Saint Nikodimos > Quotes

“To each virtue there is an opposing vice; hence the wicked take vices for virtues.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“To those who do not long for it, wisdom is fear, because of the loss which they suffer through their flight from it; but in those who cleave to it, wisdom is loving desire, promoting an inner state of joyous activity.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“it is impossible for a man to achieve good through evil means.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“God has knowledge only of what is good, because He is in essence the nature and the knowledge of what is good. He is ignorant of evil because He has no capacity for evil. Only of those things for which by nature He possesses the capacity does He also possess the essential knowledge.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“Goodness, then, is what we should seek with our intelligence, long for with our desire, and keep inviolate with our incensive power.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“When someone boasts about his virtues, do not try to help him by reproving him. For a man cannot love showing off and at the same time love the truth.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“Stillness, prayer, love and self-control are a four-horsed chariot bearing the intellect to heaven.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“Practical philosophy, or the practice of the virtues, is effectuated by fear, devotion and spiritual knowledge. Natural contemplation in the Spirit is achieved through strength, counsel and understanding. Mystical theology is granted only by divine wisdom.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“49. If by nature the good unifies and holds together what has been separated, evil clearly divides and corrupts what has been unified. For evil is by nature dispersive, unstable, multiform and divisive.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“So you should continually keep in mind the great humiliation which the Lord took upon Himself in His ineffable love for us: how the divine Logos dwelt in a womb; how He took human nature upon Himself; His birth from a woman; His gradual bodily growth; the shame He suffered, the insults, vilification, ridicule and abuse; how He was scourged and spat upon, derided and mocked; the scarlet robe, the crown of thorns; His condemnation by those in power; the outcry of the unruly Jews, men of His own race, against Him: 'Away with him, away with him, crucify him' (John 19:15); the cross, the nails, the lance, the drink of vinegar and gall; the scorn of the Gentiles; the derision of the passers-by who said: 'If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe you' (cf Matt. 27:39-42); and the rest of the sufferings which He patiently accepted for us: crucifixion; death; the three-day burial; the descent into hell.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“When through his guile the devil pillages the knowledge of God inherent in nature and arrogates it to himself, he is a thief, because he is attempting to transfer devotion from God to himself. This he does by diverting the intellect from its contemplation of the spiritual essences of created things and by limiting its scope merely to their superficial visible aspects. Then, after perverting the soul's natural functions, he speciously impels it to practice what is contrary to nature: by means of what appears to be good he persuasively attaches its desire to what is evil, and by swearing falsely on the name of the Lord he leads the soul thus persuaded towards things other than those he has promised. He is a thief because he arrogates the spiritual knowledge of nature to himself; he is a perjurer because he persuades the soul to labor to no purpose for what is contrary to nature.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“In this way God's grace, our universal mother, will give us gentleness, so that we begin to imitate Christ. This constitutes the third commandment; for the Lord says, 'Blessed are the gentle" (Matt. 5:5). Thus we become like a firmly -rooted rock, unshaken by the storms and tempests of life, always the same, whether rich or poor, in ease or hardship, in honor or dishonor. In short, at every moment and whatever we do we will be aware that all things, whether sweet or bitter, pass away, and that this life is a path leading to the future life. We will recognize that, whether we like it or not, what happens, happens; to be upset about it is useless, and moreover deprives us of the crown of patience and shows us to be in revolt against the will of God.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“31. The greatest authors and instigators of evil are ignorance, self-love and tyranny. Each depends on the other two and is supported by them: from ignorance of God comes self-love, and from self-love comes tyranny over one's own kind. The devil establishes these in us when we misuse our own powers, namely our intelligence, our desire and our incensive power.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“We therefore need discrimination in all things so that we may rightly assess every form of action. For him who possesses it, discrimination is a light illuminating the right moment, the proposed action, the form it takes, strength, knowledge, maturity, capacity, weakness, resolution, aptitude, degree of contrition, inner state, ignorance, physical strength and temperament, health and misery, behavior, position, occupation, upbringing, faith, disposition, purpose, way of life, degree of fearlessness, skill, natural intelligence, diligence, vigilance, sluggishness, and so on. -Then discrimination reveals the nature of things, their use, quantity and variety, as well as the divine purpose and meaning in each word or passage of Holy Scripture.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“40. Let us use peace in the right way: repudiating our evil alliance with the world and its ruler, let us at last break off the war which we wage against God through the passions. Concluding an unbreakable covenant of peace with Him by destroying the body of sin within us (cf. Rom. 6:6), let us put an end to our hostility towards Him.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“30. The devil has deceived us by guile in a malicious and cunning way, provoking us through self-love to sensual pleasure (cf. Gen. 3:1-5). He has separated us in our wills from God and from each other; he has perverted straightforward truth and in this manner has divided humanity, cutting it up into many opinions and fantasies.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“A man is also a thief when he conceals his soul's unseen evil behind a seemingly virtuous way of life, and disguises his inner disposition with an affected innocence. Just as one kind of thief filches his audience's mind by uttering words of wisdom, so this kind pilfers the senses of those who see him by his pretense of virtue. To him it will be said: "Be ashamed of yourselves, all you who are dressed in clothes that do not belong to you' (cf. Zeph. 1:8),”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“A thief is a man who in order to deceive his hearers pretends to reverence divine principles. Although he has not come to know the true quality of these principles through his actions, he traffics in glory merely by speaking about it, hoping that in this manner he will be thought righteous by his hearers and so capture their admiration. To put it simply, he whose way of life does not match his speech, and whose inner disposition is opposed to spiritual knowledge, is a thief whose appropriation of what is not his proves him to be evil. Scripture fittingly addresses these words to him: "But to the wicked God says, "Why do you speak of my statutes and appropriate my covenant with your mouth?" ' (Ps. 50: 16. LXX).”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“Whoever lacks such experience, however, is often at a loss, being unaware that secular learning is of great help when it acts as a vehicle for the higher wisdom of the Sprit For the wisdom of the Spirit bestows inspired thoughts, while secular learning provides power of expression, so long as it is accompanied by moral judgment and by the humility that teaches us to fear both thoughtlessness and craftiness and to "judge with self-restraint', as St. Paul puts it (Rom. 12:3).”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“The genuineness of a friend is shown at a time of trial, if he shares the distress you suffer.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“although the kingdom of heaven is one, there are many different levels within it.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“As St.. Maximos has said, 'To think that one knows prevents one from advancing in knowledge." St. John Chrysostom points out that there is an ignorance which is praiseworthy: it consists in knowing consciously that one knows nothing. In addition, there is a form of ignorance that is worse than any other: not to know that one does not know. Similarly, there is a knowledge that is falsely so called, which occurs when, as St. Paul says, one thinks that one knows but does not know (cf. I Cor. 8:2).”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“for love unites those who have been divided and is able to create a single identity of will and purpose, free from faction, among many or among all; for the property of love is to produce a single will and purpose in those who seek what pertains to it.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“stillness and sit in judgment upon the thoughts that attack”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text

“Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.”
― Saint Nikodimos, The Philokalia: The Complete Text