“Original minds are distinguished not by being the first to see a new thing, but by seeing the old, well-known thing, which is seen and overlooked by everyone, as something new. The first discoverer is usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary—chance.” — Nietzsche
An Elder said: My child, do not run after new things, for the enemy loves the mind that wanders from one novelty to another, making it a stranger to God. Sit patiently beside the word of the Lord, and do not be quick to say, ‘I already know this.’ For the tongue knows many things, but the heart understands few. The humble man reads the same Gospel a hundred times, and each time he finds life in it—not because the Scriptures have changed, but because God has renewed the eyes of his soul. The water of the spring is the same, yet the thirsty man tastes it differently from the one who is full. So it is with the truth: it is not the truth that is made new, but the man who is renewed by grace, and thus begins to see what until then he had looked at without truly seeing. Do not seek great revelations, but a pure heart; for to the humble, God makes known the depth of those things which the proud pass by without noticing.”
A Parallel with Nietzsche
Nietzsche makes a true observation on the human level: the truly original person is not the one who constantly invents something new, but the one who sees in a new way what has always been before everyone’s eyes, yet was ignored.
The Desert Fathers, however, go a step further. They would say that this new way of seeing does not arise from the originality of the mind, but from the purification of the heart. It is not genius that enables a person to perceive the depth of truth, but the grace of God.
Therefore, for the Holy Fathers, the newness is not in the truth, for truth is eternal and unchanging, but in the person who repents. The same word of the Gospel, the same prayer, the same Divine Liturgy, the same commandments become, through the working of divine grace, ever new to the one who humbles himself.
At this point, Nietzsche’s observation may be regarded as a psychological insight, for man is indeed capable of rediscovering what has always been before him. Orthodoxy, however, gives this insight a different foundation: it is not originality that is the source of this rediscovery, but grace united with humility. Thus, what Nietzsche attributes to an exceptional mind, the Holy Fathers attribute to a purified heart. This is where the two perspectives ultimately part ways.
