Letter 917

Let us train the mind toward piety, if indeed bodily training has been duly accomplished. For bodily training is profitable for a little, resembling the lessons of children; but piety is profitable for all things, furnishing soundness of soul to those who long to acquire victory over the passions that oppose us. For just as it is fitting for athletes who are only now being trained in the exercises of boys to train the body and to move the limbs continually, while it is proper to athletic men to attend to the strength that belongs to contest and to anoint themselves for the great competitions, so also in the matter of virtue: for those who are only now beginning the worship of God, it is good to take care to hinder the activities [of the passions], and to master the pleasures and passions bred up with us, by which we are driven almost involuntarily, so to speak; but for those who have come into a settled state of practical virtue, let all eagerness be given to attending also to the movements of the mind, and to guarding the reasoning faculty, lest, being stirred in disorderly fashion, it be carried down toward some unprofitable thing. And, in a word, the one group is eager to train the bodily motions, the other to discipline the impulses of the reasoning faculty, so that it may be moved toward the philosophical way of life alone, with no worldly imagination distracting the reasoning faculty from the more divine conceptions. For the desire of the one who worships God must be wholly stretched out toward what is longed for, so that human reasonings may find no opportunity at all to set their own passions to work. For if each passion, whenever it is stirred in the one mastered by it, holds the reasoning faculty fettered, why should not the zeal of virtue also hold the mind, freed from the rest, occupied [with virtue alone]? For what perception of external things has the man who is grieved, while in his mind he wages war against the image of the face that has grieved him? And the licentious man often, even while sitting with certain people, has dissolved his senses, and, imagining the face he longs for, converses with that face, forgetful of those present, and sits like a statue, speechless, knowing nothing of what passes before his eyes or of what is spoken, but, deadened toward the things outside, is wholly given over to the imaginings of the face he longs for. But if these things so master the reasoning faculty through the strong attachment of Satanic love, and make the senses sufficient [to it], much more does the spiritual love of philosophy make the mind renounce both sensible things and the senses, snatching it up on high, and occupying it with the contemplation of intelligible things, and it will unite this mind to God inseparably.

Γυμνάσωμεν τὸν νοῦν πρὸς εὐσέβειαν, εἴγε ἡ σωματικὴ κατόρθωται γυμνασία. Ἡ γὰρ σωματικὴ γυμνασία πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶν ὠφέλιμος παιδικοῖς ἐοικυῖα μαθήμασιν· ἡ δὲ εὐσέβεια πρὸς πάντα ἐστὶν ὠφέλιμος παρέχουσα τὴν ψυχικὴν ἐύεξιαν τοῖς ἐφιεμένοις κτήσασθαι τὴν κατὰ τῶν ἀντιπάλων παθῶν νίκην. Ὥσπερ γὰρ τοῖς ἄρτι ἐπὶ τὰ παιδικὰ γυμναζόμενοις ἀθληταῖς εὐπρεπές ἐστι τὸ γυμνάζειν τὸ σῶμα, καὶ τὰ μέλη κινεῖν συνεχῶς, ἀνδράσι δὲ ἀθλητικοῖς ἴδιον τὸ ἰσχύος ἐπιμελεῖσθαι ἀγωνιστικῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς μεγάλους ἀλείφεσθαι ἀγῶνας, οὕτως καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς, τοῖς μὲν ἄρτι ἀρχομένοις τῆς θεοσεβείας, καλὸν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τοῦ κωλύειν τὰς ἐνεργείας, καὶ κρατεῖν τῶν συντρόφων ἡδονῶν, καὶ παθῶν, ὀφ’ ὧν καὶ ἀπροαιρέτως σχεδὸν εἰπεῖν ἐλαύνονται· τοῖς δὲ ἐν ἕξει γεγενημένοις τῆς πρακτικῆς ἀρετῆς, πᾶσα σπουδὴ γινέσθω τοῦ φροντίζειν καὶ τῶν κατὰ διάνοιαν κινημάτων, καὶ φυλάττειν τὸν λογισμόν, ὅπως μὴ κινηθεὶς ἀτάκτως κατενεχθῇ ἐπί τι τῶν ἀλυσιτελῶν, καὶ ἁπλῶς τοῖς μέν ἐστι σπουδὴ τοῦ τὰς σωματικὰς παιδαγωγεῖν κινήσεις, τοῖς δὲ τὸ τὰς ὁρμὰς παιδεύειν τοῦ λογισμοῦ, ὥστε πρὸς μόνην κινεῖσθαι τὴν ἐμφιλόσοφον διαγωγὴν, μηδεμιᾶς φαντασίας κοσμικῆς περισπώσης τὸν λογισμόν. ἀπὸ τῶν θειοτέρων νοημάτων. Δεῖ γὰρ τετάσθαι τὴν τοῦ θεοσεβοῦντος ἐπιθυμίαν ὅλην πρὸς τὸ ποθούμενον, ὡς μηδόλως εὑρίσκειν καιρὸν τοὺς ἀνθρωπίνους λογισμοὺς ἐνεργεῖν τὰ οἰκεῖα πάθη. Εἰ γὰρ ἕκαστον πάθος, ὅταν ἐν τῷ κεκρατημένῳ κινηθῇ, κατέχει τὸν λογισμὸν πεπεδημένον, διὰ τί μὴ καὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς ὁ ζῆλος σχολάζουσαν ἀπὸ τῶν λοιπῶν καθέξει τὴν ἔννοιαν; Ποίαν γὰρ αἴσθησιν ἔχει τῶν ἔξωθεν ὁ λυπούμενος πρὸς τὸ τοῦ λελυπηκότος προσώπου εἴδωλον κατὰ διάνοιαν μαχόμενος; Ὁ δὲ ἀκόλαστος πολλάκις καὶ συνεδρεύων τισὶ κατέλυσε τὰ αἰσθητήρια, καὶ τὴν ποθουμένην ὄψιν φανταζόμενος, ἐκείνη προσομιλεῖ τῶν παρόντων ἐπιλανθανόμενος, καὶ στήλῃ κάθηται ἄφωνος, εἰδὼς μὲν τῶν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς γενομένων, ἢ λαλουμένων οὐδέν, νενεκυῶς δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ ἔνδον, ὅλος ἐστὶ τὰς φαντασίας τοῦ ποθουμένου προσώπου. Εἰ δὲ ταῦτα οὕτως κρατεῖ τοῦ λογισμοῦ διὰ τὴν προσπάθειαν τοῦ Σατανικοῦ ἔρωτος, καὶ ἀρκεῖν τὰς αἰσθήσεις παρασκευάζει, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὁ τῆς φιλοσοφίας πνευματικὸς ἔρως ἀποτάξασθαι καὶ τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς, καὶ ταῖς αἰσθήσεσι παρασκευάζει τὸν νοῦν, μετάρσιον ἁρπάζων αὐτόν, καὶ τῇ τῶν νοητῶν προσασχολῶν θεωρίᾳ, τῷ Θεῷ τοῦτον ἑνώσει ἀδιάσπαστος. ---LETTER ΣΙΔ΄.--- Οὐ χρὴ ἅμα τῷ θεάσασθαι τὸ εὔμορφον πρόσωπον, συναπάγεσθαι εὐθὺς τῇ ἐκ τοῦ κάλλους ἐγγινομένῃ ἡδονῇ, καὶ τῷ δριμυτάτῳ ἔρωτι συμφορεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ μικρὸν διδόναι διάστημα, καὶ καιρὸν τῷ καλῷ ἐπιλογισμῷ, ὅπως ἂν διασκέψαιτο, καὶ γνώοι συνεχῶς διακρίνας, τί γε εἴη τὸ βλάψον, καὶ τί τὸ ὠφεληθῆσον, καὶ πόσον μὲν λυπηθήσεται, καὶ κατακάλψει τὸ συνεῒδος ἀπεργασθείσης ὁλοπράκτως τῆς ἀθέσμου ἡδονῆς, πόσον δὲ γαυριάσει, καὶ τερφήσεται, καὶ ἀναβλαστήσει τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς λογισμοῖς, καταπαλαίσας γενναίως τὴν ἄτοπον ὄρεξιν, καὶ τῷ ποδὶ τῆς ψυχῆς καταπατήσας τὸ πάθος τὸ μιαρόν.