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a land whose bars are eternal keepers; that is to say, brought down to a condition destitute of all divine perception, and deprived of the vital movement of the virtues; having absolutely no perception of goodness, and no movement of desire for God in its thought; upon which has stepped, like an abyss, the gloom of ignorance and the incurable depth of evil; and the mountains of error are rooted; I mean the spiritual hosts of wickedness; into whose clefts having first entered, the nature of men later became a foundation for the most wicked condition, as being receptive of their error and wickedness. The one having, as it were, eternal bars, the inward attachments to material things, not allowing the mind, once freed from the darkness of ignorance, to see the light of true knowledge; which condition, perhaps, as I said a little earlier, the great Job, speaking allegorically, called, a land dark and gloomy; a land of eternal darkness. Dark, as being destitute of all true knowledge and contemplation; and gloomy, as being deprived of all virtue and practice; In which, he says, there is no light, that is, of knowledge and truth; nor to see the life of mortals; that is, the conduct befitting rational beings.

This perhaps happens when the prophet, typifying in himself the passions of humanity into which it has wretchedly fashioned itself, appropriates the things of our common nature; and the meaning of the name, interpreted as "flight from beauty," is fittingly applied to him as he typifies Adam. But when he prefigures God who for our sake became in our things as we are, through flesh intelligently ensouled, apart from sin alone, and prefigures the mystery of the economy, and of the sufferings according to it; he signifies the descent from the heavens into this world through the passage from Joppa into the sea; and he makes known the mystery of the death and burial and resurrection by being swallowed by the great fish, and after three days and three nights being delivered up unharmed. And for this reason, fittingly according to the power of the call, "rest" and "healing of God" and "grace of God" for them; and perhaps, also "labor of God" on account of the (700) voluntary passion, being well named. For the prophet, through his own dramas, mystically prefigured the true rest of those who have toiled in pain, and the healing of the broken, and the grace of the remission of sins, Christ Jesus the true God. For he, our Lord and God, having become man, and having sojourned in the sea of our life, as from heaven—Joppa being interpreted as "watchtower of joy"—into the sea of this world, according to what is written, "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame;" and having voluntarily descended into the heart of the earth, where the evil one, having swallowed them through death, held them imprisoned, and having drawn them up through the resurrection, leading the entire captive nature up to heaven, is in truth our rest, and healing, and grace; rest, as loosing the law of circumstantial slavery in the flesh for the sake of this temporary life; healing, as having cured the brokenness of death and corruption through the resurrection; and grace, as the dispenser of adoption in the spirit through faith, and of the grace of deification for each according to his worth. For it was necessary, truly necessary, for the light, and the power of God the Father, to come into that land in which the darkness existed, and the eternal bars; so that, having loosed the darkness of ignorance, being as it were a spiritual light, and having shattered the bars of evil, as the hypostatic power of God, he might free the nature terribly secured by these things by the evil one, bestowing upon it the unquenchable light of true knowledge, and the inalienable [or, indestructible] power of the virtues.

But when the prophetic grace, as from a kind of Joppa, from the worship of the law which was until then considered glorious, evangelically passes over to the gentiles, and the Jewish people, on account of their unbelief, destitute of the joy according to it

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γῆν, ἧς οἱ μοχλοί αὐτῆς κάτοχοι αἰώνιοι· τουτέστι, πρός τήν πάσης αἰσθήσεως θείας ἔρημον, καί ζωτικῆς κινήσεως ἀρετῶν ἐστερημένην ἕξιν κατενεχθεῖσαν· τήν μηδεμίαν παντελῶς ἔχουσαν αἴσθησιν ἀγαθότητος, καί Θεοῦ κατ᾿ ἔννοιαν ἐφέσεως κίνησιν· ἐφ᾿ ἧς βέβηκεν καθάπερ ἄβυσσος, τῆς ἀγνοίας ὁ ζόφος καί τό ἀνήκεστον βάθος τῆς κακίας· καί τά ὄρη τῆς πλάνης ἐῤῤίζωται· τά πνευματικά λέγω τῆς πονηρίας· ὦν πρότερον ταῖς σχισμαῖς εἰσδῦσα, γέγονεν ὕστερον βάσις διά τήν κακίστην ἕξιν ἡ φύσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὡς δεκτική τῆς αὐτῶν πλάνης καί πονηρίας. Τήν ἔχουσαν καθάπερ αἰωνίους μοχλούς, τάς ἐνδιαθέτους προσπαθείας τῶν ὑλικῶν τάς οὐκ ἐώσας τήν διάνοιαν τοῦ σκότους τῆς ἀγνοίας ἀπαλλαγεῖσαν, τό φῶς ἰδεῖν τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιγνώσεως· ἥντινα τυχόν ἕξιν, ὡς μικρῷ πρόσθεν ἔφην, ὁ μέγας Ἰώβ αἰνιττόμενος ἔφη, γῆν σκοτεινήν καί γνοφεράν· γῆν σκότους αἰωνίου. Σκοτεινήν μέν, ὡς πάσης ἀληθοῦς ἔρημον γνώσεώς τε καί θεωρίας· γνοφεράν δέ ὡς πάσης ἀρετῆς ἐστερημένην καί πράξεως· Ἐν ᾗ, φησίν, οὐκ ἔστι φέγγος, δηλαδή γνώσεως καί ἀληθείας· οὐδέ ὁρᾷν ζωήν βροτῶν· τήν λογικοῖς δηλονότι πρέπουσαν ἀγωγήν.

Ἐν τούτοις μέν γίνεται τυχόν, ὁπηνίκα τά πάθη τυπῶν ἐν ἑαυτῷ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ὁ προφήτης, εἰς ἅπερ ἐλεεινῶς ἑαυτήν κατεσκεύασε, τά τῆς κοινῆς οἰκειούμενος φύσεως· καί ἐφαρμόζεται δεόντως αὐτῷ τυποῦντι τόν Ἀδάμ, τῆς προσηγορίας ὁ νοῦς, φυγή κάλλους ἑρμηνευόμενος. Ἡνίκα δέ τόν δι᾿ ἡμᾶς ἐν τοῖς ἡμῶν καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς διά σαρκός νοερῶς ἐψυχωμένης χωρίς μόνης ἁμαρτίας γενόμενον Θεόν προδιατυποῖ, καί τό τῆς οἰκονομίας, καί τῶν κατ᾿ αὐτήν παθημάτων προδιαγράφει μυστήριον· τήν μέν ἀπ᾿ οὐρανῶν εἰς τόν κόσμον τοῦτον σημαίνει κάθοδον, διά τῆς ἐξ Ἰόππης εἰς τήν θάλασσαν μεταβάσεως· τό δέ τοῦ θανάτου καί τῆς ταφῆς καί τῆς ἀναστάσεως μυστήριον, ὑπό τοῦ κήτους δηλοῖ καταπινόμενος, καί μετά τρεῖς ἡμέρας καί τρεῖς νύκτας ἀπαθής ἐκδιδόμενος. Καί διά τοῦτο προσφόρως κατά τήν τῆς κλήσεως δύναμιν ἀνάπαυσις καί ἴασις Θεοῦ καί Θεοῦ χάρις αὐτοῖς· τυχόν δέ, καί πόνος Θεοῦ διά τό (700) πάθος τό ἑκούσιον, καλῶς ὀνομαζόμενος. Τήν γάρ ἀληθινήν τῶν ἐν ὀδύναις κεκοπωμένων ἀνάπαυσιν, καί τήν ἴασιν τῶν συντετριμμένων, καί τήν χάριν τῆς τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἀφέσεως, Χριστόν Ἰησοῦν τόν ἀληθινόν Θεόν ὁ προφήτης διά τῶν οἰκείων δραμάτων μυστικῶς προδιέγραψεν. Αὐτός γάρ ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν καί Θεός γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος, καί τῶ πελάγει τοῦ βίου τοῦ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς ἐνδημήσας, ὡς ἀπ᾿ οὐρανοῦ τῆς Ἰόππης ἑρμηνευομένης κατασκοπή χαρᾶς, εἰς τήν θάλασσαν τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου, κατά τό γεγραμμένον, Ὅς ἀντί τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς ὑπέμεινε σταυρόν, αἰσχύνης καταφρονήσας· καί εἰς τήν καρδίαν τῆς γῆς, ἔνθα διά τοῦ θανάτου καταπιών εἶχεν ὁ πονηρός καθειργμένους, καταβάς ἑκουσίως, καί διά τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἀνασπάσας, πρός οὐρανόν ὅλην τήν κεκρατημένην φύσιν ἀναγαγών, ἀνάπαυσις ἡμῶν κατ᾿ ἀλήθειαν ὑπάρχει, καί ἴασις καί χάρις· ἀνάπαυσις μέν, ὡς τόν νόμον τῆς ἐν σαρκί διά τήν πρόσκαιρον ζωήν περιστατικῆς λύων δουλείας· ἴασις δέ, ὡς τό σύντριμμα τοῦ θανάτου καί τῆς φθορᾶς διά τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐξιασάμενος· χάρις δέ, ὡς τῆς ἐν πνεύματι διά πίστεως υἱοθεσίας, καί τῆς ἐπαξίως ἑκάστου κατά τήν θέωσιν χάριτος διανομεύς. Ἔδει γάρ, ἔδει κατά ἀλήθειαν εἰς ἐκείνην γενέσθαι τήν γῆν τό φῶς, καί τήν δύναμιν τοῦ Θεοῦ καί Πατρός, ἐν ᾗ τό σκότος ὑπῆρχε, καί οἱ μοχλοί αἰώνιοι· ἵνα τό σκότος λύσας τῆς ἀγνοίας, οἶα δή πνευματικόν φῶς ὑπάρχων, καί τούς μοχλούς τῆς κακίας συντρίψας, ὡς ἐνυπόστατος Θεοῦ δύναμις, τήν τούτοις δεινῶς ὑπό τοῦ πονηροῦ κατησφαλισμένην ἐλευθερώσῃ φύσιν, δωρούμενος αὐτῇ φῶς ἀληθοῦς γνώσεως ἄσβεστον, καί δύναμιν ἀρετῶν ἀναφαίρετον [Fr. ἀκαθαίρετον].

Ὁπηνίκα δέ τήν προφητικήν χάριν ὡς ἔκ τινος Ἰόππης, τῆς τέως ἐνδόξου νομιζομένης τῆς τοῦ νόμου λατρείας, εὐαγγελικῶς εἰς τά ἔθνη μεταβαίνουσαν, καί τόν Ἰουδαϊκόν λαόν διά τήν αὐτῶν ἀπιστίαν, τῆς κατ᾿ αὐτήν χαρᾶς ἔρημον