Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To Amphilochius, in reply to certain questions.
Letter CCXXXIII. 2950
I. I know that I have myself heard of this, and I am aware of the constitution of mankind.
What shall I say? The mind is a wonderful thing, and therein we possess that which is after
the image of the Creator. And the operation of the mind is wonderful; in that, in its perpetual
motion, it frequently forms imaginations about things non-existent as though they were
existent, and is frequently carried straight to the truth. But there are in it two faculties; in
accordance with the view of us who believe in God, the one evil, that of the dæmons which
draws us on to their own apostasy; and the divine and the good, which brings us to the
likeness of God. When, therefore, the mind remains alone and unaided, it contemplates
small things, commensurate with itself. When it yields to those who deceive it, it nullifies
its proper judgment, and is concerned with monstrous fancies. Then it considers wood to
be no longer wood, but a god; then it looks on gold no longer as money, but as an object of
worship. 2951 If on the other hand it assents to its diviner part, and accepts the boons of the
Spirit, then, so far as its nature admits, it becomes perceptive of the divine. There are, as it
were, three conditions of life, and three operations of the mind. Our ways may be wicked,
and the movements of our mind wicked; such as adulteries, thefts, idolatries, slanders, strife,
passion, sedition, vain-glory, and all that the apostle Paul enumerates among the works of
the flesh. 2952 Or the soul’s operation is, as it were, in a mean, and has nothing about it either
damnable or laudable, as the perception of such mechanical crafts as we commonly speak
of as indifferent, and, of their own character, inclining neither towards virtue nor towards
vice. For what vice is there in the craft of the helmsman or the physician? Neither are these
operations in themselves virtues, but they incline in one direction or the other in accordance
with the will of those who use them. But the mind which is impregnated with the Godhead
of the Spirit is at once capable of viewing great objects; it beholds the divine beauty, though
only so far as grace imparts and its nature receives.
2. Let them dismiss, therefore, these questions of dialectics and examine the truth, not
with mischievous exactness but with reverence. The judgment of our mind is given us for
the understanding of the truth. Now our God is the very truth. 2953 So the primary function
of our mind is to know one God, but to know Him so far as the infinitely great can be known
by the very small. When our eyes are first brought to the perception of visible objects, all
2950 Placed in 376.
2951 St. Basil’s word may point either at the worshippers of a golden image in a shrine in the ordinary sense,
or at the state of things where, as A. H. Clough has it, “no golden images may be worshipped except the currency.”
2952 cf. Gal. v. 19, 20, 21.
2953 ἡ αὐτοαλήθεια.
To Amphilochius, in reply to certain questions.
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