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perceiving an intellectual self-love separated from bodily affection, we do not cease worshiping God through this good self-love, ever seeking from God the constitution of the soul. For this is the true worship, and truly pleasing to God is the precise care of the soul through the virtues.

He, therefore, who does not desire bodily pleasure, and who is not at all afraid of pain, has become dispassionate, and along with these and the self-love that begot them, he has killed off together all the (261) passions that come through and from them, along with the primal ignorance of evils, and has become wholly of that which is by nature good, which is steadfast, and abiding, and ever the same; abiding with it altogether immovably, and with unveiled face mirroring the glory of God, beholding from the light-like splendor within him the divine and unapproachable glory.

Since, therefore, the right and easy way of the saved has been shown to us by the Word, let us deny, as much as we can, the pleasure of the present life, and the pain; and let us teach those under us to do this with much exhortation, and we have been and have set ourselves free from every invention of the passions and demonic evil; and let us lay hold of love alone, and nothing will be able to separate us from God, not tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor danger, nor sword, nor all that is enumerated in that place by the holy Apostle; through the knowledge that comes by activity, while love remains immovable in us, being supplied by Him with the eternal and ineffable joy and constitution of the soul; having been deemed worthy of this, we shall have toward the world a saving ignorance, no longer, without sober reasoning, as before, with the unveiled face of perception, seeing the appearance of sensible things as glory, around which the passions manifestly have their origin; but rather with the unveiled face of the intellect, freed from every sensible veil, mirroring the glory of God in virtues and spiritual knowledge; according to which union by grace is meant to occur. For just as, being ignorant of God, we made a god of creation known enjoyably to perception because of the body’s sustenance from it; so, receiving the knowledge of God that is attainable to the intellect by activity, for the sake of the soul’s sustenance from Him both for being and for well-being, we shall be ignorant of every experience of every sense.

PROLOGUE

Of the scholia placed in the margins.

For rational beings, reason is by nature a natural beauty; and the beauty of reason is the precise understanding of rational beings according to reason; and the beauty of understanding is the familiar state of rational beings according to virtue with reason. And the beauty of this state is established as the unerring contemplation concerning true knowledge, whose end is wisdom, being the clearest fulfillment of understanding, which happens to be reason perfected according to nature, which is a pure intellect, that through union with the Cause, has received a relation beyond intellect; by which, having ceased its multifarious natural movement and relation toward the things after the Cause, it holds (264) unknowingly only to the unutterable cessation, having come to be of the all-blessed silence that is beyond intellect, which neither reason nor intellection can at all declare; but only, by participation, the experience of those deemed worthy of the enjoyment beyond intellect; of which a well-known and manifest sign to all is the complete insensibility, the separation of the soul, by disposition toward this age.

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ἀντιλαμβάνοντες νοεράν φιλαυτίαν σωματικῆς κεχωρισμένην στοργῆς, οὐ παυόμεθα λατρεύοντες τῷ Θεῷ διά ταύτης τῆς καλῆς φιλαυτίας, ἐκ Θεοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς ἀεί ζητοῦντες σύστασιν. Αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἀληθής λατρεία, καί ὄντως θεάρεστος ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς διά τῶν ἀρετῶν ἀκριβής ἐπιμέλεια.

Ὁ τοίνυν σωματικῆς ἡδονῆς μή ἐφιέμενος, καί ὀδύνην παντελῶς μή φοβούμενος, γέγονεν ἀπαθής, καί ταύταις μετά τῆς τεκούσης αὐτάς φιλαυτίας, πάντα τά (261) δι᾿ αὐτῆς τε καί ἐξ αὐτῶν, μετά τῆς ἀρχικωτάτης τῶν κακῶν ἀγνοίας ὁμοθυμαδόν συναπέκτεινε πάθη, καί ὅλος γέγονεν τοῦ ἑστῶτός τε καί μένοντος, καί ἀεί ὡσαύτως ἔχοντος φύσει καλοῦ· παντάπασιν αὐτῷ συνδιαμένων ἀκίνητος, καί ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τήν δόξαν τοῦ Θεοῦ κατοπτριζόμενος, ἐκ τῆς ἐν αὐτῷ φωτοειδοῦς λαμπρότητος, τήν θείαν καί ἀπρόσιτον δόξαν θεώμενος.

∆ειχθείσης τοιγαροῦν ἡμῖν ὑπό τοῦ λόγου τῆς ὀρθῆς καί ῥᾳδίας ὁδοῦ τῶν σωζομένων, τήν ἡδονήν τῆς παρούσης ζωῆς, καί τήν ὀδύνην ὅση δύναμις ἀρνησώμεθα· καί τούς ὑφ᾿ ἡμᾶς τοῦτο ποιεῖν διδάξωμεν παρακλήσει πολλῇ, καί πάσης παθῶν ἐπινοίας καί δαιμονιώδους κακουργίας παντελῶς ἀπηλλάγημέν τε καί ἀπηλλάξαμεν· καί μόνης ἀντιποιηθῶμεν τῆς ἀγάπης, καί οὐδείς ἡμᾶς τοῦ Θεοῦ χωρίσαι δυνήσεται, οὐ θλίψις, οὐ στενοχωρία, οὐ λιμός, οὐ κίνδυνος, οὐ μάχαιρα, οὐχ ὅσα τῷ ἁγίῳ ἀπηρίθμηται Ἀποστόλῳ κατά τόν τόπον· διά τῆς κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν γνώσεως, τῆς ἀγάπης ἐν ἡμῖν ἀκινήτου μενούσης, τήν ψυχῆς ἀΐδιόν τε καί ἄῤῥητον ἐξ αὐτοῦ χορηγούμενοι εὐφροσύνην καί σύστασιν· ἧς ἀξιωθέντες, πρός μέν τόν κόσμον, τήν σώζουσαν ἕξομεν ἄγνοιαν, μηκέτι δίχα λογισμοῦ σώφρονος, ὡς τό πρότερον ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τῆς αἰσθήσεως, ὡς δόξαν τήν τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἐπιφάνειαν βλέποντες, περί ἥν τά πάθη προδήλως ἔχει τήν γένεσιν· ἀλλά μᾶλλον ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τῆς διανοίας, παντός αἰσθητοῦ καλύμματος ἀπηλλαγμένῳ, τήν ἐν ἀρεταῖς καί γνώσει πνευματικῇ δόξαν τοῦ Θεοῦ κατοπτριζόμενοι· καθ᾿ ἥν ἡ κατά χάριν προσγίνεσθαι πέφυκεν ἕνωσις. Ὡς γάρ ἀγνοήσαντες τόν Θεόν τήν ἀπολαυστικῶς τῇ αἰσθήσει γνωσθεῖσαν κτίσιν διά τήν ἐξ αὐτῆς τοῦ σώματος σύστασιν Θεόν ἐποιήσαμεν· οὕτω τήν ἐφικτήν τῇ νοήσει κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν γνῶσιν τοῦ Θεοῦ λαμβάνοντες, διά τήν ἐξ αὐτοῦ τήν ψυχῆς πρός τε τό εἶναι, καί εὖ εἶναι σύστασιν, πᾶσαν πάσης αἰσθήσεως ἀγνοήσομεν πεῖραν.

ΠΡΟΛΟΓΟΣ

Τῶν παρακειμένων τοῖς μετωπίοις σχολίων.

Φυσικόν μέν τοῖς λογικοῖς πέφυκεν κάλλος, ὁ λόγος· λόγου δέ κάλλος, ἡ κατά τόν λόγον ἀκριβής τῶν λογικῶν ἐστι σύνεσις· συνέσεως δέ κάλλος ἐστίν ἡ κατά τήν ἀρετήν σύν λόγῳ τῶν λογικῶν γνώριμος ἕξις. Ταύτης δέ κάλλος τῆς ἕξεως, ἡ περί τήν ἀληθῆ γνῶσιν ἀπλανής θεωρία καθέστηκεν, ἧς τέλος ἐστίν ἡ σοφία, συνέσεως ὑπάρχουσα σαφεστάτη συμπλήρωσις, οἷα δή λόγος τυγχάνουσα κατά φύσιν τετελεσμένος, ὅστις ἐστίν νοῦς καθαρός, τῇ περί τήν αἰτίαν ἑνώσει, σχέσιν λαβών ὑπέρ νόησιν· καθ᾿ ἥν ἀποπαύσας τήν πολυποίκιλον πρός τά μετά τήν αἰτίαν φυσικήν αὐτοῦ κίνησίν τε καί σχέσιν, μόνης (264) ἀγνώστως ἀντέχεται, κατά τήν ἄφθεγκτον λῆξιν γεγενημένος τῆς ὑπέρ νόησιν παμμακαρίστου σιγῆς ἥν δηλῶσαι παντελῶς οὐ δύναται λόγος ἤ νόησις· ἀλλά μόνη κατά μέθεξιν ἡ πεῖρα τῶν ἀξιωθέντων τῆς ὑπέρ νόησιν ἀπολαύσεως· ἧς σημεῖόν ἐστιν εὔγνωστόν τε καί πᾶσι κατάδηλον, ἡ κατά διάθεσιν πρός τόν αἰῶνα τοῦτον παντελής ἀναισθησία τῆς ψυχῆς διάστασις.