Nous, Heart, and Soul

The four words on which the whole ascetic vocabulary turns: nous (νοῦς), dianoia (διάνοια), kardia (καρδία), and psyche (ψυχή), with pneuma (πνεῦμα) alongside them. This file defines each, fixes the distinction between the nous and discursive reason that most modern misreadings collapse, sets out what the heart means in this literature, and states the correction the tradition made to a purely intellectualist anthropology.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Nous (νοῦς)

The nous is the highest faculty of the human being: the organ by which God is known and by which the inner principles of created things are perceived — directly, as the eye perceives light, and not by inference. The Greek Fathers call it the eye of the soul; the standard English Philokalia renders it “intellect” and defines it as “the highest faculty in man, through which — provided it is purified — he knows God or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception,” adding that it does not function by formulating abstract concepts (The Philokalia, vol. 1, trans. Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware, London: Faber and Faber, 1979, glossary, s.v. “Intellect”).

Three negations fix the term.

The nous is not reason. The reasoning faculty is dianoia, treated below. The distinction is not one of degree — better thinking versus worse — but of kind. Reason moves from premises to conclusions; the nous sees. St. Isaac the Syrian’s language of wonder and of prayer passing beyond prayer describes an operation of the nous at the point where reasoning has stopped (Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies 22, 32; trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2nd ed., Boston, 2011; see St. Isaac the Syrian: Wonder and Pure Prayer).

The nous is not the brain, and not a thing in a location. The tradition speaks of the nous wandering and returning, of its being scattered and gathered, of its descending into the heart. This is functional language about the concentration and direction of the person’s attentive and perceptive power, not physiology. Where Byzantine authors add physiological detail — and St. Gregory Palamas does, defending the hesychasts’ bodily practice — the doctrinal claim is that the human being prays as a psychosomatic whole, not that a particular ancient anatomy is binding (Palamas, Triads I.2 and II.2; trans. Nicholas Gendle, Classics of Western Spirituality, New York: Paulist Press, 1983; see St. Gregory Palamas: The Psychosomatic Method).

The nous is not automatically reliable. It is darkened by the passions and requires purification; the whole ascetic programme exists because the organ of spiritual perception does not work properly in a fallen person. Evagrius’ formula is that the nous which has been purified in the practical life becomes capable of contemplation (Evagrius, Praktikos 1–2, 66; trans. Bamberger, Cistercian Studies 4, Kalamazoo, MI, 1972).

In the Slavonic and Russian tradition the term is ум (um). St. Theophan the Recluse uses it constantly, and his account of “bringing the mind down into the heart” is the classic Russian formulation of the same movement the Greek texts describe (Theophan, in The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, comp. Igumen Chariton, trans. Kadloubovsky and Palmer, London: Faber and Faber, 1966; see St. Theophan the Recluse: The Heart as Centre).

Dianoia (διάνοια)

Dianoia is discursive reason: the faculty that defines, argues, infers, weighs evidence, and forms concepts. Russian рассудок (rassudok) is the standard equivalent, and Russian usage helpfully preserves the distinction from ум.

Nothing in the tradition despises reason. It is a genuine power of the soul, indispensable in doctrine, in ordinary life, and in the examination of one’s own thoughts. What the tradition denies is that reason is the highest faculty or the organ of the knowledge of God. The hesychast controversy turned in part on exactly this: Barlaam of Calabria’s position implied that the knowledge of God available in this life is mediated through the created order and grasped by the reasoning faculty, and Palamas’ reply was that the saints know God by a direct participation which is not a conclusion drawn from anything (Palamas, Triads I.3; trans. Gendle, 1983; see St. Gregory Palamas: The Barlaam Dispute; St. Gregory Palamas: Apophaticism and Grace). The distinction between nous and dianoia is therefore not a piece of ascetic psychology only; it carries dogmatic weight.

Kardia (καρδία)

The heart in this literature is not the seat of emotion as opposed to the head as the seat of thought. That opposition is modern and European, and importing it makes the texts unreadable. The heart is the centre of the whole person — the place from which a human being’s life actually proceeds, and therefore the place where he stands before God.

The usage is biblical before it is technical. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts” (Matthew 15:19). “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 50:12 LXX / 51:10). Every one of these is a foundational text for the neptic writers, and each treats the heart as the source of a person’s acts and the object of God’s work.

The Macarian corpus made the heart the organizing category of an entire spirituality. In its language, the heart is a workshop, a tomb, a treasury, a palace with many chambers, in which both grace and evil may be present and in which the decisive struggle occurs; and grace, when it comes, is known there (Pseudo-Macarius, Fifty Spiritual Homilies 15.20, 43.7; trans. George A. Maloney, Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, Classics of Western Spirituality, New York: Paulist Press, 1992). The authorship and Messalian questions attaching to this corpus are treated at The Sources and Their Limits and at St. Macarius the Great: The Symeon Authorship Question, with which this collection agrees.

The characteristic hesychast formula — the union of the nous with the heart, or “bringing the mind down into the heart” — is the joining of these two lines. The nous, dispersed among external objects and among its own imaginings, is gathered and brought to the centre, so that a person prays with his whole self rather than with a detached mental faculty. This is the aim of the practice treated at Attention, Prayer, and the Descent of the Nous, and, as method, at The Jesus Prayer: The Psychosomatic Method.

Psyche and Pneuma (ψυχή, πνεῦμα)

Psyche, Russian душа, is the soul: the animating and organizing principle of a human being together with its faculties. It is not a separable “true self” that survives while the body is discarded. The Church confesses the resurrection of the body, and this literature everywhere assumes that a human being is a composite whom God saves whole (see Theological Anthropology).

Pneuma, Russian дух, is spirit. Some Fathers and many later writers — St. Theophan and St. Ignatius Brianchaninov conspicuously among the Russians — use a threefold division of spirit, soul, and body, on the warrant of 1 Thessalonians 5:23; others use a twofold division of soul and body. The hub article Theological Anthropology sets out this question, and the position taken there governs here: the trichotomy is a way of naming the God-directed apex of the soul, not the assertion of a third substance, and the Church has not made either scheme a dogma against the other. St. Theophan’s threefold anthropology, in which the spirit is the God-facing dimension and the whole spiritual life consists in the spirit’s regaining command over soul and body, is the fullest Russian development of the scheme (Theophan, The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, trans. Alexandra Dockham, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1995; see St. Theophan the Recluse: The Heart as Centre).

A Correction the Tradition Made

Evagrius’ anthropology tends to locate the image of God in the nous, and his account of the goal of prayer — the nous stripped of all images and forms — can be read as leaving the body behind. The later tradition kept his psychology and refused that implication.

St. Gregory Palamas states the correction directly against the philosophers and against Barlaam: the human being is in the image of God as a psychosomatic whole, the body is not a prison from which the nous escapes but a participant in grace, and the man who withdraws the nous from the body in prayer is following Greek philosophy rather than the Gospel (Palamas, Triads I.2.1–3; II.2; trans. Gendle, 1983; see St. Gregory Palamas: The Defence of the Hesychasts). The Macarian tradition of the heart pushes in the same direction, and the eventual Byzantine synthesis holds both: the purified nous of Evagrius, dwelling in the Macarian heart, in a body that is being deified.

This is why the imageless character of prayer in this tradition must not be mistaken for disembodiment. Images are refused because the nous is not to be occupied with its own productions (see The Marks of Delusion and the Safeguards); the body is not refused at all.

References

Evagrius Ponticus. The Praktikos; Chapters on Prayer, 1–2, 66. Trans. John Eudes Bamberger. Cistercian Studies 4. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1972.
Isaac the Syrian. The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Homilies 22 and 32. Trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery. 2nd ed. Boston, 2011.
Palamas, Gregory. The Triads, I.2; I.3; II.2. Ed. John Meyendorff, trans. Nicholas Gendle. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1983.
Pseudo-Macarius. The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, Homilies 15 and 43. Trans. George A. Maloney. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.
The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. Vol. 1. London: Faber and Faber, 1979. (Glossary, s.vv. “Intellect”, “Heart”, “Soul”.)
The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Comp. Igumen Chariton of Valaam. Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer. London: Faber and Faber, 1966. (Theophan on the mind in the heart.)
Theophan the Recluse. The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It. Trans. Alexandra Dockham. Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1995.
Scripture: Proverbs 4:23; Psalm 50:12 (LXX) / 51:10; Matthew 5:8; 15:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:23.