The Heresy of Pusillanimity

But the men of whom I speak, and whom I call heretics, are those who say there is no one in our times and in our midst who is able to keep the Gospel commandments and become like the holy Fathers.

Now those who say this is impossible have not fallen into one heresy, but rather into all of them, if I may say so, since this one surpasses and covers all of them in impiety and abundance of blasphemy.

He who makes this claim subverts the divine Scriptures. I think (that by making this claim) this vain person states the Holy Gospel is recited in vain, that the writings of Basil the Great and of our other priests and holy fathers are irrelevant or have been frivolously written.

If, then, it is impossible for us to carry out in action and observe without fail all things that God says, and all the saints after first practicing them have left in writing for our instruction why did at that time trouble to write them down and why do we read them in Church?

St Symeon the New Theologian
from Discourse 29

The Body of Christ - St Symeon the New Theologian

If it is true that the saints become genuinely the members of Christ Who is God of all, and if, as we said, they have as their duty remaining attached and united to His Body so the He may be their Head and they--all the saints from the beginning of the world to the Last Day--may be his members, and the many become one Body of Christ, as it were a single Man, then it follows that some, for example, fulfill the role of His hands, working even now to accomplish His all-holy will, making worthy the unworthy and preserving them for Him.

Others are the shoulders, bearing the burdens of others, or even carrying the lost sheep whom they find wandering in the crags and wild places abandoned by God. These, too, accomplish His will.

Others fulfill the role of the breast, pouring out God's righteousness to those who hunger and thirst for it, providing them with the bread which nourishes the powers of heaven.

Others still are the belly. They embrace everyone with love. They carry the Spirit of salvation in there bowels and posses the capacity to bear His ineffable and hidden mysteries.

Others, again, take the function of the thighs since they carry in themselves the fecundity of the concepts adequate to God of mystical theology. They engender the Spirit of Wisdom upon the earth, i.e., the fruit of the Spirit and His seed in the hearts of men, through the word of their teaching.

Finally, there are those who act as the legs and feet. These last reveal courage and endurance in temptations, after the manner of Job, and their stability in the good is in no way shaken or weakened, but instead they bear up under the burden of the Spirit's gifts.

On Prayer by St Makarios of Egypt

The crown of every good endeavour and the highest of achievements is diligence in prayer. Through it, God guiding us and lending a helping hand, we come to acquire the other virtues.

It is in prayer that the saints experience communion in the hidden energy of God's holiness and inner union with it, and their intellect (nous) itself is brought through unutterable love into the presence of the Lord.

"Thou has given gladness to my heart," wrote the Psalmist. And the Lord Himself said that "the kingdom of heaven is within you."

And what does the kingdom being within mean, except that the heavenly gladness of the Spirit is clearly stamped on the virtuous soul? For already in this life, the active communion with the Spirit, the virtuous soul receives a foretaste and a prelude of the eternal light of Christ's kingdom.

More from St Mark

The man who loves God benefits from both praise and blame:

If commended for his good actions he grows more zealous, and if reproved for his sins he is brought to repentance.

Our outward life should be in accord with our inward progress, and our prayers to God with our life.

St Mark the Ascetic
No Righteousness by Works
Text 165

Indistinct Images in a Mirror

Compared with the righteousness of the age to be, all earthly righteousness fulfills the role of a mirror:

It contains the image of archetypal realities, not the realities themselves as they subsist in their true and universal nature.

And compared with knowledge there, all spiritual knowledge in this world is an indistinct image:

It contains a reflection of the truth but not the truth itself as it is destined to be revealed.

St Maximos the Confessor
Second Century of Various Texts
Text 47

The Nous or Intellect

The stars are hidden when the sun rises, and thoughts are hidden when the intellect returns to its own realm.

Elias the Presbyter
Gnomic Anthology

Text 91

The Light of the Body is the Eye

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single,

your whole body shall be full of light.

But it your eye be evil,

your whole body shall be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you be darkness,

how great is that darkness!”

(Matthew 6:22-23)

The single eye is the love unfeigned.

For when the body is enlightened by it, it sets forth through the medium of the outer members only things which are perfectly correspondent with the inner thoughts.

But the evil eye is the pretended love, which is also called hypocrisy, by which the whole body of the man is made darkness.

We have to consider that deeds meet only for darkness may be within the man, while through the outer members he may produce words that seem to be of the light: for there are those who are in reality wolves, though they may be covered with sheep’s clothing. Such are they who wash only the outside of the cup and platter, and do not understand that, unless the inside of these things is cleansed, the outside itself cannot be made pure.

Wherefore, in manifest confutation of such persons, the Saviour says: If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! That is to say, if the love which seems to you to be light is really a work meet for darkness, by reason of some hypocrisy concealed in you, what must be your patent transgressions!

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus

Wisdom from St Maximos

For those still concerned mainly with bodily forms of virtue, the Logos of God becomes hay and straw, sustaining the passible aspects of their soul and guiding it to the service of the virtues.

For those who have advanced to true contemplation of divine things, the Logos is bread, sustaining the intellective aspects of their souls and guiding them to godlike perfection. That is why we find the patriarchs on their journeys providing themselves with bread and their asses with fodder (Gen. 24:25; 42:25,27).

For the same reason, the Levite in the Book of Judges said to the old man who questioned him in the street of Gibeah: "There is bread for us and fodder for our asses, and for your servants there is no lack of anything" (Judges 19:19).

Second Century on Love

Text 66

Whatever a Man Loves...

Whatever a man loves he inevitably clings to, and in order not to lose it he rejects everything that keeps him from it. So he who loves God cultivates pure prayer, driving out every passion that keeps him from it.

St Maximos the Confessor
Second Century on Love, Text 7