Nous and attention
Other Fathers use the term `nous' to define attention, which is more subtle than reason. Theoleptos of Philadelphia links nous with attention, word with invocation, spirit with compunction and love. When the powers of the soul function in this way, then "the whole of the inner man serves the Lord. But it sometimes happens that while the mind is offering the words of prayer, the nous (the more subtle attention) does not go with it, does not fix its gaze on God, with whom the words of the prayer are speaking, but it is distracted by different thoughts without realising it. So the mind says the words from habit, but the nous is taken away from knowledge of God. Therefore the soul too then seems not to be aware or organised, since the nous is scattered in various fantasies and is engaged in things which deceive it or in things which it desires".
So the nous itself, which is not simply the thoughts, but the subtler attention, should return to the heart, to the essence of the soul, which is located, as in an organ, within the bodily organ of the heart, since this bodily organ is the seat of intelligence and "the first intelligent organ of the body". Thus we should concentrate our nous, which is scattered abroad by the senses, and bring it back again "to the selfsame heart, the seat of thoughts".
We have not exhausted the subject of the nous. In this section we simply wanted in some way to distinguish the terms nous, heart and soul and to point out their relations and differences. We shall return to these concepts when we speak at greater length about nous, heart and thoughts.
In this section we want briefly to emphasise that the term `nous' has many meanings in the biblico-patristic tradition. The nous is identified with the soul, but at the same time it is also an energy of the soul. Like the soul, the nous too is in the image of God. And just as the soul is divided into essence and energy, the same is true of the nous. And just as in God essence and energy are separated inseparably, so it is with the nous. That is why in some places the Fathers characterise nous as essence, that is the heart, in which case the nous is identified with the heart, and in other passages they characterise nous as energy, conceptual images and thoughts and the subtler attention which is poured out through the senses, when it should return to the heart. The Fathers mainly refer to the nous more generally as the heart and the soul, without excluding the other names which we mentioned before.
We have lost our tradition relating to it, and many of us identify the nous with intelligence. We do not at all suspect that aside from intelligence there is also another power which has greater value: the nous, the heart. The whole of civilisation is a civilisation of the loss of the heart. And a person cannot understand what he has not in his heart. The heart has died, the nous has been darkened, and we cannot perceive their presence. That is why this clarification has been necessary. A person who has the Holy Spirit within him, who is "in the revelation", does not need many clarifications, because he himself knows from experience the presence and existence of the nous, the heart.
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