Collection of Sayings from the Old Testament

On the building of the tower

Just as the Lord did not appear to Abraham while he dwelt in his own land, but appeared to him and gave him great promises when he had been called, and had gone out, and had arrived in the land that was shown to him, and bade him build an altar and sacrifice: so also for us, while we remain in the world and in worldly pleasures, no illumination from God occurs. But to those who obey the divine commandments, and who arrive where the Lord commands, He manifests the knowledge concerning Him, as far as it is possible, and He provides great hopes, and strengthens our mind, so that he may raise up to Him an altar—the heart—and sacrifice good actions and spiritual contemplations.

And there was a famine in the land, and Abraham went down into Egypt.

^B When the mind of each person falls into a famine of divine concepts and of the food that spiritually nourishes the soul, it is forced to descend into an alien habit [loving sin, and which is subject to the devil, namely Pharaoh, who falls under the category of understanding]. If the demons see any good understanding traveling with him, they strive to lead it away to the seed-scattering of their own prince, just as the Egyptians did with Sarah to Pharaoh. But it is for God alone to rescue both this and that, as He did Abraham and Sarah, when they were being oppressed by the tyrant's hand and were in danger.

And Abraham went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the desert.

For it is necessary for one who is transitioning from an utterly worldly and sin-prone life to a holy way of living, to leave behind nothing of his own—neither thought nor imagination—lest he be forced at some time to return on account of that. He must first be transformed into a state that is deserted of vice and undisturbed by the mixing of depravity.

^D As Abraham, when his kinsman Lot had been taken captive by the enemies, took his servants and some who were of another race, but were friends, and pursued after them, and by fighting and putting them to flight brought back his kinsman and all the captives: so also the apostles, having spiritually armed the nurslings of the Church, and having taken along also some of those who still thought in worldly terms, yet were friends to piety, chased down the demons who had taken us into captivity, and having conquered them, they brought back their kinsmen who had been taken captive—kinsmen, I say, according to the principle of humanity.

^A For such magnanimity as this, they receive a reward: nothing worldly, but praises from those who have been saved, and blessings from Christ, just as Abraham did. For Melchizedek blessed him, being a type of Christ, as the great Paul taught; and although he took no spoils, he provided sustenance with bread and wine. For "the laborer," he says, "is worthy of his food." The friends, however, received portions of the spoils, for God here also often increases the resources of those who bring aid to the saints.

On Melchizedek

Without father and mother was Melchizedek, and without genealogy, as one who, in regard to virtue, and those things which belong to nature, had become above nature. Nor having a beginning of days, nor an end of life, as one who, in regard to knowledge, flies above those things which are under time and the ages, and enters into God Himself. And being made like unto God the Most High, in regard to the assimilation of actions and contemplation toward God, and as one who has been made into God and transformed into God. ^B He remains a priest forever, as one who by no death of vice ceases to minister and to stand before God. He alone is said to possess these things, as he who first acquired them.

When the angels had commanded Lot to be saved in the mountain, he said: "I will not be able to be saved in the mountain, lest evils overtake me, and I die. Behold, this city is near for me to flee there, which is small; and my soul will be saved there." For those who are just now departing from vice cannot immediately run to the height of a life of right conduct, but at that time they depart from evil habits; they move toward goods that are not far off, and to a mode of life subject to that which is perfect; and thus from there they ascend to the life positioned on high, raised up from action into contemplation. ^C

Lot ascends from Segor. And he sat in the mountain, he and his two daughters with him, and he lived in the cave with them. The mind ascends as if by steps toward that which is more lofty, having with itself prudence and fortitude as daughters. For pleasure has fallen and been cast out, like the wife of Lot. He dwells as it were in a cave, in the firmness and stability of the good. For it is written: "The just man shall dwell in a high cave of a strong rock." Now the strong rock is Christ, because of His supreme fortitude. His cave, moreover, is the Church, which is the cloak and covering of the saints. For they have put on the rock, he says, which those inhabit who flee the fire of sin and escape from the fire of Gehenna. ^D

The first heifer taken signified the first generation. For just as a heifer bears the yoke with difficulty, so also the people descending into Egypt

^A bore the servitude with difficulty. The goat which was taken as the second silently signified the second generation. For just as a goat provides a meager profit to its masters, so also the second generation offered meager servitude to the Egyptians. The ram taken as the third foreshadowed the third generation. For just as this one gives greater profit, so also that one provided greater servitude. And this indeed is the division of the three generations. The position of these divided parts, placed alongside one another, signifies the association of affliction. For the first generation also bore with difficulty its sojourn among the Egyptians. But God allowed that affliction in Egypt, so that, being later delivered from so many and such great difficulties, they might more greatly acknowledge Him who delivered them; and that He Himself might be known in all the earth through the signs which He wrought.

The firstborn according to time is inconsistent with the new people. For this was silently signified by the infants leaping and being agitated in the womb of Rebecca, signifying future enmities. ^B Jacob grasped the heel of Esau when he was being born. The event revealed that the mind which looks upon God on account of its purity (for this is what Israel is interpreted to mean) supplants the affections of gluttony and the vices from which other diseases of the soul are also born. By clothing himself in the dead skins of kids, Jacob typified Christ, who clothed Himself in a flesh that was dead insofar as it pertained to sin, through which He offered our salvation as a most sweet food to the Father; and he received the blessing which cannot be taken away, just as one who was accepted, and bestowed it upon Christians.

Jacob anointing the stone

And Pharaoh said to Joseph: Tell your brothers, Take your father and your possessions, and come to me, and I will give you of all the good things of Egypt

innately present desires or by those which come from without—the vine and fig tree would be the pleasures that arrive from without; but the water of our own cistern is that which is innate, bubbling forth from our own body. And those that originate from without are temporary, fleeting, and momentary; but those that are innate are more long-lasting. The devil promises the enjoyment of all these to those who, having departed from the holy mode of life, as if from Jerusalem, cross over to him and bring themselves to serve him.

On the Exodus regarding Pharaoh.

^B Pharaoh first afflicted the Israelite people with grievous labors, thinking that he would prevent them from increasing in multitude. But God opposing him—for, as it says, "By how much they humbled them, by so much did they become more numerous and stronger"—he proceeds to another device and commands the Hebrew midwives to kill the male children that were born, but to save the females. But after God put a stop to this also—"For the midwives feared God," it says, "and did not do as Pharaoh had commanded them"—he attempts a third snare and openly orders his own men to cast into the river every male that was born, but to keep the female alive. For the devil, who is the spiritual Pharaoh, also devised a threefold method of treachery against the spiritual Israel, I mean the pious people, attempting through wicked schemes to hinder their growth in virtue. And first he brings upon them labor and the endurance of evils; but having failed in that goal, he arms against those who are strong in piety and true religion their own brothers and friends in the faith—for he does not plot against the effeminate, as those who are weak, knowing them to be useful to himself for sin. Now the sisters and friends of the Hebrews are the midwives, because of the closeness and connection that exists by birth. But when his second treachery did not succeed, because the fear of God restrained those who had been armed, he openly orders his own henchmen to vent their cruelty and slaughter upon the saints. ^C The Pharaoh of our way of life loves and keeps alive that which is feminine and weak and docile toward him, but he strives to kill that which is masculine and virile and suspected of insurrection. But prudent and provident reasonings, when they have brought forth virtue, just as the parents of Moses did, and have fortified it and made it safe with the ark of learning, do not permit the virtuous man to be drowned in the river of life. But having been brought to the bank of stability, the external philosophy—being the daughter of Pharaoh because of pride and impiety, but sterile because she brings forth no fruit of divine knowledge into the light—adopts him, suggesting that he be nursed with maternal milk. For he does not depart from sacred dogmas, even if he occupies himself with Greek learning. ^D But when he has grown to the height of spiritual maturity, he becomes a mediator between two who are fighting, one of the same race and one of a different race, that is to say, between the pious word and the impious, or virtue

^A and vice, and having stood by his own side, he destroys the alien. Fearing, moreover, the danger from Pharaoh, he flees very far from his authority, reaching toward a higher way of life, and he drives away with the rod of reproof those wicked shepherds who use the stream of doctrine unjustly; and if he must once again dwell with a foreign-born person—that is, to have intercourse with external philosophy—he accepts this for the sake of utility, living in tranquility and pasturing the movements of the soul. To one living in such a manner, the mystery in the bush shall be made manifest, ^B enlightening him and teaching him that the fire of the Divinity, having embraced human nature at the Incarnation, both ignited and deified it, while keeping it whole, but consumed the thorns of sin that were cast up. And that it is a prefiguration of the Church to be taken from the nations: for just as the bush is low-growing and spread out upon the earth, and bristling with thorns, so also the nations were formerly dragged about by earthly thoughts and the passions of sin, unable to imagine anything lofty; and they were scattered upon the earth and clothed in the thorns of sin. But the immaterial fire that goes forth through divine baptism, while flaming, purifies them without suffering, burning only the thorns of sin. “For He Himself,” he says, “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And that it gives a sketch of the womb of the Mother of God, in which the fire of the Divinity, while flashing, preserved her unburnt.

Just as Moses was slow of speech, so also the Mosaic Law is slow of speech in articulating the argument concerning the Being, and in making clear the theology concerning the holy Trinity. And it is thin-voiced, as one capable of speaking only to a few, for few are the Israelites when compared with all the nations. Wherefore there is added to him Aaron his brother, that is to say, the evangelical Law. For just as Christ is the brother of Moses according to the flesh, so also the evangelical Law is a brother to and is in harmony with the Mosaic Law according to its spirit and what is understood. Who also speaks with all the nations, just as Aaron did with the whole people. And the evangelical [Law] becomes a mouth to the Mosaic, ^C just as Aaron did to Moses, and interprets what that one speaks spiritually and obscurely, and transforms his thinness of voice into a more resonant sound. “I have not come,” He says, “to abolish the law, but to fulfill it through the addition of what is lacking.” But the Mosaic Law becomes the mouth to the evangelical in those things which pertain to God; for the occasions for the divine worship of the evangelical [Law] have arisen from the Mosaic. “Moses,” it says, “was eighty years old when he spoke to Pharaoh, and Aaron was eighty-three years old.” For in time, the first is indeed Aaron; since the evangelical way of life also appeared before the legal one in Abraham and those with him. But according to the mission and ministry, he is the second, since also the evang...

^Aelium was given after the law. Aaron exceeds by a triad of years, since Christ also exceeds in divinity by a triad. And in another way, Christ is indeed elder according to divinity; but he is more recent according to humanity and the dispensation.

^B The rod which fell from the hand of Moses, and was transformed into a serpent, and again taken into his hand by the tail, and restored into a rod, signified that the first-formed man, while he was in the hand of God in the beginning, fell to earthly things, having transgressed the commandment, and through vice crept into the deadly wickedness of the serpent. The Creator, however, took hold of him again through his humanity and restored him to the first image, and clothed him in his pristine beauty through the observance of the commandments. And the tail, since it is the extreme part, signified the humanity assumed in the last days.

The hand of Moses, put into his bosom, and when it was drawn out, having become leprous, and being again put in and drawn out clean, signified that the man who was made according to the image of God, for as long as he was under the covering of God, as if in a bosom, was clean and most beautiful. But when he was drawn out from it through pleasure and disobedience, he became leprous with the deformity and abomination of sin. Again, however, having returned under the covering of God through continence and obedience and adoption as a son, he was restored to his pristine beauty, and appeared clean and bright.

The desert from which Moses is sent into Egypt ^C is this world, or human nature, or a habit and state deprived of vices, where the mind, having been taught the knowledge of those things which are by contemplation, is commanded by God, on account of the obscuration of the heart, to lead out from the flesh and sense, as if from Egypt, like the Israelites, the divine comprehensions of things which are besmeared in the mud of vices. And advancing to this with wisdom, the companion of his life, and the good generated from it to him, and the thought which is from virtue, and honest habits, when he has turned aside and stood still from the course of virtue—whose state is a movement of vice—occupied in some of the material things which lie on both sides along this path: then, when his child, having an uncircumcised and profane heart, has been declared, he sees like a rigid and severe angel the word of conscience rebuking him and threatening death. ^D Whom wisdom, which dwells with him, appeased, circumcising the material phantasy innate in his child, namely, in his reason, and drying up, as if it were a flow of blood, the movement of a passible life.

Moses indeed, having been advanced to the apostolate or mission, is fearful and does not proceed directly, but communicates also concerning his departure to those who were related to him in family, and together takes his wife and children. Aaron, however, doing none of these things, departs immediately. For those who are of the Mosaic law are cowardly towards

temptations, and they falter, and are divided between divine commandments and corporal and worldly relationships. But they who are of the Gospel, and of whom Aaron is a type, are bold and eager before dangers, and they are divided between God and the world, yet they cling to the divine commandments alone.

Sephora the Midianite was a type of the Church from the Gentiles, which, having been brought under the seed-strewing of Moses—that is, the feeble theological contemplations of the Mosaic law concerning the holy Trinity, acting as a pedagogue leading to the Gospel of Christ—had as a son the multitude of those who are regenerated in her by the Holy Spirit. Him she even circumcised with a stone knife, removing all of his lust and sin by the word of Christ, which is called a "stone" because of its hardness, and a "knife" because it divides the better from the worse. And it stood, he says, the blood of the circumcision, which is as if to say: the spiritual circumcision which was foreshadowed is fully completed. Therefore, the angel who was threatening death to Moses also withdrew. Whence it is clear that a teacher is often freed from danger ^B by cleansing his disciple, and for the benefit given to the latter, he receives his own salvation.

As Pharaoh inexorably demanded of the Hebrews the production of bricks, yet did not provide the straw by which they are made, so too the devil demandingly forces those who serve him to provide defilement and impurity, fiercely inflaming them toward rabid desires; and he makes the task difficult to accomplish, so that through ease they might not quickly come to satiety and contempt ^C.

Moses said to Pharaoh: "We will go a journey of three days into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest death or slaughter happen to us." For since the Egyptians, when sacrificing, abhorred the dead, Moses brings this forward as a pretext for withdrawing far away. Lest, he says, we happen upon the corpse of an alien while sacrificing and dissolve the sacrifice. By "death" he means him who dies naturally, and by "slaughter" him who is killed by intent or from ambush. It is necessary that we, too, being as far as possible from sin, sacrifice to God, and turn away from the death-dealing and slaughterous passions of our souls, which bring death and slaughter.

And Moses said to Pharaoh: "We will go with our young men and our old men, with our sons and our daughters, ^D and with our sheep and our oxen; for it is a feast for the Lord our God." Those who desire to be freed from demons and vices and perturbations of the soul must attempt to flee completely, leaving behind no remnant of their own soul and mind through which they might be turned back again and be caught in former evils. And the young men would be in the type of fortitude, and the elders as a symbol of prudence, and the sons and daughters as an image of the infancy and simplicity in Christ. For with fortitude and prudence and simplicity according to God...

we must depart from sin to sanctification. "Be ^A strong," he says, "and let your heart take courage"; and "Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves." But the sheep and the oxen are a type of corporeal movements and those things further removed from reason, which even they must not be surrendered to the devil. But Pharaoh lets the men go, even against his will, yet he tries to retain the women and the young children, and the feeble old men, and the other animals. For he fears those who are strong in virtue, as they are able to resist, but he lays claim to souls that are effeminate and soft, and to spirits that are infirm and unsuited for battle; and he claims for himself all who are infants in understanding, and whatever is dull and devoid of reason.

And Moses said to Pharaoh: "But you will also give us burnt offerings and sacrifices, which we shall make to the Lord our God."

A person takes something from Egypt and Pharaoh, and offers it to God, taking as it were sacrifices—eloquence and fluency of language—from ungodly philosophy and the learning ^B of those outside, and mixing them with the doctrines of piety, and through those things which are artful, bringing aid to piety and divine worship, and making the weapons of falsehood into weapons of truth. And those who transfer the faculty of contemplation and examination, and the zeal and diligence for learning, and whatever else is of this kind, from harmful things to beneficial ones, we transfer them from Egypt and Pharaoh to God.

"And God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, for it was near, lest the people, seeing war, should repent and return to Egypt."

For the mystery concerning Christ is near and easily seen. But God did not lead the Jews immediately toward this, but through the long law and through many riddles, as if by some long road, He led them toward it; lest, if they were assailed by thoughts of [great] excess, they should return again to Egyptian impiety, but that by meditating from afar upon the shadow of the truth, and being trained at the proper time, they might easily arrive at that which is perfect. And "Philistine" is indeed interpreted as "wonderful," and a wonderful way is a short and summary one, such as is the way of the Gospel.

"But God ^C went before them, by day in a pillar of cloud to show them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire."

The pillar of truth is God, drawing from earth to heaven. And the night is the time which was before Christ took on human nature, because of the darkness of error and the superabundant gloom of vices and of the perturbations of the soul. But the day is the time of His advent, in which arose the Sun of Righteousness Himself, illuminating and brightening the souls of those who believe. ^D Now, indeed, He led the Jews by a punishing law—for fire is a symbol of punishment. But He leads Christians to salvation by the holy baptism. For the cloud is water, and a sign of the divine water of baptism. For it is not permitted

^A to arrive at the supernal and holy city, unless Christ leads the way and points out the path of salvation.

“But the pillar of the cloud was lifted up from before their face, and stood behind them, and came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of the children of Israel, and they did not mingle with each other all the night.” For when it is night, that is, a time bringing fear to the pious, the power of the Lord stands between them and those pursuing them—whether visible or invisible enemies—not allowing them to clash until the fear has passed. Or else this passage concerns those recently instructed in the word of piety, with whom, as they are still weak, He forbids the enemies to engage. But after they have passed through the divine baptism as if through the sea, He allows them to fight, having cast off their fear. For after the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea, they became most warlike and difficult to overcome.

The thirst that befell the Israelites in the desert was a type of the labors undergone in asceticism, and the prelude to discipline. For see that in the beginning no war of enemies attacked them; for they had not yet been trained to excel. For this reason, they are tested first by the labors of the flesh. To this refers the text: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is human.” ^B

By wood, the bitter water of Marah was made sweet. For in Christ, who is the wood of life, bitter things are indeed sweetened, and those things which are difficult to tolerate become bearable.

Just as the Israelites, remembering the meats, had desired to be in Egypt and to serve again so that they might be filled with them, so too do sharp pleasure of the passions often persuade those among us who are more thoughtless to consider the slavery of the devil as bearable, for the sake of enjoying them. And God allows this to those who are unstoppable. For the participation in the quail symbolizes this. But just as to those who had preferred meat to the manna, the food resulted in gall, so too for those who prefer the earthly to the heavenly delicacies, and the fleshly to the spiritual pleasure, the participation will result in the destruction of the soul. ^C

Of the Manna.

The manna indeed used to descend in the morning, prefiguring Christ, who is the heavenly bread feeding the souls of those who hunger; He who has also arrived as the Dayspring for those sitting in darkness. But the quail came toward evening, signifying the animal sacrifices of the legal cult, which were performed in shadows and faint traces of the truth, and were destined to receive an end. For evening is the end of the day.

When Moses ordered Joshua son of Nun to select ^D powerful men and to go out and fight in battle with

^A Amalek, he signified that Jesus Christ would be subject to the commands of the Mosaic Law. "I came not," He says, "to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." 17 And having chosen from all of Israel, and from every nation, powerful men—I mean, of course, the holy apostles and their successors—He will draw up a battle line against the devil, the king of wickedness and sin, and will defeat him. He designated that the battle should take place on the next day, signifying the later time of the Incarnation, which came after the completion of the time of the Law. And Moses ascended to the top of the hill so that he might look down upon the battle. For the mystical interpretation through the Law also ascends to a height commensurate with knowledge; hence the Jews might look upon the strategies of those around Christ. And when Moses stretched out his hands, Israel grew strong, but when he let them down, Amalek grew strong. For hands stretched out in the air describe the form of the cross; and everyone who carries the cross is victorious, just as, conversely, everyone who does not carry the cross, but has abandoned the faith in Christ, is hard-pressed in battle. But the hands of Moses were heavy, and were raised only with difficulty to this aforementioned figure; for even those who are of the Law rarely attain to the point of bearing the cross of Christ. "And taking," he says, "a stone, they put it under him, and he sat upon it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and the other on the other." ^B For the precious and elect stone is Christ, upon whom those who believe from Israel rely and find rest. But that same Christ is also understood as both Aaron and Hur, as high priest and judge. For Aaron is indeed the high priest, and Hur the judge; Christ, being understood through both, supports the believers from Israel in the faith and in the victory that is through the cross, and does not allow them to be weighed down and dragged down.

Moses, having been instructed by God, ordered the people to wash their garments and to abstain from a woman, and in that way to stand before God under Mount Sinai. ^C For it is necessary to strip away the filth of vice and to put on the beauty of virtue, and to be pure from bodily pleasure and defilement. The Law, of which Moses is the type, commands this, and presents to Christ God those who believe, instructing and regulating them like a pedagogue, and leading them to perfection. But God did not descend to the people, but to the mountain. For the people of the Hebrews were lowly and of the earth, whereas the people of the Christians are high-minded, elevated in contemplation, and raised above earthly things—they to whom God also came corporeally and with whom He conversed when He became man. And there was fire around the mountain, for the terror of the dense people who did not possess the spirit of adoption as sons, but of slavery—leading to fear—who worshipped God violently and not willingly; ^D but it served also for the purification of the youth; for there is such a thing as a purgatorial fire. And the smoke silently hinted at the mystery of the divine nature. "For He made," he says, "darkness His hiding place." Or, alternatively, the smoke is a symbol of the mist which is poured over the understanding of the Jews,

not allowing them to gaze upon the rays of the truth. But the fire is an image of the light which illuminates the mind of those who believe in Christ. The voices of the trumpet kept going forth and became more powerful; for when Christ came to us, the things said about Him by the Law became clearer and more recognizable. ^B "For hear these things," He says, "all you nations." But "Moses," he says, "spoke, and God answered him in a voice." For the one, as a pedagogue, sought the law by which they were to be improved; the other, God, was giving the law. And the voice of the Father is the Son, as the Word. For the law is from Him, even if it was spoken to Moses by angels. And when God commanded, Moses ascended to the summit of the mountain; for when Christ had called the faithful people, who are above the people of the Jews, and [is] the servant of God, this one ascends to the highest knowledge of God; but the people are prevented from drawing near, lest they die. For to those who are worldly and flesh-loving, the higher contemplation is dangerous, and likewise to the impure priests. "Let them be sanctified," He says, "lest the Lord depart from them;" that is, take them away, or even withdraw because of their impurity. And when Moses had descended and warned the people—for the Law speaks to the Jews in a condescending manner, and as it were in an earthly and bodily way—Aaron also goes up with him, as God commanded. For the Mosaic Law draws near to God first, as holy, and afterwards also the evangelical [Law], as most holy, and they are joined together according to God, or according to spiritual contemplation; for they agree in that which is considered spiritually. As for the rest, the priestly class is forbidden from ascending to the summit of the mountain. For to those who still perform the worship [in] shadows, the [power] to be lifted up to the height of the dogmas is not given by God; but it is reserved for those who worship God in spirit and in truth. ^C "For to you," He says, "it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given."

Moses, having left the plain and having come to the foot of the mountain, ascended into it, and having parted the cloud, he saw the splendor of God and experienced it.

The plain, anagogically, is the life which is lived according to virtue, for it is easy for everyone. And the roots of the mountain are the active virtue, and one which is accessible to those who are somewhat stronger, by which we are led by the hand to the height of contemplation. But the mountain is that which is conspicuous and the summit of contemplative virtue, which can be trodden only by the perfect. But not even having come here did he have the power to obtain his desire; for the cloud, that is, the thickness of the flesh, was an impediment. And having parted it, and as it were having surpassed it by his leanings toward God, he both saw the glory of God, having learned of ineffable words, and he experienced it, his face having shone so as to have need of a veil before the people. For the words written for him indeed have for a covering the bodily

^A cognition: but their brilliance is in the things which are referred to Christ. The passage through the sea on dry land, the striking of the waters by the rod, the pillar of cloud and of fire, and all such things, the Jews understand carnally. But when the veil is removed, being unable to gaze upon the brilliance of the truth, they fall, unless there be some Aaron consecrated by the chrism of baptism, and dedicated to the worship and service of God.

The Law gave the Sabbath, so that, it says, "your beast of burden and your servant may rest." Both of these tacitly signify the body. For this is indeed the beast of burden of the active mind, which is compelled to carry actions like a load for it, while it is the servant of the contemplative mind, serving its commands according to reason. And for this mind and that one also, the Sabbath is the end of the good things which are done by them in action and contemplation, providing a suitable rest to each. The Sabbath is a mystical, perfect cessation of vices and of the movements of the soul, attained through active philosophy. The Sabbath is the freedom of the soul endowed with reason, which has lost that very natural activity toward sensible things through contemplation in the Spirit. The Sabbath of Sabbaths is the spiritual quiet of the soul, which has withdrawn the mind from all things that are considered to be in the realm of reason, and has bound it entirely to God alone by an amatory ecstasy, and by mystical theology has rendered it completely immovable from Him.

^C God ordered that he who gathered wood on the Sabbath should be stoned. For since wood is the fuel of sensible fire, and sin is the fuel of eternal fire, He demands this extreme punishment from one who, having been at rest from evil works through divine baptism or repentance, and being in this state, pursues sins again—that one who, after having been freed from the burden of sin, should voluntarily subject himself to it again. Furthermore, He also commanded through the voice of the prophet Jeremiah not to carry burdens on the Sabbath day, nor to do any work, nor to journey outside of Jerusalem. For it is fitting that those who sabbatize spiritually should not again carry the burdens of sin, nor do an evil work, nor be carried outside of the most holy and religious institution of life. That He prohibited an evil work is clear from the fact that priests on the Sabbath both slaughter victims, and distribute meat, and circumcise, and do all things which pertain to the worship of God. Now, indeed, Joshua the son of Nun, who besieged Jericho on the Sabbath, also typically declared that it is fitting for those who sabbatize spiritually to conduct themselves strongly against opposing demons.

Furthermore, also in Deuteronomy, speaking about the Hebrew servant and Hebrew handmaid sold, He says: "In the seventh year you shall send him forth free, you shall not"

^A send him away empty, but shall provide him with provisions from your flock, and from your grain, and from your winepress." For since the seventh day is the Sabbath, and the last of the entire week, and in the last days the Redeemer God became man, then, at that time, He sent us forth through faith in Him and through the adoption of sons, which occurs by holy baptism, free from the slavery of sin, to which we had been sold. And He provided us with provisions from His own flock—that is, from the sacrifice pertaining to Him, and from His body and blood, which are signified by the grain and the winepress. For the mystical bread and wine are called and believed to be the body and blood of the Savior. ^B In the same book He also commanded these things: "After every seven years you shall make a remission of debts; and from your brother you shall not exact it, but from the stranger you shall exact it." For in the last days, as it has been said, God, having become man, released to all who believe in Him the debts of their own sins. And Him who has become His brother through adoption unto the Father by holy baptism, He does not exact from, having forgiven those things previously owed. But him who is a stranger to faith in Him, He exacts everything absolutely. The sixth day, according to Scripture, suggests the completion of those things which are under nature. The seventh day marks the cessation of the motion of time. And the eighth day points out the mode of a state that is above nature and time. He who has divine- ^C ly completed for himself the sixth day, along with the fitting works and thoughts, and has, along with God, rightly finished his own works, has passed in his understanding beyond every substance of those things that are under nature and time, and has transferred himself to the mystical contemplation of the ages and of eternal things, sabbathizing mystically, according to the mind, throughout the total apprehension and transcendence of the things that exist. But he who has been deemed worthy of the eighth day has risen from the dead—from all things, I say, which are after God, namely, the sensible and the intelligible, and the reasons and the thoughts—and has lived the blessed life of God, who alone is truly and properly ^D life, and is so called, as he himself also has become God by deification. The sixth day is the complete fulfillment of practical actions concerning those things that are according to nature. The seventh is the consummation and rest of those things that are theoretical concerning the ineffable knowledge of all natural concepts. The eighth is the transfer and passage of the worthy toward deification. And perhaps the Lord, indicating this seventh and eighth day more mystically and arcane, called it the day of consummation, as it encompasses the mysteries and reasons of all things, which none of the heavenly and earthly powers will be able to know at all before experiencing them by suffering, except for the blessed Divinity itself that made these things. The sixth day points to the reason of the essence of the things that are. The seventh day signifies the mode by which the things that are exist well. The eighth, however, [signifies] the [state] of the eternal well-being of the...

things that are, ineffably declaring the mystery. ^A The sixth day is called Parasceve, that is, preparation, because on it the Jews prepare for the Sabbath. It was a type of the present life, in which we prepare for the future life, which is the rest from the works that are done in the present. For there, nothing of the things that are anxiously pursued here is done. And just as the Hebrews, of the manna gathered on the Parasceve, ate partly on that day and partly on the seventh, so we too shall enjoy the spiritual works gathered here, partly here and partly there. He observes the Sabbath spiritually who perseveres in serving God, remains at leisure from the works that pertain to this life, and is occupied with spiritual matters.

A detailed contemplation on the Passover.

In the beginning of the year it was determined, and in the first month, the time of the sacrifice, because [He is] the beginning of all things, and in the beginning of all things and before all things is Christ according to his divinity. And this was ordained for the Israelites while they were still slaves of the Egyptians, even if He repeats the legislation concerning it yet again. For it is impossible that the slaves of sin should otherwise escape the tyranny of the demons, ^B except through participation and communion with Christ, the true lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The sheep is taken, not on the first day of the month, but on the tenth. For there were many ages before the foundation of the world, in which Christ was in his divinity, just as there are many days before the tenth. It is kept until the fourteenth, on account of the five periods ^C of our ages. For the first was that in which Adam was in paradise. The second was that in which Noah was. The third was that in which Abraham was. The fourth was that in which Moses and the prophets were. The fifth was that in which Christ became man. This time is tacitly implied also by that: "And the children of Israel went up out of Egypt in the fifth generation." For in it happened the liberation from the servitude of demons and vices. These five periods, I think, are also indicated by the parable of him who hires laborers into his vineyard, who went out at dawn, and about the third hour, and the sixth, and the ninth, and the eleventh, at which Christ hired the nations called ^D to the work of the evangelical commandments. The sheep is taken, therefore, as I said, from the tenth of the month, and is kept until the fourteenth, so that you may know that the mystery concerning Christ was indeed preserved in the foreknowledge of the holy Trinity, from the very foundation of the world, which was the first period; but it was perfected in the fifth, namely the last, and was sacrificed at evening, while the darkness of ignorance and error was poured out upon the earth. The moon was then fourteen days old and full, so that you may understand that the prince of darkness, the devil, then had his own glory at its fullest. For he is placed as the moon in the principality of night, and, as a kind of adulterous light, infusing worldly wisdom into the hearts of the deceived, he [makes] his own glory most full.

^A And so, when the true Lamb had died for us, that light of his began to be dissolved. For it is necessary that the moon should then wane and its light be consumed. And this, indeed, was what was sung in the Psalms: "Righteousness shall arise in his days, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away." For righteousness and peace have arisen in the days of Christ, and the prince of the night has been taken away. For just as he had taken away man, so in turn he was taken away by Christ. ^B Each lamb is received per house; for it is necessary that the whole Christ should dwell within everyone. But those who are not able by themselves to receive Christ, and by themselves to understand the mystery concerning Christ—on account of the weakness and poverty of their intellect—take as associates their neighbors, that is, those of the same faith, so that through one another they may be stretched toward greater contemplations. But let the lamb, he says, be perfect; for Christ is perfect in both divinity and humanity. ^C But also male, for it is He who implants in us all the seeds of the knowledge of God; but also one year old, so that the Passover might be celebrated each year. It is taken from the lambs and from the kids, as the Theologian interpreted. The doorposts and the lintel—that is to say, the body—are anointed with the blood. For this is the house of the soul, and this drives away the deadness that arose from the transgression. Now, the doors of such a house are the senses within us, through which the quality of things is administered to the hearts of all. He commands that the meat be eaten in this very night; that is to say, in the present age. For Paul called it night, saying: "The night has advanced, but the day has drawn near," calling the future age "day." ^D And as long as we are in this world, we eat the holy flesh of Christ through participation, but when we migrate from hence, we shall be participants of Him in another way. He commands that the meat be eaten roasted with fire; that is to say, with the fire of the Spirit and of the love of Christ; but also to eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs: that is, to nourish one's own soul with unleavened and pure desires, and ones unmixed with wickedness, and to admit the bitterness from temptations. "You shall not eat," he says, "of it raw." For the raw is not easily accessible to the teeth, nor is it eaten for digestion. They eat it raw, in every sense, who do not, through an accurate examination, grind up the mystery of Christ with the teeth of their intellect, burning and testing it according to that which was said by David: "And in my meditation a fire shall blossom forth." He also forbids eating it boiled or sodden in water, indicating that a more watery and dissolved participation of Him will not be good food. But he commands us to eat the head again, along with the feet and the inner parts, so that the cognition of the whole mystery of Christ may be through the whole of our minds. Now, the head is the beginning of the mystery, but the feet are the end. And the inner parts are the more secret and hidden words. That passage, however: "You shall not leave of them until the morning," indicates that it should not be transmitted into delay

but that we should partake of its complete and entire knowledge. "You shall not break a bone of it," because the white and hidden reasons of His divinity are not food for the teeth of the mind, on account of their hardness. Those who break them, as much as in them lies, are the heretics who pervert the correct teachings of the knowledge of God. And that which is left of it until the morning, He commands to be consumed by fire, indicating thereby the future illumination in the world to come of those reasons concerning Him that remain difficult to discern. ^A And to have the loins girded is a sign of ferocity, of youthful boldness, and of spirit. "Gird up your loins," He says, "like a man." And again, concerning someone through the prophet: "And justice shall be the girdle of his loins," which is to say, terrible and strong justice. Now the sandals signify a ready mind to go where God wills. For Paul also says: "And having shod your feet in the preparation of the Gospel of peace." And the staff [signifies] the hope which supports and sustains us unto endurance. To eat the lamb in haste signifies that there ought to be no dullness, nor dissolution, nor enervation in discerning the mystery of Christ. ^B He adds also the reason why it ought to be seen as such, saying: "It is the pascha of the Lord," that is to say, a passing over. For we pass over from sin to virtue. He commands those who eat the holy lamb to be fed with unleavened bread for seven whole days. For it is necessary that those who are partakers of the true Lamb should nourish their own soul with pure foods of doctrine, unmixed with vice, for the whole hebdomadal age which the week measures. He calls both the first and the seventh day holy; for holy is the time that was in the beginning, in which Adam dwelt in paradise, and [that which was] at the end, which Christ, by His coming, sanctified. ^C

Concerning the Pascha, and Pentecost, and Other Feasts

The Pascha was a symbol of active philosophy, which transmits one from sin to virtue. Pentecost was a type of natural contemplation in the spirit, offering to God, as the first-fruits of summer, pious opinions concerning existing things. The trumpets are a symbol of the assumption of human nature by God, which is proclaimed through the Law and the prophets. The Ilem is a type of the reconciliation of God with men, which the assumption of human nature by God and Savior Christ accomplished. The Feast of Tabernacles was a preceding description of the universal resurrection from the dead. ^D

Concerning the Sabbath

God did not command the Sabbath, and the days of the new moons and the feasts, to be honored because He desired the days themselves to be honored by men—for thus He would have permitted them to worship the creature more than the Creator—but rather he commanded these things to be honored symbolically.

^A days he ordained that He Himself be honored. For He Himself is the Sabbath, that is, the rest of the labors of the soul that existed, and the cessation from the labors that are performed through righteousness. The New Moon is as the beginning of the first movement of the virtues; for from Him we have their seeds, sown into our nature. And since the Law knows different feasts, God Himself is again the Pasch, as the liberator of those held fast in the bitter slavery of vices, and the crossing over from vice to virtue, and from darkness to light. Pentecost is as the firstfruits of the summer offered to God the Father; for at Pentecost the firstfruits of the summer were offered to God. But the mystical summer are those who are cultivated through the assumption of human nature by the Savior. The firstfruits of these is He Himself, insofar as pertains to His humanity, offered through His life-giving death. ^B And since there was also the feast of trumpets, and of propitiation, and of tabernacles, He Himself is again the trumpet, as He who makes the divine truths and the revelations of the mysteries resound within us; and propitiation, as having become man for us, so that He might reconcile us to the Father through Himself; and the feast of tabernacles, as the fixation of our dissolving tent; for He Himself is truly the life and immortality of our mortal bodies.

The mystical summer is the gathering and enjoyment of the spiritual doctrines which are in practical philosophy and natural contemplation. The harvest is that which, after the contemplation of those things which fall under the intellect, exists as the gathering and assembly of the mind toward God, ^C which is measured by its separation from all other things that are after God; it is offered to God alone, in that it is stretched out perpetually toward Him alone.

Of Circumcision.

The foreskin is natural. But everything that is natural is a work of divine creation and craftsmanship, and therefore it is very good. “And God saw,” it says, “all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1, 31). Whoever therefore applies his mind to the symbols of the Law will know entirely that God did not ordain the foreskin to be circumcised after so many generations because He was correcting nature, as if it were harmful or unclean; but through such circumcision, as through a symbol, He commanded the passible affection of the soul to be circumcised. And since the foreskin is an excess of the part that is affected by pleasure, ^D He commanded the superfluous pleasure to be put aside. But every sin is a superfluous pleasure. It remains, therefore, that he who bears sin has a foreskin, even if he is circumcised corporally; but he who has put this aside is circumcised, even if his body bears a foreskin.

Mystical circumcision is the voluntary removal of passions and perturbations.

The circumcision of circumcision is the laying aside of those very natural operations of sense and intellect concerning those things which are sensible and those which fall

^A under the understanding, which is brought about by the presence of the Holy Spirit, fully and completely transforming both body and soul unto that which is more divine.

The table of loaves tacitly and enigmatically signified the production from the earth of those things that are fit and accommodated to us, or the annual cycle, which is divided by the changes of the four seasons. The lampstand signifies the light which exists from the stars, or the day. Whence it also had seven lights, on account of the seven days of the week, or the seven wandering stars. But these things indeed belong to the first tabernacle, as a symbol of the present state, just as those of the second tabernacle are a symbol of the future: for the censer signified that this is pleasing to God; the manna, the heavenly and spiritual food which was then available; Aaron’s rod which had budded, the perpetual verdure of the future priesthood; and the tables of the Testament, the tables of the hearts, in which were written the commandments of God. The gold, moreover, which was in all these things, signifies that things to come are more excellent than present things. The Cherubim, moreover, who are upon the propitiatory, were an imitation of those ministrant powers which do not fall under sight, in the midst of whom God, in giving responses, was appeased. The golden bells signified the purity and splendor of faith, and its resonance in dogmas and doctrines; the pomegranates, the life of the priest. For just as the pomegranate’s exterior is hard and dense, but the fruit which lies hidden is sweet, so also their life is hard and difficult of access to look upon. But after our Husbandman has opened and revealed its stored-up beauty, then the participation of its fruits becomes sweet to those who have perceived it. He calls the ^B borders, that is, the hems, the round appendages which hang from the tunic, not for use, but for the sake of ornamentation. For the life of the priest ought not only to be adorned with commandments, but also to have something of its own for the increase of ornament.

And you shall put into the breastplate of judgment the manifestation and the truth. The declaration and the truth were not at all something made by art; for indeed [Scripture] would have said how they were constructed. But it was only a certain spiritual knowledge. When Moses put the breastplate on the breast of the priest, at the same time the declaration and truth of those things which fall under the understanding entered in, so that it might be a certain divine revelation and illuminate the heart of the priest. Wherefore the other interpreters also named these illuminations and ^C manifestations: the figure teaching us that if anyone carries the breastplate—that is, the leading faculty of the soul, which distinguishes the better from the worse—clean and bright, and adorns it with virtues as with precious stones, with thoughts revolving into themselves, and as it were doubled, so that the tongue may utter nothing that has not been examined (for this is what it signifies, that the breastplate is commanded to be double), then, at that moment, immediately and of its own accord, there will be present to him their declaration and truth, bringing with it luminous revelations. ^D The breastplate was indeed placed upon the breast of the high-prie

priest, teaching that one must restrain his irascible power by reason. Upon the rational was placed the declaration and truth. For to the spoken word there befits clarity; but to the internal word, truth. ^A On the breast of the priest were the names of the tribes. For the priest ought always to bear those under him in his heart and mind, and to pray for them.

The blood of the goat that was sacrificed sanctified both the inner and the outer tabernacle, prefiguring the blood of the sacrificed flesh of Christ, which sanctifies both the inner soul and the outer flesh of believers—both those inside the Mosaic Law and those outside, that is, those who believe.

The mind which goes forth out of the Egypt of sin, when it has retreated a little from the discernment of reason, as Israel did formerly from Moses, pays homage to idols. For having cast into the fire of the passions, like earrings, its arguments concerning theology; and like a necklace, the dogmas regarding natural contemplation; and like armlets, the activity of practical virtue—it forms an image of the idol of sin, then serves it and worships it through action. ^B Moses, having pitched his own tent outside the camp—that is, having established his thought and intellect outside of visible things—begins to worship God, and, having entered into the darkness, the invisible and immaterial place of knowledge, there he celebrates most sacred mysteries.

"Behold," He says, "there is a place by Me." The place is the Holy Spirit, in whom a person, once he has entered, is deemed worthy of divine contemplation. And the rock is solid faith; the opening is the contemplation that is faint through it. The "back parts" of God are the ancient creation of the world, which Moses alone saw, alone declaring things past, present, and future. There are three kinds of prophecy: declaring things past, things present, and things that are to come.

As Moses the lawgiver carried a veil upon his face, so also the things legislated by him carried a veil, namely, obscurity. The cause of both this veil and that one is the weakness of the Hebrews, who, as people who savored earthly things, were able to behold neither the splendor of Moses' face nor the immateriality inherent in the writings. ^C But it was stored up for us, who even behold the face of Christ (who was the type of Moses) without a veil, through our apostles and teachers; and we have known the truth of the obscure things, insofar as it pertains to the human.

When the things created by God after God, and the superior qualities regarding the nature of God—for these are the "back parts" of God—had been revealed to Moses, and his soul's face had been glorified (that is, his mind had been illuminated and made bright), the people were unable to bear such glory, nor to associate immediately with such contemplation. ^D Therefore, it was necessary for him to have a veil—I mean the thickness of the letter, casting a shadow over the splendor of the contemplation of the intelligible realities.

FROM LEVITICUS CONCERNING SACRIFICES.

God is not pleased with animal sacrifices; for this is of the passions.

^A regarding the person upon whom the motions and disturbances of the mind fall. By this, however, He symbolically establishes spiritual sacrifices—the mortification, I mean, of the vices and the motions of the mind, which are slaughtered by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the offering of the natural faculties, which are consumed by the fire of the Spirit like burnt offerings. For the ram is a symbol of the rational faculty, because it is the leader of the flock, the bull of the irascible faculty, and the goat of the concupiscible faculty.

Moses, in commanding that the kidneys be removed from the victims, along with the fat, the breast, and the lobe of the liver, signified by these things to remove the powers and operations of anger and desire that are contrary to nature, and to melt them down with the divine fire of the power that is in spiritual knowledge—desire being signified by the kidneys, and its operation, which is pleasure, by the fat; and again, anger by the breast, and its operation by the lobe of the liver, in which the bitter and acrid bile has solidified. ^B He who, through pious reason, sacrifices to God the hearts of the brute animals—with which the breast has proportion and fittingness—and their active faculty—with which the arm has proportion and fittingness—separating them for the operation of the commandments, has become a priest, receiving from those who offer themselves as a sacrifice to God the breast and the arm. He who is blind and lame in mind is unfit for the priestly office, because he does not walk with a straight foot in life and in dogmas, and he who is mutilated in the nose, because he does not have perfect discernment. The crushing of the hand and the foot is the breaking of the power to perform good works and to walk toward the good. The hunchbacked ^C is he who bows down to things beneath himself and cannot look upward from earthly things. The spotted is he whose skin surface is darkened by disease: such is he whose soul is darkened by sin. The blear-eyed is he who sees indeed, but not rightly, like the heretics who believe that God exists, but do not possess correct dogmas concerning Him. Scabies, by way of *anagoge*, is an acrid flux of vice and a motion of the mind flowing from the soul, beginning in pleasure, but ending in a bitter term. Impetigo is any vice or motion and disturbance creeping through the soul and which spreads for the worse. He who has one testicle ^D is he who produces fruit only by half.

Why did the Israelites eat the bodies of the victims, while they poured the blood at the base of the altar?

The Israelites, being childish in knowledge, bore the type of those who are being instructed in piety. He, therefore, who is being instructed in piety performs the action of the commandments, as if eating the meats—the things that appear from the virtues—I mean, moral instruction, but he yields the reasons for them to God through faith, believing only that they possess divine reasons. For the altar is a symbol of God. Its base, however, is a type of faith. For this is the foundation of the knowledge of God,

bearing the entire edifice of piety. But Christ, having arrived as the true high priest and having sacrificed himself, gave to those who are mature, for their knowledge, the blood along with the flesh. For he who is perfect in virtue drinks even the reasons of the commandments as blood through knowledge.

Concerning the leprosy of a house

The law said: "You shall not give your daughter to the son of the foreign ruler, and you shall not take his daughter for your son." For the daughter of the faithful person is the good thought, and his son is the good reasoning. ^B Again, the daughter of the foreign ruler, or of the devil who is the ruler of the passions, is the evil thought, and his son is the evil reasoning. It is not right, then, that evil things be mixed with good.

"You shall not make your cattle breed with an animal of another kind, and you shall not sow your vineyard with diverse seed." By cattle here, he means a beast of burden; and by the beast of burden, every subject is signified, commanding those in authority not to permit those under their hand to be subjected to the sowings of those of a different kind, lest they bring forth adulterous and bastard dogmas. Again, he calls those who are planted in the Church a vineyard, whom one ought not to overlook when they are sown with diverse—that is, various—seeds of the impious; lest these, having consumed the moisture and fatness of their souls into themselves, should make them barren toward piety.

God, banishing sloth and desiring that his subjects be concerned only with what is useful, by the command not to weave together linen and wool, banished ^C

^A excess and ostentation; and by [commanding to be concerned about] the leprosy of garments and stones, he forbade the possessing of more than what usage requires. For this happens with stored-up garments and empty houses. By another line of reasoning, through [the prohibition of] linen and wool, he indicated the duplicity of character, forbidding it.

"You shall not plow together with an ox and an ass."

You shall not conduct your life by yoking together your diligence with your lust. "Just balances and just weights, and a just sextarius shall be yours." By these various measures he enigmatically signifies various modes of justice; for the sextarius is a type of measure among the Hebrews. A mind that is upright and loves justice, in a certain way weighs and measures the natures of things, examining and measuring out to everyone what is fitting, neither by what is deficient nor by what is excessive dissolving that which ought to be exact and accurate. ^B

FROM THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

Moses and Aaron were ordered to visit for the line of battle, that is, to enroll every male of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, everyone who goes forth in virtue. For everyone who has exceeded childish weakness and softness, and has already become a man strong for undertaking labors for the sake of virtue, and who goes forth against demons in strength and nobility, is enrolled for the line of battle of God and becomes a soldier of Christ. For the twentieth year, to those who serve in the world, is sufficient for understanding and strength. But the time that is below that age is imperfect for both. Moses and Aaron, in enrolling those whom we have mentioned, both prefigured the one Christ, the lawgiver and high priest at the same time, and the inscriber of those who serve him. ^C

Furthermore, by the command of God, all males of the tribe of Levi are enrolled, and the males and firstborn only of the other tribes, from one month old and upward. But the monthly time is for both the one and the other a symbol of the infancy in Christ in simplicity and innocence. And of these infants, the Levites signify those who are consecrated; but the worldly firstborn signify those who, from a worldly life, do truly imitate, as much as is allowed, Christ who is truly the firstborn. Christ enrolls both these and those in the book of the heavenly ministers and firstborn. The priestly race is placed in the first rank, as being dedicated to God alone, and not being divided toward God and the world, just as the firstborn are divided. Both the former and the latter are masculine, and superior to womanly softness. For that which is weak and easily overcome is reprobate. ^D

^A And now that all those previously recorded had died, and none had been left behind except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun, the recording of the sons of those who had died takes place again, and they are recorded for the inheritance of the land.

The males of the eleven tribes from twenty years old and upward are recorded; but neither women nor children are included in the recording. For the inheritance from God and the enjoyment of it belong to those who are fit for the intelligible battle against invisible enemies, and are robust in spiritual bravery, and have advanced in understanding, but not to those who are effeminate in passions, and are weak in resisting demons, nor to those who have childish judgment. ^B Here, too, the males of the Levitical tribe are recorded again separately, from one month old and upward, for the reason set forth above. For no inheritance is given to them among the sons of Israel, because for priests there is no inheritance on earth as for other men, but their inheritance is God Himself in heaven, whom alone they serve and whom they attend.

"And on the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, and the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night."

Once the Church of the faithful was established, Christ covered it from above, overshadowing those who are of God—that is, the illumined—with the splendor of life and of the dogmas, driving away the heat of temptations, ^C and imparting cooling and recreation; while to those who sleep as if in the night in the darkness of ignorance, he acts as a torch, illuminating them toward the acknowledgement of the truth. For the more imperfect have need of illumination for guidance toward what is better, while the more perfect have need of assistance, so that they may be able to bear the burden and the heat of the day.

"And the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them, to map out for them a place of rest."

The ark is Christ. For just as that one, constructed from incorruptible woods and pure gold, carried inside the law of the Lord, so also did the humanity of Christ, composed of a body into which, so far as sin is concerned, no corruption falls, ^D and of a pure and bright soul, have within it the Word of God and God, who as Christ went before into the heavenly places after his dispensation, to prepare a place for his worshippers, as he himself said, a place of rest, clearly.

"And the cloud overshadowed them by day as they moved out from the camp."

For Christ, who is the Head, scattering the heat of temptations and refreshing the soul, overshadows those who are departing from ignorance to knowledge, and from unbelief to faith, and who are progressing in the course of piety. "For without me," he says, "you can do nothing."

^A It is, however, during the day, since to those who walk in the light of good works He is accustomed to bring aid and to refresh them. But at the Lord’s command they moved the camp, because there is need both of the word or the reason that urges one toward progress, and of obedience to divine mandates.

*And the people were murmuring and speaking evil before the Lord, and the fire of the Lord burned among them, and it consumed a part of the camp.* ^B For the fire of Gehenna consumes those who blaspheme before the Lord and turn away from Him. He said "a part" because many of them, having turned back, shall be snatched away from the punishment. And at another time, murmuring against God and calling the manna "empty bread," they perished by the bite of serpents. For those who, by the vice of an ungrateful spirit, despise God the benefactor, fall into the bites of the serpent that comes under the understanding. God ordered Moses to make two hammered silver trumpets, for the purpose of calling assemblies and for moving the camps; and when it was necessary for only the leaders of the people to be gathered to Him, to sound one; but when it was for the people, with two. Now for moving the camps, He ordained that there be four types of signals by means of such trumpets. And there were two trumpets, since the method of ecclesiastical instruction is twofold: one, indeed, ordering the life, ^C and the other having the care of dogmas. But both are hammered and silver, because both this and that are sonorous, clear, and such that no blame falls upon them. And one trumpet summoned the leaders. For there is need of correcting speech also for those who are teachers; for they are men, except for a few; "For give to a wise man," He says, "an occasion, and he will be wiser." But two for the people. For this requires much exhortation and admonition. The four kinds of signals which are made by the trumpets prefigured the four books of the evangelists, who, by the things they signify, command us to depart from these earthly things which are in the four climates of the world, and to hasten toward the Jerusalem above. And the four signals are made by the two trumpets, ^D because the things signified to the evangelists were sounded forth by the dual Christ, both God and man. Or also in another way, the four kinds of signals were a symbol of four kinds of ethical discourse. Of which one resonates for those who are still being instructed by catechism; but the three for those who are of the good soil, which brought forth thirty, sixty, and a hundred. For these are to be taught in one way and those in another. For to those who have chosen the married life, you shall say: "Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not a release." To those who are in virginity: "Thou art loosed from a wife, seek not a wife." To those who have determined to live in monastic exercise: "Mortify your members which are upon the earth." And for every kind of life you shall accommodate a suitable kind of exhortation and doctrine. The law ordained that the priests should sound the trumpets, since teaching is also the property of the priests. But the frequent...

^A encampments of the Israelites signified the frequent advances in virtue of the new people of the faithful, and the extensions to the things before them which were owed daily. The law called him holy who promised his hair to God. For the head is taken as a figure of the mind, as the place where the mind dwells and resides; the hair represents concepts and thoughts, for these are the offspring of the mind. It behooves us, therefore, not to have a mind naked and hairless of good thoughts, but one teeming with them and having a full head of hair for God.

Concerning the red heifer.

He who burns the heifer and mixes the cedar wood with the ash, and indeed also he who collects the ash, is, he says ^B, unclean until evening, though they be cheerful and active and clean in their garments; the law tacitly indicating the weakness of human nature, and that if our affairs were to be examined accurately and exactly, no one of those who are ordained for ministry is pure in every way. For no one is worthy to touch the sacraments of our Savior; and if those things which are pure among us are compared with the purity of Christ, they are unclean and polluted, in whose sight not even the stars are clean, as it is written. The water of purification was stored outside the camp, signifying that the purification in Christ is outside the camp of the Synagogue of the Jews. For the grace that cleanses and expiates has departed from it. "For behold," he says, "your house is left to you desolate." And the mortality of the body is a symbol of corruption ^C and uncleanness. The sprinkling of the water is a figure of holy baptism. They were sprinkled on the third and seventh day. For baptism contains the faith of the resurrection of the Savior which was on the third day, and of his advent which is to be in the consummation of the seventh age, in which he, judging, will render to each according to his works. But if also a house should be defiled, he says, by someone dead within it, they who enter into it are impure. Every piece of furniture and every vessel not covered is detestable, except by the water of purification, and the law commanded that these also be cleansed. The house, then, that is defiled is the Synagogue of the Jews who killed the Lord, the Savior being dead among them; when they were also the more defiled by his slaughter. ^D And as many proselytes as enter into it are likewise unclean with it. The furniture in it are the individual Jews, and the vessels not covered are such because the security of their mind and their hearing has been taken away, and they are prone to every vice. Jethro gives the advice, but Moses obeys, so that we may know that the people from the nations have become wiser through faith than the Jewish people; and often the people from the nations, having laid down the law, receives the Jew as one who obeys the commands according to Christ. Christ holds the person of Moses: for he is indeed both legislator, and intercessor between God and men.

^A Aaron, however, represents the priests and high priests of the Jews; Miriam, the Synagogue of the Jews. For both the priests and the people of the Hebrews accused Christ our Savior, because he had transgressed the law, and because he had betrothed to himself the Church from the Gentiles, which was black with the darkness of sin. It is probable that the rod of Aaron was of almond wood, as a symbol of vigilance. For to Jeremiah, seeing an almond rod, God says: "Behold, I have watched over my words" (Jer. I, 12). It brought forth nuts, which is also a sign of the virtue of a man who possesses within himself that which is edible, in the habit of the soul, not in the height of the body.

When Moses, at God’s command, had chosen only twelve thousand ^B warriors out of the whole multitude, he sent them against the Midianites, and through them he routed and exterminated them (Num. XXXI, 1 sqq.). But when these very brave men returned with many captives, he ordered them to encamp outside the camp of the people for seven days; and that they themselves, purified along with all the captives, should enter the camp on the third and seventh day. After Moses, Eleazar, who was then high priest, spoke to them, commanding them to wash their garments; and that the gold and silver, and whatever is of solid material, should be passed through fire, but that the clothing, and whatever is of weak material, should be purified by water, and that on the seventh day they should be cleansed, and thus enter the camp. ^C See, therefore, what is mystically signified. For those who have conducted themselves bravely still stand in need of some purification. For not even those who have fought bravely against demons and vices are entirely blameless and free from all reproach. For that which is perfectly chaste and pure is reserved for the future age, of which the seventh day is a symbol. The seventh day is indeed the Sabbath, which is interpreted as "rest." And the rest from all labor is the coming age. The purification of the third day prefigured the purging established through Christ, given at the third time of the triple administration of the Jews. For after the time of kings, and after the time of judges, they lived under high priests. At which time Christ established by law ^D the purification to be performed through holy baptism. But Moses only pointed out the time of purification to those who had fought bravely; Eleazar, however, indicated also the manner of purification. For indeed, the Mosaic law foretold only the time of the purification through Christ. But the Gospel of Christ shows also the manner of this purification. And we are the captives, whom the twelve who fought bravely—the apostles—and their successors, the pastors and teachers, led captive away from the devil and demons, and purified with the fire of the Holy Spirit and the water of divine baptism: the soul of each being received into solid material because of immortality, but the body into weak material, because of mortality. The washing of garments is the preparation for purification, which is also the very cleansing of the holy.

^A For these are the garments according to Christ, with which he in a certain manner clothes himself, dwelling within them.

The spoils of the captivity having been divided between those who behaved valiantly and the rest of the congregation of the people, God commanded to set apart for God and for the Levites portions from the captivity, both from humans and from four-footed animals; and ^B that the valiant should offer to God one out of every five hundred, but that the remaining people should offer to the Levites one out of every fifty. For those who have few sins owe few [things], but those who are liable for more offenses, surely owe more. And yet, in the distribution, the valiant men alone received half of the entire captivity, while the other whole congregation of the people received the other half. For God gives more gifts to those who are more approved. But the valiant men offer their lot to God, and the remaining congregation [offers] to the Levites, as has been said. For those who are more approved bring forth their own achievements as fruit directly to God, but those who are approved after them bring their gifts to God through the mediation of the holy ones who are dedicated to God, providing those things that are for use to those who attend upon Him, and assisting the holy Churches. But these things [were] by divine command.

Out of their own accord and from themselves, the leaders of the valiant ones offered to God golden armlets, and bracelets, and rings, and armbands, and chains. For those who are leaders of the people in Christ and who excel, often transcend the evangelical commands in their successes, practicing from their own accord virginity which is not legislated, and other such things. For even Paul, having been commanded to be supported by the Gospel, was supported by his own hands. By the enumerated golden vessels are signified various kinds of venerable and most brilliant virtue. All these things, he says, were brought into the tabernacle of God for their memorial. For such achievements of the holy are stored away as a treasure for the Church, for ^C a memorial of those who have acted rightly.

But also when the tabernacle was first being constituted, God commanded that the people be visited and numbered, and that every male from twenty years old and upward offer to God half a didrachm. The princes, however, of their own accord and from themselves offered precious stones, and the oil of anointing, and the composition of incense. Now the precious stones are the chosen leaders of the Churches of Christ themselves, because they are solid and pure and brilliant and more excellent than others; concerning whom it has been said by the prophet, that « Stones are rolled upon the earth. » ^D These same ones are also the royal and priestly oil, not only anointing kings and priests, but also fatting and gladdening souls with most wise doctrines. These same are also incense because of the good fragrance of their virtues; and they are [a] compound, as they are fragrant from both action and contemplation. Concerning those of twenty years and upward, we have spoken before in what preceded.

^A When those who were of the tribe of Reuben and those of the tribe of Gad, having seen a region good for the breeding of cattle before the Jordan, were captivated by it, they asked Moses to receive it as their inheritance. ^B Being angered and reproaching them, Moses heard their promise: that if they received this, they would leave their property there, but they themselves would cross over in arms and fight alongside the people, nor seek any other inheritance. Such are those who possess much and desire earthly riches. For, directing their whole mind to these, they are slothful toward undertaking the struggles for the sake of virtue, and the hardships which must be endured to attain the inheritance of the promised goods. But when the divine law reproaches them, and anger is directed at them, they with difficulty cross over to the battle line and bring help to those who act bravely against the invisible enemies, and they assist the Churches that are assailed by war. They do not share in the inheritance with them, however, as they have preferred the inheritance that is before the Jordan, as has been indicated; I mean the enjoyment that lies near and is situated with a fleeting and unstable life, and on account of cattle, wives, children, and farmsteads, they become slothful and cowardly toward things which are best and most excellent.

FROM THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY.

The law commanded that Hebrew boys and girls should serve for six years, but be set free in the seventh; while aliens should serve forever. By this, the fiftieth year is tacitly signified. ^C For every one occupied in action, like a boy and girl of the same race, reason and thought labor, devising and constructing modes of acting according to virtue, and resisting the spirits of wickedness that oppose the action, but fulfilling the practical philosophy which the number of six years indicates. For in six days God created the world, with the addition of impassibility, which the seventh year signifies enigmatically. Henceforth, free from the operation of the virtues, which is done by bodily modes, they return to the contemplation of things that fall under the intelligence, which are joined to them by kinship.

An alien boy and girl are anger and desire; which the contemplative mind, throughout, subjects to the dominion of reason, for the service of the virtues, through greatness of soul and temperance, ^D not giving them freedom until the law of the spirit has swallowed up the law of nature, as life does death. So long, therefore, as the world lives in us, and the voluntary habit of the soul toward material things remains, freedom is not to be given to them, lest, if they be mixed with those of the same genus that are sensible, they wage war against the soul, and take it captive to the motions of the mind and to perturbations. But when we pass to eternity, and arrive at impassibility, we shall set them free, anger having been henceforth transmuted into spiritual fervor and a temperate zeal; and desire into divine love and pleasure, which cannot be defiled nor contaminated.

^A If anyone shall gouge out the eye of his own manservant or maidservant, he shall send them free; and if he shall knock out the tooth of his own manservant or maidservant, he shall send them free.

A manservant and a maidservant are those who are in the power of another, of whom some are men and others women. Now, of these who are in subjection, the eye is the mind or the intellect, illuminating their souls; and the tooth is the thought, through which they chew the spiritual food. If anyone, therefore, should either blind the mind of those in subjection by a blow of impiety or of another sin, or should injure their thought, he is condemned to fall from the authority he has over them, and shows himself unworthy to rule.

«If anyone shall lie with a woman joined to a husband, you shall put both to death.» He ^B who dares to defile a soul joined to God through faith and sanctification with the seed of his own impious heresy, shall undergo the ultimate penalty with her: he indeed, as one who has plotted against the marriage of another; she, however, as one who has dishonored her union with her husband. «But if,» he says, «anyone shall find in a city a virgin betrothed to a man, and lie with her, both shall die. The young woman, because she did not cry out in the city; and the man, because he humbled the wife of his neighbor.» A virgin betrothed to a man is a soul called indeed to piety and instructed by catechesis, but not yet perfectly joined to Christ through holy baptism. For the instruction of catechesis holds the place of a pledge. Whoever, therefore, corrupts this one through the admixture of impious dogmas shall himself also pay the ultimate penalty with her, and they shall fall under the punishment of those who, as it has been said, have committed adultery: he indeed, as one who has offended against the woman who is soon to be in the power of the bridegroom, his neighbor, according to the standard of humanity; but she, as one who has suffered this in a city, by which I mean the Church, where there were many who were able to deliver her, and because she did not cry out, has admitted this. ^C «But if,» he says, «a man finds in the field a young woman betrothed to another, and by force he lies with her, you shall put to death only the man who lay with her. But for the young woman there shall be no sin of death; for in the field he found her. The young woman who was betrothed cried out, and there was no one to help.» For the "field" is the solitude of those who are able to bring aid, and the scarcity of teachers; here the passion is violent and beyond recovery. Therefore, as it is involuntary, it is not blameworthy. ^D «But if anyone finds a young virgin, and by force he lies with her, and is discovered, he shall give to the father of the young woman fifty silver drachmas, and she shall be his wife.» He calls a virgin here the one who is not yet betrothed to Christ through faith, and still remains altogether not joined to Him. If, therefore, anyone, deceiving, is united to the

custom of the impious through the habitual practice of ungodly dogmas—as heretics do, often deceiving the heathens and the Jews, and transferring [them] from one impiety to another—they shall not even so find their endeavor free from penalty. For he shall pay to God, the Father of spirits, the penalty for the sin; but she shall be his wife, as one who has already been joined to him and has rendered herself unworthy of the chaste Bridegroom.

« The woman who shall approach a beast so that she may be forced by it, she shall die with the beast. » Heretical ^B customs, and associations with the dogmas of the heretics, who have fallen into such irrationality and beastliness, bring about the death of the soul, both for him who imparts the corruption and for him who receives it, having been feminized toward the association on account of the softness of the soul.

« If two men fight and strike a pregnant woman, and her fetus comes forth not yet formed, the one who struck shall be fined as much as the husband of the woman shall assess. But if it is formed, he shall give soul for soul. » The fruit of the mind and the fetus is faith in Christ, which impresses the divine characters and imparts the transformation of Christ to souls. ^C If, therefore, while two opposing sides are debating about dogmas, some soul listening—still pregnant with faith in Christ—is scandalized and casts it off: if indeed it was still imperfect and unformed, the author of the scandal shall pay the penalty that Christ, the Bridegroom of such a soul, shall assess. He shall pay, he says, with dignity—that is, with the confession of grace—so that he is not even required to pay the ultimate penalty. But if it was bringing forth a perfect faith in Christ, as far as regards character and form—for this is what “formed” signifies—then, as one who has already killed a perfect soul, he shall be fined ^D his own soul, being required to pay the ultimate penalty.

« If a bull should gore a man or a woman and kill [them], it shall be stoned with stones, and its flesh shall not be eaten. But the master of the bull shall be free from guilt. » If someone who is under the power of another is irascible and insolent, or otherwise a heretic, and kills a soul—being himself the cause of spiritual death to it—he indeed shall undergo the ultimate punishment; but no one shall be a participant in his deeds and words. And he who has power over him shall not be liable to blame, as one who is ignorant of his vice and wickedness. « But if, he says, they testify to his lord, and he does not remove him from the midst, he himself also shall die because of him. » For, knowing and tolerating, he becomes a participant in and an accomplice to the slaughter. « But if a ransom, he says, is imposed upon him, he shall give a ransom for his soul, as much as they shall impose upon him. » This is: If, having confessed, he submits to the penance, he shall fulfill all that is commanded. « But if, he says, the bull should gore a son or a daughter and kill [them], it shall be done according to the declared decree of the law. But if a boy or a maidservant, he shall give thirty drachmas of silver to the master. »

^A For since those who are slain are various, by husband and wife you shall understand those who are senior in virtue. Of these, one is stronger in prudence, and the other weaker. By son and daughter, those who are younger in virtue; of whom again one is the stronger, [another] the one enslaved by sins, of whom likewise one is the stronger, and the other the weaker. And by the payment of the silver, he hinted at a lesser penalty. For the death of a sinner and a righteous man is not an equal loss. ^B If any man's ox gore the ox of his neighbor, and it die, they shall sell the living ox, and they shall divide the silver of it, and they shall divide the dead ox. If damage shall occur to anyone from one who did not intend it toward someone, let the one damaged be a participant of the profit that remained to the one who caused the damage, which is signified by the ox that is still living. But the one who caused the damage unintentionally, let him in turn be a participant of the damage with the one who was damaged; which shall happen through being affected with sorrow along with him. "But if," he says, "he be warned concerning the ox, and he do not make him disappear, and he slay the ox of his neighbor, he shall pay ox for ox, but the one that died shall be his." For since he knew and did not take precautions, he seems to have cooperated in the slaughter of another's animal; wherefore he is also required to render judgment for the slaughter, but he alone suffers damage in his soul. For this, I think, is indicated by the words: "But the one that died shall be his." ^C If a man stealing a soul from among his brothers, the children of Israel, dominating them, sells [him] into slavery, that thief shall die. He who by deceit has stolen away one who has chosen to think rightly, and who follows a life free from vice, and has dominated him and sold him into the slavery of impious doctrines, or of bodily passions, he shall die a spiritual death. If anyone should steal a calf or a sheep, and slaughter or sell it, he shall restore five calves for the calf. For both the calf and the sheep are likewise clean and offered to God, and both are a type of those who have been purified through faith in Christ and holy baptism, and are offered to God. For they also have cloven hoofs, as those walking through action and contemplation, and they bring up the cud, as those who reduce the thicker nourishment of the Word into a higher contemplation, and are pastured in the divine courts of the Church. But the calf is a symbol of those who are higher, and the sheep [a symbol] of those who are humbler; for the calf is greater, and the sheep is lesser. If, therefore, any heretic should steal any of these secretly, and after leading him away from piety should kill him with the sword of impious doctrines, or sell him into the vices and passions which reduce him

in servitude, fittingly for the proportion of the former virtue of the one who was stolen, he shall pay the penalty. For this is signified by the greater and lesser damage. ^A “But if,” it says, “the thief be found in a breach, and having been struck, die, it shall not be reckoned as murder.” For he who is found digging through the Church, that he might steal a soul, if by chance someone kills him, he is not liable for murder, as far as the civil law is concerned, as he is one who is looting manifestly and shamelessly. “But if,” it says, “the sun be risen upon him, he who kills him shall be guilty.” For if the sun of repentance and piety should rise upon the one who, as has been said, is stealing, he who kills him shall be guilty, as having killed a pious man and one of like faith. “But if he have not,” it says, “means, he shall be sold for his theft.” For the Word knows that the thief who does not have the means to deflect his crimes with ransoms—that is to say, modes of repentance and satisfaction for his sins—is dishonored; for he who is sold is dishonored. “But if,” it says, “the theft be apprehended and found in his hand, he shall pay double.” For since he has not yet carried it off to destruction, he shall undergo a moderate fine; for the master shall recover his own, and shall further demand of the thief an accounting for the theft. ^B

The law through Moses commanded one not to proceed to war who had built a new house and had not dedicated it; nor he who had planted a vineyard and had not enjoyed it; nor he who had betrothed a wife and had not taken her; nor he who is timid in heart. Now the figure of him who considers the present life a habitation, but not a sojourning, is he who built a new house; ^C of the avaricious and greedy for gain, he who planted the vineyard; of the lover of the flesh and the lustful, he who betrothed the wife. Or also otherwise: the first is a figure of the ambitious and lover of glory; the second, of the avaricious and lover of money; the third, of the lover of pleasure. But through these three were indicated the three general species of vice. For the timid man is divided into these three. For all who are subject to these are indeed timid; and not only are they reprobate for the war which falls under the understanding, but they might also be authors of cowardice and flight to others. For the habit of the aforementioned passions turns them aside, and ^D “evil communications corrupt good manners.” And therefore the great Paul, rebuking those who were hindering him from going up to Jerusalem, said: “What do you do, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

If anyone has recently taken a wife, he shall not go out to war; for one year he shall gladden his wife whom he has taken. For it is not fitting that he who has recently taken virtue to dwell with him should be led out to labors and persecutions until he has been bound by the love of her; for this the one-year joy tacitly signified. The apostles did a similar thing to those who had recently come from the nations to piety, writing: “For it seemed,” it says, “to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden…

than that you abstain from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood, and from things sacrificed to idols.” ^A

“If anyone opens a cistern, and does not cover it with a lid, and a calf or an ass falls into it, the owner of the cistern shall pay silver to its owner; but what is dead shall be his.”

He who probes deeply into the dogmas concerning the Holy Trinity or those concerning the divine incarnation, and discovers therefrom a private fountain of knowledge, let him be cautious, lest such depth become to others a destruction and an occasion for stumbling. For it is necessary to be concerned also for those who subsequently encounter the discovered fountain.

But by the calf, the pure genus is implied; by the ass, however, the impure, or that which is in sin. For he shall pay the penalty to their Lord, God, and the death of that which has suffered shall be reckoned to him; for this is what gives us to understand that which is written: “And that which is dead shall be his.”

“If fire goes out and finds thorns, and sets fire to threshing floors or standing corn, he who kindled the fire shall pay.” ^B

He who sends the fire of the word into the thorny dogmas of the heretics should take care lest he also injure the threshing floor of the Church, or the ears of the pious dogmas that nourish souls, or the field of divine Scripture—level to those who walk uprightly, and having nothing rough or steep. For “all are plain,” it says, “to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge.” It is not right that what is wholesome should perish together with the harmful, nor that what is mild and gentle should be consumed along with the wild.

“You shall not eat meat torn by wild animals, but you shall throw it to the dog.”

It forbids eating spiritual food mangled by the wild mouths of heretics, but [commands] to cast it to the shameless, barking, and impure company of other heretics. ^C

“If anyone lets his beast loose, and it grazes in another’s field, he shall restore [it] from his own field according to its produce. But if it graze the whole field, he shall restore from the best of his field and the choicest of his vineyard.”

If anyone permits his disciple to injure the harvest of the Church of Christ, if the injury happens in part, the teacher shall suffer the loss in proportion, from his own [possessions]; but if he has lost the whole of his soul—for this is his best and choicest—he who brings about the injury shall certainly also undergo punishment. ^D

“If you enter the harvest of your neighbor, you shall gather ears in your hands, but you shall not put in a sickle. And if you enter his vineyard, you may eat grapes as much as is enough to satisfy your soul, but you shall not put them into a vessel.”

For it is not right to abuse the love of the brethren, but rather to honor self-sufficiency and mutual affection. But [alt-version omitted]

^A the law otherwise admonishes us to gain profit from the conversation of the teachers in the Churches; for the Churches are as cornfields and vineyards; do not put in the sickle, nor write down in a book that which appears to be beyond need and superfluous, as if pouring it into a vessel. For perhaps unworthy statements will be found in it, like certain useless grapes that have not been examined with the proper attention and diligence, because they were brought forth extemporaneously and readily; and thus they might provide an occasion for scandal. To this point also pertains the text: “If you encounter a bird’s nest, and the mother is brooding over the chicks, you shall not take the mother with the children. You shall send away the mother, but the children you shall take for yourself” (Deut. xxii, 6, 7). For every virtue is the mother of the noble deeds that proceed from it. And its nest is the soul in which it dwells. It is necessary for those who encounter them to benefit from the good deeds of virtue and to enjoy them, but by no means to plot against the virtue of the one who has acted nobly, nor to attempt to destroy and extinguish it by any means. ^B

“You shall not see the ox of your brother or his sheep wandering in the way, and pass them by, but you shall restore them to your brother” (Exod. xxiii, 4). The law commands not to overlook those who are under the authority of a brother in the faith, should they wander on the path of the discipline of dogmas; but rather to turn them back from error, and to restore them to the brother, and to supply his deficiency because of brotherhood. “If, however,” it says, “you encounter the ox of your enemy or his beast of burden wandering in the way, you shall drive them back and restore them to him.” For the same instruction applies here also regarding those under one’s authority. “But I say to you,” he says, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you” (Matt. v, 44). “And if you see,” he says, “the beast of burden of your enemy fallen under its load, you shall not pass it by, but you shall raise it up with him.” For he falls who is weighed down by the burden of temptations and afflictions, whom you ought to rouse by encouragement and consolation. But if the ox of your enemy and his beast of burden are worthy of care, ^C how much more so is the enemy himself, who is a participant of the same nature.

“You shall not speak evil of the deaf, and before the blind you shall not place a stumbling-block” (Levit. xix, 14). He admonishes us not to slander the absent (who for that reason cannot hear), nor to lay snares for the ignorant. For by deafness, the inability to hear is implied, and by blindness, the inability to know.

The law commanded those who strike sinners with lashes not to exceed the number of forty stripes; enigmatically signifying that the scourges of those who sinned had their efficacy until the assumption of humanity by Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, but did not proceed further; since he granted to all who wish to believe in him through the holy ^D baptism freedom from the punishments for their transgressions. For since, when he…

he became man at the fifth period, as in the detailed contemplation regarding the Pasch, it has been previously divided in the book of Leviticus; he rose on the eighth day. For after the seventh, that is to say the Sabbath, the eighth is entirely the one that is after it, being the Lord’s day; you shall measure five times eight, and you will find forty, which the scourges of sins do not exceed. "But if they do exceed it," he says, "the one being scourged will be unseemly." For the one who is still being scourged is truly unseemly and disgraced; I mean, then, after the grace of the aforementioned remission. For he is scourged either as one who has not believed, or as one who has sinned after the remission.

"You shall not set over yourself a foreign man as a ruler." ^B By the foreign man he tacitly signifies the devil, whom those who foolishly obey his wicked suggestions unlawfully establish as a ruler for themselves. "But from your brothers," he says, "you shall choose for yourself a ruler." This is Christ, who became our brother regarding the incarnation, and is the ruler of those who obey his commands.

It was ordained by law that those who had committed manslaughter involuntarily should be sent away to the places of the designated cities of refuge and be kept there, but that they should be released upon the death of the high priest. ^C Such murderers would be the souls of those who died before the incarnation of Christ, having murdered themselves through sins, yet involuntarily, in that they were compelled into this by him. Having been driven from their own land and led away into Hades, as if into a place of refuge, they were securely held. But when the great high priest Jesus Christ died, they were released from the prison in Hades.

"When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you plant every edible tree, you shall purge away its impurity, and its fruit shall be for you three years unpurged. It shall not be eaten, and in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy to the Lord. But in the fifth year, you shall eat its fruit." ^D The paradise is the Mosaic scripture, as if flourishing with certain manifold and beautiful plants that are the most beautiful and various decrees of the law. And God commands to remove the impurity of each plant; that is, the bodily and sensible part of each law. For this is impurity to spiritual husbandmen, as it is useless and harmful. For the discourse is toward them. The three years, therefore, during which the fruit of the plants was unpurged, were the three periods: the time according to Moses, the time according to Joshua son of Nun, and the time according to the Judges, during which the fruit of the laws was not manifest; that is to say, what was its hidden part, and understood spiritually, was covered by the thickness of the history and the shadow. The fourth year, however, is the time of the prophes

y, in which that fruit which was shown has become holy to the Lord, henceforth referred to Christ through the testimony of the prophetic voices. The fifth year is the fifth period, in which Christ became man, as shown above. For from that time, with the veil removed, we the faithful profitably share in the fruit of the Mosaic legislation. ^A

FROM THE BOOK OF JOSHUA

As after the death of Moses, Joshua received the leadership, so after the death of the legal letter, Jesus Christ received the leadership of the new people; and as if by stone knives, by the firm word of his commandments, he circumcised its habit with regard to sensory things, and caused it to pass through the flowing and unstable brevity of the present life, not being held fast by it; but carrying on the shoulders of the virtues the ark—I mean, the knowledge capable of the divine mysteries. ^{B C}

FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS

Concerning Saul and David

*And I will give*, he says, *the kingdom to thy neighbor, to as good a man as thou.* [I Reg. xv, 28] ^D

For just as David was near to Saul, as one who was himself also anointed king, so too the Spirit was near to the letter which is in the law, as if hidden within it. To which, moreover, the power is henceforth given, with the law which is received according to the letter having been extinguished, while that which is understood according to the Spirit shines forth; which was also better than the former, inasmuch as those things which are perceived by the intellect are far more beautiful and excellent than sensible things, and [better] than those which pull one down to the earth are those which draw one up to heaven. Saul is the natural

^A law, which from the beginning received from the Lord [authority] to rule over nature. But after he transgressed the commandment through disobedience, sparing Agag the king of Amalek—that is, the body—and slipped away toward the passions, he is thrust out of the kingdom, so that David might take hold of Israel; that is, the law of the Spirit which generates the peace that clearly builds for God the temple of contemplation.

Samuel is interpreted as "the obedience of God." Therefore, as long as the principle of obedience within us exercises the priestly office, even if Saul should spare Agag—that is, earthly prudence—the priestly principle (the reason) will nevertheless slay him, moved by zeal, and will strike him, bringing shame upon the mind that delights in sin, as one who transgresses the divine ordinances.

When the mind has become proud, and has ceased to inquire through proper searching concerning what should and should not be done after the principle of doctrine which anointed it against the passions, it is entirely caught by the vices out of ignorance; through these, being separated from God in part, it is driven in involuntary circumstances toward the demons, making its belly its god, and desiring from there to find consolation ^B for those things that press upon it. Let Saul persuade you of this, who in all things did not use the counsel of Samuel, and was necessarily turned toward idolatry, and endured to consult a ventriloquist as if she were some god.

OF THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS

Concerning David and Absalom

David is the active mind, but Absalom is conceit, which it begot from intercourse with the senses. For Absalom is interpreted as "perceived peace of the father." But when we think ourselves to be at peace from passions and perturbations, we form a conceit of ourselves. When David, the aforementioned, perceived this rising up against him, as one who acts with knowledge, having left the holy tabernacle, and Jerusalem, and Judea—that is, mystical theology, and the peaceful contemplation of divine things, and the thanksgiving for the good things that have gone before—he flees to ^C Gilead, or rather, he migrates to mourning. For Gilead is interpreted as "the migration of mourning." And since Gilead is also interpreted as "the migration of the testimony," and beyond that which has been said, "revelation," he also migrates to the reproof that comes through the conscience, and to the manifestation of sins according to their kind; and thus, feeling his own weakness and drawing [upon] humility for his aid, he removes the tyrant (the conceit) from his midst, and again returns to Judea, and Jerusalem, and the holy tabernacle—I mean, to confessing thanksgiving, and to the ^D peaceful and dispassionate contemplation of existing things, and to high theology.

Absalom is every arrogant and proud person who nourishes hair, that is, an apparent virtue and kn

knows high things of himself. By this he is caught, as pride brings upon him inflation and the destruction arising from it; he hangs between heaven and earth. For he possesses neither true knowledge, which would draw him upward like a heaven, because his own conceit pulls him down; nor does he possess true virtue, which would draw him down like the earth, because his inflation drags him down. He is wounded mainly by three darts: the shame of his useless action because of his conceit, and the expectation of eternal punishment. Before him, Ahithophel dies by a noose, whose name is interpreted as "a brother deceiving with guile in friendship"—such is the devil. For, not bearing his defeat, he hangs himself. ^B

And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord, and the Lord said: "It is upon Saul and upon his house, because of the injustice, because he put the Gibeonites to death."

David truly is the law according to the spirit, who is the king of those Christians who serve God spiritually. Saul, however, is the law according to the letter, who is the king of the Jews who worship God corporally. For David is interpreted as "contempt" and "sufficient for vision." Such is the evangelical law: the former thought of among the Jews, the latter among the Christians.

Just as Saul is also interpreted as "given to interest" or "interest." Such is the Mosaic law, if it is taken so that one looks only to the letter. For it was given for a time, and until the coming of the evangelical law. For even if, for another reason, Saul is translated as "requested hell," nevertheless, what is declared here is appropriate. Now the Gibeonites are the higher reasons according to natural contemplation. For Gibeonites are interpreted as "mountainous" or "sublime." These were preserved by Joshua, the son of Nun, after he killed the five kings who were waging war against them; and he established them in the tabernacle as wood-gatherers and water-carriers, prefiguring Jesus Christ, who killed the emotional thoughts and customs that fight against the higher reasons arising from natural contemplation, which had been brought into his own power from the five-fold sense. ^C He established these intellectual Gibeonites in the tabernacle of the divine mysteries: as wood-gatherers, supplying the material that ignites the light of knowledge; and as water-carriers, as those who bring the washing away of vices and perturbations. For natural contemplation in the spirit, being a middle ground between customs and truth, leads away from the former and leads toward the latter. Saul, therefore—that is, the law of the letter, and the king of those who live according to the senses alone—kills these and drives them outside the initiation into divine mysteries, if anyone holding only the letter rejects and abolishes the spirit that lies hidden under the letter. The Gibeonites also figure the Gentile portion which gave itself to Jesus, the distributor of the inheritance of divine promises, and which is commanded to carry wood and water—that is, to bear the knowledge [of the saving cross and life-giving baptism; and through practice, as wood, to...

carry the mortification of the members upon the earth; and through the contemplative, as water, the influx of knowledge. Now, God was indeed angered because of the slaughter of the Gibeonites. He brought a famine, not in the days of Saul who slew them, but in the days of David; because it could not naturally come to pass, while the legal letter was alive and reigning over the Jews—who are carnal and gross in their understanding—that the famine of spiritual knowledge should be made known. But when that had died at the end of the time that was appointed for the carnal worship of the Law, it was destined to happen rather in the days of David—I mean the spiritual law, which had been hidden under the letter, having now shone forth and reigning over the Christians, who are spiritual and subtle in their understanding. For those who were of Saul’s company, having never partaken of spiritual knowledge, could not even recognize its famine. For famine is a failure of those good things known by experience. In this place, it is also a scarcity of the spiritual food of the soul. But they who are with the aforementioned David, these are the ones who suffer most from this famine when they become preoccupied with the lineage of Saul, in being preoccupied with the letter and in receiving the things of the divine Scripture carnally. Concerning this lineage, we shall speak as we proceed. A famine of three years is the deficiency of spiritual knowledge according to the three laws: the natural, the Mosaic, and the evangelical. For the lack of the spiritual contemplation found in the Mosaic law has accompanying it also that which is found in the natural and that which is found in the evangelical; therefore they are said to hold to one another. For otherwise, he who receives the Mosaic law carnally goes hungry for these three things: knowledge, virtue, and deification. Just as the face is characteristic of each individual, so too does spiritual knowledge emphatically characterize the Divine; he who seeks this is said to seek the face of the Lord, according to David, and he learns the cause of such a famine, that this iniquity was against Saul and against his house, because he wronged the Gibeonites. For "because," he says, "he slew the Gibeonites," as was previously considered. The house of Saul is his lineage, that is, those who love him. These would be those who hold only to the letter. ^C "And David," it says, "called the Gibeonites and said to them: What shall I do for you, and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And they said to the king: The man who consumed us and pursued us and plotted to exterminate us, let us destroy him, so that he should not stand in all the territory of Israel. Give us seven men from his sons, and we shall offer them as an atonement to the Lord on the hill of Saul. And the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the concubine of Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Merab, the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Esriel, and delivered them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they offered them on the mountain before the Lord; and the seven fell there.

^A Likewise, they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the beginning of the barley harvest. Whoever, therefore, having contemplated through action the wrath of God that had been brought upon them, and having sought God through contemplation, is taught the cause, as has been said before; he is commanded to deliver up two sons and five grandsons of Saul to death. The two sons, namely, represent the sin that is committed in the body, and again that which is committed in the mind—that is, the sin by act and by disposition; I mean, then, the sin by deed and by consent. And the five grandsons represent the five uses of the five senses. Now the mother of the sons of Saul was Respha, which is interpreted as the "course of the mouth." But the utterance of the law through the mouth only, and not an ascent through a more exalted mind, deservedly fathers the two aforementioned sons. The mother of the others is Merob, which is interpreted as "repletion of the throat," or "gluttony." She, too, in turn, consequently generates those who are called the abuses. Respha is a concubine because of the indecorous and unworthy commingling of the law. For it is necessary that the law be brought forth not only by the mouth, but also through higher contemplation. Merob, however, is a daughter. For what is bodily and sensory in the law generates gluttony. ^B And to explain also the names of the sons of Respha: Hermothi is interpreted as "anathema." Such is the sin that arises from the body, dedicated to the demon who works it. Memphiboseth is "shame." Such, again, is the sin that arises from the mind, afflicting the mind with dishonor, which is the glory of the soul. Since the narrative also mentions Esdriel, the husband of Merob—and Esdriel is interpreted as "potent gaze"—the mind is of this kind: Esdriel would be the mind that is inclined toward gluttony and consorting with it. Whoever, therefore, seeks the face of the Lord according to David, destroys the mentioned sons and grandsons of Saul through the medium of natural contemplation, in the height of knowledge, just as he destroyed those through the Gibeonites on the mountain; and he exposes them to the sun before the Lord—that is to say, he shows them as dead in the sight of the Lord. For by "exposure to the sun" we understand here the manifestation that vices and perturbations, or affections, suffer when they are led into triumph ^C through elevated reasonings of nature by means of high contemplation: and thus he appeases God. The beginning of the barley harvest is the beginning of piety that comes from natural contemplation, when the thoughts that nourish the irrational part of the soul are reaped. But how do the Gibeonites say that they destroyed Saul from every border of Israel, even though Meribaal, the son of Jonathan and grandson of Saul, was saved by the Lord, and many others of the kindred of Saul, as the book entitled Chronicles teaches? But, as it seems, that which is absurd and contrary to reason has been purposely admitted into the history, so that, by seeking in the anagogy, we might find that which is reasonable. For when the higher arguments, according to natural contemplation, having received the suggestion from the intelligible David—that is, the law according to the Spirit—the aforementioned sons and grandsons of

Saul are slain; then, entirely, from every border of Israel—that is, from every reason and mode of spiritual contemplation—the carnal mind of the Mosaic law and the acceptance according to the letter and the senses ^A vanish. "And Respha," it says, "took the sackcloth and spread it for herself upon the rock, until water dropped upon them from heaven." Respha, as has been said, is the proclamation of the law made by the mouth alone, which, after the destruction of the vices and perturbations and affections that arise from it (as has been discussed beforehand), spreads penance for itself like sackcloth upon the rock of the solid dogmas of the faith in Christ, until the knowledge of the divine Scriptures is sent down from the height of spiritual contemplation, which quenches the vices and inflames the virtues. "And God," it says, "hearkened to the land." After this, He hearkened to it, standing in need of aid from above and, in a certain manner, feeling shame on account of its disgraceful state. For the land is the heart of the one repenting, and the rains are the pouring forth of tears. The abundance of fruits is the supply of spiritual gifts. Grain is the strengthening of the soul through action; wine is the joy of the mind through contemplation; and oil is the gladness and constitution that exists through both, and the illumination that occurs through the Holy Spirit. ^B

"And the Lord gave death in Israel from morning until the hour of breakfast."

For from morning—that is, from the first time of human life—death, on account of sin, fed upon men until the hour of breakfast, that is, from Adam until Christ. For He is the breakfast, as the bread of life, and as He who feeds and gives us drink with His spotless body and precious blood. And David said, "Behold, I have sinned, and I, the shepherd, have done wrong; let your hand, O Lord, be upon me." For Christ is the new David, the good shepherd, who took upon Himself our sins and laid down His soul for the sheep. "And the angel," it says, "extended his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it." And the Lord was entreated and said, "It is enough now; withhold your hand." For Jerusalem is the Church of the faithful, for whom Christ died, and having become our advocate before the Father, ^C He restrained the death-dealing hand of the exterminator. For having risen from the dead, He abolished death and became the firstfruits of immortality for the inhabitants of the Church. Then, by divine admonition, David saw there the exterminating angel; he stood with an altar set up and offered up whole burnt offerings and peace offerings to God. For that one stood beside the threshing floor of Ornan; and the threshing floor is the Church of the pious, into which are gathered, like ears of corn, those who are harvested through the evangelical preaching from error and infidelity. For those who ^D

bought the threshing floor for fifty shekels. For Christ indeed bought the Church at a great price, namely with his own blood. And having fixed an altar in it—I mean, in all the altars constructed in the churches throughout every place—he sacrificed two oxen, by which are signified both the people of believers from the circumcision and he who is from the uncircumcision. Oxen, indeed, as those who have come under the yoke of the Gospel; sacrificed, as those who sacrifice themselves, because they slaughter their vices and the disturbances of the mind, and consume them with the fire of the Holy Spirit. And the sacrifices and peace offerings ^B are again Christ himself, sacrificed through the mystical and unbloody sacrifice, and bestowing peace upon those who have waged war against God, and reconciling us to him.

FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF KINGS

Concerning Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.

Every soul bereft of virtue and knowledge, if it shall have received the divine and discerning reason, will be brought to the memory of its former sins, and will prefer the cultivation of that reason even to its own nature. It will have the flesh as a jar, providing the bread of virtues; the mind as a cruse, from which emanates the light of knowledge; and the innate rational faculty as a son, who puts aside the life obnoxious to vices and passions of the soul, and is judged worthy, in a new and beautiful way, of impassibility.

The discourse of Holy Scripture, when it has little by little stripped off the composition of those words which in it are fashioned corporeally, with its more sublime senses, is perceived as in the voice of a gentle breeze ^C by a more discerning mind, which alone is able to grasp the sense of the very simplicity that indicates it. Since Horeb is interpreted as "New Field," but the cave is an "occult place," whoever, not unlike the great Elijah, truly seeks God, will not only be in Horeb, acting youthfully and showing vigor in the labors of the virtues, but also in the cave which is in Horeb—that is, in the secrets of the knowledge which is in the habit of the virtues.

FROM THE FOURTH BOOK OF KINGS

Concerning Elijah and his chariot.

The upper room and the chariot signify the exalted and illuminated manner of life of Elijah. The infertile streams were a figure of humanity barren toward piety. Salt, however, is the doctrine of the Savior. And therefore he said afterward to the apostles: "You are the salt of the earth" (Matt. v, 13). But he who healed them, Elisha, is a figure of Christ, who ^D touches the memory of the saints by way of imitation, which bears their actions and right deeds as if they were relics; he puts aside the mortification of vices and passions, and receives instead the life of virtues.

FROM THE SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES

Regarding Uzziah

^A And Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem, on the corner gate, and on the angle of the valley, and on the angles, and he built towers in the wilderness. Just as Solomon was in some measure a type of Christ, so in some measure was Uzziah. For Uzziah is interpreted as "the strength of God," and Christ is the strength and the subsistent power of God and the Father, building—in the vision of peace (for this is what Jerusalem means: I speak, however, to those who are more perfect, for the state of contemplation)—the towers of the dogmas concerning His divinity.

Since the Church of the faithful is the angle, as if uniting and containing two walls, namely, the people of the Jews and the people of the Gentiles, its gates may be understood as the discourses that instruct and are inferior to those of contemplation, upon which He builds again the ^B towers of His dogmas concerning His assumed humanity. Since the valley is understood as our flesh, because it is below, its angle would be that which is joined with the soul in the Spirit, upon which He builds the towers of the evangelical commandments. But the towers are both the stated dogmas and the evangelical commandments, as they are high, and guarding, and protecting, and securing.

Since he also built towers on the angles, we shall understand by the angles the various unions of divided things that have been brought about through Christ; I mean the created and the uncreated nature, and further, that of men and angels, and whatever is like these, upon which He builds the towers of the accounts (*logoi*) and methods that exist in each union. The wilderness is the nature of visible things, or this world, in which He built towers: the accounts of existing things, that is to say, the knowledge of natural contemplation in the Spirit.

And he hewed out many cisterns, for he had many cattle in the Shephelah, in the plain, and vinedressers in the mountains, and in Carmel, for he was a husbandman. ^C The Lord hews out cisterns in the wilderness—I mean in the world and in human nature—clearing out and purging the hearts of the worthy of material weight and thought, and making them spacious for the reception of the divine rains of wisdom and knowledge, so that they may water the cattle of Christ, those, I mean, who, because of the childishness of their soul, have need of moral instruction.

Scripture calls the hearts that are receptive to the heavenly gifts of His knowledge "cisterns," which are illuminated by the solid word of the commandments, and cast off, like calluses, the friendship with vices and passions, and the relationship with the sensible nature, and are filled with the knowledge that is borne from above, which cleanses the virtues in the Spirit. ^D Since "Shephelah" is interpreted as a narrow basin, the cattle of Shephelah would be those who, through the narrowness of involuntary temptations, are purged of the stains of the soul, and the work

^A of those who are in need of being watered by the word concerning endurance and patience. But in the plain are those who run rightly in virtue, or those who are widened by prosperity in their life, needing to be watered—some with the word concerning almsgiving and sharing, others with that concerning thanksgiving. The vine-dressers of peace are those who, in the height of contemplation, cultivate the divine reason of knowledge, gladdening the soul and causing it to stand outside of material habituation. Since Carmel is also interpreted as "knowledge of circumcision," we shall call its vine-dressers those who, through the knowledge of the circumcision of material things, cultivate the reason that circumcises the soul from superfluous and useless cares and from lust. Both these and those have need of the teaching of the more ancient and more perfect ones. The true husbandman is Christ, who cultivates through the Gospel those who are being saved. But how could Ozias have vine-dressers in Carmel, when he himself administered the kingdom of Judah, while Carmel was situated under the kingdom of Israel? In no other way than according to the anagogical sense.

And Ozias was seeking the Lord in the days of Zacharias who was understanding in the fear of the Lord; and the Lord prospered him. ^B Since Ozias is interpreted as "virtue of God," every mind that has received power from God for contemplation seeks God through it. It seeks Him not simply, but in the days of the memory of God, in which it remembers God. For Zacharias is interpreted as "memory of God"; which memory makes those who possess it understanding. It makes them understanding in the fear of the Lord, that is, in the action of the commandments. "For the beginning," it says, "of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." ^C By which the Lord also guides him to discovery, both teaching the ways of the commandments and revealing the reasons of the things that exist. Therefore, he who seeks God without the practice of the divine commandments does not find Him, not being guided to this by a right way.

Such a mind walls off the devil's ingress to the mind through the intermediate sensible things, having fixed in the desert—I mean, in natural contemplation—pious dogmas concerning the things that exist, as secure towers. To these he who flees does not fear the demons who, in this desert—I mean the nature of visible things—waylay and deceive the mind through sense, and drag it away to destruction. ^D Such a mind is also a true husbandman, pure from weeds, through its own zeal and diligence, preserving the divine seeds of good things.

FROM THE SAME BOOK. CONCERNING EZECHIAS.

And Ezechias saw that Senacherib had come to wage war in Jerusalem; and he took counsel with his elders and mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside the city. And they strengthened him, and he gathered much people, and they stopped the waters of the springs, and the river that runs through the midst of the city.

Since Ezechias is interpreted as "God's power," every mind

^A that has acquired divine power through active philosophy, after it has known that Senacherib—which is interpreted as "temptation that dries up" or "sharpened teeth," such as the devil is—is moving against itself, consults with its elders and nobles. These are the faculty of reasoning, the spirited faculty, and the desiderative faculty; which it possesses as elders, because these are the primary faculties of the soul and those that complete its essence; and as nobles, because they are named for this very thing, namely Powers; and because they are helpers of the mind for the destruction of vice and the establishment of virtue; and because they govern: the rational faculty [governing] the cognitive reasonings; the spirited faculty, the impulses; and the desiderative faculty, the appetitive desires; and furthermore, each [governs] those things that result from it. The mind, therefore, having these elders sound and not easily deceived, ^B consults with them, as its helpers, to stop the waters of the springs that are outside the city. These are the phantasms that arise according to natural contemplation, and the thoughts of sensible things. The sources of these phantasms and thoughts are the sensible things themselves, situated outside the city—I mean, outside the soul—and sending inward the phantasms flowing from them. It does well, therefore, to stop such waters, so that the enemy may not remain and wage war against the soul by means of them. He also stops the river that passes through the soul; this is the scientific reason of natural contemplation, so that he may not secretly enter through it. For it is necessary for him who is not yet completely freed from the passions, in the time of the war of the passions, to close the senses, and to cease both the phantasms and the thoughts of sensible things, and [to cease] natural philosophy, [and to pursue] the affliction of the body. Of these, the type of prayer is the ascent of the king to the temple of God; and of bodily affliction, it is the parable of the sackcloth. They confirm him and bring him aid for the stopping, both the aforementioned elders and the gathered people, who are the pious thoughts of each of the three aforementioned faculties. It is also necessary ^C to guard the lips of the soul, that is, its protective virtues, or the methods that guard the virtues, [such as] continence, and patience, and humility; and thus there is sent from God an angel, the reason of gnostic philosophy, which destroys the passions, and slays the one hundred and eighty-five thousand of them. For six times sixty, and three times sixty, [makes] one hundred and eighty, to which if five are added, the number of the thousands slain is completed. For since the [inclination] regarding the nature of the three aforementioned faculties produces all vice, we take the number six because of the efficacy of vice; for in six days God created the world. And [we multiply it] ten times because of the perfect movement in vice of each faculty. For ten is perfect, ^D completing and limiting all the numbers properly so called; we triple the results because of the threefold nature of the aforementioned faculties. And we add the five

^A because of the sense in which vice is involved: for the sense is quinary. The thousands are the effects of vice, because it is poured out greatly against us. That the intelligible Sennacherib abuses phantasms and visions of sensory things against us, insulting and withering the souls of those who are captured by separating them from the source of goods, is clear to everyone. For through phantasms the figures and forms of sensory things are fashioned, often remaining in the soul, and they bind and drag it down into the confusion of the passions, of which this Sennacherib is king. For Babylon is interpreted as "confusion." He returns with shame by the way he came, as it is written. How these very natural affections are a "way"—eating, drinking, sleeping, and whatever contributes to the constitution of the body—and how in the way of use that exceeds the need and what is required, they bring the devil upon us; but in the way of use that conforms to the need and to what is required, they themselves drive him away, fleeing back to his own land, which is the firm and stable habit of vice, which his sons slay as he flees, and they flee into Armenia. By his sons we shall understand the evil reasonings born of him, by which he is slain when we use them for good, and through those things by which he strove to capture us, through these we slay him. ^B And they flee into the "placing of rest," for Armenia is interpreted as "placing of rest." For they place us, from then on, into rest. But these things are so. The river dividing through the city is the knowledge of sensory things according to natural contemplation, that we may speak more clearly: which, passing through the middle of the soul, becomes the frontier of the extremes, of mind and sense, joining the mind to the sense through itself. For the knowledge of sensory things, in so far as it is fashioned into form by the figures of sensory things, shares with the mind. And the combination of the words also indicates the meeting of the mind and the sense. For knowledge is proper to the mind, but sensory things are proper to the sense.

And King Hezekiah prayed, and Isaiah the son of Amoz, and they cried out to heaven, and the Lord sent an angel, and he destroyed every mighty man and warrior, and prince and commander, in the camp of the King of Assyria. And he returned with shame of face.

^C It behooves him who contemplates the divine Scripture knowingly and through knowledge to be disciplined also in the interpretations of names, which from themselves are often able to clarify the whole meaning of what is written, if he is not to bring down the height of the Spirit to the body alone and to the earth, in the Judaic manner. Ahaz begot Hezekiah. Now Ahaz is interpreted as "strength," and Hezekiah as "divine power." And ^D he takes...

And the strength is directed toward the practice of the holy commandments, whereas the divine power is directed toward virtue. And just as Ahaz begot Hezekiah, so too does practice beget virtue, by which vice is destroyed. Again, then, Ammos begot Isaiah. Now Ammos is interpreted as "labor of the people," and Isaiah as "divine altitude." And labor is understood as the sweat expended in the practice of the virtues or the toils in natural contemplation, while altitude is understood as the knowledge of the truth, which the sweat of the practice of the virtues or the toils of the contemplation of things that have come to be beget, destroying the power of falsehood opposed to it. Just as a vow is a promise of goods offered by humans to God according to a covenant, so prayer, according to probable reasoning, ^B will clearly be the petition for the goods provided by God to humans for salvation, bringing as a reward the good disposition of those that come before. A cry is the increment and intensification of the virtuous ways lived according to practice and of the gnostic contemplations brought about through knowledge, at the time of the insurrection of the evil demons; God hears this, most naturally, not least of all, receiving the affection of those who take care for virtue and knowledge in place of a loud voice. Heaven is frequently called God in Scripture, as in, "A man cannot receive anything from himself unless it be given to him from heaven," that is, from God. ^C It also calls the heavenly powers heaven, as in, "Heaven is my throne." Heaven is also said to be the altitude of true knowledge in humans. For the one who knows with practice, and acts with knowledge, is a throne and a footstool of God: a throne because of the knowledge in which God is enthroned, and a footstool because of the practice which receives upon itself the divine foundations. These things having been considered beforehand, every pious person, then, protected by virtue and knowledge, or by practice and contemplation, when he sees the evil and destructive power rising up against him through the passions—just as ^D Hezekiah and Isaiah saw the King of the Assyrians coming against them—flees to God and cries out to Him silently through growth in virtue and knowledge, and receives an angel as an ally, that is, a word of greater wisdom and knowledge that crushes the enemies. The camp of the King of Assur is that which stirs the natural appetites toward pleasure. A warrior is he who arouses the irascible part toward the prison of pleasures. A prince is he who excites the senses through the appearances of the virtues. A commander of the war is he who provides the form of the passions and the design for their activity. The face of the devil is the smoothness of pleasure and the sensible things that entice the senses.

"And many brought gifts to the Lord into Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah the king of Judea." Every mind crowned with virtue and knowledge, and

holding the kingdom in Jerusalem, or in the disposition of one seeing peace—in the constitution, I say, of a mind freed from the movements that stirred up sedition (for Jerusalem is interpreted as "vision of peace")—completely possesses the creation that appears to it, offering gifts to him, but offerings to God through him. For properly, indeed, gifts are things given to the needy; but offerings are things brought to those who are not in need. Therefore, offerings are presented to the Lord, as one who lacks nothing, but gifts to Hezekiah, because every man is in need, both of moral habits for virtue and of reasons for knowledge. ^B But the offerings are the spiritual reasons that exist in each of the species that complete creation, through which the creator of creation is known, teaching that there is some creator and Lord of the things that are seen. The gifts, however, are the natural reasons that again exist in each of these—that is, natural endowments—through which one is trained toward virtue, choosing this from one and that from another, and imitating their natural laws by the manner of one's own free choice. For God has sown in the individual parts of creation both spiritual laws of wisdom, pointing to God as their creator, and natural laws training the man who is the spectator of them toward virtue. But that we may bring forward a few things out of many: the natural law of the eagle is to fix its eyes straight upon the solar radiance. This, indeed, anyone will imitate by directing the mind toward the divine light. One will also imitate the stag by pursuing the heights of divine contemplations, just as that creature does the mountains, and by wasting away by the reason of discernment the passions that lie hidden in the visible forms, just as if they were serpents; and by extinguishing the venom of vice that is comprehended in the memory through the many and diverse fountains of knowledge. ^C One will also imitate the keen sight of the wild goat, leaping over the snares of the demons who lie in wait for virtue. And furthermore, one will imitate the caution of the bird, flying over the nets of the evil spirits who wage war against knowledge. Indeed, the more divine reasons of creation are seen in providence and in the fact that the stability of each kind is maintained, while its natural laws are seen in the identity of the natural operation in each kind. Through all these things, God, by whom they were made, is glorified, and man, for whose sake they were made, progresses.

“And he was lifted up in the eyes of all the nations.”

He who has become great through action and contemplation is exalted: through action, indeed, above all carnal and ill-reputed and divided affections, as one who is superior to those things that are called natural bodies—namely, those that fall under generation and decay, and, to speak once, those that are sensible; and through contemplation, by knowing the reasons that are in them, he passes through and leads his mind to the related intelligible and divine things. For indeed, practical philosophy makes the practitioner superior to ^D

^A to the passions and disturbances, but contemplative philosophy makes him who is occupied therein to be established above visible things.

"And Ezechias did not render according to the retribution which God rendered to him, but his heart was lifted up: and there was wrath upon him, and upon Juda and upon Jerusalem." Every mind that is both philosophical and a lover of God possesses both Juda and Jerusalem: the former being taken for the habit of confession and repentance—for Judas is interpreted as confession—the latter for the peaceful state of impassibility, as has been declared above. And the former as practical philosophy, ^B the latter as contemplative mystagogy. When, therefore, having warded off every power that opposes virtue and knowledge, and having girded himself with strength against the spirits of wickedness, he does not offer the due thanksgiving to God, the author of the victory, but is lifted up in heart, ascribing to himself the entirety of the achievement; then, as one who has not rendered unto God, he receives not only himself the wrath of abandonment, but also Juda and Jerusalem—that is to say, both the habit of action and that of contemplation—experiencing, in the case of action, ^C the ignominy of the passions rising up against it, and in the case of contemplation, the false notions that are intertwined with it. For it is truly a divine decree and law, commanding those who are puffed up by their own abundance to be disciplined toward gratitude through the opposite, and those who appear grateful regarding greater things to be disciplined through the lack of goods. For a conceit regarding successes, if it remains undisciplined, knows how to beget the disease of the anti-divine pride; so that we may not be found using the good for the generation of evil, and through those things by which it was necessary ^D that the divine knowledge remain more firmly bound and unshaken within us, we should instead labor under ignorance. For he who thinks he acts rightly through himself will no longer seek out the fountainhead of goods; but he who has perceived his own poverty and weakness in good things, runs to Him who is able to give the fulfillment of the lack. The saving wrath of abandonment comes, therefore, upon the aforementioned mind, so that it may be humbled and recognize the provider of the successes, and so that another wrath, that of the removal of the given gifts, may not come upon it. For it is written straightway that: "And Ezechias was humbled from the height of his heart, he and those who inhabited Jerusalem: and the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Ezechias." Everyone, therefore, who has obtained victory through God, as has been indicated beforehand, and has not rendered in return to Him according to the retribution which God rendered to him—that is to say, has not equaled the magnitude of his thanksgiving to the magnitude of the salvation, nor measured out his own natural disposition against the benefit of the One who saved him—his retribution, since he has been preserved, is the affection which through works is paid back toward the One who saved; but with his heart lifted up,

^A as if he had not received from God, he deservedly receives the first anger which comes upon him, God permitting the devil to join battle with him in an intelligible sense, so to speak, and to unsettle the modes of virtue in his actions and to disturb the pellucid reasons of knowledge in his contemplation, so that when he has learned his own weakness, he may acknowledge the divine power which prostrates the affections and perturbations within us, and may be humbled, leading to repentance and casting away the swelling of that opinion which he has of himself. And thus, once God is appeased, he may turn away the anger that invades those who are doing penance, which takes away the grace that is the soul’s guardian and leaves him deserted who is ungrateful. You will understand the days of Hezekiah as the diverse illuminations of the aforementioned mind, which the intelligible Sun of Justice, who dwells in the intellect, fashions by his own rising.

^B The anger of God is the laborious sensation of those who are being chastened, or the induction of involuntary labors, through which God often leads to contraction and humiliation the mind that is puffed up on account of virtue and knowledge, granting that it may acknowledge itself and be conscious of its own weakness. But another anger of God is the repression of the supply of divine charisms; which indeed happens profitably upon every mind that is high and lofty, and that prides itself in the goods given to it by God as if they were its own rightful achievements.

Through divine providence there occurs upon the high-minded mind an anger of abandonment, or a permission that it be harassed by demons, both in action and in ^C contemplation: so that it may receive a sense of its own natural weakness, but an acknowledgment of the divine power and grace which covers it and brings about every good rightly, and it may be humbled, casting far away from itself the alien and unnatural height, so that another anger may not return upon it, namely, the taking away of the given charisms, once it has been humbled and acknowledges Him who provides the goods.

He who is not chastened by the first mode of anger falls into the second, and is deprived of the operation of the charisms, and is deserted by the virtue that guards him. For God says in other places: "I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for plunder; and I will tear down its wall, and it shall be for a trampling; and I will leave my vineyard, ^D and thorns shall come up in it as in untilled ground; and I will command the clouds that they not rain upon it." But how, when Hezekiah had fallen, did the anger come not only upon him, but also upon Judah and upon Jerusalem, even though the Lord has quite openly pronounced in other places that one shall not die for the sin of another, but each shall die in his own sin? Since we have taken Hezekiah to signify the mind that loves wisdom and God, and Judah to signify action, and Jerusalem indeed to signify contemplation; when

we believe the mind to have suffered in any way, we believe at the same time that its active and contemplative power has also suffered. For when the subject suffers, those things which are in the subject also suffer. For the mind is the subject, as it is capable of virtue and knowledge; whereas action and contemplation are in the subject, which indeed, as far as the mind is concerned, hold the place of accidents. Wherefore they suffer in every way together with the mind that suffers, having the movement of the latter as the principle of their own alteration. Rightly, therefore, does the reason of contemplation agree with the saying of Scripture, resolving the difficulty that appears. For the mind alone is exalted, pleasing itself greatly over a successful achievement and taking on airs; but action and contemplation are not naturally inclined to suffer this, as they are not ^B considered hypostatically by themselves, yet they are defiled at the same time when the mind is defiled in some respect.

And buried Hezekiah in the ascent of the sepulchers of the sons of David, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem gave him glory and honor at his death. David is interpreted, indeed, as "reckoning for nothing," but he is also interpreted as "one sufficient in hand." Such a person is Christ, whom the priests and rulers of the Jews, rejecting, reckoned for nothing, having become for our sake a reproach of men who do not believe the truth, and a casting aside for a people full of sins. He is the good shepherd ^C who lays down his life for us his sheep; who slew the lion and the bear, I mean anger and desire, which mangle and tear apart the beauty of the divine image within us. He is "ruddy" on account of the slaughter that he endured. [He has] "beauty of eyes," that is, glory of the higher reasons of providence and judgment. For the eyes of reason would be providence and judgment, through which he inspects and visits the entire universe. Or, he is "ruddy" on account of the alacrity of his life; and [has] beauty of eyes on account of the blameless reason of knowledge, ^D into which no reproach falls. He is the slayer of the intelligible and proud one, I mean the devil, who had a stature of five cubits, on account of the increase of his wickedness in the five senses of the body. He is the King of the true Israel, and of him who sees God, as far as is possible; even if Saul, namely the ancient people under the law, is maddened by envy, wasting away on account of unbelief, and not bearing the deprivation of temporary glory. From him he takes away the spear and the cruse of water; that is, the power of active virtue and the grace of contemplative knowledge, even if he again gives these things to those who cross over to him by faith, for the sake of those who are to be heirs of salvation from among the Jews. From him also, in the cave, he cuts off the skirt of his mantle; that is, the moral character pertaining to shameful behavior in ethics, or the lofty aspect in the meanings of legal symbols and omens...

which is ^A intelligence; he judges it unfitting for one to possess these things who is enclosed in a cave, namely, in the darkness of the sensible world and the shadow of the letter. For the twofold nature of the Law is double: that which appears and that which is understood, the corporal and the spiritual; he is the true Shepherd and King, and the slayer of opposing powers. A Shepherd, indeed, to those who pursue that philosophy which is concerned with action, and who, like grass, graze upon natural contemplation; but a King to those who are led by laws and spiritual reasons, and who are raised up to Him through a more divine contemplation. The sons of this David are the saints who were generated from him in the Spirit. Their sepulchres are the memories of the life they lived on earth according to God; the ascents of their sepulchres are the heights of the accomplishments stored in these memories, through which they ascended to God. In these, those who are established in them bury their modes of action and their reasons for contemplation. To these are joined all of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that mind which has laudably died to all that exists—to sensible things, through the laying aside of the activity that comes from the senses, and to intelligible things, through the resting of the mind's movement. Therefore, they bury the deceased Ezechias, who is remembered as the Power of God, as a mind that is excellent in action and in knowledge; that is, one who has voluntarily departed from all that exists and has approached Him who is above all things. All of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem—that is to say, his activity from virtue and his true contemplation from knowledge—bury him in the ascent of the sepulchres of the sons of David, in the heights, I say, of the memory of the saints who have existed from the age, giving him glory and honor: glory, indeed, because of the beauty in the image, and honor because of the imitation unto likeness. For the one is produced by the true contemplation of spiritual reasons, while the other is produced by the exact and accurate practice of the divine commandments. And as for the word "buried," understand it as "placed." It must be observed, however, that no one is recorded as being buried in the sepulchres of David, or in the ascent of the sepulchres of David. For our Savior Christ’s life in the flesh is incomparable and incomprehensible, in both ^C habit and in reason. "For His virtue, He says, covered the heavens," that is, even the supernal powers, by the excellence of its transcendence.

FROM THE BOOK OF EZRA. On Zerubbabel.

"And when the young man went forth, lifting his face toward heaven over against Jerusalem, he blessed the King of heaven, saying: From Thee is the victory, and from Thee is the wisdom and the brightness, and I am Thy servant."

Zerubbabel is interpreted as "sowing of confusion" or "rest." For he was sown in Babylon, which signifies confusion, since his parents were held captive there. And he arose there, from infancy... ^D

^A manifesting the beauty of virtue and knowledge; and having delivered the whole race from the servitude in which they lived there, he became a rest for them. Therefore, Zorobabel would be the philosophic mind, sown first through repentance in the confusion of passions and perturbations, then illuminating and showing their shame. Afterward, he frees the thoughts and the soul from such captivity and servitude, and leads them to rest. When this one goes forth from King Darius—I mean, from the natural law—having gained victory from it, he lifts his face to heaven, that is, the disposition of the soul in which the characters of good things reside, into the height of knowledge before ^B impassibility. For through impassibility, one is extended into the height of knowledge, seeking the giver of victory. For Jerusalem is interpreted as "vision of peace." By "victory," he means the strength of the practical life against the passions; by "wisdom," the knowledge of truth through contemplation; and by "glory," the beauty and splendor consisting of both, for when united they flash forth one radiance.

Then observe this also: "And I am thy servant." For through such a mind, as through a serving instrument, He brings about virtue and knowledge in man, while man contributes nothing other than a disposition willing towards good things. But the first ^C young man, having given to wine the power over all things, awarded the victory to the fervor of carnal pleasures. The second, having given this to the king, enigmatically signified that worldly glory has more power. But the third, Zorobabel, through the women, revealed that the end of virtues is love toward God and toward one's neighbor, and through the truth, the end of knowledges, or rather the principle of things that exist; I mean, God. The two young men bear the image of a body composed of matter and form. One assigns the victory to desire, the other to anger; for anger is a tyrannical thing. But Zorobabel holds the type ^D of the soul that is simple and incomposite in its essence. Wherefore he also set things in opposition to the wise one. For against carnal pleasures he set the spiritual, which is generated from said love; and against power, into which ruin falls, he set that into which it does not fall. And having thus discoursed and won, he liberated the people, as was treated above, and led them back into Judea—that is, into repentance and confession—and to Jerusalem—I mean, to the peaceful and impassible state—and he built the temple, that is, the knowledge capable of highest wisdom.

Another contemplation on Zorobabel.

^A which has shone upon those scattered by error. "For the sun of righteousness," He says, "shall rise for us, and the day-spring is His name." He is the one who, by word and deed, has conquered the whole world, and who truly sets free those who obey Him, and leads them back from darkness to light, and from vice to virtue, and from death to life, and from earth to heaven. He is the wise builder of the rational temple that is scorched by the fire of our passions, who constructed the temple of the assumption—not made by hands—in which He also dwelt. He is the one of whom the Holy Spirit foretold: "The hands of Zorobabel have founded this house, and his hands shall finish it," signifying both the former creation of man and his final re-creation within Himself. He called His hands the creative power. This is the Zorobabel in whose hand is the tin stone. And the eyes of this stone are seven. For the ancient Zorobabel is nowhere recorded by history to have possessed such a stone. Now, the hand of the new Zorobabel is the action of His commandments; the tin stone is faith in Him. For faith in Him is made manifest in the action of His commandments. Yet it is a stone because of its firmness and immovability with regard to truth; and [it is called] tin because tin characterizes it. For just as tin participates in the properties of both silver and lead, so does this [faith]—it glorifies if it is kept, but it punishes if it is not kept. For lead is a symbol of punishment, and silver is a symbol of splendor. ^B And the seven eyes of this faith—which consists in action—are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which Isaiah enumerated: the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of cognition, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of power, the spirit of the fear of God. It is proper to fear to abstain from evils; to power, to do good; to counsel, to discern opposing things; to knowledge, to know the modes of virtue; to cognition, to contemplate the reasons that are in the commandments; to understanding, to assent in the mind to the said modes and reasons; and to wisdom, the mystagogy of even more sublime and divine reasons, or instruction in mysteries. Isaiah, indeed, beginning from that which is close to God but last to us, descended to that which is closest to us but last to God, which is fear; for he says, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." ^C But I, on the contrary, having begun rather from fear, have ascended to wisdom, which is close to God but most remote from us. These are the seven eyes of the faith that is practiced in action, through which we are both illuminated and led to God, and are gathered to the one cause of the gifts, which itself distributes them.

Concerning those who were liberated from captivity and servitude, who went forth together with Zorobabel.

Now all those of Israel from twelve years old, besides children and women, were forty-three thousand three hundred and sixty. ^D Mind alone is that which was above the sensible and the temporal

^A for the senses are five; and time is seven, by which the twelve is completed; and in these the soul is released from the slavery which exists toward them, hastening to the Jerusalem above, having, besides children and women, forty-three thousand three hundred and sixty. Now the children are the cogitations of natural and irreprehensible passions; the women are the appetites and pleasures according to nature. For any food produces pleasure according to nature, comforting the hunger which preceded; and any drink repelling the annoyance of thirst; and any sleep restoring the faculty fatigued by waking. These cogitations and chosen pleasures are not enumerated with the men, as they do not exist by themselves; yet they go out together with them, as they flee from sin ^B and proceed toward justice; as they are necessary for the constitution of nature, but useful for the acquisition of virtue. Or also otherwise: they are not enumerated with the men, as they do not migrate together to the immortal life; for we pass over there without such cogitations and pleasures. But the forty thousand are the four general virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, with which, when the mind has passed beyond both nature and time, it is restored to the lot of freedom from passion. Or there are four general freedoms from passion, of which the first is a total abstinence from sin in action, seen in those who are being introduced. The second is the total rejection of passionate cogitations, consisting in those who are above them. The third is a total immobility regarding the passions, occurring in those who are higher. The fourth is a total purging ^C of the very bare imagination of the passions, seen in those who are perfect. And just as under each general virtue or freedom from passion, there are many particular virtues and freedoms from passion. But the three thousand silently signify the perfect theology. Three, indeed, on account of the three hypostases of the Godhead. A thousand, on account of the perfection of the theology concerning each of these. For the perfection of hundreds is the thousand; just as the ten is of units, and the hundred is of tens, and the ten thousand is of thousands; but the three hundred signify the reasons concerning virtue and nature. For being divided in thought into one hundred and two hundred, the number of one hundred will signify the perfect virtue multiplying by ten the decade ^D of the commandments written by God; the two hundred, the nature consisting of matter and form. For since the matter is quaternary, on account of the quaternion of its elements, and the form is quinary, on account of the fivefold sense which shapes material things, if you put together four fifties, you will make two hundred; which if you join again with the hundred, you will make three hundred, because of their being of good virtue. But the sixty indicate the effective power of the divine commandments; for in six days God made this world. And there are ten God-given commandments; and six times ten are sixty, with which together all that was formerly interpreted goes forth. But since there went out with them also children, and handmaids, and singers, and psalmists, and camels, and horses, and mules, and beasts of burden, these would be types of the various ranks of the Church, through whom

^A the dispositions of the believers were prefigured. For the boys and handmaids are those who, in fear of eternal punishments, undergo the burden of active philosophy and the austerity therein; of whom the boys are the stronger, and the handmaids the weaker. The

psalmists

singers

camels

horses

mules

beasts of burden

And when the enemies of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin heard, they came to know what the voice of the trumpets was; and they recognized that those from the captivity were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel

^A or obscurely, or surreptitiously taking. He transformed those four passions into a habit of virtue and knowledge, inserting them into virtuous men and those endowed with knowledge, so that through them he might lead those who labor in good away from the goal which is according to God, toward another.

Now the demons who preside over these four good things, having heard the sound of the trumpets, have come to discern what this might be. Trumpets are indeed the divine commandments, and their voice is their actions; perceiving this, the demons rise up toward wickedness.

And approaching Zorobabel, and Jesus, and the leaders of the ancestral houses, they say to them: "We will build with you; for like you, we listen to the Lord God, and we sacrifice to him from the days of Asbacaphath, king of Assur, who ^B made us migrate here." And Zorobabel, and Jesus, and the leaders of the ancestral houses said to them: "It is not for you and us to build a house to the Lord our God. For we will build alone."

Zorobabel is the active mind, as it is more warlike; Jesus is the contemplative, as it is more priestly. The leaders of the ancestral houses are the powers of the soul, under which are brought the modes of virtue and the reasons of knowledge. The demons of the aforementioned passions approach these, wishing to build the house of the Lord together. For no one of these ^C demons forbids the zeal of those who struggle according to God; but rather, having deceitfully amputated the deficiencies of the good, he suggests overindulgences, as if being eager together [with them], so that having lost the equal balance of the mean, we might unawares be carried away toward another dwelling place that is friendly to them.

And therefore they say, "Like you, we listen to the Lord, and we sacrifice to him," which is to say: "We accept the commandments of the Lord, and we cooperate with those who perform them"; and truly they do not turn away from these until the goal of the workers has inclined toward them, swerving from rectitude. For as for other demons, ^D anyone might easily discern them; but those who seem to assist the course of the life according to God, those who are after the likeness of Zorobabel and Jesus would scarcely discern, and reject their working together with them, knowing well that the admixing of this makes for the demolition of the entire building. For it does not look toward the glory of God, but to the passion and perturbation of soul to which the cooperating demons wish to transfer [us]. Therefore, some are demons who wage war through the deficiency of virtue, who suggest the passions of ignominy from anger and desire; others, however, are those who preside through excess, who are the leaders of the four passions.