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and immortal, earthly and heavenly, touching God, and not grasping him, drawing near and being far off? How I was yoked together, I do not know, and how I am both an image of God and am mixed with clay. Who, when in good health, wars against me, and, when warred against, vexes me; whom I both love as a fellow-servant and turn away from as an enemy; whom I both flee as a bond and am ashamed of as a fellow-heir. I strive to wear it away, and I do not have a helper to use for the noblest things, since I know for what I was made, and that I must stretch up toward God through my actions. I spare it as a helper, and I do not know how to flee its rebellion, 95.1105 or how not to fall from God, weighed down by the fetters, dragging me down or holding me to the ground. It is a benevolent enemy, and a treacherous friend. O, this yoking together and this estrangement. What I fear, I care for; what I love, I dread; before warring, I am reconciled; and before making peace, I am divided. What is the wisdom concerning me? and what is the great mystery concerning me? or what does it mean, that we who are a portion of God and have flowed from above, so that we might not, being lifted up and exalted because of our dignity, despise the Creator, in our struggle and battle against the body might always look to him, and that our conjoined weakness might be a tutor for our dignity, so that we might know ourselves to be at once the greatest and the lowliest, earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, heirs of light of fire, or of darkness, whichever way we incline? Such is our mixture, and for these reasons; at least as it appears to me; so that when we are lifted up because of the image, we may be humbled because of the dust. An order constituted man as a rational animal from a rational and irrational mixture, and bound together mystically and ineffably the dust to the mind, the mind to the spirit; and so that it might work a greater wonder in its own creation, it both saved and dissolved it. For it introduced one, and led out the other, as if in a stream, and for the mortal it brought about immortality through dissolution. What is our mixture? what is our motion? how was the immortal blended with the mortal? how do I flow downwards, and am borne upwards? how does the soul go about, and give life, and partake of passion? how is the mind circumscribed and undefined, abiding in us, and surveying all things with the speed of its motion and flow? how is it partaken of in speech and transmitted, and passes through the air, and enters with things from the senses? We were not born to eat and drink and clothe ourselves, but to flee from vice, and to choose virtue, having taken hold of the divine philosophy. For that we were not born to eat and drink, but for other things far greater and better, listen to God as He states the reason for which He made man; for forming him, He says thus: Let us make man in our image and likeness. And we become like God, not by eating and drinking and being clothed; for God neither eats, nor drinks, nor is clothed; but by practicing righteousness, and showing love for humanity, being good and gentle, having mercy on our neighbors, pursuing all virtue; since eating and drinking is common to us with the nature of irrational creatures, 95.1108 and in this we are no better than they. What did the wise men of the Greeks profit, having contrived arguments, and not having known the Giver of reason? What did Plato profit, broadening his mouth, but not benefiting his soul? Did not they who discussed much concerning the soul, grow cold in themselves, not willing to recognize the One who breathed the soul into them? For if they had known the creator of all things, they would have been persuaded by Moses the servant, who said: And God formed man of dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and he became a living soul. Have you seen how man is the work of God, the ensouled treasure of God, the root of the rational animal, he who bears the woman in his side? have you seen how man was formed? how wondrously Adam came to be? He was wondrously formed, and beyond nature he begat naturally; he begat Cain and Abel, as the divine Scripture says: Adam knew his wife, and

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καὶ ἀθάνατον, ἐπίγειον καὶ οὐράνιον, ἁπτόμενον Θεοῦ, καὶ οὐ περιδρασσόμενον, ἐγγίζον καὶ μακρυνόμενον; Ὅπως συνεζύγην, οὐκ οἶδα, καὶ πῶς εἰκών τέ εἰμι Θεοῦ, καὶ τῷ πηλῷ συμφύρομαι. Ὃ καὶ εὐεκτοῦν πολεμεῖ, καὶ ἀνιᾷ πολεμούμενον· ὃ καὶ ὡς σύνδουλον ἀγαπῶ, καὶ ὡς ἐχθρὸν ἀποστρέφομαι· ὃ καὶ ὡς δεσμὸν φεύγω, καὶ ὡς συγκληρονόμον αἰσχύνομαι. Τῆξαι φιλονεικῶ, καὶ οὐκ ἔχω τίνι συνεργῷ πρὸς τὰ κάλλιστα χρήσομαι, ὡς εἰδὼς εἰς ὃ γέγονα, καὶ ὅτι δεῖ με πρὸς Θεὸν ἀνατεῖναι διὰ τῶν πράξεων. Φείδομαι ὡς συνεργοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἔχω πῶς φύγω τὴν ἐπανάστα 95.1105 σιν, ἣ πῶς μὴ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πέσω, βαρυνθεὶς ταῖς πέδαις, κατασπώσαις ἢ κατεχούσαις εἰς ἔδαφος. Ἐχθρός ἐστιν εὐμενὴς, καὶ φίλος ἐπίβουλος. Ὢ τῆς συζυγίας καὶ τῆς ἀλλοτριώσεως. Ὃ φοβοῦμαι, περιέπω· ὃ στέργω, δέδοικα· πρὶν πολεμῆσαι, καταλλάσσομαι· καὶ πρὶν εἰρηνεῦσαι, διΐσταμαι. Τίς ἡ περὶ ἐμὲ σοφία; καὶ τί τὸ μέγα περὶ ἐμὲ μυστήριον; ἢ τί βούλεται, μοῖραν ἡμᾶς ὄντας Θεοῦ, καὶ ἄνωθεν ῥεύσαντας, ἵνα μὴ διὰ τὴν ἀξίαν ἐπαιρόμενοι καὶ μετεωριζόμενοι καταφρονῶμεν τοῦ Κτίσαντος, ἐν τῇ πρὸς τὸ σῶμα πάλῃ καὶ μάχῃ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀεὶ βλέπειν, καὶ τὴν συνεζευγμένην ἀσθένειαν, παιδαγωγίαν εἶναι τοῦ ἀξιώματος, ἵνα εἴδωμεν οἱ αὐτοὶ μέγιστοί τε ὄντες καὶ ταπεινότατοι, ἐπίγειοι καὶ οὐράνιοι, πρόσκαιροι καὶ ἀθάνατοι, κληρονόμοι φωτὸς πυρὸς, εἴτουν σκότους, ὁποτέρως ἂν νεύσωμεν; Τοιοῦτον τὸ κρᾶμα ἡμῶν, καὶ διὰ ταῦτα· ὡς γοῦν ἐμοὶ καταφαίνεται· ἵνα ὅταν ἐπαιρώμεθα διὰ τὴν εἰκόνα, διὰ τὸν χοῦν συστελλώμεθα. Τάξις τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐκ λογικοῦ καὶ ἀλόγου συγκρίματος ζῶον λογικὸν συνεστήσατο, καὶ συνέδησε μυστικῶς καὶ ἀῤῥήτως τὸν χοῦν τῷ νοῒ, τὸν νοῦν τῷ πνεύματι· καὶ ἵνα θαυματουργήσῃ τι μεῖζον ἐν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ πλάσματι, τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ διεσώσατο, καὶ διέλυσεν. Τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἐπεισήγαγεν, τὸν δὲ ὑπεξήγαγεν, ὥσπερ ἐν ῥεύματι, καὶ τῷ θνητῷ τὴν ἀθανασίαν ἐπραγματεύσατο διὰ λύσεως. Τίς ἡ μίξις ἡμῶν; τίς ἡ κίνησις; πῶς τὸ ἀθάνατον τῷ θνητῷ συνεκράθη; πῶς κάτω ῥέω, καὶ ἄνω φέρομαι; πῶς ψυχὴ περιφέρεται, καὶ ζωὴν δίδωσι, καὶ πάθους μεταλαμβάνει; πῶς ὁ νοῦς περιγραπτὸς καὶ ἀόριστος, ἐν ἡμῖν μένων, καὶ πάντα ἐφοδεύων τάχει φορᾶς καὶ ῥεύσεως; πῶς μεταλαμβάνεται λόγῳ καὶ μεταδίδοται, καὶ δι' ἀέρος χωρεῖ, καὶ μετὰ τῶν πραγμάτων εἰσέρχεται ἀπὸ τῶν αἰσθήσεων; Οὐχ ἵνα φάγωμεν καὶ πίωμεν, καὶ περιβαλώμεθα, ἐγεννήθημεν, ἀλλ' ἵνα φύγωμεν κακίαν, ἑλώμεθα δὲ ἀρετὴν, τῆς θείας ἐπιλαβόμενοι φιλοσοφίας. Ὅτι γὰρ οὐχ ἵνα φάγωμεν καὶ πίωμεν, ἐγεννήθημεν, ἀλλ' ἐφ' ἑτέροις πολλῷ μείζοσι καὶ βελτίοσιν, ἄκουσον τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν λέγοντος, ἐφ' ᾗ ἄνθρωπον ἐποίησεν· διαπλάττων γὰρ αὐτὸν, οὕτω πως φησί· Ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ' εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ' ὁμοίωσιν. Ὅμοιοι δὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ γινόμεθα, οὐκ ἐσθίοντες καὶ πίνοντες καὶ περιβαλλόμενοι· Θεὸς γὰρ οὔτε ἐσθίει, οὔτε πίνει, οὔτε περιβάλλεται· ἀλλὰ δικαιοσύνην ἀσκοῦντες, καὶ φιλανθρωπίαν ἐπιδεικνύμενοι, χρηστοὶ καὶ ἐπιεικεῖς ὄντες, τοὺς πλησίον ἐλεοῦντες, ἅπασαν ἀρετὴν διώκοντες· ἐπεὶ τὸ φαγεῖν καὶ τὸ πιεῖν, κοινὸν πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀλόγων φύσιν 95.1108 ἡμῖν ἐστιν, καὶ οὐδὲ ἐκείνων κατὰ τοῦτο ἀμείνους ἐσμέν. Τί ὠφέλησαν οἱ Ἑλλήνων σοφοὶ, τοὺς λόγους μηχανησάμενοι, καὶ τὸν τοῦ λόγου δοτῆρα μὴ γνωρίσαντες; Τί ὠφέλησεν Πλάτων, τὸ μὲν στόμα πλατύνας, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ εὐεργετήσας; Οὐχ οἱ πολλὰ περὶ ψυχῆς διαλαβόμενοι, καθ' ἑαυτοὺς ἀπέψυξαν, τὸν ἐμπνεύσαντα αὐτοῖς τὴν ψυχὴν ἐπιγνῶναι μὴ θελήσαντες; Εἰ γὰρ ἔγνωσαν τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν ἁπάντων, ἐπείσθησαν τῷ Μωσεῖ τῷ θεράποντι λέγοντι· Καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν. Εἶδες πῶς ἔργον Θεοῦ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, τὸ ἔμψυχον τοῦ Θεοῦ κειμήλιον, ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ λογικοῦ ζώου, ὁ ἐν τῇ πλευρᾷ τὴν γυναῖκα βαστάζων; εἶδες πῶς διεπλάσθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος; πῶς παραδόξως ἐγένετο ὁ Ἀδάμ; παραδόξως ἐπλάσθη, καὶ ὑπὲρ φύσιν ἐγέννησε φυσικῶς μὲν ἐγέννησε τὸν Κάϊν καὶ τὸν Ἄβελ, καθώς φησιν ἡ θεία Γραφή· ἔγνω Ἀδὰμ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ