問答疑難 第 1 章 第 6/9 段

And then the priestly word of teaching takes up their censers — that is, the mind in which they supposed they were offering to God a zeal not according to knowledge — and through teaching it drives off and thins the coarseness lying upon it, and offers it to the altar, that is, to divine knowledge.

QUESTION. For what reason does the law forbid the price of a dog and the hire of a harlot? ANSWER. It signifies through these that one must offer virtues to God unmixed with anger and desire, calling the dog "anger," and the harlot "desire."

QUESTION. Since Psalm 21 is manifestly referred to the Lord, how are we to understand "But I am a worm, and not a man"? ANSWER. Our Lord Jesus Christ, on account of his ineffable love for mankind concerning us, became and was called a worm;

for as the worm is born without intercourse, so also the Lord was conceived without seed.

But also, as a worm, he became bait for the devil;

for, gaping upon the flesh as upon a worm, he was impaled upon the divinity.

But he is also a worm to his enemies;

for by wisdom the wise man is at once discerned, but to the fool he is crooked.

But he also becomes a worm in us when we sin, convicting and gnawing our conscience.

QUESTION. What is that which is written in Genesis, "And he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword that turns, to guard the way of the tree of life"? ANSWER. Just as the perceptible tree becomes food for the flesh, so also the tree of life, which is the Lord, becomes food and life for our souls.

And the way that leads to him is the virtues;

and it is guarded by the cherubim and the flaming sword;

"Cherubim" is interpreted "fullness of knowledge"; and through knowledge, longing for God arises in us; and through the flaming sword — that is, the discernment that consumes evils — fear arises in us;

therefore it is fear and longing that guard the way of the tree of life.

And the sword is said to turn;

for whenever we sin, it meets us face to face, convicting us through our conscience; but when we repent, it grants passage.

QUESTION. From the Apostle:

"Whoever builds upon this foundation gold or silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble — the fire will test them;"

the work that he built will then remain, and he will receive a reward;

but if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; yet he himself will be saved, but so as through fire.

ANSWER. The foundation is faith in Christ.

One builds upon it, as gold, theological mystagogy; as silver, a transparent life; as precious stones, pious thoughts; as wood, attachment to sensible things; as hay, one who is nourished on irrationality; as stubble, one who works corruption.

And in the case of those who have good deeds, the day of knowledge shows that their revelation has come to be in fire, that is, in the Spirit.

But in the case of those who sin, their works are burned up, discernment justifying the conscience, and diminishing the sins through repentance, and saving the man, but penalizing the idleness in virtues of the preceding time.

But also in the age to come, the works of sin pass into non-existence, nature receiving back its own powers sound through the fire of judgment;

since nothing happens apart from the providence of God, but all things happen either according to good pleasure, or according to dispensation, or according to permission, it is pious to understand what is written in Kingdoms, that "God incited" [David], as meaning "permitted," whereas in Chronicles it is the devil who worked it and became its cause.

And the seventy thousand who fall are either those found with Absalom, or those who have the passion of self-conceit and pride;

for the number seventy signifies temporal motion, on account of the weekly cycle.

QUESTION. What does the paralytic signify who was let down through the roof by four men, and is it possible, according to the historical account, for the house to have been unroofed? ANSWER. According to the historical account, the house was indeed unroofed, since eyewitnesses of those regions say that the roofs of the houses there are made of very light pumice stone, so that one who wishes to unroof it is able to do this easily and quickly.

By faith, having unroofed the covering of the coarseness of the legal letter, he is let down, through the four virtues, from the vain height, to the Word who emptied himself, and by faith and by practice receives healing.

voluntarily, through the pleasurable passions in us; and involuntarily, through external assaults.

And when it is voluntary, at the urging of Nebuchadnezzar — that is, the devil — we kindle for ourselves the furnace of the passions, feeding the fire with anger as kindling-wood, desire as pitch, pleasure as naphtha, and the deviation of reason as tow (for flax is taken as referring to reason, whence also the priests, when serving as priests, wore linen); whenever, then, reason deviates, it becomes tow, and through it the rest of the passions are easily kindled.

But if one, after the pattern of the blessed youths, calls upon God through humility and intense prayer, he is released from the bonds of hands and feet — that is, from the bonds upon the practical life and the journey according to God — and is refreshed with dew by the visitation of the Holy Spirit.

But when we are tempted involuntarily, and the intelligible Nebuchadnezzar kindles for us the furnace through external assaults — illnesses and the other unwilled circumstances — we are able, even so, through patient endurance and thanksgiving, to be refreshed with dew by the hope of the goods laid up for us.

QUESTION. For what reason, when the prophet Elisha was mocked by the children, did he pray, and bears came out and tore apart forty-two children? ANSWER. Some say that the children were not Israelites but from among the foreigners, and that they were "children" not in age but in understanding.

Since, then, they heard that the prophet was working many signs and did not believe but mocked him, but there were some present who did not share in their vain gnomic will, in order that these not be harmed and the blasphemy against God not spread, God took vengeance upon them.

But according to contemplation, every mind that, like Elisha, is bald — that is, pure of material conceptions — is, in the ascent of knowledge, greatly mocked by the thoughts concerning sensible things, and matter, and form, the number forty signifying sensible things;

and matter and form, when added [to the forty], make up the number forty-two.

The mind, then, is mocked by such thoughts, so as to be cast into slothfulness with regard to virtue.

These, then, it destroys through prayer by means of the two bears, that is, by means of pleasure and desire;

for such passions, when turned about and directed toward the better, will kill the mocking thoughts.

QUESTION. What does the parable of the Gospel signify, which contains the encounter of the kings with the twenty thousand and the ten thousand? ANSWER. The king who arrays himself with the ten thousand signifies the king-mind within us, warring together with the ten commandments against the other king who has the twenty thousand — that is, against the ruler of this world, who arrays himself against us together with sensible things and the senses;

for the five senses, inclining toward sensible things, which consist of four elements, make up the number twenty;

for it is through these that the enemy arrays himself against us.

And "to sit down and take counsel" signifies [considering] whether it is possible to undertake every hardship and toil for the sake of virtue;

he speaks of suing for peace — that is, of those who submit to the natural necessities enjoined upon us after the transgression, being unable to pursue the manner of life according to the Gospel.

QUESTION. What does the deaf demon in the Gospel signify? ANSWER. A soul that is disobedient to the commandments of the Lord is troubled by the deaf demon;

But whenever the Word of God comes to be in her through the practice of the commandments, then she not only hears, but also speaks, through the knowledge of God.

QUESTION: What does the tower in the Gospel, according to the Lord's parable, signify — the one which he who was not able to complete is mocked by those passing by? ANSWER: The tower signifies the perfection of the virtues, built up together with knowledge.

Whoever, then, after the passionlessness attained through practice, has the aptitude for acquiring the natural, contemplative, and theological principles, through which perfect knowledge is completed, this one completes the building of the tower;

but he who lacks one of these, as one unable to bring the building to completion, is mocked by those passing by. QUESTION: ... will be shown by the evangelists. ANSWER: They say that universal things are significative of particular things, and particular things of universal things;

He, then, who said, 'I came to seek that which was lost,' signified the universal nature, which is Israel according to the account of Genesis, and one who ever beholds God; and he who said that he was sent only to the sheep of the house of Israel likewise, through the particular, signified the universal.

For since in Abraham the good of nature, which had been dissipated in the forefather through disobedience, was restored through true knowledge, God gives him the promise that he would be the father of many nations — of those who, through true knowledge, arrive at a faith like his and are adopted to him;

For it is clear that, if they are adopted, they are also of the house of Israel, and fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body.

The Canaanite woman's request for the crumbs signifies the teaching suited to those who, out of unbelief, are being introduced into the life according to virtue;

for the simple and most perfect word of knowledge is divided into many parts according to the settled state of those who receive it;

Therefore catechesis, which is likened to crumbs, is fitting for those being introduced [to the faith].

The dog, since it is a barking animal, driving away strangers but fawning on its own household, is taken as a figure for the settled state of the practical life, which drives away the vices contrary to nature, but fawns upon the natural virtues, guarding them so as to strengthen them.

...of pride, he sends Joab, that is, courage, driving out and urging on the powers of the soul toward its destruction.

Fleeing, then, it hides itself, as into some city, in one of the virtues;

Courage besieges this city, seeking to accomplish the destruction of pride;

but the wise woman, who is wisdom, by the discovery of the causes that constitute virtue, effects the destruction of the causes that produce the passions, through which every constitution of vice comes to be in the soul.

QUESTION: What does the narrative concerning Amasa signify, when Joab killed him? ANSWER: 'Amasa' is interpreted as 'anointed' or 'anointing';

he is taken, then, as a figure for passionlessness, as one who, on account of perfection, easily escapes every grasp of the adversaries; and Joab, for courage.

Whenever, then, the soul, through courage, after the perfect passionlessness attained as a settled state, having abandoned prayer, occupies itself in vain with some passion, it kills — that is, renders inoperative — the more perfect manner of contemplation, occupying itself with enemies already defeated.

QUESTION: What does the narrative about this same Joab signify, when he killed Abner, and what is the curse that was pronounced upon him? ANSWER: Here Joab is taken as a figure for the resentful thought, on account of which he also receives the curse: to lean upon a staff, and to fall by the sword — the narrative, I think, indicating by the staff the resentful person's hope set on sensible things (for every resentful thought, ever entangled in material things, has its support in them), and by falling by the sword, the destruction, through the most incisive reasoning, of such an attachment.

for it, by its discerning power, refines and scatters the counsels of the adversaries.

QUESTION: What does the Apostle's saying signify, 'the fullness of him who fills all in all'? ANSWER: God, according to essence, is apophatically removed from all beings;

for he is neither spoken of, nor conceived, nor participated in at all by anything;

but according to the providential procession, being participated in by many, he is also filled up by them.

For each of the things that have come to be, according to its own principle, which exists in God, is said to be a member of God and to have a place in God;

accordingly, indeed, if it is moved according to it wisely and rationally, it will come to be in God, filling its own place and, as a useful member in the body of Christ, working comeliness.

But whoever, abandoning his own principle, is carried irrationally toward things that do not exist, will justly undergo eternal punishment for the reproach that has come, so far as it depends on him, upon the body of Christ.

What does it signify that Adoni-bezek was hanged by Joshua the son of Nun on a double tree? ANSWER: The double tree bears the type of the operation and disposition, according to both soul and body, toward things perceptible by the senses.

Whoever, then, after the manner of Joshua, cutting through the way of virtue by means of the commandments, renders vice inoperative both in soul and in body, with respect to sense-perception and to what is contrary to nature, this one has hanged the ruler of this world on the double tree.

QUESTION: What does the narrative concerning Ahab signify, when the prophet saw the angelic powers on the right and on the left? ANSWER: The prophet here weaves together the universal account of providence, knowing that the originative principle is intermingled with all things;

and by the powers on the right he introduces the conditional principles pertaining to fitting actions, but by those on the left, the principles of judgment, that is, of the things not in our power.

But whoever is led to what is right neither by the teaching of the divine law, nor by the infliction of the afflictions that befall him, this one is given over, being abandoned to self-love, that is, to the sin within him, which, pushing him into an ever greater depth of evils, does not stop until, having killed him unrepentant, it hands him over to the judgment there.

QUESTION: What does the woman in the Gospel who was bent over for eighteen years signify? ANSWER: A soul occupied with sensible things through its three powers is signified by the bent-over woman.

For the number six, in which the sensible world was brought into being, when tripled, produces the eighteenth [number, i.e. eighteen].

If, then, through repentance it comes to the Word and God, it becomes healthy, no longer bending down toward earthly things, but gathering together the beauties of heaven.

QUESTION: What does the ode of Habakkuk mean, saying, 'the sheep have failed for food, and there are no oxen at the manger'? ANSWER: The sheep are the thoughts and movements of the mind, the oxen are spiritual teaching, the manger is the passionlessness attained through practice; and when this does not exist, spiritual teaching fails;

and when this fails, it is natural that, together with it, the thoughts and movements that are constituted in our mind through it also fail together, the soul descending to the affairs of life on account of the famine of the word.

The rational sheep have failed, because they do not feed on the spiritual food of teaching, since the spiritual oxen — the teachers — do not exist at the manger of the Church.

QUESTION: What does the Lord's precept mean, in the anagogical sense: 'if anyone compels you to go one mile, go with him two'? ANSWER: The one who compels us is the Lord, through his teaching, the one mile of his commandment;

It is good, then, for us to obey him when he commands, and to go two miles — that is, to obey the commandment and to add, through works, the other one mile.

We are compelled to go the mile of faith, but we are also required to render the works of faith.

QUESTION: What is meant by, 'if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also'? ANSWER: If, it says, the demons strike you on the right cheek through thoughts, puffing you up on account of your right-hand works, turn the other — that is, bring into view the deeds of left-hand practice, whatever wrongs have been done by us.

QUESTION: What does that which was said by the Lord to the disciples signify, that 'I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father'? ANSWER: Since our salvation is God's food and drink, according to what is written, and the Lord, having fulfilled this through the economy according to the flesh, and having brought to completion, through his teaching and manner of life, the salvific purpose concerning us ourselves, having made his disciples come to be above sense-perception, he says, 'I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine' — that is, of the salvation that was economically wrought for mankind through his sojourning among them.

But in the age to come he drinks this new — that is, renewed through the Holy Spirit — making those who are worthy gods by grace, through the ecstatic and inebriated participation in good things.

QUESTION: What is meant by, 'my Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh';

and 'their days shall be a hundred and twenty years'? ANSWER: God, caring for the salvation of men at that time, foretold that their life would be a hundred and twenty years;

for until Noah was divinely instructed to construct the ark, twenty years passed;

and for a hundred years he remained building the ark, so that, through this demonstration, they might come to correction;

but after these things he brought on the flood and took away all.

And Scripture speaks truly that it would be a hundred and twenty years for that generation, from the time he threatened them.

QUESTION: What does Eutychus, in Acts, falling from the third story while Paul was discoursing, signify? ANSWER: Every mind, having ascended the practical life as the first story, and having set itself upon natural contemplation as a second story, and, through undivided faith, having mounted itself to the height of theology as a third story, then, having neglected the divine word and grown drowsy, falls from the aforesaid third story;

but if the word of teaching, falling upon him, finds in him something vital, and he has not been altogether deadened through despair, he is again brought to life through repentance.

Some of the holy fathers say that the different callings signify the different ages of life, while others say the different intentions.

Suppose the denarius to be temperance; but there are many differences of this;

for one who has his own wife, having obtained her, guards temperance in this respect;

there is another, higher than this one, in that he does not continually make use of the license of the law;

another makes use of it only for the begetting of children, for the succession of the race;

another, after obtaining one or a second child, withdraws completely from marital intercourse;

and higher than all of these is the one who has not given himself to marriage at all, but practices virginity out of love for the Lord.

The account, then, has shown five intentions, each higher than the other, in which the five callings are signified, and the one denarius of temperance;

understand this also with respect to the other virtues.

QUESTION: What do the things concerning the prophet Jonah signify, and what is Joppa, from which he flees? ANSWER: Jonah, fleeing from the presence of the Lord, is taken as a figure for our nature;

for this nature, being directed toward Joppa — which is interpreted 'watchtower of joy,' and by which paradise is signified — fled through disobedience, and gives itself over to the sea of life, and is storm-tossed, and is swallowed by the intelligible sea-monster, and is vomited out through the Lord's three-day burial in Hades.

It is taken, again, also as a figure for the prophetic charism, and it preaches in Nineveh, that is, to the nations, and is distressed over the gourd;

and the gourd is the bodily worship of the law, which the worm dried up — the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, 'I am a worm, and not a man';

for through his coming he abolished the temporary worship of the law.

And the fact that there were in the city twelve thousand who did not know their right hand from their left signifies those who pursue virtue neither by excess nor by deficiency, but by the mean and the royal road.

QUESTION: Why in the world does the raven feed Elijah — in the morning bread, but in the evening meat? ANSWER: The raven is taken as a figure for the nature that was blackened through disobedience, while Elijah, sitting by the brook, is taken as a figure for the mind of the gnostic, established in the brook of temptations and the labors of asceticism.

This one is fed from the blackened nature — in the morning, bread, that is, gathering knowledge from the natural contemplation of beings; and in the evening, meat;

for he is initiated into the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, which was to come to pass in the last times: that he who brought nature into existence out of non-being would also, altogether, set right that nature once it had been corrupted.

Elijah is taken as a type of the Lord;

For he himself, since a spiritual famine held fast all hearts, came in the torrent-stream, that is, in this life, willingly enduring trials and passions; and his own, when he came to his own, did not receive him nor nourish him, but the nations blackened by idolatry received him and nourished him through knowledge and practice — knowledge being signified by the bread, and practice by the meat.

QUESTION: What is meant by the verse in the psalm, "he shall exult as a giant to run his course"? ANSWER: "Giant" is interpreted as "one who falls upon [his adversary]", and it is understood of the Lord;

...having accomplished [this work], he fell upon the demonic battle-lines, abolishing their power against us.

QUESTION: From the seventy-first psalm:

"Righteousness shall rise in his days, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away."

But the days of the Lord are not those in which he dwelt bodily on earth, but the virtues, which, shining like days, cause righteousness to rise in us.

What righteousness [is meant]? [It is] the distributive settled state that does not allow the lesser to rise up against the better, that is, the mindset of the flesh against the law of the spirit. And abundance of peace comes to be in us whenever the passions, having been lulled to rest, remain unwarring toward the soul;

And "until the moon be removed" signifies this: that so great [a work] comes to be in the soul from the knowledge of God which causes righteousness to rise in us, that even the bare fancies themselves of our changeable nature — for this is the moon — are utterly removed.

"And he shall have dominion," it says, "from sea to sea";

Here "sea" signifies the practical [life], beginning from which he has dominion over those subjected to his law, [extending] as far as the [other] sea — that is, obviously, the boundless knowledge — in which those who partake of it swim by means of the contemplation of beings.

Or also understand "sea" as baptism, in which, according to the prophet, the face of the adversary vanishes into the first sea, and his hinder parts into the last sea — calling, as has been said, the first sea baptism, and the last, the resurrection, in which the hinder parts of the enemy are abolished;

for then our nature completely lays aside the law of sin implanted through the transgression.

the face of the devil vanishes, that is, [his] evil deeds, through the practical [life];

for this, as has been said, is the first sea;

and the hinder parts also vanish, that is, the preconceptions of evils and the fancies, through the second sea, that is, knowledge.

QUESTION: The discourse held by the Lord with Nicodemus, in which he says, "the spirit blows where it wishes, and you hear its voice" — of what spirit does he speak? ANSWER: Some think that the Lord speaks of the airy wind, but to me it seems rather that he speaks of the Holy Spirit.

for this [Spirit] blows sovereignly wherever it wills, and it wills [to blow] in those who are receptive and pure in mind;

For these, being inspired with the divine gifts, do not know whence, or for what cause, the particular gift was given to them, nor to what end the bestowal of the gift arrives; but they hear only the voice, that is, the very operation of the gift, made manifest through the purity of their life and in a certain way emitting a voice — whether it is the gift of teaching, or of healing, or yet another. QUESTION: What is the blasphemy against the Spirit, and how is it that every sin will be forgiven to men, but to those who blaspheme against it it will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come? ANSWER: The difficulty concerning the blasphemy against the Spirit has its resolution close at hand;

...they attributed these [works] to the ruler of the demons.

But as for [the statement] that no forgiveness comes to those who blaspheme, neither here nor in the age to come, this must be investigated next.

Some of those who have accurately understood such matters through the Spirit say that there are four ways by which forgiveness of sins comes to be, two here [in this life] and two in the age to come.

in the age to come, as has been said, [there are] two;

whenever someone here sins without deliberate purpose, and again does good without deliberate purpose — whether moved to pity and compassion toward his neighbor, or [to] whatever else pertains to kindness toward men — these things, being weighed in the balance in the age to come, at the time of judgment, forgiveness comes to be according to whichever way the scale inclines;

whenever someone, being held fast in sins, but hearing the Lord say, "judge not, that you be not judged," fears and judges no one — in the examination of the things he has lived, as a keeper of the commandment, he is not judged;

for the most truthful [One] is not forgetful of his own commandment.

But the other two ways have their forgiveness here [in this life];

whenever someone who is in sins is providentially dispensed, unbeknownst to him, in calamities, in constraints, in sicknesses — for through such things God purifies him — and if he gives thanks while being tried, he receives the reward for [his] thanksgiving; but if he is ungrateful, he is purified from those [very] sins for which he is disciplined, but he pays the penalty for his ingratitude.

Since, then, whatever [sins] a man commits against men, as the discourse has shown, have many occasions of forgiveness — for someone sinning against one man, while doing good to another man, has thereby made his defense to the [same] nature against which he sinned — but the blasphemy against the Spirit is unbelief, which has no other ground of forgiveness except becoming a believer; reasonably, then, for the one who has closed his life in unbelief, the sin of unbelief and godlessness will not be forgiven, neither here nor in the age to come.

QUESTION: From the Gospel:

"There are some of those standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power."

This is what Mark [says]; but Matthew:

"...until they see the Son of Man coming in his glory."