(1) Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God's will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually.

Fire converts wood into its own likeness, and the stronger the wind blows, the greater grows the fire. Now by the fire understand love, and by the wind the Holy Spirit. The stronger the influence of the Holy Spirit, the brighter grows the fire of love; but not all at once, rather gradually as the soul grows. Light causes flowers and plants to grow and bear fruit; in animals it produces life, but in men blessedness. This comes from the grace of God, Who uplifts the soul, for if the soul is to grow God-like it must be lifted above itself.

(20) For the Spirit of Knowledge intimates this, that there are Fruits and Things that grow in Paradise, as well as in this World, in such a Form or Figure, but not in such a Source [or Property,] and Palpability. For the Matter or Body of it is Power, and it grows in the heavenly yLimbus; its Root stands in the Matrix, wherein there is neither Earth nor Stone; for it is in another Principle. The Fire in that [Principle] is God the Father; and the Light is God the Son; and the Air is God the Holy Ghost; and the Virtue [or Power] out of which all springs is Heaven and Paradise.

(4) Our knowledge, and our spiritual garden, is the Saviour Himself; into whom we are planted, being transferred and transplanted, from our old life, into the good land. And transplanting contributes to fruitfulness. The Lord, then, into whom we have been transplanted, is the Light i and the true Knowledge.

(1) Faith as also Time being double, we shall find virtues in pairs both dwelling together. For memory is related to past time, hope to future. We believe that what is past did, and that what is future will take place. And, on the other I hand, we love, persuaded by faith that the past was as it was, and by hope expecting the future. For in everything love attends the Gnostic, who knows one God. "And, behold, all things which He created were very good." He both knows and admires. Godliness adds length of life; and the fear of the Lord adds days.

(9) Fear and patience are then helpers of your faith; and our allies are long-suffering and temperance. These, then," he says, "in what respects the Lord, continuing in purity, there rejoice along with them, wisdom, understanding, intelligence, knowledge." The fore-mentioned virtues being, then, the elements of knowledge; the result is that faith is more elementary, being as necessary to the Gnostic, as respiration to him that lives in this world is to life. And as without the four elements it is not possible to live, so neither can knowledge be attained without faith. It is then the support of truth.

(66) The Wrath is called the Cross, and the Love-Heaven is called Patience, and the Spirit that rises up therein is called Hope and Faith, which qualifies, mixes, or unites with God, and wrestles with the Wrath till it overcomes and gets the Victory. [1. Cross. Patience. Hope. Faith. * 1 John 5. 4.]

(8) But the husbandry is twofold, - the one unwritten, and the other written. And in whatever way the Lord's labourer sow the good wheat, and grow and reap the ears, he shall appear a truly divine husbandman. "Labour," says the Lord, "not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life." And nutriment is received both by bread and by words. And truly "blessed are the peace-makers," who instructing those who are at war in their life and errors here, lead them back to the peace which is in the Word, and nourish for the life which is according to God, by the distribution of the bread, those "that hunger after righteousness." For each soul has its own proper nutriment; some growing by knowledge and science, and others feeding on the Hellenic philosophy, the whole of which, like nuts, is not eatable. "And he that planteth and he that watereth," "being ministers" of Him "that gives the increase, are one" in the ministry. "But every one shall receive his own reward, according to his own work. For we are God's husbandmen, God's husbandry. Ye are God's building," according to the apostle. Wherefore the hearers are not permitted to apply the test of comparison. Nor is the word, given for investigation, to be committed to those who have been reared in the arts of all kinds of words, and in the power of inflated attempts at proof; whose minds are already pre-occupied, and have not been previously emptied. But whoever chooses to banquet on faith, is stedfast for the reception of the divine words, having acquired already faith as a power of judging, according to reason. Hence ensues to him persuasion in abundance. And this was the meaning of that saying of prophecy, "If ye believe not, neither shall ye understand." "As, then, we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to the household of faith." And let each of these, according to the blessed David, sing, giving thanks. "Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than the snow. Thou shalt make me to hear gladness and joy, and the bones which have been humbled shall rejoice. Turn Thy face from my sins.

(27) Thus I must tell you; the Heaven is a Sower, and God gives him Seed, and the Elements are the Ground into which the Seed is sown; now the Heaven has the Constellation, and receives also the Seed of God, and sows all together one among another; now the Essences of the Stars receive the Seed in the Ground, and qualify [or are united] with it, and carry themselves along in the Herb, till a Seed also be in the Herb.

(5) But there is that species of knowledge which is characteristic of the herald, and that which is, as it were, characteristic of a messenger, and it is serviceable in whatever way it operates, both by the hand and tongue. "For he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing." On him who by Divine Providence meets in with it, it confers the very highest advantages, - the beginning of faith, readiness for adopting a right mode of life, the impulse towards the truth, a movement of inquiry, a trace of knowledge; in a word, it gives the means of salvation. And those who have been rightly reared in the words of truth, and received provision for eternal life, wing their way to heaven. Most admirably, therefore, the apostle says, "In everything approving ourselves as the servants of God; as poor, and yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

(9) And God said; In the Sweat of thy gFace, thou shalt eat thy Bread till thou turn to Earth again. Here now all is clear [and manifest] in the Light; for he had lost the heavenly Fruit, which grew for him without Labour [or Toil of his;] and now he must dig and delve in the Earth, and sow and plant, and so in the four Elements must get Fruit, in Cares, Labour, Toil, and Misery. For while the Element, or the Virtue [or Power] out of the Element, sprung forth through the Earth, there was so long a continual lasting Root to the Fruit; but when the Element (by the Curse) withdrew, then the congealed Death, Frailty, and transitory Fading, was in the Root, and they must now continually be i planted again: Thus the turmoiling Life of Man took Beginning, wherein we must now bathe ourselves.

(5) But knowledge, conveyed from communication through the grace of God as a deposit, is entrusted to those who show themselves worthy of it; and from it the worth of love beams forth from light to light. For it is said, "To him that hath shall be given:" to faith, knowledge; and to knowledge, love; and to love, the inheritance.

(28) For faith shows itself in their making choice of the same things; and knowledge, in learning and thinking the same things; and hope, in desiring the same things.

(2) We read in the Gospels that Our Lord fed many people with five loaves and two fishes. Speaking parabolically, we may say that the first loaf was--that we should know ourselves, what we have been everlastingly to God, and what we now are to Him. The second--that we should pity our fellow Christian who is blinded; his loss should grieve us as much as our own. The third--that we should know our Lord Jesus Christ's life, and follow it to the utmost of our capacity. The fourth--that we should know the judgments of God. All that may be said of the pains of hell is true.

St Dionysius saith, "To be separated from God is hell, and the sight of God's countenance is heaven." The fifth is--that we should know the Godhead which has flowed into the Father and filled Him with joy, and which has flowed into the Son and filled Him with wisdom, and the Two are essentially one. Therefore said Christ, "Where I am, there is My Father, and where My Father is, there am I" And They have flowed into the Holy Ghost and filled Him with good will. Therefore said Christ, "I and My Father have one Spirit," and the Holy Ghost has flowed into the soul.

(11) As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love. The merely natural man is incapable of this, because nature by itself is incapable of responding to the Divine Love and is confined within its own circle. Therefore it is necessary for Grace, which is a simple supernatural power, to elevate the natural faculties to union in God above the merely temporal objects of existence. The possibility of love to God is grounded in the relative likeness between man and God. If the soul is to reach its moral goal, i.e.

Godlikeness, it must become inwardly like God through grace, and a spiritual birth which is the spring of true morality. The inner work that man has to do is the practical realization of Grace: without this, all outward work is ineffectual for salvation. Virtue is never mere virtue, it is either from God, or through God, or in God. All the soul's works which are to inherit an everlasting recompense must be carried on in God. They are rewarded by Him in proportion as they are carried on in Him, for the soul is an instrument of God whereby He carries on His work.

(89) He thereby confirmed his Disciples' weak Faith, and so showed, that he is Lord also over the Kingdom of this World, and that all whatsoever we sow, build, plant, eat and drink, is fully in his almighty Power, and that he can bless and increase it, and therefore he is not separated or parted from us; but as a Flower grows out of the Earth, so his Word, Spirit, and Power [or Virtue,] grows in every Thing; and if our Mind be sincerely inclined to him, then we are blessed of him, in Body and Soul; but if not, then the Curse and the Anger of God is in all Things, and we eat Death in all Fruits [or Food.] And therefore it is that we pray, that God will bless our Meat and Drink, also our Bodies and Souls in Christ, and that is right.

(8) The inner work is first of all the work of God's grace in the depth of the soul which subsequently distributes itself among the faculties of the soul, in that of Reason appearing as Belief, in that of Will as Love, and in that of Desire as Hope. When the Divine Light penetrates the soul, it is united with God as light with light. This is the light of faith. Faith bears the soul to heights unreachable by her natural senses and faculties.

(80) The Earth is the Fruit of the seventh Spirit of God, which is Nature or Corporeity, wherein the other six Spirits generate themselves again, and figure or frame the Salitter of the seventh Spirit into infinite Sorts of Forms or Shapes; so that the Earth also generates its Seed, which is the Fruit of Vegetation, as is apparent to the Eye.

(61) And as we perceive that in this World there are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, also the Sun and the Stars, and therein consist all the Things of this World, so you may conceive, by Way of Similitude, that the Father is the Fire of the whole [holy] Constellations, and also in the [holy] Element; and that the Son (viz. his Heart) is the Sun, which sets all the Constellations in a light pleasant Habitation; and that the Holy Ghost is the Air of the Life, without which neither Sun nor Constellation would subsist; and then that the concreted Spiritus majoris Mundi [or Spirit of the great World] is the chaste Virgin before God; which Spirit of the great World, in this World, gives to all Creatures, Mind, Sense, and Understanding, through the Influence of the Stars; and so also [does the chaste Virgin] in the Heaven.

(8) Faith is then, so to speak, a comprehensive knowledge of the essentials; and knowledge is the strong and sure demonstration of what is received by faith, built upon faith by the Lord's teaching, conveying [the soul] on to infallibility, science, and comprehension. And, in my view, the first saving change is that from heathenism to faith, as I said before; and the second, that from faith to knowledge. And the latter terminating in love, thereafter gives the loving to the loved, that which knows to that which is known. And, perchance, such an one has already attained the condition of "being equal to the angels." Accordingly, after the highest excellence in the flesh, changing always duly to the better, he urges his flight to the ancestral hall, through the holy septenniad [of heavenly abodes] to the Lord's own mansion; to be a light, steady, and continuing eternally, entirely and in every part immutable.

(28) Now since there are Varieties of Growth, according to the Essences of the Stars, and yet the Seed of God (which was sown in the Beginning) is in the Ground, and so they grow together, should God now therefore cast away the whole Crop because all have not the same Essences? Does it not all stand in his Wonders? And is it not the Joy of his Life, and the Quickening of his Tincture? [This is] spoke by Way of Similitude.