為神聖靜修者辯護 第 1 章 第 6/21 段

…—which Christ ineffably revealed to the apostles.

How then could the ray of the Godhead — which is above every word and every vision — be sensible?

Have you understood that the light which shone round about the apostles on Tabor was not, properly speaking, sensible?

Nevertheless, if the divine light — which is above all sense-perception — was indeed seen with sensible eyes (as indeed it was seen, just as even those who speak against those spiritual men themselves say, thereby agreeing on this point both with them and with us) — if, then, the divine light was seen with bodily eyes, why should it not also be seen with noetic eyes?

Or is the soul something evil, incapable of being joined to the Good and insensible of it — a thing which not even any of the most audacious of the ill-minded has ever said?

Or is it good, but the body better than it?

For how would the soul not be inferior to the body, if the body is capable of receiving and apprehending the light of God, but the soul is not?

And how would this material and mortal body not be more akin to God, and closer to him, and drawing nearer to God, than the soul itself — if it is through this body's mediation that the soul sees God in light, but not, conversely, this body that sees God through the soul's mediation?

And if the Transfiguration of the Lord on Tabor is a prelude to that visible theophany of God which is to come in glory, and the apostles were deemed worthy to receive this with bodily eyes, why should not those who are purified in heart now also receive, with the eyes of the soul, the prelude and the pledge of his theophany according to the intellect?

And since the Son of God — oh, the incomparable love for mankind! — united not only his own divine hypostasis to our nature, but also, having taken a body, ensouled and…

…endowed with mind, appeared on earth and lived among men — yet, oh, a wonder that leaves no room for any greater marvel! — he is united even to human hypostases themselves, mingling himself together with each of the faithful through the partaking of his holy body, and becomes of one body with us, and makes us a temple of the whole Godhead (for indeed in the very body of Christ "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily") — how then would he not, by shining round about the souls of those who worthily partake, through the divine radiance of his body which is within us, illumine them — just as at Tabor he also illumined the very bodies of the disciples?

For at that time, that body which has within itself the source of the light of grace, not yet having been commingled with our bodies, illumined from without those of the worthy who drew near, and sent the illumination into the soul through the sensible eyes; but now, having been commingled with us and existing within us, it fittingly shines round about the soul from within.

Shall we not, in the age to come, see the Invisible One face to face, according to what is written?

Therefore, even now, receiving the pledge and the prelude of this, those who are purified in heart see the noetic — and to sense-perception invisible — formation of him that comes to be in them.

For being by nature immaterial, the intellect is also a light akin — if one may so speak — to that light which is first and highest, participable by all yet independent of the whole created order; and through the total extension toward that truly existing Light, by immaterial, unceasing, and utterly purified prayer, having turned unswervingly toward God himself, and thus already transformed into angelic dignity, illumined in an angel-befitting manner by that very first Light, it appears, by participation, to be that which the archetype is by cause; and through itself it makes to shine forth the beauty of that hidden loveliness, and its most radiant and unapproachable splendor — which also the divine psalmist David…

…having perceived it noetically within himself, rejoicing, taught the faithful this great and ineffable matter, saying: "The brightness of our God is upon us."

For who, without having experienced and seen within himself the brightness of God, but instead seeking it through divisions and syllogisms and analyses rather than believing the Fathers in simplicity of heart, would ever endure, merely upon hearing of it, to accept that any man possesses the brightness of God?

Only he who has himself received it could accept this — not merely because he who has not had it cannot even know it, but because, unless he lends a believing ear to those who have been blessed with this portion, he supposes that it does not exist at all, reckoning the contemplation that truly exists to be blindness — not as being above sense-perception and knowledge, like a certain sacred darkness, but as not existing anywhere at all.

And their last pretext is that God is invisible, whereas the devil impersonates an angel of light; not understanding even this, that truth pre-exists before every impersonation.

If then the devil, in impersonating the truth that exists, impersonates an angel of light, it follows that there is in truth an angel of light, the good angel.

But what light does he proclaim in being an angel of light, if not that of God, whose angel he indeed is?

God, then, is light, of whose light God's angel is an angel; for it was not said that he impersonates the angel who is light, but the angel of light.

If, then, the evil angel counterfeited only knowledge or virtue, it would be possible to conclude, from perceiving that

the illumination which comes to us from God likewise provides only knowledge and virtue. But since he also provides a fantastic light other than virtue and knowledge, there exists therefore also a true, noetic, divine light, other than virtue and knowledge.

And that fantastic light is the evil one himself, who, being darkness, counterfeits the light; but this light that truly illumines angels and men equal to angels is God himself, who, being truly the ineffable light, is both seen as light and makes those pure in heart to be light, wherefore he is also called light — not only as the pursuer of the darkness of ignorance, but also as the brightness of souls, according to St. Maximus and Gregory the Theologian.

That this brightness is not simply knowledge nor virtue, but is beyond all human virtue and knowledge, you will learn clearly from St. Nilus; for, he says, the intellect, being gathered into itself, contemplates nothing of the things perceived by sense nor of those grasped by discursive thought, but naked intellects and divine rays, welling up with peace and joy.

Do you see the contemplation that is set far above every deed and character and thought?

Have you heard him who earlier said that the intellect is contemplated by itself as resembling a heavenly color, now clearly showing you this — that it is illumined by a divine radiance?

Be persuaded by him as he also teaches the path leading to this blessed experience and vision; for prayer, he says, seeking attentiveness, will find prayer, toward which one must strive soberly; for he who has truly prayed, by joining the intellect to divine prayer, has been illumined by the radiance of God.

He who has made his heart pure, he says, shall not only know the inward principles of things that are lower and after God, but shall also see God himself.

Where are those who, through the external wisdom that has been made foolish,

lay down as doctrine the knowledge of beings and the ascent to God?

For God, having come to be in this heart, he says, deigns to have his own letters engraved by the Spirit, as it were on tablets of Moses.

Where are those who reckon the inward heart to be incapable of receiving God, and this while Paul says that we, before others, received the law of grace, not on tablets of stone, but on fleshy tablets of the heart?

As also great Macarius says, that the heart governs the whole instrument, and, when grace takes hold of the pastures of the heart, it reigns over all the thoughts and the members; for there is the intellect and all the thoughts of the soul; there, therefore, one must look, to see whether grace has inscribed the laws of the Spirit.

...is that which is wholly without form, which will present the intellect to God and, thus prepared, be imprinted only with his own forms, through which he is by nature made manifest.

Where are those who insist that God is known only through the knowledge of beings, neither knowing nor admitting the manifestation that comes from union, and this while God, through one of the God-bearing fathers, says: 'Learn not from man, not from a book, but from my own illumination and sun-ray shining within you'?

For how is the formless intellect, imprinted also with divine forms, not above the knowledge derived from beings?

But the imprinting of the intellect with the divine and ineffable forms of the Spirit differs greatly also from the ascent of discursive reason to God by way of negations.

But theology is as far removed from this vision of God in light, and separated to the same degree from communion with God, as merely knowing about it is separated —

for that mere knowing requires speech as well — spoken discourse, that is — and perhaps also the art pertaining to it, if one intends not merely to possess the knowledge but also to use it and impart it to others; and further it requires syllogisms drawn from every kind of subject-matter, and the necessities derived from demonstration, and examples taken from the world — the whole or greater part of which is gathered from seeing and hearing, and belongs almost entirely to those occupied with this world — and could indeed be attained even by the wise men of this age, even if they are not purified in life and in soul.

But to possess God within oneself, to be purely united with God, and to be blended with the most unmixed light, so far as is attainable by human nature, is among the impossible things, unless, besides purification through virtue, we also come to be outside ourselves — or rather above ourselves — abandoning everything sensible together with sense-perception itself, lifted above discursive thoughts and reasonings and the knowledge that comes through them, and becoming wholly given over to the immaterial and noetic energy exercised in prayer, and obtaining an ignorance that is above knowledge, and being filled, in that very ignorance, with the super-luminous splendor of the Spirit, so as invisibly to behold, as it were, the prizes of an immortal nature.

Do you see, then, where the much-vaunted philosophy of discursive reason has been left behind below, seeing that it has its principles from sense-perception, and the end of its most excellent forms is knowledge — and a knowledge not found through purity, nor purifying of the passions?

But the beginning of spiritual contemplation is the Good, procured through purity of life, and the true and genuine knowledge of beings, belonging to those who possess it, since it has appeared not from the passions but from purity — the only knowledge able to discern what is truly good and beneficial and what is not such; and its end is the pledge of the age to come, the ignorance that is above knowledge and the knowledge that is above understanding, the hidden participation in the Hidden One, and the inexpressible vision —

the mystical and ineffable contemplation and tasting of the eternal light.

That this is the light of the age to come, and that it is the very light which shone round about the disciples at the Transfiguration of Christ, and that it even now illumines the intellect purified through virtue and prayer, you shall know if you listen with understanding.

For it has been clearly stated by Dionysius the Areopagite that the bodies of the saints, in the age to come, will be adorned and shone round about by that light of Christ which appeared on Tabor.

Great Macarius says: 'The soul that has been united to the light of the heavenly image is even now initiated, in hypostasis, into the knowledge of mysteries, and on the great day of the resurrection its body too shall be illumined by that same heavenly image of glory.' He said 'in hypostasis' so that no one should suppose this illumination to consist merely in knowledge and mental concepts.

Moreover, the spiritual man consists of three things: the grace of the heavenly Spirit, a rational soul, and an earthly body.

Hear again the same author: 'The God-like image of the Spirit, now imprinted within, will then make the body too, outwardly, God-like and heavenly.'

In truth it brings the soul, while still in the flesh, to the enjoyment of the heavenly lights, and again opens to sight its noetic senses by the divine light of grace; and afterward it will clothe the body itself also with glory.

And again: 'Of what goods and mysteries the souls of Christians can partake here becomes manifest, to the eyes of the soul, only to the one who has received it by experience; but at the resurrection it will be granted to the body itself also to attain such things, both to see them and, as it were, to hold them, when it too shall become spirit.'

Has it not, then, become clear that the divine light is one and the same — both that which was seen by the apostles on Tabor, and that which is now beheld by souls that have been purified, and also the very substance of the eternal goods to come?

Wherefore also the great Basil called the light that shone on Tabor at the Lord's Transfiguration a prelude to the glory of Christ's second coming — he who elsewhere says clearly that there shone through, as it were, a certain divine light through glass-like membranes, that is, through the flesh of the Lord taken from us, his divine power shining through to those who have the eyes of their heart purified.

Is not this, then, that same light, which shone forth more brightly on Tabor, so as to become perceptible even to bodily eyes, as he willed, and which was seen, through it, by all who then had their heart purified — flashing forth fearfully from the venerable body as from a kind of disk, and shining round about their heart?

Would that we too might be found among these, beholding as in a mirror, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord!

For it is good that we too, who believe, should join in this prayer with that great father, who prayed this there.

But then, in the flesh, the great light, having come to sojourn among us, was seen by the purified in this way, shining forth from that flesh; but how it is seen by them now, and how it is possible to see it — go, if you desire, and learn from those who see it; and I too, having inquired of them, believed — to say with David, 'wherefore I have spoken'; and one must also add the apostle's words: 'we also believe, and therefore we speak.'

He who has renounced the possession of riches, the glory of men, and the pleasure of bodies for the sake of the evangelical life, and who has confirmed this renunciation through submission to those advanced in stature according to Christ, sees within himself the dispassionate, sacred, and divine longing being kindled more intensely, and longs for God

supernaturally, and longs also for the supra-cosmic union with him.

Utterly captured, then, by this longing, he is persuaded to search out and scrutinize the bodily energies and the powers of the soul, in case he might somewhere find that by which he might attain communion with God. Finding, then, that some of these are altogether irrational — or learning this by inquiring of those experienced in such things — while others, even if they are actions accompanied by reason, yet withdraw from sensible things only for a little; and finding opinion and discursive thought, even though they are rational powers, yet not disjoined from the storehouse of the senses, namely from imagination, and moreover accomplished through the medium of the psychic spirit as an instrument; and understanding prudently what the apostle also declared, that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit — he seeks the life that is above these, the truly noetic life, unmixed with things below, hearing also the wise Nilus, versed in divine things, saying: 'Even if the intellect rises above bodily contemplation, it has not yet perfectly beheld the place of God, for it can still be occupied with the knowledge of concepts, and be diversified in accordance with it'; and again: 'Even when the intellect abides in bare concepts, it remains far distant from God.'

And having learned also from the great Dionysius and from Maximus the Great that our intellect has, on the one hand, a power for intellection, by which it sees the intelligibles, and, on the other hand, a union transcending the nature of the intellect, by which it is joined to that which is beyond itself — he seeks indeed this, the highest of the faculties in us, the only one that is perfect and unitary and wholly without parts among those that pertain to us, which also defines and unifies the windings of discursive thought — in which the sciences too have their certainty, proceeding almost like the creeping movements of animals, by gathering together and dividing — inasmuch as it is itself the form of forms.

And through these the intellect descends into the manifold life, putting forward its energies to all things; but it has, surely, also some other, better energy, which it would exercise even by itself, inasmuch as

it is able to remain by itself, whenever it is separated from this manifold, multiform, and ground-creeping mode of life — just as also the rider has a certain capacity of driving the chariot that is remarkably superior, and would exercise it by himself not only when he has dismounted, but even while being on the horse and chariot, unless he voluntarily gave his whole self over to the care of driving.

The intellect, then, having come to be in its own by-itself energy — which is the turning toward itself and the guarding of itself — by means of this, transcending itself, may indeed be conjoined with God.

For this reason, then, the lover of communion with God flees the life liable to blame, and chooses the monastic and unpaired way of life, and is eager to dwell, without care and without anxiety, in the inner sanctuaries of stillness, released from every attachment; among these, having, so far as attainable, loosed his soul from every material bond, he joins his intellect to unceasing prayer to God, and through this, having become wholly himself, he discovers a new and ineffable ascent into the heavens — the untouchable darkness, as one might say, of mystery-hiding silence — and attending to this with unspeakable pleasure, directing his intellect precisely in a most simple, complete, and sweet calm, and in true stillness and speechlessness, he soars above all created things.

Wholly then, having thus gone out of himself, and having become wholly of God, he sees the glory of God and beholds the divine light, which by no means falls under sense-perception as sense-perception, but is a graceful and sacred spectacle of souls and undefiled minds, without which not even an intellect possessing noetic perception

would see it, even while being united to that which is above itself, just as neither can the bodily eye see apart from sensible light.

Our intellect, then, comes to be outside itself, and thus is united to God — but by coming to be above itself.

But God too himself comes to be outside himself, and thus is united to our intellect — but by employing condescension. For, as though charmed by love and by loving-affection, and, on account of the excess of his goodness, coming to be, without departing from himself, outside of himself who is exalted above all things and removed from all — he is united to us according to this very union which is above intellect.

That God, condescending, unites himself not only to us but also to the heavenly angels, St. Macarius will again teach us, saying: 'On account of his goodness, the great and supra-essential One diminishes himself immensely, that he might be able to be blended with his noetic creatures — I mean, with the souls of the saints and with the angels — so that they too might come to partake of immortal life through participation in his Godhead.'

How, then, would he not condescend even to this extent, he who condescended even to flesh, and to the death of the flesh, and to the death of the cross, in order to remove the veil of darkness that had fallen upon the soul through transgression, and to impart to it his own light — as the same saint taught in the chapter spoken of at the beginning?

Shudder, then, you who disbelieve and lead others into disbelief; you blind ones who are eager to guide the blind; you who go further away from God and drag others along; you who dogmatize that, because you do not see, God is therefore not light; you who not only turn your own eyes away from the light and run to darkness, but also call the light darkness, and, insofar as it depends on you, render so great a condescension of God fruitless — you would not have suffered this, if you had believed the words of the fathers; for those who believe

...that which is unrecognized, one ought neither to anathematize on account of the truth it may contain, nor to accept on account of the error it may contain.

Do you see that there is a true grace, other than the truth of dogmas?

For what part of the truth of dogmas is disputable?

There exists, then, a grace above knowledge, active and manifest, on account of which it is not an act of reverent caution to call an untested delusion.

Wherefore also the divine Nilus advises seeking a manifestation from God in such matters, saying: 'Pray at that time intensely, that, if the vision is from God, he himself may illumine you; but if not, he may swiftly drive the delusion away from you.'

And indeed the fathers did not fail to tell us this as well: what are the marks of delusion and what are the marks of truth.

For delusion, even if it assumes the countenance of the good, and even if it clothes itself with bright visions, will not be able to bring about a good energy; for it cannot give hatred of the world, nor contempt for the glory of men, nor desire for the things of heaven, nor a settled state of thoughts, nor spiritual rest, nor joy, nor peace, nor humility, nor cessation of pleasures and passions, nor the best disposition of soul; for these are the effects of grace, whose opposites are the offspring of delusion.

Already, moreover, some, out of much experience, have also spoken of the distinctive marks of this noetic vision itself, so that one might have a means of ascertaining it even before its effects appear.

And so, he says, you shall know from the effects whether the noetic light that has shone in your soul is by nature of God or of Satan, so that you may neither suppose the destroyer of delusion to be a deluder, nor delusion to be truth.

But it is not the unerring, unchangeable light that is granted in this age; for he who says this, as one of the fathers has said, belongs to the party of the wolves.

...how far, then, do those wander from the truth who, on the basis of certain human deficiencies, declare those endowed with grace to be deluded — not even listening to the author of the Ladder, who says: 'Not to be deceived by sins belongs not to man but to an angel'; and again: 'Some, out of deficiency, make themselves of little worth, and out of their failings have made humility, the mother of the graces, their own.'

Impassibility, then, is sought among men not as that of angels but as a human impassibility, which, according to the same saint, you will know and not be deceived to be present in yourself, amid an abundance of ineffable light and an untold longing for prayer. And again: 'A soul freed from preconception has certainly beheld the divine light; but as for the knowledge of divine doctrines, how many possess it along with false preconceptions?' And again: 'Some recognize the Lord's visitation to themselves from other signs — those weak in soul; but the perfect recognize it from the presence of the Spirit.' And again: 'Among beginners, the assurance that their steps are according to God is the increase of humility; among those in the middle stage, it is the withdrawal of the battles; among the perfect, it is the increase and abundance of the divine light.'

Solomon's life would have been more perfect and more beloved of God than that of the saints of all the ages, not to mention the Greeks admired for their abundance of wisdom.

But since, among beginners too, there are some to whom, and times when, such a light shines upon them, though more dimly, and it becomes for the perfect also an increase of humility — though different in kind from that of beginners — for this reason the same author adds, saying: 'Small things among the perfect are not small, while great things among the small are not entirely perfect.'

But that divine grace appears benevolently even to these too, you will clearly know, if you are persuaded by the wondrous Diadochus. For grace, at the beginning, is accustomed to shine around the soul with its own light in much perceptible sensation; but in the middle stages of the contests, it operates for the most part imperceptibly.

it dissolves the entire phalanx of thoughts or notions surrounding it.

But the holy Macarius says: God, being good, grants the petitions of those who ask Him more benevolently than they ask. Now to one who labors at prayer for himself, even if he does not display the same zeal toward the other virtues, sometimes divine grace visits him, and there is given to him, in gladness, a prayer of grace in part, corresponding to his own seeking after God; yet he remains destitute of all the other goods. One must not, therefore, be negligent toward the rest, but by practice and exercise make the heart — which resists — yielding and obedient to God, applying it to the zeal for, and acquisition of, every virtue; for thus the gift of prayer given by the Spirit will come to increase, bringing with it true humility and unfeigned love and the whole catalogue of the virtues, which the heart, having earlier forced itself, sought out.

Do you see the distinguishing mark of this paternal admonition?

For he builds up further what is lacking, but he does not dig out the foundations because the walls have not yet been raised, nor does he tear these down because the roof does not yet rest upon them.

For he knows, having understood through experience, that the kingdom of heaven, when sown in us, is like a grain of mustard seed, which is smaller than all seeds, but afterward grows to such an extent, and [continues]

[...it grows so much as to] surpass all the powers of the soul, so that it becomes a delightful lodging-place even for the birds of heaven.

But those of whom you speak, proceeding to judge out of want of judgment, through inexperience take away [merit], even if something profitable to the brethren should be present in them; and seizing God's judgment through shamelessness, they declare one worthy of grace — whoever seems so to them — and another not; for it belongs to God alone to judge who are worthy of His own grace.

'If then He Himself has received someone, who are you to judge another's servant?' says the Apostle.

But let us return to the point from which we departed, and, having added a few words, let us now restrain our discourse, which is stretching out to great length.

He who does not believe this great mystery of the new grace, nor looks toward the hope of deification, could not despise the pleasure of the flesh, nor money, nor possessions, nor the glory that comes from men.

But even if he should be able to do so, at least for a short while, self-conceit succeeds him, as one who has already acquired perfection, through which he is again dragged down to the roll of the impure.

But he who looks toward that [hope], even should he acquire every good work, having set before him a perfection that surpasses completion and cannot be fully attained, does not yet reckon himself to have laid hold of anything, and so adds still further to his humility; and reflecting, on the one hand, upon the surpassing excellence of the saints who have gone before, and, on the other, upon the excess of divine loving-kindness, he mourns and cries out, in the words of Isaiah: 'Woe is me, for I am unclean and have unclean lips, yet I have seen the Lord of Sabaoth with my own eyes.'

Whence indeed John, who teaches through experience, says: 'The abyss of mourning has beheld consolation, but purity of heart has received illumination.'

It is evident, therefore, that this illumination is beyond reason and knowledge.

And even if one should call this a kind of knowledge and intellection, as being supplied to the intellect by the Spirit, he speaks of another kind of intellection — something spiritual, incomprehensible even to faithful hearts themselves, unless they have first been purified through works.

Wherefore also He who grants both the seeing and the thing seen — that is to say, He who is the light of the pure heart, namely God — says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'

How then are these blessed on this account, if this vision is [mere] knowledge — the very knowledge which even we, the impure, also possess?

[It is] an ineffable energy, seen invisibly — for not by sense-perception — and known unknowably — for not by discursive reasoning.

It would indeed have been possible to add still other things; but I fear that even these I have set forth in vain.

For according to the same saint, he who wishes to explain in words, to those who have not tasted it, the perception and energy of the illumination of God, is like one who wishes to teach, through words, the sweetness of honey to those who have never tasted honey.

Yet our words have been directed to you, so that you too might know the truth exactly, and know that we agree with the sayings of the fathers, the rest of which, being appended below, you may go through [for yourself].