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St. Gregory of Sinai on Living Faith and the Knowledge of God
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The post presents excerpts from chapters 12-28 of St. Gregory of Sinai's "Most Profitable Chapters," translated from Greek by Bishop Benjamin (Milov) and published by Novospassky Monastery in 1999. St. Gregory, a 13th-14th century Hesychast father of Mount Athos, teaches that spiritual growth comes through the pure milk of grace rather than intellectual study alone.
The purified mind beholds God directly and receives divine thoughts, with the spirit replacing books and light replacing ink. True faith manifests in the heart and produces self-control, love, and God-given humility. The summit of Orthodoxy is the confession of the Trinity as unity without confusion and the Dyad as two natures in the one person of Christ.
St. Gregory warns that many now hold only a dead faith of words instead of living grace-filled faith expressed through keeping the commandments in the spirit. The accompanying video summary and points restate these themes, emphasizing that the law of the commandments is faith manifesting directly in the heart, and that those who seek the meaning of the commandments apart from their fulfillment imagine a shadow instead of the truth.
Key moments
- He who desires to increase the body of the commandments should labor with intense longing for the pure rational milk of motherly grace, and everyone who seeks growth unto the measure of Christ is nourished by this milk.
- By milk Solomon signified the nurturing power of the spirit and by honey its purifying power, and the apostle fed babes with milk not solid food.
- He who seeks the meaning of the commandments apart from their fulfillment is like one imagining a shadow instead of the truth, and those who do not partake of truth borrow it from foolish wisdom.
- The purified mind beholds God and receives divine thoughts from him, having the spirit in place of a book, the faculty of thought in place of a reed pen, and light in place of ink.
- The mind immerses its thought in light and through the spirit inscribes words upon pure hearts, and then understands how all shall be taught by God.
- By the law of the commandments understand faith that manifests directly in the heart, from which every commandment flows bringing enlightenment, and its fruits are self-control, love, and God-given humility.
- The summit of Orthodoxy is pure contemplation of the Trinity as unity without confusion or division and the Dyad as two natures in the one person of Christ glorified without confusion in two wills.
- For salvation grace-filled faith expressed through keeping the commandments in the spirit would have been sufficient, but ignorance has taught devout people to have a dead faith of words instead.