Chapter LXVIII
Short Sections
You must know, my brethren, that the sensual eye through its visual power alone (which is administered unto it from the brains as it were through a channel), without partaking of other light, is not able to receive [the images] of the different things. All natural apperceptions are placed on the same level as the intelligible things as regards spiritual behaviour in this respect; and [as for] the natural force of the intellect, which is also called psychic knowledge - it is impossible for the soul to participate in truth by contemplation, without receiving divine light. This is based upon excellence of behaviour, which is acquired when the affectible part of the soul is built upon natural health. For many have endeavoured [to acquire this] while being entangled in psychic and bodily affections, by philosophical training, being supported by the latter alone; but they have lost even the truth which they possessed and have ruined their usual visual power. And just as eyes which see in the air fantastic images because of their weak sight which cannot reach the humid matter in them, so every one of them 4 7 5 considers as truth one image which presents itself to him.
And when all the images of all of them are united, then, instead of one truth, there appears a variety of images. And this happens to them because they have not asked for the rays of grace which shines so as to purify the soul. Truth is the apperception concerning God which a man personally tastes by the perceptive power of the spiritual senses of the mind. The flower of spiritual knowledge is divine love, which has its origin in radiant insights which are found by the spirit during prayer. Love is the fruit of prayer, which, on account
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of contemplation originating in it, draws the mind towards a predilection which never becomes satisfied; the mind clings to this predilection for prayer without growing dejected, be it that it prays apperceptibly, with the body, or by the silent motion of the mind, fervently and eagerly. Prayer is: the impulses of the will being dead regarding fleshly life. For it is alike when a man prays veraciously and when he dies from the world; this means that he denies himself, and this means continually being in prayer. It is known to those who know the scriptures what beseeching in veracious prayer is. And it is known that those who have devoted themselves to this lonely state in order to acquire lonely prayer through their demands, thwarting their desire, do not follow their nature when they arouse trouble against their soul because of the contrary affections which they stir 47 6 in their soul after prayer.
So the love of God is found in selfdenial. As from the seeds of the sweat of fasting the blade of chastity grows up, so does lasciviousness grow up from satiety and impudence from repletion. Against a hungry stomach wanton deliberations never direct themselves. Every food which we receive within us is added to the humours of the natural seed which is collected in our body. And when the organic limbs are filled with the influx which is gathered there from the whole body, and when it happens that the bodily [eye] sees [something], or when some involuntary recollection is awakened in the heart, then at once, together with the thought a sensation of delight is astir and spreads through the whole body, so that, even if the mind is very strong and chaste and cautious in its emotions, still, by this apperception of the limbs, the discriminating power of the mind is troubled at once, and is, as it were, cast down from the height where it stood, and the holiness of its deliberations is perverted. And its pure chastity is defiled by the confusion which is caused by the affection that is astir in the heart on account of the burning of the limbs; and at once half of its force is lost, so to say, and the former scope of its hope is forgotten; and thot;gh it has not entered into the struggle, it is defeated without strife or labour on the part of its fiend, and vanquished by the subduing will of the body. 477 To such an extent does copious food and constant satiety
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compel a man's,good will that, although he is moving steadily in the harbour of chastity, he stoops to comply with that which he never would have stooped to think of. And when he lies down to sleep, alone, a host of thoughts clad in impudent images surrounds him. And his chaste bed is made by them a theatre and a brothel, where he deals and speaks with his thoughts in drunkenness and defiles his holy limbs, though no woman is near to him. What sea is so disturbed by storms as the steady mind is stirred by the vehemence of the waves assailing it in the sea of the body, through a full stomach? 0 chastity, how is thy beauty made splendid by sleeping on the ground, by the suffering of hunger, when sleep flies from thee on account of the leanness of the body and the emptiness of the stomach, which is made a deep pit for the intestines between the ribs by abstinence from food. But by indulgence in food and comfort, evil representations and impure images are formed and come into existence. Then they proceed and show themselves to us in the hidden place of our mind, inciting us to mingle with them secretly by impudent actions. Emptiness of the stomach makes free room for the mind which is devoid of deliberations and all tumult of thoughts. But when the stomach is replenished and satisfied it is made thereby a place of sights and a theatre, even if we are in 4 7 8 the wilderness and alone. For he that is satisfied desires many things. Thou understandest that thou hast been deemed worthy of psychic apathy therein not, that no evil deliberations pass through thee - that is [the absence of] the movement of the impulses which are in the body, the which is impossible -nor that thou vanquishest them easily, the thought not having been defiled or disturbed at all, however exalted this may be; but that, through the intellect being totally occupied, the mind is not even permitted to combat with or to crush them, but that as soon as deliberations elevate their head, it is dragged away from them by some involuntary force, which by custom or grace, begins to ferment in the heart which is the house of the intellect. The struggling mind is different from the rank of priesthood. The mind which, by heavenly mercy, is dead to the world, to it things cause simple deliberations only, without the strife of battle, though from the motion of the
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limbs an apperceptive power without equal [is born]. Perfection which is joined with flesh and blood rules over that which originates in flesh and blood, but it does not annihilate the peculiarities of nature while vital impulses still move in elementary life, and the foundation of existence, on account of the four humours, is subject to various emotions.