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completely neither giving birth; upon which he must move, engaged in contemplation; lest while making his examination of things spiritual, he should unawares fall into one of the evil spirits which are by nature able to corrupt the pure disposition of the heart through one of the senses.

We know that the mule is also set down in Scripture for censure, as in, “Be not like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding;” the Logos calling a horse the disposition that deals with the pleasures of the passions; and a mule, the disposition that neither conceives nor gives birth to the good; which the Logos has equally forbidden to those who long for salvation; the one, as being active in evil; the other, as having an inactivity in virtue. And Absalom's mule is also taken for censure, (553) upon which he sat and went forth seeking the death of his father; the Spirit signifying in these things that he who is wounded by some vainglory on account of virtue or knowledge, vainly nourishes his hair, both contrived and mixed with conceit, just as he displays his moral conduct like a mule for the deception of the onlookers; being suspended on which he thinks he has overcome the father who begot him through the teaching of the word, wishing, like a proud man, to tyrannically draw to himself all the glory of virtue and knowledge that belongs to his father from God.

But such a one, having gone out into the breadth of natural contemplation in the spirit for the rational war on behalf of truth, on account of living sensation, is caught by his hair in the thicket of the oak of material spectacles, having this very conceit, its servant, binding his mind to death; which hangs him between heaven and between earth. For the vainglorious man does not have knowledge like a heaven drawing him up from the conceit that pulls him down; nor again an earth—I mean the foundation of practice in humility—drawing him down from the arrogance that lifts him up; whom his father, the teacher who loves God, mourns even when he is dead out of love for mankind, in imitation of God, who does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live.

But so that we might also consider the passage in another way, David clearly represents the practical intellect; and Absalom, the conceit that is born from the practical, according to the union of the intellect with sensation. For sensation is the daughter of the king of Geshur, whom David took and begot Absalom. Geshur is interpreted as "guidance of a wall." And a wall is manifestly the body. And the guidance of the body is the law of the body, that is, sensation; from which is born Absalom, interpreted as "a father's supposed peace;" which is clearly conceit. For by supposing that we are at peace from the passions, we constitute conceit; which great David, knowing it had risen up against him, inasmuch as he cut through practice with knowledge, and leaving the tent and Jerusalem and Judea, flees beyond the Jordan to the land of Gilead; that is, to the migration of witness, or their revelation, judging himself unworthy (556) of the holy tent on account of the conceit that had risen up; that is, of mystical theology; and of Jerusalem, that is, of the peaceful and contemplative knowledge of divine things; and of Judea, that is, of the confession founded on the joy of practice.

For the intellect, having moved its own powers to mourning, and the conscience, like a witness of past deeds; and the memory of the sins committed in each specific kind—for this is their revelation; and, simply put, having become in his thought in the time before grace—for this is to be beyond the Jordan, in which he was estranged from the grace according to virtue and knowledge—and having recognized his own weakness, and having acquired humility, strong and opposed to conceit, through the perception of its own qualities, crossing over to him who is in goodly mourning, will kill the tyrant conceit, and back to the house again

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παντελῶς μήτε τίκτουσαν· ἐφ᾿ ἧς αὐτόν δεῖ περί θεωρίαν κινούμενον φέρεσθαι· μήπως πνευματικήν ποιούμενος τήν τῶν ὄντων διάσκεψιν, λαθών περιπέσῃ τινί τῶν παραφθείρειν διά τινος τῶν αἰσθητῶν πεφυκότων πονηρῶν πνευμάτων τήν ἁγνήν τῆς καρδίας διάθεσιν.

Οἴδαμεν δέ καί ἐπί ψόγῳ κειμένην τῇ Γραφῇ τήν ἡμίονον, ὡς τό, Μή γένεσθε ὡς ἵππος καί ἡμίονος, οἷς οὐκ ἔστι σύνεσις· ἵππον καλέσαντος τοῦ λόγου τήν χρηματίζουσαν ἕξιν ταῖς τῶν παθῶν ἡδοναῖς· καί ἡμίονον, τήν τό καλόν μήτε συλλαμβάνουσαν, μήτε τίκτουσαν ἕξιν· ἅς ἀπηγόρευσεν ὁ λόγος ἰσοτίμως τοῖς σωτηρίας ἐφιεμένοις· τήν μέν, ὡς ἐνεργητικήν κακίας· τήν δέ, ὡς ἀρετῆς ἀπραξίαν ἔχουσαν. Καί ἡ Ἀβεσαλώμ δέ ἡμίονος ἐπί ψόγῳ λαμβάνεται, (553) ἐφ᾿ ἧς καθήσας ἐξῆλθε τόν θάνατον ἐπιζητῶν τοῦ γεννήσαντος· δηλοῦντος ἐν τούτοις τοῦ Πνεύματος, ὡς ὁ κενοδοξίᾳ τινί δι᾿ ἀρετήν ἤ γνῶσιν τρωθείς, τήν κόμην ματαίως διατρέφει τοῖς οἰήσεως ἐπιτετεχνασμένην τε καί μικτήν, ὥσπερ ἡμίονον πρός ἀπάτην τῶν θεωμένων τήν ἠθικήν ἐπιδείκνυται πολιτείαν· ἐφ᾿ ἧς αἰωρούμενος οἴεται τόν γεννήσαντα διά τῆς διδασκαλίας τοῦ λόγου πατέρα χειρώσαθαι, πᾶσαν βουλόμενος τήν τῷ πατρί προσοῦσαν θεόθε δόξαν τῆς ἀρετῆς καί τῆς γνώσεως, ὡς ὑπερήφανον εἰς ἑαυτόν τυραννικῶς ἐφελκύσασθαι.

Ἀλλ᾿ ὁ τοιοῦτος ἐξελθών εἰς τό πλάτος τῆς ἐν πνεύματι φυσικῆς θεωρίας πρός τόν ὑπέρ ἀληθείας λογικόν πόλεμον, διά τήν ζῶσαν αἴσθησιν, τῷ δάσει τῆς δρυός τῶν ὑλικῶν θεαμάτων, κρατεῖται τῆς κόμης, αὐτήν ἔχων δεσμοῦσαν τόν νοῦν πρός θάνατον τήν διάκονον οἴησιν· τήν κρεμνοῦσαν αὐτόν ἀναμέσον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καί ἀναμέσον τῆς γῆς. Οὐ γάρ ἔχει γνῶσιν ὁ κενόδοξος καθάπερ οὐρανόν ἀνέλκουσαν αὐτόν τῆς κατασπώσης οἰήσεως· οὐδ᾿ αὖ πάλιν γῆν· τήν ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει λέγω βάσιν τῆς πράξεως, καθέλκουσαν αὐτόν τῆς ἀνασπώσης αὐτόν φυσιώσεως· ὅν πενθεῖ καί θανόντα διά φιλανθρωπίαν ὡς φιλόθεος ὁ γεννήσας διδάσκαλος, μιμήσει Θεοῦ, μή βουλόμενος τόν θάνατον τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ, ὡς τό ἐπιστρέψαι καί ζῇν αὐτόν.

Ἵνα δέ καί κατ᾿ ἄλλον τρόπον θεωρήσωμεν τόν τόπον, ∆αβίδ τόν πρακτικόν νοῦν σαφῶς παραδείκνυσιν· Ἀβεσσαλώμ δέ, τήν ἐκ τοῦ πρακτικοῦ κατά τήν τοῦ νοῦ πρός αἴσθησιν συνουσίαν τικτομένην οἴησιν. Αἴσθησις γάρ ἐστιν ἡ θυγάτηρ τοῦ βασιλέως Γεσούρ, ἥν λαβών ὁ ∆αβίδ, τόν Ἀβεσαλώμ ἐγέννησεν. Ἑρμηνεύεται δέ Γεσούρ, ὁδηγία τοίχου. Τοῖχος δέ, τό σῶμα προδήλως καθέστηκεν. Ὁδηγία δέ τοῦ σωμάτός ἐστιν, ὁ νόμος τοῦ σώματος, ἤγουν ἡ αἴσθησις· ἐξ ἧς γεννᾶται Ἀβεσαλώμ, πατρός εἰρήνη νομιζομένη ἑρμηνευόμενος· ὅπερ ἐστί σαφῶς ἡ οἴησις. Νομίζοντες γάρ εἰρηνεύειν παθῶν, συνιστῶμεν τόν οἴησιν· ἥν ἐπαναστᾶσαν αὐτῷ γνούς ὁ μέγας ∆αβίδ, ἅτε γνώσει τήν πρᾶξιν διατεμών, καί τήν σκηνήν καί τήν Ἱερουσαλήμ καί τήν Ἰουδαίαν ἀφείς, φεύγει πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου πρός τήν γῆν Γαλάδ· τουτέστιν, εἰς τήν μετοικίαν τῆς μαρτυρίας, ἤ τήν ἀποκάλυψιν αὐτῶν, ἀνάξιον ἑαυτόν κρίνας διά ( 556) τήν ἐπαναστᾶσαν οἴησιν, τῆς ἁγίας σκηνῆς· τουτέστι, τῆς μυστικῆς θεολογίας· καί τῆς Ἱερουσαλήμ, τουτέστι, τῆς εἰρηνικῆς καί τῶν θείων ἑποπτικῆς γνώσεως· καί τῆς Ἰουδαίας, τουτέστι, τῆς ἐπί χαρᾷ τῆς πράξεως ἐξομολογήσεως.

Πρός γάρ τό πένθος μετοικίσας ὁ νοῦς τάς οἰκείας δυνάμεις, καί τήν τῶν πρώην πεπραγμένων καθάπερ μαρτυρίαν συνείδησιν· καί τήν μνήμην τῶν κατ᾿ εἶδος πλημμεληθέντων· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι ἀποκάλυψις αὐτῶν· καί, ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν, εἰς τόν πρό τῆς χάριτος χρόνον τῇ διανοίᾳ γενόμενος· τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου γενέσθαι· καθ᾿ ὅν τῆς κατ᾿ ἀρετήν καί γνῶσιν ἠλλοτρίωτο χάριτος· καί τήν ἰδίαν ἐπιγνούς ἀσθένειαν, καί τήν ἰσχυράν καί ἀντίθετον τῆς οἰήσεως κτησάμενος ταπεινοφροσύνην, διά τῆς τῶν οἰκείων συναισθήσεως, διαπερῶσαν πρός αὐτόν ὄντα ἐν πένθει καλῷ, τόν τύραννον οἴησιν ἀποκτενεῖ, καί πρός τήν οἰκίαν πάλιν