,

of the mystical visions contained in the divine oracles and of the spiritual loftiness of mind concerning them, if indeed it is lawful for me to say this to you, who are already the salt of the earth and the light of the world, according to the Lord's saying, having become so through the wealth of virtue and the great outpouring of knowledge, and cleansing the corruption of the passions in others by means of virtues, and illuminating ignorance, which is the soul's blindness, with the light of knowledge.

14Β_032 But I beseech you, most holy ones, and all those who, as is likely, will encounter this writing, not to make the things said by me a limit for the spiritual interpretation of the chapters; for I fall far short of the meaning of the divine oracles and need the teaching of others for this. But if you should be able to apply or to learn anything either from yourselves or from others, rather you should rightly approve that and become of the higher and true meaning, whose work is the full assurance of the heart of those who long for the spiritual discernment of the difficulties.

For the divine word is like water, just as to all kinds of plants and shoots and different animals—I mean to the people who are watered by the word itself—both appearing to them analogously, gnostically and practically, and being shown forth as fruit through the virtues according to the quality of virtue and of knowledge in each one, and becoming manifest through some to others; for it is never circumscribed by one thing and does not endure to become enclosed within a single meaning, because of its natural infinitude.

But since you commanded me to speak first about the passions that trouble us, both how many and what sort they happen to be, and from what beginning and to what end it arrives through its own intervening stage, and how each one, being implanted in what power of the soul or member of the body, invisibly conforms the mind to itself and makes the body, in the manner of a dye, coloring the whole wretched soul toward sin through thoughts, and the power and operation of the name of each, and the times and the forms and the deceits of the unclean demons through them and the invisible struggles and the pretenses, and how they secretly put forward some things through others and plausibly drag us down to other things by means of others, and their subtleties and their smallnesses and their magnitudes and their bulks, remissions and impulses, attacks and raids, and retreats and contractions, persistences and 14Β_034 sieges, swifter or slower, and, as it were, the pleas against the soul as in a court of law and the votes supposedly taking place in the mind, and the apparent defeats or victories, and what is the disposition in each case and for what reason one or many passions are permitted to attack the soul, and this either by themselves or with one another, and by what principle they timelessly bring up their own material matters, through which they hiddenly wage the bitter war against us, so that we labor arduously over things that do not exist at all as if they were present, and, as it were, rushing toward the material things or fleeing them, suffering the one because of pleasure, the other because of pain, and the manner of their existence in us and of their intricate and varied fantasy during sleep in dreams, and whether they are confined in some part of the soul or of the body, or in the whole soul and the whole body, and whether, being inside, they persuade the soul through the natural affections to be drawn toward external things through the medium of the body and lead it astray to become wholly of sense-perception alone, having abandoned its own natural things, or, being outside, they shape the invisible soul toward material things through the external contact of the body, imposing on it a composite form, fashioning onto it the form of the matter taken up in the imagination, and whether there is an order among them and a sequence maliciously devised to make a trial of the soul first through these passions and thus consequently through the others

ἐμφερομένων τοῖς θείοις λογίοις μυστικῶν θεαμάτων καὶ τῆς ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς πνευματικῆς μεγαλονοίας, εἴπερ καὶ τοῦτο θεμιτὸν ἐμοὶ πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰπεῖν, τοὺς ἅλας ἤδη τῆς γῆς καὶ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου, κατὰ τὸν κυριακὸν λόγον, διὰ τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς ἀρετῆς καὶ τὴν πολλὴν χύσιν τῆς γνώσεως γεγενημένους καὶ τὴν ἐν ἄλλοις σηπεδόνα τῶν παθῶν τρόποις ἀρετῶν ἐκκαθαίροντας καὶ τὴν ἄγνοιαν, ψυχῆς ὑπάρχουσαν τύφλωσιν, τῷ τῆς γνώσεως φωτὶ καταυγάζοντας.

14Β_032 Παρακαλῶ δὲ τοὺς ἁγιωτάτους ὑμᾶς καὶ πάντας τούς, ὡς εἰκός, ἐντευξομένους τῷδε τῷ γράμματι μὴ τοῦτο ὅρον ποιεῖσθαι τῆς τῶν κεφαλαίων πνευματικῆς ἑρμηνείας τὰ λεγόμενα παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ· πολὺ γὰρ τῆς τῶν θείων λογίων ἀπολιμπάνομαι διανοίας καὶ τῆς ἄλλων πρὸς τοῦτο χρῄζω διδασκαλίας. Ἀλλ᾽ εἴ τι καὶ παρ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ἢ παρ᾽ ἄλλων ἐπιβαλεῖν ἢ μαθεῖν δυνηθείητε, μᾶλλον ἐκεῖνο δικαίως ἐγκρίνατε καὶ τῆς ὑψηλοτέρας καὶ ἀληθοῦς γένεσθε διανοίας, ἧς ἔργον ἐστὶν ἡ τῆς καρδίας πληροφορία τῶν ἐφιεμένων τῆς τῶν ἀπορηθέντων πνευματικῆς διαγνώσεως.

Ὕδατι γὰρ ὁ θεῖος ἔοικε λόγος, ὥσπερ φυτοῖς παντοδαποῖς καὶ βλαστήμασι καὶ διαφόροις ζῴοιςτοῖς αὐτόν φημι τὸν λόγον ποτιζομένοις ἀνθρώποιςἀναλόγως αὐτοῖς ἐκφαινόμενός τε γνωστικῶς καὶ πρακτικῶς διὰ τῶν ἀρετῶν ὡς καρπὸς προδεικνύμενος κατὰ τὴν ἐν ἑκάστῳ ποιότητα τῆς ἀρετῆς καὶ τῆς γνώσεως καὶ γινόμενος δι᾽ ἄλλων ἄλλοις ἐπίδηλος· ἑνὶ γὰρ οὐδέποτε περιγράφεται καὶ μιᾶς ἐντὸς οὐκ ἀνέχεται διανοίας γενέσθαι διὰ τὴν φυσικὴν ἀπειρίαν κατάκλειστος.

Ἐπειδὴ δὲ περὶ τῶν διοχλούντων ἡμῖν παθῶν πρῶτον εἰπεῖν ἐκελεύσατε, πόσα τε καὶ ποῖα τυγχάνει, καὶ ἐκ ποίας ἀρχῆς καὶ εἰς οἷον διὰ τῆς οἰκείας μεσότητος καταντᾷ πέρας, καὶ ποίας ἕκαστον δυνάμεως ψυχῆς ἢ μέλους σώματος ἐμφυόμενον πρὸς ἑαυτὸ ἀοράτως μορφοῖ τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὸ σῶμα ποιοῖ, βαφῆς δίκην, ὅλην διὰ τῶν λογισμῶν πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν χρῶσαν τὴν ἀθλίαν ψυχήν, τῆς τε προσηγορίας ἑκάστου τὴν δύναμιν καὶ τὴν ἐνέργειαν, τούς τε καιροὺς καὶ τὰ σχήματα καὶ τοὺς δι᾽ αὐτῶν δόλους τῶν ἀκαθάρτων δαιμόνων καὶ τὰς ἀοράτους συμπλοκὰς καὶ τὰς ὑποκρίσεις, καὶ πῶς δι᾽ ἄλλων ἄλλα λεληθότως προβάλλονται καὶ ἐπ᾽ ἄλλα δι᾽ ἄλλων πιθανῶς ὑποσύρουσιν, τάς τε λεπτότητας καὶ τὰς σμικρότητας καὶ τὰ μεγέθη καὶ τοὺς ὄγκους αὐτῶν, ὑφέσεις τε καὶ ἐφέσεις ἐπαγωγάς τε καὶ καταδρομάς, καὶ ὑποχωρήσεις καὶ συστολὰς ἐπιμονάς τε καὶ 14Β_034 προσεδρείας ταχυτέρας ἢ βραδυτέρας, καὶ οἷον τὰς ὡς ἐν δικαστηρίῳ πρὸς τὴν ψυχὴν δικαιολογίας καὶ τὰς δῆθεν κατὰ διάνοιαν γινομένας ψήφους τάς τε φαινομένας ἥττας ἢ νίκας, τίς τε ἡ ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστῳ διάθεσις καὶ διὰ ποίαν αἰτίαν ἓν ἢ πολλὰ πάθη τῇ ψυχῇ συγχωροῦνται προσβάλλειν καὶ τοῦτο ἢ καθ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς ἢ σὺν ἀλλήλοις, καὶ ποίῳ λόγῳ συναναφέρουσιν ἑαυτοῖς ἀχρόνως τὰς οἰκείας ὕλας, δι᾽ ὧν κεκρυμμένως πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸν πικρὸν συμπλέκουσι πόλεμον, ὡς ἐπὶ παροῦσιν ἐργωδῶς τοῖς μηδαμῶς οὖσι διαπονουμένους καὶ οἷον ὁρμῶντας ταῖς ὕλαις ἢ φεύγοντας, τὸ μὲν δι᾽ ἡδονήν, τὸ δὲ δι᾽ ὀδύνην πάσχοντας, τόν τε τρόπον τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν ὑπάρξεως αὐτῶν καὶ τῆς πολυπλόκου καὶ διαφόρου κατὰ τὸν ὕπνον αὐτῶν ἐν ὀνείροις φαντασίας, καὶ εἰ ἔν τινι μέρει καθείργνυνται τῆς ψυχῆς ἢ τοῦ σώματος ἢ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ ὅλῳ τῷ σώματι, καὶ εἰ, ἐντὸς ὄντες, διὰ τῶν φυσικῶν παθῶν τὰ ἐκτὸς ἐπισπᾶσθαι πείθουσι τὴν ψυχὴν διὰ μέσου τοῦ σώματος καὶ πλανῶσι τῆς αἰσθήσεως μόνης ὅλην γενέσθαι, τῶν κατὰ φύσιν οἰκείων ἀφεμένην, ἤ, ἐκτὸς ὄντες, διὰ τῆς ἔξωθεν ἐπαφῆς τοῦ σώματος τὴν ἀόρατον ψυχὴν πρὸς τὰ ὑλικὰ σχηματίζουσι, σύνθετον αὐτῇ μορφὴν ἐπιτιθέντες, τῆς ἀναληφθείσης κατὰ τὴν φαντασίαν ὕλης τὸ εἶδος προσπλάττοντες, καὶ εἰ τάξις ἐστὶν ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ εἱρμὸς κακούργως ἐπινενοημένος διὰ τῶνδε τῶν παθῶν πρότερον ἀπόπειραν λαβεῖν τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ οὕτως διὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἀκολούθως