I'm going to begin by reading from Saint Silouan the Athonite, and what I want to do is to read from his chapter on the now familiar theme of the Knowledge of God, which begins on page 353. The object of the exercise will be to catch a glimpse of the ethos, the spirit of the Church, the spirit of the life in Christ, according to our holy fathers. And so let's begin reading, and then, during our reading, we will pause and discuss various points that occur to us and try to see the practical relevance of the doctrines of the Church. 

So, “On the Knowledge of God”.

“The Father so loved us that he gave us his Son: but such was the will of the Son, too, and he became incarnate and lived among us on earth.”

How was it the will of the Son too? The divine will of the Son is the very same will of the Father. And Christ differs in as much as he also possesses human will.

“And the holy apostles and a multitude of people beheld the Lord in the flesh, but not all knew him as the Lord; yet it has been given to me, a poor sinner, through the Holy Spirit to know that Jesus Christ is God.”

And this is a theme that will be running throughout the writings of St. Silouan: that we come to know Jesus Christ as the Lord by the Holy Spirit. No one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. 

So, 

“The Lord loves man and reveals himself to man, as it pleases him. And when the soul beholds the Lord she humbly rejoices in the Master's compassion, and from that hour her love for her Creator is greater than her any other love – though she may see all things and love all men, yet will she love the Lord above all.

“This love the soul knows full well; but it cannot be conveyed in words. Only those on whom the Lord bestows the Holy Spirit can know of it, by the Holy Spirit.

The soul suddenly sees the Lord and knows that it is he. Who shall describe this joy, this gladness.

“The Lord is made known in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit pervades the entire man–soul, mind, and body.

“After this wise is God known in heaven and on earth.

“The Lord in His boundless mercy accorded this grace to me, a sinner, that others might come to know God and turn to him.

“I write out of the grace of God.

“Yea, this is truth.

“The Lord himself is my witness.”

So let's pause for a moment and unpack at least some of what we've read because, if you look at this passage carefully, already you find what is in fact a distillation of Patristic wisdom. The soul suddenly sees the Lord and knows that it is He. He's not offering an argument here; it's just a statement. When the Lord appears to the soul, we know that it is He. Of course, he's already said, and he says again, that this knowledge is given by the Holy Spirit, by the Third Hypostasis. The Holy Spirit reveals the Lord. Reveals, more specifically, what about the Lord? That He is God and, in relation to us, He's our God and our Creator. The soul recognizes her Creator, the one who brought us into being out of nothing. 

“The Lord loves man and reveals himself to man, as it pleases him.” So this experience of the vision of Christ, which is given by the Holy Spirit, is a revelation of Him and His love. And that love, St. Silouan goes on to say, is so surpassing any other thing that we could ever experience that, though the soul “may see all things and love all men, yet will she love the Lord above all”. The response to this overwhelming love of God is that we love him, we recognize him. The soul, when she “beholds the Lord”, “humbly rejoices in the Master's compassion, and from that hour her love for her Creator is greater than her any other love – though she may see all things and love all men, yet will she love the Lord above all”. 

You know, one of the things that is right under our nose and is emphasized time and time again, and yet we often miss the point, is that we talk about the ascetic life, the ascetic ethos, and we think of the great feats of the martyrs and the saints in terms of these superhuman achievements which they struggled and strove through and managed to do, which for most of us would be impossible, or almost impossible, even to contemplate. But if you look carefully at St. Silouan’s words, the lives of the saints, you'll see that what inspires the saints to do, to pray, to fast and so on, is the love of God, and their gratitude, their joy in experiencing the Lord's compassion.

So it's very important, as it says, the Lord “loveth a cheerful giver”, means that we do what we do out of love, “because He first loved us”, and that is the foundation of the Christian life. “This love the soul knows full well; but it cannot be conveyed in words.” How many times have we seen that from how many angles, not only in St. Gregory Palamas, but going right back to the earliest times, that words cannot convey the reality. Concepts cannot convey the reality which is God, and his love for us. It cannot be conveyed in words. So how do we know? “Only those on whom the Lord bestows the Holy Spirit can know of it.” And he adds, “by the Holy Spirit”. 

Orthodox theology is very simple, simple to say, but incredibly difficult to put into practice. Because what it requires is our response to Christ's self-sacrificial love, and that means that our love for Him must be self-sacrificial. But that response is actually a natural one, as we were just saying. The saints, on the psychological level, seem weird. They desire to die for Christ. Read St. Ignatius of Antioch, who wants to be the bread, he wants to become the food of the lions, to suffer in imitation of Christ's self-sacrificial love, His sufferings. On the psychological level, as we say, it's even disturbing to think along these lines. But it's not a psychological phenomenon, it's not an emotional phenomenon, it is a spiritual one. 

And each time we have the opportunity to celebrate one of the great feasts, commemorating the saving work of Christ, we are given that opportunity to delve a little more deeply into the mystery of the Lord's Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection. So theology is the vision of Christ, our God and our Creator in glory, which is given by the Holy Spirit. That's why Orthodox theology is difficult. It requires that self-denial, that willingness to take up one's cross daily and follow Christ. Because each time we strive to resist the ways of the world and react, not according to our instinct for survival and our fear of death, but as disciples of Christ who have His example in mind and His word, His commandments,–who strive to live His commandments–each time we do that we begin to repent. Each time we resist and we say no, this is not the way of Christ. Though the world may regard it as foolishness and a scandal, weakness, this is the power of the Lord's Passion, His Cross and His Resurrection.

So, “The soul suddenly sees the Lord and knows that it is he”. Once again, to know, in biblical and patristic language, means to experience. It's not cogitation; it's not the result of brilliant speculation, of lofty forms of reasoning.

“The soul suddenly sees the Lord and knows that it is he.” And, “Who shall describe this joy, this gladness?” Again, beyond description. Why is it beyond description? Because it is unlike, radically unlike, any other thing that we might experience in this world. It is unlike any created thing, any created joy, however great. There are many blessings, there are many joys that the Lord has given us through the creation, but this is uncreated. This is God Himself, who is above and beyond every aspect of our limited created nature. 

“The Lord is made known in the Holy Spirit”, says St. Silouan, “and the Holy Spirit pervades”, fills, suffuses, “the entire man–soul, mind and body”. And it has to be so. It has to be so. Because we know from the negative forms, the perversions of love, that man is trying to experience love on every level of his being. It's not enough to experience the love of anything, and even God, one would dare to say, on the spiritual level. The Lord has given us the opportunity to fill ourselves, our entire being, body and soul, with Him, physically as well as spiritually, so that we may become blood of His blood, bone of His bone, body of His body, flesh of His flesh. The entire man, then, soul, mind and body, is called to participate in, to be filled with the divine life, the life of God Himself, the life of God, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And, St. Silouan says, this is how God is known, both in heaven and on earth, no difference. The same Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us, our Lord and our God on earth, as he does in heaven, and “in his boundless mercy accorded this grace to me, a sinner”. 

Bear in mind that St. Silouan is an illiterate, peasant monk writing in a very remote corner of the world. How does he even know that someone, anyone, is going to read his scribblings? Which are the product of long nights of prayer, where he would sleep in snatches, and, for the most part, sit on a stool and pray, by himself. During the day, he would fulfill his duties at the mill, where he used to work, and at any other part of the monastery; the long services of the Athonite monasteries are well known. There really isn't that much time for anything else. And yet he uses the midnight hours for prayer in a, one would say, superhuman way, and then would write down whatever was given to him. If anything was given to him to say, he would write it down. And Fr. Sophrony, later on, after he was given these scraps of paper, would correct the grammar and put his writings in some order, so we have chapters. And St. Silouan knows that, for reasons which only the Lord knows, but he does understand one thing, that what was given to him cannot be just for himself, because the Lord wants to save His people. And he says, “that others might come to know God and turn to him”. And truly many have been blessed to turn to the Lord through the writings of St. Silouan the Athonite. And he says, I guess he's safe, he’s safe to say this, because he knows no one's going to read this before he dies, except perhaps Fr. Sophrony, who already knows who he is: “I write out of the grace of God”. “I write out of the grace of God.” 

If you read, I'm not sure exactly where, but in St. Silouan the Athonite, either St. Silouan himself, or Fr. Sophrony says, when a spiritual man reads something, say the Fathers of the Church, St. Silouan says it's clear when the Father in question is writing out of direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The experienced spiritual person can see this, can discern this. It's very clear. He knows when the writer in question is writing on the basis of something that he read, in another Father, in the Holy Scriptures, and he knows when the person in question is giving his opinion. There's that discernment, that level of discernment to those who are blessed with this particular grace. “Yea, this is truth”, he says. “The Lord himself is my witness.” “The Lord himself is my witness.”

So, again, we are just touching on some of the themes that have already been presented to us in this short passage, but you can see that, as you seek to unpack it, there is a great wisdom here, there is a great depth of understanding and so much discernment. Once upon a time they asked St. Anthony the Great: What is the greatest gift? And if you remember, he said, the greatest gift is the discernment of the spirits: Discernment.

So, let's continue reading with a little more attention: 

“The Lord loves us as his own children, and his love is greater than a mother's love, for even a mother may forget her child, but the Lord is never forgetful of us. And had the Lord himself not given the Holy Spirit to His Orthodox people and to our great shepherds, we could not know how truly he loves us.

“Glory be to the Lord and his deep compassion in that he endows sinful men with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Rich people and kings may be ignorant of the Lord, yet we poor monks and shepherds know the Lord through the Holy Spirit.

“We do not require wealth or learning in order to know the Lord–we must simply be obedient and sober, have a humble spirit and love our fellow men. The Lord will love such a soul as this, of his own accord make himself manifest to her and instruct her in love and humility, and give her all things needful for her to find rest in God.

“We may study as much as we will but we shall still not come to know the Lord unless we live according to his commandments, for the Lord is not made known through learning but by the Holy Spirit. Many philosophers and scholars have arrived at a belief in the existence of God but they have not come to know God. And we monks apply ourselves day and night to the study of the Lord's command but not all of us by a long way have come to know the Lord, although we believe in him.

“To believe that God exists is one thing, to know God another.”

We could spend some time unpacking all of this, of course. But what does it imply when St.  Silouan says that, “We may study as much as we will but we shall still not come to know the Lord unless we live according to his commandments”. So there, the way to know the Lord is by living according to His commandments. But then he adds, “For the Lord is not made known through learning but by the Holy Spirit”. So what's the relationship between the commandments and the Holy Spirit? We have to live according to His commandments if we want to know the Lord, and we can't know the Lord, because knowing the Lord is given only by the Holy Spirit. So what does St. Silouan say? What is he saying here? What St. Silouan is saying is, the commandments, what Christ is asking us to do, is to live as He does. They are a self-revelation. The Lord is saying this is how I am, this is how I am, and if you would be My disciples, this is how you must be. But there's a little problem there, isn't there? How do we do that? The problem is that if we tried to do these things, if we tried to live according to the commandments, we would see very, very quickly that that is in fact, an impossible task, humanly speaking. Who is capable of living the commandments of love, of loving one's enemies? I mean, they put us to shame, don't they? If we tried to live the commandments of Christ, as it were, by ourselves, without His help, we see that we can do nothing. Actually, we see two things, we see that we can do nothing, and we recognize that in the impossibility of this law of grace, because this is humanly impossible, this could not be the product of a created mind. I say created, it could not be the product of a human mind, an angelic mind, any of the Lord's reasonable creatures. This is a divine way of life. And we see that, and we are put to shame by it, and we recognize that we must ask for help; we must beseech the Lord to help us to do His commandments. 

So, now that we have identified a little what exactly the commandments are. You know, in Fr. Sophrony's wonderful article that he wrote, which is reproduced in another one of his books, Life and Truth, I believe it is, it's called “Principles of Orthodox Asceticism”, and Fr. Sophrony talks about asceticism there in a very helpful way. He says, what is asceticism? He says, well, asceticism could be defined as spiritual labors. But what are spiritual labors? Spiritual labors are living the commandments of Christ and, by the way, there is nothing higher, nothing greater, than living the commandments of Christ. Of course, we see this when we begin to realize that the Sermon on the Mount is Christ revealing Himself to us. He's telling us how He is, how He lives, and how we must react to any and every situation that may come upon us if we would be His disciples. 

So once you get to that point, then what seems to be in some ways a non sequitur at first glance, where St. Silouan says, “we shall still not come to know the Lord unless we live according to his commandments, for the Lord is not made known through learning but by the Holy Spirit”. How can we live according to the commandments, when it's not humanly possible? It's only by the grace of God, and the Holy Spirit is the One who teaches us, who reveals to us, the humility, the love, of Jesus Christ. So there's nothing greater than the commandments of Christ, because they are His life. They describe as much as possible in human language how He is, and how we must be if we would be with Him. In order to be with Him, we must become like Him.