Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous

By Scott Cairns

You could almost think the word synonymous

with mind, given our so far narrow

history, and the excessive esteem

in which we have been led to hold what is,

in this case, our rightly designated

nervous systems. Little wonder then

that some presume the mind itself both part

and parcel of the person, the very seat

of soul and, lately, crucible for a host

of chemical incentives—combinations

of which can pretty much answer for most

of our habits and for our affections.

When even the handy lexicon cannot

quite place the nous as anything beyond

one rustic ancestor of reason, you might

be satisfied to trouble the odd term

no further—and so would fail to find

your way to it, most fruitful faculty

untried. Dormant in its roaring cave,

the heart’s intellective aptitude grows dim,

unless you find a way to wake it. So,

let’s try something, even now. Even as

you tend these lines, attend for a moment

to your breath as you draw it in: regard

the breath’s cool descent, a stream from mouth

to throat to the furnace of the heart.

Observe that queer, cool confluence of breath

and blood, and do your thinking there.

Copyright Credit: Scott Cairns, “Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous” from Philokalia: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Scott Cairns. Reprinted with the permission of Zoo Press.

Source: Philokalia: New and Selected Poems (Zoo Press, 2002)