The Human Soul (Psyche):

It's sickness, death and therapy

In church we often speak of the fall of man and the death which came as a result of the fall. Spiritual death came first, and bodily death followed. The soul lost the uncreated grace of God, the nous ceased to have a relationship with God and was darkened. It transmitted this darkening and dying to the body. According to St. Gregory of Sinai, man's body was created incorruptible and "such it will be resurrected", and the soul was created dispassionate. Since there was a very tenacious link between soul and body because of their interpenetration and communication, both were corrupted. "The soul acquired the qualities of the passions, or rather of the demons, and the body became like irrational beasts due to the condition into which it fell and the prevalence of corruption." Since the soul and body were corrupted, they formed "one animal being, unreasoning and senseless, subject to anger and lust". This is how, according to the Scriptures, man became "joined to the beasts and like them" . Through the fall, man's soul filled with passions, his body became like the beasts. Man wore the skin garments of decay and mortality and became like irrational animals.

This sickness, bondage, impurity and dying of the soul is admirably described in the patristic works. Every sin is a repetition of Adam's sin, and with every sin we undergo the darkening and dying of the fallen soul. Let us take a closer look at these fallen states of the soul.

When man leaves his senses free and through the senses his nous pours out of his heart, then his soul is taken captive. "The unloosing of the senses lays fetters on the soul." This bondage is equivalent to darkening. The setting of the sun creates night. And when Christ withdraws from the soul and the darkness of passions lays hold of it, then "the immaterial beasts tear it to pieces" . Man's soul falls into impenetrable darkness and the demons work on him. He finds himself in a moonless night.

This also constitutes the soul's disease. St. Thalassios says: "The soul's disease is an evil disposition, while its death is sin put into action" . The ailing soul is led step by step to death.

Actually the soul's disease is its impurity. "Impurity of soul lies in its not functioning in accordance with nature. “It is because of this that impassioned thoughts are produced in the intellect" . According to St. Maximus , "A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified” .

Hesychios the Priest describes the way in which the soul sickens and is finally killed. God created the soul simple and good, but it delights in the provocations of the devil, and "once deceived, it pursues something sinister as though it were good". In this way "its thoughts become entwined in the fantasy provoked by the devil". Then "the soul assents to the provocation and, to its own condemnation, tries to turn this unlawful mental fantasy into a concrete action by means of the body" .

St. Gregory Palamas, citing passages from Scripture, such as the Apostle Paul's words: "...even when we were dead in trespasses He made us alive together with Christ" (Eph.2,5), the words of John the Evangelist: "There is sin leading to death" (1Jn.5,16), and Christ's words to his disciple: "Let the dead bury their own dead" (Matt.8,22), says that although the soul is immortal by grace, nevertheless when "dissipated, abandoned to pleasures and self-indulgent, it is dead even while it lives". This is the way he interprets the Apostle Paul's words: "She (the widow) who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives" (1Tim.5,6). Although the soul is alive, it is dead, since it has not the true life which is the grace of God (51) . When our ancestors withdrew from the remembrance and theoria of God and disregarded His command and took the side of the deathly spirit of Satan, they were stripped of "the luminous and living raiment of the supernal radiance and they too, alas, became dead in spirit like Satan" (52) . This is how it always goes. When someone joins with Satan and does his own will, his soul dies, because Satan is not only a deathly spirit but he also brings death upon those who draw near to him (53) .

When the soul is not working according to nature it is dead. "...when it is not healthy, though it retains a semblance of life, it is dead...When, for instance, it has no care for virtue, but is rapacious and transgresses the law, whence can I tell you that you have a soul? Because you walk? But this belongs to the irrational creatures as well. Because you eat and drink? But this too belongs to wild beasts. Well then, because you stand upright on two feet? This convinces me rather that you are a beast in human form" (54) .

In the teaching of the Apostle Paul the `dead' man is called `carnal' or `unspiritual'. In his letter to the Corinthians he writes: "The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God" (1Cor.2,14). He also writes: "While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal, and behaving like mere men?" (1Cor.3,3) According to Prof. John Romanides the words used for `unspiritual' (psychikos) and `carnal' (sarkikos) and `behaving like mere men' have the same meaning (55) . In another place in his book he writes: "The carnal and unspiritual man is the whole man, soul and body, who lacks that energy of the Holy Spirit which renders one incorruptible" (56) . "When a man does not follow the Spirit, he is deprived of God's life-giving energy and is rendered unspiritual" (57) .

Therapy of the Soul

The whole tradition of the Orthodox Church consists in healing and bringing to life the soul which is dead from sin. All the sacraments and the whole ascetic life of the Church contribute to this healing. Anyone who is not aware of this fact is unable to sense the atmosphere of the Orthodox Tradition. We shall see in what follows what this health and vitalising of the soul is, and several ways of attaining it, and how a healthy and living soul functions.

Health of the soul consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge (58) . "The soul is perfect when permeated by the virtues" (59) . A soul is perfect "if its passible aspect is totally oriented towards God" (60) . A pure soul is "one that loves God" (61) . A pure soul is "one freed from passions and constantly delighted by divine love" (62) .

The holy Fathers also describe several ways in which the soul is revived, vitalised and healed. Godly sorrow, or repentance, puts an end to sensual pleasure, but "the destruction of sensual pleasure is the soul's resurrection" (63) . Anthony, the great servant of God, said that we must purify our minds. "For I believe that when the mind is completely pure and is in its natural state, it gains penetrating insight, and it sees more clearly and further than the demons, since the Lord reveals things to it" (64) . That is to say, this holy servant of the soul enjoins us to purify our minds. It has been observed that if anyone keeps his nous pure from evil thoughts and various images, then he can keep his soul pure.

Theoleptos, Metropolitan of Philadelphia, teaches: "When, having put an end to external distractions, you also master inner thoughts, then your nous is stirred to spiritual acts and words." The effort to keep one's mind pure and to free oneself from the many distractions results in the appearance within us of the nous, which had been dead and unseen. Therefore again Theoleptos advises: "Put an end to mixing with the outer world and fight with the inner thoughts until you find the place of pure prayer and the home where Christ dwells" (65) . The heart, as we shall point out in another place, is the home where God dwells. We shall discover it only when we strive to live quietly and when we struggle against the thoughts which hold sway in us. Purity of the nous is very important. This method is simple but comprehensive and brings great benefit to man's soul, since it makes it a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The soul is healed when it rejects relations with inferior things and cleaves in love to one who is superior (66) .

St. Gregory Palamas, interpreting the whole tradition of the Orthodox Church, says that through transgression and sin we lost the likeness of God, but "we did not lose the image". Precisely because we did not lose the image we can restore the soul. The soul, freed from relations with inferior things and cleaving in love to one who is superior and submitting to him through the works and ways of virtue, "receives from him illumination, adornment and betterment and it obeys his counsels and exhortations, from which it receives true and eternal life" (67) . When the soul obeys God's law, it gradually becomes healthy, is illuminated and receives eternal life.

Beside the practical method for healing the soul, Nicetas Stethatos also offers another method, through theoria. Where there is love for God, an active nous, and participation in the unapproachable light, "there is also peace in the powers of the soul, purification of the nous and indwelling of the Holy Trinity" (68) . Therefore, beside the effort to keep our nous pure, it is necessary to accustom the nous to inner action and inner prayer, to acquire charity and love for God - because where this love dwells, peace comes to the powers of the soul - and purity of the nous.

In another section of this book we speak more analytically about how the soul is healed when it moves according to nature, and there we describe the natural movement of each part of the soul. Here, since we are speaking of the healing of the soul we shall just briefly emphasise a few facts.

St. Gregory Palamas writes that we struggle to drive the law of sin out of our body and to install in its place the oversight of the nous, in this way establishing a law appropriate for each power of the soul and for every member of the body. For the senses we ordain self-control. For the passible part of the soul, love. We improve the intelligence by rejecting everything which impedes the mind's ascent towards God, and this we call nepsis. If a person has purified his body through self-control, has made his emotions and desires an occasion of virtue, and presented to God a mind purified by prayer, then he "acquires and sees in himself the grace promised to those whose hearts have been purified" (69) .

St. Maximus, in the Orthodox tradition, exhorts: "Bridle your soul's incensive power with love, quench its desire with self-control, give wings to its intelligence with prayer, and the light of your nous will never be darkened" (70) .

It is not advice or medicines that heal the sick soul, that give life to the dead nous, that purify the impure heart, but the ascetic method of the Church, self-control, love, prayer and guarding of the nous from Satan's provocations through evil thoughts. Therefore we believe that the Orthodox tradition is very important for our time, for it is the only thing that can free a man and heal him from the anxiety and insecurity brought on by the death of his soul.

Adapted from ” ORTHODOX PSYCHOTHERAPY: The science of the Fathers ” written by well-known theologian, author & Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Greece , Hierotheos S. Vlachos

Acrostics, 82. Writings, p. 52

Theoleptos. Philok. 4, p. 6 (In Gk.). Writings p. 386, 9

Philok. 2, p. 318, 89

Ibid p. 89, 35

Ibid p. 54, 14

Philok. 1, p. 169f, 43

150 chapters, ch.45

Ibid ch.46

Ibid.

Homily 6 on 2 Corinthians. NPNF vol. 12 p 307f

John Romanides: The Ancestral Sin (in Greek) p. 131

Ibid, p. 130

Ibid, p. 131

St Thalassios Philok. 2, p. 313, 2

Ibid, p. 316, 54

St Maximus Philok. 2, p. 99, 98

St Thalassios Philok. 2, p. 317 79

St Maximus Philok. 2, p. 56, 34

St Thalassios Philok. 2, p. 309, 39

Hesychios the Priest. Philok. 1, p. 194, 179

Philok. 4, p. 6 (in Gk). Writings, p. 385f

Gregory Palamas. 150 chapters, ch. 39

Ibid.

Natural chapters, ch. 2. Gk. Philok. 3, p. 298

Triads, 1,2,2. CWS p. 42

Philok. 2, p. 110, 80