Intellect, Greek νοῦς (noûs) - Also rendered pure reason, and by Professor Cocker, intuitive reason, and the rational soul; the spiritual nature.
"The organ of self-evident, necessary, and universal truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason, through the medium of ideas, holds communion with the world of real Being. These ideas are the light which reveals the world of unseen realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms.
"The Idea of the good is the Sun of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows the power of knowing.' Under this light the eye of reason apprehends the eternal world of being as truly, yet
more truly, than the eye of sense apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous with the Divinity. It was "generated by the Divine Father,' and like him, it is in a certain sense 'eternal.' Not that we are to understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent and underived existence; it was created or "generated ' in eternity, and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the condition of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in eternity: and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and truth -that is, with God, the Absolute Being."-Christianity and Greek Philosophy, X.
pp. 349, 350.
As we can see, this definition of Intellect differs from our modern conception in that it is beyond the physical mind.
Greek Intellect should not be confused with the modern conception of intellect. Intellect in a traditional sense is not the ability to memorise a book or score highly on an exam. Those definitions reduce intellect down to a rudementruy and purely physical idea of it. True Intellect is the intuitive ability to perceive divine things, a gift from God. It does not originate in the physical ‘brain’ or ‘mind’.
‘And where our bibles read “mind,” it doesn’t mean the cogitating intellect, but the receptive intellect—the understanding, or comprehension. The Greek term is nous, and it is a concept we don’t really have in the West. It is the perceptive mind, the mind that receives. After his Resurrection, Jesus “opened [the apostles’] nous to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). The nous is where we can sense or perceive the presence of God.’ — Frederica Mathewes-Green
‘The energy of intellect, however, is alone present with those who have arrived at the summit of purification and science, and who, through the carthartic virtues, are accustomed to energize without imagination and sense. For intellect is, as it were, the most perfect habit of the soul; whence, also, Plotinus, speaking of this, says, "He who energises according to it will know what I say," because it is not possible to explain such an energy by words.’ — The treatises of Aristotle on the soul, Thomas Taylor
image: Hesychast, Oleg Korolev