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OS (Text) -- 2


4
He who is born blind does not see the light of the sun. In the same way, he who does not travel in sobriety does not see richly the rays of the grace from above; neither will he be freed from works (erga) and words and conceptions (ennoies) which are wicked and hated by God; and in their departure such men will not pass by the Tartarean rulers in a free manner.

5 Attention is unceasing stillness (hesychia) of the heart from every thought (logismos), Christ Jesus, the Son of God and God, ever and everlastingly and unceasingly him alone breathing and invoking; in a manly way drawn up with him in battle order against the enemies; and to him alone confessing, who alone has the authority to forgive sins; enwrapped continually, secretly, in Christ, him who alone knows the hearts, by means of invocation; the soul attempting in every way to escape the notice of men, its sweetness and the struggle within, lest the wicked one unseen prosper vice and destroy a most beautiful labour.

6 Sobriety is the steadfast fixing of thought (logismos) and its stationing in the gate of the heart [cf. Ps. 126, 5]. This thought (logismos) sees and hears the thoughts (logismoi) which are coming, thieves, what they are saying and what they are doing, the murderers; and what is the form carved and erected by the demons and endeavouring through itself to deceive the mind (nous) by means of imagination. For these things worked on diligently show us very scientifically, if we wish, the enterprise of the intelligible war.

7 The double fear knows how to give birth to it, and the abandonments by God and the pedagogical occurrences of the temptations. [It is] superintending continuity of attention in the ruling part of the man who is attempting to dam the source of evil thoughts (logismoi) and works (erga). For the sake of it also [occur] the abandonments and the unexpected temptations from God towards our correction of our way of life—and certainly in those who taste the repose of this good and who are negligent.

Continuity begets habit; habit, then, begets a certain natural density of sobriety; this sobriety meanwhile begets a contemplation of the war gentle in quality; to which thing succeeds in turn the abiding prayer (euche) of Jesus and an imageless delightful tranquillity of mind (nous) and the condition constituted from Jesus.

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