"When candle wax is far from the fire, it is solid and can be grasped, but when you put it in the fire it melts, and there it burns in the flame and catches fire and becomes all light and so finds a perfect end in the fire. There is no way for it not to melt in the fire and pour out like water. So too, while man's intellect is by itself, without encountering God, it thinks that everything is solidly in its power. But when it draws near, as it were, to the fire of Divinity and the Holy Spirit, it is completely dominated by that divine light and becomes all light, and there within the flame of the All-Holy Spirit it is set aflame and softened by divine perceptions. And in that fire of Divinity, there is no way for it to consider it own concerns and desires."
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Original Language: English
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Philokalia, volume 5, as translated by Anna Skoubourdis (2020), p. 305
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maximos_of_Kafsokalyvia
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Maximos of Kafsokalyvia
Saint Maximos Kausokalybis (Greek: Μάξιμος Καυσοκαλύβης; died 1365 or 1380), also known as St. Maximos the Hut Burner, was a hesychast monk who lived on Mount Athos in Greece.
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