(90) And the eyes of them all were opened, and they saw the good, and there was not one among them that did not see.

(89) And sometimes their eyes were opened, and sometimes blinded, till another sheep arose and led them and brought them all back, and their eyes were opened.

(6) The Eye went off. Having remained away a year, it came back and said: ' How have you been able to live without me?' They said: ' As the blind, not seeing with the eye, but breathing with breath, speaking with speech, hearing with the ear, knowing with the mind, procreating with semen. Thus have we lived.' The eye entered in.

(9) The eye (sight) departed, and having been absent for a year, it came round and said: 'How have you been able to live without me?' They replied: 'Like blind people, not seeing, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the tongue, hearing with the ear, thinking with the mind. Thus we lived.' Then the eye went back.

(2) "Wherefore, then, I send thee to the Gentiles," it is said, "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith which is in Me." Such, then, are the eyes of the blind which are opened. The knowledge of the Father by the Son is the comprehension of the "Greek circumlocution;" and to turn from the power of Satan is to change from sin, through which bondage was produced. We do not, indeed, receive absolutely all philosophy, but that of which Socrates speaks in Plato. "For there are (as they say) in the mysteries many bearers of the thyrsus, but few bacchanals;" meaning, "that many are called, but few chosen." He accordingly plainly adds:

(73) No; but this I say; How can he see, that has no eyes? For what does the poor lay or vulgar man know of the tumults which the priests have in their drunkenness? He goeth on in his simplicity, and generateth anxiously in his spiritual birth. Question. But then thou sayest, Has God blinded the Turks, Jews, and Heathen? Answer.

(5) And they raised their eyes and saw a great, exceedingly mighty light, which no man in the world can describe. He said unto them anew: "Look away out of the light and see what ye may see." They said: "We see fire, water, wine and blood."

(90) But behold lambs were borne by those white sheep, and they began to open their eyes and to see, and to cry to the sheep.

(90) Yea, they cried to them, but they did not hearken to what they said to them, but were exceedingly deaf, and their eyes were very exceedingly blinded.

(39) Hearken: If it does not become me to ask, then it does not become thee to judge me. Dost thou boast in the knowledge of the light, and art a leader of the blind, and yet art blind thyself? How wilt thou shew the way to the blind? In your blindness must you not both fall? But you will say, We are not blind; for we well see the way of the light. Why then do you contend or dispute about the way of the light, if none can see it rightly?

(7) I did not ask, 'What ails thee?' as he does Who only looketh with the eyes that see not When of the soul bereft the body lies, But asked it to give vigour to thy feet; Thus must we needs urge on the sluggards, slow To use their wakefulness when it returns." We passed along, athwart the twilight peering Forward as far as ever eye could stretch Against the sunbeams serotine and lucent; And lo! by slow degrees a smoke approached In our direction, sombre as the night, Nor was there place to hide one's self therefrom. This of our eyes and the pure air bereft us.

(6) So that I lifted upward my bold face Crying to God, 'Henceforth I fear thee not,' As did the blackbird at the little sunshine. Peace I desired with God at the extreme Of my existence, and as yet would not My debt have been by penitence discharged, Had it not been that in remembrance held me Pier Pettignano in his holy prayers, Who out of charity was grieved for me. But who art thou, that into our conditions Questioning goest, and hast thine eyes unbound As I believe, and breathing dost discourse?" "Mine eyes," I said, "will yet be here ta'en from me, But for short space; for small is the offence Committed by their being turned with envy. Far greater is the fear, wherein suspended My soul is, of the torment underneath, For even now the load down there weighs on me." And she to me: "Who led thee, then, among us Up here, if to return below thou thinkest?" And I: "He who is with me, and speaks not;

(1) While I was doubting for my vision quenched, Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it Issued a breathing, that attentive made me, Saying: "While thou recoverest the sense Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed, 'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it. Begin then, and declare to what thy soul Is aimed, and count it for a certainty, Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead; Because the Lady, who through this divine Region conducteth thee, has in her look The power the hand of Ananias had." I said: "As pleaseth her, or soon or late Let the cure come to eyes that portals were When she with fire I ever burn with entered. The Good, that gives contentment to this Court, The Alpha and Omega is of all The writing that love reads me low or loud." The selfsame voice, that taken had from me The terror of the sudden dazzlement, To speak still farther put it in my thought; And said: "In verity with finer sieve Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behoveth To say who aimed thy bow at such a target."

(21) Then I said: 'For what sin are they bound, and on what account have they been cast in hither?'