Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in Old Epirus of Illyrikon
100 Ascetical Chapters of Gnosis and Discernment
Definition 2: Hope. Departure of the mind in love towards the things hoped for.
Definition 3: Patience. To persevere unceasingly, seeing with the eyes of the intellect the invisible as visible.
Definition 4: Freedom from avarice. To want not to have just as someone wants to have.
Definition 5: Knowledge[3] of divine things. To forget one’s self in being outside of oneself in God.
Definition 6: Humility. Forgetfulness of things accomplished with care.
Definition 7: Lack of Anger. Great desire not to get angry.
Definition 8: Purity. The [spiritual] sense ever having adhered to God.
Definition 9: Love[4]. Increase of friendship towards those who are insulting [us].
Definition 10: Perfect transformation. In delight in God, to consider the gloominess of death as joy.
Words of judgement and spiritual discernment of Diadochos, Bishop of Photiki in Epirus. Through what quality of gnosis we must arrive at the previously declared perfection, the Lord guiding us, so that each of us who are in accord with the sense of the liberating parable bring to fruition the seed of the word.
[1] Greek: apathes.
[2] Greek: ennoia. This word means ‘thought, idea or concept’ (Lampe). We have preferred to translate it consistently as ‘thought’ because of the other occasions of its use in the text, but clearly the sense here is of ‘conception’ or ‘idea’ of God.
[3] Greek: epignosis. The sense is of a deep mystical knowledge of divine things.
[4] Greek: agape.