Introduction to the Philokalia, the Love of the Beautiful

Today we will learn and reflect on the Philokalia.
The Philokalia is truly a spiritual treasure, when the Russian pilgrim in
the spiritual classic “The Way of the Pilgrim” dedicates his life to the
Lord, sells all that he has, seeking to pray ceaselessly, embarks on a
spiritual pilgrimage through the forests of Siberia, he only brings with
him in his travel bag the Holy Scriptures and the Philokalia, the
treasured writings of the early Church Fathers.

You may ask, why should we study the Philokalia?
The Philokalia is a collection of writings from the Eastern Church
Fathers, mostly from the first millennium before the church split
between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East. These writings
preserved the monastic traditions that first developed in the desert
sands of Egypt and were passed onto the west, influencing the
later monasticism of St Benedict and the west. These writings
quote the Holy Scriptures extensively.
Since we are human we tend to read the Scriptures narrowly as we
remember them, but when we encounter the Scriptures in the
Philokalia we realize how much we fall short of leading a truly
godly life.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video, and my blogs that also cover this
topic. Please, we welcome interesting questions in
the comments, sometimes these will generate short
videos of their own. Let us learn and reflect
together!

YouTube Video:
Spiritual Writings of the Philokalia,
Love for the Beautiful
https://youtu.be/rKVBhdHWHGI
Read ending slides for comments on sources.
Blog:
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/
NOTE: YouTube video corrections may not be
reflected on the slides, and the blog may
differ somewhat in content.
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The Philokalia was a collection of writings gathered by the monks St
Makarios and St Nikodimos of Mount Athos. Mount Athos is on a
forbidding peninsula accessible only by boat on the east coast of Greece
that is occupied only by about twenty monasteries, many of which were
founded over a thousand years ago. Many of these monasteries had
spiritual writings centuries old, mostly addressed to monks, that were
crumbling and needed to be preserved. The monastic rules are strict, to
this day, only men are permitted to visit the monasteries. Each monk
has a spiritual advisor, often the abbot in charge of the monastery, who
guides him on his spiritual journey.

St Makarios and St Nikodimos were hesychasts, a reform movement
that promoted deeper spirituality among monks and laity. The
hesychasts are best known for encouraging the Jesus prayer, in which
the supplicant repeatedly prays, Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have
mercy on me, a sinner. They feared that many of the monastic writings
might be lost, so they compiled and published a five-volume collection
of monastic writings known as the Philokalia in Venice in 1782.
Philokalia means love of the beautiful, it is a generic title, there have
been several compilations of writings of the Eastern Church Fathers
published in several languages over the centuries.

Xenophontos monastery
Mount Athos monastery

This Greek compilation was not comprehensive, this Greek Philokalia
did not include notable writings of the church fathers that were so well
known that their survival was not threatened. The works omitted
include the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John Climacus, and the
writings of the Cappadocian Church Fathers, St Basil, St Gregory of
Nyssa, and St Gregory Nanzanius. Some of these works are included in
the Philokalias translated to other languages.

There was controversy surrounding the publication of the Philokalia.
Some monks felt that these works were too challenging for laymen,
that they should only be read by fellow monks under the guidance of a
spiritual director, but that would not eliminate the risk that one day
some of the works would be lost and forgotten.
St Makarios and St Nikodimos thought that the devout layman could
benefit from reading these works, although they were originally
written for fellow monastics. Indeed, isn’t the Christian life a monastic
calling at its core? Is not marriage a monastic calling, where each
spouse is called to place the interests of the other before their own?
Isn’t any human endeavor a monastic calling? This attitude can be
seen in his introduction to the Philokalia:

St Nikodimos in his intro:
“Some may object that it is not right to publish
certain texts in this volume, since they will
sound strange to the ears of many people, and
may even prove harmful to some of them.”
BUT: “Occasionally some people will go
slightly astray,” but many others, aided by inner
prayer “with all humility and in a spirit of
mourning,” will greatly benefit from the book.
PHILOKALIA: LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL

St Nikodemos explains how both the monk and the layman can strive
towards unceasing prayer:

St Nikodimos, “Unceasing prayer
should be practiced by all. Naturally,
the monastic life provides conditions,
such as quietness, solitude and
regularity, indispensable for that
concentration without which one
cannot advance far along the spiritual
path.” As long as the layman participate
in the Divine Liturgy and partakes of the
sacraments, “this path is open to all to
follow, each to the best of his or her
ability and whatever the circumstances
under which he or she lives.”
PHILOKALIA AND UNCEASING PRAYER
Saints of Mount Athos, in Romanian Skete

Translators in introduction say:
“Philokalia itself means love of the beautiful,
the exalted, the excellent, understood as the
transcendent source of life and the
revelation of Truth. It is through such love
that ‘the intellect is purified, illumined and
made perfect.’ . . . The Philokalia shows the
way to awaken and develop attention and
consciousness, to attain that state of
watchfulness which is the hallmark of
sanctity.”
Kallistos Ware, translator

www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com
The translators continue,
“The Philokalia is an itinerary through the
labyrinth of time, a silent way of love and
gnosis through the deserts and emptiness
of modern life.” The Philokalia is a
“summons to man to overcome his
ignorance, to uncover the knowledge that
lies within, to rid himself of illusion, and to
be receptive to the grace of the Holy Spirit
who teaches all things and brings all things
to remembrance.”

What are the main themes of the Philokalia?

Theme 1: “Nepsis, a key concept in
Eastern Christian spirituality, signifies
inner sobriety, lucidity, alertness,
watchfulness, and vigilance.” St
Hesychios in “On Watchfulness” links
Nepsis with “attentiveness, purity of
heart, guarding of the intellect, the
Jesus prayer, stillness, and
contemplation.”
Theme 2: “Hesychia, which is stillness
or silence of the heart,” and is also the
“shedding of thoughts, at type of inner
nakedness, of noetic poverty.”
THREE THEMES OF PHILOKALIA
Mount Athos, Agiou Dionysiou monastery

Theme 3: Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
“The Jesus prayer enables the intellect, or
nous, to descend into the heart, or kardia,
bringing about a union between the
two.” The Philokalia emphasizes that “the
invocation of the Name of Jesus should be as
far as possible continuous, for its purpose is
precisely to assist us to pray without ceasing (I
Thess. 5:17).” The Jesus prayer “should be as
far as possible unaccompanied by images
and discursive thinking, for its aim is equally
to initiate us into hesychia.”
THREE THEMES OF PHILOKALIA
St Gregory Palamas, Hesychast

How should you read the Philokalia?
Roughly, you should read the Philokalia chronologically, although you
can skip around if something in particular interests you. The Eastern
church fathers did not treasure originality, they would first repeat the
teachings of the monastics preceding them, and add their
observations, which means that much of what is in Volume 1 is
repeated in the succeeding volumes, which is good, because beauty is
worth repeating.
To gain the greatest benefit from reading the Philokalia, we
recommend that you read the translators’ introduction, and then study
the Glossary. Indeed, you may want to study the glossary each time
you read the Philokalia.

Language is what separates us from the beasts, language is what
enables us to study the divine, language allows us to remember the
past and plan for the future. When we mention tables and chairs and
burgers and beaches, everyone knows exactly what we are talking
about. But when we speak of spiritual concepts like faith, hope, and
love, everyone of us has a different concept of what these terms mean.
The translators have done us a great favor by drawing out the
definitions the writers of the Philokalia attach to these words so we do
not dilute their meaning with our shallow understanding.

FROM GLOSSARY OF PHILOKALIA: FAITH
FAITH: “Not only an individual or
theoretical belief in the dogmatic
truths of Christianity, but an all-
embracing relationship, an
attitude of love and total trust in
God. Faith transforms man’s
entire life. Faith is a gift of God,
the means whereby we are taken
up into the whole theanthropic
activity of God in Christ and of
man in Christ through which man
attains salvation.”
Katholikon of Zograf Monastery

In our modern world, we want a feel-good religion, and we are
suspicious when someone seeks to challenge us with an intellectual
understanding of our faith.
But the writers of the Philokalia reject this concept that somehow
Christian love and faith is incompatible with an intellectual
understanding of the faith, that this intellectualism somehow
impedes our faith.
The Philokalia rejects this, in the patristic understanding, the
intellect dwells in the depths of the soul. The Eastern concept of the
intellect does not separate the intellect from the emotions, instead
they are each bound up in the other.

FROM GLOSSARY OF PHILOKALIA: INTELLECT
INTELLECT, or in Greek, NOUS: “The
highest faculty of man, through
which, if he is purified, he knows
God or the inner essences or
principles of created things by direct
or spiritual apprehension.” . . . The
intellect can “understand divine truth
by immediate experience, intuition,
or ‘simple cognition.’ The intellect
dwells in the ‘depths of the soul,’ the
intellect is the innermost aspect of
the heart.”
NOETIC: “That which belongs to or
is characteristic of the intellect.”
Mount Athos fresco

The church fathers of the Philokalia believed that the intellect was
tied to both heart and soul.

FROM GLOSSARY OF PHILOKALIA: HEART
HEART: “Not simply the
physical organ but the spiritual
center of man’s being, his
deepest and truest self, or the
inner shrine, to be entered only
through sacrifice and death, in
which the mystery of the union
between the divine and the
human is consummated. As
the psalmist cried, ‘I called with
my whole heart’, with body,
soul, and spirit.”
Mount Athos, Dochiariou monastery

The church fathers of the Philokalia have an active definition of
discrimination, describing how we should exercise this trait in the
practice of our faith:

FROM GLOSSARY OF
PHILOKALIA: DISCRIMINATION
DISCRIMINATION: “a spiritual gift
enabling us to discriminate between the
types of thought that enter into our mind,
to assess them accurately and to treat
them accordingly.” We should seek the
“ability to distinguish between the
thoughts inspired by God and the
suggestions or fantasies coming from the
devil. Discrimination is a kind of eye or
lantern of the soul by which man finds his
way along the spiritual path without
falling into extremes; thus it includes the
idea of discretion.”
Saints of Mount Athos Icon in Grigoriou
by Veniamin from Galatista 1841

The church fathers of the Philokalia share with the Stoic philosophers
the need to control the passions.

FROM GLOSSARY OF PHILOKALIA: PASSION
In Greek, the word PASSION describes
what happens to a person as a passive
experience. “Many Greek fathers
regard the passions as intrinsically evil,
a ‘disease’ of the soul. For example, St
John Climacus affirms that God is not
the creator of the passions and that
they are ‘unnatural’, alien to a man’s
true self. Other Greek fathers look on
the passions as impulses originally
placed by God, and so fundamentally
good, though at present distorted by
sin. . . In this second view, the passions
should be educated, not eradicated; to
be transfigured, not suppressed; to be
used positively, not negatively.”
Moni Agiou Panteleimonos (Athos)

PREVIEW OF PHILOKALIA
Volume 1: Foundation of Philokalia
St Evagrios, then St John Cassian:
Early Church Fathers in monastic tradition
St Mark the Ascetic: Works and Righteousness
Appendix: Attributed to St Anthony the Great
In Greek Philokalia this was placed first,
this is a writing by a Stoic Philosopher
Volume 2: St Maximus the Confessor, and others
You should be eager to forgive your neighbor
Beauty of theology of Jesus as both God and man
Volume 3: St Peter of Damaskos, and others
Volume 4: St Symeon the New Theologian:
Three Methods of Prayer, and St Gregory Palamas,
esp. New Testament Decalogue
Volume 5: Other English translations are available
Mount Athos, Leinwand, painted 2015

SOURCES, The Four Volumes of the Philokalia,
Like the philosophy of the stoics, the Philokalia is enjoyable to read. Many will
say you cannot study the Philokalia with a spiritual guide, but when St Nikodemus
gathered the Greek collection on Mt Athos, his intention was to make this
wisdom available to the educated layman. So, give it a try, Taste and see that the
Lord is good.
And we have a collection of essays on the Philokalia, among these essays is an
exploration of how St Evagrios is one of the early church fathers who wrote on
monasticism. Also there is an essay on one of my favorite saints, St Maximus the
Confessor, and some essays with background on the Philokalia and monasticism.

And we have the Way of a Pilgrim that we referred to in the beginning
of our talk, which we soon, in 2021, want to discuss in a future video
and blog. You want to purchase a volume that also contains the
sequel, The Pilgrim Continues His Way.

Our pilgrim asked a priest how he could pray
without ceasing, as the Scriptures bid us to do:
“Read the Philokalia, it tells you the science of
constant interior prayer, set forth by 25 holy Fathers.
The book has such lofty profitable wisdom that it is
considered the foremost and best manual of the
contemplative life.”
The pilgrim asked, “Is it more sublime and holy than
the Bible?”
“No, but it clearly explains what the Bible holds in
secret, and which cannot be easily grasped by our
shortsighted understanding. I will give you an
illustration. The Sun is the greatest, most
resplendent, and most wonderful of heavenly
luminaries, but you cannot contemplate it with
unprotected eyes.” But you can view the sun
through a piece of dark glass, “delight in it, and
endure its fiery rays.”

“The Holy Scriptures is also a dazzling sun, and the
Philokalia is the piece of glass we use so we cam
contemplate this spiritual sun in its imperial
splendor. Listen now, I am going to read you its
instruction on praying an unceasing interior prayer.”
“The priest opened the Philokalia, found the
instruction by St Symeon the New Theologian, and
read, ‘Sit down alone and in silence. Lower your
head, shut your eyes, breathe out gently, and
imagine yourself looking into your won heart. Carry
your mind, that is, your thoughts, from your head to
your heart. As you breathe out, say, <Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.> Say it
moving your lips gently, or simply say it in your mind.
Try to put all other thoughts aside. Be calm, be
patient, and repeat the process very frequently.”
St Symeon the New Theologian

PLEASE click on the link for our blogs on the Philokalia.
And on the links for our YouTube videos on the Greek Cynics and Stoic
philosophers, and for our blogs on St Justin the Martyr when they are
released, and other interesting videos that will broaden your
knowledge and improve your soul.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in these blogs, please type
in the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
YouTube Description has links for:
• Script PDF file
• Blog
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Introduction to the Philokalia, the Love of the Beautiful

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