262

my commandment, which God commanded you. Saul, as I have said before, is either the written law, or the people of the Jews who live according to the written law. For with both of these being so intertwined with each other in an earthly manner (772) the Spirit of the Lord departs, which is spiritual contemplation and knowledge, and an evil spirit comes upon them (that is, the material mindset), which chokes them like epileptics by the instability of their thoughts, with the successive disturbances and whirlings of things under generation and corruption. For the law, when understood in an earthly way according to the letter alone, is epileptic, being shaken by countless contradictions and having no agreement with itself; and the Judaizing mind, being maddened by the unstable circling of material things, itself also of necessity has an unstable disposition that changes along with them. But whenever David, who is by nature truly musical, our Lord Jesus, sings to both the law and the Jew with the spirit of mystical contemplation; the one He makes spiritual instead of earthly; the other He leads from unbelief to faith. Therefore, according to Saul, both the law and the people of the Jews are both epileptic and sound of mind. For the law is epileptic, as I said, when taken in an earthly way; and the Jew is epileptic, wishing to worship God in an earthly way; and again, the law is sound of mind, when understood spiritually; and the Jew is likewise sound of mind, when he is transferred from bodily worship to the spiritual service of God.

It should be noted that those who are saved by Jesus, Saul kills. For whom the spirit of Scripture preserves, the letter is wont to kill. Therefore God repents of having anointed this one, I mean the written law, to be king of Israel, when it is taken carnally by the Jews, and gives the power of the kingdom to the spirit, to the one who is near the letter, and better than the letter. And I will give, He says, the kingdom to your neighbor who is better than you. For David was near Saul, just as the spirit is wisely fixed alongside the letter of the law; which is wont to be revealed after the death of the letter.

Let us, therefore, also entreat the intelligible David to play upon the lyre of spiritual contemplation and knowledge for our mind, which is seized by material things, and to drive away the evil spirit of the material distraction towards sensation, so that we may be able to understand the law spiritually, and to find the mystical word hidden in it, and to make it a lasting possession as a provision for eternal life; so that we may not have the symbolic law borrowed in the letter, being at a loss for the knowledge in the spirit according to grace; and so that we do not love only the questioning about divine things, as if not seeing, being deprived of the truly all-brilliant, direct vision of the mystical oracles. For Saul is said to mean both, when translated into the Greek language. For it is interpreted, in addition to what has been said, as both 'borrowed' and 'questioning'; (773) which the written law has indeed become; the one, as not being the most proper possession of nature, and not at all co-extensive with its existence; the other, as moving us towards true knowledge and archetypal wisdom, us who do not think that questioning is the comprehension of the sought-after archetypal reality of divine things; but only through the bodily symbols in the law, as through a kind of questioning, we press on towards the comprehension of divine goods; so that we may cease from the anxiety of questioning (in which there is often perhaps also error), having come to be in the truth of the things sought, and we may be transformed into their blessedness, which appears in us unalterably according to participation, and the

262

τήν ἐντολήν μου, ἥν ἐνετείλατό σοι ὁ Θεός. Σαούλ, ὡς προέφην, ἐστίν, ἤ ὁ γραπτός νόμος, ἤ ὁ κατά τόν γραπτόν νόμον πολιτευόμενος λαός τῶν Ἰουδαίων. Ἀμφοτέρων γάρ οὕτω χοϊκῶς ἀλλήλοις συνπεπλεγμένων (772) ἀφίσταται τό πνεῦμα Κυρίου, ὅ ἐστιν ἡ πνευματική θεωρία καί ἡ γνῶσις, καί ἐπέρχεται πνεῦμα πονηρόν (τουτέστι, τό ὑλικόν φρόνημα), ταῖς ἀλλεπαλλήλοις τῶν ὑπό γένεσιν καί φθοράν ταραχαῖς καί δινήσεσιν, ὡς ἐπιλήπτους τῆ ἀστασίᾳ τῶν λογισμῶν καταπνίγον. Ὅ τε γάρ νόμος χοϊκῶς πρός μόνον τό γράμμα νοούμενος, ἐπίληπτός ἐστι μυρίαις δονούμενος ἐναντιώσεσι, καί μηδεμίαν ἔχων πρός ἑαυτόν συμφωνίαν· ὅ τε Ἰουδαΐζων νοῦς, τῇ ἀστάτῳ περιφορᾷ τῶν ὑλικῶν ἐπιμαινόμενος, ἀστάτως ἐξ ἀνάγκης καί αὐτός τήν οἰκείαν συμμεταβαλλομένην ἔχει διάθεσιν. Ὁπηνίκα δέ ∆αβίδ, ὁ κατ᾿ ἀλήθειαν φύσει μουσικός, ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς, ἐπᾴσει τῷ πνεύματι τῆς μυστικῆς θεωρίας, τόν τε νόμον, καί τόν Ἰουδαῖον· τόν μέν ἀντί χοϊκοῦ ποιεῖ πνευματικόν· τόν δέ μετάγει πρός πίστιν ἐξ ἀπιστίας. Ἔστιν οὖν κατά τόν Σαούλ, ὅ τε νόμος, καί ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων λαός, καί ἐπίληπτος καί σώφρων. Ἐπίληπτος γάρ ὁ νόμος ἐστίν, ὡς ἔφην, χοϊκῶς λαμβανόμενος· καί ἐπίληπτος ὁ Ἰουδαῖός ἐστι, χοϊκῶς τῷ Θεῷ λατρεύειν βουλόμενος· καί πάλιν σώφρων ὁ νόμος ἐστί, πνευματικῶς νοούμενος· καί ὁ Ἰουδαῖος ὡσαύτως σώφρων ἐστίν, ἐκ τῆς σωματικῆς λατρείας ἐπί τήν πνευματικήν τοῦ Θεοῦ θεραπείαν μεταφερόμενος.

Σημειωτέον δέ, ὅτι τούς ὑπό Ἰησοῦ διασωζομένους, ἀποκτένει Σαούλ. Οὕς γάρ περιποιεῖται τό πνεῦμα τῆς Γραφῆς, ἀποκτένειν τό γράμμα πέφυκε. ∆ιό τοῦτον, λέγω δή τόν γραπτόν νόμον, μεταμελεῖται χρίσας βασιλεύειν τοῦ Ἰσραήλ ὁ Θεός, ὑπό Ἰουδαίων σαρκικῶς λαμβανόμενον, καί δίδωσι τῷ πνεύματι τό κράτος τῆς βασιλείας, τῷ πλησίον τοῦ γράμματος, καί ἀγαθῷ ὑπέρ τό γράμμα. Καί δώσω, φησί, τήν βασιλείαν τῷ πλησίον σου τῷ ἀγαθῷ ὑπέρ σέ. Καί γάρ ὁ ∆αβίδ ἦν πλησίον τοῦ Σαούλ, οὕτω τῷ γράμματι τοῦ νόμου τό πνεῦμα σοφῶς παραπέπηγεν· ὅπερ μετά τόν θάνατον τοῦ γράμματος, πέφυκε διαφαίνεσθαι.

Παρακαλέσωμεν οὖν καί ἡμεῖς τόν νοητόν ∆αβίδ, ἐπηχῆσαι τῇ κιθάρᾳ τῆς πνευματικῆς θεωρίας καί γνώσεως ἐπιληπτευόμενον τοῖς ὑλικοῖς τόν ἡμέτερον νοῦν, καί ἀπελάσαι τό πονηρόν πνεῦμα τῆς πρός αἴσθησιν ὑλικῆς περιπετείας, ἵνα δυνηθῶμεν νοῆσαι τόν νόμον πνευματικῶς, καί τόν ἐν αὐτῷ κεκρυμμένον μυστικόν λόγον εὑρεῖν, καί κτῆμα ποιήσασθαι διαρκές πρός ἐφόδιον ἀϊδίου ζωῆς· ὅπως μή τόν δεδανεισμένον ἐν γράμματι συμβολικόν ἔχωμεν νόμον, ἀποροῦντες τῆς κατά χάριν ἐν πνεύματι γνώσεως· καί μόνην στέργωμεν, ὡς μή βλέποντες, τήν περί τῶν θείων ἐρώτησιν, ἐστερημένοι τῆς τῶν μυστικῶν λογίων κατ᾿ ἀλήθειαν παμφαοῦς αὐτοψίας. Ἄμφω γάρ λέγεται Σαούλ, πρός τήν Ἑλλάδα φωνήν μεταφερόμενος. Ἑρμηνεύεται γάρ πρός τοῖς εἰρημένοις, καί δεδανεισμένος, καί ἐρώτησις· (773) ἅπερ δέ καί ὁ γραπτός ὑπάρχων καθέστηκε νόμος· τό μέν, ὡς μή οἰκειότατον κτῆμα τῆς φύσεως, καί τῇ κατ᾿ αὐτήν ὑπάρξει παντελῶς συμπαρατεινόμενος· τό δέ, ὡς περί γνῶσιν ἀληθῆ κινῶν ἡμᾶς καί πρωτότυπον σοφίαν, τούς μή νομίζοντας τήν ἐρώτησιν κατάληψιν εἶναι τῆς ζητουμένης τῶν θείων ἀρχετυπίας· ἀλλά μόνον διά τῶν ἐν νόμῳ σωματικῶν συμβόλων, ὡς δι᾿ ἐρωτήσεώς τινος πρός τήν τῶν θείων ἀγαθῶν ἐπειγομένους κατάληψιν· ἵνα παυσώμεθα τῆς κατά τήν ἐρώτησιν φροντίδος (ἐν ᾗ τυχόν ἐστι πολλάκις καί πλάνησις), ἐν τῇ τῶν ζητουμένων ἀληθείᾳ γενόμενοι, καί τῆς αὐτῶν μεταποιηθῶμεν μακαριότητος, φαινομένης ἐν ἡμῖν ἀναλλοιώτως κατά τήν μέθεξιν, καί τό