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entanglement. And the spirited faculty, a pure fervor, guarding the pleasure in the Divine, and a sober madness, which makes the soul’s attractive faculty, in its longing, completely ecstatic beyond beings. Therefore, as long as the world lives in us, and the soul's voluntary disposition towards material things, we must not grant freedom to these faculties, lest, mingling with sensible things as if with kindred, they make war on the soul, and take it captive to the passions, as long ago the Babylonians did to Jerusalem. For the age during which the law commanded the foreign children to be enslaved, the Logos signified the soul's volitional disposition towards this world, that is, the present life, demonstrating the intelligible realities through the things recorded in history.

3.57 (νζ΄) He says evil is something that has a beginning; for it has as its origin our 15∆_166 movement against nature; but the good does not have a beginning; for before every age and time, the good exists by nature. He calls the good intelligible, which alone must be understood; and he calls the good utterable, for it alone must be spoken. And he says the good comes into being; for while being unbegotten by nature, it endures to come into being through us by grace, out of love for mankind, for the deification of us who do and speak it, which must uniquely come into being; but evil is not made, which alone must not come into being. He calls evil perishable; for corruption is the nature of evil, having existence in no way at all; but the good is imperishable, as ever existing, and never ceasing to be, and guarding all in which it is engendered. This, then, with the rational faculty we seek; with the desiring faculty, we long for; with the spirited faculty, we guard it inviolate; with the faculty of sense according to knowledge, we distinguish it as unmixed with its opposites; with the faculty of speech, by speaking it we make it manifest to the ignorant; and with the generative faculty, we multiply it; or rather, to speak truly, we are multiplied according to it.

3.58 (νη΄) The contemplative intellect, ruling over the concepts and spectacles in existing things, and over its own movements, must have a state barren of evil; that is, neither conceiving evil at all, nor giving birth to it; on which it must be borne when moving in contemplation, lest, while making a spiritual investigation of beings, he fall unawares to one of the wicked spirits that are naturally able to corrupt through some sensible thing, the pure disposition of the heart.

1288 3.59 (νθ΄) He who is wounded by some vainglory because of virtue or knowledge, vainly nourishing the hair of conceit, like Absalom, displays a moral conduct both contrived and mixed like a mule for the deception 15∆_168 of those who observe; on which being suspended, he thinks he can overcome the father who begot him through the teaching of the word, wanting, as a proud man, to draw tyrannically to himself all the glory from God for virtue and knowledge that belongs to the father. But such a man, having gone out into the breadth of natural contemplation in spirit, for the rational war on behalf of truth, because of living sensation, is caught by the hair in the thicket of the oak of material spectacles, having his empty conceit itself binding him to death, suspending him between heaven and between earth. For the vainglorious man does not have knowledge, like a heaven, drawing him out of his dragging conceit; nor again an earth, I mean the foundation of practice in humility, pulling him down from his inflating puffing-up; whom even when dead the teacher who begot him, as a lover of God, mourns out of love for mankind, in imitation of God, who does not wish the death of the sinner, but that he should turn, and live.

3.60 (ξ΄) The beginning and end of each one's salvation is wisdom; in the beginning, it first creates fear, and later, in its consummation, it establishes longing; or rather, at the beginning it becomes fear for us by dispensation, in order to stop wickedness

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συμπλοκήν· τόν δέ θυμόν, ζέσιν ἀκήρατον, τῆς περί τό Θεῖον ἡδονῆς φρουρητικήν, καί σώφρονα μανίαν, τῆς κατά τήν ἔφεσιν τῆς ψυχῆς θελκτικῆς δυνάμεως ἀπό τῶν ὄντων τελείως ἐκστατικήν. Οὐκοῦν ἕως ἐν ἡμῖν ὁ κόσμος ζῇ, καί ἡ πρός τά ὑλικά τῆς ψυχῆς ἑκούσιος σχέσις, οὐ δεῖ ταύταις παρέχειν ἐλευθερίαν ταῖς δυνάμεσι, μήπως μιγεῖσαι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς ὡς ὁμοφύλοις, πολεμήσωσι τήν ψυχήν, καί λάβωσιν αὐτήν δορυάλωτον γεγενημένην τοῖς πάθεσιν, ὡς πάλαι τήν Ἱερουσαλήμ, οἱ Βαβυλώνιοι. Τόν γάρ αἰῶνα καθ᾿ ὅν τούς ἀλλοφύλους παῖδας δουλεύειν ὁ νόμος ἐκέλευσε, τήν πρός τόν κόσμον τοῦτον, ἤγουν τήν παροῦσαν ζωήν, γνωμικήν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐσήμανε σχέσιν ὁ λόγος, διά τῶν ἱστορουμένων παραδεικνύς τά νοούμενα.

3.57 (νζ΄) Ἠργμένον λέγει, τό κακόν· ἀρχήν γάρ ἔχει τήν ἡμῶν 15∆_166 παρά φύσιν κίνησιν· οὐκ ἠργμένον δέ, τό ἀγαθόν· πρό παντός γάρ αἰῶνος καί χρόνου, φύσει τό ἀγαθόν. Νοητόν λέγει τό ἀγαθόν, ὅ δεῖ μόνον νοεῖν· ῥητόν δέ λέγει τό ἀγαθόν, αὐτό γάρ δεῖ μόνον λαλεῖσθαι. Καί γινόμενον λέγει τό ἀγαθόν· κατά φύσιν γάρ ὑπάρχον ἀγέννητον, κατά χάριν διά φιλανθρωπίαν παρ᾿ ἡμῶν ἀνέχεται γίνεσθαι, πρός τήν ἡμῶν τῶν ποιούντων καί λαλούντων ἐκθέωσιν, ὅπερ δεῖ μονώτατον γίνεσθαι· οὐ ποιούμενον δέ τό κακόν, ὅπερ δεῖ μόνον μή γίνεσθαι. Φθαρτόν λέγει τό κακόν· φθορά γάρ ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ κακοῦ φύσις, οὐδαμῶς κατ᾿ οὐδέν ὕπαρξιν ἔχουσα· ἄφθαρτον δέ τό ἀγαθόν, ὡς ἀεί ὄν, καί μηδέποτε τοῦ εἶναι παυόμενον, καί πάντων οἷς ἐγγίνηται, φρουρητικόν. Τοῦτο γοῦν, τῷ μέν λογιστικῷ, ζητοῦμεν· τῷ δέ ἐπιθυμητικῷ, ποθοῦμεν· τῶ δέ θυμικῷ φυλάττομεν ἄσυλον· τῷ δ᾿ αἰσθητικῷ κατ᾿ ἐπιστήμην, ἀμιγές αὐτό τῶν ἐναντίων διακρίνομεν· τῷ δέ φωνητικῷ, λαλοῦντες αὐτό ποιοῦμεν τοῖς ἀγνοοῦσι φανερόν· καί τῷ γονίμῳ, πληθύνομεν αὐτό· μᾶλλον δ᾿ ἀληθές εἰπεῖν, ἡμεῖς κατ᾿ αὐτό πληθυνόμεθα.

3.58 (νη΄) ∆εῖ τόν θεωρητικόν νοῦν, βασιλεύοντα τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὖσι νοημάτων τε καί θεαμάτων, καί τῶν οἰκείων κινημάτων, ἕξιν ἄγονον ἔχειν κακίας· τουτέστι, κακίαν μήτε συλλαμβάνουσαν παντελῶς, μήτε τίκτουσαν· ἐφ᾿ ἧς αὐτόν δεῖ περί θεωρίαν κινούμενον φέρεσθαι, μήπως πνευματικήν ποιούμενος τήν τῶν ὄντων διάσκεψιν, λαθών περιπέσῃ τινί τῶν παραφθείρειν διά τινός τῶν αἰσθητῶν πεφυκότων πονηρῶν πνευμάτων, τήν ἁγνή τῆς καρδίας διάθεσιν.

1288 3.59 (νθ΄) Ὁ κενοδοξίᾳ τινί, δι᾿ ἀρετήν ἤ γνῶσιν τρωθείς, τήν κόμην ματαίως διατρέφων, καθάπερ Ἀβεσαλών, τῆς οἰήσεως, ἐπιτετεχνασμένην τε καί μικτήν ὥσπερ ἡμίονον πρός ἀπάτην 15∆_168 τῶν θεωμένων, τήν ἠθικήν ἐπιδείκνυται πολιτείαν· ἐφ᾿ ἧς αἰωρούμενος, οἴεται τόν γεννήσαντα διά τῆς διδασκαλίας τοῦ λόγου πατέρα χειρώσασθαι, πᾶσαν βουλόμενος τήν τῷ πατρί προσοῦσαν θεόθεν δόξαν τῆς ἀρετῆς καί τῆς γνώσεως, ὡς ὑπερήφανος εἰς ἑαυτόν τυραννικῶς ἐφελκύσασθαι. Ἀλλ᾿ ὁ τοιοῦτος ἐξελθών εἰς τό πλάτος τῆς ἐν πνεύματι φυσικῆς θεωρίας, πρός τόν ὑπέρ ἀληθείας λογικόν πόλεμον, διά τήν ζῶσαν αἴσθησιν, τῷ δάσει τῆς δρυός τῶν ὑλικῶν θεαμάτων κρατεῖται τῆς κόμης, αὐτήν ἔχων συνδεσμοῦσαν πρός θάνατον, τήν διάκενον οἴησιν, τήν κρεμνοῦσαν αὐτόν ἀναμέσον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καί ἀναμέσον τῆς γῆς. Οὐ γάρ ἔχει γνῶσιν ὁ κενόδοξος, καθάπερ οὐρανόν ἐνέλκουσαν αὐτόν τῆς κατασπώσης οἰήσεως· οὐδ᾿ αὖ πάλιν γῆν, τήν ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει λέγω βάσιν τῆς πράξεως, καθέλκουσαν αὐτόν τῆς ἀνασπώσης φυσιώσεως· ὅν πενθεῖ καί θανόντα διά φιλανθρωπίαν ὡς φιλόθεος ὁ γεννήσας διδάσκαλος, μιμήσει Θεοῦ, μή βουλόμενος τόν θάνατον τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ, ὡς τό ἐπιστρέψει, καί ζῇν αὐτόν.

3.60 (ξ΄) Ἀρχή καί τέλος ἐστί τῆς ἑκάστου σωτηρίας, ἡ σοφία· φόβον μέν ἀρχομένη πρῶτον δημιουργοῦσα, καί πόθον ὕστερον τελειουμένη συνιστῶσα· μᾶλλον δέ φόβος αὐτή κατ᾿ ἀρχάς δι᾿ ἡμᾶς οἰκονομικῶς γινομένη, ἵνα παύσῃ κακίας