OF OUR HOLY FATHER MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR, TWO HUNDRED CHAPTERS ON THEOLOGY AND THE INCARNATE DISPENSATION OF THE SON OF GOD
FIRST CENTURY OF CHAPTERS
A 1. God is one, without beginning, incomprehensible, containing the entire power of being; and he who excludes every reason of time and mode of being is, as it were, inaccessible to all, and known to no created thing by any natural representation.
2. God is not, by his own nature (as it is possible for us to know), a beginning, nor a middle, nor an end; nor is he anything at all of those things which, as subsequent to him, are understood by nature to exist in them. For he is immense and immovable and infinite, being infinitely superior to every substance, power, and operation.
3. Every substance that brings its own definition with it is by nature a beginning, B of the motion observed in it according to power. But every natural motion toward an operation, which is understood as being posterior to the substance but prior to the operation, is a middle, as being by nature interposed between the two as a medium. And every operation, defined by nature according to the reason proper to it, is the end of the essential motion that is, in thought, prior to it.
4. God is not substance, in the sense of the substance that is simply or in any way called such, so as to be a beginning; nor is he power or faculty, in the sense of the power or faculty that is simply or in any way called such, so as to be a middle; nor, finally, is he operation or action, in the sense of the operation or action that is simply or in any way called such, so as to be an end and essential limit of that motion which is understood as being prior to it according to power; C but he is a substance-making and super-substantial entity; and a power-making and super-powerful foundation; and a habit productive and endless of every operation; and, to speak briefly, he is the maker of every substance and power and operation, of beginning, middle, and end.
CENTURY I OF THE CHAPTERS ON THEOLOGY AND ECONOMY
5. A Beginning, middle, and end are properties of those things which are divided by time; nor would one err if he said [they are properties] also of those things which are understood in the aeon and the age. For time, having its motion measured, is circumscribed by numbers; but the aeon, having the category of "when" conceived along with its existence, suffers separation, as having received a beginning of being. If, then, time and the aeon are not without beginning, much more so are the things contained within them. God, enclosing the whole of "properly being" in every way within Himself, is superior even to that very "properly being." If this is so, in no way does anything of the things said to be, anywhere, possess the whole of "properly being." Therefore, nothing whatever is contemplated along with Him, from eternity, as distinct in essence: neither aeon, nor time, nor anything of the things dwelling in them. For "properly being" and "not properly being" do not ever coincide with one another.
6. B God is the one and only [being] truly and properly by nature, as one who contains and comprehends in Himself, in every way, the whole power of being, so that He stands out by that very being, truly and properly. If this is so, there is absolutely nothing of the things which are said to be which has being truly and properly. Therefore, nothing at all is understood from eternity, distinct by way of essence, together with Him as a fellow-being; not an aeon or age, nor anything of the things that exist within them. For it never comes to be that "to be truly and properly" and "not to be truly and properly" might correspond or concur.
7. C Every beginning and middle and end rejects every habit and relation completely, since they are compared to other things. But God, who infinitely and boundlessly exceeds every habit and relation completely, is deservedly neither a beginning nor a middle nor an end; nor is He at all anything else of those things in which a category—what they call "relative"—can be understood by comparison of equals.
8. D All things that exist are said to be "understood," having indemonstrable principles for the knowledge concerning them; but God is said to be not understood, but is believed to exist solely from the things that are understood; for which reason none of the things understood is in any way compared to Him.
9. The knowledges of things that exist have their own reasons, connected naturally toward demonstration, by which they are naturally defined; but God is believed to exist only through the reasons that are in these things. Giving to the pious an acknowledgment and faith [in the fact] that He is properly [God], which is stronger than any demonstration, for faith is true knowledge, having indemonstrable principles, as it is the substance of things existing beyond mind and reason.
10. God is the beginning of things that exist, and the middle and end—
God, as acting, but not suffering; just as all other things which are named by us. For He is the beginning as Creator; and the middle, as Provider; and the end, as the boundary. For, as it says, "Of him, and through him, and to him are all things." B
11. There is no soul using reason that is superior by essence to another soul using reason. For God, being good, in creating all souls according to His own image, brings forth each into being as self-moving; and each one, according to its own purpose, chooses either honor or, of its own accord, draws upon itself infamy and disgrace through its works.
12. God is the sun of righteousness, as it is written, radiating the beams of His goodness to all simply. The soul, however, is such that it is naturally inclined to become, by its own judgment, either as wax, if it be a lover of God, or as clay, if it be more addicted to earthly things. Just as, then, clay by its nature is dried by the heat of the sun, whereas wax is naturally softened, so too every soul, if it be more affected by earthly and worldly love, when admonished and rebuked by God, hardens in its will like clay, and—in the manner of Pharaoh—drives itself toward ruin and destruction. But every soul that is a lover of God is softened like wax, and receiving the forms and impressions of divine things, it becomes a dwelling-place of God in the Spirit. C
13. The one who has enlightened the mind with divine thoughts, and has accustomed the reason to honor the Creator unceasingly with divine hymns, and has sanctified the sense perception with pure and immaculate images—that person has added the voluntary good of "likeness" to the natural good of "the image."
14. One preserves the soul for God without stain if he forces his intellect to meditate only on God and His virtues; and makes his reason a correct interpreter and teacher of those same virtues; and teaches his sense perception to piously contemplate the visible world and all that is in it, reflecting the magnificence of the reasons within them to the soul. D
15. God has delivered us from the harsh oppression of the demons, and has bestowed upon us the very mild yoke of religious piety (that is, the modest sense of the soul, or rather, humility); because, then, all the power of the devil is subdued.
A And all good is provided to those who have chosen it, preserved uninjured and inviolate.
16. He who believes is seized by fear; but he who is seized by fear is humbled; and he who is humbled becomes mild, having received an inactive disposition toward the unnatural motions of anger and desire. But the mild person keeps the commandments; he who keeps the commandments is purified; he who is purified is illuminated; and he who is illuminated is deemed worthy, in the inner chamber of the mysteries, to lie with the Word, the Bridegroom. B
17. Just as a farmer, looking for a suitable piece of land to transplant some wild trees, stumbles upon an unexpected treasure; so too does every ascetic who is humble-minded and guileless, and smooth in soul regarding material roughness, proceed like the most blessed Jacob, when his father asked him about the manner of his knowledge: "What is this that you found so quickly, my son?" He answers, saying: "That which the Lord God delivered before me." For when God delivers to us the wise theorems of His own wisdom—the most ingenious reasons and contemplations—without labor, to us who were not expecting them, we should consider that we have suddenly found a spiritual treasure. For the proven Exercitant is a spiritual farmer, who transplants the speculation of things subject to the eyes, which are perceived by the senses—just as a wild tree—into the soil of spiritual things and those which are understood by the mind, and finding the treasure, that is, the manifestation of the wisdom existing in things which is by grace. C
18. Knowledge of divine theorems suddenly falling upon the monk who does not expect it because of his humility, breaks the spirit of one who seeks this with labor and toil for the sake of ostentation, and does not find it; and it generates in the foolish person groundless envy toward his brother, and a meditation on murder, and sorrow for himself, because he lacks the puffing up that comes from praise.
19. Those who seek knowledge with toil, and fail, either fail because of unbelief, or perhaps because they are about to be unskillfully arrogant and contentious against those who possess knowledge, like the people of old against Moses. To whom the law will forcefully say that some, having used force, went up into the mountain, D and the Amorite who dwelt in that mountain came out and wounded them. For it is necessary that those who feign virtue for the sake of ostentation not only fail, adulterating piety, but also that they be wounded by their own conscience.
20 A He who strives after knowledge for the sake of ostentation, and fails to attain it, should neither envy his neighbor nor grieve in his soul; but rather, as it is commanded, let him prepare himself in the neighborhood of such things—that is to say, by laboring diligently in the body to cultivate virtue, so that he may prepare and dispose his soul for knowledge.
21. Those who set about these things rightly and with piety, and who devise no methods of ostentation, will find the most brilliant contemplations of things meeting them halfway, producing in them a most precise understanding of them. To them the Law says: "Entering, inherit great and beautiful cities, and houses full of all good things, which you did not build; and hewn cisterns, which you did not hew; and vineyards and olive groves, which you did not plant." B For he who lives not for himself, but for God, becomes filled with all divine gifts—gifts which, until now, had not appeared due to the onrush of passions and the consequent disturbance and tumult.
22. Just as "sensation" is spoken of in two ways—the one by habit, which is present even when we are asleep, and perceives none of the objects [of sense], and, because it is not directed toward operation, is useless; and sensation in act, through which we perceive things that fall into the senses—so too is knowledge twofold. The one is scientific, merely reading the reasons of things by habit alone, which is of no benefit unless it extends toward the active fulfillment of the commandments. The other is practical, devoted to action in deed, which brings the true understanding of things through experience.
C 23. The hypocrite, as long as he seems to escape notice, remains quiet and silent. But if he is once caught, he puts forward virulent speeches, thinking that by the reproaches which he casts upon others he will cover his own shame. The Word [of Scripture], having compared him to the "offspring of vipers" * on account of his cunning, as one who is double-tongued, commands him to produce fruits worthy of repentance: that is to say, to transform the hidden disposition of the heart into that external and visible honesty of character.
24. Some say that any animal not judged clean by the law concerning those living in the air, on the land, and in the sea is a "beast," even if it appears tame by nature; and the Word uses the names of these to designate everyone according to their own particular vices.
25. He who feigns friendship to the harm of his neighbors is a wolf, covering the depravity of his own cunning mind with a sheep's skin. D When he finds someone of simpler character, or a word that...
might be thought or said according to a Christian disposition and far removed from all duplicity, he immediately seizes it and corrupts it, bespattering with innumerable accusations those into whose conversation or behavior he inveighs, acting indeed as a spy upon the freedom of the brethren which is in Christ Jesus A.
26. B He who feigns silence for the sake of malice plots deceit against his neighbor; failing in this, he departs, having added pain to his own disease and affection. But he who is silent for the sake of profit increases friendship, and will depart rejoicing, as one who has obtained an illumination by which the darkness is dispelled.
27. He who rashly interrupts the hearing of words in a meeting of brethren is not unaware that he is suffering from the disease of vainglory; caught by this, he throws out numberless paths and side-paths of arguments, wishing to break the sequence of what is being said.
28. The wise man, both teaching and being taught, wishes only to learn and teach those things that are useful. But he who falsely appears wise, whether asking questions or being asked, suggests only those things that are over-curious.
29. He who has shared in good things according to the grace of God is under an obligation to impart them generously to others. For, He says, freely you have received, freely give. For he who hides the gift under the earth accuses the Lord of being hard and austere, denying the cultivation of virtue to spare his flesh. But he who sells the truth to the enemies, being desirous of glory and unable to bear the shame, when he is later caught and convicted, hangs himself as a vainglorious man.
30. To those who are still fearful of the war against the passions, and who dread the incursion of invisible enemies, silence is necessary; that is, they must not handle the way of refutation on behalf of virtue, but rather yield their concern for themselves to God by prayer; to whom it is said in Exodus: The Lord will fight for you, and you will be silent. But those who, having already destroyed their pursuers, seek out the ways of the virtues for grateful instruction, need only have the ear of their mind opened; to whom He says, Hear, O Israel. To him, however, who, on account of his purity, fervently desires divine knowledge, filial confidence is appropriate; to whom it will be said, Why do you cry to Me? Therefore, to him for whom silence has been commanded out of fear, only flight to God is appropriate; to him whom it is commanded to hear, readiness to obey the divine commandments is becoming; but to the gnostic, crying out incessantly through supplication is suitable, as much for the averting of evils as for thanksgiving for the participation in good things.
31. A soul can never be stretched toward the knowledge of God unless God Himself, having used condescension, touches it and lifts it up to Himself. B
as much as it is possible for a human mind to be lifted up, and illuminates it with His own divine rays.
B 32. He who imitates the disciples of the Lord does not refrain, out of fear of the Pharisees, from doing what is necessary on the Sabbath by walking through the grain fields and plucking the ears of corn; but, having attained the tranquility of an imperturbable mind after the labors of action, he gathers the inner meanings of what has happened, being piously nourished by the divine knowledge of existing things.
33. He who according to the Gospel is only a believer moves the mountain of his own wickedness through action, casting away from himself the former disposition he had toward those things which fall under sense perception, due to their unstable instability. But he who is able to be a disciple, receiving the fragments of the gnostic loaves into his hands from the Word, feeds thousands, showing through action the power of the Word as it is multiplied. And he who has also been able to advance to be an apostle heals every disease and every infirmity, casting out demons—that is to say, putting to flight the activity of the passions—healing the sick, leading those who have been deprived of the habit of piety back to it through hope, and binding those who have become soft through sloth with the word of judgment. For he who has been commanded to tread upon serpents and scorpions destroys the beginning and the end of sin.
34. An apostle is thoroughly both a disciple and a believer; but a disciple is not indeed altogether an apostle, yet he is thoroughly a believer. He who is only a believer, however, is neither a disciple nor an apostle. Yet it is possible, by duly appointed methods of life and the cultivation of contemplation, for the third to pass over to the class and dignity of the second, and for the second to that of the first.
35. Whatever things are produced in time according to the nature of time, once they reach maturity and become adult, stop, with natural growth ceasing, and rest from motion. But whatever things are brought about by the knowledge of God through the principles of virtue, when they have already become perfect and adult, are moved again toward a greater increase. For their ends become the beginnings of other things. For he who has brought to rest within himself, through the practice of the virtues, the substance of those things that perish, has begun other, more divine formations; for God never ceases from good things, of which He Himself had no beginning. For just as it is the property of light to illuminate, so it is the property of God to do good. Wherefore, by the Law, He [abolishes] the beginning and end of the [things temporal].
order, the Sabbath is honored by cessation of work and rest; but in the Gospel, which imparts the state and reason of things spiritual and perceived by the mind, it is magnificently brightened and illustrated by the beneficence of good works. And though they may be indignant and bear it ill, of whom it is not yet explored that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; and that the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. 36. A There is, in the Law and in the Prophets, both a Sabbath and Sabbaths, and Sabbaths of Sabbaths; just as there is also circumcision, and the circumcision of circumcision: and harvest, and the harvest of harvest, according to that which is written: "When you reap your harvests." There is, therefore, the first Sabbath, [which is] the goal of that philosophy which consists in the cult of action, in natural speculation, and in divine knowledge. The second, [however], is the dismissal of generation and of the reasons pertaining to generation. The third, finally, is the intake and enjoyment of the reasons [or logoi] more spiritual, which transcend sensation and intellect. And this happens in a threefold manner in each of the things mentioned, so that the spiritual man and one advanced in knowledge may know the reasons according to which Moses, dying outside the holy land, keeps the Sabbath; and Jesus son of Nave, having crossed the Jordan, circumcises; and they who inherit the good land offer to God the harvest of the double harvest [mentioned] by way of superabundance.
37. The Sabbath is the imperturbability and tranquility of a rational soul; that is to say, of one which, by the cult of action and discipline, has utterly cast off the marks and scars of sin. C
38. Sabbaths are the liberty of a rational soul; [the liberty] of one, namely, which, through natural contemplation in the spirit, has repelled its very nature-driven operation toward sensation.
39. The Sabbath of Sabbaths is the spiritual cessation and rest of a rational soul; [the rest] of one which has drawn back the mind even from those reasons that are in the things which are more divine, and has bound it entirely to God alone by an erotic ecstasy, and has made it utterly immovable [and attached] to God through mystical theology.
40. D Circumcision is the casting off of the lustful affection of the mind, by which generation and becoming consists.
41. The circumcision of circumcision is the total abdication and amputation of even those natural movements of the mind concerning generation and becoming.
42. Harvest is [the state] of a rational soul, [the state of it] according to virtue.
43. There is a harvest, accessible to all, A which is the gathering and knowledge of the reasons of beings, joined with understanding, and which follows upon the mystical contemplation of intelligible things—a knowledge of God that comes to pass unknowably in the mind, which he who fittingly honors the Creator from visible and invisible creatures offers up as is worthy.
44. There is also another, more spiritual harvest, which is called the harvest of God himself; and another, more mystical circumcision; and another, more profound Sabbath, in which God, sabbatizing from his own works, gives rest, according to the saying: *The harvest indeed is plentiful; but the laborers are few.* And: *Circumcision of the heart in the spirit.* And: *God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it he ceased from all his works which God had begun to do.*
45. The harvest of God is the fixed and absolute dwelling and establishmBent for those who are worthy, taking place in him at the consummation of the ages.
46. Circumcision of the heart in the spirit is the complete removal, through the presence of the Spirit, of the natural operations of sense and mind regarding things perceived by sense or understood by the mind, by which both body and soul are entirely transformed toward that which is more divine.
47. The Sabbath of God is the complete return of created things into him, by which he makes his most divine operation—in a manner arcane and explainable by no words—to cease from their natural operation. For God does perhaps cease and rest from the natural operation in each thing, by which it is natural for each of the beings to be moved, when each of the beings, having arrived at the divine operation in proportion to its capacity, defines C its own natural operation toward God.
48. Studious men must inquire what works God began to create, and what, again, he did not begin. For if he ceased from all the works which he began to do, it is clear that he did not cease from those which he did not begin to do. Might it be, then, that the works of God which began to be in time are all things that participate, for instance, the diverse substances or natures and essences of things? For non-being (which they call nothing) has a priority over their being. For there was once a time when the things that participate were not. But the works of God which did not begin to be in time are those things which have the power to be participated in, of which the things that are participate by the gift of God; D of this sort are, for example, goodness, and whatever is contained under the category of goodness. And simply all life, and immortality, and simplicity, and immutability, and infinity, and all those things which are essentially contemplated around him—these are also the works of God, and they have not begun in time. For there was never a time before virtue, [nor] before anything else of the things mentioned; even if the things participating in them of themselves, have their beginning of being in time.
A As every virtue is without beginning, having no time prior to itself, since it has God as its most singular and eternal Begetter.
49. God is infinitely and beyond all measure removed from all things that exist, both those that participate and those that are participated in. For whatever has the account of being predicated of it is a work of God, even if the one began to be in time according to generation, while the other is innate to created things as a kind of natural power, clearly proclaiming God who is in all things.
50. All immortal things and immortality itself, all living things and life itself, all holy things and holiness itself, all virtuous things and virtue itself, all good things and goodness itself, and all existing things and existence itself, are manifestly the works of God. Yet some began to exist in time (for there was a time when they were not), while others did not begin in time. For there was never a time when virtue, goodness, holiness, and immortality were not. And those things which began in time exist and are called by participation in those that did not begin in time, being and being called what they are. For God is the creator of all life and immortality, of holiness and virtue; for He exists above the essence of all things that are conceived or spoken of.
51. The sixth day, according to Scripture, suggests C the completion of things that are under nature; the seventh describes the movement of temporal property; the eighth signifies the mode of the state that is above nature and time.
52. He who observes the sixth day only according to the law, fleeing the dominion of the passions that oppress the soul in act, passes fearlessly through the sea into the desert, keeping the Sabbath solely by the cessation of the passions. But he who has crossed the Jordan, and has abandoned even that state which is only at rest from the passions, has come into the inheritance of the virtues.
53. He who observes the sixth day in an evangelical manner, having first killed the initial movements of sin, reaches through the virtues the state of dispassion, which is a desert void of all vice; observing the Sabbath in the mind, even from the bare D thought of the passions.
A At, who has crossed the Jordan, migrates into the region of knowledge; in which the mind, mystically built up by peace, becomes a habitation of God in the spirit.
54. B He who has divinely completed the sixth day with the appropriate works and thoughts, and has himself also, together with God, brought his own works to a successful conclusion, has passed by his understanding beyond every substance subject to nature and time, and has migrated to the mystical contemplation of the ages and of those things that are eternal within them, sabbatizing ignorantly in his mind, with an immaterial abandonment and transcendence of all things that exist. But he who has been deemed worthy of the eighth stage has risen from the dead—I mean from all things that are subsequent to God, both sensible and intelligible, and from all concepts and thoughts—and has lived the blessed life of God, of Him who alone is truly and properly called Life and who exists as such, having himself also become god through deification.
55. C The sixth day is the complete fulfillment of the practical exercises concerning virtue that are according to nature; the seventh day, however, is the termination and rest of all natural thoughts and of the soul's reasonings concerning the ineffable knowledge of all things; D while the eighth day is the transition and passage to deification for those who are worthy. And perhaps the Lord, hinting more abstruse-ly at this seventh and eighth day, called them the day and hour of consummation, as they circumscribe the mysteries and logoi of all things. Neither the heavenly nor the earthly Powers will be able to know these at all before the experience of suffering, except for the blessed Deity Itself, who performs these things.
56. The sixth day signifies the logos of the existence of beings; the seventh day reveals the mode of their well-being and blessedness; the eighth day, finally, discloses the hidden mystery of their ever-well-being and ever-blessedness.
57. Knowing that the sixth day is a symbol of practical activity, which is devoted to action and the discipline of character, let us fulfill in it the entire obligation of the works of virtue, so that it may be said of us also: *And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good* (Gen. 1, 31).
58. He fulfills the obligation of the good work, which merits praise from God, who through the body diligently labors and brings to completion in the soul the ordered adornment of the virtues.
59. He who has fulfilled the Preparation—as we call the preparation of the works of righteousness—has passed on to the rest of the
contemplation; for having embraced in a manner worthy of God the reasons of all things, he rests from the movement of the mind concerning them. B
60. He who has become a participant in the seventh-day rest of God, becomes also, because of us, a participant in the eighth [day] operation of deification (that is to say, the mystical resurrection); for he himself leaves the linen cloths lying in the tomb, and the head-cloth—the sudarium—which had been placed upon his head. Those, moreover, who behold these things, if any be [a] Peter or [a] John, will believe that the Lord has risen.
61. The tomb is perhaps the tomb of the Master, or this world, or the heart of each of the faithful. The linen cloths are the reasons/logoi of sensible things along with the ways of virtue; the sudarium is the knowledge of intelligible things, together with the theology that is possible, simple and devoid of any complexity, by means of which the Word was known before, having a comprehension surpassing these for us, who—apart from these—would find Him entirely incomprehensible.
62. Those who bury the Lord honorably, will behold Him rising gloriously; to all others who are not of this sort, He is invisible. For He is no longer exposed to the plots of enemies, having no longer the outward coverings, by which He seemed to want to be captured by those who desired it, and sustained [suffering] for the salvation of all.
63. He who buries the Lord honorably is venerable to all who love God; for he has rightfully carried Him, who was nailed to the wood, away from triumph and reproach, not leaving Him to be a subject of blasphemy for unbelievers, as one exposed to public ignominy, but has freed Him from it. As for those who place seals upon the tomb, and set soldiers as guards, they are hateful for this undertaking; for they slander the Word, even when He has risen, as if He were stolen, bribing [others] with money, just as [they did] the false disciple for his betrayal. (By "the false disciple" I mean the ostentatious way of virtue, and similarly they hire the soldiers for the slander of the risen Savior.) C The gnostic knows the significance of these things; he is not ignorant how and in how many ways the Lord is crucified, and buried, and rises again; for he renders as dead the passionate thoughts [logismoi] that sit within the heart at the instigation of demons, and those that divide—like garments—the ways of moral excellence in times of temptation. And he surmounts, like seals, those imprints upon the soul of sins [committed] through prepossession, and crosses over them as if they were brands [stigmata] adhering to the soul.
64. Every lover of money, who feigns virtue for the sake of piety, as soon as he finds a way and method to acquire the material [things] he desires, abjures the conduct by which he was previously thought to be a disciple of the Word.
65. When you see some proud men not bearing to be praised—[those] who are better than themselves—and struggling to make the proclaimed truth unspoken, hindering it with myriad temptations and impious slanders, reflect for me that the Lord is being crucified again by them. D
A And he is to be buried; and he is to be guarded by soldiers and by seals. The Word, overturning these things by their own machinations, rises again: the more He is impugned, the more He shines forth, because He is surely hardened in the things He endures toward impassibility and imperturbability. For He is stronger than all things, as He is the truth and is called such.
66. The mystery of the incarnation of the Word has the power of all the enigmas and figures in Scripture, and the knowledge of created things, both those seen by the eyes and those understood by the mind. And he who has known the mystery of the cross and burial has known the reasons for the things previously mentioned; but he who has been initiated into the secret power of the resurrection has known the purpose for the sake of which God first established all things. B
67. All visible things have need of the cross; that is, of a disposition that restrains the affect and habit toward them of those things being acted upon by sense. All intelligible things, however, have need of burial; that is, of a total cessation and quiet of those things being acted upon by the mind. For with the affect or habit, and the natural operation and movement toward any things whatsoever being removed, the Word alone appears by Himself, as if raised from the dead, having all things that are from Him according to circumscription, although no thing at all has any affinity with Him by natural habit. For it is by grace, and not by nature, that the elect attain salvation. C
68. Among relative things are also the ages, and the times, and the places; without which, nothing of those things conceived together with them exists. But God is not among relative things; for He has nothing at all conceived together with Him. If, therefore, God Himself is the inheritance and possession of the saints, he who has merited to attain this gift will be above all ages and times and places, having God Himself as his place, according to what is written: "Be to me a God, a protector, and a fortified place, to save me" (Ps. lxx, 5).
69. The end has nothing at all in common with a middle; otherwise, it would not be an end. But a middle is all those things that are behind the end, after the beginning. If, therefore, all the ages and the times and the places, together with all things conceived together with them, are after God, D who is the beginning without beginning; and as they exist far behind Him as an infinite end, they do not differ at all from a middle; but God is the end of those who are saved, no notion of a middle will be understood as accompanying these, who have become like the supreme end.
A The whole world is limited by its own ratios, and is called both place and age, of those dwelling within it; having by nature the modes of contemplation [theorematon] inherent in it, it is able to generate in them a partial understanding of the wisdom of God that is over all things. As long as they use these for understanding, they cannot be without a middle and a partial apprehension. But since that which is in part shall be rendered void when the perfect has appeared, and all mirrors and enigmas shall pass away, with the truth that is face to face arriving, the one who is saved and perfected according to God shall be above all worlds, ages, and places, by which he was hitherto being led like an infant.
69 Pilate is a type of the law according to nature; the multitude of the Jews is a type of the written law. Whoever, therefore, relying on faith, has not risen above these two laws, cannot receive the truth which is above nature and [discursive] reason; but he will entirely crucify the Word, judging the Gospel to be a stumbling-block as a Jew, or foolishness as a Greek.
70 When you see Herod and Pilate B becoming friends with each other for the removal of Jesus, then understand the concurrence to the same end: of the demon of fornication and of the demon of vainglory agreeing with each other to put to death the word of virtue and knowledge. For the demon of vainglory, pretending [to offer] spiritual knowledge, sends [the soul] over to the demon of fornication; and the demon of fornication, pretending to [offer] purity by his withdrawal for a time, sends it back to the demon of vainglory. Therefore, the Scripture says, *Herod, having clothed Jesus in a bright robe, sent him back to Pilate.*
71 It is good not to allow the mind to pay attention to the flesh and to the passions. *For they do not gather,* it says, *figs from thorns*—that is, virtue from passions; *nor grapes from a thornbush*—that is, the knowledge that gladdens the soul from the flesh.
72 By the endurance of temptations C the ascetic is tested, and by bodily disciplining is cleansed, and by the careful study of high contemplations is perfected, and is deemed worthy of divine consolation. For the Lord, says Moses, *comes from Sinai*—that is, from temptations; *and He appeared*...
A from Mount Pharan with ten thousand of Kadesh; that is, from the mountain of the faith, with myriads of holy knowledges.
75. Herod holds the place of the disposition of the flesh; Pilate, of sense; Caesar, of the things that fall under sense; the Jews, of the rational faculties of the soul and its thoughts. Since, therefore, the soul, through ignorance, clings to the things that fall under sense, it delivers up the Word to sense unto death, confirming for itself, by its own profession, the empire of corruptible things. For the Jews say: *We have no king but Caesar* B.
76. Herod holds the place of the operation of the passions and iniquities; Pilate, of the habit deceived by them; Caesar, of the ruler of this dark world; the Jews, of the soul. Whenever, therefore, the soul, having been subjected to the passions, delivers up virtue enslaved to the habit of malice, it openly renounces the kingdom of God, and passes over to the destructive tyranny of the devil.
77. It does not suffice for the soul unto spiritual rejoicing that the passions be subjected, unless it also acquires virtues through the fulfillment of the commandments. *Do not rejoice,* He says, *because the demons are subjected to you* C—that is, the operations of the passions—*but because your names are written in heaven*—by the grace of adoption through the practice of the virtues, inscribed in the place and dwellings of imperturbability and of the most tranquil state.
78. It is entirely necessary for one who excels in knowledge and devotes himself to the study of contemplation, that he should also abound in the virtues through action. *For he who has a purse,* he says—that is, excels in spiritual knowledge—*let him likewise take a scrip*—that is, the abundance of the virtues that D copiously and liberally nourish the soul; *but he who does not have a purse and scrip*—that is, knowledge and virtue—*let him sell his garment, and buy a sword*. He says, let him readily deliver his own flesh to the labors of the virtues, and wisely undertake, on behalf of the peace of God, the war against the passions and the demons; that is, let him acquire a habit of this kind, which, in the Word of God, distinguishes what is worse from what is better (namely, vice from virtue).
79. The Lord appears and is manifest when He is thirty years old; for by this numerical principle He secretly teaches those who are more discerning the mysteries concerning Himself. For the number thirty, when understood mystically, introduces the Lord as the Creator and provident Governor of time, of nature, and of those things which are perceived by the mind above visible nature. Of time, indeed, through the seven, for time is heptadic; of nature, through the five, for nature is pentadic, being divided in five ways according to sensation; and of intelligible things, through the eight...
A (for the origin and source of intelligible things exists as a period superior to time); and of providence, through the ten, both because of the holy decad of the commandments, which leads men toward a well-ordered life, and because the name of the Lord, when He became man, began from that element which is the character of that number. Having therefore joined the five, the seven, the eight, and the ten, you complete the number thirty. He, then, who knows how to follow the Lord as a Guide and Author well, will not be ignorant of the reason why He also appears at thirty years of age, being able to preach the Gospel of the kingdom. For when anyone, in an irreproachable manner, as though it were a visible nature, has established the world of the virtues according to practice, not altering the period of the soul—which, as it were, happens through opposite things—and through contemplation has faultlessly harvested the knowledge B of intelligible things, and has been able to providentially instill this same habit in others, then he too, whatever his bodily age may be, exists spiritually at thirty years of age, manifesting in others the power of his own goods.
80. He who is paralyzed by the pleasures of the body is neither active toward virtue nor swift toward knowledge. Whence he does not even possess a man—that is, a prudent reasoning—so that when the water is troubled, he might cast himself into the pool, that is, into the virtue receptive of knowledge, which heals every ailment, unless—perhaps through lethargy—the sick man, delaying, is forestalled by another who prevents him from attaining healing. Hence, he lies in his illness for thirty-eight years. For he who does not look at the visible creation to the glory of God, and does not piously raise his thought toward the intelligible nature, rightfully remains sick for the aforementioned number of years. For the number thirty, taken naturally, signifies the sensible nature; just as, when considered practically, it signifies practical virtue. But the number eight, understood naturally, C signifies the intelligible nature of the incorporeal beings; just as, when contemplated gnostically, it signifies the all-wise theology. To these, he who is not moved toward God remains paralyzed, until the Word comes and teaches him the short way of healing, saying: "Arise, take up your bed, and walk"—meaning, to rouse the mind from the self-indulgence that possesses it, and to take up the body on the shoulders of the virtues, and to depart to the house, namely, heaven, being urged onward. For it is good, under D the leadership of the Better, to take up the worse on the shoulders of practice, for the sake of virtue, or rather [to have] the Higher...
through [our] softening, be carried by the worse toward the love of pleasure. A
81. As long as we have not fully gone beyond the realm of our own substance and nature and [that] of all things after God, by way of the intellect, we have not yet obtained the state of immutability which is bestowed through virtue. But when, through love, we have attained this dignity, then shall we know the power of the divine promise. For it must be believed that those who are worthy and upright are to be found in a firm and immovable station, where the mind, having anticipated [this] through love, has taken root in its own power. For he who has not gone beyond himself and everything that can in any way be thought, and has not stood in the silence that surpasses every thought of the mind, cannot be entirely exempt from change. B
82. Every thought or intellection certainly has the appearance of multitude or, at the very least, of duality. For it is a certain relation between two extremes, joining together both the one that thinks and the one that is thought. Neither, by its nature, is able to preserve simplicity. For the one that thinks is a certain subject, having joined to it, as its companion, the power of thinking; and the one that is thought is also some subject, or is in a subject—having joined to it the power of being thought, or the pre-existing substance whose power it is. For nothing at all among existing things is, in itself, a simple substance or intellection, so as to be an indivisible monad. C But God, whether we call Him substance, is not such that the power of being thought is naturally joined to Him, lest He be composite; nor, if we call Him intellection, does He have a subject substance naturally receptive of thought; but God is, according to His substance, intellect; and He is all intellect, and D
He is understood, lest he be composite; or rather, he does not have a nature as a subject substance that is capable of intellection and receives it, but God himself is intellection by essence; and he is entirely intellection, and entirely A intellection by essence, and entirely substance and solely so; and entirely beyond substance, and entirely beyond intellection, because he is also an indivisible, impartible, and simple monad. Therefore, whoever has intellection according to any thought has not yet departed from the dyad; but he who has completely abandoned this has, in some manner, come to be in the monad, having laid aside the power of thinking in a transcendent way.
83. On the difference among creatures and the simplicity of God
83. In the many, there is difference, dissimilarity, and distinction; but in God, who exists truly as one and alone, there is only identity, simplicity B, and likeness. It is not safe, therefore, to apply your mind to contemplations concerning God before you have departed from the many. Moses declares this, when he set up the tabernacle of his mind outside the camp, and only then came into conversation with God. For it is not without danger to attempt to speak and declare in that kind of speech which is uttered by the mouth him who exceeds all power of speech; for such speech is dual, and it is something more. But to consider and contemplate him who is, with the soul alone without voice, that is indeed most powerful, because it stands in the indivisible monad and not in the many. For the high priest, who is commanded to enter inside the veil into the Holy of Holies only once a year, C teaches that only he who has traversed the courts and the holy places, and has come inside into the Holy of Holies—that is, he who has gone beyond the entire nature of things perceived by the senses and those understood by the mind, and has become pure from every property of origin—it is he who, with a naked and unclothed mind, should approach the visions concerning God.
84. Great Moses, having pitched his own tabernacle outside the camp—that is, having established his judgment and mind outside of visible things—begins to worship God; and having entered into the cloud, the unseen and immaterial place of knowledge, D he remains there, performing the most sacred mysteries and being initiated into them.
A 85. The cloud is the unseen, immaterial, and bodiless state, which possesses the exemplary knowledge of all things; within which he who has entered, like another Moses, considers with his mortal nature the things that are invisible. Through this knowledge, having painted on himself the beauty of the divine virtues, as a painting that clearly and well possesses the likeness of the archetypal beauty, he descends; he puts himself forward as an example to those who possess the desire to imitate virtue, and in this he demonstrates the goodness and abundance of the grace he has received.
86. Those who pursue the philosophy according to God without stain, find the greatest profit from the knowledge that belongs to it; namely, that their mind no longer changes along with things and their shifts, but with constant firmness, they undertake with a ready and eager spirit whatever virtue conforms to reason.
87. We who have been baptized first in Christ in the flesh through the Spirit, wait for the final corruption [having acquired the first incorruption], according to Him in the Spirit; by the increase of good works, clearly, and by that death which is provided by the intention of the soul, while keeping the former unpolluted. He who has attained this fears no loss of the goods that he possesses.
88. To those upon the earth, God, willing to send down from heaven for the sake of mercy the gift of divine virtue, symbolically constructed the sacred tabernacle and all its vessels; which was undoubtedly an express image, figure, and reflection of wisdom.
89. The grace of the New Testament is mystically hidden in the letter of the Old Testament; therefore the Apostle says that the law is spiritual (Rom. vii. 14). The law, therefore, is antiquated and grows old by the letter, being brought to nothing; but by the spirit it is always active and flourishes. For grace is such that it suffers no loss from age at all.
90. The law indeed has a shadow of the Gospel; but the Gospel is an image of the good things to come (Heb. viii. 15). For the one forbids the doing of evil; the other sets forth and presents the actions of good.
91. We say that the whole of Holy Scripture is divided into flesh and spirit, as if it were a certain spiritual man. For he who says of the text of Scripture, that it is [translation continues on next page]
A flesh, but its understanding and sense, spirit, has not strayed from the truth. But he is clearly wise who, abandoning that which is corrupted and perishes, cleaves entirely to that which is subject to no corruption.
92. The Law is flesh for the man who is spiritual according to Holy Scripture; the prophets are the sense; and the Gospel is the rational soul; which works through the flesh (that is, the Law) and through the sense (that is, the prophets), and manifests its own power by its deeds.
93. The Law had a shadow, but the prophets had an image of the divine and spiritual goods that are contained in the Gospel. But the Gospel itself has shown us the truth itself as present through its letters—that truth which was shadowed by the Law and prefigured by the prophets. B
94. He who fulfills the Law by his life and conduct, desists only from the conclusions of evil, sacrificing to God the operation of his irrational passions; and in this way, because of his spiritual infancy, he manages well enough for his salvation.
95. He who is tutored by the prophetic word, besides casting away the operation of his passions, also exposes the consents to them that are formed within his soul, so that, while he seems to abstain from evil in the inferior part—that is, the flesh—he may not unknowingly practice it abundantly in the superior part, which I call the soul. C
96. He who genuinely embraces the life of the Gospel has cut off from himself both the beginning and the end of evil, and he pursues every virtue by deed and by word, offering sacrifices of praise and confession, having been released from all the annoyance of the passions in action, and being freed from that battle which is waged against them in the mind; and he possesses only that insatiable pleasure which feeds the soul on the hope of future goods.
97. To those who take greater care in the study of the divine Scriptures, the Word according to the Lord appears in a double form; the one common and more popular and visible to not a few, according to which it is said, "We saw him, and he had no form or beauty" (Isa. LIII, 2); the other, more hidden and attainable by few, namely by those who have already become like the holy apostles Peter and James and John, in whose presence the Lord was transfigured into a glory that surpasses sense, D according to which He is beautiful in beauty beyond the sons of men.
rat; qua est speciosus forma prae filiis hominum. B Of this twofold form, the former is suitable for those who are being introduced and are beginners; the latter is appropriate for those who have been perfected in knowledge, as far as is possible. And the former is an image of the first coming of the Lord, to which the letter of the Gospel should be referred, which purifies those who are dedicated to action through the endurance of evils and tribulations; the latter is a prefiguration of the second and glorious coming, to which we understand the Spirit refers; C for it transforms those who are spiritual and cultivated in the knowledge of divine things toward deification, through the transformation of the Word in them, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord.
98. He who stands unshaken in virtue amidst terrible things has within himself the first coming of the Word, which cleanses him from every stain. But he who, through contemplation, has transferred his mind to a state akin to the angels, possesses the power of the second coming, which provides him with immunity from evils and ensures he cannot be harmed by opposing things.
99. Sensitivity belongs to the practical man who, through toil, accomplishes the virtues; but for the wise and spiritual man, the absence of sensation and the stupor which has drawn the mind D from the flesh and the world toward God, is what applies. For the former, while striving through action to release the soul from the natural bonds of the relationship to the flesh, frequently has his spirit grow weary under these labors; but the latter, having torn out the nails of this relationship through the power of contemplation, is now entirely ungraspable, already made pure from that nature by which one is affected, held, or subjected by those who would wish to seize or assault him.
100. The manna given to Israel in the desert is the Word of God, sufficient for every spiritual pleasure for those who eat of it, and tempered to every taste according to the diverse desire of those eating; for it possesses the quality of every spiritual food. For this reason, to those who have been born again from incorruptible seed by the Spirit, it becomes rational, guileless milk; to those who are infirm, it becomes an herb, refreshing the struggling power of the soul which is subject to the passions; and to those who, because of habit, have the senses of the soul exercised for the discernment of good and evil, it offers itself as solid food. The Word of God also has other infinite virtues which no one can grasp in the present age; but whoever has been faithful in little here, once released from this mortal life, will be found worthy to be set over many, or all things, and will receive all or some of those powers of the Word. For the height of all divine gifts given in this present life is but a tiny and moderate thing in comparison with those to come.
SECOND CENTURY OF GNOSTIC CHAPTERS
1. One God, that there is one divinity; a monad, that is...
and an unoriginated, simple, and super-essential nature; impartible and indivisible; the same being monad and Trinity: A the whole is monad and the same, and the whole is Trinity and the same. The whole is monad according to essence, and the whole is Trinity according to the hypostases. For the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Godhead, and the Godhead is in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. It is the same whole in the whole Father; and the Father is whole in the same whole. And it is the same whole in the whole Son; and the Son is whole in the same whole. And the same whole is in the whole Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is whole in the same whole. The Father is the whole, and is in the whole Father; and the Father is whole in the whole, and the Father is the whole of the whole. And the Son is the whole of the whole; and the same whole is in the whole Son; and the Son is the whole of the whole, and is in the same whole. And the Holy Spirit is the same whole, and is in the whole Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is the whole of the whole, and the Holy Spirit is in the same whole. For the Godhead is not in the Father by part, nor is the Father God by part; nor is the Godhead in the Son by part, nor is the Son God by part; nor is the Godhead in the Holy Spirit by part, nor is the Holy Spirit God by part. For the Godhead is not divisible; nor is the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit an incomplete God; but the same whole is perfectly and entirely in the perfect Father; and the same whole is B perfectly and entirely in the perfect Son; and the same whole is perfectly and entirely in the perfect Holy Spirit. For the Father is whole and perfect in the whole Son and Spirit; and the Son is whole and perfect in the whole Father and Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is whole and perfect in the whole Father and Son. Wherefore God is one, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For one and the same is the essence, and power, and operation of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; since neither of them exists or is understood without the other.
2. All intellection belongs to those who think and to those things which are thought; but God is neither of those who think nor of those things which are thought; for He is above these. Since, if He were circumscribed, He would be needing the relation to that which is thought as a thinker, or He would be falling naturally under the thinker, being thought because of the relation. It remains, therefore, to assume that God neither thinks nor is thought, but that He is above thinking and being thought. For thinking and being thought belong naturally to those things which are after Him.
3. All intellection, just as in an essence it altogether has its position as a quality, so in like manner it has its motion concerning an essence imbued with quality. C For it is impossible that any thing at all that is absolute and simple, existing by itself, should receive it, since it itself is not absolute and simple. But God, being altogether simple in both respects—both as an essence without a subject, and as an intellection having no subject at all—is not among those things which think or are thought, as existing, clearly, above essence and intellection.
4. Just as in the center of the lines extended from it in a straight direction, D it is considered to be indivisibly altogether position;
thus he who is deemed worthy to become in God, A will know all the reasons of the things that exist which pre-exist in Him, according to a simple and indivisible knowledge.
5. Intellection, being formed by the things that are understood, becomes many intellections, being formed according to the species of each of the things that are understood. But when, having passed beyond the multitude of sensible and intelligible things that form it, it becomes entirely without form, then the Word that is above intellection appropriately adopts it to Himself, causing it to cease from those things which are accustomed to alter it with the forms of the objects of thought; and having undergone this, he himself also ceased from his works, just as God did from His own.
6. B He who has attained the perfection here granted to mortals, bears fruit to God: love, joy, peace, long-suffering; and for the future age, incorruption, the eternity of being, and things similar to these. And perhaps the first things are appropriate for him who has completed the practical life; but the second, for him who has departed from created things through true knowledge.
7. Just as sin is the proper work of disobedience, so virtue is the proper work of obedience. And just as transgression of the commandments follows disobedience, and division from Him who gave the commandments, so observance of the commandments follows obedience, and union with Him who gave the commandment. Therefore, he who by obedience has kept the commandment, has both wrought righteousness and has kept an indivisible union through love with Him who gave the commandment. But he who through disobedience has transgressed the commandment, has both wrought sin and has separated himself C from the unity with Him who gave the commandment.
8. He who is gathered from the division that grew out of the transgression is first separated from the passions; then from the impassioned thoughts; then from nature and the reasons concerning nature; then from the objects of thought and the knowledge concerning them; and lastly, having escaped the diversity of the reasons concerning Providence, he arrives unknownly at the very reason of the Monad; considering the immutability of his mind in this alone, the mind rejoices with an ineffable joy, as having received the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, and which continuously renders him who is worthy of it safe and secure from every fall. D
9. The fear of Gehenna prepares those who are being introduced and are beginners to flee wickedness. But the love and desire for the retribution of good things grants to those who are progressing the readiness to perform the virtues with a lively spirit. But the mystery of charity surpasses all things that have been
A raising the intellect above to those things which are secondary to God, renders it blind. For the Lord makes only those wise who are blind to all things that have come to be after God, by revealing to them the more divine things.
10. The Word of God, being like a grain of mustard, appears very small before cultivation; but when it has been duly cultivated, it reveals itself to be so great that the magnificent reasons (logoi) of created things, both those perceived by the senses and those understood only by the mind, come to rest upon it like birds B. For the reasons of all things are contained by it; yet it itself is not contained by any of the things that exist. Therefore the Lord said that he who has faith as a grain of mustard can by a word move a mountain; that is, to drive away the power of the devil against us and to remove it from its base.
11. The grain of mustard is the Lord, sown according to faith in the Spirit within the hearts of those who receive it. He who diligently cultivates it by means of the virtues, moves the mountain of earthly-mindedness, casting off by his own power the difficult-to-move habit of malice itself; and he makes the reasons of the commandments—or even the divine powers—rest upon himself like the birds of the air.
12. Upon the Lord, as upon a certain foundation of faith, we build up the high peak of good things, let us place gold, silver, and precious stones; that means pure and unadulterated theology, a clear and shining life, and divine thoughts—those pearly notions. But let us not place upon it wood, hay, or straw; that is, neither the worship of idols—which is to say, an C animus addicted to and fixed upon sensible things—nor a life devoid of reason, nor impassioned thoughts, which, like stalks of grain, are bereft of the understanding that comes from wisdom.
13. He who desires knowledge should plant the foundations of his soul firmly with the Lord, as God says to Moses: "But you, stand here with me" [*]. It must be noted, however, that there is a difference even among those who stand with the Lord, if we do not read inattentively, as those who love learning should, the passage: "There are some of those standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God come in power" [*]. For the Lord does not always appear with glory to all who stand by him; but to those who are being initiated and are novices, he comes in the form of a servant; yet to those who are able to follow him as he ascends the high mountain of his transfiguration D, he appears in the form of God, in which he existed.
[alt-version omitted]
A before the world was. It is possible, therefore, that the same Lord does not appear in the same way to all who stand in his presence, but rather in one way to some and another way to others, clearly varying the vision according to the measure of faith in each one.
14. When the Word of God becomes manifest and brilliant within us, and his face shines like the sun, then his garments also appear white: that is, the words of the holy Scripture of the Gospels, luminous and clear, having nothing hidden or abstruse. But Moses and Elias also arrive with him: that is, the more spiritual doctrines of the Law and the Prophets.
15. As the Son of Man is to come, as it is written, with his angels in the glory of his Father, so too at every advancement in virtue B the Word of God is transformed for those who are worthy, coming with his angels in the glory of the Father. For the more spiritual doctrines in the Law and the Prophets, which Moses and Elias prefigured through themselves by appearing with the Lord at the time of the Lord's transfiguration, preserve the proportion of the glory that is in them, revealing the power that those who are worthy are able to grasp for the time being.
16. He who has been initiated into the doctrine concerning the Monad surely also knows the doctrines concerning Providence and Judgment that accompany it. Thus, like Peter, he rightly judges that it is good to make three tabernacles C for those who appeared; that is, the three states of salvation: I mean that of virtue, that of knowledge, and that of theology. For the first requires the fortitude and temperance of action, of which the blessed Elias was the type. The second, the justice of natural contemplation, which the great Moses indicated by himself. The third, finally, is the perfection of true prudence, which the Lord manifested. These were called tabernacles, because there are other abodes, better and more illustrious than these, which will receive those who are worthy in the future.
17. He who is practical is said to sojourn D in the flesh, as he cuts off from his soul the attachment to the flesh through the virtues and removes from himself the deception of earthly things. But the one who is contemplative is said to sojourn even within virtue itself, as if in mirrors.
A And he still views the truth in a riddle. For the self-subsistent forms of good things, such as they are, have not yet been manifested to him through the face-to-face enjoyment. For every saint walks, in an image of good things, toward the future, crying out: "I am a sojourner and a stranger, as were all my fathers."
18. He who applies himself to prayer must never halt in the high ascent that leads to God. For as we must understand ascents as being, according to the progress from strength to strength in the practice of the virtues; and the ascent from glory to glory in the spiritual knowledge of contemplation; and the transition from the letter of the holy and divine Scripture to the Spirit B—so also must the one who is in the place of prayer act: he must lift his mind away from human things, and the disposition of his soul toward more divine things, so that the mind may also be able to follow Jesus, the Son of God, who has passed through the heavens, who is everywhere present and who passes through all things for us in a dispensational manner; so that we, too, following Him, may pass through all things that are after Him, and come to be with Him, if indeed we know Him—not according to the littleness of the dispensational condescension, but according to the magnitude of the natural limitlessness.
19. It is good always to have leisure and to seek God, as we have been commanded. For even if, while seeking C in this present life, we cannot arrive at the end of the depth of God; yet perhaps, in reaching even a little of His depth, we behold things holier than holy things, and things more spiritual than spiritual things. And this the high priest declares typically, entering from the holy things, which are more holy than the courtyard, into the Holy of Holies, which are holier than the holy things.
20. Every word of God is neither long-winded, nor is it mere proliferation of words; but it is one, consisting of various theorems, each part of which is a part of the word. Therefore, he who speaks for the truth, even if he manages to speak in such a way that nothing is lacking in the query D of what is sought, has spoken the one word of God.
21. In Christ, being God and the Word of the Father, the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily according to essence; but in us, the fullness of the Godhead dwells by grace, when we have gathered together in ourselves every virtue and wisdom, lacking nothing, as far as is possible for man, in the true imitation of the Archetype. For it is not absurd, according to the word of participation, that the fullness of the Godhead, which is gathered from various spiritual theorems, should also dwell in us.
22. Just as the word among us, from the mind in accordance with...
A nature, is a messenger and interpreter of the movements of the mind—which remain hidden—so also the Word of God, having known the Father in essence just as the Word knows the Mind that begat Him, without any of those who are begotten being able to approach Him without Him, reveals Him whom He knows to be the Father, as Word by nature; just as He is also called the Messenger of the Great Counsel.
23. The Great Counsel of God and the Father is the silent and unknown mystery of the Dispensation, which the Only-begotten Son, having fulfilled it through the Incarnation, revealed, having become the Messenger of the Great and eternal Counsel of God and the Father. B Now he becomes a messenger of the Great Counsel of God who has known the reason of the mystery, and who rises up through everything ceaselessly in deed and in word, until he reaches Him who for his sake descended to such a degree.
24. Since for our sake the Word of God descended *economically* to the lower parts of the earth, and ascended above all the heavens; He who is by nature in every way immovable; in Himself *economically*—as man—fore-acting the things that are to be; let him consider mystically—he who loves the friendship of knowledge—what kind of end, according to the promise, belongs to those who love the Lord.
25. Indeed, for this reason the Son of God and Father, God the Word, became Son of Man and man, that He might make men gods and sons of God; let us believe that we shall one day be there, where He Himself now is as Head of the whole body, and having become our forerunner to the Father, according to our nature. For God shall stand in the midst of the synagogue of gods (that is, of those being saved), distributing the dignities of the blessedness that is there; having no distance of space from those who are worthy.
26. He who still fulfills the passionate desires of the flesh, as an idolater and a maker of idols, dwells in the land of the Chaldeans. But when, having C discerned things for a little while, he receives a perception of the manners of nature that are becoming [to us], having left the land of the Chaldeans, he comes to Charran of Mesopotamia—I mean the state that is intermediate between virtue and vice, that which has become separate from the error according to sense perception. For this is what Charran means. But if he should also surpass the mediocre understanding of the good and honest, which is provided through the senses, he will press on to the excellent land (that is, to the state free from all vice and depravity and ignorance), which... D
God shows and promises to give A as if it were a reward of virtue to those who love Him.
27. The Word of God was crucified for our sake because of our infirmity, and He was raised by the power of God; it is clear that He always does and suffers this spiritually for our sake, as one who becomes all things to all men, that He might save all. Rightly, therefore, the divine Apostle, among the Corinthians who were infirm, judged that he knew nothing save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. But to the Ephesians, who were perfect, he writes in these words: *God raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus*; saying that he possesses the Word of God B according to the measure of each one's capacity. And so He is crucified for those who are still laying the foundations of piety through active practice, nailing to the divine fear their impassioned and vice-hardened actions. But He rises and ascends into heaven for those who have totally put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, and have put on the whole new man, who is created through the Spirit according to the image of God, and have escaped to the Father through the grace which is in them—*above all Principality and Power and Virtue and Dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the coming one*. For all things which are secondary to God, things and heads and dignities alike, will be subject to him who will be in God through grace.
28. Just as before His manifest advent in the flesh, the Word of God came spiritually to C the patriarchs and prophets, prefiguring the mysteries of His advent, so also now, with that advent completed, He comes not only to those who are still infants, whom He nourishes spiritually and leads unto that maturity of perfection which is according to God; but He also manifests secretly to the perfect, as in an image, the characteristics of His future advent.
29. Just as the words of the Law and the prophets were precursors of the Word in the flesh, and educated souls toward Christ as if exercising the office of a pedagogue, so also He Himself, the glorified Word of God incarnate, has become the precursor of His own spiritual advent, educating souls through His own words and doctrine D so that they might receive His manifest divine advent. This advent He always brings about, converting those who are worthy from the flesh to the spirit through the cultivation of virtues; and then truly at the end of the age He will bring it about, making manifest those things which have hitherto been hidden to all.
30. As long as I am imperfect and disobedient, not obeying God through the performance of the commandments, nor becoming perfect in my thoughts with respect to knowledge—to the extent that I am imperfect and disobedient, Christ also is considered imperfect on my account. For I diminish Him and
A fail to grow with Him according to the Spirit, as one who is a member of Christ's body and part of a whole.
31. "The sun rises and the sun sets," says the Scripture. Therefore, the Word Himself is considered B sometimes to be above and sometimes below, according to the worthiness of those who practice virtue and move toward divine knowledge. Blessed, however, is he who keeps the "inaccessible" light within himself, like Joshua the son of Nun, so that the sun of righteousness remains within him free from setting—that is, not circumscribed by any evening of wickedness and ignorance—throughout the whole measure of the day of this present life, so that he may be able to put to flight and banish the evil demons who rise up against him.
32. The Word of God, being exalted in us through C action and contemplation, draws all things to Himself; He sanctifies our thoughts and perceptions—which concern both flesh and soul and the nature of existing things—and even the very members of the body and the senses, placing them under His own yoke through virtue and knowledge. Let he who is an observer of divine things, therefore, ascend with diligence, following the Word until he reaches the place where He is. For He draws "to his place," as the Ecclesiastes says, and "He draws to his place" those who follow Him as a great High Priest who leads [them] into the Holy of Holies, where He Himself has entered as a forerunner on our behalf according to our human nature.
33. He who pursues the philosophy D of piety and stands in battle array against the invisible powers must pray that both natural discernment (which provides a proportionate light) and the illuminating grace of the Spirit remain and watch over him. For the former, through the cultivation of action, trains the flesh to pursue virtue; while the latter enlightens the mind, so that it may prefer the conviction and intimacy of wisdom to all things, by which [wisdom] it destroys and pulls down the strongholds of wickedness and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Joshua the son of Nun also indicates this by his prayer, that "the sun might stand still over Gibeon"—that is, that the light of the knowledge of God for him should remain without setting upon the mountain of contemplation which is in the mind; and the moon over the valley—that is, that natural discernment, situated in the weakness of the flesh, should remain in it without any lapse from virtue.
A And indeed the sun is the Word, who illuminates the mind and provides it with the power of contemplation, and delivers it from all ignorance; but the moon is the law according to nature, which persuades the flesh to be lawfully subject to the spirit, in order to receive the yoke of the commandments. The moon is a symbol of nature, because it is changeable; yet in the saints, because of the invariable and constant habit of virtue, it remains unchangeable.
55. The Lord is not to be sought outside of those who seek Him; but it is necessary that those who seek Him should seek Him within themselves through faith in their works. For the word, he says, is near you, in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith; B as if Christ Himself were the Word that is being sought.
56. Let us not, having considered the height of the divine infinity, despair of God’s love for mankind, as if it did not reach down to us on account of that height; nor, having considered the infinite depth of our fall through sin, let us disbelieve that the virtue dead within us can be resurrected. For both are possible for God: both to descend and illuminate our mind through knowledge; and to raise up again the virtue within us, and to exalt us with Himself through works of righteousness. For do not say, he says, in your heart, "Who shall ascend into heaven?" that is, to bring Christ down; or, "Who shall descend into the abyss?" that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. Perhaps, however, according to another interpretation, the abyss is everything that is after God; in which the Word of God, through providence, wholly enters into all things, as if coming as life to dead things. For all things are dead which live in that way of participating in life. But by heaven, understand the natural hiddenness of God, in which He is incomprehensible to all. But if any one should further interpret heaven as being the doctrine of theology, and the abyss as being the mystery of the dispensation, he would not irrationally, as it seems to me, speak or think. For both these things are difficult of access if one attempts to seek them by the force of demonstrations; indeed, they are altogether inaccessible unless faith accompanies the one who searches. C
57. In the one who studies action, the Word, thickened by the modes of the virtues, becomes flesh; but in the one who devotes his mind to contemplation, the Word, thinned by spiritual conceptions, becomes as it was in the beginning, God the Word. D
58. He makes the Word flesh, who, in accordance with the capacity of the hearers, adapts himself through coarser examples and words, establishing the moral teaching of the Word; and again he makes the Word spirit, who, through sublime contemplations, expounds the mystical theology.
59. He who theologizes affirmatively from propositions makes the Word flesh; for having nothing else from which to know God than from the things that are seen and handled,
A he yet acts as if he knew Him as the Cause. But he who rightly theologizes negatively, by way of abstraction, makes the Word spirit, as being God in the beginning and with God, knowing well the Unknowable, since none of the things that can be known are He at all.
40. He who has learned to dig within himself, according to the patriarchs, the wells of virtue and knowledge through practice and contemplation, will find Christ within, the Fountain of life, from which Wisdom encourages us to drink, saying: *Drink waters from your vessels, and from the wellsprings of your own wells.* And when we have done this, we shall find His treasures existing within us.
41. They who live brutishly toward sense alone B make the Word flesh for themselves, to their own great peril; for they abuse the things created by God so as to gratify their own affects and lusts. Nor do they consider the wisdom that shines in all things, so as to know and glorify God from His works, or to understand whence we have been created, and what we are, and for what purpose, and toward what end we are being carried through the things that are visible to the eyes. But walking through this age in darkness, they grope with both hands only at the ignorance of God.
42. Those who attend only to the literal expressions of holy Scripture, and bind the nobility of the soul to the bodily observance of the law, C make of the Word flesh for themselves in a blameworthy manner, thinking that God is pleased by the sacrifices of irrational animals. They are men, in fact, who bestow no small care on cleansing the body outwardly, while they neglect the beauty of the soul, which is punctured by the stains of the passions; for the sake of which all the power of visible things has been produced, and the whole divine Word and law has been promulgated.
43. The holy Gospel testifies that the Lord is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel. D Let us therefore consider whether, on the one hand, this is for the fall of those who contemplate the nature visible to the eyes only by the grace of sense, and those who adhere only to the letter of holy Scripture; since, through their senselessness and stupidity, they cannot pass over to the new spirit of grace. But on the other hand, it is for the rising of those who, using spiritual reason, both contemplate and hear the things created by God and His words, and who therefore devote their care—by means of suitable conduct—only to the divine image which resides in the soul.
44. The statement that the Lord is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, if it be understood in a laudatory sense, is to be taken as the fall of the passions and evil thoughts in each of the faithful, and the rising of the virtues and of every pious and religious thought.
45. The one who alone of those in generation and corruption...
A considers the Lord to be a gardener, is deceived regarding Him in the guise of a gardener, just as Mary Magdalene was. Therefore, the Lord, for the benefit of such a person, avoids being touched by him—since he is not yet capable, in his own estimation and perception, of ascending to the Father—saying: "Do not touch me." For He knows that the one who approaches Him with such a lowly preconception is destined to be harmed and suffer loss.
A 46. Those who for fear of the Jews sit with doors closed in the upper room—that is, those who, because of the fear of the spirits of wickedness, rest securely in the region of revelations, in the high citadel of divine thoughts and contemplations, having closed their senses like doors B—these receive, in an unknown way, the Word of God as He arrives, appearing to them without any operation of the senses. He bestows upon them impassibility through peace, and the distributions of the Holy Spirit through His breathing, and provides authority against the spirits of wickedness, and reveals the symbols of His own mysteries.
47. For those who investigate the word concerning God according to the flesh, the Lord does not ascend to the Father; but for those who seek Him according to the Spirit through lofty contemplations, He does ascend to the Father. Let us not, therefore, keep Him always below—He who for our sake became below out of loving-kindness—but let us ascend up to the Father with Him, having left behind the earth and the things of the earth, so that He may not say to us also what was said to the Jews C who remained uncorrected: "I am going where you cannot come." For without the Word, it is impossible to come to the Father of the Word.
48. The land of the Chaldeans is the life governed by passion, in which idols of sin are fashioned and worshipped. Mesopotamia, however, is the way of life that wavers, mixing contrary things. But the land of promise is the state filled with every good. Whoever, therefore, neglects this habit, like the ancient Israel, is dragged back into the slavery of passions, being deprived of the freedom that had been granted.
49. It should be noted that no saint appears to have descended into Babylon of his own free will. For it is not right, D nor is it in accordance with logical prudence, for those who love God to prefer worse things over good things. But if some of them were carried off there by force with the people, we understand by these those who, not by their own design but by circumstance, for the sake of the salvation of those in need,
have for a time omitted the higher discourse of knowledge, and follow the teaching concerning faults and passions; according to which even the great Apostle judged it more profitable to be in the flesh—that is, in moral instruction—for the sake of the disciples, while he himself mightily desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, through the supracelestial and simple contemplation of the mind.
50. Just as the blessed David, by playing the cithara, calmed Saul when he was being choked by an evil spirit, so too every spiritual discourse, seasoned with wise and learned insights and theorems, raises up and restores the mind laboring under a grave malady, freeing it from the evil conscience that chokes it.
51. He who is ruddy with the beauty of the eyes, according to the great David, B is he who, along with the brilliance of a life lived according to God, joins the discourse of knowledge that shines forth together; in whom both action and contemplation are established: the former, shining through the ways of the virtues; the latter, illuminated by divine concepts.
52. The kingdom of Saul is an image of the physical worship of the law, which the Lord abolished, because it brought nothing to perfection. For, he says, the law brought nothing to perfection. But the kingdom of the great David is a prefiguration of the evangelical worship; for it perfectly embraces all the wills that exist in the heart of God.
53. Saul is the natural law, which from the beginning was granted by the Lord to have dominion over nature. Since, because of disobedience, he transgressed the commandment by sparing Agag, the king of Amalek—that is, the body—and slipped into vices and passions, he is cast out of the kingdom, so that David might take up the ruling of Israel: that is, the law of the Spirit, which gives birth to the peace that C openly builds the temple of contemplation for God.
54. Samuel is interpreted as "obedience to God." Therefore, as long as the Logos performs the priesthood within us through obedience, even if Saul should spare Agag—that is, the carnal mind—the priestly Logos, inflamed with zeal, puts him to death, and confounds the mind inclined toward the lust of sin, striking and wounding it as a transgressor of divine rights. D
55. Whenever the mind, puffed up with pride, casts off the Logos of instruction by which it was anointed against the passions and affections,
A it becomes liable to the same out of sheer ignorance; and, gradually receding from God on account of these things, it succumbs unto the adverse circumstances by which it is involuntarily tested, and approaches the demons, making its belly its god, and from thence seeks relief and consolation from the evils by which it is pressed. And let Saul persuade you of this, who, not consulting Samuel in all things, was of necessity turned to the servitude of idols, and who did not refuse to consult the ventriloquist as if she were some kind of god and oracle.
56. He who prays to receive the daily bread does not receive the whole entirely, as the bread itself is, but according to what the recipient is capable of. For the Bread of Life, in His love for mankind, gives Himself to all who ask, yet not to all in the same manner or by equal distribution; but to those who have performed great works of righteousness, He gives more abundantly, and to those who are less than these, more sparingly, according to what the individual’s worth of mind is able to receive.
57. The Lord sometimes departs, and sometimes is present. He departs, as regards the vision of face to face; He is present, as regards the vision in a mirror and in enigmas. B
58. To the one who is practical, the Lord is present through the virtues; but to him who makes no account of virtue, He departs. And again, to the contemplative, He is present through true knowledge of beings; but to him who has strayed to some degree from this, He departs.
59. One departs from the flesh, who has changed from the practical life to the gnostic state; being snatched up, as if in the clouds, by higher thoughts, into the transparent air of mystical contemplation; according to which he shall be able to be with the Lord always. But he departs from the Lord who is not yet able, by a pure mind—with sensory operations at rest—to contemplate the thoughts as far as is permitted to man, and who cannot grasp the word concerning the Lord as simple and without enigmas. C
60. The Word of God, not only inasmuch as He has been made flesh is called flesh; but inasmuch as He is God the Word, understood simply as being in the beginning with God and the Father, and having the clear and naked types of the truth concerning all things, He contains no parables or enigmas, nor stories requiring allegory. But when He comes to men who are not able to approach the intelligible things with the mind naked and bare, D by conversing from that which is customary to them, through the means of histories and enigmas and parables and dark sayings, He diversifies—
and thus He becomes flesh. For at the first consideration, our mind does not attain to and understand the Word Himself naked, but the incarnate Word, interlaced, that is, with a variety of expressions: being Word indeed by nature, yet seen as flesh, so that the many seem to themselves to see flesh and not the Word, although in reality it is the Word. For the sense and understanding of Scripture is not that which is commonly seen, but something other than what appears. For by each of the written words, the Word becomes flesh. B
61. The first rudiments of instruction toward piety are accustomed to being made, as it were, into flesh. For we converse according to the letter, and not according to the spirit, at our first approach to godliness. But advancing little by little toward the spirit, and scraping off and thinning down the denseness of the expressions with more subtle contemplations, we find ourselves in pure Christ, as far as is permitted by human capacity; so that, according to the great Apostle, we may be able to say: "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him no longer," that is to say, because by simple consideration of the mind we understand the Word without those wrappings with which He is covered, having truly progressed from knowing the Word as flesh to knowing His glory as of the Only-Begotten from the Father. C
62. He who has lived the life that is in Christ has surpassed the bounds of both legal and natural justice; a fact which the divine Apostle signified in these words: "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision." By the name of circumcision indeed, he declared legal justice; but by uncircumcision, he hinted at the equality characteristic of nature. D
63. Some are reborn through water and Spirit; others receive baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire. But these four things—I mean the water, and the spirit, and the fire, and the Holy Spirit—I understand as one and the same Spirit of God. For to some the Holy Spirit is water, as having to wash away the external stains around the body; to others, spirit only, as being effective for the goods of virtue; to others, fire, as having the power to cleanse the stains lurking deep within the soul; and to others, by which they resemble the great Daniel in their ways, the Holy Spirit is as one providing wisdom and knowledge. For from the diverse operation upon the subject, one and the same Spirit receives diverse appellations. D
64. The Law, he says, has given the Sabbath: "In order," it says, "that your beast of burden and your servant may rest." Both of these signify the body by means of enigmas. For the beast of burden is the body of the practical mind, forced to bear as a burden, through action, the modes of the virtues. But the servant is the body of one who studies meditation, as one already instructed by contemplations, and logically assigned to the cognitive commands of the mind.
A And the Sabbath for both is the end of the good things they perform through both action and contemplation, providing a suitable rest for each.
65. He who fulfills virtue with the appropriate knowledge possesses the body as a beast of burden, driving it through reason toward the performance of what is dutiful; and as a servant, he possesses the manner of action regarding virtue, that is, the very manner that virtue naturally assumes—bought as if with money by the powers of reason. B But the Sabbath is the passionless and peaceful state of both soul and body according to virtue, that is, an unchangeable disposition.
66. The Word of God to those who still possess the greater part of their care for the bodily forms of virtue becomes straw and hay, nourishing the affective part of their soul for the ministry of the virtues. But to those who have been raised by contemplation to the true understanding of divine things, it is bread, nourishing the intellect of their soul toward deiform perfection. That is why we find the patriarchs, when they are traveling on the way, gathering for themselves both bread and fodder for their beasts. C And the Levite in the Book of Judges says to the old man who gave him hospitality in Gabaa: *There is bread for us, and straw for our beasts, and there is no lack of anything for your servants.*
67. The Word of God is also called and is dew, and water, and a fountain, and a river, as it is written; for it is and becomes these things according to the underlying capacity of those who receive it. To some, it is indeed dew, being a quencher of the burning and activity of passions that outwardly beset them around the body. D To those, however, who are scorched by the depth of malice within their own soul, it is water—not only in the sense that it has the power to destroy by contrary affection that which opposes, but also because it offers from itself the vital power for living well and blessedly. It is a fountain for those who have the disposition of contemplation bubbling up unceasingly, as a dispenser of wisdom. And it is a river for those who...
pour forth abundant, pious, upright, and saving doctrine like a stream, so as to water abundantly men, beasts, wild animals, and trees and plants alike; so that just as men may be deified, being lifted up by the meanings of what is called high, those who have become like beasts through their passions may, through the precise demonstration of the ways of virtue, be restored to humanity and regain their natural power of reason; those who have become like wild beasts through wicked habits and evil deeds may, through gentle and agreeable exhortation, be tamed and return to the gentleness of nature; and finally, those who like plants have lost the sense of good, being softened by the deep flowing of the Word, may receive sense for the bearing of fruit, and the strength that nourishes them, which is the quality of the Word.
B 68. The Word of God is called the Way for those who run well and vigorously in the practice of virtue, and who decline neither to the right through vainglory, nor to the left through an inclination toward the passions, but who direct their steps according to God; which King Asa of Judah, not having observed to the end, is said to have suffered in his feet in his old age, as one who had grown weak in the race of a life according to God.
C 69. The Word of God is called the Door, as one who, for those who have run the whole way of the virtues well, according to the blameless course of action, opens the entry to knowledge; and as light, showing the many-splendored treasures of wisdom. For the same is called way, door, key, and kingdom: way, as a guide; key, as one who opens to those worthy to whom divine things are provided, and through whom it is opened; door, as the one who admits; and kingdom, as one who is possessed and exists in all through participation and communion with himself.
70. The Lord is called Light, Life, Resurrection, and Truth. Light, as the brightness of souls, as the dispeller of the darkness of ignorance, and as one who illuminates the mind toward the understanding of mysteries, and who reveals the mysteries visible only to the pure; Life, as one who provides the appropriate movement to souls who love the Lord in things divine; Resurrection, as one who raises the mind from the dead attachment to material things, pure from the defilement of every kind of corruption and death; and Truth, as one who munificently grants a changeless disposition of goods to those who are worthy.
D 71. The Word of God and Father is mystically present in each of his commandments; and God the Father is whole and inseparable in his whole Word by nature. Therefore, he who receives a divine commandment and performs it, receives the Word of God who is in it. And he who has received the Word through the commandments, has through him also received the Father who is naturally in him, and—
A receive it; and he who receives it in such a way, indeed, naturally receives the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. For He says: "Amen, amen, I say to you, he who receives whomsoever I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me." Whoever, therefore, has accepted a commandment and fulfilled it has mystically received the whole Holy Trinity.
72. He does not honor God in himself who merely praises God in words, but he who, for the sake of God, patiently endures the sufferings and labors of virtue. And he is, in turn, glorified by God, receiving the glory that is in God as a prize of virtue, by way of participation in the grace of dispassion. For everyone who glorifies God within himself through the sufferings of the active life endured for the sake of virtue is himself glorified in God through the divine illumination of contemplation. For the Lord says when going to His passion: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God also will glorify him in himself; and he will glorify him at once." From this, it is clear B that divine gifts follow upon the sufferings endured for the sake of virtue.
73. So long as we see the Word of God, through the various riddles of the Holy Scripture, as if He were embodied, we do not yet see Him as incorporeal, simple, singular, and unique, just as we have not yet intellectually beheld the Father in the incorporeal, simple, singular, and unique Son, according to the words: "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." Therefore, we have great need of discernment, so that we may first break through the coverings of the words surrounding the Word, and thus with a naked mind behold the Word himself, existing purely in Himself, who clearly shows the Father within Himself, as far as is granted to mortals. Wherefore, it is necessary that he who seeks God piously should not be held fast by any written word, lest, instead of God, he should mistakenly take what is merely about God—that is to say, instead of the Word, he might embrace the words of the Scripture by a dangerous error, while the Word Himself eludes the mind, and he thinks that he holds the incorporeal Word while C he holds only the coverings. He is like that Egyptian woman who did not catch hold of Joseph, but of his garments; and like the ancient men who, dwelling only upon the splendor of visible things, failed to notice that they were serving the creature rather than the Creator.
74. The discourse of the Holy Scripture, to those who in part...
A divest themselves of the composition of the written words structured in a way related to Him, appearing as if in a voice of thin wind to the more discerning mind; for it renders the mind able only to perceive, through the extreme stripping away of natural operations, the simplicity which in some way indicates the Word, just like the great Elijah, who was deemed worthy of this vision in the cave of Horeb. For Horeb is translated as "a new field," which is the habit of virtues in the new spirit of grace. The cave, however, is the hidden retreat of wisdom in the mind, into which one who has entered will mystically perceive the knowledge that surpasses sense, in which God is said to exist. Therefore, whoever truly seeks God like the great Elijah will not only arrive at Horeb—that is, as one active in the habit of the virtues—but will also penetrate into the cave that is in Horeb; that is, as one contemplative in the hiddenness of wisdom, which has its seat only in the habit of the virtues.
75. When the mind shakes off the many opinions imposed upon it regarding existing things, then the discourse of truth appears clear to it, giving it the instructions of true knowledge and pushing away its previous preoccupations as if they were scales from the eyes of vision, according to the sublime and great Apostle Paul. For they are indeed scales, resting upon the discerning eye of the soul, and preventing access to the pure discourse of truth—both the assumptions regarding only the literal sense of Scripture and the passionate visions of things seen through sense perception. B C
76. The divine Apostle Paul said that he possessed knowledge of the Word only in part. But the great evangelist John says that he had seen His glory. "We beheld," he says, "His glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." But is it perhaps that the holy Paul said he possessed knowledge of the Word of God only in part? For He is known only in some way from His operations. For knowledge concerning Him according to His essence and hypostasis is inaccessible to all, both angels and men, and is in no way known by anyone. But the holy John, having been fully taught, as far as it is permitted to humans, the mystery of the incarnation of the Word, said that he beheld the glory of the Word as flesh; that is, he beheld the reason and purpose for which God became man, full of grace and truth. For He is not granted grace as the Only-Begotten in the way that He is God by essence and consubstantial with God the Father, but rather in the way that He became man by nature and by economy, consubstantial with us, for our sake, who are in need of grace; and from His fullness we are always receiving the corresponding grace for all our progress. So that the one who D
A kept perfect in himself, undefiled by the God-Word who was incarnate for our sake, shall receive the glory full of grace and truth, of Him who for our sake glorified and sanctified himself according to our own nature in his advent. For, he says, when he appears, we shall be like him.
77. B As long as the soul makes the passage from strength to strength, and from glory to glory—that is, from virtue to virtue [to] a greater progress, and from knowledge to knowledge [to] a higher ascent—it has not ceased from residing in exile, according to that which is said: My soul has lived as a settler for a long time. For the distance is great, and the multitude of knowledges that must be passed through by it [is vast], until it shall cross into the place of the wondrous tabernacle, as far as the house of God; in the voice of exultation and confession, the sound of one feasting; always adding voice to voices, the voice of an intelligent mind to the voices of the intelligent progress of divine contemplations, together with the exultation, or joy, in the mind regarding the things contemplated, and the corresponding thanksgiving. For such are the feasts that all those who have received the Spirit of grace celebrate, crying in their hearts: Abba, Father.
78. C The place of the wondrous tabernacle is also the impassible and painless habit of the virtues; by which the Word of God, coming to be [within], adorns the soul like a tabernacle with the diverse beauties of the virtues. But the house of God is the knowledge composed of many and diverse contemplations; by which God, dwelling in the soul, fills it from the mixing bowl of wisdom. The voice of exultation is the leaping of the soul at the wealth of the virtues. The voice of confession is the thanksgiving for the glory of the splendor bestowed by wisdom. And the sound is that which emerges from both—I mean from exultation and confession—by a temperate blending, [forming] a continual mystical doxology.
79. D He who has bravely wrestled down the passions of the body, and has fought sufficiently against the unclean spirits, and has driven out their thoughts from the region of his own soul, let him pray that a pure heart be given to him, and that a right spirit be renewed in his inward parts; that is, that he be emptied completely of base thoughts, and filled with divine insights by the gift of grace; so that he may become an intelligibly splendid and great world of God, composed of moral, natural, and theological contemplations.
80. He who has rendered the heart pure will know not only the reasons of the things that are subordinate and are secondary to God, but also will perceive Him who is beyond all, having passed beyond the passing of all things; which is the supreme end of good things; in whom becoming, God deigns to inscribe His own letters by the Spirit, just as to [some]
A Mosaic tablets; in as much as it has surrendered itself through action and contemplation, according to the mystical commandment saying, "Increase."
81. A pure heart is perhaps called that which is entirely devoid of any natural propensity toward any motion whatsoever; within which, as upon a tablet beautifully polished and scraped clean because of [its] extreme simplicity, God becoming present, inscribes His own laws.
82. A pure heart is that which presents the memory, entirely devoid of any images and forms of things, to God; and which is prepared to be marked only by His own forms, through which it is naturally designed to become manifest.
83. The mind of Christ, which the saints receive, according to him who said: "But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. II, 16), does not come about B by the deprivation of the intellectual faculty within us; nor does it come as a supplement to our own mind, nor by passing essentially according to substance into our own mind; but rather as one which illuminates the power of our mind with its own quality, and brings it to the same operation with itself. For I say that to have the mind of Christ is to think according to Him, and to think all things through Him.
84. We are called the body of Christ, according to the word: "Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular" (1 Cor. XII, 27); not that, losing our own bodies, we become that one; nor again that that body passes essentially into us, or is divided limb by limb; but rather by the likeness of the Lord’s flesh, we shake off the corruption of sin. For just as Christ was by nature, in flesh and soul—inasmuch as He is understood as man—immune to sin, so also we who believe in Him, and who have clothed ourselves in Him through the Spirit, are able, by the inclination of our will, to be in Him without sin.
85. There are in Scripture both temporal ages C and those which comprise the consummation of other ages, according to the word: "But now once at the consummation of the ages" (Hebr. IX, 26), and what follows. And there are again other ages, free from the nature of time, after this present age—which is nature of a temporal sort—which is at the consummation of the ages, according to the word: "That He might show in the ages to come the exceeding riches" (Ephes. II, 7), and what follows. But we find in Scripture also a multitude of ages, both past, and present, and future; also "ages of ages" to be certain ages, and "age of age," and "secular times" (II Tim. I, 9), and generations D conjoined to ages. And that we may not now [discuss] what is meant by the temporal ages, what by the eternal times, and thus the eternal…
generations, and what again simply as ages, or as ages of ages, and what absolutely as an age, or the age of an age, draw out the discourse at great length away from our purpose, [deciding] to leave these things to the consideration of the studious, let us return to the goal for the sake of which we have brought these matters forward.
A 86. We know, by the testimony of Scripture, that there is something above the ages; which [the Scripture] indeed signified to exist, yet it did not at all express by name what it was, according to what is written: "The Lord shall reign for the age and for the age and beyond." [note 1] Therefore, there is something that is above the ages, which is the pure kingdom of God. For neither is it right to say that the kingdom of God has begun, or that it is reached by ages or times. But we believe this to be the inheritance, the dwelling, and the place of those who are being saved, as the true word hands down, as the end of those who through longing are moved toward the ultimate desirable object; in which, when they have arrived, they cease from every kind of movement whatever: so that there is no longer any time for them, nor any age that must be traversed, seeing that after all things they have arrived at God, who is before all the ages, and whose nature no age can reach.
C 87. As long as anyone leads this present life, even if he be perfect according to the standard of this state, both in action and in contemplation, he possesses both knowledge and prophecy and the earnest of the Holy Spirit [note 2] only in part; but he does not possess the fullness itself; for he is yet to come, after the end of the ages, unto that perfect rest and blessed lot, which will show the truth, which truly exists, face to face to those who are worthy of it: so that they will no longer have a portion of the fullness as if plucked away, but will receive the whole fullness of grace according to participation. For the Apostle says it will come to pass that we all (who shall attain salvation) shall meet in the perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ [note 3]; in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden; and when that is made manifest, that which is in part shall pass away. [note 4]
D 88. There are some who ask how the state of those who are deemed worthy of the perfection that is in the kingdom of God shall be; whether by way of progress and change, or by way of the same fixed and quiet possession; and how also one must think that [the] bodies and souls will be. To this question, one might respond with a not-empty conjecture: that, namely, as in the corporal life there is a twofold reason for nourishment; the one indeed leading to increase, the other truly conferring the preservation of those who are nourished. For as long as we have not yet reached the perfect stature and bulk of the body, we are nourished so that we may increase; but when the body has reached the end of its increase, it is no longer nourished as to increase, but for preservation. So too, in regard to the soul, there is a twofold reason for nourishment. For it is nourished while advancing in the virtues and
A in the contemplations, until, having passed through all beings, it reaches the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; having reached which, it ceases from all progress, by which it was being carried through intermediate stages and growing; and it is nourished without medium by that type of immortal nourishment which surpasses all understanding, and perhaps for that reason is superior to increase. By this it preserves the deiform perfection granted to it, and unfolds and manifests the infinite delights of that nourishment, by which, receiving the always-the-same-well-being dwelling within it, it becomes God through the participation of Divine grace, both resting itself from all the operations of mind and sense, and causing the natural operations of the body to rest together with itself, having been joined with it according to the analogy of its participation in deification. So that B only God may be seen through both the soul and the body, with their natural marks having been overcome and, as it were, suppressed by the superabundance of the glory.
89. There are some among those fond of learning who inquire in what way the distinction of the future heavenly mansions and promises will be—whether it is by local substance, or by the concept of the spiritual quality and quantity proper to each mansion. And to some the former pleases, to others the latter. But he who knows what it means that *The kingdom of God is within you* (Luc. XVII, 21), and what *In my Father's house are many mansions* (Joan. XIV, 2) means, will rather adhere to the second opinion.
90. There are some who inquire in what way the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are distinguished; whether according to substance and subject, or by the thought and reason of the mind. To whom the answer is that they are distinguished indeed, yet not by substance and subject, but by subtle thought and reason. For both are one in substance and subject; but by reason and subtle thought, the kingdom of heaven is the grasp of the true knowledge of beings as they pre-exist according to their own reasons in God from eternity: but the kingdom of God is the participation, through grace, of the goods that naturally inhere in God; and the one is at the end of beings, while the other, as we understand by subtle thought, is beyond the end of beings.
91. The saying, *Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand* (Matth. III, 3), does not, as I think, D refer to a contraction of time. *For it will not come with observation; nor will they say, Lo here! Lo there!* (Luc. XVII, 21), but it refers to the approach of those who are worthy of it. *The kingdom of heaven is*—it does not indicate a temporal nearness, as if it were recently impending over the world; but knowing the reason of itself, and having the power of both kingdom and repentance: *Repent*, he says, *for the kingdom of heaven is at hand*.
A
92. The kingdom of God and of the Father is potentially in all who believe, but it is effectively in those who have altogether cast away all natural affection of soul and body, and have acquired only that of the Spirit, and are able to say: *I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me*.
93. Some say that the kingdom of heaven is the life led by the worthy in heaven; others, that it is the state of those being saved, which is equal to the angels; others, indeed, that it is the very form of divine beauty for those who have borne the image of the Heavenly One. B And these three opinions concerning this, as it seems to me, harmonize with the truth. For to all, according to the proportion of righteousness in them, both in quality and quantity, will be given the future reward of grace.
94. So long as a man pursues practical philosophy, he strenuously wages the divine contests: he keeps the Word with him, who has gone forth from the Father through the commandments into the world. But when, having been released from the struggles of practice against the passions and demons, and having been declared a victor over passions and demons, he passes on to the philosophy of knowledge through contemplation, he allows the Word mystically to leave the world again and go to the Father. C Therefore the Lord says to the disciples, *that you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father*: calling "world," perhaps, the laborious exercise of virtues in practice; and "Father," the state of mind higher than the world and free from every material opinion; according to which the Word of God comes to be in us, resting from the battle against the passions and the demons.
95. He who has been able to mortify through practice his members that are upon the earth, and to defeat through the Word of the commandments the world of passions within him, will have no further affliction; having already left the world, and having become in Christ, who has conquered the world of passions and is the grantor of all peace. D For he who has not relinquished the affection for material things, will always have affliction, being changed along with those things that are naturally changed in their disposition. But he who has become in Christ will by no means of any kind perceive any material change. Therefore the Lord says: *These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world*. That is to say, In me, the Word of virtue, you will have peace, being delivered from the blindness and turmoil of material passions and things; but in the world, that is, in the affection for material things, you will have tribulation, because of their constant change.
For both have tribulation: both he who is practicing virtue, because of the labor joined to it; and he who loves the world, because of the failure of material things. Yet the one is a saving tribulation, while the other is destructive and fatal. But the Lord is the release for both: for the one, by stilling within Himself, through contemplation and dispassion, the labors of virtue; for the other, by removing through repentance the relative attachment toward things that are subject to corruption.
B 96. The inscription on the title of the Savior clearly showed that He who was crucified is King and Lord, in the way of practical, natural, and theological philosophy. For the Scripture says that the title was written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I understand that the title was written in Latin for one practicing practical philosophy, because the Roman empire, according to the opinion of Daniel, is known to be stronger than all the kingdoms of the earth; and fortitude, if anything, is proper to the philosophy that cultivates action. By the Greek, it signifies natural contemplation, inasmuch as the nation of the Greeks, more than other men, devoted itself to natural philosophy. By the Hebrew, it signifies the theological initiation, as this nation had been openly consecrated to God by its forefathers from ancient times.
C 97. It is worthwhile that we should not only be slayers of bodily passions, but also destroyers of the passionate thoughts of the soul, according to the manner of that saint who says: *In the morning I destroyed all the sinners of the land, so that I might cut off from the city of the Lord all those who work iniquity*; that is to say, the passions of the body and the thoughts of the soul that act lawlessly.
98. He who has kept the way of the virtues unharmed by inclining to neither side, with pious and correct knowledge, will perceive the coming of God to him through the gift of dispassion and the tranquility of the soul. For it says: *I will sing and will understand in a blameless way; when will you come to me?* For the psalm signifies the diligent action according to the reason of virtue; but understanding is the knowing science that follows upon virtue, through which one perceives the divine coming, he who is watchful and strenuous in the cultivation of the virtues, awaiting his Lord.
D 99. It is not right for one who is being introduced to piety to be led toward the action of the commandments only by kindness, but he should also be driven to a more frequent struggle through severity by the memory of the divine judgments; so that he may not only refrain from evil through the desire for divine things, but also through fear: *I will sing to you, O Lord, of mercy and judgment*; so that, rejoicing in love toward God, he may also be earnest toward the song, being tempered by fear.
100. He who through the cultivation of virtue and knowledge has harnessed the
body to the soul has become a cithara, a pipe, and a temple of God. A cithara, in that he has excellently preserved the harmony of the virtues; a pipe, in that he receives the breath of the Spirit through divine contemplations; and a temple, in that he has become a dwelling place for the Word on account of the purity of his mind.
SCHOLIA OF AN UNCERTAIN AUTHOR
1. Not as though those who desire manifestation attained it, the argument says, but rather as those who totally fail. And by the words, "Let him do it in one of the neighboring," and what follows, he signifies that true knowledge does not come to anyone unless it be through bodily labors—that is, through self-control and love, by which the purification of the soul is accomplished. For "Blessed," he says, "are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
2. By these things, we are most of all convicted, being sick with the love of money and sacrificing to mammon.
3. These things also are directly against the Iconoclasts. Observe, however, that knowledge here is said to be "in part," but the wisdom of God is whole in the world, just as the Theologian says: "For He was in the world, and the world was made through Him." A
4. Furthermore, each of us, through ignorance, is addicted to earthly things, chooses Caesar as his king, and betrays the Word to Pilate—that is, to the senses—to be put to death. And he is subject altogether with Caesar and to Herod, being one who sins by action and has become habituated to evil. He is a Jew who betrays virtue to the habit of vice, denying the kingdom of God and remaining a devoted worshiper of the tyranny of the devil.
5. From ignorance of God comes self-love and gluttony, for which reason we have immediately loved the flesh and the world. And if we do not depart from these through the love of God, which is rendered effective toward one's neighbor through the keeping of the commandments, it is impossible for us otherwise to remain immovable in the good.
6. All the saints are sojourners and pilgrims, as those who see the truth in mirrors and riddles (that is, in obscure representations). But the Iconoclasts, not enduring to see through mirrors, have fallen away from the truth entirely.
7. "God has stood in the assembly of the gods." And observe the power of the angels, and that he who does not believe that the members must be joined to the Head is an unbeliever, and for that reason is already judged. B
8. "Who inhabits the land of the Chaldeans? Who inhabits Charrhan of Mesopotamia?" Who is transported to the good land, which God has promised to give to those who love Him?
9. That even formerly, before the advent, and now after the advent, the Word of God dwells in us spiritually, secretly advancing us toward things more divine.
A 10. We too, as they did, by neglecting divine knowledge, are dragged into the servitude of the passions, or vices. For Israel endured its final captivity, having raged with fury and madness against Christ.
11. That every saint is ruddy, with beautiful eyes; that is, he is rich in active knowledge.
12. And then, and before, and even until today, it happens thus. For the mind would not otherwise desert to the passions of its own accord, unless it wished to do something without the Word.
NOTICE ON MAXIMUS’ FIVE HUNDRED CHAPTERS
Picus, president of the inquisitorial courts in the Parisian senate—a man indeed upright and learned, but, because of his secular service, not as well-versed in theology as these chapters of Maximus require—published them, in which, as in others, Maximus himself shines as a theologian. Nor does the caution he gives the reader please me overmuch, warning him not to withdraw his mind from the reading of the few rather obscure chapters placed at the beginning of the first century, which pertain to the Best and Greatest Trinity. For once these are passed over, those follow which will be most pleasing to you as you read. For Maximus is not more obscure in those things he pursues concerning the Trinity in these chapters, nor less pleasing to readers, than in the rest, provided they are accustomed to discourse on God and theology, and are not complete strangers to them. For he treats everything with marvelous perspicacity and skill, as Photius also notes concerning the four hundred chapters of the work titled *On Charity*. For he did not re-read that; as not everything came into his hands. What the same man notes, that the things pertaining to the *oikonomika* are to be understood as those pertaining to the divine dispensation, because here there is nothing about domestic affairs: that is indeed correct, except that it is superfluous. For who, when he hears *oikonomika* joined to *theologika*, thinks of things of a domestic nature, and not of those which belong to the mystery of Christ and his dispensation in the flesh, which Greek theologians so readily call *oikonomia*? B The title of the edition is flawed, and the conjunction is missing before *on virtue and vice*, as if the chapters were at once theological and economic [domestic], and as if they dealt with virtue and vice—which is far from the truth and from his mind. These [chapters] indicate a different matter or subject; just as in the others, some pertain to God, some to Christ, some to the establishment of morals, and thus to virtue and vice: which the particle *kai* [and], restored from manuscript codices, declares most excellently. From these I have also thought it necessary to remove the particle *kai marturos* [and martyr], wherever Picus may have derived it: for thus the title is clearer, and [accords with] the custom of others, although I am not unaware that Maximus is sometimes also called a confessor; yet he is more frequently called *homologetes* [confessor], because he suffered most grievous things for the sake of the faith without undergoing death, and was finally worn out by hardships and ended his life in exile. C
CAPITUM QUINQUIES CENTENORUM CENTURIA I
OF OUR HOLY FATHER AND MASTER MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR, DIVERSE THEOLOGICAL AND ECONOMICAL CHAPTERS, AND CONCERNING VIRTUE AND VICE
FIRST CENTURY OF CHAPTERS
1. The supra-archetypal and supersubstantial Good is one: the holy, three-subsistent Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the infinite conjunction of three infinities of equal nature, the account of whose being, and how, and what, and what sort it is, is entirely inaccessible to existing things. For it escapes all the intellect of those who understand, as it does not depart from its own natural mystery and (so to speak) inwardness, and it infinitely transcends the knowledge of all knowable things. A
2. That which is in essence primarily and truly good is that which has neither beginning, nor end, nor cause of its being, nor even any motion toward a cause in being (a). That which does not have this is not truly nor properly being, since it has a beginning and an end and a cause of its being, and possesses motion toward a cause in the process of being. But that which is not primarily being, even if it is said to be, both exists and is said to be by participation in the will of that which is truly and primarily being. B
3. If the Word precedes the creation of existing things, there was not, nor is there, nor will there be any Word superior to the Word. Being a Word, it is not without intellect or devoid of life; rather, it is intellectual and living, as having the Mind that begets it. C
(a) *Possessing motion toward a cause*: This refers especially to the cause which is the end toward which one moves, because one exists from it as from an efficient cause. Nor did Picus express it well, that it refers to any cause whatsoever; since it is also said that one refers to a cause because one traces one's origin to it as author in any way, even if one does not move toward it; as in divine matters, the Son is referred to the Father as D cause (as is the custom of the Greeks to speak), yet he is not moved toward him, nor does he have motion, as if toward an end, which any of them... and as the Catholics say: that it is not for the sake of an end, but he himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the one end of all things, being one goodness, as also one nature: therefore, as Gregory the Theologian and Maximus have said, having no cause or end for his own sake, he who is for our sake is for the sake of a cause, which is that he was made man. Therefore, one must speak more precisely in theology, so that no obscurity, and much less error, may approach from the most refined Maximus in his writings on theology.