St. Isaac the Syrian - Humility is the End, the Final Goal

We come now to the denouement of Abbot Vasileios' reflections on St. Isaac the Syrian.  All that Vasileios writes comes together as a portrait of a man utterly transformed by the grace of God;  Abba Isaac is not lost to us in the 7th century but is ever so present - loving us, comforting us and giving us hope.  Having become a partaker of the ineffable joy of the age to come, he has not become absent to us.  His final teaching is the wisdom that unites us to him and God - while in this world we must struggle on for the final Sabbath for us comes only in the grave.  What we must seek and what has the greatest value for us in this world is humility.  It is in humility alone that we find rest and consolation and are protected from all enemies.  Humility must become our final end, our final goal.

Abba Isaac does far more that write about humility or exhort us to embrace it.  Through humility he becomes ever-present to us, bound to us - friend!  He would journey with us until all has been accomplished, death has been destroyed and Eternal Love alone remains.  

In order to express the ineffable, St. Isaac inevitably speaks in oxymorons, in negative terms.  He uses human terminology, concepts and values that have been broken and torn apart.

What can possibly be said about the state in which the intellect comes to a halt and the sense cease?  How can he convert the Incomprehensible and Uncreated using created elements? "There is no perfect or true name whatever for things of the age to come, but a simple state of knowing only, surpassing every appellation, every rudimentary element, form, color, shape and composite denomination."

This is why he speaks only of derangement, foolishness, inebriation; the loss of senses, of fear, shame, and free will; of disorder, measurelessness, nonexistence.  It is because he wants to express the true sobriety, perception, freedom and existence, the "new and simple world" which has received him.  

He has attained to the likeness of God.  He has become Godlike and God-minded.

All those things which before were essential (fear, shame, moderation, order . . . ), on which the Abba is so insistent, now flee; they leave him, they become an obstacle to him in his strange progress on high where Another acts, moves, and guides.  They cannot endure the fire of divinity which tests everything and makes it new.

And when he loses everything, that is when he finds everything in a way that is divine and unitary.  

He is taken up.  He disappears.  And he is truly to be found in a different place, in a different manner. "He is exalted above servitude to things earthly into the realm of its Creator."  He is given by grace "all power both in heaven and earth."  "He wields all the natures of creation even as God . . .  and  many times he can brings forth all from non-existence."

He shows us what a human being can attain.  What can be born from within him.  How this being can be extended.  "What treasures his soul has hidden within herself."  How he can be lost completely and found indeed.

He knows that one in a thousand may reach that point, may break through the bounds of corruption and be found worth of that mystery.

But insofar as even one person of the same nature as ours has reached that point, in his person we too have arrived by the grace of God.  And we become partakers of the ineffable joy of the age to come, which even now floods the souls and bodies of our deified brethren.

And these deified brethren are many.  And their multitude is defined not by a numerical value, but by the one truth and power which sums up the longings of all and satisfies the eager expectation of creation.

While he has reached that point and passed beyond the bounds of corruption, he knows that "while we are enclosed in the confines of the body", the work of repentance has not ended.  And he takes precautions against "the treachery of the demons and of those who preach the immutable perfection can be attained in this passionate and aberrant world."

And "the perfection of the perfect is truly without completion."  This is why "a man must not only work until he sees the fruit, but must struggle until his departure.  For often ripe fruit is suddenly destroyed by a hailstorm."

"Our sabbath is the day of our burial."

"The true Sabbath, the Sabbath that is not a similitude, is the tomb . . . the whole man, both soul and body, there keeps Sabbath."

Only in the grave does one find a Sabbath rest from the passions.  The end is the tomb.

And during the time one is alive, it is only in humility that one finds rest.  It is in this alone that he places his trust:

"The man who carries the pearl of chastity and journeys in the world on the road of his enemies has no hope of safety from thieves . . . until he reaches the sanctuary of the tomb, which is the land of certainty."

And "if, before you have entered into the city of humility, you observe in yourself that you have found rest from the importunity of the passions, do not believe it . . . You will not find rest from your toil, nor will you have relief from the enemy's treacherous designs, until you reach the abode of holy humility."

Humility is safety and certainty.  The humble man has the ethos and dignity of the sleeping and the dead.  He has the freedom and ease of one who does not exist.  He is "like a man that has not come into being."

He does not disturb anyone.  He is not disturbed by anyone.  He is unseen and unknown, as the soul is unseen and unknown.  And he is the soul and the consolation of the world.

Everyone loves the humble man.  They all want to be near him.  However much he shuns glory, it pursues him.

He wounds no one.  He is incapable of inflicting a wound.  And no one can wound him or do him any harm.  "He loves all and is loved by all."  He approaches wild beasts and they lose their savagery and come up to him as their master "and lick his hands and feet, for they smell coming from him that same scent that exhaled from Adam before the fall."

"For even the demons . . . become like dust as soon as they come before him."

Everyone reveres him, because they see in him the image of the Son of God who, in becoming man, put on humility as a garment.  And this divine grace clothes him about - "it is the raiment of the God-head" - and makes him inwardly alive and gives him wisdom.  "All men . . . see him as an angel of light . . . And every man waits on his words even as on the words of God."

Humility is the end, the final goal.

All the struggles, the asceticism, the virtues, have the goal of bringing us to humility.  "Without humility all our works are in vain, every virtue and every righteous labor."

The saints do not receive a reward for their virtue or toil in pursuit of virtue, but because of the humility it engenders.

"If humility becomes ours, she will make us sons of God, and even without good works she will present us to God."  "But without her, works are of no profit to us, and rather prepare us for many evils."

This is the fullness of the Kingdom; "the time appointed for the promise and the fulfillment of hope."

"Humility is a certain mysterious power which perfected saints receive when they have completed the whole course of their discipline."

"This virtue includes all in itself."  It is the power that the Apostles received at Pentecost.

It was concerning this that the Lord commanded: "Do not depart from Jerusalem, until you are clothed with power from on high."  Jerusalem is virtue; the power is humility.

In fact, it can be said that Abba Isaac is the great mystagogue of the mystery of humility.  All his ascetical homilies have this as their goal and their source.  All spiritual struggles flow out into the wide sea of humility.  And from humility proceeds the divine rest which restores the beauty in which man was first created.  "Anything whatsoever possessing humility is of its nature comely."

He recognizes humility as deification ("the humble-minded man is reckoned by all as God") and when he is about to speak of it, he hesitates and "is filled with fear" like one who knows that it means speaking about God.

This sacred hesitation and divine sensitivity rises from every page of his book, because Abba overflows with the gift of humility.

And "this it is which has sweetened the fragrance of the race of men."

Abba Isaac is the consolation of us all.

Who could appeal more the need of ordinary people who are looking for some human warmth and not exasperation?

Who could receive all the tormented children of History more warm-heartedly, or take them into a more saving embrace?

He spoke the language of existential anguish, and his insatiable yearnings were fulfilled.  He found peace.

Who can claim to be a more daring revolutionary and social reformer?  Who can say he has been more demanding in his life and more consistent in his conduct up to the end, than this elder in his cave?

He is such a deep ocean that no disturbance can trouble his waters - "he who is humble in mind is not perturbed, even if the sky should fall and cleave the earth."  And there is none more daring in his exploration of the depths.

If you are looking for human companionship, he gives it to you.  If you need a rest, you can get it.  If you are tormented by problems of faith, of existential anguish; if you are searching inwardly for the meaning of life; if many people have disappointed you and left you on your own, abandoned - make your way to Abba Isaac.  He does not abandon man.  God and find him in the Church.  Sit down beside him.  He knows all you have to endure better than you do yourself.  Everything you are going through, he has gone through before you.  His love is bound up with knowledge.  "Mercy feeds knowledge in the soul."

We can live, we can make progress.  We have someone beside us who understands us. 

We want to be still, to rest and to act.  In him we find it all.  And all alive, evolving, in progress.

He bears these things and lives them in such a way that the end and cessation of all is a blessing and a beginning, where things start to function in a different way which is more spiritual and worth.  "This is the majestical state of the good things to come, which is granted in the freedom of immortal life, in existence after the resurrection."

The serene movement of a flame at the highest temperature and in absolute silence.  The smoke has ceased, and the noise of the wood, "of the elements which will be consumed" "of methods and craftiness," "where there is darkness and the web of thoughts, and also the passions."

Everything has become light, incandescence, a strange magnificence.  Cessation, and a different movement.  The original motionlessness.

Everything has been clothed in glistening radiance and shines with "the unified simplicity of purity."

He loves everyone, and to him all are pure.

"When he sees all men as good and none appears to him to be unclean or defiled, then in truth a man's heart is pure."

His purity is not an individual matter, but an opportunity for all of us to be saved.

All things are revealed to him in a way which is uniform, and he is at peace.  There is nothing that disturbed him.  The remembrance of death kindles joy in his heart.

All is love.  The paradise of the saved, the hell of those enduring punishment.

He would not be complete if he did not love in this way.  Hell is the inability to love.  He has gone on to the greater love.  The burning of his heart melts the whole of creation.  With divine tenderness he embraces all creatures, "the enemies of truth and even the devil himself."

Only then, "when we attain to love, we attain to God.  Our way is ended and we have passed until the isle that lies beyond the world, where is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

In knowing him, you know God.

There is not a God who is both good and bad.  There is not a God who loves His friends and hates his enemies.   He is love from beginning to end.

In the abundance of His mercy He brings all things from non-existence into being.

Even the final judgment He carries out purely for love for all.

"God chastises in love, not for the sake of revenge - far be it! - but seeking to make whole His image. And He does not harbor His wrath for long."

"I also maintain that those who are punished in Gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love . . .

It would be improper to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God.  Love  . . . is given to all in common.  The power of love works in two ways . . .  Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret."

He has fallen into the beguilement which surpasses himself.  He has fallen into the love of God which is as strong as death.  He can do no other.

"He who has attained to the love of God no longer wishes to remain in this life."

Does he who loves us want to leave us?

No.  He is simply showing us that distance can no longer separate us.  He is going to prepare a place for us.  He is truly with us and within us.

"Whom have you made your friend in this life, so that he will receive you there on the day of your departure?  he asks somewhere.

And we dare answer:

"We regard you as our friend, Abba, since you have understood us and cared for us."

Those who are silent like Abba Isaac, speak.  Those who are absent are with us in a different way, "in another form."

Their "ignorance" forges new paths of knowledge.

Their "non-existence" keeps us in being.

Their "longing for death as for life" gives us courage to confront, endure and overcomes whatever trials we face.

Death has been abolished.  The void has been filled.  Love has been conquered through them in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages. Amen.

Archimandrite Vasileios

Abbot of Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos

Abba Isaac the Syrian

An Approach to His World

St. Isaac the Syrian - Slipping Beyond the Bounds to Attain the Unattainable

Archimandrite Vasileios opens our view to the horizon in this reflection in order that we might catch sight not only the journey ahead but that we might be filled with fervor and wonder for what is held in store for us.  We are on a ceaseless journey and everything in this world is transcended as we enter into the eternal silence and repose of God.  The movement is beyond virtue and ethics and all worldly hope and freedom.  The struggle is great, but the glory that is beyond prayer and freedom and that is filled with the joy of the divine, makes all other things seem as nothing.  There is a time for everything and one cannot elude the necessity of bodily toil and asceticism.  We suffer the shame of the cross in order to share in its glory and the reception of the Comforter.  The path ahead holds violence born of fervor beyond measure.  One transcends oneself and moves from glory to glory; all requiring the death to the false self, a willingness to experience the painful separation from the illusions we create for ourselves in order to be drawn into a vision of God.  In the eyes of the world it is a state of derangement where one is no longer directed or set upon the order of things here, but upon an ineffable sweetness that descends and floods man's being.

It is a ceaseless journey, an ascent, an ascension.

All things reach the point of transcendence.  They are surpassed.  They are done away with. They cease.

We enter into absolute silence and repose.

A person freed from passions, from ignorance, from vice.  He is not bound by "the other means which dishonor a man."  The present life is not big enough for him.  He does not bind himself to the present life.

He is not confined to worldly ethics and hope.  "For the hope of this present life enfeebles the thinking."  Despair shatters the hard, confining shell of worldly hope, the prison of sterility - "no weapon is stronger than despair" - pouring forth torrents of light in darkness.

He does not make good works, virtue, his aim in life.  He attains these, and by the grace of God moves beyond them: "Faith's way of life is more exalted than virtue, and its labor is not works, but perfect rest and consolation."

Calmly he moves on beyond the bounds of motion, speech, sensation, knowledge, activity of any kind.  "He becomes a free man and a ruler of himself, and as a son of God with authority he freely wields all things."

In the end he casts off even his own freedom. "Then a man's nature is deprived of its free will . . . it is led whither it knows not by some other power . . . at that moment it is held fast in captivity."  He finds himself then in the "ignorance" which is above all knowledge and the "captivity" which is above all freedom.

He has broken every barrier.  He has attained the Unattainable.  "His intellect is confounded and swallowed up in awestruck wonder, and forgets the very desire of its own entreaty."

From now on "the mind no longer possesses prayer, or movement, or weeping, or dominion, or free will or supplication, or desire, or fervent longing for things hoped for in this life or in the age to come."

But getting there takes a real struggle.  And Abba Isaac does not merely speak to you about this.  You see him in his book actually going beyond the bounds of corruption.  You can make out the divine changes in his person and the fact that he is wholly in that realm which is beyond the world, where everything has been done away with and transcended.

Now, "making his abode in the glory which brings joy," he reveals through his being how the spiritual laws work and how one progresses towards transcendence in all areas, subjects and levels.

Each thing has its own rhythm and its own time.  You have to wait and let it move along on its own.

An illness has to go run its course before it leaves the patient.  A fruit has to go through all the stages, in appropriate climatic conditions, in order to ripen.

We cannot ask for things that have their proper time when it is not their proper time.  

"When it is not the proper time, let us not yearn after the lofty things, let us not yearn after the lofty things of the noetic discipline, lest we be made a laughing stock by our cunning adversary."

"Every man that before the time begins things that are beyond his measure makes his harm twofold."

We should not ask for things that prosper in one particular place where it is not the place for them.  "Let every work be honored  in its own place, lest we become confused in our discipline."

So then all this is necessary - a place, a time, a special procedure - in order for something genuine and true to come out of what we do.  ("There is an order for every work, and for every discipline there is a fixed time."  Afterwards, this outcome speaks, stands and comforts man in every time and place.

Physical toil precedes spiritual rest. "And just as in the beginning, the fashioning of the body preceded the inbreathing of the soul, so the works of the body precede the labor of the soul."  "Regard every virtue performed without bodily toil as premature, stillborn fruit of the womb."

First comes force and toil, and later we reach the point where things are unforced and effortless.  First comes the struggle, and later we attain to rest, enjoyment and plentitude.

"Ascetical endeavor is the mother of sanctification . . . Let know man deceive himself, and imagine divinations; for a polluted soul does not ascend to the pure kingdom, nor is such a soul joined to the spirits of the holy."

We shall start, then, with the works of the body.  Matter, force, struggle will form the initial steps that enable us to climb.  Without these, we cannot make any headway: "When you desire to draw nigh to God with your heart, first show Him your yearning by bodily labors."

Without passing through the dishonor of the cross of practice virtue, it is not possible to reach the second part of the crucifixion, the glory of the cross, when man is released from passions and conceptual images.

"Until a man has received the Comforter, he requires the divine scriptures."  This is why he advises: "Fetter your intellect by reading the Scriptures."  "Occupy yourself with reading books, which will make plain to you the subtle pathways of divine vision."  "Without assiduous reading, a man will know no refinement of thoughts."  "Continual reflection on Scriptures is a light to the soul."

But "when the power of the Spirit has penetrated the power of the soul . . . then he is secretly taught by the Spirit and needs no help from sensory matter."  And "his mind will be exalted above the images of things."

He starts with teaching, and speech which "is an instrument of this world," and attains to the "silence which is a mystery of the age to come."  He is "silenced by his ignorance of all that is found there.  This is the unknowing which is more sublime than knowledge."

"Knowledge is a step whereby one can climb up to the lofty height of faith; and when one has reached faith, one no longer has need of knowledge."  One transcends the whole of the sensible world, and "perception is received by the spirit and not by the senses."

In this state, "knowledge is abolished, works come to an end and the employment of the sense become superfluous."

"Mourning is the work of the monk."  "And when the soul is given fervor, the contrition of mourning is taken away."

Tears are a bodily sign that your intellect has come out of the prison of this world.  "If you observe that your eyes are filled with tears . . . then know that a breach in the opposing camp has begun to appear for you."

"But when the mind is exalted above created things, the body also takes leave of tears and of every movement and sensation."

From just judgment it passes on to mercy.  This is the fulfillment and transcendence of just judgment. "Mercy is opposed to just judgment."

After a long life in stillness, "you find a joy which is without cause . . . and then your eyes are opened to see God's creative power and the beauty of created things."  But even there you do not stay long.  "Since all the beauty of things to exist in the newness to come is inferior to God's beauty, how can the intellect depart, through contemplation of it, from the beauty of God?"

"From activity that demands violence there is born fervor beyond measure."  And it attains to the prayer which comes about "without effort or wandering of thoughts."

In the beginning, arduous toil and pain are needed in prayer: "Reckon every prayer wherein the body does not toil and the heart is not afflicted to be a miscarriage."  Later on, "a man does not pray with labor and weariness . . . but because his heart is full of joy and wonder it continually wells up motions of gratitude."

Ultimately, even prayer itself is done away with.  "For what pertains to prayer has ceased, while a certain divine vision remains, and the mind does not pray a prayer."  "The intellect comes to be above prayer, and by the discovery of something better, prayer is abandoned."

There is a divine visitation and heavenly joy which fills the whole body.  Earthly things are abandoned.  A person forgets the things that are in the world, because an ineffable sweetness descends and floods his being.  "A fountain springs up in his heart, gushing forth sweetness: his members grow feeble . . . so that because of the joy which surges through his entire body, he cannot make prostrations."

In that state there is no distinction between body and soul.  "Whenever that delight which surges through his whole body sojourns within a man, at that hour he things that nothing else is the Kingdom of the heavens save this."

He experiences the grace of the incarnation and the blessing of the union, without confusion or division, of the two natures of Christ.  He is anti-Nestorian in both his teaching and his life.  The grace of interpenetration sets its seal on his whole being and character and gives it life.  Then night and day are one; sufferings and joys are one.  And he finds trials and tribulations sweeter than honey.

In this state, the passions are confronted in a way that is dynamic. They are overcome by other, greater things.

"The joy that is in God is stronger than the present life."  There is a divine drunkeness which makes the body insensible to all tribulations.  "When the soul is drunken with the joy of hope and with the gladness which is in God, the body becomes insensible to tribulations, even if it be feeble."

Thus, "entrance to the heart is denied to the passions not as a result of struggle, but because of the repletion of our conscious mind."  "This is not because the assaults of the passions have ceased to exist, but because the heart which receives them is now dead to them and lives in something else."  "For the conscience is satiated in the enjoyment of something else."  And "in the place of the assaults another desire, stronger than them, has gained the mastery."

Fear and shame come first.  "The fear of God is the beginning of virtue."  "The intellect weighed down by fear of God and shame is not readily upset by the things that sway it."

And when the temperature of love rises, "there is seen an unaccustomed change."  (He talks about this state in the thirty fifth homily).

The love of God is by nature fervent.  And when it comes upon a person without measure, he cannot contain it.  "Love does not know shame, and for this reason she does not know to give a form of propriety to her members."

And it brings about an unaccustomed changed in him, the signs of which are perceptible on his body. His face becomes flushed and shining with joy.

Fear and shame leave him.  He becomes like someone in a state of ecstasy.

The power of his intellect deserts him, and he becomes like a man out of his wits.

Fearsome death he regards with joy.

The contemplation of his intellect is permanently fixed on heavenly things.

Though absent, he consorts with others as if he were present, unseen by anyone.  

His natural knowledge and sight pass away; he is not aware of his movement by sense perception.

If he performs any action he is not altogether aware of it, because his intellect is rapt in contemplation.

And his mind is constantly in converse with someone else.

This is the spiritual drunkenness with which the Apostles and Martyrs were inebriated; and being wise, they were thought fools.  Others wandered in the wilderness . . . being well-ordered amidst disorder.

May God grant us to attain such derangement.

Archimandrite Vasileios

Abbot of Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos

Abba Isaac the Syrian

An Approach to His World

City a Desert Video Series: Theosis - Partakers of Divine Life

Theosis: Partakers of the Divine Nature

After the most recent post on Asceticism, it is appropriate to consider the goal of such discipline and aim of Philokalic spirituality.  Simply put, it is the attainment of union with God and what the Fathers referred to as theosis or deification.  St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain tells us that the Philokalia is the “instrument itself of deification.”  Such a view is shared among contemporary Orthodox Christians: “Thus, the Philokalia, the single most important collection of Orthodox spiritual texts is, in effect, perhaps the best guidebook, next to the Bible, to the means of theosis.  Its purpose is precisely to help us fulfill our calling to theosis or union with God” (Coniaris, “Philokalia: Bible of Orthodox Spirituality”, 132).  

Theosis is the foundation, purpose and goal of life.  This is expressed beautifully in Kenneth Leach’s introduction to Tito Coliander’s work “The Way of the Ascetics”: “Orthodoxy is not primarily a system or a correctness in doctrinal formulations.  Doxa means glory.  Orthodoxy is therefore concerned with ‘right glory,’ and it is therefore rooted in the sense of theology as inseparable from human transformation.  The purpose of theology is nothing less than the transfiguring of human life ‘from glory to glory.’  At the center of Orthodox theology and spirituality is the theme of theosis, deification, the raising of manhood into God.  This is the aim of the liturgy, the Eucharistic celebration which stands at the center of all worship and all life.”  Thus, the “resourcement”, the return to the sources of our faith that was envisioned by Vatican II also and importantly includes rediscovery of the writings of the Philokalia.  Such a rediscovery is important not simply in the quest for Christian unity.  “It is essential if we are to recover that lost sense of the mystical and prayerful character of all theology.  All theology is mystical theology; all theology is social theology.  For it is rooted in ‘the life hidden with Christ in God’ and in the social life of the Holy Trinity. . .the way of the ascetics is not a gloomy, world-denying path; it is a way of doxa, of glory, whose aim is nothing less than our deification” (Colliander, “The Way of the Ascetics, ix-xi).

Sometimes in the busyness of life, which can include a kind of Christian activism, we can lose sight of our dignity and destiny: we can lose sight of the ultimate aim of God for sending his Son into the world to become man.  We must return again and again to the words of the scriptures: “For God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:9-10) and “We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).  God has created us for Himself and sharing in His life is our glorious destiny - to become, by grace, partakers of the divine nature.  “In other words, the mystery of union between humanity, i.e., all of us and Christ is the ultimate aim of the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection - nay, of creation as a whole.  Thus, union with God is the foundation of the Church and the mystery of the Gospel.  It was this union with God that Christ petitioned the Father to grant in our behalf when He prayed in John 17:21, ‘. . . that they also may be one in us’” (Coniaris, 133).

Theosis is not just a beautiful word and we must not reduce it to a theological concept; rather, it must be allowed to speak to everyday life - to penetrate and illuminate our trials, burdens and struggles.  “Theosis has everything to say to struggling humanity.  It tells us that we have the capacity through the presence of God within us to transcend and overcome any and every difficulty in life, including the greatest of all: death.  Theosis tells us that we are not paupers, or beggars but sons and daughters of God, sharing His glory, partaking of His Nature, destined to inherit His eternal kingdom.  Theosis tells us that we are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us.  Theosis tells us to ‘hang in there’ no matter how hard the struggle or the temptation because God has great things in store for us.  As St. Paul says, ‘I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us’ (Rom. 8:18)” (Coniaris, 137).  

The means to Theosis is the grace of God and all the ways that He provides to draw us close to Him and to share His life with us; the sacraments, repentance, obedience to the commandments, reading the Word of God, faith, hope, love, service of neighbor, constant prayer, and the struggle of sin and temptation.

As we embrace all of these things we come to see the preciousness of the gift of our life and why it is worth living.  “It is worth living because Christ loves you.  It is worth living because Christ died for you and rose again to give you life.  It is worth living because with Christ, life is both eternal and abundant.  But life is worth living, above all because in Christ your destiny is theosis, becoming Christ-like, god by grace.  Therefore, choose Christ and live.  With Christ, life can be lived meaningfully, divinely, royally, victoriously, and eternally” (Coniaris, 145). 

The Characteristics of a Distinctive "Philokalic" Spirituality

From all appearances the Philokalia seems like a mere collection of texts written by 36 different authors.  Indeed, Kallistos Ware reminds us, the word Philokalia can signify “a love what is beautiful and good, love for God as the source of all things beautiful.”  But, he continues, it can also simply mean “anthology”.  When a person picks up the Philokalia, the second meaning seems to be the dominant one.  Ware states: “The different texts are given simply in chronological order, with no attempt at systematic classification, no grouping of topics, and no clear indication which writings are considered suitable for ‘beginners’ and which for the more ‘advanced.’”  But when we begin to look deeper, dominant motifs and master themes emerge which, Ware states, “give to the Philokalia a coherent unity and a definite purpose.”  

According to Ware, the first theme and general scope of the Philokalia is Inner Action.  The Philokalia is concerned with the interior life.  It is not concerned with bodily asceticism, although this of course is discussed and a necessary part of the spiritual life, but rather with “guarding the intellect.”  “What it reveals to us, says St. Nikodimos in his preface, is ‘the kingdom of God that is within you,  . . . the treasure hidden in the field of the heart.’”  This kingdom within is characterized by two fundamental virtues - nepsis and hesychia.  Nepsis “is a term denoting sobriety, temperance, lucidity and above all vigilance and watchfulness.”  Hesychia “signifies not so much exterior silence as inner stillness of heart.”  These two virtues, which we will discuss further in later posts, foster greater freedom from the thoughts and fantasies often associated with our passions and give rise to pure prayer free of all images and discursive thought.  

The second theme, according to Ware, describes the basic aim of the Philokalia: Deification or theosis - a direct, transforming union with God.  St. Nikodimos in the first sentence of his preface to the Philokalia writes: “God, the blessed nature, perfection that is more than perfect, the creative principle of all that is good and beautiful, Himself transcending all goodness and all beauty, in His supremely divine plan preordained from all eternity the deification of humankind.”  Simply put, the supreme end of the spiritual life is to be one with God through having his image and likeness perfected within us.  

The third and final theme discussed by Ware is the means of this Deification: the Continual Invocation of the Holy Name.  The grace bestowed on us at baptism is obscured by our sin and through being immersed in worldly cares and controlled by our passions.  Once again in the preface to the Philokalia, Nikodimos tells us how this grace can be reactivated: “The Spirit. . . revealed to the Fathers a method that is truly wonderful . . .whereby grace can be rediscovered.  This was to pray continually to our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, not simply to pray with the intellect and the lips alone; . . . but to turn the whole intellect towards the inner self, which is a marvelous experience; and so inwardly, within the very depths of the heart, to invoke the all-holy Name of the Lord and to implore mercy from Him, concentrating our attention solely on the bare words of the prayer, not allowing anything else whatever to gain entry from within or from without, but keeping the mind totally free from all forms and colors.”  When we engage in this spiritual work and live in accord with the commandments then we begin to “return to the perfect grace of the Spirit that was bestowed upon us in the beginning through Baptism.”  

As we begin our study of the Philokalia at the Oratory, and in later posts we will be discussing in depth these and approximately 20 other related themes of “philokalic” spirituality and examine how these themes are developed by particular writers.    

Quotes from, “The inner unity of the Philokalia and its influence in East and West” by Kallistos Ware, pp. 6-10.  Edit. Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, Athens 2004.