But with the coming of the Creator to the world, with the holy mystery of Baptism “as many as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ”. 4 And as many as have put on Christ have also put on the “mind of Christ” on that joyous day. But volition, sin, passions and the devil darken and pollute the nous, and turn it from the Immortal and Eternal Creator to perishable and transcient creation. St Makarios of Egypt says that after the transgression, the nous of man became like the birds which can only fly a few metres and at a minimal height above the ground.
Some brothers once asked Abba Silouan:
– What kind of life did you lead, what struggles have you pursued so as to receive this wisdom?
And he replied:
– Never did I leave a thought in my heart that would offend God.
A nous that is pure and does not offend God is similar to an eye that does not even accept the smallest dust particle. It is from the nous that all the powers of the soul depend. That is why the Lord tells us “if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness”.5
Since the nous of contemporary man has fallen into the same sin as Adam and Eve, it has turned towards creation with an unrestrainable idolatrous and evil disposition. In this way the nous of man, away from the vision of the glory of God, becomes either demonic or bestial. The no us which is overcome by the passions and egoism is unenlightened, dark, short-sighted and feeble.
When the nous of contemporary man, using its creative abilities, turns away from itself with an unquenchable thirst for creation, with a madness for the continuous expansion of lifeless technology which has reached its zenith, it ignores or is indifferent to its own self as a divine image. Unconsciously it seeks self-divinization to become a deity not from the fact that it is a nous which “sees God”, but a nous which “sees creation” and material things.
Its superficial progress is deprived of the brilliance and theoria of the Eternal Light. This kind of “inept nous”, demonic, blind and rational, has driven man in our times to a new fall and self-exile from the Paradise of Christ’s holy Church.
The nous of man for a second time is tried by the temptation of self-divinization and yields over to a dark egocentricity, and is lost in the paths of vain philosophy and deception, a science without light, and drowns in a technology-bound sea without a rudder. For one more time it forgets the road of its true deification.
All goods and possessions, a world completely technological and scientific, would have been good and profitable if the nous of man remained in itself and through itself in the blessed state of being god by grace, able to see God. All would have been well if man had not disturbed the balance of the powers of the soul, if he had not suffered, and if he had a healthy nous. Just as the devil wore the mask of a serpent to deceive the first man back then, so now he wears the mask of technology and the so-called material civilization and drives man to a new exile, to a new unhappiness. Blessed is the contemporary man who “placing his trust in the Lord is like a holy mountain, for it is never shaken by the attacks of Belial”.6 Blessed is whoever can say:
The Enemy no longer subjects me,
deceiving me about my theosis because
Christ having deified human nature
has now without any obstacles
opened to me the way to true life. 7
~ The Nous, Themes from the Philokalia, Number 2, 2nd Edition, Publications of the Holy Monastery of St Gregory Palamas, Koufalia, Thessaloniki, Hellas
4. Gal. 3:27
5. Matt. 6:22-23.
6. Octoechos, Anavathmoi, 3rd Antiphon, Tone 2
7. Octoechos, ode from Resurrection Canon Tone 3
