The Intellect

'it is not the intellect that understands, but the soul through the intellect'

St. Thomas Aquinas

'In this temple of God, in this divine dwelling place, God alone rejoices with the soul in the deepest silence. There is no reason for the intellect to stir or seek anything, for the Lord who created it wishes to give it repose here.

St. Teresa of Avila

'And that is why He also says, "Sell what you possess and give alms" (Luke 12:33), "and you will find that all things are clean for you" (Luke 11:41). This applies to those who no longer spend their time on things to do with the body, but strive to cleanse the intellect (which the Lord calls "heart") from hatred and dissipation. For these defile the intellect and do not allow it to see Christ, who dwells in it by the grace of holy baptism.

St. Maximos the Confessor

'What a house is to the air, the spiritual intellect is to divine grace. The more you get rid of materiality, the more the air and grace will come in of their own accord; and the more you increase materiality, the more they will go away.

Materiality in the case of a house consists of furnishings and food. Materiality in the case of the intellect is self-esteem and sensual pleasure.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'A pure intellect sees things correctly. A trained intelligence puts them in order. A keen hearing takes in what is said. He who is lacking in these three qualities insults the person who has spoken.

When the intellect is stripped of passions and illuminated with the contemplation of created beings, then it can enter into God and pray as it should.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'Furthermore, while the soul is withdrawn from everything and is turned within, the eye of contemplation is opened and sets itself up a ladder by which it can pass to the contemplation of God. By this contemplation the soul is set on fire for eternal things by the heavenly and divine good things it experiences, and views all the things of time from a distance and as if they were nothing. Hence when we approach God by the way of negation, we first deny him everything that can be experienced by the body, the senses and the imagination, secondly even things experienceable by the intellect, and finally even being itself in so far as it is found in created things. This, so far as the nature of the way is concerned, is the best means of union with God, according to Dionysius. And this is the cloud in which God is said to dwell, which Moses entered, and through this came to the inaccessible light.'

St. Albert the Great

'The intellect changes from one to another of three different noetic states: that according to nature, above nature, and contrary to nature. When it enters the state according to nature, it finds it is itself the cause of evil thoughts, and confesses its sins to God, clearly understanding the causes of the passions. When it is in the state contrary to nature, it forgets God's justice and fights with men, believing itself unjustly treated. But when it is raised to the state above nature, it finds the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace and the other fruits of which the Apostle speaks (cf. Gal 5:22); and it knows that if it gives priority to bodily cares it cannot remain in this state. An intellect that departs from this state falls into sin and all the terrible consequences of sin -- if not immediately, then in due time, as God's justice shall decide.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'Both the man and the woman disobeyed the command, but for different reasons. The woman was deceived, the man was not. Yet in both man and woman there occurred a disruption of order in all their powers, from the highest to the lowest: first in their intellect, then in their senses, and finally in their actions. Both fell into disobedience and succumbed to greed because both had risen in pride. In the woman, it was out of avidity and desire for what she had not; in man, out of excessive love and concern for what he had. The woman believed that if she ate, she would be exalted; Adam, relying on his own greatness and God's love, did not expect a heavy punishment: never yet had he experienced the rigor of God's severity.'

St. Bonaventure

'The intellect of a man who enjoys the love of God does not fight against things or against conceptual images of them. It battles against the passions which are linked with these images. It does not, for example, fight against a woman, or against a man who has offended it, or even against the images it forms of them; but it fights against the passions which are linked with the images.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'. . . God deigned that we have freedom to do good and evil, we are obligated by debt of justice to do good, and we cannot do it without divine grace. Whoever thinks that he can by himself accomplish something besides fault and defect is really lacking any sort of intellect.'

St. Catherine of Bologna

'Impurity of intellect consists first in having false knowledge; secondly in being ignorant of any of the universals (I refer to the human intellect, for it is the property of the angelic intellect not to be ignorant even of particulars); thirdly in having impassioned thoughts; and fourthly in assenting to sin.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'An intellect that has acquired spiritual love does not have thoughts unworthy of this love about anyone.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

'When the intellect turns its attention to the visible world, it perceives things through the medium of the senses in a way that accords with nature. And the intellect is not evil, nor is its natural capacity to form conceptual images of things, nor are the things themselves, nor are the senses, for all are the work of God. What, then, is evil? Clearly it is the passion that enters into the conceptual images formed in accordance with nature by the intellect; and this need not happen if the intellect keeps watch.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'Only the Holy Spirit can purify the intellect, for unless a greater power comes and overthrows the despoiler, what he has taken captive will never be set free (cf. Luke 11:21-22). In every way, therefore, and especially through peace of soul, we must make ourselves a dwelling-place for the Holy Spirit. Then we shall have the lamp of spiritual knowledge burning always within us; and when it is shining constantly in the inner shrine of the soul, not only will the intellect perceive all the dark and bitter attacks of the demons, but these attacks will be greatly weakened when exposed for what they are by that glorious and holy light. That is why the Apostle says: 'Do not quench the Spirit' (1 Thess. 5:19), meaning: "Do not grieve the goodness of the Holy Spirit by wicked actions or wicked thoughts, lest you be deprived of this protecting light." The Spirit, since He is eternal and life-creating, cannot be quenched; but if He is grieved - that is if He withdraws - He leaves the intellect without the light of spiritual knowledge, dark and full of gloom.'

St. Diadochos of Photiki

'When the intellect practices the virtues correctly, it advances in moral understanding. When it practices contemplation, it advances in spiritual knowledge. The first leads the spiritual contestant to discriminate between virtue and vice; the second leads the participant to the inner qualities of incorporeal and corporeal things. Finally, the intellect is granted the grace of theology when carried on wings of love beyond those two former stages, it is taken up into God and with the help of the Holy Spirit discerns -- as far as this is possible for the human intellect -- the qualities of God.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'Do not neglect the practice of the virtues and your intellect will be illumined; for it is written, "I will open for you invisible secret treasures" (Isa. 45:3. LXX).'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

'When our intellect begins to perceive the grace of the Holy Spirit, then Satan, too, importunes the soul with a sense of deceptive sweetness in the quiet times of the night, when we fall into a light kind of sleep. If the intellect at that time cleaves fervently to the remembrance of the glorious and holy name of the Lord Jesus and uses it as a weapon against Satan's deception, he gives up this trick and for the future will attack the soul directly and personally. As a result the intellect clearly discerns the deception of the evil one and advances even further in the art of discrimination.'

St. Diadochos of Photiki

'When you sin, blame your thought, not your action. For had your intellect not run ahead, your body would not have followed.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

'Sometimes the soul is kindled into love for God and, free from all fantasy and image, moves untroubled by doubt towards Him; and it draws, as it were, the body with it into the depths of that ineffable love. This may occur when the person is awake or else beginning to fall asleep under the influence of God's grace, in the way I have explained. At the same time, the soul is aware of nothing except what it is moving towards. When we experience things in this manner, we can be sure that it is the energy of the Holy Spirit within us. For when the soul is completely permeated with that ineffable sweetness, at that moment it can think of nothing else, since it rejoices with uninterrupted joy. But if at that moment the intellect conceives any doubt or unclean thought, and if this continues in spite of the fact that the intellect calls on the holy name - not now simply out of love for God, but in order to repel the evil one - then it should realize that the sweetness it experiences is an illusion of grace, coming from the deceiver with a counterfeit joy. Through this joy, amorphous and disordered, the devil tries to lead the soul into an adulterous union with himself. For when he sees the intellect unreservedly proud of its own experience of spiritual perception, he entices the soul by means of certain plausible illusions of grace, so that it is seduced by that dank and debilitating sweetness and fails to notice its intercourse with the deceiver. From all this we can distinguish between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. It is impossible, however, for someone consciously to taste the divine goodness or consciously to realize when he is experiencing the bitterness of the demons, unless he first knows with assurance that grace dwells in the depths of his intellect, while the wicked spirits cluster round only the outside of the heart. This is just what the demons do not want us to know, for fear that our intellect, once definitely aware of it, will arm itself against them with the remembrance of God.'

St. Diadochos of Photiki

'Concentrate your intellect, keep watch over your thoughts, and fight with any of them that are impassioned.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan