PG_91A_3

What again is the mutual interweaving of opposites in our bodies through composition by mixture, which leads things that are by nature separated into a friendly dwelling together, and tames by means of the mean the harshness in the extremes, and prepares them to pass through one another without defilement, and makes this the preservation of composite things—the mutual permeation of the extremes into one another in the mixture—and how each of these is, and what it is, (and where it is carried or carrying, and upon what it has come to be, or carries, or is carried, not only, as has been said, by the principles (logoi) according to which these things primarily exist, but also

by the countless ways in which they are divided and united, both in conception and in activity, in relation to themselves and to one another?

And again, what is the principle (logos) of the substance, nature, form, shape, composition, power, activity, and affection of each individual thing? And what again is the principle that universally works, through the mean, the conjunction of the extremes with one another according to the limit of each, so that both the intellect and the object of intellection, through the median act of intellection—relation being unitive of things divided in the thought that comes from both—may be conjoined and encompassed by one another, and nothing at all may be shown in this respect to be free of circumscription among things after God?

Just as all perceptible things and all perceiving things—that is, things capable of perception—are through the intermediate sense, relation being common to the separated extremes, the one party apprehending the perceptible things as it were through it, and the other party falling under the perceivers through it, in the organ of perception, in which the limit of each one's power according to relation is established, and around which the extremes are naturally united to one another through the intermediate relation.

When we attempt to investigate the principles of these things, or of any one of them, we remain altogether without strength and voiceless in respect of the principle, having nothing on which we may accurately rest our mind, except the divine power. And this is what was said, as I think, by the saint, who exercises our mind toward piety: "Little by little, then, not even the exact comprehension of creation." But the phrase, "But far before these things is the nature that is above these things and from which these things come, both incomprehensible and incapable of being encompassed," must be applied in common to creation and to the nature that is above these things and from which these things come—that is, the created things—namely, the "incomprehensible and incapable of being encompassed." But the phrase, "not that it is, but what it is," when brought forward, is a pre-emptive anticipation of a counter-objection. For lest someone rush upon him to whom the argument is addressed, saying, "Then if our worship is altogether incomprehensible, the preaching of the Christians is therefore empty, and faith is empty too, being established on nothing," he says these things, anticipating the contentious argument or person.

I did not say that this nature, about which the argument is concerned, is incomprehensible as to its existence, but rather as to what it is; and he adds, for the confirmation of the argument, "For it is a great difference between being convinced that something exists and knowing what this thing is"—that is, there is a great difference between being convinced about something that it exists and knowing the precise comprehension of its essence. Therefore, he says, since we have reasonably said that the divine essence is incomprehensible, do not craftily shift the argument so as to claim that we introduce it as incomprehensible even as to its very existence, and from this conclude that we altogether champion atheism. And after some things he says, For what will you suppose the Divine to be, if indeed you trust entirely in rational approaches (that is, if you think that by running around with reason you can enclose the object of inquiry by some knowledge)? "Is it a body (that is, Is it perhaps a body)? And how can that which is infinite and unbounded and without shape and intangible and invisible be so?" So that, when clarified, it may be understood that, with the common notions thus corrupted, the Divine is infinite, which means to have no limit. For this is the property of what is divided by four limits—center, line, surface, and solid—and moreover by three dimensions, length, width, and depth, and these too are divided by six limits, each one obviously being circumscribed by two: length by the upper and the lower, width by the right and the left, and depth by the front limit and the back.

And again, since the same common notions introduce God as indefinable—that is, not admitting of a detailed exposition of what the underlying subject is composed of, nor of position in place, nor of beginning or end in time, and further as without shape, for example that he is not spherical or square or upright or inclined downward, and indeed as intangible and invisible, as not falling under sense perception (for these things are properties of bodies)—it is unreasonable to have supposed, from the arguments that have been refuted, that the divine is a body and is compelled to be divided into as many parts as a body is again gathered into. For the Divine is altogether without parts, because it is also wholly without quantity; and wholly without quantity, because it is also altogether simple; and altogether simple, because it is also altogether without extension; and altogether without extension, because it is also altogether infinite; and altogether infinite, because it is also altogether immovable (for that which has no capacity to be moved is never moved at all); and altogether immovable, because it is also wholly without beginning (for it has nothing before it and greater, nor anything with it and equal, nor anything after it that is able to measure it and contain it); and wholly without beginning, because it is also wholly unbegotten; and wholly unbegotten, because it is also altogether one and most singular; and altogether one and most singular, because it is also wholly unrelated; and for this reason altogether ineffable and unknowable, and the most singular limit of all knowledge of those things that are moved toward it well and in a manner befitting God, having as its most singular true knowledge the fact that it is not known. For if that which is not is nowhere, that which is nowhere does not even exist; but if it is somewhere...

From the same discourse, on the text, "For if what is not is nowhere, then what is nowhere is perhaps not even existent; but if it is somewhere, then certainly, since it exists, it is either in the whole or beyond the whole." For this reason, perhaps the hearer will say: The teacher has set down the converse as ambiguous, adding the adverb "perhaps," although it is clear to all, according to logical assumptions, that what is nowhere is nothing, and this is rightly acknowledged by all. To him we shall say, according to the deficiency of our poor understanding, that he wished to restrain Eunomius and those around him from their great madness when they claim to know God as he knows himself, and by such arguments he led them away to an absurd opinion. For either, in saying that they know God as he knows himself, they must by all means also add where the one known must be, for a complete comprehension of the one known—and according to them God differs in no way at all from any of existing things, being himself also circumscribed by place, than which what could be more absurd? Or, not saying where, they must say that he does not exist at all, according to the assumption of the argument itself, than which what could be more godless? (For how, and what, could that be which does not altogether have its being somewhere?) Or the sequence of the argument forces them by necessity to say that he altogether exists and is nowhere, and for this reason that the Divine exists and subsists, but not to know what it is and how it subsists. For if, according to them, where God exists is unknown, much more will God himself—what he is in essence—be more unknown. Therefore, in piety, they must by all means confess that what is not known is not anywhere either.

For this reason, as I think, the teacher, while associating with the followers of Eunomius, doubted the converse, placing the adverb "perhaps," and illuminating for us to understand that he does not introduce what is nowhere as in every way in no way existent. For we say that God exists, and is nowhere, in that he is not circumscribed substantially in existence as in a place, and is in every way, in that all things that exist utterly need him in order to exist, without whom both he was and is, and will always be able to be—or rather, is always. For he who exists even before existing things exist does not have existing things by position. For if among us, in the case of things made by craft, the craftsmen do not have their existence circumscribed substantially in the works—this corruptible thing, and, to speak more truly and properly, never existing—what would one say about the ineffable and unknowable and incomprehensible power, which is alike for all and always in the same state?

Or whether it was some daytime fantasy, or a truthful vision of the night... From the same discourse, on the text, "Whether it was some daytime fantasy, or a truthful vision of the night, or an impression of the ruling faculty, occurring to those who are to come as though present.

This blessed Father, having been purified to the utmost from those things by which the nature of human beings is naturally defiled, through the practical philosophy, and having his intellect wholly conformed to the Holy Spirit by the apprehensions of divine contemplations, through the true initiation into the mysteries according to knowledge, having suffered, as it were, the same things as the holy prophets, he enumerated for us in these [writings] the forms of prophecy. And if indeed it is right to dare at all to apply ourselves to words so greatly and divinely spoken, and which surpass the power of all who are not such as he, the teacher, was, we think it useful—but this must be done conjecturally, not assertively. I think, then, speaking conjecturally according to my own dim-sightedness, that he has called "a daytime phantasm" the sight and resounding of words and things heard and seen spiritually, without a person present, as though through sense perception, by the saints. For it is not lawful to say in the case of divine things that the marvelous [element] must by all means be present for the formation of the phantasm, but that paradoxically and beyond nature, even when no person is present and no sensible voices are struck through the air, the phantasm operates, so that the one being initiated into divine mysteries truly hears and sees. For since (every phantasm is either of things present or of things past; but of things not yet come to be there is in no way any phantasm at all. For it is a relation mediating between the extremes through itself.

I call the extremes the faculty of imagination and the imaginable object, from which, through the imagination in between—there being a relation of the extremes—the image (phantasm) comes to be, being the limit of activity and of passivity: of activity on the part of the imaginative faculty, and of passivity on the part of the imaginable object, since through the imagination in between, by their relation, the extremes are joined to each other with respect to it. For all things that apprehend certain things are said to act, and all things that fall under others in some respect are said to be acted upon. So then, things that apprehend naturally act, and things that are apprehended naturally are acted upon, having as the limit of passivity and activity their mutual conjunction at the middle. For this reason I think it fitting to hold that in the case of divine things the imaginable object is not present, since that which is already present in a real way according to its own subsistence is no longer going to be present, and at the same time it is not believed to be divine either, having nothing more than natural consequence. For if we, imagining in sleep at night, both see and hear, often when there is no one speaking or being seen, much more will the saints truly experience this while awake, God working in them while they are awake by paradoxical grace—that which we are accustomed to undergo by the law of nature during sleep.

I take him to mean "a true vision of the night," either the accurate apprehension of future events that comes to the soul during sleep, as in the cases of Joseph and Daniel, or some vision of divine things, on account of the extreme impassibility that comes from great purity, shining forth even to the eyes of the flesh of the saints. "But the impression (of the governing faculty)": I think he means, by way of emphasis, the types of future things that appear to the saints in a single manner, as in an image, through the simple and undivided impact of the intellect. I have said these things about them with conjectural confidence, not having received the grace of experience in these matters, because of the command of the one who enjoined it. But if any of those who have received the grace should encounter these things, let him not blame me for rashness, but rather prove me obedient, even if the present discourse has no manifestative power for the aim of the things set forth.

From the same discourse, on "But to Paul, if indeed what the third heaven provided was a carrying out, and the progress or ascent or assumption up to that point." Those who have wisely studied the divine words say that, by way of summary, some names signify substance, others relation, others grace or loss. For example, substance, as when they say "man"; relation, as when they say "good man," or "holy man," or "wise man," or the opposite, "wicked man," or "foolish," or "unclean.

(For the relation that shows how each of those divided by opposition stands in some relation to something else justly calls each of them, from the disposition it has, a deliberate habit residing within) and of grace, when man is called God by the words, the man who through all things became obedient to God, according to "I said, You are gods," having the being called God neither by nature nor by relation, but having become and being named so by position and grace; for the grace of position is altogether unrelated, not having in its nature any receptive power of itself (since then it would no longer be grace, but a manifestation of the activity according to natural power. And in this way again the thing that happens will not be paradoxical, if deification were according to a receptive power of nature. For deification would reasonably be a work of nature, but not a gift of God, and such a one would be able both to be God by nature and to be called so properly. For the natural power of each of existing things is nothing other than the unalterable movement of nature toward activity. But how deification also drives the deified one out of himself, if it were encompassed by the boundaries of nature, I cannot understand.

Likewise, on the contrary, they call "destruction" and "Hades" and "sons of destruction" and the like those who have established for themselves what is not by disposition, and who have become in their ways entirely similar to it. I think, then, that this holy and great teacher, having taken the aforementioned things to mind, reworked the rapture of the holy Apostle in these matters, assigning to each the fitting expression in a manner well-suited to it. Therefore I suspect that by "going forth" he means the state that placed the holy Apostle outside natural necessity, the impassibility of virtue according to habit, in which he chose to have no relation of choice toward nature, so that he came to be outside even the natural activity according to sense—or rather, he transformed even this into a spiritual habit; and by "ascent" he means the abandonment of all sensible things, with them no longer being active or being acted upon in him according to sense, and the transcendence of the natural, spiritual, gnostic contemplation concerning them; and by "assumption" he means the abiding and establishment in God that came to him thereafter, which the teacher fittingly called "assumption," indicating that the Apostle experienced the assumption rather than performed it. For assumption is a passion of the one assumed, but an activity of the one assuming. Therefore, since the Apostle was lord of these names, both natural and relative, he transcended the calling both by nature and by relation, becoming beyond nature and virtue and human knowledge.

But he whom he showed to be more than others without experience of the divine name partook of that calling by grace, becoming and being called God instead of every other name, whether natural or relative, through his assumption.

Or again, thus: "Procession" is the complete denial of nature according to virtue; "ascent" is the transcendence of the things in which nature exists—I mean place and time, in which is the subsistence of beings; and "assumption" is the restoration by grace to him from whom all things are and through whom and to whom, as to the end of all things. And

to speak otherwise, "procession" is the guidance of his own disciples into virtue through practical philosophy as their teacher, the Apostle; for the teacher must in every way go before his disciples to the performance of what is fitting; "ascent" is the scientific comprehension through natural contemplation of the principles in beings; and "assumption" is the pious, ineffable initiation into true and theological wisdom. And I think the third heaven, by conjecture, is what those describe who mark out the boundaries of practical philosophy and natural contemplation and theological mystagogy—the highest principles, that is, their limits—since there is a certain measure of the comprehension of virtue and nature and of the theology concerning both, fitted by God to each of beings according to nature, and within these boundaries and limits the blessed Apostle, having passed beyond the principles of the things said as far as attainable, came to be.

For if heaven is a circumscription of the things naturally contained within it, and a boundary of all things under perception, then clearly, according to the principle of the upward ascent, every termination that circumscribes the accounts concerning some virtue or knowledge, as a boundary of the things bounded and a limit of the things circumscribed, is figuratively called heaven. Or again, perhaps Scripture says that the "third heaven" is the three orders of the holy angels above us, in order toward the height, which the holy Paul perhaps reached, being initiated into their affirmations by the negations of the knowledge pertaining to him, and imitating their states by the supereminent privations of his own. For every nature of rational beings, according to its own order and power, is initiated into and imitates the cognitive states and positions of the essence and order above it—affirmations—by privative negations, through the subtractive negations pertaining to itself; and the affirmation, in knowledge, of things above is the negation of things below, and conversely the negation, in knowledge, of things below is the affirmation of things above, advancing negatively up to the highest nature and order of all by supereminence, which, after all orders and powers, the immediate negation concerning God succeeds in knowledge, affirmed by none of existing things at all, since there no longer remains any boundary or limit that encompasses this negation.

For just as the intelligible things are by nature a negation of the sensible things, so also among the essences and powers that fill the invisible world, the pre-eminences of the first beings in the knowledge of God are, by reason of their inferior rank, negated of those after them. For just as the things we cannot understand are intelligible to the holy angels who are above us, so also the things not understood by the holy angels above them are intelligible to the holy angels above those, and so in order, as the word ascends and is exalted from power to power, and passes through all orders and powers, it ends in the ineffable and unintelligible and wholly unknown. If, then, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, the negations concerning divine things are true, while the affirmations are incongruous with the hiddenness of the secret things, it is fitting that the divine Apostle, having set aside the understanding of all knowledge according to him, and having become above every relation of beings, was fittingly neither in the body, as he said, since he did not have perception operating, nor again outside the body, since he had the intellect inactive at the time of the rapture that came to him, during which, having received ineffably and unknowably certain words by a supercosmic initiation, he honored them with silence and kept them wholly unutterable, so that neither could the mind understand, nor the tongue speak, nor the ear receive them. And, as those who have experience say, right faith and undefiled fear toward God produce the perfect practice of virtue in the aforementioned "progress," while sure hope and unblemished understanding produce the faultless natural contemplation in the ascent, and

...deification through the "ascension," perfect love, and a mind that has voluntarily become utterly blind to beings by way of transcendence. And they say that it is again the work of practical philosophy to make the mind pure of every passionate fantasy, and of natural contemplation—the true knowledge of the reasons why beings exist—that it must be made knowledgeable, and of theological mystagogy to make it, by grace, like God and equal to him, so far as attainable, in its state, no longer at all mindful of any of the things after God because of transcendence.

"Nor could he have contained the lower world..." From the same discourse, on the passage, "Nor could he have contained the lower world—John, the Forerunner of the Word, the great voice of the truth, declared." It was fitting for me too, in the presence of this holy and great teacher of the truth, seeing the greatness of the wisdom given to him by God, to say what David, the most distinguished of prophets and kings, inspired by God, uttered to God when struck with awe at the boundlessness of his majesty in all things, saying: "Your knowledge has been made wondrous by me; it has been strengthened, and I shall not be able to attain to it"—as was right, especially since he circumscribed the uncircumscribable power by wonder alone, having nowhere else to rest the much-moved base of his soul concerning things unattainable.

And I, as I said, am content to receive sanctification of understanding from the wise teacher who comes from wonder, and not to busy myself with how and by what account, contrary to the historical record, the teacher overturns for one another the names that the divine voice mystically assigned to the saints, here addressing John, the son of thunder, as forerunner. But since the reward of obedience is great, especially since the commandment bids us obey our superiors, and to be at leisure and to know and to search the Scriptures, and to meditate on the divine law day and night, I recognized that this lies especially among things well established, dreading the danger of both hesitation and disobedience, and I will speak about these things conjecturally, as far as I am able, trusting in your prayers, you who gave the command.

I think, then, that what was said contrary to the historical record by this God-bearing teacher, when he sets the forerunner of Christ in place of the son of thunder, cannot be leveled out in any other way than by contemplation. For this alone is the leveling of things that seem in the historical record to be opposed to one another, since it manifests the truth in all things, which is simple by nature, in an incorporeal way, not thickened together with sounds or bodies.

Just as, then, the great John the Baptist was called a forerunner—as being in relation to the one truly expected, and a voice in relation to the Word, as going before it declaratively, and a lamp in relation to the sun, as an artificial and conventional and temporary light in relation to a natural and substantial and uncontrived and eternal and inextinguishable light, and, I think, also as repentance, proclaiming the righteousness that exists by nature before it and that came to be after it by economy—so, I think, here too this God-minded teacher, by saying contrary to the historical record that the great apostle John was a forerunner, wished to intimate that John the great evangelist also, in the Gospel according to him, is a forerunner of the more mystical and greater Word made known through him, which cannot be stamped in letters nor spoken by the voice of a fleshly tongue.

For the composition of the holy Gospels is an elementary instruction in relation to the knowledge that is continually being added to those who are exalted through them and who spiritually scrape off from themselves the thickness of the bodily mindset, or that will be added later, after the consummation of things that are moved. For just as the law

it was an elementary instruction, in accordance with the knowledge that was for a time manifested to him, for those who were being led by him as children to Christ, the Word in the flesh, and were being gathered to the Gospel in accordance with his first coming; so too the holy Gospel is an elementary instruction for those who are being led by it as children to Christ, the Word in the Spirit, and are being gathered to the world to come in accordance with his second coming. For since the same one is both flesh and spirit, becoming this or that in accordance with the proportion of knowledge in each—for every word falls under voices and letters. And I dare to say that every thought too, which can be impressed upon the mind, differs in nothing from an elementary instruction, which makes known the things that surpass it. Therefore the Gospels are also four in number, as being for a time comprehensible to those who are still under sense-perception and corruption. For so many are the elements of this world as well, and again four are the virtues, from which the spiritual world according to the mind is constituted, so that the word of truth may circumscribe both the intelligible world that is for a time within us and the world in which we are, and may bring them together with one another in union without confusion, and again may distinguish them from one another without division, by the likenesses of the elements that constitute them. For what, as they say, aether—that is, the fiery element—is in the world according to sense-perception, that prudence is in the world of the mind, as a illuminating habit and demonstrative of the spiritual principles proper to each of the things that exist, revealing unerringly through them the cause that is in all things, and drawing forth the soul's longing for the Divine.

And what air is in the sensible world, that courage is in the world of thought—a motive habit, both cohesive and active of the life implanted by the Spirit, and dividing the soul's ceaseless motion toward the Divine; and what water is in the sensible world, that temperance is in the world of the mind—a habit productive of the life-giving fertility in the Spirit, and generative of the ever-gushing erotic delight according to desire toward the Divine; and what justice is in the sensible world—a habit generative according to species of all the principles in beings, and distributing the life-giving transmission in the Spirit equally to each, and the unchangeable establishment of its own foundation in the good according to position. Therefore the Gospel according to Matthew mystically holds the place of earth and justice, as making its account more physically; and the Gospel according to Mark of water and temperance, as beginning from the baptism of John and the repentance preached by him, in which temperance consists; and the Gospel according to Luke of air and courage, as being more periodic and crowded with more histories; and the Gospel according to John of aether and prudence, as the highest of all, and mystically introducing the simple faith and thought concerning God. And they say also in another way that the fourfold number of the holy Gospels is a symbol of faith, and practical, and natural, and theological philosophy.

And again, just as the sensible world is by nature elementary, falling under the five senses and guiding them to its own apprehension, so too the world of the virtues according to thought, falling under the powers of the soul, makes them elementary toward the spirit, rendering them uniform by their being moved only in relation to it and being established upon its apprehensions. And they say that the senses of the body themselves, according to the more divine principle befitting them, are elementary

of the powers of the soul, gently establishing them as elements for activity, by their own apprehensions of the principles (logoi) in existing things, through which, as through certain letters, the God-Word is read by those sharp-sighted toward the truth. Hence they also called the senses exemplary images of the soul's powers, since each sense together with its own organ, that is, its sensory organ, has been primarily allotted by nature to each power of the soul in a corresponding way by some more mystical principle. And they say that the visual sense belongs to the noetic power, that is, to the intellect; the auditory to the rational, that is, to reason; the olfactory to the spirited; the gustatory to the appetitive; and the tactile to the vital. And to speak more clearly and simply: of the intellect, the image is sight, that is, the eye; of reason, it is hearing, that is, the ear; of the spirited, it is smell, that is, the nose; of the appetitive, it is taste; and of the vital, it is touch.

By these the soul, riding according to nature upon the law of God who wisely created all things, and being carried through its own powers in various ways toward sensible things—if it makes good use of the senses, gathering through its own powers the manifold principles (logoi) of existing things, and is able wisely to transfer to itself everything seen, in which God is hidden and proclaimed in silence—it too has created, by its own choice, a most beautiful and spiritual world in its mind, composing the four generic virtues together like elements for the compacting of the world that is spiritually completed from them in the mind, yet establishing each virtue through the interweaving of the activity of its own powers with the senses; for example, prudence from the interweaving of the noetic and rational power with the visual and auditory sense, in relation to their sensible objects, in a cognitive and scientific activity; and courage from the interweaving of the spirited power with smell, that is, the nostril, in which the spirited spirit, as they say, is lodged, in relation to the connatural sensible object, in an activity of the utmost evenness; and temperance from the interweaving of the desiring power with the sense of taste, in relation to its proper sensible object, in a measured use; and justice from the vital power's equal, well-ordered, and harmonious distribution in all things through touch, and in relation to nearly all sensible things, in its activity.

From these same four generic virtues, in turn, it is taught to produce two more generic virtues by combination—I mean wisdom and gentleness: wisdom as the end of things knowable, and gentleness as the end of things practical. For example, from prudence and justice it produces wisdom, since wisdom is the unifying cause of the knowledge that belongs to prudence and the understanding that belongs to justice, and for this reason, as I said, it is the end of things knowable. From courage and temperance it produces gentleness, which is nothing other than the complete immobility of spiritedness and desire toward things contrary to nature—which some have called impassibility—and for this reason it is the end of things practical. These again it gathers into the most generic virtue of all, I mean love, which is ecstatic of the things that come from it, leading of the things that come through it, and unifying of the things that begin, are moved, and end in it, and beyond all these in a distinctive way deifying. So then the soul, being moved wisely and acting according to the reason according to which it both exists and has come to be, godly-perfected, receives sensible things usefully through the senses, appropriating to itself the spiritual reasons within them; and the senses themselves, now reckoned by the abundance of reason, it admits as rational vehicles of its own powers; and the powers themselves it joins to the virtues, and itself through the virtues to the more divine reasons within them, and the more divine reasons of the virtues to the

...hidden in them, the spiritual mind gives the whole of the soul's natural and volitional relation to present things, pushing it aside, wholly and simply to God; and God, having embraced it entirely together with the body that has grown together with it, makes them like himself proportionately, so that through the whole of it he may be able to appear wholly without circumscription—he whose nature it is in no way to appear from anything that exists in any respect. And this is perhaps what that blessed and great teacher understood when he said in the Funeral Oration for his brother Caesarius, concerning the resurrection: "A little later, having received back also the kindred flesh (he is clearly speaking of the soul), with which it philosophized about the things there, from the earth that both gave it and was entrusted with it, in the manner that God who bound these things together and dissolves them knows, it shares as co-heir with this in the glory from there; and just as it partook of its wretched things because of their natural union, so it imparts to it its own delights, having consumed the whole into itself, and having become with it one, and spirit, and mind, and God, the mortal and flowing having been swallowed up by life.

For just as the flesh was swallowed up by corruption because of sin, and the soul was known by the flesh through its activities, and the knowledge of God was swallowed up by the soul through complete ignorance—so that God was not even known to exist—so too, certainly, at the time of the resurrection, in the reversal that will rightly take place in the Holy Spirit through the grace of the incarnate God, the flesh will be swallowed up by the soul in the spirit, and the soul by God, who is truly life, so that the soul has him alone, wholly appearing through all things, wholly to the whole soul. And simply put, in reverse of present things—in which we now are and are governed—the God-befitting grace of the resurrection will show all that is ours according to what is to come, so that just as here death, having prevailed, swallowed up because of sin, so there it will be swallowed up, having been justly weakened because of grace. These things [happen] if, as has been said, the soul uses its own powers well, and, having wisely passed through the sensible world according to the purpose of God by means of the spiritual principles within it, comes to God with understanding. But if it uses them badly, looking upon the present world contrary to the fitting principle, it is not unclear how, falling into passions of dishonor, it will reasonably be cast away from the divine glory in what is to come, receiving for endless ages a fearful condemnation—its estrangement, that is, its relation to God—on account of which, when it is brought to trial, it cannot say that it is not justly so, having as its accuser the disposition that brought it into being out of non-being, which it can never be ignorant of. But let us bring the discourse back to what lies before us.

For the Evangelist, when he said, "There are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written," showed us through these words that what was written by him is a kind of preliminary leveling of the more perfect and, until then, uncontainable Word. According to this understanding, then, if someone calls the holy Evangelist John a forerunner, in the Gospel he composed, preparing the way for the mind toward the reception of the more perfect Word, he will not miss the truth. In this way also the Teacher calls it a great voice of truth—those who thundered spiritual things. For thunder is a voice that produces only astonishment in those who hear, but clarifies nothing, such as is the elementary word. For every word written by God for men in this age is a forerunner of the more perfect Word, which is communicated without writing by the Spirit to the mind through it, and will appear later, having the truth communicated in itself, yet not showing the truth itself openly and nakedly. In this way, then, as I think, the meaning of the whole divine Scripture, being piously leveled, shows nothing difficult or uneven through the things that seem to be according to history

he will be shown to have oppositions. For every one of the saints from the beginning was, according to the true account of the mystery announced and prefigured through him, a forerunner, through the things he suffered and did and said, proclaiming beforehand the archetypes of these things. Therefore they are also received blamelessly in place of one another, and all in place of all, and each in place of each, and in place of the books written by them, and in place of them the books are named in the custom of Scripture. And the Lord makes this clear, both by making and by calling the Baptist John Elijah, whether because of the equal disposition of virtue, as the teachers say, and the purity of mind in all things, and the intensity of his conduct, or because of the identity in both of the power in grace, or according to another hidden reason—he himself who speaks as God would know, and those who are wise in such mysteries from him. And again, when he called Moses the law, and the prophets their prophetic books, in which he introduced the patriarch Abraham speaking to the rich man tormented in the Gehenna on earth: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them," setting before them those very men instead of the divine books written by them—Moses, I mean, and the prophets. And it is no wonder. For if there is one who is proclaimed through them, all can be understood as one, the one they proclaim, and each in place of all, and all can be piously received in place of all—both of those who ministered to the mystery according to the Old Testament and of those who were entrusted with the proclamation of the grace according to the Gospel.

Therefore, just as the great Baptist John can be piously received as a forerunner for the whole Old Testament, which was a forerunner of the New Testament and of the worship according to it, so too, with justice, John the great truly Evangelist can be taken as a forerunner for the whole New Testament and the worship according to it—which is a forerunner of the mystical hiddenness of the ineffable good things in the age to come—as a forerunner voice of the more divine Word that will be spoken clearly, and an image of the truth that will be shown. For the whole mystery of our salvation was wisely ordered in shadow, image, and truth. For the law had a shadow, as the divine Apostle says, of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, through which the Word, by a certain faint reflection of the true things, was educating those under the law, as belonging to themselves, toward the reception of the Gospel. But the Gospel possesses an image of the true things, having from here already clearly all those who have acquired the likeness of the good things to come. The Word, through hope, makes them ready to be ensouled by the reception of the archetype of the true things and to become living images of Christ, and, by grace, rather the same as him than a likeness—or perhaps even the Lord himself, if the word does not seem burdensome to some.

As a forerunner of himself, he is now addressed by the God-bearing teacher, revealing himself in a manner proportionate to those who receive him under both the Old and the New Testament, running ahead of himself through riddles and voices and types, and through these leading to the truth that is without these, as the words of his own Lord confirm this, through which he said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now," signifying the teaching about himself that was to come through the divine Spirit—higher than the preceding one, yet itself lower than the one after it. Hence he fittingly added: "But when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth"; or also through what he says elsewhere: "Behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age"—not as though after this he would not be with them at all, but as one who is evidently higher than the one they had known until then, and lower, so as to be known according to their own capacity. For in the same way

being always through himself, and admitting no change from alteration, neither more nor less, he becomes all things to all by the excess of his goodness—humble to the humble, high to the high, and, being God by nature, to those who are deified through him—so that all the forms and mysteries of the present age concerning man's providence, even if they be great, are a kind of preparation of the way and prefiguration of things to come. Therefore, even the Word of the Lord, which was until then comprehensible, when compared with the Word that was to be supplied more mystically to the disciples, and again his former presence compared with the second, is a forerunner of himself, having shown faintly in himself, in proportion to the capacity of those who receive him, but not having now revealed the mysteries that he keeps silently in himself in secret, because they are for the time being entirely incomprehensible to creation. For everything that falls under letters, as has been said, and surely under sounds, inasmuch as even the meaning derived from it, even if it be spiritual, insofar as it does not fall at all under letters and utterance, holds the status of a spoken word compared to a clear word; and for this reason this inspired teacher has perhaps called all things spoken by Christ God to the disciples a reference to the unspoken mind, that is, to John's understanding, rightly and wisely naming the forerunner grace from the capacity to receive. PA (81)... "But the word concerning God, by how much more perfect, by so much more difficult to express.

From the same discourse, on the text, "The word concerning God, the more perfect it is, the more difficult it is to attain, and the more it has conceptions, the more laborious are its solutions."

If the things that have come to be are many, and the things that have come to be are certainly diverse, if indeed they are many. For it is not possible for many things not to be also diverse. And if the many are diverse, one must understand that the principles according to which they exist in essence are also diverse—principles by which rather than through which the diverse things differ; for the diverse things would not differ from one another unless the principles by which they have come to be had a difference. If, then, just as the senses, naturally apprehending sensible things, of necessity by reception make many and diverse the apprehensions of the subjects that lie before them and fall under them, so too the intellect, naturally apprehending all the principles in existing things, beholding in them the infinite energies of God, makes many and, so to speak, infinite the differences of the divine energies it apprehends—then reasonably it will have its power enfeebled and its method without resource for the scientific inquiry into the truly existent true God, being unable to understand how in each individual principle of each individual thing, and in all together according to the principles by which all things exist, God, who is truly nothing of existing things and is properly all things and above all things, is present.

If, then, by the true account every divine activity wholly and indivisibly signifies God through itself in each thing according to the particular principle by which it exists, who is able accurately to conceive and to state how God is wholly in all things in common and in each of existing things distinctly, indivisibly and without division, neither being variously contracted together with the infinite differences of the things in which he is present as existing, nor contracted according to the distinctive existence of the one, nor contracting the differences of existing things according to the single unified totality of all, but is truly all in all, never departing from his own indivisible simplicity? Well, then, did the teacher say that the apprehensions of the word concerning divinity are many, from which we are taught only that God is, and that the solutions are more laborious, from which again we learn what he is not—for the purpose of putting an end to useless and harmful curiosity on the part of those who think the divine is graspable by the empty fictions of their own mind, by which not even the last of existing things is truly graspable according to the principle by which it is and exists. PB (82)... "Therefore the Monad, having been moved from the beginning into a Dyad, stood at a Triad.

From the first discourse on the Son, on the passage "Therefore the Monad, having moved from the beginning into a dyad, stood at the Trinity."

Everything that is moved according to nature is moved altogether through a cause, and everything that is moved through a cause altogether also exists through a cause; and everything that exists through a cause and is moved through a cause altogether had as the beginning of its being the cause through which it is and from which it was brought into being, and as the end of its motion the same cause through which it is moved and toward which it hastens. And everything that exists and is moved through a cause is altogether also generated. But if the end of what is moved is the cause through which it is moved, it is altogether the same as the cause through which it has come to be and is. One, therefore, is altogether the cause, as beginning and end, of what in any way exists and is moved according to nature—the cause through which everything that exists and is moved both is and is moved. For being an active power, it both makes the things that come to be (in a manner befitting God, as a beginning it brings them forth) and draws the things that are moved providentially, as an end, and sets their bounds. But if everything that is moved and generated exists and is moved and has come to be through a cause, then everything that is not through a cause is neither made nor, clearly, movable. For that which has absolutely no cause of its being is not moved. But if the uncaused is altogether also immovable, then the Divine is immovable, as having no cause of its being, and existing as the cause of all things that are. How then, someone might say, does this wonderful teacher introduce the Divine as moved in what has been set forth?

To whom we shall say that he knew better than anyone that the principle that holds each art together, remaining altogether unmoved in relation to itself—to use an example—while being formed according to each species of the things that fall under the same art, is said to be moved by moving the thing crafted rather than by being moved as it manifests itself; or, as light is said to be moved in relation to the eye that moves it to see, being properly the mover of all sight rather than the thing moved—so too the Divine, being altogether unmoved in essence and nature, as infinite and unrelated and undefined, is said to be moved as a kind of scientific principle existing within the essences of beings, by moving each of the beings providentially according to the principle by which it is naturally moved, and as a cause impassibly receiving all the predicates applied to those things of which it is the cause. This the great Dionysius the Areopagite, taught of God, abolishes when he asks: "Why ever do the theologians call the Divine sometimes love, sometimes charity, sometimes beloved and lovely?" He concludes the argument thus, saying: "Because in one respect it is moved, and in another it moves"; and to speak more clearly: as the Divine, being love and charity, is moved, and as beloved and lovely it moves all things receptive of love and charity toward itself; and again, more plainly: it is moved as implanting a dispositional relation of love and charity in those receptive of these things, and it moves as by nature drawing the desire of those who are moved toward it; and again: it moves and is moved, as thirsting to be thirsted for, and loving to be loved, and cherishing to be cherished. In this manner also Gregory, God-minded, says:

A Monad, having been moved from the beginning to a Dyad, stood still at a Triad." For it is moved in the mind that receives it, whether angelic or human, when that mind makes its examinations concerning it through it and in it—or, to speak more clearly, it teaches it without division, in the first contact, the principle concerning the Monad, so that no division be introduced into the first Cause; and it leads it forward also to receive the divine and ineffable fruitfulness of this, saying mystically and secretly to it that this good of reason and wisdom, or of sanctifying power—consubstantial and enhypostatic—must never be thought to be without offspring, lest the Divine be supposed to be composite from these as from accidents, and not rather be believed always to exist as these. The Godhead, then, is said to be moved as the cause of the examination according to the manner in which it exists. For to apply to the Godhead without illumination is among things impossible. It is said to be moved again also because of the partial manifestation of the more perfect Word concerning it according to the Holy Scripture, beginning with confessing the Father, advancing to acknowledging the Son together with the Father, and with the Father and the Son together receiving the Holy Spirit, and leading those who are taught to worship together a perfect Triad with a perfect Monad—that is, one substance and Godhead and power and energy in three hypostases.

From the same discourse, on the passage: "But another, I think, is the one willing and willing is another, the one begetting and begetting, the one speaking and word, unless we are drunk; some things belong to the one moved, others are as it were the motion. Therefore the thing willed is not of the will, nor is the thing begotten of the begetting (for it does not altogether follow), nor is the thing heard of the utterance, but of the one willing and the one begetting and the one speaking. But in the case of God these things are also beyond all these, for whom begetting is perhaps the will to beget."

Against the Arians, who set every device in motion so that their blasphemy against the Only-Begotten may be easy for them to advance, and who say that the Only-Begotten Son is a son of the will and not of the Father, the wise teacher says these things, showing that from this point every contrivance of theirs against the truth is easily dissolved. For if we say that the powers of the soul, which someone might perhaps claim are constitutive of its essence, can indeed operate in the essence with which they coexist, yet they cannot altogether be moved with an effective operation apart from the assent of the one willing. And even if it were granted by hypothesis that they operate of their own will from natural motion, apart from the inclination of the one who possesses them, so to speak, they can by no means attain to operating effectively of their own impulse. For the work does not altogether follow the power when it does not have the inclination of the one whose power it is, contributing to it the end in actual deed, since it is in itself without subsistence.

In vain they put forward the will, since it is not productive of anything without the one who has it and wills. And this is what the teacher says. For the thing willed does not in every case necessarily follow the will, and in the same way the other things do not follow the other faculties, without the contribution of the subject in which they also exist. If, then, you infer divine things from examples among us, O you there, accept, at any rate, by following your own hypotheses, that the things that exist in the middle relation are together with one another in every way—I mean the one who wills and the thing willed, the one who begets and the thing begotten, existing together with one another according to the relation, I mean the will and the generation. For just as there is no sight without the one seeing and the thing seen, nor thought without the one thinking and the thing thought, so neither is there generation without the one begetting and the thing begotten, nor will without the one willing and the thing willed, because the thing willed does not follow the will, as has been shown, without the contribution of the one willing. But if these things are together according to the relation—for the relation in both is unmoved—then the Son who is begotten was together with the Father who begets, who is always Father, through generation, even according to you, not admitting in any way a middle

of the Father who begets, an addition of time, and the Son is no longer a Son of will, but of the Father who begets.

And let these things, he says, be spoken from examples among us, but the things of God are beyond all these, to whom begetting is perhaps the will to beget. But he expressed doubt about this through the adverb "perhaps," because the generation of the Son from the Father is even beyond will. For the Son is not mediated from the Father by will, nor is the will of the Father preconceived before the Son in any respect, since the Father did not exist before the Son, just as mind does not exist before the word that is from it, nor light before the radiance. For having existence at the same time, they also have one will—the Father and the Son begotten from him without beginning—simple and undivided, just as indeed they have one substance and nature. ... "Since what prevents me too, having made this proposition..." From the same discourse, on the passage: "Since what prevents me too, having made this proposition—that the Father is greater by nature, (then adding, 'but by nature not altogether greater, nor altogether Father,' to conclude, 'the greater is not altogether greater,' or, 'the Father is not altogether Father').

Since the teacher wisely distinguished the Father as greater in respect of the cause of the Son—as being the Father of the Son, but not the Father existing from the Son—the Arians, seizing on the premise "cause by nature," craftily inferred alongside it "greater by nature." First, then, he refutes with vigor the conclusion they had drawn fallaciously, saying: "I do not know whether they are deceiving themselves or those to whom the argument is addressed." For not simply whatever is said of something will also be said of the subject underlying it; rather, it is clear of what and in what respect this is so. For not whatever is said of the cause as cause, he says, will also be said of it by nature. For it is not reasonable that things said of someone—say, of a wise man or a king as wise or as king—should also be said of the subjects underlying these, namely men, and that one should lawlessly include, in the definition of the essence of the subjects, the things said of wisdom as wisdom and of kingship as kingship, things that in no way share in the definition of the essence as constitutive differences of it and as completing the definition according to it. Then, more wisely still, weaving a syllogism against them from their own premise, he turns them against themselves. It runs as follows: Since what prevents me too from making this premise—that the Father is greater by nature—and then adding, "But by nature it is not in every respect greater, nor Father," and from this concluding, "The greater is not in every respect greater," or, "The Father is not in every respect Father"?

So that what is said may become clearer and more coherent to us, if it seems good, let us set it out in the form of a diagram, beginning from the attack of the opponents and coming to rest in the teaching of the Father.

Proposition of the Arians, that is, the Eunomians:

"If the Father is by nature the cause of the Son, and the Father is greater than the Son, then the Father is by nature greater than the Son."

Solution of our holy father Gregory, who overturns the opponents by reduction to absurdity:

"If, according to you, the Father is by nature greater than the Son, but that which is by nature is not altogether greater or Father, then the greater is not greater, or the Father is not altogether Father." Thus those who deny the truth are overturned, caught in their own devices, and, empty, are vainly cast out from piety. For in such arguments the conclusions are confirmatory of the premises, and the premises are definitive of the conclusions, in which those who think themselves wise have fallen through great ignorance.

PE (85). "Let it be also of energy, if it seems good—not even so will you capture us." Let it be also of energy, if it seems good; not even so will you capture us. But this very thing would be what has been effected—the homoousion—even if the supposition of energy concerning it is otherwise absurd.

Since those who have their tongue sharpened like a razor against the truth were saying, ostensibly in the form of a question: "Is 'Father' a name of essence, or of activity?" — and from this they draw the conclusion that the Son is of a different essence from the Father, on the ground that the same essence does not admit two properly distinct names (for if "Father" is a name of essence, then "Son" could never be a name of the same essence); but if it is a name of activity, they would clearly show the Son to be a work of the Father, as being an effect — therefore, after the teacher had gone through the strict sense of the terms in a contrary way and had said directly to them that "Father" is a name neither of essence nor of activity, but of relation, and of how the Father stands toward the Son, or the Son toward the Father, he brought this in by way of concession, saying: "Let it be of activity, if this seems good," and he adds: "But in doing this very thing, he would have effected the consubstantial." How, then, does one effect the consubstantial? One of the very inquisitive might perhaps ask this — one of those who cannot bear to be ignorant of anything useful. But this will be smoothed out in the following way.

They say that there are two activities in general among existing things: one that naturally brings forth from existing things those of the same kind and same essence and altogether identical to themselves — by which activity, having been gently drawn in among the word-babblers so as at least to make them pause a little from their blasphemy, the Teacher says: "Let 'Father,' according to you," in line with the stated aim of the argument, "be also a name of activity." To which he adds: "And the Father would have been active in this very thing" — clearly the same-essence, as an activity substantially subsisting and living, just as indeed the God-minded teachers of truth have also called the only-begotten Word of God and Son of the Father a living word and a power and a self-subsistent wisdom. The other activity, they say, is productive of external things, by which someone, acting upon something external and of a different essence, constructs something else alien to his own essence from some pre-existing matter. And this activity, they say, is scientifically composed in the arts. Concerning which the God-minded Teacher says: "Even if otherwise out of place" — clearly in the manner in which it was taken — "the supposition of the activity concerning this," especially when taken in relation to Father and Son, in whose case the pious mind does not accept even the first in a strict sense, because the ineffable and incomprehensible existence of the Only-begotten from the Father and together with the Father and in the Father is beyond even this. P (86)... "...FOR GOD IS STRICTLY OUR GOD, BUT NOT STRICTLY FATHER." From the second discourse on the Son, on the text: "But he would be called God not of the Word, but of the one seen. For how could he be God of the strictly so-called God?

Just as he is not Father of the visible man, but of the Word. For he was double, so that the one term applies properly to both, the other not properly; but with us it is the opposite. For God is properly our God, but not properly our Father.

The "properly" must be posited of both, of "Father" and of "God," since both can be said properly of Christ because of the one hypostasis. For God is properly the Father of Christ, as he is Son and God the Word and one of the Holy Trinity

even after the incarnation, and he is again properly God of the same Christ, as he is truly a man because of the flesh, and is reckoned as one of men; for the things belonging to the parts are properly predicated of the whole composed of them, since it properly admits all the things that naturally belong to the parts from which it has its subsistence. "And the 'not properly' is likewise to be taken of both," of "God" and of "Father," as both cannot be said properly of Christ, because of the natural difference of the natures from which and in which he consists. For the things that belong to a whole by composition will never be properly predicated of one of its own parts. And "it is the opposite with us," that is, the reverse of how it is with us. For whenever I contemplate the difference of the natures, and make their distinction by concept, I cannot place "properly" of both, I mean of "Father" and of "God." For the Father is not properly God of the Word, nor is God properly Father of the flesh.

Conversely," that is, in reverse, or inversely, of both "properly" and "not properly," taken in relation to the union and the one hypostasis, and in relation to the difference of the natures and their distinction according to conception, so that the one hypostasis properly receives the name God and Father, as of one Christ, according to the cause that has been assigned, while the difference of the natures according to essence inversely receives "not properly," just as it is with us. For God is properly our God, as also of the flesh of the Word, but not properly Father, as also not of the flesh of the Word. Therefore the things of the whole must be predicated in exchange for the parts, and the things of its own parts for the whole, and the understanding of what is set before us will be easy and clear. And so that what is said may become clearer: whenever Christ is contemplated as a hypostasis, "properly" must be posited of both—of "God," I mean, and of "Father"; but whenever, on account of the unconfused existence of the things in which and from which Christ's natures are, the natures are contemplated, "inversely" must be posited, which is "not properly," just as it is with us. And the teacher makes this clear by adding, "And this produces error for the heretics—the coupling of the names, the names being interchanged on account of the commingling." And the sign is that whenever the natures are divided by conceptions, the names are divided along with them.

That is, as long as you look upon Christ as one hypostasis, the conjunction of the names by interchange is indivisible; but when by mental conceptions you separate the natures that combine the one hypostasis of Christ, the names are divided together with the natures. Or again, since Christ is double in nature, both are predicated of him—God and Father—properly when the names are uttered together in a manner corresponding to the natures, but not properly when the possession belonging by nature to each of those from which, in which, and which he is is interchangedly attributed to the other because of the one hypostasis. Not knowing how to do this, or rather not enduring to speak more properly, the heretics of that time and of now do not shrink from blaspheming the only-begotten God the Word—some dragging him down to a creature because of the human things, others confounding the economy because of the denial of the natures from which he is.

But another man, altogether wise in divine things, when I asked him about this passage, said: The "properly" and the "not properly" applied to both belong to the same relative predication, whether of "Father" or of "God," or even of each, as being applied to one Christ, who consists of two opposites, "properly" and "not properly." If the Father of Christ be called God according to the conception of the two natures, he would be called "properly" of the creature, but "not properly" of God the Word. Likewise, conversely, he is "properly" Father of the Word, but "not properly" of the creature, just as these things are said also in our own case. For of us he is "properly" God, but "not

Properly" however, "Father." Having accepted this conception of the wise man as being well put, I saw fit that it be included in the writing.

87. "To receive him, that is, Christ, as life, or judgment." From the same discourse, on the passage, "To receive him, that is, Christ, as life, or judgment, or inheritance of nations, or authority over all flesh, or glory, or disciples, or whatever is said," and to this the teacher adds that "this too belongs to the humanity," and then further adds, "But if you also give it to God, it is not absurd. For you will not give them as things acquired, but as things coexisting from the beginning, and by reason of nature, not of grace."

Having often been perplexed within myself about this, in what way and by what reason, as the teacher says, God is said to receive what He has by nature, and being unable to satisfy myself, I finally decided it was well to ask a wise elder, who handled the account of this matter very learnedly, speaking as follows: that supposing we know of someone clarifying for certain people the natures of beings, he would say to them: Let us assign to God the almighty, the wise, the good, the just; likewise to creation the servile, the obedient, the circumscribed, the having subsisted from non-being, and the things that follow these, since the nature of each demands its own properties in the common conceptions. Saying therefore, "Let us assign to God," the speaker did not supply what was not present in Him, but what nature has. For this "Let us assign" means, as it were, to distinguish the nature by its own properties from those that are not such.

In the same way here too, receive the teacher's words with piety: "If we also grant it to God," that is, nature receiving what belongs to it from those who distinguish things clearly. 88. "For as it is impossible," we say, "for God to be evil..." From the same discourse, on the passage: "For as we say it is impossible for God to be evil, or not to be."

And having asked that wise elder mentioned above, he said that the "not to be" is not attached to what was said before, lest there be gathered the conclusion that God is evil. "For as we say it is impossible for God to be evil, or not to be" evil, but to be evil, with "evil" predicated in common. For two negations bring in one affirmation. So "impossible" is negative, and when combined with "not to be evil," it concludes that he is evil. Which is not so—may it not be! But each clause has its sequence from its own beginning, so that the clause, smoothed out thus: "For as we say it is impossible for God to be evil," may be punctuated, and again a beginning made of another thought, and there be added, "or not to be," in the sense of being non-existent.

You have the titles of the Son; walk by them: as many as are lofty, in a divine manner; and as many as are bodily, in a compassionate manner—or rather, wholly in a divine manner, so that you may become God, ascending from below because of the One who descended for our sake from above. The one who has illumined his mind through lofty contemplation according to the conception of each of the divine names, and has led it up and transformed it toward the original and spiritual principle of each, and who has subjected the mind of the flesh to the spirit by labors for the sake of virtue, and has become obedient even to death—this one truly walks "through the divine titles" blamelessly in both spirit and flesh, making the divine journey that leads to God: "loftily" indeed in accordance with mystical contemplation through the lofty names, and "compassionately" in accordance with practical philosophy, through bodily things hastening toward the lot above, "or rather, the whole in a divine manner," since action too is contemplative and does not lack rational grace. But for this reason he chose the volitional alienation toward the flesh through the perfect circumcision of the same natural movements, clearly suggesting that, in order that he too might become God by grace, he placed himself above matter in the flesh through action, and in the mind through contemplation above form—from which the existence of beings subsists—and, to speak the whole, having become wholly immaterial and formless in the habit of virtue and knowledge, because of the God the Word who for our sake truly became, from us, in matter and form according to us—the One who by nature is properly immaterial and formless.

Or again, the phrase "or rather, wholly in a divine manner" refers to the impassibility that came to be in him because, having accomplished the virtue and knowledge attainable by human beings, out of compassion toward God and neighbor he was ready to suffer for the debt of others and to give up his soul, as one altogether free from stains.

(90) ... "The laws of nature are dissolved; the upper world must be filled." By the same author, from the discourse for the Nativity, on the text, "The laws of nature are dissolved; the upper world must be filled. Christ commands; let us not resist." In truth, the laws of nature, having been dissolved, brought about the filling of the upper world. Clearly, had they not been dissolved, the upper world would have remained incomplete and unfilled. And what are the laws of nature that are dissolved? Conception through seed and, as I think, birth through corruption—neither of which at all characterized the true incarnation of God and his perfect becoming man. For truly the conception was by seed, and the birth came about entirely without corruption, pure and untouched; and for this reason the Mother was a virgin even after the birth of the child she bore, remaining rather impassible through the childbirth—a thing both paradoxical and surpassing every law and principle of nature—and God, who deigned to be born of her in the flesh, rather tightened for her, as a mother, the bonds of virginity through the birth. Truly a wondrous thing and wondrous report, that a birth and coming-forth of an infant should take place without the generative bars of the one giving birth being opened.

For it was truly necessary, it was necessary that the Maker of nature, setting nature right through himself, should first abolish the laws of nature (by which sin, through disobedience, condemned humans to have the same characteristic of succession from one another as irrational animals), and thus renew the laws of the first and truly divine creation, so that what man, from carelessness, as one weak, had destroyed, God, from love for humanity, as one mighty, might set right. If, then, the laws of nature that came about because of sin were abolished in Christ, and every slavish uprising of the passions utterly ceased through the presence of the Word, the world above must by all means be filled, as the teacher says. And let us not resist this. For if the old Adam, who was under sin, being a mere man, abolished the first laws of nature in the spirit through disobedience and filled the world below with those born of him in the flesh unto corruption, becoming a leader by the likeness of his own transgression—and no one will contradict this—how much more the sinless new Adam, Christ God, having abolished, as the Word, the laws of irrationality that were introduced into nature because of sin, the...

...would rightly fill the world above with those who are born in the Spirit according to him unto incorruption, having become the author of their obedience in the likeness of his own obedience. And let no one disbelieve, even of those who have perceived but little of the power of God and are not ignorant of its greatness. In this way, then, the world above is filled with those who are born in Christ in the Spirit, and in this way the law according to the flesh, and of the lower birth, receives its fitting end, and all things are readjusted toward the world above. A (91). Another Exposition on the Same. Another exposition on the same.

Since the teacher's word seems to me to have yet another meaning besides these, this too must be stated as far as is possible for us, with God guiding the word in the Gospels. The sole cause of all things, my God Jesus, teaching secretly in parables, called man a sheep that had strayed from the divine hundred, and a drachma that had been lost from the divine ten, and a son who had recklessly leapt away from his father and had dissolved the concord of the divine brotherly pair. He called him a sheep as being, I think, provident, and led, and appointed, and furnishing three useful things to its possessor—wool and the milk of the lamb—as being both fed and feeding, by the word and the manner of natural contemplation, and being clothed and clothing by the manner of ethical philosophy, and being enriched and enriching according to the birth of like from like by the mystery of true vision; and a drachma, as bright and royal, and by the principle of the image bearing the stamp of the divine archetype, and being receptive, as far as is attainable, of the whole divine beauty.

And "son," as heir of the Father's goods and equal in honor to the Father according to the gift of grace.

This man, as a sheep that had gone astray, God the Provider sought and found as a shepherd, and placing him on his own shoulders he brought him back to the fold of those under the law; but as an image that had been buried in the passions and had debased its original beauty, the Word, as Wisdom, having kindled his own flesh like a lamp by the light of his own divinity, found him, and he makes the finding a cause of great joy, through which he filled up the deficiency of the divine decade. And as a son put to death by sin and lost in ignorance concerning God, as a good Father he received him when he returned, and he again sets upon him without fail the marks of his former worth, and—what is the greatest and most mystical of all—he sacrifices the fatted calf, whatever this calf once was and whatever its wondrous sacrifice (I think it is the highest Word of the divine and ineffable providence, of the incomprehensible and unknown manner, most hidden and most unknown, and his God-befitting impartation to existing things), and he makes the return of the son the sum of ineffable joy, having magnificently filled the pair of sons—whatever this pair once is—and the decade of drachmas before it, and the hundred of sheep before that. Concerning these things, if it seems good, let us now pass over speaking, summarizing more opportunely elsewhere, with fitting elaboration, the word that God mystically gives concerning each number.

If, then, as a sheep the good Shepherd, placing the man upon his shoulders, led him back to the fold, and as a drachma, because he bears the royal stamp through the image, the Lord and Savior found the man, as the wisdom and power of God the Father, through the incarnation, and as a son returning the good and all-merciful Father received him, and numbering him with the heavenly powers he placed him among them, filling up the deficiency of the number of each of those in the heavens through the man who was saved, it is clear that Christ God filled the world above, having wrought in himself the salvation of all things in a manner befitting God. B (92). Another contemplation on the same. Another contemplation on the same.

And in another way, if it seems good, let us contemplate the present difficulty. Those who have accurately surveyed the nature of beings say that the law of each nature is the unswerving and unchangeable permanence of the principle according to which it is and has come to be, and that this would be well, as I think, the definition of the law of nature—anyone who has partaken of reason will agree upon hearing it. But if this is true, it is evident that the law of nature necessarily preserves the principle of nature inviolate, just as it also keeps its place in accordance with position altogether unchangeable.

But he who wisely distinguished by law and reason and nature the subsistence of beings according to each kind, being beyond nature and law and mind and reason and place and motion, acts in nothing according to nature upon those under nature, but in a manner proper to himself, beyond nature, he pursues and does and suffers the things according to nature of those under nature, preserving for himself in both—both in suffering and in the things done—the unchangeable free from mixture, paradoxically according to nature. Thus also, having moved downward toward us, he truly became a perfect man by his manifestation among us, not having moved at all from himself and in no way having experienced circumscription in place, and he deified us perfectly, taking away nothing at all of our nature by alteration, and giving himself wholly without deficiency and having received the whole man fully according to the ineffable and undefiled union, he diminished nothing of the perfection according to either, and he is truly the same whole God and the same whole man, bearing witness to himself in the perfection of both in which he truly is, that according to both he is unchangeable and immutable. Thus God looses the laws of nature, using nature beyond nature in things according to nature. 93. Another contemplation, on "The upper world must be filled." Another contemplation, on "The upper world must be filled.

If, then, Christ as man is the firstfruits of our nature unto God and the Father, and as it were the leaven of the whole lump, and if he who never departed from his steadfastness in the Father is, according to the conception of humanity, unto God and the Father, as the Word, let us not disbelieve that it shall be, according to his petition to the Father, where he himself is, the firstfruits of our race. For as he came down for our sake without change and became man as we are, apart from sin alone, transcendingly dissolving the laws of nature, so also we, in consequence, shall go up for his sake, and become gods according to him by the mystery of grace, altering nothing at all of our nature. And thus again, according to the wise teacher, the world above is filled, as the members of the body are gathered according to worth unto their head, each member, clearly, by its nearness in virtue receiving harmoniously through the architecture of the Spirit the position fitting to it, and the body which fills all things being filled from all things by him who fills all things in all things, completing it.

Whether, then, as has been said, according to the spiritual regeneration of those born in Christ, or according to the fulfillment of the mystical numbers in the heavens that has come to be in Christ and through Christ—I mean the divine hundred of the rational sheep, and the mystical ten of the spiritual drachmas, and the honored pair of sons—or according to the gathering of the members of the body to their own head and to their own firstfruits of the lump, the world without the bridegroom will surely be filled, according to the Teacher, having been filled already in Christ, and destined to be filled again later in those who are in Christ, when those who have already become conformed to the likeness of his death through the same sufferings shall also become jointly planted with his resurrection.

From the same discourse, on the passage: "A child was born to us, a Son was given to us, whose beginning is upon his shoulder; for with the cross it is lifted up together." Having wholly, through the word, attached himself to the first word, he makes, in a manner befitting the Word, the word concerning the Word which the great prophet Isaiah makes concerning the incarnate Word, saying mystically, "Whose beginning is upon his shoulder," and this great teacher has concisely, as is his custom, made clear what this beginning ought to be thought to be, saying: "For with the cross it is lifted up together." But since the cross admits of many contemplations in the conceptions concerning it, it is worth inquiring according to which conception the teacher here called the cross a beginning.

For the cross is contemplated according to shape, according to composition, according to the peculiarity of its parts, and according to operation and according to many other conceptions, which are visible to those who love to behold divine things.

According to shape, when the cross, contemplated as dividing all things, both above and below, on either side by their own boundaries, signifies a power; according to composition, when it manifests essence and providence and judgment—that is, the manifestations of these, I mean wisdom and knowledge and virtue—of the power that governs the whole: essence and wisdom as creative through the upright line, providence and knowledge as providential through the transverse line, and judgment and virtue as destroying evil and binding together the things made and provided for to their own beginning and cause through the whole; according to the peculiarity of the parts, when through the upright line the cross declares God, who is ever the same and in no way departs from his own stability because of his steadfast and immovable foundation, and through the transverse line indicates that the whole creation depends entirely on God, having no other beginning of being apart from God, nor any foundation; according to operation, when it declares the inactivity and death of those things that are fixed beneath it, in which manner the teacher has now, as I think, taken up the prophetic word in contemplation.

Just as, then, each office has certain tokens (for it is good to demonstrate the truth of things beyond us by examples from among us) through which those who receive them become evident to all—that one has received this office from the king, for instance the ruler the so-called codicils, another through the sword the so-called dokiane, and another another through some other token—and they receive it from the king himself and carry it in their own hands, and having gone out they give it to their own people to convey, in this way our Master Jesus Christ also, according to the conception of his humanity, having received the symbols of his own office, his cross, upon his shoulders, went out bearing it, himself first carrying it, then giving it to another, showing through these things that the one entrusted with an office must first lead those who are led through it and uphold the things it prescribes (for thus he will become readily acceptable in his instructions), and then command those entrusted to him to do the same. But if the token of the

The cross is the beginning of the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he carried on his shoulders and brought to completion; it was fitting to know what he wished to make manifest through these things, and so he arranged and endured them in this mystical way. Those who are learned in symbols say that the shoulder is a token of action, and the cross of impassibility, since it produces a putting to death. Through these riddles, then, our Lord and God, having passed through both of the things of which these are riddles (I mean action and perfect impassibility), so that action might not be corrupted through vainglory, showed to his subjects by what he himself accomplished, all but crying out loudly: "This is the symbol of my rule." Therefore everyone among you who has a desire for this rule, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me—that is, the putting to death of the passions in action, showing through these things the goodness and the beauty of generosity, that he desires all alike to handle this rule as he does. For when the God-bearing teacher said that "with the cross he is lifted up together," I think he provides us through these words with some such indication as this: that when the rational nature of human beings is exalted through action and the impassibility joined to it, Christ himself is said, clearly, to be exalted together with it—that is, the Christ-like state among human beings, exalted in sequence and order, moved through impassible action to the gnostic contemplation of nature, and from this to theological mystagogy.

This is what the holy Areopagite, the great Dionysius, seems to me especially to be making clear in what he says: "But since the divine is the beginning of sacred order, according to which the sacred minds become cognizant of themselves, he who runs back to the visible image of his own nature will first see who he himself is, and will receive first from his turning back toward the light a sacred gift; but he who has looked upon his own things with eyes well withdrawn will depart from the lightless recesses of ignorance, and, being himself imperfect, will not desire from the outset the most perfect illumination and participation of God, but little by little, through his own first things, he will be led up to things still prior, and having been perfected he will be led up in order and sacredly to the highest communion with the divine principle." Thus, then, according to this great and God-minded teacher, the Only Most High is lifted up together with the cross, while we in the Spirit are lifted up according to him, being led through action and the dispassion joined to it into knowledge, and through that, in the immaterial mind, being lifted up to the mystical contemplation and initiation of divine things—and I will add with confidence, also to participation.

(95). From the same discourse, on the text "The Word grew thick." The Word is said to grow thick by the God-bearing teacher, in my opinion, according to this meaning: either that, being the Word, simple and incorporeal, and spiritually nourishing in order all the divine powers in heaven, he deigned also through his incarnate presence to grow thick from us, for us, in our likeness, without sin, and to set forth for us in fitting words and examples the teaching concerning the ineffable things and the power that surpasses every word (for it is said that he spoke all things in parables, and without a parable he said nothing; for it is customary for teachers to use this method when the hearers do not follow what is said in its original form, and to bring them to an understanding of what is said); or that, having hidden himself for us ineffably in the words of existing things, he is signified analogously through each of the visible things as through certain letters, whole in wholes at once and most complete, and whole and undiminished in each individual, the undifferentiated one in the different things, and

always having the same, the simple and incomposite in composite things, and the unoriginate in things under a beginning, and the invisible in visible things and the intangible in tangible things; or that for our sake, who are thick in understanding, he deigned to be embodied for our sake and to be imprinted in letters and syllables and sounds, so that from all these things, as we follow him, he might gather us little by little to himself, being made one in the Spirit, and might lead us up to the simple and unerring conception concerning him, drawing us together to union with himself for his own sake to the same extent that he, for our sake, by the word of condescension, separated himself.

(96)... "Not from the things according to him, but from the things around him, another imagination gathered from another."

From the same discourse, on the text: "Not from the things according to him, but from the things around him, another imagination gathered from another into one image of the truth." From the things according to the essence, that is, from the essence itself, God is never known as being anything. For the conception of what he is is unmanageable and wholly impassable to all creation, visible and invisible alike, but from the things around the essence only that he is, and these being contemplated well and piously, God yields himself to those who see. But all the things around the essence indicate not what he is, but what he is not, such as the unbegotten, the unoriginate, the infinite, the incorporeal, and all such things as are around the essence, and that he is not something, but they do not establish that he is something;

But also the principles of providence and of judgment, according to which the whole is wisely administered, with which the harmonious contemplation of nature is also said to be about God, showing analogously only that its own Creator exists. Since the negations are set in opposition to the affirmations, they are interwoven with one another in a friendly way concerning God and are mutually taken up: for instance, the negations, signifying that the Divine is not something, but that something is not, are united to the affirmations concerning the "what it is"—that this is not; and the affirmations, declaring only that it is, but not showing what this is, are united to the negations concerning the "that something is not"—that this is; showing, on the one hand, toward each other the opposition that comes from contrariety, and, on the other hand, concerning God, the affinity of the extremes by way of their mutual coincidence. Z (97)... "But since this was not sufficient for the goodness—to be moved only by its own contemplation—but it was necessary that the good be poured out and go forth, so that those benefited might be more." From the same discourse: "But since this was not sufficient for the goodness—to be moved only by its own contemplation—but it was necessary that the good be poured out and go forth, so that those benefited might be more.

Having asked the great and wise elder who had often spoken about this, he said that through these words the great and God-bearing Gregory was indicating that the same God, being in himself alone, as one who is strictly one, having nothing at all that is by nature different co-conceived with himself, and having in himself alone the incomprehensible, unoriginate, infinite, and ungraspable stability, from which, by an infinitely generous outpouring of goodness, he brought forth and established beings from non-being, willed also to impart himself analogously to the whole and to each individual, graciously granting to each the power to be and to remain, according to the holy and God-like great Dionysius the Areopagite, who says that the One is to be hymned as being from God, by being removed from all things, since he brought forth by goodness into being both the entire order of intelligible things and the comeliness of visible things, and that he is present without diminishment in each of the creatures analogously, according to some ineffable principle of wisdom, and is in no way or manner again contained by the whole, but to some by a superabundant and generous outpouring, to others in a middling way, and to others so that they are able to image him to some degree at least. And this, perhaps, according to my foolishness, would be that the good is poured out and travels, and that the one God is multiplied analogously in proportion to those who are receptive through the imparting of good things.

A SECOND COMMUNION, FAR MORE PARADOXICAL THAN THE FIRST

From the same discourse, on the text, "He partakes of a second communion, far more paradoxical than the first."

It was not, as I think, so great a wonder that God, being so great, led the nature of men—pure as it was in the first formation, since it had indeed been honored by the hand of God—into communion with himself through inspiration, imparting to what was like him the divine beauty according to the image, as that he deigned to converse with this nature when it had been defiled and had fled from God through the passions it had contracted, and to partake of the worse, and by the paradoxical union to heighten the wonder with what is in every way unmixed with things. For previously the nature had received its unity with God in no way or principle of essence or hypostasis among those in which all beings are universally contemplated; but now it has received the hypostatic unity with him through the ineffable union, preserving unaltered its own principle, which according to essence is different from the divine essence, and toward which through the union it has the hypostatic unity and difference, so that by the principle of being, according to which it has come to be and is, it may remain having what is properly its own in every way undiminished, while by the principle of how it is, having received its subsistence divinely, it may neither know nor admit the inclination of motion toward anything else. In this way, then, the Word made his communion with the nature of men far more paradoxical than the first, uniting that nature itself to himself essentially in hypostasis.

From the same discourse, on the text, "But now receive my conception, and leap for joy, and if not as John from the womb, yet as David at the resting of the ark." John the Great is an image not only of repentance, and of the impassibility that comes from the practical philosophy, and of gnostic contemplation—of the first as herald and baptist, of the second as a desert-dweller wholly separated from the world, of the third as a Levite and priest and forerunner of the Word of God—but he is also a symbol of immutability in the settled habit of these things, since from the womb and until death he kept the tension of his soul in them unsoftened. But David is himself also an image of confession, of action and of contemplation, as being of the Jewish tribe, both shepherd first and king afterward, and a destroyer of the Philistines; yet he is not also a symbol of immutability in the settled habit of these things. For he fell after knowledge, suffering something human, and did not keep the habit of virtue and of knowledge immutable. Therefore, perhaps, he is not written to have leaped for joy from the womb of the Word, as the great John was, but after the complete destruction of the Philistines and the restoration of the ark—that is, after the withdrawal of the passions and the return of knowledge once again.

John, then, is a type of all those who are born in the Spirit through repentance unto virtue and knowledge, and who through progress preserve unswervingly to the end the disposition in these things; and David is a type of all those who fall away after knowledge, and again through repentance bring back the soul's exultation of divine joy in virtue and knowledge. Being concise, then, and having in the Spirit mentally gathered up the power of the Word into its breadth, the great teacher compared the hearers of the divine oracles to the great John and David through the disposition according to each one, as altogether to one of these, as I think, according to the manner well assigned in each case, each of those living in piety being strengthened—as it were crying out plainly that: All you who have received the divine Word of virtue and knowledge conceived in yourselves through repentance, either, like the great John, preserve unswervingly from beginning to end through progress the divine leaping of the soul in its disposition toward him, yielding in no way at all to any form of evil and ignorance; or, like the blessed David, even if something unintended has happened to you in the divine course, strive diligently through repentance to bring virtue and knowledge back to yourselves by the tensions of endurance and the exercises of divine words, and do not, through sloth, give yourselves over to the passions, leaving this divine ark in you—I mean of virtue and knowledge—and enduring the passion of Eli the priest, and falling backward, die at the gates of the temple in Shiloh, your shoulder of action broken.

This, as I think, this blessed Father teaches more clearly in his discourse for the New Sunday, saying: "We are commanded to sing a new song to the Lord, whether we are those dragged down to Babylon and evil confusion by sin, and then saved back to Jerusalem, and there unable to sing the divine song as in a foreign land, but here establishing a new song and way of life; or whether we are those who have remained in the good and are progressing, having already set some things right and setting others right by the renewing Spirit. These things, I think, the teacher said having understood them by conjecture according to my own foolishness." But now receive my conception and leap for joy, even if not as John from the womb, yet as David at the resting of the ark, having comprehended the contemplation of the things said in the manner of contemplation that accords with worth and kind.

For those who are exact custodians of such mysteries and lovers and devotees of the spiritual reasons concerning them say that the universal reason of Scriptural contemplation, being one, is contemplated as widened in ten ways: by place, time, kind, person, worth—that is, practice—by practical, natural, and theological philosophy, by the present and the future—that is, by type and truth; and again, being gathered together, they say it is circumscribed in three ways by the five, and again the three by two, and the two are enclosed by one reason that is altogether not numbered.

For example, those who in time, place, kind, person, and rank happen to be five, he gathers into the three of the practical, natural, and theological; and these again, being three, into two, which signify the present and the future; and these into the perfective and simple, as they say, and all-containing ineffable Logos, from whom by procession came the universal decade of the modes contemplated in Scripture, and into whom, as a beginning, by circumscription the same decade is again gathered up into a monad. And the word of Scripture is contemplated according to time whenever it indicates "once," "was," "is," "will be," "before this," "present," "after this," and "upon this," and "from the beginning," "past," "future," and years and seasons and months and weeks and days and nights and the parts of these, and simply all things that are expressive of time; and according to place, when it signifies heaven and earth and air and sea, the inhabited world, the ends, countries, islands, cities, temples, villages, fields, mountains, valleys, roads, rivers, deserts, winepresses, threshing floors, vineyards, and simply all things that can characterize place; and according to kind, universally when it signifies angels, or all that belongs to the heavenly order of the rational essences, and besides also sun and moon, stars, fire, and all things that are in air, on earth, in the sea, whether living things, or things that live and grow, or plants, and all that is mined from the earth and falls under human arts, and all other such things; and again specifically, when it names with number or without number men, nations, peoples, tongues, tribes, families, and all such things.

In respect of person, when he calls by name this angel, or this archangel, or Seraphim, or as many of the noetic essences dwelling in the heavens as there are, or Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or some other of those who lie in Scripture under praise or blame, he indicates them by name; and in respect of worth, whenever he names a kingdom, or a king, or a shepherd, or a flock, or a priest, or a priesthood, or a farmer, or a general, or a master builder, and simply whatever else of the pursuits by which the human race is divided. For all these things, as many as the discourse has shown to be contained in the five modes, being constituted in essence, power, and activity by the first divisions concerning them, either altogether move or are moved, or are acted upon or act, or contemplate or are contemplated, or speak or are spoken to, or teach or are taught, or receive approval or rejection, and, to speak concisely, either doing or suffering, they introduce to us in various ways, through their interweaving with one another, the practical, the natural, and the theological philosophy—each, that is, of the things named being taken in many ways, praiseworthily or blameworthily, by the conceptual considerations concerning it in contemplation, and disclosing the principles of what is to be done or not to be done in its regard, whether natural or unnatural, whether intelligible or unintelligible.

For, as I said, the mode of the principle in each case is twofold, as far as the one who intelligently makes the examination of the contemplation of them is able, so that from the positing of the principles of things to be done, both natural and intelligible, and from the removal of the phantasies of things not to be done, both unnatural and unintelligible, the practical, the natural, and the theological philosophy may be procured for the pious—and to say the same thing, love of God. And these again are divided between the present and the future, as having shadow and truth, and type and archetype. But as it is possible, in a transcendent and lofty way, in this age for man, having reached the highest measure of virtue and knowledge and wisdom, to attain the knowledge of divine things, it is in type and image of the archetypes. For every truth now thought by us to be is truly a type and shadow and image of the greater Word. The Word which is creative of all things, understood at present in relation to the future and in all things, is as in type and truth, both being and appearing, as being beyond the present and the future, and beyond type and truth, by having nothing opposed contemplated alongside it. But falsehood is opposed to truth. Beyond truth, therefore, is the Word to which all things are gathered, and again, as being man and God, and truly being beyond all humanity and divinity.

The first five modes, then, are gathered together, according to the manifold contemplation of them, into practical, natural, and theological philosophy; and these again into the present and the future, that is, type and truth; and the present and the future into the principle, that is, the Logos who was in the beginning, who causes himself to suffer and to be seen by those who become worthy of him and who through the things said have made their journey toward him with labor, and who have made the decade that came to be for their sake into a monad for his sake, which has shaken them free of every passible, natural, and intelligible movement, and which in divine grace has formed in them, according to their whole disposition, the property of the divine simplicity according to nature. But this too must be known, that

the principle of providence has been sown in natural philosophy, and the principle of judgment in practical philosophy, in the modes that befit them, by which they are made manifest through the contemplation of things that are and things that come to be.

These things, as has been said, this God-minded teacher having understood, I think he suitably called the so-called saints from the mode of contemplation of them according to kind and worth, and the great John also from his place. Therefore the great saint John, as a herald of repentance, is an image of practice; as a desert-dweller, of impassibility; as a Levite and priest, of gnostic contemplation; and as one who leaped in the womb at the Logos, he is a symbol of immutability and of the disposition according to virtue and knowledge.

But Saint David, on the one hand as a Jew and a shepherd, images the practical philosophy that comes through confession; on the other hand, as king of Israel, he introduces the contemplative mystagogy. So the race of Saint John is the nation and the tribe from which he came, his worth is the preaching and the priesthood, and his place is the desert in which he lived. Of Saint David likewise, the race is the nation and the tribe, and his pursuit, that is his worth, is the pastoral office and the kingship. By these each of the two, contemplated in a manner analogous to himself according to the fitting principle of the modes spoken of in his regard, shows the mystery signified through him "without stumbling." R (100)... "If he flees into Egypt, flee together with him eagerly." From the same discourse, on the passage: "If he flees into Egypt, flee together with him eagerly; it is good to flee together with Christ when he is persecuted. If he delays in Egypt, call him out of Egypt, rightly worshipped there." It is necessary, I think, in addition to knowing that the Lord fled into Egypt, to know also, in due sequence, by whom he was persecuted. The Lord, then, flees not merely into Egypt, but also persecuted by Herod, who at that time was reigning over the land of Judea. Herod is interpreted, as they say, as passion, and leathern, and nature. Egypt itself is also taken in many ways, according to the conceptions of the contemplative modes applied to it: sometimes it means the present world, sometimes the flesh, sometimes sin, sometimes ignorance, sometimes affliction—in which sense especially it is now fitting to receive the Lord's flight into Egypt as an undertaking.

It is good, then, to flee together with Christ into Egypt—that is, with the divine Logos of discernment within us, who for a time is pursued because of infancy, for our sake who are infants in accordance with him, by the earthy mindset that still rules and reigns over us through the passionate motions of the flesh—into the affliction that comes through the practical life, until death is announced to us through the dispassion of those who seek the soul of the most divine Logos who is an infant within us, that is, of those who wish to put to death our God-perfected life according to the Logos, and who are madly bent on destroying the Christ-like state, that is, the habit, while he who eagerly and without hesitation, according to our free choice, rides upon our Egypt as if upon a light cloud—I mean upon the flesh—and shakes down its motions and passions as if they were handmade idols, and moves them from their seat and utterly drives them out of the soul, and after the casting out of the images duly transfers worship to himself. In this way, then, we rightly flee together with Christ who is pursued, receiving as a good wage for our flight with him, through voluntary affliction, dispassion. And again we call Christ out of Egypt, not allowing the divine logos of discernment within us, after the retreat and complete mortification of the passions, to apply itself foolishly to schemes against things that are not, nor permitting the Logos to be known in ourselves or in others who converse with us as flesh only. But

Having been well and faithfully trained beforehand in the forms of the practical philosophy that pertain to the affliction, through the virtues, let us ascend from these by contemplation to the knowledge of which those forms are types and prefigurations, as if ascending well from a kind of Egypt into Judea, and teaching those with us to ascend as well; and let us pass over from knowing Christ the Logos according to the flesh, through the practical life, to the glory—that is, the knowledge—of him as of the Only-Begotten from the Father.

In this way one well and piously flees together with Christ who is pursued, and in this way again he calls him to contemplation and knowledge, passing over from the practical life, doing all things with the Logos, according to the Logos, for the sake of the Logos. And let it not seem paradoxical to you that Egypt is now taken to mean the affliction that comes about in accordance with virtue; but examine carefully the things recorded in the Old Testament, how not only Israel, while making bricks, but also the Egyptians themselves were tortured to destruction through the visit of Moses. For Egypt, as I said, is interpreted as affliction, just as it is also darkness. And every interpretation according to the fitting sense admits both the praiseworthy and the blameworthy understanding of the meaning, as for the most part, of what is under it through contemplation.

If, then, when the flesh is in good condition and fattened by the passions, the soul is tormented and darkened, as the habit of the virtues and the illumination of knowledge give way, in the same manner altogether, by likelihood, when the soul is guarded and made splendid by the divine beauty of the virtues and by the illumination of knowledge, the outer man is corrupted, the flesh, because of the visitation of the Word, casting off its natural good condition, in which the dragon that has his power upon the navel—like some invisible Pharaoh, a scatterer of good things—was lurking, rather, reigning, striking the soul with the bites of sin. He, as the mind of the flesh is quenched in part through practical affliction, withdraws, being completely put to death, and reasonably leaves not a trace of his former tyranny, so that those who have obtained freedom can cry out through Christ, even before the general resurrection, because of the voluntary resurrection of their free choice that has already taken place for them: Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory? —calling the pleasure of the flesh the deception of the soul that is joined to it from ignorance, by which the all-polluted devil, once ruling over human nature before Christ, relentlessly pierced human nature with the sting of pleasure, and contentiously dragged it down to destruction with the sword of deception.

From the same author, from the discourse On the Lights, on the passage: "If indeed they had to be impious altogether, and to fall away from the glory of God, carried down to idols and works of art and formations of hands, those who have understanding should pray nothing else against them than that such things be revered and thus honored."

When these things had been read, some of the hearers said (they pressed the teacher, asserting that it is not just for those who have understanding and who have purposed to live according to the Gospel to pray against anyone that such things be revered and thus honored). To them I said that nothing of this is mine, but that I was taught this by a certain elder, wise in divine things and one who greatly esteemed the teaching of the Fathers. Our holy and blessed Father and teacher Gregory, as I shall speak to them as though present, seeing the Greeks first thus irrationally led astray and wholly led away from the very notion of the God who truly is, sets these things forth by the law of compassion, so that from the irrationality and worthlessness of the objects of reverence—or rather, to speak more properly, their abomination—with great...

From the same discourse, on the passage: "But where there is purification, there is illumination; and illumination is the fulfillment of longing, for those who strive after the greatest things, or after the greatest, or after what is beyond the great." Those who are learned in the divine mysteries say that where there is purification of the soul through the virtues, there also illumination of knowledge appears, after the pious contemplation of things that are, raising the soul up to the understanding of the divine and fastening its longing to the last of the objects of desire, which is God, who properly exists and is known in the greatest things, and in the greatest, and beyond the great. "In the greatest things," indeed, as in three consubstantial and coequal hypostases, without confusion, and with the precise and unchanging property of each—I mean unbegottenness, generation, and procession; "in the greatest," because of the essential one and the same and singular nature of the Godhead; and "beyond the great," because the divine is not circumscribed by any quantity or magnitude or size, nor delimited by any boundaries.

For every magnitude is bounded, but the divine alone is unbounded, as the great David says: "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end," as being bounded by no limitation whatsoever; therefore it is also infinite, or rather it possesses any concept of time and nature whatsoever that reaches it, according to which the technical method of rational arguments was devised by those who are zealous for such things—by which especially and with which they were shown to be unreliable in the discovery of truth, believing that whatever was not graspable by their own reasonings did not exist at all. The teacher makes clear what has been said by using the same words also in other places. He says, then, in the discourse On the Descent of the Israelites from Egypt, discoursing theologically in this way about the uncreated and divine essence, and about the created nature that received a beginning of existence: "It is called God, and it stands in three greatest things—cause, creator, and perfecter, I mean the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." And again, in the discourse On Baptism, treating of the one and the same holy Godhead in three holy hypostases, he says: "Equal on every side, the same on every side, as one beauty and magnitude of heaven, an infinite conjunction of three infinite ones." The teacher himself, then, has become his own interpreter for those who do not read his God-inspired words carelessly. 103... "AND NATURES ARE INNOVATED, AND GOD BECOMES MAN" (From the same discourse, on the passage, "Natures are innovated, and God becomes man.

The saints who received in succession, handed down to them by those before them, the many things concerning the divine mysteries—having been initiated, both from the very source and immediately, into the knowledge of things that exist, from those who became followers and servants of the Word—say that the substance of all things that have come to be has been divided by five divisions. Of these, they say the first is the one that divides the whole created nature from the uncreated nature, and that which received its being through generation. For they say that God, in his goodness, having made the bright ordering of all things that exist,

they say that no division distinguishing it was manifest to it from the very source, and one that separates ignorance. For the division that naturally separates these things from one another, never admitting union into one substance, since it cannot receive the one and the same principle, they left unspoken. The second is that by which the whole nature that received its being through creation is divided by God into intelligible and sensible things. The third is that by which sensible nature is divided into heaven and earth.

The fourth division is that by which the earth is divided into paradise and the inhabited world; and the fifth is that by which the man who was brought in at the end, after all things, as a kind of workshop most capable of holding all things together, and who naturally and in a manner befitting goodness mediates through himself between all the extremes in every division, having been introduced by generation among existing things—this man is divided into male and female. Clearly he possesses naturally, through the intermediate positions of all extremes, the power of union with all extremes by virtue of the relational property of his own parts toward all extremes. Through this power the mode of generation of divided things, fulfilled according to their cause, was destined to make the great mystery of the divine purpose manifest through itself, having brought to completion in God the union of the extremes among existing things with one another—a union that proceeds harmoniously from things near to things far off, and from lesser to greater, ascending in order.

For this reason, then, man is brought in last among existing things, as a kind of natural bond mediating between the universal extremes through his own parts, and leading into one, in himself, the things that are by nature widely separated from one another by their distance, so that, having first begun from his own division, he might receive the end of the high ascent that comes through all things in unity, in accordance with the union with God as cause that gathers all things together, advancing in sequence and order through the intermediate things into God, where there is no division—that is, having utterly cast out from his nature, by his most passionless relation to divine virtue, the property of male and female, which in no way depends on the preceding principle of the divine purpose concerning the generation of man, so that he might be shown to be, and become, man only according to the divine purpose, not divided by the designation of male and female, according to which principle he was also originally generated, not being divided by the divisions that now exist in him, because of the perfect knowledge, as I said, of his own principle according to which he exists. Then, having united paradise and the inhabited world through his own conduct worthy of holiness, he might make one earth, not divided in him by the difference of its parts, but rather gathered together, so that he suffers no subjection of any of its parts to anything.

Then, having united heaven and earth through his likeness in life to the angels in every way, as far as is attainable by men, he would make the sensible creation one and undivided in every respect in relation to itself, no longer divided for him by spatial intervals at all, since he has become light in spirit and is held down to earth by no bodily weight, and is not prevented from ascending to the heavens by the perfect invisibility of the intellect toward these things (since he presses genuinely toward God, and wisely makes his upward stretching toward him in succession, as on a common road, naturally, by the step that has already been attained before him); then, having united the intelligible and the sensible things besides these through his equality with the angels in knowledge, he would make the whole creation one creation, no longer divided for him by knowledge and ignorance, since there has come to be in him, equally and without deficiency in relation to the angels, a gnostic knowledge of the principles in existing things, according to which the boundless gift of true wisdom, coming upon him in accordance with what is lawful, purely and henceforth provides to those who are worthy an undivided and uninterpreted conception concerning God, without mediation; and finally, in addition to all these things, having united created nature to the uncreated through love (O the wonder of God's love for mankind toward us!), he would show it to be one and the same according to the state of grace, having wholly interpenetrated wholly with God wholly, and

Having become all that God is, if indeed he is anything, apart from identity of essence, and having wholly received God himself as his own, and having acquired God himself alone as, so to speak, the prize of the ascent to God himself, as the end of the motion of things that are moved, and a steadfast and immovable rest for those borne toward him, and being an undefined and infinite boundary and limit of every boundary and ordinance and law, of reason and intellect, and of nature.

Since, therefore, by nature, as he had been created, man had not been moved toward the immovable as his own principle (I mean God), but had been moved contrary to nature, willingly and foolishly, toward the things beneath him, over which he had been commanded by God to rule, having misused for the division of things united rather than for their union the natural power given to him at his generation for the union of things divided, and having thereby come near, pitifully, to being in danger of passing back into non-being—for this reason natures are innovated, and paradoxically, beyond nature, the altogether immovable by nature is moved immovably, so to speak, in relation to that which is moved by nature, and God becomes man (in order to save the lost man, and having united through himself the natural fractures of the whole universal nature, and having shown the universal principles of the particular things that are brought forth, by which the union of things divided naturally comes to be, he might fulfill the great counsel of God and the Father, having recapitulated all things in himself, the things in heaven and the things on earth, in whom also they were created.

Indeed, having begun the universal union of all things with himself from our own division, he becomes a perfect man, from us, for us, according to us, possessing all that is ours without omission, apart from sin, having no need at all of the natural sequence of marriage for this; and at the same time and in the same respect showing, as I think, perhaps that there was also another manner of the increase of men into multitude foreknown by God, if the first man had kept the commandment and had not cast himself down to brutishness by the mode of the misuse of his own powers, and had thrust aside the difference and division of nature according to male and female, of which, as I said, he had no need at all for becoming man, and which are things without which it is perhaps possible to be. It is not necessary that these remain forever. For in Christ Jesus, says the divine Apostle, there is neither male nor female. Then, having sanctified our inhabited world through his own conduct befitting man, after death he proceeds without hindrance into paradise, as he truthfully promised to the thief, saying, Today you will be with me in paradise. Hence, since our inhabited world no longer has any difference from paradise in his regard, he again appeared on it to the disciples, eating with them after the resurrection from the dead, showing that the earth, being one, is undivided in relation to itself, preserving free the principle according to which it is, free from division according to difference.

Then through the ascension into heaven he united heaven and earth, clearly, and with this—the earthly body consubstantial with us—having passed into heaven, he demonstrated all sensible nature to be one by the more universal principle according to it, having dimmed in himself the particularity of the division that cuts it. Then, in addition to these things, passing in order through all the divine and intelligible orders in heaven with the soul and the body—that is, with our complete nature—he united the concord of the whole creation toward the one according to its most archetypal and most universal principle, showing it in himself wholly indivisible and unconfused. And finally, in addition to all these things, according to the conception of humanity he comes to God himself, having appeared on our behalf, clearly, as it is written, to the face of God and the Father as a man who in no way ever [departs] from the Father

as the Word he was able to be separated, having fulfilled as man in deed and truth through unswerving obedience all that he himself as God foreordained should come to be, and having completed every counsel of God and the Father on our behalf—we who had rendered useless by misuse the power naturally given to us from the beginning for this purpose—and having first united us to himself in himself through the removal of the difference according to male and female, and instead of men and women, in whom the mode of division is especially observed, having shown us to be human beings only in the proper and true sense, wholly formed according to him and bearing his image intact and altogether unadulterated, which no mark of corruption touches in any way, and with us and for our sake having embraced the whole creation through the intermediate things as its own parts, binding the extremes to himself and to one another indissolubly—paradise and the inhabited world, heaven and earth, sensible and intelligible things—as having body and sensation and soul and mind according to us, by which, as parts, having appropriated to himself in each case what is universally akin to each, he recapitulated all things in himself in a God-befitting manner according to the mode previously set forth, showing the whole creation to be one, as it were another man, completed by the coming-together of its parts with one another and inclining toward itself in the wholeness of its existence, according to the one and simple and indeterminate and undifferentiated conception of its derivation from non-being, according to which the whole creation is able to receive one and the same principle entirely undivided, having "it was not" older than "to be.

For all things that are after God and have their being from God through generation coincide with one another in every respect according to the true principle, at least in some way, if not entirely, since nothing at all among existing things—not even those exceedingly honored and surpassing the generic relation to the utterly boundless—is altogether naturally released, nor indeed does the most dishonored among existing things entirely fall short of and lack the natural generic relation to the most dishonored. For all things that are distinctly separated from one another by their own particular differences are united by the universal and common generic identities, and are driven together toward the one and the same by some generic principle of nature—for example, genera, being united with one another according to essence, possess the one and the same and indivisible. For nothing among the universal and containing and generic is altogether divided together with the particular and contained and specific. For that which does not gather things naturally divided, but is divided together with them and departs from its own singular unity, cannot be generic. For every generic, according to its own principle, wholly and indivisibly exists in all its particulars in a unified way, and each particular is wholly contemplated in the generic. And species, likewise released from the variety in difference by the genus, receive identity with one another. And individuals, receiving concord with one another through the species, are established as one and the same in every way, possessing unvaryingness through sameness of nature and free from all difference. And accidents, compared with one another according to the subject, possess unity, being not at all scattered by the subject.

And an unerring witness to these things is the true spokesman of God, the great and holy Dionysius the Areopagite, in the chapter "On the Perfect and the One" of his treatise On the Divine Names, speaking as follows: "For there is no multitude that does not in some way partake of the one, but the many in their parts are one in the whole, and the many in their accidents are one in their subject, and the many in number or in powers are one in species, and the many in species are one in genus, and the many in their processions are one in their principle, and there is nothing among beings that does not in some way partake of the one." And simply, to speak summarily, the principles of all divided and particular things are contained in the principles of universal and generic things, as they say, and the principles of the more generic and more universal things are held together by wisdom, while those of particular things, variously interwoven with those of generic things, are encompassed by prudence, by which, being first unfolded and releasing the symbolic variety in the underlying things, they are unified by wisdom, receiving assimilation into identity with the more generic things. And the wisdom and prudence of God and the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ, who both holds together the universal things of beings by the power of wisdom, and encompasses the parts that complete them by the prudence of understanding, as by nature the creator and provider of all things, and brings the divided things into one through himself, and destroys the war among beings, and binds all things, those in the heavens and those on the earth, into peaceful friendship and undivided concord, as the divine Apostle says. 104.

Another contemplation on the same perplexity. The natures are innovated again: the divine nature, through goodness and immeasurable love for humanity, voluntarily and by its own will submits in a manner beyond nature to a fleshly birth according to us; while our nature, paradoxically, by a strange and unnatural law, cultivates for the incarnate God a flesh rationally ensouled, being in all respects the same as ours and without variation, apart from sin—and, what is even more paradoxical, nothing of the law of virginity of the mother who gave birth being diminished at all through the birth. And the innovation properly consists not only in the fact that the God who was already begotten timelessly and ineffably from God the Father, the Word, was born in time according to the flesh, but also in the fact that our nature gave flesh without seed, and that a virgin gave birth without corruption. For each of these, having its innovation manifest, at the same time completely conceals and demonstrates the ineffable and unknowable reason by which it came to be—the one by the manner beyond nature and knowledge, the other by the reason of faith, by which all things beyond nature and knowledge are naturally captured.

Thus, then, in my view, the perplexity has been resolved as far as possible, and I do not know how it ought to be treated otherwise. But it would be for your philosophy either to approve what has been said, or to discover and express from itself something better and more wisely, and to impart to me the fruit of a high knowledge that has nothing earthly in it.