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an intimation from the divine wisdom of the mysteries attainable by men, then, as I think, he says, Abyss calls to abyss at the voice of your cataracts; by these perhaps indicating that every contemplative mind, both because of its natural invisibility and the depth and multitude of its thoughts, resembling an abyss, whenever, having passed through all the ordering of phenomena, and into the realm of intelligible things, having surpassed their seemliness with the vehemence of its movement, it comes to rest 1409 upon itself, completely fixed and motionless because of its passage through all things, then it fittingly calls upon the divine wisdom, which is truly and genuinely an impassable abyss according to knowledge, to give it a voice of the divine cataracts, but not the cataracts themselves, which is asking to receive some gnostic intimation of faith concerning the ways and principles of divine providence for the universe, through which it will be able to remember God from the land of Jordan and Hermon, in which the great and awesome mystery of the condescension of God the Word to men through the flesh was accomplished, in which the truth of piety towards God was given as a gift to men, which, because it has transcended every order and power of nature; by the divine initiate and mystagogue of secret wisdom, Paul the great apostle, was named the foolishness and weakness of God, on account of its surpassing wisdom and power, I think; but by the divinely-minded great Gregory it was called a plaything, on account of its surpassing prudence.

For the one says, The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men; and the other, For the sublime Word plays in all manner of forms, ordering as it willed the world that is here and there; each 14Ε_166 indicating the divine state by the privation of our most excellent affirmations, and by negations of our own qualities making the affirmation of the divine ones. For among us foolishness and weakness and a plaything are privations, the one of wisdom, the other of power, the other of prudence, but when said of God they clearly signify an excess of wisdom and power and prudence. If, then, anything is said among us by way of privation, it is right to take it, when said of God, as signifying a state, and conversely, if anything is said of us as a state, it is most fitting to take it as signifying a privation in God on account of His preeminence. For the divine excesses, even when spoken of by us through contradiction as a privation, fall far short of the true intimation of their nature. And if this is true according to probable reason (for divine things never coincide with human things), then the foolishness of God and weakness according to the holy apostle Paul, and the plaything of God according to Gregory the wonderful and great teacher, is the mystery of the divine Incarnation, as having super-essentially transcended every order and harmony of all nature, power, and energy, which the most divine David, having beheld and been initiated into from afar in his mind by the divine Spirit, and as it were pre-interpreting the Apostle's saying about the surpassing state of God through privation, wisely, I think, cries out against the Jews: In the greatness of your power your enemies shall lie to you. For every man who ignorantly and impiously confines God within the law of nature becomes utterly an enemy of God and manifestly a liar, and not beginning 1412 to believe that He who impassibly and supernaturally became essentially present in things under 14Ε_168 nature is able to effect all things according to nature.

Thus, then, for now according to one approach, the discourse has conjecturally dared to contemplate the foolishness of God and the weakness and plaything, along with which digressively, as an exemplary preliminary consideration of the proposed difficulty, and having taken the abyss that calls upon the abyss at the voice of the divine cataracts to be a gnostic mind calling upon wisdom, to receive some small portion of those things upon the divine

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παρά τῆς θείας σοφίας τῶν ἐφικτῶν ἀνθρώποις μυστηρίων ἔμφασιν, τότε, καθάπερ οἶμαι, φησίν, Ἄβυσσος, ἄβυσσον ἐπικαλεῖται εἰς φωνήν τῶν καταῤῥακτῶν σου· τούτοις τυχόν ἐνδεικνύμενος, ὅτι πᾶς νοῦς θεωρητικός, διά τε τό κατά φύσιν ἀόρατον καί τό βάθος καί πλῆθος τῶν νοημάτων ἀβύσσῳ παρεοικώς, ἐπειδάν τῶν φαινομένων διαβάς πᾶσαν τήν διακόσμησιν, καί εἰς τήν τῶν νοητῶν σφοδρῷ τῆς κινήσεως ὑπερβάς τήν εὐπρέπειαν, ἐφ᾿ ἑαυτόν 1409 στῇ, πεπηγώς παντάπασι καί ἀκίνητος, διά τήν πάντων διάβασιν, τηνικαῦτα τήν θείαν δεόντως ἐπικαλεῖται σοφίαν, τήν ὄντως τε καί ἀληθῶς κατά τήν γνῶσιν ἀδιεξίτητον ἄβυσσον, φωνήν αὐτῷ δοῦναι τῶν θείων καταῤῥακτῶν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ αὐτούς τούς καταῤῥάκτας, ὅπερ ἐστίν ἔμφασίν τινα πίστεως γνωστικήν τῶν περί τό πᾶν τῆς θείας προνοίας τρόπων τε καί λόγων αἰτῶν ὑποδέξασθαι, δι᾿ ἧς μνησθῆναι δυνήσεται τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐκ γῆς Ἰορδάνου καί Ἐρμονιείμ, ἐν ᾗ τῆς θείας πρός ἀνθρώπους τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου συγκαταβάσεως τό μέγα καί φρικτόν διά σαρκός ἐτελέσθη μυστήριον, ἐν ᾧ τῆς εἰς Θεόν εὐσεβείας ἐδωρήθη τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τό ἀληθές, ὅπερ διά τό πᾶσαν ἐκβεβηκέναι φύσεως τάξιν καί δύναμιν· τῷ μέν θείῳ καί τῆς θείας μύστῃ τε καί μυσταγωγῷ κρυφιογνώστου σοφίας Παύλῳ τῷ μεγάλῳ ἀποστόλῳ μωρία ὠνομάσθη Θεοῦ καί ἀσθένεια, διά τήν ὑπερβάλλουσαν οἶμαι σοφίαν καί δύναμιν· τῷ δέ θεόφρονι μεγάλῳ Γρηγορίῳ παίγνιον προσηγορεύθη, διά τήν ὑπερβάλλουσαν φρόνησιν.

Ὁ μέν γάρ φησι. Τό μωρόν τοῦ Θεοῦ σοφώτερον τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐστί, καί τό ἀσθενές τοῦ Θεοῦ ἰσχυρότερον τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐστί· ὁ δέ. Παίζει γάρ λόγος αἰπύς ἐν εἴδεσι παντοδαποῖσι, Κρίνας ὡς ἐθέλοι κόσμον ἐόν ἔνθα καί ἔνθα· ἑκάτερος 14Ε_166 τῇ στερήσει τῶν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν κρατίστων θέσεων τήν θείαν ἐνδεικνύμενος ἕξιν, καί ταῖς ἀποφάσεσι τῶν ἡμετέρων ποιούμενος τήν τῶν θείων κατάφασιν. Μωρία γάρ παρ᾿ ἡμῖν καί ἀσθένεια καί παίγνιον στερήσεις εἰσίν, ἡ μέν σοφίας, ἡ δέ δυνάμεως, ἡ δέ φρονήσεως, ἐπί Θεοῦ δέ λεγόμεναι σοφίας καί δυνάμεως καί φρονήσεως ὑπερβολήν σαφῶς ὑποδηλοῦσιν. Εἴ τι οὖν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν κατά στέρησιν λέγοιτο, ἐπί Θεοῦ λεγόμενον ἕξιν ὑποδηλοῦν πάντως ἐκδέχεσθαι δίκαιον, καί τό ἔμπαλιν, εἴ τι κατά ἕξιν ἐφ᾿ ἡμῶν λέγοιτο, ἐπί Θεοῦ στέρησιν διά τήν ὑπεροχήν ἐκδέχεσθαι δηλοῦν πρεπωδέστατον. Αἱ γάρ τῶν θείων ὑπερβολαί καί κατά στέρησιν δι᾿ ἀντιφάσεως λεγόμεναι παρ᾿ ἡμῶν ἀποδέουσι πολύ τῆς ἀληθοῦς καθ᾿ ὅν εἰσι λόγον ἐμφάσεως. Εἰ δέ τοῦτο κατά τόν εἰκότα λόγον ἐστίν ἀληθές (οὐ γάρ συμβαίνει πώποτε τά θεῖα τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις), ἄρα μωρία Θεοῦ καί ἀσθένεια κατά τόν ἅγιον ἀπόστολον Παῦλον, καί παίγνιον Θεοῦ κατά Γρηγόριον τόν θαυμαστόν καί μέγαν διδάσκαλον, τό μυστήριόν ἐστι τῆς θείας ἐνανθρωπήσεως, ὡς πάσης φύσεως δυνάμεώς τε καί ἐνεργείας πᾶσαν ὑπερουσίως ἐκβεβηκός τάξιν καί ἁρμονίαν, ὅπερ Πνεύματι θείῳ πόῤῥωθεν κατά νοῦν θεασάμενος καί μυηθείς ὁ θειότατος ∆αβίδ, καί οἷον τήν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου λεγομένην διά στερήσεως ὑπερβάλλουσαν ἕξιν τοῦ Θεοῦ προερμηνεύων, Ἰουδαίων, σοφῶς οἶμαι, καταβοῶν· Ἐν τῷ πλήθει τῆς δυνάμεώς σου ψεύσονταί σε οἱ ἐχθροί σου. Πᾶς γάρ ἄνθρωπος ἐχθρός πάντως τοῦ Θεοῦ καί ψεύστης προδήλως καθίσταται ὁ τόν Θεόν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς φύσεως ἀμαθῶς τε καί ἀσεβῶς περικλείων, καί ἀπαθῶς ὑπέρ φύσιν ἐν τοῖς ὑπό 14Ε_168 φύσιν οὐσιωδῶς γενόμενον τά κατά φύσιν ὡς πάντα δυνάμενον ἐνεργῆσαι πιστεύειν μή 1412 ἀρχόμενος.

Οὕτω μέν οὖν κατά μίαν ἐπιβολήν τέως θεωρῆσαι τό μωρόν τοῦ Θεοῦ καί τό ἀσθενές καί παίγνιον, στοχαστικῶς ὁ λόγος ἐτόλμησε, μεθ᾿ ὧν παρεκβατικῶς, ὡς προθεωρίαν παραδειγματικήν τοῦ προτεθέντος ἀπόρου, καί τήν ἄβυσσον τήν ἐπικαλουμένην τήν ἄβυσσον εἰς φωνήν τῶν θείων καταῤῥακτῶν λαβών ὁ λόγος νοῦν γνωστικόν εἶναι σοφίαν ἐπικαλούμενον δέξασθαι, μικράν τινα τῶν ἐπί τῇ θείᾳ