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17. Fear, and piety and knowledge, bring about practical philosophy. But strength, and counsel, and understanding achieve natural contemplation in the spirit; while divine wisdom alone bestows mystical theology.
18. He calls the essence of sensible and intelligible things 'means'; through which the human mind is naturally led up to God as the cause of beings.
19. What, in the anagogical sense, are the snuffers of the lamps? 20. What are the two olive trees? 21. A definitive and brief summary of the things contemplated. 22. What is the right, and the left? 23. The Old, he says, Testament, being a symbol of action and virtue,
prepares the body to be in harmony with the mind in its movement; but the New, being productive of contemplation and knowledge, illumines with divine gifts the mind that mystically holds fast to it.
24. A specific mode of another contemplation, referring to the soul of each person, both the lampstand and the things of the lampstand.
25. What is the lamp? 26. God, he says, is called and becomes by grace the Father of those
who have only a pure volitional birth in the spirit; by which, as the face of the soul, having in their life the visible character of God the begetter in virtues, they prepare those who behold them by the change of their ways to glorify God, offering their own life to them for imitation as an exceptional exemplar of virtue. For God is not naturally glorified by mere word, but by works of righteousness which proclaim the divine magnificence far more than word.
27. Who must we understand the seven lamps to be? 28. What are the snuffers? 29. What are the two olive trees? 30. The Old, he says, supplies the gnostic with the ways of the virtues; but the
New bestows on the practical man the principles of true knowledge. 31. Fr. That he calls the practical part, the passible part of the soul. 32. He who, he says, embodies knowledge in practice, (692) and in knowledge the
shows practice, has found the precise way of true divine work. But he who has one of these divorced from the other, has either made knowledge an unsubstantial fantasy, or rendered practice a lifeless idol. For knowledge without practice differs in nothing from fantasy, not having practice to give it substance; and irrational practice has become identical to a lifeless idol, not having knowledge to animate it.
33. Just as soul and body by composition make a man, so practice and contemplation by their coming together constitute one gnostic wisdom; and the Old and New Testament work out one mystery.
34. The natural law is on the left, because of sense-perception; but it brings to the Logos the ways of the virtues, and makes knowledge that is put into action. But the spiritual law is on the right, because of the mind; and it mixes with sense-perception the spiritual principles in beings, and makes practice that is rational.
35. Providence, he says, is shown in the Logos being united hypostatically to the flesh; but judgment is seen in his deigning to suffer for us in the flesh; through which, union and suffering, the salvation of the universe was established.
36. The incarnation, he says, came about for the salvation of nature; but the passion, for the redemption of those held by death on account of sin.
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ιζ΄. Τήν πρακτικήν φιλοσοφίαν φόβος, εὐσέβειά τε καί γνῶσις ἐργάζονται. Τήν δέ φυσικήν ἐν πνεύματι θεωρίαν, ἰσχύς, καί βουλή, καί σύνεσις κατορθοῦσι· τήν δέ μυστικήν θεολογίαν σοφία μόνη θεία χαρίζεται.
ιη΄. Μέσα καλεῖ τήν τῶν αἰσθητῶν καί τῶν νοητῶν οὐσίαν· δι᾿ ὧν πρός τόν Θεόν ὡς αἰτίαν τῶν ὄντων ὁ ἀνθρώπινος νοῦς ἀνάγεσθαι πέφυκεν.
ιθ΄. Τίνες εἰσί κατά τήν ἀναγωγήν, αἱ τῶν λύχνων ἐπαρυστρίδες; κ΄. Τίνες αἱ δύο τυγχάνουσιν ἐλαῖαι; κα΄. Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις τῶν θεωρηθέντων ὁριστική καί σύντομος. κβ΄. Τί τό δεξιόν, καί τό ἀριστερόν; κγ΄. Ἡ Παλαιά, φησίν, ∆ιαθήκη, πράξεως καί ἀρετῆς ὑπάρχουσα σύμβολον,
συμφωνεῖν τό σῶμα τῷ νοΐ παρασκευάζει κατά τήν κίνησιν· ἡ δέ Νέα, θεωρίας καί γνώσεως οὖσα ποιητική, τόν μυστικῶς αὐτῆς ἀντεχόμενον νοῦν, τοῖς θείοις καταφαιδρύνει χαρίσμασιν.
κδ΄. Ἄλλης θεωρίας τρόπος ἰδικός, εἰς τήν ἑκάστου ψυχήν ἀναφέρων, τήν τε λυχνίαν καί τά τῆς λυχνίας.
κε΄. Τίς ὁ λύχνος; κστ΄. Ἐκείνων ὁ Θεός, φησίν, λέγεταί τε καί γίνεται κατά τήν χάριν Πατήρ, τῶν
μόνην ἐχόντων καθαράν τήν γνωμικήν ἐν πνεύματι γέννησιν· καθ᾿ ἥν, ὥσπερ ψυχῆς πρόσωπον τόν ἐν ἀρεταῖς τοῦ γεννήσαντος Θεοῦ χαρακτῆρα φαινόμενον ἔχοντες κατά τόν βίον, τούς θεωμένους τῇ μεταβολῇ τῶν τρόπων δοξάζειν τόν Θεόν παρασκευάζουσι, τόν οἰκεῖον βίον πρός μίμησιν παρέχοντες αὐτοῖς ἐξαίρετον ἀρετῆς ἐξεμπλάριον. Οὐ γάρ λόγῳ ψιλῷ Θεός δοξάζεσθαι πέφυκεν· ἀλλ᾿ ἔργοις δικαιοσύνης πολλῷ πλείονα λόγου βοῶσι τήν θείαν μεγαλοπρέπειαν.
κζ΄. Τίνας εἶναι δεῖ νοεῖν τούς ἑπτά λύχνους; κη΄. Τίνες αἱ ἐπαρυστρίδες; κθ΄. Τίνες αἱ δύο ἐλαῖαι; λ΄. Ἡ μέν Παλαιά, φησί τῷ γνωστικῷ χορηγεῖ τούς τρόπους τῶν ἀρετῶν· ἡ δέ
Νέα, τῷ πρακτικῶ γνώσεως ἀληθοῦς λόγους χαρίζεται. λα΄. Fr. Ὅτι τό πρακτικόν, τό τῆς ψυχῆς παθητικόν λέγει. λβ΄. Ὁ τῇ πράξει σωματουμένην, φησί, τήν γνῶσιν, (692) καί τῇ γνώσει τήν
πρᾶξιν δεικνύς, τόν ἀκριβῆ τρόπον εὗρε τῆς ἀληθοῦς θεουργίας. Ὁ δ᾿ ὁποτέραν τούτων τῆς ἑτέρας ἔχων διαζευγμένην, ἤ τήν γνῶσιν ἀνυπόστατον ἐποίησε φαντασίαν, ἤ τήν πρᾶξιν ἄψυχον κατέστησεν εἴδωλον· γνῶσις γάρ ἄπρακτος, φαντασίας οὐδέν διενήνοχεν, ὑφεστῶσαν αὐτήν τήν πρᾶξιν οὐκ ἔχουσα· καί πρᾶξις ἀλόγιστος, ἀψύχῳ ταυτόν εἰδώλῳ καθέστηκεν, ψυχοῦσαν αὐτήν γνῶσιν οὐκ ἔχουσα.
λγ΄. Ὥσπερ ψυχή καί σῶμα ποιεῖ κατά σύνθεσιν ἄνθρωπον· οὕτω πρᾶξις καί θεωρία μίαν κατά σύνοδον σοφίαν ἀποτελεῖ γνωστικήν· καί Παλαιά καί Νέα ∆ιαθήκη, μυστήριον ἕν ἀπεργάζεται.
λδ΄. Ἀριστερός μέν ὁ φυσικός νόμος διά τήν αἴσθησιν· προσάγει δέ τῷ Λόγῳ τούς τρόπους τῶν ἀρετῶν, καί ποιεῖ γνῶσιν ἐνεργουμένην. Ὁ δέ πνευματικός νόμος, ὡς δεξιός μέν ἐστι διά τόν νοῦν· μίγνυσι δέ τῇ αἰσθήσει τούς ἐν τοῖς οὖσι πνευματικούς λόγους, καί ποιεῖ πράξιν λελογισμένην.
λε΄. Ἡ πρόνοια, φησίν, ἐν τῷ καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν ἑνωθῆναι σαρκί τόν Λόγον δείκνυται· ἡ δέ κρίσις, ἐν τῷ παθεῖν ὑπέρ ἡμῶν σαρκί καταδέξασθαι φαίνεται· δι᾿ ὧν, ἑνώσεως καί πάθους, ἡ τοῦ παντός σωτηρία συνέστηκεν.
λστ΄. Ἡ μέν σάρκωσις, φησίν, εἰς τήν τῆς φύσεως σωτηρίαν γέγονε· τά δέ πάθη, πρός λύτρωσιν τῶν διά τήν ἁμαρτίαν τῶ θανάτῳ κατεχομένων.