This topic of nepsis, I want to say a little more about it this morning, because it helps us to locate our atheists among the other kinds of spirituality in Eastern monasticism, as we'll see. Remember that he's talking about two things which turn out very much to be related. The Greek words for them are skopos and nepsis. And skopos is purpose, and nepsis is watchfulness, vigilance. And somehow the two are very much related. You remember Hausser after that long treatment of nepsis, which, long treatment is about ten pages long, which really did, though, he concludes this way. We conclude that the term nepsis has two meanings, in the narrower sense it denotes that part of praxis, of the active life, the practical, the ascetical life, which consists in vigilance over thoughts the moment they arise.

[01:01]

In the wider sense, nepsis is a synonym for praxis, for the whole of the ascetical life. If you read the Hesychasts, you tend to get the narrower sense of nepsis. For instance, here's Hesychius of Sinai. I read a piece of his chapters here last time. He gives four or five different kinds of nepsis, the English word here, which is uniformly used for translation of watchfulness. I shall now tell you in plain, straightforward language what I consider to be the types of watchfulness which gradually blends the intellect from impassioned thoughts, the nous, the intellect. Note that this focus on the intellect, which later turns into the heart, in later Hesychasm. But remember, when they say the intellect, remember what they mean.

[02:02]

What they mean is closer to Zen than it is to, what would you call it, rational theology. It's closer to a kind of total open consciousness, or basic transcendent consciousness, which simply knows being, than it is to the thinking mind. So it's not ratio. Intellect has a sense which we've lost. John of the Cross, for instance, might use it in that sense, but also the scholastics of Aquinas. In these times of spiritual warfare, I hope, let's see, okay, one type of watchfulness consists in closely scrutinizing every mental image or provocation, for only by means of a mental image can Satan fabricate an evil thought and insinuate this into the intellect in order to lead it astray. Okay, this is the Hesychast doctrine, in the end, expel every image, make your mind completely empty, completely simple.

[03:04]

Of course, this has to be taken with care, it has to be hedged around with a lot of cautions, a lot of commentary, but basically, that's the doctrine. It's already there in Evagrius, when he says, your mind in the state of prayer should be completely free of images, completely free even of ideas, of representations. First of all, passionate ones, but then finally, any image. Now, this is a whole different doctrine from Dorotheus, you see, Dorotheus is a very practical man, and he's rather more, you'd almost say extroverted rather than introverted, so he's not moving towards a kind of pure intellect, a kind of absolute consciousness, quite another direction. But, remember Romeo, the book that written this time, actually what he says is very beautiful, and you'll remember his, sit in the cellars in paradise, cast all memory of the world

[04:15]

behind you, cautiously watching your thoughts as a good fisher watches the fish. Now, St. Arnold is in the hesychast tradition, which typically moves into the hermetical life. Dorotheus is in another tradition, which is cenovitical, more interpersonal, more extroverted, and it's always in a dynamic of community in which there's this give and take on these sort of hard knocks and so on, living with the brothers. And, for instance, when he chooses an example later on, it's going to be an example of somebody having said a hard word to you, and how you react, typically, rather than some image that arises sort of out of the blue, when you're alone, in prayer. The second type of watchfulness consists in freeing the heart from all thoughts, keeping it profoundly silent and still, and in prayer.

[05:16]

Okay, there you have the center of the hesychast then, this tradition. The third type consists in continually and humbly calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ for help. See, that's the Jesus prayer, even though he doesn't give the full form of it that evolves later. The fourth type is always to have the thought of death in one's mind. And then he's going to deal with a further type, to fix one's gaze on heaven and to pay no attention to anything material. It sounds like he's already said it. So that's the hesychast way, and that's not what we find in Dorotheus. They're not contrary to one another, they're just two different paths. What does nepsis mean to Dorotheus? First of all, it means attention to yourself, but not as, well, maybe continual, but it's more likely to be intermittent. Why? Well, because you're acting, because you're not alone, life is going on, you're involved in it. You're not just withdrawing and aware of your... You can't be as aware of your interior states, not in the same way. It's not as contemplative an orientation in Dorotheus, no doubt about it.

[06:20]

It means seriousness, too, and in that way it's identical with the scopos, with his purpose. And it also means periodic self-examination. Instead of a kind of continual self-surveillance or introspection, it's a periodic self-examination. Also, this turns up later on. It's somewhere in between the two. It's a combination of both. It's like knowing where you're at. It's not nearly as intensive, in the same way, as the hesychast thing. This is a good place to recall where Dorotheus sits among the schools of spirituality. I just located this old article I found in a householder's log. This is a talk he gave in 1934. It was a magnificent article retracing out the various schools of spirituality. It's called The Great Currents of Eastern Spirituality. Probably one or two of you have read it. I'm just going to very carefully go through it in order to locate Dorotheus.

[07:27]

First of all, he talks about primitive spirituality, which is like the apostolic fathers, and Ignatius of Antioch is typical. But it's also the kind of thing you find in the New Testament. And he says the focus, actually, is on the virtuous life. For all these ancient writers, man was above all of free will, capable of love and of sacrifice for love. Therefore, all human perfection consisted for them in charity and in the abnegation which proves it. And so, actually, martyrdom falls in this category. Then you have the intellectualist spirituality, which comes along with Clement, with Origen, especially with the vagaries in the monastic tradition. And for them, man is intellect. For once again, I have to insist, not intellect in the sense of thinking. Not at all, because what they're trying to do is get beyond thinking. So it's a transcendent intellect. And it's the same thing that you come up to with transpersonal psychology nowadays,

[08:33]

with the Eastern spiritual traditions, and with, for instance, Eckhart in our own later Western tradition. One thing never changed, he says, in this tradition, and that was the conviction that perfection was identical with contemplation. After a complete examination, we shall always find Hellenic intellectualism. Man is intellect. And then the third school is Dionysius, but he doesn't talk much about it. Dionysius is a kind of transcendent way, which is not simply the intellectualism he's been talking about. Since he doesn't say much about it, he doesn't have a separate view. The fourth way is the school of sentiment or supernatural consciousness. Now, this supernatural consciousness might sound at first as if he means the same as the intellectualist thing. Just pure being, or being aware of God in a kind of formless way. But there is something to perceive here that may be feeling.

[09:37]

I think spiritual feeling would be the best word for it. And among the people in that tradition, especially as Macarius, and later on Simeon the New Theologian, whose experience of the Lord is so rich, and not just a kind of empty experience of humility. And then finally we get to Dorotheus' category. And that's what he calls the martyrdom of obedience. And the first one in that line that he cites is Saint Basil. But there's a certain continuity here, obviously, with the primitive spirituality he's talking about first. Remember? Where it's the will that you're involved with. It's not your feelings, and it's not your basic consciousness that is your intellect, the deepest core of your being in that sense. But man is seen as being, once again, a free will. But this free will is to be proven, not just by love and the sacrifice

[10:41]

which expresses love, but now through obedience. And we're in that. We're in an institutionalized framework. It's a different framework. Although, you know, with Saint Basil, I don't know that it's that institutional. But there is a cenobitical monastic setup. So it's Basil, and picked up by Dorotheus, and then Theodorus II that way around. And in the West it's not hard to find. It's in Saint Benedict, isn't it? Even though in Saint Benedict there's a greater insistence on something else. If you compare Dorotheus with Benedict, I think you find that there's a more gospel-like quality of fraternal love in Benedict than there is in Dorotheus, in spite of the fact that Benedict is writing a rule and Dorotheus is not. I don't think that Dorotheus talks that much about fraternal love, does he? Love of the Lord, certainly.

[11:45]

But he's so practical that he doesn't talk much about the interior spirit of the Lord. It sounds like when you concentrate so long, you keep up the penance. Exactly. Maybe he takes it for granted. I'm sure it's there, you know. But you see the brothers much more as being the means by which you're tried, as being God's means of purifying them, than you do as human persons whom it's possible to love, or with whom you're in communion. There's a peculiar thing about monasticism. The literature tends to come across that. Sometimes it's because so much is taken for granted, that the love is there, the communion is there, but it's also there in the Church. And it's not the specific thing, so it's not common. Here's Hauser writing about Dorotheus. Now, he starts this with Bartholomew, remember the great old man of Gaza.

[12:51]

Now, Dorotheus is his disciple. It was in the 6th century that spirituality came to a decisive turning. One name out of St. Bartholomew should be inscribed at the crossroad. This utter anti-originist was a great directorist. Now, remember Origen was a great intellectualist, whose mind would spread out in all directions, and Evagrius was the one who made a monastic system of spirituality out of Origen. One of his disciples wanted to read Evagrius. Mind you do no such thing, answered the Aestirele. Eventually, he gave in as regards the ascetical writing, while still firmly excluding the monistical writings. Now, at Bartholomew's school, there was then a young monk, St. Dorotheus, destined to become one of the most classical Eastern spiritual writers. During the following centuries, there was no more highly reputed work than his instructions. Those are the discourses of Origen.

[13:53]

Especially after St. Theodore the Studite had definitely adopted his ideas and upheld them even in his testament. So you get this notion of two big streams of monastic tradition in the East, one of which is centrivitical and very strongly centered on obedience. And that's the stream in which Basil and Dorotheus and Theodore the Studite lie. And then you have the hesychast stream, which passes through Evagrius, and then up through Gregory of Sinai and all of those people that are in the Philokalee. And Hauser notes later that in the Philokalee you do not find certain people. You don't find St. Basil, you don't find Dorotheus, and you don't find Theodore the Studite, in spite of the fact that they were very big names in Eastern monasticism. So you see the distinction of the two traditions right there. Now in the West it happens a little differently, but there's the same kind of tendency to move into two branches.

[14:56]

The centrivitical basing itself on the rule of St. Benedict which becomes universal in the West, and then a solitary tradition which disappears and then reappears and has a hard time existing. And St. Romulus sort of brings it in, relates it to the other and legitimizes it. But at the same time, sort of, it's in danger of getting soaked up in his ordinary history. It has a hard time existing in the Western Church as such. But then it reappears in strange ways. It reappears in the Rhineland mystics and it reappears in St. John of the Cross, you see. And outside of the tradition that we call monasticism. If the great Hegumenos of the greatest monastery of Constantinople, Pletsk Theodor, showed such a partiality for Dorotheus, it was because he found that his teaching agreed completely with that of St. Basil, the master of masters.

[15:57]

St. Basil is the great authority in the Eastern Church on monasticism, in spite of the fact that the kind of monasticism that he was setting up doesn't seem to be monasticism as we know it, in the way that it was related to the world. It's a strange thing. And there he was right. Holiness for St. Dorotheus, as for Basil and Theodor the Studact, consisted above all in utter renunciation of self-will. That is why the life of the little St. Dosithius, remember we read it, as in more recent times that of St. John of Berklins, offer us the sight of high perfection acquired in a short time by guileless submission to superiors with no semblance of mystic or gift. Now we're reminded of somebody else, aren't we, in our own time? Anybody? You come to mind? St. Therese in the Carmel tradition, who doesn't have a lot of mystic or gift. His way is the way. Not exactly the same as this one, renunciation of one's own will,

[17:00]

and inside a tight framework of obedience. That is why Theodor was always striving against his monk's obsession for solitary life. Formerly martyrdom had been... This is embarrassing. Formerly martyrdom had been considered the highest perfection. Nothing was changed except that henceforth martyrdom was to consist in obedience. But in a way, boy, that's dangerous. Because look at the function you can get the abbot into. He becomes sort of a high executioner, with his great big axe. And this happens sometimes in the Tradition. I think it happens in the Trappist tradition at a certain point. Remember what Delon said in the Ridge of Trappist Reform. But really, it's punishment. You're in there to live as hard a life as you can. And so they live about 10 or 15 years. At that point, something seems to be a bit out of whack.

[18:04]

It gets negative out of whack. So the obedience thing can be overrun too. There's another kind of obedience which can get frustrated in that very institutional obedience, where that very structured obedience can frustrate another kind of obedience, which is sort of obedience to conformity to God's will to life, which speaks in the Holy Spirit. A fact worth noticing is that in this essay, so alien to claims of special gifts or high states of prayer, we recognize more than any other the very accents of St. Ignatius of Antioch at the prospect of the highest sacrifice. This hero of asceticism, Ignatius of Antioch, is unconsciously lifted up by the love of Christ, enhanced by suffering, into those mystic regions which his humility considered above all. So it's important to see this, I think,

[19:10]

and then to think, to meditate deeply about it in the way that we look at the religious world, both individually and also as a community. Then he's got one more school of spirituality, which is the hesychast school, in which he says man is defined as a heart, that is, the human person is basically seen not as intellect, and not just as sentiment, but as heart. This happens with the hesychasts already, but not Athos, and then it passes on later to the Russians, who have a deeper identification with the earth, so this notion of the heart becomes richer in its human image, than it was with the hesychasts. Briefly, we might say that this is very much connected with nepsis, because it's the hesychasts that identify with the neptic prophets. Remember, here we're back in an introvert school of spirituality, if we can use that language, an interior school of spirituality, which is interested in contemplation, is interested in the experience of God, but now it's the experience of God seen as in the heart.

[20:12]

Above all, hesychasm was connected with the neptic fathers, as is shown by the very title of the Philokalia. Remember, the Philokalia is the collection of the neptic fathers, it's right in the title. It is impossible to translate the word nepsis. In any case, many more intelligible words are synonymous. Attention, silence of the heart, and especially custody of the heart. We read in an article, which is like the manifesto for the hesychast school, true recollection and prayer consist in this, that in prayer the mind keeps the heart, turns again and again within the heart, and from the depth of that abyss sends up its prayers to the Lord. It's a combination of attention and prayer. Briefly, we might say that hesychasm had replaced intelligence by the heart. But the heart here is not just sentiment, is it? It's an interior experience of God in some way. It had made of the heart the faculty of religion, of piety, and of mysticism. In the Evagrian school, man was considered an intellect,

[21:17]

in the others, a psychological consciousness, fully aware. Now, psychological consciousness, what does he mean by that? It's distinguished from intellect. Intellect, remember, is pure intellect, not rational. Psychological consciousness, he means spiritual feeling, basically, I think, or other ways of experiencing God. You can think of visions and locutions, and just also all kinds of spiritual experience, which are not simply and purely intellectual, which are, however, experience. It's like every other kind of experience, including imaginative visions. In the hesychast school, man was considered as a heart. All ascetic effort was made to consist in the custody of the heart and the whole secret of contemplation is to bring the other faculties back to the heart. For, unless gathered in the heart, they became causes of distractions and illusions. So, you see, nepsis is going to mean a lot more and have a different sense for the hesychast

[22:18]

and for that side of monasticism than it will for Dorotheus' side. So, for Dorotheus, it tends to spread out and become more general, identify with the ascetical life to some extent, but mean a kind of attention to your reactions and to your actions, and then self-examination from time to time. And it tends to merge in with his basic seriousness of not forgetting. The opposite to it is carelessness, as a matter of fact. It comes out in the beginning of it. Is it the opposite to nepsis or to... No, that's to Skopos. To Skopos, nepsis is more general. Carelessness, amalaya. Okay, enough for that. Let's look at the discourse, finally. To outline it a bit, it's kind of confusing if you try to figure out how he put it together.

[23:20]

In the first part, he's talking about Skopos, his purpose, his resolution. That's about the first page here. Then he gives this example of purpose, of resolution, in himself when he was a boy and learning to read. Then he changes the subject and he starts talking about virtue in a kind of theoretical way. He says virtue is the mean between excess and defect. Then he talks about self-examination and watchfulness and how it's connected with this idea of virtue, keeping on the royal highway, as it were. Then he talks about... he's got this allegory of the road and the city. And finally he talks about three states of the soul, three positions in which you can be in, or three ways that you can be on the road. That's what he's getting to. And all of this comes back together when he says, well, look at yourself and find out where you are. Watch yourself and examine yourself from time to time.

[24:22]

Okay, right in the beginning here, the first page. Let us look to ourselves and be sober brothers. Nepsemen. Who will give us back this present time that we waste? In these injunctions of the Father. This is all about scopos, you see. Not we don't even know what we want, but we don't even know what we want. We don't know what we wanted. That's about the eighth line down. We're in such a negligent and ruinous... this continual heavy rain of reproach, which you enjoy so. We're in such a negligent and ruinous condition that we don't know why we've come. We don't even know what we wanted. Wanted. We don't know what we wanted when we came. Therefore we make no progress, but we're always distressed. And Merton is in the same tone sometimes. He likes to talk about it. I mean, on those tapes. He's giving... This comes about...

[25:32]

Now there's another mistake. The translation, I didn't check the whole thing, which is too much work. My Greek is not that good. There's another mistake here. This comes about, he says, because we have no set purpose in our hearts, there should be no attentiveness in our hearts. No attentiveness. And then he... The point changes. If we resolve to fight a little... And he takes up this business about doing violence to yourself. This diazomai is a Greek word. And that's another classic thing in the Fathers. They're always talking about that. Because it comes from the Gospel. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence. It's the same Greek word there, I'm sure. We have to decide what he means there. What's the connection between the watchfulness and the purposefulness in the doing violence to yourself? Well, it's like the first thing, is you have this resolution in your heart. You go to the monastery and you really want to do something.

[26:32]

And it's not as if you're vacillating about it. Then you maintain that, through this watchfulness. And as you watch yourself, you get a little distance from yourself and you begin to struggle with yourself. So it's like there are two of you there. There's the one who's watching, and then there's the one who can get into trouble. And so the struggle opens up inside of you. And that's what this diazomai, I think, is. This doing violence. There's another possible confusion. Evidently we're not yet perfect, but at least we desire to be so. Now that is not desire, it's will. We will to be so. So that's the resolution at the outset, you see, which the nexus is supposed to keep functioning and protect. From this will, we shall come and God's coming to go into the combat and so on. So it opens up your will. And then he's got this really heavy quote.

[27:37]

Give blood and receive spirit. Wow. That makes a lot of sense in all kinds of ways. I know a Jesuit who searched for a couple of years to find out where that came from, and finally looked at it. It's Longinus. He's got the footnote here. It's Longinus number five. If you look it up, there's a little more to it than that. It's a little more mysterious than that. I think it's not a page here. 102. No. Abba Longinus said to Abba Acacius, A woman knows she is conceived when she no longer loses any blood. So it is with the soul. She knows she is conceived the Holy Spirit when the passions stop coming out of her. But as long as one is held back in the passions, how can one dare to believe one is sinless?

[28:41]

Now, all that makes sense, okay? But then the other line doesn't seem to hook into it. Give blood and receive the spirit. How do you get the two parts of it together? He seems to be saying two different things. Receive grace and be one with God. Okay, that's what he means. That's for sure, okay? But why does he connect the stopping of menstruation or the conception of a child and the stopping of the issue of blood with the giving of blood? I don't know. But maybe it's like one has to almost lose that, what would you call it, that humor in one, which is the humor of the passions. You know, in the old days, they used to talk about the body in that way. Their physiology was a physiology largely of humors. And so they could talk about a humor, a passionate humor,

[29:41]

which has to be dried up before one can receive the spirit. Something like that. I think probably that's the connection. The idea is that that passionate flux has to be dried up, which means, really, which means a kind of modern humor, before one can receive the spirit. It's a harsh thing. It's a harsh thing. The theological connection to that, of course, is that that's precisely what Jesus does, isn't it? That is, he he sheds his blood on the cross and then is, in the resurrection, so filled with the spirit that he can transmit the spirit to us. It's really strong if you read the New Testament passages connected with it. It seems like it's super-competitive and it's a little bit discursive. Yeah. So blood also has a couple of meanings, as you see.

[30:51]

There's one thing, there's the passionate humor, but another thing is just life. Giving life. Giving ourselves. Okay, then he's got his story about himself. I don't know if it's clear what he's talking about. The beginning thing, the image of the wild animal and so on, the idea is that when he was learning to read, he so hated it that when he approached a book, he sort of had to stalk it. He had to, you know, he didn't even want to touch it. But then after he began to do it, he became so fascinated that he couldn't tear himself away from it. Okay? So the moral of the story seems to be that if you get over your first repugnance and really plunge into something, then a motivation will come in, maybe something good, a motivation will come in which will take over and render it relatively easy

[31:52]

and even delightful. Okay, I think that's what he's saying. Down, about three quarters of the way down, he's got an if for the sake of public speaking, and it should be if for the sake of profane knowledge. He wasn't setting to be a rhetorician as far as I know. If for the sake of profane knowledge so much endurance and progress is needed. Now you find a lot of the fathers saying things like that. That if people work so hard to be a philosopher, to gain some ungodly knowledge, it would be godly to them. How much more should we sweat, should we give ourselves in order to know God? Unless a man drives himself and fights against his evil inclinations, he readily falls away and diverges from the path of virtue. Okay, you're going to find that this ties in with the end of the thing

[32:53]

when he's talking about those three categories of men, those three places in which to stare. There's a marvelous unity in Dorotheus' discourses, even though on the verbal level they seem to wander all over the place. They seem to stray all over. There's an underlying unity that pulls them together. Now he goes into this theory about virtues. This probably doesn't sound like the most exciting thing in the world. Virtue stands in the middle between excess and defect, and this is the king's highway. Now this is in the book of Numbers, and that's picked up by a lot of the fathers. If you look at the French edition here, they've got a footnote with multiple references to the fathers who picked this idea up. I think it comes originally from Aristotle, and I don't know if it exists before him. The idea that virtue is the mean between too little and too much. It's in Aristotle's Ethics. Now, there are a couple of places in...

[33:53]

Hmm? Very much, okay? In fact, that's a key if you want to get the connection with Cassian, because where Cassian treats of this is when he's talking about discretion. But notice the ambiguity of that word, discretion, because for, say, Saint Benedict, it begins to mean that. But discretion for Cassian also means discernment of spirits, okay? So it wanders between two poles, the idea of discretion, between moderation, or the mean between too little and too much, and between a kind of God-given gift of discerning spirits, whether something comes from the devil, whether it comes from God, whether it comes from ourselves. And in Cassian, it seems all mixed up, those two meanings. He's got a couple of places where he talks about the King's Highway, the Middle Road, and so on. I'll try to locate them for you. Two of them are in Conference 2, page 308,

[34:55]

just in case you're interested. Now, see, this is a Greek psychology, or a Greek ethics, which underlies the fathers, and which one after the other of them will pick up, and which later on will turn up in Thomas Aquinas, and so on. This is the conference on discretion, where he talks about the people who have gone off the beam because of too much or because of too little. Well, actually, the ones he has to point out is where they do too much, by some excess of what seems like virtue, by doing too much of the right thing, like the old Abba Heron who threw himself down a well. That's self-abnegation, perhaps. Here. Nor can any other reason for their falling off be discovered, except that as they were not sufficiently instructed by their elders and didn't have discretion,

[35:56]

they could not obtain judgment and discretion which passing by excess on either side teaches a monk always to walk along the loyal road, and does not suffer him to be puffed up on the right hand of virtue, that is, from excess of zeal to transgress the bounds of due moderation and foolish presumption, nor allows him to be enamored of slackness and turn aside to the vices on the left hand, that is, under pretext of controlling the body to grow slack with the opposite spirit of lukewarmness. This is discretion, which is termed in the Gospel the eye and the light of the body. That's the chief virtue for Cassian. And then again in chapter 16. We ought then with all our might to strive for the virtue of discretion by the power of humility, as it will keep us uninjured by either extreme. For there's an old saying, extremes meet, for excess of fasting and gluttony come to the same thing, and an unlimited continuance of vigils is equally injurious to a monk

[36:57]

as a talker of a deep sleep. Pretty marvelous way to be able to say that. Of course, maybe we have to kind of look at it critically afterwards. For when a man is weakened by excessive abstinence, he's sure to return to that condition in which a man is kept through carelessness and negligence, so that we have often seen those who could not be deceived by gluttony destroyed by excessive fasting, and by reason of weakness liable to that passion which they had before overcome. I have never been in danger of some of these things, not because I have discretion, it's just... Unreasonable vigils and nightly watchings have also been the ruin of some whom sleep could not get the better of. Wherever the apostle says were the yarns of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. There's a kind of a... There's something marvelous there, and that is the kind of detachment which is able to say that all of these things are only things, you know,

[37:58]

none of them are God. And this comes up... It comes up in the book of Prove the Consonant, where God is not on the right or on the left, but he's somehow between the two. But he's not just between the two, he's kind of an average. That's not what it means. And the other place is in Conference 4, Chapter 12, on page 335. This is a conference on the war between the spirit and the flesh, and he says that we're between the spirit and the flesh, and actually the flesh helps in some way. He's a little... He doesn't treat the flesh exactly the same Paul does, but he says that it's good for us to have that pull from the flesh on one side to keep us from just going wild on the other side of getting too virtuous, of getting too spiritual. It's a strange thing to say. There's a wisdom in it, which is hard to express exactly. Well, I can't find a good...

[39:06]

Here we are. A due equilibrium will result from this struggle, and open to us a safe and secure path of virtue between the two, and teach the soldier of Christ ever to walk on the king's highway. So he says the warfare is good for us. Now here it's in a different context. It's in a context where there's struggle between the flesh and the spirit. But he's not divinizing the spirit here. He's not making... not absolutizing the spirit. And he says actually the flesh, it's just what we need is to be between us two. It's kind of surprising in a way, that attachment. So he's such a spiritualist in so many ways. Maybe it does come from, really from one of the desert prophets, from Abba Daniel. We have to ask ourselves what this whole business is about. Is virtue really a mean between defect and excess? It certainly is when you're talking about external things, right?

[40:07]

When you're talking about fasting, or vigils, or you're talking about... talking about talking, or silence, or things like that. It's possible to exaggerate on either side. But can you always say that virtue is the mean between excess and defect? Certainly not in certain virtues. Not in the theological virtues, can it? Faith, hope, and love. You can't have too much of those. You can't have too much of those. There's a kind of... This isn't subtle enough, this kind of axiom. So we have to look for something that explains better the differences between different kinds of virtues. And how some of them are the basic line of growth, or the basic lifeline of the individual, and others of them are in a secondary position. You know how they distinguish the theological virtues of faith, of love, and the cardinal virtues,

[41:09]

the old standard Greek cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. They say if you have too much fortitude, that makes you red. If you have too little, that makes you cowardly, timid. So that virtue is a mean in between to others. But I don't know if those others are even there. So it's a kind of axiom that applies better to external acts than it does to the real interior realities of our life. I think. Question from the audience Question from the audience You may have. Question from the audience Yeah. But see the theological virtues come in with Christianity. So that a whole new thing appears there, which perhaps was not

[42:10]

in his perspective. And I don't know how he talks about love, to tell you the truth. I know he does though, doesn't he? Because for him, I believe that God, the ultimate mover, the prime mover, is the one who is loved. In other words, who draws everything and moves everything by being loved. I think Erasmus mentioned that. But that's Eros. It's not Agapit. Okay. Now he's got this curious theory about how to generate worms. So then does the soul generate evil in itself? Because evil doesn't have an existence. So he's saying that evil is a parasite. Evil is a parasite and the natural state of the soul is virtue.

[43:10]

Now that's good. That's marvelous. And that has something to do with this business of the meme. Okay. Because if you're going to, if you've got another theory that the natural state of the soul is pretty miserable, that the natural state of the soul is vice, okay, if you believe that or that our nature is really messed up in that sense, then you're going to be a lot more inclined to believe that it has to be basically transformed or gotten beyond. And so you're much less likely to have that theory of virtue as a meme, virtue as something reasonable. Because you're going to have an extreme vision of virtue probably in that sense because you've got to do violence to nature. You've got to get away from it in that sense in order to get to God, to get to where you want to be. But he doesn't have that theory. And that too is kind of typically Greek, typically Aristotelian. That nature is good and the soul, in its nature, is good.

[44:12]

And therefore it's to be treated with that kind of respect. It's not that you have to force it to be something else. Let it be itself. That seems to be the theory. You can say that on one side and then you come along and Dorotheus is telling you to do violence to yourself. And he's not a philosopher and so he doesn't think about all those things, make a theory about all those things. He's talking strictly from practice. But he does bring in this theory. So also wickedness is a sickness of the soul depriving it of its own natural health which is a state of virtue. So that's good because we lose that sometimes and then we get a kind of spirituality. Therefore we say that virtue stands in the middle and so courage stands in the middle between cowardice and foolhardiness. Humility in the middle between arrogance and obsequiousness. Those things which you think about then you can have problems

[45:12]

with. Because really it's not too much courage that makes us foolhardy. Is it? Is it too much courage that makes somebody foolhardy? Or is it too much humility that makes somebody obsequious? I don't think so. It's a lack of something else, isn't it? I like it. No, no. And foolhardiness is not really courage. It's a kind of animal. It's a kind of brute courage perhaps, okay? But it's not rational somehow. It's misdirected courage. But the direction, the discretion is not simply in making a middle between too much and too little. It's in the appropriateness of the response to the situation

[46:13]

it seems to me, okay? So I don't think you can really have too much courage nor too much humility either. What you're talking about is very open. Yeah. On an external level, on a kind of rough and ready level, it's true. And when we're talking about the movement of energy in us or something like that, or the movement of passion, the movement of motivation and emotion as we can say it, but not if we're discriminating. Okay. So much for theory. But unless a man is watchful and keeps a guard on himself, he easily deviates. See, he brings this back. He's like a tailor. He comes back and he puts the needle back and he sews it back together and he brings the thread back together at a certain point. Unless a man is watchful and keeps a guard on himself, he easily deviates

[47:13]

from the road either to the left or to the right. So there's your connection with nepsis again. See, you've got to keep watching yourself or you'll fall off the road, you'll go off the road. But it's beautiful that to be on the road is the state of health of the soul. And so your nepsis in some way is going to be connected with preserving the natural state of your soul. Now this is very much like Cashin. Do you remember how Cashin talks first about purity of heart, which is the natural state of the soul when it's healthy as it were. And then he talks about discretion immediately afterwards, which is the eye with which you see that the heart, the soul, is in that natural, healthy, pure, upright state. So Dorotheus is doing the same thing. So it's like you'd have a red light that comes on when your soul is out of its healthy state, out of its natural peaceful state as a matter of fact. He talks about that natural state of purity of rest when you're out of the soul. This is the Royal Road,

[48:19]

in part, which we'll listen to. Then the different states of the soul. Then he gives this allegory where you're moving out of the world, you're going to the holy city, the biblical image, and you're on a road meanwhile. There's all these different ways that you can go. You can stay in the world, you can go a little bit outside, come back, sit on the rubber feet, go down the road some distance. He doesn't mention any movies or saloons or anything along the road. He doesn't compare with the soul. And then he explains his allegory. This is how it is with us. There are some among us who have left the world and come to the monastery. Some keep straight on the road and don't persevere. That's an allegory because it's point by point. Let each one of us take the trouble to find out where we are. Whether we left our own city, the world, but remain outside its gates by the rubbish heap. But whether we remain outside the Holy City.

[49:19]

To remain outside the world and by the rubbish heap is to be entangled in the passions, not still to be weighed down by the flesh. But to remain outside the Holy City where there evidently isn't any rubbish outside, there's no garbage in the Holy City. You remain outside of that by pride, by pride, like the elder brother remembering the parable of the proud son. And he said, that's beautiful, that's right. You can go a long ways along the road but you can't get into the Holy City. Right, right. Let each find out about his own condition and the state of his soul. Okay, then he's really got three conditions of giving in to your passions, of just letting go, of restraining your passions so that you're in a struggle and or of rooting out your passions. And he goes into this in great detail and uses the example of somebody who hears a rough word from his brother. And he's got sub-categories inside each of these stages. It's really,

[50:20]

it's really fabulous. And it's beautiful too because it's, it's true. So these are the three, he doesn't tie it in exactly with his allegory, does he? But the person who is letting go of his passions and just letting them operate, either he never gets out of the world or he's moving back towards it, he's going backwards. The one who is rooting out his passions is moving headlong towards the holy city and he'll get into the holy city. And the other guy is sort of in a state of uncertainty. The one who's checking his passions, actually he really is, he's moving along the road but he's not moving at lightning speed. He's really checking his passions. He could have made the middle situation and he's the one who wins one battle and loses another. I think he does, as a matter of fact, when he spins it. This is why I'm always telling you to be careful to cut off your natural inclinations before they become habitual sins. Back on page 88, remember,

[51:20]

he talked about ten ways you could cut off your natural inclination before you get, before you get out the door which is, makes you a little nervous. Remember Saint Bernard and his degrees of pride and humility? Well, it's very much like this, only he's got much more, he's got more, a more mathematical classification because he matches Saint Benedict's twelve degrees of humility, twelve degrees of pride. But they run like this. The one who just lets free with his passions. We can do it with an angry word, we can do it with a sexual fantasy, we can do it in all kinds of ways. Also, we can do it by allowing resentment to, entertaining resentment, sort of, you know, enjoying it, I don't know how it's all kinds of things, but feasting on these negative feelings. The difference between whether there's really

[52:21]

that inner watchfulness and that inner struggle going on in this, or whether there's only one person in there and he's kind of animal, you know, he just does what he wants, or whether that division has begun. It's like you've got three states. The first state in which there's just one person in there and he's of the flesh. Then the state in which there are two people in there, one of the flesh and of the spirit and the warfare is going on. And then finally the state in which there's really one in you, dominant, and that's the man of the spirit. There'd be all different kinds of ways of, well, describing these states of the soul. My father used to say that everything that the soul does not deliberately intend is of short duration. If you look up his footnote there, you'll find that's poem in number 93, page 151, the same as it does in the book. And it's a story where somebody is concealing a passion.

[53:22]

He's ashamed to tell it to the other. It's a passion of blasphemy and it was so awful that he just couldn't bear to bring it up to his spiritual father. He was afraid that he'd lose respect for him. Each time you go away unhappy keeping your thoughts to yourself, now tell me, Charles, what it's all about, outwardly. He said to him, the demon wars against me to make me blaspheme God, and I'm ashamed to say so. I'm ashamed to tell you that. So he told him all about it and immediately he was relieved. The old man said to him, do not be unhappy, my child, but every time this thought comes to you, say, it's no affair of mine. May your blasphemy remain upon you, Satan, for my soul does not want it. Now everything that the soul does not desire does not long remain. And the brother went away healed. That's magnificent. What does he mean? There's a distinction between what comes... Remember when Jesus says nothing that comes into you from outside can defile you? It's only what comes out from the inside

[54:22]

that defiles you and comes out of the heart. So it's a question of who you really are and when you really give consent to something, when you really buy it, when you really adopt it. And up to the time when you really buy it, when you really consent to it and make it your own, it's not yours, it's not you. And so you don't have to be ashamed of it. See, he somehow identified himself with those blasphemous thoughts to such an extent that he couldn't even tell Pullman about it. But Pullman says they're not yours. If you don't want them, you don't have to identify them. You don't have to consider them as being your own. They belong to the devil. And whatever you don't desire won't remain for long. See, that sends us way down into the core of our own will, doesn't it? To ask what we really do desire. It sends us very deep into ourselves. And unless we desire something, it's asking for a conversion of the heart

[55:23]

way deep down, so that we unhook from the things that we're not even aware that we desire. The evil, if we don't desire it in our heart, it won't stay with us. Seek God and pursue him, remember him. Avoid the devil and you're free from it, something like that. And they're the people who drive that one passion with another and that's not so good. There's probably better than that. And then the ones who uproot their passions. Now at this point we begin to wonder, well, Dorotheus, when are you going to say something positive? Isn't there anything in the world except passion? Isn't there anything in life except sin? Well, what does it mean to uproot your passions? What does he say? If a man rejoices when he is upbraided because it will bring a reward. And then again, another rejoices when he is upbraided. And then and again. There's another case where a man not only

[56:23]

rejoices to be treated harshly and tributes the curse himself. Okay, it's a matter of rejoicing, okay? So there's something very positive here. Actually, this uprooting of the passions can be thought of in a whole other way, which somehow puts it in a positive vein, okay? To uproot your passions, and this is connected with what Coleman was saying, okay? Whatever you do not desire won't remain in your long. To uproot your passions really means that there's a stronger positive dynamism in your heart which doesn't allow them to get rooted, or which somehow is just occupying the city. It's occupying the citadel. It's occupying your heart. And so it just knocks them out when they come in. So it's a question of having your heart full of God, having your heart full of love, the Holy Spirit. Hence, you can talk about rejoicing, you know? Rejoicing when you're upbraided or when you get a harsh word or something like that. So it's a question of a positive presence in your heart which is really

[57:24]

moving at high speed towards the Holy City. In fact, in some way, you're in the Holy City. The Holy City's in your heart, in my case. It reminds me of this contemporary charismatic fellow Caruthers who writes the books about praise, you remember? Because that's what that's about, isn't it? You can't, nothing can really touch the Holy City or touch the heart if the heart has got this dynamism of the Holy Spirit which is praise or which is acceptance or which is affirmation or which is love, whatever you want to call it. Which is rejoicing, he said. Rejoicing. You can see? Yeah, when you're persecuted and all of that. It can be real hard to do. And there are different ways of doing it. Some are more genuine than others. But it works. Because you can sort of shut your eyes and do it. And then it passes you by and it doesn't change you.

[58:24]

If it really moves through your heart, then it changes. He says, so we have to examine ourselves and see where we're at. And that's a very good way to examine ourselves where we're at. Ask yourself, what's in my heart? What do I really desire? What do I want? And to what extent is my behavior inconsistent with what I really want in my heart? Do I really want God or do I really want this other thing? And if I do really want God, why do I let my life be pulled to pieces? Why do I let these other things dwell in my life? Why don't I get my act together? Let everyone find out then where he is, how many milestones he's passed on the road. That's a curious image to use there because he's not talking about money. We ought not only to examine ourselves every day, but also over a period of time, every month and every week. Reminds us of the Jesuit examine, doesn't it? Now here he's not talking about custody, continual custody. At this moment he's talking about periodic examination.

[59:25]

Reminds us of Saint Ignatius' examen, which is standard practice for his order. And also, I was thinking that this spirituality of the will is very prominent. One of its chief expressions in the West, I think, is the Jesuits portraying Saint Ignatius. Kind of getting things at their core, getting the handle on things by finding a spot in us where we are free and where everything is determined. But the Western way usually is to consider it in terms of will rather than heart. The Eastern way is often to look at it as the heart as a as a custody. And he's got that final other parable of the man with the being shot at with the arrow.

[60:26]

If you give way to your passions like sticking the arrow in your own heart you do the job for it. Resisting is like to be lightly wounded and protected. The man who is uprooting his passions is like a man who is shot at by an enemy who strikes the arrow and shatters it and turns it back in his hands. You wonder why the imagery of combat must have been so familiar to him because somebody was always I guess besieging the city and shooting arrows through the windows in those days and stuff. It just came naturally to him. For us we were trying to look for kind of a positive thrust within our which is very much here. Okay. That's enough for this. Next week let's go on to the next one which as you can see is very close to this one. the same subject. Glory be to the Father

[61:30]

and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And to the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.

[61:39]

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