We could say that the Lord’s entire Sermon on the Mount (18) is a neptic homily where our Theanthropic Saviour pinpoints for us the root of the passions, but at the same time He plants the root of the true spiritual life. This is where the work of watchfulness is to be found: where the finest pulsations of the heart are, the beats which move and direct everything: thoughts, words, memories, feelings, actions, and deeds.
Here is an example: Both purity and adultery start from the heart. There is spiritual adultery and carnal adultery, and the first may exist without the second. The Lord wants to cleanse our hearts from every passionate moment (desire) which brings adultery to the heart. “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”(19).
We see that the Lord characterizes the heart as the source, root, mother and beginning of all carnal and spiritual fruit, as much in the Sermon on the Mount as in His teaching generally.
“If your eye be single, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye be evil, your whole body will be full of darkness (20). Let us see how St. Gregory Palamas speaks about the root of the passions and purification:
Although passions exist in children by nature— even before their intellect becomes impassioned-they do not cooperate with them in the commission of a sin but for the formation of their nature. That is why they are not wicked. Therefore, since carnal passions get their start from an impassioned intellect, we must start the therapy from there. As in a fire, he who volunteers to put it out, if he cuts the flame from on high, has not succeeded in anything. If, however, he removes the matter of the fire, the fire goes out at once. This happens with carnal passions also.
“If you do not dry out the source of thoughts with prayer and humility and arm yourself against them solely with fasting and physical hardship, you labour in vain. If, however, you sanctify the root with humility and prayer, as we said, you will also have sanctified the external senses” (21).
Filthy heart, filthy flesh. Clean heart, clean flesh. Impassioned heart, impassioned body. Dispassionate heart, dispassionate body … “Hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. You blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean (22). This is the cleanliness the Lord wants.
The heart is a workshop, a noiseless and silent workshop where its fruits have immeasurable strength, “nuclear” energy: either demonic and destructive or redemptive and divine.
“What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles (pollutes) a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication” theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile (pollute) a man”(23).
Behold, then, the unrivaled service of watchfulness, the regulation of the workshop of the heart with the kinetic energy of Grace and the Name of Jesus. With watchfulness and the Jesus prayer, with neptic prayer, the heart accepts Grace like oxygen, expelling everything impassionate and making our lives exude grace.
~ Watchfulness and Prayer, Themes from the Philokalia, Number 1, 2nd Edition, Publications of the Holy Monastery of St Gregory Palamas, Koufalia, Thessaloniki, Hellas
18. Mt. chapters 5-7.
19. Mt. 5:28.
20. Mt. 5:28.
21. St. Gregory Palamas, Letter to the Nun Xenia.
22. Mt. 23:25 -26.
23. Mt. 15:18-20.
