Writings from the Philokalia on the Prayer of the Heart

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NICEPHORUS THE SOLITARY

A Most Profitable Discourse on Sobriety and the Guarding of the Heart

You, who desire to capture the wondrous Divine illumination of our Savior Jesus Christ—who seek to feel the Divine fire in your heart—who strive to sense the experience and feeling of reconciliation with God—who, in order to unearth the treasure buried in the field of your hearts and to gain possession of it, have renounced everything worldly—who desire the candles of your soul to burn brightly even now, and who, for this purpose, have renounced all this world?—who wish by conscious experience to know and to receive the kingdom of heaven existing within you—come and I will impart to you the science of eternal heavenly life or, rather, the method leading him who practices it, without labor or sweat, into the harbor of passionlessness, freeing him from the fear of prelest or of defeat by the wiles of the devil. Such fear is proper only when through our transgression the circle of our life revolves far outside the life of which I intend to teach you. For then it happens to us as to Adam;

associating with the serpent, he disregarded God's commandment; trusting the serpent's counsel, he tasted of the forbidden fruit and was utterly filled with prelest. Thus to our sorrow he plunged himself and all after him into the depths of death, darkness and corruption.

So let us return to ourselves, brothers, and be filled with disgust and hatred for the counsel of the serpent and of all that crawls on the ground; for it is impossible for us to become reconciled iand united with God, if we do not first return to ourselves, as far as it lies in our power, or if we do not enter within ourselves/ I tearing ourselves—what a wonder it is!—from the whirl of the world with its multitudinous vain cares and striving constantly; to keep attention on the kingdom of heaven which is within us. Monastic life is called the art of arts and the science of sciences; for it does not bring perishable blessings akin to the things of this world, which drive the mind from what is best and engulf it; but monkhood promises us wonderful and unspeakable treasures which the 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man' (i Cor. ii. 9). Hence, 'we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world' (Ephes. vi. 12). If therefore present existence is but darkness, let us flee from it, let us flee by retuning our mind and our heart. Let us have nothing in common with the enemy of God, for 'whosoever . . . will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God' (James iv. 4). And who can help the enemy of God ? Therefore let us imitate our fathers and, like them, let us seek the treasure existing within I our hearts and, having found it, let us hold fast to it in doing⁹ and guarding—for which task we were destined from the beginning. But if some other Nicodemus appears and begins to argue, saying: 'How can anyone enter his own heart and do and dwell therein ?'—as that one said to the Lord: ' How can a man enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?', let such an one also hear: 'The wind bloweth where it listeth' (John iii. 4, 8). But if, even amidst the events of active life, we display such doubts through lack of faith, how can we enter into the mysteries of contemplative life ? For ascent to contemplations is active life.

But it is impossible for such unbelievers to be convinced without written proofs; so, for the service of many, let us include in this discourse features of the lives of the saints and some of the ideas they have recorded to bear out this truth, so that all may be convinced, and cast away their last doubts. Let us begin with our first father, Antony the Great, and then, taking those who followed him in order, let us collect, as best we may, their deeds and words and offer them as evidence to unbelievers.

From the Life of our Holy Father Antony

Once two brothers were on their way to St. Antony, and when all their water was gone, one died and the other was near to dying. Having no strength to go on, he lay on the ground and awaited death. Meanwhile St. Antony, seated on a mountain, called the monks who happened to be with him and told them: 'Take a jar of water and run along the road towards Egypt. There there are two men who were coming here; one of them is already dead, and the other too will die unless you hurry. This I saw when I was at prayer.' Coming to the spot, the monks indeed found one man dead and they buried him; the other they revived with the water and brought him to the staretz.¹⁰ The distance was a day's walk.—If anyone were to ask why St. Antony did not send them earlier, before the first one died, it would be an ill-judged question. Allowing the first brother to die was the business not of Antony but of God, Who gave this decision for the first and sent a revelation to Antony about the second. To St. Antony belongs only the miraculous deed that, seated on a mountain, he was sufficiently sober in heart to be found worthy for the Lord to reveal to him that which was a great distance from him. You see that, through sobriety of the heart, St. Antony was given divine vision and clairvoyance. For, according to the words of John of the Ladder, God appears to the mind in the heart, at first as a flame purifying its lover, and then as a light which illumines the mind and renders it God-like.¹

¹ Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, trans.E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), 22-25.