Knowledge
On the occasion of the commemoration of Professor Habib Girgis, who led religious knowledge in our generation, I would like to speak to you today about knowledge: its importance, its types, its history, and our position toward it.
Knowledge
From the importance of knowledge is its relation to the Holy Trinity…
For the Son is the hypostasis of knowledge, the hypostasis of mind and wisdom, in whom are hidden all the treasures of science and knowledge. And the Holy Spirit is the One who speaks in the prophets, of whom the Son said, “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you,” and, “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father.” And the Apostle said, “They shall all be taught by God.”
God is the source of knowledge, and it is wrong for us to receive knowledge from any other than Him, for this was the sin of Adam and Eve.
Before the fall, they received knowledge from God alone. Then Eve’s sitting with the serpent, and the serpent began to give her another kind of knowledge, different from the knowledge that comes from God, against which the serpent spoke saying, “No, you shall not die.”
And the human ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he came to know evil.
Before that, he knew only good alone, in the simplicity of the knowledge that God had placed within him. But now he began to know good and evil—that is, knowledge of evil was added to him. And this was the first example in Scripture of harmful knowledge.
When God created the human in His image and likeness, He created him also in His image in knowledge; He wanted him to know.
And thus God placed in him the means that help him acquire knowledge, the first of which was the mind, from the very nature of the human being.
This, in addition to the knowledge that is from the nature of the spirit, and the human spirit which is able to search all things, even the depths of God.
And alongside mind and spirit, God granted the human conscience as a source of knowledge.
The conscience was called the moral law, the inner law, which knows, and encourages or restrains, and then also judges. And the human conscience was pure, not yet entered by deviation…
And God granted the human the commandment as another source of knowledge…
And people transmitted the commandment through tradition, delivering it generation to generation.
Through tradition Abel learned the idea of the sacrifice and offered to God “from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat,” and the idea of sacrifice passed by tradition until all the peoples of the world came to know it, offering sacrifices and building altars.
And through tradition the world came to know the idea of the “House of God” and the consecration of this house for worship (Gen 28), and its dedication to God… And through tradition also people came to know prayer, prostration, spreading the hands, and lifting the eyes to heaven… And tradition remained a source of knowledge through the generations.
And when people went astray in their knowledge, God granted them another source—the prophets—and another source—the priesthood…
And the prophets remained a strong source of knowledge, carrying to the people the voice of God, His warnings, and His commandments. And as for the priesthood, Scripture said, “From the mouth of the priest they shall seek the law.”
And God gave the world, alongside the unwritten law, another written law, read to the people continually, that they might know and remember.
And the first written law was a law written by the finger of God…
The expression “by the finger of God” is very moving and profound, giving us an idea of the extent of God’s concern for the knowledge He grants to humanity…
And the sacred books multiplied, read in the synagogues and studied in the homes. And God said to the human, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be as frontlets between your eyes. And write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut 6:6–9).
And divine revelation became a teacher for the human, granting him knowledge and the Word of God…
For “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching…” (2 Tim 3:16), and the revelation was from the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophets.
All these sources that God granted for knowledge—perhaps out of His abundant love for humankind—He did not consider sufficient. Thus Scripture says: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son” (Heb 1:1–2).
There is no deeper knowledge than this: that we learn from the mouth of God Himself, preaching, proclaiming, and teaching, and they call Him with confidence “the Good Teacher.”
He went about in all the villages and cities, teaching the people—on the mountain, by the shore of the lake, in the midst of the fields, in the wilderness, in the houses—spreading the knowledge necessary for salvation, and opening the minds of His disciples to understand…
All this indicates the Lord’s concern for knowledge and His offering it to the people.
And from His concern for knowledge is that He commanded His disciples before His Ascension:
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them… and teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19–20).
And because of knowledge, believers were called disciples before they were called Christians.
Even the apostolic fathers themselves were called “the disciples of the Lord…”
And the name “disciples” remained the common name for all believers until “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26).
For all these reasons, the apostles preferred “the ministry of the word” over every other work.
They said, “But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). And the Apostle Paul said, “Woe to me if I do not preach.” And the work of the apostles became to deliver the knowledge of the Lord and His words to everyone. Thus they spoke with all boldness, and “their words reached the ends of the world,” and “the word of the Lord grew, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly… and a great multitude of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).
Teaching and spreading knowledge in the manner of the apostles meant spreading faith. For true knowledge is the knowledge of God, the knowledge of His commandments, and His great salvation.
The connection between teaching and faith is clear in the command of the Apostle Paul to his disciple Timothy: “Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to teaching… Take heed to yourself and to the teaching; continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Tim 4:13,16). And he also said to him, “And from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith” (2 Tim 3:15).
Thus it is knowledge whose goal is salvation…
Spreading this knowledge that leads to salvation was the work of the apostles and their disciples. And it was the primary work of the patriarchs and bishops in every generation. Time would fail us if we spoke of Saint Athanasius the Apostolic, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Cyril the Pillar of Faith, and other patriarchal fathers whose first work was teaching and spreading the knowledge necessary for faith and salvation.
For this reason, Scripture says among the qualifications of a bishop that he must be “able to teach” (1 Tim 3:2).
Divine knowledge was sought by David the Prophet in his psalms when he said:
“Make known to me, O Lord, Your ways; teach me Your paths…”
By this knowledge the human sees how his works conform to the will of God. It is a prayer we all repeat, asking the Lord to show us how to walk… And another petition David the Prophet repeated, asking to know something else: “Make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.” Yes, the knowledge of death and meditation on it and on eternity brings wisdom to the human. By this matter Saint Anthony the Great entered into the monastic life, and the reality of death led him to asceticism…
The human also needs to know good, and to know himself.
By this he receives the gift of discernment and becomes able to distinguish between truth and falsehood. And if he knows the truth, he knows God, for God is truth…
And knowledge of the self is something that philosophers and wise men have also called for.
But the deepest form of knowledge is undoubtedly the knowledge of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ said to God the Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God…” (John 17:3).
And the truest knowledge by which we know God is that He reveals Himself to us that we may know Him, opens our eyes that we may see Him, and opens our minds that we may perceive what He grants us to perceive of His infinity…
This is the knowledge necessary for our salvation, and we must strive for it.
But there is another false knowledge from which we must keep away.
Of this Scripture says, “He who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
It refers to harmful matters and stumbling matters that disturb the clarity of our minds, defile the purity of our hearts, and cause us to lose our simplicity—so we say in regret, “If only we had not known this matter… If only we had not heard…”
And there is another vain knowledge, not sinful in itself, but a waste of time in what does not benefit. One of the spiritual men said:
“Is it not unfortunate that we exhaust ourselves in knowing matters for which we will not be judged on the last day for being ignorant of them…”
Thus we must fully discern between what we ought to know—which builds our lives—and what we ought to keep ourselves from knowing…
And whoever lacks this discernment should seek it from spiritual guides. For guidance is another source of knowledge, if the guide is truly spiritual and edifying for souls. For not every guidance is beneficial, for “if a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit”…
Among harmful knowledges also is curiosity about knowing people’s secrets.
And speaking about people’s secrets so that others may know them. All this is entering the privacy of others, which we have no right to involve ourselves in…
May you excel in selecting your knowledges, and choose from knowledge only what builds you.
And may you, in what you offer to people as knowledge, seek their salvation and not acquaint them with something that harms them or injures their purity.
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