On Union with God and the Life of Theoria

Every living being, by the superior activity of its nature, partakes of rest and of a corresponding pleasure, and in this it rejoices and clings to it on that account. So too the human being, possessing nous and having thinking as his natural life, takes the greatest delight and comes to partake of rest when he thinks upon the higher things—the things one may wish to call either good or beautiful—concerning himself. This truly comes about when one has God in one's nous and contemplates His virtues, since He is the supreme and beyond-nous intelligible, and the one who supremely loves the human being beyond nous, and who prepares supreme rewards and goods and beauties beyond nous for His own—and these, above all, eternally.

If every begetting is thought to make the one begotten resemble the begetter, as the Lord said, that that which is begotten of the flesh is flesh, and that which is begotten of the Spirit is spirit, then if one begotten of the Spirit is Spirit, it is clear that he also will be God, according to the begetting Spirit, since the Spirit by whom the participant in the Spirit has been begotten by grace is true God. But if such a one is God, he would plainly be contemplative according to the likeness, from his contemplation, for it has been said, “God is God.” Therefore, the one who does not contemplate has either not yet attained the spiritual begetting and communion, or, having attained it, darkens his power of vision through ignorance, and turns away without discipline the intelligible divine rays of the Sun of righteousness from the nous, and though he has become a participant in contemplative power, he is deprived of its energy to his misfortune, even while he is indeed striving toward holiness.

All things that exist have received from the one who made them their motion according to reason and their natural property, whence also, accordingly, the nous. But the motion of the nous has the character of being perpetual, and what is perpetual is infinite and indeterminate. Therefore, beyond its own proper worth and what properly belongs to it by nature, it will be moved in a finite or determinate manner, if indeed it should be moved among finite and determinate things. For it is impossible that a thing be finite and determinate, while the motion of the nous toward it or around it should proceed to infinity. Thus the ever-moving character of the nous, being in a certain way infinite and indeterminate, requires something both according to reason and proper to itself, toward which it may be moved. Yet truly, nothing is infinite and indeterminate in reality except God, who alone is by nature and properly the One. Therefore, it is toward the One who is properly infinite, God, that the nous must be stretched, lifted up, and moved; for this is what it is by nature chiefly disposed to.

The things contemplated concerning God are infinite and indeterminate; yet even in these the nous does not have complete delight while seeking the One from whom they are, since each thing by nature delights in what is like itself. Since the nous is one in essence, though it stretches forth in many acts of understanding and, as it were, is set in motion toward God, who is one in essence and manifold in energy, it is incapable of complete delight until it comes, through the Spirit, into that which is by nature indeterminate, as though passing beyond the multitude. Therefore the nous has complete natural delight in God alone. Moreover, among existing things each especially delights naturally in what is its own. It is therefore the natural property of the nous—above all, since in God alone the one simply and indeterminately is—to be in Him alone, and to be moved, and to be stretched forth, and to become, and to delight completely.

Every movement of any creature, and indeed even of the nous itself, hastens to come into standing and rest, and naturally longs both to attain standing and to become at rest according to it, and finally, in what is akin to it, for rest appropriate to the creature. But the nous, being one of created things, is not able, while moving among created things, to partake of standing and rest; for since the creature, having fittingly received limitation, is inactive, the ever-moving nature of the nous would be left without what is suitable to it, and in an unceasing search it will not cease moving, and least of all will it in any way have rest or attain its proper end, since the ever-moving is not able to have with itself, according to what lies before it, that which is enclosed within the defined and limited, seeing that the natural property of the nous is manifestly ever-moving. Therefore it is not reasonable to find rest, nor for the nous to come to a standstill, when it is situated among created things.