The Philokalia

by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

56. If you do not want to suffer evil, do not inflict it, since the suffering of it inevitably follows its infliction. 'For whatever a man sows he will also reap' (Gal. 6:7). Reaping unwillingly the wickedness we deliberately sow, we should marvel at God's justice.

57. The intellect is made blind by these three passions: avarice, self-esteem and sensual pleasure. 58. These three passions on their own dull spiritual knowledge and faith, the foster-brothers of our nature. 59. It is because of them that wrath, anger, war, murder and all other evils have such power over mankind.

63. Because humility is by nature something that exalts, something loved by God which destroys in us almost all that is evil and hateful to Him, for this reason it is difficult to attain. Even if you can easily find someone who to some extent practices a number of virtues, you will hardly find the odour of humility in him, however you search for it. It is something that can be acquired only with much diligence.

64. If we are concerned with our salvation, there are many things the intellect can do in order to secure for us the blessed gift of humility. For example, it can recollect the sins we have committed in word, action and thought; and there are many other things which, reviewed in contemplation, contribute to our humility. True humility is also brought about by meditating daily on the achievements of our brethren, by extolling their natural superiorities and by comparing our gifts with theirs. When the intellect sees in this way how worthless we are and how far we fall short of the perfection of our brethren, we will regard ourselves as dust and ashes, and not as men but as some kind of cur, more defective in every respect and lower than all men on earth.

65. St Basil the Great, mouthpiece of Christ and pillar of the Church, says that a great help towards not sinning and not committing daily the same faults is for us to review in our conscience at the end of each day what we have done wrong and what we have done right. Job did this with regard both to himself and to his children (cf Job 1:5). These daily reckonings illumine a man's hour by hour behaviour.

94. Watchfulness and the Jesus Prayer, as I have said, mutually reinforce one another; for close attentiveness goes with constant prayer, while prayer goes with close watchfulness and attentiveness of intellect.

99. Just as it is impossible to fight battles without weapons, or to swim a great sea with clothes on, or to live without breathing, so without humility and the constant prayer to Christ it is impossible to master the art of inward spiritual warfare or to set about it and pursue it skillfully.

104. The heart which is constantly guarded, and is not allowed to receive the forms, images and fantasies of the dark and evil spirits, is conditioned by nature to give birth from within itself to thoughts filled with light. For just as coal engenders a flame, or a flame lights a candle, so will God, who from our baptism dwells in our heart, kindle our mind to contemplation when He finds it free from the winds of evil and protected by the guarding of the intellect.

124. Each hour of the day we should note and weigh our actions and in the evening we should do what we can to free ourselves, from the burden of them by means of repentance - if, that is, we wish, with Christ's help, to overcome wickedness. We should also make sure that we perform all our outward tasks in a manner that accords with God's will, before God and for God alone, so that we are not mindlessly seduced by the senses.

132. When the heart has acquired stillness it will perceive the heights and depths of knowledge; and the ear of the still intellect will be made to hear marvellous things from God.

137. When combined with watchfulness and deep understanding, the Jesus Prayer will erase from our heart even those thoughts rooted there against our will.

142. Just as it is impossible to cross the sea without a boat, so it is impossible to repulse the provocation of an evil thought without invoking Jesus Christ.

152. We will travel the road of repentance correctly if, as we begin to give attention to the intellect, we combine humility with watchfulness, and prayer with the power to rebut evil thoughts. In this way we will adorn the chamber of our heart with the holy and venerable name of Jesus Christ as with a lighted lamp, and will sweep our heart clean of wickedness, purifying and embellishing it. But if we trust only in our own watchfulness and attentiveness, we shall quickly be pushed aside by our enemies. We shall be overturned and cast down by their extreme craftiness. We will become ever-more fully entangled in their nets of evil thought, and will readily be slaughtered by them, lacking as we do the powerful sword of the name of Jesus Christ. For only this sword, swiftly turning in the undivided heart, is able to cut them down, to burn and obliterate them as fire the reed.

174. The single -phrased Jesus Prayer destroys and consumes the deceits of the demons. For when we invoke Jesus, God and Son of God, constantly and tirelessly. He does not allow them to project in the mind's mirror even the first hint of their infiltration - that is to say, their provocation - or any form, nor does He allow them to have any converse with the heart. If no demonic form enters the heart, it will be empty of evil thoughts, as we have said: for it is the demons' habit to converse with the soul by means of evil thoughts and so deceitfully to pervert it.

176. Let us hold fast, therefore, to prayer and humility, for together with watchfulness they act like a burning sword against the demons. If we do this, we shall daily and hourly be able to celebrate a secret festival of joy within our hearts.

182. If you really wish to cover your-evil droughts with shame, to be still and calm, and to watch over your heart without hindrance, let the Jesus Prayer cleave to your breath, and in a few days you will find that this is possible.

187. Let us live every moment in 'applying our hearts to wisdom' (Ps. 90:12), as the Psalmist says, continually breathing Jesus Christ, the power of God the Father and the wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor. 1:24). If, however, we are distracted by some circumstance or other and grow slack in our spiritual effort, the following morning let us again gird up the loins of our intellect and once more set to work forcefully. There is no excuse for us if, knowing what is to be done, we do not do

196. Truly blessed is the man whose mind and heart are as closely attached to the Jesus Prayer and to the ceaseless invocation of His name as air to the body or flame to the wax. The sun rising over the earth creates the daylight; and the venerable and holy name of the Lord Jesus, shining continually in the mind, gives birth to countless intellections radiant as the sun.

Some of the Greeks imagined themselves to be engaged in metaphysics, but they neglected the practice of the virtues altogether. Some were star-gazers, explaining the inexplicable, and claiming to know the size of the heavens, the dimensions of the sun and the movement of the stars. At times they even tried to theologize, although here the truth lies beyond man's unaided grasp, and speculation is dangerous: yet in their way of life they were more degraded than swine wallowing in the mud. And when some of them did try to apply their principles in practice, they became worse than those who only theorized, for they sold their labors for glory and praise. Usually their only object was to show off, and they endured hardships simply to gain cheap applause.

Both Jews and Greeks fell short of this, for they rejected the Wisdom that is from heaven and tried to philosophize without Christ, who alone has revealed the true philosophy in both His life and His teaching. For by the purity of His life He was the first to establish the way of true philosophy. He always held His soul above the passions of the body, and in the end, when His death was required by His design for man's salvation. He laid down even His soul. In this He taught us that the true philosopher must renounce all life's pleasures, mastering pains and passions, and paying scant attention to the body: he must not overvalue even his soul, but must readily lay it down when holiness demands.

They did not seek excessive gain by exploiting each other; nor did they bring lawsuits against one another, for each had his own conscience as an impartial judge. One was not rich while another was destitute, nor did one overeat while another starved. The generosity of those who were well off made good what others lacked, this willingness to share eliminating every anomaly and establishing equality and fairness - though even then inequality still existed, produced not as it is now by the mad struggle for social status, but by a great desire to live more humbly than others. Envy, malice, arrogance and haughtiness were banished, along with all that leads to discord.

But this strict and angelic way of life has suffered the fate of a portrait many times recopied by careless hands, until gradually all likeness to the original has been lost. Though we are crucified to the world, though we have renounced this transitory life and our purely human limitations, aspiring to the state of the angels by sharing their dispassion, yet we have relapsed and fallen back.

We no longer value stillness, which helps to free us from past defilement, but prefer a whole host of things which distract us uselessly from our true goal. Rivalry over material possessions has made us forget the counsel of the Lord, who urged us to take no thought for earthly things, but to seek only the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 6:33).

We reject all ascetic effort, but madly desire a reputation for asceticism. We have debased the truth into play-acting.

This is why the name of God is blasphemed, and the ascetic way of life, instead of inspiring men, fills them with disgust. The attainments of genuine ascetics are dismissed as trickery.

People would rather trust thieves and burglars than those who follow the monastic life, thinking straightforward criminals easier to guard against than plausible tricksters.

Why do we attach such value to material things, seeing that we have been taught to despise them? Why do we cling to money and possessions, and disperse our intellect among a host of useless cares? Our preoccupation with such things diverts us from what is more important and makes us neglect the well-being of the soul, leading us to perdition. For we who profess to be philosophers and pride ourselves on being superior to pleasure are seen to pursue material gain with more zest than anyone else. Nothing brings such severe punishment on us as our persuasion of others to imitate our own evil ways.

improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truth they signify.

But, as for us, when we lack something, instead of struggling courageously against our difficulties, we come fawning to the rich, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we call them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked. We do not investigate how the saints lived, although supposedly it is our aim to imitate their holiness.

To master any art requires time and much instruction; can the art of arts alone be mastered without being learnt? No one without experience would go in for farming; nor would someone who has never been taught medicine try to practice as a doctor. The first would be condemned for making good farmland barren and weed-infested; the second, for making the sick worse instead of better. The only art which the uninstructed dare to practice, because they think it the simplest of all, is that of the spiritual way. What is difficult the majority regard as easy; and what Paul says he has not yet apprehended (cf Phil. 3:12), they claim to know through and through, although they do not know even this: that they are totally ignorant.

Let no one imagine that to be a spiritual guide is an excuse for ease and self-indulgence, for nothing is so demanding as the charge of souls. Those who have charge of horses and other animals keep them under control, and so they generally achieve their purpose. But to govern men is harder, because of the variety of their characters and their deliberate cunning. Anyone undertaking this task must prepare himself for a severe struggle. He must treat the faults of all with great forbearance, and patiently teach them things of which in their ignorance they are not aware.

For if someone does not watch his mind attentively, he will find that, after he has cut down the passions, the images of past fantasies begin to emerge again like young shoots. If he constantly allows these images to force their way into his intellect and does not bar their entry, the passions will once more establish themselves within him; despite his previous victory, he will have to struggle against them again.

Before we are properly trained, then, we should avoid the agitation of city life and keep our minds far from all distracting noise. It is no great gain to renounce things, and then to listen all the time to gossip about them - to leave the city and its activities, and yet to sit at the gate like Lot (cf Gen. 19:1) and be filled with the tumult that comes from inside. But like Moses we should abandon the city altogether, avoiding not only its activities but also any talk about them. 'When I depart from the city', says Moses, 'and stretch out my hands, the sounds will cease' (Exod. 9:29. LXX).

When we not only refrain from worldly actions but no longer call them to mind, we have attained true tranquility. This gives the soul the opportunity to look at the impressions previously stamped on the mind, and to struggle against each one and eliminate it. So long as we go on receiving new impressions, our intelligence is occupied with them and so it is not possible to erase the earlier ones. In consequence our struggle to eradicate the passions is inevitably far harder, since these passions have become strong through being allowed to increase gradually; and now, like a river in full flood, they drown the soul's discernment with one fantasy after another.

Now the food of the passions, as we have already stated many times, consists of sense-impressions. They nourish the passions by attacking the soul with a succession of mental fantasies or idols. This is why Moses put screens of latticework round the altar in the tabernacle (cf. Exod. 27:4), signifying that if we wish to keep our mind pure like a tabernacle we should do the same. Just as the lattices round the altar prevented anything unclean from entering, so we should weave a mental barrier against the senses by reflecting on the terrors of the coming judgment, and so bar the entry to unclean impressions.

We, however, have remained children, enchanted by what really deserves mockery and derision. Abandoning all effort to attain higher things and to develop an adult intelligence, we are seduced by worldly amusements, making ourselves a laughing-stock to those who judge things at their true value. It is disgraceful for a grown man to be seen sitting and drawing pictures in the dust to amuse children; and it is equally disgraceful - indeed much more so - for those whose professed aim is the enjoyment of eternal blessings to be seen groveling in the dust of worldly things, shaming their vocation by incongruous behavior.

Detachment is the mark of a perfect soul, whereas it is characteristic of an imperfect soul to be worn down with anxiety about material things.

Since, then, possessions are the cause of great harm and, like a source of disease, they give rise to all the passions, we must eliminate this cause if we are really concerned for the well-being of 'our souls. Let us cure the passion of avarice through voluntary poverty. By embracing solitude let us avoid meeting those who do us no good, for the company of frivolous people is harmful and undermines our state of peace. Just as those who live in an unhealthy climate are generally ill, so those who spend their time with worthless men share in their vices.

We need not worry about men's opinions, for men can neither reward those who have lived well nor punish those who have lived otherwise. If because of envy or worldly attachment they seek to discredit the way of holiness, they are defaming with deluded blasphemies the life honored by God and the angels. At the time of judgment those who have lived rightly will be rewarded with eternal blessings, not on the basis of human opinion, but in accordance with the true nature of their life. May all of us attain these blessings through the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and through all the ages. Amen.

All spiritual contemplation should be governed by faith, hope and love, but most of all by love. The first two teach us to be detached from visible delights, but love unites the soul with the excellence of God, searching out the Invisible by means of intellectual perception.

Evil does not exist by nature, nor is any man naturally evil, for God made nothing that was not good. When in the desire of his heart someone conceives and gives form to what in reality has no existence, then what he desires begins to exist. We should therefore turn our attention away from the inclination to evil and concentrate it on the remembrance of God; for good, which exists by nature, is more powerful than our inclination to evil. The one has existence while the other has not, except when we give it existence through our actions.

Spiritual knowledge comes through prayer, deep stillness and complete detachment, while wisdom comes through humble meditation on Holy Scripture and, above all, through grace given by God.

20. Faith without works and works without faith will both alike be condemned, for he who has faith must offer to the Lord the faith which shows itself in actions. Our father Abraham would not have been counted righteous because of his faith had he not offered its fruit, his son (cf. Jas. 2:21: Rom. 4:3).

21. He who loves God both believes truly and performs the works of faith reverently. But he who only believes and does not love, lacks even the faith he thinks he has: for he believes merely with a certain superficiality of intellect and is not energized by the full force of love's glory. The chief part of virtue, then, is faith energized by love.

Our physical sense of taste, when we are healthy, leads us to distinguish unfailingly between good food and bad, so that we want what is good: similarly, our intellect, when it begins to act vigorously and with complete detachment, is capable of perceiving the wealth of God's grace and is never led astray by any illusion of grace which comes from the devil. Just as the body, when it tastes the delectable foods of this earth, knows by experience exactly what each thing is, so the intellect, when it has triumphed over the thoughts of the flesh, knows for certain when it is tasting the grace of the Holy Spirit; for it is written: 'Taste and see that the Lord is good' (Ps. 34:8).

34. The natural love of the soul is one thing, and the love which comes to it from the Holy Spirit is another. The activity of the first depends on the assent of our will to our desire. For this reason it is easily taken over and perverted by evil spirits when we do not keep firmly to our chosen course. But the love which comes from the Holy Spirit so inflames the soul that all its parts cleave ineffably and with utter simplicity to the delight of its love and longing for the divine. The intellect then becomes pregnant through the energy of the Holy Spirit and overflows with a spring of love and joy.

43. Those pursuing the spiritual way should train themselves to hate all uncontrolled desires until this hatred becomes habitual. With regard to self-control in eating, -we must never feel loathing for any kind of food, for to do so is abominable and utterly demonic. It is emphatically not because any kind of food is bad in itself that we refrain from it. But by not eating too much or too richly we can to some extent keep in check the excitable parts of our body. In addition we can give to the poor what remains over, for this is the mark of sincere love.

47. Fasting, while of value in itself, is not something to boast of in front of God, for it is simply a tool for training those who desire self-restraint. The ascetic should not feel proud because he fasts; but with faith in God he should think only of reaching his goal. For no artist ever boasts that his accomplishment is simply due to his tools; but he waits for the work itself to give proof of his skill.

For when the sexual organs are heated by wine, the intellect cannot avoid forming in itself pleasurable pictures reflecting our passion. So we must keep due measure and escape the harm that comes from excess. For when the intellect is not affected by the pleasure that seduces it to the picturing of sin, it remains completely free from fantasy and debility.

53. There is nothing to prevent us from calling a doctor when we are ill. Since Providence has implanted remedies in nature, it has been possible for human experimentation to develop the art of medicine. All the same, we should not place our hope of healing in doctors, but in our true Savior and Doctor, Jesus Christ.