INTRODUCTION
The ‘genesis’ of this journey began with my short and quite blunt critique of Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity):
“It seems to me that the main flaw in our Holy Father’s encyclical (curiously entitled ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ i.e., ‘Magnificent Humanity’) is that it totally ignores our Catholic Church’s doctrine of Original Sin and the Fall of Humankind in the Garden of Eden. The entire history of humankind has been a chronicle of the aftereffects of that Fall, and our Catholic Church’s doctrine has always centered on salvation through conversion and acceptance of Jesus’ atoning death on the Cross, and not on trustful reliance on the wisdom of ‘Magnificent Humanity’.”
That short and blunt critique of the encyclical set the thoughts in my mind on a journey through Biblical analysis and Catholic and other Christian understandings of the spiritual realm and its effects on human nature. The result of that mental journey is the essay that follows: An essay on spirit, soul, and body in the nature of the human being.
TWO POSITIONS: BIPARTITE AND TRIPARTITE
In terms of Biblical understanding, what constitutes a human being? When asked that question, most Catholics, indeed most Christians, would probably answer that, in Biblical terms, a human being has as a body and a soul. That’s the conventional wisdom today.
But there really are two Christian viewpoints: (1) The human being has a body and a soul (called the Bipartite viewpoint), and (2) The human being has a spirit and a soul and a body (called the Tripartite viewpoint). Those are the two viewpoints that are in conflict with each other in terms of Biblical understandings.
In the context of the various Christian denominations, the Catholic and so-called ‘main-line’ Protestant Churches by and large favor the Bipartite viewpoint but, as we shall see, the Tripartite viewpoint has also made noteworthy appearances within those denominations. The Tripartite viewpoint has its strongest following among the Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestant denominations.
Since the Bipartite position is pretty much the conventional wisdom and the Tripartite position is, accordingly, less well-known, let’s first look at the Tripartite position.
THE TRIPARTITE VIEWPOINT
According to the Bible, God seems to have created us as “tripartite” beings (i.e., beings with three separate parts—spirit, soul, and body). There are two Bible passages that are most often cited in support of this position. Both were written by Saint Paul:
And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [First Thessalonians 5:23. Douay-Rheims Version. Emphasis added.]
For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. [Hebrews 4:12. Douay-Rheims Version. Emphasis added.]
Both quotes endorse the Tripartite viewpoint that “spirit and soul and body” are three separate entities, the quote from First Thessalonians more literally so. But the quote from Hebrews is also a strong endorsement. In the quote from Hebrews, we’re told that “the word of God” (the entire Bible?) divides “the soul and the spirit” from “the joints and the marrow” (the physical body?).
The conflict between the Tripartite and the Bipartite positions emerges in their conflicting understandings of the meanings of the words “soul” and “spirit”.
As we shall see later in this essay, the Bipartite position conflates Biblical references to “soul” and “spirit” into a single entity under the generic term “soul” signifying human personhood in general and containing within it the spiritual “principle” in man.[1]
The Tripartite position keeps Biblical references to “soul” and “spirit” separate and signifies the “soul” as the seat of the personality, consisting of the will and the intellect, as well as the self-consciousness. It considers the “spirit” as the seat of our God-consciousness.[2]
[Thoughtful Pause: It is generally acknowledged that many non-human animals have, in varying degrees, the above-listed attributes of a soul: self-consciousness, an intellect of sorts, a will, and even a personality of sorts. If so, they have a soul, but do they have an innate God-consciousness? I think not. They lack that essential attribute of the spirit. Those somewhat-advanced non-human animals seem to be Bipartite not Tripartite. A tentative conclusion: It’s our spirit alone that distinguishes us existentially from those other somewhat-advanced non-human animals.]
The above “Thoughtful Pause” reinvigorated my mental journey to delve more deeply into other Christian understandings of the spiritual realm. I soon discovered the writings of a Nineteenth-Century advocate of the Tripartite position, an Anglican minister and theologian, named John Bickford Heard.
REVEREND HEARD’S TRIPARTITE POSITION
Back in 1866, a Church of England clergyman, Rev. John B. Heard (1828-1908), wrote a lengthy (400 pages) scholarly treatise called The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body.[3] It was (and still is) unusual for a main-line Anglican scholar to write a lengthy treatise favoring the Tripartite position, but what really caught my attention was the heading of Chapter 9 in Rev. Heard’s book, “Of the Pneuma [i.e., the Greek word for ‘Spirit’] as the Faculty which Distinguishes Man from the Brutes”. Here it was! A whole chapter defending and explaining the random conclusion in my ‘Thoughtful Pause’ (supra) that it’s our spirit alone that distinguishes us existentially from those somewhat-advanced non-human animals!
After discussing the effects of the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden (i.e., the very severe damage done to Man’s spirit by Man’s Original Sin, Reverend Heard summarized:
“We have seen that the posterity of Adam, though spiritually dead, still retain the germ of the pneuma [i.e., the spirit]. That germ or God-consciousness, more than reason or intellect, is that which distinguishes man from the brute.”[4] [Emphasis added.]
Okay, enough about vindicating my ‘Thoughtful Pause’! Let’s move on.
Another noteworthy accomplishment of Reverend Heard’s Tripartite position is its focus on Saint Augustine as the historical personage who deserves the credit (or the blame) for the Bipartite position’s eventual victory over the Tripartite position among ‘main-line’ Christian denominations.
On page 7 of The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body, writing about a debate between Saint Augustine and Pelagius[5] over the Garden-of-Eden tragedy, Rev. Heard lamented over Saint Augustine’s adamant adherence to the Bipartite position:
“Had Augustine only adopted from the Greek the distinction of pneuma [spirit] and psyche [soul] and bent the [then] still-living Latin tongue to the exact use of spiritus and anima . . . what clouds of controversy which have troubled the Church for the last fourteen centuries might be rolled away! Had Augustine but recognized the trichotomy and taught that the Ruach [Hebrew for “spirit”], or Pneuma [Greek for “spirit”], or spiritus—i.e., the inspired and God-like part of man, was deadened by the fall, and that in that state of spiritual injury a propagation of soul and body from Adam to his posterity must ex traduce [the Latin word “traduce” means “having direct origin from the souls of the parents” (Merriam Webster)] carry with it a defective, and hence a diseased constitution, his refutation of Pelagius would have been sufficiently convincing, without hurrying him into an exaggeration in the opposite extreme, in which moralists who oppose theology have not failed to see the weakness, and profit by it.” [Emphasis and bracketed information added.]
Reverend Heard’s point in the above quote is that, when Saint Augustine debated Pelagius and defended the teaching that Adam’s sin was indeed inherited by all his posterity, Saint Augustine came very close to accepting the Tripartite (spirit, soul, and body) position [see above: “Had Augustine only adopted from the Greek the distinction of pneuma and psyche and bent the still-living Latin tongue to the exact use of spiritus and anima . . .”], but instead he ‘hurried’ his argument into the exaggerated Bipartite (body and soul) doctrine that the Catholic and later the main-line Protestant-Reformation Churches (e.g., Anglican, Episcopalian) adopted from his writings.
AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN TRIPARTITE POSITION
Back in the text accompanying footnote 2 in this essay, I mentioned that the real conflict between the tripartite and the bipartite positions emerges in their understandings of soul and spirit, and I went on to remark that the Tripartite advocates identify the spirit comfortingly, perhaps even happily, as the seat of our God-consciousness. That’s quite true, but the strongest advocates for the Tripartite position—those in Evangelical Christianity—suggest that there is much more to the Tripartite position.
Footnote 2 itself, called our attention to the writings of one of the foremost advocates of the Tripartite position, Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861-1927).
Jessie Penn-Lewis was a Welsh Christian evangelist and prolific author. She wrote several books on the Tripartite nature of the human being. Among them is Soul and Spirit: A Glimpse into Bible Psychology, from which I’ve selected a few relevant passages.
Whereas Mrs. Penn-Lewis wholeheartedly agreed with the oft-repeated Tripartite statement that the human spirit is the seat of our God-consciousness, she stressed the fuller version of that sentiment. Yes, there is a fuller version of that sentiment—a fuller version that is all but ignored in most formulations of the Tripartite position.
After discussing the writings of several other Tripartite advocates whose writings identified the human spirit with the human being’s “God-consciousness, Mrs. Penn-Lewis re-phrased the Tripartite position a bit:
“[A]ll these writers practically define the “soul” as the seat of the personality, consisting of the will and the intellect or mind; a personal entity standing between the “spirit” with its openness to the spiritual world, and the “body”—open to the outer world of nature and sense—having the power of choice as to which world shall dominate or control the entire man.”[6] [Emphasis added.]
Notice that Mrs. Penn-Lewis subtly defines the human “spirit” by its “openness to the spiritual world” (which obviously includes God-consciousness in the human spirit), but which also includes the other entities that exist in the spiritual world, namely Satan and his minions. Penn-Lewis’s inclusion of the entire spirit world thus fits more neatly into all the elements in the story of the Fall of Man in Genesis. Jessie Penn-Lewis’s explains:
“The ‘Fall’ apparently began in the intellectual department of the soul, for it is said that Eve saw that ‘The tree was to be desired to make one wise’ (Genesis vi.6, R.V.). The appeal of the serpent was not made to the vessel of clay, or the outer man, for the body was then perfectly dominated by the spirit, but it was directed to the intellect and understanding of man … ‘Ye shall be as God,’ said the serpent.”[7] [Emphasis added.]
Satan slyly chose to direct his temptation and his lie not to Eve’s spirit with its God-consciousness, but rather to her soul with its self-consciousness. And the rest, as they say, is history. But I’ve been letting Mrs. Penn-Lewis tell the story. So, she continues:
[After the Fall of Man] “the condition of the unregenerate man is now (1) his human spirit severed from God, fallen and alienated from His life (Ephesians iv. 18) ‘without God’, separate from Christ (Ephesians ii 12), and incapable of fellowship with Him; (2) the soul—intellect, mind, will, self-consciousness—may rule over the body, or (3) the body in its desire and appetites may be enslaving and dominating the soul. … [U]nless the human spirit of a man is regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, it is in accord with the fallen spirits of Satan, and governed by the prince of the power of the air [Satan], the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience.” (Ephesians ii. 2, 3)[8]
That’s the state of humankind unless and until the human spirit within us is somehow regenerated into the full life it once had before the Fall of Adam and Eve. How can that regeneration possibly come about? The Crucifixion of Jesus holds the answer, says Mrs. Penn-Lewis:
“The Cross and the Fall exactly and perfectly correspond—the one as the remedy for the other. First, by the death of the Saviour on the Cross, the sin had to be put away, and the way made possible for the Holy God to pardon the sinner, and secondly the sinner must be given a way of escape from the bondage of soul and body into which he had fallen. The tripartite nature of man could then be adjusted with the spirit once more in dominance, and the body acting merely as the outward and material vessel—the instrument of the spirit through the soul.”[9]
Mrs. Penn-Lewis, starting under the heading “The Cross and Soulish Self-Interest”[10] explained how it is that the Cross and the Fall exactly and perfectly correspond in sacred scripture, by highlighting a statement made by Jesus that was recorded by all four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.[11] Mrs. Penn-Lewis chose to use John’s Gospel for Jesus’ statement[12]:
He that loveth his life loseth it: and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. (John xii. 25, R.V.)
Mrs. Penn-Lewis knew that there was a mistake in the translation of that verse into English, in every version of the Bible then available to her. The mistake is in the use of the word “life” in the above quoted text. In the original Greek, the word translated as “life” is “ ψυχὴ ”. In English instead of Greek lettering, the word “ψυχὴ” is “psyche”. (We saw that word “psyche” earlier in this essay in a somewhat lengthy quote from Rev. Heard’s book The Tripartite Nature of Man: Spirit, Soul, and Body.) The word means “soul”.
The problem was that Jesus’ statement seemed to make no discernable sense if translated correctly as “soul”: ‘He who loves his soul loses it, and he who hates his soul in this world shall keep it unto life eternal’ ??? Mrs. Penn-Lewis realized that the sentence does make discernable sense—but only if we read Jesus’ statement with a Tripartite understanding of “soul”, i.e., with the understanding that “soul” refers to the seat of the human Self-consciousness, as opposed to the human spirit which is the seat of our God-consciousness.
With the Tripartite understanding Jesus’ statement translates into something like this: ‘He who loves the seat of his human Self-consciousness loses his soul, and he who hates the seat of his human Self-consciousness in this world shall keep his soul unto life eternal.’
Let’s move on to the Bipartite position.
THE STRONGEST ADVOCATE FOR THE BIPARTITE VIEWPOINT
The Catholic Catechism on the Bipartite Viewpoint
Following are some quotes from the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, revised in accordance with the official Latin text and promulgated by Pope John Paul II. Under a heading entitled “Body and Soul but Truly One” the Catholic Catechism expounds upon the Church’s bipartite position.
In paragraph 363 of its Catechism, the Catholic Church observes:
363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person. But “soul” also refers to the inmost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man. [Emphasis added.]
Here the Catholic Church clearly conflates soul and spirit into a single entity.
In paragraph 367 of the article, the Catechism touches upon Saint Paul’s statement in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians 5: 23 that evidences his Tripartite understanding (it’s quoted more fully earlier in this essay):
367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God. [Emphasis added.]
Here the Catholic Church, while expressing disagreement with the Tripartite position that Saint Paul was asserting, used the occasion to conflate once again its teaching that the soul and the spirit are (“is”?) a single entity: “The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.” That’s it? The Bible says one thing; the Church teaches otherwise. Case closed ???
The Catholic Catechism on the Fall of Humanity
The current Catechism of the Catholic Church also contains a lengthy and very straightforward treatment of the Fall of humanity. Its treatment of the Fall, surprisingly but very helpfully, goes back in time to an event that took place before tie Garden-of-Eden event:
How to read the account of the Fall
390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.
- The Fall of the Angels
391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil.” The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”
392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: “You will be like God.” The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies.”
393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels’ sin unforgivable. “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”
The Catholic Catechism’s article on Original Sin is well worth reading. However, despite the relevance of the Bipartite issue to the topic of Original Sin, the article unfortunately never touches upon the Bipartite issue. It does, however, touch upon what I found missing from Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical in my short and blunt critique of the encyclical at the beginning of this essay. Let’s have a look:
A hard battle…
407 The doctrine of original sin, closely connected with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man’s situation and activity in the world. By our first parents’ sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free. Original sin entails “captivity under the power of him who thenceforth had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action, and morals. [Emphasis added.]
409 This dramatic situation of “the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one” makes man’s life a battle: The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity. [Emphasis added.]
A CATHOLIC ADVOCATE FOR THE TRIPARTITE VIEWPOINT ?
There is indeed a thoroughly reputable Catholic advocate for the Tripartite viewpoint—one whose scholarship on the issue is impeccable and thoroughly Catholic. How can that be? We have just seen that the Catholic Church is the strongest advocate for the Bipartite viewpoint.
Monsignor Arthur Burton Calkins, Corresponding Member of the Pontifical International Marian Academy has accomplished the seemingly impossible task in his essay entitled “The Tripartite Biblical Vision of Man: A Key to the Christian Life.”[13]
Msgr. Calkins began his essay with a straightforward endorsement of the Tripartite position:
“ I am convinced that the Scriptures are fundamentally coherent and consistent on the nature of man. The locus classicus which seems to summarize the biblical doctrine on man most succinctly is I Thessalonians 5:23 where Paul prays that God may sanctify his readers wholly and draws out for them what this means: may their spirit (pneûma) and soul (psyché) and body (sôma) be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
At the start of the very next paragraph, however, he “reconciled” his version of the Tripartite nature of man with the Catholic Church’s Bipartite teaching:
“As we begin to explore these three “dimensions” of man’s being, let us be clear that these are not three distinct and independent entities or parts of man. Rather, they are three ways of looking at the unity which is man. As Dom Wulstan Mork puts it: “This unity is viewed from three different aspects” – ‘flesh,’ ‘soul,’ and ‘spirit’.”[14] Hence, while the distinction among these three terms is to be carefully noted – and that between soul and spirit is often crucial in the matter of spiritual discernment – we are not speaking here of “air-tight compartments,” but of terms which in a certain sense interpenetrate one another.” [Emphasis added.]
Where have we seen some of the emphasized word “aspects” in that quoted passage? Answer: In the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 363, quoted above. What does the word “aspect” mean? A way of looking at something? Msgr. Calkins calls man’s spirit and soul and body “dimensions” (the quotation marks around “dimensions” are his, not mine).
The rest of Monsignor Calkins lengthy and superb essay on “The Tripartite Biblical Vision of Man” amounts to a thorough defense of the Tripartite position within the admittedly strong limitations of the Catholic Church’s Bipartite position. An example of Msgr. Calkins’ cautionary rhetoric: “Generally speaking, it may be said that a soul is not a spirit, and that a spirit is not a soul. The human soul is the only exception.”
For Catholics who see the logic and the Biblical-interpretation usefulness of the Tripartite position, yet do not want to contradict their Church’s historically embraced Bipartite position, Msgr. Calkins’ essay is a ‘must’ read. For me, it’s a cry for common sense. Our Church’s Bipartite position is not an infallible dogma. It’s a historic mistake that can and should be corrected.
THE TRIPARTITE POSITION IN EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY
Way back in the year 1054 the Great Schism between the Catholic Christianity and Eastern Orthodox Christianity occurred. That was more than five centuries after Saint Augustine had definitively implanted the Bipartite position into Catholic teaching, and since the Bipartite position had had nothing to do with the issues involved in the Great Schism, it continued in the teachings of both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. So—Did anything like Monsignor Calkins’ dalliance with the Tripartite position in the Catholic Church (which we’ve just discussed) happen in Eastern Orthodox Christianity? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes, and more so!’
An Eastern Orthodox Bishop, known far and wide as Saint Theophan the Recluse, who lived from 1815 to 1894, was a prolific writer and theologian. He openly espoused the Tripartite position in several of his books. A particularly succinct expression of his Tripartite position (in the context of reading the Bible) appears in his book, Turning the Heart to God:
“By its affinity with our spirit—which also originates from God—the Word of God penetrates within, to the division of soul and spirit [citing as authority Hebrews 4:12]. Here it revives the spirit and prepares it to bear fruit with the deeds of a spiritual life. … Its awakening power is more considerable and substantial because it acts straightaway on the entire man, on his whole composition—on the body, soul, and spirit.”[15] [Emphasis added.]
He continues those succinct thoughts in much greater depth throughout another of his books, titled The Spiritual Life: And How to be Attuned To It. Saint Theophan the Recluse’s writing style is intentionally pastoral and not academically systematic, which makes his books worthwhile and (if I may say) spiritually helpful to read.
I’m moved to insert one more excerpt from my favorite Orthodox Saint (I especially like his name). The following is from The Spiritual Life: And How to be Attuned To It. After chapters on the life of the body and the life of the soul, Saint Theophan the Recluse turned his pastoral writing style to the life of the spirit in us:
“The spirit, as a force which comes from God, knows God, seeks God, and in Him alone finds rest. With a certain innermost spiritual feeling attesting to its coming from God, the spirit feels its complete dependence on Him and acknowledges itself as obliged to pleasing God in everything and living only for Him and by Him.” [16]
CONCLUSION
So—the journey ends. Where does it leave us? Right back at the beginning of our journey, but I hope it leave us better able to understand my critique of our Holy Father’s recent encyclical way back at the very beginning of our journey.
Our Holy Father was, after all, steeped in our Church’s unfortunately chosen (but still adamantly held) Bipartite position. It can’t be completely comfortable to hold so adamantly to a position apparently suggesting that God-consciousness in the human spirit is merely an “aspect” of Self-consciousness in the human soul.
If there is any wisdom at all in what I have written in this essay, my hope is that it might move our Catholic Church to adopt the Tripartite position, especially considering our Church’s new-found “spirit” of ecclesiastical flexibility.
Raymond B. Marcin, Professor of Law Emeritus, The Catholic University of America.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See paragraph 363 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoted under the sub-heading The Catholic Catechism on the Bipartite Viewpoint, infra.
[2] See, e.g. Jessie Penn-Lewis, Soul and Spirit: A Glimpse into Biblical Psychology (Overcomer Publications) pages 4 and 5. Caution: My copy is the original version of Soul and Spirit, not the newer, shorter, and probably more publicly available version published by CLC Publications. Both versions are fine, but the page-number references don’t quite match. See also Andrew Murray, The Spirit of Christ (originally written in 1888, updated later by Whitaker House), p. 66 & 67.
[3] The full text of this lengthy book is actually available on the Internet at https://dn760103.eu.archive.org/0/items/tripartitenatur01heargoog/tripartitenatur01 heargoog.pdf .
[4] Id., at p. 352.
[5] Pelagius was a contemporary of Saint Augustine. Pelagius denied that the sin of Adam (Original Sin) was inherited by Adam’s posterity.
[6] See Jessie Penn-Lewis, Soul and Spirit: A Glimpse into Biblical Psychology (Overcomer Publications), p. 5 (if you are using the version of Soul and Spirit published by CLC Publications, it’s on p. 14).
[7] Id. (p. 6 in the CLC version).
[8] Id., p. 7. (p. 17-18 in the CLC version).
[9] Id., pp. 8, 9. (p. 20 in the CLC version).
[10] Id. p. 31. (p. 56 in the CLC version).
[11] See Matthew 16: 24-25; Mark 8: 35-36; Luke 17:33; and John 12:25.
[12] See Jessie Penn-Lewis, Soul and Spirit, p. 33. (p. 59 in the CLC version).
[13] Available on the Internet at: https://schoolofmary.org/the-tripartite-biblical-vision-of-man-a-key-to-the-christian-life/ .
[14] Dom Wulstan Mork, O.S.B., The Biblical Meaning of Man (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1967), 14.
[15] Turning the Heart to God, by Saint Theophan the Recluse (Conciliar Press, 2001), pp. 35-36.
[16] The Spiritual Life And How to be Attuned To It, by St. Theophan the Recluse (St. Paisius Orthodox Monastery, 3d ed. 2003), p. 47.