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immobility, in those who intellectually contemplate the principles of visible things through their forms; and the fourth is dispassion, the complete purification even of bare imagination itself, established in those who through knowledge and contemplation have made their ruling faculty a pure and transparent mirror of God. Therefore, he who has purified himself from the activity of passions, and has been freed from intellectual consent to them, and has brought to a standstill the movement of desire concerning them, and has established his mind unpolluted from their bare imagination, possessing the four general forms of dispassion, departs from matter and material things, and hastens to the intellectual, divine, and peaceful attainment of intelligible realities.

15∆_162 (52) He calls the first dispassion the movement of the body untouched by actual sin; the second, the perfect rejection of passionate thoughts in the soul, through which the movement of the passions according to the first dispassion withers away, not having the passionate thoughts that ignite it to activity; the third, the perfect immobility of desire regarding the passions, through which the second is also naturally brought about, being established by the purity of thoughts; and he calls the fourth dispassion the perfect putting away, according to the intellect, of all fantasies of sensible things, by which the third has received its genesis, not having the fantasies of sensible things forming for it the images of the passions.

1284 3.53 (53) For every practical man, reason and intellect labor like a male and female servant, both devising and creating the modes of action according to virtue, and having, as it were, all their power set against the opposing spirits of wickedness in the practical life; and having fulfilled the practical philosophy, which the number six of the years signified; for it is said that the number six signifies practical philosophy; both reason and intellect are released free for the spiritual, that is, returning to the contemplation of the kindred principles within existing things.

3.54 (54) The foreign male and female servant are anger and desire; whom the contemplative mind yokes forever to the dominion of reason, for the service of the virtues, through courage and temperance, not giving them any release at all to freedom, until the law of nature is completely swallowed up by the law of the Spirit, just as the death of miserable flesh is by infinite life, and the entire image of the kingdom without beginning is shown purely, having the whole form of the archetype through imitation; according to which the contemplative mind, having come to be, makes both anger and desire free; transforming the one toward the pure pleasure of divine love and the undefiled delight; 15∆_164 transferring the other toward spiritual fervor and fiery perpetual motion and sober madness.

3.55 (55) The image of the kingdom without beginning is the unchangeability of the mind concerning true knowledge, and the incorruptibility of the senses concerning virtue; of the soul and of the body, according to the transformation of sense toward the mind in spirit, bound to one another only by the divine law of the spirit, according to which they have the ever-moving and always living, pervading energy of the Logos; in which every dissimilarity to the Divine is completely absent.

3.56 (56) They say that pleasure is desire in action, since according to its definition it is a present good; and that desire is pleasure not in action, since according to its definition it is a future good; and anger, a rehearsed movement of madness, and madness, anger in action. He, therefore, who has subjected these powers to reason, will find desire, 1285 becoming for him pleasure, according to the undefiled

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ἀκινησία, ἐν τοῖς διά τῶν σχημάτων τούς λόγους νοητῶς θεωμένοις τῶν ὁρωμένων· τετάρτη δέ ἐστιν ἀπάθεια, ἡ καί αὐτῆς τῆς ψιλῆς φαντασίας παντελής κάθαρσις, ἐν τοῖς διά γνώσεως καί θεωρίας καθαρόν καί διειδές ἔσοπτρον τοῦ Θεοῦ ποιησαμένοις τό ἡγεμονικόν, συνισταμένη. Ὁ τοίνυν καθάρας ἑαυτόν ἐνεργείας παθῶν, καί τῆς ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς κατά διάνοιαν συγκαταθέσεως ἐλευθερωθείς, καί τῆς περί αὐτά κατ᾿ ἐπιθυμίαν κινήσεως στάσιν λαβών, καί τῆς αὐτῶν ψιλῆς φαντασίας τόν νοῦν καταστήσας ἀμόλυντον, τάς τέσσαρας γενικάς ἀπαθείας ἔχων, ἐξέρχεται τῆς ὕλης καί τῶν ὑλικῶν, καί πρός τήν νοεράν καί θείαν καί εἰρηνικήν τῶν νοητῶν ἐπείγεται λῆξιν.

15∆_162 (νβ΄) Πρώτην ἀπάθειαν λέγει, τήν πρός ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ σώματος κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν ἀνέπαφον κίνησιν· δευτέραν δέ, τήν κατά ψυχήν τῶν ἐμπαθῶν λογισμῶν τελείαν ἀποβολήν, δι᾿ ἧς τῶν παθῶν ἀπομαραίνεται κατά τήν πρώτην ἀπάθειαν κίνησιν, ἐξάπτονας αὐτήν πρός ἐνέργειαν οὐκ ἔχουσα τούς ἐμπαθεῖς λογισμούς· τρίτην δέ, τήν περί τά πάθη τελείαν τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἀκινησίαν, δι᾿ ἥν καί ἡ δευτέρα γίνεσθαι πέφυκε, τῇ τῶν λογισμῶν καθαρότητι συνισταμένη· τετάρτην δέ λέγει ἀπάθειαν, τήν κατά διάνοιαν πασῶν τῶν αἰσθητῶν φαντασιῶν τελείαν ἀπόθεσιν καθ᾿ ἥν ἡ τρίτη τήν γένεσιν εἴληφεν, οὐκ ἔχουσα τάς φαντασίας τῶν αἰσθητῶν εἰδοποιούσας αὐτῇ τῶν παθῶν τάς εἰκόνας.

1284 3.53 (νγ΄) Παντί πρακτικῷ, παιδός καί παιδίσκης δίκην, ὁ λόγος καί ἡ διάνοια μοχθοῦσι, τούς κατ᾿ ἀρετήν τῆς πράξεως τρόπους ἐπινοοῦντές τε καί δημιουργοῦντες, καί οἷον πᾶσαν ἑαυτῶν κατά τῶν ἀντικειμένων τῇ πρακτικῇ πνευμάτων τῆς πονηρίας τήν δύναμιν ἔχοντες ἀντιτεταγμένην· πληρώσαντες δέ τήν πρακτικήν φιλοσοφίαν, ἥν ὁ ἕκτος τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν παρεδήλωσεν ἀριθμός· εἴρηται γάρ ὅτι ὁ ἕξ ἀριθμός, τήν πρακτικήν σημαίνει φιλοσοφίαν· ἐλεύθεροι πρός τήν πνευματικήν ἀπολύονται, δηλονότι τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὖσι συγγενῶν λόγων θεωρίαν ἐπανερχόμενον, ὅ τε λόγος καί ἡ διάνοια.

3.54 (νδ΄) Ἀλλόφυλος παῖς ἐστι καί παιδίσκη, ὁ θυμός καί ἡ ἐπιθυμία· οὕς ὑποζεύγνυσι διά παντός τῇ δεσποτείᾳ τοῦ λόγου, πρός ὑπηρεσίαν τῶν ἀρετῶν, δι᾿ ἀνδρίας καί σωφροσύνης ὁ θεωρητικός νοῦς, μή διδούς αὐτοῖς παντελῶς τήν πρός ἐλευθερίαν ἄφεσιν, ἕως ἄν καταποθῇ τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ πνεύματος τελείως ὁ τής φύσεως νόμος, καθάπερ ὑπό ζωῆς ἀπείρου, σαρκός δυστήνου θάνατος, καί πᾶσα δειχθῇ καθαρῶς ἡ τῆς ἀνάρχου βασιλείας εἰκών, πᾶσαν ἔχουσα τοῦ ἀρχετύπου διά μιμήσεως τήν μορφήν· καθ᾿ ἥν γενόμενος ὁ θεωρητικός νοῦς, ἐλευθέρους ποιεῖται τόν τε θυμόν καί τήν ἐπιθυμίαν· τήν μέν, πρός τήν ἀκήρατον τοῦ θείου ἔρωτος ἡδονήν καί τήν ἄχραντον θέλξιν μετασκευάζων· 15∆_164 τήν δέ, πρός ζέσιν πνευματικήν καί διάπυρον ἀεικινησίαν καί σώφρονα μανίαν μεταβιβάζων.

3.55 (νε΄) Ἀνάρχου βασιλείας ἐστίν εἰκών, ἡ τοῦ νοῦ περί τήν ἀληθῆ γνῶσιν ἀτρεψία, καί ἡ τῆς αἰσθήσεως περί τήν ἀρετήν ἀφθαρσία· τῆς ψυχῆς καί τοῦ σώματος, κατά τήν ἐν πνεύματι πρός τόν νοῦν τῆς αἰσθήσεως μεταποίησιν, μόνῳ τῷ θείῳ νόμῳ τοῦ πνεύματος ἀλλήλοις συνδεδεμένων, καθ᾿ ἥν τήν ἀεικίνητον τοῦ λόγου καί ζῶσαν διαπαντός ἔχουσι διικνουμένην ἐνέργειαν· ἐν ᾗ πᾶσα παντελῶς ἄπεστι πρός τό Θεῖον ἀπέμφασις.

3.56 (νστ΄) Ἐνεργουμένην ἐπιθυμίαν φασίν εἶναι τήν ἡδονήν, εἴπερ παρόν ἀγαθόν, κατά τόν αὐτῆς ἐστιν ὁρισμόν· ἀνενέργητον δέ ἡδονήν, τήν ἐπιθυμίαν, εἴπερ μέλλον ἀγαθόν, κατά τόν αὐτῆς ἐστιν ὁρισμόν· τόν δέ θυμόν, μανίας μελετωμένην κίνησιν, καί τήν μανίαν θυμόν ἐνεργούμενον. Ὁ γοῦν ταύτας ὑποτάξας τῷ λόγῳ τάς δυνάμεις, εὑρήσει, τήν μέν ἐπιθυμίαν, 1285 αὐτῷ γινομένην ἡδονήν, κατά τήν ἐν χάριτι πρός τό Θεῖον τῆς ψυχῆς ἄχραντον