He Who is above the comprehension of all that is comprehensible, the pre-eternal and essential Intellect, is comprehensible not by reason, but by faith, from intelligible essences (νοούμενα). Being Himself beneficent and beneficent by nature, He created the universe out of nothing and nothing, filled it with the Word, made it a life-giving Spirit, and willed that it should be subject to certain rules and regulations.
And He rules over the higher, immaterial (uoεφαί) beings according to certain supramundane laws, according to which they move in divine harmony and proportion: those who dwell above enjoy the illumination available to them, while the lower ones, in turn, receive light from the higher. And in the bodies that are in this material world, he put some essential forces – they are also called natural laws. According to these laws and in accordance with them, they must move and develop, performing the actions that are due to them, so that the world can serve as a prototype of truth.
In man, however, He sowed a certain rational and independent faculty of judgment, and to help him He gave a commandment, which everyone calls the moral law. In accordance with it and according to it, as according to the most exact standard, man must straighten himself out: with all his might he must distance himself from all evil, for it is a deviation from the straightness of the moral law, and strive with reason for everything that is good and virtuous, for in it, in this good, is the goal of moral philosophy.
But what does the Universe Mind expect and seek for Itself in this? Is it not to gain His glory in a general movement — harmonious, proportionate, and according to established laws — to gain His glory? After all, any creature, no matter how many advantages and disadvantages it has, glorifies or dishonors its creator to the same extent. That is why it is said somewhere in the Holy Scriptures: "The heavens will reveal the glory of God." Of man it says: "That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
And all other creatures, with a few exceptions, obeying the command of the Creator, remained within the limits set for them. "For," as it is said, "set a limit, and it shall not pass by" (cf. Psalm 148:6) With their many-sounding chorus, with ineffable voices, as many as are given to whom, they glorified God. And man, man—oh, how can I talk about it without tears! — became the only earthly creature who became hardened against his own Creator only because he received complete freedom and was deceived by the envy of the devil. Not only did he deviate from the straightforwardness of the true Word in him, but he also rejected the moral principles that were given to him at one time or another. He completely forgot about virtue and goodness, became the ancestor of evil and, alas! — a multitude of pernicious passions. And in so doing he rejected the glory prepared for him in God, and mocked himself.
God's Only-begotten Word and God took pity on this unfortunate fall. In the last days, He became Man and revived the moral institutions that had been laid down before. And besides this, He has also provided the moral philosophy of the Gospel with more general rules and more perfect goals than before, and thus He has given it an extraordinary beauty. And He Himself was the first to fulfill this philosophy in His deeds, glorifying God on earth with them. In this way He has passed it on to us, so that we may follow in His footsteps and become doers of all kinds of virtues, and later glorify the Creator with them. After all, this is how we would be able to address our original goal.
He commanded the majority to firmly keep this moral law and to become a part of it themselves. And to those who are able to go further and are willing to do more, He has granted all that they will be jealous of for the love of God. And in a hidden way He Himself pointed it out. First, when he spoke of the mysterious scum of virginity: "Whosoever is able to bear, let him receive" (Matthew 19:12). And secondly, when he mentioned the two denarii, that is, the Old and the New: "If you spend any more, when I return, I will give it to you" (Luke 10:35).
But in spite of all this, in spite of the fact that the ethics of the Gospel calls everyone to itself, some, I do not know how this is possible, are engaged in all other kinds of philosophy. Some of them spend their entire lives on mathematical or physical sciences, while others spend their entire lives on metaphysics or general studies of literature. Moreover, both completely forget about moral philosophy, despite the fact that it is necessary and stands above all others. They examine heaven, earth, and everything else, how it is in harmony and order, and very few of them think of putting themselves in order and adorning themselves with purity of manners. They do not seem to know that it is much more important to take care of oneself than of anything else, that knowledge alone is meaningless in the absence of action, and is nothing but a phantom. And yet St. Maximus says: "Think what use it is to me to philosophize about everything else, if my soul is troubled by passions in the most unworthy and unphilosophical way. At least, I do not see this benefit" Therefore, we should also take care of moral philosophy, so that we are not defective in the most important thing.
But let's leave them as they are. Those who, on the other hand, have preferred the sacred teaching of the Holy Fathers, and have seen with a keener eye how and in what way this kind of philosophy is useful, those who have assimilated it could easily have mastered everything else. And if, moreover, they knew that ethics was the same age as the human race, and that it was antique above all other forms of philosophy, they completely neglected everything else and devoted themselves to it alone. They expelled themselves, in the words of Paul, "into the wilderness and the mountains, into the caves and ravines of the earth" (Hebrews 11:38). They turned to what was essential, to unceasing silence. Their aim was to discover with precision the original causes of the passions and to cut them off completely. And besides, they strove not only to achieve an inclination to virtues and their relative knowledge (after all, this can be achieved by chance). No, their goal was to experience and be filled with virtues, as if they were their second nature, to make them their confidants and together, through many labors and many years of feats, to come to old age.
Those general principles of the gospel of which we have spoken before, these men have accepted as the first principles of their philosophy, and have studied them day and night. And then, from the virtues which are given in a brief form in these laws, they derived more particular cases of them. They went through many temptations, both from people and from demons. They were exhausted by abstinence of the body and other sufferings, and after many difficult feats they attained all the virtues and mastered their experiential knowledge. It was then that they made an important addition to the gospel, at least for those who know enough about it, and they made generous use of their own choices, not only fulfilling the commandment but also transcending it.
And, of course, they returned to His Lord His silver with the profit of virtues, and through these virtues they glorified God, in which, as we have already said, was the will of God from the very beginning. And then, in their writings, full of experienced knowledge of the virtues, they passed it on to us, as the Good Money-changers. And all this is so that we may take an example from them and also move, as far as we can, to perfection in the virtues.
I will explain everything with the most accessible example. Those who study the natural sciences establish the properties of bodies by means of hundreds of devices, in an innumerable number of experiments and chemical analyses, by many years and varied experiments. In the same way, these people: in hundreds of trials and practical experiments, over many years (and it happened that they studied a single word for fifty years) and, of course, under the guidance of the enlightening Spirit, they discovered the depths of moral philosophy. They have cleansed each of the virtues of excesses and shortcomings, and therefore they teach about the four kinds of impassibility: about obedience that leads to perfection, about humility full of virtue, about all-enlightening reasoning, about hospitality that brings joy, about God-like compassion, about soul-saving mercy, about unceasing prayer, about humiliated repentance, about truthful confession, about an impeccable conscience, about divine love, and about other links in the golden chain of virtues.
In addition, they consider which of these virtues have to do with the body, which with the soul, and which with the mind, and in what way and to what extent; And what reasons contribute to their acquisition, and which do not. It is also explained which passions are general and which are their particular manifestations, and, again, which of them belong to the body, which to the soul, and which to the mind, and how they can be easily disposed of. In short, they carefully analyze everything that perfects a person in Christ. But the most important thing is that the words of these blessed elders, for all their guilelessness and colloquialism, are so effective and prompt to action that they can convince almost everyone who comes into their hands. Many – and this happens often – conduct a conversation, citing many different texts, and cannot convince anyone. And just one word or deed of these wise Fathers, sunk into the soul, instantly convinced the listeners, forced them to agree. And if for the philosophers the aim of all the means of ethics is to persuade with words, then in the reasoning of the Fathers, in addition to persuasiveness, there is clearly something authoritative, so to speak, voluntary compulsion, because there is in them the self-evident certainty of truth. By the way, this is exactly what is confirmed by the proverb "If you see a young man running, it means that he has been deceived by an old man." So if we call these arguments of the Fathers a kind of norms, rules, or immutable principles of moral philosophy, we will not sin against the truth in the least.
And this incomparable benefit of theirs was understood by Paul, the most venerable of the monks. He was the ktitor of the holy monastery in honor of the image of the Benefactor Mother, from where he became known as Paul of Euergetis. There, in the monastery, the words of the Fathers remained in a scattered state, and for the convenience of reading, Paul divided them into separate chapters and topics, and then divided them into four books and brought them together into a single whole. For any knowledgeable person, this book was desirable and extremely necessary, but if we take into account the trouble and expense that a copy of it cost, it was not available to anyone. And people who are ignorant, because of its rarity and because this book has never been published, did not even know that it existed. And so, as one might guess from the outcome of the matter, she was waiting for someone who would publish her for the benefit of all, who would give this pure and mental gold to the spiritual money-changers. And such a publisher was Mr. Ioannis Cannas, a man of the highest degree of impeccability, pious and noble, of a God-loving soul and Christ-imitating disposition, a man with poverty-loving aspirations and a free mind, whose many-sided merits are brilliant and visible to all. In general, one could say that in his soul, as if by agreement, all moral perfections dwell together.