Questions and Doubts 1 part 3/9

QUESTION: What does the number of the 153 fish in the Gospel signify? ANSWER: Since, beginning from one and, by successive addition, filling up this number as far as seventeen, it signifies that, through the fulfillment both of the ten commandments and of the seven operations of the Holy Spirit, those being saved enter into the kingdom of heaven; or also those who are saved through faith in the Holy Trinity and the hope of things to come — for the number fifty transcends the sevenfold time, as does the operation through the commandments, which is signified by the number one hundred — being saved and deemed worthy of the kingdom.

QUESTION: Who are the men and the women and the serpents, on account of whom the Lord, according to Gregory of Nyssa, spent the three days in Hades? ANSWER: There are three powers of the soul: the rational, the irascible, the appetitive;

the men, then, are taken for the rational part, the women for the appetitive, and the serpents for the irascible.

These three powers, then, are restored in the age to come unto full knowledge;

and on their behalf the Lord also accepted the life-giving Passion and the descent into Hades.

QUESTION: From Proverbs, "A man of perception, and one quick to understand, must stand before kings" — how are we to understand this? ANSWER: This saying wishes the one who is quick with respect to the practical, and contemplative with respect to the cognitive, to stand attending upon the three laws — the natural, the written, and that of grace — so that, being guided by them, he might rightly accomplish the practical, the natural, and the theological philosophy.

"Seven times the righteous man shall fall, and shall rise again."

This the Lord, moved by ineffable love for mankind, raised up, having united that very nature to himself according to hypostasis.

QUESTION: Whom does the Apostle mean, writing to the Ephesians, when he speaks of those "who had before hoped in Christ"? ANSWER: Every one of the saints before the Lord's advent, practicing whatever virtue, even if he did not know the whole mystery of the economy, but being moved in part, according to nature, hoped and expected that he who made nature would himself also save it when it had been corrupted.

"That we may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power."

ANSWER: The hope of the calling is the freedom from the passions attained through practice, according to the very way of life of the Lord himself;

and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints is the riches according to the knowledge of truth;

and the exceeding greatness of his power is the deification that will be granted to the worthy, as being beyond nature, and as making those who partake, from men, gods according to grace.

QUESTION: Of the same Apostle:

"For we are his workmanship, created for good works."

ANSWER: This was said by the Apostle, as I think, because God, having made man in the beginning, and man having fallen away through transgression, created him anew again through his enfleshed advent, and restored him to the original state.

"Who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of the partition, the enmity, in his flesh, and the rest."

ANSWER: Whether it means that, having joined the two peoples, he made them one; or the things on earth and the things in heaven — for these too he joined, though they stood apart from one another; or you also take it with reference to each individual person;

he joined soul and body together, which are ever at strife with one another;

for he subjected the mindset of the flesh to the law of the spirit.

"And having broken down the middle wall of the partition":

by "middle wall" he meant either the flesh, or sensible things, or the worship according to the Law; and by "partition" he meant sin;

for these things, in the manner of a wall, to us who made use of them neither with understanding nor with spiritual knowledge, walled us off from God and subjected us to sin.

Having called sin "enmity":

for it made us enemies of God.

"Having abolished the law of commandments in ordinances":

the law of a commandment is, "You shall not murder," and the rest;

but he who applies himself to the commandment according to nature, and knows the rationale of the commandment, knows that one must abstain not only from bodily murder, but also from every passion that ravages nature;

for envy too, and slander, and all the passions, are corruptive of nature.

The Lord, then, having come, abolished the law in ordinances — that is, put a stop to it — saying, "It was said to the ancients, You shall not murder; but I say to you":

"Everyone who is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable [to judgment]" — and this not only by teaching, but indeed also by doing;

having brought about that they be understood spiritually;

or rather, having shown that the many were a type of the mystery concerning himself, he brought them to an end.

QUESTION: From Proverbs:

"Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the winds in his bosom? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has grasped the ends of the earth? What is his name?" ANSWER: Since in the beginning man was fashioned for this purpose, that he should ascend toward the Cause by desire, and then thus descend to the creatures that come after the Cause, and, having surveyed these well with knowledge, lead them up to their Maker — but this he did not do; rather, before being lifted up to God, he inclined down toward matter — our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, having come, recapitulated all things in himself, and showed for what purpose the first man was brought forth.

For according to the assumption of human nature, he first ascended, being moved toward the Cause; then he also descended according to the Godhead, having put on the form of a servant; and again he ascended according to the composite of both, in the ascension after the resurrection from the dead.

Thus we too must first be lifted up toward God, and, tempering the soul, stretch the whole of its desire toward him, and then thus descend to the investigation of beings, and observe each according to its nature, and again through them be led back up, by contemplative knowledge, to their Creator.

Such a one "gathers the winds in his bosom":

for he gathers the various inner principles of beings — called "winds" in a tropological sense — into the bosom of his own heart.

Since, then, the "bosom" is the navel, in which they say the first offspring takes its beginning, one must understand that, gathering the various inner principles in the generative and contemplative part of the heart, he brings forth one Word of God;

for the many inner principles of beings are gathered into one.

But he also "crushes water in a garment":

"waters" are, as you will find Scripture saying in many places, the trials;

these, suffering in his own body, or also in the ethical part of philosophy, he crushes with endurance, sending them away ineffective.

And he also "grasps the ends of the earth," not permitting even the natural passions of the body to be carried out irrationally.

"And those who are left will be [more precious] than unfired gold."

ANSWER: Those who were tested through trials, and left for further testing, as Job, Joseph, and those like them — these are beyond the unfired gold, beyond Adam, who was fashioned upright like gold, but was not fired through trials nor endured them.

QUESTION: What do the carbuncle and the green stone in Genesis signify? ANSWER: Both signify the Lord;

the carbuncle, as illuminating and burning, because the Lord is a provider of knowledge, and a consumer of wickedness;

and the green stone, since it strengthens the power of sight, likewise signifies the Lord, as productive of the contemplative vigor of the soul.

"Then he brought a barber and a razor, and shaved off his seven locks";

The devil is the barber, and the razor is deceit, according to what is written: 'Like a sharpened razor you have wrought deceit'; and the seven locks are the seven operations of the Spirit, according to the prophet Isaiah.

So when his hair began to grow again — that is, when he came to repentance for the things he had done — then the young boy leads him by the hand, that is, the law of God, and brings him to the pillars on which the house of the Philistines was supported, which are anger and desire, by which every Philistine mind is taken captive.

Samson's dying together with the Philistines signifies the completion, that is, the mortification, of the carnal mindset.

QUESTION: What does it mean that this same Samson killed the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey? ANSWER: Here Samson bears the type of the true Nazirite, Christ;

for he, having taken our flesh, unmoistened by any sin, destroyed the Philistine demons.

Samson's being bound by his own people and handed over to the Philistines has clearly been fulfilled in the case of the Lord;

for those who seemed to be his own — the Jews — bound him and handed him over to the nations.

But also from the body of the Lord, just as from the jawbone, there gushed forth the water of knowledge, which he thirsted for, saying: 'that they may know you, the true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.'

But also every Samson, that is, every Nazirite, through the jawbone — that is, through the continence of the body, which is of a different kind from the soul, just as the donkey belongs to the portion of the nations in relation to the Law — kills the passions through the practical life.

Then he also thirsts for divine knowledge, and through invocation, out of that very virtuous practice, divine knowledge is sent down to him, giving him drink and refreshing him.

And if he should also be confined within the walls of Gaza, that is, by things perceptible to the senses, he takes up the gates on the shoulders of the practical life, that is, the senses, and carries them up to the mountain of lofty knowledge.

QUESTION: For what reason does God command the sons of Israel to destroy the seven nations, but the five satrapies not at all? ANSWER: God, hating all passions that are contrary to nature, commands them to be destroyed;

but he does not wish the natural powers of the five senses to be destroyed; but if indeed they should ever be moved contrary to nature, he wishes their operations to be put to death.

QUESTION: What does the Gospel mean by saying, 'Wash your face and anoint your head'? ANSWER: Our face is our manner of life, marking out, just as the countenance does, what sort of persons we are according to the inner man.

This, then, is what the saying exhorts us to wash, that is, to cleanse our life of every stain of sins.

The head is our mind, which the saying bids us anoint, that is, to make radiant with divine knowledge.

What is the meaning of the Lord's answer, when he says, concerning Herod, 'Go, tell that fox: today and tomorrow I perform healings, and on the third day I am perfected'? ANSWER: 'Herod' is interpreted 'made of skin';

it is necessary, then, to abhor the carnal thoughts that wish to draw the mind away from practical virtue, and to say to them: 'Today and tomorrow I perform healings, and on the third day I am perfected' — that is, I heal, through the practical life, first my own members, then also the senses, so as to apply myself soundly to sensible things, and 'on the third day I am perfected,' receiving perfection in the contemplation of divine knowledge.

QUESTION: What is meant, according to the Apostle, by 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God'? ANSWER: Flesh is desire, and blood is anger;

and reasonably, one who is not purified of these cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

QUESTION: What does the mountain of Horeb-Sinai signify, and what are the mysteries that took place upon it? ANSWER: 'Sinai' is interpreted 'trial', and 'Horeb' 'fresh tillage'. It is necessary, then, that the one who aspires to the height of knowledge should first come to be in the endurance of trials, and till the fresh ground and sow the fruit of knowledge and righteousness, and be purified from every passion; and 'three days' stands for the three powers of the soul being purified of all carnal pleasure; and that he not take along the female, nor indeed the irrational [animal] — the saying indicating this: that the one who wishes to become worthy of the divine voice must have nothing effeminate nor irrational, but, clothed in the bright garments of virtue, must ascend the mountain of knowledge.

For thus, according to the God-inspired Moses, having passed — through natural contemplation and through the property of time, which signifies the seventy elders — beyond the voices and the sounds, the manifestations derived from the things that appear, he takes up with himself only Aaron and his two sons Nadab and Abihu: that is, Aaron signifying reason, and his sons anger and desire.

But these too must be left behind, like smoke and storm-wind, and only Aaron kept — I mean the reason that is simple in understanding, illumined, like lightning-flashes, with divine irradiations — and then this one too must be left outside, and one must plunge into the darkness of unknowing, where all speech and thought are silenced.

I think that those of the people who were purified beneath the mountain signify those engaged in the practical life, and the seventy elders those who pursue natural contemplation, and those around Aaron those who pursue theology, and those like Moses those who are united to God through negation and unknowing.

QUESTION: What is the 'diapsalma' [Selah]? ANSWER: I think it is either a change from one thought to another, or a change from one manner of teaching to another.

By 'little ones,' I think, he means those who are simple in understanding, and who, because of the smallness of their mind, are unable to discern the judgments of providence.

Whoever, then, causes such ones to stumble, it would be better for him to be of the portion of the Greeks, who, like a donkey in a mill, are occupied only with the motion of the world, and to be cast into the depth of the sea, that is, into the confusion of life.

This also the apostle Peter confirms, saying: 'It was better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back.'

QUESTION: For what reason, after the man who gathered wood on the Sabbath was stoned by God's command, does he command that a blue thread be bound to the fringes of garments? ANSWER: [This applies to] the one who keeps Sabbath in practice and knowledge, but then, growing negligent, begins to gather for himself, like wood, the kindling matter of the passions; or also the man of knowledge who has turned toward the surface of visible things;

reasonably, such passions are put to death by the divine words, as if by stones.

But since God, seeing the negligence and proneness to slip of men, in order that they, held fast by forgetfulness, might not fall away from the commandment, commands that a blue thread be bound to the fringes of the garments, so that, by seeing it, they might come to remembrance of the ordinance.

This, then, is the apparent aim of the law; but the spiritual aim, the one that cleanses the depths, is this:

since the fringe is made from the warp-thread of the garment, this signifies that faith must be attached to the garment of practical and moral philosophy — for this is the warp-thread — and, simply put, that faith and practice must be interwoven together, and that from these, knowledge, that is wisdom, must be bound on in the manner of the blue thread;

for 'wisdom' (sophia), according to those who trace etymologies, is called sophia by that which the color of the hyacinth-thread indicates through its darkening.

QUESTION: What is the anagogical contemplation concerning Abel and Cain? ANSWER: Cain is taken for the mindset of the flesh, and Abel for mourning, that is, repentance.

When, therefore, the mind, not yet having perfectly established the practical settled state, is mocked by the mindset of the flesh and goes out with it into the field, that is, into the breadth of natural contemplation, it is put to death, being unable to pass through the surfaces of beings but remaining in them.

Whoever, then, kills Cain — that is, the mindset of the flesh, which is consent (for the one who murders mourning consents to evil) — dissolves the seven acts of vengeance being exacted, that is, he nullifies the seven spirits of wickedness, or also abolishes the seven passions of evil that are worked by them.

And the curse of Cain's groaning signifies the uprising of conscience, which continually strikes and shakes his understanding.

QUESTION: What does the history concerning Lamech signify? ANSWER: Some of those learned in divine matters say that, in the times of Lamech, there being disorder and lawlessness, the powerful man oppressed the weak.

This Lamech, then, having met a man together with his wife, killed him and took his wife.

And having also met a brother together with his sister, he killed him too and took his sister.

And the one Scripture called 'a man,' but the other 'a young man.'

This, then, is according to the literal history;

but according to contemplation, Lamech is taken to signify the operation of evil.

and he took from him sense-perception;

and he also killed the young man — I mean the spiritual law — and took from him the understanding, so that, mingling with these, the sower of evil might cause sin to be brought forth.

From this Lamech, then, vengeance is taken seventy-sevenfold, that is, penalty is exacted for consent and for operation.

Hence, when Peter said to the Lord, 'How many times, if my brother sins against me, shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?', the Lord answered: 'Not only up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven' — that is, to the one who repents to you, you shall forgive not only the small things that occur in consent, but also the operations.

QUESTION: What do the molten image and the graven image and the teraphim signify, which they made in the time of Gideon, and what do the earrings and the crescents signify, which Gideon made into an ephod and set up in the gate, and it became a snare to his house? ANSWER: According to Scripture, that man makes a molten image who has, from outward preconceptions, the impressions of evil, and, casting from these, brings sin into operation;

and he makes a graven image who fashions the passion out of himself;

and he makes a teraphim who has acquired the settled state of the passions, like a receptacle;

for they say that the teraphim is a receptacle for the blood of things sacrificed.

Gideon's making an ephod out of the earrings and crescents signifies this: that whoever, taking from each of the teachers a word or a doctrine (for this is what the earrings and crescents are, concerning something manifested in creation), then, gathering from all of them one mystical account of contemplation, and setting this forth openly, or also depositing it in books (for this is the gate) — as many as are unable, because of an infantile mind, to understand the mystical and unified character of the account, are scandalized at the teacher who spoke it.

QUESTION: What does the history concerning Gideon himself signify, and the fleece, and the war against the Midianites, and the rest? ANSWER: Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, is taken for sense-perception;

she, conceiving through natural contemplation, bears the natural law.

But if she rises up against the mind, as that woman did against Sarah — 'Sarah' being interpreted 'ruler' — sense-perception is thrust aside, and the mind conceives Isaac, the spiritual law, from whom comes Israel, that is, the mind that sees God. This one, whenever it is tyrannized by Midian, that is, by fornication, is handed over by permission for seven years, that is, into temporal and occasional passions.

And, it says, the sons of Israel made for themselves holes and caves in the mountains;

for the mind, being warred upon, seems to devise afflictions and toils, but, doing these without knowledge, it labors in vain.

For it says, 'The man of Israel sowed, and Midian and Amalek and the sons of the east came up and destroyed the fruit of the land';

for Amalek is gluttony, and Midian is fornication, and the sons of the east are vainglory;

they destroy all the seed of the heart, which the mind, without knowledge, seems to cultivate.

'And they left no means of subsistence for life in Israel,' it says, 'whether of flock or of calf or of donkey' — that is, of the rational, the spirited, and the desiring [parts of the soul].

'And their possessions and their tents came up, together with their camels, which were without number' — that is, the various kinds of passions and their memories and their imaginings.

'And Israel became impoverished before Midian, and the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord sent forth a man, a prophet';

whenever, in repentance, they cry out to the Lord, the Lord will send forth a word reminding them of the going up out of Egypt, that is, the redemption from the darkening of sins.

'And there came,' it says, 'the angel of the Lord and sat under the terebinth' — hinting at the mystery of the cross — 'and Gideon was,' it says, 'threshing wheat in the winepress' — that is, pursuing the practical life together with knowledge;

for this is the winepress of the wine.

And the angel appeared to him and said to him:

'The Lord is with you, mighty in strength';

for he calls him by these very attributes: the one who has subjected and enslaved the passions and holds mastery over them through the practical life and knowledge;

And the humility of such a mind is shown from the answer:

"And if the LORD is with us, why then has all this evil found us?" And the angel said to him:

"in this might you shall save Israel" — that is, in the strength of the practical life and of knowledge

And he said to the angel:

"If I have found favor in your sight, do not depart from here until I come to you."

So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and took an ephah of fine flour for unleavened cakes; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the terebinth tree. And the angel said to him:

"Take the meat and the unleavened cakes and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth."

For whenever a spiritual thought is sent down to the mind, and the mind, through fitting actions, finds how to adapt to such knowledge what is incumbent upon it, the knowledge does not depart.

The bringing out of the meat, the unleavened cakes, and the broth signifies the practical life, poured about knowledge together with freedom from vainglory;

He commanded that these be placed against that rock:

for knowledge and practice must be joined to faith in Christ

And the angel stretched out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat, and fire went up out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel departed out of his sight.

For whenever such practice and knowledge are perfected through faith, then the fire of the Spirit renders them luminous, and the principle of the beginning of knowledge flies away together with it;

for it no longer follows behind, as before, reminding:

for the mind, having been mingled with the whole light of the Spirit, no longer sits attending upon the things it began with

The fleece signifies the Jewish worship:

for upon it the dew fell:

for it had the ordinances of worship

But upon all the earth there was dryness:

for all the nations happened to be dry of the knowledge of God

The wringing of the water into the basin signified the grace of baptism that was to come:

for the Old [Testament] had in many things types of holy baptism:

These things, then, being wrung out into the basin of baptism, showed us the mystery contained in it.

The repeating of the sign a second time, and conversely, the fleece having the dryness while all the earth had the dew, signified the grace of the Gospel:

for all the earth was filled with the dew of the Gospel:

but the people of the Jews was left dry of all faith

The fleece is moral philosophy, pressed out into the basin of knowledge:

and all the earth having the dew signifies that, after the successful accomplishment of moral philosophy, all the earth of the heart is filled with divine knowledge

But if someone is puffed up on the successful accomplishment of morals alone, apart from the knowledge fitting to it, such a one has the earth of his own heart without moisture, yet appears to adorn the outward tent, like a fleece

As Gideon went out to the battle line, the return of the ten thousand signifies those who through cowardice flee the toilsomeness of virtue, betraying their senses and their operations.

and those who drink this water are those who, together with the senses, have betrayed the sensible things:

for the four elements, combined with the five senses, make up twenty

These, rolling themselves upon the earth — that is, overcome by earthly attachment — attempt to drink the water of knowledge:

whom the narrative rejects, as being unfit for the spiritual battle line

But he chooses only the three hundred who shone:

and these are those who crucified themselves and kept the three powers of the soul sound within the hundredfold of perfection:

for the hundred is the ten-times-multiplied decad of the commandments, each commandment containing the other within it, and, to speak more clearly, the one being ten:

whence also, to Sarah as she advanced, the [letter] rho was added, the text signifying by this the perfection of her virtue

But these, lapping with their hands, drink the water:

for through the labors of practice they draw the water of knowledge

And the commander of the spiritual battle line commands them to hold in the left hand jars containing lamps within, and in the right a horn, and so to engage the enemy — signifying by this that the one who is about to array himself against the invisible enemies must, through the practical life (for this is what the left hand holds), have the body already casting off, through asceticism, every moisture of the passions, and, having become dry as a potsherd, ordered within, holding the light of knowledge inside; while with the right hand, that is, with contemplation, hold fast the teaching concerning the Word.

The breaking of the jars signifies that the complete mortification of the flesh, and its disregard, unveils to us the light of knowledge

The saying "the sword of the LORD and of Gideon" signifies that he who wields the cutting word of the Lord, together also with his own zeal, destroys the passions

The dream which the Midianites saw shows that whenever the mind begins to give itself over to asceticism and to afflict the body, the demons of fornication conjecture, as though by a dream, that if the mind should prevail to extend itself in such asceticism, it will kill us:

for a barley cake rolling — that is, asceticism advancing — overturns the tents of the foreigners, namely the passions that constitute the demons

QUESTION: What is that which was said by the Lord to the apostles, "Behold, I am with you until the consummation of the age"? ANSWER: The Lord himself is said to be with us in the present age; but in the age to come the saints will be with him, having been deified by grace.

QUESTION: What does Jericho signify, and who is Achan, who stole from the accursed thing, and why did God command that he be burned, while Joshua stoned him? ANSWER: Whoever, having been enrolled into the divine battle line, circles Jericho with seven circuits, sounding the trumpet — that is, traversing the seven-fold age of this present time with the trumpet of the Gospel — is taught to dedicate all the things of this age to God.