書信集 第 1 章 第 9/17 段

But he who through virtue has made his own cell into heaven, and in it perceives and beholds and worships the Creator of heaven and earth enthroned there, is ever present with the unsetting light, the light without evening, the unapproachable light — from which he is in no way separated, nor removed at all, neither by day nor by night, neither in eating nor in drinking, nor even in sleep, or on the road, or in change of place; but as he was [present] while living, so also when dead — or rather, still more clearly — he is present with it, wholly, in his soul, forever.

For how shall the bride be separated from the bridegroom, or the husband from the wife to whom he was once joined?

He who has said, 'And the two shall become one flesh' — how shall he not become wholly one spirit with her?

For the wife is [united] in the husband, and the husband in the wife; and likewise the soul in God, and God in the soul, is united and made known in all the saints.

Thus those who through repentance purify their souls in this world are united to God, and become monks, being separate from others — they who receive the mind of Christ, which is truly [their] mouth and tongue that does not lie, with which they converse with the Father almighty, with which they ever cry out: 'O Father, O all-sovereign King, O Creator of all things!'

For these, the cell is heaven, and they themselves are the sun, and the light is in them — the unsetting and divine light, which illumines every man who comes into the world and who has been born of the Holy Spirit.

There is, then, no night in them; how [this is so] I am unable to tell you, for I shudder as I write these things to you, and I tremble even in thinking of them. But I teach you how they live, and in what manner those who serve God — having loved him alone above all things, and having been united to him alone — become monks, as being alone with the Alone, even if they are enclosed within a most populous throng.

For these are truly monks, alone and solitary, stripped of considerations and thoughts of every kind, beholding only God with a mind free of thought, fixed in the light as an arrow in a wall, or as a star in the sky, or in a way I am unable to express.

Nevertheless, they inhabit their cells as another luminous bridal chamber, and they suppose themselves to dwell in heaven — or rather, they truly dwell there; take heed, do not disbelieve!

For they are not upon the earth, even though they are held by the earth; but they dwell in the light of the age to come, in which angels dwell, upon which they walk, by which principalities and powers are seized [with wonder], and all thrones and dominions are made strong.

For even if God rests in the saints, yet in God the saints live and move, walking in the light as upon solid ground.

O wonder — as angels and as sons of the Most High they shall be after death, gods together with God who is [God] by nature, they themselves having been made like him by grace.

But now they lack only this one thing: that they are held fast by the body, and are covered over and concealed — alas — like prisoners in a jail who see the sun and its rays entering through a hole, unable to perceive it wholly, or to behold it having gone outside the prison, or, though peering out, to look clearly into the open air.

And he hastens and ever seeks his release, that he may appear free, that he may walk rejoicing, that he may depart in haste toward the one for whom he had longing, for whose sake he also sought release from his bond.

Let us, then, all seek him, the only one able to free us from our bonds.

Let us also long for him — him whose beauty astonishes every understanding, astonishes every mind, wounds every soul, and gives it wings toward love, and binds it fast and unites it with God everlastingly.

Yes, my brothers, run by your deeds toward him; yes, friends, arise; yes, do not be left behind; yes, do not speak against us, deceiving yourselves.

Do not say, 'It is impossible to receive the Divine Spirit'; do not say, 'It is possible to be saved without him'; do not, then, say that anyone partakes of him without knowing it.

Do not say that God is not seen by human beings; do not say that human beings do not see the divine light, or that it is impossible in the present times.

This is never impossible, friends, but is indeed exceedingly possible for those who will it — yet only for as many as life has afforded purification from the passions and has made pure the eye of the mind; but for the others there is truly blindness, the filth of sins, which both here and hereafter will deprive them of the divine light and — do not be deceived — will consign them to fire and darkness.

Behold, friends, how beautiful the Master is!

Yes, do not shut the eye of your mind, gazing toward the earth; yes, do not be seized by cares for earthly matters and possessions, and by desire for glory, and thereby abandon this one — the light of eternal life!

And surely he will hear, and surely he will have mercy, and surely he will be revealed, and surely he will manifest [himself], and will show us his own radiant light.

It is not so, brothers, it is not — do not be deceived. Rather, just as those who have a [worldly] life, and a wife and children, and who desire riches and are zealous for transient glory, exert themselves and run to accomplish what they intend, so also everyone who repents, and everyone who serves God, ought to hasten and be ever full of concern, that his repentance may be acceptable to Him, and his service become perfectly well-pleasing; and then, having been wholly made God's own, he is thereby wholly united to Him, and sees Him face to face, and receives boldness [of access] toward Him in proportion as he hastens to fulfill His will — which may we too be counted worthy to do, and to share in [His] mercy together with all the saints: now, to the extent attainable in this age, but there we shall receive the whole Christ, the whole Divine Spirit, in the Father, unto ages of ages. Amen.

Concerning the noetic revelation of the energies of the divine light, and the noetic and divine labor of the virtuous life.

Let me be shut up alone in the cell; leave me with God alone, the sole lover of mankind; withdraw, go far off, let me die alone before God who formed me.

Let no one knock at the door, let no one utter a sound, let none of my kinsmen or friends visit me, let no one draw away and tear my mind from the contemplation of the good and beautiful Master; let no one give me food, let none bring me drink.

For it will be enough for me to die before my God, the merciful God, the God who loves mankind, who came down upon earth to call sinners, and to lead them with him into the divine life.

I see the fountain of every good thing, I see the cause of all things, I see the beginningless beginning, from which all things were brought forth, through which all things are given life and are filled with nourishment.

How then, having left him, shall I go out from my cell?

Let me be — I shall lament and weep for the days and nights that I lost, gazing at the light of the world, the sensible and dark [light], which does not illumine the soul, apart from which even those blind in their eyes live in the world, and, having departed [this life], will be equal to those who now see; in which light I too, wandering astray, wholly rejoiced, and did not at all reckon that there is another light — which, as has been said, is life, and the cause of the being of whatever exists or shall come to be at all — and I was like an atheist, not knowing my God.

But now, as he was pleased, in ineffable compassion, to appear to wretched me and to be revealed, I saw and truly knew him to be the God of all things — God, whom none of the men in the world has [ever] seen.

For he is outside the world, outside light and darkness, outside air and mind and all perception; wherefore, then, it was under [the mode of] perception that I came to behold him.

You, then, who are under [the condition of] perception, allow me not only to shut myself in a cell and sit within it, but also to dig a pit beneath the earth and hide myself there; and there, dwelling, I shall be outside the whole world, and, beholding my immortal Master and Creator, I shall choose, out of longing, to die — knowing that I shall not [truly] die.

What benefit, then, has come to me from the world, and what do those who are now in the world gain?

Truly, nothing — but naked they shall dwell in tombs, and naked they shall rise, and all shall be judged, because, having forsaken the true life, having forsaken the light of the world — I mean Christ — they loved the darkness, and all chose to walk in it, they who did not receive the light that shone in the world, which the world neither comprehends nor is able to see.

Therefore forsake [me] and leave me alone, I beg you, to weep and to seek him out — that he may be given to me richly, and appear to me without grudging.

But he is also imparted, and dwells, and abides, and is — like a treasure hidden in the bosom, which he who carries it delights in, and rejoices to behold; and he supposes that everyone also sees it, hidden within him.

But it is not seen by all, it is not touched at all; no thief can plunder it, nor can a robber seize it, even should he kill the one who carries it. If he should wish to take it away, he will labor in vain, searching the purse, searching the garments, undoing the belt, carefully seeking it — even should he cut open the belly, even should he grope through the entrails, he will be utterly unable to find it or to seize it.

For it is invisible, ungraspable by hands, and untouchable, and yet wholly touched; nevertheless it is held in hands — but then only the hands of the worthy; far be it from the unworthy! — and it lies even in the palm: what it is, O wonder, and what it is not, for it has no name.

Astonished, then, and desiring to seize hold of it, I clenched my hand and supposed that I had grasped and held it; but it slipped away, in no way held fast by my hand; and, grieved, I opened the fist of my hand, and again saw in it what I had seen before — O ineffable wonder, O strange mystery!

But why do we marvel at these things, being wholly without perception, and prefer, like blind men, the heavy weight of iron and the mass of this bulk over a little gold, or a precious pearl, as though it were a worthless thing, and do not seek the small grain of mustard seed, which is more precious than all things seen, and greater than [all] invisible things and created beings?

Why do we not give up everything and receive this? And why do we even wish to live, not possessing it?

For woe to those who do not have him planted in the bosom of their soul, for they will hunger exceedingly.

Woe to those who do not believe the word of the Lord, that this becomes a tree and sends forth branches, and who seek out with diligence and watchfulness of mind the daily growth of this small seed, because they shall be deprived of the profit of its cultivation, like the servant who foolishly buried the talent; of whom I too am indeed one, unmistakably negligent. O light, three in hypostasis, Father, Son and Spirit; O unoriginate Origin and Authority of every origin; O light unnameable, as wholly without a name; O again many-named, as working all things; O one glory and rule, dominion and kingdom; O light as one will, mind, counsel, and power — have mercy, have compassion on me, the afflicted one!

For how could I not be afflicted, how could I not grieve, when I despise and am slothful toward such great goodness of yours, such great mercy of yours — I, the ungrateful and wretched one, walking laxly in the way of your commandments?

But even now have compassion, and even now have mercy on me, and rekindle the warmth of my heart, O my Christ, which the ease of my wretched flesh has quenched — sleep, and satiety of the belly, and the drinking of much wine.

These have utterly quenched the flame of my soul, and have dried up the fountain, the spring of tears; for indeed warmth begets fire, and fire in turn begets warmth, and from both a flame is kindled, the fountain of tears.

The flame brings forth streams, and the streams bring forth flame; by these things meditation led me up to the things of God — the study of your commandments, and again of your ordinances, the keeping of them having taken repentance as a co-worker — and they set me in the midst of things present and things to come; whence, having suddenly come to be outside the things seen, I fell into fear as I beheld, whence I was delivered.

And the things to come, though far off, I certainly beheld; and as I longed to grasp them, a fire of longing was kindled, and little by little a flame ineffably appeared first in my mind, and afterward in my heart, and the flame of divine longing poured forth tears, and along with them provided me an unspeakable sweetness.

I foolishly became enslaved to sleep and satiety of the belly, and having grown slack I made greater use of wine — not drunk, yet sated — and at once this awesome wonder was extinguished, the heartfelt longing, the flame reaching up to heaven, which was burning fiercely within me, yet not burning up the grass-like substance in my inward parts, but — O the wonder! — was transforming the whole of it into flame; and the grass, though touching the fire, was not burned at all; rather the fire, encompassing the grass within itself, was united to it and kept it entirely unconsumed.

O power of the divine fire, O strange working!

You who dissolve rocks and hills by fear alone and from your face, O Christ, my God — how do you mingle with grass, you whose essence is wholly divine, wholly unbearable light, my God who dwells within?

How, remaining unchangeable, wholly inaccessible, do you keep the substance of the grass unburned, and while keeping it unchanged do you transform it entirely; and, while remaining what it is, the grass becomes light — yet the light does not become grass — but you, the light, unite yourself to the grass without confusion, and the grass becomes, as it were, light, having been changed immutably?

I cannot bear to cover your wonders with silence, I am not able to refrain from speaking of your dispensation, which you wrought with me, the prodigal and fornicator; and I cannot endure not to recount to all the inexhaustible wealth of your love for mankind, O my Redeemer!

For you are not seen by me at all, yet you appear wholly to me; being wholly ungraspable, you will and become wholly graspable to me; being uncontainable by the universe, you truly become, then, small, and as it were in my hands and on my lips you are seen like a light-formed and sweet breast, flashing and turning — O strange mystery!

And may I be filled, and then impart it to all the others, and having departed may I come to you, wholly glorified, and having become light from your light may I myself stand before you; and then I shall be free of care concerning these many evils, and I shall be released from the fear of turning back to them again.

Yes, grant me this, Master; yes, freely bestow this on me, you who have given me, the unworthy one, all the other things as a free gift.

For this is what is needed above all, this is the whole and only thing; for even if now you are seen by me, even if now you have compassion, even if now you illumine me and mystically teach me, and shelter and guard me with your mighty hand, and are present with me, and turn back and make vanish the demons, and subject all things to me, and provide me with everything, and fill me with all good things, O my God — yet none of this is of any profit to me, unless you grant me to pass through the gates of death without shame.

Unless the ruler of darkness should come and see your glory present with me, and be utterly ashamed — he, the dark one, being consumed by your inaccessible light — and unless all the powers hostile to me, together with him, should be turned back on seeing the mark of your seal, and unless I myself should pass through, trusting boldly in your grace, wholly untrembling, and draw near to you and fall down before you — what profit is there to me in the things now happening within me?

Truly, nothing — rather, they would only kindle the fire the more against me.

For I, who hope to be a partaker of good things and of eternal glory, and to be your servant and friend — if I should be deprived of all these together, and of you yourself, my Christ, how will my affliction not be worse than that of the unbelievers, who have not known you, who have not seen your light shining, and have not been filled with your sweetness?

But if it should come to pass that I obtain the fulfillment of these pledges, and receive the prizes, O Savior, which you promised to those who have believed in you, O Christ, then I too shall be blessed, and I shall praise you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one God truly, unto ages of ages, amen.

For the things of the divine realities are manifest only to those with whom, through participation in the Holy Spirit, God has been united wholly to the whole of them.

Whence do you come, how do you enter — I mean, into the inside of the cell, secured on every side?

For this too is strange, beyond speech, and beyond mind.

But that you should suddenly become wholly within me, and shine forth, and be seen light-formed like a moon full of light — this renders me mindless, speechless, O my God.

I know that you are the one who came, that you might give light to those sitting in darkness, and I am astonished and go out of my senses and words, because I see a strange wonder, surpassing all creation, all nature, all reason.

Nevertheless I shall now tell it to all — what you grant me to speak: O every race of men, of kings and rulers, both rich and poor, monastics and those in the world, every tongue of earth-born men, hear me now as I speak, recounting the greatness of God's love for mankind!

Yet he called me, I know, and I obeyed at once.

But where do you suppose I mean to say that he called me?

Was it not to the glory of the world, or to delights, or to ease? Nor at all to wealth, or to the friendship of rulers, or to anything else of the things seen here in this life?

No — I said that he called me rather to repentance, and I immediately followed the Master who called; running, then, I ran after him; fleeing, I pursued him, as a hound pursues a hare.

But when the Savior withdrew far from me and hid himself, I for my part did not despair, nor did I turn back as one who had lost him, but sitting wherever I found myself, I lamented, I wept, and I called back in return to the Master who had hidden himself from me.

So then, as I lay rolling and crying out, he was seen by me, having drawn very near to me.

Whether he was hiding or appearing, I did not turn back, I did not hesitate at all, I did not slacken in running, nor did I regard him at all as a deceiver or as one testing me; but with all my strength, with all my power, I sought him though unseen; I scanned the roads and the hedges, wondering where he would appear; and I was filled with tears, and I questioned everyone — all those who had ever seen him.

But whom do you suppose I mean when I say that I questioned them?

By no means as you may think, but the prophets, apostles, and fathers — those wise in truth, who have acquired that whole wisdom itself, which is that very Christ, the Wisdom of God.

These, then, I questioned with tears and intense pain of heart, that they should tell me where they had ever beheld him, or in what place, or how and in what manner; and as they spoke to me, I ran with all my power; I did not sleep at all, but I did violence to myself.

Together with the world itself, I mean; and having reckoned all those in the world as though they did not exist in conscious perception, being separated in soul from the world by such a disposition, he appeared to me wholly to the whole of me, he was united to me wholly to the whole of me — he who, while being outside the world, yet carries the world around, together with all things that are in the world, and holds together with his hand alone things visible along with things invisible.

This one, then — hear me — having met me, found me; whence, how he came, I do not know.

For how was I to know whence he came — he whom no man has ever yet seen, nor known where he is, where he pastures his flock, where he lies down to rest?

For he is not seen at all, he is not comprehended at all, but he dwells in inaccessible light, and is light, three in hypostasis ineffably, in uncircumscribed places, my uncircumscribed God: one Father, and likewise Son, together with the Divine Spirit — the three are one, and the one God is three, inexplicably.

For speech has not the power to express the inexpressible, nor mind the power to understand it clearly; for I am scarcely able at all to tell you the things within me, and to interpret these things to you, neither I nor anyone else will be able at all.

...in power and in glory, and everywhere, and how in all things; but beyond these, he dwells in the saints in a special way, and tabernacles knowably in them, and essentially — he who is altogether beyond being?

How is he who holds together all creation held within my inward parts? How does he shine in my heart, my fleshly and gross heart? How is he both within it, and how is he outside all things, and yet himself fills all things, both in night and in day, and shines, and is not seen?

Tell me, will the human mind understand all these things, or will it have the power to tell them to you?

By no means; neither would an angel, nor an archangel, be able to tell you these things, nor would he be able to set them forth through speech.

These things, then, only the Spirit of God, being Divine, knows and understands, as alone being of one nature, co-enthroned, and co-unoriginate with the Son and with the Father; to those, then, on whom it shines again, and to whom it is richly joined, it shows all things ineffably — I tell you all this from experience.

For just as a blind man, if he should regain sight, sees the light first, and then also all creation, everything that is in the light — O wonder!

...those whom he illumines by his radiance, to these he gives to see the things that are in the divine light.

In proportion to their love, and to their keeping of the commandments, being illumined, they see and are initiated into the depth of the hidden divine mysteries.

Just as if someone, holding a lamp in his hand, should enter a dark house, or if another going before him holds the lamp, he sees the things within the house; so too the one who is brightly illumined by the rays of the noetic sun sees the things unknown to all others, and speaks of them — yet not all, but as much as he is able to express in speech.

For who has ever had the power to declare the things there — what sort, how many, of what kind — being incomprehensible and invisible to all?

For who will conceive the form of things without form, the quantity of things without quantity, the beauty of things incomprehensible — how will he measure it, how will he have the power to speak of it at all?

And the forms of the formless — how will he depict them in speech?

By no means at all, you will say to me.

But only those who behold them know these things.

...the wealth of divine mysteries, which the Master bestows on those who seek it with labor, and who have clearly acquired forgetfulness of the whole world and of the things in it.

For he who seeks those things with a whole-souled resolve — how will he not truly forget all the things here, and acquire a mind stripped bare of these, and immediately find himself alone, outside all things?

Whom the only God, seeing that he has become alone for his sake and has renounced the world and all things of the world — he alone, having found him alone, unites himself to him.

O awesome dispensation, O ineffable goodness!

But as for what follows from this, do not ask, do not search, do not seek!

For if no one has the power to number the multitude of the stars, or the drops of rain, or the sand, nor even to declare or conceive the magnitudes and beauties of the rest of creatures, or their natures and positions, or their causes, as they truly are — how would he be able to declare the compassion of the Creator, which he shows toward those holy souls with whom he has been united?

Or to recount to you all the things concerning it, since he does not know how to set forth to you through speech what manner of being God is — yet he attempts it.

But it is not permitted for those who are in the world, or who live according to the flesh, to seek out such things; but, receiving these things by faith alone, they ought to imitate the lives of all the saints, and to run with tears and repentance and the rest of ascetic discipline, and with endurance of trials, so that they may become outside the world, as has been said to me, and they will find, as I said, all things without omission.

And having found these things, they will be astonished and will marvel, and they will pray on behalf of me, wretched as I am, that I may not fall short of these things, but may obtain those very things which I both longed to obtain and still long for — and with longing I dim and blunt my longing.

For longing kindles longing, and fire feeds the flame; but with me it is not so — rather, I do not know how to say it, the excess of love extinguishes my love.

For I do not love as much as I wish, and I reckon myself not to possess the love of God at all.

But insatiably seeking to love as much as I wish, I lose in addition even the love of God that I already had — O wonder!

...he does not think he has anything at all, even though he has much gold — so indeed I, wretched one, seem to experience in this: because I do not long as I wish, nor as much as I altogether wish, I do not think that I long at all.

So then, to long as much as I wish is a longing beyond longing, and I do violence to my nature, to love beyond nature; but my nature, growing weak, is deprived even of the strength it possesses, and, paradoxically, love — even while living — then dies all the more; for it lives in me and flourishes.

How shall I tell you that it flourishes?

But this alone I will tell you: that everyone is unable to express such things in words.

May God alone — who truly is God, and who truly is the giver of such good things — grant to all who seek such things through repentance, to those who mourn and lament and are rightly purified, to enjoy such things, having come from this point into participation in them with conscious perception, to journey together with them, to find rest in them, to enjoy eternal life besides, and through these to be found sharers of the ineffable glory!

To one of the disciples: that when the divine fire of the Spirit touches souls purified through tears and repentance, it seizes hold of them and purifies them further, illuminating the parts of them darkened by sin, and, healing their wounds, brings them to complete scarring-over, so that they flash forth beyond measure with divine beauty.

There is a fire that is truly divine, which the Master spoke of, that he came to cast — upon what earth, tell me? — upon men assuredly, those who mind earthly things — which he wished, and still wishes, to kindle in all.

So what kind of fire do you reckon this divine fire to be?

Do you suppose it is visible, or created, or graspable?

Certainly not — for you are indeed initiated into such a thing, and you know for certain that it is ungraspable, uncreated, invisible indeed, without beginning and immaterial, wholly unchangeable, likewise uncircumscribed, unquenchable, immortal, wholly incomprehensible, outside all created things — the material and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible, the incorporeal and the enfleshed, earthly and heavenly. It is outside all these, by nature, by essence, yes indeed, and by authority.

In what matter, then, will this be cast — tell me?

Into souls that possess mercy most abundantly, and, before this and together with it, faith, and that possess also works confirming that faith — as into a lamp full both of oil and of wick — the Master casts the fire, which the world has not seen nor is able to see (by "world" I mean those who are in the world and mind worldly things).

Just as the lamp is kindled — I speak to you now of sensible things — when it touches the fire, so also understand me to be speaking spiritually when I say that the divine fire touches souls and kindles them.

Before it touches, how will it be kindled?

But before it is cast, how will it touch?

But when the lamp is lit and clearly illumines all, and the oil runs out, will not the lamp be extinguished?

Behold for me yet another thing, a greater one, which frightens me more than all!

While my lamp was shining brightly, with abundance of oil and plenty of wick, a mouse came, or something else — it either overturned the lamp, or, lapping it up little by little, drank the oil and ate the wick and extinguished the flame.

grown dark, no longer shining at all: understand the lamp to be my soul, the oil to be the virtues, and my mind to be the wick, and in it the divine fire shining and illuminating together the soul, and the whole house of my whole body, and all the thoughts and reflections within that house.