Beyond human knowledge and understanding

Evagrios the Solitary, in On Prayer:

If the intellect has not risen above the contemplation of the created world, it has not yet beheld the realm of God perfectly. For it may be occupied with the knowledge of intelligible things and so involved in their mulitplicity.
("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 62, text 58)

St. Mark the Ascetic, in No Righteousness by Works:

Knowledge of created beings is one thing, and knowledge of the divine truth is another. The second surpasses the first just as the sun outshines the moon.

Knowledge of created beings increases the more we observe the commandments actively; but knowledge of the truth grows the more we hope in Christ.
("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 137, text 144-145)

St. Theodoros, the Great Ascetic in Theoretikon:

Natural knowledge is that which the soul can acquire through the use of its natural faculties and powers when investigating creation and the cause of creation -- in so far, of course, as this is possible for a soul bound to matter... Supranatural knowledge, on the other hand, is that which enters the intellect in a manner transcending its own means and power; that is to say, the intelligible objects that constitute such knowledge surpass the capacity of an intellect joined to a body, so that a knowledge of them pertains naturally only to an intellect which is free from the body. Such knowledge is infused by God alone when He finds an intellect purified of all material attachment and inspired by divine love.
("Philokalia (Vol. 2)", pp. 39-40)

St. Theognostos in On the Practice of the Virtues, Contemplation and the Priesthood

By spiritual knowledge, I do not mean wisdom, but that unerring apperception of God and of divine realities through which the devout, no longer dragged down by the passions, are raised to a divine state by the grace of the Spirit.
("Philokalia (Vol. 2)", p. 365)

©1999 by Deb Platt