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Your root and your birth are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. (1321) On the day you were born, they did not tie your navel, and in water you were not washed, nor were you salted with salt, and in swaddling clothes you were not swaddled, and you were cast out upon the face of the field in the crookedness of your soul on the day you were born. And I passed by you, and saw you wallowing in your blood, and I said to you, 'From your blood is your life; multiply, as the growth of the field have I made you.' Therefore, the Lord, healing nature from the condemnation of springing up through seed like grass and of having life through blood according to the other animals, and bringing it back to the ancient grace of incorruptibility, came to set it free, and manifestly to show it the good toward which, though made for it in the beginning, it was not at all moved, and to trample the evil toward which, as soon as it came into being through deceit, it moved contrary to nature and exhausted its whole power, and to bind to himself the power of desire (of which the navel is a symbol), which has received a firm and immutable disposition fertile in the good, and to wash it in water, meaning to cleanse it from the pollutions of ignorance by the sea of knowledge poured out upon it according to grace, and to salt it with salt, and to swaddle it with swaddling clothes, that is, having firmly strengthened by the Spirit the natural energy for the good for which it was made, to render it pure and unsusceptible to the corruption of the passions, and having bound it tightly with the envelope of the true principles in existing things, as with swaddling clothes, to make it completely indispersible.

Another contemplation on the same subject. Perhaps, through what has been said, the teacher, introducing a twofold principle and manner of the generation of human nature, one of the soul, the other of the body, conceptually divided the generation from bodies into two generations, showing the soul as being constituted ineffably from the divine and life-giving in-breathing, and the body as coming into being from the underlying matter of that from which it is, together with the soul at conception. For it is not right to say that the principle and the manner of generation for both are unalterably the same, because these two are not identical to each other in substance. For of things whose being is not identical to each other, it is clear that the principle and manner of their generation in relation to each other is also different. But it is right to think that for the soul there is another principle and manner, according to which it comes to be and is, and unchangeably the body remains joined with the soul.

A brief contemplation against those who say that souls pre-exist or post-exist bodies.

Even if the time of generation is the same for the existence of both, I mean of soul and of body, with neither pre-existing the other, as I said, in its generation, nor post-existing it, so that the species (1324) from both as a whole may not be dissolved, justly would the principle of relation posit as prior the hypostasis of the one as a part, existing in itself and having its union with another that is by nature completely unrelated, and for this reason never naturally completing the hypostasis of something else by composition with another, without corruption and alteration into what it was not. For that which pre-exists specifically in itself is not naturally brought into the hypostasis of another species. But if that which pre-exists accepts composition with another for the completion of a different species, either

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ῥίζα σου καί ἡ γέννησίς σου ἐκ γῆς Χαναάν, ὁ πατήρ σου Ἀμοιῤῥαῖος, καί ἡ μήτηρ σου Χετταία· (1321) ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐτέχθης οὐκ ἔδησαν τόν ὀμφαλόν σου, καί ἐν ὕδατι οὐκ ἐλούθης, οὐδέ ἁλί ἁλίσθης, καί σπαργάνοις οὐκ ἐσπαργανώθης, καί ἀπεῤῥίφης ἐπί πρόσωπον τοῦ πεδίου τῇ σκολιότητι τῆς ψυχῆς σοῦ ἐν ᾗ ἡμέρα ἐτέχθης· καί διῆλθον ἐπί σέ, καί εἶδόν σε πεφυρμένην ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου, καί εἶπα σοι, Ἐκ τοῦ αἵματός σου ἡ ζωή σου, πληθύνου, καθώς ἡ ἀνατολή τοῦ ἀγροῦ δέδωκά σε. Τῆς οὖν τοῦ φύεσθαι διά τῆς σπορᾶς ἴσα χόρτῳ καί δι᾿ αἵματος κατά τά λοιπά ζῶα τήν ζωήν ἔχειν καταδίκης ὁ τήν φύσιν ἐξιώμενος καί πρός τήν ἀρχαίαν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας χάριν ἐπανάγων Κύριος, ἦλθεν αὐτήν ἐλευθερῶσαι, καί ἐμφανῶς μέν αὐτῇ δεῖξαι πρός ὅπερ γενομένη κατ᾿ ἀρχάς οὐδόλως ἐκινήθη καλόν, καί πατῆσαι τό πονηρόν πρός ὅπερ ἄμα τῷ γενέσθαι διά τῆς ἀπάτης τήν ὅλην αὐτῆς κινηθεῖσα παρά φύσιν κατεκένωσε δύναμιν, καί καταδῆσαι πρός ἑαυτόν τήν τῆς ἐπιθυμίας δύναμιν (ἧς ὑπάρχει ὁ ὀμφαλός σύμβολον), τήν ἐν τῷ ἀγαθῷ γόνιμον ἕξιν λαβοῦσαν παγίαν καί ἀμετάπτωτον, καί λοῦσαι ἐν ὕδατι, καθᾶραι λέγων τῶν μολυσμῶν τῆς ἁγνοίας τῷ πελάγει τῆς περιχυθείσης αὐτῇ κατά τήν χάριν γνώσεως, καί ἁλίσαι ἁλί, καί σπαργανῶσαι σπαργάνοις, τουτέστι τήν πρός ὅπερ γέγονεν ἀγαθόν φυσικήν ἐνέργειαν ἀπρίξ στερεώσας τῷ πνεύματι, σήψεως παθῶν καθαράν καταστῆσαι καί ἀνεπίδεκτον, καί τῇ περιβολῇ τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ἀληθῶν λόγων δίκην σπαργάνων περισφίγξας ἀδιάχυτον παντελῶς ἀπεργάσασθαι.

Ἄλλη εἰς τό αὐτό θεωρία. Τυχόν δέ διά τῶν εἰρημένων ὁ διδάσκαλος διττόν εἶναι τόν κατά τήν γένεσιν τῆς

ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως λόγον τε καί τρόπον εἰσηγούμενος, τόν μέν ψυχῆς, τόν δέ σώματος, τήν ἐκ σωμάτων γέννησιν εἰς δύο κατ᾿ ἐπίνοιαν διεῖλε γεννήσεις, τήν μέν ψυχήν ἐμφαίνων ἀῤῥήτως ἐκ τοῦ θείου καί ζωτικοῦ ἐμφυσήματος συνισταμένην, τό δέ σῶμα ἐκ τῆς ὑποκειμένης ὕλης τοῦ ἐξ οὗπέρ ἐστιν ἅμα τῇ ψυχῇ κατά τήν σύλληψιν γινόμενον σώματος. Οὐ γάρ τόν αὐτόν ἀπαραλλάκτως φάναι θέμις ἐπ᾿ ἀμφοῖν τῆς γενέσεως εἶναι τόν λόγον καί τόν τρόπον, ὅτι μηδέ ταυτόν ἀλλήλοις κατά τήν οὐσίαν ἄμφω ταῦτα τυγχάνουσιν. Ὧν γάρ ἀλλήλοις μή ταὐτόν ἐστι τό εἶναι, τούτων δηλονότι καί ὁ πρός ἄλληλα τῆς γενέσεως παρήλλακται λόγος καί τρόπος. Ἀλλά ψυχῆς μέν ἄλλον εἶναι δίκαιον οἴεσθαι καί λόγον καί τρόπον, καθ᾿ ὅν γίνεταί τε καί ἔστι καί ἀμεταβόλως μένει σῶμα καί ψυχῇ συναπτόμενον.

Θεωρία σύντομος πρός τούς λέγοντας προϋπάρχειν ἤ μεθυπάρχειν τῶν σωμάτων τάς ψυχάς.

Εἰ καί ἅμα κατά τήν ὕπαρξιν ἀμφοτέρων, ψυχῆς λέγω καί σώματος, ὁ αὐτός ἐστι τῆς γενέσεως χρόνος, οὐδενός τοῦ ἑτέρου προϋπάρχοντος, ὡς ἔφην, κατά τήν γένεσιν ἤ μεθυπάρχοντος, ἵνα μή τοῦ ἐξ (1324) ἀμφοῖν εἴδους ὡς ὅλου λυθῇ, δικαίως ἄν ὁ τοῦ πρός τι λόγος πρεσβυτέραν ἔχων καθ᾿ ἑαυτήν οὖσαν τήν τοῦ ἑνός ὡς μέρους ὑπόστασιν, καί πρός ἄλλο κατά τήν φύσιν παντάπασιν ἄσχετον ἔχουσαν τήν ἕνωσιν, καί διά τοῦτο μηδέποτε τήν σύν ἄλλῳ κατά σύνθεσιν ἄλλου τινός φυσικῶς συμπληροῦσαν ὑπόστασιν χωρίς φθορᾶς καί τῆς πρός ὅπερ οὐκ ἦν ἀλλοιώσεως. Τό γάρ καθ' ἑαυτό ἰδικῶς προϋφισάμενον εἰς ἄλλου τινός εἴδους ὑπόστασιν οὐ πέφυκεν ἄγεσθαι. Εἰ δέ εἰς τήν ἑτέρου εἴδους συμπλήρωσιν τήν πρός ἄλλο δέχεται σύνθεσιν τό προϋφιστάμενον, ἤ