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to do, then it also will be united to the true and good and one and only God, beautiful and magnificent, having become like Him as far as possible by the fulfillment of the four general virtues, which reveal the divine decad in the soul, and which contain the other blessed decad of the commandments.

For the tetrad is potentially a decad, being composed from the monad in succession by progression. And again, it is a monad, by conjunction containing the good monadically, and showing the simple and indivisible of the divine energy divided without division in itself; 14__080 by which virtues the soul vigorously kept its own nature inviolate, and manfully struck away what was foreign as evil, as having a rational mind and prudent wisdom and practical contemplation, and virtuous knowledge, and upon these an unforgettable knowledge that is at once most faithful and unchanging, and as offering to God the effects with their causes, and the energies with their powers, temperately conjoined, and receiving in exchange for these the deification that produces simplicity.

For the word is an energy and manifestation of the mind, as an effect from a cause; and prudence, of wisdom; and practice, of contemplation; and virtue, of knowledge; and faith, of unforgettable knowledge; from which is created the indwelling disposition towards truth and the good, I mean God, which he said to be divine science and unerring knowledge and love and peace, in which and through which is deification. Science, as the fulfillment of all knowledge possible for humans concerning God and divine things and the unerring domain of the virtues; knowledge, as having genuinely attained to the truth and providing a lasting experience of the divine; love, as wholly partaking by disposition in the whole delightfulness of God; and peace, as suffering the same things as God and preparing those deemed worthy to be in it to suffer them.

For if the divine is completely immovable, as having nothing whatever to disturb it—for what is there that can reach its eminence?—and peace is a stability both unshakable and immovable, and in addition, an untroubled gladness, does not then every soul, deemed worthy to receive divine peace, also experience divine things? So as 14__082 to have surpassed, if it is right to say so, not only vice and ignorance, falsehood and wickedness, and the evils opposed to virtue and knowledge, to truth and the good, which subsist in the soul’s movements against nature, but already also virtue and knowledge, and again truth and goodness, whose limits are discerned by us, and in the most super-true and super-good bridal chamber of God, according to His most unfailing promise, having ineffably and unknowingly laid itself to rest, so that nothing of those things by nature able to disturb it can any longer reach its hiddenness in God. In which blessed and all-holy bridal chamber that awesome mystery of unity beyond mind and reason is accomplished, through which both God towards [the Church,] the soul, and the soul towards God, will become one flesh and one spirit. O Christ, how shall I marvel at your goodness? For I will not dare to say defend, I who do not have sufficient power even to marvel worthily. "For the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great; but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church," says the divine Apostle. And again: "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit."

A soul, therefore, having thus become uniform and gathered both to itself and to God, no reason will there be that still divides it conceptually into many things, its head being crowned with the first and only and one Word and God; in whom according to one inconceivable simplicity all the principles of beings both are and subsist uniformly, as in the Creator and Maker of beings. Gazing upon whom, 14__084 not outside of itself

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ποιῆσαι, τηνικαῦτα καὶ αὐτὴ τῷ Θεῷ ἀληθινῷ τε καὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ ἑνὶ καὶ μόνῳ ἑνωθήσεται, καλή τε καὶ μεγαλοπρεπής, καὶ αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸ ἐφικτὸν ἐμφερὴς γενομένη τῇ συμπληρώσει τῶν τεσσάρων γενικῶν ἀρετῶν τῶν δηλωτικῶν μὲν τῆς κατὰ ψυχὴν θείας δεκάδος, περιεκτικῶν δὲ τῆς ἄλλης τῶν ἐντολῶν μακαρίας δεκάδος.

∆εκὰς γὰρ δυνάμει ἐστὶν ἡ τετράς, ἀπὸ τῆς μονάδος εἱρμῷ κατὰ πρόοδον συντιθεμένη. Καὶ πάλιν μονὰς ἡ αὐτή, κατὰ σύνοδον τὸ ἀγαθὸν μοναδικῶς περιέχουσα, καὶ τὸ ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἀμερὲς τῆς θείας ἐνεργείας ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῆς ἀτμήτως μεμερισμένον δεικνύουσα· 14__080 αἷς τὸ μὲν οἰκεῖον εὐτόνως ἀπαρεγχείρητον ἡ ψυχὴ διετήρησεν, τὸ δὲ ἀλλότριον ἀνδρικῶς ὡς πονηρὸν ἀπερράπισεν, ὡς νοῦν εὔλογον ἔχουσα καὶ σοφίαν ἔμφρονα καὶ θεωρίαν ἔμπρακτον, καὶ γνῶσιν ἐνάρετον, καὶ τὴν ἐπ᾽ αὐταῖς ἄληστον γνῶσιν πιστοτάτην ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀμετάπτωτον, καὶ ὡς τοῖς αἰτίοις τὰ αἰτιατά, καὶ ταῖς δυνάμεσι τὰς ἐνεργείας σωφρόνως συνημμένας Θεῷ προσκομίσασα, καὶ ἀντιλαβοῦσα τούτων τὴν ποιητικὴν τῆς ἁπλότητος θέωσιν.

Ἐνέργεια γάρ ἐστι καὶ φανέρωσις τοῦ μὲν νοῦ ὁ λόγος ὡς αἰτίας αἰτιατόν· καὶ τῆς σοφίας ἡ φρόνησις, καὶ τῆς θεωρίας ἡ πρᾶξις, καὶ τῆς γνώσεως ἡ ἀρετή, καὶ τῆς ἀλήστου γνώσεως ἡ πίστις· ἐξ ὧν ἡ ἐνδιάθετος πρός τε τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν, φημὶ δὲ τὸν Θεόν, σχέσις δημιουργεῖται, ἣν ἔφασκεν εἶναι θείαν ἐπιστήμην καὶ γνῶσιν ἄπταιστον καὶ ἀγάπην καὶ εἰρήνην, ἐν αἷς καὶ δι᾽ ὧν ἡ θέωσις· τὴν μὲν ἐπιστήμην ὡς συμπλήρωσιν πάσης τῆς ἐφικτῆς ἀνθρώποις περὶ Θεοῦ καὶ τῶν θείων γνώσεως καὶ τῶν ἀρετῶν περιοχὴν ἄπταιστον, τὴν δὲ γνώσιν ὡς ἐπιβᾶσαν γνησίως τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, καὶ πεῖραν τοῦ θείου διαρκῆ παρεχομένην, τὴν δὲ ἀγάπην ὡς ὅλης τοῦ Θεοῦ κατὰ διάθεσιν ὅλην μετέχουσαν τῆς τερπνότητος, τὴν δὲ εἰρήνην ὡς τὰ αὐτὰ τῷ Θεῷ πάσχουσαν καὶ πάσχειν τοὺς κατ᾽ αὐτὴν ἀξιωθέντας γενέσθαι παρασκευάζουσαν.

Εἰ γὰρ τὸ θεῖον παντελῶς ἀκίνητον, ὡς τὸ διοχλοῦν καθ᾽ ὁτιοῦν οὐκ ἔχοντί γὰρ καὶ τὸ φθάνον ἐστὶ τὴν ἐκείνου περιωπήν; , ἡ δὲ εἰρήνη σταθερότης ἐστὶν ἀκλόνητός τε καὶ ἀκίνητος· πρὸς δέ, καὶ ἀνενόχλητος εὐφροσύνη· ἆρα τὰ θεῖα οὐ πάσχει καὶ πᾶσα ψυχή, ἡ τὴν θείαν καταξιωθεῖσα κομίσασθαι εἰρήνην; ὡς 14__082 μὴ μόνον κακίας καὶ ἀγνωσίας, ψεύδους τε καὶ πονηρίας, τῶν τε ἀρετῇ καὶ γνώσει, τῇ τε ἀληθείᾳ καὶ τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀντικειμένων κακιῶν, αἳ ταῖς παρὰ φύσιν τῆς ψυχῆς κινήσεσι παρυφίστανται, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη καὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ γνώσεως, ἀληθείας τε αὖ καὶ ἀγαθότητος τῶν ἡμῖν διεγνωσμένων τοὺς ὅρους, εἰ θέμις εἰπεῖν, ὑπερβᾶσα, καὶ τῇ ὑπεραληθεστάτῃ καὶ ὑπεραγάθῳ κοίτῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἀψευδεστάτην αὐτοῦ ἐπαγγελίαν ἀρρήτως τε καὶ ἀγνώστως ἑαυτὴν κατευνάσασα, ὡς μηδὲν τῶν διοχλεῖν αὐτῇ πεφυκότων λοιπὸν ἔχουσα φθάνον αὐτῆς τὴν ἐν Θεῷ κρυφιότητα· καθ᾽ ἣν μακαρίαν καὶ παναγίαν κοίτην τὸ φρικτὸν ἐκεῖνο τῆς ὑπὲρ νοῦν καὶ λόγον ἑνότητος μυστήριον ἐπιτελεῖται, δι᾽ οὗ μία σὰρξ καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα, ὅ τε Θεὸς πρὸς [τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν,] τὴν ψυχήν, καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν γενήσεται· ὦ πῶς σε Χριστέ, θαυμάσω τῆς ἀγαθότητος, οὐ γὰρ ἀμυνῆσαι φάναι τολμήσω, ὁ μήτε πρὸς τὸ θαυμάζειν ἀξίως ἀρκοῦσαν ἔχων τὴν δύναμιν· "Ἔσονται γὰρ οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν· τὸ δὲ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν· ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν», φησὶν ὁ θεῖος Ἀπόστολος. Καὶ πάλιν· "Ὁ κολλώμενος τῷ Κυρίῳ, ἓν πνεῦμά ἐστι».

Οὕτω γοῦν ἑνοειδῆ γενομένην ψυχὴν καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὴν καὶ Θεῷ συναχθεῖσαν οὐκ ἔσται ὁ εἰς πολλὰ κατ᾽ ἐπίνοιαν αὐτὴν ἔτι διαιρῶν λόγος, τῷ πρώτῳ καὶ μόνῳ καὶ ἑνὶ Λόγῳ τε καὶ Θεῷ κατεστεμμένην τὴν κεφαλήν· ἐν ᾧ κατὰ μίαν ἀπερινόητον ἁπλότητα πάντες οἱ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι ἑνοειδῶς καὶ εἰσὶ καὶ ὑφεστήκασιν, ὡς δημιουργῷ τῶν ὄντων καὶ ποιητῇ· ᾧ ἐνατενίζουσα 14__084 οὐκ ἐκτὸς αὐτῆς