Barlaam and Ioasaph · Chapter
Chapter XV explained
Ioasaph asks Barlaam how to send treasures to the eternal home, and Barlaam explains that almsgiving and liberality to the poor are the means, citing Daniel and the Gospel.
What happens
Ioasaph asks Barlaam how to send treasures to the eternal home, and Barlaam explains that almsgiving and liberality to the poor are the means, citing Daniel and the Gospel. He then discusses the ancient command of Christ to sell all and follow Him, noting that few follow the narrow way. Ioasaph inquires about free will and choice, and Barlaam provides a detailed philosophical explanation of free will, deliberation, choice, and their relation to virtue and vice.
Themes in this chapter
Renunciation of Worldly Wealth
Barlaam instructs Ioasaph to send treasures to heaven by giving to the poor, and to sell all and follow Christ, citing the rich young man and the narrow way.
Divine Providence and Free Will
Barlaam explains free will as the soul's sovran motion, choice as desire with deliberation, and that each person partakes of divine light according to their choice.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“The sending before thee of money to that eternal home is wrought by the hands of the poor.”
You send your wealth to heaven by giving it to the poor.
Barlaam explains the mechanism of almsgiving as a way to transfer earthly riches to heavenly treasure.
“For few, saith the Lord, are the travellers along the strait and narrow way, but along the wide and broad way many.”
The Lord says that few people walk the difficult path of virtue, while many choose the easy path to destruction.
Barlaam uses the biblical metaphor of the narrow and wide gates to explain why few follow the monastic ideal.
“Free will is the willing of a reasonable soul, moving without hindrance toward whatever it wisheth, whether to virtue or to vice, the soul being thus constituted by the Creator.”
Free will is the rational soul's ability to choose freely between good and evil, as God designed it.
Barlaam defines free will as a God-given capacity for self-determination.
“Choice is desire accompanied by deliberation, or deliberation accompanied by desire for things that lie in our power; for in choosing we desire that which we have deliberately preferred.”
Choice involves both desire and careful thought about what we can do, and we end up wanting what we have decided is best.
Barlaam gives a precise definition of choice as a combination of desire and deliberation.