The Truth Of Syagros (Η Αλήθεια του Σιάγκρου)

-From The Meletic Tales.

In the dusty streets of Athens, where fig trees leaned towards marble colonnades, a young Meletic philosopher named Syagros sat beneath an olive tree outside the stoa. A parchment rested in his lap, even though he had ceased writing. His thoughts ran deeper than the ink produced.

A crowd had gathered nearby, not for him, but for a stranger—one called Sedekias. A traveller from Ephesus, Sedekias spoke with conviction, warning of divine wrath and salvation through grace. He was a young man also, but a Christian. His voice rang with authority, and many Athenians listened, not out of agreement, but curiosity.

When Sedekias saw Syagros watching, he strode over.

‘You sit there as one who listens but does not speak a word,’ Sedekias said.

Syagros nodded, brushing olive leaves from his shoulders. ‘I have no quarrel with speech, I merely wait for the truth to reveal itself in silence'.

‘There is no truth in silence,’ Sedekias retorted. ‘Truth is the word, and the word is God. Without him, there is no order, no hope, no salvation'.

Syagros tilted his head. ‘And yet you speak of a God who requires salvation. Is he not the origin of all things? Why should what he creates require saving?’

Sedekias smiled, smugly. ‘Because man has fallen. Only through him Christ can we be redeemed'.

'Redemption from what?'

'From our sins', said Sedekias.

'Must a god be beneath himself to save others? If so, then what do we call him instead?'

'A saviour? Only through him can our soul be saved'.

'A saviour? And what of virtue? Do you not believe that man is capable of virtues?' Syagros asked.

'Not without his blessing', Sedekias answered.

'Then redemption is better than virtue to you, but if sin is the evil of all man, then do you not deem that man has the power in him to be accountable for that sin? Syagros continued his argument.

'Not without Christ!'

'You speak as if you were Christ. I do not speak of fallen souls in need of redemption. I speak of To Ena—the One. It neither judges nor saves. It simply is. From it flows the Logos, the order. And then the Nous, the formation’.

Sedekias narrowed his eyes. ‘Then prove your One. Prove that To Ena is real and greater than God. I have dealt with Gnostics, and I have put them in their place'.

Syagros stood slowly. ‘I accept your challenge, but not with miracles, nor riddles. I shall prove To Ena not through signs, but through reason'.

They met at the amphitheatre in Athens, beneath columns stained by time and the footsteps of philosophers. Word spread quickly. By noon, merchants paused their trading, and scribes dropped their styluses.

Sedekias stood with scrolls of scripture, quoting the fires of revelation.

Syagros spoke with no text—only the clarity of his words.

Sedekias began: ‘Your One cannot hear prayer, nor answer suffering. What value has a source that remains silent?’

Syagros replied, ‘Silence is not absence. It is the canvas upon which awareness paints. To Ena does not hear prayer, because it gives man the means to think for himself. It is not distant. It is within all things. It is existence before form'.

‘So you pray to a void?’ Sedekias mocked.

Syagros shook his head. ‘We do not pray. We observe. We study. We think. From this triad, clarity arises. We do not beg salvation. We cultivate coherence. You on the other hand, speak of salvation as if it was guaranteed, but we both know that salvation for a man must be gained through his virtues. It is only then that the self is formed and the soul is awakened'.

Sedekias grew frustrated. ‘Then show your One in the world! Where does it act? Where does it intervene?’

‘It does not intervene, nor does it need to. To Ena does not interfere. It is the origin, not the overseer. It emanated the Logos—the rational order of the cosmos and The Nous—the rational formation of the cosmos. Look to the stars. Their paths are not guided by angels, but by the Logos. Look to the seasons—they do not follow sermons, but cycles’, Syagros replied.

The crowd murmured. Syagros turned to them. ‘And the Nous—the cosmic shape—moulds awareness into actual form. Your thoughts, your virtue, your action. Not through grace, but through clarity'.

Sedekias could not answer.

Syagros bowed. ‘Truth, my friend, does not shout. It simply waits to be recognised as it is revealed'.

The years passed. Sedekias left Athens and journeyed to Constantinopolis, where he gained power amongst the bishops and statesmen. His words earned him titles. His convictions summoned crowds.

Syagros remained in the stoa. He became neither rich nor famous, yet his students grew—quietly, thoughtfully. They learnt the Meletic way: not to conquer, but to understand.

Syagros aged, not in bitterness, but in deepening awareness. He wrote scrolls that few read, taught lessons that few sought, and watched the stars as if they carried his thoughts, but Sedekias did not forget him.

Ten years later, Sedekias returned to Athens with guards, gold and grandeur. He summoned Syagros to the new stone forum, where statues of saints stood beside emblems of the empire, and where ancient pagan statues were destroyed.

‘We meet again, old philosopher,’ Sedekias said. ‘Still scribbling under olive trees?’

Syagros bowed. ‘And you—still building towers to the sky?'

'I see that your belief has gotten you nowhere in life', Sedekias smiled as he mocked Syagros.

'And I see that your vanity has replaced your belief', Syagros responded.

‘I come not for reunion, but for reckoning. I challenge you once more. Let us see if your silent One can withstand the voice of the empire’, Sedekias said proudly.

Syagros looked to the sky. ‘Then let us speak, not for pride—but for those people who still seek guidance'.

Thousands gathered in the open square. Sedekias spoke first, with fiery rhetoric.

‘To Ena is no God. It gives no commandments. It brings no miracles. It offers no eternal life like Christ! What comfort is there in such a wasteless source?’ Sedekias asked.

Syagros stepped forth and responded. ‘To Ena does not offer comfort. It offers clarity. The Christian God may promise paradise—but only through submission. To Ena requires no submission. It is we as persons who become aware of life. A miracle is no more than another word to define the natural wonder of the Logos'.

'What good is your To Ena, if it does not offers paradise?'

'We need no paradise; for bliss is not the only thing one should aspire. What you define as paradise, men have already dreamt before in Elysium. I have no need for either form of paradise. I have accepted my fate'.

‘And what of sin?’ Sedekias insisted. ‘What of salvation?’

‘We do not sin in the flesh. We misalign our virtues with vices. We act without awareness. We forget the Logos—the order. We neglect the Nous—the shape of our soul, but these are not transgressions against a divine ruler. They are disruptions of harmony. Redemption comes not through blood—but through balance', Syagros replied.

The crowd listened, stilled.

'Your temples are doomed', Sedekias said.

‘You built churches, and placed fear within them. Is that not the worse of hypocrisies. I built thought, and placed courage within silence in our temples’, Syagros said.

Sedekias faltered in his reaction, but then uttered, 'I can proof my god, through the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit'.

Syagros closed his eyes. ‘To Ena cannot be proven through argument. It is felt in stillness. Known in awareness. Lived in virtue. That is its voice—not thunder, but clarity. Look around you, its influence is everywhere'.

'That is foolishness. God created the heavens and the earth in six days', Sedekias responded.

'Then all you see is creation. In Meleticism, we see the natural flow of life. That is not creation. Instead, it is the Logos that reveals itself through the Nous'.

'That is not divinity', Sedekias expressed.

''Yet we are to believe that your god is divinity and unaltered in three persons? The Logos and The Nous are not equal to To Ena, the One. They are emanations'.

'Without worship, then what good is your god?'

'I would rather bow to a tree than to a god seated on his throne waiting to be worshipped', said Syagros.

'How can your To Ena or the One exists without worship?' Sedekias asked.

'The One does not need worship to exists, for it it is reflected in being itself. But I see that your god cannot exist without worship. Thus, this would make him no different than the kings of vanity or gods of mythology that men have worshipped before'.

The crowd applauded.

Sedekias departed Athens, his pride dimmed. He ruled elsewhere, louder than before, but within him grew a silence he could not shake in defeat.

Syagros returned to the olive trees, his parchment once again cradled in his lap.

One student asked, ‘Did you not win, master?’

Syagros smiled. ‘There is no winning. Only awakening. Some people hear the One now. Others later. What matters is that it speaks—and we listen'.

The breeze moved through the leaves as if affirming, without sound, the quiet voice of To Ena.

Athens fell quiet once more, not from neglect, but from reflection. Where others sought spectacle, Syagros nurtured thought. His students did not shout—they wrote. They did not convert—they conversed.

Amongst these students was Sara, a young Christian woman whose questions flowed with poetic fire. ‘Why is it that the truth does not compel?’ She asked one twilight.

Syagros, sipping watered wine, replied, ‘Because the truth is a mirror, not a magnet. It does not pull—it reflects. Those people who look into it must be ready to see not gods, but themselves'.

She nodded slowly. ‘Then perhaps the fear of the truth is stronger than the fear of gods'.

‘Often it is. To face the One requires the courage not to be saved, but to be revealed', Syagros said.

'Why does the Church stress so much sin?'

'Because what they practise is hyposcrisy. The Church founded its belief on the notion of sin, but it is quiet when it comes to revealing the secrets of its own sins'.

They walked together to the coastline, where the sea’s rhythm echoed the Logos—the order beneath appearance. Waves did not preach; they repeated. The moon, silent above, bore witness to the same story.

Sara wrote that evening: 'The One does not demand worship—it invites witnessing. I shall be a witness'.

Far away, Sedekias aged behind columns of marble and walls of authority. The corridors of power had grown narrow. His words, once fresh with passion, now tasted of repetition. He could no longer invoke fear as swiftly, nor silence dissent with ease.

One evening, alone within a palace adorned with golden saints, Sedekias summoned parchment and quill.

He wrote: 'I spoke of salvation, but I feared loss. I promised paradise, but doubted myself. The philosopher… he never offered comfort, yet somehow gave peace'.

The candle burnt low. He wept—not from guilt, but from recognition. A quiet voice within him asked questions he had once mocked. Was salvation truly necessary? Was the soul broken—or simply unaware?

In dreams, he saw Syagros beneath olive trees. He heard not sermons, but the order of the Logos.

Five winters passed. Syagros, now silver-haired, walked slower but thought deeper. The students had grown into thinkers themselves—some travelled, some taught, and some simply lived wisely. Meleticism was not a movement; it was a presence. It did not spread—it remained.

One morning, as dew softened the air, a figure approached the stoa wrapped not in robes of authority, but in a traveller’s cloak. Sedekias.

He did not bring guards, nor call crowds. He carried only a scroll and a flask of olive oil. Syagros, seated as always beneath the tree that had grown alongside him, looked up.

Sedekias knelt. ‘I come not to debate,’ he said, voice trembling. ‘I come because something in me has long echoed yours’.

Syagros nodded. ‘Then speak—not to me, but to yourself.’

Sedekias unfolded the scroll. It bore no scripture—only questions. Questions he had written in sleepless nights. Some answered. Some not.

‘You spoke once of To Ena, the One that simply is,’ Sedekias whispered. ‘And I… I have begun to feel it. In silence. In consequence. In form. Not as a god, but as… something clearer'.

Syagros said, ‘Then you have replaced faith with fate. You no longer believe—you begin to observe'.

Sedekias was humbled. They spoke all day beneath that olive tree. Not as philosopher and preacher—but as fellow seekers. Sedekias posed questions not for defence—but for understanding. Syagros answered not with certainty—but with openness.

‘You once said salvation comes through virtue,’ Sedekias murmured. ‘But virtue can falter. What then?’

‘Virtue does not require perfection. It requires direction. If you fall, observe the fall. If you err, realign. It is not sin—it is merely a shadow. Shadows only mean light exists in the horizon’, Syagros answered.

Sedekias touched the bark of the tree. ‘This life… was I wrong to speak of a god?’

Syagros smiled. ‘No. You were speaking in the language of your time, but every language has dialects, and truth can wear many garments. The gods served until we no longer needed to crave garments—but stood bare before thought. Even your god serves that purpose'.

‘Then is Meleticism not a form of worship?’

‘Not worship. Witnessing. To Ena does not command—it allows. The Logos does not punish—it governs. The Nous does not judge—it forms. There is nothing divine behind all of this', Syagros said.

Sedekias breathed deeply. ‘I still speak to the heavens sometimes'.

Syagros reached gently towards his hand. ‘Then let the heavens answer—not with a voice, but with genuine presence'.

Syagros grew ill one spring. Not tragically—naturally. His body, having given decades to awareness, began to fade, yet his clarity remained unclouded.

Sedekias, now changed beyond recognition, stayed by his side. No longer preaching. No longer converting. He wrote, he read, he listened. He became a Meletic.

Syagros’s last lesson to his students was short: ‘Do not build temples. Build thoughts. Do not name the One. Know it. Do not seek salvation. Seek the path. Do not fear the end. It is a return to To Ena'.

He died not praised, but pondered. The olive tree stood, roots deep within the ground that once welcomed To Ena into thought.

Sedekias returned to his home—not with theology, but with questions. The sermons grew fewer. The contemplation grew louder.

His final message, delivered quietly in an unknown place: 'There is no need to be saved when the soul is one with the self'.

Years later, a scroll was discovered in a weathered library near the edge of the Aegean. It bore no author’s name, but scholars debated its phrasing—it was neither purely Greek nor purely Hebrew.

It read: 'The philosopher spoke not to refute God, but to refine being. In silence, he saw To Ena, the One. In thought, he touched the Logos. In presence, he became the Nous. In the space between belief and observation, I too awoke'.

The scroll became known as The Voice of Syagros. It was not canonised. It was not worshipped. It was read in gardens, pondered by coastlines, and sometimes, rewritten by students who did not call themselves followers—but listeners.

Years after Syagros had returned to silence, a modest garden bloomed on the outskirts of Athens—not cultivated for fruit or flower, but for contemplation. The olive tree under which Syagros once spoke had grown tall and bowed its limbs in quiet reverence. Beneath it, students gathered not to debate, but to listen to wind, to reflect, and to reread the scrolls of Meletic thought.

One student, young and pensive boy asked aloud: ‘Master Sedekias… if Syagros was right, and the One does not act… then why do we feel so moved?’

Sedekias, now grey and weathered, sat cross-legged amongst the stones. He had forsaken his former titles, surrendered wealth, and come to dwell amongst those persons who sought clarity without conquest. His voice was no longer loud, but his words carried the weight of realisation.

‘Because To Ena does not act upon us—it simply reminds us that we are already part of it. What you feel is not intervention. It is pure resonance’.

‘Why is it we only feel this when quiet?’ The boy asked.

Sedekias looked upwards. ‘Because noise belongs to the world. Silence belongs to the One'.

Under Sedekias’s guidance, the students began to compile their own scroll—not of dogma, but of reflections. It bore no commandments, no conclusions—only contemplations, thoughts, and fragments of virtue observed in daily life.

Amongst them were phrases like: 'The flower opens not from command, but from nature—so too the soul'. 'Justice is not punishment—it is balance rediscovered'. 'All seeking begins not with lack, but with longing to remember'. 'To speak of gods is easy. To walk in awareness is rare'.

Each line was debated, not to argue, but to understand. Some thought Syagros’s silence more powerful than words. Others believed his dialogues the gateway to personal truth. All agreed on one point: Meleticism was not fixed—it flowed.

One autumn morning, a travelling scholar from the East arrived, asking questions about the Meletic Triad. He had heard rumours of a philosophy that rejected salvation, yet spoke gently of virtue.

Sedekias welcomed him with dried figs and wine. The scholar asked: ‘If there is no divine justice… how does Meleticism protect the innocent?’

Sedekias nodded. ‘By creating a world where awareness guides action, rather than punishment. In Meletic thought, innocence is not rewarded—it is refined. Harm does not demand retribution—it demands reflection. The cosmos does not balance through vengeance, but through presence’.

The scholar was quiet. ‘Then this is not a philosophy of control, but of maturity'.

‘Exactly. It assumes humanity is ready to live without gods—not rebelliously, but consciously’, Sedekias said.

In the years after Syagros’s departure, Sara and several fellow students began teaching young children in the garden—not lessons in debate, but lessons in observation.

They taught how to sit with silence. How to recognise pattern. How to listen not for answers, but for questions within.

They sketched diagrams of the Meletic Triad—not to memorise, but to explore. To Ena at the top, the Logos on the left, the Nous on the right. Between them, awareness flowing like water.

‘The One does not watch us,’ Sara told them. ‘It lives through us. You are not beneath it—you are within it'.

One day, a man had brought a letter from the island of Thasos. A group of thinkers there had begun writing Meletic commentaries. They had no temples, no formal rituals. Only gatherings beneath moonlight, where scrolls were read aloud and silence was honoured between each reflection.

Sedekias read the letter and wept softly. ‘Syagros’s thought has walked far—yet still walks lightly’.

He penned a reply: 'We are not founders. We are footprints. Meleticism belongs to no man, no land, no time. It arises where thought meets silence. Read not to follow—read to awaken'.

The message travelled beyond Thasos—to Rhodes, to Lesbos, even to Alexandria. Scholars debated its meaning. Poets adapted its structure. Many people resisted it, calling it too empty, too passive, but others found freedom in its quiet refusal to dominate.

Later in life, Sedekias visited the grand temple in Corinth, where his sermons once resounded. The statues still stood, the pews still held crowds.

Sedekias stood not to preach, but to observe. He noticed how eyes sought reassurance.

How prayers pleaded rather than pondered. How hope trembled with guilt.

He whispered to no one: ‘They still speak to a god, but not yet themselves, like I once did'.

Outside the temple, he wrote: 'Belief comforts. Awareness transforms. I spent years offering the former. Now I walk only with the latter'.

Sedekias passed quietly one summer night. No trumpets sounded, no crowds assembled, yet his passing was felt—not in sorrow, but in gratitude.

Sara placed his final scroll beneath the olive tree: 'To speak for a god is heavy. To listen for awareness is light. I once sought heaven through proclamation. I found the cosmos through presence'.

The garden continued. The olive tree spread. The children grew and taught.

Meleticism did not become a movement—it became a rhythm.

As the centuries passed, the tales of Syagros and Sedekias echoed in writings, but never hardened into religion. The Meletic Triad was never worshipped, only studied. No idols formed. No prayers written. Only pages filled with questions, diagrams of balance and stories about Syagros.

In a stone library in Delphi, a young scholar uncovered fragments of The Voice of Syagros etched into marble. She read aloud: ‘Awareness is the seed. Virtue is its flowering. Thought is the gardener. Silence is the soil’.

She did not build a temple. She planted a garden.

Even now, when the wind moves through olive branches, when stars align and questions stir, when a soul chooses virtue not for reward, but for the truth—To Ena is present.

The One does not speak in riddles. It inspires with reason. Those people who listen do not hear miracles—they hear their own becoming as it unfolds naturally.

When no one remained to speak his name aloud, the olive tree still whispered his presence. Syagros became not a memory, but a movement of thought—ever clear, ever patiently inspiring others to take the journey.

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