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But the flower, and the fruit, which fear brings forth, is from outside the world, which knows how to seize the mind and with it raise the soul and cast it outside the world. How, tell me, does love cast these things outside the world, I wished to know clearly. These things are ineffable, as I said, yet pay attention and I shall speak: Love is the Divine Spirit, an all-creating and illuminating light, yet it is not from the world, nor anything of the world at all, nor a creature; for it is uncreated and outside of all created things, uncreated in the midst of created things. Understand what I say to you, child! (104) For it is separate, and the uncreated does not yet deign to become a creature; yet if it wished, it would be possible for it to do this. For indeed the Word, by the cooperation of the Spirit and the good pleasure of the Father, became wholly man without change, being by nature uncreated God, He ineffably became created and, having deified what He assumed, showed me a double wonder in both energies and wills likewise: visible and invisible, able to be held and yet unable to be held, and shown as a creature in the midst of all created things; but as He was not a creature, as they thought, He would vanish; yet He did not vanish at all, but was in the midst of all things
60
Τό δέ ἄνθος, ὁ καρπός τε, ὅν ὁ φόβος ἀποτίκτει, ἔξωθεν τοῦ κόσμου ἔστιν, ἅ καί νοῦν ἁρπάζειν οἶδε καί ψυχήν σύν τούτῳ αἴρειν καί τοῦ κόσμου ἔξω βάλλειν. Πῶς, εἰπέ μοι, ἔξω κόσμου ἡ ἀγάπη ταῦτα βάλλει, ἤθελον σαφῶς εἰδέναι. Ἄφραστα, ὡς εἶπον, ταῦτα, ὅμως πρόσεχε καί λέξω˙ Πνεῦμα Θεῖον ἡ ἀγάπη, παντουργόν φῶς καί φωτίζον, πλήν οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου, οὐδέ ὅλως τι τοῦ κόσμου, οὐδέ κτίσμα˙ ἄκτιστον γάρ καί κτισμάτων πάντων ἔξω, ἄκτιστον κτιστῶν ἐν μέσῳ. Νόει ἅ σοι, τέκνον, λέγω! (104) Ἔστι γάρ κεχωρισμένον, τό δέ ἄκτιστον οὐδέπω κτίσμα δέχεται γενέσθαι˙ πλήν εἰ βούλοιτο, καί τοῦτο δυνατόν αὐτῷ ποιῆσαι. Γέγονε καί γάρ ὁ Λόγος Πνεύματος τῇ συνεργίᾳ καί Πατρός τῇ εὐδοκίᾳ ἄνθρωπος ἀτρέπτως ὅλος, ἄκτιστος Θεός ὤν φύσει γέγονε κτιστός ἀρρήτως καί τό πρόσλημμα θεώσας ἔδειξε διπλοῦν μοι θαῦμα ἀμφοτέραις ἐνεργείαις καί θελήσεσιν ὡσαύτως˙ ὁρατόν ἀόρατόν τε, κρατητόν ἀκράτητον δέ, καί δεικνύμενος ὡς κτίσμα τῶν κτισμάτων μέσον πάντων˙ ὡς οὐ κτίσμα δέ τυγχάνων, ὡς ἐδόκουν, ἠφαντοῦτο˙ πλήν οὐδ᾿ ὅλως ἠφαντοῦτο, ἀλλ᾿ ἐν μέσῳ ὤν τῶν πάντων