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| Chapter I. The words of Abbot Nesteros on the knowledge of the religious.
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Chapter I.
The words of Abbot Nesteros on the knowledge of the
religious.
The order of our promise
and course demands that there should follow the instruction of Abbot
Nesteros,1865
| 1865 Nesteros. In the
Vitæ Patrum there are some stories of one or two of this name (for
it is not quite clear whether they are distinct persons or one and the
same to whom the stories refer). One was known as ὁ μέγας, and was a friend of St.
Antony, and is supposed by some to be the same whose Conferences
Cassian here relates, but nothing certain is known of him. | a man of
excellence in all points and of the greatest knowledge: who when he had
seen that we had committed some parts of Holy Scripture to memory and
desired to understand them, addressed us in these words. There are
indeed many different kinds of knowledge in this world, since there is
as great a variety of them as there is of the arts and sciences. But,
while all are either utterly useless or only useful for the good of
this present life, there is yet none which has not its own system and
method for learning it, by which it can be grasped by those who seek
it. If then those arts are guided by certain special rules for their
publication, how much more does the system and expression of our
religion, which tends to the contemplation of the secrets of invisible
mysteries, and seeks no present gain but the reward of an eternal
recompense, depend on a fixed order and scheme. And the knowledge of
this is twofold: first, πρακτική, i.e.,
practical, which is brought about by an improvement of morals and
purification from faults: secondly, θεωρητική,
which consists in the contemplation of things Divine and the knowledge
of most sacred thoughts.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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