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μβ΄. The foreskin is natural. And everything natural is a work of divine creation, and very good, according to the voice that says: And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good. But the law, by commanding the foreskin to be removed through circumcision as something unclean, introduces God as correcting His own work through artifice, which is most impious even to conceive. Therefore, he who approaches the symbols of the law naturally knows that God does not correct nature through artifice, but commands that the passionate part of the soul, which is amenable to reason, be circumcised—which is typologically signified through the bodily member—which knowledge, through courage in practice, is naturally disposed to cast off from the will. For the circumcising priest signifies knowledge, which holds, like an iron tool against passion, the courage of reason in practice. For the tradition of the law is abolished when the letter prevails over the spirit.

μγ΄. The Sabbath is a rest from the passions and from the movement of the mind concerning the nature of beings; or a perfect inactivity of the passions, and a universal cessation of the mind's movement concerning created things, and a perfect crossing over to the Divine; in which he who has arrived, as is right, through virtue and knowledge, must not, like one gathering wood, contemplate any matter at all that kindles the passions, nor indeed consider at all the principles of nature, lest, taking pleasure in passions, or being measured by the limits of nature, we should dogmatize about God in the manner of the Greeks; Whom only perfect silence proclaims, and whom complete unknowing through transcendence presents.

μδ΄. (1368) A crown of goodness is a pure faith, adorned like precious stones with the lofty declarations of dogmas, and with spiritual words and thoughts, binding fast, as it were, the God-loving mind. Or rather, a crown of goodness is the very Word of God, who, by the variety of modes of providence and judgment—that is, by continence in voluntary passions and patience in involuntary ones—encompasses the mind as a head, and by participation in the grace of deification makes the mind itself more beautiful than itself.

με΄. Here he says that continence is a work of Providence, as it is a purification of the passions of the will; and patience, he says, is an achievement of judgment, as it stands against involuntary temptations, and is a symbol of practical philosophy; leading towards virtue, as if from the Egypt of sin, those who are held by it.

μστ΄. Not wishing for the days to be honored by men did God command that the Sabbath, and the new moons, and the feasts be honored; for thus He would have dogmatized, by the commandment of the law, that one should worship the creature rather than the creator, if they thought the days were venerable by nature, and for this reason to be worshipped; but He revealed that He Himself is to be honored symbolically through the days. For He is the Sabbath, as a rest for the soul's toils in the flesh, and a cessation from the labors for righteousness. And Passover, as the liberator of those held in the bitter slavery of sin; And Pentecost, as the beginning and end of beings, and the reason by which all things by nature consist. But consider how the law destroys those who understand it corporeally, persuading them to worship the creature rather than the Creator, and to consider venerable by nature those things which came to be for their sake, while being ignorant of Him for whose sake they themselves came to be.

μζ΄. The world is a finite place, and a circumscribed stasis; and time is a circumscribed movement, whence also the movement in life of the things within it is subject to change. But whenever nature, having passed through place and time, both in energy and in thought—that is, those things without which it cannot be, namely finite stasis and movement—is immediately joined to providence, it finds providence to be a principle that is by nature simple and static, and having in every way no circumscription, and for this reason absolutely no movement either.

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μβ΄. Φυσικόν ἡ ἀκροβυστία. Πᾶν δέ φυσικόν, θείας ἔργον δημιουργίας ἐστί, καί λίαν καλόν, κατά τήν φάσκουσαν φωνήν· Καί εἶδεν ὁ Θεός πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησε, καί ἰδού καλά λίαν. Ὁ δέ νόμος ὡς ἀκάθαρτον περιαιρεῖσθαι κελεύων τήν ἀκροβυστίαν διά περιτομῆς, τόν Θεόν εἰσάγει, διά τέχνης τό οἰκεῖον διορθούμενον ἔργον, ὅπερ κἄν ἐννοεῖν ἀσεβέστατον. Οὐκοῦν ὁ τοῖς συμβόλοις τοῦ νόμου φυσικῶς ἐπιβάλλων, οἶδεν ὡς οὐ τήν φύσιν ὁ Θεός διορθοῦται διά τέχνης, ἀλλά τό ἐπιπειθές λόγῳ τῆς ψυχῆς παθητικόν περιτέμνεσθαι κελεύει, τό διά τοῦ σωματικοῦ μορίου τυπικῶς δηλούμενον, ὅπερ γνῶσις διά τῆς κατά πρᾶξιν ἀνδρίας, τῆς γνώμης ἀποτίθεσθαι πέφυκεν. Ὁ γάρ περιτέμνων ἱρεύς, σημαίνει τήν γνῶσιν, τήν ἔχουσαν καθάπερ σίδηρον κατά τοῦ πάθους, τήν τοῦ λόγου κατά τήν πρᾶξιν ἀνδρίαν. Ἀφανίζεται γάρ ἡ τοῦ νόμου παράδοσις, πλεονεκτοῦντος τό γράμμα τοῦ πνεύματος.

μγ΄. Τό Σάββατον, παθῶν ἐστι καί τῆς περί τήν φύσιν τῶν ὄντων τοῦ νοῦ κινήσεως ἀνάπαυσις· ἤ τελεία παθῶν ἀπραξία, καί τῆς περί τά πεποιημένα καθολική τοῦ νοῦ παύλα κινήσεως, καί πρός τό Θεῖον τελεία διάβασις· ἐν ᾧ τόν δι᾿ ἀρετῆς καί γνώσεως κατά τό θεμιτόν ἀφικόμενον, οὐ δεῖ καθάπερ ξύλα τήν οἱανοῦν παντελῶς ὕλην ἐξαπτικήν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι παθῶν, οὔτε μήν φύσεως τοπαράπαν ἀναλέγεσθαι λόγους, ἵνα μή πάθεσιν ἡδόμενον, ἤ φύσεως ὅροις μετρούμενον, κατά τούς Ἕλληνας τόν Θεόν δογματίζωμεν· ὅνπερ ἡ τελεία μόνη κέκραγε σιγή, καί ἡ παντελής καθ᾿ ὑπεροχήν ἀγνωσία παρίστησι.

μδ΄. (1368) Στέφανός ἐστι χρηστότητος, πίστις καθαρά, λίθων τιμίων δίκην ταῖς τῶν δογμάτων ὑψηγορίαις, καί λόγοις διηνθισμένη πνευματικοῖς καί νοήμασι, τόν θεοφιλῆ καθάπερ διασφίγγουσα νοῦν. Ἤ μᾶλλον στέφανος χρηστότητός ἐστιν, αὐτός ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγος, ὁ τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῶν κατά πρόνοιαν καί κρίσιν τρόπων, ἤγουν ἐγκρατείᾳ τῶν ἑκουσίων, καί ὑπομονῇ τῶν ἀκουσίων παθῶν, ὡς κεφαλήν τόν νοῦν περιγράφων, καί τῇ μετοχῇ τῆς κατά θέωσιν χάριτος αὐτόν ἑαυτοῦ τόν νοῦν ποιῶν ὡραιότερον.

με΄. 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, καί τῆς πρακτικῆς φιλοσοφίας ὑπάρχουσαν σύμβολον· πρός ἀρετήν, ὡς ἀπ᾿ Αἰγύπτου τῆς ἁμαρτίας, τούς ὑπ᾿ αὐτῆς κρατουμένους διαβιβάζουσαν.

μστ΄. Οὐ τάς ἡμέρας τιμᾶσθαι θέλων ὁ Θεός ὑπό τῶν ἀνθρώπων, προσέταξε τιμηθῆναι τό τε Σάββατον, καί τάς νεομηνίας, καί τάς ἑορτάς· οὕτω γάρ ἀν λατρεύειν τῇ κτίσει παρά τόν κτίσαντα κατά νόμου ἐντολήν ἐδογμάτισεν, οἰομένους σεπτάς εἶναι φύσει τάς ἡμέρας, καί διά τοῦτο προσκυνητάς· ἀλλ᾿ ἑαυτόν τιμᾶσθαι συμβολικῶς διά τῶν ἡμερῶν παρεδήλωσεν. Αὐτός γάρ ἐστι Σάββατον μέν, ὡς τῶν ἐν σαρκί τῆς ψυχῆς μόχθων ἀνάπαυσις, καί τῶν κατά δικαιοσύνην πόνων κατάπαυσις. Πάσχα δέ, ὡς ἐλευθερωτής τῶν τῇ πικρᾷ δουλείᾳ κεκρατημένων τῆς ἁμαρτίας· Πεντηκοστή δέ, ὡς ἀπαρχή καί τέλος τῶν ὄντων, καί λόγος, ᾧ τά πάντα φύσει συνέστηκε. Σκόπει δέ 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.

μζ΄. Ὁ μέν κόσμος, τόπος ἐστί πεπερασμένος, καί στάσις περιγεγραμμένη· ὁ δέ χρόνος, περιγραφομένη καθέστηκε κίνησις, ὅθεν καί ἀλλοιωτή τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ καθέστηκεν ἡ κατά τήν ζωήν κίνησις. Ὁπηνίκα δέ τόν τόπον διελθοῦσα καί τόν χρόνον, κατ᾿ ἐνέργειάν τε καί ἔννοιαν ἡ φύσις, ἤγουν τά ὧν οὐκ ἄνευ, τουτέστι τήν πεπερασμένην στάσιν καί κίνησιν, ἀμέσως συναφθῇ τῇ προνοίᾳ, λόγον εὑρίσκει τήν πρόνοιαν, κατά φύσιν ἁπλοῦν τε καί στάσιμον, καί μηδεμίαν ἔχοντα πάντη περιγραφήν, καί διά τοῦτο παντελῶς οὔτε κίνησιν.