyses, cannot at all either know or believe the things of the spiritual man; for such a one is 'natural,' and, it is said, 'the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, nor is he able [to]'; how, then, could one who neither knows nor believes, having reconciled [these things] to others, make them known and believed?

...misattributing — O what a calamity! — to Belial the energy and grace of the good Spirit, and setting himself against those who have received the Spirit that is from God, so that through it they might know the things graciously given to us by God; but he shall also become an heir of woe on account of the harm [done] to those who hear him; for, says the prophet, 'Woe to him who gives his brother a turbid draught of confusion to drink.'

) [these things] which [such spiritual men alone] shall know with certainty by themselves — yet they [the false teachers] attempt to judge and correct these men, who are judged by no one (for, according to the same apostle, the spiritual man is judged by no one), to the ruin both of themselves and of those who are persuaded by them.

For they say that it is not possible for anyone to partake of perfection and holiness who has not found the true opinion concerning beings, and that it is impossible to find this without division and syllogism and analysis.

But if they had approached in humility and wished to learn the truth from those able to discern all things, they would have heard that this doctrine belongs to a Hellenic mindset.

But we do not consider the knowledge found through arguments and syllogisms to be true opinion, but rather that which is demonstrated through works and [a way of] life — which is not only true but also secure and unshakeable.

'For,' he says, 'every argument wrestles [against another] argument, but who [wrestles] against a life?'

And indeed we do not think that anyone can come to know himself by methods of division, syllogism, and analysis, unless, through laborious repentance and strenuous asceticism, he renders his own mind free of pride and free of evil.

For he who has not thus prepared his own mind will not even know his own poverty with respect to knowledge, which is the profitable beginning of one's coming to know himself.

But no one who thinks rightly would put all ignorance under blame, nor do we consider all knowledge to be blessed.

How then shall we do all things, looking to it [true knowledge] as our end?

) The great Basil, too, says that the form of truth is twofold: of these, the one it is most necessary to possess and to impart, since it is a co-worker unto salvation; but concerning earth and sea, heaven and the things pertaining to heaven, even if we do not know the truth in such matters, nothing will hinder us with regard to the blessedness [promised] in the [divine] promises.

And the end set before us is the promises from God of the good things to come: adoption as sons, deification, the revelation, possession, and enjoyment of the heavenly treasures; but we know that the knowledge from outer/secular learning comes to its completion together with this present age.

For if sensible discourses present the reality of things in the age to come, the wise of this age would become heirs of the kingdom of heaven; but if it is the purity of the soul that sees, the wise [of this age] will be far from the knowledge of God, according to the true philosopher Maximus.

What need, then, have we of knowledge that does not draw near to God?

But how is it not possible to attain a share of perfection and holiness without it?

And that I may now pass over the other things belonging to those who imagine [themselves to be something] and deceive themselves in their own minds to such an extent that they even misinterpret and make use of the Scriptures of the Spirit against spiritual works and men, I shall set forth those things which even now form for us the subject of the discourse in hand.

...inconceivable: 'No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared [Him].'

'How then,' they say, 'are those not clearly deceived who insist that they see God noetically as light within themselves?'

And if anyone should bring forward to them again the word of the only-begotten [Son] of God, saying that 'the pure in heart shall see God' and 'I will manifest Myself to them,' having made [My] dwelling with the Father in them, they immediately [call] this vision [mere] knowledge (p.

) they say, not knowing that they contradict themselves in what they say; for as the divine is invisible, so also it is inconceivable.

Those, then, who dogmatize that the noetic vision of God in light is a deluded fantasy and a demonic energy, because God is invisible, ought equally, because God is incomprehensible, to drag knowledge down into similar wranglings.

But as for knowledge, we choose to say nothing against them; for they speak in harmony with us, even though they do not understand what they are saying.

For indeed the knowledge concerning God and the doctrines about him — the contemplation which we call theology — and the use and movement, according to nature, of the powers of the soul and the members of the body, do effect a reformation of the rational image; but this is not the perfect comeliness of that nobility given us from above, nor the supernatural union with the most-radiant light, from which alone comes both the secure practice of theology and the standing and moving, according to nature, of the powers within us of soul and body. Those, then, who abolish this union have together abolished all virtue and truth.

Regarding, then, their claim that there is no contemplation more mystical and lofty than the knowledge of which they speak, and that there is no such contemplation of God at all because God is invisible — having been initiated by those who have attained true contemplation, we shall ask them: does it seem to us that not even the Holy Spirit sees the things of God?

But indeed it searches even the depths of God.

If then someone said that the undefiled light is seen apart from the Holy Spirit, you would rightly object and say: how could the invisible be seen?

But if someone, having put away the spirit of the world (which the fathers call the noetic darkness lying upon hearts not yet purified) — if, then, someone, having put this away, and having purified himself of every will of his own, and having risen up from every human tradition, and, for a little while, any delay

that intrudes upon the diligence that is owed — even though it may seem plausible according to the great Basil — and having gathered together, so far as possible, the powers of his soul, and having set a sober oversight over his understanding, first lives, according to the mind, among contemplations that are natural and pleasing to God, then, having risen above himself, should receive within himself the Spirit that is from God — which knows the things of God as the spirit of man knows the things within him — and having received these things for this very purpose, as the great Paul proclaims, that he might know the things mystically granted to him by God, which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered into the heart of man: how would such a one not see, through the Spirit, the invisible light?

And how, again, would this light not be invisible and unheard and inconceivable, even though it is seen?

For it is seen by those who see the things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered into the heart of man.

For these receive spiritual eyes and have the mind of Christ, through which they both see the invisible one and conceive the inconceivable one; for he is not invisible in himself, but to those who understand and see by means of created and natural eyes and thoughts.

But to those in whom God has fitted himself as the ruling member, how would he not, through himself, plainly grant the contemplation of grace?

And how would he not deem them worthy of the terms of the Song's theology, praising the spiritual power that has come to be in their eyes, saying to them, "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved: thine eyes are doves"?

through which they too, perceiving the beauty of the noetic Bridegroom, return in abundance the word of praises.

and she herself, in her eyes, then for the first time gazes clearly upon the beauty of the Bridegroom-God, and within the hearing of the...

For just as the ray in the eyes, having been united with the rays of the sun, becomes light in actuality, and thus sees sensible things, in the same way the mind too, having become one spirit with the Lord, thus sees spiritual things clearly.

Yet, in another way, higher than the base thoughts of those who attempt to contradict spiritual men, the Master remains invisible even there; for no one has ever seen the whole of that beauty. Wherefore also, according to Gregory of Nyssa, no eye has seen this, even though it always sees; for one does not see it in the measure that it is, but in the measure that one has made oneself receptive of the power of the divine Spirit, in that measure does one see.

Besides this incomprehensibility, there is also this — the most divine and most novel thing of all — that the comprehension which they have, they have incomprehensibly: for those who see do not know that by which they see these things, nor that by which they hear and are initiated, whether it be the knowledge of things not yet come to be or the science of things that eternally are, because of the incomprehensibility of the Spirit through whom they see. For it is upon the cessation of all noetic energy that such a union of the deified with the light above comes to pass, as the great Dionysius says — a union that exists not by way of causation nor by way of analogy (since these belong to the energy of the mind), but exists by way of removal, yet is not itself this very removal. For if it were removal alone, it would lie within our own power — but this is the doctrine of the Messalians — whenever one should wish to ascend into the unspeakable mysteries of God, just as holy Isaac too says concerning them.

Contemplation, then, is not removal and negation alone, but union and deification, coming to be mystically and ineffably by the grace of God after the removal of all the things from below that impress the mind — or rather, after the cessation, which is greater than the removal; for the removal is an image, of...

— that is, the removal is a likeness of that cessation.

Wherefore also, to separate God from all created things belongs to every believer; but the cessation of noetic energy, and the union that follows it with the light above — being, as it were, a passion undergone and a deifying end — belongs only to those whose hearts have been purified and graced.

And why do I speak of union, when even the brief vision required the chosen disciples to have gone out of themselves in ecstasy from every sensible and noetic apprehension, and to have accepted "truly seeing" by way of "not seeing at all," and to have admitted perception of the things beyond nature by way of "undergoing them unknowingly"?

But that they both saw, and yet did not see properly by sense or by mind, we shall show, God willing, as our discourse proceeds.

Do you now see, then, that in place of mind and eye and ears, they are blessed with the incomprehensible Spirit, through whom they see and hear and understand?

For when all noetic energy has ceased, by what do angels and men who are equal to angels see God, if not by the power of the Spirit?

Wherefore this vision, for them, is not perception, since they do not apprehend it through the organs of sense; nor is it conception, since they do not apprehend it through thoughts or the knowledge that comes through them, but they find it upon the cessation of all noetic energy. It is, then, neither imagination, nor discursive reason, nor opinion, nor anything like a conclusion of syllogisms; nor does the mind attain it through the ascent by negation alone.

For every divine commandment, and every sacred law, is defined up to the purity of heart, according to the word of the fathers; and every manner and every kind of prayer terminates in pure prayer; and every discourse that ascends from below to him who is enthroned above all and released from all, stands still at the removal of all beings.

By no means, however, does this mean that after the divine commandments there is nothing else besides purity of heart; rather, there are, and there are very many things — namely, the pledge of the things promised for this present age, according to the mind, and the goods of the age to come...

...prayer, an ineffable vision and ecstasy in the vision, and unspeakable mysteries; in the same way also, after the removal of beings — or rather, after the cessation too — this is realized in us not by word alone, but also accomplished in deeds; and after this, then, even if it is unknowing, yet it is above knowledge, and even if it is a darkness, yet it is a darkness more radiant than light; and in that most radiant darkness, according to the great Dionysius, the divine things become given to the saints.

So then, the most perfect contemplation concerning God and the divine things is not simply removal, but rather, after the removal, it is participation in the divine things, and a giving and receiving, rather than a removal.

And those receivings and givings are unspeakable; wherefore even if the saints speak of them, they do so only by way of example and analogy — not as though these things were seen by them just so, but because the things seen by them are not able by nature to be shown otherwise.

Those, then, who hear these things spoken thus by way of example, not with the reverence due to things unspeakable, consider that supremely wise knowledge to be foolishness, and, trampling underfoot by their scorn the noetic pearls, will tear apart with logic-chopping those who have shown them forth as far as possible.

Those saints, however, out of love for mankind, speak, as I said, of these unspeakable things so far as it is possible, dispelling the error of those who, being uninitiated, suppose that after the removal of beings there is complete inactivity — whereas it is not inactivity, but an inactivity that is above energy.

But those things, again, remain unspeakable by their own nature.

For this reason the great Dionysius says that after the removal of beings there is no discourse, but wordlessness, and that after every ascent, he says, we shall be united to that which is beyond utterance.

But it is not the case that, because these things are unutterable, the mind will attain the things above mind by negation alone; for such an ascent is a certain conceiving of the things that are incongruous with God, and it bears indeed an image of that formless contemplation

and of the theoretic fulfillment according to the mind, but it is not that contemplation itself.

Through this very removal of all things, those who have been united to that light in the manner of angels hymn it, having been initiated, from their mystical union with it, into the knowledge that it is exalted above all things in a manner beyond being.

And as many as, from such saints, are deemed worthy to receive the mystery through faithful and grateful hearing, are able, they too, from the removal of all things, to hymn that divine and inconceivable light; but they cannot be united to it and see it, unless, having purified themselves through the keeping of the commandments, and having occupied the mind with utterly pure and immaterial prayer, they receive the supernatural power of contemplation.

How, then, shall we name this perception, which is neither sense-perception nor conception at all?

Certainly in no other way than as Solomon, who was made wise beyond all who came before him, named it — that is, evidently, noetic and divine perception.

For by the conjunction of both terms, he persuades the hearer to consider this to be neither the one nor the other — neither perception nor conception; for conception is never perception, nor is perception ever conception. Therefore noetic perception is something other than either of them.

Either, then, it must be so named, or, as the great Dionysius names it, union, but not knowledge.

For it is necessary, he says, to know that our mind has, on the one hand, the power for conceiving, by which it beholds intelligible things, and, on the other, the union that transcends the nature of the mind, by which it is joined to the things beyond itself; and again, he says: superfluous, along with the senses, are also the noetic powers, when the soul, having become god-formed through an unknowing union, casts itself, by eyeless castings, upon the rays of the unapproachable light — by which union also, according to Maximus, so learned in divine things, the saints, beholding the light of the hidden and super-ineffable glory, themselves too become receptive, together with the powers above, of that blessed purity.

And let no one suppose that the great fathers are speaking here of the ascent by way of negations.

For that ascent belongs to anyone who wills it, and does not transpose the soul into the dignity of the angels; it separates the understanding from other things, but by itself it cannot effect union with the things beyond.

...from the passible part of the soul, having actively separated the mind from all things through dispassion, it unites the mind, through prayer, to the grace of the Spirit, through which it comes to be in the enjoyment of the divine flashes of light, from which it is constituted angel-formed and god-formed.

For then, truly, man sees by the Spirit, but not by mind, nor by body.

And that he sees a light beyond light, he knows exactly, in a manner beyond nature; but by what he sees this, he does not know at that time, nor can he even inquire into its nature, because of the untraceable character of the Spirit through whom he sees.

And this is what Paul also said, when he heard the unspeakable things and saw the invisible things: "For I was seeing," he says, "whether outside the body I do not know, or whether inside the body I do not know" — that is, he did not know whether it was the mind or the body that was seeing.

For he sees — not indeed by sense-perception, yet as sense-perception sees sensible things — clearly, and even more clearly than sense-perception does.

And he sees himself, by the unspeakable sweetness of that which is seen, having gone out of himself in ecstasy and having been caught up, not only from every thing and thought of things, but even from himself.

And, because of the ecstasy itself, he forgets even the entreaty made to God; and this is what holy Isaac said, having the great and divine Gregory bearing witness with him, that prayer is purity of mind, which alone is cut off, with astonishment, from the light of the Holy Trinity; and again: it is purity of mind upon which, at the time of prayer, the light of the Holy Trinity shines through, and then the mind comes to be above prayer,

and this should not be called prayer, but the offspring of pure prayer, which is sent down through the Spirit; nor does the mind then pray by means of prayer, but comes to be in ecstasy amid incomprehensible things; and this is the unknowing that is superior to knowledge.

That, then, which seizes and casts the mind out of itself from all things and turns it wholly toward itself is a most delightful thing; such a light he sees — revelatory indeed, but not of sensible bodies, and bounded neither below, nor above, nor on the sides; and he sees no limit at all of the light that is seen and shines round about him, but as it were as if there were some sun infinitely brighter and greater than the whole universe; and he himself stands in the midst, being wholly an eye. Something of this sort is that light.