St. Clement of Alexandria (150 CE — bet. 211 and 215) – Christian apologist and missionary theologian to the Hellenistic (Greek cultural) world, and second known leader and teacher of the catechetical School of Alexandria. The most important of his surviving works is a trilogy comprising the Protreptikos (“Exhortation”), the Paidagōgos (“Instructor”), and the Strōmateis (“Miscellanies”).
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) Head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria
“Woman has the same spiritual dignity as man. Both of them have the same God, the same Teacher, the same Church. They breathe, see, hear, know, hope, and love in the same way. Beings who have the same life, grace and salvation are called … to the same manner of being.”
” As a consequence of the “Fall”, the “nous” became dissipated and diseased…”
The “nous” in all of humankind was severely injured, diseased, and damaged in the “Adamic Fall” (The “Fall” in the Garden of Eden). The “Fall” is seen as the misuse of free will; of focusing on oneself rather than on God for guidance, wisdom and worship. Free will gave man the right to choose. And choose he did. In the “Fall”, humans shifted their focus from God to themselves (and any number of other idols). As a consequence of the “Fall”, the “nous” became dissipated and diseased, overwhelmed with increasing concerns for individual survival and the needs and desires of the body in the physical, material world. The “nous” became estranged from God’s grace and humankind’s whole nature became sick. This sickness was handed on to later descendants as the inheritance of ancestral sin.
The Orthodox do not understand the “Fall” in legal terms, as Western Christianity does, but rather in medical terms. When Paul says in Romans 5:19, “as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” it is understood in a medical sense, not a legal one. In other words, as a result of one man’s sin, human nature became sick.
The Incarnation and ministry of Jesus Christ is seen as a therapeutic (Greek therapeuo) mission of love from God to humankind in order to heal and restore our fallen sick souls. The key to this is the healing and restoration of the “nous”, the “eye of the heart”. Jesus possessed a complete human nature, not only on the lower side (body) but also on the higher spiritual side, the “nous”. His perfect human nature broke the grip of sin on fallen human nature, opening the possibility of restoring the diseased “nous” of every human being to its spiritual pre-Fall state.
In his book, Orthodox Psychotherapy: the Science of the Fathers, Archimandrite Hierotheos Vlachos (now Metropolitan Hierotheos) quotes Saint Maximus the Confessor (7th century) as saying “The nous functions in accordance with nature when it keeps the passions under control, contemplates the inner essences of created beings, and abides with God.” The “nous” is changed by every conceptual image that it accepts. When the “nous” is in a fallen state, confusion is created in the whole of the spiritual organism of man. In this “fallen” state, the “nous” needs therapy/purification.
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) was a 10th century mystic monk. His many direct experiences of God (theoría) convinced him that all Christians must have an actual baptism of the Holy Spirit in addition to the ritualized water baptism and chrismation of the church. His mystical experiences also taught him that God is always received in the form of divine light. Symeon wrote about that light and its power to transform:
“It shines on us without evening, without change, without alteration, without form. It speaks, works, lives, gives life, and changes into light those whom it illuminates. We bear witness that “God is light,” and those to whom it has been granted to see Him have all beheld Him as light. Those who have seen Him have received Him as light, because the light of His glory goes before Him, and it is impossible for Him to appear without light. Those who have not seen His light have not seen Him, for He is the light, and those who have not received the light have not yet received grace. Those who have received grace have received the light of God and have received God, even as Christ Himself, who is the Light, has said, “I will live in them and move among them.” (2 Cor. 6:16)
“The aim is to restore the pre-Fall health of the ‘nous’…”
St. John of Damascus (8th century) says that the “nous” is the eye of the soul. The essence of the soul is the heart (kardia). The “nous” is that part of the soul that sees things most clearly and so it is important that it be purified of any impediment. When the healthy “nous”, the purest noetic power of the soul, is returned to its rightful place in the heart, it is then again capable of experiencing God’s presence through grace. It is this unification or return of the “nous” to the heart that constitutes the cure of the “nous”.
In “Orthodox Psychotherapy“, Hierotheos (Vlachos) speaks of the Church as a hospital which exists to heal those who are sick with sin. That is, to restore to health the diseased and dissipated “nous”, made sick by the “Fall”. The first step is to guard and protect the “nous” so that it can realize its origin in the “Image of God”. Then it can begin to be purified and restored to its intended role of leading the entire human being in “attaining to the likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1:26), or “deification” (theosis). In order to restore the diseased “nous” to this healthy state, it must first pass through a stage of purification. The church’s therapeutic work takes place in this stage of purification.
The “nous” can only be purified with the help of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, it is imperative that every believer be baptized in the Holy Spirit (cf. St. Symeon the New Theologian) and experience His indwelling presence. Through a regimen of self-discipline called ascesis (borrowed from the Greek word askesis, meaning athletic exercise or training), the “nous” can be purified and eventually healed. This only happens as a result of our active cooperation (synergeía) in this work with the Holy Spirit. The first result of this healing of the “nous” is a state which is called dispassion (apatheia) or a release of the “nous” from the influence and distraction of human passions and emotion. Real theology (i.e., a mystical experience of God) is another result, as are an authentic self-knowledge and an accompanying sense of freedom and joy.
“In Illumination, a vision of God is granted to the now-healed “nous”.”
When the “nous” is healed and restored, it is no longer dissipated among all the various senses and distractions of this world but is able instead to retire within itself to attain to a vision of God (theoria). A purified “nous” can be illuminated by grace, seeing the glory of Christ reflected in itself and seeing spiritual things clearly. In Illumination, a vision of God is granted to the now-healed “nous”. This vision of God is of His manifested energy (energeía), not His essence (oúsia), which remains beyond human conception and unknowable.
This is the spiritual development process of the early church: purification (katharsis), followed by illumination (theoria), culminating in deification (theosis). These three stages are the purpose of the mystical life of the church.
The manner of healing the “nous” is outlined by Hierotheos (Vlachos) in “Orthodox Psychotherapy“: First, the guarding of the “nous”; second, the purifying of the “nous”; and third, the returning of the “nous” to the heart through the practice (ascesis) of repentance and noetic contemplative prayer so that the “nous” might finally be illuminated by the “divine light” of God’s grace.
This noetic contemplative prayer is the Primitive Christian Prayer tradition of Jesus, Paul and the early church. This, Hierotheos assures us, is the common experience and teaching of the Church Fathers. They may have sometimes differed from one another as they sought to describe this common experience, but the variations in how they expressed themselves should be seen as just that. The true problem may not even be in their expression but in our interpretation; fragmented, locked into a rational modern worldview, and lacking in spiritual understanding as we are in comparison with them.
In closing this discussion of the “nous”, I return us to the point I made at the beginning of this series. Modern Western culture has virtually deified the rational, reasoning mind and intellect over the past 500 years. So thorough is our fixation and obsession with the rational mind, that any other conception of mind or intellect, such as “nous”, is virtually unknown, even within the church.
It is no wonder that we operate at such a low level of spiritual consciousness. But, now you know about your “nous”, the ‘eye of your soul’. You also now know about the 2,000 year Christian tradition of the healing of the “nous” and “attaining to the likeness of God”. So, what will you do now that you’ve discovered your “nous”?
St. John Chrysostom (344/354 – 407) -Born in Antioch into an aristocratic family, John bore witness to God as the ‘friend of humankind’ and to an uncompromising ethic of social service. Known as ‘golden-mouthed’ (Chrysostom) because of his ability as a speaker and preacher, he became Archbishop of Constantinople in AD 397. He was deposed in 404 for attempting to reform the higher clergy and for preaching against the luxury and depravity of the court of Roman Emperor Arcadius, which earned him the enmity of empress Eudoxia. He died in exile in 407. The principal Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church is named in his honor; The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
“Enter into the church and wash away your sins. For there is a hospital for sinners and not a court of law.”
“after the fire a still small voice”. ~ 1 Kings 19:12
1 Kings 19 talks about Elijah running from a very evil queen Jezebel. God wants to talk with Elijah and Elijah experiences a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire, yet he does not hear the voice of God. He hears it in a “still small voice” or as the Greek Septuagint has it, “φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς”, “a sound minute and poor”.
We can only hear “a sound minute and poor” when we ourselves are quiet, still, and attentive. We need to be calm in spirit, ignoring the endless blather of our own mind, and open to the moment without expectation or judgment. That is contemplation. It is how Jesus spent most of his time “praying”. It is what the early church meant by prayer.
Western Latin Christianity (Roman Catholicism) completely lost their contemplative prayer tradition by the rational argumentation of the Reformation of the 16th century and the rational intellectual revolution of the Enlightenment of 17th century. Protestantism never had a contemplative prayer tradition.
The bad news is that we in the West have no idea how to pray as Jesus prayed. The good news is that the tradition of contemplative prayer is being re-discovered in the West and has always been available in the Eastern Orthodox tradition of “hesychasm” to anyone motivated to quiet themselves and seek it.
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” ~ Mark 1:35
In my last post, I pointed out that Western Christianity lost its mystic tradition of contemplative prayer about 500 years ago. Contemplation was the prevailing type of Christian prayer for nearly 1,600 years in the Latin West and it still remains the principal prayer tradition of the Orthodox East. Today, I want to follow up on that thought and discuss the fact that contemplative prayer was established as the principal type of prayer of Christianity in the very beginning, by Jesus himself.
In the very first Chapter (v. 35) of our oldest Gospel, Mark tells how Jesus habitually prayed; alone in a solitary place without distraction. In fact, just before teaching the disciples the “Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6, Jesus tells them, “whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”(v.6). In these passages, Jesus also tells his disciple how not to pray: “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others” (v.5); and “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words” (v. 7). These are not isolated incidents and remarks, but characteristic of Jesus’s prayer life throughout the Gospel accounts of his ministry. As Luke tells us, “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.” (v. 5:16).
Clearly, Jesus set Contemplative Prayer as the standard for Christians, what I will call “Primitive Christian Prayer”. I use the word “primitive” not in the sense of the word that denotes “crude”, “unfinished”, or “simplistic”, but in the sense of being “primary, original, and pristine”. Primitive Christian Prayer is the way Jesus prayed. It was the principal prayer tradition of the early Church.
You have never heard that message preached from a Protestant pulpit (or Catholic, for that matter), have you?
In this discussion over the next few posts, I will quote recognized Church Fathers from the early centuries of the Church in order to introduce the Primitive Christian Prayer tradition to a mostly Protestant audience. The reason for this is simple: it’s a prayer tradition that we Protestants do not have and never had; it had virtually disappeared from the institutional Roman Catholic Church by the time of the Protestant Reformation.
To the modern Roman Catholic and Protestant believer, prayer is usually broken down into five basic types: Blessing and Adoration, Petition, Intercession, Thanksgiving, and Praise (cf. Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church).
John Cassian (c. 350 – c.435) was a Christian mystic who spent 15 years in the Egyptian Desert with the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4th century. Highly educated, he was equally comfortable writing in either Greek or Latin. He tells us that Primitive Christian Prayer went well past the types we recognize today:
“The various kinds of prayer [cf. 1 Tim. 2:1; petition, prayer (i.e., praise), intercessions, thanksgiving] are followed by a higher state still… it is the contemplation of God alone, an immeasurable fire of love. The soul settles in it and sinks into its depths” (Conferences, IX, 18).
First Thoughts 