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John, therefore, is a type of all those who are born in spirit through repentance according to virtue and knowledge, and who through progress maintain an unchanging state in these things until the end; while David is a type of all those who after gaining knowledge fall away, and again through repentance bring back the exultation of divine joy of the soul according to virtue and knowledge. Therefore, being concise and having intellectually contracted in the spirit the power of the Logos in its breadth, the great teacher compared the hearers of the divine oracles to the great John and David through the state of each one, since every one of those living according to piety is configured, as I think, to one of these in the manner well-ascribed to each, as if crying out explicitly that "All you who have received the divine Logos of virtue and knowledge being conceived in you through repentance, either, like the great John, have from the beginning to the end through progress unchangeably maintained the divine leaping of the soul in it according to your state, being subject to no form of vice and ignorance whatsoever; or, like the blessed David, even if something unwanted has happened to you during the divine course, you diligently strive through repentance to bring back to yourselves virtue and knowledge with tones of patience and exercises of divine words, and do not through sloth leave this divine ark in you—I mean of virtue and of knowledge—given over (14∆_406> to the passions and suffer the passion of Eli the priest, and falling backwards at the gates of the temple in Shiloh die, with the shoulder of your practice being shattered.

This, I believe, this blessed Father teaches more clearly in his sermon for New Sunday, saying: "We are commanded to sing a new song to the Lord, whether we are those dragged down into Babylon and the evil 1293 confusion by sin, then restored to Jerusalem, and there indeed unable to sing the divine song as on a foreign land, but here establishing a new song and way of life; or whether we are those who have remained in the good and are progressing, and have already achieved one thing, but are achieving another from the Spirit who makes new." I think the teacher said these things having understood them conjecturally according to my own folly»; but now receive for me the conception and leap for joy, even if not like John from the womb, but like David at the resting of the ark, having comprehended the contemplation of the things said in a manner according to the worth and kind of the contemplation.

For the accurate curators of such mysteries and the lovers and spectators of the spiritual words concerning them say that the universal principle of Scriptural contemplation, being one, is contemplated as expanded in ten ways: by place, time, kind, person, dignity (that is, pursuit), by the practical, the natural, the theological, by philosophy, the present, and the future (that is, type and truth); and again, being brought together, to delimit the five by three modes, and again the three by two, and to enclose the two in one, in a principle not numbered at all; for instance, to bring together the five which are according to time and place and kind and person and dignity into the three of the practical and the natural and the theological; and these again, being three, into two, those signifying the present and the future; and these into the perfect and simple, as they say, and (14∆_408> all-encompassing ineffable Logos, from which by procession the universal decad of modes under the contemplation of Scripture has come to be, and into which as a beginning, according to delimitation, the same decad is brought together anagogically again into a monad.

And the principle of Scripture is contemplated according to time, when it indicates 'Sometime', 'Was', 'Is', 'Will be', 'Before this', 'The present', 'After this', and 'At this time', and 'From the beginning', 'The past', 'The future', and years and seasons and months and weeks and days and nights and the parts of these, and simply whatever is indicative of time; and according to place, when heaven and earth and air and sea, the inhabited world, the ends,

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Τύπος οὖν ἐστιν ὁ μέν Ἰωάννης πάντων τῶν κατ᾿ ἀρετήν καί γνῶσιν διά μετανοίας ἐν πνεύματι γεννωμένων, καί μέχρι τέλους διά προκοπῆς τήν ἐν τούτοις ἕξιν ἄτρεπτον διατηρούντων, ὁ δέ ∆αβίδ πάντων τῶν μετά τήν ἐπίγνωσιν παραπιπτόντων, καί πάλιν διά μετανοίας τό κατ᾿ ἀρετήν καί γνῶσιν ἐπαναγόντων τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς θείας χαρᾶς ἀγαλλίαμα. Σύντομος οὖν ὑπάρχων, καί τῷ πνεύματι τήν εἰς πλάτος τοῦ Λόγου δύναμιν νοερῶς συστείλας ὁ μέγας διδάσκαλος, Ἰωάννῃ καί ∆αβίδ τοῖς μεγάλοις παρείκασε διά τῆς καθ᾿ ἑκάτερον ἕξεως τούς τῶν θείων λογίων ἀκροατάς, ὡς ἑνί πάντως τούτων, καθάπερ οἶμαι, κατά τόν ἐφ᾿ ἑκάστῳ καλῶς ἀποδοθέντα τρόπον, ἑκάστου τῶν κατ᾿ εὐσέβειαν ζώντων ἐνισχημένου, οἱονεί διαῤῥήδην βοῶν ὅτιπερ Πάντες ὅσοι τόν θεῖον τῆς ἀρετῆς καί τῆς γνώσεως ἐν ἑαυτοῖς διά μετανοίας κυϊσκόμενον ἐδέξασθε Λόγον, ἤ κατά τόν μέγαν Ἰωάννην ἐξ ἀρχῆς μέχρι τέλους διά προκοπῆς τό ἐπ' αὐτῷ τῆς ψυχῆς κατά τήν ἕξιν ἀτρέπτως θεῖον διατηρήσατε σκίρτημα, μηδενί τό παράπαν ὑπαγόμενοι κακίας εἴδει καί ἀγνωσίᾳ, ἤ κατά τόν μακάριον ∆αβίδ, κἄν εἰ συμβέβηκέ τι κατά τόν θεῖον δρόμον ὑμῖν ἀβούλητον, φιλοπόνως διά μετανοίας σπουδάζεται πρός ἑαυτούς τήν ἀρετήν ἐπαναγαγεῖν καί τήν γνῶσιν ὑπομονῆς τόνοις καί λόγων θείων ἀσκήμασι, καί μή τῇ ῥαθυμίᾳ τοῖς πάθεσιν ἔκδοτον (14∆_406> ταύτην τήν ἐν ὑμῖν θείαν, τῆς ἀρετῆς λέγω καί τῆς γνώσεως, ἐάσαντες κιβωτόν τό τοῦ ἱερέως Ἤλει ὑπομένητε πάθος, καί ὀπισθίως πεσόντες περί τάς πύλας τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ ἐν Σηλώμ ἀποθάνητε, τόν ὦμον τῆς πράξεως συντριβέντες.

Ὅπερ, ὡς οἶμαι, σαφέστερον διδάσκων ὁ μακάριος οὗτος Πατήρ ἐν τῷ εἰς τήν Καινήν Κυριακήν λόγῳ φησί " ᾍδειν δέ τῷ Κυρίῳ ᾆσμα καινόν κελευόμεθα, εἴτε οἱ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα καί τήν πονηράν 1293 σύγχυσιν κατασυρέντες ὑπό τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ἔπειτα πρός Ἱερουσαλήμ ἀνασωθέντες, κἀκεῖ μέν οὐ δυνάμενοι τήν θείαν ᾄδειν ᾠδήν ὡς ἐπί γῆς ἀλλοτρίας, ἐνταῦθα δέ νέαν ᾠδήν καί πολιτείαν ἱστάμενοι, εἴτε οἱ μείναντες ἐν τῷ καλῷ καί προκόπτοντες, καί τό μέν κατωρθωκότες ἤδη, τό δέ κατορθοῦντες παρά τοῦ καινοποιοῦ Πνεύματος. "Ταῦτα στοχαστικῶς κατά τήν ἐμήν ἀφροσύνην νενοηκότα τόν διδάσκαλον φάναι νομίζω»· Νυνί δέ μοι δέξαι τήν κύησιν καί προσκίρτησον, εἰ καί μή ὡς Ἰωάννης ἀπό γαστρός, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ∆αβίδ ἐπί τῇ καταπαύσει τῆς κιβωτοῦ, τῷ κατ᾿ ἀξίαν καί γένος τῆς θεωρίας τρόπῳ συνῃρηκότα τήν τῶν εἰρημένων θεωρίαν.

Φασί γάρ οἱ τῶν τοιούτων ἀκριβεῖς ἐπιμεληταί μυστηρίων καί τῶν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς πνευματικῶν λόγων ἐρασταί καί φιλοθεάμονες, τόν καθόλου τῆς Γραφικῆς θεωρίας λόγον, ἕνα τυγχάνοντα, δεκαχῶς πλατυνόμενον θεωρεῖσθαι, τόπῳ, χρόνῳ, γένει, προσώπῳ, ἀξίᾳ, ἤγουν ἐπιτηδεύματι, πρακτικῇ, φυσικῇ, θεολογικῇ, φιλοσοφίᾳ, ἐνεστῶτι, καί μέλλοντι, ἤγουν τύπῳ καί ἀληθείᾳ, καί αὖθις συναγόμενον τούς πέντε τρισί περιγράφειν τρόποις, καί πάλιν δυσί τούς τρεῖς, καί τούς δύο ἑνί συγκλείειν παντελῶς μή ἀριθμουμένῳ λόγῳ· οἷον τούς κατά χρόνον καί τόπον καί γένος καί πρόσωπον καί ἀξίαν, πέντε τυγχάνοντες, εἰς τρεῖς συνάγειν τούς τῆς πρακτικῆς καί φυσικῆς καί θεολογικῆς, τούτους δέ πάλιν τρεῖς ὄντας, εἰς δύο, τούς τό παρόν τε καί τό μέλλον σημαίνοντας, καί τούτους εἰς τόν τελεστικόν καί ἁπλοῦν, ὥς φασι, καί (14∆_408> πάντων περιεκτικόν ἄῤῥητον Λόγον, ἐξ οὗ κατά πρόοδον γέγονεν ἡ καθολική τῶν ὑπό θεωρίαν τῆς Γραφῆς τρόπων δεκάς, καί εἰς ὅν ὡς ἀρχήν κατά περιγραφήν ἡ αὐτή δεκάς ἀνατατικῶς εἰς μονάδα πάλιν συνάγεται.

Καί κατά μέν χρόνον ὁ τῆς Γραφῆς θεωρεῖται λόγος, ἡνίκα τό Ποτέ, τό Ἦν, τό Ἔστι, τό Ἔσται, τό Πρό τοῦδε, τό Παρόν, τό Μετά τόδε, καί Ἐπί τοῦδε, καί Ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς, τό Παρελθόν, τό Μέλλον, ἑνιαυτούς τε καί καιρούς καί μῆνας καί ἑβδομάδας καί ἡμέρας καί νύκτας καί τά τούτων μέρη, καί ἁπλῶς ὅσα ἐμφαντικά χρόνου, δηλοῖ· κατά δέ τόπον, ὅταν οὐρανόν καί γῆν καί ἀέρα καί θάλασσαν, οἰκουμένην, πέρατα,