genuinely, genuinely Christian with its spiritual aptitude, spirit. It's a testimony, a witness within the church of that messianic fullness that Christ, with his resurrection, then with the sending of the Holy Spirit, has given to the Church. With the Church, really, the new age has entered into history. And the Gnosticism, with its striving after perfection, gives witness to that fact. it is determined by the expectation of the second coming of Christ and by that specific break with the world and struggle against the world and the devil which is only possible after Christ has conquered the devil I mean after the resurrection

[01:29]

Christ himself had promised these gifts of the Spirit to his followers, to his apostles. So, monasticism with the Charismata gives witness to the presence of the fullness of the Spirit in the church. So we can see that modesticism is quite different from what we have seen before in the philosophy of Plato. And we're there, and we consider those dialogues, especially we concentrated on the dialogue of Phaedo, in which the vita contemplativa the beauty of the contemplative life is for the first time put before mankind as an ideal of life there it is the discovery of the spiritual

[02:35]

of something that is simple in itself and that is not subject to change and which is therefore a greater reality than the manifold variety of this visible world and the changing, ever-changing character In that experience, the discovery of the ideas and the fact that the human mind can reach the unchangeable and the simple, that was the fact which in some way inebriated Plato. And that is what we see in the dialogues, especially the early dialogues So there is the contemplative life as conceived on a specific, also psychological, theory It's really their philosophy

[04:00]

Let us just try to see the difference of these two approaches because that may also then help to clarify our own notion of the Christian or monastic contemplative life. There is no doubt about it. These two ideals, the philosophical and platonic ideal on the one side, and the Christian ideal, the gospel spirit on the other side, are different, deeply different. But at the same time, there is no doubt either that the two have in many ways in the history of monasticism that they have mixed that we can see that in outstanding writers of monastic theory like before all others Evagrius Ponticus and also others later Denis the Areopagite and then Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory the Great in all these we can see many traces

[05:17]

vocabulary technical terms which really come from the Pagan Platonic philosophy it has been transferred and applied to the monastic life and to the religious experiences which the monastic life contains let us just try to see the difference a little there is or read it to you. There is the platonic type. But this read may be the best thing too, the backward which is most. And in this way Plato describes then the ascent, the philosophical ascent, drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty

[06:18]

the philosophic soul, it would say contemplative soul, will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love or wisdom, until at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. he who ascending under the influence of true love as Eros begins to perceive that beauty, the beauty is not far from the end and the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love is to begin from the beauties of earth not upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, from fair forms to fair practices, from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of the absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

[07:28]

This is that life above all others which man should live, holding converse with the true beauty, simple and divine. In that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but reality, then bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God, then be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be the ignoble life? That's the classical description from the banquet of Plato the Symposium, where the picture of the owls is given that leads man in the contemplative life through various stages up to the vision of beauty itself. you find there right away in the description of the various stages things that we again later on meet in monasticism.

[08:37]

There is, for example, this from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty. That has been one of the contributions of monasticism and later on to put and to consider as the only legitimate way to the vision, to the contemplation, what we call the practical life. the practical life as the way of purifying the soul but certainly in a different way of what Plato describes because what Plato describes is an ascent which the soul undertakes in the power and through the power of the arrows But the eros is, as Plato says, a metaxi, in between, in between the sensible and the corporal and the spiritual.

[09:47]

and therefore leading from the sensible to the spiritual, some ascending power. That's the characteristic of the Platonic eros. So you can right away see that there are several elements completely missing which then later on are very strongly emphasized in Christianity and in monasticism. One thing that we do not meet in Plato, as you can see right away, is the idea of struggle, of battle. I just mention a few, you know, as they come to mind. There is no notion here that the life is the life of man, or let's say the life of the monk, or here the philosopher, the life of the philosopher. Philosophical life is a battle against the prince of this world, and that it is at the same time a service of Christ, to live in the service of Christ the King.

[10:56]

So that notion is completely excluded here It's a development through which man arrives by practicing It's fair practices through fair practices to fair notions But what are these fair practices? These fair practices are attempts through the power of arrows to bring the soul, make the soul more independent of the senses, and by the concentrating on the purity of the ideas, make the soul stronger, spiritually stronger, so that in that way the soul may become more and more kindred, Is that a good word? Akin, one would say. Akin to the spiritual. See, the principle of Platonic or Greek philosophy is always that the knowledge is only possible through resemblance.

[12:09]

There must be a proportion. between the one who knows and the known object The similar can only be known by the similar Light can only be known by light Therefore the I through which light is known must be in itself light must have the essence of light The similar can only be known by the similar therefore if god let us say the idea of the good or the beauty purely spiritual then of course it can only be known by the purely spiritual therefore the soul that knows ideas must be in some way purely spiritual But we can see that on the other hand, the soul is here in a body. And Plato says, like the oyster in a shell.

[13:11]

That's another point. That's another point. I just read that to you. There was a time, this is from Phaedrus, when with the rest of the happy band, they, that means the philosophers, were described here in their pre-existence. saw beauty shining in brightness, we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods. And then we beheld the beatific vision, and were initiated into a mystery which may truly be called most blessed, celebrated by us with our state of innocence before we had any experience of evils to come. when we were admitted to the site of apparitions, innocent and simple, and calm and happy, which we beheld shining in pure light, pure ourselves, and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about.

[14:20]

now that we are imprisoned in the body like an oyster in a shell. So there's another motive you can see that also right away. The contemplative life is lived in its purity in a state of innocence, in a state of innocence which precedes the state in which we live here on Earth. Now that is an idea which later on has been, let's say, Christianized, not Christianized, but it has been used to understand better in the history of the human race, the status of what we call original justice, which, for example, in the thoughts of St. Gregory the Great, plays such a great role. Man, in paradigms, is essentially contemplative. There was a fundamental axiom.

[15:24]

Man, in that state, was enabled to have converse contemplation of the divinity. because the spirit reigns completely over the senses. That's status. St. Gregory always describes that. That's interesting when we later on maybe later analyze what he, what St. Gregory says about the vision that St. Benedict had, you know, an ecstatic vision of the world in the light of divinity. and he describes it in exactly these terms. Adam in a state of innocence stands. What does that mean? He has that firmness, that balance, equilibrio. which was given to him by God in which the spiritual dominates through the four then sets in what Socrates here in these words that I have just read describes as the fate of the soul

[16:36]

when it from that happy pre-existence then falls into the connection with the body and is imprisoned in the body it's always the great mystery of Platonic philosophy how could that happen and Platonic philosophy couldn't answer that question why? because Platonic philosophy for that matter didn't have the notion of sin They didn't have the notion of the service of God, of obedience to God's will, to God's commandments. All this did not exist. So the idea of the rebellion and of the present state of disturbance as an effect of sin was completely unknown to the Platonists. But, of course, Christian revelation brought that. Christian revelation spoke of man, Adam, in the state of innocence and in converse with God in paradise.

[17:42]

Therefore, in the state of friendship with God and the state of contemplation. St. Gregory describes that status of balance, of firmness, of stability as stare, stare, while humanity through the fall of Adam then lost that stare. That's why we speak about fall. Fall is the loss of stability. And also the other thing that Adam has in the The terminology of St. Gregory is the quiesce and the silence. The quiesce and the silence are attributes of man in the original state of innocence. See, there are mystical terms which, of course, later on play a very important role in monastic life. To St. Gregory, as to others, the monastic life is really a return to the original state, to paradise.

[18:48]

Queerness and silence, quietness and silence are the other gifts that man had in the original state of innocence because the tumult and the clamor of which the soul now suffers comes from the rebellion and the disorder of our lower nature. The passions are the ones who make all the noise in the soul of man. And therefore for man to return to paradise, he has to reach and re-establish in himself again that quiet and that silence. And that is the reason for the importance also of the monastic silence, the monastic quiet. a return to Paradise but as I say there you have completely new notions which the Platonic philosophy does not offer now all these notions in the end crystallize in the one notion I would say of the Divine Agape that God is Caritas

[20:08]

and that this divine agape is the power through which man is reconciled to God. That's the new notion, certainly, of Christianity. That's the manifestation of that Christ, the Lord, the Word, which was from the beginning in the Father's bosom, has told us and has brought to us that God is charitas, charity, agape. That means that, let us say, the ascending love, that love that seekers not at all. And that, of course, has fundamentally changed our entire approach. One who has seen that and felt that strongly was St. Augustine. I'll just read to you what he, in his Confessions, that is, in the seventh chapter of the Confessions, writes about that. And he speaks there about his inhims under the influence of Neoplatonic writings to gain that similarity that needs to purify his soul, make his more spiritual, so that that could adhere to the spiritual.

[21:30]

And then he says, he describes how he did not succeed. And he puts it in this way, really like a genius. He says, Thus, in the thrust of a trembling glance, my mind arrived at that which is. Then indeed I saw clearly your invisible things, which are understood by the things that are made. But I lacked the strength to hold my gaze fixed. and my weakness was beaten back again, so that I returned to my old habits, bearing nothing with me but a memory of delight and a desire as for something of which I had caught the fragrance, but which I had not yet the strength to eat. now that the following chapter 18 in the 7th book that Lennon turns about that problem who gives the strength to eat and then he answers in this way so I set about finding a way to gain the strength that was necessary for enjoying you you see what the problem is on the one side

[22:53]

winged, as it were, inspired by Plato and his discovery of the spiritual, and delighted by the contact with the spiritual, St. Augustine does not find in himself the strength to stick to the spiritual, but he again falls a victim to his bodily passions. And then the question is, where does the strength come from to hold on? And that, of course, comes then from the word which is made flesh. That gives the strength. You see, man, living, let us say, in the power of his arrows, cannot out of himself reach a status of complete and constant adherence to God. He gets it in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. But then he falls again.

[23:55]

Christianity is of course different. It's the fullness. Christianity establishes a status. That's the whole meaning of it. If you read in the 11th chapter of Isaiah the prophet, What is the Messiah? The Messiah is the one upon whom the Spirit of God in His fullness descend and stay. And that is of course also the revelation that we receive in the baptism of Christ in the Theophany in the Jordan River. And that we receive on the table, on Mount Tabor, the mountain of the Transfiguration. This is my beloved song in whom I am well pleased. See, that has all the marks of irrevocable stability.

[25:00]

That is something final. and over whom, over him, the Spirit of God descends, and as St. Matthew says expressly in corresponding to the Old Testament prophecy, and stayed with him, stayed with him. And that's really the problem of Christianity. It's the whole difference between a philosophical school and a church. You see, a philosophical school comes and goes, and it reaches just as far as human power can be mobilized to the attainment of the spiritual. But the church is built on the rock. See, that's a different thing. The arrows is not a rock. The academy is the rock. On that church, on that rock, the church is built. And the powers of hell shall not be able to overcome the gates of hell. It's so typical in the words of our Lord.

[26:06]

Now here I tell you how St. Augustine saw that, you know, how in Christianity the world becomes well. That's, of course, a completely new notion. That's a notion that Plato does not have. So I set about finding a way to gain the strength that was necessary for enjoying you. And I could not find it. until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who is over all things, God blessed forever, who was calling unto me and saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And who brought into union with our nature in the incarnation, that food which I lack the strength to take, that means the food of the light of the world.

[27:10]

For the world was made flesh, that your wisdom by which you created all things might give suck to our souls infancy. For I was not yet lowly enough to hold the lowly Jesus as my God, nor did I know what lesson his embracing of our weakness was to teach. For your word, the eternal truth, towering above the highest parts of your creation, lifts up to himself those that were cast down. he built for himself here below a lowly house of our clay, that by it he might bring down from themselves and bring up to himself those who were to be made subject, healing the swollenness of their pride and fostering their love, so that their self-confidence might grow no further, but rather diminish.

[28:15]

seeing the deity at their feet, humbled by the assumption of our code of human nature. to the end that weary at last they might cast themselves down upon his humanity and rise again in its rising. That's the Christian word, to throw or cast themselves down upon his humanity and rise again in its rising. And that's, of course, the secret of a monastic life or the Christian life. not Plato. And St. Augustine explains that right away in the next chapter. But I realized none of this at that time. I thought of Christ my Lord as, now I can say in a platonic way, as a man of marvelous wisdom whom no other could possibly equal.

[29:18]

And I saw his miraculous birth from a virgin, with the example it gave that temporal things are to be despised for the sake of immortality. As a mark of divine care for us, which surely merited for him complete authority as our master. But the mystery contained in the truth that the world was made flesh, I could not even faintly glimpse. from what had come down in writing about him, that he ate and drank, slept, walked, was glad, was sad, preached, I had gathered that his body did not cleave to your word, save through a human mind and soul. This, anyone knows, grasps the immutability of your word, as I now grasp it in my own fashion, and indeed held it unwavering.

[30:21]

for at one moment to be moving the limbs by the will and another keeping them still, now feeling some particular emotion, now not feeling it, now uttering wisdom in human speech, now silent, all these are properties of a mutable soul and a mutable mind. Is Scripture told falsely of Christ on this matter? all of it would be involved in the peril of falsehood, and there would be no true faith for mankind left in it. Taking then what was written there as truth, I saw Christ as complete man, not the body of a man only, or an animating soul without a rational mind, but altogether man. And I thought he was to be preferred to all others. not as the very person of truth, but because of the great excellence of his human nature and his more perfect participation in wisdom.

[31:27]

Olypius, on the other hand, imagined that Catholics believed that in Christ God was clothed in flesh, meaning that there was the Godhead and a body in him, but no soul. he thought that he had not a human mind. And since it seemed quite clear to him that what had been handed down to us concerning Christ could not have been done save by a creature both vital and rational, he was slower in his movement towards the Christian faith itself. But once he realized that this was the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he liked the Catholic faith and accepted it. But I admit that it was only some time later that I learned how in the truth that the word was made flesh. Catholic doctrine is distinguished from the error of Plotinus. In fact, the refutation of heretics serves to bring into clearer light what your church holds and what sound doctrine is.

[32:39]

For there must be also heresies that they may prove may be made famous along the way. Now that I had read the books of the Platonists and had been set by them towards the search of a truth that is equal power, I came to see your invisible things, which are understood by the things that are made. But I was at a standstill. Yet I felt what through the darkness of my mind I was not able actually to see. I was certain that you are, and that you are infinite, but not as being diffused through space, whether finite or infinite, that you truly are and are ever the same. not in any part or by any motion different or otherwise. And I knew that all other things are from you, from the simple fact that they are at all. Of these things I was utterly certain, yet I had not the strength to enjoy you.

[33:47]

I talked away as if I knew a great deal. But if I had not sought the way to you in Christ our Saviour, I would have come not to instruction, but to destruction. For I had begun to wish to appear wise, and this indeed was the fullness of my punishment. And I did not weep for my state, but was badly toughed up with my knowledge. Where was that charity which builds us up upon the foundation of humility, which is Christ Jesus? Or when would those books, Platonic books, have taught me that? Yet I think it was your will that I should come upon the books of Plato before I had made study of the Scriptures. that it might be impressed on my memory how they had affected me, so that when later I should have become responsive to you through your books with my wounds healed by the care of your fingers, I might be able to discern the difference that there is between presumption and confession, between those who see what the goal is but do not see the way.

[35:08]

and those who see the way which leads to that country of blessedness, which we are meant not only to know, but to dwell in. If I had been first moved by your holy scriptures, so that you had grown sweet to me through their familiar use, and then had come later upon these books of the Platonists, they might have swept me away from the solid ground of piety. And even if I had remained firm in that disposition which, for my health, Scripture had taught me, I might perhaps have thought that the same disposition could have been acquired from those books, platonic books, if a man studied them alone. So now I cease greedily upon the adorable writing of your Spirit, and especially upon the Apostle Paul. And I found that those difficulties in which it had once seemed to me that he contradicted himself and that the text of discourse did not agree with the testimonies of the law and the prophets vanished away.

[36:17]

In that pure eloquence I saw one face, and I learned to rejoice with trembling. I found that whatever truth I had read in the Platonists was said here with praise of your grace. That's a different presumption than confession. That you who see should not so glory as if he had not received. And received, indeed, not only what he sees, but even the power to see. For what has he that he has not received? And further, that he who sees is not only taught to see you, who are always the same, but is also strengthened to take hold of you, and that he who cannot see you from afar on may yet walk on that way by which he may come and see and take hold.

[37:19]

For though a man be delighted with the law of God according to the inward man, what shall he do about that other law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind, and captivating him in the law of sin that is in his members? For thou art just, O Lord. But we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedness, and thy hand has blown heavy upon us, that we are justly delivered over to that first sinner, the ruler of death, because he has turned our will to the likeness of his will, whereby he stood not in thy truth. For what shall unhappy man do? Who shall deliver him from the body of this death, save the grace of God by Jesus Christ our Lord, whom thou hast begotten for eternally with thee, and possessed in the beginning of thy ways, in whom the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet killed him.

[38:30]

And the handwriting was blotted out of the decree, which was contrary to us. The writings of the Platonists contain nothing of all this. Their pages show nothing of the face of that love, the tears of confession, your sacrifice, an afflicted spirit, a contrite and humbled heart. the salvation of your people, the espoused city, the promise of the Holy Spirit, the chalice of our redemption, nothing of all this. In them no one sings, shall not my soul be submitted unto God? From him is my salvation, for he is my God, my salvation and my defense. I shall be no more moved, And we hear no worse calling, Come unto me, all you that labor. They scorned to learn from him, because he is meek and humble of heart.

[39:36]

For thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones. It is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded mountaintop, yet not find the way to it, and struggle hopelessly far from the way, with hosts of those fugitive deserters from God, under their leader the lion and the dragon, besetting us about and ever lying in wait. And quite another thing, to hold to the way that leads there, a way guarded by the care of our heavenly generals, where there are no deserters from the army of heaven to practice their robberies, for indeed they avoid that way as a torment. Marvelously, these truths raved themselves in my heart when I read that latest of your apostles and looked upon your works and trembled.

[40:40]

And this beautiful thing, I think you realise the marvellous way in which St Augustine has there grasped the difference between Plato and Christianity. And that, of course, then, has its great applications to the monastic way and to the idea of monastic contemplation. But we should also not forget, you know, that the course of history the differences were not always clearly seen and that the way went and wavered you know in various directions if the influence of philosophy was greater or the influence of the gospels was greater and there is a constant struggle and that struggle is going on to this day to this very day and that is the reasons why we have really to strive after a true understanding of the contemplative way of the monk who is exactly the way that Saint Augustine describes as the way that he found not in Plato but in Saint Paul it's just

[41:52]

Peter Wallace Beale. The nation was not able to get that very clear. It was a course of the day. But it was between the Christian and the Platonic. We saw that in St. Augustine in his Seventh Book of the Confessions. He says, first there was, and there is, and there is to be, friendly hands to which one cannot adhere to the highest truth, to the absolute God. While in Christianity the word, divine wisdom, is incarnate, that in that way descends to us, so that not we, in a thrust of a trembling glance, try to reach it with an effort of the soul, but the spiritual path of the soul, but divine wisdom descends.

[43:23]

He sucketh as a child does in his infancy. So there is the one basic difference between this ascending and descending life. Platonist is the purification of the soul. It is conceived as purely spiritual from all its associations. which are really against its nature, with the bodily things, which comes to pass through the senses. And that's the purification of the soul from that stain, as we believe, stained by contact with the bodily world. Christianity of wisdom becomes man.

[44:28]

Therefore, who sees me sees God. There we have food for the soul's infancy. Because in this visible form of our Lord's blessed humanity, human nature, there is all the life-giving power of the divinity so that he not only descends and accommodates himself to our condition here on earth but he also gives us the power and the strength which we receive by coming contact with this humanity either through holy scripture the words of the scripture the gospels or through the sacraments and the same line is of course that When wisdom or the attainment of that contact with divinity is the fruit of man's effort, then naturally the attainment breeds pride.

[45:44]

Puffed up by pride, as St. Augustine describes himself, in those years of Platonic influence, curved up by pride. Indeed, the Platonic vita contemplativa is a thing which is reserved only for an elite. That odysseum which makes that as saint of the soul possible can only be limited for a privileged few. is aristocratic therefore St. Augustine feels that as a philosopher he belongs to that aristocracy of the spirit so that is there to find that can be found in the books of Plato but they note the other thing the humility

[46:47]

Where is that charity which builds on the foundation of humility? That's the decisive word. That's the heart of the matter. Where is that charity that builds on the foundation of humility? The word descends. the Son of God, who in obedience enters into the Father's will. The Father's will is charity, redemption for mankind, to help the lost sheep to be brought back to the heights of contemplation. But not by God waiting in His glory, nor the God descending in humility, Therefore, naturally then, also our way of obtaining wisdom and of obtaining contemplation must be different.

[48:09]

It cannot only be the training which eliminates from our mind the passing bodily images See, that was the decisive point in the Platonic vision of the beautiful, the leaving of all images. But that leaving of all images is not the essence of the Christian purification. Therefore, all Christian writers agree in this. the preparation to attain the contemplative life, what they call the active life, must be not only a purification of the soul from sensible images, it must be a purification of the soul from the vices, the sins,

[49:18]

See, in Christianity the vision of God is a relation from person to person. The human person confronted with the divine person. In such a meeting between persons is not simply a neutral kind of aesthetical looking at the beauty of the good as in Plato but it's a meeting between the absolute person and the created person therefore it's a meeting between father and child that meeting between father and child is not simply the child looking at the father how he looks and how beautiful he is or something like that but it is the meeting of the hearts for man the created person the fallen man his judgment his judgment for Plato the vision

[50:38]

of the spiritual is not judgment it's an aesthetical, essentially aesthetical experience for the Christian as God, as a father's child is judgment, judgment and redemption it's the experience of goodness, personal grace So therefore, the preparation for this meeting must be a, now let us call it, a moral one. Not only Plato, it seems to me it's a physical one. He was telling it's a moral one. I as an individual, and especially I as fallen man, as sinful man, looking forward to the vision of God who can see God and live now that is this word is explained in monastic circles mostly in this way you can see God and live that means you can see God and still remain in the life of the passions so the first thing that has to be overcome

[52:05]

in this purification of the act through this purification that we call the active life we may call it the annihilation of the passions the annihilation of the passions this aspect is of course also in Plato we found that in Socrates in the dialogue that we read in Phaedo The passions are looked at as something physical, not as something moral. In our Christian view, the passions, through the fall of man, have become the instruments of the devil to seduce us, to bring battle and disturbance into the soul. Therefore, the first stage in the vita practica, is the annihilation of the passions.

[53:08]

You can see that best in the life of Saint Anthony, the first hermit. His life is stamped by that struggle against the passions. There comes not only the passions, but, as the monks clearly realize, The main enemy of our meeting guard, the main barrier, is, as St. Augustine says, the swollenness of our pride. The swollenness of our pride. That's the other. That's the other. The swollenness of our pride. That means self-love. Self-love. self-love is in that way not it seems to me at least not a problem in the platonic contemplative life because what the soul wants is self-perfection perfect itself by getting rid of the senses and the bodies but for us in the Christian idea

[54:32]

It's not so. The self-love has to be replaced by charity. Charity that seeks not her own. That seems so easily decisive thing. You see, the goal, the goal of the purification of the active life is not so much to free the spirit the mind from the senses but it is a puritas cordis you see it is not something intellectualistic merely intellectual as in Plato But it is Puritas Cordis, something personal, personal, but really intellectual.

[55:40]

And this Puritas Cordis can be attained only through the practice of charity, selfless love. With that, you see, the situation changes completely in the Christian setup. Because two things enter here into the life of purification, which we do not find in Plato. One may put it this way. the idea of obedience and the idea of service. Through obedience the self-will is surrendered. You don't find that in Plato. Through obedience the self-will is surrendered.

[56:43]

Through active service who it does call this is positively built up through active service and charity who it does call this is positively built up positively you see by that a profound change takes place. You know who us and who we are, the two who have worked most in monastic tradition to bring this, these two factors into play. One was Cassian. Cassian in his institutions as well as in the collations. emphasizes that importance of obedience, the surrender of the will, and then, of course, in the footsteps of Cassium, Saint Benedict, Voluntas Haberberna, Voluntas Haberberna, in that enormously large

[58:16]

a large, universal formulation for Lundhaus' art in Böhler. And therefore, the monk is the one who, obedienze preclare arbar sumit, he takes the glorious weapons of obedience. And in the other elements, that the active life that means that life of purification is also lived in the service of charity to fellow men that was St. Basil of Sardinia St. Basil St. Basil of founded monasteries First of all, much more reduced.

[59:22]

Pacovius had these armies, 5,000 bucks. Perfect. Perfect. So that was mass production. Mass, it was for the family idea. His monasteries, 30, 40 people, not more. near the cities, near the towns, in a position to do active service and charity. But you must always remember that for all these men, not only for St. Anthony, but also for Cashel, and also for St. Basil, and also for St. Benedict, the contemplation is the goal of it. That's the aims, the purpose. But the new thing is, of course, that into this contemplative life, as the essential, inescapable, necessary preparation enters this active life.

[60:35]

That's what Plato didn't have. That's what really any intellectual will honor so very much. You can see that here, you know, where people decide, you know, quite intellectually, as far as this woman, that can't. They need a practicum. In anguish. But you see, for example, you have in California, you know, those people like Huxley and so on, you know. a treat, you know, but there is no vita practica. But that's essential, you see, for the monks, that they take a vita practica as an integral part, a central part, into the vita contemplativa. There's a preparation, there's a preparation that explains, that in that aspect the rule has to be explained.

[61:43]

There is then another element, last element, which I should not overlook, and that is that, of course, in the Christian aspect, in the monastic aspect, all this, the vita activa as well as the vita contemplativa, is based on grace, not on human effort. It's based on grace. because it is based on grace that's what you read but you heard saint augustine saying that he had found everything positive that the greatness that said he said all plus fact that all this and said paul of course speaks about the raptus his own ecstasy you know that all that is grace, therefore, St.

[63:03]

Paul adds, and St. Augustine reads it there, it is in the praise of God, or the glorification of God. The monk, therefore, is essentially a man of praise, because he knows that he cannot reach, as St. Augustine says that so clearly in this beautiful passage this morning, neither the way nor the goal are in any way the product of his own efforts but both the way as well as the goal are grace and therefore you see the contemplative life of the monk is really first of all fulfilled in prayer in prayer You will not hear that in the Platonic writings.

[64:05]

But when you call, remember what we have said before about the personal contact. In the Christian, contemplation is personal contact. The meeting of the Father, even through the song, as I say, the meeting of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, you know, that's really the complete formula. And she realized, of course, this monastic life must be impregnated, you know, soaked in prayer. And that's the way in which the Platonists reach this, we call, oratio pura, pure prayer, let also be the concept which you do not find in the Platonic writings, oratio ura. Let us just, those connections are clear, but the consequences are tremendous.

[65:18]

I just read you a thing from Cassians, Galatians, you know. Then will be perfectly fulfilled the prayer of our Savior, which he prayed for his disciples to the Father, saying, That the love with which thou, O beloved, me, may be in them, that they in us, and again, that they all may be one. See, unity, of course, is also the goal of the Platonists. But this here is the unity of love, the love between a father and his son. And though the Father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us. For that perfect love of God, wherewith He first loved us, shall pass into the depth of our hearts.

[66:24]

You see, that's what Cashel wants to say. That that agape passes into the depth of our heart through prayer. Through prayer. It's absolutely evident. And this will come about when God shall be all our love. in every desire, wish, in effort, every thought of ours, in all our life and words and breath. This, I say, is the end of all perfection, that the mind, purged from all carnal desires, may duly be lifted toward spiritual things. until the whole life and all the thoughts of the heart become one continuous prayer you see there how christianity doesn't destroy platonism but consecrates takes it up makes it fully that personal realization

[67:32]

There is another thing now to make this connection with really. That is why in a similar spirit, Macarius, you know, one of those homilies now, says, but it's an important testimony, witness to monastic thought. The soul leaves herself, as it were, and is transported into heavenly regions. All earthly cares are buried in oblivion. The spirit is captivated by things divine, things infinite and incomprehensible, marvels which cannot be expressed in human words. that at the last it breaks out in logging. Oh, that my soul may leave the earth and soar away with my prayer.

[68:42]

See, it's like the same thing. It's all that platonic impetus has said, you know, desire and longing. the noble part, the spiritual part in man but and he says, oh that my soul may leave the earth and soar away with my prayer that's the Christian thing so therefore contemplative life not now let us say an intellectual aesthetic experience the happiness of eternity, the unchanging in comparison to the changing, or the lucidity of the one against the denseness, I can say, the chaotic character of the many.

[69:44]

That's the platonic thing. But that's cold, it's a cold word. cosmic columns. But this here is not, you see, that's a different thing. This is the sowing up of the soul in prayer. Prayer, that's a personal thing. It's a personal thing. But that, of course, can be done only through agape, you see, agape love, that personal love between the Father and the Son. He might be pleased, you know, that is the driving power in the monastic contemplative, the Christian contemplative idea. For example, when I said about purity of heart, it has the goal of the vita practica,

[70:47]

I'll just read to you another little thing from Macarius. This is true purity when you see the sinful and the sick, to have compassion on them, to be tenderhearted to them, despising no one, judging no one, making no distinctions of persons that is purity of heart see that's a new note Plato doesn't know that the other one you know where it's also such a beautiful thing witness warning for the intellectuals you know Story that refers to also monastic life. Now, you will see the point right away yourself.

[71:49]

There is that monk, you know, Abbott, and the devil, disguised as an angel, appeared to an aged solitary with the words, I am the angel Gabriel, and God has sent me to you. And then the solitary answer, you are wrong. God must have sent you to someone else. I'm not worthy of such high an honor. That's a wonderful courtesy. the poet has called is the contemplative life, is the humility, it is the pride. I'm sure that any disciple, now that sounds a little bad, I wouldn't say that, but I was, you know, kind of, I think that maybe a disciple of Plato would have taken it seriously. I'm not asking any further questions.

[72:53]

So what I want to say is that there is the tremendous contribution of monasticism to the idea of the contemplative life. First, that an essential part of the contemplative life is the active life. Contemplative life cannot be had without the active life. The other book, The Contemplative Life, is essentially queer. That are the two points. That are of greatest importance.

[73:34]

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