Máximo, o Confessor — Centúrias sobre Teologia III

Tradução em grande parte feita a partir da versão francesa da Philokalia  , mas eventualmente utilizada a versão inglesa.

---

1. Um é o bem que, acima de tudo, não tem começo e que é mais que a essência: a Santa Unidade   em três hipóstases, Pai   e Filho e Espírito Santo. União   infinita de três infinitos, guardando totalmente inacessível aos seres a razão do ser: como ele é, o que ele é e qual ele é. Pois esta razão escapa à compreensão daqueles que pensam: ela não sai absolutamente da interioridade   oculta segundo a natureza, e ela supera infinitamente todo conhecimento de todos os conhecimentos.

2. O bem no sentido próprio, em sua essência, é o que não tem nem começo, nem fim, nem causa   do ser, nem também, no ser, algum movimento  , qualquer que seja, para uma causa. Mas este que não é assim não é em sentido próprio, pois tem um começo, um fim, uma causa do ser e, no ser, o movimento para uma causa. O que não é no sentido próprio, quando assim mesmo será denominado ser, é e é denominado ser por participação, pela vontade dAquele que é no sentido próprio.

3. Se uma razão guia   o devir dos seres, ela não seria, ela não é, ela não ser  á uma razão mais alta que o Verbo. O Verbo não é nem sem inteligência nem sem vida, mas é inteligente e vivente, pois ele porta   nele realmente o Pai que é a Inteligência geradora, e ele porta nele a vida cuja existência é realmente ligada ao Espírito Santo.

4. Ele é um só Deus  , Pai que engendra um só Filho, e que é a fonte   do Espírito Santo, Unidade sem confusão e Trindade   sem divisão, Inteligência que não tem começo, Pai único engendrando realmente o único Verbo que não tem começo, e fonte da única vida eterna, quer dizer do Espírito Santo.

5. Ele é um só Deus, pois é uma única Divindade: Unidade que não tem começo, que é simples, mais que a essência, sem partilhamento e sem divisão. A mesma é Unidade e Trindade, etc.

6. Se toda participação daqueles que participam é preconcebida, a causa dos seres que, por conta de   sua natureza, existe e é concebida antes dos seres, supera de toda evidência e de toda maneira todos os seres, claramente e incomparavelmente. Não porque ela é a essência das criaturas pois o divino   se revelaria composto, desde quando tivesse a realidade dos seres para completar sua própria existência. Mas porque ela é a supra-essência da essência. Se, com efeito, as artes imaginaram formas que moldam e se a natureza em seu conjunto   inventou as espécies que suscita, quanto mais Deus criou do nada as essências dos seres, ele que é mais que a essência e que, ainda mais, está infinitamente além do que poderia o estabelecer na supra-essência, ele que uniu as ciências e as artes para que elas inventem formas, que deu à natureza a energia que lhe permite suscitar as espécies, e que fundou tal qual ele é este ser das essências.

7. Aquele à essência do qual os seres não participam, mas que, de uma outra maneira, quer que aqueles que o possam, participem nele, não sai absolutamente do secreto da essência. Então mesmo que o modo segundo o qual ele quer ser partilhado, como ele o sabe, permanece continuamente invisível a todos, ele quer assim fundar   o que participa, segundo uma razão que ele mesmo conhece, na superabundante potência de sua bondade. O que foi feito pela vontade do Criador não poderia então ser eterno com Aquele que o quis.

8. O Verbo de Deus, nascido uma vez por todas segundo a carne  , quer sempre, por amor do homem  , nascer segundo o Espírito naqueles que o desejam. Ele se torna pequenino  , se formando ele mesmo neles pelas virtudes, se revelando na medida onde sabe que o porta aquele que o recebe, e não diminuindo pela inveja   a revelação de sua própria grandeza  , mas avaliando a potência daqueles que desejam o ver. Assim, enquanto ele se manifesta sempre nas modos   daqueles que o participam, o Verbo de Deus, na transcendência do mistério, permanece sempre invisível a todos. Eis porque, depois de ter sabiamente examinado o poder do mistério, o divino Apóstolo disse: "Jesus Cristo  , o mesmo ontem, hoje, e para sempre" (Hebr. 13,8). Ele sabia que o mistério é sempre novo e que não envelhece jamais na compreensão da inteligência.

9. O Cristo Deus nasceu, se tornou homem assumindo uma carne que tem uma alma   espiritual, ele que concedeu aos seres de nascer do nada, e que a Virgem procriou sobrenaturalmente (Lc  , 1,31) sem perder nenhuma marca   da virgindade  . Pois assim como se tornou homem sem mudar   a natureza e sem alterar o poder, do mesmo modo fez Mãe e guardou Virgem aquela que o procriou. Ele explica o milagre   por um milagre, ao mesmo tempo que oculta um pelo outro. Pois, para ele mesmo, Deus é sempre mistério em sua essência: não sai do secreto natural   a não ser para o deixá-lo ainda mais secreto pela manifestação, e do mesmo modo faz da Virgem Mãe que só procria para fazer pela gestação as ligações da virgindade impossíveis de romper.

10. As naturezas são renovadas e Deus se torna homem. Não é apenas a natureza divina, constante e imóvel, que se põe em movimento em direção da natureza móvel e inconstante a fim de que ela cesse de ser carregada. E não é somente a natureza humana que, sem semente  , mais alta que a natureza, cultiva uma carne levada a seu termo pela razão divina, a fim de cessar de ser carregada. Mas é também a estrela   que em pleno   dia aparece no Oriente, e conduz os Magos (Mt   2,2-9) ao lugar da encarnação do Verbo, a fim de significar a palavra que estava na Lei e nos Profetas, misticamente mais forte   que os sentidos, conduzindo as nações à imensa luz do conhecimento. Pois a palavra da Lei e dos Profetas tinha claramente em vista o conhecimento do Verbo encarnado, assim como a estrela, considerada com piedade  , conduz aqueles que, no desígnio de Deus, foram chamados pela graça.

Tr. G.E.H Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware

48. Nothing sequent to God is more precious for beings endowed with intellect, or rather is more dear to God, than perfect love; for love unites those who have been divided and is able to create a single identity of will and purpose, free from faction, among many or among all; for the property of love is to produce a single will and purpose in those who seek what pertains to it.

49. If by nature the good unifies and holds together what has been separated, evil clearly divides and corrupts what has been unified. For evil is by nature dispersive, unstable, multiform and divisive.

50. The true love of God, grounded in real knowledge, together with the total repudiation of the soul’s affection for the body and this world, is the short road to salvation and brings deliverance from all sins. In this way, casting off desire for pleasure and fear of pain, we are freed from evil self-love and are raised to a spiritual knowledge of the Creator. In the place of the evil self-love, we receive an uncorrupt and spiritual self-love, separated from affection for the body; and we do not cease to worship God through this uncorrupt self-love, always seeking from Him sustenance for our souls. For true worship, genuinely pleasing to God, is the strict cultivation of the soul through the virtues.

51. If you do not long for bodily pleasure and have not the slightest fear of pain, you have attained dispassion. For by overcoming such longing and fear, together with the self-love which has engendered them, you have killed at a single blow all the passions which have come into being through them and from them, as well   as the principal source of all evil, ignorance. You have become full of [V2 175] that goodness which Is stable and permanent and always remains the same by nature; and in that goodness you stand absolutely immovable, ’with unveiled face   reflecting the glory of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18) and contemplating through the radiant brightness; within you the divine and unapproachable glory.

52. Let us reject the pleasure and pain of this present life with what strength we have, and so free ourselves entirely from all thoughts of the passions and all machinations of the demons. For we love the passions because of pleasure and avoid virtue because of pain.

53. Since it is the nature of every evil to destroy itself along with the habits which brought it into being, man finds

by experience that every pleasure is inevitably succeeded by pain, and so directs his whole effort towards pleasure and does all he can to avoid pain. He struggles with all his might to attain pleasure and he fights against pain with immense zeal. By doing this he hopes to keep the two apart from each other — which is impossible — and to indulge his self-love in ways which bring only pleasure and are entirely free from pain. Dominated by the passion of self-love he is, it appears, ignorant that pleasure can never exist without pain. For pain is intertwined with pleasure, even though this seems to escape the notice of those who suffer it. It escapes their notice because desire for pleasure is the dominating force in self-love, and what dominates is naturally always more conspicuous and obscures one’s sense   of what is present with it. Thus because in our self-love we pursue pleasure, and because — also out of self-love — we try to escape pain, we generate untold corrupting passions in ourselves.

54. A man no longer experiences pleasure and pain when, freeing his intellect from its relationship with the body, he binds or rather unites it to God, tile real goal of love, longing and desire.

55. Just as one cannot worship God in a pure way without utterly purifying the soul, so one cannot worship creation without pampering the body. By fulfilling, out of concern fop the body, that worship which causes corruption, and by thus acquiring self-love, man became subject to the unceasing action of pleasure and pain; eating always from the tree of disobedience — the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — in this way he acquired experientially through sense-perception a knowledge in which good and evil were intermingled. And it would not be untrue to say that the tree of the knowledge of [V2 176] good and evil is the visible created world. For this world is by nature subject to that alternation which produces pleasure and pain.

56. Where intelligence does not rule, the senses naturally assume the dominant role. The power of sin is somehow mingled with the senses and induces the soul by means of sensual pleasure to have pity for the flesh, to which it is joined. When the soul pursues the impassioned and pleasurable cultivation of the flesh as its natural task, it is diverted from a life lived in accordance with nature and is impelled to become the author of evil, which has no substantial existence.

57. Evil is the noetic soul’s forgetfulness of what is good according to nature; and this forgetfulness results from an impassioned relationship with the flesh and the world. When the intelligence is in control it dispels this forgetfulness through spiritual knowledge, since intelligence, having investigated the nature of the world and the flesh, draws the soul to the realm of spiritual realities which is its true home. Into this realm the law of sin cannot penetrate; for the link between the soul and the senses has now been broken, and the senses, limited to the world of sensible objects, can no longer function as a bridge conveying the law of sin into the intellect. When the intellect transcends its relationship with sensible objects and the world to which they pertain, it becomes utterly free from the sway of the senses.

58. When the intelligence dominates the passions it makes the senses instruments of virtue. Conversely, when the passions dominate the intelligence they conform the senses to sin. One must watchfully study and reflect how the soul can best reverse the situation and use those things through which it had formerly sinned to generate and sustain the virtues.

59. The holy Gospel   teaches men to reject life according to the flesh and to embrace life according to the Spirit  . I am speaking of those who are always dying to what is human — I mean human life in the flesh according to this present age — and living for God in the Spirit alone, after the example of St Paul and his followers. They do not in any way live their own life but have Christ living in them in the soul alone (cf. Gal. 2:20). Those, then, who in this age are truly dead to the flesh can be distinguished in this way: even though they suffer much affliction, torment, distress and persecution, and [V2 177] experience innumerable forms of trial and temptation, nevertheless they bear everything with joy.

60. Every passion always consists of a combination of some perceived object, a sense faculty and a natural power -the incensive power, desire or the intelligence, as the case may be — whose natural function has been distorted. Thus, if the intellect investigates the final result of these three inter-related factors — the sensible object, the sense faculty and the natural power involved with the sense faculty — it can distinguish each from the other two, and refer each back to its specific natural function. It can, that is to say, view the sensible object in itself, apart from its relationship to the sense faculty, and the sense faculty in itself, apart from its connection with the sensible object, and the natural power — desire, for example -apart from its impassioned alliance with the sense faculty and the sensible object. In this way, the intellect reduces to its constituent parts whatever passion it investigates, in much the same way as the golden calf of Israel   in Old Testament days was ground into powder and mixed with water   (cf. Exod. 32:20): it dissolves it with the water of spiritual knowledge, utterly destroying even the passion-free image of the passions, by restoring each of its elements to its natural state.

61. A life stained with many faults arising from the passions of the flesh is a soiled garment. For from his mode of life, as if from some garment, each man declares himself to be either righteous or wicked. The righteous man has a holy life as a clean garment; the wicked man has a life soiled with evil actions. Thus a ’garment stained by the flesh’ (Jude, verse 23) is the inner state and disposition of the soul when its conscience is deformed by the recollection of evil impulses and actions arising from the flesh. When this state or disposition constantly envelops the soul like a garment, it is filled with the stink of the passions. But when the virtues, through the power of the Spirit, are interwoven in accordance with the intelligence, they form a garment of incorruption for the soul: dressed in this the soul becomes beautiful and resplendent. Conversely, when the passions are interwoven under the influence of the flesh, they form a filthy, soiled garment, which reveals the character of the soul, imposing on it a form and image contrary to the divine.

62. A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to the deification of human nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which [V2 178] makes man god to the same degree as God Himself became man. For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He lowered Himself for man’s sake. This is what St Paul teaches mystically when he says, ’. . . that in the ages to come He might display the overflowing richness of His grace’ (Eph. 2:7).

63. When the intelligence is in control of the incensive power and desire, it produces the virtues. When the intellect devotes its attention to the inner essences of created things, it reaps genuine spiritual knowledge. Thus the intelligence, after rejecting everything alien, discovers what is desirable according to our true nature; and the intellect, after passing beyond the things that are known, apprehends the Cause of created things that transcends being and knowledge. Then the passion of deification is actualized by grace: the intelligence’s power of natural discrimination is suspended, for there is no longer anything to discriminate about; the intellect’s natural intellection is brought to a halt, for there is no longer anything to be known; and the person found worthy to participate in the divine is made god and brought into a state of rest.

64. Suffering cleanses the soul infected with the filth of sensual pleasure and detaches it completely from material things by showing it the penalty incurred as a result of its affection for them. This is why God in His justice allows the devil to afflict men with torments.

65. Pleasure and distress, desire and fear, and what follows from them, were not originally created as elements of human nature, for in that case they would form part of the definition of that nature. I follow in this matter St Gregory of Nyssa  , who states that these things were introduced as a result of our fall from perfection, being infiltrated into that part of our nature least endowed with intelligence. Through them the blessed and divine image in man was at the time of our transgression immediately replaced by a clear and obvious likeness to animals. Once the true dignity of the intelligence had been obscured, it was inevitable and just that human nature should be chastised by those witless elements which it had introduced into itself. In this way God in His providence wisely made man conscious of the nobility of his intellect.

[V2 179] 66. Even the passions become good if we wisely and diligently detach them from what is bodily and direct them towards the acquisition of what is heavenly. This happens, for example, when we turn desire into a noetic yearning for heavenly blessings; or when we turn pleasure into the gentle delight which the volitive energy of the intellect finds in divine gifts; or when we turn fear into protective concern to escape punishments threatening us because of our sins; or when we turn distress into corrective remorse for present sin. In short, the passions become good if — like wise physicians who use the body of the viper as a remedy against present or expected harm resulting from its bite — we use them to destroy present or expected evil, and in order to acquire and safeguard virtue and spiritual knowledge.

67. The law of the Old Testament through practical philosophy cleanses human nature of all defilement. The law of the New Testament, through initiation into the mysteries of contemplation, raises the intellect by means of spiritual knowledge from the sight of material things to the vision of spiritual realities.

68. Those who are beginners and stand at the gate of the divine court of the virtues (cf. Exod. 27:9) are called ’Godfearing’ by Scripture (cf. Acts 10:2; 13:16, 26). Those who with some measure of stability have acquired the principles and qualities of the virtues, it describes as ’advancing’. Those who in their pursuit of holiness have by means of spiritual knowledge already attained the summit of that truth which reveals the virtues, it entitles ’perfect’. Thus he who has abandoned his former passion-dominated way of life, and out of fear has submitted his entire will to the divine commandments, will lack none of the blessings which are appropriate to beginners, even though he has not yet acquired stability in the practice of the virtues or come to share in the wisdom spoken among those who are perfect- (cf. 1 Cor. 2:6). And he who is advancing will not lack any of the blessings which belong to his degree, even though he has not yet acquired the transcendent knowledge of divine realities possessed by the perfect. For the perfect have already been initiated mystically into contemplative theology: having purified their intellects of every material fantasy and bearing always the stamp of the image of divine beauty in all its fullness, they manifest the divine love present in their hearts.

69. Fear is twofold; one kind is pure, the other impure. That [V2 180] which is pre-eminently fear of punishment on account of offences committed is impure, for it is sin which gives rise to it. It will not last for ever, for when the sin is obliterated through repentance it too will disappear. Pure fear, on the other hand, is always present even apart from remorse for offences committed. Such fear will never cease to exist, because it is somehow rooted essentially by God in creation and makes clear to everyone His awe-inspiring nature, which transcends all kingship and power.

70. He who does not fear God as judge but holds Him in awe because of the surpassing excellence of His infinite power will not justly lack anything; for having reached perfection in love, he loves God with awe and fitting reverence. He has acquired the fear that endures for ever and he will lack for nothing (cf. Ps. 19:9; 34:9-10).

71. From created beings we come to know their Cause; from the differences between created beings we learn about the indwelling Wisdom of creation; and from the natural activity of created beings we discern the indwelling Life of creation, the power which gives created beings their life — the Holy Spirit.

72. The Holy Spirit is not absent from any created being, especially not from one which in any way participates in intelligence. For being God and God’s Spirit, He embraces in unity the spiritual knowledge of all created things, providentially permeating all things with His power, and vivifying their inner essences in accordance with their nature. In this way He makes men aware of things done sinfully against the law of nature, and renders them capable of choosing principles which are true and in conformity with nature. Thus we find many barbarians and nomadic peoples turning to a civilized way of life and setting aside the savage laws which they had kept among themselves from time immemorial.

73. The Holy Spirit is present unconditionally in all things, in that He embraces all things, provides for all, and vivifies the natural seeds within them. He is present in a specific- way in all who are under the Law, in that He shows them where they have broken the commandments and enlightens them about the promise given concerning Christ. In all who are Christians He is present also in yet another way in that He makes them sons of God. But in none is He fully present as the author of wisdom except in those who have understanding, and who by their holy way of life have made [V2 181] themselves fit to receive His indwelling and deifying presence. For everyone who does not carry out the divine will, even though he is a believer, has a heart which, being a workshop of evil thoughts, lacks understanding, and a body which, being always entangled in the defilements of the passions, is mortgaged to sin.

74. God, who yearns for the salvation of all men and hungers after their deification, withers their self-conceit like the unfruitful fig tree (cf. Matt. 21:19-21). He does this so that they may prefer to be righteous in reality rather than in appearance, discarding the cloak of hypocritical moral display and genuinely pursuing a virtuous life in the way that the divine Logos   wishes them to. They will then live with reverence, revealing the state of their soul to God rather than displaying the external appearance of a moral life to their fellow-men.

75. The principle of active accomplishment is one thing and that of passive suffering is another. The principle of active accomplishment signifies the natural capacity for actualizing the virtues. The principle of passive suffering signifies experiencing either the grace of what is beyond nature or the occurrence of what is contrary to nature. For just as we do not have a natural capacity for what is above being, so we do not by nature have a capacity for what lacks being. Thus we passively experience deification by grace as something which is above nature, but we do not actively accomplish it; for by nature we do not have the capacity to attain deification. Again, we suffer evil as something contrary to nature which occurs in the will; for we do not have a natural capacity for generating evil. Thus while we are in our present state we can actively accomplish the virtues by nature, since we have a natural capacity for accomplishing them. But, when raised to a higher level, we experience deification passively, receiving this experience as a free gift of grace.

76. We accomplish things actively in so far as our intelligence, whose natural task is to accomplish the virtues, is active within us, and in so far as there is also active within us our intellect, which is capable of receiving unconditionally all spiritual knowledge, of transcending the entire nature of created beings and all that is known, and of leaving all ages behind it. We experience things passively when, having completely transcended the inner essences of created beings, we come in a manner which is beyond conception to [V2 182] the Cause itself of created beings, aid there suspend the activity of our powers, together with all that is by nature finite. Then we become something that is in no sense an achievement of our natural capacities, since nature does not possess the power to grasp what transcends nature. For created things are not by nature able to accomplish deification since they cannot grasp God. To bestow a consonant measure of deification on created beings is within the power of divine grace alone. Grace irradiates nature with a supra-natural light and by the transcendence of its glory raises nature above its natural limits.

77. We cease to accomplish the virtues after this present stage of life. But, on a higher level than that of the virtues, we never cease to experience deification by grace. For an experience, or passion, which transcends nature is limitless, and so is always active and effective; while an experience, or passion, which is contrary to nature is without real existence, and so is impotent.

78. The qualities of the virtues and the inner principles of created beings are both images of divine blessings, and in them God continually becomes man. As His body He has the qualities of the virtues, and as His soul the inner principles of spiritual knowledge. In this way He deifies those found worthy, giving them the true stamp of virtue and bestowing on them the essence of infallible knowledge.

79. An intellect faithful in the practice of the virtues is like St Peter when he was taken captive by Herod (cf. Acts 12:3-18). The name ’Herod’ means ’made of skins or leather’, and so Herod signifies the law of leather, that is, the will of the flesh. St Peter is guarded by two squads of soldiers and shut in by an iron gate. The two squads signify the attacks suffered by the intellect from the activity of the passions and from the mind  ’s assent to the passions. When through the teaching of practical philosophy, as though with the help of an angel, the intellect has passed safely through these two squads or prisons, it comes to the iron gate which leads into the city. By this I mean the obdurate and stubborn attachment of the senses to sensible things. None the less, the gate is opened automatically through spiritual contemplation of the inner essences of created beings; and such contemplation then fearlessly impels the intellect, now liberated from Herod’s madness, towards the spiritual realities where it truly belongs.

[V2 183] 80. The devil is both God’s enemy and His avenger (cf. Ps. 8:2). He is God’s enemy when he seems in his hatred for God somehow to have acquired a destructive love form men, persuading us by means of sensual pleasure to assent to the passions within our control, and to value what is transitory more than what is eternal. In this way he seduces all our soul’s desire, separating us utterly from divine love and making us willing enemies of Him who made us. He is God’s avenger when — now that we have become subject to him through sin — he lays bare his hatred for us and demands our punishment. For nothing pleases the devil more than punishing us. When he has been given leave to carry this out, he contrives successive attacks of passions inflicted against our will, and like a tempest he pitilessly assails us over whom, by God’s permission, he has acquired authority. He does this, not with the intention of fulfilling God’s command, but out of the desire to feed his own passion of hatred towards us, so that the soul, sinking down enervated by the weight of such painful calamities, may cut itself off from the power of divine hope, regarding the onslaught of these calamities not as a divine admonition but as a cause for disbelief in God.

81. When those who have acquired moral stability and contemplative knowledge employ these for the sake of human glory, merely conveying an outward impression of the virtues, and uttering words of wisdom and knowledge without performing the corresponding actions; and when in addition they display to others their vanity because of this supposed virtue and knowledge, then they are rightly handed over to commensurate hardships, in order to learn through suffering that humility which was unknown to them before because of their empty conceit.

82. Each demon promotes the attack of this or that particular temptation according to his innate propensity. For one demon is productive of one kind of evil, while another is clearly more abominable than his fellow and has a greater propensity for some other form of evil.

83. Without divine permission even the demons themselves cannot assist the devil in any way at all. For it is God Himself in His loving providence who allows the devil, in appropriate ways, to inflict various sufferings through his ministers. The book of Job shows this plainly, describing as it does how the devil was utterly unable to approach Job unless God willed it (cf. Job 1:11-12).

[V2 184] 84. Real faith is faith which is manifest and active. Accordingly, to those engaged in the practice of the virtues the Logos of God is revealed embodied in the commandments, and as Logos He leads them by means of these commandments up to the Father, in whom He subsists by nature.

85. Reformation of life, angelic worship, the willing separation of the soul from the body, and the beginning of divine renewal in spirit — these are proclaimed in the veiled language of the New Testament. For instance, by the term ’spiritual circumcision’ Scripture denotes the excision of the soul’s impassioned attachment to the body (cf. Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11).

86. Since God is fall of goodness and wishes utterly to eradicate from us the seed of evil — that is to say, the sensual pleasure which draws our intellect away from divine love — He allows the devil to afflict us with suffering and chastisement. In this way He scrapes the poison of past pleasure from our souls; and He seeks to implant in us a hatred and complete revulsion for the things which belong to this world and pander to the senses alone, by making us realize that once we have acquired them we gain nothing from their use save chastisement. For He wishes to make the devil’s power of chastisement and hatred of men the contingent cause of the return to virtue of those who have by their own free choice lapsed from it.

87. It is entirely fitting and just that those who gladly accept the devil’s cunning suggestions to commit sins through their own volition should also be chastised by him. For through the passions to which we willingly accede the devil is the begetter of pleasure, and through the experiences that we suffer against our will he is the inflictor of pain.

88. The contemplative and gnostic intellect is often committed for punishment to the devil, deservedly suffering hardship and affliction at his hands. This is so that by suffering it may learn patiently to endure   affliction rather than to trifle arrogantly to no purpose with things that do not exist.

89. If he who suffers for having transgressed one of God’s commandments recognizes the principle of divine providence which is healing him, he accepts the affliction with joy and gratitude, and corrects the fault for which he is being disciplined. But if he is insensitive to this treatment, he is justly deprived of the grace that was once given him and is handed over to the turbulence of the [V2 185] passions; he is abandoned so that he may acquire by ascetic labor those things for which he inwardly longs.

90. A person who, knowing what faults he has committed, willingly and with due thankfulness endures the trials painfully inflicted on him as a consequence of these faults, is not exiled from grace or from his state of virtue; for he submits willingly to the yoke of the king of Babylon (cf. Jer. 27:17) and pays off his debt by accepting the trials. In this way, while remaining in a state of grace and virtue, he pays tribute to the king of Babylon not only with his enforced sufferings, which have arisen out of the impassioned side of his nature, but also with his mental   assent to these sufferings, accepting them as his due on account of his former offences. Through true worship, by which I mean a humble disposition, he offers to God the correction of his offences.

91. If you do not accept gratefully the trials which, by God’s permission, are inflicted on you for your correction, and do not repent and rid yourself of your conceited opinion that you are righteous, you are given up to captivity, manacles, chains, hunger, death and the sword  , and dwell a complete exile from your native land; for you resist the just penalties decreed by God and refuse to submit willingly to the yoke of the king of Babylon, as God has commanded. Banished in this way from your state of virtue and spiritual knowledge as if from your native land, you suffer all these things and more besides, because in your pride and vain conceit you refuse to make full satisfaction for your offences and to ’take delight in afflictions, calamities and hardships’ (cf. 2 Cor. 12:10), as St Paul did. For he knew that the humility produced by bodily sufferings safeguards the divine treasures of the soul; and for this reason he was content and endured patiently, both for his own sake and for the sake of those to whom he served as an example of virtue and faith, so that if they suffered when guilty, like the Corinthian who was censured (cf. 1 Cor. 5:1-5), they might have him who suffers innocently as an encouragement and as a model of patience.

92. If, instead of stopping short at the outward appearance which visible things present to the senses, you seek with your intellect to contemplate their inner essences, seeing them as images of spiritual realities or as the inward principles of sensible objects, you will be taught that nothing belonging to the visible world is unclean. For by nature all things were created good (cf. Gen. 1:31; Acts 10:15).

[V2 186] 93. He who is not affected by changes in sensible things practices the virtues in a manner that is truly pure. He who does not permit the outward appearances of sensible things to imprint themselves on his intellect has received the true doctrine of created beings. He whose mind has outstripped the very being of created things has come, as a true theologian, close to the One through unknowing.

94. Every contemplative intellect that has ’the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Eph. 6:17), and that has cut off in itself the activity of the visible world, has attained virtue. When it has excised from itself the image of sensible appearances it finds the truth existing in the inner essences of created beings, which is the foundation of natural contemplation. And when it has transcended the being of created things, it will receive the illumination of the divine and unoriginate Unity who is the foundation of the mystery of true theology.

95. God reveals Himself to each person according to each person’s mode of conceiving Him. To those whose aspiration transcends the complex structure of matter, and whose psychic powers are fully integrated in a single unceasing gyration around God, He reveals Himself as Unity and Trinity. In this way He both shows forth His own existence and mystically makes known the mode in which that existence subsists. To those whose aspiration is limited to the complex structure of matter, and whose psychic powers are not integrated. He reveals Himself not as He is but as they are, showing that they are completely caught in the material dualism whereby the physical world is conceived as composed of matter and form.

96. St Paul refers to the different energies of the Holy Spirit as different gifts of grace, stating that they are all energized by one and the same Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 12:11). The ’manifestation of the Spirit’ (1 Cor. 12:7) is given according to the measure of every man’s faith through participation in a particular gift of grace. Thus every believer is receptive to the energy of the Spirit in a way that corresponds to his degree of faith and the state of his soul; and this energy grants him the capacity needed to carry out a particular commandment.

97. One person is given the quality of wisdom, another the quality of spiritual knowledge, another the quality of faith, and someone else one of the other gifts of the Spirit enumerated by [V2 187] St Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 12:8-11). In the same way, one person receives through the Spirit, according to the degree of his faith, the gift of that perfect and direct love for God which is free from all materiality; another through the same Spirit receives the gift of perfect love for his neighbor and another receives something else from the same Spirit. In each, as I have said, the gift that conforms with his state is energized. For every capacity for fulfilling a commandment is called a gift of the Spirit.

98. The baptism of the Lord (cf. Matt. 20:22) is the utter mortification of our propensity for the sensible world; and the cup is the disavowal of our present mode of life for the sake of truth.

99. The baptism of the Lord typifies the sufferings we willingly embrace for the sake of virtue. Through these Sufferings we wash off the stains in our conscience and readily accept the death of our propensity for visible things. The cup typifies the involuntary trials which attack us in the form of adverse circumstances because of our pursuit of the truth. If throughout these trials we value our desire for God more than nature, we willingly submit to the death of nature forced on us by these circumstances.

100.The baptism and the cup differ in this way: baptism for the sake of virtue mortifies our propensity for the pleasures of this life; the cup makes the devout value truth above even nature itself.