The teaching of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain on the fruits of smart work in the context of the hesychast ascetic tradition

St. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain (1749–1809), the most famous of the Greek church writers of the era of Turkish rule, is revered throughout the Orthodox world not only as an outstanding theologian, exegete, hymnographer, publisher of patristic texts, but also as a great teacher of mental prayer. And the reason for this is not only his work on the publication of the famous patristic anthology - the Greek “Philokalia”, to which he prefaced with a wonderful preface, where the theological foundations of smart work are comprehensively set out. Even the first biographer of the Saint, Hieromonk Euthymius, his “brother” (παράδελφος, i.e., who took monastic vows simultaneously with St. Nicodemus and from the same elder), described his daily activities this way: “...Not only from monasteries, and monasteries, and cells, but also many [secular] Christians came to him from different places to see [him] and receive consolation from Nicodemus in their sorrows. So he often suffered from us in some way - he did not suffer because he was burdened by his brothers: how [could this be] when he spent his whole life compiling and interpreting [books] necessary for the benefit of his Christian brothers?! No, I say, not because of this, but because it hindered him in this divine work, and because of the love that he had for engaging in divine and mental prayer night and day. ... All hours of the day were devoted to these two activities: either he interpreted some thought of the Divine Scripture, or bowed his head on the left side of his chest and brought his mind to his heart and intelligently cried out: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. And that’s why he often told us: “Let’s go, my fathers, to some uninhabited island to get rid of the world” 1 . It is not surprising that one of the most common iconographic images of the saint represents him sitting at his desk, with a pen in his hand, but writing the following words in an open book: καρδίας σου” (ΕΣ 176), i.e. "May Jesus be sweet the teaching of your heart...", or "Τὸν Ἰησοῦν νοῶν μὲ τὸν νοῦν σου, τὸν Ἰησοῦν ποθῶν καὶ ἀγαπῶν διὰ τῆς θελήσεως”, i.e. “Thinking about Jesus with your mind, desiring Jesus and loving Jesus with your will...” (ΕΣ 165). Both of these passages are borrowed from the book in which St. Nicodemus most systematically expounded the doctrine of smart doing. Its short name is “Admonitory Manual” 2, and it was, according to the first biographers of the saint, the already mentioned Euthymius 3 and Onuphrius Iviritus 4, written precisely on the uninhabited island - Skiropoul. It is in this book that the teachings about the fruits of smart work are presented in great detail, to which, in fact, this message is devoted. However, before we begin to analyze this teaching based on the material of this, as well as a number of other works of St. Nicodemus, it seems necessary to say a few words about the theoretical premises of smart doing, which play a fairly important role in his “system,” as well as about the features of the Svyatogorets approach to teaching mental prayer, which comes into stark contrast with what we observe, say, in the Russian hesychast tradition. For Rev. Nicodemus, smart doing is based on two most important premises: 1) on the idea of ​​the heart as the spiritual and physical center of the human being and the “organ of the mind.” “...The heart in a person is like a certain center in which all feelings, all bodily forces and all the forces of the soul are united. The heart is a center considered threefold, as a natural center, as a supernatural center and as an unnatural center” (ΕΣ. 150) - the latter, of course, in the case when a person leads a life “against nature,” that is, sinful. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain, considering the human heart as a “supernatural center,” gives it such importance because “the supernatural grace of God, which we have received through holy baptism, is promised in the heart, as on the pulpit and throne...” (ΕΣ. 154) He supports his statement with the words of Holy Scripture and patristic quotations, among which there is this: “Great Gregory of Thessaloniki, interpreting the saying of the Great Macarius - “So, there must remain attention, where grace has inscribed the laws of the Spirit,” says: ““There” - where? In dominion, on the throne of grace, where mind and all thoughts of the soul - that is, in the heart" 5; this is unanimously confessed by the rest of the divine fathers, and especially those called sober (Νηπτικῶν)” (ΕΣ. 155). 2) on the idea that the essence of the mind resides in the heart, and what we usually call the mind is its energy (and the instrument of this action is the brain). It follows that “bringing the mind into the heart” is, as it were, a unification of the action of the mind with its essence. St. Nicodemus writes about it this way: “... Since Your Eminence has freed the action of his mind (the instrument of which [action] ... is the brain) from all external worldly things through the storage of the organs of senses and imagination ... then now it is necessary to turn it to its own essence and power, or, what is the same, it is appropriate to return the mind to the heart, which is the organ of the essence and power of the mind... and it is wise to contemplate the entire inner man” (ΕΣ. 158). It is this “theory” that determines “practice”: mental doing, mental prayer turn out to be necessary for restoring the unity of the human composition, and within the framework of such a theory, for obvious reasons, the presence of the mind in the heart seems natural, and not at all violative of nature. Since the instructions on mental prayer taught by St. Nicodemus to its addressee, contain elements that, as a rule, are absent in the manuals compiled by domestic ascetics, it seems important to us, before moving on to considering the fruits of prayer and the so-called prayer actions,” to turn to the contradiction that has already been noted more than once by researchers 6, existing between the approach to teaching mental prayer, expressed in the works of Russian saints, and in particular the contemporary St. Nicodemus - St. Paisius (Velichkovsky), and the themes that we find in almost all the books of St. Nicodemus, starting with his famous preface to the Philokalia. The fact is that, for example, Rev. Paisius considered it unacceptable to teach the so-called “artistic” method of mental prayer, which involved combining prayer with breathing and bringing the mind into the heart, to laypeople and novice monks (without denying the benefit and importance for them of the oral or even mental Jesus Prayer, performed without special techniques) 7 . For a person who has not yet been cleansed of passions, whose heart, in the terminology of the hesychast fathers, has not yet been “opened,” it is dangerous to try to enter the heart; It is especially dangerous to do this without an experienced leader. St. Paisius feared that a person devoid of experienced knowledge, even with the guidance of the patristic writings, would accept various kinds of “effects” of prayer (no matter: natural or unnatural) for the action of grace and thereby will fall into delusion 8. But such concerns are never expressed to the Venerable. Nicodemus. On the contrary: not only his “Admonitory Guide” is addressed to the bishop living in the world, but also in the preface to the “Philokalia” he says that mental prayer is necessary for everyone - both for laity and for monks. And in the “Admonitional Manual” in a special paragraph of the 10th chapter (“On that which is not [only not] inappropriate, but [on the contrary], it is appropriate to teach those who are in the world mental prayer”) St. Nicodemus consistently refutes possible accusations against him: “Yes, I know that perhaps some will blame me for writing about [things] characteristic of monks living outside [this] world, of a bishop who is found in the world and among the worldly. But whether they accuse me of this fairly or unfairly - I will remain silent; and I’ll just say that I did this: 1) for the sake of the greatest, as I said, love that I have for Your Eminence; After all, friends tend to reveal their secrets to each other... 2) because God is not a body in order to be content and at peace with the services and worship brought to Him through the body (although those who worship Him, as those who wear a material body, have a need for bodily worship and service to the Divine), but He is Spirit and Mind, and the First of all spirits and minds; from which it follows that He is more pleased and at peace with the services and worships brought to Him through the mind and spirit, as more appropriate and characteristic of Him by nature... 3) Because the great Apostle Paul commands all Christians in general, without any exception, to pray unceasingly: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). And this continuity is achieved mainly by heartfelt prayer... 4) Because the divine Sinaite Gregory not only taught this work to the monks of the Holy Mountain, but, starting from the Mountain, went, teaching this work [mental prayer], to Wallachia. And the shining light of Thessalonica, Gregory, Only in many of his conversations does he encourage all Christians to pray intelligently in their hearts, but he also turns a whole word in the form of a message to John and Theodore, philosophers living in the world, in which he reveals to them all the sacraments of sacred prayer and sobriety. And 5) because the divine Diadochos says that the devil does not at all want people to know and believe that he is found in the heart and from there takes up arms against them, but wants them to believe that he takes up arms against them from the outside... so that, having learned about this, they do not begin to lead with him through the heartfelt remembrance of Jesus Christ... Therefore, I showed the machinations of the devil, so that people would find out about them and take up arms against him with the help of heartfelt prayer. Look at this both in the introduction and at the end of the Philokalia” (ΕΣ. 179–181). Thus, Rev. Nicodemus believes that he is following the tradition laid down by the great hesychasts of the 14th century, St. Gregory of Sinaite and St. Gregory Palamas. However, it should be noted that nowhere, neither in the writings of Gregory the Sinaite himself, nor in his famous Life, written by St. Callistus I, Patriarch of Constantinople, does not indicate that the monk taught smart work (even smart work in general, not to mention “artistic techniques”!) to the laity; all his works imply a monastic audience, and the recently published “Chapters on the Four Hierarchies” (by the way, known to all Slavic-speaking monasticism since the Middle Ages in a translation into Church Slavonic, carried out among the disciples of Sinaite...) generally affirm monasticism as a special hierarchy in the Church, the degree of which is distributed according to spiritual gifts, acquired, of course, on the path of heartfelt prayer 9 . As for St. Gregory Palamas, then, again, his numerous calls to the laity to pray unceasingly, rather speak of the Jesus Prayer, vocal and mental, in the spirit in which this is implied by St. Paisia; in any case, detailed instructions on methods of mental prayer, clearly addressed to the laity, in the works of St. We won't find Gregory. However, Rev. Nicodemus, undoubtedly, considered the main book about the Jesus Prayer to be the Philokalia (he certainly refers to it whenever mental prayer is mentioned in his writings and publications, to sends it to him, citing specific pages... 10 ), considers it possible recommend this primarily monastic anthology including laymen 11. However, what has been said does not mean at all that the approach of St. Nicodemus turned out to be alien to the “Paisian” tradition: the “Exhortatory Manual”, soon after its first publication, was translated into Romanian by the disciples of St. Paisius of Nyametsky 12... So, after all the warnings (as it seems to us, necessary), let us turn to the teaching of St. Nicodemus about the fruits of smart work, which, in fact, is the main subject of this message. In the 10th chapter of the “Admonitory Manual,” dedicated to guarding the mind and heart, and therefore to mental prayer, which allows this guarding to take place, St. Nicodemus, in a separate paragraph, lists the various fruits of mental prayer, giving them a proper explanation. However, if we talk not only about the immediate fruits generated by attentive prayer, but also about the so-called “prayer actions” (as they are called in Russian ascetic writing) or “the effects of prayer” (as modern researchers often call them), then some of these “prayer actions” are mentioned by Nicodemus Svyatogorets even earlier - when expounding the “artistic method of prayer.” Thus, explaining why moderate restraint of breathing is needed during prayer, he also gives the following arguments: “With this slight restraint of breath, the heart is distressed and oppressed, and therefore sick (πονεῖ), not receiving its natural air; the mind, with the help of this method, more easily gathers and returns to the heart: both because of the pain (πόνος) and suffering (ὀδύνη) of the heart, and because of the pleasure (ἡδονή), which is born from the ardent and living remembrance of God. For God, who is remembered, gives pleasure and joy to those who remember, according to who said: “I remembered God and rejoiced” (Ps. 76:3). Since, in which member pain or pleasure is felt, the mind naturally turns and gathers there, according to the philosopher Aristotle” (ΕΣ. 161–162). Here we encounter two important themes at once: the theme of “pain” (πόνος) and “warmth” (θέρμη), generated by smart doing. Pain that attracts and gathers the mind, pain that accompanies diligent mental-heart prayer, will later take a special place in the teaching about mental prayer, recorded in such interesting monuments of the 19th century as the book “Sober Contemplation” 13 written by the anonymous Athonite hesychast 13 and “The Leader of Piety” by John Simeonidis 14. But this same theme is extremely important for the hesychast tradition of the 14th century. Suffice it to remember St. Gregory the Sinaite, who quotes the famous words of St. Ephraim the Syrian: “πόνον πόνει ἐμπόνως, ἵνα διαδράσῃς τῶν ματαίων πόνων τοὺς πόνους" 15. Also, the theme of “warmth” is developed in the works of St. Gregory Palamas, St. Gregory of Sinaite and Callistus and Ignatius of Xanthopouls in sufficient detail. Refers to St. Gregory and etc. Nicodemus, and he points to the existence of a “calm” warmth, cheerful, joy-creating, gathering together the mind and heart and at the same time driving away, like flies, the pretexts of evil thoughts, and “restless” warmth, plunging into confusion and generated by the recollection of passions and evil thoughts: such warmth only scatters the mind, and does not at all collect (ΕΣ. 162. Σημ. 1). Nevertheless, following the above mentioned fathers, St. Nicodemus does not at all consider the warmth that arises during the exercise of mental prayer to be a grace-filled phenomenon. However, he notes: “...the warmth that is born naturally from sacred prayer, sometimes later becomes supernatural from the grace of the Holy Spirit, when it exceeds the measure and laws of nature...” (Ibid.). It is very interesting that Rev. Nicodemus refers to nothing other than the mysterious “Epistle to Menas” by St. Gregory Palamas: “...for this one (i.e. Palamas) says in a letter to Mina: “What kind of fire scourges demons and puts them to flight, as John, the divine father, says? Is it not our Lord Jesus Christ who is kindled within at the remembrance of Him? The stench of the Most High is nothing other than the warmth of the Spirit, which sometimes emanates inexpressibly from the nostrils...” (Ibid.) 16. The pain that occurs in a heart crushed by the aforementioned “slight holding of breath,” according to St. Nicodemus, contributes to the fact that a person spews out the poisoned bait of pleasure and sin, swallowed by him before, and also to the fact that all the powers of the soul come into unity and return to the mind, and through the mind - to God, “which is wonderful to say” (ΕΣ. 163). It is especially emphasized that it is the beginners who need such restraint of breathing in order to avoid wandering of the mind. As mentioned above, the actual fruits of the prayer of St. Nicodemus devotes a separate paragraph, entitled as follows: “How many and what kind of fruits are born from mental prayer.” Nicodemus the Svyatogorets considers the first fruit of mental activity to be the flight of the mind from the “reds of this world” and from sensual pleasures, thanks to which the person praying avoids temptation from the imagination and forbids unclean spirits from attacking him through evil thoughts. The second fruit is the following: “When the mind, being in the heart, sees there mentally, with the help of its contemplative eye, the cold and ugly image with which it has clothed itself, and the disgusting mask that it has put on... due to the wandering of the senses downwards... it acquires humility, and crying, and tears...” (ΕΣ. 166). A person, seeing that his heart is filled with thick and impenetrable darkness generated by sins and passions, seeing that he is all captivated by evil thoughts and placeless lusts, realizes that he has no choice but to pitifully cry out to Jesus to have mercy and heal him. And God is appeased by this humility, crying and tears, and delivers him from the pretexts of evil thoughts and from demons. The third fruit is that the mind, having returned to the heart, patiently remaining in it in all kinds of sobriety, observation and preservation provided by prayer, “as if in a transparent mirror... sees the evil deviations of its heart, the crafty movements of thoughts, slander, theft and traps set up by unclean spirits, and simply clearly sees all its sins, even the smallest ones; and so he calls Jesus to his aid, asks Him for forgiveness, repents, grieves, falls down, adds crying to crying, humility to humility, and does everything possible to correct himself and not sin” (ΕΣ. 167). The fourth fruit is the purity of nature and what comes from this purity the supernatural energy of the divine grace of the Holy Spirit. St. Nicodemus points out that the method of smart doing, taught by the holy hesychast fathers, helps to cleanse the heart and entire human nature of passions in the shortest possible time. The fifth fruit is the joy and gladness that the mind feels, accustomed to dwelling in the heart with prayer. As confirmation of your in the words of St. Nicodemus cites a well-known comparison from Nicephorus the Hesychast, according to which the mind, having returned to the heart, rejoices in the same way as a husband rejoices after a long separation when he returns to his wife and children 17 . Ultimately, all these fruits come down to the acquisition of grace hidden in the heart from the moment of baptism of a person, in kindling from this “spark” a divine flame that burns passions, giving joy, peace and love for God and neighbor. This last one, according to St. Nicodemus, and constitutes the most comprehensive fruit of mental prayer (ΕΣ. 168, 173). St. Nicodemus, however, points out: “...If (suppose) you do not acquire any other good from [smart doing], but only the smallest, then you will acquire the knowledge of your sins and weaknesses, and from this you will humble yourself and repent before God... Because without this guarding of the mind and heart, it is impossible to know that you are sinning, whether with words or thoughts. But a person sins many times, and [moreover] with gross sins, and does not feel it; therefore, he does not grieve about this and does not repent...” (ΕΣ. 176). This thought was very dear to the saint. Nicodemus: in many of his writings he returns to it, speaking about the benefits of mental prayer. It is precisely the vision of his sin that constitutes for the saint. For Nicodemus, the main advantage of smart doing: after all, it is precisely this that can lead a person to highly creative humility, which can make it safe for him in the future to acquire any supernatural talents (the value of which St. Nicodemus, of course, never denies...). In the Spiritual Exercises, a book known to which basically goes back to the work of J.P. Pinamonti, St. Nicodemus, in his important addition on guarding the heart, replete with references to Orthodox patristic tradition, says the following: “Therefore, come, beloved, to yourself, come! - How? And how? I will tell you: if you always strive to gather all your mind inside your heart, and do not allow it to be wasted through feelings on worldly things, then you will come to your senses; then you will see intelligently there, inside, the passions that dominated and dominate over you and which you did not recognize at all before; then you will see mental enemies constantly fighting with you. And just to say, then you will know the benefit or harm that you are suffering. That is why you will always call upon God intelligently and heartily, so that He may have mercy on you, as He had mercy on the prodigal [son], saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Because the heart is the center and container of all human passions and thoughts...” 18. Of course, Rev. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain does not strive to be original in his teaching about the fruits of smart work. As in other areas, here the most important thing for him remains fidelity to patristic tradition. Νηπτικοὶ Πατέρες, i.e. the hesychast fathers, who taught about sobriety of mind and the Jesus Prayer, are remembered and quoted by him constantly. In general, he builds both his presentation of the method of mental prayer and his narrative about its fruits on four most important for the history of hesychast ascetic tradition of the 14th century. names: this is St. Gregory of Sinai, St. Gregory Palamas and Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, compilers of a highly authoritative manual for those who labor in silence. It is to the composition of the last St. Nicodemus sends the reader away more than once in his writings. Thus, the saint proposes to look for the teaching about mental prayer and its fruits in an expanded form “in the book of the sacred Philokalia in the word of the Monk Nicephorus [Hesychast], in the word of Gregory of Thessalonica on the sacredly silent and in the hundred chapters of Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos” (ΕΣ. 164). Nevertheless, a certain shift in emphasis to the vision of one’s sin, clearly discernible in many of the works of St. Nicodemus, surprisingly akin to Russian hesychast bookishness from St. Nile of Sorsky and the monk Dorotheus to St. Ignatius (Brianchaninova). And this despite the already noted features of contradiction in the Russian tradition. However, all of the above does not mean at all that St. Nicodemus somehow “narrows” the horizons of Christian perfection or prefers to remain silent about the high destiny of a person to which his smart work leads. Even in the preface to the Philokalia, St. Nicodemus spoke very boldly about the ultimate goal of all human endeavors. “Without the deification of the mind... it is impossible for a person to become a saint or to be saved, which is terrible to even hear about! For salvation and deification are one and the same thing..." 19 And in the Exhortatory Manual, in the 11th chapter on the pleasures inherent in the mind, there is a very interesting paragraph entitled: “That God is both comprehensible and incomprehensible.” In it St. Nicodemus talks about the ascent of the mind to God: “Since God... despite the fact that He is in some way comprehensible by His energies and perfections, incomprehensible not only in essence, but also in the infinity of His divine perfections themselves, and the mind, on the contrary, being naturally loving, has the desire to always understand the best and the highest; then he is attracted by the pleasure of what is comprehensible in Divine perfections, and tries with all his might to ascend to what is even higher than this; however, since he is not able to [do this] (for, being limited, he cannot contain the limitless), then, concluding from this that what he could not comprehend is higher and sweeter than what he comprehended, because of this he is amazed and perplexed ...; marveling, he is filled with divine desires and inflames a flaming desire in the soul, making that which is comprehensible in the Incomprehensible, fuel for divine love and pleasure... With this divine love [the mind] is purified, and being purified, it becomes godlike, and becoming godlike, it subsequently becomes god by grace...” (ΕΣ. 267). In the 12th chapter of the Exhortatory Manual we find the paragraph “That all the senses and the body together enjoy spiritual pleasures, [in this] and in the future life.” Here we are already talking about “spiritual feeling” - the most important topic for St. Gregory of Sinaita, St. Gregory Palamas, as well as for St. Callistus Angelicuda, mentioned more than once on the pages of the “Admonitory Manual” and other works of St. Nicodemus and mentioned twice in the paragraph under consideration. The monk asserts here that after the mind, through mental activity, enters the realm of spiritual pleasures, it not only begins to hate sensual pleasures, which carry the torment of pleasure; not only do the feelings themselves seem to fall asleep and remain inactive; but the senses, together with the mind, taste divine and spiritual pleasures, “according to the god-bearing Maximus and the most holy Callistus.” “For the body, and with it the feelings, endures and will endure in its proper manner the divine and blessed passions both in the present life and in the future, according to theologians” (ΕΣ. 282) - and here St. Nicodemus refers to the “Svyatogorsk Tomos” 20 and the letter to Xenia 21 St. Gregory Palamas, confirming his words. And further the monk speaks about how sight sees the divine light and intelligent beauty, hearing hears intelligent sounds, smell smells the intelligent fragrance of the divine world, taste tastes the “intelligent quality of the Lord,” and touch feels the intelligent embrace of the right hand of the Bridegroom... “But this spirit-bearing and high-minded Saint Callistus wrote a whole chapter, preserved in manuscripts, in which he proves that for every intelligent God is comprehensible through his love for mankind” (ΕΣ. 267). Since in the same “Admonitory Manual” St. Nicodemus had previously quoted from the manuscript a fragment of Chapter 115 of St. Callista Angelicuda, we can say with a fair degree of confidence which text the Athonite hesychast has in mind. This is chapter 95 of the mentioned 115, and its title is exactly as the saint presented it. Nicodemus: “That God, through his love for mankind, is perceptible to every intelligent feeling.” The chapter is quite extensive, and we will give only the most expressive passages from it: “To see the sacred and supernatural light, embracing [God], becoming divinely comprehensible - is not this the true reason for such great rejoicing and joy? After all, first of all, this light is saving, and salvation is truly You. Thus, through the boundless abundance of love, You become accessible to the intelligent nostrils of smell for those who healthyly keep the faith, and in such a fate of your [faithful] you very wonderfully rest... You become for the faithful both a small taste and a plentiful meal, true food and drink of the soul, feeding and feeding unusually, more and more satiating and mysteriously delighting the participant. Therefore, the sacred David, the prophet, who knew You through God-bearing eating, turned to his neighbors: Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 33:9)... Therefore, through all the intelligent senses, you, nourishing, delight Your household, O Lord who loves souls immeasurably, becoming for them light and life and every possible taste of super-essential beauties and blessings. Blessed are You, Jesus, spiritual manna from heaven, endlessly nourishing many. Glory to Your ineffable love for us and to Your unspeakable, Master, Your mercy and Your long-suffering. Amen" 22. With these words of the great hesychast of the 14th century, so consonant with what his attentive reader and admirer Nicodemus wrote in the 18th century, it seems appropriate to conclude this message. Βίος, πολιτεία καὶ ἀγῶνες διὰ δόξαν τῆς ἡμῶν Ἐκκλησίας τελεσθέντες παρὰ τοῦ ὁσιολογιωτάτου καὶ μακαρίτου καὶ ἀοιδίμου Νικοδήμου Μοναχοῦ, συγγραφέντες δὲ παρὰ τοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ ἀδελφοῦ του Εὐθυμίου ἱερομονάχου // Μοναχοῦ Νικοδήμου (Μπιλάλη). Ὁ πρωτότυπος βίος τοῦ ἁγίου Νικοδήμου τοῦ Ἁγιορείτου (1749–1809). Ἅγιον Ὄρος – Ἀθήνα, 2007. Σ. 22. All texts (except where otherwise specified) are given in translation by the author of this message. The book was published in the first edition in Vienna, in 1801, under the following title: Εἰς δόξαν Πατρός, Υἱοῦ, καὶ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος, τοῦ ἑνὸς Θεοῦ. ΕΓΧΕΙΡΙΔΙΟΝ Συμβουλευτικόν, περὶ Φυλακῆς τῶν πέντε Αἰσθήσεων, τῆς τε Φαντασίας, καὶ τῆς τοῦ Νοός, καὶ Καρδίας. Καὶ περὶ τοῦ, ποῖαί εἰσιν αἱ πνευματικαί, καὶ οἰκεῖαι τοῦ Νοὸς ἡδοναί. Συντεθὲν μὲν πρότερον, καὶ ἐπιδιορθωθὲν ὕστερον, παρὰ τοῦ ἐν μοναχοῖς ἐλαχίστου Νικοδήμου Ἁγιορείτου. [Βιέννη], 1801. (To the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Guide admonishing, about guarding the five senses, imagination, and mind, and heart. And about what the essence of spiritual and the pleasures inherent in the mind. First compiled and then corrected by the slightest among monks Nikodim Svyatogorets. Vienna, 1801) Only this, lifetime edition, conveys the text St. Nicodemus intact. In preparation of the second edition (Athens, 1885) editor, Sophronius Redestinos, made significant changes to it, mainly of a stylistic nature, as well as numerous changes and even additions. Currently in preparation for publication in Moscow commented Russian translation of the “Admonitory Manual” by O. Zheltov (Sergiev Posad) based on the 1st, Viennese edition. Links to the Exhortatory Manual (hereinafter referred to as ΕΣ) are given in the text in parentheses. Μοναχοῦ Νικοδήμου (Μπιλάλη). Σ. 13. Βίος ἐν συνόψει τοῦ μακαρίτου καὶ ἀοιδίμου διδασκάλου Νικοδήμου Ἁγιορείτου… συγγραφεὶς παρὰ τοῦ Ὁσιολογιωτάτου κυρίου Ὀνουφρίου Ἰβηρίτου // Αὐτόθι. Σ. 29. Ὑπερ τῶν ἱερῶς ἡσυχαζόντων // Φιλοκαλία. Ἑνετίῃσι, 1782. Σ. 957. Wed. translation by V.V. Bibikhina: “Where “here”? In the main bodily organ, on the throne of grace, where the mind and all spiritual thoughts are: in heart" (St. Gregory Palamas. Triads in defense of the sacredly silent. M., 1995. P. 44). See, for example: Citterio E. Nicodemo Agiorita // La Théologie Byzantine et sa tradition. II. Turnhout, 2002. P. 942–943, 972. See also: Citterio E. La scuola filocalica di Paisij Velichkovskij e la Filocalia di Nicodimo Aghiorita. Un confronted // Amore del bello. Studi sulla Filocalia. Magnano, 1991, pp. 179–207. “I say this prayer, not just a mental one, that is, not just performed with the mind and lips, but this every Christian who desires to be saved should do so: but acting more skillfully with the mind in the heart, and plaguing the enemy invisibly with the divine name.” See: Most Reverend Father Theodosius... word... // St. Paisiy (Velichkovsky). Autobiography, biography and selected works by handwritten sources of the 18th–19th centuries. M., 2004. pp. 289–290. Rigo A. Il Monaco, la Chiesa e la Liturgia. I Capitoli sulle gerarchie di Gregorio il Sinaita. Firenze, 2005 (see especially p. LXXIV–LXXXVIII). See, for example, a very typical example in the book “Invisible Warfare”, where in a special note about mental prayer contains a number of references to the pages of the Philokalia: “Many and great are the gifts that this sacred and mental prayer brings, which are listed by the saints and God-bearing fathers, called sober ones. And look in the Philokalia pp. 858, 869, 911, 918, 945, 946, 947, 955, 1037 and so on on tens of thousands (sic!) of other pages...” καλούμενον Ἀόρατος Πόλεμος... Ἑνετίῃσι, 1796. Σ. 197. Σημ. 1). “Come, all who share the title of Orthodoxy, together laymen and monks, what exists within you Divine Kingdom and in the field of the heart the hidden treasure to be found, which is sweet Jesus Christ..." (Φιλοκαλία. Ἑνετίῃσι, 1782. Σ. 8). Carte sfătuitoare pentru păzirea celor cinci simţiri, a nălucirii şi a inimi. Neamţ, 1826 The book was published only at the end of the 20th century. Based on a manuscript from the monastery of Xenophon. See, for example: Βιβλίον καλούμενον Νηπτικὴ Θεωρία… Ἅγιον Ὄρος, 2001. Ὁδηγὸς τῆς Εὐσεβείας… παρὰ τοῦ ταπεινοῦ Ἰωάννου Συμεωνίδου… Ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει, 1850. Περὶ ἡσυχίας καὶ περὶ τῶν δύο τρόπων τῆς προσευχῆς. Ἐν κεφαλαίοις ιε´. Κεφ. ιδ´ // Φιλοκαλία. Ἑνετίῃσι, 1782. Σ. 917. See especially chapters 13 and 14. About the “Epistle to Mena” by St. Gregory Palamas see: Rigo A. L’Epistola a Menas di Gregorio Palamas e gli effetti dell’ orazione // Cristianesimo nella storia. V.IX/1. Feb. 1988. P. 57–80. The fact that Rev. Nicodemus sometimes quotes texts considered lost (for example, in the New Ladder he cites several fragments from the interpretation of St. Petersburg, unknown from other sources. Nikita Stifat on Degree Octoechos), it would seem, pushes us to the idea that he actually read in some Svyatogorsk library is a missing message. However, the reverend quotes the same lines as quoted by antipalamites; It seems, however, that the fragment was drawn by him precisely from this source, no matter how tempting it would be to think otherwise. Φιλοκαλία. Ἑνετίῃσι, 1782. Σ. 876. Γυμνάσματα Πνευματικά. Θεσσαλονίκη, 1999. Σ. 111. Φιλοκαλία. Ἑνετίῃσι, 1782. Σ. 5. Γρηγορίου τοῦ Παλαμᾶ Συγγράμματα. Τ. Ε´. Θεσσαλονίκη, 1992. Σ. 225–226. Translation from Barb's manuscripts. 420 and Iber. 506 (the latter could have been used by St. Nicodemus)