This book was written in parentheses. As I progressed through the second volume of the Metaphysics of Beauty, commenting on the Hesychast Fathers, I realized that I was speaking of a Christianity after the fourth century, whose doctrine was stamped by Stoic and Neoplatonic thought mainly.

This Christianity may have viewed Greek philosophy with hostility, but it adopted critical intellectual tools from it, such as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible, and subtly glided into its soteriology. I insisted on the developments and overlooked the inaugural event, as if they were identical things.

Thus, a void was created, which I now attempt to fill with "The Secret of Jesus," so that the Philocalic studies that will follow can be placed within their own historical horizon and the static representation can be succeeded by interpretative dynamics.

[...] (from the author's preface)