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and kindles my heart and stirs it up to longing and love, that of the creator. And when it has been sufficiently kindled, like a light-bearing radiance it flutters all around me, sending forth brilliant rays to my soul and illuminating my mind for me and shows it to be fit for the height of contemplation (107) having made it capable of seeing. This was, what I said before was the flower of fear. And I, having perceived the radiance and having been filled with unspeakable joy, did not rejoice because I saw, but it, having filled me with divine joy, departed and seized my mind and my perception and every worldly desire; and my mind ran after it and sought with longing to apprehend the radiance that had appeared. But creation did not find it, nor was it able to go completely outside of created things, in order to grasp the uncreated and ungraspable radiance. Nevertheless it went about all things and contrived to see, it searched out the air, it roamed about the heavens, it went around the abysses and the ends of the world, as it seemed, it sought out. But it found nothing in all these things, for all things are created; and I was lamenting and I was mourning and I was inflamed in my inner parts and as if out of my mind, having been in ecstasy, thus I continued. (108) It came then, as it wished, and like a form of a luminous cloud falling upon me and was seen sitting whole upon my head and it made me cry out

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καί καρδίαν μου ἐκκαίει καί διανιστᾷ πρός πόθον καί ἀγάπην, τήν τοῦ κτίστου. Ἱκανῶς δέ πυρωθέντα ὥσπερ αἴγλη φωτοφόρος περιΐπταταί με πᾶσα, φεγγοβόλους ἀφιεῖσα τῇ ψυχῇ μου τάς ἀκτῖνας καί τόν νοῦν λαμπρύνουσά μοι καί πρός θεωρίας ὕψος ἐπιτήδειον δεικνύει (107) ὀπτικόν ἐργασαμένη. Τοῦτο ἦν, ὅπερ προεῖπον ἄνθος εἶναι τό τοῦ φόβου. Κατιδών δ᾿ ἐγώ τήν αἴγλην καί πλησθείς χαρᾶς ἀφάτου οὐκ ἐχάρην ὅτι εἶδον, ἀλλ᾿ αὐτή χαρᾶς με θείας ἐμφορήσασα ἀπέστη καί συνήρπασε τόν νοῦν μου καί τήν αἴσθησιν καί πᾶσαν κοσμικήν ἐπιθυμίαν˙ καί κατέτρεχεν ὁ νοῦς μου καί καταλαβεῖν ἐζήτει τήν φανεῖσαν αἴγλην πόθῳ. Ἀλλ᾿ οὐχ εὕρισκε τό κτίσμα, οὐδ᾿ ἠδύνατο γενέσθαι τῶν κτισμάτων ὅλως ἔξω, ἵνα δράξηται τῆς αἴγλης τῆς ἀκτίστου καί ἀλήπτου. Ὅμως περιῄει πάντα καί ἰδεῖν ἐμηχανᾶτο, ἐξηρεύνα τόν ἀέρα, οὐρανούς περιεπόλει, περιήρχετο ἀβύσσους καί τά ἔσχατα τοῦ κόσμου, ὡς ἐδόκει, ἐξεζήτει. Ἀλλ᾿ οὐδέν ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν εὕρισκε, κτιστά γάρ πάντα˙ καί ἐθρήνουν καί ἐπένθουν καί τά σπλάγχνα ἐφλεγόμην καί ὡς ἔκφρων ἐν ἐκστάσει γεγονώς οὕτως διῆγον. (108) Ἦλθεν οὖν, ὡς ἠβουλήθη, καί νεφέλης ὥσπερ εἶδος φωτεινῆς ἐπιπεσοῦσα καί ὅλη πρός τῇ κεφαλῇ μου ἑωρᾶτο καθημένη καί κραυγάζειν ἐνεποίει