When the Apostle speaks of the wisdom, revelation and knowledge of God, he speaks in his Epistle to the Ephesians of the awakening of the eye of the heart (Eph 1:17-18). Without this hallowing awakening of the eye of the heart, there can be faith understood as conventional belief, but not trust in wisdom and revelation that yields true knowledge of God. The eye, ophthalmos, of the heart, kardia, unifies the illumined mind and enlightened heart, a union which, according to Orthodox Hesychast wisdom, purifies the heart and illumines the mind. The resurrection of Christ pierces the heart with the glory of unconditioned love, raising the illumined intelligence, nous, in union with the heart, into the uncreated light and uncreated glory of unconditional love. Grace blesses God’s beloved seers with unconditioned love, purifying, enlightening and glorifying his saints. Wisdom is insight into the glory of this grace, not sophisticated speculation that relies on its own clever sophistry. The fullness of time is timeless as it completes our temporal incompleteness, torn as we appear to be, between past and future. The glory of grace is that it communicates the timeless completeness of God to temporal human beings, freeing them to partake in the timeless life of God in Holy Trinity. But without the awakening of the eye of the heart, timeless glory remains unrevealed and timeless wisdom unknown and hidden.
Orthodox Hesychast wisdom is God’s wisdom purifying and illumining the heart, not a superior sort of esoteric gnosticism, as some in conventional Orthodox circles see it. The Father of glory imparts his Spirit to awaken wisdom, enlightening both mind and heart, the ‘single eye’ of unified vision, theoria. The practice of illumined seeing, or contemplation, opens the heart to wisdom, revelation and knowledge of God, enlightening the heart with the ‘eye’ of deifying wisdom. This ‘single eye’ reveals a resurrected body of light and an ascended body of glory transfiguring the created body of bones, flesh and blood. The eye of the heart is witness to deification in uncreated light and glory. Without illumination of the eye of the heart, there is no awakening to the mysteries of deification. It is the Spirit who unveils through Christ the mysteries of wisdom and revelation, opening to mysteries of glorification of the Father, unveiling glorification of the Son in us, at centre, by the Father. The fullness of grace fills all in all when purification and illumination are fulfilled in the timeless completeness of glorification.
Hesychast elders communicate the Eternal Gospel of timeless glory when they guide the saints into the mysteries of deifying glorification in Christ. They impart the wisdom that discerns the glory of deifying grace, unveiling the eye of the heart to be the eye of trustworthy insight, the eye of deifying love. Elders abide within a covenant of grace that underlies a commonwealth of glory, turning desert wastes within us into cities of unselfish love and gardens of ecstatic beauty. Peace reigns where glory is restored to God, overcoming all sorts of satanic separation, infernal confusion and devilish division. Elders love to point not to themselves but to God present in the midst, unveiling the revelation of his Name. Great Peace reigns in the desert when the Name is hallowed and the Kingdom comes. The wisdom of the Cross is the wisdom of self-emptying love, unconditioned, unconditional love, healing confusion and division. Christ opens access in the Spirit to the Father’s love, revealing the eye of the heart to be the eye of unselfish love. It is the Spirit who opens the eye of the heart to the mysteries of the wisdom and glory of love. It is the Spirit’s unceasing prayer in the heart that inspires the eye of the heart to see as God sees, unifying seer and seen with love. Wisdom gathers seers in the desert to communicate mysteries of love’s glory in heavenly realms, uniting earthly, angelic heavens with the heavenly earth of the illumined heart. The eye of the heart is the place of grace that welcomes home both purification and illumination, opening love’s temporal incompleteness to the timeless completeness of love’s hallowing glorification.