206

or shining forth was seen immaterially, unceasingly to me and without end. She was offered to me like a breast and, for me to suckle, she richly supplied the milk of incorruption as to a son of God, O sweetness, O ineffable pleasure! She also became for me a cup of a divine drink (363) and of an immortal stream. From which having partaken, I was also filled with the heavenly food, on which angels alone feed and are kept incorruptible, secondary lights of the first by participation. Thus we too have all become partakers of the divine and ineffable nature, children of the Father, and brothers of Christ, having been baptized in the All-holy Spirit; yet certainly not all of us have recognized the grace, not the illumination, not the participation, nor that we were born in this way, but scarcely one in a thousand or even in ten thousand has recognized this in mystical contemplation. But all the others are aborted children, not knowing the one who begot them; for just as the dead, being baptized in water or even in fire, do not perceive it at all, so also these, being dead in unbelief and deficient through idleness regarding the commandments, do not know that they have suffered a terrible wonder, a deluded faith, to think oneself to be a son of God and not to know one's own father. If therefore you say you know Him by faith and by faith you believe you are a son of God, let the incarnation of God also be by faith, and do not say that He became man in deed nor was born perceptibly. But if He truly became a son of man, He certainly makes you a son of God in deed; (364) if He did not become a body in fantasy, neither are we certainly spirit in conception, but as the Word was truly flesh, so also He transforms us ineffably and makes us children of God in truth. The Word, remaining immutable in divinity, became man by the assumption of flesh; having kept man immutable in flesh and soul, He has made me wholly God, He assumed my condemned flesh and clothed me in all divinity,

206

ἤ ἐκλάμπουσα ἑωρᾶτο ἀΰλως, ἀδιαλείπτως ἐμοί καί ἀνεσπέρως. Αὔτη μοι μαζός προετείνετο ὥσπερ καί θηλάζειν μοι γάλακτος ἀφθαρσίας ὡς υἱῷ Θεοῦ πλουσίως ἐχορήγει, ὤ γλυκύτητος, ὤ ἡδονῆς ἀφράστου! Αὔτη καί ποτήριον πόματος θείου (363) καί ἀθανάτου ῥείθρου ἐγένετό μοι. Ἐξ οὗ μετασχών καί τροφῆς ἐνεπλήσθην τῆς οὐρανίου, ἥνπερ ἄγγελοι μόνοι τρέφονται καί ἄφθαρτοι διατηροῦνται, φῶτα τοῦ πρώτου δεύτερα τῇ μεθέξει. Οὕτω καί ἡμεῖς θείας καί ἀπορρήτου φύσεως γεγόναμεν κοινωνοί πάντες, τέκνα τοῦ Πατρός, ἀδελφοί τοῦ Χριστοῦ δέ, Πνεύματι βαπτισθέντες τῷ Παναγίῳ˙ πάντως δ᾿ οὐ πάντες ἐπέγνωμεν τήν χάριν, οὐ τήν ἔλλαμψιν, οὐ μέθεξιν, οὐδ᾿ ὅτι οὕτως ἐγεννήθημεν, μόλις δέ τοῦτο τῶν χιλίων εἷς εἴτε καί τῶν μυρίων ἐν τῇ μυστικῇ ἐπέγνω θεωρίᾳ. Οἱ δ᾿ ἄλλοι πάντες ἀμβλωθρίδια τέκνα τόν γεννήσαντα ἑαυτούς ἀγνοῦντες˙ ὡς γάρ οἱ νεκροί ὕδατι βαπτισθέντες εἴτε καί πυρί οὐκ αἰσθάνονται ὅλως, οὕτως οὐδ᾿ οὖτοι νεκροί τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ καί τῶν ἐντολῶν πέλοντες τῇ ἀργίᾳ ἐλλιπεῖς οὐκ ἴσασιν, ὡς πεπόνθασι τέρας φοβερόν, πίστιν πεπλανημένην, δοκεῖν ἑαυτόν υἱόν τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶναι καί μή γνωρίζειν τόν ἴδιον πατέρα. Εἰ οὖν πίστει τοῦτον σύν γνωρίζειν λέγεις καί πίστει υἱός Θεοῦ εἶναι νομίζεις, ἔστω καί ἡ σάρκωσις τοῦ Θεοῦ πίστει, καί μή ἔργῳ φῇς ἄνθρωπον γεγονέναι μηδέ αἰσθητῶς αὐτόν ἀποτεχθῆναι. Εἰ δέ γέγονεν υἱός ὄντως ἀνθρώπου, υἱόν σε ποιεῖ τοῦ Θεοῦ πάντως ἔργῳ˙ (364) εἰ οὐ γέγονεν ἐν φαντασίᾳ σῶμα, οὐδ᾿ ἡμεῖς πάντως ἐν ἐπινοίᾳ πνεῦμα, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ὑπῆρξε σάρξ ἀληθῶς ὁ Λόγος, οὕτω καί ἡμᾶς μεταμορφοῖ ἀρρήτως καί τέκνα ποιεῖ Θεοῦ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ. Ἄτρεπτος θεότητι μείνας ὁ Λόγος ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο σαρκός προσλήψει, ἄτρεπτον τόν ἄνθρωπον σαρκί ψυχῇ τε τηρήσας πεποίηκεν θεόν με ὅλον, προσέλαβέ μου τήν κατάκριτον σάρκα καί θεότητα ὅλην ἐνέδυσέ με,