On the Mystical Life Quotes

“Do you see how he who has acquired a good heart through his efforts and by doing the commandments has acquired the whole Godhead, which is that good treasure, to dwell within him?”
― Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses : On Virtue and Christian Life Vol. 2

“As our body, whether ill or not, is unable to move or even live at all without a soul, so our soul, too, whether it sins or not, is dead without the Holy Spirit and can in no way live everlastingly.”
― Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses : On Virtue and Christian Life Vol. 2

“But, being Himself at once God and man, His flesh and soul were and are holy - and beyond holy. God is holy, just as He was and is and shall be, and the Virgin is immaculate, without spot or stain, and so, too, was that rib which was taken from Adam. However, the rest of humanity, even though they are His brothers and kin according to the flesh, yet remained even as they were, of dust, and did not immediately become holy and sons of God.”
― Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses : On Virtue and Christian Life Vol. 2

“To such ignorance of God and His divine commandments were they brought down who were begotten of dust from the man of dust, that the honor which they ought to have rendered to God they gave instead to this visible creation, and not just to earth and sky and sun, moon and stars, fire and water and the rest, but they even made gods of those shameful passions themselves which ought not even to be imagined, let alone practiced, and which God had forbidden them. These they set up and – O, the shamelessness! – worshipped as gods. What were they? Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, murder, and whatever else is similar which, not God – away with the blasphemy! – but the devil enjoins and suggests and approves, by which the whole race of mankind was and is enslaved, by which the devil has made and makes us his slaves and subject to his control. Whence, even if there were someone among those thousands and tens of thousands who had not stooped to these shameful ordinances and precepts, since he, too, because of his descent from the seed of those who had sinned, was yet a slave of the tyrant, death, he would also be given over to its corruption and sent without mercy to hell. There was no one, you see, who was able to save and redeem him. For this very reason, therefore, God the Word Who had made us had pity on us and came down.”
― Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses : On Virtue and Christian Life Vol. 2