Peter of Damascus: The Divine Physician Heals the Sickness of the Soul Monday, Feb 18 2013

Just as sick people need surgery and cautery to recover the health they have lost, so we need trials, and toils of repentance, and fear of death and punishment, so that we may regain our former health of soul and shake off the sickness which our folly has induced.

The more the Physician of our souls bestows upon us voluntary and involuntary suffering, the more we should thank Him for His compassion and accept the suffering joyfully.

For it is to help us that He increases our tribulation, both through the sufferings we willingly embrace in our repentance and through the trials and punishments not subject to our will.

In this way, if we voluntarily accept affliction, we will be freed from our sickness and from the punishments to come, and perhaps even from present punishments as well.

Even if we are not grateful, our Physician in His grace will still heal us, although by means of chastisement and manifold trials. But if we cling to our disease and persist in it, we will deservedly bring upon ourselves agelong punishment.

[...] We do not all receive blessings in the same way. Some, on receiving the fire of the Lord, that is, His word, put it into practice and so become softer of heart, like wax, while others through laziness become harder than clay and altogether stone-like.

And no one compels us to receive these blessings in different ways. It is as with the sun whose rays illumine all the world: the person who wants to see it can do so, while the person who does not want to see it is not forced to, so that he alone is to blame for his lightless condition.

For God made both the sun and man’s eyes, but how man uses them depends on himself. Similarly, then, God irradiates knowledge to all and at the same time He gives us faith as an eye through which we can perceive it.

[...] Greater practice is rewarded by greater knowledge; and from the understanding thus acquired we gain control of the passions and learn how to endure our sufferings patiently.

Sufferings produce devotion to God and a recognition of His gifts and our faults. These give birth to gratitude, and gratitude inculcates the fear of God which leads us to the keeping of the commandments, to inward grief, gentleness and humility.

These three virtues produce discrimination, which…makes it possible for the intellect…to foresee coming faults and to forestall them through its experience and recollection of what has happened in the past. In this way it can protect itself against stealthy attacks.

Peter of Damascus (?12^th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 77-78.

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Peter of Damascus: “In Everything Give Thanks” and “Pray Without Ceasing” Thursday, Sep 6 2012

We should all give thanks to Him, as it is said: “In everything give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18).

Closely linked to this phrase is another of St Paul’s injunctions: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), that is, be mindful of God at all times, in all places, and in every circumstance.

For no matter what you do, you should keep in mind the Creator of all things.

When you see the light, do not forget Him who gave it to you; when you see the sky, the earth, the sea and all that is in them, marvel at these things and glorify their Creator; when you put on clothing, acknowledge whose gift it is and praise Him who in His providence has given you life.

In short, if everything you do becomes for you an occasion for glorifying God, you will be praying unceasingly.

And in this way your soul will always rejoice, as St Paul commends (cf. 1 Thess. 5:15).

For as St Dorotheos explains, remembrance of God rejoices the soul; and he adduces David as witness: “I remembered God, and rejoiced” (cf. Ps. 77:3. LXX).

God has done all things for our benefit.

We are guarded and taught by the angels; we are tempted by the demons so that we may be humbled and have recourse to God, thus being saved from self-elation and delivered from negligence.

On the one hand, we are led to give thanks to our Benefactor through the good things of this world.

[...] We are led to love Him and to do what good we can, because we feel we have a natural obligation to repay God for His gifts to us by performing good works.

It is of course impossible to repay Him, for our debt always grows larger.

On the other hand, through what are regarded as hardships we attain a state of patience, humility and hope of blessings in the age to be.

[...]  Indeed, not only in the age to be, but even in this present age these things are a source of great blessing to us.

Thus God in His unutterable goodness has arranged all things in a marvellous way for us.

And if you want to understand this and to be as you should, you must struggle to acquire the virtues so as to be able to accept with gratitude everything that comes, whether it is good or whether it appears to be bad, and to remain undisturbed in all things.

Peter of Damascus (?12^th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 173-174.

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Peter of Damascus: Reading the Scriptures so as to Become Worthy of God’s Indwelling Friday, Jul 27 2012

Spurious knowledge, or “knowledge falsely so called” (1 Tim. 6:20), is that which a man possesses when he thinks he knows what he has never known.

It is worse than complete ignorance, says St John Chrysostom, in that its  victim will not accept correction from any teacher because he thinks that this worst kind of ignorance is in fact something excellent.

For this reason the fathers say that we ought to search the Scriptures assiduously, in humility and with the counsel of experienced men, learning not merely theoretically but by putting into practice what we read; and that we ought not to inquire at all into what is passed over in silence by Holy Scripture.

Such enquiry is senseless, St Antony the Great tells us, speaking with reference to those who want to know about the future rather than renouncing any claim to such knowledge on the grounds of their unworthiness.

If God in His providence does impart such knowledge, as He did to Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Dan. 2:31-45) and Balaam (cf. Num. 23:8-10), He imparts it for the benefit of all, even if some of the recipients are unworthy of the gift.

[...] We are not told much about these things, lest we search the Scriptures simply – with our minds and then out of pride think that we have grasped something.

For the Lord commands that we should search the Scriptures above all by means of bodily and moral actions, and in this way find eternal life (cf. John 5:39-40).

In particular we should bear in mind that things have been hidden from us for our greater humility, and so that we may not be condemned for sinning knowingly.

The man who has been enabled by grace to acquire spiritual knowledge should struggle to study the divine Scriptures and this knowledge with deep dedication, humility, attention and fear of God;

for unless he does this he will be deprived of his knowledge and threatened with punishment, as unworthy of what God has given him, in the same way as Saul was deprived of his kingdom, as St Maximos explains.

But he who devotes himself to spiritual knowledge and struggles to attain it, St Maximos states, should call upon God at all times, as did David, saying: “Create in me a pure heart, God, and renew an upright Spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

In this way he may become worthy of God’s indwelling, like the apostles who received grace “at the third hour” (Acts 2:15).

For the Spirit came down on the apostles, as St Luke declares, at the third hour of the day.

Peter of Damascus (?12th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 3 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 191-192.

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Peter of Damascus: It Is Always Possible to Make a New Start by Means of Repentance Monday, Feb 27 2012

It is always possible to make a new start by means of repentance.

‘You fell,’ it is written, ‘now arise’ (cf. Prov.  24:16). And if you fall again, then rise again, without despairing at all of your salvation, no matter what happens.

So long as you do not surrender yourself willingly to the enemy, your patient endurance, combined with self-reproach, will suffice for your salvation.

‘For at one time we ourselves went astray in our folly and disobedience’, says St Paul. ‘…Yet He saved us, not because of any good things we had done, but in His mercy’ (Tit. 3:3,5).

So do not despair in any way, ignoring God’s help, for He can do whatever He wishes.

On the contrary, place your hope in Him and He will do one of these things: either through trials and temptations, or in some other way which He alone knows.

He will bring about your restoration; or He will accept your patient endurance and humility in the place of works; or because of your hope He will act lovingly towards you in some other way of which you are not aware, and so will save your shackled soul.

[...] We ought all of us always to give thanks to God for both the universal and the particular gifts of soul and body that He bestows on us.

[...] Better than them all, however, is the patient endurance of afflictions; and he who has been found worthy of this great gift should give thanks to God in that he has been all the more blessed.

For he has become an imitator of Christ, of His holy apostles, and of the martyrs and saints.

He has received from God great strength and spiritual knowledge, so that he may voluntarily abstain from pleasure and may readily embrace hardship through the eradication of his own will and his rejection of unholy thoughts, and may thus always do and think what is in accordance with God’s will.

Those who have been found worthy of using things as they ought to be used should in all humility give heartfelt thanks to God, for by His grace they have been freed from what is contrary to nature and from the transgression of the commandments.

We, however…should tremble and in all gratitude should give heartfelt thanks to our  Benefactor, astonished at His unutterable forbearance, though we have disobeyed His commandments, misused His creation and rejected His gifts.

He endures our ingratitude and does not cease to confer His blessings on us, waiting until our last breath for our conversion and repentance.

Peter of Damascus (?12^th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 3 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 170-173.

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