Who Am I?

Four Hundred Texts on Love (Third Century) 25

Posted: December 2nd, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: St. Maximos the Confessor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Four Hundred Texts on Love (Third Century) 25

71. A person pursuing the spiritual way is perhaps quicker to recognize the other demons, and so he more easily escapes the harm that they do, but in the case of the demons that appear to cooperate with the progress of virtue and pretend they want to help in building a temple to the Lord, surely no intellect is so sublime as to recognize them without the assistance of the active and living Logos who pervades all things and pierces ‘even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit’ (Heb. 4:12) – who discerns, in other words, which acts or conceptual images pertain to the soul, that is, are natural forms or expressions of virtue, and which are spiritual, that is, are supranatural and characteristic of God, but bestowed on nature by grace. It is only the Logos who knows whether  ‘the joints and marrow’, that is, the qualities of virtue and spiritual principles, have been united harmoniously or not, and who judges the intentions and thoughts of the heart (ibid.), that is, judges from what is said the invisible underlying disposition and the motives hidden in -the soul. For to Him nothing in us is unseen: however we think we may escape notice, to Him ‘all things are naked and open’ (Heb. 4:13), not only what we do or think, but even what we will do or will think.

We have a natural capacity for virtue. And the more subtle of the demons will cooperate and aid, rather than hinder, that natural capacity for the purpose of creating and stirring pride within our heart. Only the living Word can divide and truly reveal to us our own inward state. Of course, I’m so far from the point of recognizing and breaking free from the normal passions, that I’m a long way from these more subtle dangers. But I do recognize the danger of pride — the way it so easily and quickly turns us from the publican in the parable to the pharisee.