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Scriptures, according to the command of the eternat God, mado known to ali tho nations, in order to the obedienco offaith,' that is, thoso of the nations who belleve that it is. But only to a sew of them is stlown What those things arewhicli are containod in the mystery.
Rightly then, Plato, in the episties, treating os God, says:
Write, but leam; for it is ulterly impossibio that What is
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according to the truth-loving Ρlato. For the knowlodgo ofilio divine essence is tho meat and drink of the divino Word. Whereiare also Plato says, in the socond book of the Republie, It is thoso that sacrifico not a sow, but some great and dissiculi sacrifice,' Who ought to inquire respecting God. Andthe apostlo Writes, Christ our passover Was sacrificed fortis -a sacrifice hard to procure, in truth, the Son os God
NoW tho sacrifico Which is acceptabis to God is uns eruingabstraction hom tho bois and iis passions. This is the reatlytruo pie . And is not, on this account, philosophy rightly called by Socrates tho practice of Death Τ For he who nottheromploys his eyes in the exercise of thought, nor draWs augiit hom his other senses, but With puro mind itseli applies toobjecis, practises the trus philosophy. This is, then, theimpori of the silence of five years proscribed is Pythagoras, whicli ho onjoined on his discipies; that, abstracting them-selves Dom the objects of sense, they might with tho mindalono contemplato the Deity. It was from Moses that thochios of tho Grooks drew these philosophical tenets. For hocommands holocausis to bo fhinned and divided into paris. For the gnostic foui must be consecrated to tho light, striptos tho integuments of matter, devoid of the frivolousnoss of tho b y and of ali tho passions, Whicli aro acquired throughVain and lying opinions, and divosted of tho lusis of thosscth. But tho most os men, clothed With What is perishabie, liho cochles, and rollod ali round in a bali in their excesses, liho hedgeliora, enteriain tho fame ideas of tho blosscd and incorruptibio God as of thomsolves. But it has escaped thoirnotice, though they bo near us, that God has bestoWed on us
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tot no one imagine that hands, and Dei, and mouth, and Ves, and going in and coming out, and reseniments and threais, o said by the Hebrows to be attributes of God. By nomeans; but that certain of these appellations are used more sacredly in an allegorical sense, Which, as the discourse pro- ceeds, We shali explain at the proper time. Wisdom os ali medicinos is tho Panaeea,'' writes Callimachus in tho Epigrama. d one becomes Wiso fromanother, both in past times and at proseni,' says Bacchylides in the Poeans; μ sor it is not very easy to find the portat s ofunuiter te mords.' Beautisulin therefore, Isocrates Writes in tho Panathenais, haring put the question, μ Who, then, Me weli trained add' Firsi, those Who manage meli thothings whicli occur each day, Whose opinion jumps With oppo tunity, and is able for the most part to hil on What is bene
and molestations offored by others, but conduci themselves assar as possibie, to those With Whom they have interco se, With
Consummate eare and moderation; further, those who have the command of their pleraures, and are not too mueh ove
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For a Whole bum,offering and rare sacrifice sor us is Christ.
It is not then without reason that in tho mysterios that obtainamong the Greeri, lustrations hold the first place; as also tho laver among the Barbarians. Alter theso are the minor mysteries, Which have some foundation os instruction and of preliminary preparation for What is to come astor; and thogreat mysteries, in Which nothing remtans to M learnod of the universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend natureand things.
shali understand tho mode os purification by confession, and that os contemplation is analysis, advancing is analysis to the firet notion, Monning With tho properties underUingit; abstracting irom tho body iis physical propertim, tisingaway tho dimension os depili, then that of breadth, and thenthat os longth. For the potnt Which remians is a unit, so tospein, having position; from Whicli ii me abstraci position,
them is the conception os unit .
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Is, then, abstracting ali that bolongs to bodios and things
callud incorporeat, We cast o selves in to the greatness of
Christ, and thence advance into immensity by holiness, Wemay reach someliow to the conception of the Almighty, knowing not what He is, but What He is not. Anil form and motion, or standing, or a throne, or place, or right hand orlest, are not at ali to bo conceived as belonging to the Fathoroi the universe, although it is so Written. But What each of these means will bo fhown in iis proper place. The First Causo is not then in space, but above both space, and time,
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of good things; and the second is the foui'sy best destre; ontho third, the inind perceives spirituat things, the Ves of the underetanding being opened by the Teacher Who rose on thothird dv. Tho three days may bo the mystery of the seat, in Which God is reatly belloved. It is consequently afar offthat he sees the place. For tho region of God is hard toattain; which Ρlato called the region os ideas, having learnedfrom Moses that it Was a placo whicli contained ali things universally. But it is seen is Abraham afar OR rightly, becauso of his being in the realms of generation, and ho is sorthwith initiated by the anget. Τhence says the apostle: NoW We see as through a glass, but then saco to face, bythose sole pure and incorporeat applications of the intelleci. In reasoning, it is possibis to divine respecting God, is oneattempt Without any of the senses, by reason, to reach Whatis individual; and do not quit the sphere os existences, tili, rising up to the things Whicli transcend it, he apprehends by the intellect itself that which is Mod, moving in the very confines of tho wοHd of thought, according to Plato.
Again, Moses, not alio ing altars avd temples to be constructed in many places, but mising one temple of God, an- nounced that the world was oni begotien, as Basilides says, and that God is one, as does not as yet appear to Basilidus. And since the gnostic Moses does not circumscribe withinspaeo Him that cannot be circumscribed, he set up no imago
what the Holy Spirit by the prophet in the sequel sorbids.
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266 7 E MISCELLANTES. BOOK V. Μost excellentin therelare, Euripides accorti With these,
What homo constructed by the morkmen's hanci, in folia es Walis, can clotho the in e divine 2
Αnd of sacrifices he thus speahs:
These of the minstreis are the wretched mytha.
For it was not from need stat God mado the worid ; stat He might reap honours from men and tho other gods and demons, winning a hind of revenue iram creation, and Domus, sumes, and irom the gods and demons, their proper minustries,' says Ρlato. Most instructively, thereiore, says Paul
are the instruments of wars; but Whatover one Wishes todedicato, tot it be wood of one troe, as also stone for common temples.' Rightly, then, in the meat epistie he says: For it is not capablo os oxpression, like other branches of study. But as the result os meat intimacy With this subjeci,
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Fon both is it a dissiculi taa to discover the Father and Mahor of this universe; and having found Him, it is impossibio in declaro Him to all. For this is is no means capableos expression, like the other subjects of instruction, says thotruth-loving Plato. For lio had hoard right weli that thoall-Wise Moses, ascending the mount for holy contemplation, to the summit of intellectual objecis, necessarily commandsthat the whole peopte do not accompany him. And whon the Scripture sus, Moses entered into tho thich darkness where God was,' this inows to thoso capillo of underatanding, that God is invisibis and beyond expression by Words. And thedishnem V-which, is in truth, tho unbelles and ignorance of the multitude bstrucis the gleam of tho truth. And again Orpheus, tho theologian, aided i m this quarter, says:
One is perfeci in himself, and ali ininga are made ino progeny of one,
To theso statomenis the apostle Will testisy: I know a manin Christ, cauot up into the third heaven, and thence into
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tho third heaven, as it is lawful to initiate tho elect fouis in the mysteries there. For I know What is in Plato for theoxamples from the barbarian philosophy, Whicli are mann are suggested noW by the composition Whicli, in accordance With promises previousty given, Walis the sultablo timo). Fordoubling, in Tim aeus, Whether me Ought to regard severat worici as to be underatood by many heavens, or this one, hemahes no distinction in tho names, calling tho worid and heaven by the fame name. But the morti of tho statementare as follows: Whether, then, have rightly spolien otono heaven, or os many and infinitet It wero more correctis say one, it indoed it was created according to tho modet.'Further, in the Epistio of the Romans to the Corinthians itis writton, An ocean illimitable by men and tho worldsastor it.' Consequently, therelare, the nobie apostle exclaims,
things, in the Epistio to the Corinthians tho apostle plainly
feci, but not the wisdom of this Worid, or of the princes of this Worid, that come to nought. But We speah the wisdomos God hi ldon in a mystery. And again in another placolio says: To the achnowledgment of the mystery of Godin Christ, in Whom ars hid ali tho treasures of Wisdom and