"They say there are three things that move human beings. Or rather there are three things toward which human beings are freely moved through their own intention and disposition: God, nature, and the world. When one of these draws someone, it pulls that person away from the other two and changes the person moved into itself; it makes that person by position into what the mover itself is known to be by nature – without, of course, making that person of the mover’s own nature. For God naturally preserves what constitutes the human being when God makes a human being into God by position, insofar as deification is a supra-natural good given to the one moved and severs the person clean from the other two, I mean from the world and nature. And if nature moves a man then this manifests what that human being is in himself – he finds himself the intermediary between God and the world, partaking of neither through his disposition. But if the world bears someone along, it renders the human a beast. In other words it renders a man moved solely by the flesh, creating passibility in him through deception, which sets him far off from both God and nature and teaches him how to make every sort of thing that opposes nature.
"Thus the extremes, God and the world, as well as the intermediary, nature, are wont to vie with one another in an effort to drag away the human being. Now the mean is the liminal boundary of the these extremes. So if it inclines man to set his gaze only on the mean itself then it drives him away equally from both extremes: he does not concede to reverting to God, yet he is also ashamed to let himself sink toward the world. When therefore a person is moved toward one of these terms according to interior disposition, that term instantaneously alters his activity and changes his designation so that he is called either fleshly or natural or spiritual. The work and distinctive mark of fleshly man is knowing how to produce only evil; that of natural man is desiring neither to produce nor to suffer evil; that of spiritual man is desiring to produce only good and, if necessary, to suffer beautifully for the cause of virtue – even eagerly embracing it.
"If then, my blessed friend, you long to be moved by the Spirit of God – and I know you do – expel from yourself the world and nature. Or rather sever yourself from them entirely: do not avoid enduring wrong, do not refuse to bear mockery and violence. In a word, when you suffer evil never cease to do good to those who do evil to you, and refer everything done to God’s grace and virtue in accordance with the saying: “If someone wants to take you to court and take your tunic, give him your cloak as well.” (Matt 5.40) And again according to the blessed apostle who says: “Reviled, we bless; persecuted, we endure; blasphemed, we pray.” (1 Cor 4:12-13.5)"
(St. Maximus, Letter 9, To Thalassius the priest and hegumen ('hegumen' is the head of a religious community). Translation by Jordan Daniel Wood PhD)
"Thus the extremes, God and the world, as well as the intermediary, nature, are wont to vie with one another in an effort to drag away the human being. Now the mean is the liminal boundary of the these extremes. So if it inclines man to set his gaze only on the mean itself then it drives him away equally from both extremes: he does not concede to reverting to God, yet he is also ashamed to let himself sink toward the world. When therefore a person is moved toward one of these terms according to interior disposition, that term instantaneously alters his activity and changes his designation so that he is called either fleshly or natural or spiritual. The work and distinctive mark of fleshly man is knowing how to produce only evil; that of natural man is desiring neither to produce nor to suffer evil; that of spiritual man is desiring to produce only good and, if necessary, to suffer beautifully for the cause of virtue – even eagerly embracing it.
"If then, my blessed friend, you long to be moved by the Spirit of God – and I know you do – expel from yourself the world and nature. Or rather sever yourself from them entirely: do not avoid enduring wrong, do not refuse to bear mockery and violence. In a word, when you suffer evil never cease to do good to those who do evil to you, and refer everything done to God’s grace and virtue in accordance with the saying: “If someone wants to take you to court and take your tunic, give him your cloak as well.” (Matt 5.40) And again according to the blessed apostle who says: “Reviled, we bless; persecuted, we endure; blasphemed, we pray.” (1 Cor 4:12-13.5)"
(St. Maximus, Letter 9, To Thalassius the priest and hegumen ('hegumen' is the head of a religious community). Translation by Jordan Daniel Wood PhD)