Introduction: A Guide to the Mystical Path

The early Christian monks left behind them a vast body of esoteric literature that is profound in the range and quality of the mystical teaching it offers, though by and large it is little known to the contemporary world. Because of their lifestyle of radical simplicity and withdrawal, the monks were able to devote much time to scrutinizing the stages and forms of the inner life of the human spirit. In a sense they were professionals of the mapping of the movements of the interior soul and composed their doctrine specifically for the instruction of their younger disciples. Younger monks and sometimes nuns would frequently travel the monastic communities of the east Roman world seeking out experienced psychic guides (though nuns were usually sedentary in communities lodged in more secure places), and soon the finest of these spiritual masters became internationally known, attracting disciples from all over the Christian territories. The sayings of the wise teachers were soon put into writing—sometimes by the sages themselves in their own lifetime, and sometimes they were gathered together from oral history as a posthumous memorial of their doctrine.

This book is a portable collection of that Christian monastic wisdom, a very small edition of the vast amount of teachings that exist and are still used in the monasteries of the Eastern Christian world to this day. It has been arranged, in the manner of an ancient manual of instruction, in three ascending books: Praktikos, Theoretikos, and Gnostikos. The "sentences" (which in ancient Greek meant a unit of thought, or paragraph) have been edited, again in the ancient manner, in the form of three "centuries," or groups of one hundred aphorisms. Each single sentence is meant to be taken as a day's reflection. It was first supposed to be learned by heart, at the beginning of the day, and then repeated as the daily text in every spare moment of quiet. Such moments of hesychia (quietness of soul) were structured by the early monks around the simple repetitive tasks that made up daily life in remote deserts. The regular monotony of basket weaving (a favored monastic employment) was interspersed with the repetition of prayers and the musing on the "sentence" of the day. Today life is busier and more demanding, but even the busiest of us have moments of hesychia, in those times spent waiting for buses or trains to arrive or depart, or when we are driving or walking or simply sitting idly for a moment. Such times are ideally suited for the recitation of the sentence and its dialectic—teasing out the implications of what such an aphorism could mean: how have we already experienced it; how could it illuminate a truth about our own heart or the troubles of our friends' hearts or the secret ways that God wishes to develop our seeking soul?

The book, in short, is not meant for a rapid half-hour read-through from cover to cover in one sitting. Such is the temptation for a world gone mad for speed and instant comprehension. It would be better to employ this book as a Frisbee than to use it in that way. Some things, like seeds and plants (and psychic insight), need a slower pace of nurturing and unfolding. The book will be, I hope, an interesting historical example of the esoteric spiritual teachings of the early Christians, who could once boast many masters of the mystical life. But more than this, it is offered as a practical "manual of assistance" for those who wish to climb the higher paths of mystical knowledge in the Christian tradition and—in an age when living spiritual masters are difficult to come by—need experienced guides to orient them.

Monastic Seekers in the Ancient Church
The early Christian monks formed an international society that flourished in all the Greek territories of the late Roman Empire, as well as in Syria and Persia, in Egypt gathered around the Nile, and as far into Africa as Nubia (modern Sudan) and the highlands of Ethiopia. They inhabited the rocky and desert terrain of Sinai, Palestine, Arabia, and Turkey (ancient Cappadocia); and in the great capital of the late Roman Empire, Constantinople, they became almost a civil service, so great were their numbers, with many dedicated scholars and aristocrats among them. After the fifth century, monasticism became popular in the West too, where Gaul (ancient France) and Italy became centers of activity. Soon, over the whole early-Christian world, which was drawn like a circle around the Mediterranean basin, Christian monks could be found living in solitary isolation near villages, in small communes of hermits gathered together in remote valleys, or in small houses, usually of a few dozen living the communal life together. These three forms of monastic lifestyle in the early church had become standard by the fourth century of the common era, and after Constantine had begun the transformation of the Roman state into the Christian empire of Byzantium, the monastic movement flourished for more than a thousand years with the patronage of Christian emperors. In centers such as Athos on the Acte Peninsula, near Halkidiki, in Greece, the Pechersky Lavra (Monastery of the Caves) in Kiev, or the wooded mountain monasteries of Transylvania, this is a way of life that has continued with an ancient vigor into the modern era.

The Forms of Monastic Literature
Over the course of this long history, a massive body of esoteric doctrine was accumulated and distilled by the monks for their own guidance in traveling the paths of the mystical life. The complete dedication of their lives to the search for God, in a radically simplified and poor lifestyle of disciplined work, celibate chastity, and study of the sacred writings of the prophets and saints who had preceded them, made for a radical focus in their lives that is hard to imagine in the random complexities and relativities that form the context of modern Western societies. The literature, from the early third century, attained considerable sophistication. Teachers such as Origen of Alexandria, one of the most erudite Platonist philosophers of his age, created an extensive and elegant system for scriptural exegesis and the methods needed for purifying the soul and assisting its illumination and ascent. All later efforts to advance a distinctively Christian "spiritual theology" were based, to a large degree, on his work. Evagrios of Pontus, another major intellectual of the early Christian period, was one of the more successful in combining the high intellective tradition of Origen with the day-to-day needs of communities of ascetics seeking advanced guidance in spiritual psychology.

As Christianity developed and spread as a state religion, it turned its thoughts more and more to the rationalistic defense of its theology. This tendency was accelerated as large sections of the international Christian movement entered into disputes over doctrinal issues and the Roman emperors, in response, gave to the theological decisions of the bishops (meeting for conciliar debates) the force of Roman law. The monastic texts, by contrast, were largely uninterested in controversial argument. It was a literature dedicated to the secrets of the inner life, a quest for the paths of peacefulness, mercy, and purity of prayer. Over long centuries the rationalistic spirit of Christian argumentation has barely subsided.