12. God, it is said, is the Sun of righteousness (cf. Mal. 4:2), and the rays of His supernal goodness shine down on all men alike. The soul is wax if it cleaves to God, but clay if it cleaves to matter. Which it does depends upon its own: will and purpose. Clay hardens in the sun, while wax grows soft. Similarly, every soul that, despite God’s admonitions, deliberately cleaves to the material world, hardens like clay and drives itself to destruction, just as Pharaoh did (cf. Exod. 7:13). But every soul that cleaves to God is softened like wax and, receiving the impress and stamp of divine realities, it becomes ‘in spirit the dwelling-place of God’ (Eph. 2:22).
13. If a person’s intellect is illumined with intellections of the divine, if his speech is unceasingly devoted to singing the praises of the Creator, and if his senses are hallowed by unsullied images – he has enhanced that sanctity which is his by nature, as created in the image of God, by adding to it the sanctity of the divine likeness that is attained through the exercise of his own free will.
14. A man keeps his soul undefiled before God if he compels his mind to meditate only on God and His supreme goodness, makes his thought a true interpreter and exponent of this goodness, and teaches his senses to form holy images of the visible world and all the things in it, and to convey to the soul the magnificence of the higher principles lying within all things.
15. God has freed us from bitter slavery to tyrannical demons and has given us humility as a compassionate yoke of devoutness. It is humility which tames every demonic power, produces in those who accept it every kind of sanctity, and keeps that sanctity inviolate.
16. He who believes fears; he who fears is humble; he who is humble becomes gentle and renders inactive those impulses of in-censiveness and desire which are contrary to nature. A person who is gentle keeps the commandments; he who keeps the commandments is purified; he who is purified is illumined; he who is illumined is made a consort of the divine Bridegroom and Logos in the shrine of the mysteries.
17. Sometimes when a farmer is looking for a suitable spot to which to transplant a tree, he unexpectedly comes across a treasure. Something similar may happen to the seeker after God. If he is humble and unaffected, and if his soul, after the example of the blessed Jacob (cf. Gen. 27:11), is sleek, and not hirsute with materiality, then God may grant him the contemplation of divine wisdom even though he has not labored for it. But if the Father then asks him how he came by this knowledge, saying to him ‘What is this you have found so quickly, My son?’ he should reply, as Jacob did, ‘It is what the Lord God has granted to me’ (Gen. 27:20. LXX). We should realize in such a case that what he has found is a spiritual treasure; for the devoted seeker after God is a spiritual farmer who transplants, as if it were a tree, his contemplation of visible and sensory things to the field of noetic (intelligible) realities; and in so doing he find a treasure – the revelation by grace of the wisdom in created things.
Ὅσιος Μάξιμος ὁ Ὁμολογητής Περὶ θεολογίας
ιβ´. Ὁ Θεός, ἥλιός ἐστι δικαιοσύνης, ὡς γέγραπται· πᾶσιν ἁπλῶς τὰς ἀκτῖνας ἐπιλάμπων τῆς ἀγαθότητος· ἡ δὲ ψυχή, ἢ κηρὸς ὡς φιλόθεος, ἢ πηλὸς ὡς φιλόϋλος κατὰ τὴν γνώμην γίνεσθαι πέφυκεν· ὥσπερ οὖν ὁ πηλὸς κατὰ φύσιν ἡλίῳ ξηραίνεται· ὁ δὲ κηρός, φυσικῶς ἁπαλύνεται· οὕτω καὶ πᾶσα ψυχὴ φιλόϋλος καὶ φιλόκοσμος ἀπὸ Θεοῦ νουθετουμένη, καὶ ὡς πηλὸς κατὰ τὴν γνώμην ἀντιτυποῦσα, σκληρύνεται· καὶ ἑαυτὴν ὠθεῖ κατὰ τὸν Φαραὼ πρὸς ἀπώλειαν· πᾶσα δὲ φιλόθεος, ὡς κηρὸς ἁπαλύνεται, καὶ τοὺς τῶν θείων τύπους καὶ χαρακτῆρας εἰσδεχομένη, γίνεται Θεοῦ κατοικητήριον ἐν πνεύματι.ιγ´. Ὁ τὸν νοῦν ταῖς θείαις καταστράψας νοήσεσιν, καὶ τὸν λόγον ἐθίσας θείοις ὕμνοις ἀπαύστως γεραίρειν τὸν Κτίσαντα, καὶ ταῖς ἀκηράτοις φαντασίαις καθαγιάσας τὴν αἴσθησιν· οὗτος τῷ φυσικῷ κατ᾿ εἰκόνα καλῷ, προσέθηκε τὸ καθ᾿ ὁμοίωσιν γνωμικὸν ἀγαθόν.
ιδ´. Φυλάττει τις τῷ Θεῷ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀκηλίδωτον, εἰ τὴν μὲν διάνοιαν περὶ μόνου Θεοῦ, καὶ τῶν αὐτοῦ ἀρετῶν διανοεῖσθαι βιάσαιτο· τὸν δὲ λόγον, ὀρθὸν ἑρμηνέα καὶ ἐξηγητὴν τῶν αὐτῶν ἀρετῶν καταστήσειε· καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν εὐσεβῶς τὸν ὁρατὸν κόσμον καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ πάντα φαντάζεσθαι διδάξειε, τὴν τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς λόγων μεγαλειότητα τῇ ψυχῇ διαγγέλλουσαν.
ιε´. Ὁ τῆς πικρᾶς δουλείας τῶν τυραννούντων δαιμόνων ἐλευθερώσας ἡμᾶς Θεός, φιλάνθρωπον θεοσεβείας ἡμῖν ζυγὸν ἐδωρήσατο, τὴν ταπεινοφροσύνην· δι᾿ ἧς πᾶσα μὲν διαβολικὴ δαμάζεται δύναμις· (1089) πᾶν δὲ τοῖς ἑλομένοις αὐτὴν ἀγαθὸν δημιουργεῖται, καὶ ἀραδιούργητον διαφυλάττεται.
ιστ´. Ὁ πιστεύων, φοβεῖται· ὁ δὲ φοβούμενος ταπεινοῦται· ὁ δὲ ταπεινούμενος, πραΰνεται, τὴν τῶν παρὰ φύσιν τοῦ θυμοῦ καὶ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας κινημάτων ἀνενέργητον ἕξιν λαβών· ὁ δὲ πραΰς, τηρεῖ τὰς ἐντολάς· ὁ δὲ τηρῶν τὰς ἐντολάς, καθαίρεται· ὁ δὲ καθαρθείς, ἐλλάμπεται· ὁ δὲ ἐλλαμφθείς, ἐν τῷ ταμιείῳ τῶν μυστηρίων ἀξιοῦται τῷ νυμφίῳ Λόγῳ συγκοιτασθῆναι.
ιζ´. Ὣσπερ γεωργός, ὑπὲρ τοῦ τι τῶν ἀγρίων μεταφυτεῦσαι δένδρων ἐπιτήδειον σκοπῶν χωρίον, ἀνελπίστῳ θησαυρῷ περιπίπτει· οὕτω καὶ πᾶς ἀσκητὴς ταπεινόφρων καὶ ἄπλαστος, καὶ λεῖος κατὰ ψυχὴν τῆς ὑλικῆς δασύτητος, κατὰ τὸν μακαριώτατον Ἰακώβ, ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐρωτώμενος τῆς ἐπιστήμης τὸν τρόπον· Τί τοῦτο ὃ ταχὺ εὗρες, τέκνον; ἀποκρίνεται λέγων· Ὃ παρέδωκε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ἐναντίον μου. Ὅταν γὰρ ἡμῖν ὁ Θεὸς παραδῷ τῆς ἰδίας σοφίας τὰ σοφὰ θεωρήματα καμάτου χωρίς, οὐ προσδοκήσασι, θησαυρὸν ἐξαίφνης πνευματικὸν εὑρηκέναι νομίσωμεν. Γεωργὸς γὰρ πνευματικός ἐστιν ὁ δόκιμος ἀσκητής, τὴν πρὸς αἴσθησιν [unus Reg. τὴν αἰσθητὸν] τῶν ὁρατῶν θεωρίαν, ὡς ἄγριον δένδρον πρὸς τὴν τῶν νοητῶν χώραν μεταφυτεύων· καὶ θησαυρὸν εὑρίσκων, τὴν κατὰ χάριν τῆς ἐν τοῖς οὖσι σοφίας φανέρωσιν.
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