I'm reading this again and thinking about the path that St. Porphyrios lays out; the bloodless path or the path of love, as he calls it. This seems to fit in better with Patitsas' beauty-first preference. Renunciation, exile, etc. seem to occupy a position sequent to desire for the virtues. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks
St. John Climacus is not ignorant of the principle of which you speak. He says at the outset, in Step 1:13, “The man who renounces the world from fear is like burning incense, that begins with fragrance but ends in smoke. He who leaves the world through hope of reward is like a millstone, that always moves in the same way [that is, revolves round itself, is self-centered]. But he who withdraws from the world out of love for God has obtained fire at the very outset; and, like fire set to fuel, it soon kindles a larger fire.”
This triadic formulation follows the common desert saying that those who obey out of fear of punishment are like slaves, those who obey out of hope for reward are like hired servants, and those who obey out of selfless love are like sons and heirs. But the slaves and hired servants of God are not to be abominated. If I only have fear of punishment and not selfless love, should I not act on it because it’s less than perfect? Of course I should act on it! “I have chosen rather to be an outcast in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of sinners,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 83:11). In fact, this humility of starting before you’re perfect can be a necessary step to eventually attaining perfection, as through labors you work your way up from slave to paid worker to son and heir.
You see this pattern often with converts to the Church. The original motivation for leaving where they were is a negative repulsion. They can become attracted to the Church, but their negative repulsion can retain primacy for a while. Then once they’re in a good place, it becomes a process where they learn to let go of their repulsion and be at peace with their past, perhaps learning to be grateful for relative goods things about it that they had originally denigrated. Tracing the pattern of this movement in fractal form be it in a simple saying or a book-long treatise can be a matter of artistic choice. Doesn’t the spiritual life really begin when you place the image of Christ on the throne in your heart? How could it begin before then? Well, first don’t you have to remove the idol that had occupied your heart previously? Yes you do. But then the spiritual life doesn’t begin until love of Christ is enthroned instead, lest your old idol come back with seven of his friends and find your heart swept and cleaned for his renewed habitation. So there are different ways to tell the story. You could say the baptismal rite begins facing west and spitting on the devil.
It’s also worth mentioning that The Ladder is written specifically for people who have already begun their Christian lives and are furthering it by leaving the world to join a monastery. For those reading The Ladder who are not so called, it remains for them to analogize what this advice means for them. In this hermeneutical process, it can be found that love of beauty and hatred of ugliness overlap.
Very cool to see this worked out chiastically and related back to 6-7-8. Like you suggest, it does seem to hit on some of the criss-crossing I've been looking at.
I'm not sure what to conclude about it yet, in general terms, other than that pur./ill./perf. cannot be aligned with epith./thym./logos. Each stage in the spiritual life involves all faculties. Some may come to purification because they're attracted to beauty, some because they're repulsed by corruption, for example. I've yet to see cause, however, for inverting the threefold stages taught by Sts. Dionysius and Maximus. Any illumination that comes before purification is unreliable and needs to be redone once the proper order is established.
Christ is risen!
I'm reading this again and thinking about the path that St. Porphyrios lays out; the bloodless path or the path of love, as he calls it. This seems to fit in better with Patitsas' beauty-first preference. Renunciation, exile, etc. seem to occupy a position sequent to desire for the virtues. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks
In truth He is risen!
St. John Climacus is not ignorant of the principle of which you speak. He says at the outset, in Step 1:13, “The man who renounces the world from fear is like burning incense, that begins with fragrance but ends in smoke. He who leaves the world through hope of reward is like a millstone, that always moves in the same way [that is, revolves round itself, is self-centered]. But he who withdraws from the world out of love for God has obtained fire at the very outset; and, like fire set to fuel, it soon kindles a larger fire.”
This triadic formulation follows the common desert saying that those who obey out of fear of punishment are like slaves, those who obey out of hope for reward are like hired servants, and those who obey out of selfless love are like sons and heirs. But the slaves and hired servants of God are not to be abominated. If I only have fear of punishment and not selfless love, should I not act on it because it’s less than perfect? Of course I should act on it! “I have chosen rather to be an outcast in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of sinners,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 83:11). In fact, this humility of starting before you’re perfect can be a necessary step to eventually attaining perfection, as through labors you work your way up from slave to paid worker to son and heir.
You see this pattern often with converts to the Church. The original motivation for leaving where they were is a negative repulsion. They can become attracted to the Church, but their negative repulsion can retain primacy for a while. Then once they’re in a good place, it becomes a process where they learn to let go of their repulsion and be at peace with their past, perhaps learning to be grateful for relative goods things about it that they had originally denigrated. Tracing the pattern of this movement in fractal form be it in a simple saying or a book-long treatise can be a matter of artistic choice. Doesn’t the spiritual life really begin when you place the image of Christ on the throne in your heart? How could it begin before then? Well, first don’t you have to remove the idol that had occupied your heart previously? Yes you do. But then the spiritual life doesn’t begin until love of Christ is enthroned instead, lest your old idol come back with seven of his friends and find your heart swept and cleaned for his renewed habitation. So there are different ways to tell the story. You could say the baptismal rite begins facing west and spitting on the devil.
It’s also worth mentioning that The Ladder is written specifically for people who have already begun their Christian lives and are furthering it by leaving the world to join a monastery. For those reading The Ladder who are not so called, it remains for them to analogize what this advice means for them. In this hermeneutical process, it can be found that love of beauty and hatred of ugliness overlap.
Very cool to see this worked out chiastically and related back to 6-7-8. Like you suggest, it does seem to hit on some of the criss-crossing I've been looking at.
I'm not sure what to conclude about it yet, in general terms, other than that pur./ill./perf. cannot be aligned with epith./thym./logos. Each stage in the spiritual life involves all faculties. Some may come to purification because they're attracted to beauty, some because they're repulsed by corruption, for example. I've yet to see cause, however, for inverting the threefold stages taught by Sts. Dionysius and Maximus. Any illumination that comes before purification is unreliable and needs to be redone once the proper order is established.