akin [to them]. And the soul that possesses something of the spirit, on hearing anything wherein a spiritual force is hidden, fervently embraces that which it hears; and yet a tale that is told spiritually and wherein a great force is hidden, is not able to arouse every one unto admiration.
A word concerning excellence requires a heart free from the earth and earthly occupations.
If a man’s mind is beset with care for transitory things, tales concerning excellence will not incite his thought to the desiring of its possession.
Solution from matter precedes the bonds in God[1]. And though, as if by Providence of Grace, in some people the latter precede the former, so that love covers love, in the usual order of Providence the common sequence is otherwise. So thou hast to keep the common order. If Grace in thee comes first, it is for its own sake. If it does not, then, along the way that every man goes by tradition, ascend the spiritual tower.
Everything which is mentally performed and the commandment of which is fulfilled thus also, is entirely invisible to the eyes of the flesh; whereas every thing which is performed in practice, is wholly of a composite nature. For it is only one commandment that necessitates these two, viz. theory and performance. Because corporeity and non-corporeity and the adaptation of the two belong to all. Therefore the enlightened intellect—as has been ordered formerly by the blessed Moses—understands in a twofold way the commandment [lying at the bottom of theory and practice]: the simple as well as the complex is understood.
Works performed carefully by the pure, do not remove the impression of the recollection of previous reprehensible things; but they abolish in the mind the painful nature of recollection, so that what has passed through the mind often enough, now becomes something excellent.
The longing of the soul for the acquiring of excellence vanquishes the desire of its partner [2] for visible things.
- ↑ Cf. beneath p. 40 and Basilius: Aουθῆναι δεῖ τὸν δεσμὸν τῆς προσπαθείας τοῦ βίου τὸν ἀληθινῶς τῷ θεῷ ἀκολουθῆσαι μέλλοντα (Antonius et Maximus, p. 22). And Philo I 380 39: δεςμὰ μὲν οἷς πρότερον ἐςφίγγετο ἃ περιῆψαν αί τοῦ θνητοῦ βίου εναὶ σπουδαὶ, πάντα λύσας...πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἀγεννήτου παγκάλην καὶ ἀοίδιμον θέαν ἐπεἰχθῆναι.—Plotinus, Enneades IV, 8, § 1 points to the Platonic origin of the comparison, and uses it himself § 4, speaking of the soul: ἐπιστραφεῖσα δὲ πρὸς νόησιν λύεσαί τε ἐκ τῶν δεσμῶν, καὶ ἀναβαίνειν...
- ↑ the body
