519

for the activity of movement alone, needing it for spontaneous manifestation. Indeed, at any rate, those who wish to raise themselves from the transgression of the first father by philosophical reason, first begin with the complete removal of the passions, then in this way with the occupation concerning the principles of the arts, and finally, having passed beyond natural contemplation, they peer into immaterial knowledge, which has no form whatsoever impressed by sense-perception, or a concept contained in spoken reason, just as from the beginning God made the first man, having become naked in the simplicity of knowledge and in the undistracted life, and in the mortification of the law of the flesh. However, it was possible to contemplate the proposed problem in another, loftier way, but let it be passed over for now for the reason I mentioned at the beginning of the discourse.

From the same discourse, on the text: "A year, either as the sun of righteousness, or proceeding from there, or circumscribed by what is seen."

Many are the titles of our Savior, and manifold is the manner of allegorical interpretation for each according to its concept, because in natural contemplation it is possible for a thing taken paradigmatically as a title of the Lord to admit many applications of theorems. Just as, indeed, the problem now before us also has. For since the discourse is not yet able to set forth the many ways of the theorems concerning the sun, on account of brevity, let us also contemplate it according to the concept by which the teacher contemplated it, unfolding as far as we are able what was evidently said by him in a condensed way. A year, then, according to our holy and wise teachers, is the return of the sun from the same point to the same point, containing the fivefold property of time. For time is both divided and gathered into a day (1357) and a week and a month and a season and a year; and the year likewise, into an hour and a day and a week and a month and a season, with its motion remaining continuous and without interval, around which the divisions contemplated according to alteration have numbered the continuous and unintermitted motion of time. If then in this way among us a year comes to be according to the course of the sun, then the acceptable year of the Lord, as it is written, is surely, in the manner of allegory, the entire extension of the ages, from the beginning when God was pleased to give substance to beings, and to give existence to things that are not, and through providence, like some intelligible sun of the power that holds the universe together for its preservation, condescendingly enduring to send forth its ray, deeming the ways various for the bringing to fruition of the good things proper to beings which He sowed, until the final completion of all the ages, at which He will gather the fruits of his own sowing unmixed with tares and pure of all chaff-like refuse and accumulation, and the entire principle of the motion of moving things will be brought to its end, when the worthy receive the promised final blessedness of deification. The Lord is therefore called the "Sun of Righteousness" as the creator and consummator of the ages, and as the beginning and end of all things, and the craftsman of the fivefold wise good order in providence for those under providence, and as filling all things with eternal light by the unceasing applications of his goodness, and as making ripe and edible for God the Father those who widen their own intelligible channels for the reception of his blessed ray. And the same is the acceptable year of the Lord, as being fulfilled through all the saved

519

ἐπ᾿ ἐνεργείᾳ μόνης κινήσεως πρός ἔκφανσιν αὐθαίρετον χρῄζουσαν. Ἀμέλει γοῦν ὅσοι φιλοσόφῳ λόγῳ τῆς τοῦ προπάτορος ἐγείρειν ἑαυτούς βούλονται παραπτώσεως, πρῶτον ἀπάρχονται τῆς τῶν παθῶν παντελοῦς ἀφαιρέσεως, εἶθ᾿ οὕτως τῆς περί τούς λόγους τῶν τεχνῶν ἀσχολίας, καί τέλος τήν φυσικήν ὑπερκύψαντες θεωρίαν εἰς τήν ἄϋλον παρακύπτουσι γνῶσιν, τήν μή ἔχουσαν παντελῶς αἰσθήσει τυπουμένην μορφήν, ἤ νόημα προφορᾷ λόγου χωρούμενον, καθώς ἐξ ἀρχῆς τόν πρῶτον ἄνθρωπον ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεός, γυμνοί τῇ ἁπλότητι τῆς γνώσεως καί τῇ ἀπορισπάστω ζωῇ, καί τῇ νεκρώσει τοῦ νόμου τῆς σαρκός γενόμενοι. Ἦν μέντοι καί κατ᾿ ἄλλον τρόπον ὑψηλοτέρως θεωρῆσαι τό προκείμενον ἄπορον, ἀλλά παρείσθω τά νῦν δι᾿ ἥν ὁ ἀρχόμενος τοῦ λόγου προεῖπον αἰτίαν.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου εἰς τό· " Ἐνιαύσιον δέ, ὡς ἥλιον δικαιοσύνης, ἤ ἐκεῖθεν ὁρμώμενον, ἤ τῷ ὁρωμένῳ περιγραπτόν."

Πολλαί τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν εἰσιν αἱ προσηγορίαι, καί πολύτροπος ὁ ἐφ᾿ ἑκάστῃ κατά τήν αὐτῆς ἐπίνοιαν τῆς κατά θεωρίαν ἀναγωγῆς καθέστηκεν τρόπος, διά τό πολλάς κατά τήν φυσικήν θεωρίαν τοῦ παραδειγματικῶς εἰς προσηγορίαν τοῦ Κυρίου λαμβανομένου πράγματος ἐπιδέχεσθαι δύνασθαι θεωρημάτων ἐπιβολάς. Ὥσπερ ἀμέλει καί τό νῦν προκείμενον ἡμῖν ἄπορον ἔχει. Πολλούς γάρ ὅσους οὐδέπω δυνατοῦ τυγχάνοντος τοῦ λόγου θεωρημάτων περί τοῦ ἡλίου τρόπους ἐκθέσθαι διά τό σύντομον, καθ᾿ ἥν ὁ διδάσκαλος αὐτό ἐπίνοιαν ἐθεώρησε, καί ἡμεῖς θεωρήσωμεν, τά συνεπτυγμένως αὐτῷ δηλονότι ῥηθέντα κατά δύναμιν ἐξαπλοῦντες. Ἐνιαυτός τοίνυν ἐστί κατά τούς ἁγίους καί σοφούς ἡμῶν διδασκάλους ἡ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀπό τοῦ αὐτοῦ σημείου εἰς τό αὐτό σημεῖον ἀποκατάστασις, τῆς κατά χρόνον πενταπλῆς ἰδιότητος περιεκτική. Ὁ γάρ χρόνος εἰς ἡμέραν (1357) καί ἑβδομάδα καί μῆνα καί καιρόν καί ἐνιαυτόν μερίζεσθαί τε καί συνάγεται· καί ὁ ἐνιαυτός ὡσαύτως, εἰς ὥραν καί ἡμέραν καί ἑβδομάδα καί μῆνα καί καιρόν, συνεχοῦς καί ἀδιαστάτου τῆς κατ᾿ αὐτόν μενούσης κινήσεως, περί ἥν αἱ κατά τήν ἀλλοίωσιν διαιρέσεις θεωρούμεναι τήν συνεχῆ καί ἀδιάστατον ἠρίθμησαν τοῦ χρόνου κίνησιν. Εἰ δή τούτῳ τῷ τρόπω παρ᾿ ἡμῖν κατά τήν τοῦ ἡλίου φοράν ἐνιαυτός γίνεται, ἐνιαυτός δηλαδή Κυρίου δεκτός ἐστι πάντως, ὡς γέγραπται, κατά τόν τῆς ἀληγορίας τρόπον, ἡ πᾶσα τῶν αἰώνων παράτασις, ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς ἧς εὐδόκησεν ὁ Θεός οὐσιῶσαι τά ὄντα, καί τοῖς μή οὖσιν ὕπαρξιν δοῦναι, καί διά τῆς προνοίας, ὥσπερ τις νοητός ἥλιος τῆς πρός διαμονήν συνεχούσης τό πᾶν δυνάμεως, συγκαταβατικῶς ἐφεῖναι τήν ἀκτίνα ἀνεχόμενος, ποικίλαι τούς τρόπους ἀξιώσας πρός τελεσφόρησιν ὧν τοῖς οὖσιν οἰκείων κατέσπειρεν ἀγαθῶν μέχρι τῆς πάντων ἀποπερατώσεως τῶν αἰώνων, καθ᾿ ἥν συλλέξει τῆς οἰκείας σπορᾶς τούς καρπούς ζιζανίων ἀμιγεῖς καί πάσης ἀχυρώδους ἄχνης καί συμφορήσεως καθαρούς, καί ὁ σύμπας τῆς τῶν κινουμένων κινήσεως περαιωθήσεται λόγος, λαβόντων τῶν ἀξίων τήν ἐπηγγελμένην τῆς θεώσεως ἐσχάτην μακαριότητα. " Ἥλιος" οὖν "δικαιοσύνης" ὁ Κύριος προσηγόρευται, ὡς ποιητής καί συντελεστής τῶν αἰώνων, καί ὡς ἀρχή πάντων καί τέλος, καί τῆς πενταπλῆς κατά τήν πρόνοιαν τῶν προνοουμένων σοφῆς εὐταξίας δημιουργός, καί ὡς πληρῶν τά πάντα φωτός ἀϊδίου ταῖς ἀνεκλείπτοις ἐπιβολαῖς τῆς ἀγαθότητος, καί τούς εὑρύνοντας πρός ὑποδοχήν τῆς αὐτοῦ μακαρίας ἀκτῖνος τούς ἑαυτῶν νοητούς πόρους πεπείρους καί ἐδωδίμους τῷ Θεῷ καί Πατρί ποιούμενος. Ὁ αὐτός δέ καί ἐνιαυτός ἐστι Κυρίου δεκτός, ὡς διά πάντων τῶν σωζομένων πληρούμενος