{7.27} What could be more desirable to those who are worthy of it than divinization?

For through it God

is united with those who have become Gods, and by His goodness makes all things His own. This
state, which is brought about by the contemplation of God and the enjoyment of the gladness that
follows it, has rightly been described as pleasure, passion, [1088D] and joy. It is called pleasure, insofar
as it is the consummation of all natural strivings (for this is the meaning of pleasure). It is called
passion, insofar as it is an ecstatic power, elevating the passive recipient to the state of an active agent,
86 as in the examples given above of air permeated by light, and iron suffused with fire. These
examples, drawn from nature, demonstrate persuasively that there is no [1089A] higher summit of
transformation for created beings apart from that in which their natural elements remain inviolate. It is,
finally, called joy, for it encounters nothing opposed to it, for they say that joy neither remembers former
sorrows, nor fears the possibility of any future satiety, in the way that pleasure fears the inevitable
consequence of pain. Thus the whole of inspired Scripture, as well as our holy fathers who from it
learned divine mysteries, affirm that joy is the most appropriate name for the truth that is to come.
( St Maximos the Confessor