As we saw in the post on St Gregory’s “Letter in Defence,” [https://www.fryuhanna.com/2024/12/21/st-gregory-palamas-defence/] one of the saints to whom Gregory appealed as an authority in support of his own position, was St Neilos the Ascetic. A good deal is known about him. To be brief, what is significant for us is that he was a pupil and a warm defender of St John Chrysostom. He travelled along the entire Eastern Mediterranean coast, from Constantinople to Egypt. St Maroun, who was well-beloved of Chrysostom, must have died by 423, and Neilos did not pass away before about 430. So we can say with confidence that St Maroun was an older contemporary of both Chrysostom and Neilos, and that all three of them belonged to the same spiritual current. The fact that both Ss Maroun and Neilos were in contact with Chrysostom raises the possibility that the first two also knew of each other. Any connection between them is speculative, but it is, I think, fair to believe that the spiritual writings of St Neilos (one of which, the “Ascetic Discourse,” is in The Philokalia) express the atmosphere in which St Maroun lived and worked.
Let me be clear: St Neilos is writing at a time when the ascetic way of life is being established, and is still under attack. St Maroun was one of the innovators of that way of life. They are thus part of the same movement. A monastery by the name of “House of St Maroun” is opened near Apamaea, which had been a centre of late Platonic thought. St Dionysius the Areopagite, thought to have been from Syria, produces his Christian and Platonic masterpieces within a hundred years of St Maroun’s death, and these are translated into Syriac in modern day Israel, and the Maronites retain an anaphora of Dionysius which enshrines his mystical theology in our liturgy. It is a fair case for the existence of a mystic tradition, probably closely related to Platonism, in the early Maronite Church.
Let us now consider that lengthy text, “the Ascetic Discourse.” It both opens and closes with reference to the wrong-headed opinions of other people: first, at pp.200-201 “many Greeks and not a few Jews” (i.e. non-Christians), and at the end, pp.250-251, all who defame the ascetic life of the Christian monks. In accordance with the rules of these texts, the middle section, pp.222-228, speaks about the needs for an ascetic to find a true teacher for the “proper order and sequence” of the ascetical life must be observed and followed from the start (222). It is then, not only a general defence of the ascetic life, but also an encouragement to find a good guide and to live such a life. That then, is the purpose of the Ascetic Discourse.
It includes an extraordinary amount of biblical interpretation, where some events in sacred history are seen as historically true and some are seen as not, but rather as symbols of the spiritual life. Referring to Elijah in 1 Kings 19, Neilos says that a person can indeed live without food for forty days if God wills (208). Here and elsewhere, he says that Scripture is to be taken literally, unless there is a discrepancy which makes us think that it must not be taken literally.
Thus, when 2 Samuel 4 says that Ish-bosheth was killed while asleep, when he had a woman winnowing what was guarding his door, Neilos interprets this as meaning: “… when bodily senses predominate, everything in man is asleep: the intellect, the soul, and the senses.” But significantly: “it is clear that this story in Scripture should not be taken literally. For how could a king have a woman as doorkeeper …” St Neolis explicitly states: “… improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truth they signify.” (210) Here the message is that the king Ish-bosheth represents the intellect in man, and the doorkeeper represents the senses, and when the reason is occupied with sensory things (the winnowing); and compares that to Abraham sitting at the door in Genesis 18, to allow in divine thoughts but “barring the way to worldly cares.”
It is not only historical verses which are interpreted this way. Leviticus 11 says that whatever goes upon all fours is unclean. Neilos says that this law refers to a person who trusts in the senses, and whose intellect is seduced into worrying about them. (209)
Here we have what is, I think, the essence of Neilos’ practical teaching: it is an awakening of the attention so that sensory impressions are received but not allowed to distract the reason, which is now free to seek to attain stillness, and thus to ponder divine matters.
I shall have to abbreviate the path by which the saint arrives at his conclusion, but that is:
those who have only recently escaped from the agitation of the world should be advised to practise stillness … They should take care not add new images to their old fantasies. … though hard to practise, stillness will in time free the intellect from being disturbed by impure thoughts. … They should keep their intelligence in a state of profound calm, far from all that irritates it, and should refrain from talking with men of frivolous character. They should embrace solitude, the mother of wisdom. (230-231)
This emphasis on stillness shows how St Gregory Palamas was correct to contend that there was a substantial continuity between his hesychasm, and the preceding ascetic tradition.
It would be wrong to understate the effect to which Neilos uses Scripture. I should say ” returns to” rather than “uses” because I do not believe he is trying to explain Scripture away, but rather, he has come to certain insights from his spiritual practices, and then, when he reads the Bible, he finds that his new understanding of what we might call the psychology of the spirit fits the terms of Scripture very well, and enables him to make sense of otherwise obscure and puzzling passages. It also facilitates the Christian reading the Old Testament. Even the Law breaks into new meaning. Of course, in this he was preceded by St Paul, and more recently by St John Chrysostom, his teacher, whose approach to the Bible broke the ground which Neilos farmed.
