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with those words that have been brought forth, one might say. But the last prayer written in addition to these shows the uncertainty of his soul (p. 576): for he says, "consign such words to complete oblivion, O pre-eternal Word, if indeed Your Spirit is also from You, bringing one cause and one origin upon both You and Your Father, so that through them I may not become the cause of such great evil to anyone, and release me from such false belief before the end." And now, for what reason, after the return from those things, did he immediately and curiously compose writings that supported the Italians, as has been proven, and these things from Italy, as he himself writes in the preface, having been moved to write *Against the Messalians*, unless this too is hypocrisy, which he himself asserts?

Therefore, every word of his is a stage-play, mocking and making sport of our affairs, and the Church which he there calls a holy and sacred synod, he seems to mean that of the Latins. For that in all things he thinks more in accord with them, one might infer also from the fact that he has received almost no sanctification from our Church, wiping away the stains from there, and, to omit other things, for so long a time since he has sojourned among us, no one has seen him partaking of the most holy Eucharist; what need to mention prayer or holy invocation or the cross-shaped seal in the hair and all the other symbols of monastic perfection, without which it is not considered among us, who obey the regulations of the holy fathers, to be a monk? For this man did not even seek a sacred prayer at his initiation into the monastic mystery, but is a self-made monk, and, it is not much to say, also a counterfeit one; "for," it says, "the tree is known by its fruits." Indeed, let those who heard them with their own ears tell of his mystical discourses concerning future punishment. But I, from these and such things, supposed that not out of ignorance (p. 578) but out of malice he declares the deifying grace of the Spirit to be created; but if indeed it is out of ignorance, since he writes against those who know, having yoked arrogance to his ignorance concerning such things, the crime is worse, in my opinion; for every strange dogma has burst forth from such a spring, from which this man has now also emerged as a champion of wicked and many heresies, as the discourse will show as it proceeds.

For the wise in divine things, Maximus, in harmony with the great Macarius and all the other saints, as we have previously set forth in the discourses we have published *On the Divine Light*, says that the earnest of the future promise, the grace of adoption, the deifying gift of the Spirit is a light of ineffable glory beheld by the saints, a hypostatic, uncreated light, ever-existing from the ever-existing One and in an unsearchable manner, now in part, but in the age to come revealed more perfectly to the worthy and revealing God to them through itself. But this philosopher, seeing himself a stranger to such light, as not having clung even for a little while to the way that leads to it, and being altogether unable to bear it, did not add practice to faith, that through it he might attain to that contemplation, but having also denied the faith and those who had not denied it but were even led up through it, so that he seemed to the many to be above them, disparaging them with his words, he sets aside grace, blasphemes the Lord of grace, and dishonors in common all the saints, to whom it was granted through experience to learn and to teach about the light of grace.

But since he has deemed it necessary to dare such things, not dwelling among Scythians, nor consorting with Hagarenes, but in the midst of the Church of Christ, and this a Church now if ever rightly dividing the word of truth, he uses great deceit and (p. 580) sets forth his arguments against the saints in an exceedingly obscure manner and with the greatest possible concealment, as if he who overturns these things were striving on behalf of the Church of Christ itself and its pious dogmas. Therefore, having dismissed all of every

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ἐκείνους ἐξενηνεγμένοις λόγοις, φαίη τις ἄν. Ἀλλ᾿ ἡ προσγεγραμμένη τελευταία τούτοις εὐχή δείκνυσι αὐτοῦ (σελ. 576) τό τῆς ψυχῆς ἀβέβαιον˙ «παράδος» γάρ, φησίν, «ἀφανισμῷ παντελεῖ τούς τοιούτους λόγους, λέγε προάναρχε, εἴπερ καί ἐκ σοῦ ἐστι τό σόν Πνεῦμα, ἕν αἴτιον καί μίαν ἀρχήν σέ τε καί τόν σόν Πατέρα ἐπαγόμενον, ὅπως μηδενί δι᾿ αὐτῶν τηλικούτου κακοῦ αἴτιος γένωμαι κἀμέ τῆς τοιαύτης κακοδοξίας πρό τοῦ τέλους ἀπάλλαξον». Ποίῳ δέ καί νῦν λόγῳ μετά τήν ἀπ᾿ ἐκείνων ἐπάνοδον εὐθύς τά τοῖς Ἰταλοῖς, ὡς ἀποδέδεικται, συνηγοροῦντα περιέργως συντεθείκει συγγράμματα, καί ταῦτ᾿ ἐξ Ἰταλίας, ὡς αὐτός ἐν προοιμίῳ γράφει, πρός τό Κατά Μασσαλιανῶν γράφειν κεκινημένος, εἰ μή καί τοῦτο ὑπόκρισις, ὅ καί αὐτός ἰσχυρίζεται;

Τοιγαροῦν σκηνή πᾶς λόγος αὐτῷ, κωμῳδοῦσα καί παίζουσα τά ἡμέτερα, καί ἥν Ἐκκλησίαν ἐκεῖ καί σύνοδον ἱεράν καί ἁγίαν φησί, τήν τῶν Λατίνων ἔοικε λέγειν. Ὅτι γάρ ἐν πᾶσι μᾶλλον κατ᾿ ἐκείνην φρονεῖν, τεκμηριώσαιτ᾿ ἄν τις καί τῷ μηδ᾿ ὁντινοῦν σχεδόν ἁγιασμόν ἀπό τῆς ἡμετέρας Ἐκκλησίας προσήκασθαι, τούς ἐκεῖθεν ἀπομάττοντα σπίλους, καί ἵνα τἄλλα παρῶ, τοσοῦτον ἤδη χρόνον ἀφ᾿ οὗπερ ἐπεδήμησεν ἡμῖν οὐδείς ἑώρακεν αὐτόν τῆς ἁγιωτάτης εὐχαριστίας ἐν μεθέξει γενόμενον˙ τί χρή λέγειν εὐχήν ἤ ἐπίκλησιν ἱεράν ἤ τήν ἐν θριξί σταυροειδῆ σφραγῖδα καί τἄλλ᾿ ὅσα σύμβολα μοναχικῆς τελειώσεως, ὧν ἄνευ μοναχόν εἶναι παρ᾿ ἡμῖν οὐ νομίζεται τοῖς τῶν ἁγίων πατέρων θεσμοθεσίας ὑπείκουσιν; Οὗτος γάρ οὐδ᾿ ἐπ᾿ εἰσαγωγῇ μοναχικοῦ μυστηρίου εὐχήν γοῦν ἱεράν ἐπεζήτησεν, ἀλλ᾿ αὐτόπλαστός ἐστι μοναχός, οὐ πολύ δ᾿ εἰπεῖν καί ἐπίπλαστος˙ «ἐκ τῶν καρπῶν γάρ, φησί, «τό δένδρον ἐπιγινώσκεται». Τούς γε μήν περί μελλούσης κολάσεως μυστικούς αὐτῷ λόγους λεγέτωσαν οἱ αὐτήκοσι. Ἐγώ δ᾿ ἐκ τῶν τούτων καί τῶν τοιούτων οὐχ ἐπ᾿ ἀγνοίας, (σελ. 578) ἀλλ᾿ ὑπό κακονοίας, κτιστήν αὐτόν ἀποφαίνεσθαι τήν θεοποιόν ὑπενόησα χάριν τοῦ Πνεύματος˙ εἰ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ὑπ᾿ ἀγνοίας, ἐπεί καταλογογραφεῖ τῶν εἰδότων, ἀπόνοιαν τῇ περί τά τοιαῦτα συζεύξας ἀγνοίᾳ, χεῖρον, ὡς ἐγὦμαι, τό ἔγκλημα˙ δόγμα γάρ ἀποτόπαιον ἅπαν ἐκ τοιαύτης ἀνερράγη πηγῆς, ἀφ᾿ ἧς καί νῦν οὗτος προστάτης πονηρῶν τε καί πολλῶν αἱρέσεων ἀναπέφηκεν, ὡς ὁ λόγος δείξει προϊών.

Ὁ μέν γάρ σοφός τά θεῖα Μάξιμος, συνῳδά τῷ μεγάλῳ Μακαρίῳ καί τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν ἁγίοις, καθάπερ ἐν τοῖς Περί φωτός θείου ἐξενηνεγμένοις ἡμῖν λόγοις προεξεθέμεθα, τόν ἀρραβῶνα τῆς μελλούσης ἐπαγγελίας, τήν χάριν τῆς υἱοθεσίας, τόν θεοποιόν δωρεάν τοῦ Πνεύματος φῶς εἶναί φησιν ὑπεραρήτου δόξης τοῖς ἁγίοις ἐποπτευόμενον, φῶς ἐνυπόστατον, ἄκτιστον, ἀεί ὄν ἐκ τοῦ ἀεί ὄντος καί ἀνεπινοήτως, νῦν μέν ἐκ μέρους, ἐπί δέ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος τελεωτέρως φανερούμενον τοῖς ἀξίοις καί τόν Θεόν αὐτοῖς δι᾿ ἑαυτοῦ φανεροῦν. Ὁ δέ φιλόσοφος οὖτος ξένον ἑαυτόν τοῦ τοιούτου συνορῶν φωτός, ὡς τῆς πρός αὐτό φερούσης μηδέ πρός ὀλίγον ἡμμένος, φέρειν οἷός τε ὤν οὐδαμῶς οὐ τῇ πίστει τήν πρᾶξιν προσέθηκεν, ἵνα δι᾿ αὐτῆς πρός ἐκείνην φθάσῃ τήν θεωρίαν, ἀλλά καί τήν πίστιν ἀπαρνησάμενος καί τούς μή ταύτην ἠρνημένους, ἀλλά καί δι᾿ αὐτῆς ἀνηγμένους, ὡς ὑπέρ αὐτούς τοῖς πολλοῖς αὐτό δόξαι, τοῖς λόγοις ἐξουδενώσας, ἀθετεῖ μέν τήν χάριν, βλασφημεῖ δέ εἰς τόν τῆς χάριτος Κύριον, ἀτιμάζει δέ κοινῇ πάντας τούς ἁγίους, ὅσοις ἐξεγένετο διά πεῖρας μαθεῖν τε καί διδάξαι περί τοῦ φωτός τῆς χάριτος.

Ἐπεί δέ τοιαῦτα τολμῆσαι δεῖν ἔγνωκεν, οὐ Σκύθαις ἐνοικῶν, οὐδ᾿ Ἀγαρηνοῖς ἐνστρεφόμενος, ἀλλ᾿ ἐν μέσῃ τῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Ἐκκλησίᾳ, καί ταῦτα νῦν εἴπερ ποτέ τόν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας ὀρθοτομούσῃ, πολλῷ χρῆται τῷ δόλῳ καί (σελ. 580) συνεσκιασμένως ἄγαν καί μετ᾿ ἐπικρύψεως ὅ τι πλείστης τούς κατά τῶν ἁγίων προτίθεται λόγοις, ὡς ὑπέρ αὐτῆς τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ Ἐκκλησίας καί τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτήν εὐσεβῶν δογμάτων ὁ ταῦτα περιτρέπων ἀγωνιζόμενος. Ἀφείς τοίνυν πᾶσαν παντός