GREGORY PALAMAS ON THE NATURE OF PERSONAL COMMUNION

GREGORY PALAMAS ON THE NATURE OF PERSONAL  COMMUNION

I. The Promise; eternal  life or knowledge of God.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a deep topic enlightening  the mind and warming the heart. He is the Person  who reveals Christ’s presence to us and makes us partakers of His eternal life (2 Pe.1.4). Throughout Christian  history,  Christians have speculated on how we practically may become aware of His presence and foster that grace.  Gregory Palamas (1296-1354), archbishop of Constantinople, articulated a Byzantine expression  of what is now a days, in a very broad way, quietism, or hesychasm, inner stillness. Since eternal  life is knowledge of God (Jn.17.3), this occupied a great place in his thought. Building on  his patristic devotional  tradition, he answered obliquely what is knowledge of God,  how we attain  this, and what are it’s limits. Having outlined this in the main, I also  point out the potential perils of his position. 

II. Paradisiacal paradigm; contemplating God.

The best way to understand the paradigm Palamas employed is to start with his scholia on Genesis.  What was Adam’s state?  Spiritually, Adam was in communion with God.  Union with God is life, separation from Him is death.

 For, “death, properly speaking, is this: for the soul to be unharnessed from divine grace and to be yoked to sin.”  Bodily, he was clothed with God’s glory, possessing the glory of the resurrection. The inner man  was stripped of divine grace, dead separated from  the life giving Spirit, and bodily subject to a living death.

The mind/ spirit  stripped of divine grace joins itself to sensual  pleasure and preoccupation with the outward world. In fact,  Adam  became of one mind/ spirit with the evil one by his transgression.  Repentance, μετανοια, is the inward change, turn of the mind, of the νους, when it seeks to follow Christ, the Light who illumines the heart. The mind/spirit then communicates the spiritual light it has seen to the body, and in this way the body as well participates in salvation and glorification.

III. What is knowledge?

Let’s start apophatically; what is not knowledge of God? In the first place, it is not proof derived from syllogistic reasoning. Nor is it the knowledge furnished from analytic reasoning, or from synthetic judgments.  Gregory directly attacked the Medieval Scholasticism and it’s conception of the intellectual acts of divisio, division, compositio, synthesis, or the act of judgment itself.   These forms of knowledge afford, at best, knowledge about God, not knowing Him personally.  

Knowledge of God is also specifically not philosophizing about God. Philosophy, despite it’s assertions to be a love of wisdom, for Gregory, is neither wise, nor leads to the knowledge of God. In fact, it is demonic.  For if it led to Christ what would the purpose of Christ’s coming be? To rephrase Paul, “If righteousness (saving knowledge) comes through the philosophers, Christ is dead in vain.”

  Knowledge of God is, properly speaking, not knowledge in the sense of an idea (form, eidos).  We are not to rest content with a concept of God, that would be idolatry. Rather, knowledge for him is more a spiritual perception.  To explain this, he notes that humans possess a twofold character of knowledge.  One is rational, in accord with our sensitive nature.  We share this in common with the beasts. Like St. Jude alluded (Jd.10), people can know things naturally, as brute beasts.  This is what James calls “soulish” (Natural, KJV) Or, as Paul says, “the soulish man receives not the things of the spirit of God.” (1 Co.2.14).

     Knowledge, or spiritual  perception, is above rational activity. The light of our intellect does not impart the presence of God. Rather Christ enlightens the mind with the presence of His love (cf. 2 Co.4.4-11),  which  is called knowledge, though it is not the result of mental speculation.  It is direct apprehension. This is in the exact same tenor as Paul who prayed that they might (Eph.3.19a) “γνωωαι τε την υπερβαλλουσαν της γνωσεως αγαπην του Χριστου,” that they may “know  the love of Christ which supasses  all knowledge.”  Knowledge then is a term  he loosely used, but means perception  of union with the divine  love of Christ.   It is above thought according to Paul, being given to us.  

This distinction  between thought and intellectual  perception  is an idea he borrowed from the Old Testament Septuagint. He noted that Solomon spoke of two  distinct intellectual realities,  αισθησις, or perception,  and  νοησις, or thought.  Since we are told to acquire both,  feeling, αισθησις,  and making sense then out of the feeling- νοησις, noesis-  are distinct.

Mental speculation then must cease.  This does not mean the mind is vain.  It means rather the mind knows it’s limits, not being able to manufacture the presence of God.  Instead, it means that we seek to be aware of His presence and trust it is incomprehensible so we stop laboring for an explanation.  We simply rest the intellect in faith at God’s presence. 

Gregory connects this ceasing of mental operation to the Sabbath rest of the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews.

“For those who spiritually sabbatize are these who also resting from all their servile works, as much as it is attainable, they completely strip away everything discursive and produced by discursive reasoning and which has been elaborately reasoned about knowledge of the powers of the soul, namely, the work and all the aesthetic helps, and quite simply every bodily activity,  as much is in our power, but even what is not in our power-the end exactly as respiration, so long as it is in our power.” (Triads 1.2).

So knowledge of God’s light, for Gregory, is not the product of discursive reasoning, analysis, or concept.  It is more properly an experience of God’s glory, of His light which is the love of Christ communed with in the heart.  

IV. What we know

Adam knew God by being joined to His Spirit (cf.1 Co.6.17). The restoration to communion is the reversal of the Fall.  This communion is specifically communion with the energies of God.  The glory of God, with which Adam was clothed, is God’s grace and activity, or energies, in the world.  This is merely a biblical designation, to be differentiated from the results of these energies which are called energimata, or created effects of God’s manifested eternal uncreated power.  Jesus said “the glory which you gave me I have given them.” (Jn.17.22).  It is the glory Ηe “had with God before the foundation of the world.” (Jn.17.5) And therefore it is uncreated.  It is the glory manifested to the disciples of Thabor. (Mt.17.1-13). 

This energy of God is not God’s essence.  The Christian cannot see the essence of God.  Just like Moses could not see, so “no man has seen God at any time,” for “God dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man can see.” (1 Ti.6.16).  The Christian then properly sees the parousia of God, the presence of Christ, not His ousia, His essence.  We see the glory around Him, not He Himself, though we will see Christ in His fullness.

V. How we know; attention and stillness and a life undefiled

The glory of God placed in the Christian’s heart is only perceived when we are conscious of it by directing all our attention to Him.  The normal condition of our consciousness teaches us this; we are only aware of what things we direct our attention to.  So to bring a Christian into a state of one pointed devotion to the Lord, Gregory enjoins an intense practice of spiritual stillness, ησηχια.  Quite simply, the mind is stopped, quieted from rushing for the world and is forced to place it’s attention where the throne of grace is, namely, the heart. The Christian invokes God’s Name (His glory) on each inhalation and respiration and so we become imbued with His presence.

Gregory is not thinking metaphorically, but also not strictly literal, when  he says we are to look within.  Being fully convinced of the unity and pysychosomatic/spiritual  nature of our existence, he holds, contrary to Neoplatonists,  that we must not escape the body but confine our minds to seek the presence of God in the heart.  His understanding is that the law of sin dwells in our members and placing the law of prayer and our attention on the heart, which is the throne of God, then we are released from the law of sin and the law of the Spirit takes root in our life Gregory was not advocating a blind form of natural mysticism, divorced from praxis.  Awareness of God’s presence presupposes repentance and a life of obedience to the commandments.  Why the commandments? They purify the heart and make it capable of receiving the grace of God, as David said, they enlighten  the soul (Ps.19.8). The commandments themselves are the tree of life and possess God’s presence, for where His Word is, there is His Spirit.

  Stillness is also called απαθεια, dispasssion.  A sinful desire is a movement of the mind away from God. In modern terms, we would say an attachment. It is the metaphysical  way of expressing “the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.” It is the abscence of affection, of love for things forbidden of God. Dispassion is another way of expressing the biblical truth that “charity seeks not her own.”

VI. Scriptural  metaphors appropriated by Palamas for communion

The mystery of communion with God  is better understood through the biblical  text and the tropes it uses to convey these truths.  Gregory’s favorite figure is the figure of light.  His usage of this biblical illustration is what really initiated his doctrinal conflicts. Approximately 1330, a controversy arose about his teaching on the light at the Mount of Transfiguration, Mount Thabor.  He taught  the disciples saw the light of Christ which was not a created light, as the humanist theologians were contending, but the glory of God itself, though not His essence.  Through a series of 9 dialogues with a humanist monk, he explains that the light of Thabor is the glory of God which will be revealed at the parousia.  After all,  Jesus said the disciples present there would see the kingdom of God come with power (Cf.Mt.16.28).  Gregory was not advocating anything different than what is normally accepted in contemporary theology.  Who God justifies, He glorifies.  A taste of this glorification is had even  now, realized in the spirit; and as we are not Platonists, it is participated in the body as well.

The other trope from Scripture which he employs is the face to face nature of communion.  Gregory wrote several  sermons on Moses’ ascent to Mount Sinai, and how Moses saw God face to face.  We are προσωπον προς προσωπον, face to face.  Christ is face to face with  God (Jn1.3), through His mediation  in  His person, we can  see the glory of God in the face of Jesus, not by ourselves,  for no flesh  can see the essence of God (as Christ sees) and live.  This latter point, I believe, is the resolution of the created/ uncreated dispute between East and West .

Gregory draws on the Lord’s parable of the prodigal and relates it to his mystical  theology.  Understanding that the kingdom of God is within us (Lk.17.20), and that the heart is the abode of the Father, His house,  then we ask, what does it mean to leave the house?  Gregory sees the wandering of the mind, πλανη, in this parable. Not centered on the presence of God, it is a prodigal.  Granted, this is clearly Alexandrian exegesis at it’s extreme, but I would say  it is coherent.  Prayer then is the restoration of the mind (the prodigal son) to the heart and brings us face to face with the Lord.

      Another analogy he draws from the Scripture is the treasurehouse of the heart.  The Lord commands the disciples to close door and enter into the closet and pray (Mt.6.8-13).  For Gregory, this is a call to  shut the world out and lock ourselves in God’s presence, in the heart, which elsewhere is compared to a treasure store. The five senses are shut and the door to the world is shut and we hide the mind in God’s treasury.

THE WAY BACK TO THE FATHER’S HOUSE, PRODIGAL SON PART 2. FINDING THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE HEART ACCORDING TO SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS.

Previously, I posted his understanding of the prodigal son,  stating that we can draw parallels to the spiritual life and indeed refer to a, “prodigal  mind.”  The mind  has wandered out of the Father’s house,  the heart.  The movement of the mind to the heart is circular per Saint Dionysios.  That is to say,  the mind reflexes,  returns back, to the essence, which is the heart. To use orthodox metaphysics,  the heart is the essence and the mind is the energy.

The way back to the heart is difficult. How does Saint Gregory advise us to find the heart?

I want to give an except from the second discourse.  This is the apophatic way,  the way of denial.  What is it not.

1.  There must be a ceasing of intellectual operations which do not seek after God.

For they assert no one is able to participate in perfection and holiness, not having found the true glory concerning created existences, further, it is not possible for this (i.e.  holiness trans.) to exist or have it without disjunctive thought and syllogism and analysis. Triads.1.3.84

This is not obscurantism.  Rather,  the true  telos,  or end,  of the intellect’s motion  is to  see God.  If we are not directed to that, then  we have failed.  Mental  operations are such that the intellect perceives an idea – joins or divides from it – then  makes a syllogism.  In other words, proposition A is true,  proposition B, therefore C. The syllogism has reached it’s συμπερασμα, or conclusion.

These mental acts do not give αισθεσις or perception, of spiritual  truth.  These acts pertain  to νους, or intellect.  The knowledge of God  is beyond mind.  The mind  must cease to rationalize and simply seek  the feeling of God’s presence , an αισθεσις.  This  feeling or perception comes only by the illumination  of God’s grace. As Saint Gregory is fond to  quote,

καρδία ὀρθὴ ζητεῖ αἴσθησιν στόμα δὲ ἀπαιδεύτων γνώσεται κακά Prov.15:15  A right heart seeks perception, but the mouth of the untaught seeks mischief.

The ceasing of the intellect is called keeping the Sabbath  by Saint Gregory. To celebrate the rest, the Israelites had to stop working.  It is also  the same as Golgotha. At Golgotha,  the place of a skull, the Logos was slain.  At our own  personal Golgotha before our personal  descent to Hades (see St.  Silouan  on this), the depths of our inner sin, we must have our logos slain.  Reason must stop  to arrive at the Truth beyond reason.

2.  The attention  is actually directed toward the heart.

This is not metaphorical.  The attention  is actually directed to the interior, to the heart. Having directed our mind there, we still do not see the Light according to Saint Gregory. There is a veil over the heart, impeding the light from being perceived. So the veil on the heart then we must cast aside, by self examination, the open and hidden sins of the heart. This veil, καλλυμα, according to Saint Paul (2 Cor.4:1-6)  is the covering of νοηματα, thoughts.  The thoughts cast aside, the veil  is in effect removed and we are then δεχτικος, capable to receive the grace of God.  The actual process of removing the veil,  the painful process of repentance,  is what permits us to see the Lord.  However,  seemingly contradictory, It is a pure gift to perceive God’s grace.  Some saints struggled for years, so how should we expect an instant renewal?  God does grant it at a moment many times- He did to Cornelius in Acts 10.

3. Practically,  Saint Gregory enjoins  repeating the Name of the Lord  upon every breath, while sending the intellect to the heart.

For there is quietude by this entering in and going out, the spirit upon every ingoing thought, but especially in the case of those practicing stillness in body and reasoning.

For those who spiritually sabbatize are these who also  resting from all their proper works, because it is attainable, on the one hand, everything discursive and produced by discursive reasoning and which has been elaborately reasoned about knowledge of the powers of the soul they completely strip away, namely,  work and all the aesthetic helps, and quite simply every bodily activity,  which is in our power, yet on the other hand,   what is not in our power -the end just as respiration, so long as it is in our power, this does not cease.

But all these identical things follow painlessly and without much care for those who make progress hesychastically, for by the same entrance of the soul to itself, of necessity, perfectly automatically all things occur. Triads 1.2.51-53

Now,  why is it that this is commanded, and why might this take so long?  Because the practice engenders love within the soul. And love is ultimately what tethers us to the Lord, as it alone will exist in the eschaton. This will not come easy.  The practice should be enjoined at the very least until  we have entered into communion with Him.

 But for those who are beginners, not one of what things said would you know without hard word accompanying.

And as it follows then with love being patient (“for love bears all things,”  we then instruct in order to establish patience in life, as through this we arrive at love).

And what further is necessary to say about these things?

Since nothing more can be said,  I trust the Saint.  The next section describes how the invocation  of the Lord’s Name removes the seven  evil  thoughts, spirits,  and replaces them with the Seven Spirits of God. I invite the reader to  look at how the tree of knowledge of good and evil relates to this.

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All Men Are Commanded to Pray Without Ceasing, St. Gregory Palamas

Let no one think, my brother Christians, that it is the duty only of priests and monks to pray without ceasing, and not of laymen.

No, no; it is the duty of all of us Christians to remain always in prayer.

For look what the most holy Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus, writes in his life of St. Gregory of Thessalonica. This saint had a beloved friend by the name of Job, a very simple but most virtuous man. Once, while conversing with him, His Eminence said of prayer that every Christian in general should strive to pray always, and to pray without ceasing, as Apostle Paul commands all Christians, "Pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5:17), and as the prophet David says of himself, although he was a king and had to concern himself with his whole kingdom: "I foresaw the Lord always before my face" (Psalms 15:8), that is, in my prayer I always mentally see the Lord before me. Gregory the Theologian also teaches all Christians to say God’s name in prayer more often than to breathe.

So, my Christian brethren, I too implore you, together also with St. Chrysostom, for the sake of saving your souls, do not neglect the practice of this prayer. Imitate those I have mentioned and follow in their footsteps as far as you can.

At first it may appear very difficult to you, but be assured, as it were from Almighty God, that this very name of our Lord Jesus Christ, constantly invoked by you, will help you to overcome all difficulties, and in the course of time you will become used to this practice and will taste how sweet is the name of the Lord. Then you will learn by experience that this practice is not impossible and not difficult, but both possible and easy. This is why St. Paul, who knew better than we the great good which such prayer would bring, commanded us to pray without ceasing. He would not have imposed this obligation upon us if it were extremely difficult and impossible, for he knew beforehand that in such case, having no possibility of fulfilling it, we would inevitably prove to be disobedient and would transgress his commandment, thus incurring blame and condemnation. The Apostle could have had no such intention.

Moreover, bear in mind the method of prayer – how it is possible to pray without ceasing, namely by praying in the mind. And this we can always do if we so wish. For when we sit down to work with our hands, when we walk, when we eat, when we drink we can always pray mentally and practice this mental prayer – the true prayer pleasing to God. Let us work with the body and pray with the soul. Let our outer man perform his bodily tasks, and let the inner man be entirely dedicated to the service of God, never abandoning this spiritual practice of mental prayer, as Jesus, God and Man, commanded us, saying: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:6).

The closet of the soul is the body; our doors are the five bodily senses. The soul enters its closet when the mind does not wander hither and thither, roaming among things and affairs of the world, but stays within, in our heart. Our senses become closed and remain closed when we do not let them be attached to external sensory things, and in this way our mind remains free from every worldly attachment, and by secret mental prayer unites with God its Father. "And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly," adds the Lord. God who knows all secret things sees mental prayer and rewards it openly with great gifts. For that prayer is true and perfect which fills the soul with Divine grace and spiritual gifts. As chrism perfumes the jar the more strongly the tighter it is closed, so prayer, the more fast it is imprisoned in the heart, abounds the more in Divine grace.

Blessed are those who acquire the habit of this heavenly practice, for by it they overcome every temptation of the evil demons, as David overcame the proud Goliath. It extinguishes the unruly lusts of the flesh, as the three men extinguished the flames of the furnace. This practice of inner prayer tames passions as Daniel tamed the wild beasts. By it the dew of the Holy spirit is brought down upon the heart, as Elijah brought down rain on Mount Carmel. This mental prayer reaches to the very throne of God and is preserved in golden vials, sending forth their odors before the Lord, as John the Divine saw in the Revelation, "Four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints" (Revelation 5:8).

This mental prayer is the light which illumines man’s soul and inflames his heart with the fire of love of God. It is the chain linking God with man and man with God. Oh the incomparable blessing of mental prayer! It allows a man constantly to converse with God. Oh truly wonderful and more than wonderful – to be with one’s body among men while in one’s mind conversing with God. Angels have no physical voice, but mentally never cease to sing glory to God. This is their sole occupation and all their life is dedicated to this.

So, brother, when you enter your closet and close your door, that is, when your mind is not darting hither and thither but enters within your heart, and your senses are confined and barred against things of this world, and when you pray thus always, you too are then like the holy angels, and your Father, Who sees your prayer in secret, which you bring Him in the hidden depths of your heart, will reward you openly by great spiritual gifts.

But what other and greater rewards can you wish from this when, as I said, you are mentally always before the face of God and are constantly conversing with Him – conversing with God, without Whom no man can ever be blessed either here or in another life?

Finally, my brother, whoever you may be, when you take up this book and, having read it, wish to test in practice the profit which mental prayer brings to the soul, I beg you, when you begin to pray thus, pray God with one invocation, "Lord have mercy," for the soul of him who has worked on compiling this book and of him who helped to give it to the public. For they have great need of your prayer to receive God’s mercy for their soul, as you for yours. May it be so! May it be so!

Thanks St.  Nicholas Orthodox Church for the post http://www.orthodox.net/

St Gregory Palamas, from "Early Fathers From the Philokalia," translated from the Russian text, "Dobrotolubiye," by E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer, eighth edition, (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1981), pp. 412 - 415

displacing the seven wicked spirits

St.  Gregory places hesychasm  as absolutely necessary to  progress in the spiritual life.  Seven  spirits,  commonly represented as the seven wicked spirits of Mt.12,  which were also cast out of Mary Magdalene,  dwell in us. In baptism,  the wicked one is displaced.  But we forfeit the grace of the Spirit  and so need to recover it by repentance.  Since the law of sin,  as manifested by the presence of the seven  spirits,  dwells in the belly,  we are to direct our attention there, invoking the Name of God  and driving out the heathen  from the promised land.  When  they  are  displaced and the mind-nous-  presides- then the Seven Spirits of God (Is.11)  can reside in us.  Gregory's point is that if we judge ourselves,  then  we are not judged by God.  Return  to the interior then is repentance.  We are searching  the inward parts of the belly,  for David said,
"the spirit of man  is the candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly"  This descent into the heart then is actually an ascent, an ascent to God.

One last note on the excerpt.  Gregory says we are to  preside and watch over ourselves,  i.e.  the mind is like a proistamenos or episkopos,  overseeing the interior.  Each is called to  govern in their heart.  For as David again said, "he that has no rule over his spirit is like a broken  wall."

From St. Gregory, question 2 Triad 1. (posted 1-28-13)

“Take heed to yourself” Moses clearly says to all, not to certain of you, not to a particular one.  Of whom?  Of the mind. For it is not possible for anyone to take heed to everyone’s own self.  He knows then this identical keeping guard of the soul and body, for through this he easily remedies both bodily and soulish evil passions. 

Rule over yourself then,

prepare yourself,  

oversee yourself, 

better yet, preside and oversee and prove yourself. 

And to add, in this way the flesh resists subordination of the spirit,  

“the word hidden in your heart won’t ever happen.” If a  spirit of one reigns, namely, of the seven spirits and passions, “Ascend to yourself”  the Preacher says “Do not leave your place,” that is, the portion of the soul,  neither let a member of the body  be unsupervised (lit. not overseen ἀνεπίσκοπον trans.) for in this way also,  when the seven spirits from below test, he may pass through higher on to Him Who tries the hearts and reins (lit. kidneys trans.)” “when He tries the hearts and reins ” as he himself has tested them previously,   he may stand with boldness not tested (by God trans.).” “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” He who says this is Paul.

And here is this saying from David experiencing- undergoing- that blessed passion,

even he himself says to God that  “darkness shall be be darkened from you, and night as day shall enlighten  me because  You shall possess my reins. ”

St Gregory Palamas on the Nous, notes for Holy Trinity Faith Study Group

Forgive me if this seems catechetical  and rather introductory, but many people are new to the teaching of the Church regarding communion with God.  A particular teaching of the Church is that it preserves the biblical distinction between heart and head.  Man  is holistic.  Our whole body, soul and spirit are to be sanctified (I Thes.5:23). We have consciousness of the world through our body,  of ourselves through  our soul,  and of God through  the heart, or to use the biblical word  with a patristic baptismal  name,  the nous.  This is a word which derives from  νοιεῖν, to see. We see God not with imagination but by a spiritual  faculty the Fathers denominate the eye of the soul.  Rationalist will never find adequate proof of God.  Only direct experience of His grace suffices.  However,  this experience is only the result of painful repentance, though not exclusively.

St.  Gregory's argument for much  of this second  question  from a disciple of his, of which I will excerpt a portion,  concerns how the nous  is to  enter into  union with God's grace, His love.  Now, a word before reading.  His prose is very dense.  There is no such thing as a simple sentence.  Bear with the long  clauses.  It is the only way to translate patristic Greek, apart from  paraphrasing. My goal  is to post the whole Triad  up, in it's entirety, once I finish  the translation. It is a treasure that merits wider reading, especially since it is nearly dogmatic. The extant translation of this is deficient and a poor paraphrase,  not that mine is stellar. NB  the last sentence.  The grace will not abide unless we give ourselves continually to the Lord, our entire occupation is to be in His school of stillness in Him,  hesychia.

Note on translation: if this is copied please attribute the source,  as these do not exist elsewhere in English, and it is a labor of love.

                                               Gregory Palamas Triad  one excerpt                                                          
But the wicked one, wickedly when he pulls the bed from under us (from the best things) always manages to slip away,  and pleasure fills our souls and binds with nearly unbreakable bonds those who love irrationally.   Pleasure suggests that we spend both a long length of time on pursuits  and a multitude of things to know, as for some it is riches or  fame  for the infamous or fleshly pleasures, with the result that, by the inquiry of these things through their entire life, since they retire themselves from other matters, we will not  then fortify the soul to hold fast  to purifying paidia, whose true beginning is the fear of God, from which entreaty is begotten from continual compunction and the guarding of the evangelical  oracles, but when reconciliation toward God  has happened through these, the fear is transformed into love,  and when the pain of prayer  has been carried over into joy of illumination, the flower blossoms.

The knowledge of the mysteries of God is the fragrance of this knowledge transmitted to him that bears it. This paideia and true knowledge, of which not even the beginning, namely, the fear of God, someone strengthened in the love of empty philosophy and wrapped up twisted in their turns of argument and theories, isn’t even able to find room for.  

For how would it enter entirely into the soul,  and how, after it entered, would it be able to  stay near, overtaken and given boldness to leave  because it is made nervous by every strain and sort of reasoning,  unless the entire occupation one’s free time may  be ordered in accord with God since it has said rejoice in all things, so that  the entire love of this person may become according to the commandment?