Greek original · 175 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:1254–1:1428 (3767 verses in all)
ℹ️ This corpus has no verse-level morphological tagging. Lemmas come mainly from word-level tagging of other books in the same language (not from this verse), falling back to dictionary form-matching for the rest. Rare homographs can still be misread; verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
But since this was not to happen again unto corruption, but unto incorruption, the filling-up took place through the Spirit and not through flesh, so that He might refashion the nature of Adam, and that those who were to become children of God might receive regeneration through the Holy Spirit, and thus, in the Spirit of God, all who believe in Him might become His kinsmen and one body.
namely, concerning the woman—I mean the rib of Adam—'a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife,' that is, to the rib of Adam, 'and the two shall become one flesh'—so too it comes to pass in the case of Christ God.
For since He took flesh from the all-immaculate blood of the Theotokos and granted her the Holy Spirit, He was made flesh and became man; for this reason 'a man shall leave his father and his mother'—and also wife and children and brothers and sisters—'and shall cleave,' not to a wife, nor in a fleshly manner, but, as all of us who are born of woman according to the body, to the Man born of woman without seed, the Bridegroom Christ.
And thus, being spiritually joined and cleaving to Him, each of us shall be with Him one spirit, and likewise one body also, because we bodily eat His body and drink His blood.
'Give blood and receive the Spirit,' since the Spirit is given to us in no other way except through the voluntary crucifixion toward the world, together with its mortification.
For God, being Spirit according to the divine utterance, wills that we be united to him in the Holy Spirit, and be joined to him, and be fellow members of his body, and fellow heirs with him, as all divine Scripture testifies.
for this flesh, animated with a soul both then from Adam and now from the Theotokos, he took up ineffably, and thus he mystically renewed our whole nature.
'Adam, where are you, and who told you that you are naked, unless you have eaten from that tree, of which alone I commanded you not to eat?' And yet, having heard these things, he was not willing to repent, or to weep, and to ask for forgiveness.
But since Adam was not willing to repent at that time, this too being the plot of the evil demon, for this reason God, coming again upon the earth, once more calls all men to himself through repentance, and says:
But as God he foreknew, as we have often said, the disobedience of the Hebrews arising from unbelief, and the conversion of the nations arising from faith;
and before the ages he predetermined that as many as should believe in him and be baptized into his name — that is, into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — and should eat the undefiled body of his Son and drink his precious blood, should be justified from sin, that is, should be set free and glorified and become partakers of eternal life, just as that Master of all things himself says:
Behold, therefore, you too, brother, have been foreknown by God, and predetermined, and called, and glorified, and justified, and recalled to eternal life through faith in Christ and holy baptism;
and you have not been brought, as Adam was before, into a paradise perceived by the senses, but into heaven and the good things in the heavens, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.
Work, therefore, the virtues, and keep the commandments of God — or rather, guard yourself through the commandments, so as not to transgress anything of what has been commanded you — lest you suffer the fate of Adam, or rather worse, being deprived of the greater, heavenly goods.
No longer prefer anything earthly, nor let any desire for perishable things overpower you, lest you be stripped of the glory with which you were glorified by Christ, and, as one not clothed with the wedding garment, be bound hand and foot and cast out into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Whom he has both called, and will not cease calling until the consummation, and has glorified and will glorify, and has justified and will justify, plainly showing them to be conformed to the glory of the image of his Son, through holy baptism and the grace of the Spirit, mystically making them all sons of God, and restoring them from old to new and from mortal to immortal, and giving them commandments, as once he did to Adam;
but if they should prove remiss toward their benefactor and not keep the commandments given by him, they fall from such good things, as Adam fell from paradise — not because they were not foreknown by God, but suffering this from their own folly and wickedness.
For this very reason, God also set forth in the midst of this paradise the saving remedy, namely repentance, so that those who fall from eternal life through indolence and negligence might, through repentance, return to it again with a more radiant and more illustrious glory;
Therefore, having abandoned every other care, let us attend to repentance with all our strength, that we may obtain both the present and the future good things, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the dominion unto the ages of ages.
Since indeed the Master of all things cries out expressly every day through the Gospels, saying some things in a veiled manner, whenever he converses in parables, but interpreting other things privately to his own disciples, speaking thus:
'To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables' — and at times he speaks all things openly and unveiled to all of us, as the apostles say to him:
'Behold,' they say, 'now you are speaking plainly and are not using any figure of speech' — it is necessary to inquire and learn which things were spoken plainly and openly by the Lord and God, and which were spoken in parables.
And observe with me here the wisdom of God, how through sensible examples, and through things that seem to us to be lowly, he sketches out for us the things that are beyond mind and understanding.
...receiving the meaning of the parables with full assurance, so that they may behold in them the very truth itself and the manifest outcome of the matters.
And 'the garden' is no other place than the heart of each of us, where we take this one grain — not many grains, for it does not come from things that can be divided, being by nature uncuttable and indivisible — and hide it within the heart.
And guarding and keeping ourselves with all watchfulness, it grows of itself in a way we do not know; once it has sprung up it is seen, and having grown greatly it is recognized by those in whom it sprouted, and having become a tree and put forth many branches, it produces in the one who possesses it an ineffable joy.
Just as, without seed, the garden produces nothing useful but only thorns and wild weeds, and the seed, without being cast into a garden, bears no fruit but remains alone just as it is, so also, in truth, our souls, without the divine seed, remain and become fruitless and thorn-bearing.
For the divine seed, before it is cast into us, that is, into our hearts, itself remains just as it wholly is, God, receiving neither increase nor undergoing any diminution whatsoever; but in us it neither sprouts at all nor admits of growth [until it is sown].
In no way whatsoever — just as fire never sets ablaze the whole of anything it has not touched, nor does fuel ever catch fire unless it be united with the fire in actual substance.
Therefore, just as some sayings of the divine Gospels, as has been said, are spoken to us in a veiled manner and through parables, while others are spoken with boldness and without any covering, so also not all of the apostolic and God-inspired sayings are spoken to us plainly and without some veil; rather, they sometimes require much examination and interpretation, bearing somehow within the saying itself a depth of thoughts and mysteries.
And, if it seems good, let us take hold of one subject and contemplation among the apostolic sayings, and let us see what the depths of the Spirit are, since, according to the divine oracle, 'The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.'
But let us first inquire, from the very outset, what a 'word' is, so that, proceeding thus in order, we may rightly come to know the meaning of the apostolic sayings.
And while the words and utterances of men are spoken by human mouths and likewise heard by human ears, the word of God and his logos, going forth through his mouth, is altogether inexpressible by human tongue and wholly uncontainable by fleshly hearing; and not only that, but it is also unable to come within its perception, since perception, of course, has no power to perceive what is above perception.
'Word' and 'logos,' then, at the first application of contemplation, we know to be none other than the Son of God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who truly and really is God.
[Just as our word,] which proceeds within us and is revealed to others, cannot be spoken or made known in any other way except through the sound of the mouth, so too the Son of God and Word cannot be known or heard unless he is spoken, that is, revealed, through the Holy Spirit as through a mouth.
Just as, if we do not open our mouth, our word cannot come forth, since it remains closed, so too, unless the mouth of God — that is, his Holy Spirit — is opened through the illumination that comes to be within us (it is not the Spirit that is seen, but our mind, illumined by him), the Son and Word of God is neither seen, nor known, nor in any way revealed to our sight and hearing.
The ineffable words, then, which the divine Paul, as he said, heard, are nothing other, at least according to our comprehension by our feeble understanding, than the mystical and truly inexpressible contemplations granted through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and the surpassingly magnificent, unknown knowledges — or rather, the unseen contemplations of the surpassingly luminous and surpassingly unknowable glory and divinity of the Son and Word of God.
which, being revealed more manifestly and more clearly to the worthy, are shown to be the unhearable hearings of unutterable words, the comprehension, in incomprehension, of incomprehensible things.
'I heard ineffable words' — and we have said that these are the Son, spoken by God the Father in no other way than through the Holy Spirit, and at the same time revealed to the worthy through his illumination; and that this illumination, or rather this revelation, comes about through contemplation rather than through hearing. Do not be astonished at this, but having heard the solution to it, learn to be a believer, and do not be unbelieving.
And this One is light and life, spirit and word, mouth and utterance, wisdom and knowledge, joy and love, the kingdom of heaven and paradise, the heaven of heavens; just as he is also called the sun of suns, and the God of gods, and the day without evening.
And whatever good thing you might name among the things that are seen, and seeking beyond all things, you will find this One existing hypostatically and properly called the Good.
Nor is that One found separately in each of these, as these things are found individually; rather, remaining one and unchangeable, and the very same, he is all-good and above every good.
Thus, then, has man also been honored, having been created according to the image and likeness of God, possessing one perceptive faculty in one soul and mind and reason, even though it is divided fivefold by the natural necessities of the body; toward bodily things it is divided, indivisibly, through the five senses, which, being altered without being changed in essence, display their activity — it is not the sense itself that sees, but the soul through it; and so likewise it hears, smells, tastes, and discerns by touch.
But in spiritual matters, the soul is no longer compelled to be divided through the windows of the senses; it no longer seeks for the eyes to be opened in order to see or behold any of the things that exist, nor for the ears to receive a word, nor for the sense of smell to be purified for keen perceiving of scent.
Nor does it need lips or a tongue for the tasting and discerning together of sweet and bitter, nor hands to touch with and to know through them what is rough, smooth, and even.
But the sense-faculty, having gone outside all of these organs and being wholly and entirely drawn along together with the mind, as naturally accompanying it and being inseparably one, has the five senses within itself, being — to speak more precisely — one, or indeed very many.
And this one perceives, reasons — for it is rational — thinks, devises, ponders, deliberates, desires, wills, does not will, chooses, does not choose, loves, hates.
Attend closely to the force of what has been said, so that from this you may be able to learn what the ineffable words are, and how Paul heard these things which were also revealed to him, and which he himself beheld in the divine Spirit.
Whenever, then, the one God of the universe shall be seen by the one rational soul through revelation, every good is revealed to it, and through all of its senses together, at one and the same time, this One is seen by it — it is beheld and heard, it sweetens the sense of taste and perfumes the sense of smell, it is touched, it is known.
But he who does not see God does not know that God sees him, just as it is as though God does not see him — even though God sees all things and nothing escapes him.
Through all the senses, then, at one and the same time, those who have been counted worthy to see the all-good, and that which is above all good, do so as through one of many senses seeing the One who is also many; having recognized the various goods together as one within the diverse senses of the one faculty, and recognizing them individually as well, they know no difference among these, but call contemplation 'knowledge' and knowledge again 'contemplation,' hearing 'sight' and sight 'hearing,' as when Habakkuk says:
'Lord, I have heard your report' — and what does he mean to signify by this doubling of 'hearing,' if not that, having recognized our Lord and the Son of God, surely, through the illumination or revelation of the Spirit, and having in turn been taught, through the resonance proceeding from him, the things concerning his economy [of salvation] — having, as it were, made his own the teaching about him which he had learned from that source — he was saying, full of joy, to the Lord, as one who sees him, just as indeed he was seen [by him]:
So that by 'hearing' he means the teaching and knowledge that arise together within the contemplation of the glory of the Spirit, which he heard concerning the incarnation and the appearance of him upon the earth.
For he does not say merely that he heard his report, but also says, 'you shall be known,' and 'you shall be recognized,' and 'you shall be manifested' — as one who, having clearly learned his counsel with full assurance, is saying to him, as it were, something like this:
Thus also the divine Paul fittingly called the unutterable contemplations and illuminations, and the teachings and revelations that surpass the measure of human nature and power, 'words,' and said that he heard these things, and handed them down in writing.
Therefore, through the rapture he first made known the vision; but as for the things within the vision — the more revelatory things of the more clearly flashing-forth glory and divinity, which produce knowledge, teach the one who beholds, and disclose what is ineffable and incomprehensible to all — these he said he 'heard,' since, evidently, in the case of spiritual realities the sense of hearing and the sense of sight are one and the same.
Hence not even one of the things seen or heard, just as he sees and hears them, is such as he could ever describe; for this reason he also added that it is impossible to speak these things with the tongue.
and then all these things, which we in many words are unable to say and set forth, you will all be taught together at once, in that very moment — hearing in sight and seeing in hearing, learning in vision and again hearing in revelation.
For just as the first coming of the Lord, though proclaimed by the prophets — and even though it was seen by them and known precisely — yet because it had not yet come to pass in their days but was still to come afterward, they said they 'heard' the things revealed and shown to them concerning it, since those things were destined to be brought to fulfillment afterward; so also Paul, having seen and known and precisely learned the good things laid up for the righteous who strive, that after the second coming of the Lord and the resurrection from the dead these will be received by those who have loved God with their whole soul, set these forth in the order of promise and pledge and cried out:
But in what manner are they 'words'? Because those good things are, in truth, certain strange words and utterances, through which every rational nature delights in the truly unfailing and ever-living delight, and is divinely enlivened and gladdened.
for the word, once poured out to the length of a narrative, is no longer called 'word' but the 'words' of a narrative, as in, 'Give ear to my words, O Lord;'
God, then, is the Word; but his 'words' are the rays and illuminations of the divinity that leap forth like a kind of lightning and are brought forth more clearly — or rather are revealed to us — things which we ourselves are unable to express.
But John, the beloved disciple of Christ, said and made known a little something, according to the grace given him, of the things which Paul had heard, speaking thus:
The former said, 'I heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak,' but the latter said, 'We know that, if he should be manifested, we shall be like him,' and we shall see him more perfectly.
Thus Christ, becoming all things to us — knowledge, wisdom, word, light, illumination, likeness, vision, full knowledge — grants those who love him, even in the present life, to understand in part and to hear in mystery those ineffable words hidden from the many.
For if Christ does not become all things to us at one and the same time, then the kingdom of heaven, and the delight within that kingdom, will at some point prove deficient —
a fitting delight would come to be present in all the righteous who love him — yet if but one single thing should ever be lacking to but one of those dwelling there, at once the privation of that good would give place to sorrow, and this sorrow would enter into the midst of the ineffable joy of those who rejoice.
But this shall not be, it shall not be; rather, all things shall be to all, and every good thing shall be present amid all good things, ever superabounding and overfilling all the senses of those reclining at the wedding feast of Christ the King — that same One being eaten and drunk, as being every kind of food, and himself alike every sweetness and drink.
Hence, being seen by all and himself seeing all the innumerable myriads, and having his own eye ever fixed and immovably standing, each one of them seems to be seen by him, and to enjoy converse with him, and to be embraced by him, so that none of them might be grieved as though overlooked.
The same One will also be a crown, as has been said, resting unalterably and unchangeably upon the heads of all the saints, appearing as one thing to one and another thing to another, and apportioning himself to each according to worth, as each is worthy;