The reality of nous, now variously translated as ‘mind,’ ‘reason,’ or ‘intellect,’ manifests itself in diverse phenomena, such as consciousness, perception, memory, believing, types of reasoning, motives, choices and other traits of character. The particular semantics, however, acquire a special significance in the ascetic doctrine of the human person. As will be shown in the discussion that follows, John’s view, much like that of his desert predecessors, leads to a necessary distinction between nous as discursive reason or intelligence, on the one hand, and, on the other, nous as the intellect or the organ of supra-rational, intuitive apprehension of spiritual truth. The former is implied in everyday discourse by the term ‘mind,’ while the latter relates to the essence of human nature in all the multiplicity of personal existence, beyond any narrowly or, for that matter, any vaguely cerebral phenomena and activities. In the Septuagint and post-biblical Jewish writings, apart from Philo, the

term nous is surprisingly infrequent, indefinite and imprecise. However, there is at least one important reference in the book of Isaiah, which reveals that the spiritual intellect should not be equated with discursive reason (Is. 55.9), even though the author does not use the term nous but rather dianoia, which may include a discursive connotation. Nonetheless, in this particular context, even dianoia appears to have a much wider significance. In the New Testament, the term nous appears predominantly in Paul’s writings. Outside of his epistles, it is only found three times, and there seems to be no direct connection with the philosophical or religious use. The sense, rather, is more popular, similar to our contemporary notion of ‘mind.’ In most English translations of classical or, for that matter, patristic texts,

the term nous is usually rendered as ‘mind,’ seldom as ‘reason,’ and only very

occasionally as ‘intellect,’ although there is clearly an implication of intellectual apprehension, sometimes even of intuitive thought. However, closer analysis makes it clear that, in most passages of these ancient writers, nous is to be distinguished from mere reasoning and applies to the apprehension of eternal intelligible substances or first principles and, indeed, to the highest divine Mind. Aristotle distinguishes between dianoia, which implies discursive or merely syllogistic reason, and nous, which signifies an intuitive understanding that perhaps approaches the notion of ‘enlightenment’ in religious and mystical traditions. In Neoplatonism – even in Porphyry, who adopted an extreme position with regard to the idea of the ‘flight from the body’ – there is a tendency to consider nous and psyche, and even the physical universe (cosmos) as one reality. The Neoplatonist nous is a kind of self-determination of the life that emanates from ‘the one,’ while the shutting up of oneself in the experiences, desires and concerns of the ‘lower nature’ is a form of death. There are certainly echoes here of what John Climacus seems to suggest, as will be seen below, but perhaps no more than quite distant echoes. What is relevant for the semantics of nous – at any rate in its philosophical

connotation, which originates in Anaxagoras – is that, generally speaking, since the time of Plato (Phaedo) and pace Aristotle, it is seen as the organ of knowledge. Nous is not reducible to the senses, instead springing from a divine element in the soul (psyche) that knows the transcendent ‘forms’ and ‘eternal objects,’ and thereby reveals its own eternity. This is seen clearly in Plato’s threefold distinction between ‘opinion’ (doxa) that rests on sense experience, ‘reason’ (dianoia) that contains mathematical reason, and nous that reveals unchanging reality.1 The distinction between nous and dianoia, then, is an old one, going back as far as Plato and continuing variously in Aristotle and Plotinus. The latter further distinguishes between logismos and noesis. Nous in Plato and Aristotle ought, in this respect, not to be interpreted simply in terms of reasoning. These philosophers should be seen rather as endowing it with quasi-mystical overtones.2 Nevertheless, for Aristotle, the emphasis is clearly on knowledge, on epistemology, which carries some rationalistic implications and justifies the use of the term ‘intellect’ as a translation of nous. This usage has been taken over to some extent by modern philosophy, where ‘intellect’ or ‘reason’ provides knowledge of certain fundamental concepts, indeed principles, such as substance, unity and cause, which in turn provide its a priori features, as distinct from a posteriori features derived from empirical experience. Intellect, in this connection, denotes – more passively – the

acquisition and possession of such knowledge, and – more actively – its exercise and practice in judgement. In the Greek ascetic Fathers, ‘soul’ is given a wider and more vague

significance than nous. The Macarian Homilies state ‘the soul has many members,’ one of which is the nous.3 Patristic literature, overall, considers nous to be beyond mere rationality, intellectuality and conceptuality. It is envisaged rather as the ‘image of God,’ as the focus of personality, as the source of character and intelligence. Despite the fact that nous does not signify the intellect in any narrow sense but rather points to something higher than discursive reason, the term ‘intellect’ probably conveys best the meaning of nous, inasmuch as ‘intellect’ preserves the uniqueness, almost e´litism, of that meeting-point within the human person where God is perceived and seen. Such is the rendering of nous selected for the purposes of this study. Philosophical terms are assumed by ascetic writers and used as stones in

order to build a bridge between the created and the uncreated: nous is one such ‘stone.’ While in Climacus’ contemporary, Isaac the Syrian, it is the heart that is the intermediary between the physical and spiritual realms, in Gregory the Theologian the nous performs this function. In creation, says Gregory, God ‘bound together in a mystical and ineffable way the earth to the intellect (nous) and the intellect to the spirit.’4 The term nous, then, is a customary term borrowed from classical philosophy but endowed with new meaning. Nevertheless, the ascetic literature is not consistent and nous may, at times, signify reason and, at other times, a mystical awareness above the level of reason. It seems that today we have neglected somewhat the notion of nous as a profound power of spiritual perception, thereby perhaps reducing the human person to a brain with emotions. In this chapter, the following topics are explored: the relation, as seen by

John, of nous to other areas of the human person as a whole, which have been treated in the preceding discussion, namely, to the body, to the heart, to the activity of meditating and concentrating on God in prayer, to the ascetic life in general, and to the demons as powers extraneous to, and interfering with, the inherent function of the intellect.