The Mind as Upper Room: Furnished to Receive the Great Word

Question 3

In the Gospel, who is the man in the city carrying a jar of water (and why water?), to whom Christ sent the disciples, commanding them to find and follow him? And who is the master of the house? And why do the Evangelists keep silent regarding his name? And what is the great upper room furnished and prepared, in which the fearsome mystery of the divine supper is accomplished? [cf. Lk. 22:7-13 and Mk. 14:12-16]

Response

3.2. Not only did Scripture keep silent regarding the name of the man to whom the Savior sent the two disciples for the preparation of the Passover, but it also kept silent regarding the name of the city to which they were sent. According to my initial understanding, I take this to mean that the city signifies the sensible world, to which were sent—like disciples and forerunners of God the Word, preparing His mystical feast with human nature—the law of the First Testament and the law of the New Testament. Through practical philosophy, the former [i.e., the Old Testament] cleanses nature from every defilement, while the latter, through initiation into the mysteries of contemplation, cognitively elevates the intellect to kindred visions of intelligible realities. This is proven by the fact that the two disciples were Peter and John, for Peter is a symbol of ascetic practice, and John is a symbol of contemplation.

3.3. This is why it is fitting that the first man to meet them was the one carrying the jar of water, for this man in himself signifies all those who, through practical philosophy, carry the grace of the Spirit on the shoulders of the virtues, a grace that they preserve, as if in an earthenware jar, by means of the “mortification of the members of their body that are on the earth” (cf. Col. 3:5), and which through faith purifies them of defilement. After him, there is the second man, the “master of the house” (Lk. 22:11), who showed the disciples the furnished upper room. In himself he is an example of all those who in contemplation have furnished the height of their pure and noble minds with cognitive thoughts and doctrines, as if the mind were an upper room, furnished in a divinely fitting manner for the reception of the Great Word. The house signifies the settled state of piety, toward which the practical intellect progresses, striving after virtue. The master of the house, who dwells in it as if it were his by nature, is the intellect illumined by the divine light of mystical knowledge, which is why, together with the practical intellect [i.e., intellect oriented toward or engaged in ascetic practice], it is made worthy of the supernatural presence and feast of the Word and Savior.

3.4. Thus we are speaking of one man here but also of two, if, that is, the one who is described as carrying the jar of water is different from the one who is called the master of the house. Perhaps they are one, as I said, on account of the unity of human nature, but also two, on account of the division of this nature in terms of piety, that is, into those living the practical life and those living the contemplative life, who, once they are joined together by the Spirit, are called and made one by the Word.

3.5. [Some manuscripts subtitle this section as “A contemplation of the house”] If, however, someone wishes to take all that has been said and apply it to each and every particular man, he will not have gone outside the truth. From this point of view, the city is each particular soul, to which the principles of virtue and knowledge, like disciples of God the Word, are always being sent. The one who carries the jar of water signifies the way of life and thinking that patiently carries on the shoulders of self-control, without ever putting it down, the gift of faith received in baptism. The house is the condition and habit of the virtues, built up, as if from stones, from many different solid and virile manners of life and thought. The upper room is the broad and spacious mind with its suitability for knowledge, adorned with divine visions of mystical and ineffable doctrines. [cf. For similar interpretation of upper room, see Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah 19.13.4] The master of the house is the intellect that has been widened in light of the splendor of the virtuous house and by the sublimity, beauty, and grandeur of knowledge. It is in such an intellect that the Word wishes to indwell and to offer Himself for communion, together with His disciples—that is, with the primary spiritual notions of nature and time. For the true Passover is the passage of the Word to the human intellect, a passage in which the Word of God is mystically present and grants His fullness to all those who are worthy, by making them share in the good things that are proper to Him.

*Translated by Fr. Maximos Constas in St. Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 100-103. Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books.