137

When I was immediately cleansed and freed from my bonds, he gives me a divine hand, he raises me from the mire, he embraces me completely, he falls upon my neck—Woe is me, how shall I bear these things?—and kisses me often. And me, completely enfeebled and having lost my strength—Alas for me, how shall I describe these things?—he lifts me upon his shoulders—O love, O goodness!—and leads me out of Hades, both of the place and of the darkness, and brings me into another, whether world or air, I am utterly unable to say. This I know, that a light both carries me and holds me and brings me into a great light, (247) whose great divine wonder not even angels will have the strength to express or to tell to one another at all, as I think. And when I had come there, he shows me other things again, the things in the light, I tell you, or rather the things from the light, he gives me to understand the strange re-creation, by which he himself re-created me and freed me from corruption and completely liberated me from death in my perception and he bestowed on me immortal life and separated me from the corruptible world and from all things of the world and he clothed me in an immaterial and light-like robe, sandals likewise and a ring and a crown, incorruptible and eternal, all things strange to those here. He made me untouchable, unfeelable, O wonder! and likewise invisible, joined to invisible things.

137

Καθαρθέντος οὖν αὐτίκα καί δεσμῶν ἀπαλλαγέντος, δίδωσί μοι χεῖρα θείαν, ἀνιστᾷ με τοῦ βορβόρου, ὅλος περιπλέκεταί με, ἐπιπίπτει τῷ τραχήλῳ Οἴμοι, πῶς ὑποίσω ταῦτα; καί καταφιλεῖ συχνῶς με. Ἐκλυθέντα δέ με ὅλον καί ἰσχύν ἀποβαλόντα Φεῦ μοι, πῶς χαράξω ταῦτα; αἴρει με ἐπί τῶν ὤμων ὤ ἀγάπη, ὤ χρηστότης! - καί ἐξάγει με τοῦ ᾅδου, τοῦ τε χώρου καί τοῦ ζόφου καί εἰσάγει με εἰς ἄλλον εἴτε κόσμον ἤ ἀέρα, ὅλως ἐξειπεῖν οὐκ ἔχω. Τοῦτο οἶδα, ὅτι φῶς με καί βαστάζει καί συνέχει καί πρός φῶς εἰσάγει μέγα, (247) οὗ τό μέγα θεῖον θαῦμα οὐδέ ἄγγελοι ἐκφράσαι ἤ εἰπεῖν ἐξισχύσουσιν ἀλλήλοις κἄν ὅλως, ὥς γε δοκῶ. Γενομένῳ μοι δ᾿ ἐκεῖσε ἄλλα μοι δεικνύει πάλιν, τά ἐν τῷ φωτί, σοί λέγω, μᾶλλον τά ἐκ τοῦ φωτός δέ, τήν ἀνάπλασιν τήν ξένην δίδωσι κατανοεῖν μοι, ἥν αὐτός ἀνέπλασέ με καί φθορᾶς ἀπήλλαξέ με καί θανάτου ἐν αἰσθήσει ὅλον ἠλευθέρωσέ με καί ζωήν ἀθάνατόν μοι ἐδωρήσατο καί κόσμου τοῦ φθαρτοῦ καί τῶν τοῦ κόσμου πάντων ἀπεχώρισέ με καί στολήν ἐνέδυσέ με ἄϋλον φωτοειδῆ τε, ὑποδήματα ὡσαύτως καί δακτύλιον καί στέφος ἄφθαρτα ἀΐδιά τε, ἅπαντα ξένα τῶν ὧδε. Ἐποίησέ με ἀναφῆ, ἀψηλάφητον, ὤ θαῦμα, καί ἀόρατον ὁμοίως, συνημμένον ἀοράτοις.