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1357 5.23 (23) Or again, the shame of the mouth is the movement of the mind, which brings form to the passions, and shapes beauty according to pleasure for the sense. For without the inventive power of the mind for the shaping of form, a passion is in no way produced. Or it is an offering, both the crude and uncomely and unformed movement of the passions; but the shame of the mouth is the movement of the mind which gives form to the passion for the sense, and by its thoughts provides material appropriate to the passion.

5.24 (24) He who believes that God ordained according to the law the sacrifices and the feasts, the Sabbaths and the new moons for the sake of bodily luxury and repose, will in every way and entirely come under the guilt of the activity of the passions, and the shame of the filth of shameful thoughts about them; and he will be under the corruptible world, and the body-loving meditation in his thoughts; and under the material of corruptible things, though able to possess what is honorable.

5.25 (25) He who is persuaded that to live luxuriously in a bodily manner according to the law is a divine ordinance, receives gluttony as a gift of God (15∆_272> for a life of joy, from which he begets ways of life that by misuse defile the activity of the senses.

5.26 (26) Whenever the contemplative part of the soul embraces luxury according to the law in the letter as divine because of the commandment, for its way of life, it pursues an unnatural use of the senses, not allowing the use of their activity to appear in any way according to nature. For it begets both the disposition and the activity of the passions, and brings gluttony in as something divine, for the generation of ways of life that by misuse defile the senses, to the destruction of the natural principles and seeds in existing things.

5.27 (27) No one who cleaves only to the bodily worship of the law could ever accept a natural principle or thought, because symbols are by no means by nature identical with nature. For he who remains with the symbols of the law is not able to see the nature of existing things according to reason, nor to preserve the principles placed essentially in existing things by the Creator, because of the difference between the symbols and the nature of existing things.

5.28 (28) He who considers the belly a god, and adorns himself with shame as if it were glory, knows only how to cling zealously to the dishonor of the passions as if they were divine; and for this reason he cares only for temporal things, that is, matter and form, and the fivefold activity of the senses through misuse. For sense, entwined with matter and form in a mixture, is wont to produce passion, and to kill and destroy the principles according to nature. For passion and nature, according to the principle of being, in no way coexist with each other. For a principle of nature is never wont to appear in passion, 1360 just as passion is not co-generated with nature at its origin.

5.29 (29) He who does not believe that Scripture is spiritual does not perceive his own (15∆_274> poverty in knowledge, but is destroyed by famine. For famine is truly an eclipse of the good things known by experience itself, and a complete destitution and scarcity of the spiritual foods that sustain the soul. For how will someone consider the removal of things altogether unknown to him to be a famine or a loss?

5.30 (30) The people of the faithful who have known the truth truly famish, and the soul of each one, deprived of the spiritual contemplation in grace, and having become part of the typical slavery in the letter, not nourishing the mind with the sublimities of the thoughts, but filling the sense with passible fantasy by means of the bodily representations of the symbols of the Scriptures.

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1357 5.23 (κγ΄) Ἤ πάλιν αἰσχύνη στόματός ἐστιν, ἡ τοῖς πάθεσιν εἶδος ἐπάγουσα, καί τό καθ᾿ ἡδονήν πρός αἴσθησιν διαπλάττουσα κάλλος, τοῦ νοῦ κίνησις. Χωρίς γάρ τῆς κατά νοῦν ἐπινοητικῆς δυνάμεως, πρός διάπλασιν μορφῆς, οὐδαμῶς πάθος ἄγεται. Ἤ ἀνάθημά ἐστι, καί ἡ πρόσυλος καί ἀκαλλής τῶν παθῶν καί ἀδιατύπωτος κίνησις· αἰσχύνη δέ στόματος, ἡ τό πάθος εἰδοποιοῦσα πρός αἴσθησιν τοῦ νοῦ κίνησις, καί ταῖς ἐπινοίαις ὕλην ἁρμόδιον τῷ πάθει πορίζουσα.

5.24 (κδ΄) Ὁ διά τρυφήν σωματικήν καί ἀνάπαυσιν τάς θυσίας καί τάς ἑορτάς, τά τε Σάββατα καί τάς νεομηνίας κατά τόν νόμον τόν Θεόν διατεταχέναι πιστεύων, πάντη τε καί πάντως, ὑπό τήν ἐνοχήν γενήσεται τῆς τῶν παθῶν ἐνεργείας, καί τήν αἰσχύνην τῆς τῶν ἐπ᾿ αὐταῖς αἰσχρῶν λογισμῶν ῥυπαρίας· ὑπό τε τόν φθειρόμενον ἔσται κόσμον, καί τήν ἐν λογισμοῖς φιλοσώματον μελέτην· ὑπό τε τήν ὕλην τῶν φθειρομένων τίμιον ἔχειν δυνάμενος.

5.25 (κε΄) Ὁ πεισθείς θείαν εἶναι διαταγήν τό σωματικῶς κατά νόμον τρυφᾷν, τήν γαστριμαργίαν ὡς Θεοῦ δῶρον λαμβάνει (15∆_272> πρός συμβίωσιν μετά χαρᾶς, ἐξ ἧς γεννᾷ τούς μολύνοντας τῇ παραχρήσει τήν ἐνέργειαν τῶν αἰσθήσεων τρόπους.

5.26 (κστ΄) Ἐπειδάν τό θεωρητικόν τῆς ψυχῆς τήν τρυφήν κατά τόν ἐν γράμματι νόμον ὡς θείαν διά τήν ἐντολήν ἀσπάσηται πρός συμβίωσιν, τήν τῶν αἰσθήσεων παρά φύσιν μετέρχεται χρῆσιν, μηδεμιᾶς συγχωροῦν κατά φύσιν διαφαίνεσθαι τήν χρῆσιν τῆς ἐνεργείας. Γεννᾷ γάρ τήν τε τῶν παθῶν ἕξιν καί τήν ἐνέργειαν, καί ὡς θείαν εἰσοικίζεται τήν γαστριμαργίαν, πρός γένεσιν τῶν ῥυπαινόντων τῇ παραχρήσει τάς αἰσθήσεις τρόπων, εἰς ἀναίρεσιν τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὖσι φυσικῶν λόγων τε καί σπερμάτων.

5.27 (κζ΄) Οὐδείς μόνῃ προσανέχων τῇ σωματικῇ τοῦ νόμου λατρείᾳ, φυσικόν τό παράπαν δύναιτ᾿ ἄν παραδέξασθαι λόγον ἤ λογισμόν, ὅτι μηδέ πέφυκε ταυτόν εἶναι τῇ φύσει τά σύμβολα. Ὁ γάρ τοῖς συμβόλοις ἐναπομένων τοῦ νόμου, οὐ δύναται κατά λόγον τήν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν ὁρᾷν, καί τούς τεθέντας οὐσιωδῶς ὑπό τοῦ δημιουργοῦ τοῖς οὖσι λόγους περιποιεῖσθαι, διά τό τῶν συμβόλων πρός τήν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν διάφορον.

5.28 (κη΄) Ὁ Θεόν τήν κοιλίαν ἡγούμενος, καί ὡς ἐπί δόξῃ τῇ αἰσχύνῃ καλλωπιζόμενος, μόνων οἶδεν ὡς θείων ἀντέχεσθαι διά σπουδῆς τῶν παθῶν τῆς ἀτιμίας· καί διά τοῦτο μόνα περιέπει τά χρονικά, τουτέστι τήν ὕλην καί τό εἶδος, καί τήν κατά παράχρησιν πενταπλῆν ἐνέργειαν τῶν αἰσθήσεων. Τῇ γάρ ὕλῃ καί τῷ εἴδει συμπλακεῖσα κατά μίξιν ἡ αἴσθησις, ἀποτελεῖν μέν πάθος, ἀπεκτείνειν δέ καί ἀναιρεῖν τούς κατά φύσιν πέφυκε λόγους. Πάθος γάρ καί φύσις κατά τόν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον, οὐδαμῶς ἀλλήλοις συνυπάρχουσιν. Οὐ γάρ πέφυκε πάθει 1360 ἐμφαίνεσθαι τό παράπαν φύσεως λόγος, ὥσπερ οὔτε φύσει συναποτίκτεσθαι κατά γένεσιν πάθος.

5.29 (κθ΄) Ὁ μή πιστεύων τήν Γραφήν εἶναι πνευματικήν, τῆς οἰκείας (15∆_274> κατά τήν γνῶσιν πενίας οὐκ αἰσθάνεται, ἀλλά λιμῶ διαφθείρεται. Λιμός γάρ ἐστιν ὡς ἀληθῶς, ἔκλειψις τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτήν τήν πεῖραν ἐγνωσμένων ἀγαθῶν, καί ἀπορία καί σπάνις παντελής τῶν τήν ψυχήν συγκρατούντων πνευματικῶν βρωμάτων. Πῶς γάρ λιμόν ἡγήσεταί τις ἤ ζημίαν, τήν τῶν καθάπαξ αὐτῷ μηδαμῶς ἐγνωσμένων ἀφαίρεσιν;

5.30 (λ΄) Λιμώττει ἐπ᾿ ἀληθείας τῶν πιστῶν καί ἐπεγνωκότων τήν ἀλήθειαν ὁ λαός, καί ἡ ψυχή τοῦ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον ἀφεμένη τῆς ἐν τῇ χάριτι πνευματικῆς θεωρίας, καί γενομένη τῆς τυπικῆς ἐν τῷ γράμματι δουλείας, μή διατρέφουσα τόν νοῦν ταῖς τῶν νοημάτων μεγαλοφυΐαις, ἀλλά πληροῦσα τήν αἴσθησιν ἐμπαθοῦς φαντασίας, ταῖς σωματικαῖς τῶν Γραφῶν συμβόλων διατυπώσεσι.