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T hat human being who is inwardly illumined by the light of the Holy Spirit cannot endure the vision of it, but falls face down on the ground and cries out in great fear and wonder, because he has seen and experienced something that is beyond nature, thought, or conception.

quote 2807 | Saint Symeon the New Theologian
The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4 (London: Faber & Faber, 1995)

C ome, true light.
Come, life eternal.
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.
Come, reality beyond all words.
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end.
Come, light that knows no evening.
Come, unfailing expectation of the saved.
Come, raising of the fallen.
Come, resurrection of the dead.
Come all-powerful, for unceasingly you create, refashion and change all things by your will alone.
Come, invisible whom none may touch and handle.
Come, for you continue always unmoved, yet at every instant you are wholly in movement; you draw near to us who lie in hell, yet you remain higher than the heavens.
Come, for your name fills our hearts with longing and is ever on our lips; yet who you are and what your nature is, we cannot say or know. Come, Alone to the alone. Come, for you are yourself the desire that is within me. Come, my breath and my life. Come, the consolation of my humble soul. Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.

quote 2806 | Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Saint Symeon the New Theologian, adapted from the translation by Kallistos Ware in The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1979).

I magine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down, along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air; if the very world should stop, and the mind cease thinking about itself, go beyond itself, and be quite still; if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease, and there be no speech, no sign: Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still - for if we listen they are saying, "We did not make ourselves; he made us who abides forever" - imagine, then, that they should say this and fall silent, listening to the very voice of him who made them and not to that of his creation; so that we should hear not his word through the tongues of men, nor the voice of angels, nor the clouds' thunder, nor any symbol, but the very Self which in these things we love, and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash of that eternal wisdom that abides above all things: And imagine if that moment were to go on and on, leaving behind all other sights and sounds but this one vision that ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy; so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination that leaves us breathless:
Would this not be what is bidden in scripture, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?

quote 2805 | Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine, from Eknath Easwaran's anthology God Makes the Rivers to Flow, copyright 1991, Nilgiri Press, Tornales, CA 94971.

L eave the senses and the workings of the intellect, and all that the sense and the intellect can perceive, and all that is not and that is; and through unknowing reach out, so far as this is possible, toward oneness with him who is beyond all being and knowledge. In this way, through an uncompromising, absolute, and pure detachment from yourself and from all things, transcending all things and released from all, you will be led upwards toward that radiance of the divine darkness that is beyond all being.

Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing.

Emptied of all knowledge, man is joined in the highest part of himself, not with any created thing, nor with himself, nor with another, but with the one who is altogether
unknowable; and in knowing nothing, he knows in a manner that surpasses understanding.

quote 2804 | Dionysius the Areopagite
Dionysius the Areopagite, adapted from the translation of the Mystical Theology by Colm Luibheid in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press).

T rinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness!
Guide of Christians in the wisdom of heaven!
Lead us up beyond unknowing and light, up to the farthest, highest peak of mystic scripture,
where the mysteries of God's Word lie simple, absolute and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence.
Amid the deepest shadow they pour overwhelming light on what is most manifest.
Amid the wholly unsensed and unseen they completely fill our sightless minds
With treasures beyond all beauty.

quote 2803 | Dionysius the Areopagite
Dionysius the Areopagite, adapted from the translation of the Mystical Theology by Colm Luibheid in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press).

T he distinction between the persons does not impair the oneness of nature, nor does the shared unity of essence lead to a confusion between the distinctive characteristics of the persons. Do not be surprised that we should speak of the Godhead as being at the same time both unified and differentiated. Using riddles, as it were, we envisage a strange and paradoxical diversity-in-unity and unity-in-diversity.

quote 2802 | Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa, from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings, translated and edited by Herbert Mursillo (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1979).

A ll that the Father is, we see revealed in the Son; all that is the Son’s is the Father's also; for the whole Son dwells in the Father, and he has the whole Father dwelling in himself… The Son who exists always in the Father can never be separated from him, nor can the Spirit ever be divided from the Son who through the Spirit works all things. He who receives the Father also receives at the same time the Son and the Spirit. It is impossible to envisage any kind of severance or disjunction between them: One cannot think of the Son apart from the Father, nor divide the Spirit from the Son. There is between the three a sharing and a differentiation that are beyond words and understanding.

quote 2801 | Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa, from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings, translated and edited by Herbert Mursillo (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1979).

T he great Apostle told the Corinthians of the wonderful visions he enjoyed during the time of his mystical initiation in paradise. It was a time when he even doubted his own nature, whether he was body or spirit - and he testifies: I do not count myself to have apprehended. But forgetting the things that are behind, I stretch myself forth to those that are before Philippians 3:13). And clearly this is meant to include even that third heaven that Paul alone saw; for even Moses told us nothing of it in his cosmogony. Yet even after listening in secret to the mysteries of heaven, Paul does not let the graces he has obtained become the limit of his desire, but he continues to go on and on, never ceasing his ascent. Thus he teaches us, I think, that in our constant participation in the blessed nature of the Good, the graces that we receive at every point are indeed great, but the path that lies beyond our immediate grasp is infinite. This will constantly happen to those who thus share in the divine Goodness, and they will always enjoy a greater and greater participation in grace throughout all eternity. […]

Thus though the new grace we may obtain is greater than what we had before, it does not put a limit on our final goal; rather, for those who are rising in perfection, the limit of the good that is attained becomes the beginning of the discovery of higher goods. Thus they never stop rising, moving from one new beginning to the next, and the beginning of ever greater graces is never limited of itself For the desire of those who thus rise never rests in what they can already understand; but by an ever greater and greater desire, the soul keeps rising constantly to another that lies ahead, and thus it makes its way through ever higher regions towards the Transcendent.

quote 2800 | Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa, from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings, translated and edited by Herbert Mursillo (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1979).

B ut as the soul makes progress, and by a greater and more perfect concentration comes to appreciate what the knowledge of truth is, the more it approaches this vision, and so much the more does it see that the divine nature is invisible. It thus leaves all surface appearances, not only those that can be grasped by the senses but also those that the mind itself seems to see, and it keeps on going deeper until by the operation of the spirit it penetrates the invisible and incomprehensible, and it is there that it sees God. The true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge and is everywhere cut off from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility. Thus that profound evangelist, John, who penetrated into this luminous darkness, tells us that no man hath seen God at any time (John 1:18), teaching us by this negation that no man - indeed, no created intellect - can attain knowledge of God.

quote 2799 | Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa, from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings, translated and edited by Herbert Mursillo (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. V1adimir's Seminary Press, 1979).

I f then you have become the throne of God, and the Heavenly Charioteer has seated himself within you, and your soul is entirely transformed into a spiritual eye, and is made into light

quote 2798 | Saint Macarius of Egypt
Saint Macarius of Egypt, adapted from the translation by Evelyn Underhill in The Mystic Way (Atlanta, Ga.: Ariel Press, 1994).

T he soul that, prepared by the Holy Spirit to be his seat and house, and found worthy to participate in his Light, is illuminated by the beauty of his ineffable glory, becomes all light, all face, all eyes; there is no part of her that is not full of these spiritual eyes of light. That is to say no part of her is in shadow, but she is entirely transformed into light and spirit and is all full of eyes and has neither a part behind or a part in front but appears all face because of the ineffable glory of the Light of Christ, that has descended on her and lives with her. And as the sun is totally of one likeness, and has no "behind" or imperfect part, but is throughout splendid with light, and is light throughout; or even as fire, that is to say the light of fire is entirely like itself and has no before or behind, greater or less; so too the soul that is perfectly illuminated by the ineffable glory of the light of the face of Christ, and perfectly partakes of the Holy Spirit, and is judged worthy to be made the house and seat of God, becomes all eyes, all light, all face, all glory and all spirit….
If then you have become the throne of God, and the Heavenly Charioteer has seated himself within you, and your soul is entirely transformed into a spiritual eye, and is made into light; if you too are nourished with the heavenly food of that spirit and have drunk of the Living Water, and have put on the secret garment of light - if your inward being has experienced all these things and is established in rich unshakable faith, then you are living the Eternal Life, and your soul even in this present time rests with Christ.

quote 2797 | Saint Macarius of Egypt
Saint Macarius of Egypt, adapted from the translation by Evelyn Underhill in The Mystic Way (Atlanta, Ga.: Ariel Press, 1994).

A nd though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

quote 2794 | Saint Paul
St. Paul, I Corinthians 13:1-13 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

T herefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

quote 2793 | Saint Paul
St. Paul; I Corinthians 1:18-29,3:18-23 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

F or as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

quote 2792 | Saint Paul
St. Paul, Romans 12:1-9 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

F or I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith

quote 2791 | Saint Paul
St. Paul, Romans 12:1-9 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

A nd be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

quote 2790 | Saint Paul
St. Paul, Romans 12:1-9 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

T he Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and join theirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

quote 2789 | Saint Paul
St. Paul, Romans 8:16-23 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

J esus saw some babies nursing.
He said to his disciples:
"These babies nursing are like those
Who enter the kingdom.'
His disciples said to him:
"Shall we then enter the kingdom as babies?
" Jesus answered them and said:
'When you make the two into one,
"And when you make the inner like the outer,
'And the outer like the inner,
'And the upper like the lower,
'And when you make male and female
Into a single one,
"So that the male will not be male
'And the female not be female …
"Then you shall enter the kingdom.'

quote 2728 | Jesus Christ
Logion 22, Gospel of Thomas, adapted from translations of the Gospel of Thomas by Anthony Duncan in Jesus: Essential Reading (Crucible Press, 1986).

I f they ask you,
"What is the sign of your Father in you?"
say to them, “it is movement and repose.”

quote 2727 | Jesus Christ
Logion 50, Gospel of Thomas, adapted from translations of the Gospel of Thomas by Anthony Duncan in Jesus: Essential Reading (Crucible Press, 1986).

I f they say to you,
"Where did you come from?"
Say to them,
We came from the light,
The place where light came into being
Of its own accord
And established itself
And became manifested through their image.

quote 2726 | Jesus Christ
Logion 50, Gospel of Thomas, adapted from translations of the Gospel of Thomas by Anthony Duncan in Jesus: Essential Reading (Crucible Press, 1986).

I f your leaders say to you,
"Look, the kingdom is in the sky,"
then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you,
“It is in the sea,”
then the fish will precede you.

Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.

quote 2725 | Jesus Christ
Logion 3, Gospel of Thomas, adapted from translations of the Gospel of Thomas by Anthony Duncan in Jesus: Essential Reading (Crucible Press, 1986).

A nd I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

quote 2724 | Jesus Christ
John 17:1-6,20-26 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

N either pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

quote 2723 | Jesus Christ
John 17:1-6,20-26 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more Can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in You, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love;
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

quote 2722 | Jesus Christ
John 15:1-11 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

A t that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

quote 2721 | Jesus Christ
John 14:15-21,25-27 (AV), taken from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible

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