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Therefore, while they say these things, he himself says that those who say it is necessary to know such things by experience, or that they have known them by experience, are Massalians. Therefore, it appears as a geometric corollary that he himself has received no experience whatsoever of a divine mystery or of the energy of the Holy Spirit; for he would not have proclaimed himself a Massalian. For if, then, only he who has learned by experience knows the energies of the Spirit, but he himself has not known by experience and in no way accepts those who have known by experience, who will any longer doubt that all the idle talk he has engaged in concerning the deifying energy of the Spirit is falsehood, and this directed by him against those who have experience of it, since he knows neither what he is saying, nor about what things he is making assertions? For “will he report the sweetness of honey to those who have not tasted?,” says the proverb; but those who have not tasted, how will they report it? tell me; and if they should even contradict those who have tasted, will they not, besides being revealed as liars, also incur the utmost ridicule? Much more, then, would he be a liar and ridiculous who talks such nonsense about the supernatural energies of the Spirit and, according to the Apostle, “intrudes into what he has not seen, puffed up without cause by his fleshly mind.” This alone would have sufficed, not only to expose him as a false writer, but in addition to this, as one who numbers the saints with the heretics (for it is their saying that “only he who has learned by experience knows clearly” the energies of the Spirit, but he insists that those who say this are heretics); this, then, would have sufficed to expose him as an accuser of the saints after Christ; but it did not suffice him (p.700), but he used also a second and a third and still more methods against them, or rather, against himself.

For since the saints in their own writings sometimes seem to disagree with one another, he, siding now with the saying of this one, now with that one, shamelessly attacks the others through that saying and makes them altogether proclaimed and outcast, so as even to subject them to excommunications and anathemas. Thus he marshalled the divine Gregory of Nyssa, who says the mind is neither outside nor inside the body on account of its incorporeality, against the other saints, as many as have said the mind is in the heart, and as being opposed to the truth he immediately numbered them with the heretics. But we have clearly shown that they are in agreement with each other even in this, and we ourselves with them, both in the Hagioritic Tome against those who think such things, and in the second discourse On Prayer. But again, hear how he numbered that same Gregory of Nyssa with the heretics: for having said concerning the protomartyr Stephen that “not while remaining in human nature and power does he see the divine, but being mingled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, because it has been witnessed by Scripture that like is seen by like; for if the glory of the Father and of the Son became comprehensible to human nature, he who declared the sight to be incomprehensible is false; but surely it is necessary both that he not be lying and that the history be true”; since he said these things clearly in his encomium to the divine Stephen, he in many ways counts the saint among the heretics on account of both the grace and the mingling (for he does not securely perceive the meaning of what is said), and most of all he ostracizes from the choir of the orthodox the one who said these things, calling him for slander a Massalian and a Blachernite on account of the vision, setting against him those who say that God is invisible.

(p. 702) “What then,” he says, “that man, having become more than man, sees God? For he might become an angel, but the best of our theologians falls short of the least of the angels; and if we should grant that he became an angel,” he says, “not even angels see the essence of God.” To whom one might justly say, “of angels

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Τοῦτο τοίνυν τούτων οὕτω λεγόντων, αὐτός φησι Μασσαλιανούς εἶναι τούς πείρᾳ δεῖν γινώσκειν ἤ πείρᾳ ἐγνωκέναι τά τοιαῦτα λέγοντας. Οὐκοῦν αὐτός ὡς ἐκ γεωμετρικοῦ πορίσματος ἀναφαίνεται, πεῖραν μυστηρίου θείου ἤ Πνεύματος ἁγίου ἐνεργείας οὐδ᾿ ἡστινοσοῦν λαβών˙ οὐ γάρ ἄν Μασσαλιανόν ἑαυτόν ἀνεκήρυττεν. Εἰ γοῦν ὁ πεῖρᾳ μαθών μόνος οἶδε τάς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Πνεύματος, αὐτός δέ πείρᾳ οὐκ ἔγνωκε καί τούς πείρᾳ γνόντας οὐδαμῶς παραδέχεται, τίς ἔτ᾿ ἄμφιγνοήσει μή ψευδολογίαν εἶναι πᾶσαν τήν περί τῆς θεοποιοῦ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐνεργείας αὐτῷ γεγενημένην ἀδολεσχίαν, καί ταῦτα κατά τῶν ἐν πείρᾳ ταύτης γεγονότων ἐξενηνεγμένην αὐτῷ, μηδαμῶς εἰδότι μήτε ἅ λέγει, μήτε περί τίνων διαβεβαιοῦται; «Γλυκύτητα γάρ μέλιτος ἀναγγελεῖ τοῖς μή γευσαμένοις;», ἡ παροιμία φησίν˙ οἱ δέ μή γευσάμενοι, πῶς ἀναγγελοῦσιν; εἰπέ μοι˙ εἰ δέ καί τοῖς γευσαμένοις ἀντιλέγοιεν, ἆρ᾿ οὐ μετά τοῦ ψευδόμενοι δῆλοι πεφηνέναι καί γέλωτα ὀφλήσουσιν ἔσχατον; Πολλῷ μέντ᾿ ἄν εἴη ψευδηγόρος καί καταγέλαστος μᾶλλον ὁ περί τάς ὑπερφυεῖς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Πνεύματος τοιαῦτα τερατευόμενος καί κατά τόν ἀπόστολον «ἅ μή ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων, εἰκῇ φυσιούμενος ὑπό τοῦ νοός τῆς σαρκός αὐτοῦ». Ἤρκει μέν οὐ τουτί μόνον, οὐ μόνον ψευδογράφον αὐτόν ἀπελέγξαι, πρός δέ τούτῳ καί τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς τούς ἁγίους συντάττοντα (καί γάρ ἐκείνων ἐστι λόγος «μόνον εἰδέναι σαφῶς τόν πείρᾳ μαθόντα» τάς ἐνεργείας τοῦ Πνεύματος, ὁ δέ τούς τοῦτο λέγοντας αἱρετικούς εἶναι διισχυρίζεται)˙ τουτί μέν οὖν ἤρκει καί τῶν μετά Χριστόν ἁγίων κατήγορον αὐτόν ἀπελέγξαι˙ τῷ δέ οὐκ (σελ.700) ἀπέχρησεν, ἀλλά καί δευτέρᾳ καί τρίτῃ καί ἔτι πλείστοι κατ᾿ αὐτῶν, μᾶλλον δέ καθ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ μεθόδοις ἐχρήσατο.

Τῶν γάρ ἁγίων έν τοῖς καθ᾿ ἑαυτούς συγγράμμασιν ἔστιν οὗ πρός ἀλλήλους δοκούντων διαφωνεῖν, αὐτός ποτέ μέν τούτου, ποτέ δέ ἐκείνου ρήσει προσθέμενος, δι᾿ ἐκείνης τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀναιδῶς ἐπιτίθεται καί ἐκκηρύκτους καί ἀποβλήτους ποιεῖται παντάπασιν ὡς καί ἀφορισμοῖς ὑποβάλλειν καί ἀναθέμασιν. Οὕτω τόν Νύσσης θεῖον Γρηγόριον μήτ᾿ ἐκτός μήτ᾿ ἐντός εἶναι τοῦ σώματος λέγοντα τόν νοῦ διά τό ἀσώματον τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπεστράτευσεν ἁγίοις, ὅσοι ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τόν νοῦν εἰρήκασι, καί ὡς ἀντιτεταγμένους τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς εὐθύς ἐνηρίθμησεν. Ἡμεῖς δ᾿ αὐτούς συμφώνους ἀλλήλοις κἀν τούτῳ, καί ἡμᾶς αὐτούς αὐτοῖς, ἔν τε τῷ Ἀγιορειτικῷ κατά τῶν φρονούντων τά τοιαῦτα Τόμῳ κἀν τῷ Περί Προσευχῆς δευτέρῳ λόγῳ τρανῶς ἀπεδείξαμεν. Ἀλλ᾿ αὖθις αὐτόν τόν Νύσσης ὅπως τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς συνέταξεν ἄκουσον˙ εἰπόντα γάρ περί τοῦ πρωτομάρτυρος Στεφάνου ὡς «οὐκ ἐν τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ φύσει τε καί δυνάμει μένων τό θεῖον βλέπει, ἀλλά πρός τήν τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος χάριν ἀνακραθείς, ὅτι τῷ ὁμοίῳ καθορᾶσθαι τά ὅμοια παρά τῆς Γραφῆς μεμαρτύρηται˙ εἰ γάρ ἀνθρωπίνῃ φύσει ἡ τοῦ Πατρός καί τοῦ Υἰοῦ δόξα χωρητή κατέστη, ψευδής ὁ ἀχώρητον ἀποφηνάμενος εἶναι τό θέαμα˙ ἀλλά μήν οὐδέ ἐκεῖνον ψεύδεσθαι καί τήν ἱστορίαν ἀληθεύειν ἐπάναγκες»˙ ταῦτα τοῦτον ἐν τῷ πρός τόν θεῖον Στέφανον ἐγκωμίῳ σαφῶς εἰπόντα, πολυτρόπως τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς ἐγκρίνει τόν ἅγιον διά τε τήν χάριν καί τήν ἀνάκρασιν (οὐ γάρ ἀσφαλῶς συνορᾷ τῶν λεγομένων τήν δύναμιν), μάλιστα δέ πάντων ἐξοστρακίζει τοῦ χοροῦ τῶν ὀρθοδόξων τόν ταῦτ᾿ εἰπόντα, Μασσαλιανόν καί Βλαχερνίτην ἐπί διαβολῇ προσαγορεύσας διά τήν ὅρασιν, ἀντιτάξας αὐτῷ τούς ἀόρατον εἶναι τόν Θεόν λέγοντας.

(σελ. 702) «Τί δέ», φησίν, «ὅτι ὑπέρ ἄνθρωπον ὁ ἄνθρωπος γεγονώς, ὁρᾷ τόν Θεόν; ἄγγελος γάρ γένοιτ᾿ ἄν, ἀλλ᾿ ὁ κράτιστος τῶν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν θεολόγων ἀποδεῖ τοῦ τῶν ἀγγέλων ἐσχάτου˙ εἰ δέ καί ἄγγελον γενέσθαι δοίημεν», φησίν, «ἀλλ᾿ οὐδέ ἄγγελοι τήν οὐσίαν ὁρῶσι τοῦ Θεοῦ». Πρός ὅν ἄν τις φαίη δικαίως, "ἀγγέλων