77

78 (78). ..».... WHETHER IT WAS SOME DAYTIME FANTASY, OR AN UNFAILING VISION OF THE NIGHT, ..». From the same discourse, on the text, “Whether it was some daytime fantasy, or of the night

an unfailing vision, or an impression upon the governing faculty, which encounters future things as if they were present.”

This blessed Father, having been completely purified by practical philosophy from those things by which human nature is wont to be defiled, and having had his mind wholly formed by the Holy Spirit through the intuitions of divine theorems, through true mystical initiation in knowledge, having indeed experienced the same things as the holy prophets, has enumerated for us in these words the kinds of prophecy. If we should dare at all to address matters spoken so magnificently and divinely, which surpass the power of all who are not such as the teacher himself was, we think it useful to do so, but this must be done conjecturally, not declaratively. I think, therefore, speaking conjecturally according to my own shortsightedness, that he called "daytime fantasy" the sight and sounding of words and things that are spiritually heard and seen by the saints without a person present, as if through the senses. For it is not right to say concerning divine things that the object of fantasy must always be present for the formation 1236 of the fantasy, but rather that, paradoxically and supernaturally, with no person present and no perceptible voices striking the air, the fantasy is active, so that the one being initiated into divine things truly hears and sees. For (14∆_318> every fantasy is either of things present or of things past; but of things not yet come to be, it is by no means at all. For it is a relation that mediates between the extremities through itself. By extremities I mean both the imaginative faculty and the object of imagination, from which, through the medium of the imagination (which is a relation of the extremities), the phantasm is produced, being a limit of activity and passivity—activity of the imaginative faculty, passivity of the object of imagination—of the extremities which are joined to each other through the medium of the imagination, a relation of them existing around it.

For all things that apprehend others in some way are said to act, while all things that are subject to others in some way are said to be acted upon. Therefore, things that apprehend naturally act, and things that are apprehended naturally are acted upon, having as the limit of their passivity and activity their conjunction with each other through the medium. For this reason, I think it fitting to suppose that in divine matters the object of fantasy is not present, since what is already present in reality according to its own substance is no longer future, and at the same time it is not believed to be divine, having nothing more than what follows by nature. For if we, when fantasizing at night in sleep, both see and hear, often when there is no one speaking or being seen, how much more will the saints, when truly awake, experience this, when God works in them while they are awake according to a paradoxical grace, the very thing which we are accustomed to experience by the law of nature in sleep.

And I suppose that by "unfailing vision of the night" he means either the precise apprehension of future events that occurs in the soul during sleep, as in the case of Joseph and Daniel, or a certain vision of divine things, which on account of extreme dispassion from great purity, falls under the eyes of the flesh of the saints. And as for (14∆_320> "the impression upon the governing faculty": I think he means, by way of emphasis, the types of future things that appear to the saints in a single mode, as in an image, according to the simple and unextended application of the intellect.

And I have dared to say these things about these matters conjecturally, not having received the grace of experience in them, on account of the command of the one who enjoined it. But if someone who has received the grace should encounter these words, let him not blame me for rashness, but rather approve of my obedience, even if the present discourse has no power to illumine the aim of the matters set forth.

77

ΟΗ (78). ..».... ΕΙΤΕ ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΑ ΤΙΣ ΗΝ ΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ, ΕΙΤΕ ΝΥΚΤΟΣ ΑΨΕΥ∆ΗΣ ΟΨΙΣ, ..». Ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου, εἰς τό, «Εἴτε φαντασία τις ἦν ἡμερινή, εἴτε νυκτός

ἀψευδής ὄψις, εἴτε τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τύπωσις, συγγινομένου τοῖς μέλλουσιν ὡς παροῦσιν».

Ἄκρως καθαρθείς τῶν οἷς μολύνεσθαι πέφυκε τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἡ φύσις ὁ

μακάριος οὗτος Πατήρ διά τῆς πρακτικῆς φιλοσοφίας, καί τόν νοῦν δι᾿ ὅλου ποιωθείς τῷ ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς τῶν θείων θεωρημάτων, διά τῆς ἀληθοῦς κατά τήν γνῶσιν μυσταγωγίας, οἷα δή τά ἴσα τοῖς ἁγίοις προφήταις παθών, τά εἴδη τῆς προφητείας ἐν τούτοις ἡμῖν ἀπηρίθμησεν. Οἷς εἴπερ τό δεῖν ὅλως τολμᾷν οὕτω μεγαλοφυῶς τε καί ἐνθεαστικῶς εἰρημένοις, καί πάντων τῶν μή τοιούτων οἳος αὐτός ἦν ὁ διδάσκαλος τήν δύναμιν ὑπερβαίνουσιν, ἐπιβάλλειν οἰόμεθα χρήσιμον, στοχαστικῶς, ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ἀποφαντικῶς τοῦτο ποιητέον. Οἶμαι τοίνυν στοχαστικῶς εἰπεῖν κατά τήν ἐμήν ἀμβλυωπίαν, "φαντασίαν ἡμερινήν" αὐτόν εἰρηκέναι τήν τῶν ἀπροσώπως τοῖς ἁγίοις ὡς δι᾿ αἰσθήσεως ἀκουομένων πνευματικῶς καί φαινομένων λόγων καί πραγμάτων ὄψιν τε καί ἐνήχησιν. Οὐ γάρ δή λέγειν θέμις ἐπί τῶν θείων τό θαυμαστόν πάντως δεῖν παρεῖναι πρός διατύπωσιν 1236 τῆς φαντασίας, ἀλλά παραδόξως τε καί ὑπερφυῶς καί μή παρόντος προσώπου καί φωνῶν αἰσθητῶν μή κτυπουμένων δι᾿ ἀέρος τήν φαντασίαν ἐνεργεῖν, ὥστε ἀληθῶς ἀκούειν καί ὁρᾷν τόν τά θεῖα μυσταγωγούμενον. Ἐπειδή γάρ (14∆_318> πᾶσα φαντασία ἤ τῶν παρόντων, ἤ τῶν παρελθόντων· τῶν δέ μήπω γενομένων παντάπασίν ἐστιν οὐδαμῶς. Σχέσις γάρ ἔστι τοῖς ἄκροις δι᾿ ἑαυτῆς μεσιτεύουσα. Ἄκρα δέ φημι τό τε φανταστικόν, καί τό φανταστόν, ἐξ ὧν διά μέσης τῆς φαντασίας, σχέσεως οὔσης τῶν ἄκρων, τό φάντασμα γίνεται, πέρας ὑπάρχον ἐνεργείας καί πάθους, ἐνεργείας μέν τοῦ φανταστικοῦ, πάθους δέ τοῦ φανταστοῦ, τῶν διά μέσης τῆς φαντασίας, σχέσεως αὐτῶν ὑπαρχούσης περί αὐτό, ἀλλήλοις συναπτομένων ἄκρων.

Πάντα γάρ τά κατά τί τινων ἀντιλαμβανόμενα ἐνεργεῖν λέγεται, πάντα δέ κατά τι ἄλλοις ὑποπίπτοντα πάσχειν. Τά οὖν καταλαμβάνοντα φυσικῶς ἐνεργοῦσι, τά δέ καταλαμβανόμενα φυσικῶς πάσχουσι, πέρας ἔχοντα πάθους καί ἐνεργείας τήν πρός ἄλληλα κατά τό μέσον συνάφειαν. ∆ιά τοῦτο δεῖν ἐπί τῶν θείων τό φανταστόν οἴεσθαι μή παρεῖναι νομίζω πρόσφορον, ἐπεί οὐκ ἔτι μέλλει παρεῖναι τό καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν ἰδίαν πραγματειωδῶς ἤδη παρόν, καί ἅμα μηδέ θεῖον εἶναι πιστεύεται, τῆς κατά φύσιν ἀκολουθίας πλέον ἔχον οὐδέν. Εἰ γάρ ἡμεῖς καθ᾿ ὕπνον νύκτωρ φανταζόμενοι καί ὁρῶμεν καί ἀκούομεν, πολλάκις μηδενός ὄντος τοῦ λαλοῦντος ἤ ὁρωμένου, πολλῷ μᾶλλον γρηγοροῦντες ἀληθῶς οἱ ἅγιοι πείσονται τοῦτο, τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐνεργοῦντος αὐτοῖς γρηγοροῦσι κατά παράδοξον χάριν, ὅπερ ἡμεῖς πάσχειν νόμῳ φύσεως κατά τόν ὕπνον εἰώθαμεν.

"Ἀψευδῆ δέ νυκτός ὄψιν" αὐτόν ὑπολαμβάνω λέγειν ἤ τήν ἐν τοῖς ὕπνοις κατά ψυχήν ἀκριβῆ γινομένην τῶν μελλόντων πραγμάτων κατάληψιν, ὡς ἐπ᾿ Ἰωσήφ καί ∆ανιήλ, ἤ ὀπτασίαν τινά θείων πραγμάτων διά τήν ἐκ πολλῆς καθαρότητος ἄκραν ἀπάθειαν καί σαρκός ὀφθαλμοῖς ἁγίων ὑποπτίσουσαν. "Τήν δέ (14∆_320> τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τύπωσιν: οἶμαι κατ᾿ ἔμφασιν αὐτόν λέγειν τούς μονοτρόπως, ὡς ἐν εἰκόνι, κατά τήν ἁπλῆν καί ἀδιάστατον τοῦ νοεροῦ προσβολήν τοῖς ἁγίοις προσφαινομένους τῶν μελλόντων τύπους.

Κἀγώ μέν ταῦτα στοχαστικῶς περί τούτων θαῤῥήσας εἶπον, τῆς κατ᾿ αὐτά πείρας τήν χάριν οὐκ εἰληφώς, διά τήν τοῦ ἐπιτάξαντος κέλευσιν. Εἰ δέ τις τῶν εἰληφότων τήν χάριν τούτοις ἐντύχοι, μή με τῆς προπετείας μέμψαιτο, ἀλλά μᾶλλον τῆς εὐπειθείας ἀποδείξατο, κἄν οὐδεμίαν ἐμφαντικήν δύναμιν τοῦ σκοποῦ τῶν προτεθέντων ὁ παρών ἔχῃ λόγος.