"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us an exceedingly great weight of eternal glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal" (2 Cor 4:17-18).
To bear sorrow lightly, to advance in virtue, and to hope for eternal glory: what more can a man desire in a life where sorrow is unavoidable, virtue is difficult, and prosperity is uncertain? The Apostle, without hesitation, ascribes such advantages of the present life to himself. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us an exceedingly great weight of eternal glory."
Let us attend to the means by which such advantages in life are acquired. How is affliction "light" even for you, who by your own confession are "hard-pressed on every side," "perplexed," "persecuted," "struck down," and "always delivered unto death" (2 Cor 4:8-11)? How does this affliction "increase" your progress? How does it "work" for you "a weight of eternal glory"? They answer: "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen." The matter is this: we do not look at what is seen, but at what is unseen.
Therefore, in not looking at what is seen, but looking at what is unseen, there lies a powerful remedy against sorrow, a means for virtue, and a means for blessedness.
When determining a cure, it is useful to turn to the beginning of the disease. So it is not useless to observe here the first and universal beginning of mankind's universal disease. The beginning of every imperfection and misfortune, or, in other words, the beginning of every sin and punishment among men, is this: a wrong thought of the mind and a disorderly resolve of the will. Man resolved no longer to look at the unseen, but to look only at the seen.
What else is called the "fall" of man? Even in the state of the fall he remains on his feet, unlike the serpent condemned to go upon his belly. What, I say, is called man's fall, if not this? His mind, will, and activity turned away, deviated, and fell down from God to creation, from the heavenly to the earthly, from the unseen to the seen.
Attend to how the book of Genesis describes this: "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes" (Gen 3:6). Instead of gazing more diligently toward the unseen God, who commanded her not to eat from this tree, she gazed at the visible beauty of the forbidden fruit.
She should have gazed into the unseen heaven, where eternal recompense was prepared for fulfilling God's commandment. She should have gazed upon the death not yet seen, but already indicated, which had inevitably to follow the violation of the commandment. Instead of all that was unseen, the woman looked only at the visible beauty of the forbidden fruit. She gazed upon it, ate, and drew her husband to the same eating.
Thus, from passionate attention to what is seen there are born sin, nakedness, exile, curse, labors, sorrows, diseases, death, and corruption.
Let us repeat what has been said. In determining a cure, it is useful to turn to the beginning of the disease. By blocking the source of evil, the spread of evil is cut off, and its streams are dried up. Therefore, if the beginning of spiritual diseases in men, and the first source of every evil, is found in man's ceasing to look at the unseen and beginning to look only at the seen, then the conclusion is not difficult.
It is natural to seek the healing and saving remedy against evil in ceasing to look at the seen, and in resolving to look chiefly at the unseen.
What was in the source also flows in the streams. Forgetfulness of the unseen and attachment to the seen was the beginning of evil in man. The same principle acted, and still acts, in the spread of evil among men. Some stubbornly refused to gaze toward the unseen God, and impiety was born. Others, through attachment to the seen, wanted to have even a visible god. From this came idolatry and superstition.
They despised the unseen part of their being, the soul, and began to look only at the visible part of their constitution, the body. Instead of a human life governed by reason and the law of good, there appeared among men a bestial life led by sensual desires. There also appeared a savage life carried away by unbridled rage.
A passionate and greedy gaze upon the seen becomes a certain power that works evil. From every visible object, according to its difference, it extracts a different poison. This poison is all the more terrible because it poisons the very person in whom it is formed.
Thus men look at visible bodily beauty and fall into the frenzy of sensual pleasure. They look at gold and other visible goods, and become infected with covetousness. They look at visible goods in the hands of others, and poison their own hearts with envy. They look at their own visible advantages, and blind themselves with pride.
Thus, according to the word of the Prophet Jeremiah, "death has come up through your windows" (Jer 9:21). That is, through the senses by which you communicate with the visible world, sinful death enters the soul. These windows are opened too widely through carelessness, and still more through attachment to the seen.
What then must we do? Without doubt, we must close more carefully the windows through which death enters. That is, we must restrain the senses through which delusion and temptation enter the soul. Or, in the Apostle's words, we must "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen."
Do not fix your gaze on visible beauty, and you will be preserved from the delusion of sensual pleasure. Do not look at the glitter of wealth, whether it is yours or another's. Then you will not be enslaved to covetousness or wounded by envy.
Do not look at your visible advantages. Rather, strive to know the perfections required by your unseen being. Then you will not abase yourself by pride, but humility will exalt you. Do not sow in the flesh the seeds of corruption, and you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
Passing by everything visible, gaze unceasingly toward the unseen God. Then you will find grace before His eyes and be satisfied by the manifestation of His glory.
Some will say: how is it possible not to look at what is visible? It stands before our eyes not only without our will, but even against our will. And how can we look, on the contrary, at what is invisible, which is hidden from our sight?
To this we answer first, lest anyone truly be troubled by this supposed impossibility. The most ordinary experience shows how it is possible not to look at what is visible. For example, a man deeply absorbed in thought does not notice what is happening around him. Or, for one overwhelmed by sorrow, what had been nearest and most pleasant becomes joyless and foreign.
In a similar way, a man occupied with reverent meditation on the lofty mysteries of the unseen, or with pious sorrow according to God, enters deeply into these inward states. He is detached from everything outward, so that pleasant things do not strongly attract him, and unpleasant things do not deeply strike him.
He sees, but does not look. He looks, but does not nail his gaze to the seen. Therefore the apostolic word presents, as a means of progress in good and an aid to attaining blessedness, not simply contempt for the seen. It presents this contempt together with intense attention to the unseen: "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen."
Second, to be assured that one can look even at the unseen as though it were seen, it is enough to recall this. Though God is the invisible Being in the highest degree, according to the Apostle's saying, He "dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Tim 6:16). Yet, according to the testimony of the same Apostle, Moses the beholder of God "endured as seeing Him who is invisible" (Heb 11:27).
And for all men, "His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead" (Rom 1:20). Thus the visible itself, when we do not look only at it, but strive to penetrate further, becomes a lens for the contemplation of the unseen.
Moreover, from the Apostle one may borrow a particular method for withdrawing from the seen and cleaving to the unseen. This method consists in reflecting that "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal."
"The things which are seen are temporal." Why, then, look at what is seen? What use is there in building on sand, writing on water, or chasing the wind or a fleeing shadow? Why do the covetous, ambitious, and envious wish to devour the whole world with insatiable eyes? Before they can be satisfied, the world will vanish. And before the world vanishes, they will vanish from the world.
"The things which are seen are temporal." What if this immutable law of the visible is already showing its effect on what surrounds us? What if time steals from us what is pleasant and dear, and leaves the feeling of deprivation or even suffering? The same law of time, which now attacks us with the weapon of sorrow, will soon turn to deliver us from it.
It is unreasonable to bind oneself with overly strong bonds of love to the visible, which may soon be taken away by time. It is no more reasonable to make heavier upon oneself the burden of sorrow over the visible, which time has already taken away.
"But the things which are unseen are eternal." Before eternity, one minute and the whole span of time are equally imperceptible. What, then, is a minute of deprivation, after which comes an eternity of possessing the good? What is a minute of suffering, which prepares for an eternity of delight? What is a minute of struggle for virtue, which awaits an eternity of recompense and glory?
"The things which are unseen are eternal." And, ah, in the vast regions of the unseen there is not only eternal possession of the good, but also eternal deprivation of the good. There is not only eternal delight, but also eternal suffering. There is not only eternal recompense and glory, but also eternal reproach and shame. There is not only eternal light and eternal life, but also eternal fire and eternal death.
In this brief present life we pass through the visible and temporal as through a certain vestibule of the unseen and eternal. Bodily death opens the door. If we have learned in good time to look with a faithful and unwavering eye upon the hidden path of the unseen, and have decisively directed our steps toward the eternal, death leads us into the heavenly mansions of light and life.
But those blinded and weighed down by attachment to the seen it casts down into the dark abyss, into the fearful vestibule of the second death.
Let us learn, sojourners of the visible world, while it is not too late. Let us learn how we ought to pass safely and hopefully along the brief path of temporal life. Let us learn what we must leave unnoticed, so as to guard ourselves from distraction, and where to turn our attentive and cautious gaze.
We must strive toward eternal glory, "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal."
If, as an exception to this rule, it is ever permissible and necessary to look attentively at the visible, it is especially in those cases where the visible is set before men for pious attention by God Himself or by divinely wise founders. There the visible is an image, a mystical instrument, and a receptacle of the unseen, holy, and divine.
THEOSIS