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37. Here he says continence is a work of Providence, as a purification of the volitional passions; but he says patience is an achievement of judgment, as it is set against involuntary temptations.

38. The first feast, he says, is Passover. 39. The second feast, he says, is Pentecost. 40. The third he says, in the seventh month, is that of the Atonement. 41. See how the law destroys those who understand it bodily, persuading them to worship creation rather than the creator; and to consider venerable by nature the things made for them, while being ignorant of the one for whose sake they were made.

42. How God is the Sabbath. 43. How God is also the mystical Passover. 44. The mystery of the feast of Pentecost, in which he mystically initiated into the spiritual power of the things signified, having named God Pentecost. For just as the monad, remaining stationary after the hebdomadal convolution of the week into itself, accomplishes Pentecost; and again, by additions to itself, becoming a decad through a pentad multiplied by itself, making Pentecost, (14Γ_430> is the beginning and end of its own properties; the one, as being before all quantity; the other, as being beyond quantity; so also God, to whom he said the monad corresponds according to a typical likeness, is the beginning and end of beings, and the Logos, by whom all things consist; beginning, because he is before all substance and motion; end, because he is beyond all substance and motion; and Logos, because he is providentially the cause of all things, as a cohesion of form to a subject, according to which each of the beings has its permanence in its own Logos. When, therefore, the times and the ages, to which he says the week corresponds, reach their end, then God himself will be most alone, without the mediation of the necessary things, that is, of places and times, holding together through himself, by a true union, the existence of beings in those who are saved; that is, created nature, which he compared to the pentad, not only because of the senses, to which it is naturally subject, but also because of the universal knowledge, which is established in the unerring comprehension of intelligible and rational, sensible and living, and existing things. Therefore, the nature of beings, having come to be among those who are saved, will one day cease from both its rest in place and its motion in time, as being beyond the things made for it (that is, place and time) through the true conjunction with God, for whom it was also made. For having made God himself, according to the principle of Providence, its own quality by the decad of the commandments (that is, a mark of the property from grace according to theosis), it will be freed from both the circumscription of rest in place and of that in motion in time, having received a perpetually moving rest, which is the boundless enjoyment of divine things, and a stationary motion, which is the insatiable desire for them.

(14Γ_432> 45. In the seventh month there are three feasts: of Trumpets, and of Atonement, and of Tabernacles; of which the Trumpet is a type of the law and the prophets, and of the knowledge proclaimed from them, and the Atonement is a symbol of the reconciliation of God to man through the incarnation. For he who willingly underwent the condemnation of the condemned, dissolved the enmity once ratified against him. And the Tabernacles is a prefiguration of the resurrection, and of the transformation of all things to immutability.

46. He who delights in mere bloody sacrifices, he says, as one subject to passion, makes the sacrificers zealous for the passions; for the one who genuinely worships loves to delight in the things in which the one worshipped delights.

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37. Ἐνταῦθα τήν ἐγκράτειαν ἔργον εἶναι λέγει τῆς Προνοίας, ὡς τῶν γνωμικῶν καθαρτικήν παθῶν· τήν ὑπομονήν δέ τῆς κρίσεως εἶναι κατόρθωμά φησιν, ὡς τοῖς ἀκουσίοις ἀντιτασσομένην πειρασμοῖς.

38. Πρώτην ἑορτήν, τό Πάσχα λέγει. 39. ∆ευτέραν ἑορτήν λέγει τήν Πεντηκοστήν. 40. Τρίτην λέγει, τήν ἐν ἑβδόμῳ μηνί, τήν τοῦ Ἱλασμοῦ. 41. Σκόπει, πῶς ὁ νόμος ἀπόλλυσι τούς νοοῦντας αὐτόν σωματικῶς, τῇ κτίσει

λατρεύειν παρά τόν κτίσαντα πείθων· καί ἡγεῖσθαι φύσει σεπτά τά δι᾿ αὐτούς γεγονότα, τόν δι᾿ ὅν αὐτοί γεγόνασιν ἀγνοήσαντας.

42. Πῶς ἐστι Σάββατον ὁ Θεός. 43. Πῶς ὁ Θεός καί Πάσχα ἐστί μυστικόν. 44. Μυστήριον τῆς κατά τήν Πεντηκοστήν ἑορτῆς, ἐν ᾧ μυστικῶς τήν τῶν

δηλουμένων πνευματικήν ἐμυσταγώγησε δύναμιν, τόν Θεόν Πεντηκοστήν προσαγορεύσας. Ὡς γάρ ἡ μονάς στάσιμος μένουσα μετά τήν εἰς ἑαυτήν ἑβδοματικήν τῆς ἑβδομάδος συνέλιξιν, ἀποτελοῦσα τήν Πεντηκοστήν· καί πάλιν ταῖς εἰς αὐτήν προσόδοις γινομένη δεκάς διά πεντάδος ἰσοπλασιασθείσης αὐτῇ ποιοῦσα τήν Πεντηκοστήν, (14Γ_430> ἀρχή καί τέλος ἐστί τῶν ἑαυτῆς· τό μέν, ὡς πρό παντός ποσοῦ· τό δέ, ὡς ὑπέρ ποσόν· οὕτω καί ὁ Θεός, ᾧ τήν μονάδα κατ᾿ εἰκασίαν τυπικήν ἀναλογεῖν ἔφησεν, ἀρχή καί τέλος ἐστί τῶν ὄντων, καί λόγος, ᾧ τά πάντα συνέστηκεν· ἀρχή μέν, ὅτι πρό πάσης οὐσίας ἐστί καί κινήσεως· τέλος δέ ὅτι ὑπέρ πᾶσαν οὐσίαν καί κίνησιν· λόγος δέ, ὅτι πάντων κατ᾿ αἰτίαν προνοητικός ἐστιν, ὡς πρός ὑποκείμενον εἶδος συνοχή, καθ᾿ ἥν τῶν ὄντων ἕκαστον ἔχει τήν ἐν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ Λόγῳ διαμονήν. Ὅταν οὖν λάβωσι πέρας οἱ χρόνοι καί οἱ αἰῶνες, οἷς ἀναλογεῖν τήν ἑβδομάδα φησίν, αὐτός ἔσται τότε μονώτατος ὁ Θεός, δίχα τῆς τῶν οὐκ ἄνευ, τουτέστι, τόπων καί χρόνων μεσιτείας, συγκρατῶν δι᾿ ἑαυτοῦ καθ᾿ ἕνωσιν ἀληθῆ τῶν ὄντων ἐν τοῖς σωζομένοις ὕπαρξιν· ἤγουν τήν φύσιν τήν γενητήν, ἥν τῇ πεντάδι παρείκασεν, οὐ μόνον διά τάς αἰσθήσεις, αἷς ὑποπίπτειν πέφυκεν, ἀλλά διά τήν καθολικήν ἐπιστήμην, ἥτις ἐν τῇ περιλήψει τῆς τῶν νοερῶν τε καί λογικῶν, αἰσθητικῶν τε καί ζώντων, καί ὄντων ἀπταίστου καθέστηκε γνώσεως. Οὐκοῦν παύσεταί ποτε, τῆς τε κατά τόπον στάσεως, καί τῆς κατά χρόνον κινήσεως, ὡς ὑπέρ τά δι᾿ αὐτήν γεγονότα (τουτέστι, τόπον καί χρόνον) διά τῆς πρός τόν Θεόν, δι᾿ ὅν καί γέγονεν, ἀληθοῦς συναφείας ἐν τοῖς σωζομένοις γενομένη τῶν ὄντων ἡ φύσις. Αὐτόν γάρ τόν Θεόν, κατά τόν τῆς Προνοίας λόγον, τῇ δεκάδι τῶν ἐντολῶν ἴδιον ποιησαμένη ποιόν (τουτέστι, τῆς ἐκ χάριτος κατά τήν θέωσιν ἰδιότητος γνώρισμα), τῆς τε κατά τήν στάσιν ἐν τόπῳ περιγραφῆς, καί τῆς ἐν χρόνῳ κατά τήν κίνησιν ἐλευθερωθήσεται στάσιν ἀεικίνητον λαβοῦσα, τήν ἀπέραντον τῶν θείων ἀπόλαυσιν, καί κίνησιν στάσιμον, τήν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἀκόρεστον ὄρεξιν.

(14Γ_432> 45. Τῷ ἑβδόμῳ μηνί τρεῖς εἰσιν ἑορταί· Σαλπίγγων καί Ἱλασμοῦ καί Σκηνοπηγίας· ὧν ἡ μέν Σάλπιγξ, νόμου καί προφητῶν, καί τῆς ἐξ αὐτῶν κηρυττομένης γνώσεως τύπος ἐστίν, ὁ δέ Ἱλασμός, τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ πρός τόν ἄνθρωπον διά σαρκώσεως σύμβολον ὑπάρχει καταλλαγῆς. Ὁ γάρ ὑποδύς ἑκουσίως τήν τοῦ κατακριθέντος κατάκρισιν, διελύσατο τήν ποτε πρός αὐτόν κυρωθεῖσαν ἔχθραν. Ἡ δέ Σκηνοπηγία, προτύπωσίς ἐστιν ἀναστάσεως, καί τῆς πάντων πρός ἀτρεψίαν μεταποιήσεως.

46. Ὁ ψιλαῖς ταῖς ἐναίμοις χαίρων θυσίαις, φησί, περί τά πάθη σπουδάζειν ὡς ἐμπαθής παρασκευάζει τούς θύοντας· φιλεῖ γάρ χαίρειν τό γνησίως σέβον, οἷς χαίρει τό προσκυνούμενον.