,

187

knowledge, being fed, which God gives, lavishly supplied to those who love him, according to what is written: “He gave them the bread of heaven, man ate the bread of angels.”

(14Γ_386> Therefore one must annihilate the sensual interpretation towards the body of Scripture—since it is clearly generative of the passions and of the disposition related to things temporal and fleeting, that is, of the passionate activity of the senses toward sensible things—as one would the children and offspring of Saul, by means of natural contemplation, as on a mountain, in the spiritual ascent to the divine oracles, if indeed we desire to be filled with divine grace. For if the iniquity is upon Saul, according to the divine oracle, and upon his house, on account of which he put the Gibeonites to death, it is clear that both the law understood only according to the letter, and the people of the Jews, and anyone who is an imitator of them in mind, wrongs the truth—for the Word knows this to be the house of Saul, which circumscribes the power of the law by the letter alone and does not accept natural contemplation for the manifestation of the knowledge mystically hidden in the letter, which exists as a mean between types and truth, leading those who are being led away from the former and back toward the latter, but, as it were, completely denying this contemplation and excluding it from the divine mystagogy.

Therefore, the guardians of the divine spectacles must kill this bodily and temporary interpretation of the law, since it is subject to time and flux, through natural contemplation, as on a mountain, by the height of knowledge. “For,” it says, “David called the Gibeonites and said to them: What shall I do for you, and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And they said to the king: The man who consumed us and persecuted us and plotted to destroy us, we will make him disappear so that he may not stand in any border of Israel; give us seven men of his sons, and we will expose them to the sun for the Lord on the hill of Saul. And the king took the two (14Γ_388> sons of Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, Saul’s concubine, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Merob, daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel, and gave them into the hand of the Gibeonites; and they exposed them to the sun on the mountain before the Lord. And the seven of them fell there together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, at the beginning of the barley harvest.”

Where in the history do we find that the Gibeonites made Saul disappear so that he would not stand in any border of Israel, when Mari-baal, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, was saved by King David, and many others of Saul’s kindred, as is recorded in the book of Chronicles? And how, having taken seven men from his seed, did they say, “we will make him disappear, so that he may not stand in any border of Israel,” when he had died many years before this? But, as it seems, the paradoxical was mixed with the letter of the history, so that we might seek the true meaning of what was written. Therefore, he who in practice, through natural contemplation—as through certain Gibeonites—completely makes the carnal mind of Scripture, that is, Saul, disappear from every border of Israel, kills the pleasure-loving and body-loving relation to unstable and flowing matter that is born in the soul from the written law, slaughtering, as children and offspring of Saul, the groveling mind of the law by means of natural contemplation, as on a mountain, by the height of knowledge, and making manifest before the Lord, that is through confession, the former interpretation toward the body of the law.

For this is what “to expose to the sun” can be understood to mean by the lovers of learning: “before the Lord.” And “they exposed them to the sun,” it says, “on the mountain before the Lord,” bringing to light, that is through knowledge(27), the erroneous preconception of the law according to the letter. For everyone (14Γ_390> who has killed the carnal mind of the law the letter of the

187

γνῶσιν, βρωματιζόμενος, ἣν δίδωσι δαψιλῶς ἐπιχορηγουμένην τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτὸν ὁ Θεός, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον· «ἄρτον οὐρανοῦ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, ἄρτον ἀγγέλων ἔφαγεν ἄνθρωπος».

(14Γ_386> Χρὴ τοιγαροῦν τὴν κατ᾽ αἴσθησιν πρὸς σῶμα τῆς Γραφῆς ἐκδοχήν, ὡς παθῶν προδήλως καὶ τῆς πρὸς τὰ χρονικὰ καὶ ῥέοντα σχετικῆς διαθέσεως οὖσαν γεννητικήν, ἤγουν τῆς πρὸς τὰ αἰσθητὰ τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἐμπαθοῦς ἐνεργείας, ὡς Σαοὺλ τέκνα καὶ ἔκγονα, διὰ τῆς φυσικῆς, ὡς ἐν ὄρει, τῇ τῶν θείων ἀναγωγῇ λογίων, ἀφανίσαι θεωρίας, εἴπερ ἐμφορηθῆναι θείας ἐφιέμεθα χάριτος. Εἰ γὰρ ἐπὶ Σαοὺλ ἡ ἀδικία, κατὰ τὸν θεῖον χρησμόν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, ὑπὲρ οὗ ἐθανάτωσε τοὺς Γαβαωνίτας, δῆλον ὡς ἀδικεῖ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὅ τε νόμος κατὰ μόνον τὸ γράμμα νοούμενος καὶ ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων λαὸς καὶ εἴ τις ἐκείνων ὑπάρχει κατὰ διάνοιαν μιμητήςτοῦτον γὰρ οἶδεν ὁ λόγος οἶκον εἶναι Σαούλ, μόνῳ τῷ γράμματι περιγράφων τοῦ νόμου τὴν δύναμιν καὶ μὴ δεχόμενος πρὸς τὴν φανέρωσιν τῆς μυστικῶς ἐγκεκρυμμένης τῷ γράμματι γνώσεως τὴν φυσικὴν θεωρίαν, μέσην ὑπάρχουσαν τύπων καὶ ἀληθείας, τῶν μὲν τοὺς ἀγομένους ἀπάγουσαν, πρὸς δὲ τὴν ἐπανάγουσαν, ἀλλ᾽ οἷον ταύτην πάμπαν ἀρνούμενος καὶ τῆς τῶν θείων αὐτὴν ἔξω ποιούμενος μυσταγωγίας.

Ταύτην τοιγαροῦν χρὴ τὴν σωματικὴν τοῦ νόμου καὶ πρόσκαιρον ἐκδοχήν, ὡς ὑπὸ χρόνον καὶ ῥέουσαν, ἀποκτέννειν διὰ τῆς φυσικῆς θεωρίας, ὡς ἐν ὄρει, τῷ ὕψει τῆς γνώσεως, τοὺς τῶν θείων ἐπιμελητὰς θεαμάτων. «Καὶ ἐκάλεσε» γάρ, φησίν, «∆αβὶδ τοὺς Γαβαωνίτας καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· τί ποιήσω ὑμῖν καὶ ἐν τίνι ἐξιλάσομαι καὶ εὐλογήσατε τὴν κληρονομίαν Κυρίου; Καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα· ὁ ἀνήρ, ὃς συνετέλεσεν ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐδίωξεν ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐλογίσατο ἐξολοθρεῦσαι ἡμᾶς, ἀφανίσομεν αὐτὸν τοῦ μὴ ἑστάναι αὐτὸν ἐν παντὶ ὁρίῳ Ἰσραήλ· δότε ἡμῖν ἑπτὰ ἄνδρας ἐκ τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξηλιάσομεν αὐτοὺς τῷ Κυρίῳ ἐν τῷ βουνῷ Σαούλ. Καὶ ἔλαβεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τοὺς δύο (14Γ_388> υἱοὺς Ῥεσφᾶς, θυγατρὸς Ἔα, παλλακῆς Σαούλ, τὸν Ἑρμονθὶ καὶ τὸν Μεμφιβοσθέ, καὶ τοὺς πέντε υἱοὺς Μερόβ, θυγατρὸς Σαούλ, οὓς ἔτεκε τῷ Ἐσδριήλ, καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοὺς ἐν χειρὶ τῶν Γαβαωνιτῶν· καὶ ἐξηλίασαν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἔναντι Κυρίου. Καὶ ἔπεσον ἐκεῖ οἱ ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, καὶ ἐθανατώθησαν ἐν ἡμέραις θερισμοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ θερισμοῦ κριθῶν».

Ποῦ κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν εὑρίσκομεν ὡς ἠφάνισαν τὸν Σαοὺλ οἱ Γαβαωνῖται τοῦ μὴ ἑστάναι αὐτὸν ἐν παντὶ ὁρίῳ Ἰσραήλ, τοῦ υἱοῦ Ἰωνάθαν, υἱοῦ Σαούλ, Μαριβαὰλ παρὰ τῷ βασιλεῖ ∆αβὶδ διασωθέντος καὶ ἄλλων πολλῶν τῆς συγγενείας Σαούλ, ὡς ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ φέρεται τῶν Παραλειπομένων; Πῶς δέ, τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτοῦ λαβόντες ἑπτὰ ἄνδρας, αὐτόν, εἶπον, ἀφανίσομεν, τοῦ μὴ ἑστάναι αὐτὸν ἐν παντὶ ὁρίῳ Ἰσραήλ, πρὸ τούτου πολλοὺς ἀποθανόντα χρόνους; Ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἔοικε, παρεμίγη τῷ ῥητῷ τῆς ἱστορίας τὸ παράλογον, ἵνα τὸ τῆς διανοίας ἀληθὲς τῶν γεγραμμένων ζητήσωμεν. Οὐκοῦν τὸν σωματικὸν νοῦν τῆς Γραφῆς, τουτέστι τὸν Σαούλ, ἀφανίζει παντελῶς ἐκ παντὸς ὁρίου Ἰσραὴλ ὁ πράξει διὰ τῆς φυσικῆς θεωρίας, ὡς διά τινων Γαβαωνιτῶν, ἀποκτέννων τὴν γεννωμένην ἐκ τοῦ γραπτοῦ νόμου πρὸς τὴν ἄστατον ὕλην καὶ ῥέουσαν τῇ ψυχῇ φιλήδονον σχέσιν καὶ φιλοσώματον, κατασφάττων, ὡς τέκνα τοῦ Σαοὺλ καὶ ἔκγονα, τὴν χαμαίζηλον τοῦ νόμου διάνοιαν διὰ μέσης τῆς φυσικῆς θεωρίας, ὡς ἐν ὄρει, τῷ ὕψει τῆς γνώσεως, καὶ φανερὰν ποιούμενος ἐνώπιον Κυρίου, δι᾽ ἐξομολογήσεως δηλαδή, τὴν πρὸς σῶμα τοῦ νόμου προτέραν ἐκδοχήν.

Τοῦτο γὰρ «ἐξηλιάσαι» νοεῖσθαι δύναται τοῖς φιλομαθέσιν ἔναντι Κυρίου· καὶ ἐξηλίασαν αὐτούς, φησίν, ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἔναντι Κυρίου, εἰς φῶς ἀγαγόντες, διὰ τῆς γνώσεως δηλαδή(27), τὴν κατὰ τὸ γράμμα πεπλανημένην τοῦ νόμου πρόληψιν. Πᾶς (14Γ_390> γὰρ ἀποκτείνας τὴν σωματικὴν τοῦ νόμου διάνοιαν τὸ γράμμα τοῦ