I have been chasing something I read about twenty-five years ago. I can’t remember it exactly but whoever it was wrote something like 

…people approached the temple, peered in to see its glory, then turned away rather than boldly entering and living there… . Me, paraphrasing …

The next few lines were commentary on this, saying that many? more? people converted from bad to good, than went on to convert from good to perfect. The text was a lament on this since no-one will get into Heaven without that second conversion. The author is saying that people turn away from that second conversion.** As far as I remember, this wasn’t a comment that few people get to Heaven so much as, that we are all going to spend a lot of time in Purgatory. 

As far as I remember… That’s the crux of the issue. I can’t find the original quote or source, and I would like to know what was really said, not what I remember. Especially because, one of the things that I thought I remembered was, that the general comment was made by Saint Ephrem the Syrian. In the last twenty-five years, tons of material have gone up on the internet, so I can search for information in ways that once were not possible. I’ve found a lot about Saint Ephrem in the last year and finally I have come to believe something. Here is a stunning quote, from a song Saint Ephrem wrote, that I just came across.

I have invited you, Lord, to a wedding-feast of song,

but the wine—the utterance of praise—at our feast has failed. 

You are the guest who filled the jars with good wine,

fill my mouth with Your praise.  

Last year, when I went through the Bible with a podcast I was interested to discover how different the prophets are, one from another. I had thought of them as a pleasant blur. It turns out they are incredibly individual. Daniel is straightforward and funny. It’s hard to believe he wrote 2,500 years ago, he sounds so modern. Jeremiah had a savagely difficult task, telling the Israelites that their job was to submit to Nebuchadnezzar for chastisement from the Lord. He is rightly called the weeping prophet and, oh Lord, did he have reason! Ezekiel is indescribable in a word or two, but he’s very recognizable. He was part of the first deportations of the Israelites to Babylon. While there, he was called to act out various historical events, and it makes him seem weird. For example, he lay on his left side for some number of days, representing the years that Israel had sinned. One of the saddest verses in the Bible is when a messenger comes and tells him that Jerusalem has fallen. He says and does nothing for a bit, heartbroken, though he has been predicting it.

Anyway, pondering that experience finally triggered the thought about Saint Ephrem; all the Desert Fathers are not the same. This man did not write the commentary I am searching for. Saint Ephrem writes amazing stuff. It speaks to the heart with gorgeous Biblical imagery. I’m loving everything of his that I find. But the fragment that started this search — it isn’t him. 

It is definitely some early writer that I am looking for, and possibly some minor Church Father or eastern philosopher. I went and started hunting in a general ’25 quotes from so-and-so’ website.  It’s helpful not just because it’s a quick source of quotations but also because it recommends new people to look up based upon your searches. So…

Saint John Climacus (~600 A.D.— mostly about humility.)  “Repentance lifts a man up. Mourning knocks at heaven’s gate. Holy humility opens it.” (Lovely but not what I’m searching for.)

Symeon the New Theologian. (~1000 A.D.— lots about different virtues.) He’s hard to quote because his ideas take several sentences to complete themselves. I’ve chopped this one up.  “When a man walks in the fear of God … … He wields the blazing club of the Word in wisdom [to strike and paralyze his foes].”  (Great stuff. Not the man I’m hunting.)

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (300s— the Trinity, virtues, the poor, how to think.) “It is like employing a small tool on big constructions, if we use human wisdom in the hunt for knowledge of reality.” AND “Remember God more often than you breathe.” (Again, deep thinking but not quite the right flavor.)

Isaac of Nineveh (~650? A.D. — about silence.) About love and silence. Hmmm.  “Above anything, welcome silence for it brings fruit that no tongue can speak of, neither can it be explained.” Also temptation… “Someone who bears a grudge while he prays is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest.” Also, conversion. “The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone.” “It is impossible to draw near to God without sorrows…”  Very possible! At least it gives me a new step to take in my hunt. In the meantime I’m very glad I met Saint Ephrem.

**The comment about conversion is in line with my mother’s discussion of the spiritual life. She felt that Saint John of the Cross was somewhat misunderstood. What she thought people constantly missed, and what she made clearer to me than anything else, was that there are TWO spiritual moments when people feel that they are in a “dark night”. One is called the — dark night of the senses — and the other is called the — dark night of the soul.

The dark night of the senses is the transformation from “bad to good”. Pope Saint John Paul II wrote about this conversion somewhere that I remember and can’t find. Since I can’t find it, a butchered version is, that he said this transformation comes about when you stop sinning all the time in your thoughts, words, or deeds. The second transformation is the dark night of the soul, when you truly turn to God and love Him. I saw this in the Divine Comedy at the top of Purgatory, when Dante has gotten rid of sin, but still has to see his failure to love goodness as he should. That, then, is the transformation from goodness to perfection.