Introduction
Kallistos I, whose writings feature in the fifth volume of the Philokalia, was a disciple of St Gregory of Sinai and one of the most important allies and defenders of St Gregory Palamas.[1] Patriarch of Constantinople from 1350 to 1353, and again from 1355 to 1363/64, he was the author of the Life of St Gregory of Sinai, and he served as the senior hierarch at the Palamite Council of 1351.[2]
The present homily, translated from the edition of Constantinos Païdas,[3] deals with a familiar and basic theme of the Hesychast Controversy, namely the superiority of ascetical labor and prayer over the study of pagan Greek sciences and letters. In this sermon, St Kallistos frames the debate as a tension between two paideias: the classical paideia or curriculum of pagan Hellenism, and the paideia, or discipline, of Christian asceticism and struggle. It is the latter, he tells us, that uniquely leads to the kingdom of heaven, and Patriarch Kallistos encourages his flock not to slacken in their pursuit of this narrow and strait way. From the homily itself, it is obvious that Nikephoros Gregoras, the last leader of the opposition to St Gregory Palamas, was still alive, and the homily serves to refute his doctrine, inherited from Barlaam and Akindynos.[4] The theme of the sermon may therefore be compared to Kallistos’s longer antirrhetic discourses Against Gregoras, which form part of the literature and legacy of Palamite theology that developed from the time of St Gregory Palamas to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.[5]
Interestingly, Kallistos’s treatment of the kingdom of heaven differs in emphasis from what we normally find in the writings of St Gregory Palamas. Kallistos does reiterate the central Palamite thesis that the kingdom of heaven is revealed in the Transfiguration and inaugurated in the saints through baptism, constituting the pledge, earnest, or firstfruits of the eschatological vision and glory. Yet the present sermon has little to say about the uncreated light as such, and makes no mention of the human heart, the traditional seat of the heavenly kingdom within the human soul. Instead, St Kallistos begins his sermon by noting the identification between the kingdom of heaven and the person of Christ himself, the maker and king of heaven and earth, especially in his incarnation. Kallistos then proceeds to emphasize the distinction between the noetic, eschatological kingdom that Christians still hope to receive, and the present, inchoate experience of that same kingdom here below. The result is a sermon that calls Christians forward and spurs them on to an as yet unrealized condition: the kingdom of God still to come. This is a condition that ultimately requires not only mortification and ‘refinement’ in the present life, but the death of the body, which seals our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
This sermon, to the best of our knowledge, is presented here for the first time in a modern language. You can download it as a formatted PDF here.
The Kingdom of the Heavens is Within You
Saint Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople[6]
1. Exercising great condescension, God the Word assumed our nature[7] from the all-pure blood of the ever-Virgin Theotokos, for our sake and like us. He became perfect man without sin. He therefore exchanges his own blood for ours, voluntarily and in wondrous manner, so that he not only bestows salvation on man as a free gift, but gives himself over to death as a ransom. He redeems man from the captivity and tyranny of the devil, and offers to all, in his supreme goodness, a revelation and sign unto good (Ps 85:17). And what is this sign, my beloved brethren, which truly surpasses every mind and thought? That he lived among us and spoke about his kingdom, that he might draw all towards what is heavenly and immortal, which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which has not entered into the heart of man: the things God has prepared for those who love him, in the words of the most blessed Paul, who is the mouth of Christ (1 Cor 2:9).
2. He therefore admonishes us in the ways of the Gospel, promising us with his own lordly mouth a kingdom that is intelligible and hidden there beyond, perceptible only to the intellect,[8] and also that the kingdom of the heavens is within you (Lk 17:21) here below, since he himself is the maker of heaven and earth. For although he is present upon the earth, this does not mean that he abandons heaven, since he fills all things and is over all, and he himself can be understood to be a kingdom of the heavens, the glory and boast of the faithful, and truth and righteousness, since he reveals more plainly that intelligible and heavenly kingdom, as the pledge of the Holy and perfecting Spirit (see 2 Cor 1:22) for those who receive it here below, not only by faith but also by the divine and life-giving washing of regeneration. And it is a kingdom that immediately presses its stamp, intelligibly, upon the inner man. In this way Christ shows, in the clearest possible way, that the two kingdoms, the earthly and the heavenly, are united. In the most obvious sense (since he himself is king of both heavenly and earthly creatures and, of course, rational and intelligible nature itself), he naturally says to all, to those who believe and to those who do not, that the kingdom of the heavens is within you.[9] This is because he is known by the faithful in two ways: intellectively and rationally,[10] but also, of course, at the level of sense perception. But to unbelievers he is known only by sense perception, since they say in their babbling that he is a mere man, though they were left dumbfounded by his miracles, which could only have been performed supernaturally. For this reason he said, The kingdom of the heavens is within you, which is to say, I am within you, who holds all power in heaven and on earth (cf. Mt 28:18) and who gives life to the dead.
3. But how, you might ask, is the kingdom of the heavens within us? First of all, my beloved, as we already said, it dwells in us through divine baptism. Secondly, it is made manifest by the keeping of the commandments, as the divine Mark the Ascetic also says.[11] Everyone who is baptized has mystically received the fullness of grace. But it is manifested openly through the fulfillment of the commandments.[12] For ascetical labors truly engender this kingdom of the heavens. For he that loves me, he says, will keep my commandments. And I and my Father will come and will make our abode with him (cf. Jn 14:23). For the kingdom is made manifest by virtue that is attained with ascetical labor, as it is written, Call upon me in the time of your affliction, and I will say to you, Behold, I am here (cf. Ps 49:15; Is 58:9). Concerning this kingdom, the theologian and evangelist John, who reclined on the breast of the Lord, says, This is the promise that he promised us: eternal life (1 Jn 2:25). Yet the divinely inspired and great apostle Paul also says, For our citizenship is in the heavens, from whence we also await the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20).
4. Do you see how the most blessed Paul, even though he had become a bridesman of the Church of Christ, even though he had the Savior speaking in him (2 Cor 13:3), and even though he is called the mouth of Christ, still, did not refuse to lead us higher still and to raise us up to the heavens, assuring us of a more perfect manifestation of that kingdom of the heavens that has already been manifested here below to the worthy according to the measure of their purity? For this reason he said, For our citizenship is in the heavens. But what is he talking about? The kingdom of the heavens is within you. How, then, is it both here and somewhere else, since the kingdom of the heavens suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Mt 11:12)? The answer is that when he says that it is within, he is also saying that it suffers violence. For it takes a great deal of violence to abandon father and mother, to hate one’s own soul (Lk 14:26), and to take hold of the kingdom of the heavens, which is to say, faith in the Lord. For the door of the kingdom will be closed to anyone who does not take hold of it in this way in the present life. For in that place there is not, and will not be, repentance or confession. And in this way the path to the kingdom of the heavens is shown to us all the more clearly. It is here, therefore, that men can close or open the door through repentance and the fulfillment of the commandments. This is what it means to say that the kingdom of the heavens suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. That is to say, they take hold of the earnest[13] of faith, which those who have been purified receive by holy baptism. Taking it by force, on the other hand, seems to me to refer to the zealous effort that one exhibits towards acquiring the things of the kingdom prior to one’s departure from this life, since the sundering of death comes upon us like a snare.[14]
5. This, then, is the kingdom of the heavens proclaimed in advance through the prophets, which they saw symbolically represented, as the loudly-sounding Isaiah tells us (see Is 6:1-7); but we in a mirror, darkly, as the most divine Paul says (1 Cor 13:12), calling this dense and earthly body a mirror.[15] When its density has been lightened by laborious asceticism and the working of the divine commandments, the soul sees the divine rays as in a mirror, since it is unable, on account of its relation and mixture with the flesh with which it is bound up, to see these rays in their purity. There beyond, however, it will behold these rays face to face (1 Cor 13:12), and with face uncovered (cf. 2 Cor 3:18), without interference or obstruction from any veil of flesh.
6. When the most blessed Paul transcended this boundary and entered the third heaven, he was uncertain and said, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know (2 Cor 12:2). The most divine John, too, abbot of Mount Sinai appears to speak in concord with this great man. For when he was caught up in contemplation of God, he was not able to see very clearly whether he was in the body or out, on account, I think, of the veil.[16] For the body acts like a mirror when it has been purified by asceticism and first polished, so to speak, and refined by its industrious working of the commandments, because this is the narrow and strait way of the Gospel (cf. Mt 7:14) that warns the indolent and the careless who are not able to traverse it to turn back (cf. cf. Ps 9:4). Such individuals reject this kingdom taken by violence and return to their lusts. They do what they ought not and follow the broad path (cf. Mt 7:13). Yet if the Lord had commanded us to take the narrow and exclusive way, which is naturally steep and rough, without first saying that the kingdom of heaven is within you, or at least that he did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (Lk 5:32), then everyone, it seems to me, would have been lost. But just as an experienced physician, when he mixes his medicines, distributes them in accordance with the degree of the disease in each person, so also did God the Word first discourse about the kingdom, which is to say, about the enjoyment of the good things to come, and say that the kingdom of the heavens is within you, and only later add that it is taken by force, in order to give no room for the faithful to be filled with utter indolence and negligence.
7. Accordingly, you can find even today believers who fall into this debility, because they have become slaves to indolence. They prefer pagan Greek learning (paideia), thinking that this is the pathway to excellence, and they say that this, and not ascetic toils and labors, brings purification. Yet if this were the case, then anyone who was deprived of pagan Greek learning would be lost. Perish this novel ‘knowledge’! Perish this vain ‘education’! For those multitudes of monks and laypersons, upon hearing that the kingdom of the heavens is within you (so long as we are willing), and that it is acquired by violence, did not give sleep to their eyes or slumber to their eyelids (cf. Ps 131:4) until they found the kingdom of God here below, or at least the pledge of the good things stored up for them. The divine David, too, it seems to me, agrees with this when he says, Latch on to discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry (Ps 2:12), since the prophet calls ascetical labors, struggles, and sweat shed for God’s sake ‘discipline’ (paideia).
8. If you do not find the way to the kingdom here below, its door shall never be opened to you. We have been taught this by that choir of the apostles, as well: they who voluntarily undertook discipline after receiving God’s grace, in accordance with the divine prophet and king, David, and the saying of the Gospel. For that reason they endured beatings, blows, persecution, and endless suffering. Yet they did not abandon ascetical discipline and this narrow way until that door of the kingdom was opened and received them after they were no longer in the body. As the most blessed Paul says, Our citizenship is in the heavens, from whence we also await the Savior (Phil 3:20), who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his beloved Son (Col 1:13); and again, For we know that if the earthly home of our tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building from God, eternal and not built by hands, in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1). The great coryphaeus Peter likewise says, For so entrance into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be richly bestowed on you (cf. 2 Pt 1:11), which is to say, entrance into the enjoyment of those things to come in Christ.
9. You know the contests and trials of the saints. You know that through them the kingdom of the heavens has been richly and abundantly bestowed on them. So then, do not avoid ascetical labors and exertion, I beg you. Neither let us waste the time of our life in utter laziness. For ascetical labors and toil, and the steadfast keeping of the commandments, not only grant us easy access to the kingdom, so that we see it in a kind of mirror, darkly. They also succeed in obtaining for us, after our departure from this world, the fullness of the heavenly kingdom, which is the enjoyment of eternal good things and the contemplation and radiance of the life-giving Trinity. For this is the kingdom of the heavens that the Savior showed us when he was transfigured on Mount Tabor, against which Barlaam and Akindynos wickedly and godlessly blasphemed, like two progenitors of darkness, and as Gregoras, the new leader of this heresy, and their successor and most faithful disciple, is currently doing.
10. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let us flee this wicked and blasphemous heresy, which relegates to the outer darkness all those who fall into it, lest we succumb to the same debility, which I pray will never happen. Rather, let us hasten, together, to approach that unwaning light and indomitable kingdom that the Savior showed us in his Transfiguration. May this come true for all of us by the grace of the unoriginate Father, his only-begotten Son, and the all-Holy and perfecting Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
[1] See The Philokalia, vol. 5, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 2023), 139.
[2] For the Vita of Gregory of Sinai, see Hans-Veit Beyer, Kallistos I Patriarch von Konstantinopel, Leben und Wirken unseres unter den Heiligen weilenden Vaters Gregorios' des Sinaïten (Ekaterinburg: Издательство Уральского университета [Publishing House of the Ural Federal University], 2006). For the Tomos of the Council of 1351, and related documents, see Norman Russell, Gregory Palamas: The Hesychast Controversy and the Debate with Islam, Translated Texts for Byzantinists 8 (Liverpool University Press, 2019).
[3] Constantinos Paidas, “An unedited antirrhetic discourse by the patriarch of Constantinople Kallistos I,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 108.2 (2015): 802-807.
[4] Cf. Paidas, “An unedited antirrhetic discourse,” 800.
[5] See Konstantinos Paidas Οἱ κατὰ Γρηγορᾶ Ὁμιλίες τοῦ Πατριάρχη Κωνσταντινουπόλεως Καλλίστου Αʹ (Athens: Grigori, 2013).
[6] Διδασκαλία εἰς τὸ ῥητὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ὅτι ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἐντὸς ἡμῶν ἐστι, translated by Tikhon Alexander Pino from the edition of Constantinos Paidas, “An unedited antirrhetic discourse by the patriarch of Constantinople Kallistos I,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 108.2 (2015): 802-807.
[7] Literally, our ‘mixture,’ clay, or dough. Cf. Romans 11:16 and 1 Corinthians 5:6-10.
[8] That is to say, spiritually, not perceptible to bodily senses. Cf. John 18:36.
[9] The sense here seems to be that the kingdom of heaven is present among both believers and unbelievers by the very presence of Christ on earth and in human nature.
[10] Again, spiritually, insofar as believers acknowledge and confess what is beyond sense perception, namely the divinity of Christ.
[11] St Mark the Ascetic, On Holy Baptism 5, trans. Tom Vivian, Mark the Monk: Counsels on the Spiritual Life (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), p. 307. Cf. Kallistos I, Against Gregoras 8.2, ed. K. Paidas, Οἱ κατὰ Γρηγορᾶ Ὁμιλίες τοῦ Πατριάρχη Κωνσταντινουπόλεως Καλλίστου Αʹ (Athens: Grigori, 2013), 258.
[12] Cf. Kallistos I, Homilies against the Latins 5.5, ed. K. Paidas, Ψευδοπροφῆτες, μάγοι καὶ αἱρετικοὶ στὸ Βυζάντιο κατὰ τὸν 14o αἰῶνα, ἑπτὰ ἀνέκδοτες ὁμιλίες τοῦ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως Καλλίστου Αʹ (Athens: Kanaki, 2011), 346.
[13] The earnest, or ‘pledge’ of 2 Corinthians 1:22, is the foretaste and firstfruits of the kingdom, experienced only partially, or inchoately, in the present life.
[14] The term for taking by force (τὸ ἁρπάσαι) has the sense of ‘snatching at,’ as in 2 Corinthians 12:2, where Paul is caught up into the third heaven.
[15] Here the mirror serves to evoke a more obscure, mediated, and indirect vision of God. It is helpful to remember that ancient mirrors were often made of polished substances, like bronze, which did not provide the perfect clarity often associated with modern glass mirrors.
[16] Cf. St John Klimakos, Ladder of the Divine Ascent 27.46-47 (1109C) (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2019), 228. See, also, Kallistos I, Chapters on Purity of Soul 68, ed. A. Rigo, “Callisto I Patriarca, I 100 (109) Capitoli sulla purezza dell’anima. Introduzione, Edizione e Traduzione,” Byzantion 80 (2010): 333-407; at 380-381.
Download this text as a formatted PDF here.
