Themes of the Philokalia, no 2 - The Nous

Man, this superior creation of God, the pinnacle of creation is composed of matter and spirit, body and soul. His surpassing from the material to the immaterial, from the perceptive to the perceptive world is achieved with the power of the soul, the nous.¹

The foundation of the faith of our Orthodox Church is that man constitutes the image of the Triune God. The Triune God is Nous (Father), Word (Son) and Spirit.

The Nous without beginning did bear the Word mystically and emanated the Holy Spirit of the same power, we therefore confess the Master, God of all cosubstantial Trinity.

(Trinity Canon Tone 4)

Man is also a triune image of God. He is also nous, word and spirit. Man’s exceptional nobility lies in this triune creation: that God created man by infinite divine love (in His image) and made him god by grace (in His likeness). It is from this nobility that the incomparable difference between animal and man can be seen.

Even though the soul is one, it is divided according to the holy fathers into three powers or three parts, the intelligent, the appetitive and the incensive. The tool by which the intelligent part operates is the nous.

Someone once asked a hermit,

- Elder what is the nous?

With distinctive simplicity the hermit replied.

- Well if the helmsman of a ship is missing, what do you think? Will it reach the harbour? The waves will destroy it. It is the same with the nous. It is the helmsman.

According to St. Gregory Palamas the intellectual activity, consisting of thought and intuition, is called nous, and the power that activates thought and intuition is likewise the nous and this power the Holy Scripture also calls the heart. It is because the heart is pre-eminent among our inner powers that our soul is deiform. ²

The nous is also the ability to partake and unite with God. Elsewhere it is called the capability of theoria or vision of God. It is exactly the same thing. For one to see God, is to be united with God. That is why according to patristic terminology it is called the “eye of the soul”, “noetic eye” or “theoretic eye” or “rational” part of the soul.

Man is an image of God because he has a nous. The nous of man is a creative factor of every aspect of civilization. It is tragic however when the rational and discerning sense is missing from the nous. It is then blinded, completely outside itself (as we shall see), and forms absolute relationships with creation and its sensory nature though its essence is noetic. It swims in a sea of arrogance and vainglory, it ceases to be “nous in activity” and it becomes only “nous in spiritval physical activity” that is, it becomes irrational. It becomes like those lifeless electronic computers which it creates, like artificial flowers without fragrance, like blind machines.

“The nous of man”, according to a contemporary ascetic “is similar to a bird in the sky, at times flying high and at other times low.” On the one hand, the holy Fathers of the Philokalia are occupied with the ascension and raising of the nous, and on the other with its falls to the lower parts of the earth as a result of the passions.

Meditation or the collecting of the nous for those who are involved with Yoga, a non-Christian eastern religion, may be achieved, but it is stagnant and fruitless. The nous remains only with the methodology. Up to this point it may be considered as a praiseworthy attempt, achieved however only through human effort, and for this reason condemned from the beginning. The nous stops in the middle of the road from “Jerusalem to Jericho” and “falls who among thieves, strip him of his raiment, and wound him, and depart, leaving him half dead”.³

This occurs because the nous does not have an object, it seeks a non-existent enlightenment and it becomes deluded, since in reality it unites with a demon which manages to present falsehood as angel of light”.⁴

We considered it necessary therefore to dedicate the second volume of the series, “Themes of the Philokalia” to this great topic. We make a warm request to our dear readers to pray for our wretchedness, for the Lord to purify our nous also “from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God”.⁵

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1. Nous – (Gk Νοῦς) “the highest faculty in man, through which -provided it is purified- he knows God or the inner essences or principles … of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. “The nous” does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, but it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition or ‘simple cognition’ (the term used by St Isaac the Syrian).” (The Philokalia Vol.1 London Faber & Faber Ltd. 1979 p362). 
   The nous is the energy of the nous… The nous is also the operative power of the soul which Holy Scripture refers to as the heart…
   We would like to mention that the word “nous” has been used instead of the word “intellect” in most cases throughout the book including citations (taken from the Philokalia, Lenten Triodion, the Ladder of Divine Ascent) even though the original translators had used other terms e.g. mind, intellect.
   However, in certain sentences we have retained the word “intellect” or kept citations as we found them so that the passage makes sense as a whole.

2. The Philokalia Vol. 4 St Gregory Palamas London Faber & Faber Ltd.
3. Cf. Lk. 10: 30-31
4. 2 Cor. 11:14
5. 2 Cor. 7:1