Concerning Thoughts
An Excerpt from Exomologetarion (A Manual of Confession)
by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite
Just as so-called diagnostic physicians not only know how to treat external and
visible wounds of the body, but also, by measuring the pulse, they learn the
internal and invisible maladies of the heart, of the bowels, and the other
unseen workings of the human body, and are therefore able to treat them.
Likewise, Spiritual Father, it is not enough for you only to know how to treat
the external passions of the soul, those acts and deeds and effects of sin, but
it is also necessary to know through the confession of the penitent the
internal wounds of his soul, which are the hidden passions in his heart and the
passionate and evil thoughts, and so treat them with great scrutiny and care.
For this reason we thought it good to inform you a little about some general
and vital matters concerning thoughts.
How many types of thoughts there are
Know then, Spiritual Father, that in general, all thoughts are of three types:
some thoughts are good, some thoughts are vain and idle, and some thoughts are
bad. Concerning good thoughts, it is not necessary to discuss here in detail
how and from what aspects of the soul they arise, for we are satisfied that
these are good and therefore beneficial and salvific to the soul. We say this
only, Spiritual Father, that if someone says to you during confession that he
has good thoughts, you should counsel him to take care to be humble and to
never trust in himself and become prideful: 1) because a person on his own is
not able to do a good work or say a good word or even think a good thought
without the power and help of God: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God" (2 Cor. 3:5);
2) because the devil is so cunning and evil, that many times he brings evil
from good and through good thoughts throws those who are not careful into
self-esteem, and conceit, and haughtiness, from which is caused the destruction
and death of the soul. So says Paul: "Sin, that it might appear sin, working
death in me by that which is good" (Rom. 7:13); 3) because man never remains in
one state, but is so changing and so quickly alters that, with his thoughts, in
one instant he is found in Paradise and in another instant he is in hell, as
one Saint said. And St. Isaac says: "By the mind we improve, and by the mind we
become unprofitable,"[1] hence the one who today has good thoughts may very
well have evil ones tomorrow; and 4) tell him that the devil has greater envy
and wages a fiercer battle against those who have good thoughts, so that he
should have more fear and greater care over himself.
What vain thoughts are and how they are corrected
Those thoughts which are not profitable unto the purpose and aim of salvation,
as much as to our own soul as to that of our neighbor, and do not look to the
necessary requirements and constitution of our body, but to the superfluous and
more-than-necessary things, even if they are good, I call vain and idle.
According to the Shorter Rules of Basil the Great, vain and idle
thoughts arise from the idleness of the intellect that is neither engaged in
necessary things, nor believes that God is present and searches our hearts and
thoughts: "Mental aberration comes from idleness of a mind not occupied in
necessary things. For the mind is idle and careless from lack of belief in the
presence of God Who tries the heart and reins… He who does this and what is
like to it will never dare or have leisure to think of any of those things that
do not conduce to the edification of faith, even if they seem to be good."[2]
Concerning these vain and idle thoughts, I say, advise the penitent not to
allow his intellect to meditate upon or ponder over them: 1) because just as we
have to give an account for idle words on the day of judgment, as the Lord
said: "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Mt. 12:36), so likewise we
have to give an account on the day of judgment for idle and vain thoughts, and
indeed, if we willfully left our intellect to go after them.[3] And it is
thence apparent, because the Lord reproaches and condemns those servants who
remain idle: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" (Mt. 20:6); 2) because those
vain thoughts deprive us from profitable and salvific thoughts, which we are
able to have instead of them; and 3) because these idle thoughts are in
themselves evil, as they are the cessation of good and become the beginning of
evil, and as giving way and permission to the devil to sow in our idle
intellect the tares of evil thoughts. Thus does Gregory the Theologian confirm
this: "May evil and its original cause, the devil, be destroyed. For while we
were idle, the evil one planted tares in us (cf. Mt. 13:25), in order that the
neglect of good might become the beginning of evil, just as the beginning of
darkness is the retreat of light."[4]
The causes of bad thoughts
Know that, in general, bad thoughts derive from two causes,[5] one external and
the other internal. The external cause of bad thoughts is the sensible objects
of the five senses, that is, those things seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and
touched, like bad and indecent and theatrical sights, obscene words and lewd
songs, scents and colognes and perfumes, luscious foods and pleasurable drinks,
fine and soft clothes and comfortable mattresses. All these things cause
passionate and hedonistic thoughts in the soul, and then sinful and
death-bearing thoughts. Thus, the Prophet Jeremiah on one hand says: "Death has
come up into our windows" (Jer. 21:9), the windows meaning the five senses. On
the other hand, Gregory the Theologian rather interpreted this saying in
broader terms: "And it is kept until the fifth day (that is, the sacrificed
Paschal Lamb), perhaps because the Victim, of Whom I am speaking, purifies the
five senses, from which comes falling into sin, and around which the war rages,
inasmuch as they are open to the incitements to sin."[6]
The internal causes of bad thoughts
The internal causes of bad thoughts are four:
1. The imagination, which is like a second sense and receives and records all
of the images and perceptions which enter through the five senses, that is, of
those things touched, tasted, smelled, and especially of those things heard and
seen, is called an internal sense, because it portrays the things sensed so
grossly and clearly, just as the external senses. It is a common sense,
according to Aristotle, because it receives commonly the experiences of all the
senses; and this naturally, because just as lines are disconnected at the
perimeter of a circle but converge at its center, so also the five senses,
which are disconnected on the outside, converge in the imagination of the soul,
but they converge without confusion. So then, from the imagination are born bad
thoughts in the soul, making it sense them as really present and to noetically
conceptualize through memory those things that it should not have outwardly
seen or heard or smelled or tasted or touched, even though it is sensibly far
from these things and is settled peaceably in a deserted place. For this
reason, in his tetrastich Iambic Poetry, the Theologian said:
"A vision caught me, but was checked.
I set up no idol of sin.
Was an idol set up? The experience was avoided.
These are the degrees of deceit of the adversary."[7]
Do you hear? He says an idol of sin was set up and was not recorded in the
imagination. The soul escaped the experience at once, that is, it escaped from
consenting to the thoughts and from the committal of sin.
2. The passions are a cause of bad thoughts, which are generally two: love and
hate, or pleasure and pain, for we are moved passionately either because we
love something as pleasurable, or because we hate it as painful.[8]
Specifically, the passions are divided into the three aspects of the soul: the
intelligent, the appetitive, and the incensive. The passions of the intelligent
aspect, according to Gregory of Sinai, are unbelief, blasphemy, evilness,
curiosity, double mindedness, gossip, love of applause, pretension, pride, and
others. The passions of the appetitive aspect are fornication, adultery,
debauchery, greed, unchastity, incontinence, love of pleasure, self-love, and
others. The passions of the incensive aspect are anger, bitterness, shouting,
audacity, revenge, and others. From these passions of the soul, then, bad
thoughts are generally and immediately born, these also being divided into
three categories like the passions. From the passions of the intelligent aspect
of the soul come bad thoughts, which are generally given the name blasphemous
thoughts. From the passions of the appetitive aspect come the so-called obscene
thoughts. From the passions of the incensive aspect come the so-called evil
thoughts. For this reason the above-mentioned Gregory of Sinai said that: "The
passions are the causes of thoughts,"[9] and Abba Isaac also calls the passions
assaults, because they attack within the soul and stir up passionate
thoughts.[10]
3. An internal and initial cause of bad thoughts is the demons, for those
accursed ones, being light spirits and found superficially around the heart,
speak there through internal suggestion and whisper softly from inside all the
blasphemous thoughts, all the obscene thoughts, all the evil thoughts, and
simply all the bad thoughts. They train the imagination with obscene and impure
idols from the senses, as much as when a person is sleeping as when awake. From
these the aforementioned passions in the three aspects of the soul are stirred
up and make the wretched soul to be a cave of thieves and a slum of the
passions. For this reason the abovementioned Gregory of Sinai said: "Occasions
give rise to thoughts, thoughts to imaginations, imaginations to the passions,
and the passions give entry to the demons… but no one thing in the sequence is
self-operative: each is prompted and activated by the demons. The imagination
is not wrought into an image, passion is not energized, without unperceived
hidden demonic impulsion,"[11] and in another place he says: "Thoughts are the
promptings of the demons and precursors of the passions."[12] In agreement with
this, St. Isaac says, "I hold as a truth, nevertheless, that our intellect,
without the mediation of the holy angels, is able of itself to be moved toward
the good uninstructed; however, our senses (the interior ones, that is) cannot
come to know evil or be incited by it without the mediation of the demons."[13]
4. An internal cause of thoughts, however remote, is the passionate and
corrupted condition of human nature which was brought about by the ancestral
sin.[14] This condition remains in our nature also after baptism, not as
ancestral sin as such (for this is removed through baptism, according
to Canon 120 of Carthage), but as a consequence of the ancestral sin, for the
exertion and test of our free will, and in exchange for greater crowns and
rewards, according to the theologians. For after the fall the intellect lost
its innocent memory and thought which it had fixed formerly only on the good;
but now when it wishes to remember and think upon the good, it is immediately
dispersed and also thinks upon the bad. For this reason the divine Gregory of
Sinai said: "The source and ground of our thoughts is the fragmented state of
our memory. The memory was originally simple and one-pointed, but as a result
of the fall its natural powers have been perverted: it has lost its
recollectedness in God and has become compound instead of simple, diversified
instead of one-pointed."[15]
Endnotes
Note: Numbering does not match the book.
[1] The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Boston, 1984,
Homily 69, p. 338. (Translator's note: Hereafter, referred to as Ascetical
Homilies. It should be noted that, when quoting from this work of St.
Isaac, St. Nikodemos references the Greek printed text of 1770 by Nikephoros
Theotokis which numbers the Homilies differently than the English language
translation of Holy Transfiguration Monastery. See the Table of Homily
Equivalences in the Holy Transfiguration Monastery edition, pp. cxiii-cxv.)
[2] Regulæ Brevius 21, PG 31, 1097B-1097C; tr. The Ascetic Works of
Saint Basil.
[3] Translator's note: Concerning thoughts, St. Mark the Ascetic says: "Never
belittle the significance of your thoughts, for not one escapes God's notice" (On
the Spiritual Law 89); and again: "When you sin, blame your thought,
not your action. For had your intellect not run ahead, your body would not have
followed" (ibid. 119); (GrPhilokalia, pp. 95; 96; tr. The
Philokalia, v. 1, pp. 116; 118).
[4] Oratio 19, 14, PG 35, 1060C.
[5] Concerning bad thoughts, see the footnote of Canon 2 of the Faster.
[6] Oratio 45, 14, PG 36, 641C; tr. NPNF (V2-07) p. 428. (Translator's
note: For a thorough discussion on the guarding of the senses, the imagination,
the intellect, and the heart, see the work by St. Nikodemos, Symbouleutikon
Encheiridion, and the English language translation, Nicodemos of the
Holy Mountain: A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, CWS, New York, 1989.)
[7] Carmina Moralia 33, PG 37, 932A-933A.
[8] Translator's note: St. Maximos the Confessor says: "Let us reject the
pleasure and pain of this present life with what strength we have, and so free
ourselves entirely from all thoughts of the passions and all machinations of
the demons. For we love the passions because of pleasure and avoid virtue
because of pain" (Third Century on Various Texts of Theology 52, GrPhilokalia,
p. 369; tr. First Century of Various Texts, The Philokalia, v. 2, p.
175). On the interconnectedness of pleasure and pain, see especially Sixth
Century on Various Texts of Theology 33-50, GrPhilokalia, pp.
412-416; Fourth Century of Various Texts, The Philokalia, v.2, pp.
243-248.
[9] On Commandments and Doctrines 62, GrPhilokalia, p. 886.
[10] Ascetical Homilies, Homily 62.
[11] On Commandments and Doctrines 70, GrPhilokalia, p. 887;
tr. The Philokalia, v. 4, p. 224.
[12] Ibid. 67, GrPhilokalia, p. 886; tr. The Philokalia,
v. 4, p. 223.
[13] Ascetical Homilies, Homily 28, p. 138.
[14] Translator's note: St. Mark the Ascetic says: "When evil thoughts become
active within us, we should blame ourselves and not ancestral sin" (No
Righteousness by Works 120, GrPhilokalia, p. 106; tr. The
Philokalia, v. 1, p. 135). And St. Diadochos of Photiki writes: "For
although baptism removes from us the stain resulting from sin, it does not
thereby heal the duality of our will immediately, neither does it prevent the
demons from attacking us or speaking deceitful words to us. In this way we are
led to take up the weapons of righteousness, and to preserve through the power
of God what we could not keep safe through the efforts of our soul alone" (On
Spiritual Knowledge 78, GrPhilokalia, p. 225; tr. The
Philokalia, v. 1, p. 280).
[15] On Commandments and Doctrines 60, GrPhilokalia, p. 886;
tr. The Philokalia, v. 4, p. 222.
From Exomologetarion (A Manual of Confession), by St.
Nikodemos the Hagiorite (Thessaloniki, Greece: 2006,
Uncut Mountain Press). Order today from
Uncut Mountain Supply! Posted on 10 March, 2006 (n.s.).
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