Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

D
1113A
B
TEXTS 97
Every forbidden pleasure has come to be through passion
aroused through the senses by some object of sense. For
pleasure is nothing else than a kind of feeling formed in the
sense organ by something perceived through the senses, or a
form of sensible energy constituted by an irrational desire. For
desire added to sensual feeling changes into pleasure, giving it
a shape, and sensual feeling moved by desire produces
pleasure when it is applied to some object of sense. The Saints
therefore know that the soul, when it is moved contrary to
nature through the means of flesh towards matter, is clothed
in an earthly form, but when, in contrast, it is moved naturally
by means of the soul towards God, they are disposed to adapt
the flesh in a seemly way to God, through the ascetic practice
of the virtues adorning [the soul], as far as possible, with divine
splendours.
3
On the motions of the soul
[The Fathers,] illuminated by grace, [teach] that the soul has
three kinds of motions7 that converge into one: that of the
mind, that of reason, and that of sense. The [first] is a simple
and inexplicable motion, according to which the soul, moved in
an unknowable way close to God, knows Him in a
transcendent way that has nothing to do with any of the
things that exist. The [second] is motion in accordance with
the defining cause of something unknown, according to which,
moved naturally, the soul applies its powers of knowing to all
the natural reasons of those things that are known only with
reference to cause, 8 which are the forms. The [third] is
composite motion, according to which, affected by things
outside as by certain symbols of things seen, the soul gains for
itself some impression of the meaning of things. In a noble
manner, by these [motions] [the Fathers] pass beyond this
present age of trials in accordance with the true and
immutable form of [each] natural motion, so that they make
sense, which possesses the spiritual reasons of things
perceived through the senses, ascend by means of reason up to
mind, and, in a singular way, they unite reason, which
possesses the meanings of beings, to mind in accordance with
one, simple and undivided sagacity. Thus they raise the mind,
freed and pure of any motion around any existing thing and at
rest in its own natural activity, to God, so that in this way it is
wholly gathered to God, and made wholly worthy through the