(7) Also when Christ went to Heaven, two Angels hovered in the Clouds, and said to the Disciples: Ye Men of Israel, what do you look after? This JESUS shall come again, as you have seen HIM go away to Heaven. [Acts 1. 11.]

(2) Ensample hereof may be seen by the ascension of our Lord: for when the time appointed was come, that Him liked to wend to His Father bodily in His manhood, the which was never nor never may be absent in His Godhead, then mightily by the virtue of the Spirit God, the manhood with the body followed in onehead of person. The visibility of this was most seemly, and most according, to be upward.

(1) BUT now peradventure thou sayest, that how should it then be? For thee thinkest that thou hast very evidence that heaven is upwards; for Christ ascended the air bodily upwards, and sent the Holy Ghost as He promised coming from above bodily, seen of all His disciples; and this is our belief. And therefore thee thinkest since thou hast thus very evidence, why shalt thou not direct thy mind upward bodily in the time of thy prayer?

(3) And what thereof, though our Lord when He ascended to heaven bodily took His way upwards into the clouds, seen of His mother and His disciples with their bodily eyes? Should we therefore in our ghostly work ever stare upwards with our bodily eyes, to look after Him if we may see Him sit bodily in heaven, or else stand, as Saint Stephen did? Nay, surely He shewed Him not unto Saint Stephen bodily in heaven, because that He would give us ensample that we should in our ghostly work look bodily up into heaven if we might see Him as Saint Stephen did, either standing, or sitting, or else lying. For howso His body is in heaven—standing, sitting, or lying—wots no man. And it needeth not more to be witted, but that His body is oned with the soul, without departing. The body and the soul, the which is the manhood, is oned with the Godhead without departing also. Of His sitting, His standing, His lying, needeth it not to wit; but that He is there as Him list, and hath Him in body as most seemly is unto Him for to be. For if He shew Him lying, or standing, or sitting, by revelation bodily to any creature in this life, it is done for some ghostly bemeaning: and not for no manner of bodily bearing that He hath in heaven. See by ensample. By standing is understood a readiness of helping. And therefore it is said commonly of one friend to another, when he is in bodily battle: “Bear thee well, fellow, and fight fast, and give not up the battle over lightly; for I shall stand by thee.” He meaneth not only bodily standing; for peradventure this battle is on horse and not on foot, and peradventure it is in going and not standing. But he meaneth when he saith that he shall stand by him, that he shall be ready to help him. For this reason it was that our Lord shewed Him bodily in heaven to Saint Stephen, when he was in his martyrdom: and not to give us ensample to look up to heaven. As He had said thus to Saint Stephen in person of all those that suffer persecution for His love: “Lo, Stephen! as verily as I open this bodily firmament, the which is called heaven, and let thee see My bodily standing, trust fast that as verily stand I beside thee ghostly by the might of My Godhead. And I am ready to help thee, and therefore stand thou stiffly in the faith and suffer boldly the fell buffets of those hard stones: for I shall crown thee in bliss for thy meed, and not only thee, but all those that suffer persecution for Me on any manner.” And thus mayest thou see that these bodily shewings were done by ghostly bemeanings.

(1) NOW says Reason, If Christ ascended thus with his Body, which he offered up on the Cross, when was he glorified in his Body? Or how is his Body now? Is it now as his Disciples saw him ascend into Heaven? My beloved Reason, my earthly Eyes see it not, but the spiritual [Eyes] in Christ see it very well. The Scripture says; He is « glorified, and Lord over all; but we will open to you the Gate of the great Wonders, that you may see what we see.

(1) AND if thou say aught touching the ascension of our Lord, for that was done bodily, and for a bodily bemeaning as well as for a ghostly, for both He ascended very God and very man: to this will I answer thee, that He had been dead, and was clad with undeadliness, and so shall we be at the Day of Doom. And then we shall be made so subtle in body and in soul together, that we shall be then as swiftly where us list bodily as we be now in our thought ghostly; whether it be up or down, on one side or on other, behind or before, all I hope shall then be alike good, as clerks say. But now thou mayest not come to heaven bodily, but ghostly. And yet it shall be so ghostly, that it shall not be on bodily manner; neither upwards nor downwards, nor on one side nor on other, behind nor before.

(99) For when he had conversed forty Days (after his Resurrection) in the Proba [or Trial] in this World, then he went up into a Mountain, whither he had appointed his Disciples to come, and went up aloft [or ascended visibly] with his own Body which he had offered up on the Cross (till a Cloud came and hid him from their Sight) for a sure Sign that he was their Brother, and that he (in his earthly Form and Body) would not forsake them; as he also said to them, Behold, I am with you to the End of the World.

(6) Thou sayest, Christ is ascended into Heaven, how then can he be in this World? And when thou reachest furthest, thou thinkest that he is present only with his holy Spirit, here in his Testaments, and that the Testaments are only Signs of his Merits. What sayest thou then of thy new Man? When indeed the Soul is fed with the Holy Ghost, what [Food] has thy new Man then? For each Life feeds upon its Mother.

(4) Jesus said unto his disciples: "Draw near unto me." And they drew near unto him. He turned himself towards the four corners of the world, said the great name over their heads, blessed them and breathed into their eyes. Jesus said unto them: "Look up and see what ye may see."

(55) Moreover, when Stephen saw the Heaven opened, and the Lord JESUS at the right Hand of God, there his Spirit did not first swing itself up aloft into the upper Heaven, but it penetrated or pressed into the innermost Birth or Geniture, wherein Heaven is every where.

(28) If a Man will see God the Son, he must once more look upon natural Things; otherwise I cannot write of him: The Spirit indeed beholds him, but that can neither be spoke nor written; for the Divine Being consists in Power, which can neither be written nor spoke.

(2) And to this will I answer thee so feebly as I can, and say: since it so was, that Christ should ascend bodily and thereafter send the Holy Ghost bodily, then it was more seemly that it was upwards and from above than either downwards and from beneath, behind, or before, on one side or on other. But else than for this seemliness, Him needed never the more to have went upwards than downwards; I mean for nearness of the way. For heaven ghostly is as nigh down as up, and up as down: behind as before, before as behind, on one side as other. Insomuch, that whoso had a true desire for to be at heaven, then that same time he were in heaven ghostly. For the high and the next way thither is run by desires, and not by paces of feet. And therefore saith Saint Paul of himself and many other thus; although our bodies be presently here in earth, nevertheless yet our living is in heaven. He meant their love and their desire, the which is ghostly their life. And surely as verily is a soul there where it loveth, as in the body that Doeth by it and to the which it giveth life. And therefore if we will go to heaven ghostly, it needeth not to strain our spirit neither up nor down, nor on one side nor on other.

(19) he says, 'Verily the Son can do Nothing of himself; but what he sees his Father do, the Son does also: Also if ye not convert, and become like Children, ye cannot come into the Kingdom of Heaven.' [Math. 18. 3.] [John 5. 19.]

(11) Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?"

(8) And Jesus answered and said unto Mary: "Finely indeed dost thou question concerning all with precision and certainty. But hearken, Mary, that I may speak with thee about the consummation of the æon and the ascension of the universe. It will not yet take place; but I have said unto you: 'If I lead you into the region of the inheritances of those who shall receive the mystery of the Light, then will the Treasury of the Light, the region of the emanations, count for you as a speck of dust only and as the light of the sun by day.' "I have therefore said: 'This will take place "In a word, all the souls of men who shall receive the mysteries of the Light, will precede all the rulers who have repented, and they will precede all those of the region of the Midst and those of the whole region of the Right, and they will precede those of the whole region of the Treasury of the Light. In a word, they will precede all those of the region [of the Treasury], and they will precede all those of the regions of the first Commandment, and they will pass into the interior of them all and go into the Inheritance of the Light up to the region of their mystery; and every one abideth in the region up to which he hath received mysteries. And those of the region of the Midst and of the Right and those of the whole region of the Treasury, every one abideth in the region of the order into which he hath been set from the beginning on, until the universe shall be raised up. And every one of them accomplisheth his economy to which he hath been set, in respect of the ingathering of the souls who have received the mysteries, in respect of this economy, so that they may seal all the souls who will receive the mysteries and who will pass through their interior towards the Inheritance of the Light. "Now, therefore, Mary, this is the word concerning which thou dost question me with precision and certainty. For the rest now then, who hath ears to hear, let him hear."

(37) His disciples said, "When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?" Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid"