Nikitas Stithatos

If you persist in acting in a manner that is one-sided and of but limited profit and do not choose to do what is beneficial in every way, you still - in conformity to God's high decree - eat coarse bread in the sweat of your brow (cf. Gen. 3:19). Your soul feels no appetite for the spiritual manna and the honey that flows for Israel from the cloven rock (cf. Deut. 32:13; Ps. 81:16).

If, however, you have heard the words, 'Arise, let us go hence' (John 14:31); if, in answer to the Master's call, you lay aside assiduous labor and stop eating the bread of pain, repudiating merely material perception and tasting the bowl of God's wisdom, then you will know that Christ is the Lord; for, having fulfilled the law of the commandments through ministering to the divine Logos, you will have ascended into the upper chamber and will be awaiting the coming of the Paraclete (cf. Acts 2:1-4).

Nikitas Stithatos
On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect