Selected Quotes From St. Gregory Palamas
"If, as the Psalmist says, 'All the glory of the king's daughter is within' (Ps. 45:13.LXX), how shall we seek it somewhere without? And if, as St. Paul says, 'God has sent forth His Spirit into our hearts, crying: "Abba Father" ' (cf. Gal. 4:6), how shall we not pray in union with the Spirit that is in our hearts? And if, as the Lord of the prophets and the apostles says, 'The kingdom of heaven is within us' (cf. Luke 17:21), how shall we not find ourselves outside the kingdom of heaven if we strive to alienate our intellect from what lies within us? 'An upright heart', says Solomon, 'seeks conscious awareness' (cf. Prov. 27:21.LXX), the awareness or perception which he elsewhere calls noetic and divine (cf. Prov. 2:5.LXX)."
"If you examine things you will find that the first evil offspring of the appetitive power is love of material possessions. For the desires that help men to live are not blameworthy, as is clear from the fact that they are with us from a very early age. Love of possessions, however, comes a little later although still in childhood - and in this way it is evident that it does not have its ground in nature, but is a matter of individual choice. St. Paul rightly termed it the root of all evils (cf. I Tim. 6:10), and the evils that it usually begets are niggardliness, trickery, rapacity, thievery and, in short, greed in all its forms, which St. Paul called a second idolatry (cf. Col. 3:5)."
"All the faithful are truly anointed priests and kings in the spiritual renewal brought about through baptism, just as priests and kings were anointed figuratively in former times. For these anointings were prefigurations of the truth of our anointing: prefigurations in relation not merely to some of us but to all of us. For our kingship and priesthood is not of the same form or character as theirs, even though the symbolic actions are the same. Nor does our anointing recognize any distinction in nature, grace or calling, in such a way that those anointed essentially differ one from the other: we have but one and the same calling, faith and ritual. The true significance of this is that he who is anointed is pure, dispassionate and wholly consecrated to God now and for ever."
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"If you examine things you will find that the first evil offspring of the appetitive power is love of material possessions. For the desires that help men to live are not blameworthy, as is clear from the fact that they are with us from a very early age. Love of possessions, however, comes a little later although still in childhood - and in this way it is evident that it does not have its ground in nature, but is a matter of individual choice. St. Paul rightly termed it the root of all evils (cf. I Tim. 6:10), and the evils that it usually begets are niggardliness, trickery, rapacity, thievery and, in short, greed in all its forms, which St. Paul called a second idolatry (cf. Col. 3:5)."
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"All the faithful are truly anointed priests and kings in the spiritual renewal brought about through baptism, just as priests and kings were anointed figuratively in former times. For these anointings were prefigurations of the truth of our anointing: prefigurations in relation not merely to some of us but to all of us. For our kingship and priesthood is not of the same form or character as theirs, even though the symbolic actions are the same. Nor does our anointing recognize any distinction in nature, grace or calling, in such a way that those anointed essentially differ one from the other: we have but one and the same calling, faith and ritual. The true significance of this is that he who is anointed is pure, dispassionate and wholly consecrated to God now and for ever."
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