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having been joined to immaterial things, they are insensible to sensible things. For eyes also see, but with an insensible sense. (186) How? Tell me. - I will tell you quickly: as one seeing fire is not burned, so I see insensibly. You see the fire, what it is like, and you certainly see the flame, but you do not feel pain, but you exist outside of it and seeing you are not burned insensibly in sense, or how else would you say this? For you are not burned insensibly, yet you see with sense nonetheless. Understand that the one who sees spiritually experiences the same thing for me: for the mind, seeing all things, discerns dispassionately, as for example it sees a beautiful form, but without desire. The fire, therefore, is the beauty, the touch is desire: if you do not touch the fire, how will you feel pain? Not at all! And the mind again, before it desires evilly, seeing gold will certainly regard it just as clay, and glory not as glory, but as a form of phantasms appearing in the air, and will count wealth like logs lying as a bed of straw in a desert. Why do I try to explain all things, (187) and interpret them? Unless you comprehend by experience, you are not able to know these things. But being at a loss to know natures: Woe is me, how do I not know these things,

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τοῖς ἀΰλοις συναφθέντες αἰσθητῶν ἀναισθητοῦσιν. Ὀφθαλμοί καί γάρ ὁρῶσιν ἐν αἰσθήσει δ᾿ ἀναισθήτῳ. (186) Πῶς; εἰπέ μοι. - Λέξω τάχος˙ ὡς ὁρῶν τό πῦρ οὐ καίῃ, οὕτως βλέπω ἀναισθήτως. Σύ τό πῦρ ὁρᾷς, ὁποῖον, καί τήν φλόγα πάντως βλέπεις, οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ δέ ὀδύνης, ἀλλ᾿ ὑπάρχεις ἔξω τούτου καί ὁρῶν οὐ κατακαίῃ ἀναισθήτως ἐν αἰσθήσει, ἤ πῶς ἄλλως τοῦτο εἴπῃς; Οὐ γάρ καίῃ ἀναισθήτως, ἐν αἰσθήσει δ᾿ ὅμως βλέπεις. Τό αὐτό μοι νόει πάσχειν τόν πνευματικῶς ὁρῶντα˙ νοῦς γάρ καθορῶν τά πάντα ἀπαθῶς καί διακρίνει, οἷον βλέπει κάλλος ὡραῖον, ἀλλ᾿ ἐκτός ἐπιθυμίας. Τό οὖν πῦρ ἐστι τό κάλλος, ἡ ἁφή ἐπιθυμία˙ εἰ μή σύ τοῦ πυρός ἅψῃ, πῶς ὀδύνης αἰσθανθήσῃ; Οὐδαμῶς! Ὁ νοῦς δέ πάλιν, πρίν κακῶς ἐπιθυμήσει, τόν χρυσόν ὁρῶν ὡσαύτως ὡς πηλόν προσβλέψει πάντως, τήν δέ δόξαν οὐχ ὡς δόξαν, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς εἶδος φαντασμάτων εἰς ἀέρα φαινομένων, καί τόν πλοῦτον ὥσπερ ξύλα λογιεῖται ἐν ἐρήμῳ κατακείμενα στιβάδα. Τί τά πάντα ἐξηγεῖσθαι, (187) ἑρμηνεύειν τε πειρῶμαι; Εἰ μή πείρᾳ καταλάβοις, γνῶναι ταῦτα οὐκ ἰσχύεις. Ἀπορῶν δέ γνῶναι φύσεις˙ Οἴμοι, πῶς οὐκ οἶδα ταῦτα,