The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Fifth Commandment
06/08/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
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5. “Honour your father and your mother” (Ex. 20,12), “for it is through them that God has brought you into this life, and they, after God, are the causes of your existence.” However, Gregory introduces a twist: “thus after God you should honour them and trust them, provided that your love for them strengthens your love for God. If it does not, flee from them, yet without feelings of hatred”. This reminds me of Matt 19,29 And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life.
Gregory goes further: “Should they actually be a hindrance to you—especially with respect to the true and saving faith because they profess some other faith—you should not merely flee from them, but also hate them, and not them alone but all relatives and everyone else bound to you by affection or other union”. This echoes the following: Luke 14,26 Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. And Matt 10,35—37 For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person’s enemies will be the members of his own household. No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me.
In the very same sentence, Gregory continues: “and, indeed, the very limbs of your body and their appetites, and your body itself and its bonds with its passions.” So from a family-centered context, Gregory jumps to an ascetic imperative, thereby placing on the same plane vices and family “heresies”. We find this in scripture: Col 3,4—6 But when Christ is revealed—and he is your life—you, too, will be revealed with him in glory. That is why you must kill everything in you that is earthly: sexual vice, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; it is precisely these things which draw God’s retribution upon those who resist.
So St Paul also links vice with religious infidelity, but his recommendation, crucially, is to kill everything in you that is earthly. Thus, the drive to cleanse one’s conscienceis the same as the one to cleanse one’s family ties and as the one to cleanse our physical passions of foreign earthly elements. Just as we have seen with Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, every man and woman must overcome their separation from God and return from their exile. For Gregory Palamas, this extends to choosing those humans one lives with, including members of our own family.
Moreover, in Eastern Christianity and especially in the monastic traditions, the Father is someone in particular: the spiritual guide. The Russian orthodox call them “staretz”, who is not necessarily a priest or a member of the clergy, but who is recognised for his great piety and as a spiritual adviser by his peers.
Gregory Palamas writes: “If it is thus with natural fathers, how much more should you honour and love those who are your spiritual fathers. For they have brought you from a state of mere existence to a state of virtue and spiritual health […] and transformed you from an earthly to a heavenly being, and have made you eternal instead of temporal […].” The succession of verbs in this passage is interesting: the spiritual fathers “bring … transmit … teach … give … convert … and transform” their students, before handing them over to their “only Father and Teacher, namely Christ” as Gregory writes: Matt 23,8—10 ‘You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ.
5. “Honour your father and your mother” (Ex. 20,12), “for it is through them that God has brought you into this life, and they, after God, are the causes of your existence.” However, Gregory introduces a twist: “thus after God you should honour them and trust them, provided that your love for them strengthens your love for God. If it does not, flee from them, yet without feelings of hatred”. This reminds me of Matt 19,29 And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life.
Gregory goes further: “Should they actually be a hindrance to you—especially with respect to the true and saving faith because they profess some other faith—you should not merely flee from them, but also hate them, and not them alone but all relatives and everyone else bound to you by affection or other union”. This echoes the following: Luke 14,26 Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. And Matt 10,35—37 For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person’s enemies will be the members of his own household. No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me.
In the very same sentence, Gregory continues: “and, indeed, the very limbs of your body and their appetites, and your body itself and its bonds with its passions.” So from a family-centered context, Gregory jumps to an ascetic imperative, thereby placing on the same plane vices and family “heresies”. We find this in scripture: Col 3,4—6 But when Christ is revealed—and he is your life—you, too, will be revealed with him in glory. That is why you must kill everything in you that is earthly: sexual vice, impurity, uncontrolled passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god; it is precisely these things which draw God’s retribution upon those who resist.
So St Paul also links vice with religious infidelity, but his recommendation, crucially, is to kill everything in you that is earthly. Thus, the drive to cleanse one’s conscienceis the same as the one to cleanse one’s family ties and as the one to cleanse our physical passions of foreign earthly elements. Just as we have seen with Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, every man and woman must overcome their separation from God and return from their exile. For Gregory Palamas, this extends to choosing those humans one lives with, including members of our own family.
Moreover, in Eastern Christianity and especially in the monastic traditions, the Father is someone in particular: the spiritual guide. The Russian orthodox call them “staretz”, who is not necessarily a priest or a member of the clergy, but who is recognised for his great piety and as a spiritual adviser by his peers.
Gregory Palamas writes: “If it is thus with natural fathers, how much more should you honour and love those who are your spiritual fathers. For they have brought you from a state of mere existence to a state of virtue and spiritual health […] and transformed you from an earthly to a heavenly being, and have made you eternal instead of temporal […].” The succession of verbs in this passage is interesting: the spiritual fathers “bring … transmit … teach … give … convert … and transform” their students, before handing them over to their “only Father and Teacher, namely Christ” as Gregory writes: Matt 23,8—10 ‘You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ.