VARIOUS EPISTLES

 we do not define Jesus in a human way for he is not only a man -nor super-essential, if only a man-, but truly a man who is pre-eminently a lover of

 For my part, I have not spoken against the Greeks or against others, thinking it sufficient for good men, if they could both know and speak the truth

 represented. By nature, at any rate, Apollophanes [says] these things are not true. Indeed, this is especially borne out in the sacred reports of the

 a man after my own heart. And yet a good law had been given, even to care for an enemy’s beast of burden. And Job was justified as one holding to gu

 For God is divided against himself for how shall his kingdom stand? And if the judgment is God's, as the oracles say, and the priests are messeng

 and to understand deeper things, but to consider only those things assigned to him according to his worth. What then, you say, should not priests who

 He therefore with desire and spirit and reason marked out what was according to worth, but to you the divine ministers, and to these the priests, and

 -this indeed worthy of much shuddering-, whom Christ, being good, seeks wandering on the mountains and calls as he flees and having found him with dif

 to be standing at the chasm, trembling, pitiable, on the very point of being carried down by the instability of their own feet. And from below, from t

 forming certain trees and shoots and flowers and putting forth roots, or springs of water bubbling up, or productive radiances bringing forth light, o

 by the reformations of typical symbols, as such veils are by nature kindred and they show, as many as have heard clear theology without veils, form in

 and in it setting forth both the solid foods and the drinks and the mixing bowl, so that it is clear to those who fittingly contemplate divine things,

 filled with good things. And we consider the reclining a repose from many labors and a life free from harm and a divine way of life in the light and l

 to draw to oneself and partake of the light. But on the contrary, it will not deprive us of the all-radiant ray of John, as we will now encounter the

VARIOUS EPISTLES

TO GAIUS THE THERAPEUT

Darkness is made to disappear by light, and even more by much light; ignorance is made to disappear by knowledge, and even more by much knowledge. Having taken these things by way of eminence, but not by way of privation, declare with super-truth that the unknowing according to God and His transcendent darkness escape those who possess existent light and knowledge of beings, and it is veiled by every light and hidden from all knowledge. And if anyone seeing God understood what he saw, he has not seen Him, but something of His that is and is known. But He Himself, being established beyond mind and being, by the very fact of being altogether not known and not being, both is super-essentially and is known beyond mind. And the complete unknowing, in the better sense, is knowledge of Him who is beyond all things that are known.

TO THE SAME

How is He who is beyond all things both beyond the principle of Divinity and beyond the principle of Goodness? If you should understand Divinity and Goodness as the very gift of the Good-making and God-making, and the inimitable imitation of the super-divine and super-good, by which we are made divine and good. For if this becomes the principle of being made divine and good for those who are made divine and good, He who is the super-principle of every principle, and of the so-called Divinity and Goodness, as principles of Divinity and Goodness, is beyond, inasmuch as the inimitable and unrelated excels the imitations and relations and those who imitate and participate.

TO THE SAME

"Suddenly" is that which is beyond expectation and brought forth from the hitherto unseen into the manifest. And concerning the love for humanity in Christ, I think theology intimates this too, that the super-essential One has come forth from the hidden into our manifestation, having been humanly enfleshed. But He is hidden even after the manifestation, or, to speak more divinely, even in the manifestation. For this of Jesus is hidden, and by no word or mind has the mystery concerning Him been brought forth, but even when spoken it remains unutterable, and when conceived, unknown.

TO THE SAME

How, you say, is Jesus, who is beyond all things, essentially ranked with all men? For He is not here called man as the cause of men, but as being Himself truly man in His whole essence. We

EΠIΣΤOΛAI ∆IAΦOΡOI

ΓAIΩι ΘEΡAΠEΥΤHι

Τὸ σκότος ἀφανὲς γίνεται τῷ φωτί, καὶ μᾶλλον τῷ πολλῷ φωτί· τὴν ἀγνωσίαν ἀφανίζουσιν αἱ γνώσεις, καὶ μᾶλλον αἱ πολλαὶ γνώσεις. Ταῦτα ὑπεροχικῶς, ἀλλὰ μὴ κατὰ στέρησιν ἐκλαβὼν ἀπόφησον ὑπεραληθῶς, ὅτι λανθάνει τοὺς ἔχοντας ὂν φῶς καὶ ὄντων γνῶσιν ἡ κατὰ θεὸν ἀγνωσία καὶ τὸ ὑπερκείμενον αὐτοῦ σκότος καὶ καλύπτεται παντὶ φωτὶ καὶ ἀπο κρύπτεται πᾶσαν γνῶσιν. Καὶ εἴ τις ἰδὼν θεὸν συνῆκεν, ὃ εἶδεν, οὐκ αὐτὸν ἑώρακεν, ἀλλά τι τῶν αὐτοῦ τῶν ὄντων καὶ γινωσκομένων· αὐτὸς δὲ ὑπὲρ νοῦν καὶ οὐσίαν ὑπεριδρυμένος, αὐτῷ τῷ καθόλου μὴ γινώσκε σθαι μηδὲ εἶναι, καὶ ἔστιν ὑπερουσίως καὶ ὑπὲρ νοῦν γινώσκεται. Καὶ ἡ κατὰ τὸ κρεῖττον παντελὴς ἀγνωσία γνῶσίς ἐστι τοῦ ὑπὲρ πάντα τὰ γινωσκόμενα.

ΤΩI AΥΤΩι

Πῶς ὁ πάντων ἐπέκεινα καὶ ὑπὲρ θεαρχίαν ἐστὶ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἀγαθαρχίαν; Eἰ θεότητα καὶ ἀγαθότητα νοήσαις αὐτὸ τὸ χρῆμα τοῦ ἀγαθοποιοῦ καὶ θεοποιοῦ δώρου καὶ τὸ ἀμίμητον μίμημα τοῦ ὑπερθέου καὶ ὑπεραγάθου, καθ' ὃ θεούμεθα καὶ ἀγαθυνόμεθα. Καὶ γὰρ εἰ τοῦτο ἀρχὴ γίνεται τοῦ θεοῦσθαι καὶ ἀγαθύνεσθαι τοὺς θεουμένους καὶ ἀγαθυνομένους, ὁ πάσης ἀρχῆς ὑπεράρχιος καὶ τῆς οὕτω λεγομένης θεότητος καὶ ἀγαθότητος, ὡς θεαρχίας καὶ ἀγαθαρχίας, ἐστὶν ἐπέκεινα, καθ' ὅσον ὁ ἀμίμητος καὶ ἄσχετος ὑπερέχει τῶν μιμήσεων καὶ σχέσεων καὶ τῶν μιμουμένων καὶ μετεχόντων.

ΤΩI AΥΤΩι

«Ἐξαίφνης» ἐστὶ τὸ παρ' ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐκ τοῦ τέως ἀφανοῦς εἰς τὸ ἐκφανὲς ἐξαγόμενον. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς κατὰ Χριστὸν φιλανθρωπίας καὶ τοῦτο οἶμαι τὴν θεολογίαν αἰνίττεσθαι, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ κρυφίου τὸν ὑπερούσιον εἰς τὴν καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐμφάνειαν ἀνθρωπικῶς οὐσιωθέντα προεληλυθέναι. Κρύφιος δέ ἐστι καὶ μετὰ τὴν ἔκφανσιν ἤ, ἵνα τὸ θειότερον εἴπω, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἐκφάνσει. Καὶ τοῦτο γὰρ Ἰησοῦ κέκρυπται, καὶ οὐδενὶ λόγῳ οὔτε νῷ τὸ κατ' αὐτὸν ἐξῆκται μυστήριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ λεγόμενον ἄῤῥητον μένει καὶ νοούμενον ἄγνωστον.

ΤΩI AΥΤΩι

Πῶς, φῄς, Ἰησοῦς, ὁ πάντων ἐπέκεινα, πᾶσίν ἐστιν ἀνθρώποις οὐ σιωδῶς συντεταγμένος; Oὐ γὰρ ὡς αἴτιος ἀνθρώπων ἐνθάδε λέγεται ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλ' ὡς αὐτὸ κατ' οὐσίαν ὅλην ἀληθῶς ἄνθρωπος ὤν. Ἡμεῖς