,

3. The Word of God is at once both a lamp and a light, as illuminating the natural thoughts of the faithful, and as burning away those contrary to nature, and as dispelling the gloom of the life according to the senses for those who through the commandments hasten toward the hoped-for life, and as punishing by the burning of judgment those who, by their own choice, for the love of the flesh, cling to this dark night of life.

4. The law, he says, understood with its symbols, is a lamp, destroying the wickedness of the passions through practice, (14B_250> but understood without the symbols, it is a light, elevating by grace, through contemplation, those who are led to divine kinship.

5. He who has not first been raised to himself, he says, through the rejection of the passions contrary to nature, to his own cause, that is, God, will not be raised up through the acquisition in grace of supernatural goods. For one who is truly gathered to God must be separated in mind from created things.

6. The work of the written law, he says, is the deliverance from the passions; of the natural law, equal rights for all people according to equal honor; but the perfection of the spiritual law is likeness to God, as is possible for a human being.

40. CONCERNING THE SIX WATER JARS AT CANA OF GALILEE. 40. QUESTION 40 What does the number of the six water jars at the wedding in Cana of

Galilee? Response. God, who created the nature of human beings, gave it being together with His will, and joined to it a power productive of duties. The six water jars, therefore, are the natural power productive of the divine commandments; of whose knowledge human beings, emptied by their zeal for vain material things, held such a power to be empty and waterless, and for this reason they did not know how to cleanse the filth of wickedness. For he who is without knowledge in no way understands the mode according to virtue which is cleansing of wickedness, until the Word, the creator of nature, came and first filled the aforementioned power productive of duties with natural knowledge and thus changed it (14B_252> into wine, I mean, the logos of knowledge which is beyond nature, both the law and the logos of nature; which those who drink are transported from the nature of all beings and fly away to the hidden place of the divine indwelling; in which they receive the gladness and exultation that surpasses all knowledge, drinking the good wine, that is, the ineffable logos that is productive of deification, after all the economies of providence concerning what is human.

But the productive power of nature is taken as the number six, not only because in six days God made the heaven and the earth, but also because this number alone among the numbers within ten is most perfect and is composed of its own parts. And the scripture says that the water jars held two or three measures each, as the natural practical power contains, on the one hand, according to natural contemplation, as if two measures, the entire knowledge of things that have come into being, both of corporeal natures from matter and form, and of intelligible essences from substance and accident, that is, the comprehensive knowledge of bodies and incorporeal things, and on the other hand, according to the theological mystagogy possible for nature, as three measures, the knowledge and illumination concerning the Holy Trinity, that is, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

You therefore, as gnostics, contemplate what remains: how the general productive power of nature for better things is divided into six, and these themselves general, modes of the virtues, and what is toward the universal productive [power] of the virtues of nature

3. Λύχνος ἐστί κατά ταυτόν ὁμοῦ καί φῶς ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, ὡς καί φωτίζων τούς κατά φύσιν λογισμούς τῶν πιστῶν, καί ὡς καίων τούς παρά φύσιν, καί ὡς λύων τόν ζόφον τῆς κατ᾿ αἴσθησιν ζωῆς τοῖς διά τῶν ἐντολῶν πρός τήν ἐλπιζομένην ἐπειγομένοις ζωήν, καί ὡς κολάζων τῇ καύσει τῆς κρίσεως τούς ταύτης τῆς σκοτεινῆς τοῦ βίου νυκτός κατά γνώμην διά φιληδονίαν σαρκός ἀντεχομένους.

4. Ὁ νόμος, φησίν, μετὰ τῶν συμβόλων νοούμενος, λύχνος ἐστίν, διὰ πράξεως τῶν παθῶν φθείρων τὴν μοχθηρίαν, (14Β_250> δίχα δὲ τῶν συμβόλων κατανοούμενος, φῶς ἐστιν, διὰ θεωρίας πρὸς τὴν θείαν ἀναβιβάζων ἐν χάριτι τοὺς ἀγομένους συγγένειαν.

5. Ὁ μή πρός ἑαυτόν, φησί, πρότερον ἀναχθείς διά τῆς ἀποβολῆς τῶν παρά φύσιν παθῶν πρός τήν ἰδίαν αἰτίαν, ἤγουν τόν Θεόν, διά τῆς ἐν χάριτι τῶν ὑπέρ φύσιν ἀγαθῶν ἐπικτήσεως οὐκ ἀναχθήσεται. Τῶν γάρ πεποιημένων χωρισθῆναι δεῖ κατά διάνοιαν, τόν πρός Θεόν ἀληθῶς συναγόμενον.

6. Τοῦ μέν γραπτοῦ νόμου φησίν ἔργον ἐστίν ἡ τῶν παθῶν ἀπαλλαγή· φυσικοῦ δέ νόμου, ἡ κατ' ἰσοτιμίαν πρός πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἰσονομία· πνευματικοῦ δέ νόμου τελείωσις, ἡ πρός τόν Θεόν, ὡς ἔστιν ἀνθρώπῳ δυνατόν, ἐξομοίωσις.

Μ (40). ΠΕΡΙ ΤΩΝ ΕΞ Υ∆ΡΙΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΚΑΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΓΑΛΙΛΑΙΑΣ. 40. ΕΡΩΤΗΣΙΣ Μ' Τί σημαίνει ὁ ἀριθμὸς τῶν ἓξ ὑδριῶν τῶν ἐν τῷ γάμῳ τῷ ἐν Κανᾷ τῆς

Γαλιλαίας; Ἀπόκρισις. Ὁ τὴν φύσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων δημιουργήσας Θεός, ἅμα βουλήσει τὸ εἶναι αὐτῇ

δέδωκεν, συνήρμοσεν αὐτῇ καὶ δύναμιν τῶν καθηκόντων ποιητικήν. Αἱ τοίνυν ἓξ ὑδρίαι ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ποιητικὴ τῶν θείων ἐντολῶν ἐστι δύναμις· ἧς κενώσαντες τὴν γνῶσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι περὶ τὴν ματαίαν τῶν ὑλικῶν πραγμάτων σπουδήν, κενὴν τὴν τοιαύτην δύναμιν εἶχον καὶ ἄνυδρον, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πῶς τῆς κακίας καθᾶραι τὸν ῥύπον οὐκ ᾔδεισαν. Ὁ γὰρ γνώσεως ἄμοιρος τὸν κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν ῥυπτικὸν τῆς κακίας οὐδαμῶς ἐπίσταται τρόπον, ἕως ἐλθὼν ὁ τῆς φύσεως δημιουργὸς Λόγος ἐπλήρωσε πρότερον τὴν προειρημένην ποιητικὴν τῶν καθηκόντων δύναμιν τῆς κατὰ φύσιν γνώσεως καὶ οὕτως μετέβαλεν (14Β_252> εἰς οἶνον, φημὶ δὲ τὸν ὑπὲρ φύσιν τῆς γνώσεως λόγον, τόν τε νόμον καὶ λόγον τῆς φύσεως· ὃν οἱ πίνοντες τῆς τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων ἐξίστανται φύσεως καὶ εἰς τὸν κρύφιον τῆς θείας ἐνδότητος ἀφίπτανται τόπον· καθ᾽ ὃν τὴν πασῶν ὑπερκειμένην τῶν γνώσεων εὐφροσύνην δέχονται καὶ ἀγαλλίασιν, τὸν καλὸν οἶνον, τουτέστι τὸν ποιητικὸν τῆς θεώσεως, πάντων ὕστερον τῶν κατὰ πρόνοιαν περὶ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον οἰκονομιῶν πίνοντες ἀπόρρητον λόγον.

Εἰς δὲ τὸν ἓξ ἀριθμὸν ἡ ποιητικὴ τῆς φύσεως λαμβάνεται δύναμις, οὐ μόνον ὅτι ἐν ἓξ ἡμέραις ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι καὶ μόνος τῶν ἐντὸς δεκάδος ἀριθμῶν ἐστι τελειότατος καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων συνιστάμενος μερῶν οὗτος ὁ ἀριθμός. Χωρούσας δὲ τὰς ὑδρίας φησὶν ὁ λόγος ἀνὰ μετρητὰς δύο ἢ τρεῖς, ὡς τῆς κατὰ φύσιν πρακτικῆς δυνάμεως χωρούσας κατὰ μὲν τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν, ὥσπερ δύο μετρητάς, τὴν ὅλην τῶν γεγονότων γνῶσιν, τῶν τε ἐξ ὕλης καὶ εἴδους σωματικῶν φύσεων, τῶν τε ἐξ οὐσίας καὶ συμβεβηκότος νοητῶν οὐσιῶν, ἤγουν τὴν τῶν σωμάτων καὶ ἀσωμάτων περιληπτικὴν γνῶσιν, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἐφικτὴν τῇ φύσει θεολογικὴν μυσταγωγίαν, ὡς μετρητὰς τρεῖς, τὴν περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Τριάδος, ἤγουν Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ καὶ ἁγίου Πνεύματος, γνῶσιν καὶ φωταγωγίαν.

Ὑμεῖς οὖν, ὡς γνωστικοί, τὸ λειπόμενον θεωρήσατε πῶς ἡ ποιητικὴ τῶν κρειττόνων γενικὴ τῆς φύσεως δύναμις εἰς ἓξ διαιρεῖται, καὶ αὐτοὺς γενικούς, τῶν ἀρετῶν τρόπους, καὶ τίς ἡ πρὸς τὴν καθόλου ποιητικὴν τῶν ἀρετῶν τῆς φύσεως